There diamonds flashed to the gazer's eye,
And the air was sweet as it wandered by;
There, coral and agate in masses lay,
And were bathed in the sun's unclouded ray;
The merchants of Sheba were gathered there-
Where are their treasures, Oh Tyrus, where?

Thou answerest not-for the solemn wave
A requiem pours o'er thy hidden grave;
Over prostrate pillar and crumbling dome
The stormy billows arise and foam;

Where thy swelling temples were wont to stand,
The sea-bird screams by the lonely strand;
No sound of joy is upon the air—

Where are thy revels, Oh Tyrus, where?

The time hath been, when a mighty throng
Of people fill'd thee;—when dance and song,
And harpers, with rapture the time beguiled,
And the sun of joy on thy splendours smil'd.
Then in robes of beauty thy daughters dressed,
And pride was high in each sinful breast;

Then glittering shields 'gainst thy walls were hung,
While palace and garden with music rung;
The dance voluptuous at eve went round,
And hearts beat lightly at pleasure's sound.

Now thou art laid in the solemn tomb
Of ages vanished 'mid storm and gloom;
Thy warriors, thy princes, thy flashing gems,
Thy kings with the wealth of their diadems,
Are gone like the light on an April stream,
As a voice which speaks in an evening dream,
As a cloud which fades in the summer air-
Where are thy glories, Oh Tyrus, where?

W. G. C.

PHILADELPHIA.

DREAMS.

DREAMS are topics of universal interest. They are subjects of investigation to the philosopher, and not unfrequently furnish an inspiring theme for the poet. Under their influence, sanguine minds have been led to embark in utopian schemes: the enthusiast has sought in them the secret indications of the divine will: the votary of fame has kindled into rapture at the deeds of glory which they placed before his excited fancy: the miser has been a thousand times richer than his sordid soul had dared anticipate: love has built in dreams her most beautiful elysium, and ravished her victim with delight, or wrung him with despair. They are as effectual to console, as they are powerful to terrify and to enrage the soul. The disconsolate have found in them a momentary balm for a wounded spirit. The waves of trouble have sunk to

H

rest: scenes of hope and tranquillity have stolen upon the view, as if to point the wretched to a land where sorrow is unknown. The guilty have dreaded them. With no outward circumstances to divert the attention, conscience has compelled the terrified culprit to take a direct look at his crimes. She has gathered around him the images of his ultimate destiny, and given him, in anticipation, a momentary experience of horrors which, in his case, and when dreams give place to realities, may prove to be unending.

On the other hand, the believer has often, in nightvision, vividly anticipated his approaching triumph. The shadows which overhung his path have disappeared. He has passed exulting the dark portals, crossed the swelling waters of Jordan, and felt his emancipated spirit enlarging and rejoicing amid all that is pure and blissful and glorious. Yes, heaven has burst on his enraptured view. But alas, upon waking, he has found himself still on the field of conflict, fettered by the flesh and far from his final home.

Thus the ordinary season of repose for the body, is by no means the period of the soul's inactivity. Not unfrequently is it the signal for its loftiest excursions.

When the body, exhausted by fatigue, loses in

sleep its power of locomotion; when its portals are closed, and its sensibilities are in a measure blunted, how will the soul rejoice in its liberty, and commence its untiring career. It will visit, with the rapidity of thought, regions the most remote. It will create new worlds, and people them at pleasure with angels or with men. It will condense the events of ages into an hour. It will live over the past, or leap forward to the future. A thousand fairy creations will rise at its bidding. Heterogeneous combinations of men and circumstances will swim before the excited vision, and elicit as many corresponding images of dread and desire, of love and hate, of joy and sorrow. How wonderful, how incomprehensible its powers! Who who can say, that a spirit so ethereal, so discursive, of such lofty flight, of such untiring career, is destined by its creator for a region less comprehensive than that of immortality?

Some philosophers have maintained that the soul does not always think; that often in profound slumbers there is a torpidity or inaction of the mental powers analogous to the inactivity of the body.

It is true, we are not always conscious, at the very moment of waking, that the soul has been employed on objects either of speculation or desire. Memory does not furnish us with the images which may have