a liberal education and relinquishing his
profession--the law--for literature, was for some years editor of the
Southern Literary Messenger. Has written chiefly for the magazines and
for the newspapers. A native of Virginia.]

* * * * *

=_George Henry Boker, 1824-._= (Manual, p. 520.)

From the "Ode to a Mountain Oak."

=_411._= THE OAK AN EMBLEM.

Type of unbending Will!
Type of majestic self-sustaining Power!
Elate in sunshine, firm when tempests lower,
May thy calm strength my wavering spirit fill!
Oh! let me learn from thee,
Thou proud and steadfast tree,
To bear unmurmuring what stern Time may send;
Nor 'neath life's ruthless tempests bend:
But calmly stand like thee,
Though wrath and storm shake me,
Though vernal hopes in yellow Autumn end,
And, strong in truth, work out my destiny.
Type of long-suffering Power!
Type of unbending Will!
Strong in the tempest's hour,
Bright when the storm is still;
Rising from every contest with an unbroken heart,
Strengthen'd by every struggle, emblem of might thou art!
Sign of what man can compass, spite of an adverse state,
Still from thy rocky summit, teach us to war with Fate!

* * * * *

=_412._= DIRGE FOR A SAILOR.

Slow, slow! toll it low,
As the sea-waves break and flow;
With the same dull slumberous motion.
As his ancient mother, Ocean,
Rocked him on, through storm and calm,
From the iceberg to the palm:
So his drowsy ears may deem
That the sound which breaks his dream
Is the ever-moaning tide
Washing on his vessel's side.

Slow, slow! as we go.
Swing his coffin to and fro;
As of old the lusty billow
Swayed him on his heaving pillow:
So that he may fancy still,
Climbing up the watery hill,
Plunging in the watery vale,
With her wide-distended sail,
His good ship securely stands
Onward to the golden lands.

Slow, slow! heave-a-ho!--
Lower him to the mould below;
With the well-known sailor ballad,
Lest he grow more cold and pallid
At the thought that Ocean's child,
From his mother's arms beguiled.
Must repose for countless years,
Reft of all her briny tears,
All the rights he owned by birth,
In the dusty lap of earth.

* * * * *

=_William Allen Butler, 1825-