INSTABILITY OF FRIENDSHIP.

THOMAS MOORE.

ALAS!-how light a cause may move
Dissension between hearts that love-
Hearts that the world in vain had tried,
And sorrow but more closely tied,

That stood the storm when waves were rough,
Yet in a sunny hour fall off,

Like ships that have gone down at sea,
When heaven is all tranquillity!
A something light as air-a look-

A word unkind, or wrongly taken—
Oh! love, that tempests never shook,

A breath, a touch like this, hath shaken,
And ruder words will soon rush in
To spread the breach that words begin;
And eyes forget the gentle ray
They wore in courtship's smiling day;
And voices lose the tone that shed
A tenderness round all they said;
Till, fast declining, one by one,
The sweetnesses of love are gone;
And hearts so lately mingled, seem
Like broken clouds, or like the stream
That smiling left the mountain's brow

As though its waters ne'er could sever,
Yet, e'er it reach the plain below,

Breaks into floods, that part for ever!

DEAR HARP OF MY COUNTRY.

THOMAS MOORE.

DEAR Harp of my country! in darkness I found thee, The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long,

When proudly, my own Island Harp! I unbound thee, And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song! The warm lay of love and the light note of gladness Have waken'd thy fondest, thy liveliest thrill; But, so oft hast thou echoed the deep sigh of sadness, That e'en in thy mirth it will steal from thee still.

Dear Harp of my country! farewell to thy numbers, This sweet wreath of song is the last we shall twine; Go, sleep, with the sunshine of Fame on thy slumbers, Till touch'd by some hand less unworthy than mine, If the pulse of the patriot, soldier, or lover,

Have throbb'd at our lay, 'tis thy glory alone; I was but as the wind, passing heedlessly over, And all the wild sweetness I waked was thy own

OFT IN THE STILLY NIGHT.

THOMAS MOORE.

OFT in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber's chain has bound me
Fond Memory brings the light
Of other days around me;

The smiles, the tears
Of boyhood's years,

The words of love then spoken;

The eyes that shone,

Now dimmed and gone,

The cheerful hearts now broken!

Thus, in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

When I remember all

The friends, so linked together,

I've seen around me fall

Like leaves in wintry weather,

THE PERI AT THE GATE OF PARADISE.

I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed!
Thus, in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

THE PERI AT THE GATE OF PARADISE.

THOMAS MOORE.

"How happy," exclaimed the child of air, "Are the holy spirits who wander there,

'Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall! Though mine are the gardens of Earth and Sea, And the stars themselves have flowers for me, One blossom of Heaven outblooms them all!

"Though sunny the lake of cool Cashmere, With its plane-tree Isle reflected clear,

And sweetly the founts of that Valley fall; Though bright are the waters' glittering play, And the golden floods that thitherward stray, Yet, oh! 'tis only the blest can say

How the waters of Heaven outshine them all!

"Go, wing thy flight from star to star,
From world to luminous world,-as far
As the universe spreads its flaming wall—
Take all the pleasures of all the spheres,
And multiply each through endless years,

One minute of heaven is worth them all!"

69

BRUCE AND THE SPIDER.

ELIZA COOK.

KING Bruce of Scotland flung himself down, in a lonely mood to think!

'Tis true he was monarch, and wore a crown, but his heart was beginning to sink.

For he had been trying to do a great deed to make his people glad;

He had tried and tried, but couldn't succeed, and so he became quite sad.

He flung himself down in low despair, as grieved as man could be ;

And after awhile, as he pondered there, "I'll give it all up," said he.

Now just at that moment a spider dropped, with its silken cobweb clue;

And the king in the midst of his thinking stoppedto see what the spider would do!

'Twas a long way up to the ceiling dome; and it hung by a rope so fine,

That how it would get to its cobweb home, King Bruce could not divine.

It soon began to cling and crawl straight up with strong endeavour,

But down it came with a slipping sprawl as near to the ground as ever.

Again the spider swung below, but again it quickly mounted;

Till up and down, now fast, now slow, nine brave attempts were counted

"Sure," cried the king, "that foolish thing will strive no more to climb,

When it toils so hard to reach and cling, and tumbles every time."

Up again it went, inch by inch, higher and higher he

got;