In freshened splendor it comes forth anew, To sparkle on the monarch's throne or brow. Thus nothing dies, or only dies to live: Star, stream, sun, flower, the dew-drop, and the gold,— Thus in the quiet joy of kindly trust, We bid each parting saint a brief farewell; The day of reappearing! how it speeds! He who is true and faithful speaks the word, The shout is heard; the archangel's voice goes forth; They hasten up to meet their coming King. Short death and darkness! Endless life and light! The joy without the pain, the smile without the tear. AMERICA.-CHARLES PHILLIPS. Search creation round, where can you find a country that presents so sublime a view, so interesting an anticipation? What noble institutions! What a comprehensive policy! What a wise equalization of every political advantage? The oppressed of all countries, the martyrs of every creed, the innocent victim of despotic arrogance or 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 for 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 mysterious Providence may not have designed her! Who shall say that when in its follies or its crimes, the old world may have buried all the pride of its power, and all the pomp of its civilization, human nature may not find its destined renovation in the new! When its temples and its trophies shall have mouldered into dust, when the glories of its name shall be but the legend of tradition, and the light of its achievements live only in song, philosophy will revive again in the sky of her Franklin, and glory rekindle at the urn of her Washington. Is this the vision of romantic fancy? Is it even improbable? Is it half so improbable as the events, which, for the last twenty years, have rolled like successive tides over the surface of the European world, each erasing the impressions that preceded it? Many, I know, there are, who will consider this supposition as wild and whimsical, but they have dwelt with little reflection upon the records of the past. They have but ill observed the progress of national rise and national ruin. They form their judgment on the deceitful stability of the present hour, never considering the innumerable monarchies. and republics, in former days apparently as permanent, their very existence become now the subject of speculation-I had almost said of scepticism. I appeal to history! Tell me, thou reverend chronicler of the grave, can all the illusions of ambition realized, can all the wealth of a universal commerce, can all the achievements of successful heroism, or all the establishments of this world's wisdom, secure to empire the permanency of its possessions? Alas, Troy thought so once; yet the land of Priam lives only in song! Thebes thought so once; yet her hundred gates have crumbled, and her very tombs are but as the dust they were vainly intended to commemorate! So thought Palmyra-where is she! So thought Persepolis, and now "Yon waste, where roaming lions howl, His power-clad arm controlled each happier clime, Where sports the warbling muse, and fancy soars sublime." So thought the countries of Demosthenes and the Spartan; yet Leonidas is trampled by the timid slave, and Athens insulted by the servile, mindless and enervate Ottoman! In his hurried march, Time has but looked at their imagined immortality, yet the days of their glory are as if they had never been; and the island that was then a speck, rude and neglected, in the barren ocean, now rivals the ubiquity of their commerce, the glory of their arms, the fame of their philosophy, the eloquence of their senate, and the inspiration of their bards! Who shall say, then, contemplating the past, that England, proud and potent as she appears, may not one day be what Athens is, and the young America yet soar to be what Athens was! Who shall say, when the European column shall have mouldered, and the night of barbarism obscured its very ruins, that that mighty continent. may not emerge from the horizon, to rule, for its time, sovereign of the ascendant. Such, sir, is the natural progress of human operations and such the unsubstantial mockery of human pride. PADDY'S EXCELSIOR. "Twas growing dark so terrible fasht, Whin through a town up the mountain there pashed NN* As he walked, his shillalah he swung to and fro, He looked mortial sad, and his eye was as bright Through the windows he saw, as he thraveled along, But a big chunk of ice hung over his head. Wid a shnivel and groan, "By St. Patrick!" he said, "It's up till the very tip-top I will rush, And then if it falls, it's not meself it'll crush, Be jabers!" "Whisht a bit," said an owld man, whose head was as white As the shnow that fell down on that miserable night; "Shure, ye'll fall in the wather, me bit of a lad, A bright, buxom young girl, such as like to be kissed, But, as yer shwate self has axed me, I may as well shtop, He shtopped all night and he shtopped all day, For wadn't he be a bastely gossoon To be lavin' his darlint in the shwate honey-moon? Whin the owld man has praties enough, and to spare, Shure he moight as well shtay if he's comfortable there, Be jabers! -Harper's Magazine. HYMN TO THE FLOWERS.-HORACE SMITH. Day-stars! that ope your eyes at morn to twinkle Ye matin worshippers! who bending lowly Ye bright mosaics! that with storied beauty 'Neath cloistered bough each floral bell that swingeth, And tolls its perfume on the passing air, Makes Sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth A call to prayer. Not to those domes where crumbling arch and column To that cathedral boundless as our wonder, Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply; Its choir, the wind and waves; its organ, thunder; Its dome, the sky. There, as in solitude and shade I wander Through the lone aisles, or stretched upon the sod, Awed by the silence, reverently ponder The ways of God. Not useless are ye, flowers, though made for pleasure, Your voiceless lips, O flowers! are living preachers; |