DARTING® with friends is temporary death, A

PARTING AND DEATH.

THE PHANTOM. (From "Michael Angelo.'')

GAIN I sit within the mansion,

In the old familiar seat; © As all death is. We see no more their And shade and sunshine chase each other faces,

O'er the carpet at my feet. Nor hear their voices, save in memory;

But the sweet-brier's arms have wrestled upBut messages of love give us assurance

wards That we are not forgotten. Who shall say

In the summers that are past, That from the world of spirits, comes no

And the willow trails its branches lower
greeting,

Than when I saw them last.
No message of remembrance? It may be
The thoughts that visit us, we know not They strive to shut the sunshine wholly
whence,

From out the haunted room;
Sudden as inspiration, are the whispers

To fill the house, that once was joyful,
Of disembodied spirits, speaking to us

With silence and with gloom.
As friends, who wait outside a prison wall, And many kind, remembered faces
Through the barred windows speak to those Within the doorway come;
within.

Voices, that wake the sweeter music
As quiet as the lake that lies beneath me, Of one that now is dumb.
As quiet as the tranquil sky above me, They sing, in tones that are as glad as ever,
As quiet as a heart that beats no more,

The songs she loved to hear;
This convent seems. Above, below, all peace: They braid the rose in summer garlands,
Silence and solitude, the soul's best friends,

Whose flowers to her were dear.
Are with me here, and the tumultuous world And still, her footsteps in the passage,
Makes no more noise than the remotest planet.

Her blushes at the door,
O gentle spirit, unto the third circle

Her timid words of maiden welcome,
Of heaven among the blessed souls ascended,

Come back to me once more.
Who living in the faith and dying for it,
Have gone to their reward, I do not sigh And, all forgetful of my sorrow,
For thee as being dead, but for myself

Unmindful of my pain,
That I am still alive. Turn those dear eyes, I think she has but newly left me,
Once so benignant to me, upon mine,

And soon will come again.
That open to their tears such uncontrolled

She stays without, perchance, a moment, And such continual issue. Still awhile

To dress her dark-brown hair; Have patience; I will come to thee at last.

I hear the rustle of her garments,
A few more goings in and out these doors,

Her light step on the stair:
A few more chimings of these convent bells,
A few more prayers, a few more sighs and tears, O fluttering heart! control thy tumult,
And the long agony of this life will end,

Lest eyes profane should see
And I shall be with thee. If I am wanting

My cheeks betray the rush of rapture
To thy well-being, as thou art to mine,

Her coming brings to me!
Have patience; I will come to thee at last. She tarries long; but lo! a whisper
Ye minds that loiter in these cloister gardens, Beyond the open door,
Or wander far above the city walls,

And, gliding through the quiet sunshine,
Bear unto him this message, that I ever

A shadow on the floor! Or speak or think of him, or weep for him.

Ah!'tis the whispering pine that calls me, By unseen hands uplifted in the night

The vine, whose shadow strays; Of sunset, yonder solitary cloud

And my patient heart must still await her, Floats, with its white apparel blown abroad,

chide her long delays. And wafted up to heaven. It fades away, But my heart grows sick with weary waiting, And melts into the air. Ah, would that I

As many a time before;
Could thus be wafted unto thee, Francesco, Her foot is ever at the threshold,
A cloud of white, an incorporeal spirit!

Yet never passes o’er.
HENRY W ADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

BAYARD TAYLOR.

SONNET. WEET Spring, thou turn'st with all thy And happy days with thee come not again; goodly train,

The sad memorials only of my pain Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright Do with thee come, which turns my sweets with flowers;

to sours.

Thou art the same which still thou wast be

fore, Delicious, lusty, amiable, fair; But she, whose breath embalmed thy whole

some air, The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain, Is gone; nor gold nor gems her can restore. The clouds for joy in pearls weep down Neglected Virtue! seasons go and come, their showers.

When thine, forgot, lie closed in a tomb. Thou turn'st, sweet youth; but ah! my

WILLIAM DRUMMOND. pleasant hours

1

bis anger;

· DEATH OF GABRIEL.

That the dying once more might rejoice in (From " Evangeline.")

their splendor and beauty.

Then, as she mounted the stairs to the corriTHEN it came to pass that a pestilence fell

dors, cooled by the east wind, on the city,

Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes Presaged by wondrous signs, and mostly by

from the belfry of Christ Church, flocks of wild pigeons,

While, intermingled with these, across the Darkening the sun in their flight, with naught meadows were wafted in their craws but an acorn.

Sounds of psalms that were sung by the And, as the tides of the sea arise in the month

Swedes at their church in Wicaco. of September,

Soft as descending wings fell the calm of the Flooding some silver stream, till it spreads hour on her spirit; like a lake in the meadow,

Something within her said: “At length thy So death flooded life, and, o'erflowing its nat trials are ended;" ural margin,

And, with light in her looks, she entered the Spread to a brackish lake, the silver stream of chambers of sickness. existence.

Noiselessly moved about the assiduous, careWealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty to ful attendants, charm the oppressor,

Moistening the feverish lip, and the aching But all perished alike beneath the scourge of brow, and in silence

Closing the sightless eyes of the dead, and Only, alas! the poor, who had neither friends

concealing their faces, nor attendants,

Where on their pallets they lay, like drifts of Crept away to die in the almshouse, home of

snow by the roadside. the homeless.

Many a languid head, upraised as Evangeline Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of

entered, meadows and woodlands;

Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she Now the city surrounds it; but still, with its passed, for her presence gateway and wicket,

Fell on their hearts like a ray of sun on the Meek, in the midst of splendor, its humble walls of a prison. walls seem to echo

And, as she looked around, she saw how Death,
Softly, the words of the Lord: “The poor ye the consoler,
always have with you.”

Laying his hand upon many a heart, had heal-
Thither, by night and day, came the sister of ed it forever.
Mercy. The dying

Many familiar forms had disappeared in the
Looked up into her face, and thought, indeed, night time;
to behold there

Vacant their places were, or filled already by Gleams of celestial light encircle her forehead strangers. with splendor,

Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of Such as the artist paints o'er the brows of wonder, saints and apostles,

Still she stood, with her colorless lips apart, Or such as hangs by night o'er a city seen at a while a shudder distance.

Ran through her frame, and, forgotten, the Unto their eyes it seemed the lamps of the flowers dropped from her fingers, city celestial,

And from her eyes and cheeks the light and Into whose shining gates their spirits ere long bloom of the morning; would enter.

Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such Thus, on a Sabbath morn, through the streets, terrible auguish deserted and silent,

That the dying heard it and started up from Wending 'her quiet way, she entered the door their pillows.

of the almshouse. Sweet on the summer air was the odor of On the pallet before her was stretched the flowers in the garden,

form of an old man; And she paused on her way to gather the fair. Long, and thin, and gray, were the locks that est among them,

shaded his temples;