Loungers and gay walkers keep off from the cold and damp sidewalks, and look listlessly out of the windows into the gray haze; men emerge a few yards off as from a sea, and, at a few paces more, sink away again into the mist. You hear footsteps, across the way, of invisible walkers. Here goes one with a decisive plat, plat, plat, plat, but not the shadowy film of a man can you see. A heavy and muffled footfall comes next, a fat woman in India-rubber undoubtedly. That's a little child coming now; pit, pat, pit, pat; it stops, perhaps to change the basket to the other arm; away go the sightless feet again, pit, pat, quickening every step, and now running, clat, clat, clat, clat, till they are brought up with a smothered bunt and scuffle, telling you that somebody had been run into. There will be a dolorous story when somebody gets home, without doubt. Now and then the mist holds up its skirts, and the street in a minute is cleared; but soon the robe drops again, and the cloud trails its fleece along the very ground. People come in with hat and coat seeded all over with minute dewdrops. Everybody feels moist and clammy. The horses that go past in the middle of the streets are spectral, like outline pencil-drawings, not yet filled up and shaded. But there are grander things than these; for, as everything else, mist becomes insignificant and mean in the defiles. of city streets. It embosoms the whole great city yonder, which grinds and roars from out of it like a huge factory concealed by its own smoke. Upon the bay it lays an embargo. Lighters and row-boats creep timidly along the waves.-Ships, ready for sea, lie still. Crafts, great and small, hug the water in silence, and dare not stir. Ships and steamers come up from the ocean to the mouth of the harbor, and dare not enter. Sea-sick and home-sick passengers sigh for cleansing winds. Pilots are as blind as other men. There are no stars, no sun, no headlands, no buoys. Tow-boats, having given the outwardbound ships a wide berth, are returning from their ponderous tasks, and timidly creeping homeward with slow wheels, revolving at half-strokes, probing the channel with sounding lead, and often bewildered in their way. It is the day for the Liverpool steamers. But they do not leave their pier. No storm could stay them, no violence of wind or force of wave. But this silent, formless, motionless mist, without weight, without power, lays its hands upon them, and they are still. There is rest upon all the bay. Ships that should be on their way toward India, or the Horn, are splitting the tides on their bows, and listening to its gurgling rush along their sides. Labor slacks along the wharves. Idle gangs of men may be heard in the distance, as if their laugh were just under your window. Noises are not swallowed up in the general clangor, but have individuality. A plank falls, and resounds like the explosion of a cannon. A shout rings through the air like a weird and ghostly thing. Only the ferry-boats still ply their wonted tasks. These are built to run in fogs as much as at other times. It is not among the least of New York sights to take a fog-trip upon a ferry-boat. Her trips are so slow, and comparatively infrequent, that the boats are loaded down with passengers, who huddle together like sheep in a cold rain. The boat pushes boldly out, but is lost before a length from the slip. The pilot knows the tide; he knows what craft are anchored in the stream; but he does not know how the tide is placing him in reference to them. The hands are all on the alert. pilots and extra officers are on the tap, peering and watching, and seeking, like metaphysicians, to penetrate the misty obscure. "There she is," suddenly cries one. "Stop her, back -There is a rumbling down below, as the engineer stops and reverses the engine. The white foam begins to sweep past the bow, showing that the wheels are revolving in an opposite direction. By this time, common eyes can see a her " The spectral ship, with filmy masts, looming up right in the track of the boat. We are close upon her before the headway is checked, and we begin to draw off. Taking a new start, the boat aims with her ears for the slip, and soon the gray mists begin to line the white mist-bank. Again the engine stops. We creep up cautiously. We can hear voices, but see no forms. We run two piers too far up-- back out; then run as far below; back again, creep stealthily along, and finally hit the mark. In the night, when dense fogs prevail, the whole night long you hear the signal-bells tolling, and the steam-whistles of the boats calling to each other shrilly, like whistling quails in a forest. Now and then a single stroke upon a large triangle used upon the boats tells you that they are signaling each other. But one cannot be familiar with such scenes without many suggestions of moral analogy. How many men of great strength and power are made helpless by ignorance, and spend their time in running in toward, and backing out from, their aims! How many men reason upon great questions of the Past and of the Future in a mist as profound as that which bewilders these pilots, and find themselves running due south when they thought they were going north! How nearly do all of us, in some respects, resemble these befogged coursers! The stream of life hides its further bank. We steer across it, scarcely knowing where we go. If the vapor lifts occasionally, to give an assurance to our faith, it soon lets down its robe again, and we run drowsily and unseeing upon the shores. LESSON XCVII. Apostrophe to the Sun. J. G. PERCIVAL. CENTRE of light and energy! thy way Is through the unknown void; thou hast thy throne Morning, and evening, and at noon of day, Far in the blue, untended and alone: Ere the first-wakened airs of earth had blown, On didst thou march, triumphant in thy light; Then didst thou send thy glance, which still hath flown Wide through the never-ending worlds of night, And yet thy full orb burns with flash unquenched and bright. On the intense of light that girds thy car; There is a crown of glory in thy rays, Which bears thy pure divinity afar, To mingle with the equal light of star; For thou, so vast to us, art, in the whole, One of the sparks of night, that fire the air; And, as around thy centre planets roll, So thou, too, hast thy path around the Central Soul. Thou lookest on the earth, and then it smiles; Thy light is hid, and all things droop and mourn; When through their heaven thy changing car is borne ; Of all their waving locks, and storms awake; All, that was once so beautiful, is torn By the wild winds, which plough the lonely lake, The earth lies buried in a shroud of snow; Of their chilled frames, and then they proudly spurn All bands that would confine, and give to air Hues, fragrance, shapes of beauty, till they burn, When on a dewy morn thou dartest there Rich waves of gold, to wreathe with fairer light the fair. The vales are thine: and when the touch of Spring Thrills them, and gives them gladness, in thy light They glitter, as the glancing swallow's wing Dashes the water in his winding flight, And leaves behind a wave, that crinkles bright, And widens outward to the pebbled shore; The vales are thine; and when they wake from night, The dews that bend the grass-tips, twinkling o'er Their soft and oozy beds, look upward and adore. The hills are thine:- they catch thy newest beam, Flow and give brighter tints, than ever bud, Of many twinkling gems, as every glossed bough plays. - Thine are the mountains, where they purely lift Aloft in thy eternal smile they lie, Dazzling but cold; thy farewell glance looks there, And when, below, thy hues of beauty die, Girt round them, as a rosy belt, they bear Into the high dark vault, a brow that still is fair. The clouds are thine; and all their magic hues |