And left him with his dead. The king stood still
Till the last echo died: then, throwing off
The sackloth from his brow, and laying back
The pall from the still features of his child,
He bowed his head upon him, and broke forth
In the resistless eloquence of wo:-
6. "Alas! my noble boy! that thou should'st die !
Thou, who wert made so beautifully fair!
That death should settle in thy glorious eye,
And leave his stillness in this clustering hair!
How could he mark thee for the silent tomb,
My proud boy, Absalom!
7. "Cold is thy brow, my son! and I am chill
As to my bosom I have tried to press thee.
How was I wont to feel my pulses thrill,
Like a rich harp-string, yearning to caress thee, And hear thy sweet my father' from these dumb And cold lips, Absalom!
8. "The grave hath won thee. I shall hear the gush Of music, and the voices of the young;
And life will pass me in the mantling blush,
And the dark tresses to the soft winds flung ;— But thou no more, with thy sweet voice, shalt come To meet me, Absalom!
9. "And, oh! when I am stricken, and my heart, Like a bruised reed, is waiting to be broken, How will its love for thee, as I depart,
Yearn for thine ear to drink its last deep token! It were so sweet, amid death's gathering gloom, To see thee, Absalom!
10 "And now, farewell! 'Tis hard to give thee up,
With death so like a gentle slumber on thee:
And thy dark sin!-Oh! I could drink the cup,
If from this wo its bitterness had won thee.
May God have called thee, like a wanderer, home,
My erring Absalom!"
11. He covered up his face and bowed himself
A moment on his child; then, giving him
A look of melting tenderness, he clasped
His hands convulsively, as if in prayer;
And, as a strength were given him of God,
He rose up calmly, and composed the pall
Firmly and decently, and left him there,
As if his rest had been a breathing sleep.
The Miami Mounds.*-S. L. FAIRFIELD.
1. WRECKS of lost nations! monuments of deeds,
Immortal once-but all forgotten now!
Mysterious ruins of a race unknown,
As proud of ancestry, and pomp, and fame-
Prouder. perchance, than those who ponder here
O'er what their wild conjectures cannot solve!
Who raised these mouldering battlements? who trod
In jealous glory on these ruined walls?—
Who reigned, who triumphed, or who perished here!
What scenes of revelry, and mirth, and crime,
And love, and hate, and bliss, and bale, have passed?
Ah? none can tell.
Oblivion's dusky folds
Shroud all the past, and none may lift the pall;
Or, if they could, what would await the eye
Of antique research, but the fleshless forms
Of olden time: dark giant bones that tell-
Nothing! dim mysteries of the earth and air!
Since human passions met in conflict here,
The woods of centuries have grown-and oft
And long, the timid deer hath bounded o'er
The sepulchre of warriors, and wild birds.
Sung notes of love o'er slaughter's crimson field,
And the gaunt wolf, and catamount, and fox,
Have made their couches in the embattled towers
Of dauntless chiefs, nor dreamt of danger there!
In various parts of the Western States, numerous remains of fortifica tions, and mounds of earth, have been discovered, which have excited the astonishment and curiosity of all who have seen them. Some of these fortifications are small, while others enclose 40 or 50 acres of land. The mounds are built in the form of a sugar loaf, and were undoubtedly used for burying places, as they are found to contain human bones. They must have been built at a very remote period, as trees several hundred years old are often seen growing upon them, and the present race of Indians have no tradition respecting their origin. They indicate great labor, and were evidently the work of a peo; le who had made some advances in civilization, and who possessed considerable knowledge in the business of fortifications.
Princes and kings-the wise, the great, the good,
May slumber here, and blend their honored dust
With Freedom's soil; and navies may have rode
On the same wave that bears our starry sails.
3. Here heroes may have led to win a name
On Glory's sunbright scroll, and prophets watched
Their holy shrines, whose fires no longer glow.
Sweet rose and woodbine bowers around these walls
May once have bloomed, less fragrant and less fair
Than the fond hearts that blended, and the lips
That pressed in passion's rapture; and these airs,
That float unconscious by, may have been born
Of gales, that bore Love's soft enchanting words.
But all is silent now as Death's own halls!
4. Empires have perish'd where these forests tower In desolate array-and nations sunk,
With all their glories, to the darkling gulf
Of cold forgetfulness! But what avails
The uncertain guess, the dark and wildering search
For those whose spirits have but passed away
To the lark land of shadows and of dreams,
An hour before our own? Why in amaze
Behold these shattered walls, when other times
Shall hang in wondering marvel o'er our own
Proud cities, and enquire-" Who builded these?"
LESSON CLXXII.
On Time.-H. K. WHITE.
