Within her eyes, upon her brow, I saw her thrice-Fate's dark decree As even my reveries portrayed her: The retrospect was scarcely bitter; That every louder mirth is folly- A stillness -as of sunset streaming A fairy glow on flower and leaf, Till earth looks like a landscape, dreaming. A last time and unmoved she lay, From whence the spark had fled for ever! The years wherein I saw her first, When she, a girl, was lightsome-hearted ;And, when I mused on later days, As moved she in her matron duty, A happy mother, in the blaze Of ripened hope, and sunny beauty,— I felt the chill-I turned aside Bleak Desolation's cloud came o'er me, And Being seemed a troubled tide, Whose wrecks in darkness swam before me! Blackwood's Magazine. BY JAMES MONTGOMERY, ESQ. OH! light is pleasant to the eye, And health comes rustling on the gale, Clouds are careering through the sky, Whose shadows mock them down the dale; Nature as fresh and fragrant seems As I have met her in my dreams. For I have been a prisoner long, In gloom and loneliness of mind, To every form of beauty blind; But now the blood, the blood returns With rapturous pulses through my veins ; My heart, new-born within me, burns, My limbs break loose, they cast their chains, Rekindled at the sun, my sight Tracks to the point an eagle's flight. I long to climb those old grey rocks, Glide with yon river to the deep; Range the green hills with herds and flocks, O earth! in maiden innocence, Too early fled thy golden time; O earth! earth! earth! for man's offence, Of how much glory then bereft! The thorn-harsh emblem of the curse- Labour, man's punishment, is nurse And death himself, with all the woes Life, life! with all its burthens dear! One generous hope, one chastening ill? But these have angels never known, Their sea of glass before the throne, Storm, lightning, shipwreck, visit not: Our tides, beneath the changing moon, Are soon appeased,—are troubled soon. Well, I will bear what all have borne, Live my few years, and fill my place; Whence came I?-Memory cannot say; Bound whither?-Ah! away, away, Far as eternity can go : Thy love to win, thy wrath to flee, Prose. By a Poet. BY MARY HOWITT. In thought, I saw the palace domes of Tyre; Thronging her streets for sport or sacrifice. I saw, with gilded prow and silken sail, I looked again—I saw a lonely shore, A rock amid the waters, and a waste Of matchless sand:- I heard the black seas roar, Awhile he looked upon the sea, and then Upon a book, as if it might supply The things he lacked :-he read, and gazed again; Yet, as if unbelief so on him wrought, He might not deem this shore the shore he sought. - Again I saw him come :-'t was eventide ;- And pushed his boat ashore;-then gathered he Spread them to catch the sun's warm evening ray. Ruin and silence in his courts are met, And on her city-rock the fisher spreads his net!” Literary Souvenir. CASABIANCA. Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son to the Admiral of L'Orient, remained at his post (in the Battle of the Nile) after the ship had taken fire, and all the guns had been abandoned; and the gallant youth perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder. THE boy stood on the burning deck The flame that lit the battle's wreck A creature of heroic blood, A proud though childlike form! The flames rolled on-he would not go That father, faint in death below, His voice no longer heard. He called aloud : : 66 'say, father! say, If yet my task is done?" He knew not that the chieftain lay Unconscious of his son. "Speak, father!" once again he cried, And fast the flames rolled on. Upon his brow he felt their breath, And looked from that lone post of death |