8. Oh! what was to become of us, we sometimes thought in sadness that all at once made our spirits sink-like a lark falling suddenly to earth, struck by the fear of some unwonted shadow from above-what was to become of us when the mandate should arrive for him to leave the manse forever, and sail away in a ship to India, never more to return! Ever as that dreaded day drew nearer more frequent was the haze in our eyes; and in our blindness we knew not that such tears ought to have been more rueful still, for that he then lay under orders for a longer and more lamentable voyage—a voyage over the narrow strait to the eternal shore. 9. All-all at once he drooped: on one fatal morning the dread decay began-with no forewarning, the springs on which his being had so lightly, so proudly, so grandly moved, gave way. Between one Sabbath and another his bright eyes darkened-and while all the people were assembled at the sacrament, the soul of Emilius Godfrey soared up to heaven. 10. It was indeed a dreadful death, serene and sainted though it were; and not a hall-not a house-not a hutnot a shieling within all the circle of those wide mountains, that did not on that night mourn as if it had lost a son. All the vast parish attended his funeral-Lowlanders and Highlanders in their own garb of grief. 11. And have time and the tempest now blackened the white marble of that monument?-is that inscription now hard to be read?--the name of Emilius Godfrey in green obliteration-nor haply one surviving who ever saw the light of the countenance of him there interred? Forgotten as if he had never been! for few were that glorious orphan' kindred, and they lived in a foreign land-forgotten but by one heart; faithful through all the chances and changes of this restless world! And therein enshrined, amongst all its holiest remembrances, shall be the image of Emilius Godfrey, till it too, like his, shall be but dust and ashes. JOHN WILSON. I CXVI.-THE CLOUD. I. BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under; II. I sift the snow on the mountains below, While I sleep in the arms of the blast. In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, Lured by the love of the genii that move Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains. III. The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack When the morning star shines dead; t As on the jag of a mountain crag, Which an earthquake rocks and swings, An eagle alit one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings. And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardors of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above, With wings folded I rest on my airy nest, As still as a brooding dove. IV. That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, V. I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone, Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march, When the powers of the air are chained to my chair, The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove, While the moist earth was laughing below. VI. I am the daughter of the earth and water, I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; For after the rain, when, with never a stain, The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, P. B. SHELLEY. CXVII.-WORTH OF HUMAN NATURE. WH HERE, unreasonable complainer! dost thou stand, and what is around thee? The world spreads before thee its sublime mysteries, where the thoughts of sages lose themselves in wonder; the ocean lifts up its eternal anthems to thine ear; the golden sun lights thy path; the wide heavens stretch themselves above thee, and worlds rise upon worlds, and systems beyond systems, to infinity; and dost thou stand in the center of all this, to complain of thy lot and place? Pupil of that infinite teaching! minister at Nature's great altar! child of Heaven's favor! ennobled being! redeemed creature! must thou pine in sullen and envious melancholy, amidst the plenitude of the whole creation? 2. "But thy neighbor is above thee," thou sayest. What then? What is that to thee? What though the shout of millions rose around him? What is that to the millionvoiced nature that God has given thee? That shout dies away into the vacant air; it is not his but thy naturethy favored, sacred, and glorious nature is thine. It is the reality, to which praise is but a fleeting breath. Thou canst meditate the things which applause but celebrates. 3. In that thou art a man, thou art infinitely exalted above what any man can be in that he is praised. I would rather be the humblest man in the world, than barely be thought greater than the greatest. The beggar is greater as a man, than is the man merely as a king. Not one of the crowds that listened to the eloquence of Demosthenes and Cicero,—not one who has bent with admiration over the pages of Homer and Shakspeare, not one who followed in the train of Cæsar or of Napoleon,-would part with th humblest power of thought, for all the fame that is echoin. over the world and through the ages. O. DEWEY. CXVIII.-THE VILLAGE PREACHER. NEAR I. EAR yonder copse where once the garden smiled, There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose A man he was to all the country dear, II. Remote from towns he ran his godly race, Nor e'er had changed, or wished to change, his place; By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour; III. His house was known to all the vagrant train; Sat by his fire and talked the night away,- Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won |