On its south side a little islet towers,

There one small pitch o'er broken fragments pours:
Goat-Island next, with oaks and cedars crowned,
Its shelving base with dwarfish shrubbery bound;
Along the brink a rocky front extends

Four hundred yards, and at the Horse-shoe ends.a
There the main forces of the river pour;
There, fierce above, the rushing rapids roar !
The mighty watery mass, resistless grown,
Green down the impending brink unbroken thrown,
Whelmed amidst dazzling hills of boiling spray,
In raging, deafening torrents roar away.

One last grand object yet remained unviewed;
Thither we crawl, o'er monstrous fragments rude,
Struggling o'er caverns deep, now prostrate thrown,
Now up wet slippery masses clambering on,
Below, in foam, the raging rapids sweep,

Above, dark hollowed, hangs the enormous steep,
Scooped out immense; resounding, gloomy, bare,
Its giddy verge projected high in air;
There such a scene of rage and uproar new,
In awful grandeur burst upon our view,
As seized at once all power of speech away,
And filled our souls with terror and dismay.

Great God of nature! whose blessed sun and showers
Called into action these tremendous powers,
Where shall my tongue fit force of language find
To speak the dread sensations of the mind,
When o'er the impending brink, in bounding sweep,
The eye pursued this deluge to the deep,

a These falls are 12 or 14 feet lower than those of Fort Slusher on the American side; and the main body of the river rushes over at this place with indescribable violence and uproar.

b The Great Pitch. Of the general appearance of this tremendous scene I find it altogether impossible for me to give any adequate conception.

O

Saw its white torrents undulating pour

From heaven to earth with deafening, crashing roar,
Dashed in the wild and torn abyss below,

'Midst dazzling foam and whirling storms of snow,
While the whole monstrous mass, and country round,
Shook as with horror at the o'erwhelming sound!"

Within this concave vast, dark, frowning, deep,
Eternal rains and howling whirlwinds sweep;
The slippery rocks, at every faithless tread,
Threaten to whelm us headlong to the dead.
Our bard and pilot, curious to survey,
Behind this sheet what unknown wonders lay,
Resolved the dangers of the attempt to share,
And all its terrors and its storms to dare;
So, hand in hand, with firm yet cautious pace,
Along the gloom they grope this dreary space,
'Midst rushing winds, descending deep, they gain
Behind th' o'erhanging horrors of the scene;
There dark, tempestuous, howling regions lie,
And whirling floods of dashing waters fly.
At once of sight deprived, of sense and breath,
Staggering amidst this caverned porch of death,
One moment more had swept them in the waves
To the most horrible of human graves;

But danger, here, to desperate force gave way,
And drove them, drenched and gasping out to day.
The glooms of evening now began to close,
O'er heaps of rocks our homeward steps we chose;
And one by one the infernal ladder scaled,
While night's grim darkness deep around prevailed;
Safe on the fearful brink, we search around,
And, glimmering near, a light and lodgings found;

a This is literally true. In the house where we lodged, which is more than half a mile from the falls, the vibration of a fork, stuck in a board partition, were plainly observable across the

room.

There full of all the wonders of the day,
In vain on bed our weary heads we lay;
Still loud without a mighty tempest heaves;
Still the calm air our terror undeceives.

And when some short and broken slumbers came,
Still round us roaring swept th' outrageous stream;
Whelmed in the deep we sunk, engulfed, forlorn,
Or down the dreadful Rapids helpless borne;
Groaning we start! and at the loudening war,
Ask our bewildered senses where we are.

At length, with watching and with toil opprest,
The thundering tumult rocked us into rest.

The following five pieces, with their prose introductions, are from the American Ornithology.

The American Blue-Bird.

Such are the mild and pleasing manners of the Blue-bird, and so universally is he esteemed, that I have often regretted that no pastoral muse has yet risen, in this western woody world, to do justice to his name, and endear him to us still more, by the tenderness of verse, as has been done to his representative in Britain, the Robin Red-breast. A small acknowledgment of this kind I have to offer, which the reader I hope will excuse as a tribute to rural innocence.

WHEN Winter's cold tempests and snows are no more, Green meadows, and brown furrowed fields reappearing,

The fishermen hauling their shad to the shore,

And cloud-cleaving geese to the lakes are a-steering,

When first the lone butterfly flits on the wing,

When red glow the maples, so fresh and so pleasing, O then comes the Blue-bird, the herald of Spring, And hails with his warblings the charms of the

season.

Then loud piping frogs make the marshes to ring; Then warm glows the sunshine, and fine is the weather;

The blue woodland flowers just beginning to spring, And spicewood and sassafras budding together; O then to your gardens, ye housewives, repair; Your walks border up, sow and plant at your leisure;

The Blue-bird will chant from his box such an air,

That all your hard toils will seem truly a pleasure.

He flits through the orchard, he visits each tree, The red glowing peach, and the apple's sweet blossoms;

He snaps up destroyers wherever they be,

And seizes the caitiffs that lurk in their bosoms; He draws the vile grub from the corn it devours, The worms from their webs where they riot and welter.

His song and his services freely are ours,

And all that he asks, is, in summer, a shelter.

The ploughman is pleased when he gleans in his train, Now searching the furrows-now mounting to cheer him,

The gardener delights in his sweet simple strain,
And leans on his spade to survey and to hear him.
The slow ling'ring schoolboys forget they'll be chid,
While gazing intent as he warbles before 'em,
In mantle of sky-blue, and bosom so red,

That each little loiterer seems to adore him.

When all the gay scenes of the summer are o'er, And Autumn slow enters so silent and sallow, And millions of warblers, that charmed us before, Have fied in the train of the sun-seeking swallow; The Blue-bird, forsaken, yet true to his home,

Still lingers, and looks for a milder to-morrow,

Till forced by the horrors of winter to roam,
He sings his adieu in a lone note of sorrow.

While Spring's lovely season, soft, dewy, and warm, The green face of earth, and the pure blue of heaven,

Or love's native music have influence to charm,

Or sympathy's glow to our feelings are given— Still dear to each bosom the Blue-bird shall be;

His voice, like the thrillings of hope, is a treasure; For, through bleakest storms, if a calm he but see, He comes to remind us of sunshine and pleasure.

The Humming-Bird.

The Humming Bird is one of the few that are universally beloved; and, amid the sweet dewy serenity of a summer's morning, his appearance among the arbours of honeysuckle, and beds of flowers, is truly interesting.

WHEN morning dawns, and the blest sun again
Lifts his red glories from the eastern main,
Then thro' our woodbines, wet with glittering dews,
The flower-fed Humming-bird his flight pursues,
Sips with inserted tube the honied blooms,
And chirps his gratitude as round he roams;
While richest roses, though in crimson drest,
Shrink from the splendour of his gorgeous breast.
What heavenly tints in mingling radiance fly,
Each rapid movement gives a different dye;
Like scales of burnished gold they dazzling show,
Now sink to shade-now like a furnace glow.

The Baltimore Bild.

The Baltimore inhabits North America, from Canada to Mexico, and is even found as far south as Brazil. Since the streets of our cities have been planted with that beautiful and stately tree, the Lombardy poplar, these birds are our constant visitors during the