[Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker.] 
SUNSHINE. 
[Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker.] 
WATCHING- THE CLOUDS. 
BY MRS. CARRIE HOWARD. 
Leaning mj head on the window sill, 
I sit for hours, when the (lay is still, 
Gazing far up in the deep blue sky,— 
Gazing with listless, dreamy eye,— 
Watching the clouds. 
None may know of the shadowy things, 
Floating on airy, gossamer wings, 
That Fancy pictures,—nor visions bright 
That greet, for aye, the 'wildercd sight, 
Watching the clouds. 
Life-like, and full of a changeful hue, 
Are the pictures I paint on the ether blue; 
Faithfully traced,—dark and sad, or bright and fair,- 
As oft I dream by the window there, 
Watching the clouds. 
Scenes of this life, ye are passing away,— 
Visions of beauty, ye speed to decay,— 
Hastens the hour when I'll sit no more 
By window sill or cottage door. 
Watching the clouds. 
■ depuration. All the factotums were sedulously 
employed. I ambled cantelously into the poste¬ 
rior department of the extruction, where I espied 
the most sanguinary scenes. Here took place 
the trucidatious of pennated and plumous bipeds, 
by decollation; and of vituline, ovine, and other 
quadrupeds, by the exantlation of their sanguin¬ 
eous fluid. Borne of the aligerous and plumous 
bipeds were in a process of excoriation, and 
others subject to a depilatory, The propinquity 
of these operations to my visual powers, evoca- 
ted in me the conviction that an epulation was 
approximating, and being somewhat scrutinous, 
I received cognoscence that on the postuate day 
a spousal epulation was approximating. 
In my confabulation with the cauponitor, ante¬ 
cedent to concbee, wc produced, in the progress 
of our enterparlance, mutual and indubious 
ajiodixis that we stood in relation of germans to 
each other—that his paternal and my maternal 
parent had one paternity. But in consequence 
of his great seniority to me, and his early deces¬ 
sion from home, we bad, anterior to that vesper, 
been in a state of complete nescience to each 
other. My concinnity of abearance and his great 
comity, tvs well as our consanguinity, educed from 
him an invitation to me to participate in the 
hilarity of the approaching nuptials. The par¬ 
ties to be concatenated were his senior daughter 
and a puisne man from the visne. Ultimately, 
the ecclesiastic who was to colligate the parties 
in indissoluble gyves arrived. He was a sexage¬ 
nary. His sable envelops, his lugubrious counte¬ 
nance, his depilious cranium, the rotundity of 
his person and graeility of crural organs, engaged 
my optic exceedingly. He coalesced the inter¬ 
ests of the parties, and in a brevity of time the 
doors of the refectory received patefaction, and 
the ineuss! board, onerated with prog, cates, and 
all kinds of eibarious articles, displayed itself to 
duzzled eyes and esc orient maws. Sncb edacity, 
such gulosity, snch ingurgitations, such omniver- 
ousness of edibles, had never fallen under my 
vision in the antecedent part of my sublunary 
entity. After the appurtenances of the men sal 
board had been disarmed, an epithalamium and 
other ariettas were chanted by the junior part of 
the convivialists, after which we took decession 
in a spacious saloon. I was soon the object of 
their o-iiiads as a peregrine entity in their midst 
I saw them nictate and saturate on nil sides, and 
they seemed much titillated at my neoteric ap¬ 
pearance among them. When all had received 
satiation as to the diversified amusements, the 
coterie disbanded, without having sufl'ered any 
casualty except once becoming highly conquas- 
sated by a general sternutation, induced by the 
diffusion of some pulverized mundungus on the 
floor. Yours, with metreless amity, 
Lorenzo ALTISONANT, 
I Written for Moore’s Rural Non -Yorker.] 
WHAT SHALL I WISH FOR THEE? 
[Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker.] 
OUR FUTURE. 
Shall I wish for tfieo many beautiful dreams, 
In the land where the sunset sky 
Is fairer than ours, and where hopes and fears 
Should ne’er cloud thy loving eye? 
Ah, the dreams would fade, and thy soul be taught 
A far sadder prophesy; 
Thou wouldst learn, alas! too soon, that life 
Is & stern reality. 
