A breath through heaven goes: Leaves of the pale sweet rose Are strewn along the clouds of upper air. Healer of ancient woes, The palm of dawn bestows On feverish temples peace, comfort on grim despair. Now the celestial fire Fingers the sunken spire; Crocket by crocket slowly creepeth down; Brushes the maze of wire, Dewy, electric lyre, And with a silent hymn one moment fills the town. Over emergent roofs A sound of pattering hoofs And anxious bleatings tells the passing herd: Scared by the piteous droves, A shoal of skurrying doves, Veering, around the island of the church has whirred. Soon through the smoky haze, The park begins to raise Its outlines clearer into daylit prose: Ever with fresh amaze The sleepless fountains praise Morn, that has gilt the city as it gilds the rose. High in the clearer air The smoke now builds a stair Leading to realms no wing of bird has found: Things are more foul, more fair; A distant clock, somewhere, Strikes, and the dreamer starts at clear reverberant sound. Farther the tide of dark Drains from each square and park: Here is a city fresh and new create, Wondrous as though the ark Should once again disbark On a remoulded world its safe and joyous freight. Ebbs all the dark, and now Life eddies to and fro By pier and alley, street and avenue: The myriads stir below, As hives of coral grow-- Vaulted above, like them, with a fresh sea of blue. CHARLES DE KAY. THE PARIS EXPOSITION OF 1878. IV.--MACHINERY. [Illustration: APPLEBY'S STEAM-CRANE, WITH FIXED JIB FOR USE ON TEMPORARY OR PERMANENT TRACK.] The machinery in the Paris Exposition covers a larger space than any other of the eight departments of material, machinery and products which occupy the buildings and annexes. The ninth department, Horticulture, is outdoors on the grounds or in greenhouses. Foreign machinery has about half the space, and French machinery the remainder. Few countries are without annexes, the space allotted to each, though supposed to be ample, being utterly insufficient to hold the multitude of objects presented. In preference to taking the classes of machinery in turn, and visiting the various nations in search of exemplars of the classes in rotation, it will be more interesting to take the nations in order and arrive at an idea of the rate and direction of their relative progress, modified so largely by the respective natural productions of the countries and by the habits and degrees of civilization of their inhabitants. When put to a trial of its strength, each nation naturally brings forward the matters in which it particularly excels.