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'The Caliph was much astonished, and asked her in what way she meant.

The magician who has made us both miserable,' said she, 'comes once in every month to these ruins. Not far from this chamber, is a hall. There he is accustomed to feast with many of his companions. I have often listened there already. They relate then to one another their shameful deeds; perchance they may pronounce the magic word which you have forgotten.'

'Oh, dearest princess!' exclaimed the Caliph; tell me, when comes he? where is the hall?'

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The Owl was silent for a moment, and then spake: Take it not ungraciously, but only upon one condition can your wish be gratified.' Speak out! speak out!' cried the Caliph; command! I will obey in any thing?

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It is this; I also would gladly be free, and this can only happen, if one of you offer me his hand.'

The storks seemed somewhat confused at this proposition, and the Caliph made a sign to his follower to withdraw for a moment with him.

'Grand Vizier!' said the Caliph, as they closed the door behind them, 'this is a stupid business but could take her.' you

'So that my wife should tear out my eyes, when I return home!' said the other. Beside, I am an old man, while you are young and unmarried, and ought willingly to give your hand to a young and beautiful princess.'

That is just the thing,' sighed the Caliph, while he sadly drooped his wings; who tells you that she is young and beautiful? It is buying a cat in a bag.'

They talked for a long time together, but at last, when the Caliph saw that his Vizier would rather remain a stork, than marry the Owl, he resolved to fulfil the condition himself. The Owl was overjoyed. She told them that they could not have come at a better time, for probably the magicians would assemble that very night.

She left the chamber, accompanied by the storks, in order to lead them to the hall. They walked for a long time through a dark passageway, when at last a bright light beamed upon them from an opening in a half-ruined wall. When they had arrived thither, the Owl advised them to keep themselves perfectly quiet. From the fissure near which they stood, they had a good view of the large hall. It was adorned round about with pillars, and splendidly decorated. In the middle of the hall stood a circular table, covered with various rare viands; around the table was placed a sofa, upon which sat eight men. In one of these men, the storks recognised the merchant who had sold them the magic powder. The one who sat next him, desired him to recount his latest exploits. He related, among other things, the history of the Caliph and his Vizier.

'What sort of a word hast thou given them?' inquired the other magician.

'A very hard Latin one; it is 'Mutabor.'

As the storks heard this, from their place of concealment, they became almost beside themselves for joy. They ran so quickly, with their long legs, to the door of the ruin, that the owl could scarcely follow them. There the Caliph addressed the owl with much emo

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tion. 'Saviour of my life, and of the life of my friend! eternal thanks for what thou hast done for us, receive me for thy husband!' Then he turned himself toward the east. Three times the storks bent their long necks towards the sun, which at this moment ascended from behind the hills; 'Mutabor!' they exclaimed; in a twinkling they were transformed, and in the delight of newly restored life, lay master and servant, laughing and weeping in each other's arms. But who can describe their astonishment, as they looked about them! A beautiful woman, magnificently arrayed, stood before them. She gave her hand smiling to the Caliph. Do you no longer recognise your Night Owl?' said she.

It was that veritable bird! The Caliph was so enraptured with her beauty and grace, that he exclaimed, 'It is my greatest happiness that I have been a stork!'

The three travelled now toward Bagdad together. The Caliph found in his clothes, not only the box with the magic powder, but also his purse of gold. By this means he purchased at the nearest village whatever was necessary for their journey, and thus they arrived soon at the gates of Bagdad. The arrival of the Caliph excited the greatest wonder. They had supposed him dead, and the people were overjoyed to have their beloved lord again.

Their hate burned so much the more against the deceiver, Mirza. They entered the palace, and took the old magician and his son prisoner. The Caliph sent the old man to that same chamber which the princess had inhabited as an owl, and ordered him to be there hung up. But to the son, who understood none of the arts of the father, he offered the choice either to die, or snuff. He was up to snuff,' and chose the latter, when the Grand Vizier offered him the box. A good pinch, and the magic word of the Caliph, changed him into a stork. The Caliph ordered him to be shut up in an iron cage, and placed in his garden.

