And broken is the only link

That chained youth's pleasant thoughts to me! Alas! that thou couldst know decay

That, sighing, I should live to say, "The cold grave holdeth thee!"

For me thou shon'st, as shines a star,
Lonely, in clouds when heaven is lost;
Thou wert my guiding light afar,
When on Misfortune's billows tost:
Now darkness hath obscured that light,
And I am left, in rayless night,
On Sorrow's lowering coast.

And art thou gone? I deemed thee some
Immortal essence,-thou art gone!-

I saw thee laid within the tomb,
And I am left to mourn alone:

Once to have loved, is to have loved
Enough; and what with thee I proved,
Again I'll seek in none.

Earth in thy sight was Faëry land ;—
Life was Elysium—thought was love,—
When, long ago, hand clasped in hand,
We roamed through Autumn's twilight grove;
Or watched the broad, uprising moon
Shed, as it were, a wizard noon,
The blasted heath above.

Farewell!-and must I say, farewell?—
No-thou wilt ever be to me

A present thought; thy form shall dwell
In love's most holy sanctuary;

Thy voice shall mingle with my dreams,
And haunt me, when the shot-star gleams
Above the rippling sea.

Never revives the past again;

But thou shalt be, in lonely hours,

To me earth's heaven,-the azure main,—
Soft music, and the breath of flowers;
My heart shall gain from thee its hues;
And Memory give, though Truth refuse,
The bliss that once was ours!

ON A HEADLAND IN THE BAY OF PANAMA.

BY BARRY CORNWALL.

We ran up a small creek, near which was a headland, famous for a sangui. nary battle, at some very remote period, far beyond the memory of man. We were told of fragments of huge bones that had once whitened all the ground there. We ourselves saw none, however; but turned up various fossils, which, for aught we knew to the contrary, might have belonged to some antediluvian giant or hero, who was cotemporary with the mammoth and leviathan.

VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY, BY JUAN PABLOS GOMEZ.

VAGUE mystery hangs on all these desert places!

The fear which hath no name, hath wrought a spell! Strength, courage, wrath-have been, and left no traces! They came, and fled;-but whither?-who can tell!

We know but that they were,—that once (in days
When ocean was a bar 'twixt man and man),
Stout spirits wandered o'er these capes and bays,
And perished where these river-waters ran.

Methinks they should have built some mighty tomb,

Whose granite might endure the century's rain,
White winter, and the sharp night winds, that boom
Like spirits in their purgatorial pain.

They left, 't is said, their proud unburied bones
To whiten on this unacknowledged shore :
Yet nought beside the rocks and worn sea stones
Now answer to the great Pacific's roar!

A mountain stands where Agamemnon died:
And Cheops hath derived eternal fame,
Because he made his tomb a place of pride;

And thus the dead Metella earned a name.

But these, they vanished as the lightnings die (Their mischiefs over) in the surging deep;

And no one knoweth underneath the sky,

What heroes perished here, nor where they sleep! Literary Souvenir.

X

THE SQUIRE'S PEW.

BY JANE TAYLOR.

A slanting ray of evening light
Shoots through the yellow pane;
It makes the faded crimson bright,
And gilds the fringe again:
The window's Gothic frame-work falls
In oblique shadows on the walls.

And since those trappings first were new,

How many a cloudless day,

To rob the velvet of its hue,

Has come and passed away!
How many a setting sun hath made
That curious lattice-work of shade!

Crumbled beneath the hillock green,
The cunning hand must be,
That carved this fretted door, I ween,
Acorn, and fleur-de-lis;

And now the worm hath done her part
In mimicking the chisel's art.

In days of yore (as now we call),
When the first James was king,
The courtly knight from yonder hall
His train did hither bring;

All seated round in order due,

With 'broidered suit and buckled shoe.

On damask cushions decked with fringe,
All reverently they knelt;
Prayer-books, with brazen hasp and hinge,
In ancient English spelt,

Each holding in a lily hand,

Responsive to the priest's command.

Now, streaming down the vaulted aisle,
The sunbeam long and lone,
Illumes the characters awhile,
Of their inscription-stone;

And there, in marble hard and cold,
The knight with all his train behold:

Outstretched together are expressed
He and my lady fair;

With hands uplifted on the breast,
In attitude of prayer;

Long-visaged, clad in amour, he,-
With ruffled arm and bodice, she.

Set forth in order, as they died,
Their numerous offspring bend,
Devoutly kneeling side by side,
As if they did intend

For past omissions to atone,
By saying endless prayers in stone.

Those mellow days are past and dim;
But generations new,

In regular descent from him,

Have filled the stately pew;

And in the same succession go

To occupy the vault below.

And now the polished, modern squire,

And his gay train appear;

Who duly to the Hall retire,

A season every year:

And fill the seats with belle and beau,

As 't was so many years ago.

Perchance, all thoughtless as they tread

The hollow-sounding floor

Of that dark house of kindred dead,
Which shall, as heretofore,