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I ask not a life for the dear ones,

All radiant, as others have done,
But that life may have just enough shadow
To temper the glare of the sun;

I would pray God to guard them from evil,
But my prayer would bound back to myself;
Ah! a seraph may pray for a sinner,

But a sinner must pray for himself.

The twig is so easily bended,

I have banished the rule and the rod;

I have taught them the goodness of knowledge, They have taught me the goodness of God.

My heart is a dungeon of darkness,

Where I shut them from breaking a rule; My frown is sufficient correction,

My love is the law of the school.

I shall leave the cld house in the autumn,
To traverse its threshold no more;
Ah! how shall I sigh for the dear ones

That meet me each morn at the door!
I shall miss the "good-nights" and the kisses,
And the gush of their innocent glee,
The group on the green, and the flowers
That are brought every morning to me.

I shall miss them at morn and at eve,
Their song in the school and the street;
I shall miss the low hum of their voices,
And the tramp of their delicate feet.
When the lessons and tasks are all ended,
And death says, "The school is dismissed!"
May the little ones gather around me,
To bid me good-night and be kissed!

Charles Dickinson

CLARENCE'S DREAM.

Clarence. Оn, I have passed a miserable night, So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams, That, as I am a Christian faithful man, I would not spend another such a night, Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days, So full of dismal terror was the time! Methought that I had broken from the tower, And was embarked to cross to Burgundy, And in my company my brother Gloster,

Who from my cabin tempted me to walk

Upon the hatches. Thence we looked toward England.
And cited up a thousand heavy times,

During the wars of York and Lancaster,

That had befallen us. As we passed along

Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,

Methought that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me, that sought to stay him, overboard,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.

Oh Heaven! Methought what pain it was to drown'
What dreadful noise of waters in my ears!
What sights of ugly death within my eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A. thousand men, that fishes gnawed upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,

All scattered in the bottom of the sea.

Some lay in dead men's skulls and in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
(As 'twere in scorn of eyes,) reflecting gems,
That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.
Brak. Had you such leisure, in the time of death,
To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?

Clar. Methought I had; and often did I strive
To yield the ghost; but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To seek the empty, vast, and wandering air;
But smothered it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

Brak. Awaked you not with this sore agony?.
Clar. No, no! my dream was lengthened after life;

Oh, then began the tempest to my soul!

I passed, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.

The first that there did greet my stranger soul
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick,
Who cried aloud-"What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?"
And so he vanished. Then came wandering by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood, and he shrieked out aloud-
"CLARENCE is come, false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,--
That stabbed me in the field by Tewksbury ;—

SEIZE on him, furies! take him to your torments!"
With that, methought a legion of foul fiends
Environed me, and howled in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise,
I trembling waked, and, for a season after,
Could not believe but that I was in hell,-
Such terrible impression made my dream.

Shakspeare.

THE DEATH OF HAMILTON.

A SHORT time since, and he, who is the occasion of our sorrows, was the ornament of his country. He stood on an eminence, and glory covered him. From that emi nence he has fallen suddenly, forever fallen. His intercourse with the living world is now ended; and those who would hereafter find him, must seek him in the grave. There, cold and lifeless, is the heart which just now was the seat of friendship; there, dim and sightless, is the eye, whose radiant and enlivening orb beamed with intelligence; and there, closed forever, are those lips, on whose persuasive accents we have so often, and so lately hung with transport.

From the darkness which rests upon his tomb there proceeds, methinks, a light, in which it is clearly seen, that those gaudy objects which men pursue are only phantoms. In this light how dimly shines the splendor of victory-how humble appears the majesty of grandeur! The bubble, which seemed to have so much solidity, has burst; and we again see, that all below the sun is vanity.

True, the funeral eulogy has been pronounced, the sad and solemn procession has moved, the badge of mourning has already been decreed, and presently the sculptured marble will lift up its front, proud to perpetuate the name of Hamilton, and rehearse to the passing traveller his virtues, just tributes of respect, and to the living useful;— but to him, moldering in his narrow and humble habitation, what are they? How vain! how unavailing!

now.

Approach, and behold, while I lift from his sepulchre its covering! Ye admirers of his greatness-ye emulous of his talents and his fame-approach, and behold him How pale! how silent! No martial bands admire the adroitness of his movements; no fascinating throng weep, and melt, and tremble at his eloquence! Amazing change! A shroud, a coffin, a narrow, subterraneous cabin-this is all that now remains of Hamilton! And is this all that remains of him? During a life so transitory, what lasting monument, then, can our fondest hopes erect!

My brethren, we stand on the borders of an awful gulf, which is swallowing up all things human. And is there, amidst this universal wreck, nothing stable, nothing abiding, nothing immortal, on which poor, frail, dying man can fasten? Ask, the hero, ask the statesman, whose wisdom you have been accustomed to revere, and he will tell you. He will tell you, did I say? He has already told you, from his death-bed; and his illumined spirit, still whispers from the heavens, with well-known eloquence, the solemn admonition :-"Mortals hastening to the tomb, and once the companions of my pilgrimage, take warning and avoid my errors; cultivate the virtues I have recommended; choose the Saviour I have chosen; live disinterestedly; live for immortality; and would you rescue any thing from final dissolution, lay it up in God." Dr. Nett.

A SWELLS SOLILOQUY ON THE WAR.

I DON'T appwove this hawid waw ;

Those dweadful bannahs hawt my eyes;
And guns and dwums are such a baw,-
Why don't the pawties compwamise?

Of cawce, the twoilet has its chawms;
But why must all the vulgah crowd
Pawsist in spawting unifawms

In cullaws so extwemely loud?

And then the ladies-pwecious deals!-
I mawk the change on ev'wy bwow;
Bai Jove! I weally have my feahs
They wathah like the hawid wow!

To heaw the chawming cweatures talk,
Like patwons of the bloody wing,
Of waw and all its dawty wawk,-
It doesn't seem a pwappah thing!

I called at Mrs. Gween's last night,
To see her neice, Miss Mary Hertz,
And found her making--cwushing sight!-
The weddest kind of flannel shirts!

Of cwace I wose and sought the daw,
With fewy flashing from my eyes!
I can't appwove this hawid waw ;-
Why don't the pawties compwamise?

Vanity Fair.

MINISTERING ANGELS,

MOTHER, has the dove that nestled,
Lovingly upon thy breast,
Folded up his little pinion,

And in darkness gone to rest?
Nay, the grave is dark and dreary,
But the lost one is not there;
Hear'st thou not its gentle whisper,
Floating on the ambient air?
It is near thee, gentle mother,
Near thee at the evening hour;
Its soft kiss is in the zephyr,

It looks up from every flower.

And when Night's dark shadows fleeing,
Low thou bendest thee in prayer,
And thy heart feels nearest heaven,
Then thy angel babe is there!

Maiden, has thy noble brother,

On whose manly form thine eye Loved full oft in pride to linger,

On whose heart thou could'st rely, Though all other hearts deceived thee, All proved hollow, earth grew drear, Whose protection, ever o'er thee,

Hid thee from the cold world's sneer,Has he left thee here to struggle,

All unaided on thy way?

Nay, he still can guide and guard thee,
Still thy faltering steps can stay;
Still, when danger hovers o'er thee,
He than danger is more near;
When in grief thou'st none to pity,
He, the sainted, marks each tear.

Lover, is the light extinguished
Of the gem, that, in thy heart
Hidden deeply, to thy being

All its sunshine could impart?

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