O, lest the world should task you to recite
What merit liv'd in me, that you should love
After my death,-dear love. forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove;
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I
Than niggard truth would willingly impart :
O, lest your true love may seem false in this,
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me nor you.
For I am sham'd by that which I bring forth,
And so would you to love things nothing worth.

That time of year thou may'st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more
strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long
W. Shakspere.

Stanzas

(From Songs and Psalms)

MY prime of youth is but a frost of cares!

My feast of joy is but a dish of pain !
My crop of corn is but a field of tares!

And all my good is but vain hope of gain!
My life is fled, and yet I saw no sun!
And now I live, and now my life is done!

The spring is past, and yet it hath not sprung!
The fruit is dead, and yet the leaves be green !
My youth is gone, and yet I am but young !
I saw the world, and yet I am not seen!
My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun !
And now I live, and now my life is done!

J. Mundy.

Dream Pedlary

(From Poems of 1851)

IF

there were dreams to sell,

What would you buy?

Some cost a passing bell;

Some a light sigh,

That shakes from Life's fresh crown

Only a rose-leaf down.

If there were dreams to sell,

Merry and sad to tell,

And the crier rang the bell,

What would you buy?

A cottage lone and still,
With bowers nigh,

Shadowy, my woes to still
Until I die.

Such pearl from Life's fresh crown
Fain would I shake me down.
Were dreams to have at will,
This best would heal my ill,
This would I buy.

But there were dreams to sell
Ill didst thou buy ;

Life is a dream, they tell,
Waking, to die.
Dreaming a dream to prize,
Is wishing ghosts to rise;
And if I had the spell
To call the buried well,
Which one would I?

If there are ghosts to raise,
What shall I call,
Out of hell's murky haze,
Heaven's blue pall?

Raise my loved long-lost boy

To lead me to his joy.—

There are no ghosts to raise ;

Out of death lead no ways;
Vain is the call.

Know st thou not ghosts to sue
No love thou hast.

Else lie, as I will do,

And breathe my last.
So out of Life's fresh crown
Fall like a rose-leaf down.

Thus are the ghosts to woo;
Thus are all dreams made true,

Ever to last!

T. L. Beddoes.

Amicus Redivivus

(From Last Essays of Elia)

I Do not know when I have experienced a

stranger sensation, than on seeing my old friend G. D., who had been paying me a morning visit a few Sundays back, at my cottage at Islington, upon taking leave, instead of turning down the right hand path by which he had entered--with staff in hand, and at noonday, deliberately march right forwards into the midst of the stream that runs by us, and totally disappear.

A spectacle like this at dusk would have been appalling enough! but, in the broad open daylight, to witness such an unreserved motion towards self-destruction in a valued friend, took from me all power of speculation.

How I found my feet, I know not. ness was quite gone. whirled me to the spot.

Conscious

Some spirit, not my own,
I remember nothing but the

silvery apparition of a good white head emerging; nigh which a staff (the hand unseen which wielded it) pointed upwards, as feeling for the skies. In a moment (if time was in that time) he was on my shoulders, and I-freighted with a load more precious than his who bore Anchises.

Life

And here I cannot but do justice to the officious zeal of sundry passers-by, who, albeit arriving a little late to participate in the honours of the rescue, in philanthropic shoals came thronging to communicate their advice as to the recovery; prescribing variously the application, or non-application, of salt &c., to the person of the patient. meantime was ebbing fast away, amidst the stifle of conflicting judgments, when one, more sagacious than the rest, by a bright thought, proposed sending for the Doctor. Trite as the counsel was, and impossible, as one would think, to be missed on,-shall I confess? in this emergency, it was to me as if an Angel had spoken. Great previous exertions and mine had not been inconsiderable -are commonly followed by a debility of purpose. This was a moment of irresolution.

Monoculus-for so, in default of catching his true name, I choose to designate the medical gentleman who now appeared-is a grave middleaged person, who, without having studied at the college, or truckled to the pedantry of a diploma, hath employed a great portion of his valuable time in experimental processes upon the bodies of unfortunate fellow creatures, in whom the vital spark,