But why do ye plant 'neath the billows dark With mouldering bones the deeps are white, Ye build-ye build-but ye enter not in, Like the tribes whom the desert devoured in their sin; Ere its verdure gleams forth on your weary eye;— Ye slumber unmarked 'mid the desolate main, LESSON XXVI. Opening of the Sixth Seal.-T. GRAY, JUN. And I beheld when he opened the Sixth Seal. Rev. vi. 12. I STOOD above the mountains, and I saw, The unveiled features of Eternity. Th' affrighted earth did quake. The mountains reeled, Toppled, and fell in fragments. Lightning shot The everlasting stars of heaven did fall, The heavens--the eternal heavens themselves, that stretched The city was a desert. Men aghast On high their hollow voices, and they prayed, Ye mountains, fall on us—and ye, oh rocks! LESSON XXVII. To the Eagle. PERCIVAL. BIRD of the broad and sweeping wing! Where wide the storms their banners fling, And the tempest clouds are driven. Thy throne is on the mountain top; Thou sittest like a thing of light, The midway sun is clear and bright- Thy pinions, to the rushing blast Thou art perched aloft on the beetling crag, And on, with a haste that cannot lag, Again, thou hast plumed thy wing for flight And away, like a spirit wreathed in light, Thou hurriest over the myriad waves, Thou sweepest that place of unknown graves, When the night storm gathers dim and dark, Lord of the boundless realm of air! In thy imperial name, The hearts of the bold and ardent dare, Beneath the shade of thy golden wings, From the river of Egypt's cloudy springs, For thee they fought, for thee they fell, Thou wert, through an age of death and fears, Till the gathered rage of a thousand years And then, a deluge of wrath it came, And it swept the earth till its fields were flame And where was then thy fearless flight? To the lands that caught the setting light, There, on the silent and lonely shore, And the world, in its darkness, asked no more, But then came a bold and hardy few, And now that bold and hardy few And danger and doubt I have led them through, And over their bright and glancing arms On field and lake and sea, With an eye that fires, and a spell that charms, I guide them to victory.' LESSON XXVIII. The Union of the States.-WEBSter. From an Address delivered at Washington city on the Centennial Anniversary of the Birth of Washington. THERE was in the breast of Washington one sentiment deeply felt, so constantly uppermost, that no proper occasion escaped without its utterance.-From the letter which he signed in behalf of the convention, when the constitution was sent out to the people, to the moment when he put his hand to that last paper, in which he addressed his countrymen, the union was the great object of his thoughts. In that first letter, he tells them that to him, and his brethren of the convention, union is the greatest interest of every true American; and in that last paper he conjures them to regard that unity of government, which constitutes them one people, as the very palladium of their prosperity and safety, and the security of liberty itself. He regarded the union of these states, not so much one of our blessings, as the great treasure-house which contained them all. Here, in his judgment, was the great magazine of all our means of prosperity; here, as he thought, and as every true American still thinks, are deposited all our animating prospects, all our solid hopes for future greatness. He has taught us to maintain this government, not by seeking to enlarge its powers on the one hand, nor by surrendering them on the other; but by an administration of them, at once firm and moderate, adapted for objects truly national, and carried on in a spirit of justice and equity. The extreme solicitude for the preservation of the union, at all times manifested by him, shows not only the opinion he entertained of its usefulness, but his clear perception of those causes which were likely to spring up to endanger it, and which, if once they should overthrow the present system, would leave little hope of any future beneficial reunion. Of all the presumptions indulged by presumptuous man, that is one of the rashest, which looks for repeated and favorable opportunities, for the deliberate establishment of a united government, over distinct and widely extended communities. Such a thing has happened once in human affairs, and but once: the event stands out, as a prominent exception to all ordinary history; and, unless we suppose |