Page:Peterson's Magazine 1842, Volume I.pdf/56

. Of tell me gin their music fills ‘Whine ear ns ix does mine ; O! say gin eer your heart grows grit Wit dreamings o” langeynet

I've wandered east, I’ve wandered west,, I've borne a weary lot ; But in my wanderings, far or near, Ye never were forgot.

‘The fount that firet Lurst frae thie hewrt, ‘Still travels on its way; And channele deeper ae it rine, ‘The luve o' life's young day,

O dear, dear Jeanie Morrison, Since we were sindered young, Vee never seen your face, nor heard ‘The music o° your tongue;

But I could huy’all wretchedness, And happy could U di Did I but ken your heart still dreamed O” bygane days and me! For My heid is like to rend, Willie,” we cannot find space—indeed we ean scarcely read it for the tears that dim our eyes, But we may not resist quoting a few stanzas. How touchingly it begins, “ My heid is like to rend, Willie, ‘My heart is like to breal I'm wearin’ aff my feet, T'nvdyiu! for your sake! O lay your cheek to mine, Willie, ‘Your hand on my breist-bane. O say ye'll think on me, Willie, When I am deid and gone!” And then; “I'm sittin’ on your knee, Willie, For the last time in my li A puir heart-broken thing, Willie, mither, yet nae wife Ay, press yoitr hand upon my heart, “And press it mair and mair,— Or it will borat the silken twine, Sue strange is ite despair!" ‘While even amid her lamentation that they ever met, she will not—all heartbroken though she is—reprosch her lover. O! dinna mind my words, Withe, I downs aeek to blame, But O! it's hard to ‘And drec a warld's shame! Het teara are hailin’ ower your cheek, ‘And hailin’ ower your chin: Why weep ye ane for worthlosmess, For sorrow and for sin?” And then, bidding him kiss once more her “white, white cheek,” that once alas was red, she tells him in that lovely stanzas beginning “A stoun’ gaes through my heid, Willie,” that her days are numberéd, and that even as she speaks her life-strings are parting, and thet soon the golden bow! will be broken at the fountain, How mournfully she continues, “The lav’rock in the lift. Willie, ‘That lilts far ower our heid, ‘Will sing the mom as merrilie ‘Abune the clay-cauld deid; And this green turf we're itt Wi dewalraps shimmer Will hap the heart that lavit th As warld bas seldum seen.

But O! remember me, Willie, On land where’er ye be.—~ And O! think on the leal, leal heart, ‘hat ne'er luvit ane but thee! And O! think on the eanld, cauld mools, “That file my yellow hair, — "Phat kiss the cheek, and kiss the chin, Ye never sall kiss mair!" There are numerous other poems in this volume, not ‘equal indeed to the above, bat still of considerable, wo may say, of high merit. Who can read “Change sweepoth over all.” “Tho Water,” “ Wearic’s Well,” “Mournfully” “The bloom hath fled thy cheek, Mary,” “The Parting,” “Melancholye,” and a dozen other of these poems without feeling that Motherwell was a poct of considerable power, gifted with pathos, nature, purity, and more than all, freshness—s poct, not indced of the first class, nor always of equal merit, but one destined to be remembered among men long, long after the hand that writes and the eye that may read these pages, have moulderod into dust.

We thank God that the taste for genuine poetry ia revising in this land, and thut the day has gone by when worldlings might sneer at the followers of the “sweetest of the nine,” as madmen, or worse than that, as fooly! Our booksellers’ shelves no longer groan under unsold editions of American poems. Since the publication of Longfellow’s “Voices of the Night,” there hus been a steady demand for poctry, and more than one eilition of questionablo stuff has been disposed of by taking advan- tage of this tide, New editions of standard poets are meanwhile appearing in the market, and meritorious authors are being dragged from obecority and brought into deserved notice. This edition of Motherwell has been republished from the now scarce London onc, and will be the means of making him generally known in this country. A volume of Tennyson has also appeared in Boston, and in London a neat and more complete edition of his poems will shortly be published under the author’s own eye. Brainard has been rescued from the oblivion into which he was rapidly declining, and by the publication of his works, set on a pinnacle of light from which it will be impossible hereafter to dislodge him. Clark’s poems are on the eve of publication; Sprague’s have appeared within the last year; snd Lowelt is win- ning for himself laurels which, ten years ago, would have been unattainable even by him. A new ers is breaking on us! The morning is reddening the east, the birds are already singing in the dewy wood, ere long the fall splendor of the day will burst all gloriously upon ua, Let us like eastern magi, wetch, one and all, for the firet beams of the coming light. Let us, like Miriam, exult upon the timbrel.

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