From torrid clime beyond the main
He comes the costly prize to gain,

O'er deserts waste and wide.
No dangers daunt, no toils can tire;
With throbbing heart and soul on fire
He seeks his sleeping bride.

He gains the old, enchanted wood,
Where never mortal footsteps trod-
He pierced its tangled gloom;
A chillness loads the lurid air,

Where baleful swamp-fires gleam and glare,
His pathway to illume.

Well might the warrior's courage fail,
Well might his lofty spirit quail,
On that enchanted ground;
No open foeman meets him there,
But, borne upon the murky air,

Strange horror broods around!

At every turn his footsteps sank
Mid tangled boughs and mosses dank,
For long and weary hours--

Till, issuing from the dangerous wood,
The castle full before him stood,

With all its flanking towers!

The moon a paly lustre sheds;

Resolved, the grass-grown court he tread

The gloomy portal gained—

He crossed the threshold's magic bound,
He paced the hall, where all around
A deathly silence reigned.

No fears his venturous course could stay→
Darkling he groped his dreary way—
Up the wide staircase sprang.

It echoed to his mailèd heel;

With clang of arms and clash of steel
The silent chambers rang.

He sees a glimmering taper gleam
Far off, with faint and trembling beam,
Athwart the midnight gloom :

Then first he felt the touch of fear,
As, with slow footsteps drawing near,
He gained the lighted room.

And now the waning moon was low,
The perfumed tapers faintly glow,
And, by their dying gleam,
He raised the curtain's dusky fold,
And lo! his charmed eyes behold
The lady of his dream!

As violets peep from wintry snows,
Slowly her heavy lids unclose,

And gently heaves her breast;
But all unconscious was her gaze,
Her
eye with listless languor strays
From brand to plumy crest:

A rising blush begins to dawn,
Like that which steals at early morn
Across the eastern sky;

And slowly, as the morning broke,
The maiden from her trance awoke

Beneath his ardent eye!

As the first kindling sunbeams threw
Their level light athwart the dew,

And tipped the hills with flame,
The silent forest-boughs were stirred
With music, as from bee and bird
A mingling murmur came.

From out its depths of tangled gloom
There came a breath of dewy bloom,
And from the valleys dim

A cloud of fragrant incense stole,
As if each violet breathed its soul
Into that floral hymn.

Loud neighed the steed within his stall,
The cock crowed on the castle wall,
The warder wound his horn;
The linnet sang in leafy bower,
The swallows, twittering from the tower,
Salute the rosy morn.

But fresher than the rosy morn,
And blither than the bugle-horn,

The maiden's heart doth prove,
Who, as her beaming eyes awake,
Beholds a double morning break-

The dawn of light and love!

IN

Jonathan Lawrence.

LOOK ALOFT.

N the tempest of life, when the wave and the gale Are around and above, if thy footing should fail, If thine eye should grow dim, and thy caution depart, "Look aloft," and be firm, and be fearless of heart.

If the friend, who embraced in prosperity's glow,
With a smile for each joy and a tear for each woe,
Should betray thee when sorrows like clouds are arrayed,
"Look aloft" to the friendship which never shall fade.

Should the visions which Hope spreads in light to thine

eye,

Like the tints of the rainbow, but brighten to fly, Then turn, and through tears of repentant regret, "Look aloft" to the Sun that is never to set.

Should they who are dearest, the son of thy heart,
The wife of thy bosom, in sorrow depart,
"Look aloft" from the darkness and dust of the tomb,
To that soil where "affection is ever in bloom.'

And oh, when Death comes in his terrors, to cast
His fears on the future, his pall on the past,
In that moment of darkness, with hope in thy heart,
And a smile in thine eye, "lock aloft," and depart!

George D. Prentice.

SABBATH EVENING.

HOW calmly sinks the parting sun!

Yet twilight lingers still;

And, beautiful as dream of heaven,
It slumbers on the hill;

Earth sleeps, with all her glorious things,
Beneath the Holy Spirit's wings,

And, rendering back the hues above,

Seems resting in a trance of love.

Round yonder rocks the forest-trees

In shadowy groups recline,

Like saints at evening bowed in prayer

Around their holy shrine;

And through their leaves the night-winds biow

So calm and still, their music low

Seems the mysterious voice of prayer,

Soft echoed on the evening air.

And yonder western throng of clouds,
Retiring from the sky,

So calmly move, so softly glow,
They seem to Fancy's eye
Bright creatures of a better sphere,
Come down at noon to worship here,
And, from their sacrifice of love,
Returning to their home above.

The blue isles of the golden sea,
The night-arch floating by,