only son. Though wan, and wasted in all his lineaments, his pure brow, his gentle expression, tell that he was worthy to be loved. Can no human power restore him to the arms of a fond mother? It is in vain! The spirit flutters upon his lips; it has departed. But it has left behind it a token; a clear, bright impress; a smile of undissembled love and purity; an expression beaming with the last unutterable peace; the graces which were so winning upon earth, but which shall attain their perfection in heaven.

TO-DAY, to-day it speaks to us! Its future auditories will be the generations of men, as they rise up before it and gather round it.' WEBSTER

TO-DAY it speaks to us!'

Of the times that tried men's souls,'
When hostile ships rode where yon bay
Its deep blue waters rolls :

When the war-cloud dark was lowering
Portentous o'er the land;

When the vassal troops of Britain came
With bayonet, sword and brand.

"To-day it speaks to us!'

Of brave deeds nobly done,

When patriot hearts beat high with hope,
Ere Freedom's cause was won:

Of the conflict fierce, where fell
New-England's valiant men,

Who waved their country's banner high,
Though warm blood dyed it then!

And will its voice be still

When the thousands of to-day,

Who have come like pilgrim-worshippers,

From earth shall pass away?

Oh no! the potent orator'

To future times shall tell

Where PRESCOTT, BROOKS, and PUTNAM fought,
Where gallant WARREN fell.

"Twill speak of these, and others
Of brave men, born and nurst
In stormy times, on Danger's lap,
Who dared Oppression's worst:
Of Vernon's chief, and he who came
Across the Atlantic flood,

To offer to the patriot's GOD
A sacrifice of blood.

Long as the Bay State' cherishes

One thought of sainted sires,

Long as the day-god greets her cliffs,
Or gilds her domes and spires;

Long as her granite hills remain
Firm fixed, so long shall be

Yon Monument on Bunker's height
A beacon for the free!

A WINTER TRIP то TRENTON FALLS.

IN THREE SCENES.

SCENE FIRST.

MORNING; eight on the clock. BILLING'S Hotel, Trenton. Outside, a clear bright sun glancing down through an atmosphere sparkling with frost, upon as fine a road for a sleigh-ride as ever tempted green-mountain boys and girls for a moonlight flit. Inside, a well-furnished breakfast-table, beef-steak, coffee, toast, etc., etc. On the one side of it your correspondent; serious, as if he considered breakfast a thing to be attended to. He is somewhat, as the lady on the other side of the table says, somewhat in the sear leaf,' by which name indeed she is pleased to call him; but there is enough of spring in her, to suffice for all deficiencies in him. Like the morning, she is a little icy, but sunshiny, sparkling, exhilarating, thoughtful, youthful and decided. She takes no marked interest in the breakfast.

Crazy! You were there in the summer

'I know it; every one goes there in summer.

I must see them

now. There's no time like it; in their drapery of snow and ice; in

the sternness and solitude, the wild grandeur of winter!'

'How you run on! You'll miss the cars at Utica.'

'I don't care.'

'You'll be a day later in New-York.'

'I don't care. I must see them in their hoary head.'

'You wish to see if they look as well in gray hairs as I do, perhaps.' 'Yes.'

'You really must go?'

'Yes.'

'You are a very imperious young lady; and allow me to say, that although some young gentlemen

Lady, interrupting him: Shall I ring the bell?' She rings it. Enter landlord. She orders the horse and cutter.

SCENE SECOND.

ENTER landlord: 'All ready, Sir.'

'Will you allow me to ask if your feet are warmly clad, Madam ?'

'I am ready for the ascent of Mont Blanc, or a ramble with a hunter the shore of Hudson's Bay.'

upon

'Very well; now for the cutter.'

Landlord, just step round, if you please, and put that buffalo-robe a little more closely about the lady. Hold fast, hostler! That horse likes any thing better than standing still.'

'Ay, ay, Sir.'

'Now we are ready. Let go! Away we dash; 'on for the Falls!' Gently, my good horse, gently round this corner; now go ahead!' How do you like my steed, Madam?'

'A rein-deer could not transact this little business better.' 'Is not this a glorious morning?'

'Vivifying to the utmost! How far we fail of becoming acquainted with the face of nature, when we only come to look upon it in summer! It is as if one should only look upon the human face in the hues of

youth, and never upon the gray head; on the brow where high thoughts have left their impress; on the face which deeper and sterner knowledge, research, patience, have made eloquent, while stealing away the rose. As for me, though I am but a girl, I like to see sometimes an old man; one who in the trial-hour of life has kept his integrity; and when the snows of age fall on him, he gently bends beneath their weight, like those old cedars yonder by the way-side, beneath their weight of snow Wherever the eye can pierce their white vesture, all is still deep springgreen beneath; unchanged at heart - strong and true. So I like to look on you, Sere Leaf.'

"Thank you! You have a gift at compliments.'

'Summer reminds one of feeling and Lalla Rookh; Winter, of intellect and Paradise Lost.'

'How your voice rings in this clear air! Do you know what Dean Swift says a sleigh-ride is like? Sitting in the draft of a door with

6

your feet in a pail of cold water!'' 'Abominable! libellous! Exhilaration and comfort are so blended But is not that the house?'

in me that

Smoke from the chimney; some one is there
Gently, my Bucephalus, through this gate!
Treat my horse well, if you please; we

'Ay; here we are! to welcome us, no doubt. There comes the landlord. are going to the Falls.'

SCENE THIRD.

MADAM, are you ready for the woods?'

