Yea, glorious lamps of God! He may have quenched
Your ancient flames, and bid eternal night
Rest on your spheres; and yet no tidings reach
This distant planet. Messengers still come
Laden with your far fire, and we may seem
To see your lights still burning; while their blaze
But hides the black wreck of extinguished realms,
Where anarchy and darkness long have reigned.

Yet what is this, which to the astonished mind
Seems measureless, and which the baffled thought
Confounds? A span, a point, in those domains
Which the keen eye can traverse. Seven stars
Dwell in that brilliant cluster, and the sight
Embraces all at once; yet each from each
Recedes as far as each of them from earth.
And every star from every other burns

No less remote. From the profound of heaven,
Untravelled even in thought, keen, piercing rays
Dart through the void, revealing to the sense
Systems and worlds unnumbered. Take the glass,
And search the skies. The opening skies pour down
Upon your gaze thick showers of sparkling fire-
Stars. crowded, thronged, in regions so remote,
That their swift beams-the swiftest things that be-
Have travelled centuries on their flight to earth.
Earth, sun, and nearer constellations! what

Are ye, amid this infinite extent

And multitude of God's most infinite works!

And these are suns!—vast, central, living fires,
Lords of dependent systems, kings of worlds
That wait as satellites upon their power,
And flourish in their smile. Awake, my soul,

And meditate the wonder! Countless suns

Blaze round thee, leading forth their countless worlds! Worlds in whose bosoms living things rejoice,

And drink the bliss of being from the fount

Of all-pervading Love. What mind can know,
What tongue can utter, all their multitudes!
Thus numberless in numberless abodes!

Known but to thee, blessed Father! Thine they are,
Thy children, and thy care-and none o'erlooked
Of thee! No, not the humblest soul that dwells
Upon the humblest globe, which wheels its course
Amid the giant glories of the sky,

Like the mean mote that dances in the beam

Amongst the mirrored lamps, which fling
Their wasteful splendor from the palace wall
None, none escape the kindness of thy care;
All compassed underneath thy spacious wing,
Each fed and guided by thy powerful hand.

Tell me, ye splendid orbs! as from your throne,
Ye mark the rolling provinces that own

Your sway-what beings fill those bright abodes?
How formed, how gifted? what their powers, their state,
Their happiness, their wisdom? Do they bear
The stamp of human nature? Or has God
Peopled those purer realms with lovelier forms
And more celestial minds? Does Innocence
Still wear her native and untainted bloom?
Or has Sin breathed his deadly blight abroad,
And sowed corruption in those fairy bowers?
Has War trod o'er them with his foot of fire?
And Slavery forged his chains; and Wrath, and Hate,
And sordid Selfishness, and cruel Lust,

Leagued their base bands to tread out light and truth,
And scatter wo where Heaven had planted joy?

Or are they yet all paradise, unfallen

And uncorrupt? existence one long joy,
Without disease upon the frame, or sin
Upon the heart, or weariness of life-

Hope never quenched, and age unknown,

And death unfeared; while fresh and fadeless youth
Glows in the light from God's near throne of love?
Open your lips, ye wonderful and fair!

Speak, speak! the mysteries of those living worlds
Unfold! No language? Everlasting light,
And everlasting silence?-Yet the eye

May read and understand. The hand of God
Has written legibly what man may know,

THE GLORY OF THE MAKER. There it shines,
Ineffable, unchangeable; and man,

Bound to the surface of this pigmy globe,
May know and ask no more. In other days,

When death shall give the encumbered spirit wings,
Its range shall be extended; it shall roam,

Perchance, amongst those vast mysterious spheres,
Shall pass from orb to orb, and dwell in each
Familiar with its children-learn their laws,
And share their state, and study and adore
The infinite varieties of bliss

And beauty, by the hand of Power divine
Lavished on all its works. Eternity

Shall thus roll on with ever fresh delight;
No pause of pleasure or improvement; world
On world still opening to the instructed mind
An unexhausted universe, and time
But adding to its glories. While the soul,
Advancing ever to the Source of light
And all perfection, lives, adores, and reigns
In cloudless knowledge, purity, and bliss.

"Look not upon the Wine when it is red."-N. P. WILLIS.

Look not upon the wine when it
Is red within the cup!

Stay not for Pleasure when she fills

Her tempting beaker up!

Though clear its depths, and rich its glow,
A spell of madness lurks below.

They say 'tis pleasant on the lip,
And merry on the brain:
They say it stirs the sluggish blood.
And dulls the tooth of pain.
Ay-but within its glowing deeps
A stinging serpent, unseen, sleeps.

Its rosy lights will turn to fire,
Its coolness change to thirst;
And, by its mirth, within the brair
A sleepless worm is nursed.
There's not a bubble at the brim
That does not carry food for him.

Then dash the brimming cup aside,
And spill its purple wine:
Take not its madness to thy lip-
Let not its curse be thine.
'Tis red and rich-but grief and wo
Are hid those rosy depths below.

To

,

on the Death of a Friend.-ANDREWS NORTON.

O STAY thy tears; for they are blessed,

Whose days are passed, whose toil is done;
Here midnight care disturbs our rest,

Here sorrow dims the noon-day sun.

For laboring virtue's anxious toil,
For patient sorrow's stifled sigh,
For faith that marks the conqueror's spoil,
Heaven grants the recompense, to die.

How blessed are they, whose transient years
Pass like an evening meteor's flight;
Not dark with guilt, nor dim with tears;
Whose course is short, unclouded, bright.

O cheerless were our lengthened way;
But heaven's own light dispels the gloom,
Streams downward from eternal day,
And casts a glory round the tomb.

Then stay thy tears; the blessed above
Have hailed a spirit's heavenly birth,

Sung a new song of joy and love;

And why should anguish reign on earth?

Dirge of Alaric the Visigoth.-EDWARD EVERETT.

Alaric stormed and spoiled the city of Rome, and was afterwards buried in the channel of the river Busentius, the water of which had been diverted from its course that the body might be interred.

WHEN I am dead, no pageant train

Shall waste their sorrows at my bier,
Nor worthless pomp of homage vain
Stain it with hypocritic tear;
For I will die as I did live,
Nor take the boon I cannot give.

Ye shall not raise a marble bust
Upon the spot where I repose;
P

Ye shall not fawn before my dust,
In hollow circumstance of woes;
Nor sculptured clay, with lying breath,
Insult the clay that moulds beneath.

Ye shall not pile, with servile toil,
Your monuments upon my breast,
Nor yet within the common soil

Lay down the wreck of power to rest, Where man can boast that he has trod On him that was "the scourge of God."

But ye the mountain stream shall turn,
And lay its secret channel bare,
And hollow, for your sovereign's urn,
A resting-place for ever there:
Then bid its everlasting springs
Flow back upon the king of kings;
And never be the secret said,
Until the deep give up his dead.

My gold and silver ye shall fling

Back to the clods, that gave them birth The captured crowns of many a king, The ransom of a conquered earth: For, e'en though dead, will I control The trophies of the capitol.

But when, beneath the mountain tide, Ye've laid your monarch down to rot, Ye shall not rear upon its side

Pillar or mound to mark the spot; For long enough the world has shook Beneath the terrors of my look; And, now that I have run my race, The astonished realms shall rest a space.

My course was like a river deep,

And from the northern hills I burst, Across the world, in wrath to sweep,

And where I went the spot was cursed,
Nor blade of grass again was seen
Where Alaric and his hosts had been.

See how their haughty barriers fail
Beneath the terror of the Goth,