MISSPENT TIME.

THERE is no remedy for time misspent;

No healing for the waste of idleness, Whose very languor is a punish

ment

Heavier than active souls can feel or guess.

O hours of indolence and discontent, Not now to be redeemed! ye sting not less

Because I know this span of life was lent

For lofty duties, not for selfishness, Not to be whiled away in aimless dreams,

But to improve ourselves, and serve mankind,

Life and its choicest faculties were given.

Man should be ever better than he

seems,

And shape his acts, and discipline his mind, To walk adorning earth, with hope of heaven.

COLUMBUS.

HE was a man whom danger could not daunt, [due; Nor sophistry perplex, nor pain subA stoic, reckless of the world's vain taunt,

And steeled the path of honor to pursue;

So, when by all deserted, still he knew

How best, to soothe the heart-sick, or confront

Sedition, schooled with equal eye to view

The frowns of grief, and the base pangs of want.

But when he saw that promised land arise

In all its rare and bright varieties, Lovelier than fondest fancy ever trod; Then softening nature melted in his eyes;

Of secular delights; nor learned the lore

Which loftier minds are studious to abhor.

Blessed is he who hath not sought the praise

That perishes, the rapture that betrays:

Who hath not spent in Time's vainglorious war

His youth: and found, a school-boy at fourscore,

How fatal are those victories which raise

Their iron trophies to a temple's height

On trampled Justice: who desires not bliss,

But peace; and yet when summoned to the fight, Combats as one who combats in the sight

Of God and of His angels, seeking

this

Alone, how best to glorify the Right.

THE MOOD OF EXALTATION. WHAT man can hear sweet sounds and dread to die?

O for a music that might last forever!

Abounding from its sources like a

river

Which through the dim lawns streams eternally!

Virtue might then uplift her crest on high,

Spurning those myriad bonds that fret and grieve her: Then all the powers of hell would quake and quiver

Before the ardors of her awful eye. Alas for man with all his high desires,

And inward promptings fading day by day!

High-titled honor pants while it expires,

And clay-born glory turns again to clay.

Low instincts last: our great resolves Like winds whose loftiest pæan ends pass by but in a sigh.

And slyly he traileth along the ground,

And his leaves he gently waves, And he joyously twines and hugs around

The rich mould of dead men's graves.

Creeping where no life is seen, A rare old plant is the Ivy green. Whole ages have fled, and their works decayed,

And nations scattered been; But the stout old Ivy shall never fade From its hale and hearty green. The brave old plant in its lonely days Shall fatten upon the past: For the stateliest building man can raise

Is the Ivy's food at last.

Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

WHEN the lessons and tasks are all ended,

the world and its wickedness made me

A partner of sorrow and sin,

missed,

And the glory of gladness within.

All my heart grows as weak as a woman's,

And the fountains of feeling will

flow,

When I think of the paths steep and stony,

Where the feet of the dear ones must go;

Of the mountains of sin hanging o'er them,

Of the tempest of Fate blowing wild;

Oh! there's nothing on earth half so holy

As the innocent heart of a child!