The bleak wind whistles: snow-showers, far and near, The spring is come again-the joyful spring! The child of earth is number'd with the dead! Death's silent shadow veils thy darken'd brow: LESSON CXLVI. The Soul's Glimpses of Immortality.-JANE TAYLOR. THE soul, at times, in silence of the night, Has flashes-transient intervals of light; When things to come, witbout a shade of doubt, In dread reality stand fully out. Those lucid moments suddenly present Glances of truth, as though the heavens were rent; And, through the chasm of celestial light, The future breaks upon the startled sight. Life's vain pursuits, and time's advancing pace, In strong relief, against the blazing sky And, though o'erwhelming to the dazzle? rain, LESSON CXLVII. Rienzi's Address to the Men of Rome.-MISS Mitford, FRIENDS, I come not here to talk. Ye know too well Strong in some hundred spearmen-only great In that strange spell, a name. Each hour, dark fraud, Or open rapine, or protected murder, Cries out against them. But this very day, An honest man, my neighbour-there he stands— He tossed not high his ready cap in air, At sight of that great ruffian. Be we men, And suffer such dishonour? men, and wash not The stain away in blood? Such shames are common. Full of all gentleness, of calmest hope, A summer bloom on his fair cheeks, a smile Was greater than a king! And once, again,— LESSON CXLVIII. The Missing Ship.-EPES Sargent. GOD speed the noble President! A gallant boat is she, Like some majestic castle she floats upon the stream; seem! How will her mighty bulwarks the dashing surges brave! How will her iron sinews make way 'gainst wind and wave! Farewell, thou stately vessel! Ye voyagers, farewell! The stately vessel left us in all her bold array; 66 Flee, on thy vapoury pinions! back, back to England flee! Where patient watchers by the strand have waited long for thee; Where kindred hearts are beating to welcome home thy crew, And tearful eyes gaze constantly across the waters blue! Alas, ye watchers by the strand! weeks, months have roll'd away, But where-where is the President? and why is this delay? Return, pale mourners, to your homes! ye gaze, and gaze in vain : O, never shall that pennon'd mast salute your eyes again! And now our hopes, like morning stars, have, one by one, gone out; And mute despair subdues at length the agony of doubt; But still Affection lifts the torch by night along the shore, And lingers by the surf-beat rocks, to marvel, to deplore! In dreams I see the fated ship torn by the northern blast; About her tempest-riven track, the white fog gathers fast; When lo! above the swathing mist their heads the icebergs lift, In lucent grandeur to the clouds-vast continents adrift! One mingled shriek of awe goes up at that stupendous sight; Now, helmsman, for a hundred lives, O guide the helm aright! Vain prayer! she strikes! and thundering down, the avalanches fall; Crush'd, whelm'd, the stately vessel sinks-the cold sea covers all! Anon, unresting fancy holds a direr scene to view; The burning ship, the fragile raft, the pale and dying crew! Ah me! was such their maddening fate upon the billowy brine? Give up, remorseless Ocean! a relic and a sign! No answer cometh from the deep to tell the tale we dread: No messenger of weal or woe returneth from the dead: But Hope, through tears, looks up and sees, from earthly haven driven, The lost ones meet in fairer realms, where storms reach not-in Heaven! LESSON CXLIX. Napoleon and the British Sailor.-CAMPBELL. I LOVE contemplating apart 'Twas when his banner at Boulogne They suffered him,-I know not how, His eye, methinks, pursued the flight A stormy midnight watch he thought Than this sojourn would have been dearer, To England nearer! At last, when care had banished sleep, An empty hogshead on the deep Come shoreward floating! He hid it in a cave, and wrought The live-long day-laborious, lurking, Until he launched a tiny boat By mighty working! |