I thought not then, oh, God! the stamp of shame ODE TO MY LITTLE SON.-Thomas Hood. THOU happy, happy elf! (But stop-first let me kiss away that tear,) Thou tiny image of myself! (My love, he's poking peas into his ear!) Thou merry, laughing sprite! With spirits feather light, Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin, (Dear me! the child is swallowing a pin!) Thou little, tricksy duck! With antic toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing bird that wings the air, (The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore afire!) In love's dear chain so strong and bright a link, Thou cherub-but of earth; Fit playfellow for fays by moonlight pale, (That dog will bite him, if he pulls his tail!) Thou human humming-bee, extracting honey (He'll break the mirror with that skipping-rope!) Thou young domestic dove! (He'll have that jug off, with another shove!) Little epitome of man! (He'll climb upon the table-that's his plan!) Thou enviable being! No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing, My elfin John! Toss the light ball-bestride the stick, (I knew so many cakes would make him sick!) (He's got the scissors, snipping at your gown!) (Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose!) I cannot write, unless he's sent above!) UNJUST NATIONAL ACQUISITIONS.-Thomas Corvin. MR. PRESIDENT, the uneasy desire to augment our territory has depraved the moral sense and blighted the otherwise keen sagacity of our people. Sad, very sad, are the lessons which Time has written for us. Through and in them all I see nothing but the inflexible execution of that old law which ordains, as eternal, the cardinal rule, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods, nor anything which is his." Since I have lately heard so much about the dismemberment of Mex icc I have looked back to see how, in the course of events, which some call "Providence," it has fared with other na tions who engaged in this work of dismemberment. I see that in the latter half of the eighteenth century, three powerful nations, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, united in the dismemberment of Poland. They said, too, as you say, "It is our destiny." They "wanted room. Doubtless each of these thought, with his share of Poland, his power was too strong ever to fear invasion, or even insult. One had his California, another his New Mexico, and the third his Vera Cruz. Did they remain untouched and incapable of harm? Alas! no-far, very far, from it. Retributive justice must fulfil its destiny too. A very few years pass off, and we hear of a new man, a Corsican lieutenant, the self-named "armed soldier of Democracy," Napoleon. He ravages Austria, covers her land with blood, drives the Northern Cæsar from his capital, and sleeps in his palace. Austria may now remember how her power trampled upon Poland. Did she not pay dear, very dear, for her California? But has Prussia no atonement to make? You see this same Napoleon, the blind instrument of Providence, at work there. The thunders of his cannon at Jena proclaim the work of retribution for Poland's wrongs; and the successors of the Great Frederick, the drill-sergeant of Europe, are seen flying across the sandy plains that surround their capital, right glad if they may escape captivity and death. But how fares it with the Autocrat of Russia? Is he secure in his share of the spoils of Poland? No. Suddenly we see, sir, six hundred thousand armed men marching to Moscow. Does his Vera Cruz protect him now? Far from it. Blood, slaughter, desolation, spread abroad over the land; and, finally, the conflagration of the old commercial metropolis of Russia closes the retribution: she must pay for her share in the dismemberment of her impotent neighbor. Mr. PRESIDENT, a mind more prone to look for the judg ments of Heaven in the doings of men than mine cannot fail, in all unjust acquisitions of territory, to see the Providence of God. When Moscow burned, it seemed as if the earth was lighted up, that the nations might behold the scene. As that mighty sea of fire gathered and heaved and rolled upward, and yet higher, till its flames licked the stars, and fired the whole heavens, it did seem as though the God of the nations was writing, in characters of flame, on the front of His throne, that doom that shall fall upon the strong nation which tramples in scorn upon the weak. And what fortune awaits him, the appointed executor of this work, when it was all done? He, too, conceived the notion that his destiny pointed onward to universal dominion. France was too small,-Europe he thought should bow down before him. But as soon as this idea takes possession of his soul, he too becomes powerless. His Terminus must recede too. Right there, while he witnessed the humiliation, and, doubtless, meditated the subjugation of Russia, He who holda the winds in His fist, gathered the snows of the North, and blew them upon his six hundred thousand men. They fled,they froze, they perished. And now the mighty Napoleon, who had resolved on universal dominion, he, too, is summoned to answer for the violation of that ancient law, "Thou shalt not covet any thing which is thy neighbor's. How is the mighty fallen! He, beneath whose proud footstep Europe trembled, he is now an exile at Elba, and now, finally, a prisoner on the rock of St. Helena, and there, on a barren island, in an unfrequented sea, in the crater of an extinguished volcano, there is the death-bed of the mighty conqueror. All his annexations have come to that! His last hour is now at hand; and he, the man of destiny, he who had rocked the world as with the throes of an earthquake, is now powerless, still,—even as the beggar, so he died. On the wings of a tempest that raged with unwonted fury, up to the throne of the only Power that controlled him while he lived, went the fiery soul of that wonderful warrior, another witness to the existence of that eternal decree, that they who do not rule in righteousness shall perish from the earth. He has found room," at last. And France, she too has found "room." Her "eagles" now no longer serca m along the banks of the Danube, the Po, and the Borysthenes. They have returned home, to their old aërie, between the Alps, the Rhine, and the Pyrenees. 66 So shall it be with yours. You may carry them to the loftiest peaks of the Cordilleras; they may wave, with insolent triumph, in the halls of the Montezumas; the armed men of Mexico may quail before them: but the weakest hand in Mexico, uplifted in prayer to the God of Justice, may call down against you a Power in the presence of which the iron hearts of your warriors shall be turned into ashes! THE RAVEN.-Edgar A. Poe. ONCE upon a midnight dreary, while I ponder'd, weak and weary, Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain, That it is, and nothing more." Presently my soul grew stronger: hesitating then no longer, Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whisper'd word, "Lenore !" This I whisper'd, and an echo murmur'd back the word, "LENORE!" Merely this, and nothing more. Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter he; Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, no craven; 66 art sure Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering from the nightly shore, Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore?" Quoth the raven, "Nevermore!" D* |