Meanwhile the bridegroom went forth and stood with the

bride at the doorway,

Breathing the perfumed air of that warm and beautiful morning.
Touched with autumnal tints, but lonely and sad in the sunshine,
Lay extended before them the land of toil and privation;
There were the graves of the dead, and the barren waste of the

sea-shore,

There the familiar fields, the groves of pine, and the meadows; But to their eyes transfigured, it seemed as the Garden of Eden, Filled with the presence of God, whose voice was the sound of the ocean.

Soon was their vision disturbed by the noise and stir of departure,

Friends coming forth from the house, and impatient of longer

delaying,

Each with his plan for the day, and the work that was left un

completed.

Then from a stall near at hand, amid exclamations of wonder, Alden the thoughtful, the careful, so happy, so proud of Priscilla, Brought out his snow-white steer, obeying the hand of its master, Led by a cord that was tied to an iron ring in its nostrils, Covered with crimson cloth, and a cushion placed for a saddle. She should not walk, he said, through the dust and heat of the

noonday;

Nay, she should ride like a queen, not plod along like a peasant. Somewhat alarmed at first, but reassured by the others,

Placing her hand on the cushion, her foot in the hand of her

husband,

Gaily, with joyous laugh, Priscilla mounted her palfrey.
'Nothing is wanting now," he said, with a smile, "but the

distaff;

Then you would be in truth my queen, my beautiful Bertha !"

Onward the bridal procession now moved to their new habitation,

Happy husband and wife, and friends conversing together. Pleasantly murmured the brook, as they crossed the ford in the

forest,

Pleased with the image that passed, like a dream of love through its bosom,

Tremulous, floating in air, o'er the depths of the azure abysses. Down through the golden leaves the sun was pouring his

splendours,

Gleaming on purple grapes, that, from branches above them

suspended,

Mingled their odorous breath with the balm of the pine and the

fir-tree,

Wild and sweet as the clusters that grew in the valley of Eshcol Like a picture it seemed of the primitive, pastoral ages,

Fresh with the youth of the world, and recalling Rebecca and

Isaac,

Old and yet ever new, and simple and beautiful always,

Love immortal and young in the endless succession of lovers. So through the Plymouth woods passed onward the bridal pro

cession.

OF PASSAGE.

BIRDS OF

come i gru van cantando lor lai,

Facendo in aer di sè lunga riga.

DANTE.

PROMETHEUS,

OR THE POET'S FORETHOUGHT.

OF Prometheus, how undaunted
On Olympus' shining bastions
His audacious foot he planted,
Myths are told and songs are chaunted,
Full of promptings and suggestions.

Beautiful is the tradition

Of that flight through heavenly portals, The old classic superstition

Of the theft and the transmission

Of the fire of the Immortals!

First the deed of noble daring,

Born of heavenward aspiration, Then the fire with mortals sharing, Then the vulture,-the despairing Cry of pain on crags Caucasian.

All is but a symbol pair.ted

Of the Poet, Prophet, Seer;
Only those are crowned and sainted
Who with grief have been acquainted,
Making nations nobler, freer.