A balm that baffles every woe,

While hearts that beat and eyes that glow
Are sweetest thoughts inspiring.

What are all the joys of earth?
What are revelry and mirth?
Vacant blessings-nothing worth

To hearts that ever knew love.
What is all the pomp of state,
What the grandeur of the great,
To the raptures that await

On the path of true love?

Should joy our days and years illume,
How sweet with thee to share such doom!
Nor, oh less sweet, should sorrows come,
To cherish and caress thee;

Then, while I live, then till I die,

Oh! be thou only smiling by,

And, while I breathe, I'll fondly try

With all my

heart to bless thee !

DELTA.

When the heart is full, the overflow

Of bliss, by being shared, is sweeter still.
The very flowers that in the May breeze shake,

Bloom out together; and the blessed stars

Of night, walk not the pathless heavens alone,
But twinkle, though unseen, in blissful trines
Of sympathetic light. All beauteous things
Hold mystic fellowship !

R. MONTGOMERY.

A silver lute, a minstrel hand,
To youth and love belong,
For is not Love's own magic wand

The melody of song?

H. B.

MEET ME AT SUNSET.

Meet me at sunset, the hour we love best,

Ere day's last crimson blushes have died in the west,
When the shadowless ether is blue as thine eye,
And the breeze is as balmy and soft as thy sigh;
When giant-like forms lengthen fast o'er the ground
From the motionless mill and the linden trees round;
When the stillness below, the mild radiance above,
Softly sink on the heart and attune it to love.

Meet me at sunset oh! meet me once more,

'Neath the wide-spreading thorn where you met me

of yore,

When our hearts were as calm as the broad summer sea That lay gleaming before us, bright, boundless, and

free;

And with hand clasp'd in hand, we sat trance-bound, and deem'd

That life would be ever the thing it then seem'd. The tree we then planted, green record! lives on, But the hopes that grew with it are faded and gone.

Meet me at sunset, beloved! as of old,—

When the boughs of the chestnut are waving in gold; When the pure starry clematis bends with its bloom, And the jasmine exhales a more witching perfume. That sweet hour shall atone for the anguish of years, And though fortune still frown, bid us smile through our tears;

Through the storms of the future shall soothe and

sustain ;

Then meet me at sunset- oh meet me again!

A. A. WATTS.

LOVE'S MINSTREL LUTE.

Love's minstrel lute was once so dear

To every youthful breast,

Each maiden throng'd its notes to hear,

Each swain its spells confess'd!

Love rambled oft in hours of joy,
Through Pleasure's flowery way,
A gay light-hearted minstrel boy
Chanting his merry lay!

Love's minstrel lute has lost its tune,
Its sweetest lay is sung!

And passion's fervid breath hath flown,
That sigh'd those chords among!
A blighted flower, a broken toy,
Love's lute must now remain,
No pulse of hope, no thrill of joy,
Shall rouse its fire again!

For Reason came amid the throng
To hear the God one day
Like a chill blight the flowers among
And check'd his merry lay!

His icy fingers round the boy

Threw Wealth's enslaving chain, And Love's soft lute, that soul of joy,

Ne'er sang of bliss again!

MRS. C. B. WILSON.

What spirit e'er so gentle shall be found,

So softly rear'd in humble privacy;

What form so fragile on wide earth's vast bound, Shrinking from every blast beneath the sky, That will not brave severest destiny,

Bear, uncomplaining, want and cruel wrong, And look on danger with unblenching eye, If Love hath made that gentle spirit strong? Love, pure, approved by Heaven, leads that frail form along!

LADY DACRe.

LOVE.

Love in the soul, not bold and confident,
But like Aurora, trembles into being;

And with faint flickering, and uncertain beams,
Gives notice to the awakening world within us
Of the full blazing orb, that soon shall rise,
And kindle all its passions. Then begin
Sorrow and joy,-unutterable joy,

And rapturous sorrow. Then the world is nothing;
Pleasure is nothing; suffering is nothing;

Ambition, riches, praise, power, all are nothing;
Love rules and reigns despotic and alone!

Then, oh! the shape of magic loveliness