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Retire, Retire! these tepid airs

Are not the genial brood of May; That sun with light malignant glares, And flatters only to betray.

Stern winter's reign is not yet past-
Lo! while your buds prepare to blow,
On icy pinions comes the blast,

And nips your root, and lays you low.

Alas! for such ungentle doom!

But I will shield you; and supply
A kindlier soil on which to bloom,
A nobler bed on which to die.

Come, then-ere yet the morning ray

Has drunk the dew that gems your crest,
And drawn your balmiest sweets away;
O come, and grace my Anna's breast.

Ye droop, foud flowers! But did ye know
What worth, what goodness there reside,
Your cups with liveliest tints would glow,

And spread their leaves with conscious pride.

For there has liberal Nature join'd
Her riches to the stores of art;
And added, to the vigorous mind,
The soft, the sympathizing heart.-

Come, then-ere yet the morning ray
Has drunk the dew that gems your crest,
And drawn your balmiest sweets away;
O come, and grace my Anna's breast.

O! I should think, that fragrant bed
Might I but hope with you to share,-
Years of anxiety repaid

By one short hour of transport there!

More blest than me, thus shall

ye live
Your little day; and when ye die,
Sweet flowers! the grateful muse shall give
A verse; the sorrowing maid, a sigh.

While I, alas! no distant date,

Mix with the dust from whence I came,
Without a friend to weep my fate,

Without a stone to tell my name.

WRITTEN TWO YEARS AFTER THE PRECEDING.

Gifford.

I wish I was where Anna lies,
For I am sick of lingering here;
And every hour, affection cries,
Go and partake her humble bier.

I wish I could! for when she died

I lost my
all;
Since that sad hour, a dreary void,
A waste unlovely, and unloved.

and life has proved

But who, when I am turn'd to clay,
Shall duly to her grave repair,

And pluck the ragged moss away,

And weeds that have "no business there?"

And who with pious hand shall bring
The flowers she cherished, snow-drops cold,
And violets that unheeded spring,

To scatter o'er her hallowed mould?

And who, while memory loves to dwell
Upon her name for ever dear,

Shall feel his heart with passion swell,
pour the bitter, bitter tear?

And

I did it;

and would fate allow

Should visit still, should still deplore,But health and strength have left me now, And I, alas! can weep no more.

Take then, sweet maid! this simple strain,
The last I offer at thy shrine;

Thy grave must then undeck'd remain,
And all thy memory fade with nine.

And can thy soft persuasive look,

Thy voice that might with music vie,

Thy air, that every gazer took,
Thy matchlesss eloquence of eye;

Thy spirits, frolicksome as good,

Thy courage by no ills dismay'd,

Thy patience by no wrongs subdued,

Thy gay good humour-can they fade?

CONTEMPLATIONS ON THE OCEAN.

Lord Byron.

THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar :
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain ́
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,

When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unk nell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convuls'd-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark heaving ;-boundless, endless, and sublime—
The image of Eternity-the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime

- The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

THE PROGRESS OF LIFE.

Anon.

I dreamed-I saw a little rosy child,

With flaxen ringlets in a garden playing;

Now stopping here, and then afar off straying As flower or butterfly his feet beguiled.

'Twas changed. One summer's day I stepped aside, To let him pass; his face had manhood's seeming, And that full eye of blue was fondly beaming

On a fair maiden whom he called "his Bride!"
Once more; 'twas autumn, and the cheerful fire
I saw a group of youthful forms surrounding,
The room with harmless pleasantry resounding,
And in the midst I marked the smiling Sire.

The heavens were clouded!—and I heard the tone
Of a slow moving bell-the white haired man was gone!

REMORSE, AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF A CONTINUED COURSE OF PROFLIGACY.

Crabbe.

HIMSELF he scorn'd, nor could his crime forgive,

He fear'd to die, yet felt asham'd to live:
Griev'd, but not contrite was his heart; oppress'd,
Not broken; not converted, but distress'd:

Proud minds and guilty, whom their crimes oppress,
Fly to new crimes for comfort and redress;
So found our fallen youth a short relief
In wine, the opiate guilt applies to grief;

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