GOOD NIGHT.

Good night, good friend, good night to thee,
Good night, sweet lady fair and free,

For the night has been a good night to me,
Though thou art come from a far countree.

Smiles soft and still, not laughter high,
Have gladdened our quiet company,
And ever and aye with a happy sigh
Thou smilest on the baby sleeping by.

See how the baby smiles in her sleep.

What dream on her soul doth lightly creep?

What fancy so pretty is playing bo-peep

With the innocent's thoughts in the fields of sleep?

When slumbering babies smile in a dream,

Tis their angel, as antique faith would deem, That plays with their hearts like a moonlight beam, Stealing through chinks to a hidden stream.

Good night, good night, the smile is past,
And I must say good night at last;

I am long agoing, but hark to the blast,
And the rain that patters so loud and fast.

But I will carry sweet thought away,
To sweeten my bread for many a day,
When I think of the beautiful babe that lay

So calm yet as bright as an image of May.

VALENTINE, BY AN AGED LOVER.

SOME ladies like a man whose hair
Is bright as threads of gold,

Some the dark youth and some the fair,
But few the man that 's old.

My locks were jetty black in May,
But latest autumn makes them grey.
Where is the maiden that will twine
Round doddered oak, a lithe woodbine,
And choose an old man for her valentine.

'Twere vain to say thou wilt be free

Το merry be or grave;
Better an old man's darling be,

Than be a young man's slave.

"Twere vain to talk of common sense,
And lessons of experience;

For tears that in the dim eye shine,
And trace the wrinkle's furrowed line,
Were never shed by winsome valentine.

LINES.

IF I were young as I have been, And you were only gay sixteen, I would address you as a goddess, Write loyal cantos to your boddice, Wish that I were your cap, your shoe, Or any thing that 's near to you. But I am old, and you, my fair, Are somewhat older than you were. A lover's language in your hearing Would sound like irony and jeering. Once you were fair to all that see, Now you are only fair to me.

As the dew of the morning bestars every blade,
But ere noon is no more on the plain,

Yet abides in the bell of the flower in the shade
Till dew comes at evening again.

So the feelings of youth, the fond faith of the heart, In manhood dry up like the dew.

Oh! let them survive in the soul's better part,

Till death shall the morning renew.

NEVER till now I felt myself so old

As seeing you so tall, such bursting roses Just at the time when rosy buds unfold

So

Their sweet concealment into summer posies.

may I measure time, nor cease to see

His silent work in still maturing graces.

I quite forgive what he has done to me,

For what he has bestow'd on your sweet faces.