CASCADE OF ABERDILLIS.

"Always flowing, headlong flowing,
Thundering over the jagged rocks:
Sure such haste, for such a purpose,
Human nature mocks."

THERE is an indescribable charm in the addition of water to a landscape. Whatever may be the beauty of the scene, the tangled forest-where the road dwindles into a slender sheep-track-a bosky dell where the sunshine stealing through the green canopy sheds but a twilight on the grassy depths-water adds an attraction which cannot fail to please. A little fountain bubbling up from the green earth and shedding a delightful coolness all around; a rivulet, through which the village children wade, and in which horses cool their dusty fetlocks; a river, slow, steady, and prosaic, laving the herbage in country parts, bearing great arguosies of wealth in the city, widening and deepening as it approaches the sea; the expansive sheets of water we call lakes-stretching out for many a mile and shut in by lofty mountains: no matter what the character of the water, it gives an attraction to a landscape which nothing else can impart.

But a cascade, a waterfall, is the most picturesque form which water can assume. Then it wears its grandest attire—leaping from Alpine heights, wild, impetuous, with a mighty voice to the valley below. What barrier can withstand the progress of the rushing stream seeking the sea? Not lofty rocks -it leaps their ledges or deflects around them-and flies onward with an increased speed, as if the time lost in making that deflection must be atoned for by a quickened pace.

The rock said, "Tarry, thou hast lost thy way;"
The stream, "I will go on!"—The rock again,
"Stand back, I tell thee!"-Roared the stream amain,
"I tell thee, let me through." Anon the day
Grew midnight: no moon rose :-the stream, they say,
Call'd and was answered by his kinsman rain,
Who came in flood with many a rent and strain.
They cleft the mountain through: and their spray

Laughed in the valley's lap when morning shone,
As down they travelled both to monarch Ocean.

O wild brook, thou hast such marvels done,
How weak is man's command o'er plumb or line,
E'en in his master-craft, compared with thine,

Help'd by the clouds that have their fountains near the sun.

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CASCADE OF ABERDILLIS.

Travelled visitors, who may have gazed on all the wondrous sights of the Old and New World, may look carelessly on such a scene as that which is presented in our Illustration, but all the characteristics of the rushing cascade are there, though not on the scale of grandeur which they exhibit in some other lands. But no admirer of Nature can stand amid hoary crags, and gaze unmoved as the water leaps and dashes on its impetuous way.

O'er the plain in silvery splendour,
And the plain his splendour borrows;
And the rivulets from the plain,
And the brooklets from the hill-sides,
All are shouting to him, "Brother,
Brother, take thy brothers too-
Take us to thy ancient Father,

To the everlasting Ocean,

Who, e'en now, with outstretched arms,
Waits for us—

Arms outstretched, alas! in vain,

To embrace his longing ones;

For the greedy sand devours us;

Or the burning sun above us

Sucks our life-blood; or some hillock
Hems us into ponds. Ah! brother,

Take thy brothers from the plain-
Take thy brothers from the hill-sides
With thee, to our Sire with thee!"

RHIAIADER BRIDGE.

"Flow on thy silvery way,

Thou consecrated stream,

By Nature richly dower'd,

And blessed by poet's dream."

WE have elsewhere furnished some particulars with respect to the old town of Rhiaider; and the chief interest belonging to its Bridge, represented in the accompanying Illustration, is in connection with the river which it spans.

The river Wye, which is devious in its course and highly romantic in its scenery, rises on the south side of Plynlimmon about a mile from the source of the Severn, waters south east-ward a section of Montgomeryshire, flows past the town of Rhiaider, separates the counties of Radnor and Brecon, commencing at Hay to trace for three or four miles the English boundary, and so passes away into the spacious plains of Herefordshire.

One of the most beautiful poems which ever emanated from the gifted mind of Wordsworth, commemorates a visit to the banks of this picturesque and interesting river. Says he

-How oft

In darkness, and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart-
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,

O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer thro' the woods,

How often has my spirit turned to thee!

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,

And somewhat of a sad perplexity,

The picture of the mind revives again:

While here I stand not only with the sence

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts

That in this moment there is life and food

For future years. And so I dare to hope,

Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first

I came among these hills; when like a roe

I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides

Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever Nature led; more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one

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