Why, Cupid, why Make the passage brighter? Why, maiden, why Must thou be on the stair, YESTERDAY, TO-DAY, AND TO-MORROW. BY MAURICE HARCOURT, AUTHOR OF POOR-LAW MELODIES." The churchyard where the weary rest in peace, The world where Sin erects her brazen throne, Where Hope and Joy, which Eden made more fair, That land where shineth the Eternal Light, Where Glory's dawnings are undimmed by night, SPRING. Advancing Spring profusely spreads abroad I THE FLOWER OF LLANGOLLEN. BY THE LATE CHARLES MAY. Amy Griffith was the fairest flower that graced the vale of Llangollen. Many a bright face and airy form had the crystal stream reflected, that ran dimpling before the cottage of her parents, yet none so faultless, none so fair as her's. Many a light and fairy foot had softly brushed the dewy heath, and pressed the green turf of Amy's native vale, yet never had the daisy's slender head arisen from so light a pressure as when Amy Griffith tripped over it. The violets that bloomed around her humble home seemed to smile more beautifully there, as if they had caught her blue eyes' heavenly ray; and the brier, which, wreathed with honeysuckles, twined around her trelliced porch, might have stolen its soft breath from Amy's lips, or left on them its kisses, without adding to their fragrance? while cheerful as the lay of the lark, that carolled above her cottage, was Amy's early morning song. Many a loftier roof than that of Amy Griffith's parents rose in Llangollen, yet none contained so rich a treasure; none saw beneath it such happy parents and so dear a maid: she was their joy, their hope, their all. Happy in their love, happy in her own innocence, the source of happiness to all around her, Amy Griffith lived in blissful, enviable obscurity. Her guileless bosom was a stranger to woe; or if, perchance, another's suffering awoke a momentary sigh, or if misfortune's tears called forth in sympathy her own, that sigh, which ruffled for a time, subsiding, left her bosom in calmer purity, to more lively impressions of delight; and those tears, those precious drops of purity, when wiped away, gave to her blue eyes a heavenlier lustre, a brighter and more cheerful ray. The transient pain her bosom knew was like the rude caress of the wild fly, when rifling the rose of its sweet breath; a boisterous salute, which only serves to make the kisses of the next wanton gale seem softer still. Endeared to all the inmates of the vale by her virtues and her loveliness, Amy Griffith saw herself admired and beloved, while the simplicity of her heart kept her a stranger to the cause. The aged peasants saw with wonder and with pride the beauty and sweetness of the lovely cottager. Few indeed were there who had not reason to bless her kindness. Were the labours of the fields toilsome to their age enfeebled limbs, Amy Griffith would share with them their toils, and lighten their labours with her songs. Did sickness or decay of nature confine them to their pallets, Amy Griffith was the first to "listen to their tale of symptoms." With her little basket laden with the choicest productions of her garden, Amy was often seen tripping towards the house of sorrow-there, by her endearing attentions, soothing and supporting the sinking head of the sufferer, or pouring "oil and wine" into the wounds of conscience; dispelling the glooms of terror before the cheering beams of the gospel, and brightening the doubts and fears of penitence into a sure and certain hope!" The companions of her youthful joys, the virgin daughters of the vale, loved her too dearly to envy her transcendent superiority; while each fond mother breathed a prayer to heaven that her own plentyn might be, like Amy Griffith, the prop of her parents, the pride of her kin. Many a wealthy peasant had sought to transplant the flower of Llangollen from the cottage of her birth to his own more spacious home; from the bosom of her parents to that of his eldest-born. Many a young cottager had sworn to love none other than the vale's fair flower; and adventurers had climbed the mountain's rugged steep that skirted the vale around, to lay at Amy's feet some beautiful kid that he had snared. Amy's gentle heart would chide him for robbing the mother of her young; but she would rear the trembling stranger, sooth it into confidence by caresses. and teach it to prefer the shelter of her paddock-shed before the bleak bare mountains of its birth; while the lover's sufficient reward would be to see his present tended with the greatest care by his soul's idolized mistress. Many a wild and impassioned song of nature and of love might Amy have heard in her praise; but she heard them not, she heeded them not, she turned from the language of their lays. The song of one