VOWS?

WHEN should lovers breathe their vows?
When should ladies hear them?

When the dew is on the boughs,
When none else are near them;

When the moon shines cold and pale,
When the birds are sleeping,
When no voice is on the gale,
When the rose is weeping;
When the stars are bright on high,

Like hopes in young Love's dreaming,
And glancing round the light clouds fly,
Like soft fears to shade their beaming.
The fairest smiles are those that live
On the brow by starlight wreathing;

Thy faults butendeared thee, so stormy and wild.
My lover! I feared thee as feareth a child.
They seemed but the shrouding of spirit too high,
As vapors come crowding the sunniest sky.

I worshipped in terror a comet above:
Ah! fatal the error-ah! fatal the love!
For thy sake life never will charm me again;
Its beauty forever is vanished and vain.

Thou canst not restore me the depth and the truth

Of the hopes that came o'er me in earliest youth, Their gloss is departed-their magic is flown, And sad and faint-hearted I wander alone.

Feelings that hushed within my soul were sleeping,

Waked into voice, to trust them to thy care. Can you forget them?

Can you forget me? This is vainly tasking
The faithless heart where I, alas! am not.
Too well I know the idleness of asking-
The misery-of why am I forgot?
The happy hours that I have passed while kneel-
ing,

Half slave, half child, to gaze upon thy face.But what to thee this passionate appealingLet my heart break-it is a common case. You have forgotten me.

DISENCHANTMENT.

Do not ask me why I loved him, Love's cause is to love unknown; Faithless as the past has proved him, Once his heart appeared mine own. Do not say he did not merit

All my fondness, all my truth; Those in whom love dwells inherit

Every dream that haunted youth.

He might not be all I dreamed him,
Noble, generous, gifted, true;
Not the less I fondly deemed him
All those flattering visions drew.
All the hues of old romances

By his actual self grew dim;
Bitterly I mock the fancies

That once found their life in him.

From the hour by him enchanted,
From the moment when we met,
Henceforth with one image haunted,
Life may never more forget.
All my nature changed--his being
Seemed the only source of mine.
Fond heart, hadst thou no foreseeing
Thy sad future to divine?

Once, upon myself relying,

All I asked were words and thought; Many hearts, to mine replying,

Owned the music that I brought. Eager, spiritual, and lonely,

Visions filled the fairy hour,
Deep with love-though love was only
Not a presence, but a power.

But from that first hour I met thee,
All caught actual life from you.
Alas! how can I forget thee,

Thou who mad'st the fancied true?
Once my wide world was ideal,
Fair it was-ah! very fair;
Wherefore hast thou made it real?
Wherefore is thy image there?

Ah! no more to me is given

Fancy's far and fairy birth; Chords upon my lute are riven, Never more to sound on earth. Once, sweet music could it borrow

CHARLES SWAIN was born in Manchester in 1803. His father, an Englishman, died in 1809. His mother was a Parisian, and the boy was educated by her brother, who afterward introduced him into his business, that of dyeing. But in 1832 he went to learn the art of engraving with a firm in Manchester, of which he became a member a few years later. This business he followed during the remainder of his life. His leisure hours were largely given to poetry. His first writings were published in the Manchester Iris, edited by James Montgomery; and he soon became a frequent con

tributor to various periodicals. His first volume was "Metrical Essays," published in 1827, and it has been followed by five other volumes of poems, the last issued in 1863. A collected edition is published in Boston in one volume. Many of Swain's songs have been very popular, several of them have been translated into French and German, and his "Dryburgh Abbey" has violent admirers-more on Scott's account, probably, than on his own, for it is not remarkable as a poem. He died on September 22, 1874, at Manchester, in the pretty vine-covered cottage which had been his home for many years.

Still onward like the gathering night advanced that funeral train-

Like billows when the tempest sweeps across the shadowy main;

Where'er the eager gaze might reach, in noble ranks were seen

Dark plume, and glittering mail and crest, and woman's beauteous mien !

A sound thrilled through that length'ning host! methought the vault was closed, Where, in his glory and renown, fair Scotia's bard reposed!

A sound thrilled through that length'ning host! and forth my vision fled! But, ah !-that mournful dream proved true-the

immortal Scott was dead!

The vision and the voice are o'er! their influence waned away

Like music o'er a summer lake at the golden close of day:

The vision and the voice are o'er!-but when will be forgot

too deep to smile,

"Duke of Argyle."

able Scott?

With lofty brow, and bearing high, dark "Ra

venswood" advanced,

One young, fair face from the bower of jasmine

glowing,

And all his loving heart with bliss is warm; So Noon, unnoticed, seeks the western shore, And man forgets that Noon returns no more.

Night tappeth gently at a casement gleaming With the thin firelight, flickering faint and low,

By which a gray-haired man is sadly dreaming

O'er pleasures gone, as all life's pleasures go. Silent and dark-and he returns no more. Night calls him to her-and he leaves his door

A VIOLET IN HER HAIR.

A VIOLET in her lovely hair,
A rose upon her bosom fair!
But oh, her eyes

A lovelier violet disclose,
And her ripe lips the sweetest rose
That's 'neath the skies.

A lute beneath her graceful hand
Breathes music forth at her command;