among the crowd; her eye hurried over the ship as it neared the shore, to catch some wished-for countenance. She seemed disappointed and agitated, when I heard a faint voice call her name. It was from a poor sailor, who had been ill all the voyage, and had excited the sympathy of every one on board. When the weather was fine, his messmates had spread a mattress for him on deck, in the shade; but of late his illness had so increased that he had taken to his hammock, and only breathed a wish that he might see his wife before he died. 11. He had been helped on deck as we came up the river, and was now leaning against the shrouds, with a countenance so wasted, so pale, and so ghastly, that it is no wonder even the eye of affection did not recognize him. But at the sound of his voice, her eye darted on his features, it read at once a whole volume of sorrow; she clasped her hands, uttered a faint shriek, and stood wringing them in silent agony. 12. All now was hurry and bustle. The meetings of acquaintances the greetings of friends-the consultations of men of business. I alone was solitary and idle. I had no friend to meet, no cheering to receive. I stepped upon the land of my forefathers-but felt that I was a stranger in the land. WASHINGTON IRVING. IV. 138. THE TRAVELER. W ITHDRAW yon curtain, look within that room, Where all is splendor, yet where all is gloom: Why weeps that mother? why, in pensive mood, 3. Why turns he, half unwilling, from his home, Wealth he can boast a miser's sigh would hush, 4. His eye must see, his foot each spot must tread, The Pagan's temple and the Churchman's tower, 5. Where Socrates once taught he thirsts to stray, To bless his own sweet home, his own proud shōre. 1 Hō'mer, the most distinguished of poets, called the "Father of Song." He is supposed to have been an Asiatic Greek, though his birthplace, and the period in which he lived, are not known. 2 Virgil, (vår jil), the most distinguished of the Roman poets, was born at Andes, a small village of Mantua, on the 15th of October, B. C. 70. He died on the 22d of Septem. ber, B. C. 19, before completing his fifty-first year. His body lies buried at the distance of two miles from the city of Naples. Avon, (a' von), a river in England, on the bank of which Shaks peare was born. 7. Look once again-cold in his cabin now, 8. Wrapped in the raiment that it long must wear, Even there the spirit that I sing is true, 9. One voice that silence breaks-the prayer is said, V. 139. THE BELL OF THE ATLANTIC.1 1. NOLL, tōll, töll, thou bell by billows swung ; TOLL And, night and day, thy warning words repeat with mourn- Foll for the queenly boat, wrecked on yon rocky shōre! 1 The steamboat Atlantic, plying between Norwich, in Connecticut, and New York, was wrecked on an island near New London. Many of the passengers were on their way to join in the celebration of the annual Thanksgiving in New England. The bell of this boat, supported by a portion of the wreck, continued for many days and nights to toll as if in mournful requiem of the lost. Surge, (sérj). 2. Tōll for the master bold, the high-souled and the brave, Who long the tyrant ocean dared; but it vanquished them at last. 3. Tōll for the man of God, whose hallowed voice of prayer 4. Töll for the lover lost to the summoned bridal train! Bright glows a picture on his breast, beneath th' unfathomed main. 5. Tōll for the absent sire, who to his home drew near, To bless a glad expecting group-fond wife and children dear! 6. Töll for the loved and fair, the whelmed beneath the tide- glide! Mother and nursling sweet, reft from their household throng; There's bitter weeping in the nest where breathed their soul of song. 7 Töll for the hearts that bleed 'neath misery's furrowing trace! Toll for the living,—not the dead, whose mortal woes are ō'er! 8. Töll, tōll, tōll, o'er breeze and billow free, And with thy startling lōre instruct each rover of the sea : LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. IT VI. 140. THE WRECK OF THE ARCTIC. T 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 heartloved homes. 2 2. 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 bōrne such a host of passengers, nor passengers so nearly related to so many of us. 3. 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 shōre, and the Arctic glides joyfully forth from the Mersey, and turns her prow to the winding channel, and begins her homeward run. 4. 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. 5. Amid all the inconveniences of the voyage, there was still that which hushed evèry murmur-hōme is not far away. And 1E`qui noc' tial, pertaining to the equinoxes, or the time when the day and night are of equal length. This occurs on the 21st of March and the 23d of September. O'ri ent, place of the rising sun; the East; hence, the countries of Asia; the early seat of learning. Greenwich, (grîn ́Îj). 4 Ef ful' gent, shining with a flood of light; bright. Lithe, pliant; easily bent. |