Downward, downward! A thrill of horror shot through my veins, as I felt that the rough ocean breeze had shivered my silken vessel to shreds and tatters, and that I was falling with the speed of lightning, through the hollow abyss of the air, into the sea. The jaws of the fretting ocean, gnashing their white teeth in anger, seemed to gape open to devour me, and the black rocks uplifted their jagged spears, to impale my devoted body! But my time had not yet come. A gentle tap on the shoulder aroused me from the profound reverie in which I had been plunged, and I was very glad to recognize, in the visitor who had broken the spell, my good friend Durant, who called to invite me to attend his grand ascension, the following day.
ODE,
ON OCCASION OF JUDGE STORY'S EULOGY ON CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL AT THE ODEON.
By Grenville Mellen.
Again—the voice of God!
How breaks it round!
O'er consecrated sod,
With locks unbound,
Grief in her marble brow appears
And bows amid her veil—in tears!
That mandate from on high—
The clarion call,
That rung through earth and sky
His rayless fall,
In accents, "thou shalt die," again
Proclaims man's dream of years—how vain!
We veil not in its grave
Ambition's brow—
It is not o'er the brave
We gather now!
But one who reach'd man's loftier fate.
Good without fault—and nobly great.
A sceptre was his own,
Drawn from the sky—
He fill'd a holier throne
Than royalty:
He sat with deathless Justice crown'd,
While Truth, like sunlight, flash'd around!