chambers. No! Science is not opposed to Poetry, it only opens a wider field. When I think that each of those sparkling points that I see above me sprinkled over the blue shell of the sky, is a distant world that

may call him the wealthy owner of a thousand acres. I shone steadily-and the rest had withdrawn behind The poorest painter that ever passes his estate owns the veil of the moonlight into their fathomless blue more of it than he; the little school-girl who stops to list his robin's song, or to dabble in his running brook, or to chase his butterfly, or to pluck his dandelion, owns more of all his land than he ever knew there was to own. I do not covet your broad wood-spins alorg its meted course forever, and that its lands, they are mine now-here from my window, twinkling is but the incessant obscuration caused by all, as far as I can see, is mine,-I pay no taxes. the passage of invisible atoms across its disk; when Habit steals the sweetness out of our pleasures. I know that some of them are double, and of comThe hard drudgery of a week's work makes the plementary color, though they seem to us as one, do silence of the seventh day its blessing. To the city I not find a lofty truth therein, which is full of man of business, the few free hours in which he can Poetry? We need not fear that science shall crowd smell the fresh air of the country, are by far poetry out of nature, by depriving it of mysterypleasanter for the tedious routine of his common for ever the web grows more complicate, and the life. Sleep is sweetened by labor. The poor stu- secret more unfathomable. Yet the imaginative dent whose hard earned dollar was pressed out of may well fear, for it is our stand point, that enables aching needs and privations, and given for the book us to find poems in the common life of every day. he coveted, sweetens his life and soul by it—but the This dry muscle-shell which lies beside me, will rich virtuoso has no dark vista of expectation and grow translucent and veined with a thousand curidesire, to heighten the charm of the object he pur- ous hues and prismatic lights, as soon as the salt chases. Never was play so good as in the quarter spray touches it. And so when the commonest fact hour at recess, hemmed in between the walls of of nature is wet from the fountain of inspiration, it study. Too much tasting vitiates the palate. We shows its thousand radiant, yet hidden beauties. artists live the best lives. We are like children, lured Custom and convention alone kill the poetry out of on by the scent of flowers in a green and pleasant nature. Laws of society, which are barren forms, meadow, which, though they are seldom found, make hang lead weights upon the young enthusiastic the seeking a delight. Art thus entices us gently on. Apollo. Every youthful heart, which in its first flush The mechanical is so harmoniously connected with of hope would clasp the world to its bosom, finds. the intellectual, that mind and body are both satis- that it clasps a cold mailed body-stuffed with a fied. We smell a perfume after which all common trite commonplace, instead of the genial glowing things, dusty and scentless in themselves, seem spirit that it sought. Enthusiasm is unfashionablevivified and transfigured. The old barn-yard, the the ideal, a bore-high projects are foolish transcengnarled oak and the stunted willow, and every sun-dentalism-and when the bewhipped heart, after it set and sunrise, and all the clouds, and all human has run its gauntlet, turns and asks, what is true faces, become full of interest for us. They are no and good? “Our forms,” says the world, and he longer tame and prosaic, but filled with an everconsents for sake of peace. shifting beauty. Had we only the ideal, we should soon give up, but the constant contact of the actual, from which our problem is to shape out the ideal, gives a sincerity and truth to all our aspirations and labors. Our brushes and paints lie between the picture and our hands, and between the conception and its embodiment there is a great deal of actual work. Thus a pleasant vibration is constantly kept up between the spirit and the sense. Along the pencil runs the thought to bury itself in the canvass, as the lightning from heaven flashes along the iron rod to seek the earth. We are kept from being too visionary by a constant necessity of reducing all our feelings and emotions and ideas, to something actual and visible. Thus we can sit and realize our ideal world-and is not this the greatest joy?

