The way was as a labyrinth of love.

There Peace and low-voiced Pleasure might be found,
Seeking brief glimpses of the blue above,

Or gazing fondly on the lifeless ground,

As if some spirit spoke in every sound
Or rustling step : for even the naked earth
Hath seeds of human joy-of deep mysterious mirth.

But now, through all that peaceful pleasant path,

O'er which a leafy arch had late been flung,
The conquering Winter walks. A sign of wrath

Is on each stem and twining tendril hung.

The wind now wails, that in the spring-lime sung
Low symphonies of gladness; and the year
Sheds fust and frozen tears o'er Summer's shadowy bier.

That native green cathedral, where the soul

Swellid with the sweet religion of the fields,
Is all in ruin ; to Time's cold control,

Fretted with flowers the vaulted verdure yields.

From sharp decay no leaf its blossom shields,
But every rich adorning object dies
Which Nature's self beheld with glad admiring eyes.

Earth seems no longer the selected bride

Of Heaven, but, like a Widow, weepeth there.
Across her brow the deepening shadows glide;

The wreaths have perish'd on her pallid hair.

Yet in her bosom, beautiful though bare,
A radiant hope is sown, that soon shall rise

And ripen into joy beneath the brightening skies. 35 ATHENEUM, vol. 5, 3d series.

The sight in that forsaken place and hour

That touch'd me most with pity and strange woe, With tears of solemn pleasure-was a shower

Of loosen'd leaves, that flutter'd to and fro,

Quivering like little wings with motion slow,
Or wafted far upon the homeless breeze,
Above the shrubless mount, and o'er the sunless seas.

Oh! could the Mind within a leaf be curl'd,

What distant islands might mine eyes bebold ! How should my spirit search the various world,

The holy haunts where Wisdom breathed of old,

The graves of human glory, dim and cold ! Or float far upward in the frostless air, Returning home at last, to find its Eden 'there !

But those pale leaves that fell upon the ground,

When the wind slept, did most my thoughts engage ; They spake unto my sense with such a sound, Aš breaks and trembles on the tongue of age.

Each as it dropp'd appear'd some perish'd page, Inscribed with sad moralities, and words That seem'd the languaged notes of meadow-haunting birds.

So fast from all the arching boughs they fell,

Leaving that sylvan sanctuary bare
To the free wind, that musing through the dell

I paced amidst them with a pitying care.
Beauties were buried in those leaves—they were

The graves of spirits, children of the Spring-
And each one seem'd to me a sacred, thoughtful thing.

Honor be theirs to whom an insect seems

A thing made holy by the life it bears?
Yet some have found in forms unconscious, themes

For thought refined ; that each mute atom shares

The essence of humanity, its cares,
Its beauties and its joys-who feel regret
To tread one daisy down, or crush the violet.

Slight touches stir the heart's harmonious strings.

This feeling came upon me as I crept
By the stript hedge-a sympathy with things
Whose absent spirit with the sunshine slept

That fell, or floated on-or as I stept
Complaining music made, as if the feet
Of Time alone should press existences so sweet.

And then, among those dry and yellow leaves,

I felt familiar feelings, known to all;
That deep emotion when the warm heart heaves

And wakens up beneath a wintry pall.

My pleasures and my passions seem'd to call From out those wither'd leaves and then a voice Came with a livelier note, and taught me to rejoice.

The promises of Youth they fly and fade;

Life's vision varies with the changing year ;-
But the bright Mind receives no certain shade

From dead delights :-it rises calm and clear
Amid its ringlets grey and garlands sere.
Oh ! let not Time be ever track'd by grief,
Nor Man's instinctive Hope fall like an autumn leaf !

