WHAT IS LIFE?

Go, ask of proud morality,

To teach thee what is life,

"A thing that seems, yet cannot be,

A tissue all of mockery,

And sin, and pain, and strife."
Or hear the meek and holy sage,—
For man's behoof 'tis given,

And madly though the tempest rage,
We journey on through every stage,
Life is the road to heaven."

Fast fade the hues on Youth's gay cheek,
And soon its joys are over,

The voice will cease the mind to speak,
The heart grow cold, the feelings weak,
Till age arrests the rover.

Ah! why then blame the fancy's play,
The elastic spirit's gladness,
Which ever hopes a brighter day,

And lightly carols care away,

And will not muse of sadness.

ADAM AND EVE IN PARADISE.
(From the German of A. Schreiber.)

Where elm and purple vine embrace,
And spring with zephyrs fills the air,
Where golden honours load each tree,
And flowers need no fostering care.

They rest in slumbers calm and light,
Pure and by evil yet untried,
While angels hover o'er the couch

Of those their fondness seeks to guide.

Their only bliss affection's tie,

One pleasure and one heart they share,

For were their Eden but a waste,

Yet would love's flowers be blooming there.

The above is the description of a picture in the gallery of Munich.

"Omnes eodem cogimur."-HOR. LIB. II., ODE 23.

Quickly, quickly has he gone,

Him whom late we looked upon,

Death has now removed;

Vain the aged parents' tears,

Vain the anguish, which appears

In faces best beloved.

Colour from his cheek has fled,

Now he in his silent bed

Rests in peaceful state;

Blessed is his quiet sleep,

Let not friends too sadly weep

For his sudden fate.

May each beauteous flow'r of earth,

O'er his youthful grave have birth,
Shade his gentle head;

Him whom late we looked upon,

From this sinful world has gone,

Early has he fled.

EVENING.

How sweet the dreamy calm of closing eve,

When summer zephyrs sigh;

And love and hope their bland enchantments weave;
While, vesper like, the forest minstrels breathe

Their plaintive melody.

Robed in sweet radiance, the evening star

Pours forth its timid light;

Like some pure spirit thron'd in bliss, afar

Remote from scenes where worldly sorrows are,
It heralds in the night.

Softly upon the twilight's fairy flower,

The pearly dew drops weep ;

Repose steals over every tree and bower,

And even misery's mute, but with'ring power

Is hushed-as infant's sleep.

ST. AUSTIN AND SON, PRINTERS, HERTford.

D.

J. E.

THE

HAILEYBURY OBSERVER.

Liberius si

Dixero quid, si fortè jocosius, hoc mihi juris

Cum venià dabis.

Hor. Lib. 1. Sat. iv. 103.

OCTOBER 30, 1844.

The pale descending year, yet pleasing still,
A gentler mood inspires.

THOMSON.

It is a pleasant feeling, to meet our readers once again; again to launch our little bark upon the waters,-yet not unmixed with sadness: the sere leaf and the faded bough tell of the changes which time bringeth on, and with the renewal of our duties, comes the remembrance of some who brightened our pages, or cheered our labors, a few months since, but who have left us now.

From the present, as from an eminence, do we look before us and behind. In the past appear our brothers, on whose labours we have entered, our brothers, in youthful spirit and feeling, in wild dreams and high longings, in mirth and song; from their thoughts and their musings flowed the first papers of the present work, and though a very few short years have passed since then, the waves of ocean which part us from them, seem as the waves of time, and we feel almost a veneration for our editorial ancestors. The future is before us; our place will soon be yielded to the stranger,-aye, when wan autumn comes again, who shall be here to greet him? Some on the wide sea in ships, and some in a far country; some one, perchance-who knows? -in that still more distant land, from whose "bourn no traveller returns."

Regarded as a bond, then, between you, dear readers, and us, and between those past on and those to come, and us both, our Magazine assumes a more interesting character. Time carries us all forward to our destinies; we must mingle with the crowded world, seeking, in ambitious manhood, the victor-wreath of Fame; yet shall we all look back with a pleasurable memory to the days when, in the freshness of early life, we interchanged the thoughts and visions of the heart-be they the sober musings of the grave, or the joyous outpourings of the gladsome and gay.

NO. VIL-VOL. III.

Y

Need we urge you to assist our labours largely and freely? Need we request you to add more links to our chain of union? We are certain you feel too much as we feel, to allow this Magazine to sink for With every hope that we may

want of aid; we will say no more.

assist in beguiling a few hours in the long evenings now so rapidly advancing, we leave our present number in your hands.

A LEGEND

CONCERNING A MARVELLOUS ADVENTURE WHICH BEFEL OUR

VILLAGE SEXTON.

I.

THE Sexton is going to the village churchyard
With his lantern, and pickaxe, and spade;
For ere morning break, and the lark be heard,
A grave for the dead must be made.

Oh, 'tis gloomy and dark, for no moon is alight,
The winds blow shrill, the rain patters around,
Alack, that upon so stormy a night,

The Sexton must hie to the burial ground.

Through shower, through tempest, he trudged the while
Right manfully forth on his road,

Until at the door of that goodly pile

'Yclept the Duke's Head, had he stood.

II.

Oh cheerily each well-lit room

Flung forth its blaze athwart the gloom,
The song and shout, as he drew near,
Fell merrily on the Sexton's ear;
All open stood that well-known door,
And threshold often crossed before.
Say, must he now that threshold pass?
Must he now spurn the social glass?
Ne'er did that threshold seem t' invite
So sweetly as it did that night;
The signboard, that rocked to and fro
At each fresh gust of wind, I vow
Ne'er clanked so merrily as now;

And each clank it gave said, or seemed to say
Step in, 'tis not very much out of the way.

III.

Now the road was long and dreary,
And the Sexton wet and weary,
So said he, "To please St. Swithin
Shall I linger here, while within
Mine host is selling beer and ale,
Porter and spirit by retail;

I know the mixture to my taste,
And after all, there's no great haste.”
Beneath the porch our hero bent,
And to the bar he straightway went,
Nor tap nor parlour loved he e'er
So dearly as he loved that bar,
Where my landlady sits in state
In elbow-chair, with chalk and slate,
In all the full-blown dignity

Oh fain would I pourtray so fair a bower,
Wer't not, alas! beyond my feeble power;
To say the truth, my Pegasus refuses
To stir another step without the muses!
At Helicon I sue, but each muse swears,
Then all in concert I'm no child of their's,
And say, moreover, that 'twas monstrous rude
In me, thus uninvited, to intrude.

Then courteous reader, pity take, and show it,
To one who would, but cannot be a poet.

N.B. My Pegasus for sale, 'twill suit the humble, If ridden carefully, not apt to stumble.

V.

Into this earthly paradise

The Sexton straightway sped,

And little recks he now the storm

That rages over head.

There's rum and water by his side,
A fact we know full well,

Since "our own correspondent" said
'Twas rum-he knew the smell.

Come pledge me, landlord, in the bowl,

Hiatus-Valde deflendus?