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แ Pray, dearest, is it many years that you have inhabited this valley?"

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Oh, indeed, many!" said she, smiling.

"You are not, then, very young," rejoined Arasmanes ungal. lantly.

"What!" cried the nymph, changing color- Do you begin to discover age in my countenance? Has any wrinkle yet appeared upon my brow? You are silent. Oh, cruel Fate! will you not spare even this lover?" And the poor nymph burst into tears.

"My dear love," said Arasmanes, painfully, "it is true that time begins to creep upon you; but my friendship shall be eternal."

Scarcely had he uttered these words when the nymph, rising, fixed upon him a long, sorrowful look, and then with a loud cry vanished from his sight. Thick darkness, as a veil, fell over the plains; the novelty of life, with its attendant, poetry, was gone from the wanderer's path for ever.

A sudden sleep crept over his senses. He awoke coufused and unrefreshed, and a long and gradual ascent, but over mountains green indeed, and watered by many streams gushing from the heights, stretched before him. Of the valley he had mistaken for Aden not a vestige remained. He was once more on

the real solid earth.

TIME AND BEAUTY.-LITERARY GAZETTE.

Ruthless Time, who waits for no man,
But with scythe, and wings, and glass,
Lies in wait for youth and woman,
Saw one morning, Beauty pass.

O'er the flowers she bounded lightly,
Smiling as a summer's day;

Time, who marked her eyes beam brightly,
Chose the fair one for his prey.

"Maid," he rudely cried, "good morrow!

Knowest thou not what rights are mine?

Beauty 't is my wont to borrow;

And I come to gather thine."

"I'll not yield it," cried she boldly,
"Monster do not draw so nigh;"

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"Come with me," he answered coldly, "Go with thee," said she, "not I."

Time his scythe extended o'er her, Threatening with his withered hand; And his hour-glass shook before her, Pointing to the running sand.

But the maiden all intrepid,
Answered, laughing carelessly,
"I am young, and thou decrepid-
What hast thou to do with me?"

Time replied with purpose steady,
"Wrinkles I must lend thy brow."
Beauty cried, "I'm not yet ready,"
Flying cried, "not ready now."

Time pursued with will unshaken;
Beauty fled with rapid feet,

Yet was soon well nigh o'ertaken,
For the old man's wings are fleet.

But the maiden, nothing fearful,
Calls on wisdom's power divine;
Wisdom comes with aspect cheerful-
Leads her to her ancient shrine.

There her eye all passion loses,
But with reason shines serene;
Truth its sober charm diffuses
Gently o'er her softened mien.

Thought restrains her youthful wildness;
Calmness holy hopes bestow;
On her face, love, joined to mildness,
Blends its light with virtue's glow.

Time saw heavenly graces cluster,
Left, o'erawed-his will undone;

Beauty smiled in angel lustre

Time was vanquished; Beauty won.

THE WORLD AND INTELLECTUAL PROWESS.-Coleridge.

Here is the World, a female figure approaching at the head of a train of willing or giddy followers :-her air and deportment are at once careless, remiss, self-satisfied, and haughty :—and there is Intellectual Prowess, with a pale cheek and serene brow, leading in chains Truth, her beautiful and modest captive. The one makes her salutation with a discourse of ease, pleasure, freedom, and domestic tranquility; or, if she invite to labor, it is labor in the busy and beaten track, with assurance of the complacent regards of parents, friends, and of those with whom we associate. The promise also may be upon her lip of the huzzas of the multitude, of the smile of kings, and the munificent rewards of senates. The other does not venture to hold forth any of these allurememts; she does not conceal from him whom she addresses the impediments, the disappointments, the ignorance and prejudice which her follower will have to encounter, if devoted when duty calls, to active life; and if to contemplative, she lays nakedly before him, a scheme of solitary and unremitting labor, a life of entire neglect perhaps, or assuredly a life exposed to scorn, insult, persecution, and hatred; but cheered by encouragement from a grateful few, by applauding conscience, and by a prophetic anticipation, perhaps, of fame--a late, though lasting consequence. Of these two, each in this manner soliciting you to become her adherent, you doubt not which to prefer,— but oh! the thought of moment is not preference, but the degree of preference; the passionate and pure choice, the inward sense of absolute and unchangeable devotion.

