Is a foft and rofy light befprent;

And out to the dark rush waves of flame,
Like bannered heralds out vanward fent
A conqueror's advent to proclaim.

The fun is coming. Hans looks around,
And then fits riveted to the ground:
Like an eastern turban of filk and gold,
Wreath twining with wreath, fold lapping on fold,
Is a mift ascending from the well,

Gracefully fwirling from bank to bank

Wildly he ftruck, but forward fell,

And under the clofing waters fank.

When Hans the miller opens his eyes
A fcore of yards from the well he lies,

Flat on his back with his limbs outspread,

Like a toad when crushed by a ploughman's tread ; But how he was fifhed up from the well,

Or how sent spinning through the air,

Is more than Hans the miller can tell

While choking and coughing and gasping there.

And now,
like fteam from a giant's cup,
The mist from the well-mouth rifes up;
Straight as a column of stone it ascends
And never a moment wavers or bends;
Up, up till it paffes above the tree,

And then it spreads like a fummer cloud

A fhadowy form there Hans can see,

"Lo!

I go,

Henceforth I cease to be thy friend,
Although

So low

I may not bend,
As to become thy foe.
Base of heart

And covetous thou art,
And I depart.

In the waters clear

Of the well,

Many a year

Did I dwell,

For nothing of evil came it near :

It has polluted been by thee;
Now fee

Under the spreading tree

The grafs is green –
And the well has been."

The cloud floats flowly over the mill
And fettles down on the Wonder-hill;
And beneath the plum-tree nothing is seen
To mark the spot where the well has been.
Hans thinks as he drags his limbs along,

For his bones are aching every one,

"There was truth after all in Frau Grethel's old fong; I wish I had left the WELL alone!"

The Hill-Man.

"The avalanche, the thunderbolt of fnow."

The Hill-men or Dwarfs of Switzerland lived among the inacceffible peaks of the upper Alps, pafturing and tending their flocks-not of sheep or goats, but of wild chamois, a cup of whose milk received from the hands of a Hill-man, its rightful owner, like the widow's crufe of oil, "failed not."

Although thus living remote from the dwellings of men, they not unfrequently came to the folitary chalets on the lower Alps, bringing to the disconsolate herdsman stray lambs or goats; and on occafions they also descended into the valleys, to give to the inhabitants of the villages timely warning of coming ftorms, floods, avalanches and landflips: for the Hill-men, from their great knowledge of the conditions and changes of the elements, and from their living in the upper regions of the earth, where all primary elemental changes are wrought, knew the time, the force, the direction and the duration of

was forming, when it would be diflodged from its giddy ledge, and upon what part of the terrified valley it would be precipitated.

“The natives of the Alps distinguish between several kinds of avalanches. The ftaub-lawinen (duft avalanches) are formed of loose fresh-fallen fnow, heaped up by the wind early in the winter, before it has begun to melt or combine together. Such a mass, when it reaches the edge of a cliff or declivity, tumbles from point to point, increasing in quantity as well as in impetus every instant, and spreading itself over a wide extent of furface. It defcends with the rapidity of lightning, and has been known to rush down a distance of ten miles from the point whence it was first detached, not only descending one fide of a valley, but also ascending the oppofite hill, by the velocity acquired in its fall, overwhelming and laying proftrate a whole forest of firs in its descent, and breaking down another foreft up the oppofite fide, fo as to lay the heads of the trees up the hill in its ascent.

"Another kind of avalanche, the grund-lawinen (ground avalanche) occurs in fpring, during the months of April and May, when the fun becomes powerful, and the fnow thaws rapidly under its influence. * * * * This fpecies is more dangerous in its effects, from the fnow being clammy and adhesive, as well as hard and compact."

The legend of "The Dwarf feeking lodging" is variously related, and more than one valley in Switzerland can fhow the tomb of a village, and claims for it the catastrophe of the ballad.

THE HILL-MAN.

FOR weeks had the fnow, and the fnow alone,
The fnow, the fnow, met the aching fight;
On the flopes and the peaks around it shone,
And the boughs of the trees with fnow hung down,
And the house-tops all with fnow were white;
And the fun flung his dazzling glance below
On the freezing, glittering, sparkling fnow.

But a sturdy wind leaped up at last

From a mountain gorge where it long had flept; And as down through the glens it shouting past Came the mifts and the vapours following faft, And out and over the vale they swept; Like the willing vaffals of warrior lord Who follow his foot and who wait his word.

The trees are stirred and their branches all

Caft their heavy burdens to the ground,

And erect upfpring, like men from thrall
When they dash to the earth at Freedom's call
The freezing chains that had them bound;

And the setting fun disdains to throw