The spirits of the Seasons seem to stand

Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form, And Winter, with his aged locks, and breathe

In mournful cadences, that come abroad

Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail,
A melancholy dirge o'er the dead year,
Gone from the earth forever.

'Tis a time

For memory and for tears.

2.

Within the deep,

Still chambers of the heart, a specter dim,

Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time,
Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold

And solemn finger to the beautiful

And holy visions, that have pass'd away,
And left no shadow of their loveliness
On the dead waste of life. The specter lifts
The coffin-lid of Hope, and Joy, and Love,

And bending mournfully above the pale,

Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers, O'er what has pass'd to nothingness.

The year

3.

Has gone, and with it many a glorious throng
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow,
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course,
It waved its scepter o'er the beautiful,
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man, and the haughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged
The bright and joyous; and the tearful wail
Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded. It pass'd o'er

The battle-plain, where sword, and spear, and shield,
Flash'd in the light of mid-day; and the strength
Of serried hosts is shiver'd, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crush'd and mouldering skeleton. It came,
And faded like a wreath of mist at eve;
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air,
It heralded its millions to their home,
In the dim land of dreams.

4.

Remorseless Time!

Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe! What power
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt
His iron heart to pity! On, still on,

He presses, and forever. The proud bird,
The condor of the Andes, that can soar

Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave
The fury of the northern hurricane,

And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home,
Furls his broad wing at night-fall, and sinks down
To rest upon his mountain crag; but Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness;
And Night's deep darkness has no chain to bind
His rushing pinion.

5.

Revolutions sweep

O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast
Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back
To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear
To heaven their bald and blacken'd cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plain; and empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,

And rush down, like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations; and the very stars,
Yon bright and glorious blazonry of God,
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths,

And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away
To darkle in the trackless void; yet Time,
Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, all pitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he hath wrought.

Geo. D. Prentice.

EXERCISE.

Write equivalent expressions for the following: 1. 'Tis the knell of the departed year.

2. No funeral train is sweeping past.

3. And breathe in mournful cadences.

4. It waved its scepter o'er the beautiful,

Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded.

6. The strength of serried hosts is shivered.
7. It heralded its millions to their home

In the dim land of dreams.

8. And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home. 9. Fiery isles spring blazing from the ocean. 10. And pass away to darkle in the trackless void.

LESSON 77..

TRUTH AND TRUTHFULNESS.

NE of the rarest powers possessed by man is the power to state a fact. It seems a very simple thing to tell the truth, but, beyond all question, there is nothing half so easy as lying. To comprehend a fact in its exact length, breadth, relations, and significance, and to state it in language that shall represent it with exact fidelity, are the work of a mind singularly gifted, finely balanced, and thoroughly practiced in that special department of effort.

2. The men are comparatively few who are in the habit of telling the truth. We all lie, every day of our lives almost in every sentence we utter not consciously and criminally, perhaps, but really, in that our language fails to represent truth, and state facts correctly. Our truths are half-truths, or distorted truths, or exaggerated truths, or sophisticated truths. Much of this is owing to carelessness, much to habit, and, more than has generally been supposed, to mental incapacity.

3. I have known eminent men who had not the power to state a fact, in its whole volume and outline, because, first, they could not comprehend it perfectly, and, second, because their power of expression was limited. The lenses by which they apprehended their facts were not adjusted properly; so they saw everything with a blur. Definite outlines, cleanly-cut edges, exact apprehension of volume and weight, nice measurement of relations, were matters outside of their observation and experience. They had broad minds, but bungling; and their language was no better than their apprehensions-usually it was worse, because language is rarely as definite as apprehension. Men rarely do their work to suit them, because their tools are imperfect.

4. There are men in all communities who are believed to be honest, yet whose word is never taken as authority upon any subject. There is a flaw or a warp somewhere in their perceptions, which prevents them from receiving truthful impressions. Everything comes to them distorted, as natural objects are distorted by reaching the eye through wrinkled window-glass. Some are able to apprehend a fact and state it correctly, if it have no direct relation to themselves; but the moment their personality, or their personal interest, is involved, the fact assumes false proportions and false colors.

5. I know a physician whose patients are always alarmingly sick when he is first called to them. As they usually get well, I am bound to believe that he is a good physician; but I am not bound to believe that they are all as sick at beginning as he supposes them to be. The first violent symptoms operate upon his imagination and excite his fears; and his opinion as to the degree of danger attaching to the diseases of his patients is not worth half so much as that of any sensible old nurse. In fact, nobody thinks of taking it all; and those who know him, and who hear his sad representations of the condition of his patients, show equal distrust of his word and faith in his skill, by taking it for granted that they are in a fair way to get well.- Dr. J. G. Holland.

EXERCISE.

Write equivalent expressions for the following:

1. Our truths are half truths, or distorted truths, or exaggerated truths, or sophisticated truths.

2. The lenses by which they apprehended their facts were not adjusted properly.

3. Language is rarely as definite as apprehension.

4. Everything comes to them distorted.

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