Our mules with cautious feet the sharp ascent Accomplish; and, the steep o'ertopped, all spent Our strength, we look wild nature in the face, Some features of the human soul to trace. A phantom drap'ry betwixt sky and earth, Of blending tints, spans in impulsive birth Th' entranced view! A heav'nly arch it forms-- It seems suspended by some seraph's arms! Ethereal Rainbow! Daughter of the Shower! Thy beauty lends enchantment to the hour. The seraph arm grows weary--now is furled The gleam in dreamy vapor from the world! And now in purple shadows stand the hills: The night winds beat their stony sides, and trills From hidden rivulets, and stealthy creep Of some lone reptile down the grooved steep, Divert the eye and ear--th' restricted breath Of each rapt soul is heard--and still as death Stand the dumb mules. Homeward we turn our eyes, And leave the region of the naked skies. INDEPENDENCE. [1776.] Freeman! if you pant for glory, If you sigh to live in story, If you burn with patriot zeal; Seize this bright, auspicious hour, Chase those venal tools of power, Who subvert the public weal. THE HOMESTEAD BILL. After a severe struggle of more than a quarter of a century, from March, 1836, to May, 1862, the Homestead bill has become a law. We quote its main provisions, as follows: 'That any person who is the head of a family or arrived at the age of twenty-one years, and is a citizen of the United States, or shall have filed his declaration of intention to become such, as required by the naturalization laws of the United States, and has never borne arms against the United States government, or given aid and comfort to its enemies, from and after the 1st January, 1863, shall be entitled to enter one quarter section or a less quantity of unappropriated public land, upon which said person may have filed a preemption claim, or which may at the time the application is made be subject to preemption at $1.25 or less per acre, or eighty acres or less of such unappropriated land at $2.50 per acre, to be located in a body in conformity to the legal subdivisions of the public lands, and after the same shall have been surveyed, &c.