Ah! it is well we can forget,

Or who would linger on

Beneath a sky whose stars are set,
On earth whose flowers are gone?
For who could welcome loved ones ne r,
Thinking of those once far more dear.

Our early friends, those of our youth?
We cannot feel again

The earnest love, the simple truth,
Which made us such friends then :
We grow suspicious, careless, cold;
We love not as we loved of old.

No more a sweet necessity,

Love must and will expand,
Loved and beloving we must be,
With open heart and hand,

Which only ask to trust and share
The deep affections which they bear.

Our love was of that early time,
And now that it is past,
It breathes as of a purer clime
Than where my lot is cast:
My eyes fill with their sweetest tears
In thinking of those early years.

It shock'd me first to see the sun
Shine gladly o'er thy tomb-
To see the wild flowers o'er it run

In such luxuriant bloom :

Now I feel glad that they should keep A bright sweet watch above thy sleep.

The heaven whence thy nature came

Only recall'd its own:

'Tis Hope that now breathes out thy name,
Though borrowing Memory's tone:

I feel this earth could never be

The native home of one like thee.

Farewell the early dews that fall
Upon thy grass-grown bed
Are like thy thoughts that now recall
Thine image from the dead:

A blessing hallows thy dark cell-
I will not stay to weep. Farewell!

THE TENDER PASSION.

ELIZABETH WILLESFORD MILLS. FROM

POEMS AND SKETCHES."

SYBIL LEAVES:

1826.

THEY said I must not sing of love

I threw my lyre away;

For oh I could not wake one tone

Without that dearest lay.

'Twas strange to bid a woman's heart
Forbear its loveliest power:

They might as well tell Nature's hand
It must not rear a flower.

They might as well forbid the sky
To give her forms of light,-

'Tell forms of light they must not shine
Upon the clouds of night.

The flowerets they are nature's own,

And stars the midnight seek;

And Love his sweet untranquil rose

Has thrown on woman's cheek.

'Tis vain to fly from destiny,

For all is ruled above;

Nature has flowers, and night has stars,

And woman's heart has love.

And if I must not sing of love,
Throw, throw the lyre away;

For oh, I cannot wake one tone,
Without life's dearest lay.

STANZAS.

THOMAS K. HERVEY.

FROM "FRIENDSHIP'S OFFERING,' 1826.

FOR me-for me, whom all have left,

-The lovely, and the dearly loved,-
From whom the touch of time hath reft
The hearts that time had proved,

Whose guerdon was-and is--despair,

For all I bore-and all I bear;

Why should I linger idly on,

Amid the selfish and the cold,

A dreamer-when such dreams are gone
As those I nursed of old!

Why should the dead tree mock the spring,
A blighted and a wither'd thing!

How blest-how blest that home to gain,
And slumber in that soothing sleep,
From which we never rise to pain,
Nor ever wake to weep!

To win my way from the tempest's roar,
And lay me down on the golden shore !

Mr. Hervey was born on the banks of the Cart, near Paisley. He is the oldest of his family by his father's second marriage, and was brought to Manchester by his parents whilst yet an infant. He resided in that town for many years, and served a clerkship to the law. Subsequently he resided and studied two years at Cambridge. He entered at the Bar, and has served the terms necessary to qualify him for that profession, but he was never "called." Mr. Hervey has for some years resided chiefly in London. He was editor of the Athenæum for a lengthened period, and retired from that office only a few months ago, when he was succeeded by Mr. W. H. Dixon, also a Manchester poet.

I'M NOT A SINGLE MAN.

THOMAS HOOD, BORN IN LONDON, IN 1798, DIED IN THE SAME CITY, MAY 3, 1845, BURIED IN KENSAL-GREEN

CEMETERY.

WELL, I confess, I did not guess

A simple marriage-vow

Would make me find all women-kind
Such unkind women now!

They need not, sure, as distant be

As Java or Japan,

Yet every Miss reminds me this-

I'm not a single man.

Once they made choice of my base voice

To share in each duet;

So well I danced, I somehow chanced

To stand in every set:

They now declare I cannot sing,

And dance on Bruin's plan :

Me draw!-me paint

I'm not a single man!

me anything!-