Be not thy tears too harshly chid, Love's perfect triumph never crown'd Repine not at the rising sigh ;

The hope unchequer'd by a pang; Who, if they might, would always bid The gaudiest wreaths with thorns are The breast be still, the cheek be dry?

bound,

And Sappho wept before she sang. How little of ourselves we know

Before a grief the heart has felt; Tears at each pure emotion flow : The lessons that we learn of woe

They wait on Pity's gentle claim,
May brace the mind as well as melt. On Admiration's feryid glow,

On Piety's seraphic flame,
The energies too stern for mirth,
The reach of thought, the strength of 'Tis only when it mourns and fears
will,

The loaded spirit feels forgiven,
Mid clouds of tempest have their birth, And through the mist of falling tears

Thro' blight and blast their course fulfil. We catch the clearest glimpse of heaven.

WEEP NOT FOR HIM THAT DIETH.

WEEP not for him that dieth

For he sleeps, and is at rest; And the couch whereon he lieth

Is the green earth's quiet breast : But weep for him who pineth

On a far land's hateful shore, Who wearily declineth

Where ye see his face no more ! Weep not for him that dieth

For friends are round his bed, And many a young lip sigheth

When they name the early dead : But weep for him that liveth

Where none will know or care, When the groan bis faint heart giveth

Is the last sigh of despair.

Weep not for him that dieth

For his struggling soul is free,
And the world from which it flieth

Is a world of misery :
But weep for him that weareth

The captive's galling chain;
To the agony he beareth,

Death were but little pain.
Weep not for him that dieth-

For he hath ceased from tears,
And a voice to his replieth

Which he hath not heard for years :
But weep for him who weepeth

On that cold land's cruel shore.
Blest, blest is he that sleepeth,–

Weep for the dead no more!

SONG.

She's on my heart, she's in my thoughts, I care pot if a thousand hear
At midnight, morn, and noon;

When other maids I praise ;
December's snow beholds her there, I would not have my brother by,
And there the rose of June.

When upon her I gaze. I never breathe her lovely name

The dew were from the lily gone, When wine and mirth go round;

The gold had lost its shine, But oh, the gentle moonlight air

If any but my love herself Knows well the silver sound!

Could hear me call her mine!

THE MISERIES OF HAVING NOTHING TO DO.

O mortal man that livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this thy hard estate ;
That like an emmet thou must ever moil,
Is a sad sentence of an ancient date ;
And certes there is reason for it great ;
For though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail,

And curse thy stars, and early drudge and late,
Withouten that would come an heavier bale,
Loose lire, unruly passions, and diseases pale.- Castle of Indolence.

This is a busy world, and repose and quarreled outright with this was not made for man, except in “Mundane Terrene.” I have his old age. Let philosophers, who heard that his first impulse towards know less of themselves than they money-making was the hope of do of the world, complain of the gaining a young lady who had been folly of mankind, in never being long the object of his affections, but satisfied with the situation in which who disliked his poverty more than Providence hath placed them, and she liked his person. He married thus losing the present in the anti- her at last, but they had waited too cipation of the future. Let them long. My father was forty-five, sneer at their baffled hopes, when, and my mother only ten years arriving at the summit they have younger. At these years it requires been toiling for years to gain, they a good deal of rubbing to smooth find it a barren waste, dreary and the asperities of old habits. The desolate, unlike the peaceful vale first disappointment of my father below. Why is it that philosophers was in finding that he had been study to become wiser than they laboring fifteen years to get a wife, are, since the acquisition of know- who actually sometimes contradicted ledge no more leads to the happi- him, as he verily believed, without ness of themselves or others, than reason. What is the use of money, does the acquisition of wealth and said he, if it don't make a man alhonors ? It is, that they may be- ways right? But though he was come wiser than the rest of man- not exactly satisfied with his barkind, just as a man labors for gain, he loved my mother, and wealth that he may become richer when she died, he was still more and more powerful. In short, it is disappointed than at his marriage. that they may be happier than they He shut himself up in an old garare-happier than the rest of their ret, where he continued to exist, fellow-creatures. What a dead sea and his money to accumulate, till I of a world would this be, if we all grew almost an old man myself, knew to a certainty that we were when he died, leaving me a fortune quite as happy as our neighbors ! I knew not what to do with, any All would then be at ease, and all more than a child. equally miserable. But let my sto- I was about twelve years old at ry exemplify my meaning.

