invitation with some rapidity. Rocket put away his pistols in great chagrin, and much did he declaim about the decline of chivalry in the land. Meanwhile, Walton asked us all to sup with him and his new wife that night. Thompson and myself readily accepted, though I felt exceedingly disquieted at the idea of seeing Emily as the wife of any body but myself. It was too late now, however, to give my thought to this matter, and I resolved to bear with my privation, and behold his joys, with as little anxiety and envy as possible.

Rocket did not so readily reply to the invitation. He had a condition preliminary; and this was, that no manner of reference should be made by either of us to the affair, which, in his notion, had terminated so unhappily. In particular, he begged that, should it be spoken of by the public, no reference should be made to him as the acting or even present friend of either party.

'It would be very unpleasant,' said he, to be spoken of as the friend and second of one who could cut a bamboo, yet throws away his lead. Pardon me, Mr. Walton, - I have no hostility to you, believe me; but public opinion required that Mr. Topic should at least have winged you : and I am doubtful if it will not say that he should have blown out your brains.

• Thank you,' said Walton, kindly, in reply. •But will you sup with us, major ?

• Do you accept my conditions ?' was the response.

• We do - we do— most heartily. We shall be as secret as mice on the subject for our own sakes. The matter would not tell so readily in favor of either of us.'

You are right, Mr. Walton,' said Rocket, gravely. You sup, you say, at nine. I will come. Pray have a steak for me

rarely done with a sauce of the gum fætida. I shall be a little out of spirits, I fear, - this cloudy weather, and the disappointment — and, , excuse me, Sir, but I will come.'

Rocket gave me a seat with him, and we all set off at the same time for home. At night we met again at Walton's, where we saw, and where I looked, with no small philosophy, upon my Emily as another man's wife. The most wonderful point of all was that, on this occasion, I did not come too late. I was punctual to the appointed moment. Emily raised her finger at me — why?— perhaps

– because I did not come to the wedding. Poor thing she was happy, according to her notion. Would she have been so, think you, if she had only known what had been my intentions ? She had been just as much too precipitate for her happiness, as I was, possibly, too late for mine.

6

"THY WILL BE DONE!'

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It is a short and simple prayer, but 't is the Christian's stay,
Through every varied scene of care, until his dying day :
As through the wilderness of life, calmly he wanders on,.
His prayer in every time of strife, is still" Thy will be done!
When, in his happy infant years, he treads midst thornless flowers,
When pass away his smiles and lears, like April suns and showers,
Then, bending at his mother's knee, play-tired at set of sun,
What is the prayer he murmurs forth ? — 'Father! thy will be done!'
When the bright summer sky of time, cloudless, is o'er him spread,
When love's bright wreath is in its prime, with not one blossom dead -
While o'er his hopes and prospects fair no mist of wo hath gone,
Still he repeats the first-taught prayer – 'Father! thy will be done!'
But when his sun no longer beams, and love's sweet flowers decay,
When all hope's rainbow-colored dreams are eadly swept away,
As a flowret bent beneath the storm still fragrantly breathes on,
So when dark clouds life's heaven deform, he prays, 'Thy will be done!
And when the winter of his age sheds o'er his locks its snows,
And when his weary pilgrimage is drawing to a close –
Then, as he finds his strength decline, this is his prayer alone :
"To Thee my spirit I resign — Father! thy will be done!'

M.

LOA F E RI A N A.

NUMBER TWO.

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'Doth companye displease?

Yea, surelye, many a one:
Where doth Desire delight to live ?
He loves to live alone!'

VERE. Scarce a league to the north from Monument Mountain, which the sweet muse of Bryant has made classic ground, lies one of the most fairy and picturesque lakes that mirror the green hills of New England. Its eastern margent of snow-white sand curves gradually away to the sunny slopes of meadows and cornfields of wavy luxuriance; while the western shore is still bounded, in part, by dark groves of lofty beeches, and still loftier pines, and partly by a broad and rocky glacis of a neighboring mountain, which rises abruptly from the bosom of the lake. Adown this bushy declivity, and ever along these sloping forests, dances many a merry brooklet to the piping of its own wild music, till it throws itself at last into the embrace of the quiet waters beneath, like a play-spent child into the lap of a gentle mother. Not a human habitation is in view on either hand — nothing even to remind one of man, his passions and pursuits, except the little skiff moored in yonder shadowy cove, the cultured fields which bloom around, and the flocks and herds grazing peacefully upon the distant hills. All else is nature, in her free, wild, and unadorned loveliness. · Beautiful scene !'-murmured the dreamy loafer, as his thoughts

, wandered away from the sunset charms of the Battery, to that lovelier haunt of other days—thou risest before my imagination like a vision of paradise! Years of toil, and care, and change, have passed over me since I used to gaze upon thy witching loveliness ; but Memory has been faithful to her trust, and in her blessed tablet I gaze upon

