New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1844-02-24
The Poets of Connecticut.

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his position as collector and editor His rigid
rule of including all those born in the State, and
excluding all Others, seems inuocious, when we
find it placing HALLEcK among the bards of
Connecticut and shutting out the DwIGH7s from
the list; but, since the line must be drawn some
phere, and nativity isa circumstance about which
there car be little room for cavil, we are half in
cIined to withdraw the exception.
Most readers will be surprised to learn how
large a proportion of the Poets of our country
have been natives Of the little State which is
generally esteemed more gifted in the production
of horn.fints and wooden nutmegs than lyrics.
Mr.. Everest's volume presents selections from the
poetic writings of
WoleGs Ea R Rmith } ssa,H b55%s
Iohn H9p. s en9 hn.
PAID GHs Wsia tfnf
Richard Alsop Dan HUNTINGTON, TheodoTs D wight IT.
aas Fs;ss MsT A. Dodd
Ed A Mel .ushlin.J. 0. RoSKwELl Richard Bacon, it,
VIM H. Bradley, Jesse <. Dow, Vim. ThompsoaBacon,
Asa M9Qs bss ssPhsn ESs@ Ps'1 Ba MaiSR
Norman Pinney, Laura NJ. Thurston.
Forty-fo in all, or fully half the number en-
rolled by Mr.. Griswold as The Poets of Ameri-
ca'-and nearly half the merit, too Throw out
Bryant, Longfellow, and Emerson, and Connec-
ticut might confidently claim half the Poetic
achievements of our People. This Is saying
much for patch of rocky ground, without sin
gle large city, which covers space on the map
of the Union hardly greater than that Of a brick
in the wall Of house.
OF the Connecticut bards, Cleveland, Pierpont,
D. Huntington, Pinney and Nichols, were or
are Clergymen Hopkins, S. Brown, Perclval,
and Bradley, Physicians; Roger Wolcott and
Joel Barlow were Politicians, at least, if not
Statesmen John Trumbull was Revolutionary
Patriot Gas were several others on the list,) and
an eminent Jurist; Selleck Osborn, Bralnard
and Rockwell were Editors, as was, through all
the more active portion of his life, Theodore
Dwight, IT,. and as still are G. D. Prentice and
w. H. Bureigh; ]. Dixon and J. E. Dow have
also been Editors IS. G. Goodrich much the same;
Mrs. Stephens is prose writer of much strength,
and has also been busy for years in the Editorial
way Halleck, we all know, keeps books, en-
crossing when he should pen a stanza'; T. NJ.
Wetmore, whose Lexington is really stirring
lyric, though with many bad lines, sells crockery
and is sachem in Tammany Percival (of
late,) Hillhouse, and Mrs Sigoumey are almost
the only ones on the list whom the world recog-
nizes only as Poets by vocation, though Percival
commenced life Physician, Hlllhouse Mer-
chant, and Mrs. Sigourney Teacher. They
have an excellent fashion in Connecticut of train
ing every child to some sphere of practical USE
funess-a course which, we see by this volume,
does not repress or fritter any intellectual enden-
cies, but strengthens and natures them.
We must have room for few extracts; the
first from Mrs. Sigourney
THE AMERICAN INDIANS.
LIKE the fallenleav whose forest-tbes have fled:
Deep meath the turf their rusted weapon lies;
No more their harvest lifts its golden head,
Nor from their shaft the stricken red-deer flies:
But from the far, far west, where holds, SO hoarse,
The lonely Oregon, It's rock strewn course,
While old Pacifc's sullen surge replies,
Are heard their exiled murmurings deep and low,
Like one whose smitten soul depareth full of wo.
would We were not, from your fathers so
Tracked like the dun wolf, even in your breast
The coal of vengeance and the curse of TOLL
| would we had not 10 your mad lip press'd
The fiery poison-cup, nor on We turned
The blood -toothed ban-dog, toaming, as he burned
To tear your flesh but thrown in kindness blessed
The brothers arm around We, as We trod,
And led ye sad of heart to the blessed lamb Of COP.
Forgotten race, farewell! Your haunts we tread
Our mighty rivers speak your words of yore;
Our mountains wear them on their misty head;
Our sounding cataracts hurl them TO the shore:
But on the lake your flashing oar is still
flushed is your hunters cry on dale and hill;
Your arrow stays the eagles flight no more;
And We, like troubled shaowS, sink TO rest,
In aforementioned tombs, implied and unblessed.
The council-fires are quenched, that erst so red
Their midnight volume mid the groves entwined;
King, stately chief, and warrior-host are dead,
Nor remnant nor memorial lett behind:
But thou, Oh torest-prncess true OF heart,
When DER our fathers waved distinctions dart,
Shaltin their children loving hearts be shrned;
Pure, lonely star, DER dark obliyion's wave,
l, not meet thy name should moulder in the grave.
GEORGE HILL is hardly so well known as he
deserves to be. We clip The following as the
shortest, not the best, Of his illusions in this
volume:
LEILA.
WHEN first you look upon her face,
You little note beside
The timidnesS that still betrays
The beauties il would hide:
But one BY one, they look out from
Her bushes and her eyes;
And still the last the loveliest,
Like stars from twilight skies.
And thoughts go sporting through her mind,
Like children among flowers
And deeds of gentle goodness are
The measure of her hours.
In soul or face, she bears no trace
Of one from Eden driven;