A. C. SWINBURNE. Studies in Song.

PAST AND FUTURE.

O PAST, old Past, fair life and sweet, long ended, Why backward wilt thou draw my face, and twine

My love with that from which my feet have wended,

And whence I should go onward, nor repine?

Drear are these moors, and yonder, high upheaping Their brown bleak heads, the mountains fold my way;

But still in sunlight is that sweet plain sleeping, And thither backward still my heart will stray.

Farewell-alas, farewell, old life lived over !

I face yon track through night's uncertainty. Take nie, dark heights, black mists that wheel and hover

I must tramp on, or here lie down and die.
G. F. ARMSTRONG.

LONG for my birthday I've waited,
All of a sudden it's here!
Then I am petted and fêted,

One royal day in the year!
Lessons no more are imparted,

Pleasure each moment must bring; No one is half so hard-hearted

As to refuse me a thing!

Poems Written for a Child. [A.] (Strahan.)

ONE-AND-TWENTY.
LONG-EXPECTED one-and-twenty,
Lingering year, at length is flown:
Pride and pleasure, pomp and plenty,
Great..., are now your own.

Loosen'd from the minor's tether,
Free to mortgage or to sell,
Wild as wind, and light as feather,
Bid the sons of thrift farewell.

Call the Betsies, Kates, and Jennies,

All the names that banish care;
Lavish of your grandsire's guineas,
Show the spirit of an heir.

All that prey on vice and folly
Joy to see their quarry fly:
There the gamester, light and jolly;
There the lender, grave and sly.
Wealth, my lad, was made to wander,
Let it wander as it will;

Call the jockey, call the pander,

Bid them come and take their fill.
When the bonny blade carouses,
Pockets full, and spirits high-
What are acres? what are houses?
Only dirt, or wet or dry.

Should the guardian friend or mother
Tell the woes of wilful waste;
Scorn their counsel, scorn their pother,
You can hang or drown at last.
SAMUEL JOHNSON.

MY BIRTHDAY.

"My birthday!"-What a different sound
That word had in my youthful years!
And now,
each time the day comes round,
Less and less white its mark appears.
When first our scanty years are told,
It seems like pastime to grow old;
And, as youth counts the shining links
That time around him binds so fast,
Pleased with the task he little thinks

How hard that chain will press at last!
Vain was the man, and false as vain,

Who said-" Were he ordain'd to run His long career of life again,

He would do all that he had done."
Ah! 'tis not thus the voice that dwells
In sober birthdays speaks to me;
Far otherwise-of time it tells

Lavish'd unwisely, carelessly—
Of counsel mock'd-of talents, made
Haply for high and pure designs,
But oft, like Israel's incense, laid
Upon unholy, earthly shrines!
All this it tells, and could I trace

The imperfect picture o'er again,
With power to add, retouch, efface,

The lights and shades, the joy and pain,
How little of the past would stay!
How quickly all should melt away.
All but that freedom of the mind

Which hath been more than wealth to me,— Those friendships in my boyhood twin'd,

And kept till now unchangingly;

And that dear home, that saving ark,
Where Love's true light at last I found,

Cheering within, when all grows dark,
And comfortless, and stormy round!
THOMAS MOORE.

Give Youth and Hope a parting tear-
Look onward with a placid brow—
Hope promised but to bring us here,

And Reason takes the guidance nowOne backward look-the last-the last! One silent tear-for Youth is past!

Who goes with Hope and Passion back? Who comes with me and Memory on? Oh, lonely looks the downward track — Joy's music hush'd-Hope's roses gone! To Pleasure and her giddy troop

Farewell, without a sigh or tear! But heart gives way, and spirits droop,

To think that Love may leave us here! Have we no charm when Youth is flownMidway to death left sad and lone!

Yet stay!-as 'twere a twilight star
That sends its thread across the wave,
I see a brightening light, from far,
Steal down a path beyond the grave!
And now-bless God!-its golden line
Comes o'er-and lights my shadowy way-
And shows the dear hand clasp'd in mine!
But, list what those sweet voices say!
"The better land's in sight,

And, by its chastening light,

All love from life's midway is driven

Save hers whose clasped hand will bring thee on to heaven."

N. P. WILLIS. Poetical Works. (Routledge.)

I ASK and wish not to appear
More beauteous, rich, or gay :
Lord, make me wiser every year,
And better every day.

CHARLES LAMB. Poems and Essays: Chandos Classics. (Warne.)

THIRTY-FIVE.

"The years of a man's life are threescore and ten." Он, weary heart! thou'rt half-way home! We stand on life's meridian heightAs far from childhood's morning come, As to the grave's forgetful night.

A BIRTHDAY AWAY FROM HOME. DEAR mother! dost thou love me yet? Am I remember'd in my home? When those I love for joy are met,

Does some one wish that I would come?