We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;

As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or any thing.
We die,

As your hours do, and dry
Away,

Like to the Summer's rain;
Or as the pearls of Morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.

Song.

How delicious is the winning
Of a kiss at love's beginning,
When two mutual hearts are sighing
For the knot there's no untying!

Yet remember, 'midst your wooing,
Love has bliss, but Love has ruing;
Other smiles may make you fickle,
Tears for other charms may trickle.

Love he comes, and Love he tarries,
Just as fate or fancy carries;
Longest stays, when sorest chidden;

Laughs and flies, when pressed and bidden.

HERRICK.

JOHN FORD.

Bind the sea to slumber stilly,
Bind its odour to the lily,
Bind the aspen ne'er to quiver,
Then bind Love to last for ever!

Love's a fire that needs renewal

Of fresh beauty for its fuel:

Love's wing moults when caged and captured,
Only free, he soars enraptured.

Can you keep the bee from ranging,
Or the ringdove's neck from changing?
No! nor fettered Love from dying
In the knot there's no untying.

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

Dirge.

GLORIES, pleasures, pomps, delights, and ease,
Can but please

The outward senses, when the mind
Is or untroubled, or by peace refined.
Crowns may flourish and decay,
Beauties shine, but fade away,
Youth may revel, yet it must
Lie down in a bed of dust.
Earthly honours flow and waste,
Time alone doth change and last.

Sorrows mingled with contents, prepare
Rest for care;

Love only reigns in death; though art
Can find no comfort for a BROKEN HEART.

JOHN FORD.-[From "The Broken Heart."]

The Past.

THIS Common field, this little brook,
What is there hidden in these two,
That I so often on them look-

Oftener than on the heavens blue?
No beauty lies upon the field;
Small music doth the river yield;
And yet I look, and look again,
With something of a pleasant pain.

"T is thirty-can it be thirty years

Since last I stood upon this plank,
Which o'er the brook its figure rears,

And watched the pebbles as they sank?
How white the stream! I still remember
Its margin glassed by hoar December,
And how the sun fell on the snow:
Ah! can it be so long ago?

It cometh back;-So blithe, so bright,
It hurries to my eager ken,

As though but one short winter's night

Had darkened o'er the world since then;

It is the same clear dazzling scene:-
Perhaps the grass is scarce as green;
Perhaps the river's troubled voice
Doth not so plainly say "Rejoice."

Yet Nature surely never ranges,
Ne'er quits her gay and flowery crown;
But, ever joyful, merely changes

The primrose for the thistle-down.
'Tis we alone who, waxing old,
Look on her with an aspect cold,
Dissolve her in our burning tears,
Or clothe her with the mists of years!

Then, why should not the grass be green?
And why should not the river's song

Be merry,

-as they both have been

When I was here an urchin strong? Ah, true-too true! I see the sun Through thirty wintry years hath run, For grave eyes, mirrored in the brook, Usurp the urchin's laughing look!

So be it! I have lost,-and won!

For, once, the past was poor to me; The future dim; and though the sun

Shed life and strength, and I was free, I felt not-knew no grateful pleasure: All seemed but as the common measure: But Now-the experienced Spirit old Turns all the leaden past to gold!

BARRY CORNWALL.

Home-thoughts, from Abroad.

I.

OH! to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England-now!

II.

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows—
Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops-at the bent spray's edge—
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower,
-Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

ROBERT BROWNING.