PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Till death like sleep might steal on me,

OLD. And I might feel in the warm air

My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea By the wayside, on a mossy stone,
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony. Sat a hoary pilgrim, sadly musing ;

Oft I marked him sitting there alone,
All the landscape, like a page, perusing ;

Poor, unknown,

By the wayside, on a mossy stone.
BYRON'S LATEST VERSES.

Buckled knee and shoe, and broad-brimmed hat ; (Missolonghi, January 23. 1824. On this day I completed my thirty-sixth year.)

Coat as ancient as the form 't was folding; "T is time this heart should be unmoved,

Silver buttons, queue, and crimped cravat; Since others it has ceased to move ;

Oaken staff his feeble hand upholding;
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,

There he sat !
Still let me love.

Buckled knee and shoe, and broad-brimmed hat.

My days are in the yellow leaf,

Seemed it pitiful he should sit there, The flowers and fruits of love are gone,

No one sympathizing, no one heeding, The worm, the canker, and the grief, None to love him for his thin gray hair, Are mine alone.

And the furrows all so mutely pleading

Age and care :
The fire that in my bosom preys

Seemed it pitiful he should sit there.
Is like to some volcanic isle,
No torch is kindle, at its blaze,

It was summer, and we went to school,
A funeral pile.

Dapper country lads and little maidens ;

Taught the motto of the “Dunce's Stool,' The hope, the fear, the jealous care,

Its grave import still my fancy ladens, The exalted portion of the pain

"Here's a fool !” And power of love, I cannot share,

It was summer, and we went to school.
But wear the chain.

When the stranger seemed to mark our play, But 't is not here, it is not here,

Some of us were joyous, some sad-hearted,
Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor now I remember well, too well, that day !
Where glory seals the hero's bier,

Oftentimes the tears unbidden started
Or binds his brow.

Would not stay

When the stranger seemed to mark our play. The sword, the banner, and the field, Glory and Greece about us see ;

One sweet spirit broke the silent spell, The Spartan borne upon his shield

0, to me her name was always Heaven ! Was not more free.

She besought him all his grief to tell,

(I was then thirteen, and she eleven,) Awake! not Greece, — she is awake !

Isabel !
Awake, my spirit ! think through whom
My life-blood tastes its parent lake,

One sweet spirit broke the silent spell.
And then strike home !

“Angel,” said, he sadly, “I am old; Tread those reviving passions down,

Earthly hope no longer hath a morrow;

Yet, why I sit here thou shalt be told."
Unworthy manhood ! unto thee,
Indifferent should the smile or frown

Then his eye betrayed a pearl of sorrow,

Down it rolled !
Of beauty be.

"Angel," said he sadly, “I am old. If thou regrett'st thy youth, — why live ?

“I have tottered here to look once more The land of honorable death

On the pleasant scene where I delighted
- up to the field, and give

In the careless, happy days of yore,
Away thy breath !

Ere the garden of my heart was blighted

To the core :
- less often sought than found
A soldier's grave, for thee the best ;

I have tottered here to look once more.
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest !

“ All the picture now to me how dear!

E'en this gray old rock where I am seated,

Is here,

Seek out

BYRON.

Is a jewel worth my journey here ;

“Yon white spire, a pencil on the sky, Ah that such a scene must be completed Tracing silently life's changeful story, With a tear!

So familiar to my dim old eye, All the picture now to me how dear !

Points me to seven that are now in glory

There on high ! “Old stone school-house! it is still the same ; Yon white spire, a pencil on the sky.

There's the very step I so oft mounted ; There's the window creaking in its frame,

“Oft the aisle of that old church we trod, And the notches that I cut and counted

Guided thither by an angel mother;
For the game.

Now she sleeps beneath its sacred sod ;
Old stone school-house, it is still the same.

Sire and sisters, and my little brother,

Gone to God! “In the cottage yonder I was born;

Oft the aisle of that old church we trod.
Long my happy home, that humble dwelling;
There the fields of clover, wheat, and corn ;

“ There I heard of Wisdom's pleasant ways; There the spring with limpid nectar swelling ;

Bless the holy lesson ! - but, ah, never Ah, forlorn !

Shall I hear again those songs of praise, In the cottage yonder I was born.

Those sweet voices silent now forever!

Peaceful days ! “ Those two gateway sycamores you see

There I heard of Wisdom's pleasant ways.
Then were planted just so far asunder
That long well-pole from the path to free,

“There my Mary blest me with her hand And the wagon to pass safely under;

When our souls drank in the nuptial blessing, Ninety-three !

Ere she hastened to the spirit-land, Those two gateway sycamores you see.

Yonder turf her gentle bosom pressing ;

Broken band ! “There's the orchard where we used to climb There my Mary blest me with her hand.

When my mates and I were boys together, Thinking nothing of the flight of time,

“I have come to see that grave once more, Fearing naught but work and rainy weather ;

And the sacred place where we delighted, Past its prime!

Where we worshipped, in the days of yore, There's the orchard where we used to climb. Ere the garden of my heart was blighted

To the core !
“There the rude, three-cornered chestnut-rails, I have come to see that grave once more.

