THEY were right,

those old German Minnesingers, to sing the pleasant summer-time! What a time it is! How June stands illuminated in the calendar! The windows are all wide open; only the Venetian blinds closed. Here and there a long streak of sunshine streams in through a crevice. We hear the low sound of the wind among the trees; and, as it swells and freshens, the distant doors clap to, with a sudden sound. The trees are heavy with leaves; and the gardens full of blossoms, red and white. The whole atmosphere is laden with perfume and sunshine. The birds sing. The cock struts about, and crows loftily. Insects chirp in the grass. Yellow buttercups stud the green carpet like golden buttons, and the red blossoms of the clover like rubies. The elm-trees reach their long, pendulous branches almost to the ground. White clouds sail aloft; and vapors fret the blue sky with silver threads. The white village gleams afar against the dark hills. Through the meadow winds the river, careless, indolent. It seems to love the country, and is in no haste to reach the sea. The bee only is at work, the hot and angry bee. All things else are at play; he never plays, and is vexed that any one should.

People drive out from town to breathe, and to be happy. Most of them have flowers in their hands; bunches of apple-blossoms, and still oftener lilacs. Ye denizens of the crowded city, how pleasant to you is the change from the sultry streets to the open field, fragrant with clover-blossoms! how pleasant the fresh,

It is no longer day. Through the trees rises the red moon, and the stars are scarcely seen. In the vast shadow of night, the coolness and the dews descend. I sit at the open window to enjoy them; and hear only the voice of the summer wind. Like black hulks, the shadows of the great trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of grass. I cannot see the red and blue flowers, but I know that they are there. Far away in the meadow gleams the silver Charles. The tramp of horses' hoofs sounds from the wooden bridge. Then all is still, save the continuous wind of the summer night. Sometimes I know not if it be the wind, or the sound of the neighboring sea. The village clock strikes; and I feel that I am not alone.

How different is it in the city! It is late, and the crowd is gone. You step out upon the balcony, and lie in the very bosom of the cool, dewy Night, as if you folded her garments about you. Beneath lies the public walk with trees, like a fathomless, black gulf, into whose silent darkness the spirit plunges and floats away, with some beloved spirit clasped in its embrace. The lamps are still burning up and down the long street. People go by, with grotesque shadows, now foreshortened, and now lengthening away into the darkness and vanishing, while a new one springs up behind the walker, and seems to pass him, revolving like the sail of a windmill. The iron gates of the

Under such a green, triumphal arch, O Reader, with the odor of flowers about thee, and the songs of birds, shalt thou pass onward into the enchanted land, as through the Ivory Gate of dreams! And as a prelude and majestic march, one sweet human voice, coming from the bosom of the Alps, sings this sublime ode, which the Alpine echoes repeat afar.

"Come, golden Evening! in the west

Enthrone the storm-dispelling sun,
And let the triple rainbow rest

O'er all the mountain-tops. "T is done;-
The tempest ceases; bold and bright,
The rainbow shoots from hill to hill;
Down sinks the sun; on presses night; -
Mont Blanc is lovely still!

There take thy stand, my spirit; - spread The world of shadows at thy feet;

And mark how calmly, overhead,

The stars, like saints in glory, meet. While hid in solitude sublime,

Methinks I muse on Nature's tomb, And hear the passing foot of Time Step through the silent gloom.

All in a moment, crash on crash, From precipice to precipice,

An avalanche's ruins dash
Down to the nethermost abyss,
Invisible; the ear alone

Pursues the uproar till it dies; Echo to echo, groan for groan,

From deep to deep, replies.

Silence again the darkness seals,

Darkness that may be felt; - but soon The silver-clouded east reveals The midnight spectre of the moon; In half-eclipse she lifts her horn, Yet o'er the host of heaven supreme Brings the faint semblance of a morn, With her awakening beam.

Ah! at her touch, these Alpine heights
Unreal mockeries appear;
With blacker shadows, ghastlier lights,
Emerging as she climbs the sphere;
A crowd of apparitions pale!

I hold my breath in chill suspense,
They seem so exquisitely frail,
Lest they should vanish hence.

I breathe again, I freely breathe;

Thee, Leman's Lake, once more I trace, Like Dian's crescent far beneath, As beautiful as Dian's face: Pride of the land that gave me birth! All that thy waves reflect I love, Where heaven itself, brought down to earth, Looks fairer than above.

Safe on thy banks again I stray;
The trance of poesy is o'er,

And I am here at dawn of day,

Gazing on mountains as before,

Where all the strange mutations wrought

Were magic feats of my own mind; For, in that fairy land of thought, Whate'er I seek, I find." 1

1 James Montgomery.

days, at most, will bring thee! to the meeting of the dead, as to the meeting of the absent! Thou glorious spirit-land! Oh that I could behold thee as thou art, the region of life and light and love, and the dwelling-place of those beloved ones whose being has flowed onward, like a silver-clear stream into the solemnsounding main, into the ocean of Eternity!

Such were the thoughts that passed through the soul of Flemming, as he lay in utter solitude and silence on the rounded summit of one of the mountains of the Furca Pass, and gazed, with tears in his eyes, and ardent longing in his heart, into the blue, swimming heaven overhead, and at the glaciers and snowy mountain-peaks around him. Highest and whitest of all stood the peak of the Jungfrau, which seemed near him, though it rose afar off from the bosom of the Lauterbrunner Thal. There it stood, holy and high and pure, the bride of heaven, veiled and clothed in white, and lifting the thoughts of the beholder heavenward. Oh, he little thought then, as he gazed at it with longing and delight, how soon a form was to arise in his own soul, as holy and high and pure as this, and like this point heavenward!

Thus lay the traveller on the mountain summit, reposing his weary limbs on the short, brown grass, which more resembled moss than grass. He had sent his guide forward, that he might be alone. His soul within him was wild with a fierce and painful delight. The mountain air excited him; the mountain solitudes enticed, yet maddened him. Every peak, every sharp, jagged iceberg, seemed to pierce him. The silence was awful and sublime.

It was

like that in the soul of a dying man, when he hears no more the sounds of earth. He seemed to be laying aside his earthly garments. The heavens were near unto him; but between him and heaven every evil deed he had done arose gigantic, like those mountain-peaks, and breathed an icy breath upon him. Oh, let not the soul that suffers dare to look Nature in the face, where she sits majestically aloft in the solitude of the mountains! for her face is hard and stern, and turns not in compassion upon her weak and erring child. It is the countenance of an accusing archangel, who summons us to judgment. In the valley she wears the countenance of a Virgin Mother, looking at us with tearful eyes, and a face of pity and love!

But yesterday Flemming had come up the valley of the Saint Gothard Pass, through Amsteg, where the Kerstelenbach comes dashing down the Maderaner Thal, from its snowy cradle overhead. The road is steep, and runs on zigzag terraces. The sides of the mountains are barren cliffs; and from their cloudcapt summits, unheard amid the roar of the great torrent below, come streams of snowwhite foam, leaping from rock to rock, like the mountain chamois. As you advance, the scene grows wilder and more desolate. There is not a tree in sight, not a human habitation. Clouds, black as midnight, lower upon you from the ravines above; and the mountain torrent beneath is but a sheet of foam, and sends up an incessant roar. A sudden turn in the road brings you in sight of a lofty bridge, stepping from cliff to cliff with a single stride. A mighty cataract howls beneath it, like an evil spirit, and fills the air with mist; and the mountain wind claps its hands and shrieks through the narrow pass, Ha! ha! This is the Devil's Bridge. It leads the traveller across the fearful chasm, and through a mountain gallery into the broad, green, silent meadow of Andermath.