To us, for fourteen anxious months, his infant smiles were

given,

And then he bade farewell to Earth, and went to live in

Heaven.

I cannot tell what form is his, what look he weareth now, Nor guess how bright a glory crowns his shining seraph brow:

The thoughts that fill his sinless soul, the bliss which he doth feel,

Are number'd with the secret things which God will not

reveal;

But I know (for God hath told me this) that he is now at rest,

Where other blessed infants be, on their Saviour's loving breast.

I know his spirit feels no more this weary load of flesh, But his sleep is bless'd with endless dreams of joy for ever fresh.

I know the Angels fold him close beneath their glittering wings,

And soothe him with a song that breathes of Heaven's divinest things.

I know that we shall meet our babe (his mother dear and I), Where God for aye shall wipe away all tears from every eye. Whate'er befals his brethren twain, his bliss can never

cease;

Their lot may here be grief and fear, but his is certain peace.

It may be that the tempter's wiles their souls from bliss

may sever,

But, if our own poor faith fail not, he must be ours for ever. When we think of what our darling is, and what we still must be,

When we muse on that world's perfect bliss, and this world's misery;

When we groan beneath this load of sin, and feel this grief

and pain;

Oh! we'd rather lose our other two than have him here again.

BALLAD.

Here is a sweet lyric by THOMAS MOORE. Mark the beauty of the lines we have set in italic.

OH! do not look so bright and blest,
For still there comes a fear,

When brow like thine looks happiest,
That grief is then most near.
There lurks a dread in all delight,
A shadow near each ray,

That warns us then to fear their flight,
When most we wish their stay.
Then look not thou so bright and blest,
For, ah! there comes a fear,
When brow like thine looks happiest,
That grief is then most near.

Why is it thus, that fairest things
The soonest fleet and die?
That, when most light is on their wings,
They're then but spread to fly?
And sadder still, the pain will stay,
The bliss no more appears;
As rainbows take their light away,

And leave us but their tears!

Then, look not thou so bright and blest,
For ah! there comes a fear,
When brow like thine looks happiest,
That grief is then most near.

A SCULPTURED VASE.

The following delicious lines are by KEATS; suggested by a Sculptured Vase representing a procession with music. There is perfect originality in the thought, and the most refined taste is displayed in the composition. The poet has positively spiritualized hard stone.

HEARD melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on-
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fond youth, beneath the trees thou canst not leave,
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal-yet do not grieve,
She cannot fade though thou hast not thy bliss ;
For ever wilt thou love and she be fair.

THE DESERTED HOUSE.

For simplicity of conception and language, in appropriateness of imagery and the solemn tone it breathes, this little poem has been rarely surpassed. It is by ALFRED TENNYSON,

LIFE and thought have gone away

Side by side,

Leaving door and windows wide:
Careless tenants they!

All within is dark as night :
In the windows is no light;
And no murmur at the door,
So frequent on its hinge before.

Close the door, the shutter close,

Or through the windows we shall see
The nakedness and vacancy

Of the dark deserted house.

Come away: no more of mirth

Is here or merry-making sound.
The house was builded of the earth,
And shall fall again to ground.

Come away for life and thought
Here no longer dwell;

But in a city glorious

A great and distant city-have bought
Å mansion incorruptible.

Would they could have stay'd with us!

THE WORLD'S CHANGES.

From a periodical entitled The Irish Penny Journal we extract a poem which has strangely taken our fancy. What are its peculiar merits we should find it difficult to say; but there is something in the novelty of the subject, and the earnest handling of it, calculated both to surprise and please. He who reads it once will be pretty sure to peruse it again.

"Contarini Fleming wrote merely, TIME."

Disraeli the Younger.

THE Solemn Shadow that bears in his hands
The conquering scythe and the glass of sands,
Paused once on his flight where the sunrise shone
On a warlike city's towers of stone;

And he ask'd of a panoplied soldier near,

"How long has this fortress'd city been here?"
And the man look'd up, man's pride on his brow-
"The city stands here from the ages of old;
And as it was then, and as it is now,

So will it endure till the funeral knell
Of the world be knoll'd,

As Eternity's annals shall tell.”

And after a thousand years were o'er,
The Shadow paused over the spot once more.

And vestige of none of a city lay there,
But lakes lay blue, and plains lay bare,

And the marshall'd corn stood high and pale,

And a shepherd piped of love in a vale.

"How!" spake the Shadow, "can temple and tower Thus fleet, like mist from the morning hour?"

But the shepherd shook the long locks from his brow"The world is fill'd with sheep and corn;

Thus was it of old, thus is it now,

Thus, too, will it be while moon and sun

Rule night and morn,

For Nature and Life are one."

And after a thousand years were o'er,

The Shadow paused over the spot once more.

And lo! in the room of the meadow-lands

A sea foam'd far over saffron sands,

And flash'd in the noontide bright and dark,
And a fisher was casting his nets from a bark;

How marvell'd the Shadow! “Where then is the plain ?
And where be the acres of golden grain ?"

But the fisher dash'd off the salt spray from his brow-
"The waters begirdle the earth alway,
The sea ever roll'd as it rolleth now:

What babblest thou about grain and fields ?
By night and day

Man looks for what Ocean yields."

And after a thousand years were o'er

The Shadow paused over the spot once more.

And the ruddy rays of the eventide
Were gilding the skirts of a forest wide;
The moss of the trees look'd old, so old!
And valley and hill, the ancient mould,
Was robed in sward, an evergreen cloak;
And a woodman sang as he fell'd
an oak.
Him ask'd the Shadow-"Rememberest thou
Any trace of a sea where wave those trees?"
But the woodman laugh'd: said he, "I trow,
If oaks and pines do flourish and fall,

It is not amid seas ;

The earth is one forest all."

And after a thousand years were o'er,

The Shadow paused over the spot once more.

And what saw the Shadow? A city again,

But peopled by pale mechanical men,

With workhouses fill'd, and prisons, and marts,

And faces that spake exanimate hearts.

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Strange pictures and sad!" was the Shadow's thought;

And turning to one of the Ghastly, he sought

For a clue in words to the When and the How

Of the ominous change he now beheld; But the man uplifted his care-worn brow

"Change? What was life ever but conflict and change? From the ages of old

Hath affliction been widening its range."

Enough!" said the Shadow, and pass'd from the spot :"At last it is vanish'd, the beautiful youth