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108

THE BURIED FLOWER.

IN the silence of my chamber,
When the night is still and deep,
And the drowsy heave of ocean
Mutters in its charmed sleep,

Oft I hear the angel voices
That have thrill'd me long ago,—
Voices of my lost companions,
Lying deep beneath the snow.

O, the garden I remember,

In the gay and sunny spring,
When our laughter made the thickets
And the arching alleys ring!

O the merry burst of gladness!
O the soft and tender tone!
O the whisper never utter'd
Save to one fond ear alone!

O the light of life that sparkled

In those bright and bounteous eyes!

O the blush of happy beauty,
Tell-tale of the heart's surprise!

O the radiant light that girdled
Field and forest, land and sea,
When we all were young together,
And the earth was new to me!

Where are now the flowers we tended?
Wither'd, broken, branch and stem;
Where are now the hopes we cherish'd?
Scatter'd to the winds with them.

For ye, too, were flowers, ye dear ones!
Nursed in hope and rear'd in love,
Looking fondly ever upward

To the clear blue heaven above:

Smiling on the sun that cheer'd us,
Rising lightly from the rain,
Never folding up your freshness
Save to give it forth again:

Never shaken, save by accents
From a tongue that was not free,
As the modest blossom trembles
At the wooing of the bee.

O! 'tis sad to lie and reckon
All the days of faded youth,
All the vows that we believed in,
All the words we spoke in truth.

Sever'd-were it sever'd only

By an idle thought of strife, Such as time might knit together; Not the broken chord of life!

O my heart! that once so truly
Kept another's time and tune,
Heart, that kindled in the spring-tide,
Look around thee in the noon.

Where are they who gave the impulse
To thy earliest thought and flow?
Look around the ruin'd garden-

All are wither'd, dropp'd, or low!

Seek the birth-place of the lily,
Dearer to the boyish dream
Than the golden cups of Eden,
Floating on its slumbrous stream;

Never more shalt thou behold her-
She, the noblest, fairest, best:
She that rose in fullest beauty,
Like a queen, above the rest.

Only still I keep her image

As a thought that cannot die,
He who raised the shade of Helen
Had no greater power than I.

O! I fling my spirit backward,
And I pass o'er years of pain;
All I loved is rising round me,
All the lost returns again.

Blow, for ever blow, ye breezes,
Warmly as ye did before!
Bloom again, ye happy gardens,
With the radiant tints of yore!

Warble out in spray and thicket,
All ye choristers unseen,
Let the leafy woodland echo

With an anthem to its queen!

Lo! she cometh in her beauty,
Stately with a Juno grace,

Raven locks, Madonna-braided

O'er her sweet and blushing face:

Eyes of deepest violet, beaming

With the love that knows not shame,

Lips, that thrill my inmost being

With the utterance of a name.

And I bend the knee before her,
As a captive ought to bow,—
Pray thee, listen to my pleading,
Sovereign of my soul art thou!

Early wert thou taken, Mary!
And I know 'tis vain to weep-
Tears of mine can never wake thee
From thy sad and silent sleep.

O away! my thoughts are earthward!
Not asleep, my love! art thou,
Dwelling in the land of glory

With the saints and angels now.

Brighter, fairer far than living,
With no trace of woe or pain,
Robed in everlasting beauty,
Shall I see thee once again,

By the light that never fadeth,
Underneath eternal skies,
When the dawn of resurrection
Breaks o'er deathless Paradise.

W. E. A.

HUZZA FOR THE RULE OF THE WHIGS!

AIR-" Old Rosin the Beau."

ALL ye who are true to the altar and throne,
Come join in this ditty with me;

And you who don't like it may let it alone,
Or listen a little and see.

How quietly now we may sleep in our beds,
And waken as merry as grigs;

Though fears of rebellion hang over our heads,
We're safe while we're ruled by the Whigs.

In the 'nineties we saw (I remember the day)
Revolution disguised as Reform;
But the country was saved in a different way,
By the Pilot that weather'd the storm.
Our vessel was steer'd by the bravest and best,
And, except a few quality sprigs,

The whole English nation had thought it a jest
To propose being ruled by the Whigs.

But as matters now stand in this ill-fated realm,
When old comrades will give us the slip,

We are strangely compell'd to put men at the helm
To prevent them from scuttling the ship.
Only think, for a moment, if Russell were out,
How wild he'd be running his rigs!

About popular rights he would make such a rout-
'Tis lucky we're ruled by the Whigs.

The Church-can you doubt what her danger would be
Were Tories at present in power?

Lord John, or his friends, we should certainly see
Attacking her posts every hour.

