Poetic Description of an Adventure.

walled up. Every search was made but in vain; and somewhere in these labyrinths they are mouldering by the side of the early disciples of our faith. A few years since there

was a singular escape from the

Catacombs by a young

French artist, which event has been embodied in a graphic poem, taken from Bishop Kip's interesting volume:

"Eager to know the secrets of the place,
The holy cradle of our Christian race,

A youthful artist threads those inmost cells,
And lowest crypts, where darkness ever dwells;
No friend to cheer him and no guide to lead,
He boldly trusts a flambeau and a thread.
Brave and alone he cherishes his light

And trusts the clew will guide him back aright;
Onward he goes along the low-arched caves
Crowded with martyrs' relics and their graves;
Through palaces of death, by countless tombs,
Through awful silence and through thickening glooms,
Yet pausing oft as walls and slabs impart
Some lesson of the earliest Christian art;

Or some black chasm warns him to beware,

And change his steps and trim his torch with care;

Onward he goes, nor takes a note of time,
Impelled, enchanted, in this dismal cline;
Thrilling with awe, but yet untouched by fear,

He passes on from dreary unto drear;

The crypts diverge, the labyrinths are crossed,

He will return-alas! his clew is lost!

Dropped from his hand, while tracing out an urn

The faithless string is gone, and dimly burn

The flambeau's threads. He gropes, but gropes in vain
Recedes, advances, and turns back again;

A shivering awe, a downright terror next,

Seizes his soul and he is sore perplexed!
He halts, he moves, he thinks, he rushes on,
But only finds, that issue there is none.
Crypt tangles crypt, a perfect net-work weaves
This dark Dædalian world, these horrent caves.
He mutters to himself, he shouts, he calls,
And Echo answers from a hundred walls;

Adventure-Continued.

That awful Echo doubles his dismay

That grimmer darkness, leads his head astray.
Cold at his heart, his breath, now quick, now slow,
Sounds in that silence like a wail of wo!

Oh! for one cheering ray of heaven's bright sun,
Which through long hours his glorious course hath run,
Since he came here. And now his torch's light
Flickers-expires in smoke-and all is night!
Thick-coming fancies trouble all his sense,

He strives, but vainly strives to drive them thence,
Cleaves his dried tongue unto the drier roof;
Nor word, nor breath, hath he at his behoof.
That dying torch last shone upon a grave

That grave his tomb, for who shall help and save?
Alone-yet not alone-for phantoms throng
His burning brain, and chase the crypts along;
And other spectres rush into the void,
Blessings neglected, leisure misemployed,
And passions left, to rise and rage at will;
And faults called follies, but were vices still:

And wild caprice, and words at random spoken,

By which kind hearts were wounded though not broken, Bootless resolves, repentance late and vain.

All these and more come thund'ring through his brain; Condensing in one single moment rife

The sins of all his days, the history of his life;

And death at hand, not that which heroes hail

On battle-field, when 'Victory!' swells the gale;
And love of Country, Glory standing by
Make it a joy and rapture so to die!

But creeping death, slow, anguished, and obscure,

A famished death, no mortal may endure!

But this his end-our prisoned artist's fate!
The young, the joyous, and but now elate
With every hope that warms the human breast,
Before experience tells that life's a jest.
Full of his art, of projects, and of love,

Must he expire, while creeping things above,
On the earth's surface, in the eye of day,
Revel in life, nor feel this drear dismay?
But hark! a step! alas, no step is there,
But see! a glimmering light, oh, foul despair!
No ray pervades this darkness grim and rare.
He staggers, reels, and falls, and falling prone
Grapples the ground, where he must die alone.

Farewell to kind Friends.

But in that fall, TOUCHES HIS OUTSTRETCHED HAND
THAT PRECIOUS CLEW, the labyrinth can command,
Lost long, but now re-gained, O happy wight
Gather thy strength and haste to life and light-
And up he rises, quick, but cautious grown,
And threads the mazes by that string alone;
Comes into light, and feels the fanning breeze,
Sees the bright stars, and drops upon his knees;
His first free breath is uttered in a prayer,
Such as none say, but those who've known despair.
And never were the stars of heaven so sheen,
Except to those who dwelt where he had been-
And never Tiber rippling through the meads,
Made music half so sweet among its reeds,
And never had the Earth such rich perfume,

As when from him it chased, the odor of the tomb.

