"I look-where mortal man may not-
Into the chambers of the deep.

I see the dead, long, long forgot;

I see them in their sleep.

A dreadful power is mine, which none can know, Save he who leagues his soul with death and wo."

Thou mild, sad mother, waning moon

Thy last, low, melancholy ray

Shines towards him.-Quit him not so soon!
Mother, in mercy, stay!

Despair and death are with him; and canst thou,
With that kind, earthward look, go leave him now?

O, thou wast born for things of love;
Making more lovely in thy shine
Whate'er thou look'st on.

In that soft light of thine,

Hosts above,

Burn softer:-earth, in silvery veil, seems heaven.-
Thou'rt going down!-Thou'st left him unforgiven!

The far, low west is bright no more
How still it is! No sound is heard
At sea, or all along the shore,
But cry of passing bird.

Thou living thing, and dar'st thou come so near
These wild and ghastly shapes of death and fear?

Now long that thick, red light has shone
On stern, dark rocks, and deep, still bay,
On man and horse that seem of stone,
So motionless are they.

But now its lurid fire less fiercely burns:
The night is going-faint, gray dawn returns.

The spectre-steed now slowly pales;
Now changes like the moonlit cloud.
That cold, thin light, now slowly fails,
Which wrapt them like a shroud.
Both ship and horse are fading into air.
Lost, mazed, alone, see, Lee is standing there!

The morning air blows fresh on him;
The waves dance gladly in his sight;

The sea-birds call, and wheel, and skim-
O, blessed morning light!

He doth not hear that joyous call; he sees
No beauty in the wave; he feels no breeze.

For he's accurst from all that's good;
He ne'er must know its healing power.
The sinner on his sins must brood;
Must wait, alone, his hour.

Thou stranger to earth's beauty-human love-
There's here no rest for thee, no hope above!

The Death of the Flowers.-Bryant.

THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and

sere.

Heap'd in the hollows of the grove, the wither'd leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrub the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the gloomy

day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprung and stood

In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain
Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perish'd long ago,
And the wild-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty

stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven, as falls the plague

on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade and glen.

And now, when comes the calm, mild day, as still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home,

When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,

The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair, meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side:
In the cold moist earth we laid her when the forest cast the
leaf,

And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief;
Yet not unmeet it was, that one, like that young friend of ours,
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

The Skies.-BRYANT.

Ay, gloriously thou standest there,
Beautiful, boundless firmament!
That, swelling wide o'er earth and air,
And round the horizon bent,
With that bright vault and sapphire wall,
Dost overhang and circle all.

Far, far below thee, tall gray trees
Arise, and piles built up of old,

And hills, whose ancient summits freeze
In the fierce light and cold.

The eagle soars his utmost height;

Yet far thou stretchest o'er his flight.

Thou hast thy frowns: with thee, on high,
The storm has made his airy seat:
Beyond thy soft blue curtain lie

His stores of hail and sleet:

Thence the consuming lightnings break;
There the strong hurricanes awake.

Yet art thou prodigal of smiles

Smiles sweeter than thy frowns are stern:
Earth sends, from all her thousand isles,
A song at their return;

The glory that comes down from thee
Bathes in deep joy the land and sea.

The sun, the gorgeous sun, is thine,

The pomp that brings and shuts the day,
The clouds that round him change and shine,
The airs that fan his way.

Thence look the thoughtful stars, and there
The meek moon walks the silent air.

The sunny Italy may boast

The beauteous tints that flush her skies,
And lovely, round the Grecian coast,

May thy blue pillars rise :

I only know how fair they stand
About my own beloved land.

And they are fair: a charm is theirs,

That earth-the proud, green earth-has not,
With all the hues, and forms, and airs,
That haunt her sweetest spot.

We gaze upon thy calm, pure sphere,
And read of heaven's eternal year.

Oh! when, amid the throng of men,
The heart grows sick of hollow mirth,
How willingly we turn us, then,
Away from this cold earth,

And look into thy azure breast,

For seats of innocence and rest!

From "The Minstrel Girl."-JAMES G. WHITTIER.

HER lover died. Away from her,
The ocean-girls his requiem sang,
And smoothed his dreamless sepulchre
Where the tall coral branches sprang.
And it was told her how he strove

With death; but not from selfish fear:
It was the memory of her love

Which made existence doubly dear.
They told her how his fevered sleep
Revealed the phantom of his brain-
He thought his love had come to keep
Her vigils at his couch of pain;

And he would speak in his soft tone,
And stretch his arms to clasp the air,
And then awaken with a moan,

And weep that there was nothing there!
And when he bowed himself at last
Beneath the spoiler's cold eclipse,
Even as the weary spirit passed,

Her name was on his marble lips.
She heard the tale; she did not weep;
It was too strangely sad for tears;
And so she kept it for the deep

Rememberings of after years.

She poured one lone and plaintive wail
For the loved dead-it was her last-
Like harp-tones dying, on the gale
Her minstrelsy of spirit passed:
And she became an altered one,
Forgetful of her olden shrine,
As if her darkened soul had done
With all beneath the fair sunshine.

"Weep for Yourselves, and for your Children” MRS. SIGOURNEY.

WE mourn for those who toil,

The slave who ploughs the main,
Or him who hopeless tills the soil
Beneath the stripe and chain;

For those who in the world's hard race
O'erwearied and unblest,

A host of restless phantoms chase,-
Why mourn for those who rest?

We mourn for those who sin,

Bound in the tempter's snare,

Whom syren pleasure beckons in
To prisons of despair,

Whose hearts, by whirlwind passions torn,
Are wrecked on folly's shore,-

But why in sorrow should we mourn
For those who sin no more?

We mourn for those who weep,
Whom stern afflictions bend