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Cease, cease, Ellen, my little one,

Warbling so fairily close to my ear;

Why should you choose, of all songs that are haunting me,

This that I made for your mother to hear?

Hush, hush, Ellen, my little one,
Wailing so wearily under the stars;

Why should I think of her tears, that might
light to me

Love that had made life, and sorrow that mars?

Sleep, sleep, Ellen, my little one!

Is she not like her whenever she stirs ?

Has she not eyes that will soon be as bright to me,
Lips that will some day be honeyed like hers?

Yes, yes, Ellen, my little one,

Though her white bosom is stilled in the grave, Something more white than her bosom is spared to me,

Something to cling to and something to crave.

Love, love, Ellen, my little one!
Love indestructible, love undefiled,

The pantings of the warrior's heart are proud Upon that battle-morn whose night-dews wet his shroud;

The sun is loveliest as he sinks to rest;

The leaves of autumn smile when fading fast; The swan's last song is sweetest.

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.

ENID'S SONG.

FROM "IDYLS OF THE KING."

TURN, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud;

Turn thy wild wheel through sunshine, storm, and cloud;

Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or

frown;

With that wild wheel we go not up or down;
Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.

Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands; Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands;

Love through all deeps of her spirit lies bared For man is man and master of his fate.

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A RIDDLE.*

THE LETTER "H."

'T WAS in heaven pronounced, and 't was muttered in hell,

And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell; On the confines of earth 't was permitted to rest, And the depths of the ocean its presence confessed;

'T will be found in the sphere when 't is riven asunder,

Be seen in the lightning and heard in the thunder.
'T was allotted to man with his earliest breath,
Attends him at birth, and awaits him in death,
Presides o'er his happiness, honor, and health,
Is the prop of his house, and the end of his wealth.
In the heaps of the miser 't is hoarded with care,
But is sure to be lost on his prodigal heir.
It begins every hope, every wish it must bound,
With the husbandman toils, and with monarchs
is crowned.

Without it the soldier, the seaman may roam,
But woe to the wretch who expels it from home!
In the whispers of conscience its voice will be
found,

Nor e'en in the whirlwind of passion be drowned. 'T will not soften the heart; but though deaf be the ear,

It will make it acutely and instantly hear.
Yet in shade let it rest, like a delicate flower,
Ah, breathe on it softly, it dies in an hour.

CATHARINE FANSHAWE.

THE GIFTS OF GOD.

WHEN God at first made man, Having a glass of blessings standing by, Let us (said he) pour on him all we can : Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie, Contract into a span.

So strength first made a way;

Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honor, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that, alone, of all his treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.

For if I should (said he)

Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature :
So both should losers be.

Yet let him keep the rest,

But keep them with repining restlessness: Let him be rich and weary, that, at least, If goodness lead him not, yet weariness May toss him to my breast.

GEORGE HERBERT.

FATHER LAND AND MOTHER TONGUE.

OUR Father Land! and wouldst thou know
Why we should call it Father Land?

It is that Adam here below

Was made of earth by Nature's hand;
And he, our father made of earth,
Hath peopled earth on every hand;
And we, in memory of his birth,

Do call our country Father Land.
At first, in Eden's bowers, they say,
No sound of speech had Adam caught,
But whistled like a bird all day, -

And maybe 't was for want of thought:
But Nature, with resistless laws,

Made Adam soon surpass the birds;
She gave
him lovely Eve because
If he'd a wife they must have words.

And so the native land, I hold,

By male descent is proudly mine; The language, as the tale hath told, Was given in the female line.

• Sometimes attributed to Byron.

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A TRAVELLER through a dusty road strewed In this the lust, in that the avarice, acorns on the lea;

And one took root and sprouted up, and grew into a tree.

Were means, not ends; ambition was the vice.

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In this one passion man can strength enjoy, Love sought its shade, at evening time, to breathe As fits give vigor just when they destroy. its early vows; Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand, And age was pleased, in heats of noon, to bask Yet tames not this; it sticks to our last sand. beneath its boughs; Consistent in our follies and our sins,

The dormouse loved its dangling twigs, the birds Here honest Nature ends as she begins.

sweet music bore;

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Old politicians chew on wisdom past,
And totter on in business to the last;
As weak, as earnest; and as gravely out,
As sober Lanesborough dancing in the gout.

Behold a reverend sire, whom want of grace
Has made the father of a nameless race,
Shoved from the wall perhaps, or rudely pressed
By his own son, that passes by unblessed :
Still to his wench he crawls on knocking knees,
And envies every sparrow that he sees.

66

A salmon's belly, Helluo, was thy fate.
The doctor, called, declares all help too late.
'Mercy!" cries Helluo, "mercy on my soul!
Is there no hope? — Alas ! — then bring the jowl."
The frugal crone, whom praying priests attend,
Still tries to save the hallowed taper's end,

-

A dreamer dropped a random thought; 't was Collects her breath, as ebbing life retires,

old, and yet 't was new;

A simple fancy of the brain, but strong in being

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For one puff more, and in that puff expires.
"Odious! in woollen! 't would a saint pro-
voke,"

Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke ;

66

--

No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace
Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face:
One would not, sure, be frightful when one's
dead,
And-Betty - give this cheek a little red.”
The courtier smooth, who forty years had
An humble servant to all human-kind,
shined

Just brought out this, when scarce his tongue
could stir,

"If-where I'm going-I could serve you, sir?"
"I give and I devise" (old Euclio said,
And sighed) "my lands and tenements to Ned."
Your money, sir? 'My money, sir! what, all?
Why-if I must " (then wept)—"I give it

Paul."

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