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Be it my present office to display
Some great events that time's unfolding ray
In long futurity shall bring to light,
Though now deep-buried in the shades of
night.

Still does the charm, the infernal spell, allure ;

The demon laughs: his prey is now secure.

The solid earth presents too small a space To bound the enterprise of Adam's race:

"No more the thorns and thistles in thy A hardy race of men shall spring from thee ground Whose only residence an ark shall be. Shall raise their martial points to fence thee For, lo! astonished Ocean shall survey In future times, though distant now the

round

That sad and mournful family that shun
All vegetation and the cheering sun,
And seem in some secluded spot to tell
In whispers to the wind that Adam fell;
Thy spot of ground no ruffian weed shall
taunt,

day,

Such wonders as have never reached his

ken:

His empire humbled by the sons of men,

Arks beyond number, borne by heavenly breath,

But in its stead thy hand the vine shall Shall dare the surface of the roaring death. plant

The fruitful vine-and, while thou joyest to know

How full and dark its clustering honors grow,

Vain does he fret and climb the heights of

air

Like some proud steed that scorns his lord

to bear;

In vain he foams and rears, for human skill

More shalt thou joy to hear what God Has conquered, and he feels the bridle still.

enjoins :

Thy progeny shall far exceed the vine's.

"But, ah! thou little knowst what depth of
sin,

What idiot frenzy, dwells the grape within:
Reason no longer holds her balance true
With eyes once bathed in this bewildering
dew;

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In vain the monster trembles, and retreats
To his dark caverns and his coral seats:

He tastes the victim knows not when to The persecutor, anxious for his prey,

stop,

Though frantic demons poison every drop:
Down, down, he sinks in ruin and de-
spair.

In vain may sacred friendship, weeping there,
In vain may fathers, brothers, intercede,
In vain may honor execrate the deed:

Waits his return unto the beams of day;
There struck, he flies and flounders with the
pain,

And seeks the dark recesses of the main;
Vain is his flight, opposed to human skill,
For there the barb of death pursues him

still;

Again he rises to the upper air:

In vain, for hostile vengeance follows there. Now see! the monster spouts away his breath,

Fanned by, O Innocence, thy sacred sighs, The floweret smells and blossoms to the skies;

How horrible to tell, and yet how true!

Lashes the foaming surge, then sinks to The plant is nourished by a bloody dew.

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Henceforth shall rise and walk the earth The earth shall mourn, and desolate with

again.

In vain may suppliant mercy intercede : How many Abels shall be doomed to bleed! More wonders still: thy race, by vengeance driven,

Shall seize and hurl the thunderbolt of heaven;

grief,

And rue the absence of the olive-leaf. Refrain, my sons-this dreadful deed refrain: Let not the tears of Mercy plead in vain!

"The eagle, towering in his pride of place, Shall see some venturous son of Adam's race,

Yea, the dread lightning, by divine com- Mounted on wings, with balance just and

mand,

Shall flash hereafter in a human hand.

true,

Scouring with him the firmament of blue; Oh, while ye grasp the bolts of heaven, for- Such wonders shall be known in future times. bear

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Unterrified, from cloud to cloud he climbs,
Till from the height of his celestial seat
Rivers shall vanish underneath his feet,
And even Ararat, that towers so grand,
Shall seem diminished to a grain of sand.
Behold him where the aërial tribes are seen,
Supported by a bubble, sail serene,
And, though the sport of all the winds that
blow,

He sees a subjugated world below.
Now in a cloud the glittering wonder hides;
Anon it skims along the clear blue tides;
While shouting thousands with admiring

gaze

Pursue this sailor of the solar blaze.

"The time shall come-so speaks almighty | The human form, beneath her magic shock, doomBreaks from the rude recesses of the rock;

When human art shall triumph o'er the The frowning quarry that no tempest fears,

tomb:

The body formed with such transcendent art,
Such nicety of skill in every part,
Shall, though the seat of an immortal mind,
Vanish from earth and leave its shade be-
hind.

Thy tame obsequious shadow in thy way,
That humble offspring of the solar ray,
Lives to proclaim this truth to all thy line:
A sunbeam boasts a longer date than thine.
Go worship at Ambition's bloody fane

Till even Rapine would its rage restrain ;
Go climb the fields of air, the heights ex-
plore

Beyond where even eagles dare to soar;
Go set thy footstep on the roaring wave,
Defy the ocean's depth, his coral cave;
Go snatch the lightning from the azure field
And teach thy hand the bolt of Heaven to
wield,-

Then, son of Adam, count thy mighty gains:
Of all thy glory, but the corpse remains.
Poor heir of sickness, sorrow and decay,
Thou wretched tenant of a little day,
One moment moving like a god august,
The next a mass of silent mouldering dust,
Though Death with such remorseless ven-
geance drives,

Thy cold insensate shadow still survives :
It lives to tell how small the human span,
What frail materials constitute a man;
It lives a satire on the very name
Of human grandeur and thy hopes of fame.

