NOT YET. BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. OUR country, marvel of the earth! Shall it behold thee overthrown? Shall we like cravens stand apart, The death-blow at thy generous heart? And they who founded, in our land, To leave their country great and free? For idle hands in sport to tear, Our wind-tossed woods on mountain crest, The hoarse Atlantic, with his bays, The calm, broad Ocean of the West, Not yet the hour is nigh, when they Who deep in Eld's dim twilight sit, For now, behold, the arm that gave That mighty arm which none can stay, - From The N. Y. Evening Post. A SEA OF SOUND. BY GRACE H. HORR. My soul is floating out upon To swell the sound combines. Hark to the sweet-lipped humming bees; The soaring lark's clear bell; The linnet and the oriole What wordless tales they tell! Now, hear the trump and clarionet I bathe in ecstasies within Sweet symphonies and melodies My ravished, listening ear! O, words for us are all too weak, But words may cease, and language fail, DELIGHT IN DISORDER. A SWEET disorder in the dresse An erring lace, which here and there A winning wave (deserving note) A careless shoe-string, in whose tye I see a wild civility; Doe more bewitch me than when art Is too precise in every part. THE AMERICAN FLAG. A Contribution to Mr. Grant White's Collection of "Impossible National Hymns." FLING out the Starry Flag, For the country it has made. As once they came to Rome; Give each and all a home. Spectator. narrow streak of the moon emerges from the shadow of an eclipse, nearly a second and a quarter elapses before we see it; for the A few days ago we read at the Athenæum an English copy of the following work. It was first issued more than 20 years ago, and has been through many English editions. Much interested by speculations akin to some of our own; we wrote to England for a light takes this time to pass from the moon copy of the book, that we might reprint it for the benefit of our readers, and afterwards discovered that it had been already published by Messrs. Crosby & Ainsworth, of Boston. Their edition has a preface by Mr. Hill, late President of Harvard University, in which he says: The circulation of this book would be, I am convinced, of benefit both to science and religion. To religion, by showing, so far as it goes, that science leads to faith. To science, by pointing out to younger students the true spirit in which she should be wooed; still more, by presenting her in a lovely and attractive garb to the notice of men. It is a book of sublime poetry; and it will be a happier day for all men, when they have learned that, as poesy signifies creation, so is the creation poesy; and science causes the heart of its faithful student to sing a perpetual hymn of praise and joy." THE STARS AND THE EARTH; OR, THOUGHTS UPON SPACE, TIME, AND ETERNITY. Ir is a well-known proposition, that a luminous body arising at a certain distance cannot be perceived in the very same instant of time in which it becomes luminous, but that a period of time, although infinitely short, exists whilst the light, our only medium of vision, passes through the space between the object and our eyes. The rate at which the light travels is so exceedingly rapid, that it certainly has never been observed, nor have any attempts to measure it been made, in the insignificant distances at which objects upon the earth are visible to us. But since we see bodies at a distance immeasurably greater than the compass of terrestrial dimensions (namely, in viewing the stars above), the most acute calculations and observations have enabled astronomers to measure the speed of light, and to find that it travels at a rate of about two hundred and thirteen thousand miles in to our eyes. The moon, therefore, makes each of her changes a second and a quarter before it becomes visible to us.' The sun, ninety-five millions of miles distant, four hundred times farther than the moon, requires a period four hundred times longer than the moon (i. e., four hundred times five quarters of a second) to send its light upon our earth. Hence, when any change takes place in the sun, when, for instance, a solar spot creeps round the eastern limb, about eight minutes elapse before the light reaches our eyes; and the spot remains visible to us eight minutes after it has passed behind the western limb. The distance of the planet Jupiter from our earth, at the time when it is the greatest, is nearly six hundred and seventeen millions of miles. This is six times and a half as great as the distance of the sun, and therefore the light requires fifty-two minutes to penetrate from Jupiter to us. Lastly, Uranus runs his solitary course at a distance of eighteen hundred millions of miles from us : his light requires, therefore, twenty times as long a period to travel to us as that of the sun, i. e., more than two hours; so that, for two hours, he has been past that point of his orbit in which we see him. No planet has hitherto been discovered more distant than Uranus; but an infinite space exists beyond, separating our sun and its system of planets from the nearest fixed stars.† The distance of the fixed stars from our we earth was, until a very recent time, when the measurements of Struve and Bessel were crowned with such glittering results, a deep, inscrutable secret; but now know that the nearest fixed star, namely, the brightest star in the constellation of Centaur, is about eighteen billions of miles distant. Its rays of light, therefore, penetrate to us in about three years; that is, the ray of light which meets our eyes from this star was not developed and emitted at the same moment, but three years ago. * We take no notice of the refraction of the light. + Since this was written a planet has been discov ered at nearly double the distance of Uranus from the sun. Struve has calculated, with respect to the | having the form of two watch-glasses placed well-known bright star Vega, in the constel- with the concave surfaces towards each lation of the Lyre, that its light consumes other. The surfaces of this canopy are twelve years and one