THE PHILOSOPHER'S SCALES.-MISS J. TAYLOR,

What were they?-you ask; you shall presently see;
These scales were not made to weigh sugar
and tea;

O no;-for such properties wondrous had they,

That qualities, feelings, and thoughts they could weigh,
Together with articles small or immense,

From mountains or planets to atoms of sense;
Naught was there so bulky but there it could lay,
And naught so etherial but there it would stay,
And nought so reluctant but in it must go :-
All which some examples more clearly will show.

The first thing he tried was the head of Voltaire,
Which retained all the wit that had ever been there;
As a weight he threw in a torn scrap of a leaf,
Containing the prayer of the penitent thief;
When the skull rose aloft with so sudden a spell,
As to bound like a ball on the top of his cell.

Next time he put in Alexander the Great,

With a garment that Dorcas had made-for a weight;
And though clad in armor from sandals to crown,
The hero rose up, and the garment went down.

A long row of alms-houses, amply endowed
By a well esteemed Pharisee, busy and proud,
Now loaded one scale, while the other was prest
By those mites the poor widow dropped into the chest ;
Up flew the endowment, not weighing an ounce,

And down, down, the farthing's worth came with a bounce.

By further experiments, (no matter how,)

He found that ten chariots weighed less than one plough.
A sword, with gilt trappings, rose up in the scale,
Though balanced by only a tenpenny nail.

A lord and a lady went up at full sail,

When a bee chanced to light on the opposite scale.
Ten doctors, ten lawyers, two courtiers, one earl,-
Ten counselor's wigs full of powder and curl,-
All heaped in one balance, and swinging from thence,
Weighed less than some atoms of candor and sense ;-
A first-water diamond with brilliants begirt,

Than one good potatoe just washed from the dirt;—
Yet not mountains of silver and gold would suffice,
One pearl to out-weigh―'t was the 'pearl of great price!'

At last the whole world was bowled in at the grate
With the soul of a beggar to serve for a weight;-
When the former sprung up with so strong a rebuff,
That it made a vast rent and escaped at the roof-
While the scale with the soul in 't so mightily fell,
That it jerked the philosopher out of his cell.

68

APOSTROPHE.

THE STARS.-CROLY.

Ye stars, bright legions, that before all time,
Camped on yon plain of sapphire, what shall tell
Your burning myriads, but the eye of Him

Who bade through heaven your golden chariots wheel?
Yet who earth-born can see your hosts, nor feel
Immortal impulses. Eternity!

What wonder if the o'erwrought soul shall reel
With its own weight of thought, and the wild
See fate within your tracks of sleepless glory lie?

eye

For ye behold the Mightiest. From that steep
What ages have ye worshipped round your king!
Ye heard his trumpet sounded o'er the sleep
Of earth; ye heard the morning angels ring
Upon that orb now o'er me quivering,

The gaze of Adam fixed from paradise;
The wanderers of the deluge saw it spring

Above the mountain surge, and hailed its rise, Lighting their lonely track with hope's celestial dyes.

TO A DEPARTED SPIRIT.-MRS. HEMANS.

From the bright stars, or from the viewless air,
Or from some world unreached by human thought,
Spirit, sweet spirit! if thy home be there,
And if thy visions with the past be fraught,

Answer me, answer me!

Have we not communed here of life and death?
Have we not said that love, such love as ours,
Was not to perish as a rose's breath,

To melt away like song from festal bowers?

Answer, oh! answer me!

Thine eye's last light was mine-the soul that shone
Intensely, mournfully, through gathering haze-

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