Never until that instant came She fails-she sinks-as dies the lamp One kiss the maiden gives, one last, Long kiss, which she expires in giving! 'Sleep," ," said the Peri, as softly she stole The farewell sigh of that vanishing soul, As true as e'er warm'd a woman's breast"Sleep on, in visions of odor rest, In balmier airs than ever yet stirr'd Th' enchanted pile of that lonely bird, Who sings at the last his own death lay, And in music and perfume dies away!" Thus saying, from her lips she spread Unearthly breathings through the place, That like two lovely saints they seem'd While that benevolent Peri beam'd Like their good angel, calmly keeping Watch o'er them till their souls would waken. But morn is blushing in the sky; Again the Peri soars above, Bearing to Heav'n that precious sigh Of pure, self-sacrificing love. High throbb'd her heart, with hope elate, Th' Elysian palm she soon shall win, For the bright spirit at the gate Of Eden, with their crystal bells That from the throne of Alla swells; Their first sweet draught of glory take! He shut from her that glimpse of glory- Written in light o'er Alla's head, Now, upon Syria's land of roses But naught can charm the luckless Peri; Yet haply there may lie conceal'd With the great name of Solomon, Cheer'd by this hope she bends her thither:- From his hot steed, and on the brink Impatient fling him down to drink. Yet tranquil now that man of crime But, hark! the vesper call to prayer, From Syria's thousand minarets! Kneels, with his forehead to the south, Lisping th' eternal name of God From Purity's own cherub mouth, And looking, while his hands and eyes Like a stray babe of Paradise, Just lighted on that flowery plain, And seeking for its home again. O, 'twas a sight-that Heav'n—that chiló A scene, which might have well beguil'd Ev'n haughty Eblis of a sigh For glories lost and peace gone by! And how felt he, the wretched Man "There was a time," he said in mild, And hope, and feeling, which had slept Blest tears of soul-felt penitence! In whose benign, redeeming flow Is felt the first, the only sense Of guiltless joy that guilt can know. "There's a drop," said the Peri, "that down from the moon Falls through the withering airs of June Upon Egypt's land, of so healing a power, The precious tears of repentance fall? One heavenly drop hath dispell'd them all!" And now-behold him kneeling there And hymns of joy proclaim through Heaven 'Twas when the golden orb had set, While on their knees they linger'd yet, "Joy, joy forever! my task is done- THE LANDING OF THE MAYFLOWER.-EDWARD EVERET г. Do you think, sir, as we repose beneath this splendid pa ilion, adorned by the hand of taste, blooming with festive garlands, wreathed with the stars and stripes of this great republic, resounding with strains of heart-stirring music, that, merely because it stands upon the soil of Barnstable, we form any idea of the spot as it appeared to Captain Miles Standish, and his companions, on the 15th or 16th of November, 1620? Oh, no, sir. Let us go up for a moment, in imagination, to yonder hill, which overlooks the village and the bay, and suppose ourselves standing there on some bleak, ungenial morning, in the middle of November of that year. The coast is fringed with ice. Dreary forests, interspersed with sandy tracts fill the background. Nothing of humanity quickens on the spot, save a few roaming savages, who, ill-provided with what even they deem the necessaries of life, are digging with their fingers a scanty repast out of the frozen sands. No friendly lighthouses had as yet hung up their cressets upon your headlands; no brave pilot-boat was hovering like a sea-bird on the tops of the waves, beyond the Cape, to guide the shattered bark to its harbor; no charts and soundings made the secret pathways of the deep as plain as a gravelled road through a lawn; no comfortable dwellings along the line of the shore, and where are now your well-inhabited streets, spoke a welcome to the Pilgrim; no steeple poured the music of Sabbath morn into the ear of the fugitive for conscience' sake. Primeval wildness and native desolation brood over sea and land; and from the 9th of November, when, after a most calamitous voyage, the Mayflower first came to anchor in Provincetown harbor, to the end of December, the entire male portion of the company was occupied, for the greater part of every day, and often by night as well as by day, in exploring the coast and seeking a place of rest, amidst perils from the savages, from the unknown shore, and the elements, which it makes one's heart bleed to think upon. But this dreary waste, which we thus contemplate in imagination, and which they traversed in sad reality, is a chosen land. It is a theatre upon which an all-glorious drama is to be enacted. On this frozen soil,-driven from the ivy-clad churches of their mother land,―escaped, at last, from loathsome prisons -the meek fathers of a pure church will lay the spiritual base |