When first our scanty years are told, How hard that chain will press at last. Vain was the man, and false as vain, His long career of life again, He would do all that he had done.»— Lavish'd unwisely, carelessly— Haply for high and pure designs, That cross'd my path-way for his star! All this it tells, and could I trace The imperfect picture o'er again, The lights and shades, the joy and pain, Which hath been more than wealth to me: Where Love's true light at last I've found, Cheering within, when all grows dark, And comfortless, and stormy round! FANCY. THE more I've view'd this world, the more I've found A single charm that's not from Nature won, To let him pine so were a sin One to whom all the world 's a debtor So Doctor Hymen was call'd in, And Love that night slept rather better. Next day the case gave further hope yet, After a month of daily call, So fast the dose went on restoring, That Love, who first ne'er slept at all, Now took, the rogue! to downright snoring. TRANSLATIONS FROM CATULLUS. SWEET Sirmio! thou, the very eye Of all peninsulas and isles That in our lakes of silver lie, Or sleep, enwreathed by Neptune's smiles, How gladly back to thee I fly! Still doubting, asking can it be That I have left Bithynia's sky, And gaze in safety upon thee? Oh! what is happier than to find When, tired with toil on land and deep, On the long-wish'd-for bed once more? This, this it is that pays alone The ills of all life's former track : Shine out, my beautiful, my own Sweet Sirmio-greet thy master back. And thou, fair lake, whose water quaffs The light of heaven, like Lydia's sea, Rejoice, rejoice-let all that laughs Abroad, at home, laugh out for me! TO MY MOTHER. Written in a Pocket-Book, 1823. THEY tell us of an Indian tree Which, howsoc'er the sun and sky May tempt its boughs to wander free, And shoot and blossom, wide and high, Far better loves to bend its arms Downward again to that dear earth From which the life, that fills and warms Its grateful being, first had birth. 'T is thus, though woo'd by flattering friends, FROM THE FRENCH. Of all the men one meets about, Meets you, like Eurus, in the East- As home he took his pensive way, « Upon my soul, I fear Jack 's deadI've seen him but three times to-day!» ROMANCE. I HAVE a story of two lovers, fill'd With all the pure romance, the blissful sadness, And the sad, doubtful bliss, that ever thrill'd Two young and longing hearts in that sweet madness; But where to chuse the locale of my vision In this wide vulgar world—what real spot For two such perfect lovers, I know not. If France was beat at Waterloo As all, but Frenchmen, think she wasTo Ned, as Wellington well knew, Was owing half that day's applause. Then for his news-no envoy's bag E'er pass'd so many secrets through itScarcely a telegraph could wag Its wooden finger, but Ned knew it. Such tales he had of foreign plots, From Poland owskis by the dozen. When GEORGE, alarm'd for England's creed, For though, by some unlucky miss, He had not downright seen the King, He sent such hints through Viscount This, To Marquis That, as clench'd the thing. The same it was in science, arts, The drama, books, MS. and printedKean learn'd from Ned his cleverest parts, And Scott's last work by him was hinted. Childe Harold in the proofs he read, And, here and there, infused some soul in 't— Nay, Davy's lamp, till seen by Ned, Had-odd enough—a dangerous hole in 't. 'T was thus, all doing and all knowing, Wit, statesman, boxer, chemist, singer, Whatever was the best pie going, In that Ned-trust him-had his finger. COUNTRY-DANCE AND QUADRILLE. A mincing thing, Mamselle Quadrille→ Here, here, at least, she cried, « though driven |