STORM STANZAS.

It was a fearful hour,

When we ploughed the foaming wavesAnd the tempest's giant power

Unlock'd the ocean's caves.

But 'twas to me a pride

To view the tossing foam

And the skies extended wide

And the stars in their azure home.

To see the bending mast

To hear that tempest's voiceAnd to feel the ship, careering fast, In its own proud strength rejoice.

O! the ocean, and the rush

Of its wond'rous might for me, Beyond the banquet gush

Of the minstrel's melody.

For nature's power is there,

And the breath of nature's GOD,
On the trackless pathway where
A thousand ships have trod.

Who coldly can look out

On the ocean's playful life,

When it echoes to the shout

Of the winds and waves at strife,—

Who listen to the gale,

With the strength of science play, And break the shroud, and rend the sail, Nor feel the GODHEAD'S Sway?

GLANCES AT CONGRESS.

BY A REPORTER.

No. I.

THE call of the extra session, by special proclamation, had served as a theme for that political gossip so much delighted in by our good people, from the gentlemanly loungers at Astor's, in the city of New York, to the rough tap-room sages at Sundown, in the Far West. All other motives of interest apart, it was a something new under the sun; a dim idea of a similar event having happened once, and once only, before, within the period of our national existence, not at all detracting from the charm of its novelty. In the way of politics we are as fond of excitement, and as much palled by long indulgence in it, as was that old Roman emperor, the patron saint of all modern blazés, who offered his magnificent reward for a new pleasure.'

And why was the extra session convened? The answer is very simple. The country was in that state, "to be imagined, but not described," of the first stage of recovery from a fit of intoxication; the reaction of a long debauch; the parched, sickened, agonized waking up from the dangerous delight of a frolic,' which is so expressively designated, by those who have learned from experience the dear-bought knowledge, as "the horrors," and had been calling fretfully for the doctor-the doctor-nay for a whole Congress of the learned fraternity, from all parts of the country, for a consultation on the very peculiar state which it was conscious that its system had somehow or other got into. As not unfrequently happens on such occasions, it had been in a terrible temper, and furious in invectives against every body and every thing on which it could, by any possibility, try to throw the responsibility,'-even against the honest and long-tried friend who had been doing all in his power, by precept and reproof, to moderate its thirst for the "wet damnation," which was the cause of all. However, it will certainly do the good old man justice, when it shall have got well again, and signed, as we hope it will, a temperance pledge for the future. One's ingenuity is always pretty well exhausted, when he can find nothing better to ascribe the consequences of his conduct to than his own wilful folly. I have sometimes thought, by the way, that this is not the least important of the functions for which government is established, to act as a scape-goat to bear off the sins of the people to the wilderness. If in all other respects it generally does much more harm than good, in this, at least, it certainly is a convenience; of which our good people never fail to avail themselves,

abusing the government to the skies, or rather, equally far in the other direction, at every period of difficulty or pressure, (from whatever sources proceeding,) and testifying their ill-humor in whatever elections may happen to take place at the unlucky moment. Every body has, no doubt, heard of the master who paid his man double wages to stand patiently his kicks and cuffs, whenever he would return home after losing his money at the gambling, or his senses at the dinner, table. We pay our "man" but single wages, scanty salaries, with very hard work, and no allowance for this double duty. However, to return, a man is master in his own house; and if the country would have the medical Congress assembled, and would not and could not get along without it, its servants must needs obey, and call them together. Pray heaven they may not misunderstand the nature of the disease, and prescribe more 'ardent spirits!' even though they should endeavor to "regulate" them, and determine the proportions to be "preserved," in the use of them. There are certainly a great many of them who seem to consider that as the universal panacea, the veritable eau de vie, or elixir of life, to "give relief" to the suffering community, and "stimulate" its resources. I think that it had better, for the future, "divorce the connexion" which it has hitherto maintained with that black, square, ill-looking bottle-hunc tu, Romane, caveto! Nobody, however, I believe, proposes to "destroy" it, though so great a clamor is raised against that bugbear; for all things have their use in proper way and proper season.

The proclamation, then, went forth, and sounded like the rallying note of a bugle, among the echoes of the mountains of the north and east, and over the plains of the south and west. It was heard by 'the honorable member from Maine.' It found him in his giant woods, surrounded by his hardy wood-cutters; the lordly river sounding with its eternal voice in his ears, the broad liquid path which was to float his timber fortune down to the craftsman of the seaside, to be by him transformed into the keel of the ship, the frame of the house, the hull of the steamboat, or the body of the car. He heard the summons of the constitutional chief of the land, and like old Putnam, the yeoman hero of Bunker Hill, he forsook his industrious labors, and was ready for his country's nerd. Behold how firmly his limbs are set-how rich and ruddy his cheeks. Labormanly, truly dignified labor-sheds an atmosphere of independence, happiness, and health, over noble New England; while the memories of the past nourish the patriotism then so well tested, and her natural sound intellect and hereditary moral and religious sentiment are developed and cultivated by universal popular education. Perish the recollection of all, which might tend to detract from the old pride and affection which the Union ought to cherish for New England! It was heard in the West-the young, vigorous, and ambitious

