And curtains black as are the eyes of night:
Thou, who dost come at time of waning light
And sleep among the woods, where night doth hide
And tremble at the sun, and shadows glide
Among the waving tree-tops; if now there
Thou sleepest in a current of cool air,

Within some nook, amid thick flowers and moss,
Grey-colour'd as thine eyes, while thy dreams toss
Their fantasies about the silent earth,

In waywardness of mirth

Oh, come! and hear the hymn that we are chanting Amid the star-light through the thick leaves slanting.

Thou lover of the banks of idle streams

O'ershaded by broad oaks, with scatter'd gleams
From the few stars upon them; of the shore
Of the broad sea, with silence hovering o'er;
The great moon hanging out her lamp to gild
The murmuring waves with hues all pure and mild,
Where thou dost lie upon the sounding sands,
While winds come dancing on from southern lands
With dreams upon their backs, and unseen waves
Of odours in their hands: thou, in the caves
Of the star-lighted clouds, on summer eves
Reclining lazily, while Silence leaves
Her influence about thee: in the sea
That liest, hearing the monotony

Of wavers far off above thee, like the wings
Of passing dreams, while the great ocean swings
His bulk above thy sand-supported head-
(As chain'd upon his bed

Some giant, with an idleness of motion,
So swings the still and sleep-enthralled ocean).

Thou who dost bless the weary with thy touch,
And makest Agony relax his clutch
Upon the bleeding fibres of the heart;
Pale Disappointment lose her constant smart,
And Sorrow dry her tears, and cease to weep
Her life away, and gain new cheer in sleep:
Thou who dost bless the birds, in every place
Where they have sung their songs with wondrous grace
Throughout the day, and now, with drooping wing,
Amid the leaves receive thy welcoming:-

Come with thy crowd of dreams, oh thou! to whom
All noise is most abhorr'd, and in this gloom,
Beneath the shaded brightness of the sky,
Where are no sounds but as the winds go by,-

Here touch our eyes, great Somnus! with thy wand-
Ah! here thou art, with touch most mild and bland,
And we forget our hymn, and sink away;
And-here, until broad day

Come up into the sky, with fire-steeds leaping,
Will we recline, beneath the vine leaves sleeping.

No. VIII. TO CERES.

Goddess of bounty! at whose spring-time call,
When on the dewy earth thy first tones fall,

Pierces the ground each young and tender blade,
And wonders at the sun; each dull grey glade
Is shining with new grass; from each chill hole,
Where they had lain enchain'd and dull of soul,
The birds come forth, and sing for joy to thee
Among the springing leaves; and, fast and free,
The rivers toss their chains up to the sun,
And through their grassy banks leapingly run
When thou hast touch'd them: thou who ever art
The Goddess of all Beauty: thou whose heart
Is ever in the sunny meads and fields;

To whom the laughing earth looks up and yields
Her waving treasures: thou that in thy car,
With winged dragons, when the morning star
Sheds his cold light, touchest the morning trees
Until they spread their blossoms to the breeze ;-
Oh, pour thy light

Of truth and joy upon our souls this night,
And grant to us all plenty and good ease!

Oh thou, the Goddess of the rustling Corn!
Thou to whom reapers sing, and on the lawn
Pile up their baskets with the full-ear'd wheat;
While maidens come, with little dancing feet,
And bring thee poppies, weaving thee a crown
Of simple beauty, bending their heads down
To garland thy full baskets: at whose side,
Among the sheaves of wheat, doth Bacchus ride
With bright and sparkling eyes, and feet and mouth
All wine-stain'd from the warm and sunny south:
Perhaps one arm about thy neck he twines,
While in his car ye ride among the vines,
And with the other hand he gathers up

The rich full grapes, and holds the glowing cup
Unto thy lips-and then he throws it by,

And crowns thee with bright leaves to shade thine eye,
So it may gaze with richer love and light

Upon his beaming brow: If thy swift flight

Be on some hill

Of vine-hung Thrace-oh, come, while night is still, And greet with heaping arms our gladden'd sight!

Lo! the small stars, above the silver wave,
Come wandering up the sky, and kindly lave
The thin clouds with their light, like floating sparks
Of diamonds in the air; or spirit barks,
With unseen riders, wheeling in the sky.
Lo! a soft mist of light is rising high,
Like silver shining through a tint of red,
And soon the queened moon her love will shed,
Like pearl-mist, on the earth and on the sea,
Where thou shalt cross to view our mystery.
Lo! we have torches here for thee, and urns,
Where incense with a floating odour burns,
And altars piled with various fruits and flowers,
And ears of corn, gather'd at early hours,
And odours fresh from India, with a heap
Of many-coloured poppies:-Lo! we keep

Our silent watch for thee, sitting before
Thy ready altars, till to our lone shore

Thy chariot wheels

Shall come, while Ocean to the burden reels
And utters to the sky a stifled roar.

Little Rock, State of Arkansas,
August 15th, 1838.

SIR, It is with much doubt, and many misgivings, I have been induced by the entreaties of some friends in Boston to send the accompanying trifles in verse from this remote corner of the Union-beyond the Mississippi.

