SONG FOR SHAKSPEARE'S BIRTHDAY,

OH! the days are unnumbered that Fame with a hand
All dazzling and trembling hath traced upon sand;
But one must be lasting, still dear and divine-
And whose should it be, sweetest SHAKSPEARE, but
thine?

As youths at the tomb of the Painter are said
To touch with their pencils the life-laurelled head,
So the name of our SHAKSPEARE a music can raise,
To sweeten the strength that would soar in his praise.

Oh, the hours and the days that have glided along,
When the tide of the blood seemed an Avon of song;
When the shapes that we saw, and the sounds that we
heard,

Were the dreams and the glories, the world of his word.

Still, still to the fancy shall Rosalind cling,

From Ophelia's fair flesh still the violets spring :
Oh, the young heart had proved but a honeyless hive,
Ha not time kept the blossoms of SHAKSPEARE alive.

May the tears of the gentle descend upon them,

While the shores have a flower or the sea hath a gem; For WILL'S wizard line is the famed purple hair, Whose magical virtue secures us from care.

Sweet SHAKSPEARE, we seek not to measure thy flight,
Or add to thy rainbow superfluous light;

But like silkworms we offer our wealth up to thee,
As fed from thy own hallowed mulberry-tree.

STANZAS FOR EVENING.

THERE is an hour when leaves are still and winds sleep on the wave;

When far beneath the closing clouds the day hath found

a grave,

And stars, that at the note of dawn begin their circling

flight,

Return, like sun-tired birds, to seek the sable boughs of

night.

The curtains of the mind are closed and slumber is most

sweet,

And visions to the hearts of men direct their fairy feet; The wearied wing hath gained a tree, pain sighs itself to

rest,

And beauty's bridegroom lies upon the pillow of her breast.

There is a feeling in that hour which tumult ne'er hath known,

Which nature seems to dedicate to silent things alone; The spirit of the lonely wakes as rising from the dead, And finds its shroud adorned with flowers, its night-lamp newly fed.

The mournful moon her rainbow hath, and 'mid the blight

of all

That garlands life some blossoms live, like lilies on a

pall;

Thus while to lone Affliction's couch some stranger joys

may come,

The bee that hoardeth sweets all day hath sadness in its

hum.

Yet some there are whose fire of years leave no remembered spark,

Whose summer time itself is bleak, whose very day breaks

dark.

The stem though naked still may live, the leaf though perished cling,

But if at first the root be cleft, it lies a branchless thing.

And oh to such long, hallowed nights their patient. music send :

The hours like drooping angels walk, more graceful as

they bend;

And stars emit a hope-like ray, that melts as it comes.

nigh,

And nothing in that calm hath life that doth not wish to

PLEASURES OF PROMISE.

THINGS may be well to seem that are not well to be,
And thus hath fancy's dream been realised to me.
We deem the distant tide a blue and solid ground;
We seek the green hill's side, and thorns are only found.

Is hope then ever so ?—or is it as a tree,
Whereon fresh blossoms grow for those that faded be?
Oh, who may think to sail from peril and from snare
When rocks beneath us fail, and bolts are in the air!

Yet hope the storm can quell with a soft and happy tune,
Or hang December's cell with figures caught from June.
And even unto me there cometh, less forlorn,
An impulse from the sea, a promise from the morn.

When summer shadows break, and gentle winds rejoice, On mountain or on lake ascends a constant voice; With a hope and with a pride its music woke of old, And every pulse replied in tales as fondly told.

Though illusion aids no more the poetry of youth,
Its fabled sweetness o'er it leaves a pensive truth;
That tears the sight obscure, that sounds the ear betray,
That nothing can allure the heart to go astray.