The calm, majestic presence of the night
As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
The manifold soft chimes

That fill the haunted chambers of the night,
Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air
My spirit drank repose;

The fountain of perpetual Peace flows there,-
From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear
What man has borne before!

Thou layest thy fingers on the lips of care,

And they complain no more.

Peace! peace! Orestes like I breathe this prayer; Descend with swift winged flight;

[fair!

The welcome! the thrice prayed for the most The best beloved Night!

LONGFELLOW.

Summer Evening.

'Twas evening, still, quiet summer evening! The glorious moon looked out from her drapery of fleecy clouds, and shed her mild light over forests and groves, gay pasterre and rippling water; then like a coy beauty, she drew a thick veil around her, and for a time a shadow lay upon the earth. It was one of those nights on which we love to give the reins to memory, and call up from its recesses treasures of the past for the mind to dwell upon until it forgets they are but phantoms of departed time; to lift the veil from the tomb and call forth its regretted inmates, not with the ghastly hue of death upon their brows, but glowing with health and happiness as when their hands pressed ours, and their voices made sweet music to our ears. I have gazed upon the orb of night until my heart has swelled within my bosom with vain longings to pierce its mysteries; to

throw off the mortal coil that enchains it, and soar away to the regions of light. I have looked upon the heavens in their beauty, with the mellow moon-light shining over them, until the whisperings of the night air has seemed to me like the voices of loved ones, who have gone to their homes in the skies, blest spirits hovering nigh on errands of mercy to hail the repenting sinner's sigh, and bear his halfformed prayer to the throne of the Invisible. I think I am ever better after contemplating such a scene: the heart becomes purified by holding communion with itself in Nature's temple, with none to behold its workings but Nature's God. No unholy thought can enter it, at such a time; its aspirations are pure, they ascend to heaven and their fruit is Peace.

MRS. J. THAYER.

Music.

WHENCE is the might of thy master spell?
Speak to me, voice of sweet sound, and tell
How canst thou wake, by our gentle breath,
Passionate visions of love and death?

How call'st thou back with a note or sigh,
Words and low tones from the days gone by -
A sunny glance, or a fond farewell?
Speak to me, voice of sweet sound, and tell!

What is the power, from the soul's deep spring
In sudden gushes the tears to bring;
Even amidst the spells of the festal glee
Fountains of sorrow are stirred by thee!

Vain are those tears! -vain and fruitless all
Showers that refresh not, yet still must fall;
For a pure bliss while the full heart burns,
For a brighter home while the spirit yearns.

Something of mystery there surely dwells,
Waiting thy touch in our bosom cells;
Something that finds not its answer here -
A chain to be clasped in another sphere.

Therefore a current of sadness deep,

Through the stream of thy triumph is heard to sweep.

Like a moan of the breeze through a summer sky,
Like a name of the dead when the wine foams high!
Yet speak to me still, though thy tones be fraught
With vain remembrance and troubled thought,-
Speak! for thou tell'st my soul that its birth
Links it with regions more bright than earth!
MRS. HEMANS.

MUSIC is a glorious thing! It is an intoxication, an enchantment; a world in which to live, to combat, to repose; a sea of painful delight, incomprehensible and boundless as eternity. In such moments a vision sometimes presents itself; it appears to me as if there arose out of this tempestuous world, above this sea of sounds, a what must I call it? A hope, a heavenly spirit, a kind, reconciling genius, which extracting from this stream of sound all that is most beautiful and most etherial, weaves therefrom its own pure essence. The deeper the fugue descends, the brighter becomes this image, like stars in the dark