Watch the stars drift up the sky,

Bending softly down above us, Till in dreams our spirits fly

Homeward to the friends who love us.

As the needle, frail and shivering,

On the ocean wastes afar,
Veering, changing, trembling, quivering,

Settles on the polar star;
So, in souls of those who roam,

Love's magnetic fires are burning:
To the loved ones left at home

Throbbing hearts are ever turning.

THE FAMILY MEETING.-CHARLES SPRAGUE.

We are all here!
Father, mother,

Sister, brother,
All who hold each other dear;
Each chair is filled-we're all at home;
To-night let no cold stranger come :
It is not often thus around
Our old familiar hearth we're found:
Bless, then, the meeting and the spot,
For once be every care forgot;
Let gentle Peace assert her power,
And kind Affection rule the hour ;

We're all-all here.

We're not all here!
Some are away—the dead ones dear,
Who thronged with us this ancient hearth,
And gave the hour to guiltless mirth.
Fate, with a stern, relentless hand,
Looked in and thinned our little band :
Some like a night-flash passed away,
And some sank, lingering, day by day;
The quiet graveyard--some lie there-
And cruel Ocean has his share-

We're not all here

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187

We are all here!
Even they—the dead—though dead, so dear;
Fond Memory, to her duty true,
Brings back their faded forms to view.
How lifelike, through the mist of years,
Each well-remembered face appears!
We see them as in times long past;
From each to each kind looks are cast;
We hear their words, their smiles behold;
They're round us as they were of old-

We are all here.

We are all here!
Father, mother,

Sister, brother,
You that I love with love so dear.
This may not long of us be said;
Soon must we join the gathered dead;
And by the hearth we now sit round,
Some other circle will be found.
Oh! then, that wisdom may we know
Which yields a life of peace below;
So, in the world to follow this,
May each repeat, in words of bliss,

6 We're all-all here !"

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CHARACTER OF TRUE ELOQUENCE.—DANIEL WEBSTER.

WHEN public bodies are to be addressed on momentous occasions, when great interests are at stake, and strong passions excited, nothing is valuable in speech, further than it is connected with high intellectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, and earnestness, are the qualities which produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshaled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it; they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force.

The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country, hang on the decision of the hour. Then, words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then, patriotism is eloquent; then, self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward, to his object—this, this is eloquence; or, rather, it is something greater and higher than all eloquence,—it is action, noble, sublime, godlike action.

THE FUTURE OF AMERICA.-DANIEL WEBSTER.

It cannot be denied, but by those who would dispute against the sun, that with America, and in America, a new era commences in human affairs. This era is distinguished by free representative governments, by entire religious liberty, by improved systems of national intercourse, by a newly awakened and an unconquerable spirit of free inquiry, and by a diffusion of knowledge through the community, such as has been before altogether unknown and unheard of. America, America, our country, our own dear and native land, is inseparably connected, fast bound up, in fortune and by fate, with these great interests. If they fall, we fall with them; if they stand, it will be because we have upheld them.

Let us contemplate, then, this connection which binds the prosperity of others to our own; and let us manfully discharge all the duties which it imposes. If we cherish the virtues and the prin.

LOVE OF COUNTRY.

189

ciples of our fathers, Heaven will assist us to carry on the work of human liberty and human happiness. Auspicious omens cheer us. Great examples are before us. Our own firmament now shines brightly upon our path. Washington is in the clear upper sky. Those other cars have now joined the American constellation; they circle round their center, and the heavens beam with new light. Beneath this illumination, let us walk the course of life, and at its close devoutly commend our beloved country, the common parent of us all, to the Divine Benignity.

LOVE OF COUNTRY.-NEWTON BOOTH.

Two ideas there are which, above all others, elevate and dignify a race—the idea of God and of country. How imperishable is the idea of country! How does it live within and ennoble the heart in spite of persecutions and trials, and difficulties and dangers. After two thousand years of wandering, it makes the Jew a sharer in the glory of the prophets, the lawgivers, the warriors and poets who lived in the morning of time. How does it toughen every fiber of an Englishman's frame, and imbue the spirit of the Frenchman with Napoleonic enthusiasm. How does the German carry with him even the “old house furniture” of the Rhine, surround himself with the sweet and tender associations of "Fatherland," and wheresoever he may be the great names of German history shine like stars in the heaven above him. And the Irishman, though the political existence of his country is merged in a kingdoin whose rule he may abhor, yet still do the chords of his heart vibrate responsive to the tones of the harp of Erin, and the lowly shamrock is dearer to his soul than the fame-crowning laurel, the love-breathing myrtle, or storm-during pine. What is our country? Not alone the land and the sea, the lakes and rivers, and valleys and mountains-not alone the people, their customs and laws—not alone the memories of the past, the hopes of the future; it is soinething more than all these combined. It is a divine abstraction. You cannot tell what it is, bat let its flag rustle above your head-you feel its li',ing presence in your hearts. They tell us that our country must die ; that the sun and the stars will look down upon the great Republic no more; that already the black eagles of despotism are gathering in our political sky. That even now, kings and emperors are casting lots for the garments of our national glory. It shall not be. Not yet, not yet shall the nations lay the bleeding corpse of our country in the tomb. If they could, angels could roll the stone from the mouth of the sepulcher. It would burst the cerements of the grave and come forth a living presence, “redeemed, regenerated, disenthralled.” Not yet, not yet shall the Republic die. The heavens are not darkened, the stones are not rent! It shall live-it shall live the incarnation of freedom, it shall live the embodiment of the power and majesty of the people. Baptized anew, it shall stand a thousand years to come, the Colossus of the nations—its feet upon the continents, its scepter over the seas, its forehead among the stars!

APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN.-BYRON.

THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar.

I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal

From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain,
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control

Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plaiu

The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,

When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.