“My child, my child! when I shall reach my door, If heavy looks should tell me thou art dead, It seems as I should struggle to believe Thou wert a spirit, to this nether sphere Sentenced for some more venial crime to grieve; Didst sigh, then spring to meet Heaven’s quick reprieve, While we wept idly o’er thy little bier!” COLERIDGE. THURSDAY, DEC. 31. Com. Stockton is still encamped near San Diego, expecting to march in a few days for the town of the Angels. He has under his command detachments from the crews of the Congress, Cyane, and Portsmouth, with some thirty volunteers, and has with him several pieces of artillery. His plan evidently is, to attack the position of the Californians from the south at the same time that Col. Fremont comes down upon them from the north. Hemmed in by these encountering forces, they will be obliged to surrender, or attempt a disastrous flight. Public expectation is on the tip-toe to learn the result; but several days must elapse before it can be known here. FRIDAY, JAN. 1. Last night, while the sentinel stars were on their mid-watch, the old year resigned its sceptre, and departed amid the wailing hours to join the pale shadows of the mighty past. The strong winds, awaking in grief, shook the forest leaves from their slumbers, and poured from cloud and cliff their stormy dirge. “As an earthquake rocks a corse In its coffin in the clay, So white Winter, that rough nurse, Rocks the death-cold year to-day: Solemn hours! wail aloud, For your mother in her shroud.” SHELLEY. But nature never leaves the throne of time vacant. An heir to her wide domain was invested at once with the imperial purple, while woods and water-falls, the organ cloud and the sounding sea, sung his coronation hymn. The great tide of time moved on as before, rolling in events pregnant with the fate of nations. But men, blind to these momentous issues, hail the eventful year—in which perhaps their own coffins swing—with egg-nog! Out on their frivolity! Their mirth is the bubble that paints the rainbow on Niagara’s thundering verge.