But as long as the Bishops may help out his lease,
He won't injure a hair of their wigs ;
Nay, he even proposes the list to increase-
So huzza for the rule of the Whigs!

If Grey were at large, how he'd lay down the law
On the cures he for Ireland had found;
And swear that he never would rest till he saw
Her Establishment razed to the ground.
But Grey, while in office, sits muffled and mum,
Like a small bird asleep in the twigs;
And Ward, in the Commons, is equally dumb-
So huzza for the rule of the Whigs!

If any of us had made war on Repeal

With the weapons that Clarendon tries,
What shrieks of indignant invective from Shiel
At the wrongs of Old Erin would rise.

By millions of noisy Milesians back'd,
From the peer to the peasant that digs-

How would Monaghan murmur that juries were pack'd !—
So huzza for the rule of the Whigs!

On Aliens or Chartists to hear them declaim,

You'd think Castlereagh come from the dead,

Though the mixture of metaphors isn't the same,
And the courage and coolness are fled.

But the Whigs are becoming respectable men

As any that ever kept gigs,

They are practising now all they preach'd against then-
So huzza for the rule of the Whigs!

Go on, my good lads-never think of retreat,
Though annoy'd by a squib or a squirt;

You're fulfilling the fate such impostors should meet,
And eating your bushel of dirt.

Then swallow it fast, for your hour may not last

We shall soon, if it pleases the pigs,

Give your places to men of a different cast,
And get rid of the rule of the Whigs!

VOL. LXIV.-NO. CCCXCIII.

H

THE NAVIGATION LAWS.

Na

"WHEN the Act of Navigation," says Adam Smith, "was made, though England and Holland were not actually at war, the most violent animosity subsisted between the two nations. It is not impossible, therefore, that some of the regulations of this famous act may have proceeded from national animosity. They are as wise, however, as if they had all been dictated by the most deliberate wisdom. tional animosity, at that particular time, aimed at the very object which the most deliberate wisdom would have recommended, the diminution of the naval power of Holland, the only naval power which could endanger the security of England. The Act of Navigation is not favourable to foreign commerce, or to the growth of that opulence which can arise from it. As defence, however, is of much more value than opulence, the Act of Navigation is perhaps the wisest of all the commercial regulations of England."* Before these pages issue from the press, this, undoubtedly the wisest of all the commercial regulations of Great Britain, and under which the maritime strength and colonial empire of England have risen to a pitch of grandeur unknown in any other age or country, will be numbered among the things which have been. The House of Commons, by a majority, have voted for the repeal of the Navigation Laws. Free trade will soon have done its work, so far, at least, as the House of Commons is concerned. It is gradually but unceasingly advancing, and swallowing up successively all the great interests of the empire, save that of the capitalists, as it moves forward. The agricultural interests will find themselves deprived, in February next, of all protection; and the British cultivator exposed to the competition, without any shield save a nominal duty of 1s. a quarter, of states where wheat can be raised, with a fair profit in average years, at 18s. a quarter, and brought to this country for 10s. at the very utmost of freight. As soon as we have two fine harvests in succes

sion, it will be seen to what state this system will reduce British rural production. The West India interests have been next assailed; and our colonies, upon whom free labour has been forced, upon a compensation being given to the proprietors on an average of a fourth of the value of their slaves, are speedily to be exposed, with no protection but a differential duty of 5s. 6d. a hundredweight, diminishing 1s. 6d. a-year, till, in 1854, it disappears, to the competition of slave colonies, where sugar can be raised for £4 a ton, while in the British colonies the measures of government have precluded its being raised for less than £10 a ton. As a natural consequence, cultivation is about to cease in those noble settlements; the forest and the jungle will speedily supplant the smiling plantations, and £100,000,000 worth of British property will be lost beyond redemption.

at

Domestic manufactures were the same time assailed, though with a more gentle hand than rude produce. Protective duties on them were lowered, though not entirely removed; and the consequence is, that at this time there are 8000 hands wholly unemployed at Manchester, and above 10,000 at Glasgow, and distress to an unparalleled extent pervades the whole commercial and manufacturing classes. Nothing daunted by these calamitous results, so exactly what the opponents of free trade predicted would ensue, so diametrically the reverse of the unbounded prosperity which they promised the nation as the consequence of their changes, the Free-traders, in pursuance of their usual system of preferring their own opinions to the evidence of facts, are preparing to apply the same system to the commercial navy of the country, and, by the repeal of the Navigation Laws, against the opinion of Adam Smith, to depress our shipping interest as much as they encourage that of foreign states, and endanger our national existence, by crippling our own means

* Wealth of Nations, iv. e. 2.

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