As far as sun from sun: there lacks not room, And still I doubt it is a Gordian knot, A dark deep riddle, rich with curious thoughts; And draw thine own conclusion from my tale. Paris kept holiday; a merrier sight The crowded Champs Elysées never saw: And pleasures full of sin, the loud "hurra!” Of truth, and sense, and reasonable soul? I marked a single hearse through the dense crowd The blazing sun half quench'd it with his beams, And gaz'd with wonder that no feeling heart, No solitary man followed, to note The spot where poor mortality must sleep: And give a man his fellow-sinner's tear: That dreary hearse, and found, he was not friendless! To that forgotten wanderer, faithful found his dog! And there, with measured step, and drooping head, Yes, I remember how my bosom ached, Ah, give me, give me such a friend, I cried; Is sham'd by yonder 66 mere machine," a dog! 'EQUIDEM CREDO QUI SIT DIVINITUS ILLIS INGENIUM." THE CHAMOIS-HUNTER. A LESSON OF LIFE. THE Scene was bathed in beauty rare, A summer-evening's blush of rose Night gloom'd apace, and dark on high Veiling Mount Blanc's majestic brow, [Virgil. When Pierre, the hunter, cheerly went He took his rifle, pole, and rope, He crossed the vale, he hurried on, The first rough terrace gain' Over the top, as he knew well, So down the other dreary side, And now he nears the chasmed ice; His foot hath slipped, -O heaven! He hath leapt in, and down he falls Between those blue tremendous walls, Standing asunder riven. But quick his clutching nervous grasp O moment of exulting bliss! He look'd beneath, a horrible doom! Some thousand yards of deepening gloom, They call thee, Pierre, see, see them here, And so from out that terrible place, And he came home an alter'd man, For many harrowing terrors ran Through his poor heart that day; He thought how all through life, though young, Upon a thread, a hair, he hung Over a gulf midway. He thought.what fear it were to fall Unwing'd with hope and love; And when the succor came at last, NATURE. I STRAYED at evening to a sylvan scene Dimpling with nature's smile the stern old mountain, A shady dingle, quiet, cool and green, Where the mossed rock poured forth its natural fountain, And hazels clustered there, with fern between, And feathery meadow-sweet shed perfume round, ᎪᎡᎢ . THE massy fane of architecture olden, Nor less yon gallant ship, that treads the waves In a triumphant silence of delight, Like some huge swan with its fair wings unfurled, Whose curved sides the laughing water laves, Bearing it buoyant o'er the liquid world: Nor less yon silken monster of the sky, Around whose wicker car the clouds are curled, Thy trophies these, - still but a modest part Of thy grand conquests wonder-working Art. |