Constitutional Whig

[From the New York Miner.]

Miss Landon and Miss Hemans divide the popular laurel of the lady poets of the day. They are equally ubiquitous and equally intrepid. No fear of exhaustion disturb or retard the flow of "words that breathe"—no feeling of weariness in themselves, and no misgivings have they of weariness in their readers, they pour forth their floods of nectar, as if the sources could never dry, nor the streams lose their sweetness, nor their price. They scatter—to change the figure—there is no talking of poets without figures—they scatter their flowers with a profusion that cares not for the withering—for the loss can easily and instantly be replaced. The rosebuds are yet young and vigorous—in the full strength of their bearing—of the McCartney kind, and bloom the year round, in eternal succession.—To L.E. L., indeed, it seems a matter of perfect indifference into what measure she plunges—the medium is equally navigable; her agility and dexterity are the same, and she floats and flows with the same ease. At the close of the "Golden Violet,"

are thrown in two or three smaller pieces, which, to our own taste, are the best of the book: and of these is "Love's Last Lesson." It tells of the feelings of one who is bidden by her lover to forget him. The pathos of the thing is true and deep; it looks less like the mere effort of fancy than the rest. It is either inspiration, or she knows and feels what she tells about. It is the best of the volume.

Teach me if you can—forgetfulness:
I simply shall forget, if you can bid me;
I, who have worshipped thee my saint on earth;
I, who have bowed me at thy lightest word.
Your last command, "forget me," will it not
Sink deeply down within my inmost soul?
Forget thee—ay, forgetfulness will be
A mercy to me."

By the many nights
When I have wept for that scared not sleep;
A dream had made me live my woes again,
Acting my wretchedness, without the hope
My foolish heart—till clings to, though that hope
Is like the opiate, which may lull an hour,
Then wake to double torture; by the days
Passed in lone watching and in anxious fears,
When a breath sent the crimson to my cheek,
Like the red gushing of a sudden wound:
By all the careless looks, and careless words,
Which have to me been like the scorpion's sting.
By happiness blighted, ah! by thee, forever:
By thy eternal work of wretchedness;
By all my withered feelings, ruined health;
Crushed hopes, and rifled heart, I will forget thee!
Alas! my words are vanity, Forget thee:
Thy work of wasting is too surely done.
'The April shower may pass and be forgotten,
The rose fall, and ope fresh spring in its place:
And thus it may be with light, summer love.
It was not so with mine: it did not spring,
Like the bright colour on an evening cloud,
Into a moment's life, brief, beautiful!;
Not amid lighted halls, when flatteries
Signal upon the air like dew upon the rose,
As soft, as soon dispersed, as guileless passed!;
But you first called my woman's feelings forth,
And taught me love ere I had named Love's name.

She flung aside the scroll, as it had part
In her great misery. Why should she write?
What could she write? Her woman's pride forbade
To let him look upon her heart, and see
It was an utter ruin; and cold words,
And scorn, and slight, that may repay his own,
Were of a foreign language, to whose sound
She might not frame her utterance. Down she bent
Her head upon her arm, so white, that tears
Seemed but the natural melting of its snow,
Touched by the flushed cheek's crimson; yet life blood
Less wrings in shedding, than such tears as those.