of the instrument of evil? Shall you see a peaceful old age? Shall a son of yours ever sit upon the throne? Shall not rather some monster of your blood efface the memory of your virtues, and make Rome, in bitterness of soul, curse the Flavian name?

Ex. XCII-THE OCEAN.

THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews; in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal.

BYRON.

Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue ocean,―roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain :
Man marks the earth with ruin,—his control
Stops with the shore ;-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own;
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,-
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take

Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war,—
These are thy toys; and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee:-
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey

The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay

Has dried up realms to deserts:—not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now!

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests!—in all time,—
Calm or convulsed, in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid elime
Dark-heaving,-boundless, endless, and sublime!
The image of eternity!-the throne

Of the Invisible !-Even from out thy slime

The monsters of the deep are made! Each zone Obeys thee! Thou go'st forth, dread! fathomless! alone!

Ex. XCIII.-THE WORLD FOR SALE.

REV. RALPH HOYT.

THE world for sale! Hang out the sign;
Call every traveler here to me.;

Who'll buy this brave estate of mine,
And set this weary spirit free?
'Tis going! yes, I mean to fling
The bauble from my soul away;
I'll sell it, whatsoe'er it bring:
The world at auction here, to-day!

It is a glorious sight to see,—

But, ah! it has deceived me sore;
It is not what it seems to be.

For sale! it shall be mine no more.
Come, turn it o'er and view it well;

I would not have you purchase dear.

Tis going! going! I must sell!

Who bids? who 'll buy the splendid tear?

Here 's Wealth, in glittering heaps of gold;
Who bids? But let me tell you fair,

A baser lot was never sold!

Who 'll buy the heavy heaps of care?
And, here, spread out in broad domain,
A goodly landscape all may trace,

Hall, cottage, tree, field, hill, and plain ;-
Who 'll buy himself a burial place?
Here's Love, the dreamy potent spell
That beauty flings around the heart;
I know its power, alas! too well;

'Tis going! Love and I must part!
Must part? What can I more with Love?
All over 's the enchanter's reign.
Who 'll buy the plumeless, dying dove,-
A breath of bliss, a storm of pain?
And, Friendship, rarest gem of earth;
Who e'er hath found the jewel his?
Frail, fickle, false, and little worth,

Who bids for Friendship-as it is? 'Tis going! going! hear the call;

Once, twice and thrice, 'tis very low! 'T was once my hope, my stay, my all, But now the broken staff must go! Fame! hold the brilliant meteor high; How dazzling every gilded name! Ye millions! now's the time to buy. How much for Fame? how much for Fame? Hear how it thunders! Would you On high Olympus, far renowned,

stand

Now purchase, and a world command!-
And be with a world's curses crowned.
Sweet star of Hope! with ray to shine
In every sad foreboding breast,
Save this desponding one of mine,-

Who bids for man's last friend, and best?

Ah, were not mine a bankrupt life,
This treasure should my soul sustain!
But Hope and Care are now at strife,
Nor ever may unite again.

Ambition, fashion, show and pride,
I part from all for ever now;
Grief, in an overwhelming tide,
Has taught my haughty heart to bow.
By Death, stern sheriff! all bereft,
I weep, yet humbly kiss the rod;
The best of all I still have left,—
My Faith, my Bible, and my GOD!

"

Ex. XCIV.-THAT SILENT MOON.

THAT silent moon, that silent moon,
Careering now through cloudless sky,
Oh! who shall tell what varied scenes

Have passed beneath her placid eye,
Since first, to light this wayward earth,
She walked in tranquil beauty forth?

How oft has guilt's unhallowed hand,
And superstition's senseless rite,
And loud, licentious revelry,

Profaned her pure and holy light!
Small sympathy is hers, I ween,
With sights like these, that virgin que

But dear to her, in summer eve,

By rippling wave, or tufted grove, When hand in hand is purely clasped, And heart meets heart in holy love, To smile, in quiet loneliness,

To hear each whispered vow, and bless.

G. W. DOANE.

Dispersed along the world's wide way,
When friends are far, and fond ones rove,
How powerful she to wake the thought,
And start the tear for those we love,
Who watch, with us at night's pale noon,
And gaze upon that silent moon!

How powerful, too, to hearts that mourn,
The magic of that moonlight sky,
To bring again the vanished scenes,

The happy eves of days gone by;
Again to bring, 'mid bursting tears,
The loved, the lost, of other years!

And oft she looks, that silent moon,
On lonely eyes, that wake to weep,

In dungeon dark, or sacred cell,

Or couch, whence pain has banished sleep, Oh! softly beams that gentle eye,

On those who mourn, and those who die.

But beam on whomsoe'er she will,
And fall where'er her splendor may,
There's pureness in her chastened light,
There's comfort in her tranquil ray:
What power is hers to soothe the heart,—
What power the trembling tear to start!

The dewy morn let others love,

Or bask them in the noontide ray;
There's not an hour but has its charm,
From dawning light to dying day:-
But oh! be mine a fairer boon,-
That silent moon, that silent moon!

Ex. XCV.-THE POET'S THEMES.

TALFOURD.

THE universe, in its majesty, and man in the plain dignity of his nature, are the poet's favorite themes. And is there no might, no glory, no sanctity in these? Earth has her own venerableness-her awful forests, which have darkened her hills for ages with tremendous gloom; her mysterious springs pouring out everlasting waters from unsearchable recesses; her wrecks of elemental contests; her jagged rocks, monumental of an earlier world. The lowliest of her beauties has an antiquity beyond that of the pyramids. The evening breeze has the old sweetness which it shed over the fields of Canaan, when Isaac went out to meditate. The Nile swells with its rich waters toward the bulrushes of Egypt, as when the infant Moses nestled among them, watched by the sisterly love of Miriam. Zion's hill has not yet passed away with its temple, nor lost its sanctity amidst the tumultuous changes around it, nor even by the accomplishment of that awful religion of types and symbols which once was enthroned on its steeps. The sun to which the poet turns his eye is the same which shone over Thermopyla; and the wind to which he listens swept over Salamis, and scattered the armaments of Xerxes. Is a poet utterly deprived of fitting themes, to whom ocean, earth, and sky are open-who has an eye for the most evanescent of nature's hues, and the most ethereal of her graces--who can live in the rainbow and play in the plighted clouds," or send into our hearts the awful loveliness

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