to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs of this government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed.

4. While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that, I seek not to penetrate the vail. God grant, that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!

5. Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as “What is all this worth ?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, “Liberty first and Union afterwards;" but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every

wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart—Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!

LESSON LIV.

RESIGNATION.

MILTON,

The following sublime and affecting production was but lately discoverall among the remains of the great epic poet, and is published in the recent Oxford edition of Milton's Works:

1.

I am old and blind!
Men point at me as smitten by God's frown;
Afflicted and deserted of my kind ;

Yet I am not cast down. 2.

I am weak, yet strong ;
I murmur not that I no longer see;
Poor, old, and helpless, I the more belong,

Father supreme! to Thee. 3.

0, merciful one!
When men are farthest then thou art most near;
When friends pass by me, and my weakness shun,

Thy chariot I hear. 4.

Thy glorious face
Is leaning toward me; and its holy light
Shines in upon my lonely dwelling place -

And there is no more night. 5.

On
my

bended knee
I recognize thy purpose clearly shown;
My vision thou hast dimm'd, that I may see

Thyself — Thyself alone. 6.

I have nought to fear;
This darkness is the shadow of thy wing ;
Beneath it I am almost sacred; here

Can"come no evil thing.

7.

0! I seem' to stand
Trembling where foot of mortal ne'er hath been,
Wrapped in the radiance of thy sinless land,

Which eye hath never seen.

LESSON LV.

PRAYER TO LIGHT.

MRA, DE KROYFT.

crow.

1. O11, holy light! thou art old as the look of God, and eternal as his breath. The angels were rocked in thy lap, and their infant smiles were brightened by thee. Creation is in thy memory; by thy torch the throne of Jehovah was set, and thy hand burnished the myriad stars that glitter in his

Worlds, new from His omnipotent hand, were sprinkled with beams from thy baptismal font. At thy golden urn, pale Luna comes to fill her silver horn, and Saturn bathes his sky-girt rings; Jupiter lights his waning moons, and Venus dips her queenly robes anew.

2. Thy fountains are shoreless as the ocean of heavenly love; thy center is everywhere, and thy boundary no power has marked. Thy beams gild the illimitable fields of space, and gladden the farthest verge of the universe. The glories of the seventh heaven are open to thy gaze, and thy glare is felt in the woes of lowest Erebus. The sealed books of heaven by thee are read, and thine eye, like the Infinite, can pierce the dark vail of the future, and glance backward through the mystic cycles of the past.

3. Thy touch gives the lily its whiteness, the rose its tint, and thy kindling ray makes the diamond's light; thy beams are mighty as the power that binds the spheres; thou canst change the sleety winds to soothing zephyrs, and thou canst

7

melt the icy mountains of the poles to gentle rains and dewy vapors. The granite rocks of the hills are upturned by thee, volcanoes burst, islands sink and rise, rivers roll, and oceans swell at thy look of command.

4. And oh, thou monarch of the skies, bend now thy bow of millioned arrows, and piece, if thou canst, this darknees that thrice twelve moons has bound me. Burst now thine emerald gates, O morn, and let thy dawning come! My eyes roll in vain to find thee, and my soul is weary of this interminable gloom. My heart is but the tomb of blighted hopes, and all the misery of feelings unemployed, has settled on me. I am misfortune's child, and sorrow long since marked me for her

own,

LESSON LVI.

SCENE IN A MAD-HOUSE.

LEWIS.

1. Stay, jailer, stay, and hear my wo!

She is not mad who kneels to thee;
For what I'm now, too well I know,

And what I was, and what should be.
I'll rave no more in proud despair ;

My language shall be mild, though sad;
But yet I firmly, truly swear,

I am not mad, I am not mad!
2. My tyrant husband forged the tale,

Which chains me in this dismal cell;
My fate unknown, my friends bewail -

0! jailer, haste that fate to tell :
Oh! haste my father's heart to cheer,

His heart at once 'twill grieve and glad

To know, though kept a captive here,

I am not mad, I am not mad.
3. He smiles in scorn, and turns the key ;

He quits the grate; I knelt in vain ;
His glimmering lamp, still, still I see —

'Tis gone! and all is gloom again.
Cold, bitter cold !-- no warmth! no light !

Life, all thy comforts once I had ;
Yet here I'm chained, this freezing night,

Although not mad; no, no, not mad. 4. 'Tis sure some dream, some vision vain;

What! 1,— the child of rank and wealth,
Am I the wretch who clanks this chain,

Bereft of freedom, friends, and health ?
Ah! while I dwell on blessings fled,

Which never more my heart must glad,
How aches my heart, how burns my head;

But ’tis not mad; no 'tis not mad. 5. Hast thou, my child, forgot ere this,

A mother's face, a mother's tongue ?
She'll ne'er forget your parting kiss,

Nor round her neck how fast you clung ;
Nor how with her you sued to stay ;

Nor how that suit your sire forbade ;
Nor how -- I'll drive such thoughts away;

They'll make me mad, they'll make me mad

6. His rosy lips, how sweet they smiled!

His mild blue eyes, how bright they shone !
Nono ever bore a lovelier child:

And art thou now forever gone ?
And must I never see thee inore,

My pretty, pretty, pretty lad !