"The earth with woe is cumbered,

And no man understands;

They see their days are numbered

By one that never slumbered

Nor stayed his dreadful hands.

I see with Brahma's eyes

Like children babbling nonsense in their sports,

We censure Nature for a span too short:
That span too short, we tax as tedious too;
Torture invention, all expedients tire,

To lash the lingering moments into speed,
And whirl us (happy riddance !) from ourselves.
Art, brainless Art! our furious charioteer

Drives headlong towards the precipice of death! Death, most our dread; death, thus more dread

ful made:

O, what a riddle of absurdity!

Leisure is pain; takes off our chariot wheels:
How heavily we drag the load of life!
Blest leisure is our curse: like that of Cain,
It makes us wander; wander earth around
To fly that tyrant, Thought. As Atlas groaned
The world beneath, we groan beneath an hour.
We cry for mercy to the next amusement :
The next amusement mortgages our fields;
Slight inconvenience! prisons hardly frown,
From hateful Time if prisons set us free.
Yet when Death kindly tenders us relief,
We call him cruel; years to moments shrink,
Ages to years. The telescope is turned.
To man's false optics (from his folly false)
Time, in advance, behind him hides his wings,
And seems to creep, decrepit with his age;
Behold him when past by; what then is seen
But his broad pinions, swifter than the winds?
And all mankind, in contradiction strong,
Rueful, aghast, cry out on his career.

Ye well arrayed! ye lilies of our land! Ye lilies male! who neither toil nor spin (As sister-lilies might) if not so wise As Solomon, more sumptuous to the sight! Ye delicate who nothing can support, Yourselves most insupportable! for whom The winter rose must blow, the sun put on A brighter beam in Leo; silky-soft

It is the signal that demands despatch;

How much is to be done! my hopes and fears
Start up alarmed, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down- -on what? a fathomless abyss;
A dread eternity; how surely mine!
And can eternity belong to me,

Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?

And other worlds send odors, sauce, and song,
And robes, and notions, framed in foreign looms !
O ye Lorenzos of our age! who deem
One moment unamused a misery
Not made for feeble man! who call aloud
For every bawble drivelled o'er by sense;
For rattles, and conceits of every cast,
For change of follies and relays of joy,

To drag you patient through the tedious length
Of a short winter's day, say, sages! say,
Wit's oracles! say, dreamers of gay dreams!
How will you weather an eternal night,
Where such expedients fail?

DR. EDWARD YOUNG.

PROCRASTINATION.

FROM "NIGHT THOUGHTS," NIGHT I

BE wise to-day; 't is madness to defer; Next day the fatal precedent will plead ; Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life. Procrastination is the thief of time; Year after year it steals, till all are fled, And to the mercies of a moment leaves The vast concerns of an eternal scene. If not so frequent, would not this be strange? That 't is so frequent, this is stranger still.

Of man's miraculous mistakes this bears
The palm, "That all men are about to live,"
Forever on the brink of being born.

All pay themselves the compliment to think
They one day shall not drivel: and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise;
At least, their own; their future selves applaud:
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !
Time lodged in their own hands is folly's veils;
That lodged in Fate's, to wisdom they consign;
The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone:
'T is not in folly not to scorn a fool,

And scarce in human wisdom to do more.

All promise is poor dilatory man,

WHAT IS TIME?

I ASKED an aged man, with hoary hairs,
Wrinkled and curved with worldly cares :
"Time is the warp of life," said he; "O, tell
The young, the fair, the gay, to weave it well!"
I asked the ancient, venerable dead,

Sages who wrote, and warriors who bled:
From the cold grave a hollow murmur flowed,
"Time sowed the seed we reap in this abode !"
I asked a dying sinner, ere the ide

Of life had left his veins: "Time!" he replied;
"I've lost it! ah, the treasure!" and he died.
I asked the golden sun and silver spheres,
Those bright chronometers of days and years:
They answered, "Time is but a meteor glare,"
And bade me for eternity prepare.

I asked the Seasons, in their annual round,
Which beautify or desolate the ground;
And they replied (no oracle more wise),
"Tis Folly's blank, and Wisdom's highest
prize!"

I asked a spirit lost, - but O the shriek
That pierced my soul! I shudder while I speak-
It cried, "A particle! a speck! a mite
Of endless years, duration infinite!"
Of things inanimate my dial 1
Consulted, and it made me this reply,

Time is the season fair of living well, The path of glory or the path of hell.”

