THE BILLET-DOUX.

BY MISS L. E. LANDON.

I.

YES! sweet letter, I will keep thee
Years-alas! it may be years;
Midnight's lonely hour shall steep thee
With the tenderest, truest tears.
'Tis his last. his farewell letter,

Doomed 'mid distant lands to rove;

He may find a brighter, better,

Never a more faithful love.

II.

Yet to such vain fear replying,
When the days pass long and lone;

Still my heart, on his relying,

For his truth will pledge its own. Ah! the love from childhood cherished

Links a sweet and household tie ;

If such old affection perished,

All life's early hopes must die

III.

He will think, when summer weather
Lights some foreign forest glade,
How we used to roam together

In the greenwood's golden shade.
When strange flowers are round him blowing,
Purple in their eastern pride;
He'll recall the wild ones growing

By his native river's side.

IV.

On some stranger's hearth when gazing
With a home-awakened heart,
He'll but see the wood fire blazing
Where we wont to sit apart.
All life's dearest links enthrall thee,

Wheresoever thou may'st roam;
Every thought that can recall me,
Must recall, too, youth and home.

V.

Yes! I see the gliding motion
Of his vessel on the deep;
Oh thou far and fearful ocean,
Carefully my loved one keep.
Ah, ye white sails slowly sweeping,
Like the wings of some vast bird,
Stay one moment for my weeping:

Let my last farewell be heard.

VI.

Tell him how each morning breathing
Shall my constant prayer ascend ;
How the earliest flowers enwreathing,
I shall at our altar bend.

May St. Geneviève watch o'er him,
Every night I'll seek her shrine;
May she to his home restore him,
To a home that will be mine.

THE SILENT EVE.

BY MISS E. L. MONTAGU.

I WOULD the air had something less of calm!
Far better could I bear the rush of storms:
The voice of earth to me hath most of balm
When strong convulsion her lone breast deforms.
This trance-like hush my sinking spirit awes,
Each tree each leaf, is movėless to mine eye,
As if great Nature made a sudden pause

To list the heaving of a mortal's sigh!
Oh! for the thunder's crash-the forest's roar-
The wild and boundless waves' unceasing roll;
Or direst sounds e'er earth or ocean bore,
To chase this sickening silence from my soul;
This death-like calm, that mocks the undying breast-
This stillness of the grave-without its rest!