Shine out the lights of home! 15. Up the steep bank he bears her, And now they rush again Towards the heights of Bregenz, That tower above the plain. They reach the gate of Bregenz Just as the midnight rings, And out come serf" and soldier To meet the news she brings. 16. Bregenz is saved! Ere daylight Her battlements are manned; Defiance greets the army That marches on the land. Should endless fame be paid, The noble Tyrol maid. 17. Three hundred years are vanished, And yet upon the hill An old stone gateway rises, To do her honor still. And there, when Bregenz women Sit spinning in the shade, 18. And when, to guard old Bregenz, By gateway, street, and tower, 7 The warder paces all night long, And calls each passing hour, "Nine," "Ten," "Eleven," he cries aloud, And then (0, crown of Fame !) He calls the maiden's name! 1 BREGENZ or BREGENTS (brā'ghĕnts). | 5 POR-TĚNTS'. Omens of ill. Here, ac? GIRT. Surrounded; enclosed. 3 QUAINT (kwant). Strange; curious. cent the first syllable. 6 SERF. A slave attached to the soil 7 WÂRD'ER. Guard; keeper. LVI. — LOSS OF THE ARCTIC.* BEECHER. 1. IT was autumn. Hundreds had wended their way from pilgrimages;1- 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 2 fury, and then we will embark ; we will slide across the appeased ocean, and in the gorgeous month of October we will greet our longedfor native land and our heart-loved homes. 2. And so the throng streamed along from Berlin, from Paris, from the Orient, converging 3 upon London, still hastening towards the welcome ship, and narrowing, every day, the circle of engagements and preparations. They crowded aboard. Never had the Arctic borne such a host of passengers, nor passengers so nearly related to so many of us. *The steamer Arctic was lost by a collision with another vessel, in a voyage from Liverpool to New York, in September, 1854, and a great many persons perished. 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 shore, and the Arctic glides joyfully forth from the Mersey,+ and turns her prow to the winding channel, and begins her homeward run. 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. 4. And so hope was effulgent, and lithe gayety. disported itself, and joy was with every guest. Amid all the inconveniences of the voyage, there was still that which hushed every murmur "Home is not far away." And every morning it was still one night nearer home! Eight days had passed. They beheld that distant bank of mist that forever haunts the vast shallows of Newfoundland. Boldly they made it; and plunging in, its pliant wreaths wrapped them about. They shall never emerge. The last sunlight has flashed from that deck. The last voyage is done to ship and passengers. At noon there came, noiselessly stealing from the north, that fated instrument of destruction. In that mysterious shroud, that vast atmosphere of mist, both steamers were hold * At the observatory in Greenwich (pronounced Grēn'ij), England, a signal ball falls every day precisely at noon. Pronounced Nu'fund-lănd. ↑ Pronounced Mër'zę. ing their way with rushing prow and roaring wheels, but invisible. 5. At a league's distance unconscious, and at nearer approach unwarned, within hail, and bear ing right towards each other, unseen, unfelt, - till in a moment more, emerging from the gray mists, the ill-omened Vesta dealt her deadly stroke to the Arctic. The death-blow was scarcely felt along the mighty hull. She neither reeled nor shivered. Neither commander nor officers deemed that they had suffered harm. Prompt upon humanity, the brave Luce (let his name be ever spoken with admiration and respect) ordered away his boat with the first officer to inquire if the stranger had suffered harm. As Gourley went over the ship's side, O that some good angel had called to the brave commander in the words of Paul on a like occasion, "Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved"! 6. They departed, and with them the hope of the ship; for now the waters, gaining upon the hold, and, rising up upon the fires, revealed the mortal blow. O, had now that stern, brave mate, Gourley, been on deck, whom the sailors were wont to mind, had he stood to execute efficiently the commander's will,we may believe that we should not have had to blush for the cowardice and recreancy of the crew, nor weep for the untimely dead. But apparently each subordinate officer lost all presence of mind, then courage, and so honor. In a wild scramble, that ignoble mob of firemen, engineers, waiters, and crew rushed for the boats, and abandoned the helpless women, children, and men to the mercy of the deep! Four hours there were from the catastrophe of the collision to the catastrophe of SINKING! 7. O, what a burial was here! Not as when one is borne from his home among weeping throngs, and gently carried to the green fields, and laid peacefully beneath the turf and the flowers. No priest stood to pronounce a burial service. It was an ocean grave. The mists alone shrouded the burial-place. No spade prepared the grave, nor sexton filled up the hollowed earth. Down, down they sank, and the quick returning waters smoothed out every ripple, and left the sea as placid as before. 1 PIL'GRIM-AG-ES. Journeys under- | 3 CON-VËRG'ING. Tending towards the taken to some hallowed place, or for devotional purposes. E-QUI-NŎC'TIAL. Pertaining to the 5 DIS-PORT ED. time of the equinox. 6 REC'RE AN-CY. Diverted; amused. LVII. IMMORTALITY. BARBAULD For many [Mrs. Anna Letitia Barbauld was born in Kibworth-Harcourt, Leicestershire, England, June 20, 1743. She was the daughter of the Rev. John Aikin. In 1774 she married the Rev. Rochemont Barbauld, a clergyman of French extraction. years she and her husband kept a boarding school for boys, which had great success. She was an admirable writer, both in prose and verse. The works she prepared for children are especially excellent. The following extract is from her Hymns in Prose. She died March 9, 1825.] 1. I HAVE seen the flower withering on the stalk, and its bright leaves spread on the ground. I looked again: it sprang forth afresh; its stem was crowned with new buds, and its sweetness filled the air. 2. I have seen the sun set in the west, and the shades of night shut in the wide horizon: there was no color, nor shape, nor beauty, nor music; gloom and darkness brooded around. I looked: the sun broke forth again in the east, and gilded the mountain |