I asked my Bible, and methinks it said,

indeed,

In full content we sometimes nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish,
As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty, chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve ;
In all the magnanimity of thought,
Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same.

And why? Because he thinks himself immortal. All men think all men mortal but themselves; Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread;

But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, Soon close; where passed the shaft, no trace is found.

As from the wing no scar the sky retains,
The parted waye no furrow from the keel,
So dies in human hearts the thought of death:
Even with the tender tears which Nature sheds
O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave.

DR. EDWARD YOUNG.

I asked old Father Time himself at last;
But in a moment he flew swiftly past;
His chariot was a cloud, the viewless wind
His noiseless steeds, which left no trace behind.
I asked the mighty angel who shall stand
One foot on sea and one on solid land:
"Mortal!" he cried, "the mystery now is o'er ;
Time was, Time is, but Time shall be no more!"

Roses and vaporous blue; Hark to the dainty frou-frou! Picture above, if you can,

Eyes that could melt as the dew, This was the Pompadour's fan!

See how they rise at the sight,
Thronging the Eil de Bauf through,
Courtiers as butterflies bright,

Beauties that Fragonard drew,
Talon-rouge, falaba, queue,
Cardinal, duke, to a man,
Eager to sigh or to sue,
This was the Pompadour's fan!

Ah, but things more than polite
Hung on this toy, voyez-vous!
Matters of state and of might,
Things that great ministers do;
Things that, maybe, overthrew
Those in whose brains they began;
Here was the sign and the cue,
This was the Pompadour's fan!

ENVOY.

Where are the secrets it knew?
Weavings of plot and of plan?
But where is the Pompadour, too?
This was the Pompadour's fan!

AUSTIN DOBSON,

THE FLOOD OF YEARS.

A MIGHTY Hand, from an exhaustless urn, Pours forth the never-ending Flood of Years Among the nations. How the rushing waves Bear all before them! On their foremost edge, And there alone, is Life; the Present there Tosses and foams and fills the air with roar Of mingled noises. There are they who toil, And they who strive, and they who feast, and they Who hurry to and fro. The sturdy hind Woodman and delver with the spade-are there, And busy artisan beside his bench, And pallid student with his written roll. A moment on the mounting billow seen — The flood sweeps over them and they are gone. There groups of revellers, whose brows are twined With roses, ride the topmost swell awhile, And as they raise their flowing cups to touch The clinking brim to brim, are whirled beneath The waves and disappear. I hear the jar Of beaten drums, and thunders that break forth From cannon, where the advancing billow sends Up to the sight long files of armèd men, That hurry to the charge through flame and smoke. The torrent bears them under, whelmed and hid,

Slayer and slain, in heaps of bloody foam.
Down go the steed and rider; the plumed chief
Sinks with his followers; the head that wears
The imperial diadem goes down beside

The felon's with cropped ear and branded cheek.
A funeral train the torrent sweeps away
Bearers and bier and mourners.

By the bed
Of one who dies men gather sorrowing,
And women weep aloud; the flood rolls on;
The wail is stifled, and the sobbing group
Borne under. Hark to that shrill sudden shout-
The cry of an applauding multitude
Swayed by some loud-tongued orator who wields
The living mass, as if he were its soul.

The waters choke the shout and all is still.
Lo, next, a kneeling crowd and one who spreads
The hands in prayer; the engulfing wave o'er-
takes

And swallows them and him. A sculptor wields
The chisel, and the stricken marble grows
To beauty; at his easel, eager-eyed,

A painter stands, and sunshine, at his touch,
| Gathers upon the canvas, and life glows;
A poet, as he paces to and fro,
Murmurs his sounding line.

Awhile they ride

The advancing billow, till its tossing crest Strikes them and flings them under while their

tasks

Are yet unfinished. See a mother smile
On her young babe that smiles to her again-
The torrent wrests it from her arms; she shrieks,
And weeps, and midst her tears is carried down.
A beam like that of moonlight turns the spray
To glistening pearls; two lovers, hand in hand,
Rise on the billowy swell and fondly look
Into each other's eyes. The rushing flood
Flings them apart; the youth goes down; the
maid,

With hands outstretched in vain and streaming

eyes,

Waits for the next high wave to follow him.
An aged man succeeds; his bending form
Sinks slowly; mingling with the sullen stream
Gleam the white locks and then are seen no more.

