THE YOUTH’S CABINET:

 

No more, with loud and merry horn,
At depth of night delight me;
Nor, at the blush of rosy morn,
To drink the dew invite me.

Beneath our cares and sorrows bent,
Too prone to sink to sadness,

The tribes that pipe and sing are sent
To stir us up to gladness.

O! who could deem their glancing wings
A vain fantastic flutter ; ¢

Or hear untouched such guilsleis things
A cry of anguish utter ?

O! did our kinder natures move
To all the creatures round us,

The earth a sweeter scene would prove,
While more to heaven it bound us.

Name not the feeling weak and vain,
That would a bird have cherished ;

His useful memories still remain,
Though fool-like he has perished.

’T would be indeed a base extreme,
For those few sins that tripped him,
To bar him out from all esteem,
As if of worth they stripped him.

I would his vulgar passions fly,
Lest his dread doom befall me ;

I would his noble virtues eye,
And feel their power enthrall me.

O, could I with a breast as gay,
With full contentment beating,

Around this fair creation stray,
With smiles my fellows greeting!

re

The Geyser Springs.

HE valley of the Geyser, in Iceland,
is mostly filled with a new allu-
vium, which has here and there
undergone a subsequent elevation,

extending northward from the spring, in
a broad ridge. Through this soil there
was formed, in various proportions, round
the Coe and the smaller fountains, a

flattened cone, in the midst of which is a
perpendicular cylindrical funnel, of larger
or smaller diameter In ordinary circum-
stances, the basin of the Geyser is filled
with crystal, clear, sea-green water, of the
temperature of eighty-two degrees, and it
flows in three small channels over the
eastern slope of the cone. After some
time, a sound as of subterranean thunder
can be distinguished, resembling that
made by a volcano during an eruption,
and then a tremulous motion may be
perceived in the rim of the fountain.
When this has lasted for some seconds,
then ceased, perhaps, for a time, and then
begun again with increased force, the
water in the basin begins to swell, the
surface becomes convex, and, at the same
time, great bubbles of steam rise to the
surface and burst, throwing up the boiling
water some metres high. Then it is again
still, and the whole fountain is developed
in clouds of steam. This phenomenon is
repeated at regularly-recurring intervals
of an hour and a half, perhaps for a day,
until it suddenly assumes a different
character. A heavier thunder is heard
below; the water swells violently, and
begins to heave and dash in the strongest
agitation; and, after a few minutes, there
shoots up a column of water, dispersing
at the summit into dazzling white dust.
This has. scarcely reached. a height. of
from eighty to a hundred feet, when,
before its drops have had time to fall to
the ground, a second and a third follow,
and rise still higher. Larger and smaller
jets now shoot forth in all directions, some
side-ways, in arches, others perpendicularly
upward, with a loud hiss, like that of a
rocket; enormous clouds of steam rise.
upward, followed by a loud detonation
from below.—Selected. *