INTEMPERANCE.

'MID bowering shades, I mark'd a cottage-home,
Where elegance and sweet simplicity,

Mingled their charms. Around its simple porch
Twin'd the gay woodbine, and its snowy walls,
Seem'd through their leafy canopy to smile
A welcome on the guest.

My heart was glad,

As toward this rural spot I drew, to greet

A friend, long parted, who in early years
The school-day lesson, and the joyous sport

With neighbouring children, 'neath the spreading elm,
Had oft-times shar'd.

Beside his open door,

Two cherub creatures gambol'd. One display'd

In striking miniature, the father's face,

Such as my childhood's memory pictur'd it,
The high bold forehead, and full hazle eye,
Gentle, yet ardent.

On, with winning smile,
He led his fairy sister, murmuring low,
In varied tones of playful tenderness,
Or sometimes bending o'er her lilly form,
In infantine protection, with such grace,
That to my heart I press'd him, as I said,
Show me thy father.'

On a couch he lay.

Who lay? I could not call him friend. That wreck

Of nature's nobleness. Had dire disease

Thus chang'd the expression of that manly brow,
Where beam'd bright fancy,—intellectual light,
And soaring dignity of soul?

Ah no!

For then I might have pour'd the soothing balm
Of sympathy, and rais'd the sufferer's heart
To God, the healer. But I knew the seal
Upon his features, that the hand of vice
So hideously doth set.

And she was there,

Who at the altar gave her trusting vow,

In all the fearless confidence of love,

To this, her chosen one. On her young cheek,
There was a cankering grief, and the pale trace
Of beauty's rose-bud blighted.

Then I spoke

In mournful cadence of the former days,
When in the paths of science and of peace,
We walk'd, twin-hearted. But his bloated lips
Swell'd out with vacant laughter, and such words
As show'd his reeling senses.

At the voice

Of his young children, playing near his bed,
His fiery eye-balls flash'd, and brutal threats
Appall'd those innocent ones, while that fair girl,
From whom intemperance thus had reft the guide
Which Nature gave, in terror hid her face
Deep in her mother's robe.

I would have spoke

In bitter blame, of that most poisonous bowl,
That drown'd my friend, but in the tearful eye
Of her who lov'd him, stood the pleading tear
Of silent, fond endurance. So all thought
Of sternness, breath'd itself away in sighs.

I went my way, and mourn'd the hapless lot
Of that strange widowhood and orphanage,
Which hath no hope, nor pity. Sad I roam'd
Down the lone, grassy vale, and when no eye
Beheld me, on the young turf bow'd
my knee,
And pray'd the prayer of anguish.

Oh my God! What are the beauty and the strength of man, His fairest promise, and his proudest powers, Without thine aid.

So guard us from the snares Which round us lurk, that we at last may rise Where is no poison-cup, no secret sin, No dark temptation, waking baleful deeds, For penitence to purge, but Virtue dwells Pure-rob'd, beside her Sire, in deathless joy.

THE OLD MAN.

WHY gaze ye on my hoary hair,
Ye children, young and gay?
Your locks, beneath the blast of care,
Will bleach as white as they.

I had a mother once, like you,
Who o'er my pillow hung,
Kiss'd from my cheek the briny dew,
And taught my faultering tongue.

She, when the nightly couch was spread,
Would bow my infant knee,
And lay her soft hand on my head,
And bending, pray for me.

But then, there came a fearful day,
I sought my mother's bed;
Harsh voices warn'd me thence away,

And told me she was dead.

I pluck'd a fair white rose, and stole

To lay it by her side

e;

Yet, ah, strange sleep enchain'd her soul

For no fond voice replied.

That eve I knelt me down in wo,
To say a lonely prayer;

And still my temples seem'd to glow,
As if that hand was there.

Years fled, and left me childhood's joy,
Gay sports, and pastimes dear;
I rose, a wild and wayward boy,
Who scorn'd the curb of fear.

Fierce-passions shook me like a reed; But ere, at night, I slept,

That soft hand made my bosom bleed, And down I fell, and wept.

Youth came-the props of virtue reel'd; Yet still, at day's decline,

A marble touch my brow congeal'd-
Blest mother, was it thine?

In foreign lands I travell'd wide,
My full pulse bounding high:
Vice spread her meshes at my side,
And pleasure lur'd my eye.

Even then, that hand, so soft and cold,
Maintain'd its mystic sway,

As when amid my curls of gold,
With gentle force it lay;

And with it sigh'd a voice of care,、