THE music ceased, the last quadrille was o'er,
And one by one the waning beauties fled;
The garlands vanished from the frescoed floor,
The nodding fiddler hung his weary head.
And I-a melancholy single man
Retired to mourn my solitary fate.-
I slept awhile; but o'er my slumbers ran
The sylph-like image of my blooming Kate.
I dreamt of mutual love, and Hymen's joys,
Of happy moments and connubial blisses;
And then I thought of little girls and boys,
The mother's glances, and the infant's kisses.
I saw them all, in sweet perspective sitting
In winter's eve around a blazing fire,
The children playing and the mother knitting,
Or fondly gazing on the happy Sire.
The scene was changed.-In came the Baker's bill :
I stared to see the hideous consummation
Of pies and puddings that it took to fill
The bellies of the rising generation.
There was no end to eating :-legs of mutton
Were vanquished daily by this little host;
To see them, you'd have thought each tiny glutton
Had laid a wager who could eat the most.
The massy pudding smoked upon the platter,
The ponderous sirloin reared its head in vain ;—
The little urchins kicked up such a clatter,
That scarce a remnant e'er appeared again.
Then came the School bill:-Board and Education So much per annum; but the extras mounted
To nearly twice the primal stipulation,
And every little bagatelle was counted!
To mending tuck ;-A new Homeri Ilias ;—
A pane of glass;-Repairing coat and breeches ;-
A slate and pencil ;-Binding old Virgilius ;—
Drawing a tooth ;-An open draft, and leeches.
And now I languished for the single state,
The social glass, the horse and chaise on Sunday,
The jaunt to Windsor with my sweetheart Kate,
And cursed again the weekly bills of Monday.
Here Kate began to scold,-I stampt and swore, The kittens squeak, the children loudly scream; And thus awaking with the wild uproar,
I thanked my stars that it was but a dream. Literary Gazette.
BY THE HON. R. W. SPENCER.
Too late I staid ;-forgive the crime,-
Unheeded flew the hours;
How noiseless falls the foot of Time
That only treads on flowers!
What eye with clear account remarks
The ebbings of the glass,
When all its sands are diamond sparks,
Which dazzle as they pass?
Oh! who to sober measurement
Time's happy fleetness brings,
When Birds of Paradise have lent
Their plumage for his wings!
WRITTEN BENEATH A BUST OF SHAKSPEARE.
His was the master-spirit ;-at his spells
The heart gave up its secrets ;-like the mount
Of Horeb, smitten by the Prophet's rod,
Its hidden springs gushed forth. Time, that grey rock
On whose bleak sides the fame of meaner bards
Is dashed to ruin, was the pedestal
On which his genius rose; and, rooted there,
Stands like a mighty statue, reared so high
Above the clouds and changes of the world,
That heaven's unshorn and unimpeded beams
Have round its awful brows a glory shed,
Immortal as their own. Like those fair birds
Of glittering plumage, whose heaven-pointing pinions
Beam light on that dim world they leave behind,
And while they spurn, adorn it ;* so his spirit,
Hisdainty spirit,' while it soared above
This dull, gross compound, scattered as it flew
Treasures of light and loveliness.
Were 'gentle Shakspeare's' features !—This the eye
Whence Earth's least earthly mind looked out and flashed
Amazement on the nations !This the brow
Where lofty thought majestically brooded,
Seated as on a throne! And these the lips
* In some parts of America, it is said, there are birds which, when on the wing, at night, emit so surprising a brightness, that it is no mean substitute for the light of day. Among the whimsical speculations on Fontenelle, is one, that in the Planet Mars, the want of moon may be compensated by a multiplicity of these luminary aeronauts.
That warbled music stolen from heaven's own choir
When seraph-harps rang sweetest! But I tempt
A theme too high, and mount like Icarus,
On wings that melt before the blaze they worship.
Alas! my hand is weak, my lyre is wild!
Else should the eye, whose wondering gaze is fixed
Upon this breathing bust, awaken strains
Lofty as those the glance of Phoebus struck
From Memnon's ruined statue; the rapt soul
Should breathe in numbers, and in dulcet notes,
'Discourse most eloquent music.'
THEY talk of time, and of time's galling yoke,
That like a mill-stone on man's mind doth press,
Which only works and business can redress :
Of divine leisure such foul lies are spoke,
Wounding her fair gifts with calumnious stroke.
But might I, fed with silent meditation,
Assoiled live from that fiend Occupation-
Improbus labor, which my spirits hath broke-
I'd drink of time's rich cup and never surfeit,
Fling in more days than went to make the gem
That crowned the white-top of Methusalem,
Yea, on my weak neck take, and never forfeit,
Like Atlas bearing up the dainty sky,
The heaven-sweet burthen of eternity.
Supposed to be addressed by the Rev. Dr. Carey, the learned and illustrious Baptist Missionary at Serampore, to the first plant of this kind, which sprang up, unexpectedly, in his garden, out of some English earth, in which other seeds had been conveyed to him from this country. The subject was suggested by reading a letter from Dr. Carey to a botanical friend in England.
BY JAMES MONTGOMERY, ESQ.
THRICE Welcome! little English Flower!
My mother-country's white and red,
In rose or lily, till this hour,
Never to me such beauty spread!
Transplanted from thine island-bed,
A treasure in a grain of earth,
Strange as a spirit from the dead,
Thine embryo sprang to birth.
Thrice welcome little English Flower!
Whose tribes beneath our natal skies
Shut close their leaves while vapours lower;
But when the sun's gay beams arise,
With unabashed but modest eyes
Follow his motion to the west,
Nor cease to gaze till daylight dies,
Then fold themselves to rest.
Thrice welcome, little English Flower!
To this resplendent hemisphere,
Where Flora's giant-offspring tower
In gorgeous liveries all the year:
Thou, only Thou, art little here,
Like worth unfriended or unknown,
Yet to my British heart more dear
Than all the torrid zone!
Thrice welcome, little English Flower!
Of early scenes beloved by me,
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