Here's refreshment spread out by the delicate hand,

And also, the purest of ale *—

Around the fix'd table united we'll stand,
And sup, in the soft summer gale.

The repast is over-and filled is each heart
With friendship, and love and delight-
No rude bacchanalian enacted a part
In the scene so enchanting and bright.

LIFE.

OUR first free breath is but a sign
Of ills soon to o'ertake us;

And though the sun may sometimes shine
The storms of life will shake us.

Our pulse is but the muffled sound

Of a fixed clock within,

Whose wheels oft cease to move around

E'er one has learnt to sin.

Those tones the infant voice first made,

Did but betoken sorrow;

For oh! our sunny hopes may fade
'Neath gloomy skies to-morrow,

*Cold Water.

The first shrill laugh of buoyant youth,
A signal is for tears;

All hearts must learn the cheerless truth,
That pain comes with our years.
The hopeful heart that yields to love,
In grief may learn to know
Affection truest shines above!
We may not trust below.

The man that yearns for shining gold,
Sighs only for a rock,

Whereon his bark of slender mould,

May strike with fatal shock.

And him who seeks the path of fame
Will find it barren soil;

What is there in a burning name,
To pay for years of toil ?

Life-oh, how subtle is the tide,

That sweeps along our bark ;
Oft are we rock'd from side to side
Then sink we in the dark.

Why court the pleasures of the gay,
When life's so brief a span?

Go stand beside the dead and say,
To this was born frail man.

ON VIEWING THE GREAT COMET OF 1843.

'Tis night-keen, frosty night.

Nature is chill'd to silence in the grasp,

The blighting grasp of haggard Winter. All
Is drear and solemn as the sable tomb.

But scenes so cheerless I will now forget,

And heavenward lift my eyes, and turn my thoughts.
There I behold ten thousand sparkling gems,
Each in itself a world unknown, sublime;
And swift almost as mystic thoughts, they fly:
Fly on and on, through space unmeasurable, save
By Him that drew, with his own Finger, each
And every pathway in whose round exact
Must run those golden orbs.

But now my eager eyes

Are fixed on one amid the burning train,

Beneath whose light, faint hearts are wont to quail,
And at whose coming, science wakes anew.

My soul with wonder startles while I ask

Whence came thou, Stranger?—whither tendest thou?
I cannot move-thy glory chains me fast;

But while on earth the sinewy temple stands,
The soul steals out and upward wings its way
To learn thy path and destiny.

Oh! say

Celestial stranger on swift wings of fire,

What is thy mission? shall we joy or fear?

With all thy flashing in yon high blue arch;
Throughout thy blazing course, what holds thee up?
What saves us from thy heated vapor? Who,
Who holds thee on thy track, wild flaming star,
And bids thee come not near this ball terrestrial?

No more I ask

Methinks I hear of harmony a strain

Like "music of the spheres," and as it floats
Along, my willing ears catch up the sound.
It is a "still small voice" like that which God
Is breathing ever to the sons of men :
And I perceive how oceans lash the shore
Within a given bound: how planets move
In harmony together through the sky:
Why these eccentric wanderers on high

That show long trains of wondrous light—why they
With all their sister orbs, dare not o'er!eap

The mark of law divine.

Oh, why should fear

Come o'er a heart that owns a Power Supreme ?
Why talk of mystery?—where God is known,
At once this theme is solved. Blot from the page
Of faith His name, whose impress all things wear,
And oh how drear our wanderings below!

THEY TELL ME SO.

THEY tell me she is soon to be

Another's happy bride;

That with the city's giddy throng,
Gaily she's wont to dance along,
O'er life's unruffled tide.

They say that her dilating eye,
Of care breathes not a ray,

Her cheek with beauty still is rife,
And all around her light and life :
I heed not all they say.

There was a footstep once she mark'd
With warm and joyous heart;

A name that lingered on her ear,
Like tones of music sweetly clear,
Unwilling to depart.

That step is wont to trace the glade
Where erst we used to stray;
gaze around the favorite bower,
But cannot see the genial flower

Methinks I see the bridal gems

Now ready by her side;

And soon, in dazzling sheen, she'll stand

With sparkling jewels on her hand,

The peerless-perjured bride.