month in reaching the studded tolerably equally with fixed stars. earth; and, according to the measurements But as we are a thousand times nearer those of Harding and the inquiries of recent as- situated above and below than those at the tronomers, the following numbers have been edges of this hollow lens, so the distances deduced as the average distance of the fixed between the stars immediately above us stars from us. seem greater, whilst the legions of those A ray of light requires, before it reaches distributed at the edge are seen in densely the earth, from a star of the Moreover, Struve, from the dimensions of his telescope, and from the observation of the fact that a star of the twelfth magnitude, seen through it, has as much light as a star of the sixth magnitude seen with the naked eye, concludes that the distance of a star of the twelfth magnitude is forty-one times greater than that of one of the sixth magnitude; and, consequently, that the smallest of these stars visible to him is at a distance of twenty-three thousand billions of miles, and requires a period of time, for the travelling of the light to the earth, as great as four thousand years. That is, the ray of light from a star of the twelfth magnitude, which, we may mention, is only perceptible by means of a very good telescope, has, at the time it meets our eyes, already left the star four thousand years, and since that time has wandered on its own course, unconnected with its origin. We have hitherto confined our considerations to our system of fixed stars; and we will not at present overstep this limit, although it would be easy, were we to enter into hypotheses, to multiply indefinitely these enormous proportions hitherto adduced. According to a conjecture first made by the great Herschel, and afterwards further developed and rendered intelligible by Mädler, this entire system of fixed stars forms, if we may use the expression, a single lensshaped canopy. That is, we, with our sun, are situated nearly in the middle of a space, crowded masses. We may consider the Milky Way as the edge and furthermost limit of this set of fixed stars, where the infinitely distant crowds of stars are collected in such masses that their light flows together into a whitish cloud, and no longer permits us to isolate one star from another. Beyond this our lens, Herschel and the most recent astronomers imagine that the spots of clouds which appear like oval flakes in the sky are other entirely distinct and independent systems, which float at such an immeasurable distance from us, that the light has to wander millions of years in reaching us. It is, however, as we before remarked, sufficient for our purpose to take into consideration only the stars of the twelfth magnitude, from which the light can travel to us in four thousand years. From what we have already said, viz., that the ray of light meeting our eye is not sent forth from the star at the same moment, but arrives here according to the corresponding and requisite number of seconds, minutes, or years, it follows that we do not see the star as it is, but as it was at the time when the ray of light was emitted. Thus, we see the star in Centaur as it was three years ago, Vega as it was twelve years and one month ago, and so on to the star of the twelfth magnitude, which we look upon as it shone four thousand years ago. Hence follows the conclusion, which has frequently been made by astronomers, and which in its results has become popular, viz., that a star of the twelfth magnitude may have been extinguished or set four thousand years ago, whilst we, nevertheless, continue to see its light shining. This conclusion, when applied to each of the former positions, gives the following results. We do not see the moon as it is, but as it was a second and a quarter before; i. e., | year 1840, made the cities of our native the moon may already have been dispersed into atoms for more than a second, and we should still see it entire and perfect. country shine with the brightness of day during the darkness of night. An observer in Vega would see what happened with us twelve years ago; and so on, until an inhabitant of a star of the twelfth magnitude, if we imagine him with unlimited power of vision contemplating the earth, sees it as it was four thousand years ago, when Memphis was founded, and the patriarch Abra We do not see the sun as it now is, but as it was eight minutes before; Jupiter as it was fifty-two minutes, Uranus as it was more than two hours before; the star in Centaur as it was three years ago; Vega as it was nine and a quarter years, and a star of the twelfth magnitude as it was four thou-ham wandered upon its surface. sand years ago. These propositions are well known, and have already been published in popular works upon astronomy. It is really marvellous that nobody has thought of reversing them, and of drawing the very remarkable and astonishing conclusions which pour upon us in a full stream from the converse; and it is our intention here to examine the converse, and the inferences which may thence be drawn. The following is the relative view of the matter. As we have before remarked, we see the disc of the moon, not in the form in which it now is, but as it was five quarters of a second before the time of observation. In exactly the same way, an imaginary observer in the moon would not see the earth as it was at the moment of observation, but as it was five quarters of a second before. An observer from the sun sees the earth as it was eight minutes before. From Uranus the time between the reality and the perception by the eye being two hours and a half apart, if, for example, the summit of the Alps on a certain morning was illumined by the first ray of the sun at six o'clock, an observer in this planet, who was provided either with the requisite power of vision or a sufficiently good telescope, would see this indication of the rising of the sun at half past eight of our time. An observer in Centaur can, of course, never see the Northern hemisphere of the earth, because this constellation never rises above