The lover watched his graceful maid,

As 'mid the virgin train she strayed,
Nor knew her beauty's best attire

Was woven still by the snow-white choir.
At last she came to his hermitage,

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage;

The gay enchantment was undone,

A gentle wife, but fairy none.

Then I said, "I covet truth;

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat;

I leave it behind with the games of youth.".
As I spoke, beneath my feet

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,
Running over the club-moss burrs;

I inhaled the violet's breath;

Around me stood the oaks and firs;

Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground;

Over me soared the eternal sky,

Full of light and of deity;

Again I saw, again I heard,

The rolling river, the morning bird;

Beauty through my senses stole;

I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

R. W. EMERSON.

EULOGY ON AMERICA.

THE mention of America, sir, has never failed to fill me with the most lively emotions. In my earliest infancy,that tender season when impressions, at once the most permanent and the most powerful, are likely to be excited, the story of her then recent struggle raised a throb in every heart that loved liberty, and wrung a reluctant tribute even from discomfited oppression.

I saw her spurning alike the luxuries that would enervate, and the legions that would intimidate; dashing from her lips the poisoned cup of European servitude; and, through all the vicissitudes of her protracted conflict, displaying a magnanimity that defied misfortune, and a moderation that gave new grace to victory. It was the first vision of my childhood: it will descend with me to the grave. But if, as a man, I venerate the mention of America, what must be my feelings toward her as an Irishman! Never, oh! never, while memory remains, can Ireland forget the home of her emigrant, and the asylum of her exile!

No matter whether their sorrows sprung from the errors of enthusiasm or the realities of suffering; from fancy or infliction that must be reserved for the scrutiny of those, whom the lapse of time shall acquit of partiality. It is for the men of other ages to investigate and record it; but, surely, it is for the men of every age to hail the hospitality that received the shelterless, and love the feeling that befriended the unfortunate.

Search creation round, and where can you find a country that presents so sublime a view, so interesting in anticipation? What noble institutions! What a comprehensive policy! What a wise equalization of every political advantage! The oppressed of all countries, the martyr of every creed, the innocent victim of despotic arrogance, of superstitious frenzy, may there find refuge; his industry encouraged; his piety respected; his ambition animated; with no restraint but those laws which are the same to all; and no distinction but that which his merit may originate.

Who can deny that the existence of such a country presents a subject of human congratulation? Who can deny that its gigantic advancement offers a field for the most rational conjecture? At the end of the very next century, if she proceeds as she seems to promise, what a wondrous spectacle may she not exhibit! Who shall say for what purpose a mysterious Providence may not have designed

her? Who shall say, that, when, in its follies or its crimes, the Old World may have interred all the pride of its power, and all the pomp of its civilization, human nature may not find its destined renovation in the New?

CHARLES PHILLIPS.

HOW HE SAVED ST. MICHAEL'S.

So you beg for a story, my darling, my brown-eyed Leopold, And you, Alice, with face like morning, and curling locks

of gold;

Then come, if you will, and listen stand close beside my

To a tale of the Southern city, proud Charleston by the sea.

It was long ago, my children, ere ever the signal-gun
That blazed above Fort Sumter had wakened the North as

one;

Long ere the wondrous pillar of battle-cloud and fire

Had marked where the unchained millions marched on to their hearts' desire.

On the roofs and the glittering turrets, that night, as the sun went down,

The mellow glow of the twilight shone like a jewelled

crown;

And, bathed in the living glory, as the people lifted their

eyes,

They saw the pride of the city, the spire of St. Michael's, rise

High over the lesser steeples, tipped with a golden ball, That hung like a radiant planet caught in its earthward fall: First glimpse of home to the sailor who made the harborround,

And last slow-fading vision dear to the outward bound.

The gently gathering shadows shut out the waning light; The children prayed at their bedsides, as you will pray to

night;

The noise of buyer and seller from the busy mart was gone; And in dreams of a peaceful morrow the city slumbered on.

But another light than sunrise aroused the sleeping street; For a cry was heard at midnight, and the rush of trampling feet;

Men stared in each other's faces through mingled fire and

smoke,

While the frantic bells went clashing, clamorous stroke on

stroke.

By the glare of her blazing roof-tree the houseless mother

fled,

With the babe she pressed to her bosom shrieking in nameless dread;

While the fire-king's wild battalions scaled wall and capstone high,

And planted their flaring banners against an inky sky.

From the death that raged behind them, and the crash of ruin

loud,

To the great square of the city, were driven the surging

crowd;

Where yet, firm in all the tumult, unscathed by the fiery flood,

With its heavenward-pointing finger, the Church of St. Michael's stood.

A

-

But e'en as they gazed upon it there rose a sudden wail, -
cry of horror, blended with the roaring of the gale,
On whose scorching wings up-driven, a single flaming brand
Aloft on the towering steeple clung like a bloody hand.

"Will it fade?" The whisper trembled from a thousand whitening lips;

Far out on the lurid harbor, they watched it from the ships,

A baleful gleam that brighter and ever brighter shone,
Like a flickering, trembling will-o'-wisp to a steady beacon

grown.

"Uncounted gold shall be given to the man whose brave right hand,

For the love of the perilled city, plucks down yon burning brand!"

So cried the mayor of Charleston, that all the people heard; But they looked each one at his fellow, and no man spoke a word.

Who is it leans from the belfry, with face upturned to the

sky,

Clings to a column, and measures the dizzy spire with his

eye?

Will he dare it, the hero undaunted, that terrible sickening

height?

Or will the hot blood of his courage freeze in his veins at the sight?

But see! he has stepped on the railing; he climbs with his feet and his hands,

And firm on a narrow projection, with the belfry beneath him, he stands;

Now once, and once only, they cheer him,

a single, tem

And there falls on the multitude gazing a hush like the stillness of death.

Slow, steadily mounting, unheeding aught save the goal of

the fire,

Still higher and higher, an atom, he moves on the face of the spire.

He stops! Will he fall? Lo! for answer, a gleam like a meteor's track,

And, hurled on the stones of the pavement, the red brand lies shattered and black.