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THE MOSS ROSE.

Mossy rose on mossy stone,
Flowering mid the ruins lone,
I have learnt, beholding thee,
Youth and age may well agree.
Baby germ of freshest hue,
Out of ruin issuing new;
Moss a long laborious growth
And one stalk supporting both:

Thus may still, while fades the past,
Life come forth again as fast;
Happy if the relics sere
Deck a cradle, not a bier.

Tear the garb, the spirit flies,
And the heart, unshelter'd, dies;
Kill within the nursling flower,
Scarce the green survives an hour.

Ever thus together live,
And to man a lesson give,
Moss, the work of vanished years,
Rose, that but to-day appears.
Moss, that covers dateless tombs;
Bud with early sweet that blooms;
Childhood thus, in happy rest,
Lies on ancient wisdom's breast.

Moss and rose, and age and youth,
Flush and verdure, hope and truth,
Yours be peace that knows not strife,
One the root and one the life.

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I fearless reap thy fruit
Of bliss;

And I who am thy root,

Am to the air to kiss
The gleams that o'er thee shoot;
And fed, I feed thy fruit.

Thy father's form and pride
And thought,

In thee yet undescried,

Shall soon be fully wrought,
Grow tall, and bright, and wide,
In thee our hope and pride.

Nay, do not stir, my child,
Be still;

In thee is reconciled

To man heaven's righteous will.
To thee the curse is mild,
And smites not thee, my child.

To us our sin has borne
Its doom.

From light dethroned and torn,

"T was ours to dwell in gloom; But thou, a better morn, By that dark night art borne.

Thou shalt, my child, be free
From sin,

Nor taste the fatal tree,

For thou from us shalt win
A wisdom cheap to thee;
So thou from ill be free!
My bird, my flower, my star,
My boy!

My all things fair that are,

My spring of endless joy, From thee is heaven not far, From thee, its earthly star.

So, darling, shalt thou grow

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MRS. MACLEAN.

LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON was born in London, on the fourteenth day of August, 1802. Her father, who was of a respectable Herefordshire family, died when she was very young, and his widow and children were left in a great degree dependent upon the exertions of LETITIA, whose habit of writing had commenced in childhood, and who now exhibited indications of that genius which soon made her initial signature of L. E. L. everywhere familiar.

Her first appearance as a poet was in the pages of the Literary Gazette, to which she was long a frequent contributor; and her first volume was The Fate of Adelaide, a Swiss romantic tale, published in her eighteenth year. In the spring of 1824 it was followed by the Improvisatrice and other Poems, and about the same time began her permanent connection with periodical literature and criticism. The constant and exhausting drain of the press she bore with cheerfulness, and her duties were fulfilled carefully and earnestly. For fourteen years she was one of the most industrious and successful authors of England. In this period, besides her reviews, essays, and other contributions to literary journals, she wrote three novels, Romance and Reality, Francesca Carrara, and Ethel Churchill; and The Troubadour, the Venetian Bracelet, the Golden Violet, the Vow of the Peacock, and several volumes of shorter poems. Mr. BLANCHARD, her biographer, remarks of her opinions of books and authors, that there may be seen in them the results of much miscellaneous reading, research in several foreign languages, and acuteness and brilliancy of remark, with hastiness of judgment and prejudiced and inconclusive views, but no ungenerous or vindictive sentiment or trace of an unkindly or interested feeling. She often went far out of her way, indeed, to recommend the productions of rivals who abused her; and towards those by whom she conceived herself obliged, though in the slightest degree, she was ever ready to act the friend where she should have been the critic only. Her failings as a reviewer leaned to virtue's side; and the

young writer, with but a spark of the poetic fire in his lines, was as sure of a gentle sentence, of appreciation and sympathy, as the established favourite of a grateful welcome, and an honouring tribute.

Many of her poems were in their nature ephemeral; but others, especially those of later years, were written with care, and are distinguished for true feeling and a delicate fancy. From the beginning she sung in songs of a sad tone of love; nearly all her works are pervaded by a gentle and touching melancholy; yet she is said to have been as gay as she was brilliant, delighting her friends by her apparent happiness as well as by her genial wit. But they who write most rapidly write oftenest from the heart, and the solitary musings of the study are more real than the manner or the opinions exhibited in society. Miss LANDON became, with what reason we cannot tell, the subject of harsh judgments by the world; her associates "began to wish her health and happiness in set terms;" and she gave expression to disappointment, impatience, and scorn, in writings of too genuine a stamp to be regarded as the issues of only imagination. Yet she had many intimate and unchanging friends, among whom were some of the most eminent of her contemporaries.

