MIDNIGHT THOUGHTS.

BY WILLIAM DUER.

FAIR orb! so peacefully sublime,
In silence rolling high,
Know'st thou of passion, or of crime,
Or earthly vanity?

In that bright world can lust abide,
Or murder bare his arm?

With thee are wars, and kings, and pride,
And the loud trump's alarm?

What beings, by what motives led,
Inhale thy morning breeze?

Doth man upon thy mountains tread,
Or float upon thy seas?

Say, whence are they? and what their fate?
Whom whirls around thy ball?
Their present and their future state,

Their hopes and fears recall?

Canst thou of a Redeemer tell,
Or a Betrayer's kiss?
Their's is a Heaven or a Hell?
Eternal woe or bliss?

Can infidelity exist,

And gaze upon that sky? Here would I bid the Atheist

God's finger to deny.

What horrid sounds! what horrid sights!
What wretched blood is spilt!

While thou, and all the eternal lights,
Shine conscious on the guilt?

Thou hear'st red Murder's victims cry; Thou mark'st Lust's stealthy pace; And Avarice hide his heap and sigh; And Rapine's reckless face.

In thy pale light the Suicide,
By some deep lonely lake,
Or from the headlong torrent's side
Doth the vain world forsake.

And often, ere thy course is run,
Thy cold, uncertain light
Gleams where the culprit's skeleton
Swings to the winds of night.

A light cloud hangs upon thy brow,
(What foul deed would it hide?)
'Tis gone thine orb, unshaded now,
Looks down on human pride.

And now the midnight hour invites
Th' accursed witch's vow,
While to her thrice accursed rites
Sole witness rollest thou!

Lo! underneath yon falling tower
The tottering beldame seeks
Herbs, of some hidden evil power,

While muttered charms she speaks.

96 LINES WRITTEN ON THE COVER OF A PRAYER BOOK.

Or where some noisome cavern yawns,
Where vipers get their food,

Or where the Nile's huge offspring spawns
Her pestilential brood:

There—while the bubbling cauldron sings
Beneath their eldritch glance—

As wild their fiendish laughter rings,
The haggard sisters dance.

Can sin endure thy majesty,
Nor thy pure presence fly?
"Tis like the sad severity

Of a fond father's eye.

There, where no mortal eye can see,
No mortal voice can tell,

Wisdom hath marked thy path to be
Th' Almighty's sentinel.

LINES WRITTEN ON THE COVER OF A PRAYER

BOOK.

BY THOMAS SLIDELL.

THERE is a tree, whose boughs are clad

With foliage that never dies;

Whose fruits perennially thrive,

And whose tall top salutes the skies.

There is a flower of loveliest hues,
No mildews blast its changeless bloom;
It smiles at the rude tempest's wrath,

And breathes a still more sweet perfume.

There is a star, whose constant rays
Beam brightest in the darkest hour,
And cheer the weary pilgrim's heart,
Though storms around his pathway lower.

That tree, the Tree of Life is called,
That flower blooms on Virtue's stem,
That star, whose rays are never veiled,
Is the bright Star of Bethlehem.

ODE TO JAMESTOWN.

BY J. K. PAULDING.

OLD cradle of an infant world,

In which a nestling empire lay,
Struggling awhile, ere she unfurl'd,

Her gallant wing and soar'd away;

All hail! thou birth-place of the glowing west,
Thou seem'st the towering eagle's ruin'd nest!

What solemn recollections throng,

What touching visions rise,

As wand'ring these old stones among,

I backward turn mine eyes,

And see the shadows of the dead flit round,

Like spirits, when the last dread trump shall sound.

The wonders of an age combin'd
In one short moment memory supplies,
They throng upon my waken'd mind,
As time's dark curtains rise.

The volume of a hundred buried years,
Condens'd in one bright sheet, appears.

I hear the angry ocean rave,
I see the lonely little barque
Scudding along the crested wave,
Freighted like old Noah's ark,

As o'er the drowned earth it whirl'd,
With the forefathers of another world.

I see a train of exiles stand,
Amid the desert, desolate,
The fathers of my native land,

The daring pioneers of fate,

Who brav'd the perils of the sea and earth,
And gave a boundless empire birth.

I see the gloomy Indian range

His woodland empire, free as air;

I see the gloomy forest change,

The shadowy earth laid bare;

And, where the red man chas'd the bounding deer, The smiling labours of the white appear.

I see the haughty warrior gaze

In wonder or in scorn,
As the pale faces sweat to raise

Their scanty fields of corn,

While he, the monarch of the boundless wood,

By sport, or hair-brain'd rapine, wins his food.