song, when the world lacks the ear of taste? How can I rejoice in my
strength and delicacy of feeling, when they have but made great sorrows
out of little ones? Have I dreaded scorn like death, and yearned for
fame as others pant for vital air, only to find myself in a middle
state between obscurity and infamy? But I have my revenge! I could have
given existence to a thousand bright creations. I crush them into my
heart, and there let them putrefy! I shake off the dust of my feet
against my countrymen! But posterity, tracing my footsteps up this
weary hill, will cry shame upon the unworthy age that drove one of the
fathers of American song to end his days in a Shaker village!"

During this harangue, the speaker gesticulated with great energy, and,
as poetry is the natural language of passion, there appeared reason to
apprehend his final explosion into an ode extempore. The reader must
understand that, for all these bitter words, he was a kind, gentle,
harmless, poor fellow enough, whom Nature, tossing her ingredients
together without looking at her recipe, had sent into the world with
too much of one sort of brain, and hardly any of another.

"Friend," said the young Shaker, in some perplexity, "thee seemest to
have met with great troubles; and, doubtless, I should pity them,
if--if I could but understand what they were."

"Happy in your ignorance!" replied the poet, with an air of sublime
superiority. "To your coarser mind, perhaps, I may seem to speak of
more important griefs when I add, what I had well-nigh forgotten, that
I am out at elbows, and almost starved to death. At any rate, you have
the advice and example of one individual to warn you back; for I am
come hither, a disappointed man, flinging aside the fragments of my
hopes, and seeking shelter in the calm retreat which you are so anxious
to leave."

"I thank thee, friend," rejoined the youth, "but I do not mean to be a
poet, nor, Heaven be praised! do I think Miriam ever made a varse in
her life. So we need not fear thy disappointments. But, Miriam," he
added, with real concern, "thee knowest that the elders admit nobody
that has not a gift to be useful. Now, what under the sun can they do
with this poor varse-maker?"

"Nay, Josiah, do not thee discourage the poor man," said the girl, in
all simplicity and kindness. "Our hymns are very rough, and perhaps
they may trust him to smooth them."

Without noticing this hint of professional employment, the poe