Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1865-12-05

Beautiful Extracts.

MUsIc.-There is strange unaceountable and
dream like beauty in music, which can subdue the
proudest spirit, and, gliding into the hush Of the
heart, will nestle there stiling its most tumutous
throbbings, and filling it with calm, peaceful
memories of the fair long-ago music. Oh music
echo of dis ant world of harmony! sigh of the
angel within u.s. When the voice, and the eye, and
the embrace, and the tear are mute, and when
our hearts silent within the prison of the
breast through thee alone do they speak to an
other in their captivity-and unite their distant
sighs.
P5ETRY.-What is poetry A smile, tear, a
glory, longing after the things of Eternity. 1t
lives in all created existence-in man and every
object that surrounds him. There is poetry in the
gentle influences of love and affection, in the qui
ct broodings Of the soul over the memories of
early years, and in the thoughts of glory that
| chain our spirits to the gates of Paradise. There
is poetry in the harmones of nature. 1t gitters
in the wave, the rainbow, the lightning, and the
star-its cadence is heard in the thunder and in
the cataract-its softer tones gurge sxeety from
the thousand eharps of wind, and rivulet, and
! for@st-the cloud and sky go floating over us to
the music of its melodies-and it ministers to
Heaven from the mountains Of the earth, the un--
trodden shrines of the ocean.
There is not a moonlight ray that comes down
upon stream or hill, not breeze calling from its
blue airthrone to the birds of the summer valleys,
or sounding through midnight rains its low and
mournful dirge the perishing flowers of
Spring not cloud bathing itself like Angel
vision in the rosy gushes of Autumn twilight, nor
a rock glowing in the yellow starlight if dream
ing of the Eden land, but is full of the beautiful
influence of Poetry. Earth and heaven quick
ened by its spirit and the heavings Of the great
deep in tempest and in calm bur its secret and
mysterious breathings.
BEAUTIFUL ExTRACT.-The velvet moss grows
| on sterile rocks-the mistleoe fourishes on the
naked branches-the ivy clings to the moldering
| ruins--the pine and cedar remain fresh and fade
less amid the mutations of the passing year, and
Heaven be praised, something green, something
beautiful to see and grateful to the soil, will, in
the darkest hour of fate, still twine its tendrls
around the crumbling affairs and broken arches
of the desolate temples Of the human heart
TwILIGHT.-Oh, how love twilight hours -
When the last rays of the setting sun have disap-
peared behind the far-off western hills, and all
ture is hushed to rest, then will our minds wander
back to our happy childhood, when our hearts
were as the evening dews whom we knew
row, and all was JOY, with no thought for the fu-
ture. Again, in fancy, tread the well-known
paths of our youthful homes; it's old halls ring
again with childish mirth, and we ask where
are the fond friends of our youth The answer is
borne upon the passing breeze 'Scau cred !'-
Beloved parents, brothers, sisters-all the golden
chain that bound The family circle is broken
Death has entered and claimed for its owp while
others dwell in strange land and thus it is
youth to the twilight of old age Waverley Naga-
oine