Along the blue and bending sky, Like joyous living things, And rainbow-tinted birds flit by With swiftly glancing wings: O summer, summer! joyful time! Singing a gentle strain, Thou comest from a warmer clime To visit us again! DESCRIPTION OF A VISIT TO NIAGARA. BY PROFESSOR JAMES MOFFAT. Through the dark night urging our rapid way We listen to a low, continued sound, As of a distant drum calling to arms. It grows with our approach; lulls with the breeze, And swells again into a bolder note, Like an AEolian harp of giant string. Again, the tone is changed, and a fierce roar Of tumult rises from the trembling earth, As if the imprisoned spirits of the deep Had found a vent for that rebellious shout, Which from ten thousand lips ascends to Heaven. Voice not to be mistaken--even he Upon whose ear it comes for the first time Claims it as known, and bringing to his heart The boldest fancies of his early days-- Thy thunders, dread Niagara, day and night, Which vary not their ever-during peal. Burning impatience, not to be controlled, Has hurried on my steps until I stand Within the breath of thy descending wave. The night conceals thy wonders, but enrobes Thee with a grandeur, wild, mysterious, As with thy spray around me, and the wind Which rushes upward from thy dark abyss, And thy deep organ pealing in my ear, Thy mass is all unseen, and I behold Only the ghost-like whiteness of thy foam. The morning comes. The clouds have disappeared, And the clear silver of the eastern sky Gives promise of a glowing summer sun. In the fresh dawn, I hasten to the rock Which overhangs the ever-boiling deep, And all the wonders of Niagara Are spread before me--not the simple dash Of falling waters, which the fancy drew, But myriad forms of beautiful and grand Press on the senses and o'erwhelm the mind. Yon bright, broad waters on their channel sleep As if they dreamed of the most peaceful flow To the far-distant sea. But now their course Accelerates on their inclining path, Though still 'tis with the appearance of a calm And dignified reluctance, and the wave Remains unbroken, till the inward force Increasingly silently, like that which breaks The short laborious quiet of the insane, Bursts all restraint, and the wild waters, tossed In fiercest tumult, uncontrollable, Menace all life within their giant grasp; Leaping and raging in their frantic glee, Dashing their spray aloft, as on they rush In wild confusion to the dreadful steep. An instant on the verge they seem to pause, As if, even in their frenzy, such a gulf Were horrible, then slowly bending down, Plunge headlong where the never-ceasing roar Ascends, and the revolving clouds of spray, Forever during yet forever new.