"Oh! but to breathe the breath of the primrose and cowslip sweet

With the sky above my head, and the grass beneath my feet,

If only for one short hour to feel as I used to feel, Before I knew the woes of want, and the walk that costs a meal.

Oh! but for one short hour! a respite however brief! No blessed leisure for Love or Hope, but only time for grief!

A little weeping would ease my heart, but in their briny bed

My tears must stop, for every drop hinders needle and thread-

With fingers weary and worn, with eyelids heavy and red,

A woman sat in unwomanly rags, plying her needle

and thread.

Stitch! stitch! stitch! in poverty, hunger, and dirt;
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,
(Would that its tones could reach the rich!)
She sang this-" Song of the Shirt."

A Psalm of Life.

What the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken to the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined, end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to-day.

Art is long. and time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating,
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,
Be not like dumb driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant !
Let the dead past bury its dead !
Act, act in the living present!
Heart within, and God o'er head !

Lives of great men all remind us,
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother
Seeing shall take heart again.

Let us, then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem,

Apparalled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream :

It is not now as it hath been of yore;

Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The rainbow comes, and goes;

And lovely is the rose;

The moon doth with delight

Look round her, when the heavens are bare;

Waters, on a starry night,

Are beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth :
But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.

All things that good and harmless are,
Are taught, they say, to sing:
The maiden as she trips along;
The bird upon the wing;

The little ones at church in praise;

The angels in the sky

The angels less when babes are born,
Than when the aged die.

As on thy mother's knee,
A new-born child,
Weeping, thou sat'st,

While all around thee smiled.

So live, that sinking

Into death's long sleep,
Calm thou may'st smile,

While all around thee weep.

* farewell!"

Farewell! farewell! mine own dear friend,
We part, perhaps to meet no more;
For I approach my journey's end,

And thou hast reached the shelving shore.

Farewell! that faint and faltering cry
Strikes to the heart affection's knell:
And yet, can hallowed friendship die ?
Oh! rather say its passing bell :

For as the sad sound melts away, Angelic tones take up the strain"Come, severed hearts! come home," they say, "Never to ache and part again !"

The Last Man.

All earthly shapes shall melt in gloom,
The sun himself must die,
Before this mortal shall assume

Its immortality!

I saw a vision in my sleep

That gave my senses power to sweep

Adown the gulf of time!

I saw the last of human mould,
That shall creation's death behold,
As Adam saw her prime !

The sun's eye had a sickly glare,
The earth with age was wan;
The skeletons of nations were
Around that lonely man !
Some had expired in fight-the brand
Still rusted in their bony hand;

In plague and famine, some!

Earth's cities had no sound or tread;
And ships were drifting with the dead
To shores where all was dumb !

Yet Prophet-like that lone one stood,
With dauntless words and high, -
That shook the sere-leaves from the wood,
As if a storm passed by,
Saying, we are twins in death, proud sun,
Thy face is cold, thy race is run,

'Tis mercy bids thee go!

For thou, ten thousand thousand years Hast seen the course of human tears Which shall no longer flow.

What, though beneath thee, man put forth
His pomp, his pride, his skill,
And arts that made fire, flood, and earth
The vasssals of his will ;-
Yet mourn I not thy parted sway,

Thou dim discrowned king of day;

For all those trophied arts

And triumphs that beneath thee sprang,

Healed not a passion or a pang
Entailed on human hearts.