And so I came to think on Loss I never much could think on GainA poet oft will woo a cross On whom a crown is pressed in vain. I came to think-I know not how Perchance through sense of Indian wrongOf losses of my own, that now Broke for the first time into song. A fluttering strain of feeble words That scarcely dared to leave my breast; "O loss!" I sang, "O early loss! O blight that nipped the buds of spring! "I mourn all days, as sorrows he Whom once they called a merchant-prince, Over the ships he sent to sea, And never, never, heard of since. "To ye, O woods, the annual May "But I shall never see again The shape that smiled upon my youth; A misty sorrow veils my brain, And dimly looms the light of Truth. "She faded, fading woods, like you! To softer splendors in her face. "Until one day the hectic flush Was veiled with death's eternal snow; She swept from earth amid a hush, While thus I moaned, I heard a peal And still the mountain calmly slept, The smoke from out his calumet. Mine was the sole discordant breath ELISHA KENT KANE. (Died February 15, 1857.) Aloft upon an old basaltic crag, Which, scalped by keen winds that defend the Pole, Gazes with dead face on the seas that roll Around the secret of the mystic zone, A mighty nation's star-bespangled flag, And underneath, upon the lifeless front Clung to the drifting floes, By want beleaguered, and by winter chased, Not many months ago we greeted him, Yelled its frank welcome. And from main to main, Jubilant to the sky, Thundered the mighty cry, "Honor to Kane!" In vain-in vain beneath his feet we flung And ere the thunders of applause were done Like to some shattered being that, pale and lone, Wastes, peak by peak, away, Till on some rosy even It dies with sunlight blessing it; so he And melted into Heaven! He needs no tears, who lived a noble life. But we will gather round the hearth, and tell Such homage suits him well, Better than funeral pomp or passing bell. What tale of peril and self-sacrifice! Prisoned amidst the fastnesses of ice, With hunger howling o'er the wastes of snow; Night lengthening into months; the ravenous floe Crunching the massive ships, as the white bear Crunches his prey; the insufficient share Of loathsome food; The lethargy of famine, the despair Toil done with skinny arms, and faces hued That awful hour, when through the prostrate band To all around him. By a mighty will Because his death would seal his comrades' fate! Cheering with ceaseless and inventive skill Those Polar winters, dark and desolate, Equal to every trial-every fate He stands, until spring, tardy with relief, Unlocks the icy gate, And the pale prisoners thread the world once more, To the steep cliffs of Greenland's pastoral shore, Bearing their dying chief. Time was when he should gain his spurs of gold From royal hands, who wooed the knightly state: And the world's knights are now self-consecrate. Faithfully kept, through hunger and through cold, OEHLENSCHLÄGER, ADAM GOTTLOB, a Danish dramatist and poet, born at Vesterbro, near Copenhagen, November 14, 1779; died there, January 20, 1850. His father was steward of the royal palace at Fredericksburg, where the son passed his early life. At the age of twelve he began to write dramatic pieces, which were performed by himself and his school-mates. In 1803 he published a volume of poems. This was followed by his drama of Aladdin, which gained for him a travelling stipend from the Government. He thoroughly mastered the German language, into which he translated those of his works which were originally written in Danish. He went to Italy, where he became intimate with the Danish sculptor Thorwaldsen. Returning to Denmark in 1810, he was made Professor of Esthetics in the University of Copenhagen. His Works, which include dramas, poems, novels, and translations, fill forty-one volumes in German and twenty-one in Danish. He is best known by his dramas, twentyfour in all, of which nineteen are upon Scandinavian subjects. Many of them have been translated into English by Theodore Martin and others. Among the best of his works are Aladdin, Hakon Jarl, Palnatoke, Axel and Valborg, Correg gio, Canute the Great, The Varangians in Constantinople, Land Found and Lost, based upon the early |