246

KATIE LEE AND WILLIE GREY.

Katie answered with a laugh,
"You shall carry only half;"
And then, tossing back her curls,
"Boys are weak as well as girls."
Do you think that Katie guessed
Half the wisdom she expressed?

Men are only boys grown tall;
Hearts don't change much, after all;
And when, long years from that day,
Katie Lee and Willie Grey

Stood again beside the brook,
Bending like a shepherd's crook,—

Is it strange that Willie said-
While again a dashing red

Crossed the brownness of his cheek-

"I am strong and you are weak;

Life is but a slippery steep,

Hung with shadows cold and deep.

"Will you trust me, Katie dear,-
Walk beside me without fear?
May I carry, if I will,

All your burdens up the hill ?
And she answered, with a laugh,
"No, but you may carry half.”
Close beside the little brook,
Bending like a shepherd's crook,
Washing with its silver hands
Late and early at the sands,
Is a cottage, where to-day
Katie lives with Willie Grey.

In a porch she sits, and lo!
Swings a basket to and fro-
Vastly different from the one
That she swung in years agone;
This is long and deep and wide,
And has rockers at the side!

THE UNION OF THE STATES.

THE UNION OF THE STATES.-DANIEL WEBSTER.

THE

247

HE political prosperity which this country has attained, and which it now enjoys, it has acquired mainly through the instrumentality of the present government. While this agent continues, the capacity of attaining to still higher degrees of prosperity exists also. We have, while this lasts, a political life, capable of beneficial exertion, with power to resist or overcome misfortunes, to sustain us against the ordinary accidents of human affairs, and to promote, by active efforts, every public interest.

But dismemberment strikes at the very being which preserves these faculties; it would lay its rude and ruthless hand on this great agent itself. It would sweep away, not only what we possess, but all power of regaining lost, or acquiring new, possessions. It would leave the country not only bereft of its prosperity and happiness, but without limbs, or organs, or faculties, by which to exert itself, hereafter, in the pursuit of that prosperity and happi

ness.

Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects overcome. If disastrous war sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they will grow green again, and ripen to future harvests. It were but a trifle, even if the walls of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley.

All these might be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished government? Who shall rear again the wellproportioned columns of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame together the skillful architecture which unites national sovereignty with state rights, individual security, and public prosperity?

If these columns fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Coliseum and the Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy, immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them than were ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian art; for they will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw-the edifice of constitutional American liberty.

But let us hope for better things. Let us trust in that Gracious

Being, who has hitherto held our country as in the hollow of his hand. Let us trust to the virtue and the intelligence of the people, and to the efficacy of religious obligation. Let us trust to the influence of Washington's example. Let us hope that that fear of Heaven, which expels all other fear, and that regard to duty, which transcends all other regard, may influence public men and private citizens, and lead our country still onward in her happy career.

Full of these gratifying anticipations and hopes, let us look forward to the end of that century which is now commenced. A hundred years hence, other disciples of Washington will celebrate his birth, with no less of sincere admiration than we now commemorate it. When they shall meet, as we now meet, to do themselves and him that honor, so surely as they shall see the blue summits of his native mountains rise in the horizon; so surely as they shall behold the river on whose banks he lived, and on whose banks he rests, still flowing to the sea; so surely may they see, as we now see, the flag of the Union floating on the top of the Capitol; and then, as now, may the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this, our own country.

THE DIVER.-FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHILLER, BY BULWER.

66

"AH, where the

H, where is the knight or the squire so bold

As to dive to the howling Charybdis below?

I cast in the whirlpool a goblet of gold,

And o'er it already the dark waters flow;

Whoever to me may the goblet bring,

Shall have for his guerdon that gift of his king."

He spoke, and the cup from the terrible steep,
That, rugged and hoary, hung over the verge
Of the endless and measureless world of the deep,
Swirled into the maelstrom that maddened the surge.
"And where is the diver-so stout to go-

I ask ye again-to the deep below?"

THE DIVER.

And the knights and the squires that gathered around
Stood silent-and fixed on the ocean their eyes;
They looked on the dismal and savage Profound,

And the peril chilled back every thought of the prize.
And thrice spoke the monarch-" The cup to win,
Is there never a wight who will venture in ?"

And all, as before, heard in silence the king,

Till a youth with an aspect unfearing, but gentle,
'Mid the tremulous squires-stepped out from the ring,
Unbuckling his girdle, and doffing his mantle;
And the murmuring crowd, as they parted asunder,
On the stately boy cast their looks of wonder.

As he strode to the marge of the summit, and gave
One glance on the gulf of that merciless main,
Lo! the wave that forever devours the wave,

Casts roaringly up the Charybdis again;

And, as with the swell of the far thunder-boom,
Rushes foamingly forth from the heart of the gloom.
And it bubbles and seethes, and it hisses and roars,
As when fire is with water commixed and contending,
And the spray of its wrath to the welkin up-soars,

And flood upon flood hurries on, never ending;
And it never will rest, nor from travail be free,
Like a sea that is laboring the birth of a sea.

Yet, at length, comes a lull o'er the mighty commotion,

249

And dark through the whiteness, and still through the swell, The whirlpool cleaves downward and downward in ocean,

A yawning abyss, like the pathway to hell;

The stiller and darker the farther it goes,

Sucked into that smoothness the breakers repose.

The youth gave his trust to his Maker! Before
That path through the riven abyss closed again,
Hark! a shriek from the gazers that circle the shore,—
And, behold! he is whirled in the grasp of the main !
And o'er him the breakers mysteriously rolled,
And the giant mouth closed on the swimmer so bold.

All was still on the height, save the murmur that went
From the grave of the deep, sounding hollow and fell,
Or save when the tremulous, sighing lament

Thrilled from lip unto lip,-" Gallant youth, fare thee well!"
More hollow and more wails the deep on the ear-
More dread and more dread grows suspense in its fear.

If thou shouldst in those waters thy diadem fling,

And cry,-" Who may find it, shall win it and wear;"
God wot, though the prize were the crown of a king—
A crown, at such hazard, were valued too dear.
For never shall lips of the living reveal

What the deeps that howl yonder in terror conceal.

Oh, many a bark, to that breast grappled fast,

Has gone down to the fearful and fathomless grave, Again, crashed together the keel and the mast,

To be seen tossed aloft in the glee of the wave! Like the growth of a storm, ever louder and clearer, Grows the roar of the gulf, rising nearer and nearer.

And it bubbles and seethes, and it hisses and roars,
As when fire is with water commixed and contending;
And the spray of its wrath to the welkin up-soars,
And flood upon flood hurries on, never ending,
And as with the swell of the far thunder-boom,
Rushes roaringly forth from the heart of the gloom.

And, lo! from the heart of that far-floating gloom,
Like the wing of the cygnet--what gleams on the sea?
Lo! an arm and a neck glancing up from the tomb!
Steering stalwart and shoreward. O joy, it is he!
The left hand is lifted in triumph; behold,

It waves as a trophy the goblet of gold!

And he breathed deep, and he breathed long,
And he greeted the heavenly light of the day.
They gaze on each other-they shout as they throng-
"He lives-lo, the ocean has rendered its prey!