Such wierd-like music thou hast heard
From panther, fox, and owl,
Whilst the young fawn fled, frightened,
From the wild wolf's dreadful howl!

And thou hast stood when round thee flashed The awful lightning's glare,

And the red bolt fell hissing through

The hot sulphureous air:

While, bruised and scarred with tempest-rack,

Thy co-mates from their berths,

With shriek and groan, and root uptorn,
Bowed their high heads to earth!

How often in the autumn-time,

When the brown nuts appear, The Indian held his harvest-feast, The corn-feast of the year:

While through the bland and wholesome air
The wigwam smoke curled blue,

And the warm sun shone smiling down
Thy spreading antlers through.

The scene was changed: the battle-shout
From hill to valley rang,

And thousands of swart warriors
From their dark ambush sprang;
And poisoned dart and tomahawk
With blood were crimsoned o'er,
And the rank earth about thy roots
Smoked hot with human gore!

But o'er the scene where war's fierce tide
Erst rolled ensanguined waves,
Thy shadow in the morning-sun
Falls peaceful on the graves

Of those who fell in angry feud,
Or age's calm decay,

And thou the sole gray witness left
Of those long passed away!

And when the hoary winter's blast
Drove down its frozen rain,

Or, glittering in the moon, the snow
Lay crisp upon the plain,

Thy mossy trunk and iron heart,

Stout limbs- - a giant form!

Braved with a monarch's proud despite

The anger of the storm.

But now no more amidst thy boughs
The blue-bird's song shall gush,

To hail the earliest dawn of light
That makes the Orient blush;

No more, when parting day hath tinged
With purple hues the even,

Shalt hear the robin warble sweet
His vesper-hymn to HEAVEN.

TOWARD the end of the month of December, the porters of the Bidault Express distributed a hundred copies, or thereabout, of an invitation, of which the following is an exact transcript:

'MR.:

'Messrs. RODOLPHE and MARCEL request the honor of your company Saturday evening next, (Christmas eve,) to hear a little laughter.

'P. S.-We have but one life to live.'

And enclosed was the following

PROGRAMME OF THE ENTERTAINMENT:

'Ar seven, doors open. Lively and animated conversation.

'At eight, the talented authors of the Mountain in Labor, a comedy refused at the Odeon, will enter and walk about.

'At eight and a half, Mr. ALEXANDER SCHAUNARD, a distinguished virtuoso, will execute on the piano The Influence of Blue in the Arts: an onomatopoeic symphony.

'At nine, reading of a Report on the Abolition of Capital Punishment by TRAGEDY. 'At nine and a half, Mr. GUSTAVE COLLINE, hyperphysic philosopher, will open a discussion with Mr. SCHAUNARD, on the Comparative Merits of Philosophy and Metapolitics.* To prevent any collision between the disputants, they will be tied together.

'At ten, Mr. TRISTAN, a literary man, will recount the story of his first love, accompanied on the piano by Mr. SCHAUNARD.

'At ten and a half, reading of a Report on the Abolition of Capital Punishment by TRAGEDY, (continued.)

'At eleven, Account of a Cassowary Hunt by an Eastern Prince.t

*IF metaphysics is what comes after physics, according to etymology, (though in practice I have generally found to be what comes after liquor,) this new science must be what comes after politics. What in the name of every thing awful is that? The deluge is to come after some politicians, according to Prince METTERNICH and Lord MAIDSTONE.

+ The structure of this sentence does not make it quite clear whether the Eastern Prince was actually present to relate the Cassowary Hunt, or whether his performance was limited to hunting the animal, and the account of the hunt was to be another person's work. A somewhat similar ambiguity I recollect in a magazine title some years ago: Lines on a Lady Slandered, by Barry Cornwall; which one of our newspapers reprinted so as to cast a grave imputation on the poet, thus: Lines on a Lady, Slandered by Barry Cornwall.

PART II.

