STANZAS,

WRITTEN ON THE BACK OF A LETTER.

BY ISMAEL FITZADAM.

BLEST be the page affection traced!
All welcome to the wanderer's eye,
As roses springing mid the waste,
As rills along the desert dry.

And blest the spirit, breathing love,
That doubly every line endears,
While pensive memory pours above
The melancholy joy of tears.

Sweet messenger!-Thou com'st to bless
To tell one heart-a homeless one-
That, in this wide world's wilderness,
It beats not cannot break-alone.

No, not alone, nor wholly lost,

While love's fond sympathy can save;

Still fond, but in misfortune most,

And burning brightest near the grave.

God! is not this the very hand,

When stretched on sickness' rack I lay,
That wiped, as with a healing wand,
The bitter dews of pain away?

That ministered the cooling cup

To my parched lip ?—No cup of glee,—

Or, wet with tears, was lifted up

To Heaven, in fervent prayer for me?

Yes, sister of my soul! the part

Was thine long months to watch and weep

The anguish, whose convulsive start
Still mocked and murdered struggling sleep.

Beleaguered Nature's strife to view,

And every pang so keenly share,
That pity even from me was due,
Who lay the wretch of wretches there.

In that dark hour, when every tie,

When life itself was all but riven,

Thou stood'st a guardian angel by.

That loosed from earth, and led to Heaven.

Or, with unwearied labour, prest

The 'nerve where agonies were born,' Soothing my midnights—not of rest— Nor anxious for relief at morn.

And she one other not less dear,
Oh! can her love forgotten be!
Who, o'er that bed-that living bier-
Shared all thy toils and tears for me.

Like chords in music's holiest mood,

Mingling, but sweeter from controul, Twin forms of mercy! there ye stood, Breathing one fond, devoted soul!

Oh, nought of pure on earth beneath,
And scarcely aught in heaven above,

Can match the purity, the faith,
The blessing, of a sister's love!

Take, thou, the fond return of mine,

'Tis all, save verse, that's mine to give,

Till life's last pulses cease, 'tis thine,

And life itself it must outlive.

A DRINKING SONG.

BY LORD BYRON.

FILL the goblet again, for I never before

Felt the glow that now gladdens my heart to its core !

Let us drink!-Who would not? Since through life's varied round In the goblet alone no deception is found.

I have tried in its turn all that life can supply;

I have basked in the beam of a dark rolling eye;

I have loved!-Who has not ?-But what tongue will declare, That pleasure existed whilst passion was there!

In the bright days of youth-when the heart's in its spring,
And dreams that affection can never take wing,-

I had friends!-Who has not ?-But what tongue will avow
That friends, rosy wine, are so faithful as thou!

The breast of a mistress some boy may estrange;

Friendship shifts with the sun-beam ;-thou never can'st change! Thou grow'st old !—Who does not ?—But on earth what appears, Whose virtues like thine but increase with their years.

Yet if blest to the utmost that love can bestow,
Should a rival bow down to our idol below;

We are jealous!—Who's not ?—Thou hast no such alloy,
For the more that enjoy thee, the more they enjoy.

Then the season of Youth and its jollities past,

For refuge we fly to the goblet at last;

There we find-Do we not ?-In the flow of the soul,

That truth, as of yore is confined to the bowl.

When the Box of Pandora was opened on earth,

And Misery's triumph commenced over Mirth,

Hope was left!-Was she not ?-But the goblet we kiss,
And care not for hope who are certain of bliss!

Long life to the grape! and when summer is flown,

The age

of our nectar shall gladden our own;

We must die! Who shall not?-May our sins be forgiven, And Hebe shall never be idle in Heaven!

EPITAPH,

ON JOSEPH ATKINSON, ESQ.

BY THOMAS MOORE, ESQ.

Ir ever lot was prosperously cast,

If ever life was like the lengthened flow

Of some sweet music, sweetness to the last,

"Twas his, who, mourned by many, sleeps below.

The sunny temper, bright where all is strife,-
The simple heart that mocks at worldly wiles;
Light wit, that plays along the calm of life;
And stirs its languid surface into smiles;

Pure charity that comes not in a shower,

Sudden and loud, oppressing what it feeds,
But like the dew, with gradual silent power,
Felt in the bloom it leaves along the meads;

The happy grateful spirit that improves,

And brightens every gift by fortune given,
That wander where it will with those it loves,
Makes every place a home, and home a heaven.

All these were his.-Oh! thou who read'st this stone,
When for thyself, thy children, to the sky

Thou humbly prayest, ask this boon alone,—

That ye, like him may live, like him may die. Morning Chronicle.

A RECOLLECTION.

BY J. MOIR, ESQ.

SHE was a thing of morn-with the soft calm
Of summer evening in her pensive air;—
Her smile came o'er the gazer's heart, like balm,
To soothe away all sorrow save despair;
Her radiant brow scarce wore a tint of care,-
A sunny lake where imaged you might trace,
Of Hope and Memory all that's bright and fair,
Where no rude breath of passion came to chase,

Like winds from summer waves, its heaven from that sweet face.

As one who looks on landscapes beautiful,
Will feel their spirit all his soul pervade,—
Even as the heart grows stiller by the lull
Of falling waters, when the winds are laid,—
So he who gazed upon that heavenly maid
Imbibed a sweetness never felt before!

Oh! when with her through autumn fields I've strayed,
A brighter hue the lingering wild flowers wore,

And sweeter was the song the small bird warbled o'er!

Then came Consumption with her languid moods,
Her soothing whispers, and her dreams that seek
To nurse themselves in silent solitudes;-
She came with hectic glow, and wasted cheek,
And still the maiden pined more wan and weak,
Till her declining loveliness, each day,
Paled like the second Bow; yet would she speak
The words of Hope, even while she passed away
Amid the closing clouds, and faded ray by ray!

She died in the bud of Being,—in the spring,
The time of flowers, and songs, and balmy air;
'Mid opening blossoms she was withering,—
But thus 'twas ever with the good and fair,