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regard me as unhappy when you catch me in these moods: I am never more happy than at times, when by the cast of my countenance men judge me most miserable. My friend, the events which have left this sadness behind them are of no recent date. The melancholy which comes over me with the recollection of them is not hurtful, but only tends to soften and tranquillize my mind, to detach me from the restlessness of human pursuits. The stronger I feel this detachment, the more I find myself drawn heavenward to the contemplation of spiritual objects. I love to keep old friendships alive and warm within me, because I expect a renewal of them in the world of spirits. I am a wandering and unconnected thing on the earth, I have made no new friendships that can compensate me for the loss of the old, and the more I know mankind, the more does it become necessary for me to supply their loss by little images, recollections, and circumstances of past pleasures.

CHARLES LAMB. Rosamond Grey.

I STOOD on the bridge at midnight,
As the clocks were striking the hour;
And the moon rose over the city
Behind the dark church tower.

*

*

And like those waters rushing
Among the wooden piers,
A flood of thoughts came o'er me
That filled my eyes with tears.

How often! O, how often!

In the days that had gone by;
I had stood on that bridge at midnight
And gazed on that wave and sky.

How often! O, how often!

I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its bosom
O'er the ocean wild and wide!

*Review the series of our lives and taste

The melancholy joy of evils past:

For he who much has suffer'd, much will know
And pleas'd remembrance builds delight on woe.
POPE. Iliad, Book XV.

For my heart was hot and restless,
And my life was full of care,
And the burden laid upon me
Seemed greater than I could bear.

But now it has fallen from me,
It is buried in the sea,
And only the sorrow of others,
Throws its shadow over me.

Yet whenever I cross the river

On its bridge with wooden piers,
Like the odour of brine from the ocean
Comes the thought of other years.
And I think how many thousands
Of care-encumbered men,
Each bearing his burden of sorrow,
Have crossed the bridge since then.
I see the long procession

Still passing to and fro,

The young heart hot and restless,
And the old subdued and slow!

I REMEMBER, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;

He never came a wink too soon
Nor brought too long a day;
But now I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.
I remember, I remember
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups-
Those flowers made of light!

The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set

The laburnum on his birth-day,—

The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember

Where I was used to swing,

LONGFELLOW.

And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;

My spirit flew in feathers then
That is so heavy now,

And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow.

I remember, I remember

The fir-trees, dark and high;

I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:

It was a childish ignorance,

But now 'tis little joy

To know I'm farther off from Heaven

Than when I was a boy.

HAST thou been ever waking

From slumbers soft and light,
And heard sweet music breaking
The stillness of the night;
When all the soul was blending
With that delightful strain,
And night her fancy lending
To rivet fancy's chain;

Then on a sudden pausing,
Those strains have ceased to play,

A painful absence causing
Of bliss that died away?

So from my soul has vanish'd
The dream of youthful days;
And hope and love are banish'd,

And truth her power displays.

Hood.

HONE. Every Day Book.

LET fate do her worst, there are relics of joy,

Bright dreams of the past which she cannot destroy,
Which come in the night-time of sorrow and care,
And bring back the features which joy used to wear.
MOORE. Irish Melodies.

RECOLLECTIONS.

TEARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean,

Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

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Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one

That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remember'd kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

TENNYSON. The Princess.

BUT ever and anon of griefs subdued

There comes a token like a scorpion's sting,
Scarce seen but with fresh bitterness imbued,

And slight withal may be the things which bring
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling
Aside for ever: it may be a sound,

A tone of music-summer's eve-or spring

A flower-the wind-the ocean which shall wound,

Striking the electric-chain wherewith we are darkly bound.

Childe Harold, Canto IV.

BUT those hardy days flew cheerily !

And when they now fall drearily,

My thoughts, like swallows, skim the main,

And bear my spirit back again

Over the earth, and through the air,

A wild bird and a wanderer.

The Siege of Corinth.

REMEMBRANCE.

YET in these ears, till hearing dies,
One set slow bell will ever toll
The passing of the sweetest soul
That ever look'd with human eyes.

TENNYSON. In Memoriam.

MUSIC, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory,

Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap'd for the beloved's bed;

And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

SHELLEY.

TACITURNITY.

SECRET men come to a knowledge of many things in that kind; while men rather discharge their minds, than impart their minds.*

BACON. Essay-On Simulation.

TALKERS and futile persons are commonly vain and credulous withal; for he that talketh what he knoweth, will also talk what he knoweth not; therefore set it down that a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral: and in this part it is good; that a man's face gives his tongue leave to speak; for the discovery of a man's self by the tracts of his countenance, is a great weakness and betraying, by how much it is many times more marked and believed than a man's words.

BACON.

PROGRESS OF STATES.

IN the youth of a state arms flourish, in the middle age learning, then both of them together for a time, and in the decline mechanical Arts and Trade.

BACON. Essays.

THE lust of gold succeeds the lust of conquests;

The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless,
The last corruption of degenerate man.

DR. JOHNSON.

A GOOD CAUSE.

K. Henry. WHAT stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted?

Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just;

Nothing flatters our pride so much as the confidence of the great, because we regard it as the result of our merit, without considering that it most frequently arises merely from vanity or from inability to keep a secret. ROCHEFOUCAULD. M

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