she presents herself to her children? Oh! not in the attitude of human pride, or human arrogance; not with the laurels of victory upon her brow, or with troops of captives following her chariot wheels; it is the attitude of pious thankfulness; with hands uplifted in praise, and eyes downcast in gratitude; it is before the Eternal throne that she bows her victorious head, and casts her crown of glory upon the ground, and calls her children to kneel along with her, and to praise the Father of nature that he hath selected her to be the instrument of his mercy to mankind. These are triumphs to which the history of the world has no parallel. In the long line of her splendor, what hour is to be compared with this? Which of us does not feel somewhat of her glory to be reflected upon our own heads? British heart is there which does not pray that such ever her name and her character among mankind?

And what

may be

THE CLOUDS.-GRENVILLE Mellen,

O clouds! ye ancient messengers,
Old couriers of the sky,
Treading, as in primeval years,
Yon still immensity!

In march how wildly beautiful
Along the deep ye tower,
Begirt, as when from chaos dull

Ye loomed in pride and power,
To crown creation's morning hour.

Ye perish not, ye passing clouds!
But with the speed of time,
Ye flit your shadowy shapes, like shrouds,
Oe'r each emerging clime;
And thus on broad and furlless wings
Ye float in light along,

Where every jewelled planet sings

Its clear eternal song,

Over the path our friends have gone!

Against that deep and peerless blue
Ye hold your journeying-
That silent birth-place of the dew,
Where life and lustre spring.

And then, how goldenly ye shine
On your immortal way,

Sailing through realms so near divine,
Under the fount of day!

O'er ye, concentered glories play.

But when, to trail this sullen earth
Ye stoop from higher air,
And the glad regions of your birth,
To sweep the mountains bare,
In dim funereal pomp ye lower—
Oppressing like a pall—

Your brows of beauty veiled in power,
Whose shadows round us fall-
Ye brood like demons o'er the ball.

So our life's hopes and promises
In dreamy distance lie;
So man a coming glory sees
Along his visioned sky-
So as those rainbow joys come on,
Borne with his fleeting days,
That bright futurity is gone,

And dullness dims his gaze— Night gathers on his noontide blaze.

Ye posters of the wakeless air!
How silently ye glide

Down the unfathomed atmosphere
That deep-deep, azure tide!
And thus in giant pomp ye go,
On high and reachless range,
Above earth's gladness and its woe,
Through centuries of change.
Your destiny how lone and strange!

Ye bear the bow of beauty-flung
On your triumphal path,
Splendid as first in joy it hung
O'er God's retiring wrath.
The promise and the covenant

Are written on your brow

The mercy to the sinful sent,
İs bending o'er them now.

Ye bear the memory of the vow.

Ye linger with the silver stars,
Ye pass before the sun-
Ye marshal elements to wars,
And when the roar is done,
Ye lift your volumed robes in light,
And wave them to the world,
Like victory flags o'er scattered fight,
Brave banners all unfurled-

Still there, though rent and tempest hurled.

Ye bear the living thunder out,
Ye pageants of the sky!
Answering with trumpets' battling shout
The lightning's scorching eye.
Pale faces cluster under ye,

Beneath your withering look,
And shaking hearts bow fearfully;
At your sublime rebuke,
Has man his mockery forsook!

And then, in still and summer hours,
When men sit weary down,

Ye come o'er heated fields and flowers,
With shadowy pinions on-

Ye hover where the fervent earth

A saddened silence fills,

And, mourning o'er its stricken mirth,

Ye weep along the hills.

Then how the wakened landscape thrills!

And thus ye circle countless spheres,
Old spirits of the skies!

The same through nature's smiles and tears,

Ye rose on paradise.

I hear a voice from out your shrouds,

That tells me of decay

For though ye stay not, hurtling clouds!

Ye

Till the last gathering day,

pass like life's dim dreams away.

62

ALLEGORY.

PARADISE OF YOUTH.-BULWER.

