"Yes, I loved thee, long had loved thee, And alone the God above,

He, who at that time sustained me,
Knows the measure of my love!

"Do not let these words displease thee; Life's sore battle soon will cease;

I have fallen amid the conflict,

But within my soul is peace.

"It has been a fiery trial,

But the fiercest pang is past;
Once more I am come amongst you-
Oh! stand by me at the last!

"Leonard will at times come to me,

And thy father. I will try To be cheerful in his presence, As I was in days gone by.

"Bitter has it been to leave him;
But in all my heart's distress,
The great anguish which consumed me
Seemed to swallow up the less.

"Let me go! my soul is wearied,
No fond heart of me has need,
Life has no more duties for me;-
I am but a broken reed!

"Let me go, ere courage faileth,
Gazing, gazing thus on thee!—
But in life's last awful moment,
Alice! thou wilt stand by me!"

THE BALLAD OF RICHARD BURNELL.

From her seat rose Alice Woodvil,
And in steadfast tones began,
Like a strong consoling angel,
To address the dying man.

"Not in death alone, my brother,

Would I aid thee in the strife;

I would fain be thy sustainer
In the fiercer fight of life.

"With the help of God, thy spirit
Shall not in this conflict yield;
Prayer, the key which opens heaven,
Is the Christian's sword and shield.

"God will aid thee! We will hold thee By our love!-thou shalt not go!—

And from out thy wounded spirit,

We will pluck the thorns of woe.

"Say not life has no more duties

Which can claim thee! Where are then

All the sinners; the neglected;

All the weeping sons of men?

"Ah, my friend, hast thou forgotten
All our dreams of early days?

How we would instruct poor children,
How we would the fallen raise!

"God has not to me permitted

Such great work of human love; He has marked me out a lower Path of duty where to move.

"But to thee, His chosen servant, Is this higher lot allowed;

He has brought thee through deep waters, Through the furnace, through the cloud;

"He has made of thee a mourner,

Like the Christ, that thou may'st rise To a purer height of glory,

Through the pangs of sacrifice!

"Tis alone of His appointing,

That thy feet on thorns have trod; Suffering, woe, renunciation,

Only bring us nearer God.

"And when nearest Him, then largest The enfranchised heart's embrace:

It was Christ, the Man rejected,

Who redeemed the human race.

"Say not, then, thou hast no duties;Friendless outcasts on thee call,

And the sick and the afflicted,

And the children, more than all.

"Oh, my friend, rise up, and follow
Where the hand of God shall lead;

He has brought thee through affliction,
But to fit thee for His need!"

Thus she spoke; and as from midnight
Springs the opal-tinted morn,

So, within his dreary spirit,
A new day of life was born.

Young he died: but deeds of mercy
Beautified his life's short span,

And he left his worldly substance
To complete what he began.

ARNOLD.

TO A GIPSY CHILD BY THE SHORE.

DOUGLAS, ISLE OF MAN.

WHO taught this pleading to unpractis'd eyes?
Who hid such import in an infant's gloom?

Who lent thee, child, this meditative guise?

What clouds thy forehead, and fore-dates thy doom?

Lo! sails that gleam a moment and are gone;

The swinging waters, and the cluster'd pier.

Not idly Earth and Ocean labour on,

Nor idly do these sea-birds hover near.

But thou whom superfluity of joy

Wafts not from thine own thoughts, nor longings vain, Nor weariness, the full fed soul's annoy;

Remaining in thy hunger and thy pain:

Thou, drugging pain by patience; half averse

From thine own mother's breast, that knows not thee; With eyes that sought thine eyes thou didst converse, And that soul-searching vision fell on me.

Glooms that go deep as thine I have not known:
Moods of fantastic sadness, nothing worth.
Thy sorrow and thy calmness are thine own:
Glooms that enhance and glorify this earth.

What mood wears like complexion to thy woe?-
His, who in mountain glens, at noon of day,
Sits rapt, and hears the battle break below?—
Ah! thine was not the shelter, but the fray.