ページの画像
PDF
ePub

and fro its "fiery surge," and flaming billows. Fifty-one conical islands, of varied form and size, containing as many craters, rose either round the edge, or from the surface of the burning lake. Twenty-two constantly emitted columns of gray smoke or pyramids of brilliant flame; and several of these, at the same time, vomited from their ignited mouths, streams of lava, which rolled in blazing torrents down their black, indented sides, into the boiling mass below.

5. The existence of these conical craters led us to conclude, that the boiling caldron of lava before us did not form the focus of the volcano; that this mass of melted lava was comparatively shallow; and that the basin in which it was contained, was sepa rated, by a stratum of solid matter, from the great volcanic abyss, which constantly poured out its melted contents, through these numerous craters, into this reservoir. We were further inclined to this opinion, from the vast columns of vapor continually ascending from the chasms in the vicinity of the sulphur banks and pools of water; for they must have been produced by other fire, than that which caused the ebullition in the lava at the bottom of the great crater; and, also, by noticing a great number of small craters in vigorous action, situated high up the sides of the great gulf, and apparently, quite detached from it. The streams of lava which they emitted, rolled down into the lake and mingled with the melted mass, which, though thrown up by different apertures, had, perhaps, been originally fused in one vast furnace.

6. The sides of the gulf before us, although composed of different strata of ancient lava, were perpendicular, for about four hundred feet, and rose from a wide, horizontal ledge of solid, black lava, of irregular breadth, but extended completely round. Beneath this ledge, the sides sloped gradually toward the burning lake, which was, as nearly as we could judge, three or four hundred feet lower. It was evident, that the large crater had been recently filled with liquid lava, up to this black ledge, and had, by some *subterranean canal, emptied itself into the sea, or upon the low land, on the shore.

+

7. The gray, and, in some places, apparently calcined sides of the great crater before us; the fissures, which intersected the surface of the plain, on which we were standing; the long banks of sulphur on the opposite sides of the abyss; the vigorous action of the numerous small craters on its borders; the dense columns of vapor and smoke, that rose at the north and south end of the plain, together with the ridge of steep rocks, by which it was surrounded, rising, probably, in some places, three or four hundred feet, in perpendicular hight, presented an immense, volcanic *panorama, the effect of which was greatly augmented, by the constant roaring of the vast furnaces below.

8. After the first feelings of astonishment had subsided, we remained a considerable time contemplating this scene, which it is impossible to describe, and which filled us with wonder and admiration, at the almost overwhelming manifestation it affords of the power of that dread Being, who created the world, and who has declared, that by fire he will one day destroy it. We then walked along the west side of the crater, and, in half an hour, reached the north end.

ELLIS.

LESSON CXLII.

APOSTROPHE TO NIAGARA.

1. FLOW on forever, in thy glorious robe
Of terror and of beauty. God hath set
His rainbow on thy forehead, and the clouds
+ Mantled around thy feet. And He doth give
Thy voice of thunder power to speak of Him
Eternally; bidding the lip of man

2.

3.

4.

Keep silence, and upon thy rocky altar, pour + Incense of awe-struck praise.

And who can dare

To lift the insect trump of earthly hope,
Or love, or sorrow, 'mid the peal sublime
Of thy tremendous hymn! Even ocean shrinks
Back from thy brotherhood, and his wild waves
Retire abashed; for he doth sometimes seem
To sleep like a spent laborer, and recall
His wearied billows from their vexing play,
And lull them to a cradle calm: but thou,
With everlasting, undecaying tide,

Dost rest not night nor day.

The morning stars

When first they sang o'er young creation's birth,
Heard thy deep anthem; and those wrecking fires
That wait the archangel's signal, to dissolve
The solid earth, shall find Jehovah's name
Graven, as with a thousand diamond spears,
On thine unfathomed page. Each leafy bough,
That lifts itself within thy proud domain,
Doth gather greenness from thy living spray,
And tremble at the baptism.

Lo! yon birds

Do venture boldly near, bathing their wings
Amid thy foam and mist. 'Tis meet for them
To touch thy garments here, or lightly stir

5.

The snowy leaflets of thy vapor wreath,
Who sport unharmed on the fleecy cloud,
And listen at the echoing gate of heaven,
Without reproof. But as for us, it seems
Scarce lawful with our broken tones to speak
Familiarly of thee. Methinks, to tint
Thy glorious features with our pencil's point,
Or woo thee with the tablet of a song,
Were profanation.

Thou dost make the soul

A wondering witness of thy majesty,
And while it rushes with delirious joy
To tread thy vestibule, dost chain its step,
And check its rapture, with the humbling view
Of its own nothingness, bidding it stand
In the dread presence of the invisible,
As if to answer to its God through thee.

MRS. SIGOURNEY.

LESSON CXLIII.

GOD, THE AUTHOR OF ALL THINGS.

1. THOU uncreate, unseen, and undefined,

Source of all life, and fountain of the mind;
+Pervading Spirit, whom no eye can trace,
Felt through all time, and working in all space,
Imagination can not paint that spot,

Around, above, beneath, where thou art not.

