RAPHAEL'S DEATH-BED.. BY L. E. L. How can the grave be terrible to those Whose spirits walk the earth, even after death, And have an influence on humanity, In their undying glory. L. E. L. 'Twas a twilight of Italy and spring, And o'er a couch's canopy, where gold And is that silken pillow thus bespread For those who cannot feel its down-the dead! H Around that couch gathers a princely train, Aye, one sleeps there,-if sleep it can be named, That seems like death, which leaves behind_it nought; No void in nature,-no remembering thought; Or, but the tenderness affection keeps, Whose death was as the seal affixed to fame ;- It hath death's semblance ;-but, how can depart The soul, yet leave its influence on the heart! No! when the timid prayer for heaven's grace Their memory past, then, Raphael, thou art dead! THE IDIOT BOY. A MOUNTAIN ADVENTURE. LAST year, I made a tour through the Highlands. One day, I set forth, without any other companion than a large Newfoundland dog, to explore a new scene in the immediate vicinity of my own temporary dwelling-place. I found fresh materials for my mind to work upon, at every step; but, though nature here presented her most savage aspect, my sensations were altogether joyous. Mine was the firm step of youth and health; and as I rudely dashed the dew from the blossoming heath on which I trod, followed by my dumb friend, as he took rash leaps over many a dangerous precipice,-I felt a pleasure for which I could find no sufficient reason in my philosophy. Man is but a miserable animal, and shrinks into mere nothingness when contrasted with the magnificence of nature. He is part of the earth he treads upon-part of the machinery of the universe; but less grand, less beautiful, and less powerful than all else around him. Who can gaze on the countless myriads of stars that deck the deep-blue firmament, |