The man, who sets his heart upon a woman,
Is a chameleon, and doth feed on air:
From air he takes his colours, holds his life.
Changes with every wind — grows lean or fat -
Rosy with hope, or green with jealousy,
Or pallid with despair — just as the gale
Varies from north to south-from heat to cold!
BULWER'S Lady of Lyons.
"Tis woman's smiles that lull our cares to rest,
Dear woman's charms, that give to life its zest;
'Tis woman's hand that smoothes affliction's bed,
Wipes the cold sweat, and stays the sinking head!
They spake not a word,
But, like dumb statues, or breathless stones,
Star'd on each other, and look'd deadly pale.
And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,
And whisper one another in the ear;
And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist,
And he that hears makes fearful action,
With wrinkled brow, with nods, with rolling eyes.
What mighty contests rise from trivial things!
A tale more strange ne'er grac'd the poet's art,
And ne'er did fiction play so wild a part.
What you keep oy you, you may change and mend;
But words, once spoke, can never be recall'd.
Words are the soul's ambassadors, wnich go
Abroad upon her errands to and fro;
They are the sole expounders of the mind,
And correspondence keep 'twixt all mankind.
But words are things; and a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew upon a thought, produces
'That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
All the world's a stage;
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his turn plays many parts.
'T'he world is a great dance, in which we find
The good and bad have various turns assign'd;
But when they've ended the great masquerade,
One goes to glory, th' other to a shade.
The world's a stormy sea,
Whose every breath is strew'd with wrecks of wretches,
"Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat,
To peep at such a world; to see the stir
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd;
To hear the roar she sends through all her gates,
At a safe distance, where the dying sound
Falls a soft murmur on th' uninjur'd ear.
A world, where lust of pleasure, grandeur, gold,
Three demons that divide its realms between them -
With strokes alternate buffet to and fro
Man's restless heart, their sport, their flying ball.
YOUNG'S Night Thoughts.
What but a spacious burial-field unwall'd,
Strew'd with death's spoils, the spoils of animals,
Savage and tame, and full of dead men's bones ?
The very turf on which we tread, once liv'd;
And we, that live, must lend our carcasses
To cover our own offspring: in their turns
They too must cover theirs!
This world is all a fleeting show,
For man's illusion given;
The sinnes of joy, the tears of wo,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow;
There's nothing true but Heaven.
Yes,
fair as the syren, but false as her song,
Are the world's painted shadows, that lure us along;
Like the mist on the mountain, the foam on the deep,
Or the voices of friends that we grect in our sleep,
Are the pleasures of earth.
LEAVITT & ALLEN BROTHERS.
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL NOTICES.
LEAVITT & ALLEN BROTHERS.
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