THE GAMBLER'S WIFE. BY REYNELL COATES. slave ? CHANNING. BY CHARLES F. BRIGGS. Dark is the night! How dark! No light! No fire! Who now shall plead thy grievous wrongs, poor For him who pledged her love-last year a bride! Hark! 'Tis his footsteep! No!-'Tis past !-'Tis Tick!— Tick!— How wearily the time crawls on! Rest thee, my babe !-Rest on!-'Tis hunger's cry! Scourged darkling who, with melting eloquence, Stilled is that voice, whose dying utterance spoke Hush! 'tis the dice-box 1 Yes!-he's there, he's Great truths in gentle strains, that ne'er shall cease there! For this for this he leaves me to despair! To echo from men's hearts with wide increase, Leaves love! leaves truth! his wife! his child! for And man no longer wears his fellow's yoke, what? The wanton's smile-the villain-and the sot! Yet I'll not curse him. No! 'tis all in vain! two. While the oppressor rests in swinish ease, Hark! How the sign-board creaks! The blast Who first to man tidings of Freedom brought. howls by! Moan! moan! sky! A dirge swells through the cloudy Ha! tis his knock! He comes!-he comes once more ! 'Tis but the lattice flaps! The hope is o'er! Can he desert us thus? He knows I stay Nestle more closely, dear one, to my heart; Husband-I lie !-Father!-It is not he! Oh, God, protect my child!' The clock strikes three ! They're gone, they're gone! The glimmering spark The wife and child are number'd with the dead. Dread silence reign'd around-the clock struck four! UNSEEN SPIRITS. BY N. P. WILLIS. The shadows lay along Broadway— And slowly there a lady fair Was walking in her pride; Walked spirits at her side. Peace charmed the street beneath her feet, And called her good as fair- She kept with chary care. She kept with care, her beauties rare If priests the selling do. BY ALFRED TENNYSON. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Of me you shall not win renown; Lady Clara Vere de Vere, I know you proud to bear your name, Your pride is yet no mate for mine, Too proud to care from whence I came. Nor would I break for your sweet sake A heart that doats on truer charms. A simple maiden in her flower Is worth a hundred coat-of-arms. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Some meeker pupil you must find, I could not stoop to such a mind. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, You put strange memories in my head. Not thrice your branching limes have blown Since I beheld young Laurence dead. Oh your sweet eyes, your low replies: A great enchantress you may be; But there was that across his throat Which you had hardly cared to see. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, When thus he met his mother's view, She had the passions of her kind, She spake some certain truths of you. Indeed I heard one bitter word That scarce is fit for you to hear. Her manners had not that repose Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, There stands a spectre in your hall: The guilt of blood is at your door. You changed a wholesome heart to gall. You held your course without remorse, To make him trust his modest worth, And, last, you fixed a vacant stare, And slew him with your noble birth. Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, From yon blue heavens above us bent, The gardner Adam and his wife Smile at the claims of long descent. Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood. I know you, Clara Vere de Vere; You needs must play such pranks as these. Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, If Time be heavy on your hands, Are there no beggars at your gate, Nor any poor about your lands? Oh! teach the orphan boy to read, Or teach the orphan girl to sew, Pray Heaven for a human heart, And let the foolish yeoman go. ADVERSITY. BY FRANCIS BACON, LORD VERULAM. It was an high speech of Seneca, after the manner of the Stoics, That the good things which belong to Prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to Adversity are to be admired. Bona rerum secundarum optabilia, Adversarum mirabilia. Certainly if miracles be the command over nature, they appear most in adversity. It is yet a higher speech of his than the other-much too high for a heathen-It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man, and the security of a God. Veré magnum habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei. This would have done better in poesie, where transcendences are more allowed. And the Poets indeed have been busy with it; for it is in effect the thing which is figured in that strange fiction of the ancient poets, which seemeth not without mystery-nay, and to have some approach to the state of a christian-That Hercules, when he went to unbind Prometheus (by whom human nature is represented) sailed the length of the great ocean, in an earthen pot, or pitcher; lively describing Christian Resolution, that saileth in the frail bark of the flesh through the waves of the world. But SONG OF THE MOUNTAIN WEAVER. Those of our readers who have travelled in that remember the houses, half built of wood, and gaily painted red, and green, and yellow, like so many