THE PALM-TREE.

BY JOHN MALCOLM.

THE palm-tree in the wilderness
Majestic lifts its head,
And blooms in solitary grace,
Where all around is dead.

It spreads a shadow in the sun,
Where shade besides is none;
But all companionship doth shun,
And loves to dwell alone.

And, though by man it lives unseen

Amidst the desert air,

It rears its canopy of green,

As smilingly and fair

As if young lovers pledged their vows,

When sultry day had flown,

Beneath its high o'erarching boughs,
That blossom all alone.

Though there no passing warbler wings

Her melancholy way,

A voice amidst the desert sings

Its solitude away,

When winds

as o'er the air-harp's wire

Half music and half moan

Come stealing o'er its leafy lyre,

That murmurs all alone.

And 'neath its shadow, lulled to sleep,
Upon the pilgrim's dreams

Its soft and breezy whispers creep,
Like sounds of his own streams,
That wander by the bowers of rest,
To which his soul hath flown,

Till morning, on the lifeless waste,
Awakes him all alone.

Sojourner of a weary land,

Where Nature never smiled,

Surrounded by no kindred band,
Sole orphan of the wild !—

Thou seem'st like one whose trusting breast
Deceived-the world hath flown-

Sought, like the dove, a place of rest,
To live and die alone!

COLUMBUS AMONG THE AZORES.

BY THOMAS BRYDSON.

[Previous to his discovery of America, Columbus is said to have frequently watched the setting sun, from one of the islands of the Azores, and fancied it rising upon the great continent which he supposed to be over the ocean.]

OH, undiscovered world! once more

I wander forth alone,

To muse beside that ocean vast,

Whose arms are round thee thrown.

Methinks yon setting sun, which smiles
In glory far away,

Already, o'er thy mountain-peaks,
Proclaims another day-

To some awakened child of thine,
Who sees, with careless eye,

The wondrous landscape of my dreams
Before him brightly lie.

There be who scoff at thoughts like these,

But still my soul doth keep

Its solitary vigil here,

Beside the solemn deep.

Yes, yes!-beyond that pathless waste

A mighty world I'll find;

And severed tribes of Adam's race
By me shall yet be joined—

In friendship's golden chain, as now,
By yonder setting sun,

Whose living line of radiance links
Their far shores into one.

Father of Nature! thou wilt guide
The sail that is unfurled,

To bear across the ocean's breast
The tidings of a world!

OTAHEITE.

BY THE REV. THOMAS RAFFLES, LL. D.

Lo mid the Isles the South Pacific bears,
That stud, like emerald gems, the hoary deep,
Her pointed summits Otaheite rears,

With many a verdant vale, and craggy steep.
Roused by the Gospel from the troubled sleep
Of superstition, with its dreams of blood,
Her sable sons, with indignation, sweep

Their hideous idols to the flame, or flood,

Ashamed that e'er they bowed to senseless blocks of wood!

"Perish, ye gods, Taheite once adored! Your reign of terror is for ever past; Henceforth Jehovah is our only Lord

For brighter days have dawned on us at last." Hark! hark! the exulting shout hell hears aghast : The Lord is God! ten thousand voices cry;

E'en angels bend to share a joy so vast,

Then stretch their pinions for their native sky, And celebrate th' event in heaven's high minstrelsy.