ng Nations hail'd the hour,
Magnific boast of Science!--Loud they sung
Her victory o'er the element, that hung,
Pressing to earth the Beings, who now soar
Aerial heights;--but Wisdom bids explore
This vaunted skill;--if, tides of air among,
We know to _steer_ our bark.--Here Science finds
Her buoyant hopes burst, like the bubble vain,
Type of this art;--guilty, if still she blinds
The sense of Fear; persists thy flame to fan,
Sky-vaulting Pride, that to the aweless winds
Throws, for an idle Show, the LIFE OF MAN!

1: This Sonnet was written when the Balloon enthusiasm was at its
height.

SONNET XLVI.

Dark as the silent stream beneath the night,
Thy funeral glides to Life's eternal home,
Child of its narrow house!--how late the bloom,
The facile smile, the soft eye's crystal light,
Each grace of Youth's gay morn, that charms our sight,
Play'd o'er that Form!--now sunk in Death's cold gloom,
Insensate! ghastly!--for the yawning tomb,
Alas! fit Inmate.--Thus we mourn the blight
Of Virgin-Beauty, and endowments rare
In their glad hours of promise.--O! when Age
Drops, like the o'er-blown, faded rose, tho' dear
Its long known worth, no stormy sorrows rage;
But swell when we behold, unsoil'd by time,
Youth's broken Lily perished in its prime.

SONNET XLVII.

ON MR. SARGENT's DRAMATIC POEM,
THE MINE[1].

With lyre Orphean, see a Bard explore
The central caverns of the mornless Night,
Where never Muse perform'd harmonious rite
Till now!--and lo! upon the sparry floor,
Advance, to welcome him, each Sister Power,
Petra, stern Queen, Fossilia, cold and bright,
And call their Gnomes, to marshal in his sight
The gelid incrust, and the veined ore,
And flashing gem.--Then, while his songs pourtray
The mystic virtues gold and gems acquire,
With every charm that mineral scenes display,
Th' imperial Sisters praise the daring Lyre,
And grateful hail its new and powerful lay,
That seats them high amid the Muses' Choir.

1: Petra, and Fossilia, are Personifications of the first and last
division of the Fossil Kingdom. The Author of this beautiful Poem
supposes the Gnomes to be Spirits of the Mine, performing the behests
of Petra and Fossilia, as the Sylphs, Gnomes, Salamanders, &c. appear
as Handmaids of the Nymph of Botany in that exquisite sport of
Imagination, THE B