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."

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!

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Utter forth "God," and fill the hills with praise!

Once more, hoar mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,

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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-travelling 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!

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EXERCISE XXXI.

Battle of Waterloo.-BYRON.

1. There was a sound of revelry by night;
And Belgium's capital had gathered then
Her beauty and her chivalry; and bright
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;
A thousand earts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage-bell ;

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell

2. Did ye not hear it? -No: 't was but the wind,

Or the car rattling o'er the stony street:

On with the dance! Let joy be unconfined;

No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing hours with flying feet;· But hark! that heavy sound breaks in once more,

As if the clouds its echo would repeat; And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before! Arm! arm! it is- it is the cannon's opening roar.

3. Within a windowed niche of that high hall,
Sat Brunswick's fated chieftain: he did hear
That sound the first amidst the festival,

And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear; And when they smiled because he deemed it near, His heart more truly knew that peal too well,

Which stretched his father on a bloody bier, And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell: He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.

4. Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,

And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago

Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness; And there were sudden partings, such as press The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs Which ne'er might be repeated: who could guess If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise ?

5. And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,

The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
And the deep thunder, peal on peal, afar,
And near the beat of the alarming drum,

Roused up the soldier, ere the morning star;
While thronged the citizens, with terror dumb,
Or whispered with white lips, "The foe! they come! they
come !"

6. And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering" rose !
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albin's hills
Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes:
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills,
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers

With the fierce native daring which instils

The stirring memory of a thousand years; And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears!

7. And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,

Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass,
Grieving - if aught inanimate e'er grieves –
Over the unreturning brave,—alas!
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass,

Which now beneath them, but above shall grow

In its next verdure, when the fiery mass

Of living valor, rolling on the foe,

And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.

8. Last noon beheld them full of lusty life;

Last eve, in Beauty's circle proudly gay:

The midnight brought the signal sound of strife;
The morn, the marshalling in arms,

Battle's magnificently-stern array!

-the day,

The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent,
The earth is covered thick with other clay,

Which her own clay shall cover - heaped and pent, Rider and horse — friend, foe — in one red burial blent!

EXERCISE XXXII.

Reflections at Midnight.-DR. Young.

The bell strikes One. We take no note of time

But from its loss.

To give it, then, a tongue,

Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,

I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,

It is the knell of my departed hours:

Where are they? With the years beyond the flood.

It is the signal that demands despatch:

How much is to be done! My hopes and fears

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Start up alarmed, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down- -on what? A fathomless abyss!
A dread eternity! how surely mine!

And can eternity belong to me,

Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,

How complicate, how wonderful, is man!

How passing wonder He who made him such!
Who centred in our make such strange extremes,
From different natures marvellously mixed,
Connection exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguished link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity !
A beam ethereal, sullied and absorpt!
Though sullied and dishonored, still divine!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute!
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!
A worm! a god! - I tremble at myself,
And in myself am lost! at home a stranger,

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Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast,
And wondering at her own. How reason reels!
Oh! what a miracle to man is man!

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Triumphantly distressed! what joy, what dread!
Alternately transported and alarmed!

What can preserve my life, or what destroy?
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.

'Tis past conjecture; all things rise in proof:
While o'er my limbs sleep's soft dominion spread,
What though my soul fantastic measures trod
O'er fairy fields, or mourned along the gloom
Of pathless woods, or down the craggy steep
Hurled headlong, swam with pain the mantled pool,
Or scaled the cliff, or danced on hollow winds,
With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain?
Her ceaseless flight, though devious, speaks her nature
Of subtler essence than the trodden clod;
Active, aërial, towering, unconfined,
Unfettered with her gross companion's fall.
Even silent night proclaims my soul immortal;

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