THE CLOSING SCENE.--T. Buchanan Read.

The following is pronounced by the Westminster Review to be unquestionably the finest American poem ever written.

WITHIN this sober realm of leafless trees,
The russet year inhaled the dreamy air,
Like some tanned reaper in his hour of ease,
When all the fields are lying brown and bare.

The gray barns looking from their hazy hills
O'er the dim waters widening in the vales,
Sent down the air a greeting to the mills,
On the dull thunder of alternate flails.

All sights were mellowed and all sounds subdued,
The hills seemed further and the streams sang low;
As in a dream the distant woodman hewed
His winter log with many a muffled blow.

The embattled forests, erewhile armed in gold,
Their banners bright with every martial hue,
Now stood, like some sad beated host of old,

Withdrawn afar in Time's remotest blue.

On slumberous wings the vulture tried his flight
The dove scarce heard his sighing mate's complaint,

And, like a star slow drowning in the light,

The village church-vane seemed to pale and faint.

The sentinel cock upon the hill-side crew-
Crew thrice, and all was stiller than before-

Silent till some replying wanderer blew

His alien horn, and then was heard no more.

Where erst the jay within the elm's tall crest.
Made garrulous trouble round the unfledged young:
And where the oriole hung her swaying nest
By every light wind like a censer swung;

Where sang the noisy masons of the eaves,
The busy swallows circling ever near,
Foreboding, as the rustic mind believes,
An early harvest and a plenteous year;

Where every bird which charmed the vernal feast
Shook the sweet slumber from its wings at morn,
To warn the reapers of the rosy east-

All now was songless, empty, and forlorn.

A.one, from out.the stubble piped the quail,

And croaked the crow through all the dreamy gloom; Alone the pheasant, drumming in the vale, Made echo to the distant cottage loom.

There was no bud, no bloom upon the bowers;

The spiders wove their thin shrouds night by night; The thistle-down, the only ghost of flowers, Sailed slowly by-passed noiseless out of sight.

Amid all this, in this most cheerless air,

And where the woodbine sheds upon the porch Its crimson leaves, as if the year stood there Firing the floor with his inverted torch

Amid all this, the centre of the scene,

The white-haired matron, with monotonous tread,
Plied her swift wheel, and with her joyless mien
Sat like a Fate, and watched the flying thread.

She had known sorrow. He had walked with her,
Oft supped, and broke with her the ashen crust;
And in the dead leaves still she heard the stir

Of his black mantle trailing in the dust.

While yet her cheek was bright with summer bloom,
Her country summoned, and she gave her all;
And twice war bowed to her his sable plume--
Re-gave the swords to rust upon her wall.

Re-gave the swords-but not the hand that drew,
And struck for liberty the dying blow;
Nor him who, to his sire and country true,
Fell, mid the ranks of the invading foe.

Long, but not loud, the droning wheel went on,
Like the low murmur of a hive at noon;
Long, but not loud, the memory of the gone
Breathed through her lips a sad and tremulous tune.

At last the thread was snapped-her head was bowed. Life drooped the distaff through his hands serene; And loving neighbors smoothed her careful shroud— While Death and Winter closed the autumn scene.

DEATH OF COPERNICUS.-E. Everett.

AT length he draws near his end. He is seventy-three years of age, and he yields his work on "The Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs" to his friends for publication. The day at last has come on which it is to be ushered into the world. It is the twenty-fourth of May, 1543.

On that day-the effect, no doubt, of the intense excitement of his mind, operating upon an exhausted frame—an effusion of blood brings him to the gates of the grave. His last hour has come; he lies stretched upon the couch from which he will never rise.

The beams of the setting sun glance through the Gothic windows of his chamber; near his bedside is the armillary sphere which he has contrived to represent his theory of the heavens; his picture painted by himself, the amusement of his earlier years, hangs before him; beneath it are his astrolabe and other imperfect astronomical instruments; and around him are gathered his sorrowing disciples.

The door of the apartment opens; the eye of the departing sage is turned to see who enters: it is a friend who brings him the first printed copy of his immortal treatise. He knows that in that book he contradicts all that had ever been distinctly taught by former philosophers; he knows that he has rebelled against the sway of Ptolemy, which the scientific world had acknowledged for a thousand years; he knows that the popular mind will be shocked by his innovations; he knows that the attempt will be made to press even religion into the service against him; but he knows that his book is true.

