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"Alas! I am well repaid," said she,
"With a pain that stings like joy;
For I feared, from his tenderness to me,
That he was but a feeble boy.

"Now I shall hold my head on high,
The queen among my kind.
If ye hear a sound, 'tis only a sigh
For a glory left behind."

GEORGE MACDONALD.

To Mary in Heaven.

THOU lingering star, with less'ning ray,
That lov'st to greet the early morn,
Again thou usherest in the day

My Mary from my soul was torn.

O Mary! dear, departed shade!

Where is thy place of blissful rest?

Seest thou thy lover lowly laid?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

That sacred hour can I forget,

Can I forget the hallowed grove, Where by the winding Ayr we met, To live one day of parting love? Eternity will not efface

Those records dear of transports past Thy image at our last embrace!

Ah! little thought we 'twas our last!

Ayr, gurgling, kissed his pebbled shore,
O'erhung with wild woods, thickening, green;
The fragrant birch and hawthorn hoar

Twined amorous round the raptured scene.
The flowers sprang wanton to be prest,
The birds sang love on every spray,
Till too, too soon, the glowing west
Proclaimed the speed of winged day.

Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care;
Time but th' impression deeper makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.
My Mary! dear, departed shade!

Where is thy place of blissful rest?
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

ROBERT BURNS.

Aux Italiens.

AT Paris it was, at the opera there;

And she looked like a queen in a book that

night,

With the wreath of pearl in her raven hair,

And the brooch on her breast so bright.

Of all the operas that Verdi wrote,

The best, to my taste, is the Trovatore; And Mario can soothe, with a tenor note, The souls in purgatory.

The moon on the tower slept soft as snow;

And who was not thrilled in the strangest

way,

As we heard him sing, while the gas burned low,

"Non ti scordar di me ?"

The Emperor there, in his box of state,

Looked grave; as if he had just then seen The red flag wave from the city gate,

Where his eagles in bronze had been.

The Empress, too, had a tear in her eye:

You'd have said that her fancy had gone back again,

For one moment, under the old blue sky,

To the old glad life in Spain.

Well! there in our front-row box we sat,
Together, my bride betrothed and I;
My gaze was fixed on my opera hat,

And hers on the stage hard by.

And both were silent, and both were sad;
Like a queen she leaned on her full white arm,
With that regal, indolent air she had;

So confident of her charm!

I have not a doubt she was thinking then
Of her former lord, good soul that he was,
Who died the richest and roundest of men,
The Marquis of Carabas.

I hope that, to get to the kingdom of heaven,
Through a needle's eye he had not to pass;

I wish him well, for the jointure given
To my lady of Carabas.