Shall 1 wish for thee Fame,—that thy sunny brow 
With laurel weatbs may he crowned,— 
That with thrilling touch thou shouldst tune thy lyre, 
Its echo thy name to resound? 
0, Fame would nr or quench thy soul's dying thirst,— 
It would prove hut u treacherous smile,— 
It would lure thee on, yet no solace give, 
Thy wearisome hours to beguile. 
Shall I wish for thee wealth,—that thy beauteous form 
Adorned with Jewels may be; 
That'mid banquutuud song thou shouldst pass life's hours, 
In a ceaseless revelry? 
0, the tears that would dim thy once beaming eye, 
Would cloud with anguish thy heart; 
And the bloom of innocence sparkling there 
Wonld soon, with its light, depart. 
Shall I wish for thee love, the holy and pure,— 
And a home where allection shall shiner 
Yes, love is the only atmosphere 
For a loving soul like thine; 
But not that love that shall bend its flight, 
1 And to earth alone be given, 
But love that shall every bliss unite 
To link thy bouI unto heaven. 
South Danby, N. Y., 1860. Mary A. B. 
0, say not Fate decrees for ns 
The Future’s mystery,— 
'Tis we ourselves are forming now 
Our own eternity. 
Here, in the mystic loom of life, 
We weave what is to be.— 
Our thoughts and actions are the threads 
Which form our destiny. 
We're weaving for ourselves a robe 
To wear on that great day 
When the Archangel’s trump shall sound, 
And earth shall pas* away. 
If bright and pure our actions are, 
Then pure our robe shall be, 
Inwove with mauy a thread of light, 
Good deeds of charity 
But, oh, if dark and sinful thoughts 
Have place within the soul,— 
If hatred, malice, and distrust, 
Our better acts control,— 
Then dark, indeed, our robe shall be, 
And dark shall he our fate, 
When at the last great day we stand, 
Unknown, at Heaven's gate. 
So let us weave that When, at last, 
Shall set life’s ling'riog sun, 
Our Father’s voice may say to us, 
“ Como up, ye well have done." 
Cambria, N. Y., 1860. 
[Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker.] 
LINGERINGS WITH NATURE.-NO. I. 
[Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker.] 
HONORS TO THE DEAD. 
beautiful, soon to seem a floating garden upon the 
waters, while beyond, the Three Sister's lie in lov¬ 
ing relationship, so alike that they can scarcely 
be distinguished from each other. Put in Hay 
Island, soon to be graced by the monumental mar¬ 
ble, commemorating Perry’s victory in 1813 , will 
doubtless prove the goal of many pilgrimages, 
and perhaps the Newport of the West Seven¬ 
teen in number,—some bleak and barren,—some 
rocky and bold,—others shaded and fertile,—their 
diversified appearance heightens the picturesque 
effect, and suggests innumerable conjectures of 
their formation and destiny. 
These were truly the Fortunate Isles of the 
early explorers,—their rendezvous in times of suc¬ 
cess, and covert, in seasons of danger, harboring 
many a shipwrecked mariner and furnishing a 
nightly stoppiug for the red men, in their errands 
of war or bloodshed, across the watery plain. 
Here, perchance, many an adventurous hunter, 
the prey of the roaming savage, has reaped the 
reward of his temerity, leaving his hones whiten¬ 
ing upon the sandy beach. We can only conjec¬ 
ture the experiences of the early French trappers, 
who are said to have reared ru.ih dwellings here, 
and lived in amity with their wild neighbors, 
leaving an impress of civilization of which there 
are yet faint, traces. 
We can now but dimly see the arrowy canoes, 
shooting from one pebbly shore to another, then 
darting securely out upon the broad waters, “ a 
thing of life’’ in the hand of its master. It is 
only afar off that we can view this free life of the 
forest and realize the charm of its dangerous ad¬ 
venture and untrammeled loneliness. No mockery 
of forms there intruded,—no artificial trappings 
to mar the beautiful harmony of nature. Then, 
as now, long vistas, half of shinin 
[Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker.] 
AUNT BETSEY’S VISIT. 
[Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker.] 
A SAL-U-TARY LESSON. 
the existence of an " immortal past," and of its 
future reunion with the material; for the sacred 
dust is deposited with a care which bespeaks an 
expectation that the soul will, one day, claim 
again its tabernacle. 
