FOR THE FOURTEENTH OF FEBRUARY.
No popular respect will I omit
To do thee honor on this happy day, When every loyal lover tasks his wit His simple truth in studious rhymes to pay, And to his mistress dear his hopes convey. Rather thou knowest I would still outrun All calendars with Love's, whose date alway Thy bright eyes govern better than the sun,-- For with thy favor was my life begun ; And still I reckon on from smiles to smiles, And not by summers, for I thrive on none But those thy cheerful countenance compiles: O! if it be to choose and call thee mine, Love, thou art every day my Valentine.
O, 'T IS a touching thing, to make one weep,- A tender infant with its curtained eye, Breathing as it would neither live nor die. With that unchanging countenance of sleep! As if its silent dream, serene and deep, Had lined its slumber with a still blue sky, So that the passive cheeks unconscious lie, With no more life than roses-just to keep The blushes warm, and the mild, odorous breath O blossom boy! so calm is thy repose, So sweet a compromise of life and death, 'Tis pity those fair buds should e'er unclose For memory to stain their inward leaf, Tinging thy dreams with unacquainted grief.
THINE eyelids slept so beauteously, I deemed No eyes could wake so beautiful as they : Thy rosy cheeks in such still slumbers lay. I loved their peacefulness, nor ever dreamed Of dimples; -for those parted lips so seemed, I never thought a smile could sweetlier play, Nor that so graceful life could chase away Thy graceful death,- till those blue eyes upbeamed. Now slumber lies in dimpled eddies drowned, And roses bloom more rosily for joy, And odorous silence ripens into sound,
And fingers move to sound. All-beauteous boy! How thou dost waken into smiles, and prove, If not more lovely, thou art more like Love!
THE world is with me, and its many cares, Its woes its wants—the anxious hopes and fears That wait on all terrestrial affairs
The shades of former and of future years
Foreboding fancies and prophetic tears,
Quelling a spirit that was once elate.
Heavens! what a wilderness the world appears,
Where youth, and mirth, and health are out of date;
But no a laugh of innocence and joy Resounds, like music of the fairy race, And, gladly turning from the world's annoy, I gaze upon a little radiant face,
And bless, internally, the merry boy
Who "makes a son-shine in a shady place."
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG.
Gold yellow, glittering, precious gold?"
To trace the Kilmansegg pedigree, To the very roots of the family tree, Were a task as rash as ridiculous: Through antediluvian mists as thick As London fog such a line to pick Were enough, in truth, to puzzle Old Nick, Not to name Sir Harris Nicholas.
It would n't require much verbal strain To trace the Kill-man, perchance, to Cain; But, waving all such digressions, Suffice it, according to family lore, A Patriarch Kilmansegg lived of yore, Who was famed for his great possessions.
Tradition said he feathered his nest Through an agricultural interest
In the golden age of farming; When golden eggs were laid by the geese, And Colchian sheep wore a golden fleece,
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