Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/132

 HAEYEY D. LITTLE. There are lyres toned with the depth of the ocean-voice, and the energy of the tempest. Their simplest notes touch the feelings with an irresistible power, and their full breathings come over the bosom, now with an enchantment which causes a univer- sal thrill, and now with a rush and wildness that lash the passions into rage. The voice of such an instrument is preternatural. It penetrates into the inmost recesses of the heart — it swells up into the ample chambers of the soul — and, gathering vol- ume as it goes, strikes upon the chords of feeling with a power that startles, entrances, and awes. Under its dominion are all thoughts, all passions, all capacities : and, thus supreme, it exalts man to the skies, or pinions him to the earth, or " laps him in Elysium," at will. Such was the tone, and such the compass, of his lyre who sang of "Paradise," and of his no less who ti-aced the "Pilgrimage" of the wayward "Childe" There are lyres toned to the gentleness of the zephyr, and the holiness of truth. Their empire is the human heart — their ministry is over the affections. Their pure and calm breathings fall upon the chafed spirit with a healing and restoring power ; the hot palm and boiling veins of Passion cool at their approach ; and the holiest sympathies of our nature, are by them called into being, and rendered active and availing. The voice of sitch an instrument, is the voice of Nature. It is heard in the verse of the Great Psalmist — it sj^eaks at the bed of suffering and fear — it flows from the tremulous lips of the fond mother, as she yields her offspring to the remorse- less grave — it arises from what spot soever regenerate humanity hath made its own — and above all, it comes down from the Mount of Olives, in its fullness, and strength, and "exceeding beauty," and circles the universe. To this voice, were toned the lyres of Heber, and Hemans, and Montgomery ; to it, likewise, was toned that of him who is the subject of this paper. About the year 1830, a number of poetic effusions, signed Velasques, met my eye in an obscure paper published in the interior of Ohio.* They struck me as jiossessing considerable merit, though they attracted no attention whatever from the thousand-and-one papers which circulate newspaper scribblers into notoriety. I there- fore collected several of them together, and transmitted them to a literary periodical at the East, of wide circulation and no little merit ; and I had the jjleasure of seeing one or two of them copied and commended in that work, and then "go the rounds" of the Western press. By this time I had ascertained their author, and commenced a correspondence with him. He was the editor of the paper in which the fugitive jneces had originally appeared, and his name, since widely known and respected, was Harvey D. Little. (116)
 * At St. Clairsville.