On far Newfoundland’s misty bank, Hadst thou a nest, and nurslings fair? Or ’mid New England’s forests hoar? Speak! speak! what tidings dost thou bear? What news from native shore and home, Swift courier o’er the threatening tide?— Hast thou no folded scroll of love Prest closely to thy panting side? A bird of genius art thou? say! With impulse high thy spirit stirred— Some region unexplored to gain, And soar above the common herd? Burns in thy breast some kindling spark Like that which fired the glowing mind Of the adventurous Genoese, An undiscovered world to find? Whate’er thou wert, how sad thy fate With wasted strength the goal to spy, Cling feebly to the flapping sail, And at a stranger’s feet to die. Yet, from thy thin and bloodless beak, Methinks a warning sigh doth creep— To those who leave their sheltering home, And lightly dare the dangerous deep. * * * * * THE SNOW-STORM. A MONOLOGUE BY JEREMY SHORT, ESQ. It is almost twilight. How swiftly have the moments glided by since we sat ourselves by this window—let us see—some two hours since, and during all that time not a word have we spoken, although our soul has been gushing over with its exceeding fulness. It is snowing. Look out and you will see the downy flakes—there, there, and there—one chasing another, millions on millions falling without intermission, coming down noiselessly and mysteriously, as a dream of childhood, on the earth, and covering field, and forest, and house-top, hill and vale, river, glade, and meadow, with a robe that is whiter than an angel’s mantle. How ceaseless the descent! What countless myriads—more countless than even the stars of heaven—have fallen since we have been watching here! God only could have ordered the falling of that flake which has just now sunk to the earth like an infant on its young mother’s milk-white bosom. Did you not see it? There—follow this one which has just emerged from the skies—but at what spot even we cannot detect—see its slow, easy, tremulous motion as it floats downwards; now how rapidly it intermingles with the others, so that you can scarcely keep it in your eye; and there! there! it shoots to the ground with a joyous leap—and, even as we speak, another and another, aye! ten thousand thousand of them have flitted past, like the gleaming of cherubic wings, such as we used to see in our childhood’s dreams, glancing to and fro before a throne of surpassing glory, far, far away, high up in the skies.