L.-DAVID'S LAMENT FOR ABSALOM. N. PARKER WILLIS. [Nathaniel Parker Willis was born in Portland, Maine, January 20, 1807. He is a writer in both prose and verse. His style is airy and graceful, and his descriptive powers are of a high order. His poetry is flowing and musical, and marked by truth of sentiment and delicacy of feeling.] 1. ALAS, my noble boy! that thou shouldst die! 2. Cold is thy brow, my son! and I am chill, 1 Like a rich harpstring, yearning to caress thee, And hear thy sweet "My father!" from these dumb And cold lips, Absalom! 3. But death is on thee. I shall hear the gush Of music, and the voices of the young; And life will pass me in the mantling2 blush, And the dark tresses to the soft winds flung;But thou no more, with thy sweet voice, shalt come To meet me, Absalom! 4. And, O, when I am stricken, and my heart, Like a bruised reed, is waiting to be broken, Yearn for thine ear to drink its last deep token! 5. And now, farewell! 'Tis hard to give thee up, 1 YEARNING Strongly desiring. | 2 MĂN'TLING. Suffusing the face. [John Hughes, D. D., was born in the north of Ireland in 1798, came to this country in 1817, with his father, and died January 3, 1864. He was educated at the Catholic Theological Seminary of Mount St. Mary's, Emmetsburg, Maryland, ordained priest in 1825, became bishop in 1842, and archbishop of New York in 1850. He was a man of great energy of character and intellectual activity. He published several controversial works, and a number of pamphlets and lectures.] 1. THIS day I was gratified with what I had often desired to witness-the condition of the sea in a tempest. I had contemplated the ocean in all its other phases, and they are almost innumerable. At one time it is seen reposing in perfect stillness under the blue sky and bright sun. At another, slightly ruffled, and then its motion causes his rays to tremble and dance in broken fragments of silvery or golden light,—and the sight is dazzled by following the track from whence his beams are reflected, while all besides seems to frown in the darkness of its ripple. 2. Again it may be seen somewhat more agitated and of a darker hue, under a clouded sky and a stronger and increasing wind. Then you see an occasional wave, rising a little above the rest, and crowning its summit with that crest of white, breaking from its top and tumbling over like liquid alabaster'. I had seen the ocean, too, by moon light, and as much of it as may be seen in the darkness, when the moon and stars are veiled. But until to-day I had never seen it in correspondence with the TEMPEST. 3. After a breeze of some sixty hours from the north and north-west, the wind died away about four o'clock yesterday afternoon. The calm continued till about nine in the evening. The mercury in the barometer fell, in the mean time, at an extraordinary rate; and the captain predicted that we should encounter a "gale" from the south-east. The "gale" came on, at about eleven o'clock; not violent at first, but increasing every moment. I awoke with a confused recollection of a good deal of rolling and thumping through the night, which was occasioned by the dashing of the waves against the ship. 4. Hurrying on my clothes, I found such of the passengers as could stand, at the doors of the hurricane-house3, "holding on," and looking out in the utmost consternation. It was still quite dark. Four of the sails were already in ribbons; the winds whistling through the cordage; the rain dashing furiously and in torrents; the noise and spray scarcely less than I found them under the great sheet at Niagara. And in the midst of all this, the captain, with his speaking trumpet, the officers, and the sailors, screaming to each other in efforts to be heard, -this, all this, in the darkness which precedes the dawning of day, and with the fury of the hurricane, combined to form as much of the terribly sublime as I ever wish to witness concentrated in one scene. 5. The passengers, though silent, were filled with apprehension. What the extent of danger, and how all this would terminate, were questions which rose in my own mind, although I was unconscious of fear or trepidation. But to such questions there are no answers, for this knowledge resides only with Him who "guides the storm and directs the whirlwind." We had encountered, however, as yet, only the commencement of a gale, whose terrors had been heightened by its suddenness, by the darkness, and by the confusion. It continued to blow furiously for twenty-four hours; so that during the whole day I enjoyed a view, which, apart from its dangers, would be worth a voyage across the Atlantic. 6. The ship was driven madly through the raging waters, and when it was impossible to walk the decks without imminent risk of being lifted up and carried away by the winds, the poor sailors were kept aloft, tossing and swinging about the yards and in the tops, clinging by their bodies, feet, and arms, with mysterious tenacity, to the spars, while their hands were employed in taking in and securing sail. 7. On deck the officers and men made themselves safe by ropes; but how the gallant fellows aloft kept from being blown out of the rigging, was equally a matter of wonder and admiration. However, about seven o'clock they had taken in what canvas had not blown away, except the sails by means of which the vessel is kept steady. At nine o'clock the hurricane had acquired its full force. There was no more work to be done. The ship lay to", and those who had her in charge only remained on deck to be prepared for whatever of disaster might occur. The breakfast hour came, and passed, unheeded by most of the passengers. 8. By this time the sea was rolling up its hurricane waves; and that I might not lose the grandeur of such a view, I fortified myself against the rain and spray, and, in spite of the fierceness of the gale, planted myself in a position favorable for a survey of all round me, and in safety, so long as the ship's strong works might hold together. I had often seen paintings of a storm at sea, but here was the original. These imitations are oftentimes graphic and faithful, as far as they go, but they are neces 6 sarily deficient in accompaniments which paintings cannot supply, and are therefore feeble and ineffective. 9. You have, upon canvas, the ship and the sea, but, as they come from the hands of the artist, so they remain. The universal motion of both is thus arrested and made stationary. There is no subject in which the pencil of the painter acknowledges more its indebtedness to the imagination than in its attempts to delineate the sea storm. 10. It was not the least remarkable, and by far the most comfortable circumstance in this combination of all that is grand and terrible, that, furious as were the winds, towering and threatening as were the billows, our glorious bark preserved her equilibrium against the fury of the one, and her buoyancy in despite of the alternate precipice and avalanche of the other. True it is, she was made to whistle through her cordage, to creak and moan through all her timbers, even to her masts. True it is, she was made to plunge and rear, to tremble and reel and stagger. Still, she continued to scale the watery mountain, and ride on its very summit, until, as it rolled onward from beneath her, she descended gently on her pathway, ready to triumph again and again over each succeeding wave. 11. At such a moment it was a matter of profound deliberation which most to admire, the majesty of God in the winds and waves, or his goodness and wisdom in enabling his creatures to contend with and overcome the elements even in the fierceness of their anger! To cast one's eye abroad on the scene that surrounded me at this moment, and to think man should have said to himself, “I will build myself an ark in the midst of you, and ye shall not prevent my passage; nay, ye indomitable waves shall bear me up, and ye winds shall waft me onward!" And yet there we were in the fulness of this fearful experiment! 12. I had never believed it possible for a vessel to |