Its piteous pageants bring not back,
Nor waken flesh, upon the rack

Of pain anew to writhe,
Stretch'd in disease's shapes abhorr'd,
Or mown in battle by the sword,

Like grass beneath the scythe!

“Ev'n I am weary in yon skies

To watch thy fading fire;
Test of all sumless agonies

Behold not me expire.
My lips, that speak thy dirge of death-
Their rounded gasp and gurgling breath

To see thou shalt not boast. The eclipse of nature spreads my pall, The majesty of Darkness shall

Receive my parting ghost!

6. This spirit shall return to Him

Who gave its heavenly spark;
Yet think not, Sun, it shall be dim

When thou thyself art dark!
No! it shall live again, and shine
In bliss unknown to beams of thine,

By Him recall’d to breath,
Who captive led captivity,
Who robb’d the grave of victory,

And took the sting from death!

"Go, Sun! while Mercy holds me up

On nature's awful waste,
To drink this last and bitter cup

Of grief that man shall taste;
Go, tell the night that hides thy face,
Thou saw'st the last of Adam's race,

On Earth's sepulchral clod,
The darkening universe defy
To quench his immortality

Or shake his trust in God!

LOVE.
A beautiful passage from BULWER’s Richelieu, a Drama.

[ADRIEN DE MAUPRAT and Count BARADAS.] BAR.

(Aloud) Thou lovest.
De Mar. Who, lonely in the midnight tent,
Gazed on the watchfires in the sleepless air,
Nor chose one star amid the clustering hosts
To bless it with the name of some fair face
Set in his spirit, as that star in heaven?
For our divine affections, like the spheres,
Move ever, ever musical !
BAR.

You speak
As one that fed on poetry.
DE MAU.

Why, man,
The thoughts of lovers stir with poetry,
As leaves with summer wind. The heart that loves
Dwells in an Eden, hearing angel lutes,
As Eve in the first garden. Hast thou seen
My Julie, and not felt it henceforth dull.
To live in the common world, and talk in words
That clothe the feelings of the frigid herd ?
Upon the perfumed pillow of her lips
As on his native bed of roses, flush'd
With Paphian skies-Love smiling sleeps. Her voice,
The blest interpreter of thoughts as pure
As virgin wells where Dian takes delight,
Or fairies dip their changelings ! In the maze
Of her harmonious beauties, Modesty
(Like some severer Grace that leads the choir
Of her sweet sisters) every airy motion
Attunes to such chaste charm, that Passion holds
His burning breath, and will not with a sigh
Dissolve the spell that binds him! Oh, those eyes
That woo the earth-shadowing more soul than lurks
Under the lids of Psyche! Go !--thy lip
Curls at the purfled phrases of a lover.
Love thou, and if thy love be deep as mine,
Thou wilt not laugh at poets.

SATAN'S ADDRESS TO THE SUN. Although familiar to every reader, this gathering of the beauties of the Poets would be incomplete without the following, from the fourth book of Milton's Paradise Lost.

O thou, that, with surpassing glory crown'd,
Look'st from thy sole dominion, like the god
Of this new world ; at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminish'd beads; to thee I call,
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name,
O Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remeinbrance from what state
I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere,
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down,
Warring in heaven against heaven's matchless King.
Ah, wherefore ? He deserved no such return
From me, whom he created what I was
In that bright eminence, and with his good
Upbraided none; nor was his service hard.
What could be less than to afford him praise,
The easiest recompense, and pay him thanks ?
How due! yet all his good proved ill in me,
And wrought but malice; lifted up so high
I 'sdain'd subjection, and thought one step higher
Would set me highest, and in a moment quit
The debt immense of endless gratitude,
So burdensome; still paying, still to owe:
Forgetful what from him I still received,
And understood not that a grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharged; what burden then ?
O had his powerful destiny ordain'd
Me some inferior angel, I had stood
Then happy ; no unbounded hope had raised
Ambition. Yet, why not? Some other power
As great might have aspired, and me, though mean,
Drawn to his part; but other powers as great
Fell not, but stand unshaken, from within,
Or from without, to all temptations arm’d.
Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand ?
Thou hadst: wbom hast thou then or what to accuse,
But heaven's free love, dealt equally to all ?
Be then his love accursed, since, love or hate,
To me alike it deals eternal woe.

Nay, cursed be thou; since against his thy will
Chose freely what it now so justly rues.
Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath and infinite despair ?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep
Still threatening to devour me, opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
O then, at last relent: is there po place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left ?
None left but by submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the spirits beneath, whom I seduced
With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit, boasting I could subdue
The Omnipotent. Ah me! they little know
How dearly I abide that boast so vain,
Under what torments inwardly I groan,
While they adore me on the throne of hell.
With diadem and sceptre high advanced
The lower still I fall, only supreme
In misery: such joy ambition finds.
But say I could repent, and could obtain
By act of grace my former state ; how soon
Would height recal high thoughts, how soon unsay
What feign'd submission swore! Ease would recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void :
For never can true reconcilement grow
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep:
Which would but lead me to a worse relapse,
And heavier fall: so should I purchase dear
Short intermission, bought with double smart.
This knows my Punisher; therefore as far
From granting he, as I from begging peace:
All hope excluded thus, behold, instead
Of us, outcast, exiled, his new delight,
Mankind, created, and for him this world.
So farewell hope; and, with hope, fear;
Farewell, remorse: all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good: by thee, at least,
Divided empire with heaven's King I hold,
By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign,
As man, ere long, and this new world, shall know.

ON A LADY SLANDERED.

By BARRY CORNWALL.
HER doom is writ: her name is grown

Familiar in the common mouth;
And she who was, when all unknown,

Like a sunbeam bursting from the south, Is overshadow'd by her fate; By others' envy, others' hate ! I loved her when her fame was clear;

I love her now her fame is dark :
Twice-thrice-a thousand times more dear

Is she, with Slander's serpent mark,
Than Beauty that did never know
Shadow,-neither shame nor woe.
Let who will admire,-adore,

Her whom vulgar crowds do praise ;
I will love my Love the more

When she falls on evil days!
Truer, firmer will I be,
When the truth-like fail or flee.
Bird of mine! though rivers wide

And wild seas between us run,
Yet I'll some day come, with pride,

And serve thee, from sun to sun;
Meantime, all my wishes flee
To thy nest beyond the sea !
Mourn not ! let a brighter doom

Breed no anguish in thy mind :
If the rose hath most perfume,

It hath still the thorn behind :
If the sun be at its height,
Think what follows,-certain night.
Murmur not! whatever ill

Cometh, am I not thy friend, (In false times the firmer still)

Without changing, without end? Ah! if one true friend be thine,

Dare not to repine !