Go, sun, while mercy holds me up
On nature's awful waste,
To drink this last and bitter cup

Of grief that man shall taste-
Go, tell the night that hides thy face,
Thou saw'st the last of Adam's race,

On earth's sepulchral clod,
The dark'ning universe defy
To quench his immortality,

Or shake his trust in God!

THE PLANETS.-TAYLOR.

The glass brings, for example, the disk of Jupiter before us; so that we may fix the eye on this side, or on the other, of his cloud-belted surface:- we clearly distinguish the forms of these wreaths of lurid vapor; or we catch the transit of one of his moons-follow the speck of shadow in its hasty course along the equator of the stupendous planet, very much in the same way in which we watch the shadow of a cloud, as it moves across the bosom of a distant sunny hill. Although the road thither baffles us in the attempt to mete it out into portions, we can just imagine ourselves to have achieved the passage, and to set foot upon that vast rotund; and can faintly conceive of the scene that would there present itself, where, athwart prodigious valleys (each capacious enough to receive an Atlantic, or through which the waves of all our oceans might quietly flow, as the Ganges glides in its bed,) the deep shadows of the overhanging mountains are flitting with giddy haste, from side to side; while the sun rushes through the ample skies to accomplish his five hours of day. Or we remain at our post of observation through the brief moments of night; and are dizzy while we gaze upon the shining multitude of moons and stars, that, bursting up from the horizon, chase each other with visible celerity, from east to west, like a routed host, hotly followed by the foe.

Thus, and with these aids which the telescope affords us, or which the imagination (authentically informed by facts) supplies, may we make a stage outward through the skies: nor are such efforts of the mind to be accounted vain and fantastic, like those waking dreams wherein we combine extravagant

images of things nowhere existing, and in themselves prepos terous: for we are now endeavoring to fix the faculty of conception upon objects that are palpable, and real, and which (remote as they may be) are as truly cognizable by the sight as are the cliffs of an adjacent continent. There is no extravagance in this attempt; but a real utility, inasmuch as an important lesson is obtained from the vivid impression of the extent of God's visible dominion. The same force of conception which has carried the mind to the orbit of Jupiter, will transport it to that of Saturn, where is seen a sombre splendor, suffused on all sides, less, apparently, from the distant and diminished sun, than from the broad surfaces of the adjacent rings, which almost blend night and day, by overshadowing the one, and illuminating the other. Or taking once again an adventurous flight, further than before, we reach the outermost limit of our system, and stand upon that vast and solitary planet which, as if guardian of the whole, slowly walks the rounds of the solar skies, while it fulfils its term of fourscore years and more. The sun has now shrunk almost to a comparison with the stars; or looks only like the chiefest and most resplendent of them so that the mild twilight of that noon does not quite exclude their rival radiance.

HYMN BEFORE SUN-RISE IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNY.-
COLERIDGE.

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 sovran 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 chrystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!

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.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy: Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused, Into the mighty vision passing-there

As in her natural form, swelled vast to heaven!

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.

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 ?

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, For ever shattered and the same for ever? 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?

Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amainTorrents, 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 hue, 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!

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

Thou, too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene
Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast-
Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow traveling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,
To rise before me-Rise, O ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

THE FALL OF NIAGARA.-BRAINARD.

Labitur et labetur.

The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain While I look upward to thee. It would seem As if God poured thee from his "hollow hand," And hung his bow upon thy awful front; And spoke in that loud voice, which seemed to him

Who dwelt in Patmos for his Savior's sake,
"The sound of many waters;" and had bade
Thy flood to chronicle the ages back,
And notch his cent'ries in the eternal rocks.

Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we,
That hear the question of that voice sublime?
Oh! what are all the notes that ever rung
From war's vain trumpet, by thy thundering side!
Yea, what is all the riot man can make
In his short life, to thy unceasing roar!
And yet bold babbler, what art thou to HIM
Who drowned a world, and heaped the waters far
Above its loftiest mountains ?-a light wave,
That breaks, and whispers of its Maker's might.

MARTYRDOM OF POLYCARP.-MILNER.

When he had finished his prayers, having made mention of all whom he had ever known, small and great, noble and vulgar, and of the whole Catholic Church throughout the world, the hour of departing being come, they set him on an ass and led him to the city. The irenarch Herod, and his father Nicetes, met him, who taking him up into their chariot, began to advise him, asking, What harm is it to say, Lord Cæsar!-and to sacrifice and be safe?" At first he was silent, but being pressed, he said, 'I will not follow your advice. When they could not persuade him, they treated him abusively, and thrust him out of the chariot, so that in falling he bruised his thigh. But he, still uninoved as if he had suffered nothing, went on cheer-' fully under the conduct of his guards to the Stadium. There the tumult being so great that few could hear any thing, a voice from heaven said to Polycarp, as he entered on the Stadium, 'Be strong, Polycarp, and behave yourself like a man.'-None saw the speaker, but many of us heard the voice.

When he was brought to the tribunal, there was a great tumult, as soon as it was generally understood that Polycarp was apprehended. The proconsul asked him, if he was Polycarp; to which he assented. The former then began to exhort him:- Have pity on thy own great age-and the like. Swear by the fortune of Cæsar-repent-say-Take away the athe