of motion was utterly denied him ;-he sunk down upon the snow, a burning fever at his heart. He would scarcely have heeded physical pain, had he experienced it; but it had passed away—and his agitated heart, contrasted frightfully, with its frenzied beatings, the torpidity of his frozen limbs. Let men boast of their power of volition! Here was a wretch stretched upon the earth, to whom it was many deaths to lie there,-who, had he possessed one particle of the free-will with which man's pride hath sought to robe his weakness, would instantly have returned to the bed-side of his loved, unconscious one, who might be dying for want of aid!

"Three hours after Allan had left his home, he was lying, still, in the same posture,-apparently stiffened into a corpse. But he was no longer alone.-A face, -soft as those Italian skies smile upon-was pressed close to the hard and marble lineaments of the worn Scotsman. A fond hand patted his rough head, and urged him to awake.-It was his idiot boy; who had followed, at a distance, the only guide he had ever known, tracing his steps, in the snow, with that instinct which seems so like intelligence. The father, though speechless and motionless, yet saw and heard his child,-saw and heard him with his heart!-for all outward avenues to thought and feeling were locked up, in a spell of ice. The poor innocent rubbed his hands; and sought, by every method, to impart some of his own warmth to the father of his own life,—but all in vain!-The gentle

boy imbibed the parent coldness, instead of imparting his own heat; and, gradually declining his lovely head, that head so sweetly shadowed with its own beauty, his arm around his father's neck,-died, calmly and sweetly, in that attitude of love.

"Allan was found, on the following morning, conscious of all that had passed. But the cold preyed upon his vitals; and he only told the story of his feelings that dreadful night,-then hastened to his boy, as if, in death, he still needed his watchful tenderness.

66

They were laid in the same grave!"

ΜΟΝΑ.

THE COMET.

BY HENRY NEELE, ESQ.

O'ER the blue heavens-majestic and alone-
He treads, as treads a monarch towards his throne !
Darkness her leaden sceptre lifts, in vain,
Crushed and consumed beneath his fiery wain;
And night's swarth cheeks, pained by his gazing eye,
Blush, like Aurora's, as he passes by!

See, how the countless hosts of heaven turn pale,-
The blood-red cheek of Mars begins to fail,
Bright Berenice's shining locks grow dim,
Orion changes as he looks on him,

And the stern Gorgon on his brightness rests
Her stony eyes, and lowers her snaky crests!
In breathless wonder hushed, the starry choir
Listen, in silence, to his one bold lyre ;

Save when its lingeriug echoes they prolong,
And tell, to distant worlds, the wonderous song!—
-And what that song, whose numbers fill the ears,
With admiration, of surrounding spheres ?
"Honour and adoration, power and praise

To Him who tracks the comet's pathless ways;

Who, to the stars, has their bright courses given,
And, to the sun, appoints his place in heaven;
And rears, for man, a mansion more sublime,
Not built with hands, nor doomed to stoop to time,
Whose strong foundations, unimpaired, shall stay,
When suns, and stars, and worlds,-and all things pass
away!"

FROM THE GERMAN.

WHEN lone, by day's declining light,

Thou slumberest in the silent grove,
Should some fond vision woo thy sight,

And o'er thee bend, in watchful love,—

Mine is that guardian form confest,
Whose vows of rapture soothe thy rest.

When, by the moon's uncertain ray,
The dream of love thy senses seals,
And-where the cypress branches sway-
A voice of aerial music steals,
And heaves the heart, in pleasing fear,-
"Tis then my spirit hovers near.

Or if, while wandering fancy weaves
Her fairy spells of faded bliss,
Thy hand-thy lip a touch receives,

Light as the zephyr's whispered kiss,
And the pale lamp gleams fitful by,—
Oh! doubt not then my shade is nigh.

Or,-heard by evening's silver star,

While sleep's light wreaths thy temples twine,Breathes-like the harp's wild tones afar

The plighted vow-" For ever thine!"Then calmly sleep-for o'er thy breast

My spirit breathes its raptured rest!

P.