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Or, art thou, what thy form would seem, The phantom of a blessed dream? Oh! that my spirit's eye could see Whence burst those gleams of extacy! That light of dreaming-soul appears To play from thoughts above thy years, Thou smil'st as if thy soul were soaring To Heaven, and Heaven's God adoring! And who can tell what visions high May bless an infant's sleeping eye? What brighter throne can brightness find To reign on, than an infant's mind, Ere sin-destroy'd, or error dim, The glory of the seraphim?

I feel thee pulling at my gown,

Of right, good will, thy simple token.

And thou must laugh and wrestle too,A mimic warfare with me waging! To make as wily lovers do,

Thy after kindness more engaging!

The wilding rose-sweet as thyself,

And new-cropt daisies are thy treasure ;I'd gladly part with worldly pelf To taste again thy youthful pleasure.

But yet, for all thy merry look,

Thy frisks and wiles, the time is coming, When thou shalt sit in cheerless nook,

The weary spell, or horn-book thumbing.

Well, let it be! Through weal and wo,

Thou know'st not now thy future range; Life is a motley, shifting show :And thou a thing of hope and change.

TO A CHILD.

BAILLIE.

WHOSE imp art thou, with dimpled cheek,

And curly pate, and merry eye, And arm and shoulders round and sleek, And soft and fair, thou urchin sly?

What boots it who with sweet caresses,
First called thee his, or squire, or hind?
For thou in every wight that passes,
Dost now a friendly playmate find.

Thy downcast glances, grave, but cunning,
As fringed eyelids rise and fall;
Thy shyness, swiftly from me running,
'Tis infantine coquetry all!

But far a-field thou hast not flown, With mocks and threats, half-lisped, halfspoken ;

CHILDHOOD. SCOTT.

CHILDHOOD, happy stage of life! Free from care and free from strife, Free from memory's ruthless reign, Fraught with scenes of former pain; Free from fancy's cruel skill, Fabricating future ill;

Time, when all that meets the view, All can charm, for all is new.

Then to toss the circling ball, Caught rebounding from the wall; Then the mimic ship to guide Down the kennel's dirty tide; Then the hoop's revolving pace Through the dusty street to chase; O what joy!-it once was mine Childhood, pleasing boon of thine!

SCHOOL-BOY REMINISCENCES.

COWPER.

Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise, We love the play-place of our early days;

The scene is touching, and the heart is stone That feels not at that sight, and feels at none. The wall on which we tried our graving skill, The very name we carved subsisting still; The bench on which we sat while deep employed,

What walks I loved; where grew my fa vourite oak;

How gently I would lead him by the hand; How gently use the accent of command; What lore I taught him, roaming wood and wild,

Tho' mangled, hacked, and hewed, not yet And how the man descended to the child; How well I loved with him, on Sabbath

destroyed:

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By faltering out the name to fathers dear. O nature's language, with her looks combined,

More precious far than periods thrice refined! O! sportive looks of love, devoid of guile, I prize you more than Beauty's magic smile! Yes, in that face, unconscious of its charm,

I

gaze with bliss unmingled with alarm. Ah, no! full oft a boding horror flies Athwart my fancy, uttering fateful cries. Almighty Power! his harmless life defend, And if we part, 'gainst me the mandate send. Aud yet a wish will rise,-would I might live,

Till added years his memory firmness give!
For O! it would a joy in death impart,
To think I still survived within his heart;
To think he'll cast, midway the vale of
years,

A retrospective look, bedimmed with tears;
And tell, regretful, how I looked and spoke;

YOUTH. ANON.

YOUTH is the vision of a morn,

That flies the coming day;

It is the blossom on the thorn Which rude winds sweep away.

It is the image of the sky,

In glassy waters seen, When not a cloud appears to fly

Across the blue serene.

But when the waves begin to roar,
And lift their foaming head,
The mimic stars appear no more,
And all the heaven is fled.

'Tis fleeting as the passing rays

Of bright electric fire, That gild the pole with sudden blaze, And in that blaze expire.

It is the morning's gentle gale,

That, as it so fly blows, Scarce seems to sigh across the vale, Or bend the blushing rose.

But soon the gath'ring tempests pour,
And all the sky deform;
The gale becomes a whirlwind's roar,
The sigh a raging storm.

