They've witnessed the birth of magnificent spheres, Which now have been moving for endless years; They were present in the morn when creation began;

They have witnessed its progress through an end

less span;

They sang at the birth of the planets afar,

Which have never been seen as twinkling star;
They sang at the birth of our own solar sphere,
And still note each return of its astral year;
They sang, too, when Earth and fair Cynthia was
born;

They witnessed the nuptials in Eden's blest morn ; They have brought us in gladness, through changes, unknown,

But the death-god hath sealed them forever his own!

All hail to the present, our own golden age!
Its destiny who knoweth? What savan or sage
Can divine us its fate, its marvel unseal?

Its mystery unravel, or its fortune reveal?

The steam car now whistles, and the lightning now

flies,

The chained servant of man as it distance defies;

And man's subtle mind, spread out on the river, Makes it work like a giant, where ten thousand wheels quiver,

And thousands of spindles, thus constantly humming,

Sing their

song to the Age, of a "Good time coming;"

When the light-flowing pen gives battle to wrong, Slaying ignorance like magic, in prose and in song. Then hail to the present! improve its glad day; For its moments are passing to oblivion for aye!

The dark vista of time, which now lies before us, How it brightens and glows in the light of the past;

Till we long to embrace the glad prospect before

us,

And curse in our memory all thoughts of the past.

But let us remember that past progress was slow, That by dint of hard effort did its car only go; That ages were passed ere its spindles could hum, Or the mind's subtle thoughts through a printingpress come;

Even He, who from heaven our race came to save, Had to die on the cross, and lay low in the grave.

And Earth has its wrongs which the future must meet,

And valiantly conquer ere the victory is complete. Then gird for the battle, the fast coming storm,— Laying all on the altar of God and Reform.

NOTE 1. P. 12.

THE reader will perceive that, though this poem is written in Iambic verse, part is of Pentametrical and part of Hexametrical feet. Suffice it to say, that, had it been first written with a view to publication, that fault, and some others of perhaps a more serious nature, would not have been allowed.

NOTE 2. P. 14.

"And when they broke, from some disturbing force," &c. The sentiment contained in these lines is thus stated; but whether true or false, the critic must decide to suit his own fancy. This is not a place to argue the "developments of hypothesis."

NOTE 3. P. 17.

"Here forming limpid water," &c.

A fact is here generalized. The verse, in the space originally intended, will not admit of detail.

NOTE 4. P. 21.

"Yet here the Muse hath text on which to amplify," &c.

"Not even that clown could amplify

On that trite text so long as I.”

NOTE 5. P. 39.

Scott's Marmion.

This irregular stanza was first published in September, 1849,

on the Fall of Hungary, and the "Roman Triumvirate."