Ex. X.-THE SOUND OF THE SEA. THOU art sounding on, thou mighty sea, Oh! many a glorious voice is gone, The Dorian flute that sighed of yore The harp of Judah peals no more On Zion's awful hill. And Memnon's lyre hath lost the chord That breathed the mystic tone; MRS. HEMANS And the songs at Rome's high triumphs poured, And mute the Moorish horn, that rang O'er stream and mountain free; And the hymn the leagued crusaders sang, But thou art swelling on, thou deep, Thou liftest up thy solemn voice And all our earth's green shores rejoice It fills the noontide's calm profound, And the still midnight hears the sound, Let there be silence, deep and strange, Where sceptered cities rose! Thou speak'st of One who doth not change;- Ex. XI.-LOSS OF THE ARCTIC. H. W. BEECHER. Ir was autumn. Hundreds had wended their way from pilgrimages; from Rome and its treasures of dead art, and its glory of living nature; from the sides of the Switzer's mountains, from the capitals of various nations; all of them saying in their hearts, we will wait for the September gales to have done with their equinoctial fury, and then we will embark; we will slide across the appeased ocean, and in the gorgeous month of October, we will greet our longed-for native land, and our heart-loved homes. And so the throng streamed along from Berlin, from Paris, from the Orient, converging upon London, still hastening toward the welcome ship, and narrowing every day the circle of engagements and preparations. They crowded aboard. Never had the Arctic borne such a host of passengers, nor passengers so nearly related to so many of us. The hour was come. The signal ball fell at Greenwich. It was noon also at Liverpool. The anchors were weighed; the great hull swayed to the current; the national colors streamed abroad, as if themselves instinct with life and national sympathy. The bell strikes; the wheels revolve; the signal gun beats its echoes in upon every structure along the shore, and the Arctic glides joyfully forth from the Mersey, and turns her prow to the winding channel, and begins her homeward run.、 The pilot stood at the wheel, and men saw him. Death sat upon the prow, and no eye beheld him. Whoever stood at the wheel in all the voyage, Death was the pilot that steered the craft, and none knew it. He neither revealed his presence nor whispered his errand. And so hope was effulgent, and lithe gayety disported itself, and joy was with every guest. Amid all the inconveniencies of the voyage, there was still that which hushed every murmur,-" Home is not far away." And every morning it was still one night nearer home! Eight days had passed. They beheld that distant bank of mist that for ever haunts the vast shallows of Newfoundland. Boldly they made it; and plunging in, its pliant wreaths wrapped them about. They shall never emerge. The last sunlight has flashed from that deck. The last voyage is done to ship and passengers. At noon there came noiselessly stealing from the north that fated instrument of destruction. In that mysterious shroud, that vast atmosphere of mist, both steamers were holding their way with rushing prow and roaring wheels, but invisible. At a league's distance, unconscious, and at nearer approach unwarned; within hail, and bearing right toward each other, unseen, unfelt, till in a moment more, emerging from the gray mists, the ill-omened Vesta dealt her deadly stroke to the Arctic. The death-blow was scarcely felt along the mighty hull. She neither reeled nor shivered. Neither commander nor officers deemed that they had suffered harm. Prompt upon humanity, the brave Luce (let his name be ever spoken with admiration and respect,) ordered away his boat with the first officer to inquire if the stranger had suffered harm. As Gourley went over the ship's side, Oh, that some good angel had called to the brave commander in the words of Paul on a like occasion, "Except these abide in the ship, ye can not be saved." They departed, and with them the hope of the ship, for now the waters gaining upon the hold, and rising up upon the fires, revealed the mortal blow. Oh, had now that stern, brave mate, Gourley, been on deck, whom the sailors were wont to mind-had he stood to execute efficiently the commander's will-we may believe that we should not have had to blush for the cowardice and recreancy of the crew, nor weep for the untimely dead. But, apparently, each subordinate officer lost all presence of mind, then courage, and so honor. In a wild scramble, that ignoble mob of firemen, engineers, waiters and crew, rushed for the boats, and abandoned the helpless women, children, and men to the mercy of the deep! Four hours there were from the catastrophe of the collision to the catastrophe of SINKING! Oh, what a burial was here! Not as when one is borne from his home, among weeping throngs, and gently carried to the green fields, and laid peacefully beneath the turf and the flowers. No priest stood to pronounce a burial service. It was an ocean grave. The mists alone shrouded the burialplace. No spade prepared the grave, nor sexton filled up the hollowed earth. Down, down they sank, and the quick returning waters smoothed out every ripple, and left the sea as if it had not been. Ex. XII.-HOME. BERNARD BARTON. WHERE burns the loved hearth brightest, Cheering the social breast? Where beats the fond heart lightest, Its humble hopes possessed? There blend the ties that strengthen Does pure religion charm thee Far more than aught below? At Home! dear home! Love over it presideth, With meek and watchful awe, Its daily service guideth, And shows its perfect law; If there thy faith shall fail thee, Ex. XIII.-PRESS ON! N. P. WILLIS. [From a Valedictory Address.] WE shall go forth together. There will come And the rude world will buffet us alike. There are distinctions that will live in heaven, The soul of man Createth its own destiny of power; And as the trial is intenser here, His being hath a nobler strength in heaven. |