They say there's bread and work for all,
And the sun shines always there-
But I'll not forget old Ireland,

Were it fifty times as fair.

And often in those grand old woods

I'll sit and shut my eyes,
And my heart will travel back again
To the place where Mary lies;
And I'll think I see the little stile

Where we sat side by side,

And the springing corn, and the bright May morn When first you were my bride.

HELEN SELina SheriDAN.

THE FICKLENESS OF PHYLLIS.

E shepherds, give ear to my lay,

And take no more heed of my sheep;
They have nothing to do but to stray;
I have nothing to do but to weep.

Yet do not my folly reprove;

She was fair-and my passion begun ; She smiled-and I could not but love; She is faithless-and I am undone.

Perhaps I was void of all thought:

Perhaps it was plain to foresee,

That a nymph so complete would be sought,
By a swain more engaging than me.
Ah! love every hope can inspire;
It banishes wisdom the while;
And the lip of the nymph we admire
Seems for ever adorn'd with a smile.

She is faithless, and I am undone;

Ye that witness the woes I dure,
Let reason instruct you to shu....
What it cannot instruct you to cure.
Beware how you loiter in vain

Amid nymphs of a higher degree:
It is not for me to explain

How fair, and how fickle they be.

Alas! from the day that we met,

What hope of an end to my woes? When I cannot endure to forget

The glance that undid my repose.
Yet time may diminish the pain :

The flower, and the shrub, and the tree,
Which I rear'd for her pleasure in vain,
In time may have comfort for me.

The sweets of a dew-sprinkled rose,
The sound of a murmuring stream,
The peace which from solitude flows,

Henceforth shall be Corydon's theme.
High transports are shown to the sight,
But we are not to find them our own;
Fate never bestow'd such delight,
As I with my Phyllis had known.

O ye woods, spread your branches apace;
To your deepest recesses I fly;

I would hide with the beasts of the chase;
I would vanish from every eye.

Yet my reed shall resound through the grove
With the same sad complaint it begun ;
How she smiled-and I could not but love;
Was faithless-and I am undone !

WILLIAM SHENSTONE

LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM.

THE days are gone, when beauty bright My heart's chain wove;

When my dream of lite, from morn till night,

Was love, still love.

New hope may bloom,

And days may come,

Of milder, calmer beam;

But there's nothing half so sweet in life As love's young dream.

THOMAS Moore.

MAID OF ATHENS.

AID of Athens, ere we part,
Give, O, give me back my heart!
Or, since that has left my breast,
Keep it now, and take the rest!
Hear my vow before I go.

By those tresses unconfined
Woo'd by each Ægean wind;
By those lids whose jetty fringe
Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge;
By those wild eyes like the roe;
By that lip I long to taste;

By that zone-encircled waist;
By all the token-flowers that tell
What words can never speak so well;
By love's alternate joy and woe.

Maid of Athens! I am gone,
Think of me, sweet, when alone.
Though I fly to Istambol,
Athens holds my heart and soul.
Can I cease to love thee? No!

LORD BYRON

FIRST LOVE'S RECOLLECTIONS. IRST-LOVE will with the heart remain When its hopes are all gone by; As frail rose blossoms still retain Their fragrance when they die : And joy's first dreams will haunt the mind With the shades 'mid which they sprung, As summer leaves the stems behind On which spring's blossoms hung.

JOHN CLARE.

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP.

HE birds, when winter shades the sky,
Fly o'er the seas away, '
Where laughing isles in sunshine lie,

And summer breezes play;

And thus the friends that flutter near
While fortune's sun is warm
Are startled if a cloud appear,
And fly before the storm.

But when from winter's howling plains
Each other warbler's past,

The little snow bird still remains,
And chirrups midst the blast.

Love, like that bird, when friendship's throng
With fortune's sun depart,
Still lingers with its cheerful song,
And nestles on the heart.

WILLIAM LEGGETT.

