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DREAMS.

We are such stuff

As dreams are made off; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Он, man! before thy feverish brain
What thousand visions rise!
Like colours on the evening main,
Each loveliest, till it dies.

First bends the burning heart of youth
Before some heart untried;
Deems like its own, a stranger's truth,
And scorns the world beside!
Then life is one enchanted dream!
The hours too swift roll on ;
The heart is on the fatal stream,

We haste to be undone;

Pray but for life our faith to prove,
And call the early folly-Love!

But soon life's dangerous morn is past,
And well for us 'tis so-
And well if o'er its sun be cast

No cloud of lasting woe.

Then tears must fall, as sad as vain,
The homage to our pride;

Yet, broken once the worthless chain,
That bond no more is tied.

We wake,—the light is round us shed,—
The prized are prized no more;

The passion of the hour has fled,

The fondness, frenzy, o'er ;

In wisdom we our idol fly,

And this is called-Inconstancy!

Then worldly dreams the spirits sway,

And still the waking's pain;

And hopeless still we turn away,
And hopeless turn again :

And faster, as the phantoms fly,
Pursues their willing slave;
And while their lustre fills the eye,
O'erlooks the opening grave.
But years will stoop the brow at last,—
The wintry hour will come;
Then, remnant, ruin of the past,
And trembling o'er her tomb,

To heaven, a last resource-we fly,
And dare to call it-Piety!

The Graces.

THE CHARM.

FROM THE SPANISH.

WIND the shell, bind the spell ;—
What is in it? Fond farewell!
Wreathed with drops from azure eyes,
Twilight vows and midnight sighs.

Bind it on the maiden's soul!
Suns may set, and years may roll;
Yet, beneath the tender twine
All the spirit shall be thine.

Oceans may between you sweep,
But the spell's as strong and deep!
Anguish, distance, time are vain-
Death alone can loose the chain.
Literary Gazette.

HELEN.

STANZAS.

I KNEW not that the world contained
A form so lovely as thine own;

Nor deemed that where such beauty reigned
Humility would fix her throne;

For I had marked, where eyes were bright,
Too well their owners knew their power,
And armed them with that dazzling light
The sun emits at noontide's hour;-
Too proud to veil a single ray,

Or one effulgent glance surrender,
And glittering with the blaze of day,
And scorning twilight's softer splendour.

I knew not, where the form displayed
Such symmetry and grace as thine,
That intellect would lend its aid,

And sentiment there raise her shrine;
For I had marked where form and face
Had beauty's varied charms combined,
There oft was wanting feeling's trace-
The beam of soul-the ray of mind!
And vain has been each studied art,

And futile every cold endeavour!—
The light that comes not from the heart
A moment shines-then fades forever.

But I, at last, have turned from those
Whom once I knew, to gaze on thee,—
On thee, whose cheek's divinest glows
Reveal thy bosom's purity!

The summer sky is calm-serene—
The summer-ocean mildly fair,
As if some bright-some heavenly scene
In beauty were reflected there ;-
And thus when on thy brow I gaze,
And view the lights around it gleaming,
They seem to be the living rays

From heart, and soul, and spirit beaming.

London Magazine.

V. D.

EVENING THOUGHTS.

"TWAS eve. The lengthening shadows of the oak
And weeping birch, swept far adown the vale;
And nought upon the hush and stillness broke,
Save the light whispering of the spring-tide gale,
At distance dying; and the measured stroke
Of woodmen at their toil; the feeble wail
Of some lone stock-dove, soothing as it sank
On the lulled ear its melody that drank.

The sun had set; but his expiring beams

Yet lingered in the west, and shed around
Beauty and softness o'er the woods and streams,
With coming night's first tinge of shade embrowned.
The light clouds mingled, brightened with such gleams
Of glory, as the seraph-shapes surround,

That in the visions of the good descend,
And o'er their couch of sorrow seem to bend.

There are emotions in that grateful hour
Of twilight and serenity, which steal
Upon the heart with more than wonted power,
Making more pure and tender all we feel,-—
Softening its very core, as doth the shower

The thirsty glebe of summer. We reveal
More in such hours of stillness, unto those
We love, than years of passion could disclose.

The heavens look down on us with eyes of love,
And earth itself looks heavenly; the sleep
Of nature is around us, but above

Are beings that eternal vigils keep.

'Tis sweet to dwell on such, and deem they strove
With sorrow once, and fled from crowds to weep

In loneliness, as we perchance have done;
And sigh to win the glory they have won!

"Tis sweet to mark the sky's unruffled blue Fast deepening into darkness, as the rays Of lingering eve die fleetly, and a few

Stars of the brightest beam illume the haze, Like woman's eye of loveliness, seen through The veil that shadows it in vain ;-we gaze In mute and stirless transport, fondly listening, As there were music in its very glistening.

'Tis thus in solitude; but sweeter far

By those we love, in that all-softening hour, To watch with mutual eyes each coming star,

[er And the faint moon-rays streaming through our bowOf foliage, wreathed and trembling, as the car

Of night rolls duskier onward, and each flower And shrub that droops above us, on the sense Seems dropping fragrance more and more intense !

Oh Love! undying and ethereal Love!

Thou habitant of heaven strayed to earth!

Or boon of the Beneficent above

To worlds, that void of thee, were worlds of dearth! Soft as thy Cytherean mother's dove

As thine own Pysche bright-eyed from thy birth,
Poets might feign, or priests of old conceive thee,
And heathen maids delightedly believe thee!

Not in the leafy haunts and hushed retreats
Enthusiasts fondly consecrate as thine;
Not where, with smile and sparkle, nature greets
The adoring gaze, alone is reared thy shrine :-
Lips cling to lips-the full heart fondly beats-

From Ajut's icy regions to the Line-
Roam where we may, thy rapt emotions start,
The bliss to meet !-the agony to part!

J. G. G.

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