SELECTED POETRY. LIFE IS EARNEST. Life is real! Life is earnest ! Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, In the world's broad field of battle, Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! Heart within, and GoD o'erhead! Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, Footprints, that perhaps another, Let us, then, be up and doing, London, July 7th, 1855. LONGFELLOW. "As patience is the greatest of friends to the unfortunate, so is Time the greatest of friends to the lovers of landscape. It resolves the noblest works of art into the most affecting ornaments of created things. The fall of empires, with which the death of great characters is so immediately associated, possesses a prescriptive title, as it were, to all our sympathy, forming at once a magnificent, yet melancholy spectacle, and awakening in the mind all the grandeur of solitude. Who would not be delighted to make a pilgrimage to the East to see the columns of Persepolis, and the still more magnificent ruins of Palmyra? Where awe springs, as it were personified, from the fragments, and proclaims instructive lessons from the vicissitudes of fortune. Palmyra, once a paradise in the centre of inhospitable deserts, the pride of Solomon, the capital of Zenobia, and the wonder and admiration of all the East, now lies "majestic] though in ruins!" Its glory withered, time has cast over it a sacred grandeur, softened into grace. History by its silence, mourns its melancholy destiny, while "immense masses and stupendous columns denote the spot, where once the splendid city of the desert reared her proud and matchless towers." The astonishment that takes hold of the mind at the strange position of this magnificent city, at one time the capital of the East, on the edge of the Great Desert, and surrounded for several days' journey, on all sides by naked solitary wilds, is removed by marking well the peculiarity of its geographical position. The great caravans coming to Europe laden with the rich merchandise of India, would naturally come along the Persian gulf, through the south of Persia, to the Euphrates, the direct line; their object then would be to strike across the great Syrian Desert as early as possible, to reach the large markets and ports of Syria. With more than 600 miles of desert without water, between the mouth of the Euphrates and Syria, they would naturally be obliged to keep along the banks of that river, until the extent of desert country became diminished. They would then find the copious springs of Tadmor the nearest and most convenient to make for. These springs would then become very important, and would naturally attract the attention of a wise prince | like Solomon, who would "fence them with strong walls." Here the caravans would rest and take in water; here would congregate the merchants from adjacent countries and from Europe; and from hence the great caravan would be divided into numerous branches, to the north, south, and west. A large mart for the exchange of commodities would be established, and an important city would quickly arise. The choice of this spot by Solomon we may naturally consider founded on a policy of enriching himself by drawing the commerce of India through his dominions, from which commerce, probably he derived the wealth for which he is so celebrated. But Palmyra is as celebrated for its last monarch as for its first founder. It is the city of Solomon, it is also the city of Zenobia. All that is known of the origin of this celebrated woman is, that she was decended from the Ptolemies of Egypt, and that she boasted of having Cleopatra for an ancestress. Her beauty and enterprise all have heard of. Her complexion was a dark brown; she had black sparkling eyes, of uncommon fire; her countenance was divinely animated; her person graceful; her teeth white as pearls, and her voice clear and strong. If you add to this an uncommon strength, and consider her excessive military fatigues (for she used no carriage, generally rode, and often marched on foot three or four miles with her army); and if you, at the same time, suppose her haranguing her troops, which she used to do in her helmet, and often with her arms bare, you have a figure of masculine beauty which combines in one the divinest glories of Minerva and Venus. "Her manly understanding (says Gibbon) was strengthened and adorned by study. She was not ignorant of the Latin tongue, but possessed, in equal perfection, the Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages. She had drawn up for her own use, an epitome of Oriental history, and familiarly compared the beauties of Homer and Plato, under the tuition of the sublime Longinus." This heroine conquered Syria and Mesopotamia, subdued Egypt, and added the greater part of Asia Minor to her dominions At last she was herself subdued by all-conquering Rome. The first view of the ruins is described by all travellers as extremely magnificent. "When (says Bruce) we arrived at the top of the hill, there opened before us the most astonishing, stupendous sight that, perhaps, ever was presented to mortal eyes. The whole plain below, which was very extensive, was covered so thick with magnificent ruins, that the one seemed to touch the other; all of fine proportions, all of agreeable forms, all Edfou. composed of white stone, which at that distance, appeared like marble." At the end of the sandy plain, the eye rests upon the lofty columns of the Temple of the Sun; and beyond-all around -and right and left towards the Euphrates, as far as the eye can reach, extends the vast naked level flat of the Great Desert, over which the eye runs in every direction, piercing the boundless horizon, without discovering a human being. Naked, solitary, unlimited space extends around, where man never breathes under the shade, or rests his limbs under the cover of a dwelling. A deep blue tint spreads along its surface, here and there shaded with a cast of brown. There is something grand and awe-inspiring in its boundless immensity. Like the first view of the ocean, it inspires emotions never before experi |