And oft thy sympathizing breast The passing tribute gave, As lightly on the turf thou pressed, Which covers now thy grave! I stood beside the hallowed ground, That marks thy resting-place, When rolling years had soothed the wound Which Time can ne'er efface.
And scenes a mother's kindness wove, When life and hope were new, Bearing the record of her love, Came rising to my view: I thought on all thy tender care, Thy nature sweet and mild, Which used my little griefs to share, And blessed me when a child.
Long, long within the silent tomb Thy cherished form has laid, And other woes have chased the gloom That dark bereavement made; Yet bright to Memory's fond survey Each lineament appears, As when it shed its living ray On eyes undimmed by tears!
No more the buoyant hopes of youth Their wonted joy impart, And childhood's dream of changeless truth Has ceased to warm my heart; But while its languid pulses move, Life's crimson tide to bear, The sweet remembrance of thy love Shall still be treasured there!
LETTERS OF LUCIUS M. PISO, from Palmyra, to his Friend MARCUS CURTIUS, at Rome. Now first Translated and Published. In two volumes, 12mo. pp. 498. New-York: C. S. FRANCIS. Boston: JOSEPH H. FRANCIS.
WE shall offer no apology, nor will our readers deem one necessary, for devoting so large a portion of the review department of the present number of this Magazine to an extended notice of the work before us. The letters contained in the first volume have already appeared in our pages; and the great and deserved popularity which they have acquired, will insure eager readers for the remainder, (the issue of which public opinion has hastened,) which advance in interest to the very close of the work. The conception of the plan is most felicitous--the execution masterly, beyond modern example. The author seems, primarily, to have _saturated_ his mind with the very spirit of the past. He has rolled back the tide of time, and placed us in Palmyra, the magnificent capital of the East, and caused all her glories to pass palpably before us, as if we were gazing upon a moving panorama. Commencing with the first faint dawn of the Christian faith, he infuses into the reader 'a soul of old religion.' His characters are marked with great force; while a nice verisimilitude of individual nature is combined with elegance of fancy, and a richness of ideal coloring, wholly unsurpassed by any kindred writer. The plot--if a succession of events converging to a final point may be so denominated--is natural and unperplexed; while the minor descriptive scenes, which are often interwoven, and the inferior characters, are equally well sketched. Though fluctuating between history and romance, the work no where fails to disguise the presence of the latter. The reader is _with_ the characters and _of_ them, from first to last, such is the author's happy freedom of delineation, and the harmony and ease both of incident and style.