Great St. Bernard. by Moonlight. BY HENRY D. MOORE. HT. OUR party had slowly descended into the ravine that opens at the base of the Great St. Bernard, for the purpose of refreshing at a cottage that seemed hospitable, and if suitable accommodations were afforded, to stop for the night. The thought of a night in the immediate vicinity of this far-famed mountain was full of interest to me, and I prepared myself to realise those anticipations which I had long cherished, of feeling the inspiration of mountain scenery, at moonlight, and that mountain scenery haunted in all its crags and precipices and shrubbery by the kindliest offices of charity, and the tenderest words of religion. Being somewhat wearied with the toil of Alpine travel, I hasted to refreshment; that, with renewed bodily strength, I might be the better prepared to enter upon those thoughts, and dwell amid those feelings, which I felt sure would be inspired within me, during my lonely, moonlight wanderings. Prepared to walk, I left the cottage, without intimating to the party any thing of my intentions, and strolled along the banks of a stream that coursed through the ravine, winding now here, now there, and now lost in a sudden turn of the rocks, or in the thickness of shrubbery. The voices of the birds were faintly heard, as if they were only the lingering echoes of their daily songs, for night had fairly embosomed the valley, and day was dimly seen only on the highest branches of the forest, or on the summits of the mountains. And yet in the ravine it was not dark, for the moon whose horns were brilliantly full, cast its welcome rays in at its upper entrance, and lighted up with a pleasing sheen the scenery which surrounded me. I could not see the moon yet, but its light charmed me, and inspired me with the assurance of far richer scenes than any I had ever contemplated, as the night should advance. Over the summits of the mountains, there were wreathed clouds of silvery whiteness, lifting up their soft breasts to receive the tinted rays of the queen of night, and to attend her ascent to the heights of heaven. The stars came out one after another, and graced the firmament with their serene twinkling, adding new charms to the already redundant beauties of the evening. The stream to which I have already made allusion was picturesque and attractive, superlatively so, at many points of my walk. Sometimes its banks would open out into a reservoir, almost circular, and there the congregated waters, would lay silent as could be, and as transparent as a mirror, reflecting all the verdure of trees, and all the ruggedness of rocks. Then again the banks would be narrowed down to nearly the distance of a leap, and the waters would play in mimic rapids, and tumble over hindering stones, passing through them. Then the bank would be precipitous, and again shelving down with easy gradation to the water's edge. The moon's rays, now playing nearly full, lengthwise on the stream, would seem in the reflection to be a long flambeau of silver fire, and then again they would be broken up into flashes and fragments of beauty, as innumerable ripples leaped along. Occasionally, imperceptibly, I would pause to take in the peculiar features of some beauteous spot, or to listen to some winding minstrelsy, issuing from the cliffs, discoursed from lutes in the hands of Swiss peasants; or to catch the bleating of the flocks, or the lowing of herds turned to dulcet music by distance and the mellowness of the night wind. Then again I unconsciously hurried along, urged by some pressing thought within, to regard some new forms of beauty that indistinctly appeared in the distance. As I thus proceeded, full of emotions of delight, and possessed of thoughts which were almost consecrated and anointed by the genius of nature, that presided, as a priestess amid this scenery, my ear was instantly filled with tones that I anticipated hearing, and my steps were arrested, and I paused, almost enchained to the spot, as the solemn and pious strokes of the monastery bell, with sound half glad, half melancholy, wound along and adown the mountain's side, and sought many a cavern, in which to nestle away their sacred echoes. Hark! 'tis the hour of prayer! Now the heavens look down, and the soul of many a devotee looks up, as the prayers are uttered into the ear of |