1. WHO needs a teacher to admonish him
That flesh is grass?—That earthly things are mist?
What are our joys but dreams? And what our hopes
But goodly shadows in the summer cloud?
There's not a wind that blows, but bears with it
Some rainbow promise.-Not a moment flies
But puts its sickle in the fields of life,
And mows its thousands, with their joys and cares,
2. "Tis but as yesterday, since on yon stars,
Which now I view, the Chaldee shepherd* gaz'd
In his mid-watch, observant, and dispos'd
The twinkling hosts, as fancy gave them shape.
Alluding to the first Astronomical observations, made by the Chaklean shepherds.
Yet in the interim, what mighty shocks
Have buffetted mankind-whole nations razed-
Cities made desolate-the polished sunk
To barbarism, and once barbaric states
Swaying the wand of science and of arts;
Illustrious deeds and memorable names
Blotted from record, and upon the tongue
Of grey tradition, voluble no more.
3. Where are the heroes of the ages past; Where the brave chieftains-where the mighty ones Who flourish'd in the infancy of days?
All to the grave gone down!-On their fall'n fame
Exultant, mocking at the pride of man,
Sits grim Forgetfulness. The warrior's arm
Lies nerveless on the pillow of its shame;
Hush'd is his stormy voice, and quenched the blaze
Of his red eye-ball.
Was mighty on the earth-To-day-'tis what?
The meteor of the night of distant years,
That flash'd unnotic'd, save by wrinkled eld
Musing at midnight upon prophecies,
Who at her lonely lattice saw the gleam
Point to the mist-pois'd shroud, then quietly
Clos'd her pale lips, and lock'd the secret up
Safe in the charnel's treasures.
O how weak
Is mortal man! How trifling-how confin'd
His scope of vision!-Puff'd with confidence,
His phrase grows big with immortality;
And he, poor insect of a summer's day,
Dreams of eternal honors to his name;
Of endless glory, and perennial bays.
He idly reasons of Eternity,.
As of the train of ages,-when, alas!
Ten thousand thousand of his centuries
Arc, in comparison, a little point,
Too trivial for account.-
Tis passing strange, to mark his fallacies;
Behold him prcadly view some pompous pile,
Whose high dome swells to emulate the skies,
And smile and say, my name shall live with this,
'Till Time shall be no more; while at his feet,
Yea, at his very feet, the crumbling dust
Of the fall'n fabric of the other day,
Preaches the solemn lesson.-He should know,
That time must conquer.
That the loudest blast
That ever fill'd Renown's obstrep'rous trump,
Fades in the lapse of ages, and expires.
Who lies inhum'd in the terrific gloom
Of the gigantic pyramid? Or who
Rear'd its huge wall!-Oblivion laughs and says,
The prey is mine. They sleep, and never more
Their names shall strike upon the ear of man,
Their mem❜ry burst its fetters.
She lives but in the tale of other times;
Her proud pavilions are the hermits' home.
And her long colonnades, her public walks,
Now faintly echo to the pilgrim's feet,
Who comes to muse in solitude, and trace,
Through the rank moss reveal'd, her honored dust.
8. But not to Rome alone has fate confin'd
The doom of ruin; cities numberless,
Tyre, Sidon, Carthage, Babylon, and Troy,
And rich Phoenicia-they are blotted out,
Half-raz'd from memory; and their very name
And being in dispute !
LESSON CLXXIII.
Jugurtha in Prison.-Rev. C. WOLFE.
1. WELL-is the rack prepared-the pincers heated? Where is the scourge ?-How?—not employed in Rome? Jugurtha was the son of Mastanabal and grand-son of the famous Massinissa, king of Numidia. His father having died while he was yet a child, he was taken by his uncle Micipsa and educated with his two sons, Hiempsal and Adherbal. At the death of Micipsa, the kingdom of Numidia was divided equally between Jugurtha and his two cousins. Jugurtha, greatly in favor with the people, and ambitious to possess the kingdom alone, murdered Hiempsal, and sought to do the same by Adherbal, who fled to Rome for succor. The Roman senate, being highly bribed, not only declared Jugurtha innocent, but decreed him the sovereignty of half the kingdom. Soon after this, he besieged Adherbal in Cirta, the capital of the kingdom, took him, and cruelly put him to death. This drew on him the vengeance of the Romans. Being defeated several times by the army under the consul Marius, he applied to Bocchus, his father-in-law, king of Mauritania, for assistance, by whom he was betrayed into the hands of the Romans. He was led in chains to Rome to grace the triumph of Marius. The senate condemned him to be starved to death in a dungeon, where he died, B. C. 103.
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