MOORLAND MARY.

WITH jet-black eyes, and sloe-black hair;
With cheeks so red, and round arms bare;
And teeth so white, and dimpled chin;
And bosom fair, and pure within;
And small straw hat, so loosely tied;
And rushy basket at her side,

Quite full with berries red* and bluet,
And heather buds of many a hue;
And steps as light as any fairy ;-
I met the little Moorland Mary.

"

If you sweet girl will go with me,
My little serving maid to be:

And those soft notes you sweetly sung,
Repeat them to my nursling young,

* Vaccinium myrtillus, bilberries, frequent on the moors and heaths. The berries are eaten alone, with milk, or in tarts: the juice stains paper or linen a fine purple.

+ Vaccinium vites ideaa; the berries vulgarly called cowberries, and often sold to the ignorant for cranberries; which likewise grow upon the moors, and are very much valued.

Erica vulgaris, common heath: grows upon the moors covering them in August with their beautiful purple blossoms, from which bees extract honey; but the taste of it is not so fine as when it is collected from other plants.

Panora br Youth, p. 180. v. ii.

And leave these hills, so bleak and wild,
To watch and tend my darling child,
To cherish her I fondly love,

And tender, true, and faithful prove,
And o'er her infant steps be wary ;
I'll treasure you sweet Moorland Mary."

"Oh, lady! listen to my tale,
And let my simple words prevail :—
My mother's old-she's old and poor,
And scarce can totter to the door;
And me she loves, her only joy-
She has no other girl or boy:

Ah! whilst she lives, with her I'll stay;

But think, of you when far away,

She says the grave will rest the

weary;

And then I'll be your Moorland Mary."

THE MONK AND THE LOVER.

As the young prince was passing from Hersilia's apartments, the figure of the monk Udolpho suddenly appeared under a dark vaulted arcade of the corridor. Lorenzo all joy and extasy, seized the hand of the former as he approached him, exclaiming, "welcome, holy father, a thousand times most welcome, I was about to seek you, that your aid and sacred function might be prepared for the performance of that joyful ceremony which but for the cruel intervention

of destiny had long ere this been ratified; soon, very soon, the divine Hersilia will become mine; your holy office is alone wanting to complete our felicity."

The monk started back with an air of strongly impressed amazement, demanding,

"What means my son?"

"Ah, father, hadst thou ever loved, hadst thou ever known in thy days of freedom what it was to feel the bliss, the chaste delightful raptures of love's passion, the fond impatience of its anxious wishes, and all its train of thrilling hopes, its fears, its joys, and virtuous anticipations, thou wouldst not now so dull and coldly question what nature's dictates so visibly depict," smilingly replied the enamoured Lorenzo.

"If I have felt what you describe, my son, I no longer remember the vanities of such idle cares," interjected the monk, with a sunk and hollow tone; "the irregular fires of love are quenched within my breast, and God alone possesses its lowly tenement."

"And thinkest thou, father, that God requires all that the heart of man can offer? will he not, knowing our imperfect nature, and its natural frailties, accept a divided interest there?"

""Twere blasphemy to doubt otherwise," replied the monk, shuddering and crossing himself; "from him we derive our being, and our happiness, to him. therefore, and to his unseen grace be rendered all.

that erring sinful man can offer, entire homage, and duty undivided."

"Has it been ever so with thee, father?" with marked emphasis questioned Lorenzo, and fixed a deeply penetrating glance upon the confessor. The monk's features underwent a momentary change, and a frown glanced across his wild eye indicative of some unrevealed, but worldly feeling not so closely allied to his devotional tenets as his foregoing speech presupposed. Lorenzo again smiled, and added, were it so, father, thou would'st be what never yet created man has been, perfect, and all the saintly reverence of thy worldly fame, which with such laboured pains, such studied art, thou hast acquired, would then be too poor a recompense for thy desert. But, man father, thou knowest was born. frail; to aspire, therefore, on earth to that superior excellence which solely is possessed by the Deity, is to arrogate what alone belongs to beatified spirits, a vain pretence which to enlightened observers will. only procure its votaries the appellation of an enthusiast or hypocrite." Here the monk frowned indeed, and bent on Lorenzo, a glance of such baleful expression, as had it caught the eye of the former, would have amazed and confounded him. The monk however, spoke not, and Val Ambrosio thus subjoined." Let us not, my good father confessor, when age or satiety has stolen over the faculties or frailties, I will not say vices of our former years, and. dulled the keen edge of the passion, till our power of enjoyment no longer remaining, renders us no longer

able to indulge in worldly pursuits, or criminal excesses, let us not then forget that we have ourselves once been young, once subject to nearly the same natural feelings, impulses, and incentives, which had seduced us to partake of those venial, if not guilty pleasures, which, whether rational or otherwise, are but too common to human life, and which have been ordered and permitted by an all wise Providence, as the trials of our nature for the best and most impenetrable ends of good, and without which the government of the universe might become a blank, and all our thoughts, our fears, or our hopes of futurity, terminate in a mental chaos, or an apathetic infidelity."

*

"That the argument is fallacious, and profane to the sacred tenets of our holy church," with a tone of harsh severity, interrupted the monk," which exacts strict discipline and rigid self-denial, by the practice of which alone the sins and atrocities of man are curbed and checked, and when conviction reaches his darkened understanding, the mighty influence of religion inspired within his soul will subdue the evil passions and propensities of his nature, teaching him to aspire in humble confidence to the hope of that immutable state of eternal beatitude where all are made perfect, and every bended reed straightened; so may it be with the presumptuous boldness of youth, whose unthinking precipitancy ever shuts the ear of conviction to the counsels of experience, and sometimes dares to violate with insult Heaven's elect and chosen ministers.”