BY J. B. VAN SCHAICK.--1829. And thou, fair flower of hope! Like a sweet violet, delicate and frail, Hast reared thy tender stem beneath an oak, Whose noble limbs o'ershadowed thee. The damp Cold dews of the unhealthy world fell not On thee; the gaudy sunshine of its pomp Came tempered to thine eye in milder beams. The train of life's inevitable ills Fell like the April rain upon the flowers, But thou wert shielded--no rude pelting storms Came down unbroken by thy sheltering tree. Fallen is the oak, The monarch of a forest sleeps. Around, The withered ivy and the broken branch Are silent evidence of greatness past, And his sweet, cherished violet has drunk The bitter dews until its cup was full. And now strange trees wave o'er it, and the shade Of weeping-willows and down-swaying boughs Stretch toward it with melancholy sorrow-- All sympathizing with the drooping flower. And years shall pass ere living trees forget That stately oak, and what a fame he shed O'er all the forest, and how each was proud That he could call himself a kindred thing. Long may the beauty of that violet Grow in the soil of hearts; till, delicate, Yet ripened into summer loveliness, A thousand branches all shall contending cast Their friendly shadows in protection there! THE SON OF SORROW. TO MYRA. BY A. L. BLAUVELT. When deep despondence gathers into shade, And grief unfeign'd calls fiction to her aid-- Paints through the vista of expected years, Hours clad with wo and visions dim with tears-- The past and future one large waste of gloom-- Here mem'ry's madness, there oblivion's tomb; No ear to list, no voice to soothe despair, And even death is deaf to sorrow's prayer. Oh! say, sweet minstrel, (for thy sighs I know Are wont to mingle with the sighs of wo,) Where shall the hope-deserted pilgrim fly To live too wretched, and too weak to die? Perhaps, e'en now, impassion'd and sincere, The sigh of beauty steals upon his ear-- Soft as the sky-wove theme of viewless lyres, That soothe his spirit when the saint expires: And oh! perhaps, ere quite dissolv'd in air, That sigh may breathe oblivion to despair; Melt o'er the throbbing string in Myra's lay, Till wo, enraptur'd, bears herself away. PORTRAITURE. [_From "Vice, a Satire," 1774._] BY GULIAN VERPLANCK. _Ob_: 1799.