Nor do we madly, like an impious world,
Who deem religion frenzy, and the God,
That made them, an intruder on their joys,
Start at his awful name, or deem his praise
A jarring note. Themes of a graver tone,
Exciting oft our gratitude and love,
While we retrace with memory's pointing wand,
That calls the past to our exact review,
The dangers we have 'scaped, the broken snare,
The disappointed foe, deliverance found
Unlooked for, life preserved and peace restored,
Fruits of omnipotent eternal love. .
Oh evenings worthy of the gods! exclaimed
The Sabine bard. Oh evenings, I reply,
More to be prized and coveted than your's
As more illumined, and with nobler truths,
That I, and mine, and those we love, enjoy.

Is winter hideous in a garb like this ?
Needs he the tragic fur, the smoke of lamps,
The pent-up breath of an unsavoury throng,
To thaw him into feeling; or the smart
And snappish dialogue, that Alippant wits
Call comedy, to prompt him with a smile?

The self-complacent a&or, when he views
(Stealing a side-long glance at a full house)
The Nope of faces, from the floor to the roof,
(As if one master-spring controuled them all)
Relaxed into an universal grin,
Sees not a countenance there, that speaks of joy
Half so refined or so fincere as our's.
Cards were superfluous here, with all the tricks,
That idleness has ever yet contrived.
To fill the void of an unfurnished brain,
To palliate dulness, and give time a lhove.
Time, as he passes us, bas a dove's wing,
Unfoiled, and swift, and of a filken found;
But the world's time is time in masquerade!
Their’s, fhould I paint him, has his pinions fledged
With motley plumes; and, where the peacock Lhows
His azure eyes, is tin&tured black and red
With spots quadrangular of diamond form,
Enfanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife,
And fpades, the emblem of untimely graves.
What should be, and what was an hour-glass once,
Becomes a dice-box, and a billiard mast
Well does the work of his destructive scythe.
Thus decked, becharms a world whom falhion blinds

To his true worth, most pleased when idle most; Whose only happy are their wafted hours. . E’en misses, at whose age their mothers wore The back-string and the bib, assume the dress Of womanhood, fit pupils in the school Of card-devoted time, and night by night. Placed at some vacant corner of the board, Learn every trick, and soon play all the game. But truce with censure. Roving as I rove, Where shall I find an end, or how proceed ? As he that travels far oft turns aside To view fome rugged rock or mouldering tower, Which seen delights him not; then coming home Describes and prints it, that the world may know How far he went for what was nothing worth; So I, with brush in hand and pallet spread, With colours mixed for a far different use, Paint cards and dolls, and every idle thing, That fancy finds in ber excursive flights.

Come Evening, once again, season of peace; Return sweet Evening, and continue long ! Methinks I see thee in the streaky west, With matron-step low-moving, while the night

vol. 11. K

Treads on thy sweeping train; one hand employed
In letting fall the curtain of repose
On bird and beast, the other charged for man
With sweet oblivion of the cares of day:
Not sumptuously adorned, nor needing aid,
Like homely-featured night, of clustering gems;
A star or two, just twinkling on thy brow,
Suffices thee; save that the moon is thine
No less than her's, not worn indeed on high
With ostentatious pageanty, but set
With modest grandeur in thy purple zone,
Resplendent less, but of an ampler round.
Come then, and thou shalt find thy votary calm,
Or make me so. Composure is thy gift:
And, whether I devote thy gentle hours
To books, to music, or the poet's toil;
To weaving nets for bird-alluring fruit;
Or twining filken threads round ivory reels,
When they command whom man was born to pleafe;
I Night thee not, but make thee welcome ftill.

Just when our drawing-rooms begin to blaze With lights, by clear reflection multiplied From many a mirror, in which he of Gath, .

Goliah, might have seen his giant bulk
Whole without stooping, towering crest and all,
My pleasures too begin. But me perhaps
The glowing hearth may satisfy awhile
With faint illumination, that uplifts
The shadows to the ceiling, there by fits
Dancing uncouthly to the quivering fame.
Not undelightful is an hour to me
So spent in parlour twilight: such a gloom
Suits well the thoughtful or unthinking mind,
The mind contemplative, with some new theme
Pregnant, or indisposed alike to all.
Laugh ye, who boast your more mercurial powers,
That never feel a stupor, know no pause,
Nor need one; I am conscious, and confess
Fearless a soul, that does not always think.
Me oft has fancy ludicrous and wild
Soothed with a waking dream of houses, towers,
Trees, churches, and strange visages, expressed
In the red cinders, while with poring eye
I gazed, myself creating what I saw.
Nor less amufed have I quiescent watched
The footy films, that play upon the bars
Rendulous, and foreboding in the view