Till death, unmindful of his sinful state,

Bids him quick enter through his dreary gate,
And from his Judge, receive his final doom,
Eternal joy-or hell's unsated tomb.

LIFE.

W. C. R.

Life's but a dream of ill-spent hours,
Where hallowed truth ne'er finds a place;
And they that soonest snatch its flowers,
Are first to end their godless race.

Life's but a dream of waking care,
Where peace finds rarely room to rest;
And he can best his burden bear,
Whose hopes are all in heaven with Christ.

W. C. R.

EXTRACT FROM CHRISTABEL.

The silver lamp burns dead and dim,

But Christabel the lamp will trim;
She trimmed the lamp, and made it bright,
And left it swinging to and fro,

While Geraldine, in wretched plight,
Sank down upon the floor below.

'O weary Lady Geraldine,
I pray you, drink this cordial wine!
It is a wine of virtuous powers,
My mother made it of wild flowers.'

And will your mother pity one, Who am a maiden most forlorn ?'

Christabel answered, Woe is me!
She died the hour that I was born.
I have heard the gray-haired friar tell,
How on her death-bed she did say,
That she should hear the castle bell
Strike twelve upon my wedding day.
O mother dear, that thou wert here!'
'I would,' said Geraldine, she were.'

*

*

*

*

Then Christabel knelt by the lady's side,
And raised to heaven her eyes so blue ;-
Alas!' said she-' this ghastly ride,'-
Dear lady! it hath wildered you !'
The lady wiped her moist cold brow,
And faintly said, 'Tis over now!'

Coleridge.

THE DYING SOLDIER.

The day-light is fading: the cloud-broken ray
Of the dim setting sun is fast melting away;
And the red hand of war, of its mail glove made light,
From the wet weary brow wipes the cold dews of night.
The cries of the wounded are hushed to repose

Of that sleep that no vision or change ever knows.

Can I think that my hour of existence is near,
Which must tear me for ever from all I hold dear,-
From the parents that love me,—the girl I adore ?
Shall I bask in the light of her sweet smile no more?
When she leant on my bosom, and sobbed her adieu,
'Dearest maiden,' I said, my heart tarries with you.'
But wounded, and stretched on the field of the slain,
The trumpet of war ne'er shall part us again.
Life darkens around me; its last watch is told,
And the heart that adored you is withered and cold.
My natal star sets in a dark-troubled sky;

<

For a moment it gleams; but that moment must fly!

A. B. P.

THE HIGHLANDER.

Many years ago, a poor Highland Soldier, on his return to his native hills, fatigued, as it was supposed, by the length of the march and the heat of the weather, sat down under the shade of a birch tree on the solitary road of Lowran, that winds along the margin of Lochken in Galloway. Here he was found dead, and this incident forms the subject of the following verses.

From the climes of the sun, all war-worn and
The Highlander sped to his youthful abode;
Fair visions of home cheered the desert so dreary,
Though fierce was the noon-beam, and steep was the
road.

weary,

Till, spent with the march that still lengthened before him, He stopped by the way in a sylvan retreat;

The light shady boughs of the birch-tree waved o'er him, And the stream of the mountain fell soft at his feet.

He sunk to repose where the red heaths are blended,
One dream of his childhood his fancy passed o'er;
But his battles are fought, and his march now is ended,
The sound of the bagpipe shall wake him no more.

No arm in the day of the conflict could wound him,
Though war launched her thunder in fury to kill;
Now the angel of death in the desert has found him,
And stretched him in peace in the brow of the hill.

Pale autumn spreads o'er him the leaves of the forest,
The fays of the wild chant the dirge of his rest;
And thou, little brook, still the sleeper deplorest,
And moistenest the heath-bell that weeps on his breast.
Rev. W. Gillespie.

THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP.

AN AMERICAN BALLAD.

A young man lost his mind upon the death of the girl he loved, and who suddenly disappearing from his friends, was never afterwards heard of. As he had frequently said in his ravings that the girl was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp, it is supposed he had wandered into that dreary wilderness, and died of hunger, or been lost in some of its dreadful morasses. The great Dismal Swamp is 10 or 12 miles distant from Norfolk; and the lake in the middle of it (about 7 miles long) is called Drummond's pond.