VINCENT BOURXE.

Thus learning is bnt learned by halves,

BUSY, CURIOUS, THIRSTY FLY. And joy enjoyed no while ;

[Last verse added by Rev. J. Plumtree.)
That serves to show thee what thou want'st,
This helps thee to beguile.,

Busy, curious, thirsty fly,
Drink with me, and drink as I ;

Freely welcome to my cup,
But after death is perfect skill,
And joy without decay ;

Couldst thou sip and sip it up.

Make the most of life you may ;
When sin is gone, that blinds our eyes,
And steals our joys away.

Life is short, and wears away.
Na crowing cock shall raise us up

Both alike are mine and thine, To spend the day in vain ;

Hastening quick to their decline ; No weary labor shall us drive

Thine's a summer, mine no more, To go to bed again.

Though repeated to threescore. But — for we feel not what we want,

Threescorc summers, when they 're gone, Nor know not what we have —

Will appear as short as one.
We love to keep the body's life,
We loathe the soul to save.

Yet this difference we may sec
ANONYMOUS.

'Twixt the life of man and thec, —
Thou art for this life alonc,
Man seeks another when 't is gone;

And though allowed its joys to share,
THE EBB-TIDE

Tries virtue here, hopes pleasure there.
SLOWLY thy flowing tide
Came in, old Avon ! Scarcely did mine eyes,
As watchfully I roamed thy greenwood side, THE VANITY OF THE WORLD.
Perceive its gentle rise.

False world, thou ly'st : thou canst not lend
With many a stroke and strong

The least delight:
The laboring boatmen upward plied their oars : |Thy favors cannot gain a friend,
Yet little way they made, though laboring long

They are so slight :
Between thy winding shores.

Thy morning pleasures make an end

To please at night:
Now down thine ebbing tide

Poor are the wants that thou supply'st,
The unlabored boat falls rapidly along;

And yet thou vaunt'st, anı yet thou vy'st

With heaven ; fond carth, thou boasts ; false The solitary helmsman sits to guide,

world, thou ly’st.
And sings an idle song.

Thy babbling tongue tells golden tales
Now o'er the rocks that lay

Of endless treasure ;
So silent late the shallow current roars;

Thy bounty offers easy sales
Fast flow thy waters on their seaward way,

of lasting pleasure ;
Through wider-spreading shores. Thou ask'st the conscience what she ails,

And swear'st to ease her ;
Avon, I gaze and know

There's none can want where thou supply'st: The lesson emblemed in thy varying way; There's none can give where thou deny'st. . It speaks of human joys that rise so slow, Alas ! fond world, thou boasts ; false world, thou So rapidly decay.

ly’st.

What well-advised car regards
Kingdoms which long have stood
And slow to strength and power attained at last,

What carth can say ?
Thus from the summit of high Fortune's flood,

Thy words are gold, but thy rewards
They ebb to ruin fast.

Are painted clay :

Thy cunning can but pack the cards,
Thus like thy flow appears

Thou canst not play:
Time's tardy course to manhool's envied stage.

Thy game at weakest, still thou vy'st; Alas ! how hurryingly the ebbing years

| If seen, and then rery'd, deny'st : Then hasten to old age !

Thou art not what thou scem'st; false world,

thou ly‘st.

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

Thy tinsel bosom seems a mint

Of new-coined treasure ; A paradise, that has no stint,

No change, no measure ;
A painted cask, but nothing in't,

Nor wealth, nor pleasure :
Vain earth! that falsely thus comply'st
With man; vain man ! that thou rely'st
On earth ; vain man, thou dot'st; vain carth,

thou ly'st.
What mean dull souls, in this high measure,

To haberdash
In earth's base wares, whose greatest treasure

Is dross and trash ?
The height of whose enchanting pleasure

Is but a flash ?
Are these the goods that thou supply'st
Us mortals with? Are these the high'st ?
Can these bring cordial peace ? false world, thou
ly'st.

