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What joyous hopes, what high resolves,
What generous strife!

The silent picture on the wall,
The burial-stone,

Of all that beauty, life, and joy,
Remain alone.

One year, one year, one little year,

And so much gone!

And yet the even flow of life

Moves calmly on.

The grave grows green, the flowers bloom fair,
Above that head:

No sorrowing tint of leaf or spray
Says he is dead.

No pause or hush of merry birds
That sing above

Tells us how calmly sleeps below
The form we love.

Where hast thou been this

year,

beloved?

What hast thou seen?

What visions fair, what glorious life,

Where thou hast been!

The veil, the veil-so thin, so strong-
'Twixt us and thee!

The mystic veil, when shall it fall,
That we may see?

Not dead, not sleeping, not even gone;
But present still,

And waiting for the coming hour

Of God's sweet will!

Lord of the living and the dead,

Our Saviour dear,

We lay in silence at Thy feet

This sad, sad year.

WILLIAM JEWETT PABODIE.

[Born about 1815. A barrister, principally known as author of Calidore, a Legendary Poem, published in 1839].

ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND.

GONE in the flush of youth!

Gone ere thy heart had felt earth's withering care
Ere the stern world had soiled thy spirit's truth,
Or sown dark sorrow there.

Fled like a dream away!

But yesterday mid life's auroral bloom-
To-day, sad winter, desolate and grey,
Sighs round thy lonely tomb.

Fond hearts were beating high,

Fond eyes were watching for the loved one gone,
And gentle voices, deeming thou wert nigh,
Talked of thy glad return.

They watched-not all in vain

Thy form once more the wonted threshold passed; But choking sobs, and tears like summer rain, Welcomed thee home at last.

Friend of my youth, farewell!

To thee, we trust, a happier life is given;
One tie to earth for us hath loosed its spell,
Another formed for heaven.

[graphic]

EPES SARGENT,

[Born in 1816. He began writing for the stage at an early age; his drama of The Bride of Genoa having been acted in 1836, and his most admired tragedy, Velasco, in 1837].

A CALM.

Oh for one draught of cooling northern air!
That it might pour its freshness on me now;
That it might kiss my cheek and cleave my hair,
And part its currents round my fevered brow!
Ocean, and sky, and earth! a blistering calm
Spread over all! how weary wears the day!
Oh lift the wave, and bend the distant palm,
Breeze! wheresoe'er thy lagging pinions stray,—
Triumphant burst upon the level deep,

Rock the fixed hull, and swell the clinging sail!
Arouse the opal clouds that o'er us sleep,

Sound thy shrill whistle! we will bid thee hail!

Though wrapped in all the storm-clouds of the north, Yet from thy home of ice, come forth, O breeze, come forth!

FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD.

[Born in 1816, daughter of a merchant named Locke; died some years ago. Towards 1835 she married the painter Mr. Osgood, and the earlier years of their wedded life were passed in England. Mrs. Osgood published various miscellaneous writings and compilations, frequently using the pseudonym of "Florence"].

THE SOUL'S LAMENT FOR HOME.

As plains the homesick ocean-shell
Far from its own remembered sea,
Repeating, like a fairy spell
Of love, the charmed melody
It learned within that whispering wave
Whose wondrous and mysterious tone
Still wildly haunts its winding cave
Of pearl, with softest music-moan-

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So asks my homesick soul below

For something loved, yet undefined; So mourns to mingle with the flow

Of music from the Eternal Mind;
So murmurs, with its childlike sigh,
The melody it learned above.
To which no echo may reply,

Save from thy voice, Celestial Love!

BIANCA.

A WHISPER Woke the air,

A soft light tone, and low,

Yet barbed with shame and woe.

h! might it only perish there,

Nor farther go!

But no! a quick and eager ear

Caught up the little, meaning soundAnother voice has breathed it clearAnd so it wandered round From ear to lip, from lip to ear, Until it reached a gentle heart

That throbbed from all the world apart,
And that--it broke !

It was the only heart it found-
The only heart 'twas meant to find
When first its accents woke.
It reached that gentle heart at last,
And that-it broke !

Low as it seemed to other ears,
It came a thunder-crash to hers-
That fragile girl, so fair and gay.
'Tis said, a lovely humming-bird,
That dreaming in a lily lay,

Was killed but by the gun's report
Some idle boy had fired in sport;
So exquisitely frail its frame,
The very sound a death-blow came:

And thus her heart, unused to shame,
Shrined in its lily, too—

(For who the maid that knew

But owned the delicate flower-like grace
Of her young form and face?)

Her light and happy heart, that beat
With love and hope so fast and sweet,
When first that cruel word it heard,
It fluttered like a frightened bird—
Then shut its wings and sighed,
And with a silent shudder died!

ANNE CHARLOTTE LYNCH.

[Miss Lynch, born towards 1816, is the daughter of one of the "United Irishmen," who, having joined the Rebellion of 1798, was banished for life after four years' imprisonment. She is a miscellaneous writer in prose as well as verse].

TO THE SAVIOUR.

OH thou who once on earth beneath the weight
Of our mortality didst live and move,

The incarnation of profoundest love;

Who on the Cross that love didst consummate-
Whose deep and ample fulness could embrace
The poorest, meanest, of our fallen race:
How shall we e'er that boundless debt repay?
By long loud prayers in gorgeous temples said?
By rich oblations on thine altars laid?
Ah no! not thus thou didst appoint the way.
When thou wast bowed our human woe beneath,
Then as a legacy thou didst bequeath
Earth's sorrowing children to our ministry-
And as we do to them we do to thee.

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