EARTH'S children cleave to earth: her frail,
Decaying children dread decay.

Yon wreath of mist that leaves the vale,
And lessens in the morning ray :
Look, how, by mountain rivulet,

It lingers, as it upward creeps,
And clings to fern and copsewood set
Along the green and dewy steps:
Clings to the fragrant kalmia, clings
To precipices fringed with grass,
Dark maples where the wood-thrush sings,
And bowers of fragrant sassafras.
Yet all in vain: it passes still

From hold to hold; it cannot stay;
And in the very beams that fill

The world with glory, wastes away.
Till, parting from the mountain's brow,
It vanishes from human eye,

And that which sprung of earth is now
A portion of the glorious sky.

JAMES K. PAULDING,

PASSAGE DOWN THE OHIO.

As down Ohio's ever ebbing tide, Oarless and sailless, silently they glide, How still the scene, how lifeless, yet how fair, Was the lone land that met the strangers there! No smiling villages or curling smoke The busy haunts of busy men bespoke;

No solitary hut the banks along,

Sent forth blithe Labour's homely, rustic song; No urchin gamboll'd on the smooth white sand, Or hurl'd the skipping-stone with playful hand,

While playmate dog plunged in the clear blue wave,
And swam, in vain, the sinking prize to save.
Where now are seen, along the river side,
Young busy towns, in buxom painted pride,
And fleets of gliding boats with riches crown'd,
To distant Orleans or St. Louis bound,
Nothing appear'd but nature unsubdued,
One endless, noiseless woodland solitude,
Or boundless prairie, that aye seem'd to be
As level and as lifeless as the sea;

They seem'd to breathe in this wide world alone,
Heirs of the Earth-the land was all their own!

'Twas evening now: the hour of toil was o'er,
Yet still they durst not seek the fearful shore,
Lest watchful Indian crew should silent creep,
And spring upon and murder them in sleep;
So through the livelong night they held their way,
And 'twas a night might shame the fairest day;
So still, so bright, so tranquil was its reign,
They cared not though the day ne'er came again.
The moon high wheel'd the distant hills above,
Silver'd the fleecy foliage of the grove,
That as the wooing zephyrs on it fell,
Whisper'd it loved the gentle visit well:
That fair-faced orb alone to move appear'd,
That zephyr was the only sound they heard.

No deep-mouth'd hound the hunter's haunt betray'd,
No lights upon the shore or waters play'd,
No loud laugh broke upon the silent air,
To tell the wand'rers man was nestling there.
All, all was still, on gliding bark and shore,
As if the earth now slept to wake no more.

JOHN G. WHITTIER,

THE FEMALE MARTYR.

Mary G, aged 18, a "SISTER OF CHARITY," died in one of our Atlantic cities, during the prevalence of the Indian Cholera, while in voluntary attendance upon the sick.

"BRING out your dead!" the midnight street Heard and gave back the hoarse, low call; Harsh fell the tread of hasty feet;

Glanced through the dark the coarse white sheet; Her coffin and her pall.

"What! only one!" the brutal hackman said, As, with an oath, he spurn'd away the dead.

How sunk the inmost hearts of all,

As roll'd that dead-cart slowly by, With creaking wheel and harsh hoof-fall! The dying turn'd him to the wall,

To hear it and to die!

Onward it roll'd; while oft its driver stay'd,
And hoarsely clamour'd, "Ho! bring out your dead."

It paused beside the burial-place :

"Toss in your load!" and it was done. With quick hand and averted face, Hastily to the grave's embrace

They cast them, one by one

Stranger and friend—the evil and the just,
Together trodden in the churchyard dust!

And thou, young martyr! thou wast there:
No white-robed sisters round thee trod,
Nor holy hymn, nor funeral prayer
Rose through the damp and noisome air,
Giving thee to thy God;

Nor flower, nor cross, nor hallow'd taper gave

Grace to the dead, and beauty to the grave!

Yet, gentle sufferer! there shall be,
In every heart of kindly feeling,
A rite as holy paid to thee
As if beneath the convent-tree

Thy sisterhood were kneeling,

At vesper hours, like sorrowing angels, keeping Their tearful watch around thy place of sleeping

For thou wast one in whom the light

Of Heaven's own love was kindled well,
Enduring with a martyr's might,
Through weary day and wakeful night,
Far more than words may tell :
Gentle, and meek, and lowly, and unknown,
Thy mercies measured by thy God alone!

Where manly hearts were failing—where
The throngful street grew foul with death,
Oh high soul'd martyr! thou wast there,
Inhaling from the loathsome air

Poison with every breath.

Yet shrinking not from offices of dread
For the wrung dying and the unconscious dead.

And, where the sickly taper shed

Its light through vapours, damp, confined, Hush'd as a seraph's fell thy tread,

A new Electra by the bed

Of suffering human-kind!

Pointing the spirit, in its dark dismay,

To that pure hope which fadeth not away.

Innocent teacher of the high

And holy mysteries of Heaven! How turn'd to thee each glazing eye, In mute and awful sympathy,

As thy low prayers were given;

And the o'erhovering spoiler wore, the while,
An angel's features, a deliverer's smile!

A blessed task! and worthy one
Who, turning from the world, as thou,
Ere being's pathway had begun

To leave its spring-time flower and sun,
Had seal'd her early vow,

Giving to God her beauty and her youth,
Her pure affections and her guileless truth.

Earth may not claim thee.

Nothing here
Could be for thee a meet reward;
Thine is a treasure far more dear:
Eye hath not seen it, nor the ear
Of living mortal heard,

The joys prepared, the promised bliss above,
The holy presence of Eternal Love!

Sleep on in peace. The earth has not

A nobler name than thine shall be.

The deeds by martial manhood wrought,
The lofty energies of thought,

The fire of poesy

These have but frail and fading honours; thine
Shall Time unto Eternity consign.

Yea: and when thrones shall crumble down,

And human pride and grandeur fall

The herald's pride of long renown,

The mitre and the kingly crown

Perishing glories all!

The pure devotion of thy generous heart
Shall live in Heaven, of which it was a part!

THE WORSHIP OF NATURE.

"It hath beene as it were especially rendered unto mee, and made plaine and legible to my understandynge, that a great wor shipp is going on among the thyngs of God."-Gralt.

THE Ocean looketh up to Heaven
As 'twere a living thing,

The homage of its waves is given
In ceaseless worshipping.