alone she loved-her praise from the lips of one sank like dearest melody upon her delighted ear. • Child: Owen Glynn was the youth blessed with her esteem and preference, By preserving her life, he had commanded her gratitude; by his virtues he had won upon her esteem and respect. The tale of Amy Griffith's acknowledgments to Owen Glynn is short. One of her favourite kids had proved faithless to its mistress, fled from her protection, and sought a distant mountäin. Amy pursued the fugitive, and, nimbly climbing the rugged ascent, at length came near her ungrateful favourite, which, on hearing the well-known voice of its mistress, suffered itself to be attached, a willing captive, to her girdle. Descending with its mistress by the mountain's winding path, the impatient animal, springing suddenly forward, dragged the unwary Amy from her footing, precipitating her into a deep and rapid stream, which foamed like a cataract beneath. Few had been the days of Amy Griffith, short had been the blooming hour of the flower of Llangollen, had not a young hunter, who, with anxious and admiring attention, had watched the beautiful maid in her descent from the mountaintop, plunged into the stream, and at the hazard of his own life, rescued the sinking beauty from destruction. That youth was Owen Glynn. He conducted Amy to the cottage of her parents, calmed their anxious fears, and received their warmest thanks; but Amy's speaking eyes were his richest, his dearest reward. Often did the youth renew his visits to the cottage, and each succeeding one beheld him more enamoured, and more esteemed by her whose esteem was dearer to him than life. Often did he rove with the lovely cottager the enchanting scenes around her native vale; far more enchanting rendered by her presence. But the delightful hours of spring's smiling season are often sullied by the lingering frowns of winter. The lay of the lark is saddened by the dreary storm. The rose blooms but a while, the lily flourishes not for ever. Woe follows upon bliss, as certainly and as sadly as night on dying day. And thus the flower of Llangollen was doomed to droop. Morgan, Owen Glynn's kinsman, had long noted with the eye of jealousy Amy Griffith's affection for the youth. Stung with the hatred of a base and grovelling soul, he caused the baron, Owen's father, to be apprized of his first-born's attachment for a peasant's offspring; heightening the tale with all the aggravating circumstances that malevolence could suggest. A creature of Morgan's conveyed the intelligence, and the wily plotter saw the success of his machinations answer his most sanguine hopes. That his eldest boru should disgrace himself by an alliance with a peasant, was revolting to the feelings of the father. That the heir of Llangollen should sully his noble blood by a union with one of the meanest of his dependents, could not, even in thought, be a moment endured. The soul of the aged baron, high and impetuous, looked down, like his own time-blackened castle, upon the humble inmates of the vale, as the eagle, from his eyrie height, upon the peaceful dove. Indignant that his favourite boy should, as his pride supposed, demean himself so unworthily his illustrious ancestry, the baron, having secretly made the necessary arrangements for an immediate departure, commanded his son to quit the home of his fathers for a distant land; and quit it, too, without a last farewell of her he loved. Owen knew too well the stern, unrelenting disposition of his father to complain or demur. Distracted by conflicting passions, he left his father's hall, his native land. without a farewell of his Amy, and departed into comfortless exile. Amy had scarce time to wonder at his ceasing to visit the cottage, when she heard that he had left the castle. She knew not what to think or fear; had he but bidden her adieu, she should not, she thought, have been unhappy. Yet did not the maiden repine, nor yet reproach his infidelity; and while pride forbade the tear to flow for one who had slighted and contemned her, love, pure devoted love, taught her to forgive him who had, she thought, proved so faithless, and so undeserving her regard. Pale, languid, but resigned and unmurmuring, Amy strove to moderate her parents' grief. When their regret for ber disappointment betrayed itself in tearful complaints or passionate bursts of indignation, "Weep not, my dearest parents, till you see me weep," she would exclaim, while her pale, very pale cheek, showed the smile it wore was but assumed, and her glazed, sad eye, that the tears were ill-suppressed; "and, oh! do not reproach him till you know he is false, nor then, till you cease to value my peace." Meanwhile the unhappy Owen (who had written to his |