THE WORLD DANGEROUS. RAINBOW. 345 THE WORLD DANGEROUS TO VIRTUE. 、 VIRTUE, forever frail and fair below, Her tender nature suffers in the crowd, Nor is it strange; light, motion, concourse, noise, In fume and dissipation, quits her charge, THE RAINBOW. SYMBOL of peace! lo, there the ethereal bow! Vale, hill, and sky, once more. How lustrous now Its infant joy; and rushing swift along, The torrent gives to air, its hoarse and louder song. FORWARDNESS. NOTHING, perhaps, is more unbecoming to young persons than the assumption of consequence before men of age, wisdom, and experience. The advice, therefore, of Parmenio, the Grecian General, to his son, was worthy of him to give, and worthy of every man of sense to adopt; "My son," says he, "would you be great, you must be less." 1 The modest deportment of really wise men, when contrasted to the assuming air of the young and ignorant, may be compared to the different appearances of wheat, which, while its ear is empty, holds up its head proudly, but as it is filled with grain, bends modestly down, and withdraws from observation. SONNET. As slow I climb the cliff's ascending side, When o'er the dark wave rode the howling blast, And yon forsaken tower that time has rent! Is touch'd, and the hush'd billows seem to sleep. Whilst sad airs stilly sigh along the deep, Like melodies that mourn upon the lyre, Waked by the breeze, and as they mourn expire. THE EVENING CLOUD. A CLOUD lay cradled near the setting sun, While every breath of eve that chanced to blow, Emblem, methought, of the departed soul ! Right onwards to the golden gates of Heaven, SONNET. GIVE me a cottage on some Cambrian wild, List to the mountain-torrent's distant noise, I shall not want the world's delusive joys! Shall think my lot complete, nor covet more; CHANGES OF THE YEAR. A YEAR of changes has brought us to that epoch, which, as we mark it down in our tablets, emphatically reminds us, "What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue." The "happy new year season, as it is of pleasure and felicitation, celebrated with festival and song, is yet a striking and solemn memento; and he must be dull, indeed, who can write, for the first time, the number that designates it without a passing touch at least, of serious emotion. It reminds him how far he is gone up, on the scale of the dread century's progress; what a floating atom he is upon the tide of passing ages; and how soon the frail records of time, which he strews like leaves upon the dark wave, will be swallowed up forever. It is a memento of change, of instability, of uncertainty; of weary labors, of unsatisfying pursuits, of social bereavements, of a world whose fashion passeth away. Let it be true that it is a memento of other things; our present design and mood lead us to say, that it is a memento of these. As we gather up the confused impressions of the past, as the great scene of worldly toil, and turmoil, and vicissitude passes in review before us; as we meditate upon the many things, the many events, which seem as if they revolved in eternal circles, tending to nothing and producing nothing, we are ready to exclaim with the ancient preacher, "all things are full of labor; man cannot utter it. The sun ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he rose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually : and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. - All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full into the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again." written upon all Thus is revolution, change, instability, things. The law is impressed on every varying form of nature. It is taught in the revolving skies. It comes up from the heaving depths of ocean. It is proclaimed in the convulsions of the earth; it is whispered in the stirring of the elements. The seasons change. The secret powers of nature are ever at work, and every instant are producing new forms, new combinations, new appearances. If we repose and rest, everything is in motion about us; and the world in which we wake is no longer the world in which we slept. If thought passes in its busy career, or recreates itself with idle and airy visions, yet nature's mighty work goes on; the circulating air, the rolling ocean, the springing or the decaying plant, the waving forest, the flowing river, the bursting fountains, are all undergoing momentary changes. The elements, too what a visitation of mystery and change, of mingled violence and gentleness, is theirs! Fair visions of beauty and life, sweet and silent influences distilling, as the dew, soft breathings of balmy odors and heavenly melodies, spread themselves through all our senses, like the invisible wind, swaying the cords of an Eolian harp. But rougher touches proclaim other and sterner uses. The elements minister discipline with pleasure. They often incommode; they sometimes alarm us. We are during a considerable portion of our lives suffering from the inconveniences of climate, and the incessant changes of nature; panting in the heats of summer, or shivering amidst the chills of winter, drenched with the rain or parched with the drought; our footsteps |