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TO A FLY LOITERING NEAR A SPIDER'S WEB.

WILLIAM REID. FROM 'THE CITY MUSE."

HASTEN, hasten, little fly,
Pass yon artful tissue by ;
Touch it not, it is a snare-
Rise upon thy native air;
Give not hesitation breath-
Shun the netted web of death.
See beneath the ambuscade
Schemes of murder darkly laid;
There the cunning spider lies,
Gloomy foe of thoughtless flies!
Cruel with suspense it waits,
Fix'd as chance preponderates,
Watching thy adventurous limbs,
As the sunny wall thou climbs,
Wandering with exploring eye,
Seeking sweets that hidden lie.
Little know'st thou, witless thing,
What a heedless step may bring.

Pleasure thus arrays her charms,
Rapture kindling in her arms.

Rosy nectar's subtle tide-
Rich in golden channels, glide!
Laughing flowers, enwreath the cup!
Giddy mortal, drain it up '
Now dissolves the potent spell,
Changing into loathsome hell;
Fell remorse and racking pain
Gnaw the vitals, fire the brain,
Darkening hope and withering thought--
Poison rankling in the draught-
Gather on the thicken'd breath
Emptied in despair and death.
Such is folly's destiny!

As with man, it is with thee:
If, alas thou luckless stray,
Reckless of the fatal way,

Then, poor fly, thou liv'st to know
Indiscretion ends in woe.

28

THE LAND WHICH NO MORTAL MAY KNOW.

JOHN ALLEN WALKER.

OH! where are the eyes that once beam'd upon me?
And where are the friends I rejoiced once to see?
And where are the hearts that held amity's glow?
They are gone to the land which no mortal may know!

When shadows of midnight descend o'er the plain,
How drear is the path of the way-faring swain ;
Yet drearer and darker the road I must go,

Ere I rest in that land which no mortal may know!

Yet pilgrims who roam through the glooming of night,
Still hail the bright beams of the dawn-coming light;
And though the approach of the morning be slow,
Its hope-kindled ray seems to lessen their woe :

And thus when the tear-drop of sorrow I shed,
And bend me above the cold tomb of the dead,
A ray of the future diffuses its glow,

And I look to the land which no mortal may know.

SONG.

Old Border air-"My good Lord John."

THOMAS PRINGLE, BORN AT BLAIKLAW, ROXBURGHSHIRE, JANUARY 5, 1789, DIED IN LONDON, DECEMBER

5, 1834, BURIED IN BUNHILL FIELDS.

OUR native land-our native vale,-
A long and last adieu ;-
Farewell to bonny Teviot-dale,
And Cheviot-mountains blue!

Farewell, ye hills of glorious deeds,
And streams renown'd in song;
Farewell ye blithesome braes and meads,
Our hearts have loved so long.

Farewell ye broomy elfin knowes
Where thyme and harebells grow;
Farewell ye hoary haunted howes
O'erhung with birk and sloe.

The battle mound-the Border tower
That Scotia's annals tell ;-

The martyr's grave-the lover's bower,

To each to all-farewell!

Home of our hearts !—our father's home

Land of the brave and free!

The sail is flapping on the foam
That bears us far from thee!

We seek a wild and distant shore
Beyond the Atlantic main;
We leave thee to return no more,
Nor view thy cliffs again!

But may dishonour blight our fame,
And quench our household fires,
When we, or ours, forget thy name,
Green island of our sires.

Our native land-o
—our native vale,—
A long, a last adieu ;-
Farewell to bonny Teviot-dale,

And Scotland's mountains blue.

We copy the above touching little ballad from the album of a friend, where it was written by its author a few days before he left for the new colony at the Cape of Good Hope. Mr. Pringle was the editor of the first volume of Blackwood's Magazine, as well as the first three volumes of Constable's new series of the Scot's Magazine. For several years he was editor of Friendship's Offering. He is also the author of a volume of poems, entitled the Autumnal Excursion, and of a series of African Sketches in prose and verse.---Literary Gazette.

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