Nor tongue can tell, nor heart conceive, Compared with this celestial choir. I saw one coming from afar, That seemed at first the evening star; And all the stranger greet with peace. 'From earth I come, another there Hath bowed in penitential prayer; Now strike a chorus on your lyres, And spread it through the heavenly choirs.' At once they snatched their harps and sung, And sea and air melodious rung. I heard the echoes all around of unseen ones who caught the sound, Up rose the choir from that green shore, As one, to whom their songs were given, I woke to hear the matin song STANTON, VA. B. -N. WASHINGTON. THE following short and simple anecdote may have some interest, coming, as it does, from the lips of one who was personally acquainted with the father of our country; and who, fifty-seven years ago, stood with him on the border of the Hudson, receiving his orders. I will, therefore, give it in the old officer's own words, as I had it from him a few days since. 'We were standing near Fort Washington-I thought I had never seen the countenance of Washington evince so much anxiety as at this moment; and I soon learnt the cause. He had laid a plan to prevent the enemy's shipping from passing up the river, by sinking a chevaux-de-frise; and now, he had just discovered that his plan had been detected, and its object frustrated. The enemy were coming up rapidly, without any obstacle; while the relative positions of their ships and our fort were such as to render it a vain attempt to fire, while they were so much below us that our pieces could not be depressed to strike them. Washington feeling that we were in great peril, and that something must be done, had just uttered, if we cannot strike the hull, we must try to cut the rigging,' when, in the same moment, they sent two cannon balls, which, passing between us, entered into the battery a little beyond where we stood conversing together. 'At this trying crisis, General Washington probably felt that the day was lost to us; yet, he made no expression of discouragement, but, soon as the balls had passed, he averted his face, and lifting his hands, ejaculated in a low voice, 'thy will be done!' Here the good old man's voice was choked, and his eye suffused with tears, at the recollection of this sudden and affecting proof of the readiness of his beloved commander-in-chief to do all that human means could effect for the safety of his country, and yet to bow so submissively to the Divine will. H. THE FLOOD. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. GEN. VII. 19. EARTH's groans are heard afar-the air's deep sleep J. N. M. |