Gone Are The Birds That Were Our

A Town That Boasts Inhabitants Like Me Can Have No Lack Of Good Society.

Then From The Neighboring Thicket The Mocking-bird, Wildest Of Singers, Swinging Aloft On A Willow Spray That Hung O'er The Water, Shook From His Little Throat Such Floods Of Delirious Music, That The Whole Air And The Woods And The Waves Seemed Silent To Listen.

Perhaps The Chief Cause Which Has Retarded The Progress Of Poetry In America, Is The Want Of That Exclusive Cultivation, Which So Noble A Branch Of Literature Would Seem To Require. Few Here Think Of Relying Upon The Exertion Of Poetic Talent For A Livelihood, And Of Making Literature The Profession Of Life. The Bar Or The Pulpit Claims The Greater Part Of The Scholar's Existence, And Poetry Is Made Its Pastime.

How Can I Teach Your Children Gentleness And Mercy To The Weak, And Reverence For Life, Which In Its Nakedness And Excess, Is Still A Gleam Of God's Omnipotence, When By Your Laws, Your Actions And Your Speech, You Contradict The Very Things I Teach?

Art Is The Gift Of God, And Must Be Used Unto His Glory.