OH! BANQUET NOT.

Oh! banquet not in these shining bowers,
Where youth resorts-but come to me;
For mine's a garden of faded flowers;
More fit for sorrow-for age, and thee:
And there we shall have our feast of tears,
And many a cup in silence pour :
Our guests the shades of former years,
Our toasts to lips, that bloom no more.

There while the myrtle's withering boughs,
Their lifeless leaves around us shed;

We'll brim the bowl to broken vows,
To friends long lost--the changed-the dead.
Or as some blighted laurel waves

Its branches o'er the dreary spot,

We'll drink to those neglected graves,
Where valour sleeps--unnamed-forgot!

Moore.

INFLUENCE OF HOPE

ON THE HUMAN MIND.

At summer eve, when heaven's aërial bow
Spans with bright arch the glittering fields below,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye
Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky?
Why do those cliffs of shadow tint appear
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near?---
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
Thus with delight we linger to survey

The promised joys of life's unmeasured way;
Thus from afar each dim-discovered scene

More pleasing seems than all the past hath been!
And every form, that fancy can repair

From dark oblivion, glows divinely there.

What potent spirit guides the raptured eye

To pierce the shades of dim futurity?
Can wisdom lend, with all her heavenly power,
The pledge of joy's anticipated hour?

Ah! no; she darkly sees the fate of man-
Her dim horizon bounded to a span;

Or, if she hold an image to the view,

'Tis nature pictured too severely true.

With thee, sweet hope, resides the heavenly light
That pours remotest rapture on the sight;
Thine is the charm of life's bewildered way,
That calls each slumbering passion into play.
Waked by thy touch, I see the sister band,
On tiptoe watching, start at thy command,
And fly where'er thy mandate bids them steer,
To pleasure's path, or glory's bright career.
Primeval hope, the Aönian muses say,

When man and nature mourned their first decay;
When every form of death and every woe

Shot from malignant stars to earth below;
When murder bared her arm, and rampant war
Yoked the red dragons of her iron car;
When peace and mercy, banished from the plain,
Sprung on the viewless winds to heaven again--
All, all forsook the friendless guilty mind,
But Hope, the charmer, lingered still behind.

Thus while Elijah's burning wheels prepare From Carmel's height to sweep the fields of air, The prophet's mantle, ere his flight began, Dropt on the world-a sacred gift to man.

Auspicious Hope! in thy sweet garden grow
Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe:
Won by their sweets, in nature's languid hour,
The way-worn pilgrim seeks thy summer bower;
There, as the wild bee murmurs on the wing,
What peaceful dreams thy handmaid spirits bring!
What viewless forms the Æolian organ play,

the furrowed lines of anxious thought away! Campbell.

THE HEAVENLY REST.

There is an hour of peaceful rest,

To mourning wanderers given;
There is a tear for souls distrest,
A balm for every wounded breast---
'Tis found above-in heaven!

There is a soft, a downy bed,

'Tis fair as breath of even;

A couch for weary mortals spread,

Where they may rest the aching head,
And find repose in heaven!

There is a home for weary souls,

By sin and sorrow driven;

When tost on life's tempestuous shoals,
Where storms arise, and ocean rolls,
And all is drear-but heaven!

There faith lifts up the tearful eye,
The heart with anguish riven;
And views the tempest passing by,
The evening shadows quickly fly,

And all serene in heaven!

There fragrant flowers immortal bloom,
And joys supreme are given :

There rays divine disperse the gloom :

Beyond the confines of the tomb,

Appears the dawn of heaven!

THE WORLD PASSES AWAY.

This world is all a fleeting show,

For man's illusion given;

Anon.