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Must have their flow- and though the pride
Of the wronged heart may quell for years
The gushing of their cooling tide,

Let but one soft feeling fall

Like moon-light on a dark cloud; giving
The thoughts a brighter hue- and all
The portals of the heart are living

With the thick rush of tears.

L. E. L.

Silence.

IT is said that if a silken thread be tied around a perfectly moulded bell at the moment of sounding, the bell will burst asunder, and shiver into a thousand pieces. So it is when a heart of perfect and delicate harmony in itself, seeks to manifest its life among other hearts, the slightest revulsion is enough to destroy the expression forever. There is no

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expression for perfect happiness but perfect silence. It is not human enough for language; and the fullest concord of harmonious sounds is, after all, only a sigh

after the Infinite. No sound in the whole catalogue of earthly notes expresses unmixed joy but the laughter of a very young child, and we all know how that changes to tears in a moment. Yet if speech and sound are but the voice of longing, so after all is silence, rightly understood, only the voice of wailing. When will the Future come wherein the Present shall satisfy the soul? THE MAIDEN Aunt.

Love.

HE, who for love hath undergone
The worst that can befall,

Is happier, thousand fold than one
Who never loved at all;

A grace within his soul has reigned,
Which nothing else can bring -

Thank God for all that I have gained,
By that high suffering!

MILNES.

Pleasure.

THAT delight which we do not pay with pain is ever worth seeking; every particular pleasure swells our account of happiness, and it is a false wisdom that pretends to despise pleasure. We might as well refuse to live, because we do not exist in the eternal and solid duration of time like the Supreme Being, as decline and despise pleasures because they are transcient. What belongs to us that is not so? All is succession; fleeting time bears all away. Our fancies mount the wing, and fly beforeour possessions vanish. Our wish obtained, desire goes on and leaves possession as a load behind. MRS. MONTAGUE.

[graphic]

Spring.

On the inexpressible, delightful spring air! enjoy it through the open window, sitting among the flowers. The sun penetrates me with new warmth; the birds twitter among the budding trees of the terrace; all is beautiful, wild and glorious. If there is a feeling upon earth, which is delightful, elevating, which calls forth tones of peace and joy, it is that which we experience after hours of pain and sickness, when we return again to life; and to a life in which only spring breezes, spring flowers meet us. How still is everything about us-how open to gladness, disposed for goodness! MISS BREMER.

How very desolate that breast must be

Whose only joyance is in memory.

L. E. L.

The Past.

TEARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn fields,
And thinking on the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail
That brings our friends up from the under world,
Sad as the last which reddens over one

That sinks with all we love below the verge ;

So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and stranged as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when under dying eyes

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love.
Deep as first-love, and wild with all regret ;
O, Death in Life, the days that are no more.

TENNISON.

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