312 YELLOW LEAVES. Age walks amid an alter'd world, "Sere leaves that dangle from Life's tree," The old might well have said, "A relic of the past are we; A remnant of the dead: But death's long night shall turn to day, MORALITY IN MODERATION. "TWIXT Wit and Wisdom, Beauty sat; The first, her ear with trifles took; Said "Take a page from Reason's book, "Not now, grave sir:"-return'd the maid; Is only good-in season. I must not take the leaf, kind sage, And I have here a single Page That better suits the' occasion. LINES, BY A LADY, ON OBSERVING SOME WHITE HAIRS ON THOU, to whose power reluctantly we bend, Why stamp thy seal on manhood's rosy prime? Already twining 'midst my Thyrsis' hair' The snowy wreaths of age, the monuments of care. Through all her forms, though Nature own thy sway, Thyrsis shall view, unmoved, thy potent reign,Secure to please, while goodness knows to charm, Fancy and taste delight, or sense and truth inform. Tyrant, when from that lip of crimson glow, Swept by thy chilling wing, the rose shall fly; When thy rude scythe indents his polish'd brow, And quench'd is all the lustre of his eye; When ruthless age disperses every grace, Each smile that beams from that ingenuous face ;— Then, through her stores shall active Memory rove, Teaching each various charm to bloom anew, And still the raptured eye of faithful love Shall bend on Thyrsis its delighted view; Still shall he triumph with resistless power, Still rule the conquer'd heart to life's remotest hour. THE COUNTRY GIRL. ON A PICTURE BY HOLMES. BY W. WORDSWORTH. THAT happy gleam of vernal eyes, To scenes Arcadian, whispering, through soft air, Of happiness that never flies How can it where love never dies? What mortal form, what earthly face, That touchingly bespeaks thee born, 316 THE COUNTRY GIRL. Life's daily task with them to share, STANZAS. BY LORD BYRON. I HEARD thy fate without a tear, I know not what hath sear'd mine eye; But every drop its lids deny Yes-deep and heavy, one by one, |