passion, too late, and too unavailing, he may talk of truths in which he himself does not believe, and which he has long exhorted me, and has at last persuaded me, to cast away as the dreams and the delusions of human folly!From such comforters may heaven preserve me! "My soul come not thou into their secrets. Unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united !"

LESSON CXIII.

Death-Scene in Gertrude of Wyoming.*-CAMPBELL.

BUT short that contemplation-sad and short
The pause to bid each much loved scene adieu!
Beneath the very shadow of the fort,

Where friendly swords were drawn, and banners flew,
Ah! who could deem that foot of Indian crew
Was near?-yet there, with lust of murderous deeds,
Gleamed like a basilisk, from woods in view,
The ambushed foeman's eye-his volley speeds,
And Albert-Albert-falls! the dear old father bleeds!

And tranced in giddy horror Gertrude swooned;
Yet, while she clasps him lifeless to her zone,
Say, burst they, borrowed from her father's wound,
These drops?-Oh God! the life-blood is her own ;
And faltering, on her Waldegrave's bosom thrown-
"Weep not, O Love!"-she cries, "to see me bleed—
Thee, Gertrude's sad survivor, thee alone—

Heaven's
peace commiserate; for scarce I heed
These wounds;-yet thee to leave is death, is death indeed.

*The three characters mentioned in the above passage, being warned of the approach of a hostile tribe of North American Indians, are forced to abandon their peaceful retreat, in the vale of Wy'oming, and fly for safety to a neighboring fort. On the following morning, at sun-rise, while Gertrude, together with Albert, her father, and Waldegrave, her husband, are looking from the battlements on the havoc and desolation which had marked the progress of the barbarous enemy, an Indian marksman fires a mortal shot from his ambush at Albert; and, as Gertrude clasps him in agony to her heart, another shot lays her bleeding by his side. She then takes farewell of he husband in a speech which our greatest modern critic has described as "more sweetly pathetic than any thing ever written in rhyme."-McDiarmid.

"Clasp me a little longer, on the brink

Of fate! while I can feel thy dear caress;

And, when this heart hath ceased to beat-oh! think,
And let it mitigate thy wo's excess,

That thou hast been to me all tenderness,

A friend, to more than human friendship just.
Oh! by that retrospect of happiness,

And by the hopes of an immortal trust,

God shall assuage thy pangs-when I am laid in dust!

"Go, Henry, go not back, when I depart;

The scene thy bursting tears too deep will move,
Where my dear father took thee to his heart,
And Gertrude thought it ecstasy to rove
With thee, as with an angel, through the grove
Of peace,-imagining her lot was cast

In heaven; for ours was not like earthly love:
And must this parting be our very last?

No! I shall love thee still, when death itself is past."

* *

*

*

*

*

Hushed were his Gertrude's lips! but still their bland
And beautiful expression seemed to melt
With love that could not die! and still his hand
She presses to the heart no more that felt.

Ah, heart! where once each fond affection dwelt,
And features yet that spoke a soul more fair.

Mute, gazing, agonizing as he knelt,—

Of them that stood encircling his despair,

He heard some friendly words;-but knew not what they

were.

LESSON CXIV.

To a Waterfowl.—Bryant.

WHITHER, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean-side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,—
The desert and illimitable air,-

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned
At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end,

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows: reeds shall bend Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone! the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.

He, who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.

LESSON CXV.

Hohenlinden.-CAMPBELL.

ON Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,
And dark as winter was the flow
Of Iser,* rolling rapidly.

But Linden saw another sight,
When the drum beat, at dead of night,
Commanding fires of death to light
The darkness of her scenery.

* Pron. Eser.

By torch and trumpet fast arrayed,
Each horseman drew his battle blade,
And furious every charger neighed,

To join the dreadful revelry.

Then shook the hills with thunder riven,
Then rushed the steeds to battle driven,
And, louder than the bolts of heaven,
Far flashed the red artillery.

And redder yet those fires shall glow,
On Linden's hills of blood-stained snow,
And darker yet shall be the flow

Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

lurid sun

'Tis morn, but scarce yon
Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun,
Where furious Frank, and fiery Hun,
Shout in their sulphurous canopy.

The combat* deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory, or the grave!
Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave!

And charge with all thy chivalry!

Ah! few shall part where many meet!
The snow shall be their winding sheet,
And every turf beneath their feet,
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.

LESSON CXVI.

Thanatopsis.-BRYANT.

To him who, in the love of Nature, holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And gentle sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight

* Pron. cum'bat.

† ch as in church.

Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;-
Go forth under the open sky, and list

To Nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air,-
Comes a still voice-Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go

To mix for ever with the elements,

To be a brother to the insensible rock

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thy eternal resting place

Shalt thou retire alone-nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world-with kings,
The powerful of the earth-the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribb'd and ancient as the sun,-the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between ;
The venerable woods-rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks

That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,—

Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.-Take the wings
Of morning-and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregan, and hears no sound,