THE HEAVENLY FLAME.

OVE is the root of creation; God's essence.
Worlds without number

Lie in his bosom like children: He made them
for His purpose only-

Only to love and to be loved again. He breathed forth His spirit

Into the slumbering dust, and upright standing, st laid its

Hand on its heart, and felt it was warm with a flame out of heaven;

Quench, O quench not that flame! it is the breath of your being.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

BILL MASON'S BRIDE.

ALF an hour till train time, sir,

An' a fearful dark time, too;

Take a look at the switch lights, Tom,
Fetch in a stick when you're through.

"On time?" well, yes, I guess so

Left the last station all right-
She'll come round the curve a flyin';
Bill Mason comes up to-night.

You know Bill? No! He's engineer,
Been on the road all his life-

I'll never forget the mornin'

He married his chuck of a wife.

'Twas the summer the mill hands struck

Just off work, every one;

They kicked up a row in the village
And killed old Donevan's son.

Bill hadn't been married mor'n an hour,
Up comes a message from Kress,

Orderin' Bill to go up there,

And bring down the night express. He left his gal in a hurry,

And went up on Number One, Thinking of nothing but Mary,

And the train he had to run.

And Mary sat down by the window
To wait for the night express;
And, sir, if she hadn't a' done so,
She'd been a widow, I guess.

For it must a' been nigh midnight
When the mill hands left the Ridge-
They come down-the drunken devils {
Tore up a rail from the bridge.
But Mary heard 'em a workin'

And guessed there was somethin' wrongAnd in less than fifteen minutes,

Bill's train it would be along.

She couldn't come here to tell us.
A mile-it wouldn't a' done-
So she just grabbed up a lantern,

And made for the bridge alone.
Then down came the night express, sir,
And Bill was makin' her climb !
But Mary held the lantern,

A-swingin' it all the time.

Well! by Jove! Bill saw the signal,
And he stopped the night express,
And he found his Mary cryin',

On the track, in her wedding dress;
Cryin' an' laughin' for joy, sir,

An' holdin' on to the light-
Hello! here's the train-good-bye, sir,
Bill Mason's on time to-night.

F. BRET HARTE

BEDOUIN SONG.

"ROM the desert I come to thee

On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left behind

In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,

And the midnight hears my cry:

I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,

And the stars are old,

And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!

Look from thy window and see

My passion and my pain;

I lie on the sands below,

And I faint in thy disdain.

Let the night-winds touch thy brow
With the heat of my burning sigh,
And melt thee to hear the vow

Of a love that shall not die

Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,

And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!

My steps are nightly driven,
By the fever in my breast,
To hear from thy lattice breathed
The word that shall give me rest.
Open the door of thy heart,

And open thy chamber door,
And my kisses shall teach thy lips
The love that shall fade no more
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,

And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!

BAYARD TAYLOR.

TIS THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER.

IS the last rose of summer

Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;

No flower of her kindred,

No rosebud is nigh,

To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh!

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one,
To pine on the stem;

Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.

Thus kindly I scatter

Thy leaves o'er the bed

Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow,

When friendships decay, And from love's shining circle

The gems drop away! When true hearts lie wither'd, And fond ones are flown,

Oh! who would inhabit

This bleak world alone?

THOMAS MOORE.

GENTLEST GIRL.

.ENTLEST girl,

Thou wert a bright creation of my thought, In earliest childhood-and my seeking soul Wander'd ill-satisfied, till one blest day Thine image pass'd athwart it-thou wert then A young and happy child, sprightly as life; Yet not so bright or beautiful as that

Mine inward vision; - but a whispering voice

| Said softly-This is she whom thou didst choose;
And thenceforth ever, through the morn of life,
Thou wert my playmate-thou my only joy,
Thou my chief sorrow when I saw thee not.—
And when my daily consciousness of life
Was born and died-thy name the last went up,
Thy name the first, before our Heavenly Guide,
For favor and protection. All the flowers
Whose buds I cherish'd, and in summer heats
Fed with mock showers, and proudly show'd theit
bloom,

For thee I rear'd, because all beautiful
And gentle things reminded me of thee:
| Yea, and the morning, and the rise of sun,
And the fall of evening, and the starry host,
If aught I loved, I loved because thy name
Sounded about me when I look'd on them.