2. Before the glad stars hymned to new-born earth,
Or young creation reveled in its birth,

Thy spirit moved upon the pregnant deep,
Unchained the waveless waters from their sleep,
Bade Time's majestic wings to be unfurled,
And out of darkness drew the breathing world!
3. Primeval Power! before thy thunder rang,
And nature from Eternity out-sprang,
Ere matter formed at thy creative tone,
Thou wert; almighty, endless, and alone;
In thine own essence, all that was to be;
Sublime, unfathomable Deity;

Thou said'st-and lo! a universe was born,

And light flashed from thee for his birth-day morn.

4. The earth + unshrouded all her beauty now;
The mountain monarch bared his awful brow;
Flowers, fruits, and trees felt instantaneous life.
But hark! Creation trembles with the strife

Of roaring waves in wild commotion hurled.
'T is Ocean, winding round the rocky world!

5. And next, triumphant o'er the green-clad earth,
The universal Sun burst into birth,

And dashed from off his altitude sublime

The first dread ray, that marked commencing Time!
Last, came the Moon upon the wings of light,
And sat in glory on the throne of Night,

While fierce and fresh, a radiant host of Stars
Wheeled round the heavens upon their burning cars.

6. But all was dismal as a world of dead,

Till the great deep her living swarms outspread:
Forth from her teeming bosom, sudden came
+Immingled monsters, mighty, without name;
Their plumy tribes winged into being there,
And fledged their gleaming pinions on the air,
Till, thick as dews upon a twilight green,
Earth's living creatures rose upon the scene!
7. Creation's master-piece! a breath of God,
Ray of his glory, quickened at his nod,
Immortal Man came next, divinely grand,
Glorious and perfect from his Maker's hand;
Last, softly beautiful, as music's close,
Angelic woman into being rose.

8. And now, the gorgeous universe was rife,
Full, fair, and glowing with created life;
And, when the Eternal from his starry hight,
Beheld the young world basking in his light,
And breathing incense of deep gratitude,
He blessed it, for his mercy made it good!

9. And thus, Thou wert, and art, the Fountain-soul,
And countless worlds around thee live and roll;
In sun and shade, in ocean and in air,
Diffused, yet undiminished; every where
All life and motion from thy source began,
From worlds to atoms, angels down to man.

MONTGOMERY.

LESSON CXLIV.

THE EAGLE'S NEST.

1. ALMOST all the people in the parish were leading in their meadow-hay on the same day of midsummer, so drying was the sunshine and the wind; and huge heaped-up twains, that almost hid from view the horses that drew them along the sward beginning

[ocr errors]

to get green with second growth, were moving in all directions toward the snug farm-yards. Never had the parish seemed before so populous. Jocund was the balmy air with laughter, whistle, and song. But the tree-gnomons threw the shadow of " one o'clock on the green dial-face of the earth; the horses were unyoked and took instantly to grazing; groups of men, women, lads, lasses, and children, collected under grove, and bush, and hedgerow; graces were pronounced, some of them rather too tedious in presence of the mantling milk-cans, bullion-bars of butter, and crackling cakes; and the great Being who gave them that day their daily bread, looked down from his eternal throne, well-pleased with the piety of his thankful creatures.

2. The great golden eagle, the pride and the pest of the parish, stooped down, and flew away with something in its talons. One single, sudden, female shriek arose; and, then, shouts and outcries, as if a church spire had tumbled down on a congregation at a sacrament: "Hannah Lamond's bairn!* Hannah Lamond's bairn!" was the loud, fast-spreading cry. "The eagle has ta'en off Hannah Lamond's bairn!" and many hundred feet were, in another instant, hurrying toward the mountain. Two miles of hill and +dale, and +copse, and shingle, and many intersecting brooks lay between; but, in an incredibly short time, the foot of the mountain was alive with people.

3. The aerie was well known, and both old birds were visible on the rock-ledge. But who shall scale that dizzy cliff, which Mark Steuart, the sailor, who had been at the storming of many a fort, attempted in vain? All kept gazing, weeping, wringing their hands in vain, rooted to the ground, or running back and forward, like so many ants essaying their new wings in discomfiture. "What's the use, what's the use o' ony puir human means? We have no power but in prayer!" and many knelt down - fathers and mothers thinking of their own babies as if they would force the deaf heavens to hear!

[ocr errors]

4. Hannah Lamond had all this while been sitting on a rock, with a face perfectly white, and eyes like those of a mad person, fixed on the aerie. Nobody had noticed her; for strong as all sympathies with her had been at the swoop of the eagle, they were now swallowed up in the agony of eyesight. "Only last Sabbath was my sweet wee wean § baptized in the name o' the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost!" and on uttering these words, she flew off through the brakes and over the huge stones, up-upup-faster than ever huntsman ran in to the death, fearless as a goat playing among the precipices.

Child.

& Wee wean, little child.

« 前へ次へ »