Great Criticus! illustrious lord of song! 
To thee a double wreath shall e’er belong: 
The Critics’ cypress and the Poet’s bay
Shall twine in love to deck thy brow for aye;
For far o’er Dunciad’s heroes shall thou reign,
And ne’er shalt lose that honored seat again.

And still, while future ages roll along,
Our Southern minstrels to thy court shall throng;
There lowly fall, and humbly beg thee grant
The sweet reward of their melodious chant;
A verdant laurel for each beaming brow,
To bloom through ages, as it bloometh now—­
Or, if thou frown, receive thy chastening rod,
Thou, Bard’s Maecenas, and thou Poet’s god!

[Footnote F:  16 lines above were written by Prof.  E. Longley.]

TO MARY.

Now lovely Vesper shows her lamp,
  In yonder slowly darkening sky;
It is the hour, when musing here,
  I heave for thee the bursting sigh.

Thus, Mary, as yon mournful pall
  Of darkness falls on all things round,
Ah! tell me shall the gloom of fate,
  My cheerless pathway thus surround?

But, as yon lamp—­the lamp of love! 
  With brilliant smile, relieves the gloom,
Say, shall thy heavenly smile relieve
  The darkness of my mortal doom?

Alas!  I do not know thy thoughts,
  If thou wilt slay, or sweetly save;
Yet I shall love thee fondly still,
  Until I rest within the grave.

SONG OF THE CONVERTED HEATHEN.

The sky to me did never speak,
  The sea rolled ever dumb,—­
Of him beneath whose wondrous power,
  Their mystic forms had come.

The sacred light was curtained back
  From my exploring eye,
And I seemed left to grope in night,
  And there at last to die.

When lo! upon a day there came
  A Man, with placid brow,
Who rent the curtain—­and the light
  Is gushing on me now.

The sky doth speak to me of God,
  The deep and rolling sea
Is ever grandly singing, Lord,
  To my bowed soul, of Thee.

Oh!  I can see around them now
  A radiant light doth shine,
A light that mocks the pencil’s pride,
  A light that is divine.

SIN OF THE CHORAL SINGER.

Hark! the organ’s solemn peal
  Ascends the lofty fane,
To win the soul’s repeal,
  From everlasting pain: 

To waft the voice of praise
  To Him who reigns above,
Which blends with burning lays
  Of Seraph’s holy love.

Hark! the deep-toned, solemn peal! 
  Again it strikes the air! 
My trembling accents steal
  To join the anthem there.

I strive to lift my mind
  To God’s most holy throne;
And, with my thought refined,
  To think on Heaven alone.

But earth-born love intrudes
  And brings me back to earth;
To dreamy solitudes
  My spirit wanders forth: