Those shades that come unbidden

From every passing cloud, With tales of care deep hidden 'Neath merry looks and proud ; The sudden gleam of pleasure

From brow and eye and lip, That tells the heart hath treasures It scarce knows how to keep.

These, these are voices given,
For soul to speak with soul,-
As true to truth and heaven,
As the needle to the pole.
I bow to wit and beauty,

I almost worship grace,-
But I owe especial duty

To an honest tell-tale face.

STANZAS

IN ANSWER TO "LET ME DIE YOUNG."

BY BENJAMIN A. G. FULLER.

OH NO! I would not wish to die

When life had but begun,

When scarce its morning light had dawned,
To see its setting sun;

I would not aught should rudely dash
The sparkling cup away,

Ere yet I'd tasted of the draught

Which deep within it lay;

Nor would I that this bud of life

Just opening into bloom,

Should blight beneath some withering blast,

And lose its sweet perfume.

Ye tell me cares and sorrows throng

As life wears on apace,

That all our infant hopes and joys

Time's touch will soon efface;
Ye say that youth's delusive dreams
Shall shortly flee away,

And vanish like the crystal dew
Before the morning ray;

That every flower which decks the path
Of childhood's blooming morn,

Shall wither 'neath some chilling frost
And leave alone the thorn.

But wish ye from its parent stem
The new-born rose to rend,
Because its beauty may not last,

Its brightness soon must end?
And would ye darkly shroud from earth
The rainbow's gorgeous light,

Because its transient hues must pass

Full quickly from the sight? Wish ye to stay the rising sun Within his ocean bed,

Lest haply ere his course be run

Some cloud should veil his head?

STANZAS.

O, wish not then thine own fresh bud

Were wrested from its stem,

The living casket broke which holds
Thy spirit's peerless gem;

I know that life's a chequered scene
Of sunlight and of shade,

With dreary Gloom and wild Despair
'Gainst Joy and Hope arrayed;
'Tis true that dark and woful storms,
At times may thickly crowd
O'er Pleasure's fair and sunny heaven,
Its brightness to enshroud.

But it is good that man should tread
The varied path of Time,

And dwell where circling seasons turn,
Beneath the changing clime;

For are not storm and calm alike

The gift of boundless Love?

And light and shade-come they not down
From the same source above?

-The new-born soul, like budding fruit,
So tender in its spring,

Demands alike the sun and storm

For its full ripening.

43

Ye say the weary spirit faints,

By feverish strife opprest,
And sighs to spread its seraph wings
For mansions of the blest ;

That yearns the soul to cast aside
This mantling fold of clay,
And wing sublime its sunward course
To hail the perfect Day;

To stretch its flight to angel-realms
Where earthly trials cease,

There in the smile of God to find
A heaven of endless Peace.

Hath then this lower world no charm,
No beauty for thine eye?
Doth nature wake in thy young breast
No wish save that to die?
Is earth to thee a gloomy home,-
A desert dark and drear,—
A 'rayless cell' where stealeth in

No beam of light to cheer?—
Oh, cast thy sorrowing eye around,-
What golden glories shine!
All echoing to the voice of God,

Proclaiming "earth is mine!"