THE WAKE:

How sweet upon my slumbers break

Those solemn sounds with dying fall;

The music of the midnight wake,
When silence sleeps on all !—

Its streams that weep o'er past delight,
And soften into sighs, prolong
The soul of sorrow this the night,
Which breathes on Scottish song.

It sinks upon the heart like balm,

Of brighter days the memory brings; And nights of beauty-peace and calm, All fled on angel wings.

Now, through the silence deep and wide
The soft aërial accents swoon;
Like some lone spirit's anthem sighed
Beneath the midnight moon.

And sweet as that which charmed the hours

From Chaos, when Creation sprung; And on green Eden's early bowers The stars of morning sung.

Or, such as tranced lone shepherds, when
The angels hymned a Saviour's birth,
In strains that breathed good will to men,
And promised peace to earth.

Oh thus may sleepless sorrow's ear
Be ever soothed with music's strain,
The purest-best of pleasures here,
Which leaves nor sting nor stain.

John Malcolm, Esq.

ETERNITY.

And is it in the flight of threescore years
To push eternity from human thought?
To smother souls immortal in the dust!
A soul immortal spending all her fires,
Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness;
Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarmed,

At aught this scene can threaten or indulge;
Resembles ocean into a tempest wrought
To waft a feather or to drown a fly.

THE ROSE.

Young.

The rose had been washed (just washed in a shower)
Which Mary to Anna conveyed;

The plentiful moisture encumbered the flower,
And weighed down its beautiful head.

The cup was quite full, and the leaves were all wet, And it looked to a fanciful view,

As it wept for the buds, it had left with regret
On the beautiful bush, where it grew.

I hastily seized it, unfit as it was
For a nosegay, so dripping and drowned,
And shaking it rudely-too rudely, alas!
I snapt it it fell to the ground.

And such, I exclaimed, is the pityless part,

Some act by the delicate mind;
Regardless of wringing, and breaking a heart,
Already to sorrow inclined.

This elegant rose, had I shaken it less

Might have bloomed with its owner a while; And the tear that is wiped with a little address, May be followed perhaps by a smile.

THE PARTING SONG.

Cowper.

I hear thee, O thou rustling stream! thou'rt from my native dell,

Thou'rt bearing thence a mournful sound—a murmur of farewell!

And fare thee well -flow on, my stream! flow on thou bright and free,

I do but dream that in thy voice one tone laments for me. But I have been a thing unloved, from childhood's loving

years,

And therefore turns my soul to thee, for thou hast known my tears;

The mountains, and the caves, and thou, my secret tears

have known:

3:

The woods can tell where he hath wept, that ever wept alone!

I see thee once again, my home! thou'rt there amidst thy vines,

And clear upon thy gleaming roof, the light of summer shines.

It is a joyous hour when eve comes whispering through the groves,

The hour that brings the sun from toil, the hour the mother loves!

The hour the mother loves for me beloved it hath not been;

Yet ever in its purple smile, thou smilest a blessed scene! Whose quiet beauty o'er my soul through distant years will

come

Yet what but as the dead, to thee, shall I be then, my home?

Not as the dead!-no, not the dead! we speak of them-we keep

Their names, like light that must not fade, within our bosoms deep;