HIS SISTER, AUGUSTA LEIGH.

My sister! my sweet sister! if a name
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine.
Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim

No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:
Go where I will, to me thou art the same,
A loved regret which I would not resign.
There yet are two things in my destiny,
A world to roam through, and a home with thee.

The first were nothing, had I still the last,
It were the haven of my happiness;
But other claims and other ties thou hast,

And mine is not the wish to make them less.

A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past Recalling, as it lies beyond redress; Reversed for him our grandsire's fate of yore, He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.

If my inheritance of storms hath been
In other elements, and on the rocks
Of perils, overlooked or unforeseen,

I have sustained my share of worldly shocks, The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen My errors with defensive paradox;

I have been cunning in mine overthrow,
The careful pilot of my proper woe.

Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward.
My whole life was a contest, since the day
That gave me being gave me that which marred
The gift, a fate, or will, that walked astray:
And I at times have found the struggle hard,
And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay:
But now I fain would for a time survive,
If but to see what next can well arrive.

Kingdoms and empires in my little day

I have outlived, and yet I am not old; And when I look on this, the petty spray

Of my own years of trouble, which have rolled Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away: Something I know not what — does still uphold

A spirit of slight patience ;- not in vain, Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.

Perhaps the workings of defiance stir
Within me, or perhaps of cold despair,
Brought on when ills habitually recur,

Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air,
(For even to this may change of soul refer,

And with light armor we may learn to bear,) Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not The chief companion of a calmer lot.

I feel almost at times as I have felt

In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks,

Which do remember me of where I dwelt
Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,
Come as of yore upon me, and can melt

My heart with recognition of their looks;
And even at moments I could think I see
Some living thing to love, but none like thee.

Here are the Alpine landscapes which create
A fund for contemplation ;- to admire
Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;

But something worthier do such scenes inspire. Here to be lonely is not desolate,

For much I view which I could most desire,

And, above all, a lake I can behold Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.

O that thou wert but with me! - but I grow
The fool of my own wishes, and forget
The solitude which I have vaunted so

Has lost its praise in this but one regret ; There may be others which I less may show ;

I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet

I feel an ebb in my philosophy,

And the tide rising in my altered eye.

I did remind thee of our own dear Lake,
By the old Hall which may be mine no more.
Leman's is fair? but think not I forsake

The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore;
Sad havoc Time must with my memory make,
Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before;
Though, like all things which I have loved, they

are

Resigned forever, or divided far.

The world is all before me; I but ask

Of Nature that with which she will comply, It is but in her summer's sun to bask,

To mingle with the quiet of her sky,
To see her gentle face without a mask,

And never gaze on it with apathy.
She was my early friend, and now shall be
My sister, till I look again on thee.

I can reduce all feelings but this one;

And that I would not; for at length I see Such scenes as those wherein my life begun.

The earliest, -even the only paths for me, Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, I had been better than I now can be;

And for the remnant which may be to come,

I am content; and for the past I feel Not thankless, for within the crowded sum Of struggles, happiness at times would steal, And for the present, I would not benumb

My feelings farther. - Nor shall I conceal
That with all this I still can look around,
And worship Nature with a thought profound.

For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart
I know myself secure, as thou in mine:
We were and are I am, even as thou art-
Beings who ne'er each other can resign;
It is the same, together or apart,

FROM THE OPERA OF "CLARI, THE MAID OF MILAN."

MID pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble there's no place like home!

Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.

Home! home! sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home!