POETRY.

THE WIDOW TO HER DYING CHILD.

That sigh's for thee, thou precious one! Life's pulse is ebbing fast,
And o'er thy once all-joyous face, death's sickly hue is cast
The azure eye hath lost its ray, thy voice its buoyant tone,
And, like a flower the storm has crush'd, thy beauty's past and gone.
Another pang, and all is o'er; the beating heart is still:
Meekly, though sad, thy Mother bows to the Almighty's will.
Grief presses heavy on my heart, my tears fall thick and fast,
But thou, thou art in heaven, my child! Life's chequer'd dream is
past.

The busy feet that gladly ran thy mother's smile to greet;

The prattling tongue that lisp'd her name in childhood's accents sweet;

The glossy curl that beam'd like gold upon thy snowy brow
The lip, meet rival for the rose.-Oh, Death! where are they now?
Wither'd beneath his icy touch; lock'd in his dull cold sleep:
Whilst all the joy a Mother knows, in silence is to weep,
Or start, as Fancy's echo wakes thy voice to mock her pain,
Then turn to gaze upon thy corse, and feel her grief is vain.
The grave, the dark cold grave, full soon will hide thee from r
view,

Whilst I my weary path through life in solitude pursue;

My early, and my only love, is number'd with the dead,

And thou, my last sole joy on earth, my boy, thou too art fled!

REMEMBRANCE.

The rembrance of youth is a sigh.-ALI

Man hath a weary pilgrimage
As through the world he wends;
On every stage from youth to age
Still discontent attends :
With heaviness he casts his eye
Upon the road before,

And still remembers with a sigh,
The days that are no more.

To school the little exile goes,
Torn from his mother's arms,-

What then shall soothe his earliest woes,
When novelty hath lost its charms?
Condemn'd to suffer through the day
Restraints which no rewards repay,

And cares where love has no concern,

Hope lengthens as she counts the hours,
Before his wish'd return.

From hard control and tyrant rules,
The unfeeling discipline of schools
In thought he loves to roam;
And tears will struggle in his eye
While he remembers with a sigh
The comforts of his home,

Youth comes; the toils and cares of life!

Torment the restless mind;

Where shall the tired and harass'd heart

Its consolation find?

Then is not youth, as fancy tells,
Life's summer prime of joy?

Ah no! for hopes too long delay'd
And feelings blasted or betray'd,
The fabled hiss destroy;

And youth remembers with a sigh
The careless days of infancy.

Maturer manhood now arrives,
And other thoughts come on;
But with the baseless hopes of youth
Its generous warmth is gone;
Cold calculating cares succeed,
The timid thought, the wary deed,
The dull realities of truth;
Back on the past he turns his eye,
Remembering with an envious sigh
The happy dreams of youth.

So reaches he the latter stage
Of this our mortal pilgrimage,
With feeble step and slow;
New ills that latter stage await,
And old experience learns too late
That all is vanity below.

Life's vain delusions are gone by,

Its idle hopes are o'er,

Yet age remembers with a sigh

The days that are no more.

SONNET.

Sleep, Silence' child, sweet father of soft rest,
Prince whose approach peace to all mortals brings,
Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings,
Sole comforter of minds which are opprest.

Lo! by thy charming rod all breathing things
Lie slumbering, with forgetfulness possest,
And yet o'er me to spread thy drowsy wings
Thou spar'st, alas, who cannot be thy guest,
Since I am thine, O come, but with that face
To inward light which thou art wont to show,
With feigned solace ease a true-felt wo;
Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace,
Come as thou wilt, and what thou wilt bequeath,
I long to kiss the image of my death.

SONG OF DAVID.

