Page:The Ladies' Cabinet of Fashion, Music & Romance 1832.pdf/102

Rh Yet stay your march to greatness, Your breath has been a fate! Where is the peaceful cottage now? Its hearth is desolate! Upon that door no longer The twilight shadows fall; In a shroudless grave the old man sleeps Beneath the ruin'd wall. Ye tore away his strong ones On the battle field they lie : The mother pined in her grief away, And laid her down to die. That form of seraph sweetness, Where the eye enraptured gazed, Is a piteous wreck in its loveliness, For the lost one's brain is crazed. "Twere better she were sleeping  Within the silent tomb; For never more to her frenzied eye,   The flowers of life shall bloom! And these are 'mong the trophies,   That build ye up a name With blood and tears, ye conquerors!   Ye purchase empty fame!

reflecting person who has received his schooling at a large academical establishment, such as that of B—— in Yorkshire, where it was my lot to be placed for four successive years, will, by the time that twenty or thirty more have sped, find ample materials for the exercise of his mind, and the marvel which the unravelling of individual lives excites, if he but take cognizance of the histories of his schoolmates. Not a small proportion, most probably, will have dropped into the grave, some of whom gave excellent promise of future eminence for worth or talent; and the inscrutable ways of Providence will thence become the theme of meditation, the sadness of which exercise can alone be alleviated by a full perception of the truth that here man hath no abiding place, no assured lease. Others of his early associates may be contemplated, who have made shipwreck of their prospects, and squandered away their opportunities, till at length, they have become a bye-word, for some of this infatuated class are mere sots, encumbrances on the earth, offering a woful contrast to the sprightliness of their youth, the activity of their original nature. But to turn to a brighter side, there will be within the circle of school-room association, or boarding-house com-