O SAY, THOU BEST AND BRIGHTEST.

O SAY, thou best and brightest,

My first love and my last,

When he, whom now thou slightest,
From life's dark scene hath past,
Will kinder thoughts then move thee?
Will pity wake one thrill

For him who liv'd to love thee,
And dying, lov'd thee still?

SHOULD those fond hopes e'er forsake thee,
Which now so sweetly thy heart employ;
Should the cold world come to wake thee

From all thy visions of youth and joy;

Should the gay friends, for whom thou wouldst banish Him who once thought thy young heart his own,

All, like spring birds, falsely vanish,

And leave thy winter unheeded and lone;

:

Oh! 'tis then that he thou hast slighted

Would come to cheer thee, when all seer'd o'er; Then the truant, lost and blighted,

Would to his bosom be taken once more: Like that dear bird we both can remember, Who left us while summer shone round, But, when chill'd by bleak December,

On our threshold a welcome still found.

PEACE TO THE SLUMB'RERS!

(CATALONIAN AIR.)

PEACE to the slumb'rers!

They lie on the battle-plain,
With no shroud to cover them;
The dew and the summer rain

Are all that weep over them.
Peace to the slumb'rers!

Vain was their brav'ry!

The fallen oak lies where it lay
Across the wintry river;

But brave hearts, once swept away

Are gone, alas! for ever.

Vain was their brav'ry!

Woe to the conq'ror!

Our limbs shall lie as cold as theirs
Of whom his sword bereft us,

Ere we forget the deep arrears
Of vengeance they have left us!
Woe to the conq'ror!

મ

t

And tell her thus, when youth is o'er,
Her lone and loveless charms shall be
Thrown by upon life's weedy shore,

Like those sweet flowers from thee.

WHEN NIGHT BRINGS THE HOUR.

WHEN night brings the hour

Of starlight and joy,

There comes to my bower

A fairy-wing'd boy;
With eyes so bright,

So full of wild arts,
Like nets of light,

To tangle young hearts;
With lips, in whose keeping

Love's secret may dwell,

Like Zephyr asleep i

Some rosy sea-shell.

Guess who he is,

Name but his name,

And his best kiss,

For reward, you may claim.

Where'er o'er the ground

He prints his light feet,
The flow'rs there are found

Most shining and sweet:
His looks, as soft

As lightning in May,
Though dangerous oft,

Ne'er wound but in play:
And oh, when his wings
Have brush'd o'er my lyre,

You'd fancy its strings

Were turning to fire.

Guess who he is,

Name but his name,

And his best kiss,

For reward, you may claim.

L

PEACE BE AROUND THEE.

(SCOTCH AIR.)

PEACE be around thee, wherever thou rov'st;

May life be for thee one summer's day, And all that thou wishest, and all that thou lov'st Come smiling around thy sunny way!

If sorrow e'er this calm should break,

May even thy tears pass off so lightly,

Like spring-showers, they'll only make

The smiles that follow shine more brightly.

May Time, who sheds his blight o'er all,
And daily dooms some joy to death,
O'er thee let years so gently fall,

They shall not crush one flower beneath.

As half in shade and half in sun

This world along its path advances,

May that side the sun's upon

Be all that e'er shall meet thy glances!

“A TEMPLE to Friendship," said Laura, enchanted,
"I'll build in this garden,-the thought is divine!”.
Her temple was built, and she now only wanted
An image of Friendship to place on the shrine.
She flew to a sculptor, who set down before her
A Friendship, the fairest his art could invent;
But so cold and so dull, that the youthful adorer
Saw plainly this was not the idol she meant.

"Oh never," she cried, "could I think of enshrining An image, whose looks are so joyless and dim;But yon little god, upon roses reclining,

We'll make, if you please, Sir, a Friendship of him.” So the bargain was struck; with the little god laden She joyfully flew to her shrine in the grove: "Farewell," said the sculptor, "you're not the first maiden Who came but for Friendship and took away Love."

THERE comes a time, a dreary time,
To him whose heart hath flown
O'er all the fields of youth's sweet prime,
And made each flower its own.

"Tis when his soul must first renounce
Those dreams so bright, so fond;
Oh! then's the time to die at once,
For life has nought beyond.

When sets the sun on Afric's shore,
That instant all is night;

And so should life at once be o'er,

When Love withdraws his light;-
Nor, like our northern day, gleam on
Through twilight's dim delay,
The cold remains of lustre gone,

Of fire long pass'd away.

་

મ