THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP. 291 "And her firefly lamp I soon shall see, And her paddle I soon shall hear; Long and loving our life shall be, Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds; And when on earth he sank to sleep, If slumber his eyelids knew, He lay where the deadly vine doth weep And near him the she-wolf stirred the brake, 66 And the white canoe of my dear?" He saw the lake, and a meteor bright 66 Quick over its surface played; 'Welcome," he said, "my dear one's light," And the dim shore echoed, for many a night, The name of the death-cold maid; Till he hollowed a boat of the birchen bark, Far, far he followed the meteor spark; The wind was high, and the clouds were dark, But oft, from the Indian hunter's camp, Are seen, at the hour of midnight damp, To cross the lake by a firefly lamp, 292 REVELATION AND REASON. GREEK PATRIOTS.-LORD BYRON. THEY fell devoted, but undying; The very gale their names seemed sighing; Claimed kindred with their sacred clay : Where life is lost, or freedom won. A REVELATION AND REASON. T the bed of sickness and in the hour of dissolution, the superior claims of reason are most apparent. Reason is here dumb, or speaks only to aggravate the miseries and render more horrible the horrors of a death-scene. No relief does it give to soften the grim visage of the king of terrors. As nearer he approaches, how the night darkens! How the grave deepens! Trembling upon its verge, the affrighted soul asks what the nature. of death is? and the grave, what is its dominions? The treacherous guide answers that both are unknown. That darkness no eye penetrates; that profound no link measures. It is conjectured to be the entrance to profound and oblivious sleep,—the precipice down which existence tumbles. Beyond that gulf which has swallowed up the dead and is swallowing up the living, neither foresight nor calculation reaches. What follows is unknown; ask PAUL REVERE'S RIDE. 293 not concerning it; thus far philosophy has guided you; without a guide and blindfolded you must take your last decisive leap. But when revelation is appealed to, how the scene brightens ! As the ark of the testimony is opened a voice is heard to say: I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. It is the voice of the angel of the covenant. His bow of promise is seen in the arching sky, and reaching down even to the sepulchre, whose dark caverns by its radiance is illuminated. Behind those mists of Hades, so impenetrable to the eye of reason, eternal mansions rise in prospect, and already the bitterness of death is passed. PAUL REVERE'S RIDE.-H. W. LONGFELLOW. LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, Who remembers that famous day and year. He said to his friend: "If the British march Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch Through every Middlesex village and farm, Then he said good-night, and with muffled oar A phantom ship, with each mast and spar 294 PAUL REVERE'S RIDE. Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street Then he climbed to the tower of the church, And startled the pigeons from their perch Beneath, in the church-yard, lay the dead, Of the place and the hour, the secret dread Meanwhile, inpatient to mount and ride, PAUL REVERE'S RIDE. Now gazed on the landscape far and near, And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height, A hurry of hoofs in a village-street, 295 A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight, It was twelve by the village-clock, When he crossed the bridge into Medford town ; And the barking of the farmer's dog, It was one by the village-clock, Swim in the moonlight as he passed, And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, Gaze at him with a spectral glare, As if they already stood aghast At the bloody work they would look upon. It was two by the village-clock, When he came to the bridge in Concord town; |