ON AN OLD WEDDING-RING

THE DEVICE -Two hearts united.
THE MOTTO.-Dear love of mine, my heart is thine
LIKE that ring—that ancient ring,

Of massive form, and virgin gold,
As firm, as free from base alloy

As were the sterling hearts of old.

I like it-for it wafts me back,

Far, far along the stream of time,

To other men, and other days,

The men and days of deeds sublime.

But most like it, as it tells

The tale of well-requited love;
How youthful fondness persevered,
And youthful faith disdain'd to rove―
How warmly he his suit preferr'd,
Though she, unpitying, long denied,
Till, soften'd and subdued at last,

He won his "fair and blooming bride."—

How, till the appointed day arrived,
They blamed the lazy-footed hours-
How, then, the white-robed maiden train
Strew'd their glad way with freshest flowers.
And how, before the holy man,

They stood, in all their youthful pride,
And spoke those words, and vow'd those vows,
Which bind the husband to his bride:

All this it tells; the plighted troth-
The gift of every earthly thing-

The hand in hand-the heart in heart

For this I like that ancient ring.

I like its old and quaint device;

"Two blended hearts"-though time may wear them,

No mortal change, no mortal chance,

"Till death," shall e'er in sunder tear them.

Year after year, 'neath sun and storm,

Their hope in heaven, their trust in GoD,

In changeless, heartfelt, holy, love,

These two the world's rough pathway trod.

Age might impair their youthful fires,

Their strength might fail, 'mid life's bleak weather,

Still, hand in hand, they travell'd on

Kind souls! they slumber now together.

f like its simple poesy, too,

"Mine own dear love, this heart is thine !" Thine, when the dark storm howls along, As when the cloudless sunbeams shine, This heart is thine, mine own dear love!" Thine, and thine only, and forever: Thine, till the springs of life shall fail;

Thine, till the cords of life shall sever. Remnant of days departed long,

Emblem of plighted troth unbroken,

Pledge of devoted faithfulness,

Of heartfelt, holy love, the token: What varied feelings round it cling !-For these, I like that ancient ring.

66

GEORGE WASHINGTON DOANE

EDWIN AND ANGELINA.

'URN, gentle hermit of the dale,
And guide my lonely way

To where yon taper cheers the vale
With hospitable ray.

For here forlorn and lost I tread,
With fainting steps and slow;
Where wilds immeasurably spread,
Seem lengthening as I go."
"Forbear, my son," the hermit cries,
"To tempt the dangerous gloom;
For yonder phantom only flies

To lure thee to thy doom.

Here, to the houseless child of want,
My door is open still;

And though my portion is but scant
I give it with good will.

Then turn to-night, and freely share
Whate'er my cell bestows:
My rushy couch and frugal fare,
My blessing and repose.

No flocks that range the valley free,
To slaughter I condemn ;
Taught by that power that pities me,
I learn to pity them.

But from the mountain's grassy side,
A guiltless feast I bring;

A scrip, with herbs and fruits supplied,
And water from the spring.

Then, pilgrim, turn, thy cares forego;
All earth-born cares are wrong:
Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long."

Soft, as the dew from heaven descends
His gentle accents fell;

The modest stranger lowly bends,
And follows to the cell.

Far in a wilderness obscure,
The lonely mansion lay;
A refuge to the neighboring poor,
And strangers led astray.

Around, in sympathetic mirth,

Its tricks the kitten tries;
The cricket cherubs in the hearth
The crackling faggot flies.