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Parting.

HEAR! 'tis for this I stay

To say we part -forever part:
But oh! how wide the line

Between thy Marrian's bursting heart
And that proud heart of thine.
And thou wilt wander here and there,

Ever the gay and free;

To other maids will fondly swear,

As thou hast sworn to me;

And I oh! I shall but retire,

Into my grief alone;

And kindle there the hidden fire,

That burns, that wastes unknown.

And love and life shall find their tomb,

In that sepulchral flame :

Be happy- -none shall know for whom -
I will not dream thy name.

BAILEY.

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Clouds.

VARYING Wreaths of thin, white clouds were seen rapidly flying over the cerulean, increasing, involving, deepening into gloom as they were heaped and hurried on, till sometimes they overspread the entire heavens, sometimes breaking apart left wide spaces, and less rifts of bright blue sky, between which the stars appeared like flights of golden birds winging their way after the swift moon. MISS PORTER.

Solitude.

WHO contemplates, aspires, or dreams, is not
Alone; he peoples with rich thoughts the spot.
The only loneliness, how dark and blind! ---

Is that where fancy cannot dupe the mind;— Where the heart, sick, despondent, tired with all, Looks joyless round, and sees the dungeon wall ;When even God is silent, and the curse

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Of stagnor, settles on the universe;
When prayer is powerless, and one sense of death
Abysses all, save solitude on earth. NEW TIMON.

Solitude.

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion
dwell,

And mortal foot hath ne'er, or rarely been ;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er sleep and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude; 'tis but to hold

Converse with nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled.

But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of

men,

To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,

And roam along the world's tired denizen!

With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;

Minions of splendor shrinking from distress! None that with kindred consciousness endued, If we were not would seem to smile the less Of all that flattered, followed, sought and sued ; This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!

BYRON.

Reflections.

I WELCOME you, ye wild breezes which are melting away the winter's snow. I bless you, bright spring sun, which brings life and warmth into the dust of the grave! from the home of death, from the silent church-yard, I have to-day greeted life, where the unquietly beating heart, where every thing finds peace. I myself, feel in my breast (which time has not yet been able to harden,) the unquiet prisoner, which beats so tumultuously now in sorrow and now in gladness, and it does me good to think, that mine, too, shall be one day among the quiet ones. MISS BREMER.

Irony.

THERE is a bitterness of irony to which no other mode of expressing strong resentment is comparable for force and fearfulMISS PORTER.

ness.

Consciousness.

OH turn those eyes away from me,
Though sweet yet fearful are their rays;
And though they beam so tenderly
I feel I tremble neath their gaze.

Oh turn those eyes away; for though
To meet their glance I may not dare,
I know their light is on my brow
By the warm blood that mantles there.

MRS. BUTLER.

Woman.

I BELIEVE

That woman in her deepest degradation,
Holds something sacred, something undefiled,
Some pledge and keepsake of her higher nature,
And, like the diamond in the dark, retains
Some quenchless gleam of the celestial light.

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