MONODY ON THE DEATH OF WASHINGTON. BY RICHARD ALSOP. BEFORE the splendors of thy high renown, On base far different from the conqueror's claim, By freedom strengthen'd, and revered by time; With dire amazement chills the startled breast, While storms and earthquakes dread its course attest; Should sink the tottering fragment of the world; And light and life extends, o'er nature's utmost bound No trace of suffering marked thy placid mien, THE MAYFLOWER. BY E. EVERETT. METHINKS I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future state, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for shore. I see them now, scantily supplied with provisions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route; and now, driven in fury before the raging tempest, in their scarcely sea-worthy vessel. The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging. The laboring masts seem straining from their base; the dismal sound of the pumps is heard; the ship leaps, as it were, madly from billow to billow; the ocean breaks, and settles with ingulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats with deadening weight against the staggering vessel. I see them escaped from these perils, pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, and landed at last, after a five months' passage, on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth, weak and exhausted from the voyage, poorly armed, scantily provisioned, depending on the charity of their ship-master for a draught of beer on board, drinking nothing but water on shore, without shelter, without means, surrounded by hostile tribes. Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, on any principle of human probability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers? Tell me, man of military science, in how many months they were all swept off by the thirty savage tribes enumerated within the boundaries of New England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures of other times, and find the parallel of this. Was it the winter storm, beating upon the houseless head of women and children? was it hard labor and spare meals? was it disease? was it the tomahawk ? was it the deep malady of the blighted hope, a ruined enterprise, and a broken heart, aching in its last moments at the recollections of the loved and left, beyond the sea? was it some or all of them united that hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate? And is it possible, that neither of these causes, that all combined, were able to blast this bud of hope! Is it possible, that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, not so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, a reality so important, a promise yet to be fulfilled so glorious ! THE PILGRIM FATHERS. BY JOHN PIERPONT. THE Pilgrim Fathers,-where are they? The mists, that wrapp'd the Pilgrim's sleep, And his rocks yet keep their watch by the deep, But the snow-white sail, that he gave to the gale The Pilgrim exile,-sainted name ' The hill, whose icy brow Rejoiced, when he came, in the morning's flame, In the morning's flame burns now. And the moon's cold light, as it lay that night |