33.-VENERATION.

Oh! thou Eternal one; whose presence bright All space doth occupy, all motion guide; Being above all beings, Mighty one,

Whom none can comprehend and none explore.

COLLIN'S ODE TO THE PASSIONS.

When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions, oft, to hear her shell,
Throng'd around her magic cell;

Filled with Fury, rapt, inspired,

From the supporting myrtles round,
They snatched her instruments of sound;
And as they oft had heard apart,
Sweet lessons of her tuneful art,
Each, (for Madness ruled the hour,)
Would prove his own expressive power.

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First, Fear, his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewildered laid,
And back recoil'd, he knew not why,
E'en at the sound himself had made.

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Next Anger rushed, his eyes on fire,
In lightnings owned his secret stings;
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept with hurried hand the strings.

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With woeful measures, wan Despair
Low, sudden sounds his grief beguiled;
A solemn, strange and mingled air;

'Twas sad by fits; by starts 'twas wild.

10

But thou, O Hope! with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whispered promised pleasure,

And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail;
Still would her touch the strain prolong;

And from the rocks, the woods, the vale, She called Echo still through all her song; And where her sweetest theme she chose,

A soft responsive voice was heard at every close: And Hope, enchanted, smiled, and waved her golden hair.

And longer had she sung, but with a frown

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Revenge impatient rose.

He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down,
And with a withering look,

The war-denouncing trumpet took,

And blew a blast so loud and dread,
Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe;
And ever and anon, he beat

The doubling drum with furious heat,

And though, sometimes, each dreary pause between,

9

Dejected Pity, at his side,

Her soul-subduing voice applied;

Yet still he kept his wild, unaltered mien,

While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head.

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Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fixed

Sad proof of thy distressful state:

Of differing themes the veering song was mixed;

5

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And now it courted Love; now, raving, called on Hate. With eyes upraised, as one inspired,

8

Pale Melancholy, sat retired,

And, from her wild, sequestered seat,

In notes by distance made more sweet,

Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul; And dashing soft from rocks around,

Bubbling runnels joined the sound;

Thro' glades and glooms the mingled measure stole, Or o'er some stream with fond delay,

(Round a holy calm diffusing,

Love of peace and and lonely musing,)

In hollow murmers died away.

But Oh! how altered was its sprightlier tone,

2

When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,
Her bow across her shoulder flung,

Her buskins gemmed with morning dew,

Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung, The hunter's call to Faun and Dryad known.

The oak-crowned sisters and their chaste-eyed queen, Satyrs and sylvan boys were seen,

Peeping from forth their alleys green;

Brown exercise rejoiced to hear,

And Sport leaped up and seized his beechen spear.

4

Last came Joy's ecstatic trial;

He, with viny crown advancing,

First to the lively pipe his hand addressed; But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol,

Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best. They would have thought, who heard the strain, They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids, Amid the festal-sounding shades,

To some unwearied minstrel dancing, While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,

Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round,
(Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound,)
And he amid his frolic play,

As if he would the charming air repay,

Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings.

READINGS.

NORTH-AMERICAN INDIANS.

Not many generations ago, where you now sit, encircled with all that exalts and embellishes civilized life, the rank thistle nodded in the wind, and the wild fox dug his hole unscared. Here lived and loved another race of beings. Beneath the same sun that rolls over your heads, the Indian hunter pursued the panting deer; gazing on the same moon that smiles for you, the Indian lover wooed his dusky mate. Here the wigwam-blaze beamed on the tender and helpless; the council fire glared on the wise and the daring. Now they dipped their noble limbs in your sedgy lakes, and now they paddled the light canoe along your rocky shores. Here they warred; the echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death song, all were here; and when the tiger-strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace.

Here, too, they worshipped; and from many a dark bosom went up a fervent prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written his laws for them on tables of stone, but he had traced them on the tables of their hearts. The poor child of nature knew not the God of Revelation, but the God of the universe he acknowledged in everything around. He beheld him in the star that sank in beauty behind his lonely dwelling; in the sacred orb that flamed on him from his mid-day throne; in the flower that snapped in the morning breeze; in the lofty pine that defied a thousand whirlwinds; in the timid warbler that never left his native grove; in the

fearless eagle, whose untired pinion was wet in clouds; in the worm that crawled at his feet; and in his own matchless form, glowing with a spark of that light, to whose mysterious source he bent in humble, though blind adoration. And all this has passed away. Here and there a stricken few remain; but how unlike their bold, untamed, untamable progenitors! The Indian of falcon-glance and lion-bearing, the theme of the touching ballad, the hero of the pathetic tale, is gone; and his degraded offspring crawls upon the soil where he walked in majesty, to remind us how miserable is man, when the foot of the conqueror is on his neck.

As a race, they have withered from the land. Their arrows are broken, their springs are dried up, their cabins are in the dust. Their council fire has long since gone out on the shore, and their war-cry is fast dying to the untrodden West. Slowly and sadly they climb the distant mountains, and read their doom in the setting sun. They are shrinking before the mighty tide which is pressing them away. They must soon hear the roar of the last wave, which will settle over them forever.

BATTLE OF IVRY.

Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are!

And glory to our Sovereign Liege, King Henry of Na

varre !

Now let there be the merry sound of music and the dance,

Through thy cornfields green, and sunny vales, O pleasant land of France!

And thou Rochelle, our own Rochelle, proud city of the waters,