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HIRAM POWERS.

HONORED be the name of Powers,
Who, beneath the Tuscan towers,
Elevates this land of ours

By his noble art.

'Mid the Masters, old and grand,

The Living with the Dead doth stand-
The Sculptor's chisel in his hand,

And Genius in his heart.

Far from home, across the brine,
By empurpled Apennine,

Where the Arno's waters shine

'Neath a golden sun,

Midst the mighty temples, hoary,

Grey with age, and rich in story,
Faithful for his country's glory,

He a wreath hath won.

In the land where Rome was great,
Ere forth the fiat went of Fate,

Which wrecked her giant, pillared state,
And buried her in dust.

Full fixed upon his art intent,
He recks not of the kingdoms rent,
Of storming towns, or battlement,

In War's wild thunder-gust.

But his eye rests on the goal;
As the sailor marks the pole,
A star fixed fast within his soul,

Undimmed by storm or night.

Where Vesuvius blazes red,
Holding converse with the dead!
And raising marble from its bed,
To shapes of life and light!

Gazing through hope's open gate,
On a glorious future state,
Where immortal honors wait

To crown the faithful soul.

As when a mariner doth launch,

On stormy seas his shallop staunch,

Faith holds the helm, and olive branch, Though mountain billows roll.

Where Florence holds her stately reign, The queen of all the southern plain Begirt by vines and golden grain,

He dwells afar from home.

And constant plies the toiling hand,
That yet, within his native land,
Art's Genius may rise up as grand,
As erst in mighty Rome.

The marble shall from quarry rise;
And 'neath our azure sunset skies,
Behold each Age that comes and dies,
A chronicle sublime-

Pointing backward towards the Past,
And reading from a volume vast,

The wealth which history hath amassed
From out the wreck of Time.

THE THRUSH.

In the wilderness dark, where the dogwood is white,
And the red-bud with blossoms doth blush;
Where the shade is so deep that the noon is as night,
Is the home of the hermit-like Thrush.

He flits through the forest so dense and so green,
As a shadow flits over a stream,

And he glances along through the bushes, half seen,
Like a spirit which glides through a dream.
He darts over log, and he darts over stone,
And to see him the eye must be bright—
For he dwelleth where Solitude dwelleth alone,
Withdrawn from the eye of the light;

Where the Turkey-pea grows with its fairy-like flower,
And the spice bush exales its perfume;

Where the wild vine is weaving its intricate bower, O'er the haunt of the spirit of Gloom;

Where the Buckeye is dark, in the depth of its green, And the hazle bush covers the ground;

Where the red-spotted deer, with its wild eyes is seen, And the pheasant's drum thunders around!

'Tis there when the daylight sinks back in its urn,

The fountain of gold whence it rose,

That from some mossy rock, decked with finger-leaved fern,

He sings, 'till night's wings o'er him close.
And then ere the morn shoots its arrows of gold
Through the boughs of the sugar tree, dark,
He sits in the glen where the night has grown old
And listens afar to the lark.

The red bird, whose fiery cap 'mid the green,
Seems like a knight errant of old,

Whose plume gleaming bright in the forest was secu,
In sallies chivalric and bold.

The Oriole, dressed in his scarlet-hued vest,
Like a Troubadour, joyous and gay,

To the mate of his bosom unburdens his breast,
In
many a merry-toned lay;

But thine is a strain where the joy is so deep

That from sorrow it scarce can be told,

And brings us sweet thoughts, like the angels in sleep, Which the day's eye doth never behold.

It is not the mere happy sound to the ear,

The mingling of cheerful and sweet,

But the rush to the heart of all sounds that are dear,
Which shivers the soul in her seat.

Yea! it trembles there like the pale leaf of the asp,
Which quivers in storm-gusts at night,

And ecstasy, bliss, and beatitude, clasp
Their white hands, and weep with delight!