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The mazy brook is whispering now, a soft tale to the flowers,

The night breeze freshens on my brow,-how sweet these moonlight hours!

And sweet the twilight path that guides my footsteps through the dew,

Each eve, to this green dell, my love, the nightingale and you!

Now some seek halls of revelry, where flows the ruddy wine;

And merry may their banquet be, a deeper joy is mine!

They choose companions many a one, I am content with two,

The nightingale and you, my love! the nightingale and you!

A SKETCH FROM LIFE.

BY ISMAEL FITZADAM.

A PILGRIM of the Harp was he,
With half a heart for chivalry;
The lone, the marvellous, the wild,
Had charmed his spirit, man and child;
Graduate in nature's eldest school,
Of forms all grand and beautiful;
Her manuscript, divinely wrought,
God's own miraculous Polyglot,
Speaking in one all languages-
He studied-rocks, and stars, and seas;
But chief, the deep his worship won,
The illimitable ocean-nursed thereon;

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A SKETCH FROM LIFE.

With all its workings-maniac hoar,
Even for that madness loved the more;
Kin elements, his moody mind,
A portion of the wave and wind;
And oft the boy would try to weave
His wonder into shapes of song;
And feeling still would only grieve,
To find he did his feelings wrong.
He loved, as minstrel elf must prove,
For song itself was born of love;
So the young glow, and melting shower
Of April, animate the flower,-
Perfume, and suppliance of an hour,—
Too exquisitely loved to last,
Such curse upon the lyre is cast.
Brief must they feel, who feel the spell
Of love too sensitively well;

As fires of sudden vividness
Exhausted by their own excess.

And such the wreath his passion braided,
For many a bosom bright, but vain :
Like cistus bloom, scarce blown till faded,
Scarce faded till full-blown again!
Short-lived alike the bliss and pain,
Thus still adored, he still endured,
Wandering for ever, never cured.
His was indeed such wayward doom,
As seldom 'gainst man's sins is hurl'd ;
His horoscope was dashed with gloom,
His cloud came with him to the world,
And clipped him round, and weighed him down,
A deep, revokeless malison!

TO A PROFILE.

BY BERNARD BARTON.

I KNEW thee not! then wherefore gaze
Upon thy silent shadow there,
Which so imperfectly pourtrays

The form thy features used to wear?
Yet have I often looked at thee,
As if those lips could speak to me.

I knew thee not! and thou couldst know,
At best, but little more of one
Whose pilgrimage on earth below

Commenced, just ere thine own was done;
For few and fleeting days were thine,
To hope or fear for lot of mine.

Yet few and fleeting as they were,
Fancy and feeling picture this,
They prompted many a fervent prayer,
Witnessed, perchance, a parting kiss;
And might not kiss, and prayer, from thee,
At such a period, profit me?

Whether they did or not, I owe

At least this tribute to thy worth; Though little all I can bestow,

Yet fond affection gives it birth; And prompts me, as thy shade I view, To bless thee, whom I never knew!

LYRE.

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Too proud of heart to tell the grief
That chains thy harrowed soul,
Too little schooled in grief to bear
Thy own stern pride's control;
With flushing cheek, and restless eye,
Thy woman's heart hath told,
Far easier thou in love hadst died,
Than in despair grow cold.

All beautiful! in the full grace

Of thine unsullied thought;

An angel that love sought to teach,

But woman's self when taught ;

Thy bosom, where youth showers its sweets,

And coronals of light;

Thy brow and dewy lips are still

As eloquent and bright:

But troubled is the fountain, where

That light of bliss was born;

And thou hast taught thy heart to hate,

To save thyself from scorn:

Faithful thou hadst been in thy truth,
Faithful, through good and ill;
But, being left to live unloved,
Thou'dst make that doom thy will.

Still in the world thy path will be,
And still thy brow will wear
Roses as bright as ever wreathed
Their blossoms 'mid thy hair;

THE UNBENDING.

But for thy pride and seeming calm-
Thy vainly borne disguise-

No rest shall ever sooth thy soul,
No friendship glad thine eyes.

But lonelier than thy lonely heart
Thy very home shall be,

Nor gentle smile, nor household voice,
Shall e'er seem sweet to thee;

And on from youth to womanhood
Thy weary days shall haste,

Thy happiest feelings turned to gall-
Thy life itself a waste!

THE TUNEFUL SPIRIT.

WHEN Evening o'er the western hill
Her robe of purple and gold has flung;
When every zephyr is hushed and still,
And every bird has its vesper sung,
I'll seek once more the lonely bower,
Where late I heard that melting strain;
And haply, at the same sweet hour,
The tuneful Spirit may sing again.

And if perchance, in gazing round
Among the leaves, a young face I view,
Oh! how my bosom with joy will bound
To find that Spirit has beauty too!
And sure as ever gentle heart

Had bliss in soothing a lover's pain,
Ere morning bids us kiss and part,
I'll make her promise to sing again.

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