Sneaks with the bad, and mingles with the good,
On whom it fattens, though it never fill,

Crying with poor mad Lear, come "kill, kill, kill ;”
Or, like to some smooth priest of holy rood,
It wears a saintly smile and solemn hood,
But is the same deceptive demon still!

O Youth, the first firm step that Manhood nerves,
Should trample bravely on the demon's head,
And waste no jot of Power that Doubt reserves,
But by the anxious of the lofty dead-
Who joy in those whom Faction never swerves—
Inspired, be One whom Party never led.

REVERIE.

All was beautiful around me. I was somewhere, but the place was without locality-it seemed as if I moved through immensity, but unconsciously. A bewildering dizziness came over me. Shapes flitted dimly before my eyes, indefinable, yet beautiful. Music floated gently around, softer than the voices of girls.

My brain was no more giddy with swift motion. Forms half indistinct stood still. The music ceased. The strangeness passed away and I was alone. I seemed to recline on the grassy bank of a gently flowing brook. Its crystal waters leaped sportively along, laving the pearl-gems in its bosom: while ever and anon a tiny fish would turn his silver side to the bright sun like the gleam of a half-shown jewel. Fragrant flowers filled the air with their perfumes, and many a long stem gracefully bent over the bank to look at the beauteous picture which seemed to blush in the water. "Birds of the gentle beak" and of bright gay plumage opened their little throats for the gush of melody. A light silvery cloud glittered in the sunbeam like the wing of an angel. The song which had ravished my soul was alone wanting to make happiness complete. And it came, stealing gently o'er my spirit like the rich echo of a seraph's harp; and as it rose and fell, now deepening to its fullest tones, now faintly trembling and almost gone, methought it was not earthly music-it was so sweet. Then my soul bathed in a flood of bliss, and it seemed as if I was to enjoy all that is beautiful in sound and sight, and thus appreciate the fulness of joy which Nature can call up in a human heart.

But all things changed. The light cloud that glittered in the sunbeam now deepened into a dark and wrathful storm. The crystal stream rolled down, a swelled and turbid torrent. The balmy air became thick and suffocating. A weight sunk heavily upon my eyes, and I felt an iron hand laid on my heart, crushing it together. Then I was whirled swiftly away, clasped round by the arms of motion. Away! the earth was far below me, and the icy breath of the planetary spaces froze my humanity and my weakness. My heart asked "Whither?" but the sound I uttered I could not hear, for we left its vibrations far behind. But at length the motion ceased somewhat from the fierceness of its rapidity; the iron hand was taken from my heart and my eyes were opened.

I beheld! A comet blazed in its fiery path through space. Its mass glowed with the greatest intensity of heat. I beheld the wondrous process of its state and knew it was the first stage of Creation! But the Comet was too slow a creeper for my yet furious motion, and I left it to pursue its way alone.

My feet stood on the hot
And as I gazed upon a

And now I was flung upon the Sun. marl of one of its dark floating islands. molten world hissing, and splashing around me, my human heart would have failed but for a power which nerved it terribly. Here was a tempestuous ocean of liquid fire, heaving from the profundity of its bosom, and glowing like the Furnace of Creation. Here was the Crucible of a world, which God had filled with its molten compound; and as I shriveled under its dreadful heat, and perceived how my frail island rocked upon its awful billows, there came a thought into my soul: "This is the second stage of creation!”

Once more I was wrapped in my strange vestment and borne away through space. And a rough, black, desolate globe was before me. Smoke spouted from a thousand craters. Hoarse bellowings resounded from its deep womb. Dark mountains stood up against the sky, and frightful chasms yawned beneath. It were joy to have seen some shrub, though it were rude, and to have heard the scream of some beast of prey or of birds of the curved beak. But there was no life there. Then the globe staggered at the awful belchings of some tremendous volcano, and as the rocks went rattling down the dark ravine, they smote upon its bottom and a hollow sound came up: "The third stage of creation !"

Once more the scene was changed. Swift evidently was the motion. Again I felt the iron hand upon my heart, and my spirits sunk

within me. Oh! it was terrible! But it ceased. There was no more motion. The hand was taken away from my heart. There was a thrill of life through my members, and my soul awoke.

