Who would in such a gloomy state remain
Longer than nature craves; when every Muse,
And every blooming pleasure wait without,
To bless the wildly devious morning walk?
But yonder comes the powerful King of Day,
Rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow
Illumed with fluid gold, his near approach
Betoken glad. Lo, now, apparent all,
Aslant the dew-bright earth, and colored air,
He looks in boundless majesty abroad,
And sheds the shining day, that burnished plays
On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streams,
High-gleaming from afar. Prime cheerer, Light!
Of all material beings first and best!
Efflux divine! Nature's resplendent robe!
Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt
In unessential gloom; and thou, O Sun!
Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best seen
Shines out thy Maker? may I sing of thee!
'Tis by thy secret, strong, attractive force,
As with a chain indissoluble bound,
Thy system rolls entire; from the far bourn
Of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round
Of thirty years, to Mercury, whose disk
Can scarce be caught by philosophic eye,
Lost in the near effulgence of thy blaze.
Informer of the planetary train !
Without whose quickening glance their cumbrous orbs
Were brute unlovely mass, inert and dead,
And not, as now, the green abodes of life;
How many forms of being wait on thee,
Inhaling spirit! from the unfettered mind,
By thee sublimed, down to the daily race,
The mixing myriads of thy setting beam.
The vegetable world is also thine,
Parent of Seasons! who the pomp precede
That waits thy throne, as through thy vast domain,
Annual, along the bright ecliptic road,
In world-rejoicing state, it moves sublime.
Meantime the expecting nations, circled gay,
With all the various tribes of foodful earth,
Implore thy bounty, or send grateful up
A common hymn; while, round thy beaming car
High-seen, the Seasons, lead, in sprightly dance
Harmonious knit, the rosy-fingered Hours,
The Zephyrs floating loose, the timely Rains,
Of bloom etherial, the light-footed Dews,
And, softened into joy, the surly Storms.
These, in successive turn with lavish hand,
Shower every beauty, every fragrance shower,
Herbs, flowers and fruits; till, kindling at thy touch,
From land to land is flushed the vernal year.
VALLEY OF MEXICO.-WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT.
THE troops, refreshed by a night's rest, succeeded, early on the following day, in gaining the crest of the sierra of Ahualco, which stretches like a curtain between the two great mountains on the north and south. Their progress was now comparatively easy, and they marched forward with a buoyant step as they felt they were treading the soil of Montezuma.
They had not advanced far, when, turning an angle of the sierra, they suddenly came on a view which more than compensated the toils of the preceding day. It was that of the Valley of Mexico, or Tenochtitlan, as more commonly called by the natives; which, with its picturesque assemblage of water, woodland, and cultivated plains, its shining cities and shadowy hills, was spread out like some gay and gorgeous panorama before them. In the highly rarefied atmosphere of these upper regions, even remote objects have a brilliancy of coloring and a distinctness of outline which seem to annihilate distance. Stretching far away at their feet were seen noble forests of oak, sycamore, and cedar, and beyond, yellow fields of maize and the towering maguey, intermingled with orchards and blooming gardens; for flowers, in such demand for their religious festivals, were even more abundant in this populous valley than in other parts of Anahuac. In the centre of the great basin were beheld the lakes, occupying then a much larger portion of its surface than at present; their borders thickly studded with towns and hamlets, and, in the midst-like some Indian empress with her coronal of pearls-the fair city of Mexico, with her white towers and pyramidal temples, reposing, as it were, on the bosom of the waters, the far-famed "Venice of the Aztecs." High over all rose the royal hill of Chapoltepec, the residence of the Mexican monarchs, crowned with the same grove of gigantic cypresses, which at this day fling their broad shadows over the land. In the distance beyond the blue waters of the lake, and nearly screened by intervening foliage, was seen a shining speck, the rival capital of Tezcuco, and, still farther on, the dark belt of porphyry, girdling the Valley around like a rich setting which nature had devised for the fairest of her jewels.
Such was the beautiful vision which broke on the eyes of the conquerors. And even now, when so sad a change has come over the scene; when the stately forests have been laid low,
and the soil, unsheltered from the fierce radiance of a tropical sun, is in many places abandoned to sterility; when the waters have retired, leaving a broad and ghastly margin white with the incrustation of salts, while the cities and hamlets on their borders have mouldered into ruins; even now that desolation broods over the landscape, so indestructible are the lines of beauty which nature has traced on its features, that no traveler, however cold, can gaze on them with any other emotions than those of astonishment and rapture.
What, then, must have been the emotions of the Spaniards, when, after working their toilsome way into the upper air, the cloudy tabernacle parted before their eyes, and they beheld these fair scenes in all their pristine magnificence and beauty! It was like the spectacle which greeted the eyes of Moses from the summit of Pisgah, and, in the warm glow of their feelings, they cried out, "It is the promised land!"
