he happy loves of this our pleasant Isle,
Till I have left some record of mine own.
You are the subject now, and, writing you,
I well may versify, not poetize:
Here needs no fiction; for the graces true
And virtues clip not with base flatteries.
Here should I write what you deserve of praise;
Others might wear, but I should win, the bays.

Fairest, when I am gone, as now the glass
Of Time is marked how long I have to stay,
Let me entreat you, ere from hence I pass,
Perhaps from you for ever more away,--
Think that no common love hath fired my breast,
No base desire, but virtue truly known,
Which I may love, and wish to have possessed,
Were you the highest as fairest of any one.
'Tis not your lovely eye enforcing flames,
Nor beauteous red beneath a snowy skin,
That so much binds me yours, or makes your fame's,
As the pure light and beauty shrined within:
Yet outward parts I must affect of duty,
As for the smell we like the rose's beauty.

HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL

(1820-1872)

This poet, prominent among those who gained their chief inspiration from
the stirring events of the Civil War, was born in Providence, Rhode
Island, February 6th, 1820, and died in East Hartford, Connecticut,
October 31st, 1872. He was graduated at Trinity College, Hartford,
studied law, and was admitted to the bar; but instead of the legal
profession adopted that of a teacher, and made his home in Hartford,
which was the residence of his uncle, the Bishop of Connecticut.
Although Mr. Brownell soon became known as a writer of verse, both grave
and humorous, it was not till the coming on of the Civil War that his
muse found truest and noblest expression. With a poet's sensitiveness he
foresaw the coming storm, and predicted it in verse that has the ring of
an ancient prophet; and when the crash came he sang of the great deeds
of warriors in the old heroic strain. Many of these poems, like 'Annus
Memorabilis' and 'Coming,' were born of the great passion of patriotism
which took possession of him, and were regarded only as the visions of a
heated imagination. But when the storm burst it was seen that he had the
true vision. As the dreadful drama unrolled, Brownell rose to greater
issues, and became the war-poet _par excellence_, the vigorous
chronicler of great actions.

He was fond of the sea, and ardently longed for