Their reasoning, like the tread- mill's round,
Covers the same eternal ground,

And all their steps repeated o'er
Leave them-just where they were before.
Some old man born to live alone,
To fast and prey, to sigh and moan;
Others as sapiently suppose

Life's end is seated on the nose,*
All virtue and perfection stinting
Within the narrow bounds of squinting.
So Western sages make it vicious
When men grow thinking and suspicious;
And deem it not a venial slip,

To look beyond the nose's tip;

Some recommend a spiritual purging

Of sin, by means of corporal scourging;
While some would spend our prime's best age

In vagabonding pilgrimage.

Of strange opinions there's no dearth

Some think our business here on earth

Is to consume the night's still noon
In closest conference with the moon;
To fly upon the visual wing

And pick up news from Saturn's ring.
There are, and surely these have reason,
Who life with mirth and pleasure season.
There are who hold, most indiscreet,
That life is one perpetual treat,

A feast, a mere debauch, a revel,
And in hard drinking seek their level.

• The Indian Fakeers sit for days with their eyes fixed on the point of their nose.

L

The wiser deem the task of man
On earth is but himself to scan,
To help a brother in distress,
To the great goal of knowledge press,
T'enlarge the narrow bounds of mind,
New remedies for evils find,

Firmly to guard his country's laws,
And bravely bleed in Freedom's cause.
When the great cause of life I'd know,
To such philosophers I'd go :

With them I'd laugh at all those blockheads,
Who for opinion's sake would knock heads,
And limit every Christian brain

To hold, just what their own contain:
With them I'd think, with them I'd doubt,
And hope I'd made the puzzle out.

But, since the Fates degree to twine,
thy thread of life with mine,

The sceptic sinks into the lover;
Nor care I longer to discover
A better cause why man should be,
Than simply to exist with thee.
Reposing on thy faithful breast,
All doubts for ever sink to rest.
On thee I gaze, and the bless'd sight
Proves that "whatever is, is right;"
While, pleased, I own, howe'er life tend,
The means must sanctify the end.

New Monthly Magazine.

SONNET.

WRITTEN ON SEEING A GREEK AT VAUXHALL.

THE author of the following beautiful lines has, if we mistake not, erred, in placing the scene at Vauxhall, as the Greek could not have happened to enter the gardens by chance, and; if he went purposely, his purpose must be to enjoy, like others, the festivities of the place. How, then, could he be said to

"Gaze around" him "with unquiet eye, As if the music and light revelry But stamp'd a deeper sadness in" his "mind?"

ED.

Still he beheld nor mingled with the throng,
But view'd them not with misanthropic hate.
Childe Harold.

Thy soul is o'er the waters-there is not
For scenes like these a sympathy within;
And thou dost turn thee from the restless din
Of pleasure's many voices, to the spot
Where all thy soul's affections are enshrined;
And gaze around thee with unquiet eye,
As if the music and light revelry

But stamp a deeper sadness in thy mind.
Thou think'st of those firm hearts and trusty hands
Which throb and strive for liberty and right,

And every tranquil vale and giant height,
Which lies or rises in that "land of lands,"
Where the blue sky hangs smilingly above
The rushing Hellespont, with looks of love.
London Magazine.

ALFAIMA'S LAMENT.*

To the lovers of romantic poetry, the following lines will be acceptable. We shall only observe, that the measure seems neither suited to the dignity of the queen, nor to the magnitude of her misfortunes.-ED.

Is a dungeon fit home for a queen,

Where the day-spring ne'er pours its light!
Must she, in Grenada once seen

In the plendour and pomp of a diadem bright-
In the purple of power and bathed in delight,
Be captived, forsaken, forlorn,

An object of pity and scorn!

Beauty, royalty, innocence, now
Alas!
ye can serve me no more ;
To the cruel Boabdil I bow,

To the rage of a husband and tyrant, before

Youth's time is gone by or the minutes are o'er,
When life is all hope, and we think
Rich draughts without limit to drink.

Ye Zegris, perfidious and base,

Ye slaughter'd my friends unaware;

Not enough was the blood of their race,

But with them ye dared pierce with the shaft of despair,

With calumny's arrow a heart that must bear

To be victim, in fullness of woes,

To the virtue and worth of your foes.

* See the history of Boabdil, the last Moorish king of Grenada.

Ye say I'm not true to the bed

Of a monster of jealousy;

That love's flame for another I've fed;
But the love of my honour is first love with me;
And if in the depths of my soul there should be
One blush of ill passion concealed,

It shall ever be kept unreveal'd.

O Grenada! O my sad home!

Do there none of thy warriors remain ? Not one that to save me will come

And enter the list for his queen, and regain

Her freedom once more? Are they all with the slain?

O Muça, haste thou to my aid,
Lest I perish belied and betray'd!

My country, my parents, my throne,

Is the morn, the sweet morn of my days,

Not its hopes and its wishes alone,

But its mantle of grandeur, its incense of praise,
To be trod in the earth? are its glorious rays
To be shorn from my royalty's brow,
Polluted and darken'd as now?

The wolf keeps his haunt and his lair,
The eagle his mountain-nest free,
The peasant his home, and in air

The birds soar in sunshine and liberty-
But the queen of Grenada is captive, and she
Must in sorrow and misery lie,
Or dare, 'reft of honour, to die.

O Mahomet! weak is thy power
When innocence suffers in vain ;
When evil the good may devour-