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"And now the grave for its cold breast hath won thee, And thy white, delicate limbs the earth will press;

And O! my last caress

Must feel thee cold, for a chill hand is on thee.
How can I leave my boy so pillowed there

Upon his clustering hair!"

TO BLOSSOMS.

FAIR pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do ye fall so fast?

Your date is not so past,
But you may stay yet here awhile
To blush and gently smile,
Then go at last.

What! were ye born to be

An hour or half's delight,
And so to bid good-night?
'T was pity Nature brought ye forth
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.

But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne'er so brave;
And after they have shown their pride,
Like you, a while, they glide

Into the grave.

THE NATURAL BRIDGE;

OR, ONE NICHE THE HIGHEST.

THE scene opens with a view of the great Natural Bridge in Virginia. There are three or four lads standing in the channel below, looking up with awe to that vast arch of unhewn rocks, which the Almighty bridged over those everlasting butments "when the morning stars sang together." The litttle piece of sky spanning those measureless piers, is full of stars, although it is mid-day. It is almost five hundred feet from where they stand, up those perpendicular bulwarks of limestone, to the key rock of that vast arch, which appears to them only of the size of a man's hand. The silence of death is rendered more impressive by the little stream that falls from rock to rock down the channel. The sun is darkened, and the boys have unconsciously uncovered their heads, as if standing in the presence chamber of the Majesty of the whole earth. At last, this feeling begins to wear away; they begin to look around them; they find that others have been there before them. They see the names of hundreds cut in the limestone butments. A new feeling comes over their young hearts, and their knives are in their hands in an instant. "What man has done, man can do," is their watchword, while they draw themselves up and carve their names a foot above those of a hundred fullgrown men who have been there before them.

They are all satisfied with this feat of physical exertion, except one, whose example illustrates perfectly the forgotten truth, that there is no royal road to intellectual eminence. This ambitious youth sees a name just above his reach, a name that will be green in the memory of the world, when those of Alexander, Cæsar, and Bonaparte, shall rot in oblivion. It was the name of Washington. Before he marched with Braddock to that fatal field, he had been there, and left his name a foot above all his predecessors. It was a glorious thought of the boy, to write his name side by side with that of the great father of his country. He grasps his knife with a firmer hand; and, clinging to a little jutting crag, he cuts again into the limestone, about a foot above where he stands; he then reaches up, and cuts another for his hands. 'T is a dangerous adventure; but as he puts his feet and hands into those gains, and draws himself up carefully to his full length, he finds himself a foot above every name chronicled in that mighty wall. While his companions are regarding him with concern and admiration, he cuts his name in rude capitals, large and deep, into that flinty album. His knife is still in his hand, and strength in his sinews, and a new created aspiration in his heart. Again he cuts another niche, and again he carves his name in larger capitals. This is not enough. Heedless of the entreaties of his companions, he cuts and climbs again. The graduations of his ascending scale grow wider apart. He measures his length at every gain he cuts. The voices of his friends wax weaker and weaker, till their words are finally lost on his ear. He now for the first time casts a look beneath him. Had that glance lasted a moment, that moment would have been his last. He clings with a convulsive shudder to his little niche in

the rock. An awful abyss awaits his almost certain fall. He is faint with severe exertion, and trembling from the sudden view of the dreadful destruction to which he is exposed. His knife is worn half-way to the haft. He can hear the voices, but not the words, of his terror-stricken companions below. What a moment! What a meagre chance to escape destruction! There is no retracing his steps. It is impossible to put his hands into the same niche with his feet, and retain his slender hold a moment. His companions instantly perceive this new and fearful dilemma, and await his fall with emotions that "freeze their young blood." He is too high, too faint, to ask for his father and mother, his brothers and sisters, to come and witness or avert his destruction. But one of his companions anticipates his desire. Swift as the wind he bounds down the channel, and the situation of the fated boy is told upon his father's hearth-stone. Minutes of almost eternal length roll on, and there are hundreds standing in that rocky channel, and hundreds on the bridge above, all holding their breath, and awaiting the fearful catastrophe. The poor boy hears the hum of new and numerous voices both above and below. He can just distinguish the tones of his father who is shouting with all the energy of despair, "William! William! Don't look down! Your mother, and Henry, and Harriet, are all here, praying for you! Don't look down! Keep your eye towards the top!" The boy didn't look down. His eye is fixed like a flint towards Heaven, and his young heart on Him who reigns there. He grasps again his knife. He cuts another niche, and another foot is added to the hundreds that remove him from the reach of human help from below. How carefully he uses his wasting blade! How anxiously he selects the softest places in that vast pier! How he avoids every flinty grain! How he economizes his physical powers! resting a moment at each gain he cuts. How every motion is watched from below! There stand his father, mother, brother, sister, on the very spot where, if he falls, he will not fall alone.

The sun is now half-way down the west. The lad has made fifty additional niches in that mighty wall, and now finds himself directly under the middle of that vast arch of rocks, earth, and trees. He must cut his way in a new direction, to get from under this overhanging mountain. The inspiration of hope is dying in his bosom; its vital heat is fed by the increasing shouts of hundreds perched upon cliffs and trees, and others who stand with ropes in their hands on the bridge above, or with ladders below. Fifty gains more must be cut before the longest rope can reach him. His wasting blade strikes again into the limestone. The boy is emerging painfully, foot by foot, from under that lofty arch. Spliced ropes are ready in the hands of those who are leaning over the outer edge of the bridge. Two minutes more, and all will be over. That blade is worn to the last half inch. The boy's head reels; his eyes are starting from their sockets. His last hope is dying in his heart; his life must hang upon the next gain he cuts. That niche is his last. At the last faint gash he makes, his knife-his faithful knife-falls from his little nerveless hand, and, ringing along the precipice, falls at his mother's feet. An involuntary groan of despair runs like a death-knell through the channel below, and all is still as the grave. At the height of nearly three hundred feet, the devoted boy lifts his hopeless heart and closing eyes to commend his soul to God. "Tis but a moment-there!

-one foot swings off!-he is reeling-trembling-toppling over into eternity! Hark!-a shout falls on his ear from above! The man who is lying with half his length over the bridge, has caught a glimpse of the boy's head and shoulders. Quick as thought, the noosed rope is within reach of the sinking youth. No one breathes. With a faint, convulsive effort, the swooning boy drops his arms into the noose. Darkness comes over him, and with the words, God! and Mother! whispered on his lips just loud enough to be heard in heaven-the tightening rope lifts him out of his last shallow niche. Not a lip moves while he is dangling over that fearful abyss; but when a sturdy Virginian reaches down and draws up the lad, and holds him up in his arms before the tearful, breathless multitude, such shouting-such leaping and weeping for joy-never greeted the ear of a human being so recovered from the yawning gulf of eternity.

FOUND DEAD.

FOUND dead-dead and alone;

There was nobody near, nobody near,

When the outcast died on his pillow of stone

No mother, no brother, no sister dear,

Not a friendly voice to soothe or cheer,

Not a watching eye, or a pitying tear.

Found dead-dead and alone,

In the roofless street, on a pillow of stone.

Many a weary day went by,

While wretched and worn he begged for bread,

Tired of life, and longing to lie

Peacefully down with the tired dead.

Hunger and cold, and scorn and pain,

Has wasted his form and seared his brain,

Till at last on a bed of frozen ground,

With a pillow of stone was the outcast found.

Found dead-dead and alone

On a pillow of stone in the roofless street-
Nobody heard his last faint moan,

Or knew when his sad heart ceased to beat.
No murmur lingered with tears or sighs,
But the stars looked down with pitying eyes,
And the chill winds passed with a wailing sound
O'er the lonely spot where his form was found.

Found dead-yet NOT alone;

There was somebody near, somebody near,
To claim the wanderer as his own,

And find a home for the homeless here.

One, when every human door

Is closed to his children scorned and poor,

Who opens the heavenly portals wide;
Ah! God was near when the outcast died.

SPENDING MONEY.

DY THE EDITOR.

SPENDING money in a careless, thoughtless, useless manner, is getting to be a growing evil. It is a vice to which young men in these days are much exposed; and in which many are laying the foundation of misery for themselves in time to come. It makes no difference whether they have abundance of resources by inheritance from wealthy parents, or whether they are dependent upon their own labor for their means, it is in either case alike evil. Have they much, that much must soon become little, while at the same time the habits of the spendthrift points unerringly to coming want and ruin. Have they only what they earn by their own hands; the same evil habits of free spending will not only keep their resources drained, but will also speedily cause them to become more fond of spending than of earning money. When such a position is once reached, then farewell to virtue and self-respect.

We do not commend penuriousness. We admire as much as any one a liberal and generous spirit in a young man. The useless waste of money is not generosity, but recklessness, which no one of proper cultivation can admire. Those only who avoid useless spending can afford to be generous. It is those who practice a regular economy that can be liberal and free, at the proper time and place.

The evil of which we speak shows itself especially in the extravagant manner in which money is spent for luxuries. How would some young men be surprised if they would count up, at the end of the year, the amount spent for ice-cream, nuts, oysters, drinks of various kinds, and such like. We asked a young man lately, on the morning after a public day, whether he had as much money when he came out of town as when he went in. He answered, "No, not by a good deal.” He told us, in further conversation, that he had seven dollars in the morning, and it was all gone in the evening; and for this money he had not bought one single thing of permanent value-nothing beyond nuts, oysters, icecream, oranges, and cigars. He said, moreover, that none who were in his company came off any cheaper. Now it took this young man fully a month to save that amount out of his wages beyond necessary expenses for clothing and boarding. Is not such a course in the highest degree thoughtless and foolish? Yet this is only one example among thousands that are similar. What an instructive specimen.

It is not at all uncommon for young men in our cities, larger towns, and villages, to spend in this way from twenty-five to fifty cents in an evening. Let that amount be taken from a journeyman's wages from week to week, and what will he have left beyond his boarding and clothes. In this way he earns and spends. At length he takes a wife, but has nothing with which to begin life; perhaps has to begin on credit. He may now spend less in a foolish way; but his expenses are more. The good harvest time is past he is on the dead level; and,

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