THE OLD MAID.

WHY sits she thus in solitude? Her heart
Seems melting in her eyes' delicious blue;
And as it heaves, her ripe lips lie apart,

As if to let its heavy throbbings through.
In her dark eye a depth of softness swells,

Deeper than that her careless girlhood wore; And her cheek crimsons with the hue that tells The rich fair fruit is ripened to the core.

It is her thirtieth birthday! With a sigh

Her soul hath turned from youth's luxuriant bowers And her heart taken up the last sweet tie

That measured out its links of golden hours.

She feels her inmost soul within her stir,

With thoughts too wild and passionate to speak ;
Yet her full heart, its own interpreter,
Translates itself in silence on her cheek.

Joy's opening buds, affection's glowing flowers,
Once lightly sprang within her beaming track;

O, life was beautiful in those lost hours!
And yet she does not wish to wander back.

THE OLD MAID.

No! she but loves in loneliness to think

On pleasures past, though never more to be; Hope links her to the future but the link That binds her to the past is Memory.

From her lone path she never turns aside,
Though passionate worshippers before her fall;
Like some pure planet in her lonely pride,

She seems to soar and beam above them all.
Not that her heart is cold-emotions new,

And fresh as flowers, are with her heartstrings knit, And sweetly mournful pleasures wander through Her virgin soul, and softly ruffle it.

For she hath lived with heart and soul alive
To all that makes life beautiful and fair;
Sweet thoughts, like honey-bees, have made their hive
Of her soft bosom-cell, and cluster there.

Yet life is not to her what it hath been:

Her soul hath learned to look beyond its gloss;

And now she hovers, like a star, between

Her deeds of love, her Saviour on the cross.

Beneath the cares of earth she does not bow,
Though she hath ofttimes drained its bitter cup,
But ever wanders on with heavenward brow,
And eyes whose lovely lids are lifted up.
She feels that in that lovelier, happier sphere
Her bosom yet will, birdlike, find its mate,
And all the joys it found so blissful here
Within that spirit-realm perpetuate.

SHE IS NOT FAIR.

Yet sometimes o'er her trembling heartstrings thrill
Soft sighs for raptures it hath ne'er enjoyed ;
And then she dreams of love, and strives to fill
With wild and passionate thoughts the craving void.
And thus she wanders on - haif sad, half blest:

Without a mate for the pure lonely heart That, yearning, throbs within her virgin breast, Never to find its lovely counterpart.

AMELIA BALL WELBY.

SHE IS NOT FAIR.

SHE is not fair to outward view,
As many maidens be:

Her loveliness I never knew

Until she smiled on me;

O then, I saw her eye was bright —
A well of love, a spring of light!

But now her looks are coy and cold:
To mine they ne'er reply;
And yet I cease not to behold

The love-light in her eye.

Her very frowns are better far

Than smiles of other maidens are.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

DRINK ye to her that each loves best,
And if you nurse a flame

That's told but to her mutual breast,
We will not ask her name.

Enough, while Memory, tranced and glad,
Paints silently the fair,

That each should dream of joys he's had,
Or yet may hope to share.

THE LADY'S "YES."

Yet far, far hence be jest or boast
From hallowed thoughts so dear;
But drink to her that each loves most,
As she would love to hear.

"YES!" I answered you last night; "No!" this morning, Sir, I say. Colors seen by candle-light

Will not look the same by day.

When the viols played their best,
Lamps above, and laughs below -

Love me sounded like a jest,

Fit for Yes or fit for No.