MEONIDES rehearsed a tale of arms,

And NASO told of curious metamorphoses; Unnumbered pens have pictured woman's charms, While crazy LEE gave vent to rhymes on porpoises: But mine the glory to recount thy worth,

O crystal SPECS! that peep'st invisibly

Into mine eyes, and giv'st them power to see

What else they had not seen in heaven or earth.

Thou second sight, that sham'st old Scotia's seers!

Thou vision-giver of the scenes that lie

Beyond the reach of unanointed eye,

Far, far away in sight-confounding spheres!
Thou scal'st the very fortress of the stars,

And climb'st its gate for me, and lettest down the bars.

II.

Without thee, what were life? A misty vision,
A murky morn, ne'er breaking from its gloom;
A barren world, without a field elysian-

A weary waste, with not a flower in bloom!
When, in time past, thou gottest first a-straddle
This nose of mine, a sort of nasal saddle,

Mine optics capered in the field of sight,
Like a young horse, let loose among the clover,
That kicks his heels, and flies the meadow over,
And loudly whinnies in his fond delight:
Now, soberer grown, I sit like reverend sage
Beside the hearth-stone while old Winter blows;
I place thee on my patriarchal nose,
And gravely ponder Wisdom's pregnant page.

III.

Art's wondrous world thou layest bare to me;
The painter's skill, the sculptor's graceful line:
Thou openest the entrance to the mine

Of hidden treasures of philosophy;

Or, by thy magic power, I plume the wing,

And fly to realms where deathless poets dwell:

I hear the lays their lips immortal sing,

And list the tales their tongues were wont to tell.

By thee I scan the 'human face divine,'

The pleasing study loved so long and well;

I mark the graces that within it shine,

When in the breast the deep emotions swell,
Till mine own heart impulsively gives vent
To streams, of gladness and affection blent.
Philadelphia, 1851.

LITERARY. NOTICES.

TALLULAH, AND OTHER POEMS. By HENRY R. JACKSON. In one volume: pp. 235. Savannah: JOHN M. COOPER. New-York: COOLIDGE, Pearl-street.

WE shall demonstrate to our readers that the author of this little volume is a poet; that he possesses the feeling, the refinement, the power of description, the love of nature, and the command of mellifluous language, which entitle him to that honored appellation. We met, many years ago, a brief poem of this writer, which had the effect to attract our attention to any piece bearing his name that we afterward encountered. It bore the simple title My Father,' and was in the following words that burn :'

As die the embers on the hearth,

And o'er the floor the shadows fall,
And creeps the chirping cricket forth,
And ticks the death-watch in the wall,,
I see a form in yonder chair

That grows beneath the waning light;
There are the wan, sad features- there
The pallid brow and locks of white.

"My FATHER! when they laid thee down,
And heaped the clay upon thy breast,
And left thee sleeping all alone

Upon thy narrow couch of rest,
I know not why, I could not weep,
The soothing drops refused to roll,
And oh! that grief is wild and deep,
Which settles tearless on the soul!

'But when I saw thy vacant chair,
Thine idle hat upon the wall,

Thy book-the pencilled passage where
Thine eye had rested last of all:

The tree beneath whose friendly shade

Thy trembling feet had wandered forth; The very prints those feet had made

When last they feebly trod the earth:

"And thought, while countless ages fled,

Thy vacant seat would vacant stand; Unworn thy hat, thy book unread,

Effaced thy footsteps from the sand;
And widowed in this cheerless world
The heart that gave its love to thee;
Torn like the vine whose tendrils curled
More closely round the falling tree:

Oh! Father! then for her and thee
Gushed madly forth the scorching tears;
And oft, and long, and bitterly,
Those tears have gushed in later years;
For as the world grows cold around,
And things take on their real hue,
"T is sad to learn that love is found
Alone above the stars with you!'

We have not a word to add to this. If any reader can peruse these lines without tears, he has no feelings in common with us. Every true father who reads them, will join in an aspiration, honorable alike to affection and humanity, that when his time shall come to go hence and be no more seen,' some beloved child may remember him in thoughts from the inner soul like these. Of the longer poem with which the volume before us opens, we shall not at present speak; farther than to say, that it embodies the natural poetical reveries and reflections of a thoughtful mind and reverent heart, during a 'Sabbath on the Mountains,' in the sublime and beautiful presence of the great Falls of Tallulah. It is to the shorter pieces that we desire more especially to call the attention of our readers; and we proceed at once to that 'labor of love.' Our author, it would seem, was an officer in a corps of the

Georgia volunteers, in the late war with Mexico; and on one occasion he poured out his heart' in the subjoined lines to My Wife and Child :'

THE tattoo beats; the lights are gone;
The camp around in slumber lies;
The night, with solemn pace moves on,
The shadows thicken o'er the skies;
But sleep my weary eyes hath flown,
And sad, uneasy thoughts arise.

'I think of thee, oh! dearest one!

Whose love mine early life hath blest; Of thee and him, our baby son,

Who slumbers on thy gentle breast: GOD of the tender, frail, and lone,

Oh! guard that little sleeper's rest!

"And hover, gently hover near

To her whose watchful eye is wet; The mother-wife, the doubly dear,

In whose young heart have freshly met Two streams of love so deep and clear, And cheer her drooping spirits yet!

Now, as she kneels before THY throne,
Oh! teach her, RULER of the skies!
That while, by THY behest alone,
Earth's mightiest powers fall or rise,
No tear is wept to THEE unknown,
Nor hair is lost, nor sparrow dies!

"That THOU canst stay the ruthless hand Of dark disease, and soothe its pain; That only by THY stern command

The battle's lost, the soldier's slain; That from the distant sea or land

THOU bring 'st the wanderer home again!

And when upon her pillow lone
Her tear-wet cheek is sadly press'd,

May happier visions beam upon

The bright' ning currents of her breast; Nor frowning look, nor angry tone, Disturb the sabbath of her rest!'

But it was not alone of his own sad emotions, nor of the wife and child he had left behind him, that our poet thought and wrote. After the battle's strife was over, he mused upon The Dead of the Georgia Regiment, and gave to his generous thoughts these touching words:

There is a something, yet what it is we can scarcely tell, that reminds us, while reading Mr. JACKSON's verse, of the poetry of JOHN RUDOLPH SUTERMEISTER, the early companion and friend of WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK. There is a kindred pathos, a kindred melody, in each. The lines' To the Whip-poor-will,' are an illustration of this:

'OH! some prefer the mock-bird's note,
Or queenly nightingale to hear,

Or lark's shrill quaverings, as they float
Upon the morning clear;

But none to me are half so sweet

As thus, upon this mossy seat,

To list thee, bird of grief!

And dream of hopes for ever fled,
The distant past, the silent dead,
And love-the withered leaf!

VOL. XXXVII.

12

'And oh! when life is ended, here

I'd wish to lay me down to sleep,
Where rustling leaves shall deck my bier,
And eve her dew-drops weep;

And thou shalt keep thy vigils here,
And pour upon my spirit's ear

Thy plaintive ditty still;

And sweet shall be the melody,
And sweeter far my slumbers be,
To hear thee, Whip-poor-will!'

We like the affectionate local feeling, the joyousness, and the perfectly natural ardor, of our author's tribute to the charms and associations of 'A Georgia Hearth? It beams with light, like the broad-backed hearth' it celebrates:

WHEN the hoar-frost whitens o'er the plain,
And there 's ice in the creek below,
And the fields are stript of the rustling grain,
And gone is the cotton's snow,
And the Winter's blast is whistling past,
And chilly bright the night,
Oh! the dearest spot to me on earth
Is a broad-back'd Georgia hearth!

An open hearth, a generous hearth,
Where the flames go crackling gayly forth;
Oh! the dearest spot to me on earth
Is a broad-back'd Georgia hearth!

'Chosen altar of the bountiful,

Of the genial and the bright!
All iron-ribbed must the bosom be
Which expands not in thy light!
As the flames arise of the sacrifice,

Of the offering free on thee,
Oh! the brightest spot of all the earth,
Is a broad-backed Georgia hearth!
An open hearth, etc.

"Then cast the pine-knot on the fire-
How the blaze my spirit glads!
And gather round, ye shouting boys:
I love you well, my lads!
And let your song be loud and long,
And your laughter be as free
As the glorious flame that blazes forth
From our broad-back'd Georgia hearth!

Our open hearth, a generous hearth,
Where the flames go crackling gayly forth;
Oh the dearest spot to me on earth
Is a broad-back'd Georgia hearth!

Mr. JACKSON does not lack a certain dry yet trenchant humor, as his 'Song of the Barefoot-Boy' sufficiently evinces; yet he is evidently trammelled in this species of verse. It is only here that the mechanical limæ-labor is too apparent. While the general tone of our author's poetry is grave and solemn, it is neither mawkish nor sad. We doubt not that his own stanzas, in a poem entitled Why art Thou Dejected?' express his own impressions in this regard:

We close our extracts with a few natural and tender lines, written upon visiting a deserted homestead in Middle-Georgia :

DESERTED fields on every side

Lie in the desert air;

The storm has ploughed their furrows wide,
And laid their bosoms bare:

How still the earth! how sad the sky!
The loneliness how deep!
Exhausted nature seems to lie
In weariness and sleep.

'Gone is the fondly-nurtured grove,

Gone are its precious flowers,
And gone the curling vines that wove
Its branches into bowers:
The garden with its arbor-gone,
And gone the orchard green;
A shattered chimney stands alone,
Possessor of the scene.

And yet this spot-I love it well!
Home of my early years!
Thou 'rt hallowed to me in the spell
Of countless smiles and tears:
The smiles have vanished, like the flowers
That bloomed when thou wert blessed;
The tears still gush, like thunder showers
That rend thy desert breast.