I have been looking out of my window into the moon-light. The fresh air as it blew in, fluttered the flame of my candle, which stood on the mantel, and threatened momentarily to extinguish it. Being in a superstitious mood, I determined not to move it, but to try my fate by it. If it were blown out, my love would also melt away. If it resisted the wind and burned on, my love was not a foolish fancy, but would live to shed light and happiness around me. I have watched with curiosity, for some time, the struggle between the wind and the candle. Now it seems as if the wind would get the better, for the flame hangs fluttering around the wick, and seems barely to keep its hold. And now again the wind flags, and the flame burns brightly and steadily. So it is with me. Love, the flame, now burning brightly, and now threatened with doubt and distrust. How universally this desire of snatching an intimation of the future out of the passing facts of the present, possesses the mind of man. Do we not, when anxious for an undetermined result, endeavor to strengthen our belief in what we hope,

ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF DR. CHANNING. | Thou art not idle in thy higher sphere

BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

I do not come to weep above thy pall,

And mourn the dying-out of noble powers;
The poet's clearer eye should see, in all
Earth's seeming woe, the seed of Heaven's flowers.

Truth needs no champions: in the infinite deep
Of everlasting Soul her strength abides,
From Nature's heart her mighty pulses leap,
Through Nature's veins her strength, undying,
tides.

Peace is more strong than war, and gentleness,

Where force were vain, makes conquests o'er the wave;

And love lives on and hath a power to bless,

When they who loved are hidden in the grave.

Thy spirit bends itself to loving tasks,
And strength, to perfect what it dreamed of here,
Is all the crown and glory that it asks.

For sure, in Heaven's wide chambers, there is room
For love and pity, and for helpful deeds;
Else were our summons thither but a doom
To life more vain than this in clayey weeds.
From off the starry mountain-peak of song,
Thy spirit shows me, in the coming time,
An earth unwithered by the foot of wrong,
A race revering its own soul sublime.

What wars, what martyrdoms, what crimes, may
come,

Thou knowest not, nor I; but God will lead The prodigal soul from want and sorrow home, And Eden ope her gates to Adam's seed.

The sculptured marble brags of death-strewn fields, Farewell! good man, good angel now! this hand
And Glory's epitaph is writ in blood;
But Alexander now to Plato yields,

Clarkson will stand where Wellington hath stood.

I watch the circle of the eternal years,
And read forever in the storied page

One lengthened roll of blood, and wrong, and tears,
One onward step of Truth from age to age.

The poor are crushed; the tyrants link their chain;
The poet sings through narrow dungeon-grates;
Man's hope lies quenched;-and, lo! with steadfast
gain

Freedom doth forge her mail of adverse fates.

Men slay the prophets; fagot, rack, and cross
Make up the groaning record of the past;

But Evil's triumphs are her endless loss,

And sovereign Beauty wins the soul at last.

No power can die that ever wrought for Truth;
Thereby a law of Nature it became,
And lives unwithered in its sinewy youth,

When he who called it forth is but a name.

Therefore I cannot think thee wholly gone,
The better part of thee is with us still;
Thy soul its hampering clay aside hath thrown,
And only freer wrestles with the Ill.

Thou livest in the life of all good things;
What words thou spak'st for Freedom shall not die;
Thou sleepest not, for now thy Love hath wings

To soar where hence thy hope could hardly fly.

And often, from that other world, on this

Soon, like thine own, shall lose its cunning, too,
Soon shall this soul, like thine, bewildered stand,
Then leap to thread the free unfathomed blue:
When that day comes, O, may this hand grow cold,
Busy, like thine, for Freedom and the Right;
O, may this soul, like thine, be ever bold
To face dark Slavery's encroaching blight!

This laurel-leaf I cast upon thy bier;

Let worthier hands than these thy wreath entwine; Upon thy hearse I shed no useless tear,

For me weep rather thou in calm divine!

ABOU BEN ADHEM.

BY LEIGH HUNT.

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,—
Making it rich and like a lily in bloom,—
An Angel writing in a book of gold.
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?" The vision raised its head,
And, in a voice made all of sweet accord,
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord!"
"And is mine one?" said Abou. Nay, not so,"
Replied the Angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still, and said: "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one who loves his fellow-men."

Some gleams from great souls gone before may The Angel wrote and vanished. The next night shine,

To shed on struggling hearts a clearer bliss,

And clothe the Right with lustre more divine.

He came again, with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blest
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

THE WASTED FLOWERS.

snow-balls; but at length, coming hand to hand,

On the velvet bank of a rivulet sat a rosy child. they coped in a rage, and many bloody raps were liberally given and received.

