TO MY OWN PORTRAIT.*

How is it that before mine eyes,

While gazing on thy mien,

All my past years of life arise,

As in a mirror seen?

What spell within thee hath been shrined, To image back my own deep mind?

Even as a song of other times,

Can trouble memory's springs;

Even as a sound of vesper-chimes,
Can wake departed things;

Even as a scent of vernal flowers

Hath records fraught with vanished hours;

Painted by W. E. West.

Such power is thine !—they come, the dead,

From the grave's bondage free,

And smiling back the changed are led,

To look in love on thee;

And voices that are music flown

Speak to me in the heart's full tone.

Till crowding thoughts my soul oppress,
The thoughts of happier years,

And a vain gush of tenderness

O'erflows in child-like tears;

A passion which I may not stay,

A sudden fount that must have way.

But thou, the while-oh! almost strange,

Mine imaged self! it seems

That on thy brow of peace no change

Reflects my own swift dreams;

Almost I marvel not to trace

Those lights and shadows in thy face.

To see thee calm, while

powers

thus deep,

Affection-Memory-Grief

Pass o'er my soul as winds that sleep

O'er a frail aspen-leaf!

Oh! that the quiet of thine eye.

Might sink there when the storm goes by!

Yet look thou still serenely on,

And if sweet friends there be,

That when my song and soul are gone
Shall seek my form in thee,

Tell them of One for whom 'twas best

To flee away and be at rest!

1827.

THE BROKEN CHAIN.

I AM free!I have burst through my galling chain, The life of young eagles is mine again;

I may cleave with my bark the glad sounding sea,

I may rove where the wind roves-my path is free!

The streams dash in joy down the summer hill,
The birds pierce the depths of the sky at will,
The arrow goes forth with the singing breeze,
And is not my spirit as one of these?

Oh! the green earth with its wealth of flowers, And the voices that ring through its forest bowers, And the laughing glance of the founts that shine, Lighting the valleys-all, all are mine!

I may urge through the desert my foaming steed,
The wings of the morning shall lend him speed;
I may meet the storm in its rushing glee—
Its blasts and its lightnings are not more free!

Captive! and hast thou then rent thy chain ?
Art thou free in the wilderness, free on the main ?
Yes there thy spirit may proudly soar,

But must thou not mingle with throngs the more?

The bird when he pineth, may hush his song,
Till the hour when his heart shall again be strong
But thou, canst thou turn in thy woe aside,

And weep 'midst thy brethren-no, not for pride.

May the fiery word from thy lip find way,

When the thoughts burning in thee shall spring to

day?

May the care that sits in thy weary breast

Look forth from thine aspect, the revel's guest?