To Mary in Heaven.

HOU lingering star, with lessening ray,

THOU

That lov'st to greet the early morn,

Again thou usherest in the day

My Mary from my soul was torn.

O Mary! dear departed shade!

Where is thy place of blissful rest?

See'st thou thy lover lowly laid?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

That sacred hour can I forget,

Can I forget the hallowed grove, Where by the winding Ayr we met, To live one day of parting love? Eternity will not efface

Those records dear of transports past; Thy image at our last embrace;

Ah! little thought we 't was our last!

Ayr gurgling kissed his pebbled shore,

O'erhung with wild woods, thickening green;

The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar,

Twined amorous round the raptured scene;
The flowers sprang wanton to be pressed,
The birds sang love on every spray, –
Till too, too soon, the glowing west

Proclaimed the speed of wingèd day.

Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care!
Time but the impression deeper makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.

My Mary, dear departed shade!

Where is thy place of blissful rest ?

See'st thou thy lover lowly laid?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

ROBERT BURNS.

ASTARTE.

93

W

Astarte.

WHEN the latest strife is lost, and all is done with,

Ere we slumber in the spirit and the brain,

We drowse back, in dreams, to days that life begun with,
And their tender light returns to us again.

I have cast away the tangle and the torment
Of the cords that bound my life up in a mesh;
And the pulse begins to throb that long lay dormant
'Neath their pressure; and the old wounds bleed afresh.

I am touched again with shades of early sadness,
Like the summer-cloud's light shadow in my hair;
I am thrilled again with breaths of boyish gladness,
Like the scent of some last primrose on the air.

And again she comes, with all her silent graces,
The lost woman of my youth, yet unpossessed;
And her cold face so unlike the other faces

Of the women whose dead lips I since have pressed.

The motion and the fragrance of her garments
Seem about me, all the day long, in the room :
And her face, with its bewildering old endearments,
Comes at night, between the curtains, in the gloom.

When vain dreams are stirred with sighing, near the morning,
To my own her phantom lips I feel approach;
And her smile at eve breaks o'er me without warning
From its speechless, pale, perpetual reproach.

When life's dawning glimmer yet had all the tint there
Of the orient, in the freshness of the grass,

(Ah what feet since then have trodden out the print there!) Did her soft, her silent footsteps fall and pass.

They fell lightly, as the dew falls 'mid ungathered

Meadow-flowers; and lightly lingered with the dew.
But the dew is gone, the grass is dried and withered,
And the traces of those steps have faded too.

Other footsteps fall about me, — faint, uncertain,
In the shadow of the world, as it recedes :
Other forms peer through the half-uplifted curtain
Of that mystery which hangs behind the creeds.

What is gone, is gone forever. And new fashions
May replace old forms which nothing can restore:
But I turn from sighing back departed passions

With that pining at the bosom as of yore.

I remember to have murmured, morn and even :

"Though the earth dispart these Earthlies, face from face, Yet the Heavenlies shall surely join in heaven,

For the spirit hath no bonds in time or space.

"Where it listeth, there it bloweth; all existence
Is its region; and it houseth, where it will.
I shall feel her through immeasurable distance,
And grow nearer and be gathered to her still.

"If I fail to find her out by her gold tresses,

Brows and breast and lips and language of sweet strains,
I shall know her by the traces of dead kisses,
And that portion of myself which she retains."

But my being is confused with new experience,
And changed to something other than it was;
And the Future with the Past is set at variance;
And life falters with the burdens which it has.

Earth's old sins press fast behind me, weakly wailing;
Faint before me fleets the good I have not done;
And my search for her may still be unavailing
'Mid the spirits that are passed beyond the sun.

ROBERT BULWER LYTTON.

Jump for the gentlemen, — mind your eye!
Over the table, — look out for the lamp !
The rogue is growing a little old;

-

Five years we've tramped through wind and weather,

And slept out-doors when nights were cold,

And ate and drank — and starved together.

We've learned what comfort is, I tell you!
A bed on the floor, a bit of rosin,

A fire to thaw our thumbs (poor fellow !

The paw he holds up there's been frozen), Plenty of catgut for my fiddle,

(This out-door business is bad for strings), Then a few nice buckwheats hot from the griddle, And Roger and I set up for kings!

Well, something hot, then, - we won't quarrel. He's thirsty, too, see him nod his head?

What a pity, sir, that dogs can't talk!

He understands every word that's said,

And he knows good milk from water-and-chalk.

The truth is, sir, now I reflect,

I've been so sadly given to grog,

I wonder I've not lost the respect

(Here's to you, sir!) even of my dog. But he sticks by, through thick and thin; And this old coat, with its empty pockets,

And rags that smell of tobacco and gin,

He'll follow while he has eyes in his sockets.

There is n't another creature living

Would do it, and prove, through every disaster,

So fond, so faithful, and so forgiving,

To such a miserable, thankless master!

No, sir!

see him wag his tail and grin! By George! it makes my old eyes water! That is, there's something in this gin

That chokes a fellow. But no matter!

We'll have some music, if you 're willing,

And Roger (hem! what a plague a cough is, sir!) Shall march a little. Start, you villain !

Stand straight!

Put up that paw!

'Bout face! Salute your officer! Dress! Take your rifle !

(Some dogs have arms, you see!) Now hold your Cap while the gentlemen give a trifle,

To aid a poor old patriot soldier!

March! Halt! Now show how the rebel shakes,
When he stands up to hear his sentence.
Now tell us how many drams it takes

To honor a jolly new acquaintance.

Five yelps, that's five; he's mighty knowing!
The night's before us, fill the glasses !
Quick, sir! I'm ill, — my brain is going!

Some brandy,

thank you,

there!

Why not reform? That's easily said;

it passes!

But I've gone through such wretched treatment, Sometimes forgetting the taste of bread,

And scarce remembering what meat meant,

That my poor stomach 's past reform;

And there are times when, mad with thinking,

I'd sell out heaven for something warm

To prop a horrible inward sinking.

Is there a way to forget to think?

At your age, sir, home, fortune, friends,