And, Edith, come thou in the blooming time,

Thy world will not miss thee for just one hour; I'd like it best when the Bells low chime,

And the earth is full of the sunset's power;

And bend by the silently settling heap,

While the Nature we loved, is a May all round, While God broods low on the blue arched sweep, And the music-full air is a-thrill with sound.

And look in thy heart circled up in the past,
And if I am perfectly graven there,
Unshaded by aught, save the anguish cast

By the parting clasp, and the death despair.

Encirqued with the light of the pale regret,

Of a "might have been" of a day-dream lent,

With a constant hope of a meeting yet,

Oh! I shall not want for a Monument.

A VALENTINE.

OME back to my bosom, Mary,

Come back to your home at last ; Forget all the doubt and anguish,

And the troubled and wasted past.

My heart has been longing, longing,
For many a weary day;

Come back to my arms, my Mary,
And dwell in my sight alway.

How like a terrible vision

The past with its pain has been ; How many the groans unnoted,

And the tears that have flowed unseen.

I wrestled for wealth and honour,
To fill up the desolate void :
I won them; but, oh! my spirit
Refused to be satisfied.

Ah! those that around me fluttered,
And envied my fortune so,

Should have weighed it 'gainst the sorrow
That ever lay gnawing below.

The years have lain heavily on me,

And shadowed and seamed my brow;

And the hot tears follow the wrinkles
That traverse my wan cheek now.

I'm weaker and feebler, Mary,

I'm lonely and growing old;

And my home is so cheerless, Mary, And the world is so strange and cold.

And Mary, I've loved you always,

Through all those terrible years ;

But Heaven alone is witness,

And the pillow that drank my tears.

The clamorous cry for affection

Grew in me and would not be stilled,

With the sense that the one great purpose Of being was unfulfilled.

I own it with sorrow, Mary,

I doubted you many a day,

Till he who wrought trouble between us Sin-stricken and dying lay;

And then I discovered my error,
And wearily crept from his side,
Heart-broken: but let us forgive him—
He suffered before he died.

I was angry and hasty, Mary,

And 'twas pride that in judgment sat; But forgive me, my own dear Mary, I've suffered-I've suffered for that.

I know that I ought to have spoken
In days that are long since past :
I was proud; but forgive me, Mary,
And return to your home at last.

They tell me, that though the silver
Is tangled amongst your hair,
And your face is sadder and paler,

The old look of peace is still there;

That you cheerfully do your duty,
Contented to be just such.

Ah, Mary! you still have that blessing
That I lacked in the past so much.

And yet, how you must have suffered,
For I know that you loved me true;
I weep when I think of it, Mary,
And the wrong that I did to you.

But say you forgive me, Mary,

And come to your home again; And I'll strive to repay you, darling, For the sorrow I caused you then.

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS.

HE jokes and the joys of the season,
Its compliments, laughter, and glee,
Its meetings, its kissings and greetings,
With the love of a friend to thee.

May loved ones flock round thee in plenty,
May "Your little Accounts" be scant :

Be thine all the cheer of the season,
With none of its cold and its want.

Be thy sources of pleasure many,
Thy causes for sorrow but few,
May the Old Year drop merrily over
I' the dawn of a happier new.

TO THE OCEAN.

H! thou glorious, far-off ocean,
Basking in thy realm of pride!
Matchless, all unrivalled monarch
Of an empire vast and wide!

Oh! I never yet beside thee
Stood, enchanted with the sight,
But the raptured tale has reached me
Of thy grandeur and thy might;

Of the myriad-handed commerce
Which thy turbid wave affords,
Of thy gulphed and buried millions,
Of thy glittering, golden hoards!

And I oft in dreams behold thee,
Hear thy voice's thundering bass,

See the mad, impassioned fury
Of thy storm-distorted face,

And thy anger-pallid billows

Lapsing wildly o'er and o'er,
And, in calm, thy laughing wavelets
Toying with the virgin shore,

Rimpling, twinkling 'neath the starlight,
Shimmering in the moonlight streak;
Then the noontide glory streaming

O'er thy flushed and slumberous cheek,