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thee still — not a tint faded, not a feature darkened, not a charm dispelled. In thy ideal presence, the stern realities of city life are scarcely remembered or regarded. The smoke, and dust, and tumult, of these busy thoroughfares, are superseded, for the time being, by the breezy coolness, the flowery sweetness, the pleasant warblings, and the delicious repose, which Nature bestows so lavishly upon those who court her smiles amid the green and peaceful hills. Beautiful scene! - even from my lonely attic, I can look away through the starless midnight, as through a magic vista, and feast with eye unobscured on all thy visioned charms. Fancy annihilates both gloom and distance, and through her gay prism thou smilest upon me then with the same tinted beauty which wooed and won my boyish idolatry. But hush thee, dull Prose, and list a murmur of the scallop shell:'

THE LOAFER'S APOSTROPHE.

How fain from scenes of proud display,

Or hollow pomp and heartless glee,
My truant thoughts oft steal away,

Sweet lake, to thec!

There 'neath the tall Æölian pine,

Whose tapering shadow spans thy breast,
On tufted moss I soft recline,

In dreamy rest :

Such sweet repose as boyhood's hour

Oft courted in that fairy spot,
Or ere the dreams of wealth or power

O'ercast my lot.
Blest hours! and blest be Fancy's power

That steals me from the walks of men,
And seats me in that whispering bower,

A boy again!

Where in each wilding flower and tree,

Each bird, and brook, and crag above,
Some sweet familiar form I see

Of early love.

No charm of all so richly given,

Hath blight assailed or years estranged ;
Thou art the same blest type of heaven -

Calm, bright, unchanged.

Still lingers long the cloud that strays,

Enamored, o'er a scene so fair,
As if it could not choose but gaze

Forever there.

Still brighter seems the summer's bow,

The autumn woods, the evening skies,
When, mirrored in thy heaven below,

They charm mine eyes.
Still near the base of yon slant cliff,

Whose bald scalp tops the towering pine,
The old blind angler moors his skiff,

And casts his line.

Around, in many an airy ring,

The social swallow twittering steals ;
While far above on poiséd wing

The heron wheels.

And as his circling shadow glides
Athwart the sheen that wraps thy rest,
The startled wild duck plunging - hides,

Deep in thy breast.
Sweet lake!-- so tranquil, pure, and bright,
So like the Eden of the blest,
Still image to my earth-dimmed sight

That home of rest.

And when my last of breathing hours
Has sunk in time's o'erwhelming deep,
Beneath thy soft green marge of flowers,

Be't mine to sleep;

In that calm trance of contrite trust,
That, when the thrall of death is o'er,
Heaven shall remould this erring dusi,

To sin no more.

As the loafer pronounced the last stanza, he leaned quietly back against the tall sycamore that curtained the

green

turf
upon

which he was reclining, and gazed musingly on the sunny bay outspread before him, as if in its beautiful presence he beheld the image of that lovely lake so fraught with the hoarded memories of boyhood. His dress, though marked with the wear and tear of years, was tidy and decent; and, attracted by the pleasant cadences of his poetical reverie, I edged nearer to him along the form upon which I chanced to be sitting during his dreamy improvisation. Altogether, there was an air of venerableness about the wrapt visionary, blended with an expression of habitual benevolence, which seemed calculated to win the notice of even a casual observer. He was, apparently, of that desolate few who have approached the lonely bourne of life's 'three score' years; yet their many ills had not been chronicled in gloom upon his lofty brow. There was nothing of the querulous acerbity of hoary misfortune in his quiet aspect; all there was sunshine, albeit the sunshine of declining day, chastened and mellowed by the melancholy loveliness of approaching eve. He had outlived the chances and changes of more than two generations; yet, like the hardy pine of his native hills, the storms of many winters had not stripped him of his evergreen vigor. His thin locks were indeed gray, but not from the potent and bitter alchemy of grief. His brow was indeed wrinkled, but time, not care, had thus furrowed that tablet of the soul. His clear blue eye, however, shone out undimmed and bright, amidst the crow-feet etchings of time, which seemed to have been formed less by the touch of years, than by the wreathings of habitual smiles. His faded cheek and well-turned mouth still retained traces of the rounded chiselling and warmer coloring of perfect manhood; nor had the grasshopper as yet become a burden, for his form was erect and elastic; and the firm and sonorous voice with which he modulated the simple stanzas above, proved that with him the daughters of music had not yet been brought low.' In fact, time seemed to have forgotten him for the last twenty years, so numerous were the visible tokens of his green old age; or, if indeed the arch destroyer had remembered him, it was with that rare partiality which occasionally permits his favored minion to bear on, undespoiled, the graces and VOL. VIII.

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