Long and happily lived the Caliph Chasid with his wife the princess. His happiest hours were when the Grand Vizier visited him in the afternoon. Then they spake of their stork's adventure, and when the Caliph was more than commonly merry, he would so far descend as to imitate the Grand Vizier, and show how he looked as a stork. He walked then gravely up and down the chamber, with precise step, made a clacking noise, fluttered his arms like wings, and showed how he, to no purpose, bowed himself toward the east, and called out' Mu This was always a great delight to the princess and her children; but when the Caliph too long clacked, and bowed, and cried, 'Mu mu-,' the Vizier would threaten, smilingly, that he would relate to the wife of the Caliph the conversation which took place before the door of the Princess Night Owl!'

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We may be learned from other's thoughts, wise only from our own;
Reflection is the calm repose of wisdom on her throne:
If HOMER nods, he nods to wake with renovated fire:
Pale solar suns, that never set, but little warmth inspire..

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WOULD that my home were in the far wild West!
There, what God fashioned, man hath never marred,
And earth seems young, as when, by foot unpressed,
'Neath the first sunbeam smiled her tender sward;
Enamelled slopes, and thickets blossom-starred,
Nestle the rude acclivities between;

And streams, whose fountains are far heavenward,
Leap shouting down, enamoured of the scene,

To dance with softer song, through groves of living green.

Within those vales, what glorious creatures bide!
Birds, Iris-plumed, dart out from every tree,
And graceful shapes sport on the mountain side,
Tossing their antlered frontlets as they flce;
Insects, whose gay wings flash resplendently,
Winnow the sunshine; and a murmuring sound,
As if the flowers were breathing melody,

From minstrel bees, that wheel the blossoms round, Comes with the clover's breath, up from the dewy ground.

And when the wind howls through the giant pines,
That far aloft the sheltering mountains gird,
The pendant tendrils shake not on the vines,
In those calm valleys; not a leaf is stirred;
Scarce is the surging of the tempest heard:
But by the drops the black clouds weep the while,
On flower and tree new beauty is conferred;
And when the sun looks forth, the green defile

Hath won from Heaven's dark frown a brighter, holier smile!

And then the prairies! Lovely, when the spring
Hangs o'er their wastes of green her hazy veil;
Sublime, when heaving with an ocean swing,
Rolls the tall grass before the autumn gale,
Tossing, like foam, the withered flowerets pale.
Behold a grander scene! Some hand hath thrown
A fire-brand mid the herbage! Words would fail
To paint the kindled desert, red and lone,

When the flame reaps by night the harvest God hath sown!

Onward, still onward, sweeps the scorching tide;

A forest bars its desolating way;

Swift through the fallen leaves the flashes glide,
Lick the huge trunks, and dart from spray to spray!
Streams through the green arcades the lurid ray,
Startling from bush and bough a feathered swarm;
Through the tree-tops the flames like lightnings play,
And ere hath reeled one proud oak's glowing form,
Over the forest's roof hath passed the blazing storm.

Again it bursts across the treeless waste,
Upon the strong wings of the hurricane;
Affrighted herds, from grassy covert chased,
Before its angry rush their sinews strain:
But hark! the dash of waters o'er the plain
Comes, blended with the conflagration's roar;
Through yon tall bluffs that wear a ruddy stain,
Missouri's chafing waves impetuous pour;

The blaze half leaps the tide, then fades to flash no more.

With vernal days, up from the blackened wild,
O'er circling leagues, the tufted grass shall spring,

And Beauty, Desolation's blooming child,

Shall far and wide her floral garlands fling;

The azalia to the ruined oak shall cling,

And round each charred trunk lace a leafy vest;

The prairie fowl shall fold her dusky wing

Above her lowly, clover-scented nest;

Would that my home, like hers, were in the far wild West!

THE OLD WORLD.

SKETCHES OF GERMAN TRAVEL: NUMBER ONE.

WHEN I engaged, Mr. Editor, to recall to mind the familiar features of certain portions of the old world, in which the days of my youth made double haste to join the past, it appeared, when viewed from afar, a pleasing office. Those scenes will ever recur with the changing seasons; and whether the latter bring joy or sadness, the former still hang the brightest ornaments in the long picture-gallery of memory. But, Sir, to trace these half-effaced outlines, and reproduce the emotions of other years; to transfer, as in a crayon sketch, the characteristics of the past, and to do justice to the charm and beauty of the originals, is, I fear, more than Memory may venture to essay. Here the revivifying finger of Art becomes requisite, and to this I have hardly an amateur's pretension. I have nevertheless long meditated some such an undertaking; and, conscious that many of the graces and beauties, and much of the freshness, withal, of halcyon impressions, have long since escaped me, I hasten to sketch the shadowy objects of remembrance; the flitting forms which reappear to the closed eye, and which, like phantoms, dissolve by day, and seem to dwell in their own Elysium.