That bears the brunt of heaven for endless

years,

When touched by Art and fashioned by her skill

Dissolves in female beauty at her will. Behold, enrapturing every heart and hand, Cold and serene the marble virgin stand! What harmony, what symmetry, what grace, Move o'er each limb and languish on the face!

How loose, how lovely, all the tresses flow

Upon that bosom's pure and lustrous snow! She frowns each bold intruder to reprove: Ah! why does not the lovely vision move? Wherefore this silence? why this steadfast air?

Rouse from thy slumber! speak, thou lovely fair!

Alas! how vain is all this blaze of skill! The breath, the almighty breath, is wanting

still.

Stay, and this lovely prodigy behold:
How beautiful to view, and yet how cold!
What idle industry! what fruitless pain!
The virgin steps into the block again.
Monarchs shall strive amidst an empire's

shock

To gain possession of this beauteous block; Poets shall sing its praise in strains so

sweet

That even listening angels might repeat; From distant nations pilgrims still shall

come

"Still, Art shall triumph with the conqueror's And gaze till Admiration's self be dumb: wreath, 'Tis still bereft of an almighty breath, And teach the rugged marble how to breathe; And stands a steadfast monument of death.

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Unconquered man, by Science guided far, Shall boldly measure every brilliant star, Till all these orbs in glory so replete Shall roll in silent homage at his feet. Here is a triumph for thy honored brow: Is man encircled with the laurel now?

We spoke of distant countries In regions strange and fair, And of the wondrous beings

And curious customs there:

Of perfumed lamps on the Ganges
Which are launched in the twilight hour,

"This conquest, purchased by no bloody And the dark and silent Brahmins,

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Who worship the lotus-flower;

Of the wretched dwarfs of Lapland

Broad-headed, wide-mouthed and smallWho crouch round their oil-fires, cooking, And chatter and scream and bawl.

And the maidens earnestly listened

Till at last we spoke no more;
The ship like a shadow had vanished,
And darkness fell deep on the shore.

Translation of CHARLES G. LELAND.

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THE TEAR.

HERE is a gem-a hallowed gemOf more intrinsic worth Than ever decked the diadem

Of potentate on earth:

It is a gem of purer ray

Than India's mines possess, Beams brightly in affliction's day, And sparkles in distress.

This

gem is seen in woman's eye, And speaks a language dear,

When the last lingering, kind "Good-bye" Just falters on the ear

When heart to heart responsive beats

And hand with hand is pressed,

When cheek with cheek as warmly meets, And breast as warm with breast.

ROBERT S. COFFIN.

THE FLYING HEAD.

A LEGEND OF SACONDAGA LAKE.

"The great God hath sent us signs in the sky; we have heard uncommon noise in the heavens, and have seen heads fall down upon the earth!"-Speech of Tahayadoris, a Mohawk sachem, at Albany, October 25, 1689.

T

It hath telltale tongues-this casing air

That walls us in-and their wandering breath

Will whisper the horror everywhere

That clings to that ruthless deed of death,
And a vengeful eye from the gory tide

Will open to blast the parricide.

a refuge in that mountain-region. The evil shapes that were formerly so troublesome to the red hunter seem in these later days to have become less restless at his presence, and, whether it be that the day of their power has gone by or that their vindietiveness has relented at witnessing the fate which seems to be universally overtaking the people whom they once delighted to persecute, certain it is that the few Indians who now find their way to this part of the country are never molested.

HE country about the head-wa- | grounds in quest of the game that still finds ters of the great Mohegan as the Hudson is sometimes called-though abounding in game and fish, was never, in the recollection of the oldest Indians living, nor in that of their fathers' fathers, the permanent residence of any one tribe. From the black mountain-tarns where the eastern fork takes its rise to the silver strand of Lake Pleasant, through which the western branch makes its way after rising in Sacondaga Lake, the wilderness that intervenes and all the mountains round about the fountain-heads of the great river have from time immemorial been infested by a class of beings with whom no good man would ever wish to come in contact. The young men of the Mohawk have, indeed, often traversed it when in years gone by they went on the warpath after the hostile tribes of the North, and the scattered and wandering remnants of their people, with an occasional hunting-party from the degenerate bands that survive at St. Regis, will yet occasionally be tempted over these haunted

The Flying Head, which is supposed to have first driven the original possessors of these hunting-grounds, whosoever they were, from their homes, and which, as long as tradition runneth back, in the old day before the whites came hither, guarded them from the occupancy of every neighboring tribe, has not been seen for many years by any credible witness, though there are those who insist that it has more than once appeared to them, hovering, as their fathers used to describe it, over the lake in which it first had its birth. The existence of this fearful monster, however, has never been disputed. Rude representations of it are still occasion

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