Ah! bitter, bitter grows the cold, The ice grows more and more; More settled stare the wolf and bear, Oh! think you, good Sir John Franklin, 'Twas cruel to send us here to starve, 'Twas cruel to send us here, Sir John, To starve and freeze on this lonely sea: Oh! whether we starve to death alone, We have done what man has never done- We passed the Northern Sea! KANE-DIED FEBRUARY 16, 1857.—Fitz James O'Brien. ALOFT upon an old basaltic crag, Which, scalped by keen winds that defend the Pole Gazes with dead face on the seas that roll Around the secret of the mystic zone, And underneath, upon the lifeless front By want beleaguered, and by winter chased, Not many months ago we greeted him, Crowned with the icy honors of the North, Hot Southern lips with eloquence aflame, Yelled its frank welcome. And from main to main, In vain-in vain beneath his feet we flung Faded and faded! And the brave young heart His was the victory; but as his grasp Wastes peak by peak away, He needs no tears, who lived a noble life! Such homage suits him well; Better than funeral pomp, or passing bell! What tale of peril and self-sacrifice! Prisoned amid the fastnesses of ice, With hunger howling o'er the wastes of snow! The lethargy of famine: the despair That awful hour, when through the prostrate band Upon the ghastly foreheads of the crew. To all around him. By a mighty will Because his death would seal his comrades' fate; He stands, until spring, tardy with relief, And the pale prisoners thread the world once more, Time was when he should gain his spurs of gold And the world's knights are now self-consecrate. In all its annals, back to Charlemagne, DISCOVERIES OF GALILEO.-By Hon. Edward Everett. THERE are occasions in life in which a great mind lives years of rapt enjoyment in a moment. I can fancy the emotions of Galileo, when, first raising the newly-constructed telescope to the heavens, he saw fulfilled the grand prophecy of Copernicus, and beheld the planet Venus crescent like the moon. It was such another moment as that, when the immortal printers of Mentz and Strasburg received the first copy of the Bible into their hands, the work of their divine art; like that, when Columbus, through the gray dawn of the 12th of October, 1492, beheld the shores of San Salvador; like that, when the law of gravitation first revealed itself to the intellect of Newton; like that, when Franklin saw, by the stiffening fibres of the hempen cord of his kite, that he held the lightning in his grasp; like that, when Leverrier received back from Berlin the tidings that the predicted planet was found. Yes, noble Galileo, thou art right. "It DOES move." Bigots may make thee recant it, but it moves, nevertheless. Yes, the earth moves, and the planets move, and the mighty waters move, and the great sweeping tides of air move, and the empires of men move, and the world of thought moves, ever onward and upward, to higher facts and bolder theories. The Inquisition may seal thy lips, but they can no more stop the progress of the great truth propounded by Copernicus, and demonstrated by thee, than they can stop the revolving earth. Close, now, venerable sage, that sightless, tearful eye; it has seen what man never before saw; it has seen enough. Hang up that poor little spy-glass; it has done its work. Not Herschel nor Rosse have, comparatively, done more. Franciscans and Dominicans deride thy discoveries now, but the time will come when, from two hundred observatories in Europe and America, the glorious artillery of science shall nightly assault the skies; but they shall gain no conquests in those glittering fields before which thine shall be forgotten. Rest in peace, great Columbus of the heavens;-like him, scorned, persecuted, broken-hearted!-in other ages, in distant hemispheres, when the votaries of science, with solemn acts of consecration, shall dedicate their stately edifices to the cause of knowledge and truth, thy name shall be mentioned with honor. OWED TO THE STEEM FIRE ENGINE.-By A. Stoic. GRATE ingine you have eradicated Fire machines Stupendoowus steam pump. You suck. You Mitey destroyer of ignited kumbustibuls when you Your Enjinear puts on adishional steem, And you proceed forthwith to darken down calighted matter. Grand ecksterminator of blaseing material. You Must feal prowd bekase you have plenty of water on hand and don't use Spiritous lickers-You don't work much Grate exterminator of blaseing material! Wonderful Infantile Water Works. You have Thou spreader of the akweous Fluid-You &c., are death to the old fire boys and useful to Insurance Companies. Thou spreader of the akweous Fluid! Steem Fire Engine-your useful. use wood and koal-you make You a big noise with your whistle, and Go on Steam Fire Ingine. Go on-Grate old Skwirt! BARBARA FRIETCHIE.—By John G. Whittier. UP from the meadows rich with corn, The cluster'd spires of Frederick stand, Round about them orchards sweep, Fair as a garden of the Lord, To the eyes of the famish'd rebel horde, On that pleasant morn of the early Fall, Over the mountains winding down, Horse and foot, into Frederick town. |