In June, 1838, Miss LANDON was married to Captain GEORGE MACLEAN, Governor of Cape Coast Castle, and soon afterward left England for Africa. On arriving at her new home she wrote letters to her friends in London, which told of happiness and cheerful anticipations, but they were followed soon by intelligence of her death. A mystery hangs over her last days. There were rumours of suicide and of poisoning. According to the verdict of a coroner, her death was caused by prussic acid, taken in too large a quantity, to cure some slight disease.

The career of Mrs. MACLEAN commenced brilliantly, but the promise of her earlier efforts was scarcely fulfilled in her subsequent productions, which were generally written under circumstances that prevented study and elaboration. She had a deep feeling of affec

tion, a lively fancy, a fine eye for the picturesque, and an unusual command of poetical language; and notwithstanding the haste and carelessness with which she wrote, she was improving in taste and execution, and would probably have gained a far higher reputation had she lived a few more years. With all

her faults she will be remembered as one of the sweetest poets of the age.

Many of the poems of Mrs. MACLEAN have been often reprinted in this country; but the most complete American edition of her works is that of Carey and Hart, in three large octavo volumes.

THE FACTORY.

'Tis an accursed thing.

THERE rests a shade above yon town,
A dark, funereal shroud:
"Tis not the tempest hurrying down,
"Tis not a summer cloud.

The smoke that rises on the air
Is as a type and sign;

A shadow flung by the despair

Within those streets of thine.

That smoke shuts out the cheerful day,
The sunset's purple hues,

The moonlight's pure and tranquil ray,
The morning's pearly dews.
Such is the moral atmosphere
Around thy daily life;

Heavy with care, and pale with fear,
With future tumult rife.

There rises on the morning wind
A low, appealing cry,

A thousand children are resign'd
To sicken and to die!

We read of Moloch's sacrifice,

We sicken at the name,

And seem to hear the infant cries

And yet we do the same ;

And worse-'twas but a moment's pain
The heathen altar gave,

But we give years,—our idol, gain,
Demands a living grave!

How precious is the little one

Before his mother's sight,
With bright hair dancing in the sun,
And eyes of azure light!

He sleeps as rosy as the south,
For summer days are long;
A prayer upon his little mouth,

Lull'd by his nurse's song.

Love is around him, and his hours
Are innocent and free;

His mind essays its early powers
Beside his mother's knee.

When after-years of trouble come,
Such as await man's prime,

How will he think of that dear home,
And childhood's lovely time!

And such should childhood ever be,
The fairy well; to bring
To life's worn, weary memory

The freshness of its spring.
But here the order is reversed,
And infancy, like age,
Knows of existence, but its worst,
One dull and darken'd page;-
Written with tears and stamp'd with toil,
Crush'd from the earliest hour,
Weeds darkening on the bitter soil
That never knew a flower.

Look on yon child, it droops the head,
It's knees are bow'd with pain;

It mutters from its wretched bed,
Oh, let me sleep again!"

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Alas! 'tis time, the mother's eyes

Turn mournfully away;

Alas! 'tis time, the child must rise,
And yet it is not day.

The lantern's lit-she hurries forth,

The spare cloak's scanty fold Scarce screens her from the snowy north,

The child is pale and cold.

And wearily the little hands

Their task accustom'd ply;

While daily, some 'mid those pale bands Droop, sicken, pine, and die.

Good God! to think upon a child

That has no childish days,
No careless play, no frolics wild,

No words of prayer and praise!
Man from the cradle-'tis too soon
To earn their daily bread,
And heap the heat and toil of noon
Upon an infant's head.

To labour ere their strength be come,
Or starve,-is such the doom
That makes of many an English home
One long and living tomb?

Is there no pity from above,—

No mercy in those skies;
Hath then the heart of man no love,
To spare such sacrifice?

O England! though thy tribute waves
Proclaim thee great and free,
While those small children pine like slaves,
There is a curse on thee!

THE MINSTREL'S MONITOR. SILENT and dark as the source of yon river, Whose birth-place we know not, and seek not to know,

Though wild as the flight of the shaft from yon quiver,

Is the course of its waves as in music they flow. The lily flings o'er it its silver white blossom, Like ivory barks which a fairy hath made; The rose o'er it bends with its beautiful bosom,

As though 'twere enamour'd itself of its shade.

