THE POETRY OF AGE.

It is a praiseworthy effort of every-day philosophy to extract from an uncomfortable subject something of that hidden spirit of truth and beauty which is visible in the higher orders of Nature; and since Age is an evil, in the opinion of mankind, more devastating in its effects than the simoom, or the avalanche, or any other dispute between the elements and the surface of the earth, we would suggest some few topics of consolation on that stage of existence, which is as incidental to civilisation as it is to savage life, and as closely allied to happiness as it is to misery. If old age were considered in its true light,-not as the season when the frame is weary and satiated, and selfishness has preyed upon the few good feelings that have been left from the contest with the world; but as the full time, when the various faculties have been tried and proved, it would be looked upon as the calm eventide of the busy day, the garner of experience which has been gathered with toil and trouble, the winter whose bright spring is yet to come. But thus it cannot be; for while the motive of man's reluctance to appear old and decrepid may arise from personal vanity, the instinctive dread of age is closely connected with the best feelings of a woman's heart. A wife may watch the furrows on her husband's brow, and yet not believe them to be produced by age to her affectionate heart he may still appear in the proud maturity of life; her looking-glass gives back her own altered face, and she shrinks from the cold or careless glance that tells her she is guilty of becoming aged. But if there be truth in this, let her also remember that the attraction of mind to mind will exist to the last, and while esteem and respect remain, if one small link of that wondrous chain of love be broken, the rest will be but more firmly riveted by time.

There are many peculiarities about old age that are lost sight of, in the thirst for observation in all that concerns youth. Watch the thoughts of an aged person attentively, and you will see how little they are occupied by retrospection. It is not that he would say with Fontenelle,- "Had I again to begin my career, I would do as I have done," but it is, that the powerful impulses of life no longer existing within him, they have been forgotten

in all but their effects. It frequently occurs that in the listlessness and indifference of age, we find no trace of the mental activity and energy of character that has once existed. The old woman at the door of the almshouse who has retailed the last particle of gossip to her next neighbour, may have passed through an ordeal which a diplomatist would have shrunk from, had the ploughshare been of gold, and the lookers-on princes. Let us turn then to what are called, so emphatically, old women; not to those who, having been described as passées some twenty years before, are in the last stage of inventive despair, but to some who have yielded at discretion to the conqueror Time, and are wrinkled and withered and grey-haired, and have not endeavoured to appear otherwise. They are the type of that change that passes over every created being whose existence is prolonged beyond maturity. They fare alike with the insect and the bird; the eye grows dim, the wing droops, the hum of one and the song of the other is heard more faintly; but let the span of life be what it may, one brief day or "fourscore years and ten," the gradual decay comes in the same form, and is productive of the like result.

No man looks with a less kindly eye upon his brother or his friend because age is creeping stealthily over him; and if woman could feel that she were regarded with equal lenity by her master, the fearful doubt would be dispelled, that sometimes clings too closely to her heart, and with it the only drawback to the consideration of age in the light in which it has been placed by Providence; for it has been hallowed by the voices of young children, and the reverence of manhood from the patriarchal times; and sad and lonely is the fate of him who has no one in this wide world to minister unto, and revere.

One of the happiest descriptions of extreme age is to be found in a play written by Nathaniel Lee in the year 1680. It is a gem that will survive the exaggerated frame-work in which it was placed, but, like much of the poetry of the seventeenth century, is now but little known :

"Of no distemper, of no blast he died,

But fell like Autumn fruit that mellow'd long-
Even wondered at because he dropt no sooner ;
Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years,
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more,
TILL, LIKE A CLOCK, WORN OUT WITH EATING TIME,
THE WHEELS OF WEARY Life at last STOOD STILL."

A. P.

[Charles II. of Spain, a short time before his death, visited the burial chamber in the Church of St. Lawrence, where lie interred the bodies of the Kings of Spain and the Royal Family, all ranged round the tall black crucifix. He caused the coffin of his much-loved wife, Marie Louise de Bourbon, to be opened, and there-such was the skill of the embalmer—she lay unchanged before him, in all her remarkable and well-remembered beauty, after an interment of eighteen years. This occurrence finally unsettled the mind of the hypocondriac king, who died shortly after.]

Oh! let no sound of merriment
Upon the breezes swell,

But the low and smothered wailing,
And heavy funeral bell;
Oh! let no martial trumpet

Thrill thro' the summer air;
Let none the warrior's harness,
Nor courtier's vestments wear;
Around the fair and valiant
Let sable garments fall;
And sound the solemn dirges,
And gather up the pall;
And banish all the passions
That crowd this mortal life,
And make the heart a battle-field
Of long and deadly strife;
And banish all the laughing hopes
That fill the breast of youth,-
Those glories of life's morning path,
Born of a fond untruth.

A courtier-train is leaving

Th' Escurial's palace-gate-
'Tis not for war nor joyance,
They go not forth in state-
The noon of day glares o'er them,
Yet smoking brands they bear,
And on each other's faces

In silent horror stare.

A monarch goes before them,
The king of kingdoms three-
Castille, Leon, and Aragon

Do homage at his knee-
For him the golden galleons

Plough through the Western Main; And foul with blood, and black with fire, The New World bows to Spain !

A king there goes before them!
His brow with care is ploughed ;
The agony that pales his cheek
Breaks forth in wailings loud:-
"My days are fast departing
In bitterness and pain,
Yet will I look upon her,

Gaze on her once again

Nor God nor man shall turn me,
Nor awe nor fear dismay;

'Tis passion, not affection,

That fades with life away!

Louise, I'll gaze upon thee

Now Death hath worked his will,

Thy white shroud wrapped about theeAll lying dark and still;

And those who sought thy presence,

Obsequious and gay,

Ay! those shall pay thee homage,

And grace thy Court to-day! Come on!-why loiter ye?-come on!

The high-born, fair, and brave—

My Queen a Court is holding-
A Court within her grave!

The portals of St. Lawrence
Received the trembling crowd,
The shadowy aisles resounded
With prayer and anthem loud;
'Twas now the shout of madness,
'Twas now the sob of woe,
While hurrying swiftly onward,
Down to the vaults below!
Down to that funeral chamber
Where sleep the Spanish Kings,
O'er whom the tall black crucifix
Spreads out its night-like wings-

Strange type of Hope undying,

That lamp which lights the dead!
The cross, kept in the sepulchre,
A vigil dark and dread!

"My Queen! my love!"-the Monarch
Rushed forward to the bier-
And laid his face upon her,

With love that knew no fear!
And the hot tears rolled quickly
Down o'er the senseless breast;
And sobs and sighs broke sadly
Upon the tomb's calm rest.
"Louise, hadst thou been living,
Thy hand would press my
head;
Thy slender hand would wipe away
The bitter tears I shed!
Thy tones of chastened music
Would breathe into mine ear
Of holiest, sweetest tenderness
The words I pine to hear!
For who, like thee, could banish
The gloom that shades this brain ?-
For who, like thee, could win me
To life and love again?

Thou wast the pure, bright angel,
To whom God gave in care,
The worn and wayward spirit,
The stricken heart I bear-
Why did HE take thee from me,

To throne and crown above?
Why left HE me behind thee,
Forlorn of hope and love?
Sole flow'r of my life's wilderness,
Star of my clouded Heaven,
Had I more grief at losing thee
Or joy when thou wast given?
I scarce dare look upon thee"-
The Monarch raised his head,
And gazing, wildly uttered,

One long cry-strange and dread;
For there she lay before him,

Unblemished by the tomb,

As young, and fair, and beautiful,
As in her life and bloom;

Her hands were clasped upon her breast,
As in some holy rite,