5

laid on my heart, but I shall still live in those words of counsel which I have uttered to my fellow-citizens, and which I now leave them as the last bequest of a dying friend.

In the long and honored career of our lamented friend, there are efforts and triumphs which will hereafter fill one of the brightest pages of our history. But I greatly err if the closing scene the height of the religious sublime - does not, in the judgment of other days, far transcend 10 in interest the brightest exploits of public life. Within that darkened chamber at Marshfield was witnessed a scene of which we shall not readily find the parallel. The serenity with which he stood in the presence of the King of Terrors, without trepidation or flutter, for hours and 15 days of expectation: the thoughtfulness for the public business, when the sands were so nearly run out; the hospitable care for the reception of the friends who came to Marshfield; that affectionate and solemn leave separately taken, name by name, of wife and children and kindred and 20 friends and family, down to the humblest members of the household; the designation of the coming day, then near at hand, when "all that was mortal of Daniel Webster should cease to exist!" the dimly-recollected strains of the funeral poetry of Gray; the last faint flash of the 25 soaring intellect; the feebly-murmured words of Holy Writ repeated from the lips of the good physician, who, when all the resources of human art had been exhausted, had a drop of spiritual balm for the parting soul; the clasped hands; the dying prayers. Oh! my fellow-citizens, this 30 is a consummation over which tears of pious sympathy will be shed ages after the glories of the forum and the senate are forgotten.

35

"His sufferings ended with the day,

Yet lived he at its close;

And breathed the long, long night away,

In statue-like repose.

"But ere the Sun, in all his state,

Illumed the Eastern skies,

He passed through glory's morning gate,
And walked in Paradise."

CXVIII. - HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALLEY OF CHAMOUNI, SWITZERLAND.

COLERIDGE.

[SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE was born at Ottery St. Mary, in Devonshire, England, October 21, 1772, and died July 25, 1834. He was one of the most remarkable men of his time; and few writers have exerted a wider and deeper intellectual influence. His influence, too, is most felt by minds of the highest class. He was an original and imaginative poet, a profound and suggestive philosophical writer, and a critic of unrivalled excellence. His works are somewhat fragmentary in their character, for he wanted patience in intellectual construction; but they are the fragments of a noble edifice. In conversational eloquence he is said to have excelled all his contemporaries. Coleridge's life was not in all respects what the admirers of his genius could have wished. His great defect was a want of will. He could see the right, but not always go to it; he could see the wrong, but not always go from it.]

1

HAST thou a charm to stay the morning-star

In his steep course? So long he seems to pause

On thy bald, awful head, O sovereign Blanc !
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form,
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee, and above,
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black.
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it
As with a wedge. But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity.

2 O dread and silent Mount!

I gazed upon thee

Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer
I worshipped the Invisible alone.

3 Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,

So sweet we know not we are listening to it,—
Thou, the mean while, wast blending with my thought,
Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy;
Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfusod,
Into the mighty vision passing—there,

As in her natural form, swelled vast to heaven.

4 Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs! all join my hymn.

5 Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale!
O, struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,

Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink,
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn.
Co-herald-wake, O wake, and utter praise !
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

6 And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
Forever shattered, and the same forever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,

Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam ?

And who commanded, - and the silence came,

"Here let the billows stiffen and have rest"?

7 Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain

Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you
with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?
God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!

God! sing, ye meadow streams, with gladsome voice!
Ye pine groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!

8 Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest!
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the elements!
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!

[The following spirited lines were called forth by a rumor that the frigate Constitution was about to be broken up as unfit for service.]

1 Av, tear her tattered ensign down!

Long has it waved on high,

And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;

Beneath it rung the battle shout,

And burst the cannon's roar;

The meteor of the ocean air

Shall sweep the clouds no more.

2 Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,

When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below,

No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquered knee;
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea.

3 0, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave:
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave.
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail

And give her to the god of storms
The lightning and the gale!

CXX.

- CHARACTER OF LAFAYETTE.

ADAMS.

[JOHN QUINCY ADAMS was born in Braintree, Massachusetts, July 11, 1767, and died at Washington, February 23, 1848. He was for half a century in the service of his country, as foreign minister, United States senator, secretary of state, president of the United States, and from 1831 to the time of his death member of the house of representatives. He was a man of indomitable energy, dauntless courage, indefatigable industry, and ardent patriotism. His political opinions made him many enemies, especially in his declining years, but no one ever doubted his honesty and integrity, or failed to respect the spotless purity of his private life. His systematic industry enabled him to accomplish an immense deal of work. He was a man of extensive learning, and familiar with ancient and modern literature. His writings, consisting of speeches, addresses, lectures, and reports, are numerous enough to fill several volumes. He was for a short time professor of rhetoric and oratory in Harvard College, and the lectures he delivered in that capacity were published in 1810, in two octavo volumes. The following extract is from "An Oration on the Life and Character of Lafayette," delivered before the two houses of congress, at Washing ton, December 31, 1834.]