poetry, when the letter is falsehood, the spirit is often profoundest wisdom. And if truth thus dwells in the boldest fictions of the poet, much more may it be expected in his delineations of life; for the present life, which is the first stage of the immortal mind, abounds in the materials of poetry, and it is the high office of the bard to detect this divine element among the grosser labors and pleasures of our earthly being. The present life is not wholly prosaic, precise, tame, and finite. To the gifted eye, it abounds in the poetic. The affections which spread beyond ourselves and stretch far into futurity; the workings of mighty passions, which seem to arm the soul with an almost superhuman energy; the innocent and irrepressible joy of infancy; the bloom, and buoyancy, and dazzling hopes of youth ; the throbbings of the heart, when it first wakes to love, and dreams of a happiness too vast for earth; woman, with her beauty, and grace, and gentleness, and fulness of feeling, and depth of affection, and blushes of purity, and the tones and looks which only a mother's heart can inspire;-these are all poetical. It is not true that the poet paints a life which does not exist. He only extracts and concentrates, as it were, life's etherial essence, arrests and condenses its volatile fragrance, brings together

its scattered beauties, and prolongs its more refined but evanescent joys. And in this he does well; for it is good to feel that life is not wholly usurped by cares for subsistence, and physical gratifications, but admits, in measures which may be indefinitely enlarged, sentiments and delights worthy of a higher being. This power of poetry to refine our views of life and happiness, is more and more needed as society advances. It is needed to withstand the encroachments of heartless and artificial manners, which make civilization so tame and uninteresting. It is needed to counteract the tendency of physical science, which being now sought, not, as formerly, for intellectual gratification, but for multiplying bodily comforts, requires a new development of imagination, taste, and poetry, to preserve men from sinking into an earthly, material, epicurean life.

A FRAGMENT.

BY THE REV. CHARLES T. BROOKS.

"THERE is a rapture on the lonely shore
By the deep sea, and music in its roar :"
Thus sung the Bard; and yet he ne'er had stood
By "Purgatory," where its crystal flood

*Near Newport.

All green and glassy murmurs evermore,——
He ne'er had heard the music of that roar,
Nor had he heard the deep and sullen shock
Of bellowing billows at the "Sounding Rock."
He ne'er had heard the gently rippling wave
Moan o'er the pebbly flood of "Conrad's Cave."
Would he had heard these tones that he might tell
What music lingers in the solemn swell

Of the wild waves along our rock-bound coast;
How like some stern and ever mustering host,
Old ocean's billows roll and murmur here,
And greet with trumpet tones the enchanted ear.
Solemn and stately now the gathering throng
Of waves on waves deep-sounding sweep along
In measured march, far as the eye can reach
Onward they come, still onward to the beach,
Lo! in the van, with manes of flying foam,
Rank upon rank like fierce war-steeds they come,
As up the beach the snow-white lines advance
Their curling manes in the gay sunlight glance.

But ah! these words are feeble-lovely isle!
Whether the summer waves serenely smile,
Or wintry breakers dash with solemn roar
Around thy stern and wild--thy noble shore-
Thou hast a charm no pen or tongue can tell.

267

TRENTON FALLS.

BY THE REV. ABEL STEVENS.

TRENTON FALLS are in the town of Trenton, about fifteen miles in a northern direction from the city of Utica. It may seem an extravagant enthusiasm to undertake a ride of thirty miles, and that a digression from the regular route, for the purpose of seeing a single object; but no one endowed with even an ordinary love of nature will feel unrecompensed by a visit to these beautiful cascades. We started about nine o'clock in the morning on horseback. After passing through the village of Trenton, you immediately ascend a small hill, on the summit of which is a finely situated hotel, where you dismount and prepare to descend to the stream which forms the cascades.

The rivulet is called the West Canada Creek. The falls are about twenty-four miles above its confluence with the Mohawk river; they extend about two miles, and are six in number. A ridge of limestone, reaching from the Mohawk to the St. Lawrence, crosses the bed of the river through an interval of about five miles, and it is by the tortuous channel which it has worn for itself through this ridge, with

the numerous precipices which its waters have been excavating for ages, that an assemblage of natural features has been produced which forms a picture unrivalled for beauty, at least in our own country.

You descend from the hotel, on the summit of the hill, a precipitous declivity, by numerous flights of steps, to the river which lies entirely concealed with overhanging forests, and is not perceptible until you step into the very ravine through which it meanders. On reaching this position, your progress is instantly arrested to gaze with wonder and delight on the scenery, beautiful beyond description, which immediately opens to your view. Above, lofty and almost perpendicular hills lift their summits upward of 100 feet, robed with thick forests until within about twenty feet of their base, where the limestone is exposed in perfect stratification, worn into a thousand varied lines of beauty, by the waters which no doubt, formerly washed them. Below, the strata extend out beneath your feet making a level pathway sufficiently wide, with the exception of occasional places where it is contracted to a few inches, and frequently projecting so far as to form large table rocks. These continued strata break nearly in their centre, affording a channel of varying width for the stream, which whirls along with great