Yet high are the hopes of a being so frail,

When his eye becomes dim and his cheek waxes pale,
That his spirit will rise, when the struggle is o'er,
Where Love is eternal, and Sin is no more.

LAMENTATION.

Lament, my sad friend, for the days that are over,
And dread in the future, more ills than the past,
For, (as I was once told by a doctor in Dover,)
The toughest of grinders to ache are the last.

O had we but lived in the fabulous ages,

When men were robust, and contented and true, When youth was instructed in virtue by sages, And criminal judges had nothing to do!

Or in those later times that we see in romances,
When honor pertained to the brave and the strong,
When lords for the right periled breaking of lances,

Which ladies would smile on, though broke for the wrong!

O for that era of Beauty and Banners,

When minstrels, like us, would win favor and fame! When, if morals were easy, the better the manners, Than in folks, that it might be a libel to name.

Let us buy a new beaver to wear in the gallery;
Let us jest, for 't is wiser to laugh than to cry;
Get an office, and spend every cent of the salary,
And be happy to-day, for to-morrow we die.

66

PURPUREOS SPARGAM FLORES."

Wreaths for the Brave!

for their country that die!

Love shall bend over the spot where they lie!

Honor shall guard the repose of their grave,
And Liberty hallow it:

- Wreaths for the Brave!

Wreaths for the Wise! - for them Science shall weep,
And Art shall embellish the tomb where they sleep;
They lived for the future, their fame never dies,
'Tis uttered in blessings:- Wreaths for the Wise!
Wreaths for the Just! - while the names we revere
Of the Faithful and Just that too early are here,
Let us copy their life as we honor their dust;
Justice demands from us Wreaths for the Just.

Wreaths for the True! - though the garlands we spread
May soothe not the rest of the good that are dead;
Yet the names are so dear, and the graves are so few,
It gives joy to the living: Wreaths, wreaths for the True!

"TO-MORROW, AND TO-MORROW, AND TO-MORROW."

"I intend to be better and wiser To-morrow;

Of the Future one day I may venture to borrow,
As the Future will furnish the fund to repay

The twenty-four hours, - besides, what is a day?

'Tis a life; if you look at the course of the last,'
You will see the image of all that is past;

You will see, Mr. Scroggins, the difference, too,
Between what you have done and intended to do.

If your duty To-day you perceive and neglect,
How great a reform may To-morrow expect?

Look back on the past, and pronounce, Scroggins, whether
A duty delayed is not shirked altogether.

'Hell is paved, saith the Tuscan, with righteous intents;
And if safe 'tis to prophesy future events,

We may say that such folks as I, Scroggins, and you,
Will give Beelzebub's pavers a great deal to do.

Whate'er you intend to perform or to pay,

-

I counsel you, Scroggins, to do it to-day;
Nor drag out a life of dependence and sorrow,
The slave of To-day and the dupe of To-morrow.

STRING BEANS.

Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit.

Days of my youth! I have left ye behind: 'Tis thirty long years since I quitted my teens, Yet Memory nothing recalls to my mind

So pleasant as this, the first mess of String Beans.

O Fortune! what tricks have you played upon me!
What a desert of sorrow and pain intervenes,

Since I rode the old charger, that little could see,
To plough in the corn and the patch of String Beans!

O Roger! O Catherine! where are ye now?

There's a stone in the church-yard,— I dread what it means; And where is old Dobbin, and where is the cow?

And where (0 my soul!) is the patch of String Beans?

I have rambled through life, with its pleasures and cares, And viewed both its joyous and desolate scenes;

Yet I look back, aghast, that so little appears That has given more joy than the patch of String Beans.

THE MOWER.

I'm a father of ploughmen, a son of the soil,

And my life never tires, for my pleasure is toil;

There are worse stains to bear than the sweat on the brow,
And worse things to follow, my friend, than the plough.

What is Sorrow? I think such a matter there is,
But to me it showed never its ill-looking phiz.
What is Want? To be idle, to steal, and to lie.
And Sickness? The doctor can tell you,

not I.

I suppose I must come to the scratch, though, at last,
For Time has a scythe that would cut down a mast;
Though now on the borders of threescore-and-ten,
Your corn rs I cut, and can do it again.

If the best of you willing to try with me feels,
Let him strip to the cotton, and look to his heels, -
Through the clover and timothy look at my swarth,
Like the wake of a frigate, stand out of my path!

FASHION.

Man, according to an old truism, is an imitating animal; and the transatlantic biped is very apt to form his actions upon models that exist over the water. There are fashions in all things; in opinions as well as in dress. Generally, the peculiar customs of a country are founded on some sufficient local reason; but too often the fashion of one land is introduced into another in which the reason cannot exist. In dress the fashion is pretty well established to be the same throughout Europe and America. There are some little differences, in shape and size, but the garments are the same. The Dutchman's trowsers may swell to a broader size than the Englishman's, and the Quaker's brim occupies more space than the dandy's. The difference is mainly in quantity.

There are some imported modes of action, however, which editors, as the general censors, and readers as the public, should be held to oppose. In London, the fashionable class are a large and important body, — the fourth estate, at least, in the realm. In that great Babel of abominations, which extends a day's walk along the Thames, it has become a custom of fashion to keep different hours from those which are kept by labor. Fashion rises every day, a little before noon, and midnight is the time, therefore, when it is most awake. At this solemn church-yard hour, the streets are as light as gas can make them, and there is a constant rattle of coaches and throngs of people. A ball, then, would commence in London, at ten at night, if not much later; and this is no hardship to any who attend it, all of whom get their daily rest after the rising of the sun. This, to use repetition, is in London no hardship; for it is a common custom. But in Boston it is a hardship, a shame, and a sin. Few people here can live without daily labor of head or hand, and it is most

preposterous to dress for a ball after nine o'clock in a winter's night. It is just the time when the sufferer should have his book to read an hour before going to bed; and it is just the season when, if disturbed, he will be most apt to be cynical. Yet he may have an invitation to a route, which is, as he is placed, as imperative as a precept of the chief justice, and he is obliged to hold himself in strait coat and silk stockings, when he longs for slippers and night-gown, or he is bound to be civil when he has a greater tendency to be sleepy. The matron, too, perhaps the very one who gives this shock to the social system, - has her own daily cares; and probably, on the morning after, has to overlook her help in preparing breakfast at the usual hour of eight; an hour when the titled dames of London, whom she aspires to imitate, have hardly retired to their pillows, and whose sleep is not broken till the meridian.

AGRICULTURE.

There are few employments more dignified than whacking bushes. Cincinnatus is the greatest name in Roman history, only because he was, after his victories, a farmer in a small way, subsisting chiefly on turnips of his own raising. The old Roman of the present day, also, seems to gain some favor with a part of the public from his agricultural pursuits at the Hermitage. May he have a speedy and a happy return to them!

The farmer is a lucky man; he is subject to few cares, diseases, or changes. He holds in fee a certain part of this planet, in the shape of a wedge, or inverted pyramid, running from the surface down to the centre, together with the atmosphere above it; and if any man should build a tower overhanging his line by a single brick, though a thousand feet in the air, it may be abated as a nuisance. It is a great thing to have a legal and equitable title to a portion of the earth, to cultivate it, and to owe a support to the application of strength, rather than the misapplication of wit. The farmer is independent of all but Providence, he calls no man

master.