A PLEDGE TO THE DYING YEAR. BY M. E. BROOKS. FILL to the brim! one pledge to the past, Fill to the brim! 'tis the saddest and last Wake, the light phantoms of beauty that won us And flash the bright day-beams of promise upon us, Here's to the love-though it flitted away, We can never, no, never forget! Through the gathering darkness of many a day, One pledge will we pour to it yet. Oh, frail as the vision, that witching and tender, And bright on the wanderer broke, When Irem's own beauty in shadowless splendour, Along the wild desert awoke. Fill to the brim! one pledge to the glow Of the heart in its purity warm! 220 A PLEDGE TO THE DYING YEAR. Ere sorrow had sullied the fountain below, Or darkness enveloped the form; Fill to that life-tide! oh warm was its rushing And yet like the wave in the wilderness gushing, "T will gladden the wine-cup to-night. Fill to the past! from its dim distant sphere Wild voices in melody come; The strains of the by-gone, deep echoing here, We pledge to their shadowy tomb; And like the bright orb, that in sinking flings back One gleam o'er the cloud-covered dome, May the dreams of the past, on futurity track The hope of a holier home! PASSING AWAY-A DREAM. BY J. PIER PONT. WAS it the chime of a tiny bell, That came so sweet to my dreaming ear,Like the silvery tones of a fairy's shell That he winds on the beach, so mellow and clear, When the winds and the waves lie together asleep, And the Moon and the Fairy are watching the deep, She dispensing her silvery light, And he, his notes as silvery quite, While the boatman listens and ships his oar, Are set to words :-as they float, they say, 66 But no; it was not a fairy's shell, Blown on the beach, so mellow and clear; 222 PASSING AWAY. And she held to her bosom a budding bouquet, And, as she enjoyed it, she seemed to say, Passing away! passing away! 66 O, how bright were the wheels, that told Of the lapse of time as they moved round slow! And the hands, as they swept o'er the dial of gold, Seemed to point to the girl below. And lo! she had changed:—in a few short hours 66 Passing away! passing away!" PASSING AWAY. While I gazed at that fair one's cheek, a shade 223 And the light in her eye, and the light on the wheels, |