West; and she sent forth her fine phalanx of chosen sons, to cross the Alleghanies, as the representatives of her energetic and restless population; a population made up of the best materials of enterprise, industry, and manliness collected from the Atlantic borders of the Union. You may see them in the hall of the House, and have in general little difficulty in distinguishing them-men of tall and stalwart frame, free and often unpolished bearing, sometimes rather rough diamonds, it must be confessed-men of keen eye, vigilant mind, and ready hand; who can either handle their rifles or their law books with any in the world-ever prompt at the need of the occasion, and ever equal to it.

It was heard by the South-the luxuriant South, teeming with those rich productions which nature will yield only when wooed by the ardors of a warmer sun than shines on the hills of the more northern portions of the Union-and she, too, sent forth, by the gloomy avenue of the Dismal Swamp, a chosen few of her highspirited, impetuous, chivalric sons-men, with all the virtues, as well as the faults, which spring out of those peculiar social institutions of which former generations have bequeathed them the burthen-generous, hospitable, with a highly toned personal dignity and sense of honor, and ever jealous of their rights and liberties.

And what is it that brings together this remarkable body of men; the representatives of so many various sections, soils, characters, and interests-what is that bond of union that keeps together this wonderful E pluribus Unum? It is not the external forms of institutions and the organized machinery of government. It is a voluntary principle, existing in the bosom of every individual, a common sentiment of general mutuality of the most important interests, the knowledge that the spirit of democratic republicanism embodied in our system, protecting rights and punishing wrongs, and in all other respects leaving every man free to pursue his own happiness in his own way, contains the true secret which the nations have been so long and toilsomely in search of, from which alone the greatest and happiest results of social life are to proceed. This is the true principle of cohesion, the anima or informing soul, which cements our union, all the parts exciting a reciprocal influence of attraction upon each other; and this, strengthened by the memory of a common national glory, both in our origin and in the subsequent unparalleled development of our young energies-together with those ties of kindred which are gradually stretching across the whole breadth of the land, as the settler from New England, or Virginia, or Georgia, bears with him the affections and associations of his youth, and leaves his own memory behind him, as he wends his adventurous way westward ho!'-this has already borne our Union, our ark of the covenant, safely through fiercer shocks of the collisions of interests and passions than, we trust, will ever again assail it; and this,

strengthened and sanctified as we gradually improve our institutions, and purify their spirit, affords a pledge that cannot deceive, that the blessings of that union are destined by Providence to be perpetual and still ever progressive, as they have hitherto been astonishing to the other nations of the world.

Distance and climate can have no influence upon this bond. It is wholly independent of them. There need be no fear of the effect of any possible extension of territory-though the representatives sent from the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, from the Isthmus of Darien and the far wild regions of the north of our continent, on the very verge of that uninhabitable region, domibus negata, which the icy powers of the Pole claim as all their own should one day meet in common friendly congress at some central point, the focus of the civilization of the western world, where not yet has even the solitary smoke of its first pioneer begun to curl up its thin, white, wavering column from out of the dark and deep heart of the ancient forest. The farther and wider our principles extend themselves, with peaceful and undisputed sway, accompanied with no poisonous elements of wrong or violence, the better! The greater the number of the oppressed of other countries who come to seek shelter under the shadow of the broad wings of our eagle, bringing with them strong hands and honest hearts, and a voluntary desire to enjoy the benefits of the free institutions denied to them in the land of their birth, the better!-provided, as the essential condition of safety, that the local action of the central government over domestic concerns and partial interests be restricted proportionately to its diffusion over a more extended surface of territory.

However, all this is rambling a little too far; but a poor reporter, compelled to sit out a speech of an indefinite number of hours—a mere repeated edition of a dozen previous speeches of the honorable gentleman and his friends, to say nothing of the newspapers-runs into very wandering habits, and is surely entitled to a little indulgence. But the worthy member who has been so long imagining himself a modern Demosthenes, and that the destinies of a world were hanging, like the black pudding of the nursery story, from his lips, has subsided back into his seat, and it is time to return to the House, and to the narrow desk at which my worthy brethren of the stenographic quill, in common with myself, are strung up against the wall like cloaks in the dog-days.

What a noble hall!-beautiful, grand, the tout ensemble inspiring -worthy of the purpose to which it is devoted! Its defect of construction, with reference to acoustics, is a happy circumstance for the worthy fellowship of fault-finders, who would otherwise have to hang themselves from the galleries in despair. The defect is, in itself, quite immaterial; for not only is it pefectly well understood that the speeches there made are in no respect addressed to