FRANCIS QUARLES.

Thou of all earth's kings art king;
Einpires at thy footstool lie;

Beneath the strewed,

Their multitude
Sink like waves upon the shore ;
Storms shall never raise them more.
What's the grandeur of the earth

To the grandeur round thy throne ?
Riches, glory, beauty, birth,
To thy kingilom all have gone.

Before thee stand

The wondrous band, —
Bards, heroes, sages, side by side,
Who darkened nations when they died.
Earth has hosts, but thou canst show

Many a million for her one ;
Through thy gates the mortal flow
Hath for countless years rolled on.

Back from the tomb

No step has come,'
There fixed till the last thunder's sound
Shall bid thy prisoners be unbound.

GEORGE CROLY.

THE NEVERMORE.

WRITTEN BY ONE IN THE TOWER, BEING YOUNG AND

CONDEMNED TO DIE,

Look in my face ; my name is Might-have-been ;

LINES
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell ;
Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell
Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between ;
Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen My prime of youth is but a frost of cares ;
Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my My feast of joy is but a dish of pain ;
spell

My crop of corn is but a field of tares ;
Is now a shaken shadow intolerable,

And all my good is but vain hope of gain : Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen. The day is (fled), and yet I saw no sun ;

And now I live, and now my life is done ! Mark me, how still I am ! But should there dart

One moment through my soul the soft surprise The spring is past, and yet it hath not sprung; Of that winged Peace which lulls the breath of | The fruit is dead, and yet the leaves are green ; sighs, –

My youth is gone, and yet I am but young; Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart I saw the world, and yet I was not seen : Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun; Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes. And now I live, and now my life is done !

I sought my death, and found it in my womb;

I looked for life, and saw it was a shade ;

I trod the earth, and knew it was my tomb ; THE GENIUS OF DEATH.

And now I die, and now I am but made ;

The glass is full, and now my glass is run ; What is death ? 'T is to be frec,

And now I live, and now my life is done!
No more to love or hope or fear,

CHIDIOCK TYCHBORN.
To join the great equality ;
All, all alike are humbled there.
The mighty grave

LINES
Wraps lord and slave ;

WRITTEN THE NIGHT BEFORE HIS EXECUTION.
Nor pride nor poverty dares come
Within that refuge-house, - the tomb.

E'en such is time ; which takes on trust

Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
Spirit with the drooping wing

And pays us but with earth and dust;
And the ever-weeping eye,

Which in the dark and silent grave,

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

AS YOU LIKE IT."

FROM THE

ESSAY ON MAN.”

All the world 's a stage,
RETRIBUTION.

And all the men and women merely players :

They have their exits and their entrances; Though the mills of God grind slowly, And one man in his time plays many parts, Yet they grind exceeding small ; His acts being seven ages.

At first the infant, Though with patience he stands waiting, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. With exactness grinds he all.

Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel,
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
THE FUTURE.

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation
HEAVEN from all creatures hides the book of fate, Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
All but the page prescribed, their present state : In fair round belly with good capon lined,
From brutes what men, from men what spirits With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
know :

Full of wise saws and modern instances; Or who could suffer being here below?

And so he plays his part : the sixth age shists The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?

With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side ; Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, O blindness to the future ! kindly given, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven: And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, That ends this strange eventful history, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall ;

Is second childishness, and mere oblivion, Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. Anil now a bubble burst, and now a world. Hope humbly then ; with trembling pinions

soar;
Wait the great teacher Death, and God adore.

PROCRASTINATION.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. Be wise to-day ; 't is madness to defer ;
Hope springs eternal in the human breast : Next day the fatal precedent will plead ;
Man never is, but always to be blest.

Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life.
The soul, uneasy and confined from home, Procrastination is the thief of time;
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Year after year it steals, till all are fled, Lo, the poor Indian ! whose untutored mind And to the mercies of a moment leaves Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; The vast concerns of an eternal scene. His soul, proud science never taught to stray Of man's miraculous mistakes this bears Far as the solar walk, or milky way;

The palm, “That all men are about to live,"

SHAKESPEARE.