I would fain believe them worthy a place in your inestimable Maga, which regularly reaches me here, two thousand miles from New York, within six or seven weeks of its publication in Edinburgh, and is duly welcomed as it deserves. Should you judge them worthy of publication, accept them as a testimonial of respect offered by one, resident in South-western forests, to him whose brilliant talents have endeared him, not only to every English, but to multitudes of American bosoms-equally dear as Christopher North and Professor Wilson. Most respectfully, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

ALBERT PIKE.

[These fine Hymns, which entitle their author to take his place in the highest order of his country's poets, reached us only a week or two ago—though Mr Pike's most gratifying letter is dated so far back as last August: and we mention this, that he may not suppose such compositions could have lain unhonoured in our repositories from autumn to spring. His packet was accompanied by a letter not less gratifying-from Mr Isaac C. Pray-dated New York, April 20th, 1839-and we hope that, before many weeks have elapsed, the friends, though perhaps then almost as far distant from each other as from us, may accept this, our brotherly salutation, from our side of the Atlantic.C. N.]

SONNET.

ON THE DEATH OF A LADY.

BY ISAAC C. PRAY, JUN.

WITHIN a dell, one Spring, my boyhood knew

A silver rill, which played through clustering ranks
Of white-leafed flowers that thickly fringed its banks;
And near I often strayed, entranced, to view
And watch the lovely plants, whose blossoms grew
To fullness, as the day, with genial power,
Diffused its sun-light o'er each modest flower.
I left that home-returned, and once more flew,
While Autumn reigned, back to the cherished place;
The rill was not-nor flower nor plant was there,
But earth instead, veiled by a gloomy air;
I mourned the changes on sweet Nature's face :-
So hast thou vanished, loved one, and alone
I weep that thou with all thy gifts are gone.

OUR CHAMBERS.

in discovering the object of her anxiety, in the form of a juvenile truant, who was seated by the side of the kennel at the further extremity of the court, surrounded by a bevy of admiring contemporaries, and busily engaged, as the facetious Thomas Hood has it, "a-playing at making little dirt pies.' Happy innocent! little did he know the service we then rendered him! The storm was rapidly gathering-another moment, and terrible would have been its burst!-the eye was already kindling, the right hand working convulsively, the lip half unclosed_

"Pray," said we, in our most insinuating tone, "does a Mrs Mary Popkins live here?"

The hand unclenched-the gathered lightning postponed its flash sine die the figure, drawn up to its full altitude, sank down into a half-inquisitive, half-reverential courtesy.

"If you please, sir, I am Mrs Popkins," said the matron.

Now, we never yet could understand how, in such cases, it matters one pin's head whether we please or not. We did not, as it happened, feel the slightest gratification at the intelligence; but the woman was Mrs Mary Popkins for all that, and we had nothing left for it but to explain the object of our visit, and to request an immediate inspection of our future domicile.

It was our first introduction to that peculiar race of females, who call themselves laundresses on a very ancient and classical principle of nomenclature; because, as the experience of ages has at length most clearly decided, they never do by any chance wash any thing. We were accordingly rather curious in our examination of the outward appearance of the specimen which preceded us to our chambers; and the result of the scrutiny was at least so far satisfactory, that we have never, since that day, been mistaken in pronouncing sentence of laundress or no laundress upon any given woman. A pair of stuff boots, unlaced-a dirty handkerchief, thrown shawl-wise over the shoulders (we have rarely set eyes upon a laundress in a cloak)-a dull-patterned and dull-coloured gown, with an extensive hiatus behind, affording perspective glimpses of various garments of unmentionable names and ineffable dinginess a bonnet, generally black,

which may be conceived, by a vigorous exertion of the imagination, to have boasted, at some long-past period, some faint pretensions to a shape— hands of horrid hue-" foreheads villainous low," and faces on which dirt, and snuff, and gin, have set their most indelible signs-may be pronounced the most general characteristics of the tribe;-and when we say that Mrs Popkins possessed them all, with the slight addition, or rather variation, of having but one solitary organ of vision, we feel confident that she is standing before the mind's eye of the reader exactly as she appears at this moment to put our chambers "to rights," in blissful unconsciousness of the immortality to which our pen is even now consigning her.

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty steps! Mercy on us! here we are at last. These old women are truly astonishing creatures. Here are we, on the topmost landing-place, with but a light load of years on our back, puffing and blowing like a stranded grampus; and there stands Mrs Popkins, who might well be taken for Methuselah's eldest daughter, as composed as if she had not stirred a foot for these three months.

"So these are our chambers, are they?" said we, as we entered a tolerably large room with three windows, and a very time-honoured and time-worn marble chimneypiece.

"Yes, if you please, sir," said Mrs Popkins "this is the sitting-room, and this is the bedroom, and this is the"

"Just so," said we, interrupting the catalogue;" and pray, Mrs Popkins, what may this be?"

"If you please, sir," replied our laundress, pointing to a recess about two feet square, with a board across the front-" If you please, sir, that is the coal-cellar."

"The devil it is!" said we, our teeth literally chattering at the intelligence.

Our astonishment was too evident to escape the notice even of Mrs Popkins' single eye.

"If I might make so bold, sir," said she, with a low courtesy to palliate her audacity, "I should say you had never lived in chambers before, sir."

"Never," said we; not feeling, at the moment, very much delighted at