My sojourn at Rome was drawing to a close, as also a farther companionship with my worthy and endeared friends; Dr. and Mrs. S., having concluded to remain a few days longer in the city, Messrs. M., N. and W. to make the tour of the Alps, while I was under necessity of returning to Paris. First introduced upon the deck of the “Arctic," right pleasantly had we journeyed and sojourned together for six weeks. Taking our meals when at Naples and Rome in a room by ourselves, Mrs. S. presiding at the tea-urn, gave a pleasant family aspect to our gatherings which awakened emotions of mutual interest and affection not soon to pass away. No traveler was ever more favored than the writer in such companionship, and we parted not without emotion. Taking a lonely seat in the public conveyance which was to carry me to Civita Vecchia, I moved rapidly from the hotel, when, as I turned to cast a last glance, I beheld Mrs. S. upon the balcony waiving a kind adieu. "Blessings be upon the dear friends I have left," was my sincere prayer!

CHAPTER XXV.

Paris to Brussels, by way of Strasbourg, Frankfort and the

Rhine.

Do they miss me at home? Do they miss me?

'Twould be an assurance most dear,

To know at this moment some loved one

Were saying "I wish he were here !"
To feel that the group at the fireside
Were thinking of me as I roam.
O! yes, 'twould be joy beyond measure
To know that they missed me at home.

JUNE 15th. Again in Paris. A night drive from Rome to Civita Vecchia, thirty-six hours upon the Mediterranean, a quiet Sabbath at Marseilles, day and night journey by diligence to Lyons, with sixteen hours "railing," brought me to the French capital last midnight, where I found that it had been raining for the last two weeks. Truly welcome were my plain but comfortable quarters at the "Place d' Arcade," with an admirable opportunity of reccording the incidents of the month gone by-a period of time which, for instruction and emotion, stands without a rival on my life-history. Here I spent five days in visiting different places, enjoying sights of celebrities, and accumulating the knowledge of "men and things" referred to in a former chapter. A few words, in this connection, as to the mode of economical living in this city. Lodging and board are separate items, the two forming no necessary connection. The exterior of my "hotel" was far from attractive; but the rooms were sufficiently capacious, with ample

Departure.

Daily Routine in Paris.

furniture and neat et ceteras. Upon rising, I would

go below

to a public hall, take my seat at a small table (of which the room contained twelve or more), call for whatever articles my appetite craved, and while the same was making ready, read the morning paper. In a very few moments the table is spread with a cloth, white as the most fastidious might desire, upon which would be placed in addition to the ordinary requisites of plate, &c., a loaf of bread three feet long by six inches in circumference, suggesting the fitting title of the "staff of life,"—followed by coffee, steak, and the like, prepared in a manner which the French well understand. This welcome breakfast over, sight-seeing employed the time until about four o'clock, when a dinner at a cafe, the Tuileries visited, and band listened to until evening, accumulated an amount of fatigue and excitement which made early repose very welcome. Such is the life of a sojourner in Paris-whose business is to see the celebrities, rather than mingle in the society of gaiety and fashion. Happily could I have spent weeks in a place so abundant with facilities of gratification and improvement. But I must away, and accordingly took the cars on the morning of Tuesday the 20th, accompanied by H. D. H., Esq., and family, of New York, and Miss N., my "Arctic" co-voyager across the sea. Leaving at eight o'clock in the morning, six o'clock in the afternoon found us at Strasbourg, a distance of three hundred and twelve miles, and without an intervening city or town of sufficient importance to merit record. Villages with their single church steeple, and dwellings indicating age and poverty, with fields of grain and grape submerged beneath the destructive floods, arrested attention on all sides-a far less agreeable prospect'