Her beauteous sides, whose rainbow hues
Gleamed softly from below,
And flung a warm and sunny flush

O'er the wreaths of murmuring snow, 5 To the coral rocks are hurrying down, To sleep amid colors as bright as their own.

Oh! many a dream was in the ship
An hour before her death;

And sights of home with sighs disturbed 10 The sleeper's long-drawn breath.

Instead of the murmur of the sea,
The sailor heard the humming tree,
Alive through all its leaves,

The hum of the spreading sycamore 15 That grows before his cottage door,

And the swallow's song in the eaves.
His arms enclosed a blooming boy,
Who listened with tears of sorrow and joy

To the dangers his father had passed ; 20 And his wife — by turns she wept and smiled,

As she looked on the father of her child
Returned to her heart at last.

He wakes at the vessel's sudden roll, And the rush of waters is in his soul. 25 Astounded, the reeling deck he paces,

Mid hurrying forms and ghastly faces;
The whole ship's crew are there:
Wailings around and overhead,

Brave spirits stupefied or dead, 30 And madness and despair.

Now is the ocean's bosom bare,
Unbroken as the floating air ;
The ship hath melted quite away,

Like a struggling dream at break of day. 35 No image meets my wandering eye,

But the new-risen sun and the sunny sky.

Though the night-shades are gone, yet a vapor dull
Bedims the waves so beautiful;
While a low and melancholy moan
Mourns for the glory that hath flown.

XCV. - THE CONTRASTS OF ALPINE SCENERY,

BYRON.

1 ADIEU to thee, fair Rhine! how long, delighted,

The stranger fain would linger on his way!
Thine is a scene alike where souls united

Or lonely Contemplation thus might stray ;

And could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey
On self-condemning bosoms, it were here,

Where Nature, nor too sombre, nor too gay,
Wild, but not rude, awful, yet not austere,
Is to the mellow Earth as Autumn to the

year.

2 Adieu to thee again ! a vain adieu !

There can be no farewell to scenes like thine ;
The mind is colored by thine every hue;

And if reluctantly the eyes resign

Their cherished gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine,
'T is with the thankful glance of parting praise :

More mighty spots may rise — more glaring shine,
But none unite, in one attaching maze,
The brilliant, fair, and soft, — the glories of old days.

3 But these recede. Above me are the Alps,

The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,

And throned Eternity in icy halls

Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls
The avalanche - the thunder-bolt of snow !

All that expands the spirit, yet appals,

Gather around these summits, as to show How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below.

Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake

With the wide world I've dwelt in is a thing
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake

Earth’s troubled waters for a purer spring.

This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing
To waft me from distraction: once I loved

Torn ocean's roar; but thy soft murmuring
Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved
That I with stern delights should e'er have been so movode

5 It is the hush of night; and all between

Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,
Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen,

Save darkened Jura, whose capped heights appear

Precipitously steep; and drawing near,
There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,

Of flowers yet fresh with childhood ; on the car
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar,
Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more:

6 He is an evening reveller, who makes

His life an infancy, and sings his fill ;
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes

Starts into voice a moment, then is still.

There seems a floating whisper on the hill;
But that is fancy; for the starlight dews

All silently their tears of love distil,
Weeping themselves away till they infuse
Docp into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues.

7 Ye stars ! which are the poetry of heaven,

If, in your bright leaves, we would read the fate Of men and empires, - 't is to be forgiven,

That in our aspirations to be great,

Our destinies o‘erleap their mortal state,
And claim a kindred with

A beauty and a mystery, and create
In us such love and reverence from afar,
That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star

you; for

ye are

* The sky is changed ! and such a change! Oh, Night

And Storm and Darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light

Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,

From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder ! — not from one lone clou-.

But every mountain now hath found a tongue;
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps who call to her aloud !

9 And this is in the night: - Most glorious night; :

Thou wert not sent for slumber; let me be
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, -

A portion of the tempest and of thee!

How the lit lake shines, - a phosphoric sea -
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!

And now again 't is black — and now,
Of the loud bills shakes with its mountain mirth,
As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth

the glee

10 Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings ! ye,

With night and clouds and thunder, and a soul
To make these felt and feeling, well may

be
Things that have made me watchful:— the far roll

of your departing voices is the knoll
Of what in me is sleepless, if I rest.

But where, of ye, O tempests! is the goal ?
Are ye like those within the human breast ?
Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest?

11 The morn is up again, the dewy morn,

With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom,
Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn,

And living as if earth contained no tomb,

And glowing into day: we may resume
The march of our existence: and thus I,

Still on thy shores, fair Leman, may find room,
And food for meditation, nor pass by
Much that may give us pause, if pondered fittingly.

XCVI,- WEBSTER'S GREATEST PARLIAMENTARI

EFFORT.

EVERETT.

[The following extract is from a speech delivered in Boston at a dinner on the 18th oi January, 1853, the anniversary of the birthday of Daniel Webster. Conilé was a celebrated French general of the seventeenth century. He de. feated the Spaniards at the battle of Rocroi, May, 19, 1643.]

It was my happiness, at Mr. Webster's request, to pass a part of the evening of the 25th January, 1830, with him; and he went over to me, from a very concise brief,

the main topics of the speech prepared for the following 5 day, — the second speech on Foot's resolution, - which he accounted the greatest of his parliamentary efforts.

Intense anticipation awaited that effort, both at Washington and throughout the country. A pretty formidable

personal attack was to be repelled ; New England was to 10 be vindicated against elaborate disparagement; and, more

than all, the true theory of the constitution, as heretofore generally understood, was to be maintained against a new interpretation, devised by perhaps the acutest logician in

the country; asserted with equal confidence and fervor ; 15 and menacing a revolution in the government. Never had

a public speaker a harder task to perform ; and except on the last great topic, which undoubtedly was familiar to his