It was a dream. It was the strange wanderings of an unguided spirit. The scene of loveliness played before me-it was the response of Fancy to the soul's aspirations for the Beautiful. And the terrible wanderings of my dreamy spirit were the soul-struggles after the Infinite and the True in Science. The hand which clutched my heart, wringing out its humanity, transformed it for its ordeal.

Thus it was mine to visit the spheres of the sky. I saw how God makes a world! I was admitted to the Laboratory of Omnipotence ! I studied the Alchemy of the Universe. Thus worketh the spirit in its night dreams.

Z. A. Z.

THE OCEAN DREAM.

In dreams I walked the moonlight shore,
And listened to the waves,

And thought I heard within their roar

The voice of ocean-caves.

It said: "Far down where the wave is brown,
And the sunlight falls with a silent shimmer,

Full many a gem and diadem

Robed in their light and beauty glimmer;
And many a jewel the corals hide

That rival the glitter of regal pride."

"I know that the jewels are bright and fair
That glow in thy silent bowers,

But oh! can their changeless light compare
With the bloom of summer flowers ?"
Then a whisper swept across the Deep,
A whisper soft and low,.

As the wavelets broke around my feet
Like a wreath of eddying snow;

I bent my ear to the gentle tone,

And thus the voice of the waves said on.

Briggs.

"The sea-weed flow'rs are bright and fair,

As they float in the crystal tide,
And close their leaves as in upper air,
When the shadows above them glide,
And beautiful shells, that are rich and bright
As a Rose-bud bathed in dew,
Color the waves with a liquid light

As the sunbeams glimmer through;
And many a form of life is seen
Gliding amid those bowers of green."

"Oh! tell me not of thy sea-shells rare,
Or the bloom of thy dewy flow'rs,
But tell me of those who are resting there
In the light of thy sunny bow'rs.
Has the spirit fled from the flashing eye,
Has the cheek grown thin and pale,
Do they lie where the clustering flowers lie,
Unmoved by the ocean-gale ?"

I listened-a voice to my ear came low,
Like the soft sweet plaint of some gentle woe.

"Far down where the wave is still and deep, And softened the sunlight's glare,

They dreamily lie in their quiet sleep,

No trouble shall vex them there;

Their bodies are rocked with a cradle-motion,

Their hands crossed on their breast,

As if a mother with warm devotion,

Were lulling her child to rest;

'Tis better to lie in the lonely Deep,

Than be where the loathsome earth-worms creep."

The vision passed and I awoke,

To dream once more alone,

No longer on my senses broke

Loved Ocean's constant moan.

The Moon came budding thro' a cloud,

Like a veiled Eastern Bride,

The Cricket piped to the flow'r buds loud,
And all was still beside;

I gazed on the vacant midnight air,
And only the stars and moon were there.

THE ELDONFIELD PAPERS.

Seelye.

No. I.

THE TWO FUNERALS.

I have never yet seen any village that I loved like Eldonfield. It was my childhood's home; the place where my boyhood and youth glided away, and though years have passed over me since, yet I love to turn back even now and live over again the scenes through which I then passed. They are pleasant moments when I can call up to memory the friends that I then knew and loved; when I can listen in imagination to their voices; mingle again in their sorrows and their joys, and feel my soul once more alive to the buoyancy, the feelings and the emotious of my early days. I can recollect very well the large old fashioned house of my father where my infancy was spent. Even now I seem to see the tall maples which grew up in front of it and threw their deep shade over its sloping roof,-the old oak which stood in the meadow behind it, where my playmates used to come that we might spend our holy days together in our boyish glee; the wooden bridge where I have sat for hours in a sunny day watching the rippling brook and listening to its gentle music as it flowed along over the stones that I threw down in its narrow bed; all these are held up before me in an indelible picture, and limning memory colors them even now with tints as vivid as she does events of yesterday. The village also with its two streets running nearly parallel through it; its rows of white cottages almost hid in summer, by the sweet briars that nearly covered them, and the lilacs that grew so thickly around them; the church lifting up its tall spire, and the grave-yard lying so closely by its side, can, none of them, ever be forgotten or cease to be invested with that warm and lively interest which always clusters around the scenes of our early days. There are some events connected with these scenes, which, memory of former times brings up before me and which I now propose to relate. They are fraught to me with interest, for many of them are recollections of those whom