How short the rapid months appear,
Since round this board we met
To welcome in the infant year,
Whose star hath now for ever set!
Alas, as round this board I look,

I think on more than I behold,

For glossy curls in gladness shook

That night, that now are damp and cold. For us no more those lovely eyes shall shine, Peace to her slumbers! drown your tears in wine.

Thank heaven! no seer unblest am I,

Before the time to tell,

When moons as brief once more go by,
For whom this cup again shall swell.
The hoary mower strides apace,

Nor crops alone the ripened ear;
And we may miss the merriest face

Among us, 'gainst another year.

Whoe'er survive, be kind as we have been,
And think of friends that sleep beneath the green.

Nay, droop not: being is not breath;

'Tis fate that friends must part, But God will bless in life, in death, The noble soul, the gentle heart.

So deeds be just and words be true,
We need not shrink from Nature's rule,
The tomb, so dark to mortal view,

Is Heaven's own blessed vestibule ;

And solemn, but not sad, this cup should flow, Though nearer lies the land to which we go.

FARE THEE WELL.

BYRON.

FARE thee well! and if for ever

Still for ever,

fare thee well!

E'en though unforgiving, never

'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.

Would that breast were bared before thee
Where thy head so oft hath lain,
While that placid sleep came o'er thee
Which thou ne'er canst know again:

Would that breast by thee glanc'd over,
Every inmost thought could show!
Then thou would'st at last discover
'Twas not well to spurn it so.

Though the world for this commend thee-
Though it smile upon the blow,
E'en its praises must offend thee,
Founded on another's woe.

Though my many faults defac'd me,
Could no other arm be found,
Than the one which once embrac'd me,
To inflict a cureless wound?

Yet-oh, yet thyself deceive not-
Love may sink by slow decay,

But by sudden wrench, believe not,
Hearts can thus be torn away;

Still thine own its life retaineth

Still must mine-though bleeding-beat, And the undying thought which paineth Is-that we no more may meet.

These are words of deeper sorrow
Than the wail above the dead :
Both shall live--but every morrow
Wakes us from a widow'd bed.

And when thou wouldst solace gather-
When our child's first accents flow-
Wilt thou teach her to say-" Father?"
Though his care she must forego?

When her little hands shall press thee-
When her lip to thine is prest-

Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee-
Think of him thy love hath bless'd.

Should her lineaments resemble

Those thou never more may'st seeThen thy heart will softly tremble With a pulse yet true to me.

All my faults-perchance thou knowest
All my madness-none can know ;
All my hopes-where'er thou goest,
Wither-yet with thee they go.

Every feeling hath been shaken;

Pride, which not a world could bow,
Bows to thee-by thee forsaken,
Even my soul forsakes me now.

But 'tis done-all words are idle-
Words from me are vainer still;
But the thoughts we cannot bridle
Force their way without the will.

Fare thee well!-thus disunited,
Torn from every nearer tie;

Sear'd in heart-and lone-and blighted,
More than this, I scarce can die.

STANZAS.

L. E. LANDON.

I would not care, at least so much, sweet Spring,
For the departing colour of thy flowers-

The green leaves early falling from thy boughs-
Thy birds so soon forgetful of their songs-

Thy skies, whose sunshine ends in heavy showers;-
But thou dost leave thy memory, like a ghost,
To haunt the ruined heart, which still recurs
To former beauty; and the desolate

Is doubly sorrowful when it recalls

It was not always desolate.

WHEN those eyes have forgotten the smile they wear

now,

When care shall have shadowed that beautiful brow-
When thy hopes and thy roses together lie dead,
And thy heart turns back pining to days that are fled-

Then wilt thou remember what now seems to pass
Like the moonlight on water, the breath-stain on glass ;
Oh! maiden, the lovely and youthful, to thee,
How rose-touched the page of thy future must be!

By the past, if thou judge it, how little is there
But flowers that flourish, but hopes that are fair;
And what is thy present? a southern sky's spring,
With thy feelings and fancies like birds on the wing.

As the rose by the fountain flings down on the wave
Its blushes, forgetting its glass is its grave;
So the heart sheds its colour on life's early hour,
But the heart has its fading as well as the flower.

The charmed light darkens, the rose-leaves are gone,
And life, like the fountain, floats colourless on.
Said I, when thy beauty's sweet vision was fled,
How wouldst thou turn, pining, to days like the dead!

Oh! long ere one shadow shall darken that brow,
Wilt thou weep like a mourner o'er all thou lovest

now;

When thy hopes, like spent arrows, fall short of their

mark;

Or, like meteors at midnight, make darkness more

dark;

When thy feelings lie fettered like waters in frost,
Or, scattered too freely, are wasted and lost:
For aye cometh sorrow when youth has past by-
What saith the Arabian? Its memory's a sigh.