GERMANY, that word synonymous with barbarism, not long since, is now so potent a spell, that it may not be uttered without conjuring up a thousand varied and vivid emotions of admiration and curiosity. It enlists the love or the hate, the knowledge or the ignorance, the exultation or the regret, the prejudice or the prepossession, of all. He who abhors the philosophy of the German, because, perhaps, he comprehends it not, will not refuse the meed his erudition calls for; while they who profess contempt for the misnamed sentimentalist, accord unqualified praise to the genius and power of the poet. From this favored land have issued streams which have invigorated the spirit of Europe, and infused new and quickening principles into the veins of humanity. The reformation, gunpowder, and printing; liberty, peace, and letters; these discoveries render mankind ever tributary to the inventive genius and generous spirit of the Teuton. Above all, and in truth among the greatest miracles of human intelligence, towers the glory of having created and inspired with life and wondrous beauty, a literature, of which modern times cannot equal the splendor or the originality. That Columbus should have discovered a new world in an untried region of the globe; that to Herschel's unwearying gaze another planet should have been revealed in the blue waste of heaven; these do not astound us, when we reflect on their simplicity. From like causes, similar effects might have readily been apprehended; nor does this detract from their magnificence. But that in the heart of Europe, among a great and historical nation of erudites, and much within a century, there should have been found a new intellectual world, already arched by a brightly-constellated firmament of intelligence; this is, indeed, most marvellous, and more significant than any other datum in universal psychology.

One of the antagonist principles which a wise Providence seems to have raised against the materializing influences of material progress, the German tongue, with its infinite richness, and its plastic adaptation to every intellectual pursuit, is now indeed in literature, in philosophy, in all truth, and in all victorious speculation, the spiritual locomotive of the day; and the masters who wield and direct it, in imitation of their unrivalled predecessors, are still the championminds of humanity. Why should I mention Goëthe, Schiller, Herder, Klopstock, Wieland, Leping, and Jean Paul, save that they form inseparable links in the great chain which binds Leibnitz and Luther to Blumenbach, Gauss, and Humboldt? — and because the varied branches of mental culture, poetry, science, and philosophy, with their infinite ramifications, seem to constitute so many faculties of the great human soul, in even a greater degree than do a thousand industries, arts, and manufactures, form the bones and sinews of the universal body?

If German learning, German genius, and German education, deserve respect, admiration, and imitation, there are in the German land, its soil, culture, and products, and in German institutions, social and political, as well as in the many beautiful external features of German nature, inexhaustible sources of delight and instruction. On the visages of the people you see contentment upshooting its smiling grass-blade among the furrows of labor and care. A strong nationality, an inheritance of old feudal days, cemented by the tie of resistance to foreign aggression, lends to the general tone of feeling, so often affected by clime and local peculiarity, a patriotic dominante. At the cry of country, the clans are marshalled, and from cottage and city the Landwehr rush forth, asking no other signal. There is, too, one other chord which vibrates in unison, from the Alps to the Baltic; which pervades the masses, affecting all bosoms alike; lulling the laborer to cheerful repose, or arousing the soldiers' whole courage; and this is the musical string. The sentiment of harmony dwells in the German ear, and the national voice is full of melody. The divine strains of Weber, of Mozart, nay, of the great Beethoven, are allied to the verse of Körner, of Schiller, and of Goethe; and song and entiment, sound with sense, music through numbers, are transfused through the living, and with the reed and lyre handed down to posterity.

Innumerable local traditions, preserved with veneration in the primitive ballad, and recalled to mind by the ruined tower, or mouldering column, serve to entertain the fondness of the people for a father-land so old and so hallowed by association. Dwelling among the scenes of the past, yet alive to the present, and interested in the future, they combine, more than any other nation, action with reflection, reason with enthusiasm; and are, less than any other, moved by the glitter which, in the pursuit of his mutable destiny, misleads the spirit of man. With the great men and deeds of antiquity, they have been early made familiar, by the perusal, in their Roman and Grecian idiom, of the world-poets and historians. They are taught to consider the hero and the philosopher as among their own ancestry; and this feeling enkindles the noblest emulation. To their intellectual dominions, all manner of nations and of tongues are tri

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