[The Song of David, of which the following is an extract, is a poem of very unequal merit, composed under the most unfavorable circumstances, while the author was in a state of confinement in a madhouse. The lines are said to have been indented by the unhappy man with a key on the wall of his cell. Christopher Smart, although gifted by nature with considerable talents, dragged on a wretched existence in London by endeavors to maintain himself by his pen. At this period literary labor was very inadequately re warded. The age of patronage was passing away, and the steady support arising out of a large public demand for books was scarcely created. Smart was chiefly supported by the bounty of his friends, and died in extreme poverty in 1770, aged 48. A considerable number of Smart's poems are devoted to religious subjects; and it is an affecting example of the fervency of his piety amidst his mental wanderings, that many passages of a peculiarly serious nature are recorded to have been written while he knelt.].

He sung of God, the mighty source
Of all things, the stupendous force

On which all things depend:

From whose right arm, beneath whose eyes,
All period, power, and enterprise,
Commence, and reign, and end.

The world, the clustering spheres he made,
The glorious light, the soothing shade,
Dale, champaign, grove and hill;

The multitudinous abyss,

Where Secresy remains in bliss

And Wisdom hides her skill.

Tell them, I AM, Jehovah said

To Moses, while Earth heard in dread,
And, smitten to the heart,
At once above, beneath, around,
All Nature, without voice or sound,

Replied, O Lord, THOU ART!

TRAVELLERS in England, or even those who may have passed over the Pyrenees or Alps, can have but a faint idea of the labour and danger of crossing the Andes, that immense mountain-chain by which the continent of South America is intersected, from its southern to its most northern extremity, dividing Peru and Chili, on the western Coasts, from Columbia and Brazil, on the eastern. Many of the Passes are upwards of 18,000 feet, or nearly four miles, in perpendicular height, above the level of the sea. In some parts men, who have made it their sole occupation, carry the passenger up the most steep and dangerous paths, in a kind of chair fastened to their backs; but in general, the journey is made by travellers mounted on that patient and surefooted animal, the mule.

The above engraving is from a print in the Travels of Colonel Hamilton, who, in 1823, visited South America, as chief commissioner from the king of Great Britain to the republic of Colombia. It represents a perilous situation common to the traveller in these terrific regions, when his safety depends wholly on the surefootedness of his mule. In the pass along which the traveller is proceeding, the road is separated by a chasm, several feet in width, which forms the mouth of a yawning gulf, some hundreds of feet in depth. The sagacity shown by the mules in leaping these dangerous openings, which are of common occurence, is a subject

of admiration among all travellers who have visited these regions. In some places, also, it is necessary to make the descent of immense heights; an undertaking of great danger, from their excessive steepness, and the slippery state of the mule-track. "On these occasions, the mules," says Colonel Hamilton, "take every precaution, and seem to know the danger they incur; for they inspect the road narrowly before them, and then place their fore-legs close together, and slide down on their hams in a manner which scarcely any one but an eyewitness would credit."

Major Head, in his Rough notes of a journey across the Pampas, gives the following animated picture of the preparation of a train of baggage mules for a journey over these dangerous Passes; and of some of the casualties common to these perilous journeys. "Anxious to be off" says he, "I ordered the mules to be saddled ; as soon as this was done, the baggage-mules were ordered to be got ready. Every article of baggage was brought into the yard, and divided into six parcels (the number of the baggage-mules,) quite different from each other in weight and bulk, but adapted to the strength of the different mules.

"The operation of loading then began. The peon (the driver) first caught a great brown mule with his lasso, and then put a poncho (a large shawl in which the natives dress) over his eyes, and tied it under his throat, leaving the animal's nose and mouth uncovered. The mule stood still, while the captain and peon first put on the large straw pack-saddle, which they girthed to him, in such a manner that nothing could move it. The articles were then placed, one by one, on each side, and bound together, with a force and ingenuity against which it was hopeless for the mule to contend.

"I could not help pitying the poor animal, on seeing him thus prepared for carrying a heavy load, such a wearisome distance, and over such lofty mountains as

The Lasso is a long leathern thong, used by the hunters and drivers of South America in catching wild animals.