Pale, pale as wan consumption, thy caress,
If fascinating, is not fatal too;

Thou bringest health and ruddy happiness

In thy bleak train; not the deceitful hue With which disease in siren guise doth woo

Its charméd victims to an early tomb;

Thy cool breath sends the quick blood thrilling through

The leaping arteries, dispels the gloom

Which clouds the brow and tints the hueless cheek with bloom.

On lighter wings than pinions of the dove
Thou visitest our dark terrestial sphere,
And evanescent too, as woman's love,

Yet like that love, with all its frailty, dear;
And I might almost deem thy grief sincere,
When envious Sol, with his dissolving ray,
Doth bid thee hence; for then the crystal tear
Bedews the check of one who, bright and gay,
Hath come to us in joy, and weeping goes away.

And thou, O Snow, as poets feign, art chaste;
Pure as Pygmalion's statue, ere the fire
Of life and passion thrilled the heart and traced
Expression on the brow. Thoughts that inspire
The soul with burning love and soft desire

Are silent in thy breast; stern as the knell
Which tells of blighted hopes; not e'en the lyre
That Orpheus touched of yore with magic spell
Can with emotion make thy frigid bosom swell.

The moon is not more chaste; and apropos
Of her, I have a new hypothesis,
Which, singing of thy chastity, O Snow,

Reminds me of; something, I ween, like this;
Methinks yon lovely orb, whose cold beams kiss
The hills, the sea, and bathes far, far along

With her pale flood the waving wilderness,

Is one vast snow-ball, frozen mid the throng

Of worlds, for some dark sin, some unforgiven wrong.

Perchance a sharer in the same high crime

Which banished the lost pleiad from the skies,

In endless expiation, until Time

Shall be no longer, sorrowing she hies

Upon her way, a warning to the eyes

Of pitying sister spheres! a quaint conceit!

That may be laughed at by the over-wise;

But sense and knowledge do not always greet,

And Folly sometimes sits in vaunting Wisdom's seat.

GOOD-BYE!

Good-bye! how sadness mingles with the word;
With what a tone it trembles on the ear;
How, when its echoes hath the heart-strings stirred,
And moments precious then grow doubly dear,
How will the feelings we have sought to smother
Burst into flame; how will the changing cheek,
The throb of hearts that closer press each other,
Betray a language which no tongue can speak;
How at that word the mist of gathering tears
Bedims the brightness of love-lighted eyes;
How in the bosom will foreboding fears,

Like the dread phantoms in our dreams arise,
And dark futurity's mysterious scroll,

Where destiny hath writ, lie open to the soul!

David Barker.

This well-known poet was born in Exeter, Sept. 9, 1816, and died at the house of his brother, Mark Barker, Esq., in Bangor, Sept. 14, 1874, at the age of fifty-eight years. In early life he devoted himself to a course of self-education, and, by a thorough and arduous research, acquired what was then considered a superior education. Such proficiency did he make in the excellent Academy at Foxcroft that, after a time, he was employed in it as an assistant. After leaving Foxcroft he became a very popular teacher at Eastport and elsewhere, and later, as a law student, entered the office of the Hon. Samuel Cony, at Exeter. Mr. Barker was in successful practice in his native town until within two or three years before his death. As a poet he obtained a distinguished reputation, and many of his metrical gems are destined to live. An elegant volume of his poems, with a biographical sketch by the Hon. John E. Godfrey, and which has passed through several editions, has been printed at Bangor. Mr. Barker's poetical fame brought to him the degree of A. M. from Bowdoin College, and Judge Godfrey truly says that this poet's "touching references to his mother, in several of his poems, will endear him to afl who maintain their regard for the filial sentiment, and they are legion."

MY CHILD'S ORIGIN.

One night, as old Saint Peter slept,

He left the door of Heaven ajar,
When through, a little angel crept,
And came down with a falling star.

One summer, as the blessed beams

Of morn approached, my blushing bride
Awakened from some pleasant dreams,

And found that angel by her side.

God grant but this-I ask no more-
That when he leaves this world of sin,
He'll wing his way for that blest shore
And find that door of heaven again.

TRY AGAIN.

Should your cherished purpose fail,
Never falter, swerve, nor quail;
Nerve the arm and raise the hand,

Fling the outer garments by,

With a dauntless courage stand,
Shouting forth the battle cry,
Try again!

Is your spirit bowed by grief,
Rally quick, for life is brief;
Every saint in yonder sphere,
Borne through tribulation here,
Whispers in the anxious ear
Of each mortal in despair,
Try again!

What though stricken to the earth,
Up, man, as from second birth;
Yonder flower beneath the tread,
Struggling where the foot has gone,
Rising feebly in its bed,

Tells the hopeless looker-on,
Try again!

Guided by the hand of Right,
With Hope's taper for a light,
With a destiny like ours,

And that destiny to choose;
With such God-created powers

And a heaven to gain or lose,
Try again!

FROM "MY FIRST COURTSHIP."

When, for the first time in your life

You dream of those strange words, a wife,

And from your mother's cupboard go,

And the first time in earnest throw,

In kind of bashful, leisure haste,

Your green arm 'round a green girl's waist; If like the mariner, when tossed

On wave, with chart and compass lost,
Who trusts his helm, when tempest-driven,
To the old dipper-star in heaven,
She, in her new and girlish bliss,

Will trust your first, raw, country kiss,

Then look as happy's though she knew

She'd got one hard week's washing through,-
And if it gives your nerves a twist,

And sends a prickling through the wrist
Much like a tunk upon the point,

Or apex of your elbow joint,

Brings from your stomach long-drawn sighs, And pumps up water through the eyes,Then bet that you are both in love,

And that the match was made above,

That you and she, through smiles and tears,
Will live and love through life's long years,-
She turning with her wealth of soul,

As turns the needle to the pole,

And clinging through your rise and fall,

As clings the ivy to the wall,—

Unless some fancy, curl-haired fop

Wades in and breaks love's crockery up.

FAITH, HOPE, CHARITY.

Distrust not every form without,

Than live through life such living death,

In the betraying fiend of Doubt

Have Faith.

Though through a blind-man's-buff we're led,

Or though in dusky paths we grope,

In a blest something, just ahead,

Then onward press, though for the grave,
And calmly meet the closing strife,—
Death is the only proof we have

Of life.

THE COVERED BRIDGE.

Tell the fainting soul in the weary form
There's a world of the purest bliss

That is linked as that soul and form are linked
By a covered bridge with this.

Yet to reach that realm on the other shore
We must pass through a transient gloom,
And must walk unseen, unhelped and alone
Through that covered bridge-the tomb.

But we all pass over on equal terms,
For the universal toll

Is the outer garb which the hand of God
Has flung around the soul.

Though the eye is dim and the bridge is dark,
And the river it spans is wide,

Yet faith points through to a shining mount
That looms on the other side.