For Care and Sorrow's morbid gloom,
And heart-corroding strife,—
And sickness pointing to the tomb,
Await the noon of life.

YOUTH ENTERING ON THE WORLD.

BIDLAKE.

OFT have I seen when musing on the shore, Unskilful infants grasp th' unwieldy oar, Push the frail bark into the swelling main, Borne by the rapid tide, pant to regain The less'ning land, and, shrieking weep too late

The gaping horrors of tempestuous fate! True picture of our unsuspecting age, Who long to stretch where fatal billows rage: 'Gainst our own heaven like angels we rebel, And quit the realms where during raptures dwell;

Pant for a wing to range the World around, The World-how swoons my soul to hear the sound;

Here Obligation, e'en beneath the wing That hatches it to life, will fix a sting: Here worth is trampled down by mounted Pride,

And Modesty by Av'rice push'd aside. Such slow discernment guides the stupid crowd,

That Impudence for Talent is allow'd:
In Life's true masquerade fools are so blind,
That half a thin disguise will cheat mankind:
Here Ostentation weak expedients tries,
To lead from happiness our wand'ring eyes:
Thou would'st do good-but be thou pure as
snow,

With ev'ry kindness let thy bosom glow; Detraction's pois'nous breath thy fame shall blot,

Or Envy's microscope pry out a spot!
Has then this sickly world no cordial balm ?
This storm of passion no delightful calm?
Yet as the traveller 'mid dreary wastes
Here meets a flower-there a fountain
tastes-

As stars that aid the gloom of during night,
So scatter'd worth diffuses partial light;
Oe'r all our ills a self-born radiance sheds,
More bright, like phosphorus as darkness
spreads.

Let potent Wisdom smooth the wrinkled brow,

And sweet Complacence soften all below. See in each rising Sun new comfort giv'n And when it sets behold a nearer Heav'n!

The World-where Pleasure flies the grasp- The few rare gems of Friendship here im

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YOUNG.

SELF-FLATTERED, unexperienced, high in hope,
When young, with sanguine cheer, and streamers gay,
We cut our cable, launch into the world,

And fondly dream each wind and star our friend:

All in some darling enterprise embark'd;

But where is he can fathom its event!

Amid a multitude of artless hands,

Ruin's sure perquisite, her lawful prize!

Some steer aright, but the black blast blows hard,
And puffs them wide of hope; with hearts of proof,
Full against wind and tide, some win their way,
And when strong effort has deserv'd the port,
And tugg'd it into view, 'tis won, 'tis lost!
They strike! and while they triumph they expire!
One Cæsar lives; a thousand are forgot.

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CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL.

POLLOK.

HEAR what they were: The progeny of Sin
Alike, and oft combined; but differing much
In mode of giving pain. As felt the gross
Material part, when in the furnace cast,
So felt the soul, the victim of Remorse.
It was a fire which on the verge of God's
Commandments burned, and on the vitals fed
Of all who passed. Who passed, there met
Remorse;

A violent fever seized his soul; the heavens Above, the earth beneath, seemed glowing brass,

Heated seven times; he heard dread voices speak,

And mutter horrid prophecies of pain,
Severer and severer yet to come;
And as he writhed and quivered, scorched
within,

The Fury round his torrid temples flapped
Her fiery wings, and breathed upon his lips
And parched tongue, the withered blasts of
hell.

It was the suffering began thou sawest
In symbol of the worm that never dies.

The other, Disappointment seemed Negation of delight. It was a thing Sluggish and torpid, tending towards death,

Its breath was cold, and made the sportive blood,

Stagnant, and dull, and heavy, round the wheels

Of life. The roots of that whereon it blew Decayed, and with the genial soul no more Held sympathy; the leaves, the branches drooped,

And mouldered slowly down to formless dust;

Not tossed and driven by violence of winds, But withering where they sprung, and rotting there.

Long disappointed, disappointed still,
The hopeless man, hopeless in his main wish,
As if returning back to nothing, felt;
In strange vacuity of being hung,
And rolled, and rolled his eye on emptiness,
That seemed to grow more empty every hour.

THE DISTEMPER OF THE MIND.

THOMSON.

THE distempered mind Has lost that concord of harmonious powers Which forms the soul of happiness, and all Is off the poise within; the passions all Have burst their bounds, and Reason half extinct,

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