Forever on the brink of being born.

Time the supreme !— Time is cternity; All pay themselves the compliment to think Pregnant with all eternity can give; They one day shall not drivel : and their pride Pregnant with all that makes archangels smile. On this reversion takes up ready praise : Who murders time, he crushes in the birth At least their own ; their future selves applaud : A power ethereal, only not adored. How excellent that life they ne'er will lead ! Ah ! how unjust to nature and himself, Time lodged in their own hands is Folly's veils ; Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man! That lodged in Fate's to wisdom they consign; Like children babbling nonsense in their sports, The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone : We censure nature for a span too short : 'Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool,

That span too short, we tax as tedious too; And scarce in human wisdom to do more. Torture invention, all expedients tire, All promise is poor dilatory man,

To lash the lingering moments into speed, And that through every stage. When young, And whirl us (harry riddance !) from ourselves. indeed,

Art, brainless art ! our furious charioteer In full content we sometimes nobly rest, (For nature's voice, unstifled, would recall) Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish, Drives headlong towards the precipice of death! As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise. Death, most our dread; death, thus more dreadAt thirty man suspects himself a fool ;

ful made : Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; O, what a riddle of absurdity ! At fifty chides his infamous delay,

Leisure is pain ; takes off our chariot wheels : Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve ; How heavily we drag the load of life! In all the magnanimity of thought

Blessed leisure is our curse : like that of Cain, Resolves, and re-resolves ; then dies the same. It makes us wander; wander earth around

And why? Because he thinks himselfimmortal. To fly that tyrant, thought. As Atlas groaned All men think all men mortal but themselves ; The world beneath, we groan beneath an hour. Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate We cry for mercy to the next amusement : Strikes through their wounded hearts the sud. The next amusement mortgages our fields ; den dread;

Slight inconvenience ! prisons hardly frown, But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, From hateful time if prisons set us free. Soon close; where passed the shast no trace is Yet when Death kindly tenders us relief, found.

We call him cruel ; years to moments shrink, As from the wing no scar the sky retains, Ages to years. The telescope is turned. The parted wave no furrow from the keel, To man's false optics (from his folly false) So dies in human hearts the thought of death ; Time, in advance, behind him hides his wings, Even with the tender tears which Nature sheds And seems to creer, decrepit with his age ; O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave. Behold him when passed by; what then is

DR. EDWARD YOUNG.

seen

But his broad pinions, swifter than the winds? DEFER not till to-morrow to be wise, And all mankind, in contradiction strong, To-morrow's sun to thee may never rise. Rueful, aghast ! cry out on his career.

CONGREVE.

Ye well arrayed ! ye lilies of our land !

Ye lilies male! who neither toil nor spin ;
TIME.

(As sister-lilies might ;) if not so wise Tre bell strikes one: we take no note of time, As Solomon, more sumptuons to the sight! But from its loss. To give it, then, a tongue,

Ye delicate ; who nothing can support, Is wisc in man. As if an angel spoke,

Yourselves most insupportable ! for whom I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,

The winter rose must blow, the sun put on It is the knell of my departed hours :

A brighter beam in Leo; silky-soft
Where are they? with the years beyond the flood ? Favonius ! breathe still softer, or be chiul ;
It is the signal that demands despatch ;

And other worlds send odors, sauce, and song,
How much is to be done ! my hopes and fears And robes, and notions, framed in foreign looms !
Start up alarmed, and o'er life's narrow verge O ye Lorenzos of our age ! who deem
Look down -- on what ? a fathomless abyss ;

One moment unamused a misery A dread eternity ! how surely mine!

Not made for feeble man ! who call aloud And can eternity belong to me,

For every bawble drivelled o'er by sense ;
Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour ?

For rattles and conceits of every cast,
For change of follies and relays of joy,