No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than-as if a shield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a floor of silver-I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic, and clangorous, yet apparently muffled reverberation. Completely unnerved, I leaped to my feet, but the measured rocking movement of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in which he sat. His eyes were bent fixedly before him, and throughout his whole countenance there reigned a stony rigidity. But, as I placed my hand upon his shoulder, there came a strong shudder over his whole person; a sickly smile quivered about his lips; and I saw that he spoke in a low, hurried, and gibbering murmur, as if unconscious of my presence. Bending closely over him, I at length drank in the hideous import of his words.

"Not hear it?—yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Longlong-long—many minutes, many hours, many days have I heard it yet I dared not-oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!-I dared not-I dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute? I now tell you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard them-many, many days ago-yet I dared not-I dared not speak! And now-to-night-Ethelred -ha! ha!-the breaking of the hermit's door, and the deathcry of the dragon, and the clangor of the shield!-say, rather, the rending of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault. Oh, whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? Madman!" here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul-"Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!"

As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had been found the potency of a spell-the huge antique panels to which the speaker pointed, threw slowly back, upon the instant, their ponderous and ebony jaws. It was the work of the rushing gust-but then without those doors there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some

bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold-then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated.

From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned out to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me. The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon, which now shone vividly through that once barely-discernible fissure, of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building, in a zig-zag direction, to the base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened— there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind-the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight-my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder-there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand watersand the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed suddenly and silently over the fragments of the "House of Usher.”

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.

"IN no poet," wrote Bryant of Halleck, "can be found passages which flow with more sweet and liquid smoothness." In his lifetime Fitz-Greene Halleck was a popular poet, but he lives now only in books of poetical selections. He possessed exquisite felicity of diction and a lively fancy, but lacked the force and originality necessary to the immortals. Some of his poems, however, are not likely to be forgotten, such as the stirring "Marco Bozzaris," and the exquisite lines on the death of Joseph Rodman Drake.

Halleck's life was uneventful. He was born in Guilford, Conn., in 1795. When a boy he went to New York and became a clerk in a banking house, and later for many years was confidential clerk to John Jacob Astor. Some of his earliest literary productions were written in conjunction with his intimate friend, Drake, and appeared in the New York Evening

Post, signed Croaker and Co. "Fanny," the longest of his poems, was a satire on New York life. In 1822 he visited Europe, and in 1827 he published his first volume of collected poems. This contains his famous "Marco Bozzaris," and also the two fine poems, "Burns" and "Alnwick Castle." Receiving the bequest of an annuity from John Jacob Astor in 1849, he retired to his native town, where he died in 1867.

ON THE DEATH OF JOS. R. DRAKE.

THE good die first,

And they, whose hearts are dry as summer dust,
Burn to the socket.-WORDS WORTH.

Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days!

None knew thee but to love thee,
Nor name thee but to praise.

Tears fell, when thou wert dying,
From eyes unused to weep,
And long where thou art lying,
Will tears the cold turf steep.

When hearts, whose truth was proven,
Like thine, are laid in earth,

There should a wreath be woven
To tell the world their worth.

And I, who woke each morrow
To clasp thy hand in mine,
Who shared thy joy and sorrow,
Whose weal and woe were thine:

It should be mine to braid it
Around thy faded brow,
But I've in vain essayed it,
And feel I cannot now.

While memory bids me weep thee,
Nor thoughts nor words are free,

The grief is fixed too deeply

That mourns a man like thee.

MARCO Bozzaris.

Ar midnight, in his guarded tent,
The Turk was dreaming of the hour
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power:

In dreams, through camp and court, he bore
The trophies of a conqueror;

In dreams his song of triumph heard: Then wore his monarch's signet ring: Then pressed that monarch's throne-a king; As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing, As Eden's garden bird.

At midnight in the forest shades,

Bozarris ranged his Suliote band, True as the steel of their tried blades, Heroes in heart and hand.

There had the Persian's thousands stood,
There had the glad earth drunk their blood
On Platea's day;

And now there breathed that haunted air
The sons of sires who conquered there,
With arm to strike, and soul to dare,

As quick, as far as they.

An hour passed on-the Turk awoke; That bright dream was his last; He woke to hear his sentries shriek, "To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!" He woke to die 'midst flame and smoke, And shout and groan, and sabre stroke,

And death-shots falling thick and fast As lightnings from the mountain cloud; And heard, with voice as trumpet loud, Bozzaris cheer his band:

"Strike-till the last armed foe expires; Strike-for your altars and your fires; Strike-for the green graves of your sires; God-and your native land!"

Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N. Y.

OLD FAITHFUL-YELLOWSTONE.