O, lest the world should task you to recite That time of year thou may'st in me behold Which by and by black night doth take away, To love that well which thou must leave ere long 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 ! And all my good is but vain hope of gain! The spring is past, and yet it hath not sprung! 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, Shadowy, my woes to still Such pearl from Life's fresh crown But there were dreams to sell Life is a dream, they tell, If there are ghosts to raise, Raise my loved long-lost boy To lead me to his joy.— There are no ghosts to raise ; Out of death lead no ways; Know st thou not ghosts to sue Else lie, as I will do, And breathe my last. Thus are the ghosts to woo; 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, 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, |