at the portal of the grave!-Yet when the hand of the living presses that of the dying.-when the voice of love is heard, and religion has plucked away the thorn from the death pillow, the spirit departs on silent wings from its wasted tenement. But to die in a distant land, to be taken away when the eye is turned again to our homes, to know that the friends who await our coming shall see us no more, and the hearts that would welcome us. must beat to sadder measures, is the bitterest dreg in the cup we must drink, and adds a sorrow to the thought, that the feet of strangers will tread upon our sepulchres. The friends of our earlier and better years may weep at our departure. but they cannot weep upon our graves! They may awaken tender recollections of the past, but there is no urn for love to encircle with her cypress wreath. Even memory withers and decays, when there is nothing to cherish it, as the taper goes out, whose oil is wasted; and the hand of time wipes dry the mourner's tear and heals the broken heart.

There is something so silent, so calm, and so holy in the close of a summer evening, that I love to linger in the melancholy twilight, and mark the crimson of sunset growing fainter and fainter, and fading away, like the hue of the withering rose. When the quiet moon is rising, and the skies and woodlands are mirrored in the silver lake beneath them; when the breeze sighs its evening song, and the distant bell swings slow and heavily, I love to loiter about the spot, that was the scene of so many of the joys and festivities of my boyish days. Near this haunt of my childhood, a small rivulet winds slowly along through a woodland of beech and maple, and at last pours its still waters into the bosom of a peaceful lake. Upon its bank is a small terrace of green turf, in the centre of which stands an old beech-tree, scathed and worn by time, which in the days of my boyhood was in the vigour of its years. Beneath the shade of its level branches, as they spread

"To the sigh of the south-wind their tremulous green"

it was our custom to meet together at the close of the long summer-day, and wear the evening away in the hilarity of youthful sports. Here too the germs of friendship were warmed and cherished in our bosoms, whose buds, and blossoms, and fruits, have since appeared in the interval of years. My eye can yet trace upon its venerable trunk the names of "friends, that were, but are not," of those that crossed the threshold of the grave in youth, and in manhood, at home and abroad; and of those that are still vigorous and active in the bustle of the world, or like myself slowly descending the declivity of years. As I glance my eye over this brief catalogue, I imagine that the friends, who left these memorials of their youth behind them, are VOL I.-No. v.

58

again gathered around me. They return from the land of stran gers, from the land of the dead! They put off the forms of manhood, age, and death, and are young, light-hearted and cheerful again. The cheek of health, the eye of joy, the smile of gayety.-I see them now! I hear the mirthful shout, and the sound of youthful voices! I join in the sports of other days, and I listen again to the song that delighted; the tale that terrified whilst it pleased!-But those days are no longer! The tale is told, the song is finished, the gayety done, and friends departed. The grave has closed over many, as the bark of the tree over their

names.

But the retrospect of age is not always upon a youth of glad ness. We may be young in years, though old in sorrows. Indeed, in the pilgrimage of life we can pluck but few flowers without feeling the thorns; weave but few laurels, where the cypress will not mingle. The breeze that curls the wave at sun-set, chafes the ocean in the night storm, and what we woo in youth as our joy, is often our affliction. The feet of death are as often heard in the circles of the young as of the old; his hand rests as often and as heavily upon the hearts of youth of age. His touch, stronger than the finger of time, withers the rose on the cheek of beauty; an! sorrow quenches the pride and buoyancy of the spirit; and if in our pilgrimage, the wing of death has past harmlessly by us, that must soon pass over us; and if we have been left to toil on until the hour when the flame of existence shall go out from its own feebleness, experience must have taught us, that the sorrows and tears of youth are as bitter as those of age, though sooner wiped away; and the impress from the seal of affliction as deep upon the young and tender heart, as upon that whose chords have been withered by years. Indeed the arrow wounds as sorely; but the wings of the youthful spirit are soon expanded, and it falls to the ground, whilst in age it rankles beneath the covert of the pinion, that is too weak to spread itself again.

it is the duty of love and of pious devotion to go often to the graves of those friends that have departed to the land "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." Though human pride has done much to obliterate every trace of the holy and devotional feeling, that the grave excites within us, and though human vanity, by the decorated shroud and marble couch of the tomb, would keep the dust we have, from mingling with the dust we are," yet there lingers around the grave of buried love an attractive holiness, that often draws us to it. The breeze that sighs around us brings tranquility upon wings; and the air is pure and free, as if the spirits of those we love to think are near and watching over us, had hallowed it by

their presence. Though I am not superstitious, yet I should choose to die in my birth-place, to close my life where I began it, and to rest in the peaceful bosom of that spot which was the scene of my sports in childhood. I should choose calmly to bid the world farewell, and in the stillness and retirement of the country to wrap the mantle of age about me, and to lie down at peace with mankind and with my own heart, and that the friends who came to look upon my grave, should say

Alas! he is dead

Gone to his death-bed,

All under the willow tree.

FOR THE AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

THE MOUNTAIN CAVE.

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE WOODLANDS.

L.

"Strangest vicissitudes of weal and wo,

"Prove sometimes fortune's happiest harbingers."