Her lap was filled with flowers, and a garland of rose-buds was twined around her neck. Her face was as radiant as the sunshine that fell upon it; and her voice was as clear as that of the bird whieh warbled at her side.

I went up to try if I could pacify them; for by this time a number of little girls had joined the affray, and I was afraid they would be killed. So, addressing one party, I asked, What are you fighting those boys for? What have they done to you?'

'O, naething at a', maun; we just want to gie them a gude thrashin'-that's a'.'

The little stream went singing on, and with every gush of its music the child lifted a flower in its dimpled hand, and with a merry laugh threw it upon its My remonstrance was vain; at it they went surface. In her glee she forgot that her treasures afresh; and after fighting till they were quite exwere growing less, and with the swift motion of hausted, one of the principal heroes stepped forth childhood, she flung them upon the sparkling tide, between the combatants, himself covered with blood Then until every bud and blossom had disappeared. and his clothes all torn to tatters, and addressed the seeing her loss, she sprang to her feet, and bursting opposing party thus:- Weel, I'll tell you what into tears, called aloud to the stream-"Bring back we'll do wi' ye-if ye'll let us alane, we'll let you my flowers." But the stream danced along, regard-alane. There was no more of it; the war was less of her tears; and as it bore the blooming burden at an end, and the boys scampered away to their away, her words came back in a taunting echo along its reedy margin. And, long after, amidst the wailing of the breeze and the fitful bursts of childish grief, was heard the fruitless cry," Bring back my flowers."

Merry maiden! who art idly wasting the precious moments so bountifully bestowed on thee-see in the thoughtless impulsive child, an emblem of thy

self.

Each moment is a perfumed flower. Let its fragrance be dispensed in blessings on all around

thee, and ascend as sweet incense to its beneficent GIVER.

Else, when thou hast carelessly flung them from thee, and seest them receding on the swift waters of Time, thou wilt cry in tones more sorrowful than those of the weeping child- Bring back my flowers." And the only answer will be an echo from the shadowy past-Bring back my flowers." The Lowell Offering.

play.

That scene was a lesson of wisdom to me.

I

thought at the time, and have often thought since, that this trivial affray was the best epitome of war in general, that I had ever seen. Kings and ministers of state are just a set of grown-up children, exactly like the children I speak of, with only this material difference, that instead of fighting out for themselves the needless quarrels they have raised. they sit in safety and look on, hound out their inno

cent but servile subjects to battle, and then, after an immense waste of blood and treasure, are glad to make the boys' condition-if ye'll let us alane, we'll let you

alane.'

EPITOME OF WAR.

BY THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD."

The history of every war is very like a scene I once saw in Nithsdale. Two boys from different schools met one fine day upon the ice.-They eyed each other awhile in silence, with rather jealous and indignant looks, and with defiance on each brow.

What are ye glowrin' at, Billy?'
What's that to you, Donald? I'll look whar
I've a mind, an' hinder me if you daur.'

To this a hearty blow was the return; and then began such a battle! It being Saturday, all the boys of both schools were on the ice, and the fight instantly became general. At first they fought at a distance, with missile weapons, such as stones and

THE FREE MIND.

BY WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.

Written by him while despotically imprisoned in Baltimore, in 1831, on a charge for libel; he having published an article against a New England merchant by the name of Todd, who freighted a vessel with slaves for the New Orleans market.

HIGH walls and huge the body may confine,

And iron grates obstruct the prisoner's gaze, And massive bolts may baffle his design,

And vigilant keepers watch his devious ways:
Yet scorns the immortal mind this base control!
No chains can bind it, and no cell enclose :
Swifter than light. it flies from pole,

And in a flash from earth to heaven it goes!
It leaps from mount to mount; from vale to vale
It wanders, plucking honeyed fruits and flowers;
It visits home, to hear the fire-side tale,

Or, in sweet converse, pass the joyous hours.
'Tis up before the sun, roaming afar,
And, in its watches, wearies every star!

He, who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,

And his sword leap'd out, like a Baron's brave In the long way that I must tread alone,