5 Her beauteous sides, whose rainbow hues And flung a warm and sunny flush To the coral rocks are hurrying down, To sleep amid colors as bright as their own. Oh! many a dream was in the ship An hour before her death; And sights of home with sighs disturbed 20 And his wife - by turns she wept and smiled, As she looked on the father of her child Returned to her heart at last. He wakes at the vessel's sudden roll, And the rush of waters is in his soul. 25 Astounded, the reeling deck he paces, Now is the ocean's bosom bare, But the new-risen sun and the sunny sky. Though the night-shades are gone, yet a vapor dull Bedims the waves so beautiful; While a low and melancholy moan Mourns for the glory that hath flown. XCV. - THE CONTRASTS OF ALPINE SCENERY, BYRON. ADIEU to thee, fair Rhine! how long, delighted, Or lonely Contemplation thus might stray; Where Nature, nor too sombre, nor too gay, 2 Adieu to thee again! a vain adieu ! There can be no farewell to scenes like thine; Their cherished gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine, The brilliant, fair, and soft, the glories of old days. - 3 But these recede. Above me are the Alps, The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls Gather around these summits, as to show How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below. Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake With the wide world I've dwelt in is a thing Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing To waft me from distraction: once I loved Torn ocean's roar; but thy soft murmuring Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved. 5 It is the hush of night; and all between Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the car 6 He is an evening reveller, who makes His life an infancy, and sings his fill; All silently their tears of love distil, 7 Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven, If, in your bright leaves, we would read the fate That in our aspirations to be great, Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, A beauty and a mystery, and create That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star The sky is changed! and such a change! Oh, Night Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, - 9 And this is in the night: Most glorious night: And now again 't is black- and now, the glee 10 Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye, With night and clouds and thunder, and a soul To make these felt and feeling, well may be Things that have made me watchful : the far roll Of what in me is sleepless, if I rest. But where, of ye, O tempests! is the goal? Are ye like those within the human breast? Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest? 11 The morn is up agair, the dewy morn, With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, The march of our existence: and thus I, Still on thy shores, fair Leman, may find room, And food for meditation, nor pass by Much that may give us pause, if pondered fittingly. XCVI,- WEBSTER'S GREATEST PARLIAMENTARY EFFORT. EVERETT. [The following extract is from a speech delivered in Boston at a dinner on the 18th of January, 1853, the anniversary of the birthday of Daniel Webster. Condé was a celebrated French general of the seventeenth century. He de feated the Spaniards at the battle of Rocroi, May. 19, 1643.] Ir was my happiness, at Mr. Webster's request, to pass a part of the evening of the 25th January, 1830, with him; and he went over to me, from a very concise brief, the main topics of the speech prepared for the following 5 day, the second speech on Foot's resolution, — which he accounted the greatest of his parliamentary efforts. Intense anticipation awaited that effort, both at Washington and throughout the country. A pretty formidable personal attack was to be repelled; New England was to 10 be vindicated against elaborate disparagement; and, more than all, the true theory of the constitution, as heretofore generally understood, was to be maintained against a new interpretation, devised by perhaps the acutest logician in the country; asserted with equal confidence and fervor; 15 and menacing a revolution in the government. Never had a public speaker a harder task to perform; and except on the last great topic, which undoubtedly was familiar to his |