whole, half a dozen of these cornucopiæ-shaped
pitchers with a flower like a purple marigold
among them seen on a dry morass, must always
be a wonder of plant life, and may yet prove
to be a useful remedy for an exhausting and
terrible scourge. For the Halifax medical men
seem unanimous in its favour, and the London
medical men contradict each other—one decidedly
saying Ay, and another emphatically No.

UNDER THE CYPRESSES.

HERE I am in the cypress lane!
  I see the light in her window shine.
Heaven! can this love be all in vain,
  And shall she never be mine?

There stays her shadow against the walls,
  There moves o'er the ceiling to and fro,
She does not think of the heart that calls
  So loud in the dark below.

Why should she think of a fool like me,
  Though I'd give my life to save her a pain?
The stars might as well look down to see
  These fire-flies in the lane.

I am too low for her to love,
  And I would not give her the pain to say
That a love like mine could only prove
  A shadow upon her way.

So I stand in the cypress shade and weep,
  I weep, for my heart is sick with love,
And I pray for strength my vow to keep,
  As I look in the sky above.

Is it wrong to gaze at her window-sill,
  Where she sits like an angel in a shrine?
While my heart cries out, despite my will,
  "Ah, Heaven! were she but mine!"

Oh, my heart, I could tear you out,
  Am I so weak and faint of will,
That the fair dear serpent coiled about
  My purpose, I cannot kill?

Where is my vaunted manhood fled?
  Come, my pride—my pride, come back!
Serve me and prompt me awhile, instead
  Of all I so sadly lack!

Vain, ah! vain—all day and night
  One thought, like a ghost I cannot lay,
Ranges my life, and haunts my sight,
  And never will pass away.

Give me something to meet and clasp!
  I faint with righting this thing of air!
I die despairing in its grasp!—
  Its presence I cannot bear.

Give me strength, Heaven! to endure—
  Let me not writhe to death in the grass.
Send me, ye stars, from your chambers pure,
  Some ease as ye coldly pass!

Look at this poor mad wretch that lies
  Beating his brain that is all afire!
Pity him here as he grovelling dies
  In the flames of his vain desire!

A GREAT THUNDER-STORM.

LONG will the night between the 24th and
25th of June, 1863, be memorable among the
inhabitants of the Downs of Sussex. On that
Wednesday night and Thursday morning, raged
a thunder-storm of an extraordinary kind,
interesting in an unusual degree to science and
humanity; to science, because the electrical
storm presented features never recorded in
England; to humanity, from the domestic
interest of the tragedies it occasioned. On that
night a tropical storm visited England. Men
who have been all round the world and seen the
storms of every clime, say they saw that night
a storm of a hot country on the shore of a
temperate climate. The area of the storm was
considerable. I have seen accounts of it from
Chichester in Sussex, and Chesham in Buckinghamshire.
On the south coast of England its
principal range was eastward to Eastbourne beyond
Beachy Head, and westward to Chichester and
Selsey Bill, and inland northwards to Tunbridge
Wells and Maidstone.

My opportunities of observing it were limited
to the Downs and coast of Sussex. Earth
describers bid us notice that the hills by the course
they take determine the course of the rivers
from the inland heights to the sea; and
describers of scenery, when they possess a
knowledge of what I may call the anatomy of their art,
the geology or strata of the district, tell us that
the features of mountains and valleys are dependent
upon the nature of the rocks which compose
them. A man like the late Hugh Miller can tell
from the outlines of the mountains, the nature
of the rocks. The chalk rocks of the Sussex
coast swell up from the sea-level some two or
three hundred feet high, and except where they
break off in abrupt cliffs facing the sea, are
winding, round-topped, and undulating, with
their flowing outlines all carpeted with herbage.
And very beautiful on sunny hill-sides is this
green sward. It is spangled in sunny braes with
white and yellow flowers, and furze bushes
display their golden ornaments. On north-easterly
slopes, heather varies the green with purple.
Bleating flocks of sheep, with civil dogs and
friendly shepherds; larks up in the sky, thrilling
their nest-warming mates with carols; linnets
and yellow-hammers warbling in the furze, and
numbers of yellow and blue moths, animate the
Downs with life and sound. Several of the highest
of these round hills appear to have been used
as camps by the Romans, and on these sites
orchids are found. Between these green round
hills, whose white broken ends form the white
chalk cliffs of England in the region which was
the principal area of the storm, several rivers of
insignificant size and small importance find
their way to the sea; such as the Rother, the