The sunshine, like hope, in its noontide hour slumbers

On the stream, as it loved the bright place of its rest;

And its waves pass in song, as the sea-shell's soft numbers

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Had given to those waters their sweetest and The banks that surround it are flower-dropt and sunny;

There the first birth of violets' odour-showers weep

There the bee heaps his earliest treasures of honey,

Or sinks in the depths of the harebell to sleep. Like prisoners escaped during night from their prison,

The waters fling gayly their spray to the sun; Who can tell me from whence that glad river has risen? [not one. Who can say whence it springs in its beauty?— O my heart, and my song, which is as my heart's flowing, [own! Read thy fate in yon river, for such is thine Mid those the chief praise on thy music bestowing, Who cares for the lips from whence issue the tone?

Dark as its birth-place so dark is my spirit,

Whence yet the sweet waters of melody came: "Tis the long after-course, not the source, will inherit

The beauty and glory of sunshine and fame.

THE FEAST OF LIFE.

BID thee to my mystic feast,
Each one thou lovest is gather'd there;
Yet put thou on a mourning robe

And bind the cypress in thy hair.
The hall is vast, and cold, and drear;
The board with fairest flowers is spread;
Shadows of beauty flit around,

But beauty from which bloom has fled; And music echoes from the walls,

But music with a dirgelike sound; And pale and silent are the guests, And every eye is on the ground.

Here, take this cup, though dark it seem, And drink to human hopes and fears; "Tis from their native element,

The cup is fill'd-it is of tears.

What, turn'st thou with averted brow?
Thou scornest this poor feast of mine;
And askest for a purple robe,

Light words, glad smiles, and sunny wine. In vain the veil has left thine eyes,

Or such these would have seem'd to thee; Before thee is the Feast of Life, But life in its reality!

EXPERIENCE.

My very heart is fill'd with tears! I seem
As I were struggling under some dark dream,
Which roughly bore me down life's troubled stream.
The past weighs heavily upon my soul,
A tyrant mastering me with stern control;
The present has no rest-the future has no goal.
For what can be again but what has been?
Soon the young leaf forgets its early green,
And shadows with our sunshine intervene.
Quench'd is the spirit's morning wing of fire;
We calculate where once we could aspire,
And the high hope sets in some low desire.
Experience has rude lessons, and we grow
Like what we have been taught too late to know,
And yet we hate ourselves for being so.

Our early friends, where are they? rather, where
The fond belief that actual friends there were,
Not cold and false as all must find they are?
We love may have been loved-but ah! how faint
The love that withers of its earthly taint,
To what our first sweet visions used to paint!
How have we been deceived, forgotten, flung
Back on our trusting selves-the heart's core wrung
By some fond faith to which we weakly clung.
Alas! our kindest feelings are the root
Of all experience's most bitter fruit;
They waste the life whose charm they constitute.
At length they harden, and we feel no more
All that was felt so bitterly before,

But with the softness is the sweetness o'er.

Of things we once enjoy'd how few remain !
Youth's flowers are flung behind us, and in vain
We would stoop down to gather them again.
Why do we think of this? bind the red wreath-
Float down Time's water to the viol's breath,
Wot not what those cold billows hide beneath.
We cannot do this: from the sparkling brink
Drops the glad rose, and the bright waters shrink:
While in the midst of mirth we pause to think;
And if we think we sadden: thought and grief
Are vow'd companions: while we turn the leaf
It darkens, for the brilliant is the brief.

Ah! then, farewell, ye lovely things that brought
Your own Elysium hither! overwrought
The spirit wearies with the weight of thought.
Our better nature pineth-let it be !
Thou human soul-earth is no home for thee;
Thy starry rest is in eternity!

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SUCCESS ALONE SEEN.

FEW know of life's beginnings-men behold
The goal achieved;-the warrior, when his sword
Flashes red triumph in the noonday sun;
The poet, when his lyre hangs on the palm;
The statesman, when the crowd proclaim his voice,
And mould opinion, on his gifted tongue:
They count not life's first steps, and never think
Upon the many miserable hours

When hope deferr'd was sickness to the heart.
They reckon not the battle and the march,
The long privations of a wasted youth;
They never see the banner till unfurl'd.
What are to them the solitary nights
Past pale and anxious by the sickly lamp,
Till the young poet wins the world at last
To listen to the music long his own?
The crowd attend the statesman's fiery mind
That makes their destiny; but they do not trace
Its struggle, or its long expectancy.
Hard are life's early steps; and, but that youth
Is buoyant, confident, and strong in hope,
Men would behold its threshold, and despair.

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