The forests between Lake Superior and the Mississippi, where the country is very flat and wet, are composed almost entirely of black cypress; they grow so thick that the tops get intermixed and interlaced, and form almost a matting overhead, through which the sun scarcely ever penetrates. The trees are covered with unwholesome-looking mosses, which exhale a damp earthy smell, like a cellar. The ground is so covered with a rank growth of elder and other shrubs, many of them with thorns an inch long, and with fallen and decayed trunks of trees, that it is impossible to take a step without breaking one's shins. Not a bird or animal of any kind is to be seen, and a deathlike silence reigns through the forest, which is only now and then interrupted by the rattle of the rattlesnake (like a clock going down), and the chirrup of the chitnunck, or squirrel. The sombre colour of the foliage, the absence of all sun even at mid-day, and the vault-like chilliness one feels when entering a cypress swamp, is far from cheering; and I don't know any position so likely to give one the horrors as being lost in one, or where one could so well realise what a desolate loneliness is. The wasps, whose nests like great gourds hang from the trees about the level of one's face; the mosquitoes in millions; the little black flies, and venomous snakes, all add their 'little possible' to render a tramp through a cypress swamp agreeable.—Sullivan's Rambles.

THE BETTER THOUGHT

The Better Thought! how oft in days When youthful passion fired my breast, And drove me into devious ways, Didst thou my wandering steps arrest, And, whispering gently in mine ear Thine angel-message, fraught with love, Check for the time my mad career, And melt the heart naught else could move! Thine was no stern and harsh rebuke; No 'friend's advice,' so true, so cold; No message wise, such as in book, Or by the teacher oft is told, Which, like the pointless arrow, falls, And rings perhaps with hollow sound, But ne'er the wanderer recalls, And ne'er inflicts the healing wound. Thy voice was gentle, winning, mild; Thy words told thou wert from above, Like those with which the wayward child Is wooed by a fond mother's love; Or like a strain of music stealing Across the calm and moonlit seas, Which moves the heart of sternest feeling, And wakes its deeper harmonies. Sweet was thy presence, welcomed guest; And I, responsive to thy call, Arose, and felt within my breast A power that made the fetters fall From off my long enthrallèd soul, And woke, as with a magic spell, Griefs which yet owned the soft control Of hopes that all might still be well. But ah, thou wast an injured guest! How soon departed, soon forgot, Were all the hopes of coming rest That clustered round the Better Thought— The tender griefs, the firm resolves, The yearnings after better days, Like transient sunlight which dissolves, And leaves no traces of its rays! Yet I despair not—through the night That long has reigned with tyrant sway, E'en now I see the opening light, The harbinger of coming day; To Heaven I now direct my prayer— O God of love, forsake me not! Grant that my waywardness may ne'er Quench the returning Better Thought!

Garvald. J. F.

1

Kynge Johan, a Play in Two Parts. By John Bale. Edited for the Camden Society by J. Payne Collier, Esq., F. S. A., from the Manuscript of the Author in the Library of the Duke of Devonshire. 1838.

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