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if I could cordially recommend him to societies or communities in want of a teacher of a singing school. Let not the fact that he is blind prevent his being employed. Music is addressed to the ear-and it is this that is to be principally cultivated, (together with the voice,) in singing. Many teachers fail from the very fact that they rest satisfied with an explanation of those signs addressed to the eye, while they neglect the things signified in sounds addressed to the ear. I might say much more, but this must suffice. Try Mr. Rockwell, and you will soon know the rest. LOWEL MASON, of Boston.

Rochester, N. Y., Sept. 19th, 1844.

This is also fully and cheerfully endorsed by Professors WEBB, JOHNSON, and ROOT.

COLLECTED POEMS,

BY L. V. HALL, AND OTHER BLIND AUTHORS.

FROM THE REMINISCENCES OF UNCLE TOBY,

PURPORTING TO HAVE BEEN FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF A DECEASED

RELATIVE.

One sultry eve in summer time

I sauntered forth to make some rhyme
Upon the moon, or some fair thing

About which poets love to sing:

The stars looked down but wondrous shy.
As if they half suspected I

Had come to sing, as oft I'd done,
My tributes to some favored one,
That chanced to glimmer softly out,
Or twinkle o'er some favorite spot,
Where it might shed its golden light
Upon her silken couch, 'twas right;-
But now the bard could find no theme,
Nor could his muse suggest a scheme.
The nightingale had caught a cold,
And the owl laughed hoarser than of old,
As if he saw my silly plight,

And scorned my mission; well he might,

For truly now I'd lost the vein,
Or sadder still, had racked my brain,

Or crazed it, in a fruitless quest
Of something that might stand the test
Of critics, when my purse should fail,
Since merit, then, can naught avail.

The dust will fill a critic's eye,
So through it he cannot descry
The grossest error, right! 'twill do!
While all assumes a golden hue,
The author has a lofty soul,
He's paid me well, I must extol
His wit, his genius, perfect rhyme,
What imagery! sublime! sublime!
Enough, we turn from this digression,
For lo! the bard has got possession
Of one stray thought, that chanced to crawl
From some dark corner in his skull,
Where, dormant, it perhaps had lain
For years, as seeds their germs retain.
As torpid flies, from rubbish creep,
When spring awakens from their sleep
The insect tribes, the croaking frogs,
And lizards in a thousand quags:
And with her warm sweet breath, inspires
Their little hearts to strange desires,
The bees to buzz among the flowers,
The birds, to test their vocal powers,
By warbling sweetest melody,
From early morn till twilight gray
Steals softly down the flowery vales,
Till milkmaids, with their flowing pails,
Come singing home their evening song,
As merrily they trip along:

While frogdom, from her ugly throats
Contributes such discordant notes,
That e'en the screech-owl turns away
Ashamed of nature's orchestra.
No matter, he shall not defeat
My aim, my simile's complete.
And thus had genius fancy taught,
To break the chrysalis of thought,
To mould it with a sculptor's skill,
In forms that best might please her will;

To give it life and buoyancy,
And powers of such fecundity,
That little thoughts, from embryo,
Came forth and like the fungus grew.
Thus did one straggling thought inspire
The bard with such poetic fire,
That from his ventilated bonnet
Escaped this rare ethereal sonnet:

Through fate's kaleidoscope I see,
That what has been, again may be.
This world is like a dinner pot,
Filled with water boiling hot:
Each atom near the heated sides
Expands, and to the surface glides,
While those which float upon the top,
Are cooled, and to the bottom drop.

But soon they kiss the heated metal, And soon expand, while from the kettle Clouds of mist in air ascend,

And so on till the boiling end.

While clouds of mist in air ascend,

And so on till the boiling end.
So on till the boiling end,
And so on till the boiling end.

Nor is the circle yet complete,
Its perimeter does not yet meet.
The air is like an onion formed
Of strata, ever cooled and warmed,
In regions so unequally.
That watery vapor thus set free,
Is soon condensed, soon falls in rain,

But only to be boiled again.

My song had ceased; but my well-tun'd lyre still rung,
As the dying cadence to the passing breeze it flung :
Faintly once more it caught the closing strain,
And trembled with the echo-boiled again.
My song had ceased; the cypress gravely bent
His leaf-crowned head, in token of assent;
The cedars nodded, but the giant oak
In silent awe stood motionless, as broke
From many a deep ravine and rocky dell,

The deathless theme my lyre had learned so well;-
Till every string, now wakening to the strain,
Murmured as died the echo-boil'd again.

The winds were sighing softly through the trees,
As though they had conspired to raise a breeze,
Among some distant clouds, that lowering, hung
Above the mountain peaks that tow'ring flung
Their long dark shadows o'er the grassy plain,
That lengthen'd as the fading moonlight waned.
Amazed I stood, and bent my listening ear
To catch the last faint sound that lingered near,
When, horrible to tell! from some lone dell,
Broke on the midnight air a fiercer yell,
Than ever burst from Satan's marshal'd hosts,

E'en when through space they scourg'd the shiv'ring ghosts.
With knotted chords of fire, full of stings,

With twisted tails of comets, and other things.
As when from thundering Etna burts on high

A flood of liquid fire to the sky,

Piercing its sable shroud with fury driven,
As if the burning shaft were aimed at heaven,
To vent the rage that long had been repressed,
Deep beneath old ocean's heaving breast.

So rose this tide of sound to upper air,
And with the spirits of song who hover there,
Claimed equal fellowship by right of birth,
Since all are creatures of the bards of earth.
Prepost'rous claim! most impudent! as well
Might some infectious, foul and putrid smell,

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