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YOUTH AND AGE.

BY S. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ.

VERSE, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying,
Where HOPE clung feeding like a bee—
Both were mine! LIFE went a maying
With NATURE, HOPE, and POESY,
When I was young!

When I was young! ah, woeful when!
Ah, for the change 'twixt now and then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body, that does me grievous wrong,
O'er aëry cliffs and glittering sands
How lightly then it flashed along!
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide;

That ask no aid of sail or oar,

That fear no spite of wind or tide!

Nought cared this body for wind or weather, When YOUTH and I lived in't together!

Flowers are lovely, Love is flower-like,
Friendship is a sheltering tree,—

O the joys, that came down shower-like,
Of FRIENDSHIP, LOVE, and LIBERTY,
Ere I was old!

Ere I was old? ah, mournful ere,
Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!
O Youth! for years so many and sweet,
"T is known that thou and I were one-
I'll think it but a fond conceit;
It cannot be that thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet tolled;
And thou wert aye a masker bold:
What strange disguise hast now put on,
To make believe that thou art gone?

I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this altered size;
But spring-tide blossoms on thy lips,
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
Life is but thought! so think I will,
That Youth and I are house-mates still!

A SKETCH.

BY JOHN MALCOLM, ESQ.

I saw her in the morn of life-the summer of her years,

Ere time had stole a charm away, or dimmed her smile with tears; The blush of morn was on her cheek-the tender light of even Came mellowed from her azure eye, whose sphere reflected heaven.

I saw her once again, and still her form was young and fair,
But blight was with her beauty blent-its silent trace was there;
Her cheek had lost its glowing tint-her eye its brightest ray,
The change was o'er her charms, which says, the flower must fade
away.

Oh, then her tender bloom might seem the shadow of the rose, Or dying gleam of sunset-skies, scarce tinging stainless snows; And clustering round her brow serene her golden tresses lay, As sunbright clouds on summer lakes are hung at close of day.

Yet-yet once more I saw her face, and then she seemed to sleep
In bright and beautiful repose,-but, ah! too still and deep-
Far, far too deep for lovely dreams, for youthful eyes too long,
O'er which the morn may vainly break with all her light and
song!

Literary Magnet.

BY CHARLES SWAIN, ESQ.

SPIRIT of elder Time! immortal Song!

The high and the inspired have told thy worth;
Thou shedd'st around us, like the night's bright throng,

A ray of softness, gracefulness, and mirth:

Thou art, and hast been, from thine earliest birth,

A charm with man's affections intertwined;

A beauty and a glory upon earth; —

A power and a creation of the mind,

Which is itself divine-mysterious-undefined!

With the young minstrel, in his visioned moods,
Thou art a visible presence ;'-thy decree
Throngs with majestic forms his solitudes;

His feelings-thoughts—receive their life from thee:
Spirit of Song! the melancholy sea

Gives up its ancient secrets to thy hand;-
Thou speak'st the language of eternity:

Histories of long-lost years at thy command

Sound on the thousand tongues and echoes of the land!

Thou sing'st the sweetness of the moon's first hour,
When to the founts her loveliest tints are given;
Thou sing'st of love—in court, in hall, or bower;
Of those who with hard fate have nobly striven;
Thou sing'st of war-of helms and corslets riven,
Of the dread grandeur of the battle-field;
Where flees the foe, by horse and horseman driven,
Flash the sharp brands the victors madly wield,
Red in the blood of all-that strive or basely yield.

Spirit of Verse! in deepest reverence

I bow before thine ever-glorious shrine;
Thee I have loved with passion most intense;

And though I feel thy meeds can ne'er be mine,

Yet may

I

pour one low and gentle line,
A breath of song: I know it to be vain,

This cherished wish, a living wreath to twine;
'Tis not for me such honour to attain —

Some few may list, perhaps, and not condemn my strain. Literary Magnet.

TIME'S CHANGES.

I saw her once-so freshly fair,
That, like a blossom just unfolding,
She opened to life's cloudless air,

And Nature joyed to view its moulding:
Her smile, it haunts my memory yet—
Her cheek's fine hue divinely glowing-
Her rosebud mouth-her eyes of jet-
Around on all their light bestowing:
Oh! who could look on such a form,
So nobly free, so softly tender,
And darkly dream that earthly storm

Should dim such sweet, delicious splendour!

For in her mien, and in her face,

And in her young step's fairy lightness,

Nought could the 'raptured gazer trace

But beauty's glow, and pleasure's brightness.

I saw her twice-an altered charm

But still of magic richest, rarest,
Than girlhood's talisman less warm,
Though yet of earthly sights the fairest :
Close to her breast she held a child,

The very image of its mother;
Which ever to her smiling smiled,

They seemed to live but in each other:-
But matron cares, or lurking woe,

Her thoughtless, sinless looks had banished,

And from her cheek the roseate glow

Of girlhood's balmy morn had vanished;

Within her eyes, upon her brow,
Lay something softer, fonder, deeper,
As if in dreams some visioned woe

Had broke the Elysium of the sleeper.

I saw her thrice-Fate's dark decree
In widow's garments had arrayed her
Yet beautiful she seemed to be

As even my reveries portrayed her:
The glow, the glance had passed away,
The sunshine, and the sparkling glitter;
Still, though I noted pale decay,

The retrospect was scarcely bitter;
For, in their place a calmness dwelt,
Serene, subduing, soothing, holy;
In feeling which, the bosom felt

That every louder mirth is folly-
A pensiveness-which is not grief,

A stillness-as of sunset streaming

A fairy glow on flower and leaf,

Till earth looks like a landscape, dreaming.

A last time and unmoved she lay,

Beyond life's dim, uncertain river,

A glorious mould of fading clay,

From whence the spark had fled for ever! I gazed-my heart was like to burst

And, as I thought of years departed,

The years wherein I saw her first,

When she, a girl, was lightsome-hearted ;— And, when I mused on later days,

As moved she in her matron duty,

A happy mother, in the blaze

Of ripened hope, and sunny beauty,—

I felt the chill-I turned aside

Bleak Desolation's cloud came o'er me,

And Being seemed a troubled tide,

Whose wrecks in darkness swam before me!

Blackwood's Magazine.

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