In time-long solitudes, Where dark, old mountains pierced the silent air, Bright rivers roamed, and stretched untraversed woods, Thou joy’dst to hope that these were changeless there. Lo! as the ages passed, Thou found’st them struck with alteration dire, The streams new-channeled, forests earthward cast, The crumbling mountains scathed with storm and fire. Gone but a few short hours, Beauty and bloom beguiled thy wanderings, And thou mad’st love unto the virgin flowers, Sighing through green trees and by mossy springs. Now on the earth’s cold bed, Fallen and faded, waste their forms away, And all around the withered leaves are shed, Mementos mute of Nature’s wide decay. Vain is the breath of morn; Vainly the night-dews on their couches weep; In vain thou call’st them at thy soft return, No more awaking from their gloomy sleep. . . . . . . . . Oh hush! Oh hush! sweet wind! Thou melancholy soul! be still, I pray, Nor pierce this heart so long in grief resigned, With ’plainings for the loved but lifeless clay. Ah! now by thee I hear The earnest, gentle voices, as of old: They speak—in accents tremulously clear— The young, the beautiful, the noble-souled. The beautiful, the young, The form of light, the wise and honored head— Thou bring’st the music of a lyre unstrung!— Oh cease!—with tears I ask it—they are _dead_! . . . . . . . . While mortal joys depart, While loved ones lie beneath the grave’s green sod, May we not fail to hear, with trembling heart, In thy low tone the “still small voice of God.” * * * * * REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS. _Natural History of New York: By Authority. Albany, Thurlow Weed, Printer to the State. New York, Wiley & Putnam, and D. Appleton & Co._