Illustrious fool! Nay, most inhuman wretch! He sat among his bags, and, with a look I could not torment and tease you, My Jo, Which hell might be ashamed of, drove the As you torture me while I wrestle with Or flatter me then as your foe? If your coldness less easily won me, My Jo, shun Where the great hill, heavenward stum- Would you dazzle me much with the kindness Stands shading her eyes in the dazzle between the sky and the snow, Then, warily, lightly, descending, Her lithe shape swaying and bending, Her arms flung out to save her from the treacherous slope below. And I, growing dizzy, eyes straining, From my fingers the axe dropped unheeded, the minutes drag heavy and slow. Ah, Jo! does my waiting displease you? Is it folly to think of you so? old Winter stands ready to show? I can work for your bread or your pleasure, By the length of the suns that I labor, by the force of each far-splitting blow. You look at me coldly reproving Because of the weakness I show; You scorn me, so dog-like and loving, My Jo; I will bend to the hardest of masters: in that weakness I cannot o'erthrow. I will eat, and stretch up as a giant; Tough hickory bend like a sapling, the blood of the maple shall flow. LACED on this isthmus of a middle A being darkly wise and rudely great, side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest, Still by himself abused or disabused; Go, wond'rous creature! mount where Science guides; Go measure earth, weigh air and state the tides; Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, Superior beings, when of late they saw red hills! COMAL AND GALBINA. OSSIAN. JOURNFUL is thy tale, son of the car," said Carril of other times. "It sends my soul back to the ages of old, to the days of other years. Often have I heard of Comal who slew the friend he loved; yet victory attended his steel: the battle was consumed in his presence!" Comal was the son of Albion, the chief of a hundred His deer drunk of a thousand streams. A thousand rocks replied to the voice of his dogs. His face was the mildness of youth; his hand the death of heroes. One was his love and fair was she, the daughter of the mighty Conloch. She appeared like a sunbeam among women. Her hair was the wing of the raven. Her dogs were taught to the chase. Her bowstring sounded on the winds. Her soul was fixed on Comal. Often met their eyes of love. Their course Their course in the chase was one. Happy were their words in secret. But Grumal loved the maid, the dark chief of the gloomy Ardven. He watched her lone steps in the heath, the foe of unhappy Comal. One day, tired of the chase, when the mist had concealed their friends, Comal and the daughter of Conloch met in the cave of Ronan. It was the wonted haunt of Comal. Its sides were hung with his arms. A hundred shields of thongs were there; a "Rest hundred helms of sounding steel. here," he said, "my love, Galbina: thou light of the cave of Ronan! A deer appears on Mora's brow. I go; but I will soon return." "I fear," she said, "dark Grumal, my foe: he haunts the cave of Ronan! I will rest among the arms; but soon return, my love!" He went to the deer of Mora. The daughter of Conloch would try his love. She clothed her fair sides with his armor: she strode from the cave of Ronan; he thought it was his foe. His heart beat high. His color changed, and darkness dimmed his eyes. He drew the bow. The arrow flew. Galbina fell in blood! He ran with wildness in his steps: he called the daughter of Conloch. No answer in the lonely rock. Where art thou, O my love? He saw at length her heaving heart, beating around the arrow he threw. "O Conloch's daughter! is it thou?" He sunk upon her breast! The hunters found the hapless pair! He afterward walked the hill. But many and silent were his steps round the dark dwelling of his love. The fleet of the ocean came. He fought; the strangers fled. He searched for death along the field. could slay the mighty Comal? away his dark-brown shield. found his manly breast. He sleeps with his loved Galbina at the noise of the sounding surge! Their green tombs are seen by the mariner, when he bounds on the waves. of the north. JAMES MACPHERSON. But who He threw An arrow That wash thy hallowed feet and warbling flow, Nightly I visit, nor sometimes forget Those other two equalled with me in fate, May I express thee unblamed, since God is So were I equalled with them in renown, light, And never but in unapproached light sun, Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides, Before the heavens, thou wert, and at the Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, voice Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest tained In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight Through utter and through middle darkness borne, I sung With other notes than to th' Orphean lyre The dark descent, and up to reascend, Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath, THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS. most powerful telescopes, we obtain a view THE MILKY WAY. of some of its more magnificent porches and S we advance in our survey a faint glimpse of those splendid apartments of the distant regions of which we shall never be able to explore, but the universe the astonishing which lead us to form the most august congrandeur and extent of the ceptions of the extent and grandeur of what sidereal heavens gradually is concealed from our view. In entering this open to our view. Had temple" not made with hands," the splendor we no other objects to en- of its decorations, the amplitude of its scale gage our attention, ages and the awfulness of infinitude forcibly strike might be spent in contem- the in contem- the imagination. There is sufficient to plating and admiring the awaken into exercise all the powers and economy and magnificence feelings of devotion, and to excite us to fall of those starry groups which down in humility and adoration before Him. appear to the unaided eye on the nearer boun- whose word spoke into existence this astondary of our firmament. But all that is vis- ishing fabric, and "whose kingdom ruleth ible to man's unassisted vision is as noth- over all." ing when compared with the immensity of august and splendid objects which stretch themselves in boundless perspective toward infinity. The discoveries of modern astronomy have enlarged the sphere of our conceptions far beyond what could have been formerly surmised, and opened to view a universe boundless as its Creator, where human imagination is lost and confounded, and in which man appears like a mere microscopic animalculum and his whole habitation as a particle of vapor when compared to the ocean. In contemplating the visible firmament with the unassisted eye we behold only the mere portals, as it were, which lead to the interior recesses of the vast temple of creation. When we direct our views beyond these outer portals by means of the When we take a general view of the heavens about the months of August, September and October and during the winter months, we cannot fail observing a large irregular whitish zone stretching across the sky, with a few interruptions, from one end of the firmament to another. This mighty zone thus stretching itself around us is sometimes termed the "Galaxy," sometimes the "Via Lactea," but more frequently, in plain English, the "Milky Way," from its resemblance to the whiteness of milk. This luminous band is visible to every observer, and is the only real and sensible circle in the heavens. When traced throughout its different directions, it is found to encircle the whole sphere of the heavens, though in some parts of its course it is broader and more |