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النشر الإلكتروني

THAT SILENT MOON.

Dispersed along the world's wide way,

When friends are far, and fond ones rove,
How powerful she to wake the thought,
And start the tear for those we love!
Who watch, with us, at night's pale noon,
And gaze upon that silent moon.

How powerful, too, to hearts that mourn,
The magic of that moonlight sky,
To bring again the vanished scenes,
The happy eves of days gone by;
Again to bring, 'mid bursting tears,
The loved, the lost of other years.

And oft she looks, that silent moon,

On lonely eyes that wake to weep,

In dungeon dark, or sacred cell,

Or couch, whence pain has banished sleep:

O, softly beams that gentle eye,

On those who mourn, and those who die.

But beam on whomsoe'er she will,

And fall where'er her splendour may, There's pureness in her chastened light, There's comfort in her tranquil ray: What power is hers to soothe the heart

What power the trembing tear to start!

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THAT SILENT MOON.

The dewy morn let others love,

Or bask them in the noontide ray;
There's not an hour but has its charm,
From dawning light to dying day :-
But oh! be mine a fairer boon-
That silent moon, that silent moon!

TO TIME.

BY W. H. TIMRO D.

THEY slander thee, "old traveller,"
Who say that thy delight

Is to scatter ruin far and wide

In thy wantonness of might,

For not a leaf that falleth

Before thy restless wings,

But thou changest in thy rapid flight,
To a thousand brighter things.

Thou passest o'er the battle-field

Where the dead lie stiff and stark,

Where nought is heard, save the vulture's scream,
And the gaunt wolf's famished bark.
But thou hast caused the grain to spring,

From the blood enriched clay,

And the waving corn-tops seem to dance,
To the Rustic's merry lay.

Thou hast strewn the lordly palace,

In ruin o'er the ground,

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And the dismal screech of the owl is heard

Where the harp was wont to sound,

But the self-same spot thou coverest,
With the dwellings of the poor,
And a thousand happy hearts enjoy,
What one usurped before.

'Tis true thy progress layeth
Full many a loved one low,
And for the brave and beautiful,

Thou hast caused our tears to flow,

But "always" near the couch of death
Nor thou, nor we can stay,

And the breath of thy departing wings

Dries all our tears away.

'TIS A LOWLY GRAVE.

BY W. G. SIMMS.

'Tis a lowly grave but it suits her best,

Since it breathes of fragrance and speaks of rest, And meet for her is its calm repose,

Whose life was so stormy and sad to its close.

'Tis a shady dell where they laid her form,
And the hills gather round it to break the storm,
While above her head the bending trees
Arrest the wing of each ruder breeze.

A trickling stream, as it winds below,
Has a music of peace in its quiet flow,
And the buds that are ever in bloom above,
Tell of some ministering spirit's love.

It is sweet to think, that when life is o'er,
And life's fevered pulses shall fret no more,
There still shall be one, with a fond regret,
Who will not forsake, and who cannot forget:

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