Page:Sarah Sheppard - L. E. L.pdf/28

 may shrink from their declaration; and these are the truths which are so often eloquently exposed in the poems of L. E. L. If they induce melancholy, at all events that must be a wise melancholy whose tendency is thoughtfulness.

The young and inexperienced, too, might learn wisdom in the midst of enjoyment (a combination somewhat rare on earth), would they but read these poems in a right spirit. Are they expecting fame, as with the might of a Creator's voice, to embody happiness? Time will soon set his seal to the mournful truth of the poet's experience,— Oh dream of fame, what hast thou been to me, But the destroyer of life's calm content!" Or is it in pleasure they are seeking an enduring portion? Let the sea of worldly enjoyment encircle them with sparkling tide; and as each billow bursts into foam at their touch and sinks back into the ocean of forgetfulness, let them listen to every receding wave, whose deep-toned murmuring seems to say of happiness—"It is not in me," while blending its chorus with the poet's truthful music,— Mortal, nor pleasure, nor wealth nor power Are more than the toys of a passing hour; Earth's flowers bear the foul taint of earth, Lassitude, sorrow, are their's by their birth: One only pleasure will last—to fulfil With some shadow of good the Holy One's will; The only steadfast hope to us given, Is the one which looks in its trust to heaven." Golden Violet.

Far be it from us to sanction a spirit of complaint, a disposition to morbid misanthropy, which looks on nature and society with the jaundiced eye of discontent or disappointment, and which speaks of all