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It heralded its millions to their home

In the dim land of dreams.

Remorseless Time!

Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe ? what power

Can stay him in his silent course, or melt

His iron heart to pity! On, still on

He presses, and forever. The proud bird,
The condor of the Andes, that can soar
Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave
The fury of the northern hurricane,

And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home
Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down
To rest upon his mountain crag; but Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness;
And Night's deep darkness has no chain to bind
His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep
O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast
Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back
To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear

To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plain; new empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations. Yet Time,

Time, the tomb builder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, all-pitiless; and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.

LESSON XXXIX.

DEATH OF NAPOLEON.

WILD was the night: yet a wilder night
Hung round the soldier's pillow;
In his bosom there waged a fiercer fight
Than the fight on the wrathful billow.

A few fond mourners were kneeling by,
The few that his stern heart cherished;
They knew, by his glazed and unearthly eye,
That life had nearly perished.

They knew by his awful and kingly look,
By the order hastily spoken,

That he dreamed of days when the nations shook,
And the nations' hosts were broken.

He dreamed that the Frenchman's sword still slew,
And triumphed the Frenchman's "eagle;"
And the struggling Austrian fled anew,
Like the hare before the beagle.

The bearded Russian he scourged again,
The Prussian's camp was routed,
And again, on the hills of haughty Spain,
His mighty armies shouted..

Again Marengo's field was won,
And Jena's bloody battle;

Again the world was overrun,
Made pale at his cannons' rattle.

He died at the close of that darksome day,
A day that shall live in story:

In the rocky land they placed his clay,
"And left him alone with his glory."

LESSON XL.

SORROW FOR THE DEAD.

THE sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal-every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open-this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude.. Where is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms, though every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament? Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved; when he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portal; would accept of consolation that must be bought by forgetfulness? No; the love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul.

If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection-when the sudden an

guish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved, is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness - who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud over the bright hour of gaiety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of gloom; yet who would exchange it even for the song of pleasure, or the burst of revelry? No; there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a remembrance of the dead, to which we turn even from the charms of the living. Oh, the grave!-the grave! It buries every error-covers every defect-extinguishes every resentment. From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down upon the grave even of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb, that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies mouldering before him?

But the grave of those we loved - what a place for meditation! There it is that we call up in long review the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us almost unheeded in the daily intercourse of intimacy:-there it is, that we dwell upon the tenderness, the solemn, awful tenderness of the parting scene. The bed of death, with all its stifled griefs-its noiseless attendance-its mute, watchful assiduities. The last testimonies of expiring love—the feeble, fluttering, thrilling-oh, how thrilling!-pressure of the hand. The last fond look of the glazing eye, turning upon us even from the threshold of existence. The faint,

faltering accents, struggling in death to give one more assurance of affection.

never

Ay, go to the grave of buried love, and meditate! There settle the account with thy conscience for every past benefit unrequited, every past endearment unregarded, of that departed being who can never — never return to be soothed by thy contrition! If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul, or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affec-. tionate parent-if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms, to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth-if thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged, in thought, or word, or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited pang to that true heart which now lies cold and still beneath thy feet; then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle action, will come thronging back upon thy memory, and knocking dolefully at thy soul- then be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrowing and repentant on the grave, and utter the unheard groan, and pour the unavailing tear-more deep, more bitter, because unheard and unavailing.

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