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AGE AND YOUTH.

BY LAMAN BLANCHARD.

"Crabbed age and youth
Cannot live together."

SHAKSPEARE.

SUBTLE Master, fine Unraveller
Of the golden web of truth!
Nature's never-tiring Traveller-
Poet!-thou hast spoken sooth.
Let who doubt, resolve me whether
Crabbed age and careless youth
Ever lived in love together!

Crabbed Age!-ah, Youth! I grant you
Crabbed Age can ne'er enchant you:
But the Age that is not soured,
Though its hopes were all deflowered;
Age that, laughing, limpeth on,
When its speed and strength are gone;
Age whose brow of sagest form
Whitens as the heart grows warm;
Age that deigns to jest and smile,
Looking wisdom all the while;

Age that feels its blood run brightly,
Romping with mad Childhood nightly;

P

That devotes its latest leisure,
Not to hoard, but give its treasure ;
Age that, hailing endless blessings,
Hangs on Time with fond caressings—
Loving life, and all that's in it,

More and more each golden minute :
Age like this-ah! tell me, Youth-
Tell me now a pleasant truth—
Cannot Youth and Age like this
Live together-linked in bliss?

Age is sacred: but the morrow,
That o'erlooks thy twilight, Earth,—
Is it one of shade and sorrow,
That old Life should lose its mirth,
Like a hermit, counting years

On a rosary of tears?

No: upon its pilgrimage,

Sunny Youth or autumned Age,

Still should lead our life along,

Whispering aye this self-same song

"Nature is a joyous thing!"

This, if Age should fail to sing,
Youth, with warm and happy veins,
Carols such enchanting strains,

Age might aye delighted live

On the echoes that they give!

WANDERINGS OF THE ISRAELITES.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "LETTERS FROM THE EAST.'

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THERE is perhaps no country, save that of the "promise," more hallowed by tradition, or more deeply changed by long neglect, than Egypt. Surely there is no other for which nature has done so little, and the industry and energies of man have achieved so much. Time, the destroyer, has not been idle; but the curse of heaven seems also to have fallen witheringly on all its pleasant places. The prediction that the feller should come up against her noble palm-groves, the pride of the land, has been fulfilled. The little strip

of cultivable domain-never more extensive than now, in width a few miles only, from the river to the foot of the rocky hills on either side-was once filled with excess of vegetation, from one cause only-excess of moisture and irrigation. The eye seeks for vales, and forests, and sloping pasture-grounds, in vain :

were it not for the burning sky, and the orientalism of the whole scene, the traveller might fancy himself in the flat and patient Holland, amidst dykes, sluices, and an endless passing of waters.

The tract where the Israelites are supposed to have built some of the treasure-cities of Pharaoh, is on the Lybian side of the Nile, between the pyramids of Gizeh and Saccara; now a dreary and interminable plain. The present ruins, slender and shadowy as they are, of the ancient Memphis, are believed by some to be the remains of one of these cities. The Pharaohs of old seem to have gloried in vanquishing nature. If the now existing remains of temple and town look so sad and striking-on the verge of naked wastes, and at times amidst an ocean of sand-what must have been the appearance of these places even in their greatness ?—magnificence amidst a frightful sterility-the tower of the Chaldean, the bowers of the Seraglio, where the desert thirsted for its prey! Yet here did luxury, voluptuousness, and even science, choose their home.

At the time we passed the night on this spot, no travellers, save a wandering group of Bedouins, were in sight. Their fire was kindled, their tents were pitched; and they knelt down in the sand, in the open air, before the tent door, and prayed to God and the prophet amidst the dim remnants of former time, where every false and absurd deity had once had his

temple, and where the Israelite also poured out his sorrows before the Lord. Land of miracles, of triumphs, and of divine vengeance! pity that no localities, even the slightest, of nature exist, to point to a single scene of old! In Palestine, hills, vales, caverns, and mountains, of every form and character, identify each eternal deed; but in the single vast and weary plain that constitutes Egypt nothing can be either traced or imagined. The only hand that has conveyed to the mind an idea of this vastness is that of Martin, in whose picture of the Plague of the Tempest the gigantic temples, and majestic Nile, and the far and unvaried shores, are vividly given.

The Bedouins, after having finished their prayers, and supped round the fire, entered their tents to seek repose. The faint sound of their voices, heard amidst the stillness from afar, was hushed; it was but the halt of a night, and the ensuing break of day would see them on the march. Far as the eye wandered, there was not a single elevation, save that of the pyramids, whose summits, loftier to the fancy than in the glare of day, now rose into the midnight sky; no tree, or dwelling, or shrub, was visible.

The toil of the Israelites must have been the more cruel and severe, from the contrast of the soil and scene with the land of Goshen, which they were compelled to leave to be the slaves of the taskmaster. Goshen, a rich and fertile territory of flocks,

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