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Those lovely maids were call'd "the Hours,"
The charge of Virtue's flock they kept;
And each in turn employ'd her powers
To guard it while her sisters slept.

False Love, how simple souls thou cheatest! In myrtle bower that traitor near

Long watch'd an Hour-the softest, sweetestThe evening Hour, to shepherds dear.

In tones so bland he praised her beauty;
Such melting airs his pipe could play,
The thoughtless Hour forgot her duty,
And fled in Love's embrace away.

Meanwhile the fold was left unguarded; The wolf broke in, the lambs were slain; And now from Virtue's train discarded, With tears her sisters speak their pain.

Time flies, and still they weep; for never
The fugitive can time restore;
An Hour once fled, has fled for ever,

And all the rest shall smile no more!

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NEVER DESPAIR.

FROM "VOICES FOR PROGRESS, AND OTHER POE
BY THOMAS FORSTER KER, 1853.

NEVER despair! though dark shadows surround
Let not thine heart be oppress'd with the gloo
Remember, though failure to-day may have fou
To-morrow, success may thy pathway illume!

Never despair! though long suffering and wea
Look forward with faith to the future's bri
And despite thy dark prospects, all lonesome
Fortune, at last, may thine efforts adorn.

Never despair! though the task long begu
Seems more than thy heart's strengt
through;

Perseverance may tell thee, long ere th
That thy strength is full strong if t

Never despair! like the coward and
Who carp o'er the ills which they
Nor rest till thou reacheth the go
And snatch the bright honou
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To-morrow, suver BA BY DALAW

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WHO are the living of the earth?

Not they that creep, like slugs, from birth
Through noteless years to nameless graves.-
The spark celestial early craves
Celestial aliment, and wings,

To roam amid all glorious things;
The pinions germ-the heights are won,
And richly then lives Fancy's Son!
Music winding the world about
Tempts spirit-cloister'd echoes out;
Within him, Beauty's moulds and dies

Mingle their eternities.

Mark him on yon promontory

Fledging his vision for flight of glory;

For, oh, what a beautiful world is ours,

Bright waters, green meadows, and twilight bowers! And seen by the youth from his mountain-peak,

They sleep on the plain so bland and meek;

The blue sky kissing the ocean white,

Dim on the outer verge of sight;

The city's pride of spires and domes;
The hamlet-cluster of peasant homes;
The river, curved like an argent snake
Through flowery sward, and woodland brake.
For years 'twill be life's dew to find
That scene's fair reflex in his mind!

Mark the same mute, earnest form,
When the spirit of the speeding storm
Sends mystic bodings through the trees,
Which move and moan without a breeze;
When clouds brood low o'er the stifled earth,
And scowl in the throes of the thunder birth;
When boundeth the big, unswerving rain;

+ When the lurid line cleaves the vault in twain,
And the sound-billows leap from the firmament,
As if heaven's primeval vail were rent ;-
Mark that flush'd brow and throbbing eye,
For, solved by intensest sympathy,

His spirit is blent with the tempest strife.-
Oh this is living,-this is life!

Who are the living of the earth?

The bubbles of passion and joyless mirth
Are freighted with many a slave of lust,
Whose name shall moulder with his dust;
But what of worthy life has this,—
To note the orb of early bliss
Wane from its goodly matin-prime
Chill and dim with lapsing time,

Even memory trembling with the breath

Above the oblivious maw of death?

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