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The morning mist and evening haze-
Unlike this cold gray rime-
Seem'd woven warm of golden air
When I was in my prime.

And blackberries--so mawkish now-
Were finely flavor'd then;

And nuts-such reddening clusters ripe
I ne'er shall pull again;

Nor strawberries blushing bright--as rich
As fruits of sunniest clime;
How all is alter'd for the worse

Since I was in my prime!

CAROLINE BOWLES SOUTHEY.

FORGET ME NOT.

Go, youth beloved, in distant glades
New friends, new hopes, new joys to find,
Yet sometimes deign, 'midst fairer maids,
To think on her thou leav'st behind.
Thy love, thy fate, dear youth, to share,
Must never be my happy lot,

But thou mayst grant this humble prayer,
Forget me not, forget me not!

Yet should the thought of my distress

Too painful to thy feelings be,
Heed not the wish I now express,

Nor ever deign to think on me;
But, oh, if grief thy steps attend,
If want, if sickness be thy lot,
And thou require a soothing friend;
Forget me not, forget me not!

AMELIA OPIE.

YOUTH AND AGE.

VERSE, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, Where Hope clung feeding, like a beeBoth were mine! Life went a-maying With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,

When I was young!

When I was young?--Ah, woful When!
Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands
How lightly then it flash'd along :
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,
That fear no spite of wind or tide!

Naught cared this body for wind or weather When Youth and I lived in 't together.

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;
Oh the joys, that came down shower-like,
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,
Ere I was old!
Ere I was old?--Ah, woful Ere,
Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!
O Youth! for years so many and sweet
'Tis known that thou and I were one,
I'll think it but a fond conceit―
It cannot be, that thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd :--
And thou wert aye a masker bold !
What strange disguise hast now put on
To make believe that thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this alter'd size:
But springtide blossoms on thy lips,
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
Life is but Thought: so think I will
That Youth and I are housemates still.

Dew-drops are the gems of morning, But the tears of mournful eve! Where no hope is, life's a warning That only serves to make us grieve,

When we are old:

-That only serves to make us grieve With oft and tedious taking-leave, Like some poor nigh-related guest That may not rudely be dismist, Yet hath outstay'd his welcome while, And tells the jest without the smile.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

STANZAS.

WHEN midnight o'er the moonless skies Her pall of transient death has spread, When mortals sleep, when spectres rise, And naught is wakeful but the dead;

No bloodless shape my way pursues, No sheeted ghost my couch annoys ; Visions more sad my fancy views, Visions of long-departed joys!

The shade of youthful hope is there, That linger'd long, and latest died:

Ambition all dissolved to air,

With phantom honors by his side.

What empty shadows glimmer nigh?
They once were Friendship, Truth, and
Love!

Oh, die to thought, to memory die,
Since lifeless to my heart ye prove!

WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER.

GO WHERE GLORY WAITS THEE.
Go where glory waits thee;
But while fame elates thee,

Oh still remember me!
When the praise thou meetest
To thine ear is sweetest,

Oh then remember me!
Other arms may press thee,
Dearer friends caress thee,
All the joys that bless thee

Sweeter far may be;

But when friends are nearest,
And when joys are dearest,
Oh then remember me!

When at eve thou rovest
By the star thou lovest,

Oh then remember me!
Think, when home returning,
Bright we've seen it burning,
Oh thus remember me!
Oft as summer closes,
When thine eye reposes
On its lingering roses,

Once so loved by thee,
Think of her who wove them,
Her who made thee love them-

Oh then remember me!

When around thee dying
Autumn leaves are lying,
Oh then remember me!
And at night when gazing
On the gay hearth blazing,

Oh still remember me!
Then should music, stealing
All the soul of feeling, .
To thy heart appealing,

Draw one tear from thee;
Then let memory bring thee
Strains I used to sing thee-
Oh then remember me!

THOMAS MOORE,

THE CLOSING YEAR.

'TIS midnight's holy hour, and silence now Is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds

The bell's deep tones are swelling,-'tis the knell

Of the departed year. No funeral train Is sweeping past; yet, on the stream and wood,

With melancholy light, the moonbeams

rest

Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirr'd

As by a mourner's sigh; and on yon cloud That floats so still and placidly through

heaven,

The spirits of the seasons seem to stand,Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form,

And Winter with its aged locks, - and breathe,

In mournful cadences that come abroad Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching

wail,

A melancholy dirge o'er the dead year, Gone from the Earth for ever.

'Tis a time

For memory and for tears. Within the

deep,

Still chambers of the heart, a spectre dim, Whose tones are like the wizard voice of

Time

Heard from the tomb of ages, points its

cold

And solemn finger to the beautiful
And holy visions that have pass'd away,
And left no shadow of their loveliness
On the dead waste of life. That spectre
lifts

The coffin-lid of Hope, and Joy, and Love, And, bending mournfully above the pale, | Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers

O'er what has pass'd to nothingness.

