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protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, personal happiness.

4. I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union might be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed.

5. While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant, that, in my day at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!

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6. Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured,— bearing for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first, and Union afterwards,” but every where, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on its ample folds, as they float over the sea

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and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart,-LIBERTY and UNION, now and forever, ONE AND

INSEPARABLE!

1 FJ-NĂNCE'. Public revenue of a gov- | 5 FRA-TER'NAL. Belonging to brothernment; income or means.

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ers; brotherly.

6 GÖR'GEOUS (-jus). Splendid; showy; magnificent.

7 EN'SIGN. The national flag.

8 E-RASED'. Effaced; scratched out, or rubbed out.

9 ÎN-TER-RŎG'A-TO-RY. Question.

C.-SOLILOQUY OF THE DYING ALCHEMIST.→

WILLIS.

1. THE night wind with a desolate moan swept by;
And the old shutters of the turret swung,
Screaming upon their hinges; and the moon,
As the torn edges of the clouds flew past,
Struggled aslant the stained and broken panes
So dimly, that the watchful eye of death
Scarcely was conscious when it went and came.

2. The fire beneath his crucible' was low;
Yet still it burned; and ever as his thoughts
Grew insupportable, he raised himself
Upon his wasted arm, and stirred the coals
With difficult energy; and when the rod
Fell from his nerveless fingers, and his eye
Felt faint within its socket, he shrunk back
Upon his pallet, and with unclosed lips
Muttered a curse on death!

* An alchemist is one versed in the science of chemistry as practised in former times. The object of alchemy was to change the baser metals into gold, to find an elixir by which disease and death were to be avoided, &c.

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The silent room,

From its dim corners, mockingly gave back
His rattling breath; the humming in the fire
Had the distinctness of a knell; and when
Duly the antique horologe2 beat one,
He drew a vial from beneath his head,
And drank. And instantly his lips compressed,
And, with a shudder in his skeleton frame,
He rose with supernatural strength, and sat
Upright, and communed with himself:

I did not think to die

Till I had finished what I had to do;

I thought to pierce the eternal secret through
With this my mortal eye;

I felt, O God! It seemeth even now
This cannot be the death-dew on my brow!

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Of this dull sickness at my heart, afraid;
And in my eyes the death-sparks flash and fade
And something seems to steal

Over my bosom like a frozen hand,
Binding its pulses with an icy band.

And this is death! But why
Feel I this wild recoil 3? It cannot be
The immortal spirit shuddereth to be free:
Would it not leap to fly

Like a chained eaglet at its parent's call?
I fear I fear that this poor life is all!

Yet thus to pass away!

-

To live but for a hope that mocks at last,
To agonize1, to strive, to watch, to fast
To waste the light of day,

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Night's better beauty, feeling, fancy, thought,
All that we have and are - for this—for naught!

Grant me another

year,

God of my spirit!- but a day, - to win
Something to satisfy this thirst within!

I would know something here!

Break for me but one seal that is unbroken!
Speak for me but one word that is unspoken!

Vain vain! my brain is turning

With a swift dizziness, and my heart grows sick,
And these hot temple-throbs come fast and thick,
And I am freezing-burning-

Dying! O God! if I might only live!

My vial

10.

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12.

Ha! it thrills me! I revive.

O, but for time to track

The upper stars into the pathless sky,-
To see the invisible spirits, eye to eye, —
To hurl the lightning back,-

To tread unhurt the sea's dim-lighted halls,-
To chase day's chariot to the horizon-walls, -

And more, much more,

for now

The life-sealed fountains of my nature move
To nurse and purify this human love;
To clear the godlike brow

Of weakness and mistrust, and bow it down
Worthy and beautiful, to the much-loved one.

This were indeed to feel

The soul-thirst slaken at the living stream,
To live-O God! that life is but a dream!

Aha! I reel

God of heaven! I die!

Dim-dim-I faint-darkness comes o'er my eye;

And death

Cover me! save me!

13. 'Twas morning, and the old man lay alone.
No friend had closed his eyelids, and his lips,
Open and ashy pale, the expression wore
Of his death-struggle. His long, silvery hair
Lay on his hollow temples thin and wild,
His frame was wasted, and his features wan
And haggard as with want, and in his palm
His nails were driven deep, as if the throe
Of the last agony had wrung him sore.

14. The fire beneath the crucible was out;
The vessels of his mystic art lay round,
Useless and cold as the ambitious hand
That fashioned them, and the small rod,
Familiar to his touch for threescore years,
Lay on the alembic's' rim, as if it still
Might vex the elements at its master's will.

15. And thus had passed from its unequal frame A soul of fire, a sun-bent eagle stricken

From his high soaring down, - an instrument
Broken with its own compass. O, how poor
Seems the rich gift of genius, when it lies,
Like the adventurous bird that hath outflown
His strength upon the sea, ambition wrecked,-
A thing the thrush might pity, as she sits
Brooding in quiet on her lowly nest.

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1 CRUCI-BLE. A melting-pot used by AG'O-NIZE. Feel agony; suffer exchemists and goldsmiths.

treme pain.

2 HOR'O-LOĢE. Something which 5 THRŌE. Extreme pain; pang.

tells what hour it is; a time-piece. RE-COIL'. Motion backwards; rebound; a shrinking or faltering.

MYS'TIC. Secret; unrevealed.
A-LEM'BIC. A chemical vessel, used
in distillation.

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