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A SNOW-STORM.

V.

The wind goes down, and the storm is o'er:
'Tis the hour of midnight past;

The old trees writhe and bend no more
In the whirl of the rushing blast;

The silent moon, with her peaceful light,
Looks down on the hills, with snow all white;

And the giant shadow of Camel's Hump,

The blasted pine and the ghostly stump,
Afar on the plain are cast.

But cold and dead, by the hidden log,
Are they who came from the town:
The man in his sleigh, and his faithful dog,
And his beautiful Morgan brown;

In the wide snow-desert, far and grand,

With his cap on his head, and the reins in his hand, The dog with his nose on his master's feet,

And the mare half seen through the crusted sleet,

Where she lay when she floundered down.

CHARLES GAMAGE EASTMAN.

THE OLD MAID.

WHY sits she thus in solitude? Her heart
Seems melting in her eyes' delicious blue;
And as it heaves, her ripe lips lie apart,

As if to let its heavy throbbings through.
In her dark eye a depth of softness swells,

Deeper than that her careless girlhood wore; And her cheek crimsons with the hue that tells The rich fair fruit is ripened to the core.

It is her thirtieth birthday! With a sigh

Her soul hath turned from youth's luxuriant bowers, And her heart taken up the last sweet tie

That measured out its links of golden hours.

She feels her inmost soul within her stir,

With thoughts too wild and passionate to speak ; Yet her full heart, its own interpreter,

Translates itself in silence on her cheek.

Joy's opening buds, affection's glowing flowers,
Once lightly sprang within her beaming track;

O, life was beautiful in those lost hours!

And yet she does not wish to wander back.

THE OLD MAID.

No! she but loves in loneliness to think

On pleasures past, though never more to be; Hope links her to the future - but the link That binds her to the past is Memory.

From her lone path she never turns aside,
Though passionate worshippers before her fall;
Like some pure planet in her lonely pride,

She seems to soar and beam above them all.

Not that her heart is cold-emotions new,

And fresh as flowers, are with her heartstrings knit, And sweetly mournful pleasures wander through Her virgin soul, and softly ruffle it.

For she hath lived with heart and soul alive
To all that makes life beautiful and fair:
Sweet thoughts, like honey-bees, have made their hive
Of her soft bosom-cell, and cluster there.

Yet life is not to her what it hath been:

Her soul hath learned to look beyond its gloss ;

And now she hovers, like a star, between

Her deeds of love, her Saviour on the cross.

Beneath the cares of earth she does not bow,
Though she hath ofttimes drained its bitter cup,
But ever wanders on with heavenward brow,
And eyes whose lovely lids are lifted up.
She feels that in that lovelier, happier sphere
Her bosom yet will, birdlike, find its mate,
And all the joys it found so blissful here
Within that spirit-realm perpetuate.

EPITAPH ON EROTION.

Yet sometimes o'er her trembling heartstrings thrill
Soft sighs for raptures it hath ne'er enjoyed ;
And then she dreams of love, and strives to fill
With wild and passionate thoughts the craving void.
And thus she wanders on-half sad, half blest:
Without a mate for the pure lonely heart
That, yearning, throbs within her virgin breast,
Never to find its lovely counterpart.

AMELIA BALL Welby.

EPITAPH ON EROTION.

UNDERNEATH this greedy stone
Lies little sweet Erotion,

Whom the Fates, with hearts as cold,

Nipped away at six years old.

Thou, whoever thou may'st be,

That hast this small field after me,

Let the yearly rites be paid
To her little slender shade:

So shall no disease or jar

Hurt thy house, or chill thy lar;
But this tomb here be alone,

The only melancholy stone.

MARTIAL. (Latin.)

Translation of LEIGH HUNT.

BABY MAY.

CHEEKS as soft as July peaches;
Lips whose dewy scarlet teaches
Poppies paleness; round large eyes,
Ever great with new surprise;
Minutes filled with shadeless gladness,
Minutes just as brimmed with sadness;
Happy smiles and wailing cries,
Crows and laughs and tearful eyes;
Lights and shadows, swifter born
Than on windswept autumn corn;
Ever some new tiny notion,
Making every limb all motion:
Catchings up of legs and arms,
Throwings back, and small alarms,
Clutching fingers, straightening jerks,
Twining feet, whose each toe works,
Kickings up and straining risings,
Mother's ever new surprisings;
Hands all wants, and looks all wonder

At all things the heavens under;

Tiny scorns of smiled reprovings

That have more of love than lovings; Mischiefs done with such a winning Archness that we prize such sinning; Breakings dire of plates and glasses, Graspings small at all that passes,

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