Lo, wider grows the stream; a sea-like flood
Saps earth's walled cities; massive palaces
Crumble before it; fortresses and towers
Dissolve in the swift waters; populous realms,
Swept by the torrent, see their ancient tribes
Engulfed and lost, their very languages
Stifled and never to be uttered more.

I pause and turn my eyes, and, looking back, Where that tumultuous flood has passed, I see The silent Ocean of the Past, a waste Of waters weltering over graves, its shores Strewn with the wreck of fleets, where mast and hull

Drop away piecemeal; battlemented walls Frown idly, green with moss, and temples stand Unroofed, forsaken by the worshippers.

Their households happy -- all are raised and borne By that great current on its onward sweep, Wandering and rippling with caressing waves

gnawed

The graven legends, thrones of kings o'erturned,
The broken altars of forgotten gods,
Foundations of old cities and long streets
Where never fall of human foot is heard
Upon the desolate pavement. I behold
Dim glimmerings of lost jewels far within
The sleeping waters, diamond, sardonyx,
Ruby and topaz, pearl and chrysolite,
Once glittering at the banquet on fair brows
That long ago were dust; and all around,
Strewn on the waters of that silent sea,
Are withering bridal wreaths, and glossy locks
Shorn from fair brows by loving hands, and scrolls
O'erwritten haply with fond words of love
And vows of friendship and fair pages flung
Fresh from the printer's engine. There they lie
A moment and then sink away from sight.

I look, and the quick tears are in my eyes,
For I behold, in every one of these,
A blighted hope, a separate history

Of human sorrow, telling of dear ties
Suddenly broken, dreams of happiness
Dissolved in air, and happy days, too brief,
That sorrowfully ended, and I think

How painfully must the poor heart have beat
In bosoms without number, as the blow

Was struck that slew their hope or broke their

peace.

Sadly I turn, and look before, where yet The Flood must pass, and I behold a mist Where swarm dissolving forms, the brood of Hope, Divinely fair, that rest on banks of flowers Or wander among rainbows, fading soon And reappearing, haply giving place To shapes of grisly aspect, such as Fear Moulds from the idle air; where serpents lift The head to strike, and skeletons stretch forth The bony arm in menace. Further on A belt of darkness seems to bar the way, Long, low and distant, where the Life that Is Touches the Life to come. The Flood of Years Rolls toward it, nearer and nearer. It must pass That dismal barrier. What is there beyond? Hear what the wise and good have said. Beyond That belt of darkness still the years roll on More gently, but with not less mighty sweep. They gather up again and softly bear All the sweet lives that late were overwhelmed And lost to sight — all that in them was good, Noble, and truly great and worthy of love --The lives of infants and ingenuous youths, Sages and saintly women who have made

Of flowers that never wither. So they pass,
From stage to stage, along the shining course
Of that fair river broadening like a sea.
As its smooth eddies curl along their way,
They bring old friends together; hands are
clasped

In joy unspeakable; the mother's arms
Again are folded round the child she loved
And lost. Old sorrows are forgotten now,
Or but remembered to make sweet the hour
That overpays them; wounded hearts that bled
Or broke are healed forever. In the room
Of this grief-shadowed Present there shall be
A Present in whose reign no grief shall gnaw
The heart, and never shall a tender tie
Be broken in whose reign the eternal Chenge
That waits on growth and action shall proceed
With everlasting Concord hand in hand.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

THREE DAYS.

So much to do: so little done!
Ah! yesternight I saw the sun
Sink beamless down the vaulted gray,
The ghastly ghost of YESTERDAY.

So little done so much to do!
Each morning breaks on conflicts new ;
But eager, brave, I'll join the fray,
And fight the battle of TO-DAY.

So much to do so little done!
But when it's o'er, the victory won,
Oh! then, my soul, this strife and sorrow
Will end in that great, glad TO-MORROW.
JAMES R. GILMORE

INSIGNIFICANT EXISTENCE. THERE are a number of us creep Into this world, to eat and sleep; And know no reason why we're born, But only to consume the corn, Devour the cattle, fowl, and fish, And leave behind an empty dish. The crows and ravens do the same, Unlucky birds of hateful name; Ravens or crows might fill their places, And swallow corn and carcasses,