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.-JOANNA BAILLIE,
Is there a man, that, from some lofty steep,
Views in his wide survey the boundless deep,
When its vast waters, lined with sun and shade,
Wave beyond wave in serried distance fade
To the pale sky;-or views it, dimly seen,
The shifting screens of drifted mist between,
As the huge cloud dilates its sable form,
When grandly curtain'd by the approaching storm,
Who feels not his awed soul with wonder rise
To Him whose power created sea and skies,
Mountains and deserts, giving to the sight
The wonders of the day and of the night?
But let some fleet be seen in warlike pride,
Whose stately ships the restless billows ride,
While each, with lofty masts and brightening sheen
Of fair spread sails moves like a vested queen;-
Or rather, be some distant bark, astray,
Seen like a pilgrim on his lonely way,
Holding its steady course from port and shore,
A form distinct, a speck, and seen no more-
How doth the pride, the sympathy, the flame,
Of human feeling stir his thrilling frame?
"O Thou! whose mandate dust inert obey'd,
What is this creature man whom thou hast made?"
On Palos' shore, whose crowded strand
Bore priests and nobles of the land,
And rustic hinds and townsmen trim,
And harness'd soldiers stern and grim,
And lowly maids and dames of pride,
And infants by their mother's side-
The boldest seaman stood that e'er
Did bark or ship through tempest steer;
And wise as bold, and good as wise;
The magnet of a thousand eyes,
That, on his form and features cast,
His noble mien and simple guise,
In wonder seem'd to look their last.
A form which conscious worth is gracing,
A face where hope the lines effacing
Of thought and care, bestow'd, in truth,
To the quick eye's imperfect tracing,
The look and air of youth.
Who, in his lofty gait, and high
Expression of the enlighten'd eye,
Had recognized, in that bright hour,
The disappointed suppliant of dull power,
Who had in vain of states and kings desired
The pittance for his vast emprise required?-
The patient sage, who, by his lamp's faint light,
O'er chart and map spent the long silent night ?—
The man who meekly fortune's buffets bore,
Trusting in One alone, whom heaven and earth adore!
Another world is in his mind,
Peopled with creatures of his kind,
With hearts to feel, with minds to soar,
Thoughts to consider and explore;
Souls who might find, from trespass shriven,
Virtue on earth and joy in heaven.
"That power divine; whom storms obey,"
(Whisper'd his heart,) a leading star,
Will guide him on his blessed way;
Brothers to join by fate divided far.
Vain thoughts! which heaven doth but ordain
In part to be, the rest, alas! how vain!
But hath there lived of mortal mould,
Who fortunes with his thoughts could hold
An even race! Earth's greatest son
That e'er earned fame, or empire won,
Hath but fulfill'd, within a narrow scope,
A stinted portion of his ample hope.
With heavy sigh and look depress'd
The greatest men will sometimes hear
The story of their acts address'd
To the young stranger's wondering ear,
And check the alf-swoln tear.
Is it or modesty or pride
Which may not open praise abide?
No; read his inward thoughts: they tell,
His deeds of fame he prizes well.
But ah! they in his fancy stand,
As relics of a blighted band,
Who, lost to man's approving sight,
Have perished in the gloom of night,
Ere yet the glorious light of day
Had glitter'd on their bright array.
His mightiest feat had once another,
Of high imagination born-
A loftier and a noble brother,
From dear existence torn;
And she, for those who are not, steeps
Her soul in woe-like Rachel, weeps.
Ye powers who rule the tongue,—if such there are,— And make colloquial happiness your care,
Preserve me from the thing I dread and hate-
A duel in the form of a debate.
Vociferated logic kills me quite;
A noisy man is always in the right:
I twirl my thumbs, fall back into my chair,
Fix on the wainscot a distressful stare,
And, when I hope his blunders are all out,
Reply discreetly-"To be sure-no doubt!"
Dubious is such a scrupulous, good man-
Yes you may catch him tripping, if you can.
He would not, with a peremptory tone,
Assert the nose upon his face his own;
With hesitation admirably slow,
He humbly hopes-presumes-it may be so.
His evidence, if he were called by law
To swear to some enormity he saw,
For want of prominence and just relief,
Would hang an honest man, and save a thief.
Through constant dread of giving truth offence,
He ties up all his hearers in suspense;
Knows what he knows as if he knew it not;
What he remembers seems to have forgot;
His sole opinion, whatsoe'er befall,
Centering, at last, in having none at all.
A story, in which native humor reigns,
Is often useful, always entertains:
A graver fact, enlisted on your side,
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