As far as sun from sun: there lacks not room,
Nor time, nor care, where all is infinite:

And still I doubt it is a Gordian knot,

A dark deep riddle, rich with curious thoughts;
Yet hear me tell a trivial incident,

And draw thine own conclusion from my tale.

Paris kept holiday; a merrier sight

The crowded Champs Elysées never saw:
Loud pealing laughter, songs, and flageolets,
And giddy dances, 'neath the shadowing elms,
Green vistas throng'd with thoughtless multitudes,
Traitorous processions, frivolous pursuits,

And pleasures full of sin, the loud "hurra!”
And fierce enthusiastic "Vive la nation!"
Were these thy ways and works, O godlike man,
Monopolist of mind, great patentee

Of truth, and sense, and reasonable soul?
My heart was sick with gayety; nor less,
When (sad, sad contrast to the sensual scene,)

I marked a single hearse through the dense crowd
Move on its nois cless melancholy way:

The blazing sun half quench'd it with his beams,
And show'd it but more sorrowful: I gaz'd,

And gaz'd with wonder that no feeling heart,

No solitary man followed, to note

The spot where poor mortality must sleep:
Alas! it was a friendless child of sorrow,
That stole unheeded to the house of Death!
My heart beat strong with sympathy, and loath'd
The noisy follies that were buzzing round me,
And I resolved to watch him to his grave,

And give a man his fellow-sinner's tear:
I left the laughing crowd, and quickly gained

That dreary hearse, and found, he was not friendless!
Yes, there was one, one only,

To that forgotten wanderer,

faithful found

his dog!

And there, with measured step, and drooping head,
And tearful eye, paced on the stricken mourner.

Yes, I remember how my bosom ached,
To see its sensible face look up to mine,
As in confiding sympathy, and howl!
Yes, I can never forget what grief unfeigned,
What true love, and unselfish gratitude,
That poor, bereaved, and soulless dog betrayed.

Ah, give me, give me such a friend, I cried;
Yon myriad fools and knaves in human guise,
Compared with thee, poor cur, are vain and worthless;
While man, who claims a soul exclusively,

Is sham'd by yonder

66 mere machine," a dog!

'EQUIDEM CREDO QUI SIT DIVINITUS ILLIS INGENIUM."

THE CHAMOIS-HUNTER.

A LESSON OF LIFE.

THE Scene was bathed in beauty rare,
For Alpine grandeur toppled there,
With emerald spots between;

A summer-evening's blush of rose
All faintly warmed the crested snows,
And tinged the valleys green;

Night gloom'd apace, and dark on high
The thousand banners of the sky
Their awful width unfurl'd,

Veiling Mount Blanc's majestic brow,
That seem'd among its cloud-wrapt snow,
The ghost of some dead world:

[Virgil.

When Pierre, the hunter, cheerly went
To scale the Catton's battlement
Before the peep of day;

He took his rifle, pole, and rope,
His heart and eyes alight with hope,
He hasted on his way.

He crossed the vale, he hurried on,
He forded the cold Arveron,

The first rough terrace gain'
Threaded the fir wood's gloomy belt,
And trod the snows that never melt,
And to the summit strained.

Over the top, as he knew well,
Beyond the glacier in the dell
A herd of chamois slept;

So down the other dreary side,
With cautious tread or careless slide,
He bounded, or he crept.

And now he nears the chasmed ice;
He stoops to leap, — and in a trice,

His foot hath slipped, -O heaven! He hath leapt in, and down he falls Between those blue tremendous walls, Standing asunder riven.

But quick his clutching nervous grasp
Contrives a jutting crag to clasp,
And thus he hangs in air;

O moment of exulting bliss!
Yet hope so nearly hopeless is
Twin-brother to despair.

He look'd beneath, a horrible doom! Some thousand yards of deepening gloom,

They call thee, Pierre, see, see them here,
Thy gather'd neighbors far and near,
Be cool, man, hold on fast:

And so from out that terrible place,
With death's pale paint upon his face,
They drew him up at last.

And he came home an alter'd man,

For many harrowing terrors ran

Through his poor heart that day; He thought how all through life, though young, Upon a thread, a hair, he hung Over a gulf midway.

He thought.what fear it were to fall
Into the pit that swallows all,

Unwing'd with hope and love;

And when the succor came at last,
O then he learnt how firm and fast
Was his best Friend above

NATURE.

I STRAYED at evening to a sylvan scene

Dimpling with nature's smile the stern old mountain, A shady dingle, quiet, cool and green,

Where the mossed rock poured forth its natural fountain, And hazels clustered there, with fern between,

And feathery meadow-sweet shed perfume round,
And the pink crocus pierced the jewelled ground;
Then was I calm and happy: for the voice
Of nightingales unseen, in tremulous lays,
Taught me with innocent gladness to rejoice,
And tuned my spirit to informal praise!
So among silvered moths, and closing flowers,
Gambolling hares, and rooks returning home,
And strong-winged chafers setting out to roam,
In careless peace I passed the soothing hours.

ᎪᎡᎢ .

THE massy fane of architecture olden,
Or fretted minarets of marble white,
Or Moorish arabesque, begemmed and golden,
Or porcelain Pagoda, tipped with light,

Nor less yon gallant ship, that treads the waves

In a triumphant silence of delight,

Like some huge swan with its fair wings unfurled, Whose curved sides the laughing water laves,

Bearing it buoyant o'er the liquid world:

Nor less yon silken monster of the sky,

Around whose wicker car the clouds are curled,
Helping undaunted man to scale on high
Nearer the sun than eagles dare to fly;

Thy trophies these, - still but a modest part

Of thy grand conquests wonder-working Art.