Eternal sunshine in the storms of life!
How richly were my noontide trances hung
With gorgeous tapestries of pictured joys!
Joy behind joy, in endless perspective!
Till at death's toll, whose restless iron tongue
Calls daily for his millions at a meal,
Starting I woke, and found myself undone.
Where now my frenzy's pompous furniture?
The cobwebbed cottage, with its ragged wall
Of mold'ring mud, is royalty to me!
The spider's most attenuated thread
Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie
On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze.

O ye blest scenes of permanent delight!
Full above measure! lasting, beyond bound!
A perpetuity of bliss is bliss.

Could you, so rich in rapture, fear an end,
That ghastly thought would drink up all your joy,
And quite unparadise the realms of light.

Safe are you lodged above these rolling spheres;
The baleful influence of whose giddy dance

Sheds sad vicissitude on all beneath.

Here teems with revolutions every hour;

And rarely for the better; or the best,

More mortal than the common births of fate.

Each moment has its sickle, emulous

Of time's enormous scythe, whose ample sweep Strikes empires from the root; each moment plays His little weapon in the narrower sphere

Of sweet domestic comfort, and cuts down

The fairest bloom of sublunary bliss.

Bliss! sublunary bliss!—proud words, and vain! Implicit treason to divine decree!

A bold invasion of the rights of heaven!

I clasped the phantoms, and I found them air.

O had I weighed it ere my fond embrace!
What darts of agony had missed my heart!

Death! great proprietor of all! 'tis thine
To tread out empire, and to quench the stars.
The sun himself by thy permission shines;

And, one day, thou shalt pluck him from his sphere. Amid such mighty plunder, why exhaust

Thy partial quiver on a mark so mean?

Why thy peculiar rancor wreaked on me?
Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?

Thy shaft flew thrice; and thrice my peace was slain;
And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had filled her horn.
O Cynthia! why so pale? Dost thou lament

Thy wretched neighbor?

Grieve to see thy wheel

Of ceaseless change outwhirled in human life?
How wanes my borrowed bliss! from fortune's smile,
Precarious courtesy! not virtue's sure,

Self-given, solar ray of sound delight.

In every varied posture, place, and hour,
How widowed every thought of every joy!
Thought, busy thought! too busy for my peace!
Thro' the dark postern of time long elapsed,
Led softly, by the stillness of the night,
Led, like a murderer, (and such it proves!)
Strays (wretched rover!) o'er the pleasing past;
In quest of wretchedness perversely strays;
And finds all desert now; and meets the ghosts
Of my departed joys; a num'rous train!

I rue the riches of my former fate;
Sweet comfort's blasted clusters I lament;

I tremble at the blessings once so dear;
And every pleasure pains me to the heart.

Yet why complain? or why complain for one?
Hangs out the sun his luster but for me,
The single man? Are angels all beside?
I mourn for millions: 'Tis the common lot;
In this shape, or in that, has fate entailed
The mother's throes on all of woman born,
Not more the children, than sure heirs, of pain.
War, famine, pest, volcano, storm, and fire,
Intestine broils, oppression, with her heart
Wrapt up in triple brass, besiege mankind.
God's image disinherited of day,

Here, plunged in mines, forgets a sun was made.
There, beings deathless as their haughty lord,
Are hammered to the galling oar for life,
And plow the winter's wave, and reap despair.
Some, for hard masters, broken under arms,
In battle lopt away, with half their limbs,
Beg bitter bread thro' realms their valor saved
If so the tyrant, or his minion, doom.
Want and incurable disease (fell pair!)
On hopeless multitudes remorseless seize
At once, and make a refuge of the grave.
How groaning hospitals eject their dead!

What numbers groan for sad admission there!
What numbers, once in fortune's lap high fed,
Solicit the cold hand of charity!

To shock us more, solicit it in vain!

Ye silken sons of pleasure! since in pains
You rue more modish visits, visit here,

And breathe from your debauch: give, and reduce
Surfeit's dominion o'er you: But so great
Your impudence, you blush at what is right.
Happy! did sorrow seize on such alone.
Not prudence can defend, or virtue save;
Disease invades the chastest temperance;
And punishment the guiltless; and alarm,
Thro' thickest shades, pursues the fond of peace.
Man's caution often into danger turns,
And, his guard falling, crushes him to death.
Not happiness itself makes good her name!
Our very wishes give us not our wish.
How distant oft the thing we dote on most,
From that for which we dote, felicity!
The smoothest course of nature has its pains;
And truest friends, thro' error, wound our rest.
Without misfortune, what calamities!

And what hostilities, without a foe!

Nor are foes wanting to the best on earth.
But endless is the list of human ills,

And sighs might sooner fail, than cause to sigh.
A part how small of the terraqueous globe

Is tenanted by man! the rest a waste,

Rocks, deserts, frozen seas, and burning sands:

Wild haunts of monsters, poisons, stings, and death.

Such is earth's melancholy map! But, far

More sad this earth is a true map of man.

So bounded are its haughty lord's delights

To woe's wide empire; where deep troubles toss,
Loud sorrows howl, invenomed passions bite,
Rav'nous calamities our vitals seize,

And threat'ning fate wide opens to devour.
What then am I, who sorrow for myself?

In age, in infancy, from others' aid

Is all our hope; to teach us to be kind.
That, nature's first, last lesson to mankind;
The selfish heart deserves the pain it feels,
More gen'rous sorrow, while it sinks, exalts;
And conscious virtue mitigates the pang.

DICK TURPIN'S ESCAPE.

BY W. HARRISON AINSWORTH.

(From "Rookwood.")

[WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH, English novelist, was born in Manchester, February 4, 1805. Designed for a lawyer, he married a publisher's daughter, was himself a publisher for a short time, and after some magazine work made a hit with "Rookwood" (1834). Of some forty novels the best known besides the above are: "Crichton" (1837), "Jack Sheppard" (1839), "The Tower of London" (1840), "Old St. Paul's” (1841), "Guy Fawkes" (1841), “The Miser's Daughter" (1842), "Windsor Castle" (1843), "St. James's" (1844), and "Lancashire Witches" (1848). He died January 3, 1882.]

I.

ARRIVED at the brow of the hill, whence such a beautiful view of the country surrounding the metropolis is obtained, Turpin turned for an instant to reconnoiter his pursuers. Coates and Titus he utterly disregarded; but Paterson was a more formidable foe, and he well knew that he had to deal with a man of experience and resolution. It was then, for the first time, that the thoughts of executing his extraordinary ride to York first flashed across him; his bosom throbbed high with rapture, and he involuntarily exclaimed aloud, as he raised himself in the saddle, "By God! I will do it!"

He took one last look at the great Babel that lay buried in a world of trees beneath him; and as his quick eye ranged over the magnificent prospect, lit up by that gorgeous sunset, he could not help thinking of Tom King's last words. "Poor fellow!" thought Dick, "he said truly. He will never see another sunset." Aroused by the approaching clatter of his pursuers, Dick struck into a lane which lies on the right of the road, now called Shoot-up-hill Lane, and set off at a good pace in the direction of Hampstead.

"Now," cried Paterson, "put your tits to it, my boys. We must not lose sight of him for a second in these lanes."

Accordingly, as Turpin was by no means desirous of inconveniencing his mare at this early stage of the business, and as the ground was still upon an ascent, the parties preserved their relative distances.

At length, after various twistings and turnings in that deep and devious lane; after scaring one or two farmers, and riding over a brood or two of ducks; dipping into the verdant valley

of West End, and ascending another hill, Turpin burst upon the gorsy, sandy, and beautiful heath of Hampstead. Shaping his course to the left, Dick then made for the lower part of the heath, and skirted a part that leads towards North End, passing the furze-crowned summit, which is now crested by a clump of lofty pines.

It was here that the chase first assumed a character of interest. Being open ground, the pursued and pursuers were in full view of each other; and as Dick rode swiftly across the heath, with the shouting trio hard at his heels, the scene had a very animated appearance. He crossed the hill-the Hendon road-passed Crackskull Common-and dashed along the crossroad to Highgate.

Hitherto no advantage had been gained by the pursuers; they had not lost ground, but still they had not gained an inch, and much spurring was required to maintain their position. As they approached Highgate, Dick slackened his pace, and the other party redoubled their efforts. To avoid the town, Dick struck into a narrow path at the right, and rode easily down the hill.

His pursuers were now within a hundred yards, and shouted to him to stand. Pointing to a gate which seemed to bar their further progress, Dick unhesitatingly charged it, clearing it in beautiful style. Not so with Coates' party; and the time they lost in unfastening the gate, which none of them chose to leap, enabled Dick to put additional space betwixt them. It did not, however, appear to be his intention altogether to outstrip his pursuers; the chase seemed to give him excitement, which he was willing to prolong, as much as was consistent with his safety. Scudding rapidly past Highgate, like a swiftsailing schooner, with three lumbering Indiamen in her wake, Dick now took the lead along a narrow lane that threads the fields in the direction of Hornsey. The shouts of his followers had brought others to join them, and as he neared Crouch End, traversing the lane which takes its name from Du Val, and in which a house, frequented by that gayest of robbers, stands, or stood, "A highwayman! a highwayman!" rang in his ears, in a discordant chorus of many voices.

The whole neighborhood was alarmed by the cries, and by the tramp of horses; the men of Hornsey rushed into the road to seize the fugitive; and women held up their babes to catch a glimpse of the flying cavalcade, which seemed to gain number