The variety of manner in which this innate rev¬ 
erence for the departed has manifested itself in 
both ancient and modern times, presents a 
gravely pleasant field for thought. The pyra¬ 
mids, which rear their heads with a gloomy gran¬ 
deur toward Egyptian skies, speak plainly of the 
vast amount 6f human energy,—nay, human life, 
expended in procuring a depository for royal 
ashes. The mummies found in oriental tombs 
cannot but remind one of the tender care be¬ 
stowed in embalming those frail tenements, that 
they might be preserved through future ages. 
How imposing must have been the funeral so¬ 
lemnities of those ancient days. One is thrilled 
with a feeling ol awe while gazing at the picture, 
so vividly portrayed by the sacred artist, of the 
vast cortege which bore to burial the remains of 
Jacoh. The train of “chariots and horsemen, and 
all the elders of the land,— a very great com- 
“Good fiddle-sticks!" was her abruptrejoindcr, 
"I never did suppose that. Sai,i.y Brown would 
live to be such a stuck-up fool, and all because her 
husband happened to have twenty thousand dol¬ 
lars fall to him from England. It had a sight, bet¬ 
ter have fallen into the Red Sea than to him, for I 
believe it’ll be the ruination of the whole family. 
You all know how much Mrs. Brown used to set 
by me, and well she might, for I've named hcr 
through typhus fever,—given her old dresses, and 
sent, her pickles ever since she was married. I 
don’t know but she was glad to see me to-day, but 
she had a queer way of showing it When 1 went 
in, she got up out of a red velvet rocking-chair,— 
where she was setting, doing nothing hut justhold- 
ing her hands,—and acted so stiff. I says to her, 
'Now, Sally, yon’vc got that awful rlieumatiz, 
1 know, hnint, you?’ She turned kind of red and 
muttered something, then she set down, and I sot 
down, and she looked at the carpet and 1 looked 
at. her. She had on a silk gown, and something 
on her head like lace ail ftowzled up, but I reckon 
she didn't dare to stir much for fear it would full 
off. I couldn’t think of much to say for a spell, 
but finally I asked her if ‘Th.ua Ann was tohomc. 
1 ^ os,’ she said, she was in her boutder, — or some¬ 
thing like that,—and she says to the hired girl, as 
was going through the room, ‘Tell Miss Browne 
to please come in the parlor,’ Pretty soon, in she 
comes, the queerest looking thing I ever did see. 
She had on a silk dress, but I do say if she didn’t 
come right in the parlor there, with it open all the 
way down from the waist, where it was tied up 
with a cord, 1 reckoned her mother would tell 
her to go back and fasten it up, but she didn’t, 
and she comes right up where I was, 
1 How do you do-ah, Mrs. Gree-un?’ says she. 
‘Pretty well,’ says I, ‘how do you do now 
days?’ 
‘Ah, my health is ver-ah miserable,’ says she, j 
‘ I beg you will excuse my dish-bill, 
A JOURNEY UNDER PARIS 
g water, half of 
forest-tufted laud, opened to the delighted eye. 
Then, too, the waves murmured below, and tbe 
zephyrs chanted above, unheeded as now, per¬ 
haps; yet some time to be euug by poets and 
apostrophized by dreamers during the balmy days 
devoted to summer travel. All are uninhabited, 
except Kelley's Island ,— and they have been 
doomed to a long silence since their primeval in¬ 
habitants vanished before the annihilating tread 
of the Anglo-Saxon. And yet who can trace 
their first denizens? The adjoining main-land 
bears evidence of some ancient race, long ago 
perished, or passed away, save in their crumbling 
forts and mausoleums; and who may say that the 
Titans of old, the wandering Israelites, the Tro- 
jaDs, orCartliagenians, may not have here tarried, 
deeming them the Islands of the Blessed ? Happy 
thought! worthy their wondrous beauty! 
-least ways I 
thought that was what she said, though I didn’t 
see any dish, and thought she’d enough sight bet¬ 
ter ask me to excuse her petticoat. 
Well, we sat there half the afternoon, them two 
without a stitch of work, till by-and-bye a couple 
drove up to the door,— a man and girl. ’Tilda 
Ann she gave a screech and jumped,—I thought 
she was going to hide, but she run right out on 
the portico and ketched the girl round her neck, 
and they hugged and kissed till they was both 
black in the face. Then she goes up to the man— 
be had something on his upper lip that looked like 
a black caterpillar, —and he takes hold of her 
band. I thought he was going to spit in it, but I 
couldn’t see exactly. I says good-day to Mrs. 