At length the traveler emerged from a mighty forest, through which, for several days, he had threaded his weary way and beautiful beyond thought was the landscape that broke upon his view. A plain covered with the richest verdure lay before him; through the trees that here and there darkened over the emerald ground, were cut alleys, above which arched festoons of many-colored flowers, whose hues sparkled amid the glossy foliage, and whose sweets steeped the air as with a bath. A stream, clear as crystals, flowed over golden sands: and, wherever the sward was greenest, gathered itself into delicious fountains, and sent upwards dazzling spray, as if to catch the embraces of the sun, whose beams kissed it in delight.

The wanderer paused in ectasy; a sense of luxurious rapture which he had never before experienced crept into his soul. “Behold!" murmured he, "my task is already done: and Aden, the land of happiness and of youth lies before me !"

While he thus spake, a sweet voice answered-" Yes, O happy stranger!-thy task is done: this is the land of happiness and of youth!"

He turned, and a maiden of dazzling beauty was by his side. "Enjoy the present," said she, "and so wilt thou defy the future. Ere yet the world was, love brooded over the unformed shell, till from beneath the shadow of his wings burst forth the life of the young creation. Love, then, is the true God, and whoso serveth him he admits into the mysteries of a temple erected before the stars. Behold! thou enterest now upon the threshhold of the temple; thou art in the land of happiness and youth !"

:

Enchanted with these words, Arasmanes gave himself up to the sweet intoxication they produced upon his soul. He suffered the nymph to lead him deeper into the valley and now, from a thousand vistas in the wood, trooped forth beings, some of fantastic, some of the most harmonious shapes. There was the satyr and the faun, and the youthful Bacchus-mixed with the multiform deities of India, and the wild objects of Egyptian worship; but more numerous than all were the choral nymphs, that spiritualized the reality, by incoporating the dreams, of

beauty; and wherever he looked, one laughing face seemed to peer forth from the glossy leaves, and to shed, as from its own joyous yet tender aspect, a tenderness and a joy over all things; and he asked how this being, that seemed to have the power of multiplying itself everywhere, was called? And its name was Eros.

For a time, the length of which he knew not-for in that land no measurement of time was kept-Arasmanes was fully 'persuaded that it was Aden to which he had attained. He felt his youth as if it were something palpable; every thing was new to him—even in the shape of the leaves, and the whisper of the odorous airs, he found wherewithal to marvel at and admire. Enamoured of the maiden that had first addressed him, at her slightest wish (and she was full of all beautiful caprices,) he was ready to explore even the obscurest recess in the valley, which now appeared to him unbounded. He never wearied of a single hour. He felt as if weariness were impossible; and, with every instant, he repeated to himself, “In the land of happiness and youth I am a dweller."

One day as he was conversing with his beloved, and gazing upon her face, he was amazed to behold that, since the last time he had gazed upon it, a wrinkle had planted itself upon the ivory surface of her brow; and, even while half doubting the evidence of his eyes, new wrinkles seemed slowly to form over the forehead, and the transparent roses of her cheek to wane and fade! He concealed, as well as he could, the mortification and wonder that he experienced at this strange phenomenon; and no longer daring to gaze upon a face from which before he had drank delight as from a fountain, he sought excuses to separate himself from her, and wandered, confused and bewildered with his own thoughts, into the wood. The fauns, and the dryads, and the youthful face of Bacchus, and the laughing aspect of Eros, came athwart him from time to time; yet the wonder that had clothed them with fascination was dulled within his breast. Nay, he thought the poor wine-god had a certain vulgarity in his air, and he almost yawned audibly in the face of Eros.

And now, whenever he met his favorite nymph-who was as the queen of the valley-he had the chagrin to perceive that the wrinkles deepened with every time; youth seemed rapidly to desert her; and, instead of a maiden scarcely escaped from childhood, it was an old coquet that he had been so desperately in love with.

One day he could not resist saying to her, though with some embarrassment