per of His voice who is revealed in the Bible as sitting above the water-floods forever?

Go, once more, and stand with Coleridge, at sunrise, in the Alpine Valley of Chamouni; join with him in that magnificent invocation to the hoary mount, “sole sovereign of the vale," to rise,

"and tell the silent sky,

And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,

Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.”

Who can stand amid scenes like these, with the Bible in his hand, and not feel that if there is moral sublimity to be found on earth, it is in the Book of God, it is in the thought of God? For what are all these outward, visible forms of grandeur but the expression and the utterance of that conception of Deity which the Bible has created in our minus, and which has now become the leading and largest thought of all civilized nations?

A ROMANCE IN VERSE.

When first I met Louisa Ann
I was a very happy man.
I saw and loved her-verbum sat,
My sorrow is not due to that.

No obstacles were in the way.
She'd no relations to say "Nay;"
No one to murmur at my plan
To marry dear Louisa Ann.

She did not hesitate-not she!

She owned that we might married be.
Against my love arose no ban

From my adored Louisa Ann.

She did not all too early die,

Nor-if it comes to that-did I;

Unchecked the course of true love ran:

I married my Louisa Ann.

There the romance however ends.

Dear reader, you and I are friends!

You don't like my Louisa Ann?
No more do I-I never can.

A CHARMING WOMAN.-JOHN G. SAXE.

A charming woman, I've heard it said
By other women as light as she;
But all in vain I puzzle my head

To find wherein the charm may be.
Her face, indeed, is pretty enough,

And her form is quite as good as the best,
Where nature has given the bony stuff,
And a clever milliner all the rest.

Intelligent? Yes-in a certain way:
With the feminine gift of ready speech;
And knows very well what not to say

Whenever the theme transcends her reach.

But turn the topic on things to wear,
From an opera cloak to a robe de nuit-

Hats, basques, or bonnets-'twill make you stare
To see how fluent the lady can be.

Her laugh is hardly a thing to please;
For an honest laugh must always start
From a gleesome mood, like a sudden breeze,
And her's is purely a matter of art—

A muscular motion made to show

What nature designed to lie beneath The finer mouth; but what can she do, If that is ruined to show the teeth?

To her seat in church-a good half mile-
When the day is fine she is sure to go,
Arrayed, of course, in the latest style

La mode de Paris has got to show;
And she puts her hands on the velvet pew
(Can hands so white have a taint of sin?)
And thinks how her prayer-book's tint of blue
Must harmonize with her milky skin!

Ah! what shall we say of one who walks
In fields of flowers to choose the weeds?
Reads authors of whom she never talks,

And talks of authors she never reads?
She's a charming woman, I've heard it said
By other women as light as she;

But all in vain I puzzle my head
To find wherein the charm may be.

MARY, THE MAID OF THE INN.-ROBERT SOUTHEY,

Who is yonder poor maniac, whose wildly-fixed eyes
Seem a heart overcharged to express?

She weeps not, yet often and deeply she sighs:
She never complains, but her silence implies
The composure of settled distress.

No aid, no compassion the maniac will seek;
Cold and hunger awake not her care;

Through her rags do the winds of the winter blow bleak
On her poor withered bosom half bare, and her cheek
Has the deathly pale hue of despair.

Yet cheerful and happy, nor distant the day,

Poor Mary the maniac has been ;

The traveler remembers, who journeyed this way,
No damsel so lovely, no damsel so gay,

As Mary, the maid of the inn.

Her cheerful address filled the guests with delight,
As she welcomed them in with a smile;
Her heart was a stranger to childish affright,
And Mary would walk by the abbey at night,
When the wind whistled down the dark aisle.

She loved; and young Richard had settled the day,
And she hoped to be happy for life:

But Richard was idle and worthless, and they
Who knew him would pity poor Mary, and say
That she was too good for his wife.

'Twas in autumn, and stormy and dark was the night,
And fast were the windows and door;

Two guests sat enjoying the fire that burnt bright,
And smoking in silence with tranquil delight
They listened to hear the wind roar.

""Tis pleasant," cried one," seated by the fireside
To hear the wind whistle without."

"6

A fine night for the abbey!" his comrade replied;
Methinks a man's courage would now be well tried
Who should wander the ruins about.

"I myself, like a school-boy, would tremble to hear
The hoarse ivy shake over my head;
And could fancy I saw, half persuaded by fear,
Some ugly old abbot's grim spirit appear,-
For this wind might awaken the dead!"

"I'll wager a dinner," the other one cried,

64

"That Mary would venture there now."

Then wager, and lose!" with a sneer he replied;
I'll warrant she'd fancy a ghost by her side,
And faint if she saw a white cow."

"Will Mary this charge on her courage allow?"
His companion exclaimed with a smile;

"I shall win,-for I know she will venture there now, And earn a new bonnet by bringing a bough

From the elder that grows in the aisle."

With fearless good humor did Mary comply,
And her way to the abbey she bent;

The night it was dark, and the wind it was high,
And as hollowly howling it swept through the sky
She shivered with cold as she went.

O'er the path so well known still proceeded the maid,
Where the abbey rose dim on the sight;

Through the gateway she entered, she felt not afraid;
Yet the ruins were lonely and wild, and their shade
Seemed to deepen the gloom of the night.

All around her was silent, save when the rude blast
Howled dismally round the old pile;

Over weed-covered fragments still fearless she pass'd,
And arrived at the innermost ruin at last,

Where the elder-tree grew in the aisle.

Well pleased did she reach it, and quickly drew near,
And hastily gathered the bough;

When the sound of a voice seemed to rise on her ear:
She paused, and she listened, all eager to hear,
And her heart panted painfully now.

The wind blew, the hoarse ivy shook over her head,

She listened,-naught else could she hear.

The wind ceased; her heart sunk in her bosom with dread, For she heard in the ruins distinctly the tread

Of footsteps approaching her near.

Behind a wide column, half breathless with fear,
She crept to conceal herself there :

That instant the moon o'er a dark cloud shone clear,
And she saw in the moonlight two ruffians appear,
And between them a corpse did they bear.

Then Mary could feel her heart-blood curdle cold;
Again the rough wind hurried by,—

It blew off the hat of the one, and behold!

Even close to the feet of poor Mary it rolled ;—

She fell, and expected to die.

Curse the hat!" he exclaimed. "Nay, come on till we hide

The dead body," his comrade replies.

She beholds them in safety pass on by her side,
She seizes the hat, fear her courage supplied,

And fast through the abbey she flies.

She ran with wild speed, she rushed in at the door,

She gazed in her terror around,

Then her limbs could support their faint burden no more, And exhausted and breathless she sunk on the floor,

Unable to utter a sound.

Ere yet her pale lips could the story impart,
For a moment the hat met her view;-

Her eyes from that object convulsively start,

For-O God! what cold horror then thrilled through her heart

When the name of her Richard she knew!

Where the old abbey stands on the common hard by,

His gibbet is now to be seen;

His irons you still from the road may espy,

The traveler beholds them, and thinks with a sigh
Of poor Mary, the maid of the inn.

TRUTH.-COWPER.

The only amaranthine flower on earth
Is virtue; the only lasting treasure, truth.
But what is truth? "Twas Pilate's question put
To truth itself, that deigned him no reply.
And wherefore? will not God impart His light
To them that ask it ?-Freely: 'tis his joy,
His glory, and his nature, to impart.
But to the proud, uncandid, insincere,
Or negligent inquirer, not a spark.
What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy,
That learning is too proud to gather up;
But which the poor and the despised of all
Seek and obtain, and often find unsought?
Tell me, and I will tell thee what is truth.