of Mrs. Jarley's caravans standing in the sunshine; and they will remember, too, all the webs of linen-thread which lay on the hill sides bleaching, and all the looms that they heard at work within the houses. They will remember that in these gay, straggling brookside villages, is made all the beautiful table to speak in a mean. The virtue of Prosperity is beautiful part of Germany called the Saxon SwitzerTemperance; the virtue of Adversity is Forti- land, and thence onward through Silesia to the Riesen tude, which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Gebirge, will have knowledge not only of the chaProsperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; racter of the country, but, of its industrious people, Adversity is the blessing of the New, which carri-living not in towns, but as it were in one continueth the greater benediction, and the clearer revela- ous village, along the bottoms of the valleys, followtion of God's favour. Yet even in the Old Testa-ing the course of a river or rivulet. They will ment, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols. And the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more, in describing the afflictions of Job, than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distates; and Adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needle-workers and imbroiderers, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground. Judge therefore of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like cious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed; for Prosperity doth best discover vice, but Adversity doth best discover virtue. pre. linen which has been their admiration at the hotels and in private houses half over Europe. Our own Hood wrote The Song of the Shirt,' like a knell sounding from the depths of despair to call up human kindness in human hearts, and the German poet Freillgrath, one of the noblest hearted men and finest poets of Germany, has written, too, his poem from the mountains of Silesia, which is a worthy pendant to Hood's song. The following is a translation, by Mary Howitt, of Freillgrath's poem, but which we must first premise with a word or two of explanation.-Rübezahl, familiar to our readers as Number-nip, had his haunt among the Riesen Gebirge, and was the especial friend and patron of the poor. The legend of Rübezahl is one of the most touching and beautiful of the German popular stories.-Athenæum. Green grow the budding blackberry hedges; The blackbird seeks the last year's sedges, Then softly from the green-wood turning Of his poor home went slowly back. THE FREED BIRD. BY AMELIA WELBY. Thy cage is opened, bird-too well I love thee, pour. Away, away! the laughing waters playing, Break on the fragrant shore in ripples blue; And the green leaves unto the breeze are laying Their shining edges, fringed with drops of dew; And here and there a wild-flower lifts its head, Refreshed with sudden life, from many a sunbeam shed. How sweet thy voice will sound! for o'er yon river Making rich spots of trembling light and shade; Now, like the aspen, plays each quivering feather Yet I will shade mine eyes, and still pursue thee, Just poised beneath yon vault that arches o'er the world! A free wild spirit unto thee is given, Bright minstrel of the blue celestial dome; For thou wilt wander to yon upper heaven, And bathe thy plumage in the sunbeam's home; And soaring upward from thy dizzy height On free and fearless wing, be lost to human sight! Lute of the summer-clouds! whilst thou art singing Would freely join thee in the distance dim; With heart upon my lip, bright minstrel of the sky! And yet, sweet bird, bright thoughts to me are given, As many as the clustering leaves of June; And my young heart is like a harp of Heaven, Forever strung unto some pleasant tune; And my soul burns with wild, poetic fire, Though simple are my strains, and simpler still my lyre. And now, farewell! the wild winds of the mountain And the blue streams alone my strains have heard; And it is well-for, from my heart's deep fountain They flow, uncultured as thy own, sweet bird— For my free thoughts have ever spurned control, Since this heart held a wish, and this frail form a soul ! THE WIFE. FROM THE GERMAN OF STOLBERG. Happy he to whom kind heaven, Rich in grace, a wife hath given, Virtuous, wise, and formed for love, Gentle, guileless as a dove. Let him thank his God for this With such friend to soothe and cheer. She, like moonlight, mild and fair, When his boiling heart heaves high, Then her gentle step is near; As when evening dew comes down Some have sought their bliss in gold! Heaven sends man the faithful wife; MOTHER. BY "PHAZMA." Of all the words in language there's no other It is the first name that we learn to love_ Than aught we find in evening or day. Mother!-It back to childhood brings the man, And forth to womanhood it leads the maiden. Mother!-'Tis with the name of all things began That are with love and sympathy full laden. While lives within the yearning heart of man Melting remembrance of a gentle Mother! |