ON A HEADLAND IN THE BAY OF

PANAMA.

We ran up a small creek, near which was a headland, famous for a sanguinary battle, at some very remote period, far beyond the memory of man. We were told of fragments of huge bones that had once whitened all the ground there. We ourselves saw none, however; but turned up various fossils, which, for aught we knew to the contrary, might have belonged to some antediluvian giant or hero, who was cotemporary with the mammoth and leviathan.

Voyage of Discovery, by Juan Pablos Gomez. p. 63.

BY BARRY CORNWALL.

I.

VAGUE mystery hangs on all these desert places! The Fear which hath no name, hath wrought a spell!

Strength, courage, wrath-have been, and left no traces! They came, and fled;-but whither ?-who can tell!

II.

We know but that they were,-that once (in days
When ocean was a bar 'twixt man and man),
Stout spirits wandered o'er these capes and bays,
And perished where these river-waters ran.

70 ON A HEADLAND IN THE BAY OF PANAMA.

III.

Methinks they should have built some mighty tomb,

Whose granite might endure the century's rain, White winter, and the sharp night winds, that boom Like spirits in their purgatorial pain.

IV.

They left, 'tis said, their proud unburied bones
To whiten on this unacknowledged shore:
Yet nought besides the rocks and worn sea stones
Now answer to the great Pacific's roar !

A mountain stands where Agamemnon died :
And Cheops hath derived eternal fame,
Because he made his tomb a place of pride;
And thus the dead Metella earned a name.

VI.

But these,—they vanished as the lightnings die
(Their mischiefs over) in the surging deep ;

And no one knoweth underneath the sky,

What heroes perished here, nor where they sleep!

ON AN ECLIPSE OF THE MOON

AT MIDNIGHT.

BY THE REV. W. L. BOWLES.

Up-up-into the vast expanded space,
Thou art ascending in thy majesty,
Beautiful Moon, the queen of the pale sky!
But what is that, which gathers on thy face,
A dark, mysterious shade, eclipsing-slow-
The splendour of thy calm and steadfast light?
It is the shadow of this world of woe,
Of this vast moving world: portentous sight!
As if we almost stood and saw more near
action-almost heard it roll

very

Its
On, in the swiftness of its dread career,

As it hath rolled for ages! Hush, my soul!

Listen!-there is no sound:-but could we hear

The murmur of its multitudes, who toil

Through their brief hour-the heart might well recoil.

72

ON AN ECLIPSE OF THE MOON AT MIDNIGHT.

But this is ever sounding in his ear

Who made it, and who said let there be light'

And we, the creatures of a mortal hour,

'Mid hosts of worlds, are ever in his sight, Catching, as now, dim glimpses of his power.

The time shall come when all this mighty scene
Darkness shall wrap, as it had never been.
Oh! Father of all worlds, be thou our guide,
And lead us gently on, from youth to age,
Thro' the dark valley of our pilgrimage!
Enough, if thus-bending to thy high will-
We hold our Christian course, through good or ill,
And to the end, with FAITH and HOPE, abide.

THE CITY OF THE DEMONS.

BY WILLIAM MAGINN, ESQ.

;

IN days of yore, there lived in the flourishing city of Cairo a Hebrew Rabbi, by name Jochonan, who was the most learned of his nation. His fame went over the East, and the most distant people sent their young men to imbibe wisdom from his lips. He was deeply skilled in the traditions of the fathers, and his word on a disputed point was decisive. He was pious, just, temperate and strict but he had one vice,- -a love of gold had seized upon his heart, and he opened not his hand to the poor. Yet he was wealthy above most, his wisdom being to him the source of riches. The Hebrews of the city were grieved at this blemish on the wisest of their people; but though the elders of the tribes continued to reverence him for his fame, the women and children of Cairo called him by no other name than that of Rabbi Jochonan the miser.

None knew, so well as he, the ceremonies necessary for initiation into the religion of Moses; and consequently, the exercise of those solemn offices was to him