'Ar twelve, Mr. MARCEL, historical painter, will suffer his eyes to be bandaged, and extemporize in crayon the meeting of NAPOLEON and VOLTAIRE in the Elysian Fields. Mr. RODOLPHE will simultaneously extemporize a poetic parallel between the author of Zaïre and the author of the Battle of Austerlitz.

'At twelve and a half, Mr. COLLINE, in a modest deshabille, will imitate the athletic sports of the Fourth Olympiad.

At one in the morning, reading of the Report on the Abolition of Capital Punishment by TRAGEDY, (re-continued,) and subscription for the benefit of the tragic authors whose occupation is to be gone.

At two, quadrilles will be organized and continue till morning.

'At six, sunrise and final chorus.

'During the whole continuance of the performance, all the ventilators will be in play. 'N. B. - Any person attempting to read or write verses will be immediately handed over to the police.

'N. B. 2d.

- Gentlemen are requested not to pocket the candle-ends.'

Two days after, copies of this invitation were circulating in the third stories of art and literature, and creating a profound sensation. Nevertheless, there were some of the guests who doubted the splendors announced by our two friends.

'I have grave suspicions,' said one of the skeptical. 'I was. at Rodolphe's Wednesdays sometimes when he lived Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne. You could only sit down metaphorically, and had nothing but water to drink, and not filtered at that.'

Now, a word as to the origin of this party which was causing so much astonishment in the Transpontine world of art. For about a year, Marcel and Rodolphe had been talking of this sumptuous gala, which was always to come off next Saturday, but disagreeable circumstances had forced their promise to run the round of fifty-two weeks; so that they were in the condition of not being able to move without encountering some ironical remark from their acquaintances, some of whom were even rash enough to demand its fulfilment! The thing was beginning to take the character of a standing joke against them; the two friends resolved to put an end to this by liquidating their engagement. Accordingly they sent out the above invitation.

Now,' said Rodolphe, 'there is no retreat. We have burned our ships. Eight days are left us to procure the hundred francs indispensable to doing the thing properly.'

'Since we must have them, we will,' answered Marcel; and with their habitual rash trust in luck, the two friends went to sleep, well convinced that the hundred francs were already on the way-some impossible way toward them.

However, the night before the day indicated for the entertainment, as nothing had yet arrived, Rodolphe thought it would be safer to help his luck a lit.le, if he did not wish to find himself disgraced when the time was come for lighting up. To facilitate this, the two friends progressively modified the splendors of their self-imposed programme. By modification after modification, cutting down very much the article of Cakes, and carefully reviewing and abridging the article of Refreshments, the total expense was reduced to fifteen francs: the question was simplified, but not resolved.

เ

'Come, come,' said Rodolphe, we must put every engine at work. In the first place, we cannot adjourn the performances this time.' 'Impossible!' replied Marcel.

'How long is it since I heard the story of the Battle of Studzianka?' 'Nearly two months.'

'Two months? Good! Quite long enough. My uncle shall not have to complain of me. I will go to-morrow and make him tell me the Battle of Studzianka; that will be five francs, sure.'

'And I,' said Marcel,' will go and sell a deserted manor to old Medicis ; that will be five francs, too. If I have time to put in three turrets and a mill, it may go up to ten francs, and we shall have our budget.

So the two friends fell asleep, dreaming that the Princess Belgiozoso was begging them to change their days of reception, so as not to take from her salons all the literati of Paris.

Marcel awoke early in the morning, took a canvas, and went energetically to work on a deserted manor, an article particularly in demand with a broker of the Place du Carrousel. Rodolphe, on his part, went to visit his uncle Monetti, who excelled in the retreat from Russia, which he had the pleasure of repeating to his nephew five or six times a year, in consideration of some small loans, which the veteran stove-maker did not hesitate about when his narrative had been listened to with sufficient enthusiasm.

About two in the afternoon, Marcel, with downcast look and a portrait under his arm, met, in the Place du Carrousel, Rodolphe, coming from his uncle's with a face that announced bad news.