Quite. How still the air is! Why don't you thank me for insisting on coming? You have no gratitude. There's not two inches of snow on the ground. It all seems piled upon these grand old trees. There! see that tuft of it falling and now spreading into a cloud of spangles in the sun-light which streams down by those old pines. Hark! the roar of waters! The sound seems to find new echoes in these snow-laden boughs, and lingers as if loth to depart.'

This way, Madam; the trees are bent too low over the path to allow a passage there. We are near the bank which overlooks the first fall. Take may arm; the brink may be icy. Lo! the abyss!'

'Magnificent! What a rush of waters! How the swollen stream foams and rages!'

And see! the pathway under the shelving rock where we passed in summer is completely colonnaded by a row of tall ice pillars; gigantic, symmetrical-fluted, even. What Corinthian shaft ever equalled them! What capital ever rivalled the delicacy or grace of those ice-and-hemlock wreaths about their summits!'

And see those pines, rank above rank, higher and higher; stately and still and snow-robed like tall centinels! Perhaps, Sear Leaf, the Old Guard might have stood thus in the Russian snows over NAPOLEON, when he bivouacked on the hill-side, and sought rest while his spirit was as wildly tossed as the waters that dash beneath us.'

'Yes, Lady; or it may be that these trees in their perpetual green, in their calmness and dignity, may be emblematic of the way in which the angels who watch on earth look down on man. Perfect rest on per

fect unrest.'

Ah! you grow gloomy.'

Took I not my hue from you? On, then, for the higher fall!' "These trees seem to have increased in stature since the summer we were here. As we proceed, the snow lies thicker on them, and the branches seem closer locked; the roof overhead more complete. How still the woods are! Our very foot-fall is noiseless.'

Influenced by the scene, they pass on in silence along the path which leads round the foot of the cone-like hill toward the cottage by the higher Falls, whose deep roar now breaks upon the ear, and rolls through the motionless forest. Thus then the Lady to Sear Leaf:

'Has GoD any other temple like this?"

'Never a one, reared by any hand save His!'

'What organ ever rolled so deep a bass through arches so grand! See how the sunlight glances amid the gnarled branches of the roof, and here and there falls through on the floor below; making those low icy forms look like the shrubs of the valley of diamonds in the eastern story. Just so it is that the light of truth struggles through entangled and dark mazes of human error, and here and there illuminate some humble mind with its pure ray; while others, tall and strong and haughty, like those old trees, are left darkened.'

But here we The snow is check even

'You have a noble nature, and should be nobly mated. are upon the brow of the hill which leads to the cottage. deeper here: gently, now; a slide down this bank might your enthusiasm. Take my arm; there so; safe at the bottom! Let us go forward upon the platform of the cottage over the Falls. No bench? Well, sit upon my cloak.'

'No, I wont.'

You must. There; be pleased to sit and rest. What a gorgeous display of frost-work and flashing light on fantastic forms of ice! How the spray rises and waves and changes its hues in the sun! And the trees, how delicately each sprig of the evergreens is covered with a dress so white and shining as no fuller on earth could whiten them.'' 'Even so, Sear Leaf; And I love to think that the same one who wove the glorious dress to which you refer, to gladden Peter, made this

VOL. XXIII.

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dazzling drapery, and gave us eyes to look upon it. It recalls to my mind the song of the Seraphim: The whole earth is full of thy glory!' 'Did they not, Lady, sing of a moral glory?'

'No; decidedly no. There was no moral glory in the earth when they sang that song. Even the chosen people of GOD are then and there denounced as having abandoned Him. No; it was the glory of the works of His hands, such as we look upon this day, which elicited their praise.'

'I believe your exegesis is right. The scene is glorious. Summer in all her loveliness has no dress like this. She has no hues equal to the play of colors on these walls and columns of ice, extending far as the eye can reach down the ravine, and towering in more than colossal grandeur. The water is in treble volume, and force and voice; and as it rolls its white folds of spotless foam down the valley, it reminds one of the great white throne of the Revelations, and this wavy foam the folds of the robe that filled the temple.'

'It is inexpressibly, oppressively beautiful, Sear Leaf!'

'Speaking of Revelation, how accurate is the description in Manfred of this scene!'

'Let me hear it :

'It is not noon; the sun-bow's rays still arch
The torrent with the many hues of heaven,
And roll the sheeted silver's waving column
O'er the crags headlong perpendicular,
And fling its lines of foaming light along
And to and fro, like the pale courser's tail,
The giant steed to be bestrode by Death,
As told in the apocalypse.'

'Well, Madam, why are you silent? Shall we go?'

'No. I could stay here till nightfall. I was thinking of the lines succeeding those you have repeated:

'Am I nobody?'

'No eyes

But mine now drink the sight of loveliness.'

'We are alone here. How many of the light of heart, in youth and strength and beauty, climbed these rocks, shouted in these old woods, and gathered the summer flowers along these banks and passed away! Where are they now! Some who wrote their names in the traveller's book in this cottage, have them now written by others on their tombstone. One I knew well, who, full of health and beauty, passed up this wild ravine, who has faded like the flowers she culled, and is now in her father's house, to pass in a few more days to heaven. And of all the rest, did we know their history, what a picture would it give of life!' 'You are thoughtful for one so young.'

'Are not twenty years enough to make one a moment thoughtful? Tell me now, thou of the gray head, of what art thou thinking?" 'Of earth's fairest scene, blent with her fairest daughter.' 'Bravo! For what fair lady on your native mountains did you frame that compliment twenty years ago

'Madam!'

'Well?'

It is time to return.'

?'

G. P. T.