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'Tis of a child of five years old, upon whose peaceful

sleep

Fair visions of another world with silent footsteps creep; Soft as the dew on summer flowers, or moonlight on the sea,

The influence of that blissful dream to Fancy seems to be.

The cheek, upon the pillow press'd, wears joy's delightful tinge,

The eyes are closed, yet joy's bright tear steals thro' the eyelids' fringe.

The lips are voiceless, yet they wear the sweetest smile of bliss

A smile so sweet, it well might chide the fondest mother's kiss.

Thou happy sleeper, might I tell where now thy spirit

roams,

The lot it shares-how poor would seem the joys of proudest domes!

Fame, wealth, and grandeur, never yet a pleasure could impart

So pangless and so pure as those which now possess thy heart.

For thou art in the land of thought, and far hast left behind

The fading happiness of earth, for raptures more refined; Thine seems a foretaste of the boon appointed for the

bless'd,

"Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."

STANZAS.

BYRON.

AND thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;

And form so soft and charms so rare,
Too soon return'd to Earth!

Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,

There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;

There flowers or weeds at will may grow,

So I behold them not;

It is enough for me to prove

That what I loved and long must love,
Like common earth can rot;

To me there needs no stone to tell;
'Tis nothing that I lov'd so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last

As fervently as thou,

Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now,

The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,

Nor falsehood disavow;

I

And, what were worse, thou canst not see Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine;

The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.

The silence of that dreamless sleep,
I envy now too much to weep;

Nor need I to repine,

That all those charms have pass'd away,
I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd,
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:

And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;

The night that followed such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade;

Thy day without a cloud hath past,
And thou wert lovely to the last;
Extinguish'd, not decay'd;

As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee?
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity,
Returns again to me,

And more thy buried love endears
Than aught, except its living years.

THE WALLFLOWER.

MOIR.

THE wallflower-the wallflower,
How beautiful it blooms!

It gleams above the ruin'd tower,
Like sunlight over tombs ;
It sheds a halo of repose

Around the wrecks of Time ;-
To beauty give the flaunting rose,
The wallflower is sublime.

Flower of the solitary place!
Gray Ruin's golden crown!
That lendest melancholy grace
To haunts of old renown;
Thou mantlest o'er the battlement,
By strife or storm decay'd;
And fillest up each envious rent
Time's canker-tooth has made.

Thy roots outspread the ramparts o'er,
Where, in war's stormy day,
The Douglases stood forth of yore,
In battle's grim array:
The clangour of the field is fled,

The beacon on the hill

No more through midnight blazes redBut thou art blooming still!

Whither hath fled the choral band
That filled the abbey's nave?
Yon dark sepulchral yew-trees stand

O'er many a level grave;

In the belfry's crevices the dove

Her young brood nurses well,

Whilst thou, lone flower, dost shed above A sweet decaying smell.

In the season of the tulip cup,
When blossoms clothe the trees,
How sweet to throw the lattice up,
And scent thee on the breeze.

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