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And the fiery flood

Of whose purple blood

Has a dash of Spanish bravado.

For richest and best

Is the wine of the West,

That grows by the Beautiful River,—
Whose sweet perfume

Fills all the room

With a benison on the giver.

And as hollow trees

Are the haunts of bees,

For ever going and coming;

So this crystal hive

Is all alive

With a swarming and buzzing and humming.

Very good in its way

Is the Verzenay,

Or the Sillery soft and creamy;
But Catawba wine

Has a taste more divine,

More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.

There grows no vine
By the haunted Rhine,

By Danube or Guadalquiver,
Nor on island or cape,

That bears such a grape

As grows by the Beautiful River.

Drugg'd is their juice

For foreign use,

When shipp'd o'er the reeling Atlantic,
To rack our brains

With the fever pains

That have driven the Old World frantic.

To the sewers and sinks
With all such drinks,

And after them tumble the mixer !
For a poison malign
Is such Borgia wine,

Or at best but a Devil's Elixir.

While pure as a spring

Is the wine I sing,

And to praise it, one needs but name it;
For Catawba wine

Has need of no sign,

No tavern-bush to proclaim it.

And this Song of the Vine,
This greeting of mine,

The winds and the birds shall deliver
To the Queen of the West,

In her garlands dress'd,

On the banks of the Beautiful River.

THE CUMBERLAND.

AT anchor in Hampton Roads we lay,
On board of the Cumberland, sloop-of-war;
And at times from the fortress across the bay
The alarum of drums swept past,

Or a bugle blast

From the camp on the shore.

Then far away to the south uprose

A little feather of snow-white smoke, And we knew that the iron ship of our foes Was steadily steering its course

To try the force

Of our ribs of oak.

Down upon us heavily runs,

Silent and sullen, the floating fort;

Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns, And leaps the terrible death,

With fiery breath,

From each open port.

We are not idle, but send her straight
Defiance back in a full broadside!
As hail rebounds from a roof of slate,
Rebounds our heavier hail

From each iron scale

Of the monster's hide.

"Strike your flag!"-the rebel cries, In his arrogant old plantation strain. "Never! our gallant Morris replies;

"It is better to sink than to yield!" And the whole air peal'd With the cheers of our men.

Then, like a kraken huge and black,

She crush'd our ribs in her iron grasp! Down went the Cumberland all a wrack, With a sudden shudder of death,

And the cannon's breath

For her dying gasp.

Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay, Still floated our flag at the mainmasthead. Lord, how beautiful was thy day!

Every waft of the air

Was a whisper of prayer,

Or a dirge for the dead.

Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seas!

Ye are at peace in the troubled stream.

Ho! brave land! with hearts like these,

Thy flag, that is rent in twain,

Shall be one again,

And without a seam!

SNOW-FLAKES.

OUT of the bosom of the Air,

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take

Suddenly shape in some divine expresssion,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the Air,

Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,

Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whisper'd and reveal'd
To wood and field.

ROBERT HINCKLEY MESSINGER.

Born 1807.

GIVE ME THE OLD.

OLD WINE TO DRINK, OLD WOOD TO BURN, OLD BOOKS TO READ, AND OLD FRIENDS TO CONVERSE WITH.

OLD wine to drink!

Ay, give the slippery juice

That drippeth from the

Within the tun:

grape

thrown loose

Pluck'd from beneath the cliff

Of sunny-sided Teneriffe,

And ripen'd 'neath the blink
Of India's sun!

Peat whiskey hot,

Temper'd with well-boil'd water!

These make the long night shorter;
Forgetting not

Good stout old English porter.

Old wood to burn!

Ay, bring the hill-side beech

From where the owlets meet and screech,
And ravens croak;

The crackling pine, and cedar sweet;
Bring too a clump of fragrant peat,
Dug 'neath the fern;

The knotted oak,

A faggot too, perhap,

Whose bright flame dancing, winking,
Shall light us at our drinking;

While the oozing sap

Shall make sweet music to our thinking.

Old books to read!
Ay, bring those nodes of wit,

The brazen-clasp'd, the vellum-writ,
Time-honour'd tomes!

The same my sire scann'd before,
The same my grandsire thumbed o'er,
The same his sire from college bore:
The well-earn'd meed

Of Oxford's domes.

Old HOMER blind,

Old HORACE, rake ANACREON, by
Old TULLY, PLAUTUS, TERENCE lie;
Mort ARTHUR'S olden minstrelsie,
Quaint BURTON, quainter SPENSER, ay!
And GERVASE MARKHAM'S venerie;

Nor leave behind

The Holye Book by which we live and die.

Old friends to talk!

Ay, bring those chosen few,

The wise, the courtly, and the true,

So rarely found:

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