Brown, and slipped out at the back door before 
they came in. I guess when I go there again, I'll 
know it and they too!” e. c. l. k. 
Charlotte Center, N. Y., I860. 
LITERARY CURIOSITY. 
[One of the contributors of the Rural sends us the 
following epistle, being “ a literal copy of a letter re¬ 
man may live on a small income, who has a handy 
and industrious wife. Some men live and make a 
far better appearance on six or eight dollar- a 
week, than others do on fifteen or eighteen dol¬ 
lars. The man does bis part well, but bis wife is 
good for nothing. She will even upbraid her hus¬ 
band for notliving in as good a style as bis neigh¬ 
bor, while the fault is entirely her own. His 
neighbor has a neat, capable, and industrious 
wife, and that makes the difference. His wife, on 
the other hand, is a whirlpool, into which a great 
many silver cups might be thrown, and tbe ap¬ 
pearance of the water would remain unchanged. 
No Nicholas, the diver, is there to restore the 
wasted treasure. It is only an insult for such a 
woman to talk to her husband about her love and 
devotion. 
me " pursuu oi unowieuge under dilncultu-s, (in unrav¬ 
eling the meaning of the various high-sounding words 
and phrases used,) may he rendered a both pleasing and 
profitable mode of passing away an hour.—EDS.] 
Edacityyille Occident, Aug. 18th, 1859. 
Altiloquent Sir; —The day sequacious to the 
vesper on which I effectuated, in a certain cabaret, 
an exsiccation of my habiliments by terrefactiun, 
was not very inservient; to the progress of a pe- 
destrious emigrant It is true, the atmospheric 
regions had been enubiluted; but then the roads 
had become lutulent, in some parts cl arty, and 
in others presented a grand appilation to a via¬ 
tor’s velocity, by the viscosity of their surface. 
In consequence of my frequent commorations, 
on account of the luturioiis and salelnious condi¬ 
tion of the events, I had some opportunity of 
exercising my optic organs upon the aspect of 
the circumjacent regions. The sinuosities of the 
vales through lapideous mouutains, the feracity 
of the terreous surface adjacent to the aqueous 
meanders, the celsitude of glandiferous and nu¬ 
ciferous trees, excited in me the greatest oblec- 
tation. 
Triumph over Evil. —We are rewarded for 
every triumph we make over temptation. I will 
suppose there arc many who have struggled 
against the vanity of vain pleasures; many who 
have put down evil thoughts with a strong will; 
many who, after a long, and, it may be, an uncer¬ 
tain conflict with the seductions of the world, at 
length have triumphed. I will put it to them 
whether, when they have combated and pre¬ 
vailed against evil, their hearts have not softened 
and melted, and they have not felt within their 
bosoms a seraphic influence? They have so felt; 
and so it will ever be. No sooner shall they have 
driven from them the tempting demon of pride, of 
vanity, of anger,—no sooner shall the devil have 
left them, than angels will come and minister 
unto them. 
Life lies before us as a buge quarry lies before 
the architect. He deserves not the name of archi¬ 
tect, except when, out of this fortuitous mass, he 
can combine with the greatest economy, and 
fitness, and durability, some form, the pattern of 
which originated in his spirit.— Gonhe's Wilhelm 
Master. 
inend. The world may forget you—thy mqther 
never; the world may wilfully do you many 
wrongs—thy mother never; the world may per¬ 
secute you while living, and wheu dead plant tbe 
ivy aud the nightshade of slander upon your 
grassless grave—but thy mother will love and 
cherish you while living, and if she survives you, 
will weep for you when dead, such tears as none 
but a mother knows how to weep. Love thy 
mother! 
It is easy to live after the world’s opinion; it js 
easy in solitude to live after your own,— but the 
great man is he who, in the midst of the crowd, 
keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of 
solitude.— R. IF. Emerson. 
Never neglect your fire places. Much of th 
cheerfulness of life depends upon them. Wha 
makes a fire so pleasant, is that it is a live thin, 
in a dead room. 
