KIRKSTALL-ABBEY REVISITED. The echoes of its vaults are eloquent! It is the house of Memory!- Maturin. BY ALARIC A. WATTS. LONG years have passed since last I strayed, And saw the bright, broad, moving moon The air around was breathing balm; The aspen scarcely seemed to sway; And, as a sleeping infant calm, The river streamed away, Devious as Error, deep as Love, And blue and bright as heaven above! Steeped in a flood of glorious light,— Thy time-worn tower arose,— I climbed its dark and dizzy stair, Life was an upward journey then ;- The steps in youth I loved to tread, Have sunk beneath the foot of Time; Like them, the daring hopes that led Me, once, to heights sublime, Ambition's dazzling dreams, are o'er, And I may scale those heights no more! And years have fled, and now I stand How changed by grief and pain, Since last I loitered here, and deemed Life was the fairy thing it seemed! And gazing on thy crumbling walls, Some trace of years gone by,— · Ay, thoughts come thronging on my soul Dreaming of Fame, and Fortune's smile, Hath seared my trusting heart since then ; What clouds of blight, consuming slow The springs that life sustain,-~ Have o'er my world-vexed spirit past, How bright is every scene beheld In youth and hope's unclouded hours! How darkly-youth and hope dispelled— The loveliest prospect lours. Thou wert a splendid vision then ; When wilt thou seem so bright again? Yet still thy turrets drink the light And calm and beauteous, as of old, Thy wandering river glides in gold! But life's gay morn of ecstacy, That made thee seem so more than fair, The aspirations wild and high, The soul to nobly dare, Oh where are they, stern ruin, say?— Farewell!-Be still to other hearts What thou wert long ago to mine; To guide the mourner through his tears, Farewell!-I ask no richer boon, Than that my parting hour may be With heavenly FAITH'S Soul-cheering ray NEW YEAR'S EVE. THE OMENS. And coming events cast their shadows before. Campbell. "HARK! the clock strikes eleven," said the Baron Rosenthal to his assembled smiling guests; "let us drink a glass to the parting year, and the memory of all the happy hours which it has brought us." His wish was immediately complied with; the glasses were cheerfully brought into contact with each other, and the kindly recollection of past happiness glistened in every eye. "It is, however, a strange though serenely serious thing, to watch the death of the old and the birth of the new year," said Hermann: "properly speaking, each instant is the commencement or end of a year; or if you please, of a century, or a millennium; and it is custom merely which gives solemnity to the midnight hour betwixt the last of December and the first |