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Nor the life-blood of thy frame,
For one moment quench this flame.
Weep not beside my tomb,
'Tis a gentle, painless gloom;
Let the worm and darkness prey
On my senseless, slumbering clay;
Weep for the priceless gem
That may not hide with them ;-
Weep the Lost Spirit's fate,

Yet know thy tears too late,—

Had they sooner fallen-well;
I had not wept in Hell!

Physician-canst thou weep?

Then let tears thy pillow steep!

Couldst thou view Time's heaving wave,

Doomed to 'whelm me in its grave,—
Life's last and lessening space,
My soul's brief hour of grace;
Yet with gay, unfaltering tongue,
Promise health and sojourn long
On the brink of that profound,
Without measure, depth or bound;
View me, busied with the toys,
Of a world of shadowy joys?
-Oh! had look, or sign, or breath,

Then whispered aught of death,

Though nature in the strife,

Had loosed her hold on life,
And the worm received his prey,
Perchance, an earlier day,—

This, this, and who can tell,

But

my soul had 'scaped from hell!

False prophet! flattering priest!
Full fraught with mirth and feast,
Thy weeping should not fail,
But with life's dark, ended tale!
For the living, for the dead,
There is guilt upon thy head!

Thou didst make the "narrow way,"

As the broad one, smooth and gay;
To speak in accents bland,

Of the bright and better land;

That the soul, unchanged within,
The sinner in his sin,

Of God and Christ unshriven,
Lay down with dreams of heaven ;-
False priest, thy labours tell,
I dreamed, and woke in hell!

THE MAIDEN ASTROLOGER.

Her thoughts were not like girlhood's; bird nor flower
Gave her affection room; and when her face.

Assumed its perfect beauty, never blush

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Nor smile spoke vanity or love; her hours were passed
In some old window-seat, whose coloured panes

Shed a mysterious light upon the scroll,

On whose strange characters she pored; the night

Still found her on the terrace, her dark eyes

Filled with the wild light of the stars she watched,-
They say, she read their language.

OVER the terrace the bright stars shine,
Who is there but must feel them divine?
Softly the night wind stirs the air,

The breath of the orange and rose they bear;
And the branches in music swing to and fro,
Each leaf like a lute-note, sweet and low.

This is a night for the maiden to dream

Of the love which will colour her life's pure stream ;—

This is a night for the maiden to pray,

Whose heart has been given, whose love is away!

Young is the maiden that watches the sky,

There is no love on her cheek, or her eye.

Love doth colour the young cheek with rose,
Like the tide in the moonshine, it ebbs and flows.-
Now passionate pale-now fain to hide

The sudden rush of its crimson tide;
But the lady's cheek is calm and pale,
It wears no blushes, it needs no veil.--

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