Round the pasture where the flocks were grazing,
Where, so sly, I used to watch for quails "Angel," said he sadly, “I an old ;
In the crops of buckwheat we were raising ; Earthly hope no longer hath a morrow,
Traps and trails !

Now, why I sit here thou hast been told." There the rude, three-cornered chestnut-rails. In his eye another pearl of sorrow,

Down it rolled ! “ There's the mill that ground our yellow grain ; , “ Angel,” said he sadly, “I am old."

Pond and river still serenely flowing ; Cot there nestling in the shaded lane,

By the wayside, on a mossy stone, Where the lily of my heart was blowing. Sat the hoary pilgrim, sadly musing ; Mary Jane !

Still I marked him sitting there alone, There's the mill that ground our yellow grain. All the landscape, like a page, perusing ;

Poor, unknown !
“There's the gate on which I used to swing, By the wayside, on a mossy stone.

Brook, and bridge, and barn, and old red stable;
But alas ! no more the morn shall bring
That dear group around my father's table;
Taken wing!

THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES.
There's the gate on which I used to swing.

I HAVE had playmates, I have had companions, “I am fleeing, all I loved have fled.

In my days of childhood, in myjoyfulschool-days; Yon green meadow was our place for playing;

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. That old tree can tell of sweet things said When around it Jane and I were straying; I have been laughing, I have been carousing, She is dead!

Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies; I am fleeing, -- all I loved have fled.

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

RALPH HOYT.

THOMAS PRINGLE.

The proud man’s frown, and the base man's | Where grass, nor herb, nor shrub takes root, fear,

Save poisonous thorns that pierce the foot; The scorner's laugh, and the sufferer's tear, And the bitter-melon, for food and drink, And malice, and meanness, and falsehood, and is the pilgrim's fare by the salt lake's brink; folly,

A region of drought, where no river glides, Dispose me to musing and dark melancholy ; Nor rippling brook with osiered sides ; When my bosom is full, and my thoughts are Where sedgy pool, nor bubbling fount, high,

Nor tree, nor cloul, nor misty mount, And my soul is sick with the bondman's sigh, Appears, to refresh the aching eye; O, then there is freedom, and joy, and pride, But the barren earth and the burning sky, Afar in the desert alone to ride !

And the blank horizon, round and round, There is rapture to vault on the champing steed, Spread, void of living sight or sound. And to bound away with the eagle's speed, And here, while the night-winds round me sigh, With the death-fraught firelock in my hand, And the stars burn bright in the midnight sky, The only law of the Desert Land !

As I sit apart by the desert stone,

Like Elijah at Horeb's cave, alone, Afar in the desert I love to ride,

“A still sinall voice" comes through the wild With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side, (Like a father consoling his fretful child), Away, away from the dwellings of men,

Which banishes bitterness, wratlı, and fear, By the wild deer's haunt, by the buffalo's glen; Saying, — Man is distant, but God is near! By valleys remote where the oribi plays, Where the gnu, the gazelle, and the hartebeest

graze, And the kudu and eland unhunted recline By the skirts of gray forest o'erhung with wild SELECTIONS FROM “PARADISE LOST.”

EVE'S LAMENT. Where the elephant browses at peace in his wood, And the river-horse gambols unscared in the flood, O UNEXPECTED stroke, worse than of death ! And the mighty rhinoceros wallows at will Must I thus leave thee, Paradise ? thus leave In the fen where the wild ass is drinking his Thee, native soil ! these happy walks and shades, fill.

Fit haunt of gods? where I had hope to spend,

Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day Afar in the desert I love to ride,

That must be mortal to us both. O flowers, With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side, That never will in other climate grow, O'er the brown karroo, where the bleating cry My early visitation, and Of the springbok’s fawn sounds plaintively; At even, which I bred up with tender hand And the timorous quagga's shrill whistling neigh From the first opening bud, and gave ye names ! Is heard by the fountain at twilight gray ; Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank Where the zebra wantonly tosses his mane, Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount ! With wild hoof scouring the desolate plain ; Thee, lastly, nuptial bower ! by me adorned And the fleet-footed ostrich over the waste With what to sight or smell was sweet, from Speeds like a horseman who travels in haste,

thee Hieing away to the home of her rest,

How shall I part, and whither wander down Where she and her mate have scooped their nest, Into a lower world, to this obscure Far hid from the pitiless plunderer's view

And wild ? how shall we breathe in other air In the pathless depths of the parched karroo. Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits ?

vine;

my last

Afar in the desert I love to ride,

THE DEPARTURE FROM PARADISE. With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side,

ADAM TO MICHAEL.
Away, away, in the wilderness vast
Where the white man's foot hath never passed,

GENTLY hast thou told
And the quivered Coranna or Bechuan

Thy message, which might else in telling wound, Hath rarely crossed with his roving clan, And in performing end us. What besides A region of enfptiness, howling and drear, Of sorrow, and dejection, and despair Which man hath abandoned from famine and Our frailty can sustain, thy tidings bring;

Departure from this happy place, our sweet Which the snake and the lizard inhabit alone, Revess, and only consolation left, With the twilight bat from the yawning stone ; Familiar to our eyes, all places else

fear;