For spurning grov'ling cares control,
Glowing, and bright, and pure, the soul
To noble acts, in such an hour,

Will spring with more than mortal pow'r.
"Ah! few and swift the moments seem
That sport o'er love's delightful dream!
The clock in ancient Lesion's hall
Has told the hour-'tis duty's call-
And Howard has his rifle grasp'd,
And oft his weeping love has clasp'd
To calm her heaving sigh;
But vainly does the chief essay
To kiss her falling tears away;

Their fountain swells too high-
And she abroad perforce will stray,
To marshal him upon his way.

'Oh 'tis an hour when weeping love
Might smile amid its wo:

The Heav'ns are all in peace above,`
And all seems calm below.-

"Return, belov'd," the warrior said,
"And oh, those tears restrain;

Nor let me think thy heart dismay'd
By terrors weak and vain;

For sure, this mild and beauteous night,
Thou hast no cause for pain;

While o'er the hills I speed my flight,
With bounding step, and heart as light,

To meet my gallant train."

"Nay, why this haste? Indeed 'tis soon,"

The weeper murmur'd still,

"Oh rest, but till the waning moon

Looks o'er the eastern hill:

For fearful now is hill and glen,

So desolate and drear;

But sweet will be the moonlight then,
Thy lonely path to cheer."

"Dear Edith, 'tis our hour to part,"

The warrior mildly said, &c.

The 'Battle of Niagara' was before the public in its first edition with every possible disadvantage which its worst enemies, or the enemies of its author, if he have any, could have devised. It was worse than anonymous, for a ridiculous name was attached to it, together with a ridiculous motto-as if on purpose to deter every one from reading the poem. It was, however, evident to all that had, notwithstanding, curiosity to look into the work, that it was the production of a mind gifted with a considerable share of poetic talent. And it indicated such ease in versifying, or rather such an unwillingness to refrain from versifying, even at the expense of frequent repetition of the same idea, that we did not doubt the writer would soon appear again, and probably to more advantage as his first essay was rather a proof of the possession of powers than of their exertion.

en

Accordingly, we have now before us the second edition larged and otherwise much improved, with the poet's real name

annexed-the motto changed-and a preface, in which he, with great good humour, acquaints us with part of his own history, and the history of this poem. His palinode is very candid. The first edition, he says, 'was crowded and disfigured with innumerable errors-chiefly typographical, however; though in some cases, whole lines were left out, by myself, I dare say, in copying my manuscript for the press; and, from a long process of continual interpolation and refinement, whenever the whim seized me, the repetitions and extravagancies were about as numerous, as all the rest of the blunders together.'

The title page too he acknowledges has been universally, indignantly, and I must say, justly censured. The plain truth of the matter is this. I am ashamed of it: I was ashamed of it, from the first moment it was written; but having been much excited, where I had no business to be, under circumstances, which cannot be explained in this place,-I abandoned my first purpose, which was to print it with a modest title, under a fictitious name; and adopted the rascally burlesque, which now disgraces the volume. It was severely censured when I began to blush for it; but then I had too much obstinacy to acknowledge my folly, or to atone for it.'

'I have been baited too, for disingenuousness, as others have chosen to call it but, as it really is, for falsehood-lying-in the preface. I deserved it. I did wrong. Yet, as it was anonymous, mostly true, and, as I then thought, though I now think differently, innocent, because not malicious, my conscience did not reproach me-or I would have burnt the book, and the hand that wrote it too, before I would have been guilty of such a thing. To show the sincerity of my compunction, with the hope that the former preface will be forgotten, I shall put my real name in black and white, at the bottom of this, and thereby, hold myself responsible for its truth.'

He is very much displeased with the Port Folio and the Analectic Magazine for not having reviewed his poem, and with the inhabitants of Philadelphia, because they would not come to the Washington Hall to hear him recite it-but if his strictures were at all likely to excite the smallest disposition to speak of him less favourably, another part of his preface would more than counterbalance the effect, and incline us to treat him with the utmost respect and good will. We mean the disclosure that he is a particular and intimate friend of the Rev. Mr. Pierpoint, author of the 'Airs of Palestine'-and that he was instigated by that gentleman to undertake the Battle of Niagara.'

·

Of Mr. Pierpoint, and any one whom he distinguishes by his friendship and approbation, we shall always have great pleasure in speaking in terms of unqualified respect. His Airs of Palestine' have not received even justice at the hands of his countryWe say it the more freely, because this Journal, under other auspices, was accessary in exciting an unreasonable prejudice against that work, which contains as much good poetry, to say the

men.

least, as is to be found in the productions of any living American poet. We trust he will accept our amende, which is perfectly disinterested and sincere.

The Battle of Niagara' is entirely without plot;-as far as we can understand it (for it is exceedingly mysterious, and all that') —indeed the author scorns plots, and thinks them as ill placed in descriptive poems as in a song. We may therefore seek any where for a specimen-the following is among the best parts:'Hark! that sweet song!-how full of tenderness!

O, who would breathe in this voluptuous press
Of lulling thoughts!-so soothing and so low;
Like singing fountains in their faintest flow-
It is as if some holy-lovely thing,
Within our very hearts were murmuring,
The soldier listens, and his arms are prest
In thankfulness, and trembling on his breast:
Now-on the very window where he stands,
Are seen a clambering infant's rosy hands:
And now-ah heaven!-blessings on that smile!-
Stay, soldier stay-O, linger yet awhile!
An airy vision now appears, with eyes-
As tender as the blue of weeping skies:
Yet sunny in their radiance, as that blue,
When sunset glitters on its falling dew;

With form-all joy and dance-as bright and free
As youthful nymph of mountain Liberty:
Or naked angels dreamt by poesy:

A blooming infant to her heart is prest;
And ab-a mother's song is lulling it to rest!
A youthful mother! God of heaven! is there
A thing beneath the skies, so holy or so fair!

