THE PAST.

BY JOHN WILSON, ESQ.

How wild and dim this life appears!

One long, deep, heavy sigh,

When o'er our eyes, half closed in tears,

The images of former years

Are faintly glimmering by!

And still forgotten while they go,
As on the sea-beach, wave on wave,
Dissolves at once in snow.
The amber clouds one moment lie,
Then like a dream are gone!
Though beautiful the moonbeams play
On the lake's bosom, bright as they,
And the soul intensely loves their stay,
Soon as the radiance melts away,
We scarce believe it shone !

Heaven-airs amid the harp-strings dwell;
And we wish they ne'er may fade-
They cease, and the soul is a silent cell,
Where music never played!

Dream follows dream through the long night hours,
Each lovelier than the last;-

But ere the breath of morning flowers,

That gorgeous world flies past;

And many a sweet angelic cheek,

Whose smiles of love and kindness speak,

Glides by us on this earth;

While in a day we cannot tell

Where shone the face we loved so well,

In sadness, or in mind'

Blackwood's Magazine.

STANZAS.

In many a strain of grief and joy,
My youthful spirit sang to thee;
But I am now no more a boy,

And there's a gulph 'twixt thee and me.
Time on my brow has set his seal-
I start to find myself a man,
And know that I no more shall feel
As only boyhood's spirit can.
And now I bid a long adieu,

To thoughts that held my heart in thrall,
To cherished dreams of brightest hue,
And thou the brightest dream of all !
My footsteps rove not where they roved,
My home is changed, and one by one,
The old familiar' forms I loved,
Are faded from my path and gone.
I launch into life's stormy main,

And 'tis with tears but not of sorrow;
That pouring thus my parting strain,
I bid thee, as a Bride, good-morrow.
Full well thou know'st I envy not,
The heart it is thy choice to share;
My soul dwells on thee as a thought,
With which no earthly wishes are.
I love thee as I love the star,

The gentle star that shines at even ;
That melts into my heart from far,
And leads my wandering thoughts to heaven.
'Twould break my soul's divinest dream,

With meaner love to mingle thee;
"Twould dim the most unearthly beam,
Thy form sheds o'er my Memory.
It is my joy, it is my pride,

To picture thee, in bliss divine,
A happy, and an honoured bride,-
Blest by a fonder love than mine.

Be thou to one a holy spell,

A bliss by day a dream by nightA thought on which his soul may dwellA cheering and a guiding light. This be thy heart; -but, while no other Disturbs his image at its core, Still think of me as of a brother

I'd not be loved or love thee more. For thee each feeling of my breast, So holy so serene shall be, That when thy heart to his is prest, "Twill be no crime to think of me. I shall not wander forth at night, To breathe thy name as lovers would; Thy form in visions of delight,

Not oft shall break my solitude; But when my bosom-friends are near, And happy faces round me press; The goblet to my lips I'll rear,

And drain it to thy happiness. And when at morn or midnight hour, I commune with my God alone, Before the throne of peace and power, I'll blend thy welfare with mine own. And if with pure and fervent sighs, I bend before some loved-one's shrine,When gazing on her gentle eyes,

I shall not blush to think of thine,Then, when thou meet'st thy love's caress, And when thy children climb thy knee, In thy calm hour of happiness,

Then, sometimes, sometimes think of me. In pain or health-in grief or mirth, Oh! may it to my prayer be given, That we may sometimes meet on earth, And meet, to part no more, in Heaven!

Etonian.

AN ARABIAN SONG.

BY BARRY CORNWALL.

I LOVE thee, Ibla! -Thou art bright
As the white snow on the hills afar;
Thy face is sweet as the moon by night,
And thine eye like the clear and rolling star.

But the snow is poor, and withers soon,

While thou art firm and rich in hope; And never (like thine) from the face of the moon Flamed the dark eye of the Antelope.

Fine is thy shape as the Erak's bough,

And thy bosom a heaven-or, haplier, meant (If man may guess, who crawls below,) By Heaven for Earth's enchantment.

But the bough of the Erak in winter dies,
And the Heaven hath clouds that dim its blue;
Thy shape is as fine when the summer flies,
And thy bosom is warm and cloudless too.

Thy hair is black as the starless sky,

And clasps thy neck as it loved its home; Yet it moves at the sound of thy faintest sigh, Like the snake that lies on the white sea-foam.

Farewell! Farewell ! - Yet of thee, sweet maid,
I'll sing in the wild woods far away;
And I'll bear thy name on my shining blade,-
Flower of my own Arabia!

And when I return, with a Chieftain's name,
And many a plundered gem for thee,

I'll ask thee, then to share my fame

For all love's sweet eternity.

Literary Gazette.

FROM REAL LIFE.

AT length her griefs have drawn the lines of care
Across her brow, and sketched her story there;
And years of keenest suffering dried the stream
That lent her youthful eye its liquid beam.
A mild composure to its glance succeeds;
Her gayest look still speaks of widow's weeds;
Her smile is one of patience, not of ease,
An effort made to cover, not to please;
While grief, with thorny pencil, day by day,
In silence, delves the flagging cheek away,-
Chases the bloom that peaceful thoughts bestow,
To spread instead the sallow tints of woe;
And where the magic dimple used to start
In early wrinkles, writes a broken heart!

Perchance the casual undiscerning gaze
That never read a history in a face,
In the gay circle might suppose her gay,
Nor mark the nascent traces of decay;
But oh, to those whose nicer feelings take
The fine impression that a look can make,-
Who, skilled by sorrows of their own, descry
The prisoned secret speaking in the eye,-
(As weeping captives at their windows pine)
To them there is a voice in every line!
The brow, by effort raised, to seem serene;
Round every smile the circling wrinkle seen;
The sullen cloud that comes to pass away,
Chased by a cheerless struggle to be gay;
At certain words or names the quick short sigh,
And when neglected long the absent eye,
That seems on images long past to fall,
Unconscious of aught else-will tell them all!

But few among the selfish, busy, gay, -
Permit a quiet face to stop their way;