our horizon. But supposing it possible, and that an observer were standing in this star with such powerful vision as to be able to distinguish all particulars upon our little earth, shining but feebly luminous in its borrowed light, he would see, in the year 1843, the public illuminations which, in the In the immeasurably great number of fixed stars which are scattered about in the universe, floating in ether at a distance of between fifteen and twenty billions of miles from us, reckoning backwards any given number of years, doubtless a star could be found which sees the past epochs of our earth as if existing now, or so nearly corresponding to the time, that the observer need wait no long time to see its condition at the required moment. Let us here stop for a moment to make one of the inferences to be drawn from these propositions, which we have laid down, and which are so clear and evident to every reasonable mind. We have here a perfectly intelligible perception of the idea of the omniscience of God with relation to past events. If we imagine the Deity as a man with human powers, but in a far superior degree, it will be easy for us to attribute to Him the faculty and power of really overlooking and discerning, even in the most minute particulars, every thing which may be sensibly and actually overlooked and seen from a real point of observation. Thus, if we wish to comprehend how any past earthly deed or occurrence, even after thousands of years, is as distinctly and immediately in God's presence as if it were actually taking place before his eyes, it is sufficient for our purpose to imagine Him present at a certain point, at which the light and the reflection of the circumstance is just arriving. Supposing that this result is established; Omniscience, with respect to the past, becomes identical and one and the same thing with actual Omnipresence with regard to space. For, if we imagine the eye of God have indubitably the following result, that before the eye of this observer the entire history of the world, from the time of Abraham to the present day, passes by in the space of an hour. For, when the motion commenced, he viewed the earth as it was four thousand years ago; at the halfway, i. e., after half an hour, as it was two thousand years ago; after three quarters of an hour, as it was one thousand years ago; and after an hour, as it now is. attribute to a higher or the highest spirit the power of distinguishing and comprehending with accuracy every individual wave in this astonishing stream. Hence, the notion, that the Deity makes use of no measurement of time, is become clear and intelligible to us. When it is written, "Before God a thousand years are as one day," it is a mere empty word, unless the idea is rendered perceptible to our senses. But when, as we have done, by sensible and actual suppositions, we are enabled to show that it is possible for a being simply endowed with a higher degree of human power to live through the history of four thousand years in a second, we think we have materially contributed to render intelligible the philosophical statement, that time is nothing existing for itself, but only the form and repository, without which we cannot imagine its contents, viz., the series of consecutive events. We want no further proof, and it is evident, beyond the possibility of contradiction, that if an observer were able to comprehend with his eye the whirling procession of these consecutive images, he would have lived through the entire history of the world, with all the events and transactions which have happened in the hemisphere of the globe turned towards him, in a single hour. If we divide the hour into four thousand parts, so that about a second corresponds to each, he has seen the events of a whole year in a single second. They have If time was something real and actually passed before him with all the particulars, existing, and necessary to the occurrence of all the motions and positions of the persons events, it would be impossible for that to occupied, with the entire changing scenery, take place in a shorter time which occurs and he has lived through them all, every in a longer time. But here we see the enthing entire and unshortened, but only in tire contents of four thousand years concenthe quickest succession, and one hour trated into one second, and not mutilated was for him crowded with quite as many or isolated, but every event completely surevents as the space of four thousand years rounded with all its individual particulars upon earth. If we give the observer power and collateral circumstances. The duration also to halt at pleasure in his path, as he is of time is, therefore, unnecessary for the flying through the ether, he will be able to occurrence of events. Beginning and end represent to himself as rapidly as he pleases may coalesce, and still inclose every thing that moment in the world's history which intermediate. he wishes to observe at leisure; provided he remains at a distance when this moment of history appears to have just arrived; allowing for the time which the light consumes in travelling to the position of the observer. -- Having thus laid our contemplations before the reader, we will express a hope that the images may appear as poetical and sublime to him as to us, and that an hitherto unknown clearness and insight has been given to his ideas of the omniscience, omnipresence, and eternity of God. In conclusion, we must acknowledge a slight deception practised on the reader, of which we have rendered ourselves guilty with a quiet conscience. For the images of human and earthly events are not carried forward into the universe upon the wings of the light in so complete a manner, and without any exception, as we have represented. For example, what takes place within the houses cannot be seen, because the roofs and walls impede the passage of rays, &c. Nevertheless, as we have frequently and expressly declared, we do not treat of a corporeal view, but of one indicated by possibility in the sense in which we have explained it; and we therefore consider |