Where now the fields of yellow corn, Of cotton snowy white, That rustled in the breezy morn, Or kindled in the light? Where now the woods of oak and pine That waved with sea-like swell? Where now the herds of lowing kine? The horn?- the tinkling bell? Very admirably and artistically are brought in here the accessories of the picture; the cotton snowy white;' the woods waving with sea-like swell;' the 'shattered chimney,' illustrates the solitude of the scene. We conceive that we have made good the declaration with which we commenced this notice: and we very confidently and cheerfully leave the 'case' with all our readers, irrespective of age, sex, or clime.'

JAMAICA IN 1850: OR, THE EFFECTS OF SIXTEEN YEARS OF FREEDOM ON A SLAVE COLONY. By JOHN BIGELOW. In one volume. New-York and London: GEORGE P. PUTNAM.

SOMEBODY (we had almost said 'busy-body') took away this volume from our sanctum-table on its first appearance, since which time we have not seen it until the very evening on which we write. We have perused it with both profit and satisfac tion, and have been especially struck with the off-hand yet picturesque and graphic style of the writer. He does not profess to have written a history or a geography of Jamaica, nor to present a scientific statement of its resources, nor a mere book of travels. He gives, on the contrary, a striking picture of Jamaica as she is, not what she has been. We must content ourselves with a single extract, describing our author's entrance into the harbor and town of Kingston, and the awkwardness of the negroes who 'assisted' at that consummation:

We were compelled to stop at Port Royal, to have our baggage inspected by the custom-house officers, before going over to Kingston. The revenue officers were mostly colored people. I saw but one white oarman in any of the revenue boats, and in that one, the coxswain was a colored man.

When the ceremony of inspection was over, we re-distributed ourselves in our boats, and bore way for Kingston, about six miles distant, on the opposite side of the bay. We had four colored oarsmen, under the command of Commodore BROOKS himself, a very black man, with very white linen, whose broad pennant of red, with a white ball, swung at the mast-head, to indicate that he was senior officer of the port. He told me that he received his commission from the admiral on the station, and that no other boatmen were at liberty to raise the red flag, but himself. I was amused at the style in which these pretensions were asserted, and asked him what he would do if one were so irreverent as to appropriate his color. He said he would go and pull it down, but added, that no one would dare to attempt such an outrage. I felt my capacity to realize the dignity of our commander gradually expand, and when he added, that he had several other boats plying between Kingston and Port Royal, I was awed.

'Our boat was very well in its way, but the oars were a novelty. They consisted of two pieces. One a long pole the entire length of the oar, of uniform size from end to end. The other was a board in the shape of an ordinary oar blade, which was spliced to the pole in three places, with a cord and nothing else." The oarsmen struck the water with the side of the blade to which the pole was attached, instead of the smooth side, out of respect to some principle of hydro-dynamics with which I was not familiar. Instead of thole-pins, they used a rope, tied to the side of the boat, through which the oar passed, and by which it was detained near, if not in its place, when used. The Commodore defended both these novelties with a force of logic which required nothing but a stupidity among his hearers, corresponding with his own, to render perfectly conclusive. He was about two hours getting us over to Kingston, a distance of about five miles. During the voyage I had leisure to contemplate the striking scenery which bounds the city we were approaching, in the rear. A high range of hills, rising gradually to mountains, surrounds it on all sides. These hills are indented, apparently, by the centurial washing of running waters, until they look as if some astringent had been poured over them in their days of formation, and corrugated their surface into its present shape. They were green, and as I afterwards discovered were cultivated and inhabited to their very summits.

As we approached the shore, and the vegetation began to reveal itself, I realized, for the first time, that we were within the tropics. We have hot weather at the north, and custom-house officers and negroes-weather as hot, custom-house officers as troublesome, and negroes as black as any I have yet encountered; but I had never before seen the cocoa-nut and the plaintain growing, as I did now. Here, in the depth of winter, orange-trees were dropping their fruit, and the bananas were ready to be plucked; the lignum-vitæ tree waved its luxuriant foliage, ornamented with a delicate blossom of surpassing beauty; and in the distance, our eyes were directed to the waving sugar-fields of the Caymanos, and on the mountains, to the abandoned coffee-estates, belonging to the bankrupt Duke of BUCKINGHAM. I was most impatient to get on shore, that I might stray into the country and stare the wonders of tropical vegetation full in the face. "Notwithstanding my impatience, I was compelled to submit to many delays. My largest trunk, which was handled by the coachman in New-York without difficulty, engaged the devoted exertions of four negroes, in the effort to draw it from the boat, which they effected by instalments, after turning it over, as they did every article of luggage, several times, and trying it in various ways and from opposite sides, as if to see if they could not in some way get the advantage of it. They were two hours in transporting our luggage from the boats to our lodgings, not half a mile distant. And as the sun was nearly vertical the whole time, their delays were not a little trying to the best of us.'

Among other important and interesting chapters in the volume, there is one upon climate, exercise, etc., and the precautions necessary to be taken by invalids who visit the island in search of the greatest of all blessings, and without which scarcely any other blessing is a blessing-HEALTH. We again commend to our readers the work before us, as one alike pleasant, instructive, and useful.