He is dying, but he leaves a glorious truth as his dying bequest to the world. He bids the friend who has brought it place himself between the window and his bedside, that the sun's rays may fall upon the precious volume, and he may behold it once more before his eye grows dim. He looks upon it, takes it in his hands, presses it to his breast, and expires.

But no, he is not wholly gone. A smile lights up his dying countenance; a beam of returning intelligence kindles in his eye; his lips move; and the friend who leans over him, can hear him faintly murmur the beautiful sentiments which the Christian lyrist of a later age has so finely expressed in verse:

"Ye golden lamps of heaven, farewell, with all your feeble light; Farewell, thou ever-changing moon, pale empress of the night; And thou, effulgent orb of day, in brighter flames arrayed,

My soul, which springs beyond thy sphere, no more demands thy aid. Ye stars are but the shining dust of my divine abode,

The pavement of those heavenly courts where I shall reign with God." So died the great Columbus of the heavens.

PARODY-THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET.

How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection presents them to view!
The cheese-press, the goose-pond, the pigs in the wild-wood
And every old stump that my infancy knew.

The big linkum-basswood, with wide-spreading shadow
The horses that grazed where my grandmother fell:
The sheep on the mountain, the calves in the meadow,
And all the young kittens we drowned in the well-
The meek little kittens, the milk-loving kittens,
The poor little kittens, we drowned in the well.

I remember with pleasure my grandfather's goggles,
Which rode so majestic astraddle his nose;

And the harness, oft mended with tow-string and "toggles,"
That belonged to old Dolly, now free from her woes.
And fresh in my heart is the long maple wood-pile,
Where often I've worked with beetle and wedge,
Striving to whack up enough to last for a good while,
And grumbling because my old axe had no edge.
And there was the kitchen, and pump that stood nigh it,
Where we sucked up the drink through a quill in the spout,
And the hooks where we hung up the pumpkin to dry it;
And the old cider pitcher, no doing without :"

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The brown earthen pitcher, the nozzle-cracked pitcher,
The pain-easing pitcher, no doing without."

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And there was the school-house, away from each dwelling,
Where school-ma'ams would govern with absolute sway:
Who taught me my " 'rithmetic," reading, and spelling,
And whaled me like blazes " about every day!

I remember the ladder that swung in the passage,
Which led to the loft in the peak of the house:

Where my grandmother hung up her "pumpkin and sausage,"

To keep them away from the rat and the mouse. But now, far removed from that nook of creation, Emotions of grief big as tea-kettles swell,

When Fancy rides back to my old habitation,

And thinks of the kittens we drowned in the well-
The meek little kittens, the milk-loving kittens,
The poor little kittens, we drowned in the well.

LITTLE JIM.

THE cottage was a thatched one, the outside old and mean, But all within that little cot was wondrous neat and clean; The night was dark and stormy, the wind was howling wild,

As a patient mother sat beside the death-bed of her child: A little worn-out creature, his once bright eyes grown dim: It was a collier's wife and child, they called him little Jim.

And oh! to see the briny tears fast hurrying down her cheek,

As she offered up the prayer, in thought, she was afraid to speak,

Lest she might waken one she loved far better than her life; For she had all a mother's heart, had that poor collier's

wife.

With hands uplifted, see, she kneels beside the sufferer's bed,

And prays that He would spare her boy, and take herself instead.

She gets her answer from the child: soft fall the words from him,

Mother, the angels do so smile, and beckon little Jim, I have no pain, dear mother, now, but O! I am so dry, Just moisten poor Jim's lips again, and, mother, don't you cry."

With gentle, trembling haste she held the liquid to his lip; He smiled to thank her, as he took each little, tiny sip.

Tell father, when he comes from work, I said good-night to him,

And, mother, now I'll go to sleep." Alas! poor little Jim! She knew that he was dying; that the child she loved sc

dear,

Iad uttered the last words she might ever hope to hear:
The cottage door is opened, the collier's step is heard,
The father and the mother meet, yet neither speak a word.

IIe felt that all was over, he knew his child was dead,
Je took the candle in his hand and walked toward the bed;
Jis quivering lips gave token of the grief he'd fain conceal,
And see, his wife has joined him-the stricken couple kneel:
With hearts bowed down by sadness, they humbly ask of

Him,

In heaven once more to meet again their own poor little Jim.