For if thou turnest not now, in the spring-time of thy days, vainly, in after years, when the shadows of age are darkening around thee, shalt thou call, "Return, O beautiful days of youth!" Those beautiful days, gone, gone forever, and hidden in the shadows of the misty past, shall close their ears against thy miserable cries, or answer thee in hollow accents, "Alas! we return no more.”

CXVIII. THE CLOSING YEAR.

FROM PRENTICE.

1. 'Tis midnight's holy hour, and silence now

2.

Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er

The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds,
The bell's deep tones are swelling; 'tis the knell
Of the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past; yet, on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest
Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred,
As by a mourner's sigh; and, on yon cloud,
That floats so still and placidly through heaven,
The spirits of the Seasons seem to stand,

Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form,
And Winter, with his aged locks,—and breathe

In mournful *cadences, that come abroad
Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching *wail,
A melancholy *dirge o'er the dead year,

Gone from the earth forever.

For memory and for tears.

Still chambers of the heart,

'Tis a time

Within the deep,

a *specter dim,

Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time,
Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold

And solemn finger to the beautiful

And holy visions, that have passed away,
And left no shadow of their loveliness

On the dead waste of life. The specter lifts
The coffin-lid of Hope, and Joy, and Love,
And bending mournfully above the pale,

Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers,
O'er what has passed to nothingness.

3.

4.

5.

The year

Has gone, and with it, many a glorious throng
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow,
Its shadow, in each heart. In its swift course
It waved its scepter o'er the beautiful,
And they are not. It laid its *pallid hand
Upon the strong man; and the haughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged
The bright and joyous; and the tearful wail
Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song
And treckless shout Tresounded. It passed o'er
The battle-plain, where sword, and spear, and shield,
Flashed in the light of midday; and the strength
Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crushed and *moldering *skeleton. It came,
And faded like a wreath of mist at eve;
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air,
It theralded its millions to their home

In the dim land of dreams.

+Remorseless Time!

Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe! What power Can stay him in his silent course, or melt

His iron heart to pity! On, still on,

He presses, and forever. The proud bird,
The condor of the Andes, that can soar

Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave
The fury of the northern hurricane,

And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home,
Furls his broad wing at night-fall, and sinks down
To rest upon his mountain crag; but Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness;
And Night's deep darkness has no chain to bind
His rushing pinion.

+Revolutions sweep

O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast
Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back
To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear
To heaven their bold and blackened cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plain; and empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,

And rush down, like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations; and the very stars,
Yon bright and glorious +blazonry of God,
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths,

And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away
To darkle in the trackless void; yet Time,
Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, all pitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon that fearful ruin he hath wrought.

CXIX. THE PASSIONS.

FROM COLLINS.

1. WHEN Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet, in early Greece, she sung,
The Passions, oft, to hear her shell,
*Thronged around her magic cell;
+Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possessed beyond the Muse's painting:
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined;
Till once, 't is said, when all were fired,
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round,
They snatched her instruments of sound;
And, as they oft had heard apart,
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each (for madness ruled the hour)
Would prove his own texpressive power.

2 First Fear, his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords +bewildered laid;
And back recoiled, he knew not why,
E'en at the sound himself had made.

3. Next Anger rushed, his eyes on fire,
In lightnings owned his secret stings;
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept with hurried hand the strings.

4. With twoful measures, wan Despair

Low, sullen sounds, his grief beguiled; A solemn, strange, and mingled air: 'T was sad by fits; by starts 't was wild.

5. But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair,

What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whispered promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!
Still would her touch the strain *prolong;

And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She called on Echo still, through all her song;

And, where her sweetest theme she chose,

A soft, responsive voice was heard at every close: And Hope, enchanted, smiled, and waved her golden hair.

6. And longer had she sung, but, with a frown,

Revenge impatient rose;

He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down;
And, with a withering look,

The war-denouncing trumpet took,

And blew a blast so loud and dread,

Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe;

And, ever and anon, he beat

The doubling drum with furious heat;

And though, sometimes, each dreary pause between,
Dejected Pity, at his side,

Her soul-subduing voice applied,

Yet still he kept his wild, unaltered mien;

While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head,

7. Thy numbers, Jealousy, to naught were fixed,

Sad proof of thy distressful state;

Of differing themes the veering song was mixed;

And now it courted Love; now, raving, called on Hate.

8.

With eyes upraised, as one inspired,

Pale Melancholy sat retired;

And from her wild sequestered seat,

In notes by distance made more sweet,

Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul;

And, dashing soft from rocks around,

Bubbling runnels joined the sound:

Through +glades and glooms the mingled measures stole;

Or, o'er some thaunted stream, with fond delay,
Round a holy calm diffusing,

Love of peace and lonely musing,

In hollow murmurs died away.

9. But, oh! how altered was its sprightlier tone, When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue, Her bow across her shoulder flung,

10.

Her buskins gemmed with morning dew,

Blew an inspiring air, that 'dale and thicket rung,
The hunter's call to Faun and Dryad known.

The oak-crowned sisters, and their chaste-eyed queen,
Satyrs and sylvan boys, were seen,

Peeping from forth their alleys green:

Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear,

And Sport leaped up and seized his beechen spear

Last, came Joy's tecstatic trial:

He, with viny crown advancing,

First to the lively pipe his hand addressed;
But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol,
Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best.
They would have thought, who heard the strain,
They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids,
Amid the festal-sounding shades,

To some unwearied minstrel dancing,
While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,
Love framed with Mirth a gay +fantastic round;
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound;
And he, amid his frolic play,

As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings.

CXX.-DISCONTENT.-AN ALLEGORY.
FROM ADDISON.

1. It is a celebrated thought of Socrates, that if all the misfortunes of mankind were cast into a public stock, in order to be equally distributed among the whole species, those who now think themselves the most unhappy, would prefer the share they are already possessed of, before that which would fall to them by such a division. Horace has carried this thought a good deal further, and supposes that