Oh, might it be, and may it be,
That I who worship heaven in thee,
May so fulfil thy mission,

That light and love from heaven above,
And star and soul, my bridal dove,
May blend and open heaven to me,
Through thy celestial vision!

LOVE IN HATE.

From "Legends of the Isles, and other Poems," 1845. Music by JOHN GRAY.

ONCE I thought I could adore him,

Rich or poor, belov'd the same;

Now I hate him and abhor him,
Now I loathe his very name;
Spurn'd at, when I sued for pity—
Robb'd of peace and virgin fame.

If my hatred could consume him,

Soul and body, heart and brain;
If my will had power to doom him
To eternity of pain;

I would strike-and die, confessing
That I had not lived in vain.

Oh, if in my bosom lying,

I could work him deadly scathe!
Oh, if I could clasp him dying,
And receive his parting breath;
In one burst of burning passion
I would kiss him into death!

I would cover with embraces
Lips that once his love confess'd,
And that falsest of false faces,
Mad, enraptur'd, unrepress'd;-
Then, in agony of pity,

I would die upon his breast.

LOVE NOT.

Hon. Mrs. NORTON. Music by JOHN BLOCKLEY.

Love not, love not, ye hapless sons of clay!

Hope's gayest wreaths are made of earthly flow'rsThings that are made to fade and fall away,

When they have blossom'd but a few short hours. Love not, love not!

Love not, love not! The thing you love may dieMay perish from the gay and gladsome earth; The silent stars, the blue and smiling sky,

Beam on its grave as once upon its birth.

Love not, love not!

Love not, love not! The thing you love may change,
The rosy lip may cease to smile on you;
The kindly-beaming eye grow cold and strange,
The heart still warmly beat, yet not be true.
Love not, love not!

Love not, love not! Oh, warning vainly said,
In present years as in the years gone by;
Love flings a halo round the dear one's head,
Faultless, immortal-till they change or die.
Love not, love not!

UNDER the title of Pastoral and Rural Songs may be included some of the most beautiful specimens of our early poetical literature. Vast quantities of these songs, once popular among the English people, anterior to the reign of Elizabeth, have perished altogether. Many of them, in all probability, were never committed to the custody of print and paper, and escaped with the breath of the wandering minstrels who composed and sang them. Others, again, at a somewhat later period, fared but little better at the hands of Time. "The ancient songs of the people," says D'Israeli the elder, "perished by having been printed in single sheets, and by their humble purchasers having no other library to preserve them than the walls on which they

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pasted them. Those we now have consist of a succeeding race of ballads." The pastoral love-songs, which we owe chiefly to the writers of the age of the Stuarts, include few compositions so beautiful as Marlowe's "Passionate Shepherd to his Love," and Sir Walter Raleigh's "Reply." The shepherds of that race of lyrists were, with few exceptions, merely stage shepherds in the usual theatrical costume, and the shepherdesses were “ladies of quality" dressed up for the occasion. Even Shakspeare himself, who touched or borrowed nothing that he did not improve, could make little of this kind of composition. It was not true to nature; and yet it continued, in that decline of literary taste which began in the reign of Charles the Second, to have charms for writers, readers, and singers.

Such ditties as the following had far more vitality than merit::

By a murmuring stream a fair shepherdess lay;
"Be so kind, O ye nymphs," I oft heard her say,
"Tell Strephon I die, if he passes this way,

And that love is the cause of my mourning.

False shepherds, that tell me of beauty and charms,
You deceive me, for Strephon's cold heart never warms;
Yet bring me the swain, let me die in his arms;

Oh, Strephon's the cause of my mourning!"

The satire of Pope and the verses of the "Lady of Quality" did not produce much effect in putting a stop to this affectation, and the age persisted in looking with favour upon pastoral lovesongs, in which all lovers were represented as shepherds and shepherdesses, billing and cooing amid their sheep, by the side of "purling brooks." Corydon wept among his flocks because Chloe or Phœbe was cruel; and Chloe called upon echo to repeat the name of Corydon, the falsest of shepherds and of men. The pastoral mania lasted for a considerable time; and traces of it are to be found in the popular songs of the last half of the eighteenth and the commencement of the present century, when it finally went out, much to the gratification of all lovers of true poetry.

The rural songs, that make no attempt at describing the loves and sorrows of Strephon and the Amyntas, and the other masquerading shepherds, are of a higher class than these. The pleasures and enjoyments of a country life have always been,

and always will be, themes for song; and descriptions of natural scenery, intermingled with those sentiments and feelings which they naturally prompt-gaiety to the gay, and sadness to the sad-will ever inspire the true lyrist. The songs of a succeeding age, like those which charmed our forefathers and which charm ourselves, must draw largely from this source; and the banishment of wine as a subject of lyric eulogy, and of paganism as a subject of illustration for modern thought and feeling, will increase the number of those purer compositions, which the present age has begun to insist upon, and which the next may, perhaps, insist upon more strongly.