The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1865-01-27

TO SOW the seed in tear.
An9 watch.with disappointment, Oft
her ruit IN following years,
ferchance It by the wayside falls
Where fnepdless birds deyour:
VI blooms UPON the stony ground.
10 wither in an hour
VI A ,n1rns s may choke the tender blade,
ana prospects pass away:
The toil, the hope of months and years
May perish in day."
In the poem entitled the "Tbe Skv an
effort to initiate Barry CORVALLIS noem
beginning" The Sea-! the Sea the Omen
seal" We find more ambitious effort and
consequently more evident failure
The sky the sky! the lofty sky!-
Its varied scenes, its bursting arch
Far stretched Dove aerial worlds on high,
The spheres In which the planets march
ELECTS praise, calls forth applause,
And bids cen admiration pause.
They bid her pause, nor dare attempt
A task SO difficult or vain
AS to define or cen to paint
The wide-extended starry plain.
She mods assent, and crouching, cries:
Thy smallest orb my power defes.
Now, any wee bit of child may toddle
out, and gazing up at the sky, to it appa-
rently pierced by the tops of the trees,
and exclaim, "the sky! blue sky! the
great high sky!" and thus improve on the
governors line, for she would describe one
OF Its most apparent qualities, which he
S Goes not! We cannot find any poetic
Incense ever issued by the muses. for say
ing that the arch of the sky is bursting,
and though "aerial worlds might have
passed current in the days of CoMAs, since
the time OF GALnRo and NEWTON, at least,
any school boy ought to know that stars
are not "aerial worlds" Nor is it very ap-
parent to our obtuse vision by what poetic
rule admiration MS bid to pause when
gazing on the grandeur of the "bursting
arch, nor why she should "dare attempt
to define or paint the starry plain. Moth
ing in our conception can be too grand
and beautiful to admire; and though we
might bid imagination pause, nor dare to
define and paint the starry vault of con-
cave blue, we cannot admit that the legit-
innate task of admiration is to perform
such duties. Other examples might be
ultiplied-some even more ridiculous
but we forbear.
JOHN Q A. WooD comes next, and his
poetry is by no means of a mean order.
all of Mr.. WOODS pieces given, are good,
and some of them, specially Fathers
growing old, John, and "Judah in Baby
lon, )" are OF superior order. The first
is too well known to need quotation, ow-
ing to its popular character not SO with
the latter, however, which is a superior
poem, and one of which any living poet
might be justly proud. The scene and
subject is taken from the Babylonish CAP
tivity of the Jews, near its close, when the
Chaldean King, having been an instrument
of punishment to the Jews for their idol
atories, had reached the acme of human
impiety and folly, in insulting God by pol
luting the sacred vessels of his temples,
saw the finger of God writing his doom
and that of his empire on the wall of his
banquet hall. The lyric strain adopted by
Mr.. WooD in this poem is beautifully
adapted to the subject:
/ IT'S eve on broad Euphrates' stream.
A song is by Euphrates heard -1
And mingled grief and triumph seem
To breath in each prophetic word;
3 And harp and heart alike are stirred;
For Juduh's MINISTRIES feel the power
Ofprophecy SO long deferred,
Come wildly DER them in this hour
The next six verses of the poem con-
taips the song, fancifully supposed to be
sung by the Hebrew Minstrels on that
fatal night, when commanded by the
wicked king to "sing one of the songs of
Zion." Passing over this song, we come
to where the poet renews the narrative:
8. Thus swept the captives hand anew
The harp that once in Jewry rung,
And fast the welcome burden drew
The tears from hearts to bursting strung
For sore the chain to bondage hung
On lsraels neck where erst the peals
Lay lovingly, as gems among
The braided hair of Jewish girls
9. But now on Babels dancing towers
Cimmerian night obtrudes its wing,
And, impious In his urban bowers,
High revel holds the pagan king;
Away these paltry offerings fling
and harsh the moDarch's mandate falls
bid captive Judah's Ministries
The harps they bore from Salems balls, &c.
The following stanza, descriptive of the
scene the morning after the capture of
DeSDJAoN " WV AAASoScdsnU SASiohcS 10 oHS
of the finest in the poem: n
10 Night fades Affair and level shine
Mom's saffron floods on Babel glowing,
And deeper tides than those of wine
Have been within her palace glowing;
And there are heaps of slaughter, showing
In many o swath, the fights red soul,
While in the early zephyr flowing.
Brings the Median battle shout.
A true conception of this poem, the .
beauties of which ! do not think have
been fully appreciated, can only be had
by its perusal entire. affection Unre-
Quilted, -" A mother listening to the rain,,'
aThe Coming of Winter" and the code
to New Hampshire" are all good; / am
not, however, inclined to accord the latter
as high place as some might It shows
the genius of the author, but the thought,
especially in the third and fourth stanzas,
bears too much the impress of impetuous
and immature youth. The other stanzas
are elegant, and the poem throughout has
the true ring.
COL J. H. BAKER
The pOema of TIL 7 II RAKRR are