In Rabida's monastic fane I can not ask, and ask in vain; The language of Castille I speak, 'Mid many an Arab, many a Greek, Old in the days of Charlemagne, When minstrel-music wandered round, And science, waking, blessed the sound. No earthly thought has here a place, The cowl let down on every face; Yet here, in consecrated dust, Here would I sleep, if sleep I must. From Genoa, when Columbus came (At once her glory and her shame), 'T was here he caught the holy flame; 'T was here the generous vow he made; His banners on the altar laid. Here, tempest-worn and desolate, A pilot journeying through the wild Stopped to solicit at the gate A pittance for his child. 'T was here, unknowing and unknown, He stood upon the threshold stone. But hope was his, a faith sublime, That triumphs over place and time; And here, his mighty labor done, And here, his course of glory run, Awhile as more than man he stood, So large the debt of gratitude. * * * * * Who the great secret of the deep possessed, And, issuing through the portals of the West, Fearless, resolved, with every sail unfurled, Planted his standard on the unknown world. --_Ibid._ GENOA. Thy brave mariners, They had fought so often by thy side, Staining the mountain billows. --_Ibid._ LAUNCHED OUT INTO THE DEEP. WILLIAM RUSSELL, American author and educationist. Born in Scotland, 1798; died, 1873. From his "Modern History." Transcendent genius and superlative courage experience almost equal difficulty in carrying their designs into execution when they depend on the assistance of others. Columbus possessed both--he exerted both; and the concurrence of other heads and other hearts was necessary to give success to either; he had indolence and cowardice to encounter, as well as ignorance and prejudice. He had formerly been ridiculed as a visionary, he was now pitied as a desperado. The Portuguese navigators, in accomplishing their first discoveries, had always some reference to the coast; cape had pointed them to cape; but Columbus, with no landmark but the heavens, nor any guide but the compass, boldly launched into the ocean, without knowing what shore should receive him or where he could find rest for the sole of his foot. STATUARY AT SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA.