"Hold!" says the farmer, "not so fast!
I have been lame, these four years past."
"And no great wonder," Death replies ;
"However, you still keep your eyes;
And surely, sir, to see one's friends,
For legs and arms would make amends."
Perhaps," says Dobson, so it might,
But latterly I've lost my sight."

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66

"This is a shocking story, faith;

But there's some comfort still," says Death;
"Each strives your sadness to amuse;

I warrant you hear all the news."

"There's none," cries he, "and if there were,
I've grown so deaf, I could not hear."

7. "Nay, then," the specter stern rejoined,
"These are unpardonable tyearnings;
If you are lame, and deaf, and blind,

You 've had your three sufficient warnings;
So, come along! no more we'll part:
He said, and touched him with his dart:
And now, old Dobson, turning pale,
Yields to his fate-so ends my tale,

MRS. THRALE

LESSON CCXXX.

GRATEFUL OLD AGE; THE SOLILOQUY OF PALEMON.

1. How beautifully the dawn shines through the hazel-bush, and the wild roses blossom at the window! How joyfully the swallow sings on the rafter, under my roof, and the little lark in the high air! Every thing is cheerful, and every plant is revived in the dew. I also feel revived. My staff shall guide my tottering steps to the threshold of my cottage, and there will I sit down facing the rising sun, and look abroad on the green meadows. How beautiful is all around me here! All that I hear are voices of joy and thanks. The birds in the air and the shepherd on the hill, sing their delight, and the flocks from the grassy slopes and out of the variegated valleys, bellow out their joy.

2. How long, how long, shall I yet be a witness of divine goodness? Ninety times, have I already seen the change of the seasons; and when I look back from the present hour to the time of my birth,- -a beautiful and extended prospect which, at last, is lost in pure air,-how swells my heart! This emotion, which my tongue can not utter, is it not rapture? And are not these tears, tears of joy? And yet, are not both too feeble an expression of thanks? Ah! flow, ye tears! flow down these cheeks!

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3. When I look back, it seems as if I had lived only through a long spring, my sorrowful hours being only short storms, which refreshed the fields and enlivened the plants. Hurtful pestilences have never diminished our flocks; never has a mischance happened to our trees, nor a lingering misfortune rested on this cottage. I looked out enraptured into futurity, when my children played smiling in my arms, or when my hand guided their tottering footsteps. With tears of joy I looked out into the future, when Ĭ saw these young sprouts spring up. "I will protect them from mischance," said I, "I will watch over their growth, and heaven will bless my endeavors. They will grow up and bear excellent fruit, and become trees, which shall shelter my declining age with their spreading branches."

4. So I spake, and pressed them to my heart, and now, they have grown up, full of blessings, covering my weary years with their refreshing shade. So, the apple-trees, the pear-trees, and the tall nut-trees, planted by me while yet a boy, around my cottage, have grown up, carrying their widely-extended branches high into the air; and my little home nestles in their covering shade. This, this was my most vehement grief, O Myrta, when thou didst expire on my agitated breast, within my arms. Spring has already covered thy grave, twelve times, with flowers. But the day approaches, a joyful day, when my bones shall be laid with thine. Perhaps, the coming night conducts it hither. O, I see with delight, how my gray beard flows down over my breast. Yes, play with the white hair on my breast, thou little zephyr, who hoverest about me! It is as worthy of thy caresses, as the golden hair of joyful youth, or the brown curls on the neck of the blooming maiden.

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5. This day shall be to me a day of joy! I will assemble my children around me here, even down to the little stammering grand-child, and will offer thanksgiving to God; the altar shall be here before my cottage. I will garland my bald head, and my trembling hand shall take the lyre, and then will we, I and my children, sing songs of praise. Then, will I strew flowers over my table, and, with joyful discourses, partake of the bounty of the Most High.

6. Thus spake Palamon, and rose trembling upon his staff; and having called his children together, held a glad festival of devout and joyous thanksgiving to the Deity.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF GESNER.

LESSON CCXXXI.

NEW YEAR'S NIGHT OF AN UNHAPPY MAN.

1. ON new-year's night, an old man stood at his window, and looked, with a glance of fearful despair, up to the immovable, unfading heaven, and down upon the still, pure, white earth, on which no one was now so joyless and sleepless as he. His grave stood near him; it was covered only with the snows of age, not with the verdure of youth; and he brought with him out of a whole, rich life, nothing but errors, sins, and diseases; a wasted body; a desolate soul; a heart full of poison; and an old age full of repentance.

2. The happy days of his early youth passed before him, like a +procession of specters, and brought back to him that lovely morning, when his father first placed him on the cross-way of life, where the right hand led by the sunny paths of virtue, into a large and quiet land, full of light and harvests; and the left plunged by the subterranean walks of vice, into a black cave, full of distilling poison, of hissing snakes, and of dark, sultry vapors.

3. Alas, the snakes were hanging upon his breast, and the drops of poison on his tongue; and he now, at length, felt all the horror of his situation Distracted, with unspeakable grief, and with face up-turned to heaven, he cried, "My father! give me back my youth! O, place me once again upon life's cross-way, that I may choose aright." But his father and his youth were long since gone. He saw phantom-lights dancing upon the marshes, and disappearing at the church-yard; and he said, "These are my foolish days!" He saw a star shoot from heaven, and glittering in its fall, vanish upon the earth. “Behold an † emblem of my career," said his bleeding heart, and the serpent tooth of repentance digged deeper into his wounds.

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the

4. His excited imagination shewed him specters flying upon roof, and a skull, which had been left in the charnel-house, gradually assumed his own features. In the midst of this confusion of objects, the music of the new-year flowed down from the steeple, like distant church-melodies. His heart began to melt. He looked around the horizon, and over the wide earth, and thought of the friends of his youth, who now, better and happier than he, were the wise of the earth, prosperous men, and the fathers of happy children; and he said, "Like you, I also might slumber, with tearless eyes, through the long nights, had I chosen aright in the outset of my career. Ah, my father! had I hearkened to thy instructions, I too might have been happy."

5. In this feverish remembrance of his youthful days, the skull bearing his features, seemed slowly to rise from the door of the charnel-house. At length, by that superstition, which, in the new-year's night, sees the shadow of the future, it became a living youth. He could look no longer; he covered his eyes; a thousand burning tears streamed down, and fell upon the snow. In accents scarcely audible, he sighed disconsolately: "Oh, days of my youth, return, return!" And they did return. It had only been a horrible dream. But, although he was still a youth, his errors had been a reality. And he thanked God, that he, still young, was able to pause in the degrading course of vice, and return to the sunny path which leads to the land of harvests.

6. Return with him, young reader, if thou art walking in the same downward path, lest his dream become thy reality. For if thou turnest not now, in the spring-time of thy days, vainly, in after years, when the shadows of age are darkening around thee, shalt thou call, "Return, oh beautiful days of youth!" Those beautiful days, gone, gone forever, and hidden in the shadows of the misty past, shall close their ears against thy miserable cries, or answer thee in hollow accents, "Alas! we return no more."

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF RICHTER.

LESSON CCXXXII.

THE CLOSING YEAR.

1. 'Tis midnight's holy hour, and silence now

Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er

The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds,
The bell's deep tones are swelling; 't is the knell
Of the departed year. No funeral train

Is sweeping past; yet, on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest
Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred,
As by a mourner's sigh; and, on yon cloud,
That floats so still and placidly through heaven,
The spirits of the Seasons seem to stand,

Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form,
And Winter, with his aged locks, and breathe

In mournful +cadences, that come abroad
Like the far wind-harp's wild, touching wail,
A melancholy +dirge o'er the dead year,
Gone from the earth forever.

2.

3

4.

5.

'T is a time

For memory and for tears. Within the deep,
Still chambers of the heart, a +specter dim,
Whose tones are like the twizard voice of Time,
Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold
And solemn finger to the beautiful

And holy visions, that have passed away,
And left no shadow of their loveliness
On the dead waste of life. The specter lifts
The coffin-lid of Hope, and Joy, and Love,
And bending mournfully above the pale,

Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers
O'er what has passed to nothingness.

The year

Has gone, and with it, many a glorious throng
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow,
Its shadow, in each heart. In its swift course,
It waved its scepter o'er the beautiful;
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man: and the haughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged
The bright and joyous; and the tearful wail
Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded. It passed o'er
The battle-plain, where sword, and spear, and shield,
Flashed in the light of mid-day; and the strength
Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass,
Green from the soil of +carnage, waves above
The crushed and moldering skeleton. It came,
And faded like a wreath of mist at eve;

Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air,

It heralded its millions to their home,
In the dim land of dreams.

Remorseless Time!

Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe! What power Can stay him in his silent course, or melt

His iron-heart to pity! On, still on,

He presses, and forever. The proud bird,

The +condor of the Andes, that can soar

Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave

The fury of the northern hurricane,

And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home,
Furls his broad wing at night-fall, and sinks down
To rest upon his mountain crag; but Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness,
And Night's deep darkness has no chain to bind
His rushing pinion.

Revolutions sweep

O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast
Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles