Lines,

Occasioned by the Death of a Young Lady.

CAN I believe that thou

So very late the soul of revelry
And lightsome hope, cans't be

The dull and senseless clod I gaze on now?

Is this cold hand I touch

The hand whose friendly grasp the other day So warmly seemed to say,

“Thus dying as I am I love thee much.”

Those eyes are closed that erst

Glowed with the fervour of thy active mind, Or spoke the feelings kind

That in thy generous soul were ever nursed.

Wrapt in the solemn shroud

I view the form whose beauties often raised, In those who fondly gazed,

Passion which their admiring eyes avowed.

LINES ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY. 159

Pulseless the noble heart

Which no inglorious feeling e'er debased-
The mind no crimes defaced-

Hath fled to realms whence it shall ne'er depart.

But they who loved her well,

And knew how rare her beauty and her worth, Though she has past from earth

Shall of her virtues long rejoice to tell.

Fair fruit of an ill-fated Love.

Anon.

With the quiet dead
Baby, thy rest shalt be..
Oh! many a weary wight,

Weary of life and light,

Would fain lie down with thee.

Flee, little tender nurseling!

Flee to thy grassy nest;

There the first flowers shall blow,

The first puré flake of snow
Shall fall upon thy breast."

FAIR fruit of an ill-fated love!
Child of a clouded day,
Soon hast thou pass'd away;
Stranger as yet to fear or hope,
Thou wouldst not stay to cope
With grief and slow decay.

Thou wouldst not stay to prove
Whether thy fate should be
Calm joy or misery;

But to the life you scarcely knew

Sighing a wise adieu,

Fled its uncertainty.

Nor may the parting move
In us a thought of woe,
Because we feel and know
That to the inmate of the tomb
No bitter pangs may come-

Like those we bear below.

Looking back upon the Past.

LOOKING back upon the past,
Does no thought sad and single,

Of him whom thou didst from thee cast,
With thy young memory mingle?

He

gave thee many a little gem

Of love the type and token,-.

Think'st thou when looking upon them,
How much his heart is broken?

But they are spurn'd, perchance, like him Whose love to thee seem'd folly ;Whose eye, with ceaseless sorrow dim, Tells but of melancholy!

Whose cheek is sunken, and whose frame
Hath bent beneath its many
Assaults of sickness, sorrow, shame

And lost love-worse than any!

Thou canst not be forgotten.

THOU canst not be forgotten-thou art twined
Around my soul with the bright memory
Of all my childhood loved to hear and see-
Thou wert a play-mate fitted to my mind ;-
Yet why not use a phrase more frank and kind,
And say thou wert my heart's love, if to be
Deemed such when the pure spirit is inclined
To truth alone, be just then thou art she
The gentle one and fair, to whom that name
Of right belongs. I see thy blue eye yet,
Not as it was-yet still enough the same

To waken in my heart a deep regret

That e'er I tinged thy lovely cheek with shame,

Or dimmed thine eye:-enough—mine own is wet!