I HAD returned from my tedious residence in the east, which, though it embraced but few years in the calendar of time, had worn away like an age, each day of which stamped a fresh testimony on my heart of the strength of those natural ties, that bind the young spirit to its early home. I was once more in the midst of those sweet scenes which habit had rendered familiar, and which affection had endeared; and once more saw around me the forms which kindred ties, or long companionship, or the bright blaze of juvenile and still unextinguished passion, had bound closest to my bosom. The golden chain of love and friendship had, indeed, been stretched far, very far, in my adventurous flight; but I felt as I gathered up its links on my return, that they all remained unbroken, and dreamed a moment that the one to which I had clung with most devotion, was even brighter than before. Hawthorn-side had not lost the attractive power which led me to its willow groves while yet a wayward boy; which drew from me many a sigh while absent, and which, now that I had vsited once more my first inheritance, seemed even more powerful than ever.

It was in midsummer that I returned. I reached my father's dwelling just as the sun had gone down, and left a mellow twilight evening. in which a bright full moon half supplied the glorious lustre that followed the lord of day; and when I had paid my devotions at the altar of family affection. I walked up to the beautiful white-washed cottage on the green hill. When I reached the little gate that opened towards the yard, I paused though half reluctant to delay, and turned to survey the scenery. Immediately on my right the noble Susquehanna, pouring the torrent of his waves at the broad, untrembling base of the Muncy hills, and, checked in his proud career, rolling his deluge of broken waters back towards the west, roared, and foamed, and sparkled in the silent moonlight, far as the eye could reach. In front and to the left. the long range of mountains which separate Ly coming from Northumberland, lifted their summits high above the plain, and seemed to look down in scorn upon the forests that gloomed at their feet. I felt, too, as though I stood on consecrated ground, that the air I breathed was of a richer, purer, more heaven-like element, and that the shade was rendered sacred by a thousand recollections. They all returned afresh. Here Mary Delamere had trodden; her breath was mingled with the atmosphere that floated round me, and in those groves how often had we strayed hand in hand, and read each others hearts, and smiled, and blushed, and parted with tears of regret, and dwelt upon each kind tone of voice, and each expressive glance, until we met again.

That love which is born and nurtured amid the romantic solitudes of nature; which ripens beneath the everlasting shades of mighty mountains, and mingles its morning and its evening sighs with the plaintive voice of rushing rivers, having its ori gin in the first, and warmest, and most natural emotions of the heart, is not, cannot be, less fervent and enduring than the pas sion which mimic art, and overwrought, unnatural sentiment is employed in polishing into brightness. I had now seen something of the world, yet I had known but one affection. When, in earlier, perhaps more innocent days, I had lingered for hours with my sweet mountain maid, on the brow of this gentle hill, and felt how her little band trembled in my own and marked, with a thrice rapturous extacy, how tenderly her mild blue eye looked up to me, sparkling with delight if I praised, and glistening with moisture if I blamed,-I knew that my existence was closely, indissolubly interwoven with hers. but yet, I know not why it was, I never dreamed that this was love. Absence however, had now taught me the lesson I ought sooner to have learned. But was Mary Delamere the same? Separated from me for so long a time; bound to me only by such vows as are

gathered from the speaking eye, and the voiceless, yet eloquentLy breathing silence of the heart; had she not forgotten me? had her affections not been plighted to another? These thoughts passed rapidly through my mind, and broke each delightful reverie. I leaned upon the gateway and reflected. I had not dared to hazard an inquiry that would have cleared up what I had often-what I now, more than ever, actually dreaded. But I was not long to remain in suspense.

I heard the door of the cottage open and shut, and saw a faint gleam of light play a moment among the clustering willows and vanish away. An instant after, and a light footstep seemed ap proaching. I bent forward to listen, and a beautiful female form, dressed in white, glided towards me. I approached-it was Mary Delamere. She had heard of my return, and, with her mother, who came up a moment afterwards, was coming down to welcome me back to my native place. The good old lady wept for joy to see me; and after pouring a hundred blessings on my head, left Mary to return with me to the cottage, while she went down to the homestead to congratulate my parents on my return. I shall remember that evening to my dying day. It was one of the brightest spots on the shadowy page of my existence; perhaps I felt it more because it burst upon me in the full sunshine of joy, when my forebodings were all gloomy, and its light all unexpect ed; but it was worth all I had ever enjoyed before. I trembled while I tasted it, and the sequel proved it to have been a joy too full to be of long duration. Mary seemed much the same as when I left her; she had grown rather more delicate, but this added to her beauty. She was always a charming girl, full of light and loveliness, gay, sentimental and lively; and now every grace shone forth in more mature and polished lustre. We talked of the thousand things which newly met lovers talk of. The hours passed rapidly away, and the time for retirement at length arrived. I rose to return, buoyant with happiness, and Mary accompanied me to the cottage gate. We had often lingered there for hours in years long past; and the recollection of those times, warmed by the evening's interview, so transported me that I could no longer moderate my feelings, and, clasping the sweet girl in my arms, I imprinted on her cheeks a thousand kisses. She blushed deeply, sighed, and, raising her eyes timidly towards me, said, with a voice and look that bespoke the tenderest compassion, and a friendship almost too kind and fervent for friendship, "Charles, this must not be-come, I will not call you my brother, if you behave so rudely." "But will you not call me by a dearer name than friend or brother?" "Ah! that can never be." "And why?" "Charles, my hand is promised to another. I ought to give my heart with it; then what have I left for you, if you forfeit the name of brother?"