mountain streams-their conveyance, the felled stems of trees, which were to be borne away on the mighty Rhine, and perhaps contribute to form a bulwark for Holland, perhaps-but who could speculate on their destination? On go the old trees of the forest, and on go the older streams, and on goes the being who is of yesterday, and whose dwelling is in the dust on goes the Man of the forest, swaying tree and torrent, and guiding them at his will. Great little being!-how marvellous art thou in thy three score years and ten! The raft moves quicker than the water; they are obliged to wait for the descent of the latter; a rope is thrown out, coiled round a tree on the banks, and the long raft, composed of numberless barked and prepared trees, is drawn in an angular shape across the river, so that the angles catch in the banks, and there it rests while they wish to arrest it. It was at this moment of stopping that I heard the sound of carriage wheels, and turning round I saw Mein Herr himself, seated in a small open carriage, with a wolf-hound at his feet, peeping up as if he too noted all that was going on, and entered into my philosophy. Herr Göringer was actually going from his patriarchial domain, going to leave Rippoldsau, and going, they said, to the Chace-it was time, then, for every one else to depart. So I ran and shook hands most warmly with Mein Herr, promising him I would send a leaf from the Black Forest to join the shamrock wreath of Erin; and to those who pick up that leaf is the same hearty farewell now made by one who has kept her promise, at least in part, and may, if sunnier days and calmer hours than those that now hang over her return, despatch a still lighter sprig to rejoin that revered leaf, or relate a story dark as the pines of the forest, beneath whose shadow it was related during her visit to pleasant Rippoldsau. S. B. HOME. FROM THE GERMAN OF AUGUST MAHLMANN Why comest thou here, so pale and clear, Thou lone and shadowy child? "I come from a clime of eternal sun, And to seek it through the world I stray." "My native land is beyond the skies, F. A. E. "A CLOUD IS ON THE WESTERN SKY." MR. EDITOR-The accompanying lines I forward for insertion in your Magazine, exactly as I received them; nor, although not intended for the public eye, do I fear any reproach from their distinguished writer in offering them for publication unauthorized. They are bold, manly, and well timed. Yours, L. MY DEAR L.-I send you the song you wished to have. The Americans totally forgot when they so insolently calculated upon aid from Ireland in a war with England, that their own apple is rotten at the core. A nation with five or six millions of slaves, who would go to war with an equally strong nation with no slaves, is a mad people. Yours, A cloud is on the western sky, And bankrupt States are blustering high, G. P. R. JAMES. Our guns shall roar, our steel shall gleam, Shall own another's sway; We'll take out stand, And draw the brand, As in the ancient day. They count on feuds within the Isle, When rendered one in hand and heart, And draw the brand, As in the ancient day. Oh, let them look to where in bonds Beneath the flag of Liberty We'll sweep the wide Atlantic Sea, And tear their chains away; There take our stand, And draw the brand, As in the ancient day. Veil, starry banner, veil your pride, [THE late Dr. Hales, F.T.C.D., in his delightful work, the "Analysis of Sacred Chronology," has attempted to redeem the history of this splendid constellation from the absurdity and coarseness which heathen mythology would cast around it. He supposes that Nimrod, "that mighty hunter," (Gen. x. 8, 9,) was the first introducer of the Zabian idolatry, or worship of the heavenly host, so often alluded to in Scripture. After his death he was deified by his subjects, and supposed to be translated into the constellation of Orion; and, attended by his two hounds, Sirius and Procyon, (the Great and Lesser Dog,) he nightly hunts the Great Bear, and is thus described by Homer, (see note on verse 11,) who seems to have supplied or assisted the learned doctor's hypothesis.] Great huntsman of the eastern sky, Orion, huge and bright! Bright issuer from the cold night wave! a watery couch was thine, The planets bowled by God's right hand along their whirling track The lamps of gold that burn untold o'er the circling zodiac The wild north lights that blaze at nights-the white moon's gleaming ball— These cannot vie with thee, Orion! kingliest of them all. There are the Silver Brothers—side by side they still are beaming; Castor and Pollux. Cassiopeia's golden chair, and the Virgin's sparkle sheaf, * And the bold Bull, on whose broad brow glitters one eye-like star,‡ And Lyra's graceful harp hung high breathes down it's voiceless might And the dim clustering Sisters,|| ever weeping o'er the sea, And thou, oh regal Pole Star! in the vast and spangled dome As thou lookest down o'er star-decked fields of endless sky and night. Oh, lovely in thy loneliness!—no star is near thee ever; But thou and all thy brilliant brothers sparkle not so bright With thy transverse limbs of glittering light uprising from the main. And I find thy name in the "blind old man of Scio's" tuneful page, And again in his bright verse he makes the Ithacensian tell§§ Spica Virginis, the bright star in the left hand of the Virgin. † This beautiful star for many nights just skirts the horizon, at a great distance; it is in the Southern Fish. Aldebaran. The chief star in the Eagle, which, with Lyra and Cyagnus, form an isosceles triangle in the northern heavens. The Pleiades. Corona Borealis. “ τό τε σθενος Ωρίωνος.”—Iliad, xviii. 434. †† « Αρκτον 2', καὶ αμαζαν επικλησιν καλέουσιν Ητ' αυτου σρεφεταί καί τ' Ωρίωνα δοκέυει.”—Iliad, xviii. 485. # Sirius and Procyon. « Τον δε μετ 'Ωρίωνα πελώριον εισενόησα Θήρας όμου ειλεοντα κατ' ασφοδέλον λειμωνα Τους αυτος κατεπέφνεν εν οιοπολοισιν ορεσσιν Χερσιν έχων ροπαλον παγχάλκεον αξεν ααγες.”—Odyss. xi. 571. A star-like form, with belted waist and mace of burning brass, But thy sparkle, and thy name too, is on a better page, And the Lord himself, thy Maker, wrapped in the whirling storm, And tracing thee in God's bright Book to another clime and age, But most of all I hail thee, as thou comest to visit me In this utter sense of night intense, when thoughts are pure and free; Yet not alone when He is near: His heavens above me roll, A blazoned book, from which I draw deep lessons to my soul. Oh, if these stars, which are but streams, have such pure brilliancy, And again, when night comes forth in might, and her jewelled zone is rolled To us so fair, yet is not clean§ in His most holy sight. And deeper still the mind would pierce through the clouded times of old; When chaos reigned, ere creation dawned, and this vault was dark and cold, Till He spake the word, and straight came forth from the womb of ancient night Ten thousand thousand dazzling suns, and decked the heavens in light. Poor feeble types of His far light, the source and spring of day, Day-break o'er the dark mountains, foretold in Prophet's story, See Job ix. 9. See Job xxxviii. 31. See Amos v. 8. "And the heavens are not clean in his sight."-Job xv. 15. CECIL. |