"O! but for one short hour!

A respite however brief!

No blessed leisure for love or hope,

But only time for grief!

A little weeping would ease my heart,
But in their briny bed

My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread!"

With fingers weary and worn,

With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread -
Stitch! stitch! stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt,

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,Would that its tone could reach the rich!-She sang this "Song of the Shirt!

HOOD.

THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES.

HAVE had playmates, I have had companions,

In my days of childhood, in my joyful schooldays:

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

1 have been laughing, I have been carousing, Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom

cronies;

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a love once, fairest among women:
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her:
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man:
Like an ingrate I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces,

Ghost-like I paced 'round the haunts of my childhood:

Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse, Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling? So might we talk of the old familiar faces,

How some they have died, and some they have

left me,

And some are taken from me; all are departed; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

LAMB.

ODE ON THE PASSIONS.

HEN Music, heavenly maid! was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Throng'd around her magic cell;
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possess'd beyond the Muse's painting,
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturb'd, delighted, rais'd, refin'd;
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fir'd,
Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspir'd,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatch'd her instruments of sound;
And as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each (for madness ruled the hour)
Would prove his own expressive pow'r.
First Fear his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords, bewilder'd laid-
And back recoil'd, he knew not why
E'en at the sound himself had made.

Next Anger rush'd, his eyes on fire;
In lightnings own'd his secret stings;
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept with hurried hand the strings.
With woeful measures wan Despair-
Low sullen sounds his grief beguil'd;
A solemn, strange, and mingled air:
'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.
But thou, O Hope! with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whisper d promis'd pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!
Still would her touch the strain prolong;
And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She call'd on Echo still through all the song;
And where her sweetest theme she chose,
A soft responsive voice was heard at every close;
And Hope enchant'd smil'd, and wav'd her
golden hair:

And longer had she sung-but with a frown Revenge impatient rose:

He threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunder down,

And, with a withering look,

The war-denouncing trumpet took,

And blew a blast so loud and dread,

Were ne'er prophetic scunds so full of woe;

And ever and anon he beat

The doubling drum with furious heat; And though sometimes, each dreary pause between,

Dejected pity at his side

Her soul-subduing voice applied,

Yet still he kept his wild unalter'd mien, While each strain'd ball of sight seem'd bursting from his head.

Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fix'd;

Sad proof of thy distressful state;

Of diff'ring themes the veering song was. mix'd,

And now it courted love, now raving call'd on Hate.

With eyes uprais'd, as one inspir'd'

Pale Melancholy sat retir'd,

And from her wild sequester'd seat,

In notes by distance made more sweet, Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive

soul;

And dashing soft from rocks around, Bubbling runnels joined the sound; Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole:

Or o'er some haunted stream with fond delay,

Round a holy calm diffusing.

Love of peace and lonely musing,
In hollow murmurs died away.

But, O! how alter'd was its sprightlier tone,
When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,
Her bow across her shoulder flung,
Her buskins gemm'd with morning dew,
Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung.
The hunter's call, to Fawn and Dryad
known;

The oak-crown'd sisters, and their chaste

eyed queen,

Satyrs and sylvan boys, were seen

Peeping from forth their alleys green ;
Brown Exercise rejoic'd to hear,

And Sport leap'd up, and seized his beechen spear.

Last came Joy's ecstatic trial:

He, with viny crown advancing,

First to the lively pipe his hand address'd;

But soon he saw the brisk, awakening viol,

Whose sweet entrancing voice he lov'd the best.

They would have thought, who heard the strain,

They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids, Amidst the festal sounding shades,

To some unwearied minstrel dancing:
While, as his flying fingers kiss'd the strings,
Love fram'd with Mirth a gay fantastic round,
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound,
And he, amidst his frolic play,

As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings.

O Music! sphere-descended maid,
Friend of pleasure, wisdom's aid,
Why, Goddess! why, to us denied,
Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside?
As in that lov'd Athenian bow'r,
You learn'd an all-commanding pow'r;
Thy mimic soul, O nymph endear'd!
Can well recall what then it heard.
Where is thy native simple heart,
Devote to virtue, fancy, art?
Arise, as in that elder time,
Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime
Thy wonders in that godlike age
Fill thy recording Sister's page-
'Tis said, and I believe the tale,
Thy humblest reed could more prevail.
Had more of strength, diviner rage,

Than all which charms this laggard age;
Even all at once together found,
Cecilia's mingled world of sound.
O bid our vain endeavors cease,
Revive the just designs of Greece;
Return in all thy simple state,
Confirm the tale her sons relate!

ADIEU.

COLLINS.

ET time and chance combine, combine, Let time and chance combine: The fairest love from heaven above, That love of yours was mine, My dear.

That love of yours was mine.

The past is fled and gone, and gone,
The past is fled and gone;
If naught but pain to me remain,

then no longer,

a flirt and flutter,

In there stepp'd a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.

Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopp'd or stay'd he;

But, with mien of lord or lady, perch'd above my chamber-door,

Perch'd upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber-door,

Perch'd, and sat, and nothing more.

merciful disaster

Follow'd fast and follow'd faster, till his songs one burden bore,

Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore,

Of Never-never more.""

But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,

Straight I wheel'd a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting

"Get thee back into the tempest and the night's Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken!-quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"

Quoth the Raven, "Never more."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting,

On the pallid bust of Pallas, just above my chamber-door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming.

And the lamp-light, o'er him streaming, throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted-never more!

A PSALM OF LIFE.

POE.

What the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist.

OELL me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal; "Dust thou art, to dust returnest Was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!