A single bound!-our chief is standing by,
Trembling from head to foot with ecstasy-
'Bless thee!' at last he murmured- bless thee, love!
'My wife!--my boy;'-Their eyes are raised above.
His soldier's tread of sounding strength is gone;

A choking transport drowns his manly tone;

He sees the closing of a mild, blue eye,

His bosom echoes to a faint low cry;

His glorious boy springs freshly from its sleep;
Shakes his thin sun-curls, while his eye-beams leap,
As half in fear-along the stranger's dress-
Then-half advancing-yields to his caress;—
Then-peers beneath his locks, and seeks his eye,
With the clear look of radiant infancy,
The cherub smile of love, the azure of the sky.
'The stranger now, is kneeling by the side
Of that young mother;-watching for the tide
Of her returning life;-it comes—a glow
Goes-faintly-slowly-o'er her cheek and brow;
A rising of the gause that lightly shrouds
A snowy breast-like twilight's melting clouds-
In nature's pure, still eloquence, betrays
The feelings of the heart that reels beneath his gaze.
'She lives! she lives-see how her feelings speak,
Through what transparency of eye and cheek!

Her colour comes and goes, like that faint ray,
That flits o'er lilies at the close of day.
O, nature, how omnipotent!-that sigh-
That youthful mother, in her ecstasy,
Feels but the wandering of a husband's eye.
Her lip now ripens, and her heaving breast
Throbs wildly in its light, and now subsides to rest.'

"Come, Glory, come! Let's chant the soldier's dirge;
Step from thy thrones, and from thy clouds emerge!
Bring thy black cypress clotted in the shade;
Of weeping-willow let a wreath be made,
To crown the warrior-brow, that lately sought
Thy battle-laurel; him who lately fought
Reddest and fiercest, where the war-god sung;
Where the loud death-sobs came, and falchions rung;
Twine him a heavy garland! steep it well;
And mutter o'er its gloom thy darkest spell;
With broken heart-strings, be it twisted round;
Tread it in wrath upon the soaking ground;
And where the stagnant blood lies deepest, there
Complete thy curse-the chaplet of despair!
Call back his spirit from the eternal bar;
Show him that clotted foliage-talk of war;
Wake thy swift bugle, let it sing away
Freshly and clear, like clarion of the day!
Loosen thy banners on the mountain winds!
Call up thy thunders!-while thy hot hand binds,
That wreath around his mad, consuming brain-
Tell him 'tis his reward!-will he complain
Of wasted life-of bloody hand arrayed

In sacrifice for thee?-when blade met blade;
And man met man, and like the desert beast,

That bleeds and battles 'till his breath has ceased;

Toiled dark upon the mount to spread the vulture's feast.'

A shorter poem entitled 'Goldau, or the Maniac Harper,' comprised in the same volume, although the author deems so slightly of it as to place it undistinguished among the other pɔems,' is, we think, a very superior production to the preceding one. The village of Goldau in Switzerland, was destroyed by the sudden fall of part of mount Rosburg, in 1806. This incident Mr. Neal has made the ground work of his poem-and his 'Maniac Harper' is a youth whom he supposes to have lost all the objects of his affections in that calamity. The idea is a good one, and is very well managed-it only needs the exercise of that last and hardest art, the art to blot' to render it a very beautiful poem. The opening is thus:

'Upon a tranquil-glorious night,

When all the western heaven was bright;
When, thronging down the far blue dome,
The sun in rolling clouds went home;—
There wandered to a goatherd's cot,
A youth, who sought to be forgot;
Who many a long and weary year
Had breath'd his prayer and shed his tear.
Beneath his look of cloud was seen,

Somewhat, that told where fire had been;

For yet, a sorrowing beam was there;
A beam-in mockery of despair;
A beam that gave enough of light
To show his soul had set in night.
His step was slow-his form was bowed;
But yet his minstrel air was proud;
Upon the mountain height he stood,
And looked abroad o'er wave and wood
Yet glowing with the blush of even,
And answering to the hues of heaven,
With such a melancholy grace,
He seemed as thus he stood alone,
Like some young prince upon his throne--
The genius of the lofty place!'

'And this would be while yet the fire
Enkindled by that wondrous lyre,
Was quivering on his downcast lash,
Just like the dying tempest flash!
And those who felt their bosoms swell
Beneath the working of his spell:
Who felt that young enchanter's might,
Whose incantations woke the fight,

And taught to peasant hearts the feeling
That mounts to hear the trumpet pealing,
Then-deemed the youthful minstrel there,
Familiar with the strife had been;

And that his sad, appealing air—
His darkened brow-his bosom bare-
His haughty port of calm despair-
Enthusiasm-genius were-

And never but in warriors seen!

'But those who knew him, knew full well
That something terrible once fell

Upon his heart, and froze the source,
Whence comes enthusiasm's force-
Something of icy touch that chills

The heart-drops of our youthful years;
Something of withering strength that kills
The flowers that Genius wets with tears-
Fetters the fountain in its flow;

Mildews the blossom in its blow;

And breathes o'er Fancy's budding wreath
The clotting damps of early death;
That spreads before the opening light—
(The sunshine of the heart!)

A cloud that tells of coming night,
And chills the warblers in their flight,
That twinkling gayly to the skies,
With piping throats and diamond eyes,
In unfledged strength depart.'

The sunset was his favourite hour;
His eye would light-his form would tower;
And kindle at departing day,

As if its last, and loveliest ray

Would win his very soul away;

And there were those, who, when he stood,

Sublime in airy solitude,

Upon his mountain's topmost height,

With arms outstretch'd, to meet the light