Brief must they feel, who feel the spell
Of love too sensitively well;

As fires of sudden vividness

Exhausted by their own excess.

And such the wreath his passion braided,
For many a bosom bright but vain :
Like cistus bloom, scarce blown till faded,
Scarce faded till full-blown again!
Short-lived alike the bliss and pain,
Thus still adored, he still endured,
Wandering for ever, never cured.
His was indeed such wayward doom,
As seldom 'gainst man's sins is hurl'd;
His horoscope was dash'd with gloom,
His cloud came with him to the world,
And clipp'd him round, and weigh'd him down,
A deep, revokeless malison !

ON THE DEATH OF ISMAEL FITZADAM.

L. E. LANDON.

His was a harp just fit to pour

Its music to the wind and wave;

He had a right to tell their fame
Who stood himself amid the brave.

The first time that I read his strain
There was a tempest in the sky,
And sulphurous clouds, and thunder crash,
Were like dark ships and battle cry.

I had forgot my woman's fears,

In thinking on my country's fame, Till almost I could dream I saw

Her colours float o'er blood and flame.

Died the high song as dies the voice
Of the proud trumpet on the wind;
And died the tempest too, and left
A gentle twilight hour behind.

Then paused I o'er some sad wild notes, Sweet as the spring bird's lay withal, Telling of hopes and feelings past,

Like stars that darken'd in their fall.

Hopes perishing from too much light, "Exhausted by their own excess ;" Affections trusted, till they turn'd,

Like Marah's wave, to bitterness.

And is this, then, the curse that clings To minstrel hope, to minstrel feeling? Is this the cloud that destiny

Flings o'er the spirit's high revealing?

It is it is! tread on thy way,

Be base, be grovelling, soulless, cold; Look not up from the sullen path

That leads to this world's idol-gold.

And close thy hand, and close thy heart, And be thy very spul of clay,

And thou wilt be the thing the crowd
Will worship, cringe to, and obey.

But look thou upon Nature's face,

As the young poet loves to look; And lean thou where the willow leans, O'er the low murmur of the brook;

Or worship thou the midnight sky,
In silence at its moonlit hour;
Or let a single tear confess

The silent spell of music's power;

Or love, or feel, or let thy soul
Be for one moment pure or free,
Then shrink away at once from life,—
Its path will be no more for thee.

Pour forth thy fervid soul in song-
There are some that may praise thy lays;

But of all earth's dim vanities,

The very earthliest is praise.

Praise light and dew of the sweet leaves
Around the Poet's temples hung,
How turn'd to gall, and how profaned
By envious or by idle tongue!

Given by vapid fools, who laud
Only if others do the same;
Forgotten even while the breath

Is on the air that bears your name.

And he what was his fate, the bard
He of the Desert Harp, whose song
Flow'd freely, wildly, as the wind

That bore him and his harp along?

That fate which waits the gifted one,
To pine, each finer impulse check'd;
At length to sink, and die beneath
The shade and silence of neglect.

And this the polish'd age, that springs
The phoenix from dark years gone by,
That blames and mourns the past, yet leaves
Her warrior and her bard to die.

To die in poverty and pride,

The light of hope and genius past, Each feeling wrung, until the heart Could bear no more, so broke at last.

Thus withering amid the wreck

Of sweet hopes, high imaginings, What can the Minstrel do, but die, Cursing his too beloved strings!

I SAW THEE WEDDED.

REV. J. MOULTRIE.

I SAW thee wedded :-thou didst go
Within the sacred aisle ;

Thy young cheek in a blushing glow,
Betwixt a tear and smile.