And through the dewy atmosphere,
Not only could I see, but hear,
Its wondrous and harmonious strings,
In sweet vibration, sphere by sphere,
From Dian's circle light and near,
Onward to vaster and wider rings,
Where, chanting through his beard of snows,
Majestic, mournful, Saturn goes,

And down the sunless realms of space
Reverberates the thunder of his bass.
Beneath the sky's triumphal arch
This music sounded like a march,
And with its chorus seemed to be
Preluding some great tragedy.
Sirius was rising in the east;
And, slow ascending one by one,
The kindling constellations shone.
Begirt with many a blazing star,
Stood the great giant Algebar,
Orion, hunter of the beast!

His sword hung gleaming by his side,
And, on his arm, the lion's hide
Scattered across the midnight air
The golden radiance of its hair.
The moon was pallid, but not faint;
And beautiful as some fair saint,
Serenely moving on her way
In hours of trial and dismay.
As if she heard the voice of God,
Unharmed with naked feet she trod
Upon the hot and burning stars,
As on the glowing coals and bars
That were to prove her strength, and try
Her holiness and her purity.

Thus moving on, with silent pace,
And triumph in her sweet, pale face,
She reached the station of Orion.
Aghast he stood in strange alarm!
And suddenly from his outstretched arm
Down fell the red skin of the lion
Into the river at his feet.

His mighty club no longer beat
The forehead of the bull; but he
Reeled as of yore beside the sea,
When, blinded by Enopion,

He sought the blacksmith at his forge,

And, climbing up the mountain gorge,
Fixed his blank eyes upon the sun.
Then, through the silence overhead,
An angel with a trumpet said,
Forevermore, forevermore,
The reign of violence is o'er!"
And, like an instrument that flings
Its music on another's strings,
The trumpet of the angel cast
Upon the heavenly lyre its blast,
And on from sphere to sphere the words
Reechoed down the burning chords,-
"Forevermore, forevermore,

The reign of violence is o'er!"

THE BRIDGE.

I STOOD On the bridge at midnight,
As the clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose o'er the city,

Behind the dark church tower.

I saw her bright reflection

In the waters under me,

Like a golden goblet falling

And sinking into the sea. And far in the hazy distance

Of that lovely night in June, The blaze of the flaming furnace Gleamed redder than the moon.

Among the long, black rafters

The wavering shadows lay,

And the current that came from the ocean Seemed to lift and bear them away;

As, sweeping and eddying through them, Rose the belated tide,

And, streaming into the moonlight,

The seaweed floated wide.

And like those waters rushing
Among the wooden piers,

A flood of thoughts came o'er me
That filled my eyes with tears.
How often, O, how often,

In the days that had gone by,

I had stood on that bridge at midnight,
And gazed on that wave and sky!

How often, O, how often,

I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its bosom
O'er the ocean wild and wide!
For my heart was hot and restless,
And my life was full of care,
And the burden laid upon me

Seemed greater than I could bear.
But now it has fallen from me,
It is buried in the sea;
And only the sorrow of others
Throws its shadow over me.

Yet whenever I cross the river

On its bridge with wooden piers,
Like the odour of brine from the ocean
Comes the thought of other years.
And I think how many thousands
Of care-encumbered men,

Each bearing his burden of sorrow,
Have crossed the bridge since then.

I see the long procession

Still passing to and fro,

The young heart hot and restless,
And the old subdued and slow!

And forever and forever,

As long as the river flows,

As long as the heart has passions,
As long as life has woes;

The moon and its broken reflection
And its shadows shall appear,
As the symbol of love in heaven,
And its wavering image here.

TO THE DRIVING CLOUD.

GLOOMY and dark art thou, O chief of the mighty Omawhaws! Gloomy and dark, as the driving cloud, whose name thou hast

taken!

Wrapt in thy scarlet blanket, I see thee stalk through the city's Narrow and populous streets, as once by the margin of rivers Stalked these birds unknown, that have left us only their foot

prints.

What, in a few short years, will remain of thy race but the foot

prints?

How canst thou walk in these streets, who hast trod the green turf of the prairies?

How canst thou breathe in this air, who hast breathed the sweet air of the mountains?

Ah! 'tis in vain that with lordly looks of disdain thou dost challenge

Looks of dislike in return, and question these walls and these pavements,

Claiming the soil for thy hunting-grounds, while down-trodden millions

Starve in the garrets of Europe, and cry from its caverns that they, too,

Have been created heirs of the earth, and claim its division!

Back, then, back to thy woods in the regions west of the Wabash! There as a monarch thou reignest. In autumn the leaves of the

maple

Pave the floors of thy palace-halls with gold, and in summer Pine-trees waft through its chambers the odorous breath of their branches.

There thou art strong and great, a hero, a tamer of horses! There thou chasest the stately stag on the banks of the Elk-horn, Or by the roar of the Running-Water, or where the Omawhaw Calls thee, and leaps through the wild ravine like a brave of the Blackfeet!

Hark! what murmurs arise from the heart of those mountainous deserts ?

Is it the cry of the Foxes and Crows, or the mighty Behemoth, Who, unharmed, on his tusks once caught the bolts of the thunder, And now lurks in his lair to destroy the race of the red man? Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the Crows and the Foxes, Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the tread of Behemoth, Lo! the big thunder-canoe, that steadily breasts the Missouri's Merciless current! and yonder, afar on the prairies, the camp-fires Gleam through the night; and the cloud of dust in the gray of the daybreak

Marks not the buffalo's track, nor the Mandan's dexterous horse

race.

It is a caravan, whitening the desert where dwell the Camanches! Ha! how the breath of these Saxons and Celts, like the blast of

the east-wind,

Drifts evermore to the west the scanty smokes of thy wigwams!

THE PHANTOM SHIP.

IN Mather's Magnalia Christi,
Of the old colonial time,
May be found in prose the legend
That is here set down in rhyme.

A ship sailed from New Haven,
And the keen and frosty airs,
That filled her sails at parting,

Were heavy with good men's prayers.
"O Lord! if it be Thy pleasure,"
Thus prayed the old divine,
"To bury our friends in the ocean,
Take them, for they are Thine!"
But Master Lamberton muttered,
And under his breath said he-
"This ship is so crank and wolty,
I fear our grave she will be!"
And the ships that came from England,
When the winter months were gone,
Brought no tidings of this vessel,

Nor of Master Lamberton.

This put the people to praying

That the Lord would let them hear

What, in His greater wisdom,

He had done with friends so dear.

And at last their prayers were answered :It was in the month of June,

An hour before the sunset

Of a windy afternoon;

When steadily steering landward

A ship was seen below,

And they knew it was Lamberton, Master,
Who sailed so long ago.

On she came, with a cloud of canvas,
Right against the wind that blew,

Until the eye could distinguish

The faces of the crew.

Then fell her straining top-masts,
Hanging tangled in the shrouds,

And her sails were loosened and lifted,
And blown away like clouds.