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should be improved, for we have a journey before us, and if we linger by the way, the time in which it is to be performed, will pass, and while we are yet unhoused, or unsheltered in the wilderness, the sun will set, and the shadows of night will fall upon us.

Middle age is a time of action, and it is important to lay up knowledge and wisdom in youth, that we may act well and wisely in these after days. Old age is the evening, or the winter of life. It is dimmed with the shadows of coming night, or chilled by the frost of coming death. Yet it is not a period from which we should shrink, unless, indeed, we have wasted our time, and made no preparation against the season that is to follow.

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The following fable was written by Cowper, and the moral, or meaning of it, is this; let no person be envious or jealous of another. We know, indeed, that flowers never speak or quarrel, as they are represented to do in this fable; but it is a pleasant mode of showing the folly and wickedness of that strife which the meaner passions above alluded to, may create.

WITHIN the garden's peaceful scene

Appeared two lovely foes,

Aspiring to the rank of queen,

The lily and the rose,

The rose soon redden'd into rage,

And, swelling with disdain,

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LIFE, DEATH AND ETERNITY.

A SHADOW moving by one's side,
That would a substance seem,

That is, yet is not, though descried.

Like skies beneath the stream:
A tree that's ever in the bloom,
Whose fruit is never ripe ;
A wish for joys that never come
Such are the hopes of Life.

A dark, inevitable night,

A blank that will remain ;
A waiting for the morning light,
When waiting is in vain ;

A gulf where pathway never led
To show the deep beneath;

A thing we know not, yet we dread, —
That dreaded thing is Death.

The vaulted void of purple sky
That everywhere extends,

That stretches from the dazzled eye,
In space that never ends;
A morning whose uprisen sun
No setting e'er shall see ;

A day that comes without a noon -
Such is Eternity.

THE LEAF.

Ir came with spring's soft sun and showers,
Mid bursting buds and blushing flowers;
It flourish'd on the same light stem,

It drank the same clear dews with them.
The crimson tints of summer morn
That gilded one, did each adorn.
The breeze that whisper'd light and brief
To bud or blossom, kiss'd the leaf;
When o'er the leaf the tempest flew,
The bud and blossoin trembled too.

But its companions pass'd away,
And left the leaf to lone decay.
The gentle gales of spring went by,
The fruits and flowers of summer die.
The autumn winds swept o'er the hill,
And winter's breath came cold and chill.

The leaf now yielded to the blast,

And on the rushing stream was cast.

Far, far it glided to the sea,

And whirled and eddied wearily,

Till suddenly it sank to rest,

And slumber'd in the ocean's breast.

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Thus passes like the leaves away,
As wither'd and as lost as they.
Beneath the parent roof we meet
In joyous groups, and gaily greet
The golden beams of love and light,
That kindle to the youthful sight.

But soon we part, and one by one,
Like leaves and flowers, the group is gone.
One gentle spirit seeks the tomb,
His brow yet fresh with childhood's bloom.
Another treads the paths of fame,
And barters peace to win a name.
Another still tempts fortune's wave,
And seeking wealth, secures a grave.
The last grasps yet the brittle thread-
Though friends are gone and joy is dead,
Still dares the dark and fretful tide,
And clutches at its power and pride,
Till suddenly the waters sever,
And like the leaf he sinks forever.

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