the death of my mother, and more I was born and brought up in the than thirty when my father died alCastle of Indolence. My father most at the period of fourscore and was a philosopher in his way, for he ten. From the time he shut himhated the world, and despised his self up in his garret, I became in fellow creatures, for no other rea- some degree my own master in all son that I could ever learn, but things, except spending money, that, having toiled the best part of which, though my father despised, his life to get rich, and, finding that yet he hoarded with the devotion of his wealth added nothing to his a miser. He let me do just as I happiness, he took it in dudgeon, pleased, provided my bills did not

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amount to more than was absolutely riers. It was a relief to me when necessary. I went to school, but my pencil wanted cutting--the only when and where I pleased ; I honing of my razor was a perfect floated about with the wind and luxury—and helping my landlady to tide like a lazy ship at anchor ; I shell peas the delight of my soul. learned no profession ; I knew But these could not last forever : nothing of the business of the world, my principal resources were to conand I did nothing, except just what sider what I should do, to do nothing, I pleased. I hated study-I hated and to whistle quick tunes to make exercise-I hated noise-I hated myself believe that I was in a great company—and, above all, I hated hurry. I formed a close intimacy trouble. I read, it is true, a piece with a middle-aged person, who of a book here, and a piece there, had left off business, and had much and not unfrequently I had half a ado to live without it, for the sole dozen works in hand at once, none purpose of having an antagonist at of which I ever finished. So varia- backgammon ; and used to ble and fastidious was my appetite spend whole days in playing and for books, that I sometimes spent disputing whether chance or skill whole mornings at the public library, had most to do in winning the without being able to select one to game, taking different sides just as my satisfaction.

luck happened to be in favor of one If I had any decided taste, it was or the other. This was a great refor drawing ; but this, like all my lief to me while it lasted, but one other propensities, was under the day my antagonist gammoned me dominion of a busy idleness, that six times in succession. This was would not admit of anything like a the most serious misfortune that had constant attention to one object, but ever yet befallen me; I fell into a led me, by a sort of irresistible in- great passion, and made so many fluence, from doing nothing in one bitter reflections on my antagonist place, to doing nothing in another. for his confounded luck, that he put Sometimes, after sitting for hours on his hat, left the room, and never in a becalmed state in my room, I played with me afterwards. would suddenly seize my hat with was an irreparable loss to me, being an effort, and sally forth in a quick almost the only philosophically idle step, resolutely determined to do man of my acquaintance. After something, I knew not what ; but this I took to playing by myself, before I got to the next corner my and was for a long time tolerably impulse evaporated; I became happy in always taking the winning again perfectly becalmed, and, af- hand against my old antagonist, ter stopping for a while to consider who had the cruelty to gammon me where under heaven I should go, six times running. But use wears quietly returned to my room again off the keen edge of pleasure, as it -again to meditate another sally. does of a knife, and I grew tired at It can hardly be conceived, except last, even of being always on the by a kindred spirit, what a delight winning side. it was for me to have anything to Just at this time Providence threw do, that did not involve either la- a furious chess-player in my way, bor or trouble, both which I re- which I looked upon as the greatest ceived with a horror unsurpassable. blessing I ever received. He unNay, I could not bear to see any dertook to teach me, and I accepted person hard at work ; and my bones his offer with gratitude. The . ;

game imbibed the same sympathy with seemed made on purpose for me, his labors that those of Sancho producing, at first, exactly that Panza did with the sore bruises his gentle interest and excitement, so sage master received in his misad- congenial to my soul. It was deventure with the Yanguesian car- lightful to have something to do.

He

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