My heart will not play free."

'Forth fared he through the deep to rove:
For months with angry winds he strove,
And passions fiercer still;
Until he found the long-sought land,
And leaped upon the savage strand
With an exulting thrill.

'The tide of life now eddies strong
Through that broad wilderness, where long
The eagle fearless flew;
Where forests waved, fair cities rise,
And science, art, and enterprise
Their restless aim pursue.

'There dwells a people, at whose birth
The shout of Freedom shook the earth,
Whose frame through all the lands
Has travelled, and before whose eyes,
Bright with their glorious destinies,
A proud career expands.

'I see their life by passion wrought
To intense endeavour, and my thought
Stoops backwards in its reach
To him who, in that early time,
Resolved his enterprise sublime
On Porto Santo's beach.

'Methinks that solitary soul
Held in its ark this radiant roll
Of human hopes upfurled,--
That there in germ this vigorous life
Was sheathed, which now in earnest strife
Is working through the world.

'Still on our way, with careworn face,
Abstracted eye, and sauntering pace,
May pass one such as he,
Whose mind heaves with a secret force,
That shall be felt along the course
Of far Futurity.

'Call him not fanatic or fool,
Thou Stoic of the modern school;
Columbus-like, his aim
Points forward with a true presage,
And nations of a later age
May rise to bless his name.'

There runs throughout Mr. Burns's volume a rich vein of scriptural
imagery and allusion, and much oriental description--rather quiet,
however, than gorgeous--that bears in its unexaggerated sobriety the
impress of truth. From a weakness of chest and general delicate
health, Mr. Burns has had to spend not a few of his winters abroad,
under climatal influences of a more genial character than those of his
own country; and hence the truthfulness of his descriptions of scenes
which few of our native poets ever see, and a corresponding amount of
variety in his verse. But we have exhausted our space, and have given
only very meagre samples of this delightful volume, and a very
inadequate judgment on its merits. But we refer our readers to the
volume itself, as one well fitted