The year

Has gone, and with it many a glorious throng

Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each

brow,

Its shadow in each heart. In its swift Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and

Course

It waved its sceptre o'er the beautiful,--
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man,-and the haughty
form

Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
It trod the hall of revelry, where throng'd
The bright and joyous, and the tearful
wail

Of stricken ones is heard where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded.

It pass'd o'er The battle-plain, where sword, and spear, and shield,

Flash'd in the light of mid-day,—and the strength

Of serried hosts is shiver'd, and the grass, Green from the soil of carnage, waves above

sinks down

To rest upon his mountain-crag,-but Time Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness, And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind

His rushing pinions.

Revolutions sweep O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast

Of dreaming sorrow,-cities rise and sink Like bubbles on the water,-fiery isles Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back

To their mysterious caverns,-mountains

rear

To heaven their bald and blacken'd cliffs,

and bow

Their tall heads to the plain,-new empires rise,

The crush'd and mouldering skeleton. It Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,

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LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY.

THE fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever

With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle-
Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower would be forgiven
If it disdain'd its brother:
And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea;-
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

LOVE WILL FIND OUT THE WAY.

OVER the mountains

And over the waves;
Under the fountains

And under the graves;
Under floods that are deepest,
Which Neptune obey;
Over rocks that are steepest,
Love will find out the way.

Where there is no place

For the glow-worm to lye; Where there is no space

For receipt of a fly;

Where the midge dares not venture,

Lest herself fast she lay; If love come he will enter, And soon find out his way.

You may esteem him

A child for his might;

Or you may deem him

A coward from his flight: But if she whom love doth honor

Be conceal'd from the day, Set a thousand guards upon her, Love will find out the way.

Some think to lose him

By having him confined; And some do suppose him,

Poor thing, to be blind; But if ne'er so close ye wall him, Do the best that you may, Blind love, if so ye call him, Will find out his way.

You may train the eagle
To stoop to your fist;
Or you may inveigle

The phoenix of the East; The lioness, ye may move her

To give o'er her prey ; But you'll ne'er stop a lover, He will find out his way.

AUTHOR UNKNOWN.

A BRIDAL SONG.

ROSES, their sharp spines being gone,
Not royal in their smells alone,
But in their hue;
Maiden-pinks of odor faint,
Daisies smell-less, yet most quaint,
And sweet thyme true;

Primrose, first-born child of Ver, Merry spring-time's harbinger,

With her bells dim; Oxlips in their cradles growing, Marigolds on death-beds blowing, Lark-heels trim.

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While in his leaves there shrouded lay Sweet birds, for love that sing and play; And of all love's joyful flame

I the bud and blossom am.

Only bend thy knee to me—
Thy wooing shall thy winning be.

See! see the flowers that below
Now freshly as the morning blow,
And of all, the virgin rose,
That as bright Aurora shows→
How they all unleavèd die,
Losing their virginity;
Like unto a summer shade,
But now born, and now they fade:
Everything doth pass away;
There is danger in delay.

Come, come, gather then the rose;
Gather it, or it you lose.
All the sand of Tagus' shore
In my bosom casts its ore;
All the valleys' swimming corn
To my house is yearly borne;
Every grape of every vine
Is gladly bruised to make me wine;
While ten thousand kings, as proud
To carry up my train, have bow'd;
And a world of ladies send me,
In my chambers to attend me;
All the stars in heaven that shine,
And ten thousand more, are mine.
Only bend thy knee to me―
Thy wooing shall thy winning be.

GILES FLETCHER

PANGLORY'S WOOING SONG.
LOVE is the blossom where there blows
Everything that lives or grows:
Love doth make the heavens to move,
And the sun doth burn in love;
Love the strong and weak doth yoke,
And makes the ivy climb the oak,
Under whose shadows lions wild,
Foften'd by love, grow tame and mild.
Love no med'cine can appease;
He burns the fishes in the seas;

Not all the skill his wounds can stanch;
Not all the sea his fire can quench.
Love did make the bloody spear
Once a leafy coat to wear,

ROSALIND'S MADRIGAL.

LOVE in my bosom, like a bee,
Doth suck his sweet;

Now with his wings he plays with me,
Now with his feet.

Within mine eyes he makes his nest,
His bed amidst my tender breast;
My kisses are his daily feast,
And yet he robs me of my rest:
Ah, wanton, will ye?

And if I sleep, then percheth he
With pretty flight,
And makes his pillow of my knee
The livelong night.

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