Page:The Lady's Book Vol. V.pdf/94

 THE DARK DAY.

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THE PARTING. I Loved as none have ever loved, Whate'er their love might be, Else would not parting with her wrung Such bitter pangsfrom me. Yet musing on what might have been, I dream my time away; 'Tis idle as my early dreams, But, ah: 'tis not so gay.

If aught of pleasure yet is mine A pleasure mixed with pain 'Tis pond'ring on the days gone by, Which ne'er can come again When she, all lovely as she's still, Blushed when I call'd her fair, And, if she never bademe hope, She ne'er bade me despair.

For thee, dear maid, I fondly sigh'd, For thee I now repine, Since Fate has sworn in solemn words, Thou never canst be mine! Yet fondly do I love thee still, Though hope ne'er mingles there; A wilder passion sways me now— 'Tis love join’d to despair.

Farewell, a world whose gayest scenes No pleasure bring to me; I'd hate its smile, did I not think It may give joy to thee. But, if thou ever lov’dst like me, No joy will light thine eye, Save transient gleams,like wintry buns, Short glancing in the sky.

THE EARLY DEAD. THE rests—but not the rest of sleep Weighs down his sunken eyes, The rigid slumber is too deep, The calm too breathless lives; Shrunk are the wandering veins that streak The fixed and marblebrow, There is no life-flush on the cheek Death1 Death ! I know thee now.

Pale King of Terrors, thou art here In all thy dark array; But 'tis the living weep and fear Beneath thine iron sway:— Bring flowers and crown the Early Dead, Their hour of bondage past; But wo, for those who mourn and dread, And linger to the last.

Spring hath its music and its bloom, And morn its glorious light; But still a shadow from the tomb, A sadness and a blight Are ever on earth's loveliest things The breath of change is there, And Deatlı his dusky banner flings O'er all that's loved and fair.

So let it be—for ne'er on earth Should man his home prepare; The spirit feels its heavenly birth And spurns at mortal care. Even when young Worth and Genius die Let no vain tears be shed, But bring bright wreaths of victory, And crown the Early Dead.

THE DARK DARK DAY.

BY JOSEPH R. CHANDLER.

It cannot have escaped the observation of a great portion of my readers, that in the wildest moments of lunacy with which those are afflicted who suffer from a derangement of intellect, there appear so many gleams of reason shooting across the darkness of the mind, that we sometimes half suspect, that a portion of the appearance of intellectual aberration may be assumed to serve some sinister motive. In watching the movements of the unhappy beings of my own species, who have been subjected to fits of hallucination, I have noticed sudden stops in their unguarded conversation, a semi reminiscence, as if they were conscious that their mind and tongue had strayed into an improper track, but as if they felt incapable of measuring the extent of their wanderings. This half recovery of ideas, has often induced in me, a wish to know whether the time in which a human being is deprived of the exercise of reason, is blank in his existence, or whether he maintains in the happiest hours of its full exercise, a recollection of his wanderings, of which shame or delicacy forbids him to speak. There is a sacredness in the misfortunes of such persons, that forbids intrusion; and those even who have been callous enough to mock at their eccentricities in the season of their unhappiness, have rarely been so destitute of the delicacy of nature, as to insult them in their reflecting hours, by reference to actions or words, for which neither God nor man will hold them accountable.

I am indebted to a deep and inextinguishable love of the scenery of my boyish days, for a look into the heart of man, when reason is not permitted to bring into order the chaos of its teeming productions.

Wandering some years since, upon the shores of Plymouth Bay, and amusing myself with the recollection of the events of childhood, which made every rock an acquaintance, I was called from my pleasing, but, perhaps, unprofitable employment, by the appearance of a stranger, who had been, till that moment, seated behind the projections of a rock. I saluted him, with the respect which his years required, and which the education of that portion of our country especially enjoins, and ventured to hope that he had found as much in the scenery before us to excite agreeable emotions as I had. “You appear to look at the bay and deeply indented shores, “said the stranger, “as one to whom they are not familiar. Novelty in scenery, always excites pleasing sensations; but it is only when