'Well,' asked Marcel, 'were you successful?'

'No, indeed! my uncle has gone to Versailles—and you?'

"That beast of a Medicis does n't want any more ruined castles. He asked me for a Bombardment of Tangier.

Our reputation is gone if we don't give our party,' said Rodolphe. 'What will my friend the influential critic say, if I make him put on a white cravat and straw-colored gloves for nothing?'

Both returned home a prey to the most lively anxiety just as the clock (not their clock, of course) struck four.

'We have but three hours before us,' said Rodolphe.

'But,' exclaimed Marcel, approaching his friend, are you sure, now, quite sure, that we have no money left here?'

'Neither here nor any where else. How should we?'

'If we look under the furniture-in the chairs? They say that the emigrants used to hide their treasure in Robespierre's time. Perhaps our arm-chair belonged to one; beside, it is so hard that I have often thought there must be metal inside of it. Will you make an autopsy

of it?'

"This is mere farce!' replied Rodolphe, with an air of mingled sternness and pity.

Suddenly Marcel, who had been poking into every corner of the room, uttered a shout of triumph.

'We are saved!' he cried. 'I was sure there was something valuable here. Look!' and he showed Rodolphe a piece of money the size of a crown, half consumed by rust and verdigris. It was a Carlovingian coin, of some value to an antiquary. The inscription was fortunately in such a state of preservation that you could read the date of Charlemagne's reign.

"That! it is worth thirty sous!' said Rodolphe, casting a contemptuous look at his friend's discovery.

Thirty sous well employed will do a good deal,' answered Marcel. 'With twelve hundred men, Bonaparte made ten thousand Austrians surrender. Skill makes up for want of numbers. I shall go and sell this crown of Charlemagne to Father Medicis. Is there nothing else to sell here? Suppose I take that cast of the Russian drum-major's thighbone. That would bring a heap.'

"Take it along-but it's a pity. There will not be a single object of art left.'

While Marcel was gone, Rodolphe, determined to give the party in any case, went to find his friend Colline, the hyperphysic philosopher, who lived two doors off. 'I am come to beg a favor of you,' said he: in my quality of host I must absolutely have a black coat. I haven't one. Lend me yours.'

'But,' replied the other, with some hesitation, 'in my quality of guest I want a black coat too, I do.'

'I will allow you to come in your frock.' 'You know very well I never had one.' 'Well, we can arrange it somehow. If it comes to the worst, you may lend me your coat and not come to the party.'

"That won't do at all; for I am on the programme, and therefore must be there.'

'There are a good many other things on the programme that won't be there,' said Rodolphe. 'Lend me your coat, at any rate. If you want to come, come as you choose-in your shirt-sleeves - you can pass for a faithful domestic.'

'No,' rejoined Colline, blushing, 'I will wear my hazel over-coat- - but it's a great bore, all this.' And as he perceived that Rodolphe had already laid hands on the famous black coat, he called out, Wait a bit; there's something in the pockets.'

Colline's coat deserves particular mention. In the first place, it was of a very positive blue, so that its owner used to say 'my black coat,' merely from a way he had. And as his was the only dress-coat belong ing to the association, his friends had also fallen into the way of saying, when they spoke of the philosopher's official garment, Colline's black coat.' Moreover, this garment had a peculiar cut, the most bizarre possible; its very long skirts, attached to a very short waist, were furnished with two pockets, perfect abysses, in which he used to stow a score of volumes which he always carried about with him; so that his friends said that when the public libraries were closed, the literary public might apply to Colline's skirts, where a library was always open.

That day, for a wonder, the coat contained only a quarto volume of Bayle, a three-volume treatise on the Hyperphysic Faculties, one volume of Condillac, two of Swedenborg, and Pope's Essay on Man. Having emptied his portable library of these, Colline allowed Rodolphe to put it on.

Eh!' said the latter, this left pocket is very heavy still; you have left something in it.'

'True,' said Colline, 'I have forgotten to empty the foreign-languages