"Welcome, sweet maid! we 're friends again,

Never to quarrel more." "Agreed," said she, "give me thy hand As good friends as before.

"Where hast thou been? This whole, long year.
I have sought thee up and down,
Early and late, at home, abroad,
In country and in town."

Full well I knew 't could not be Truth
Who held so wild discourse,
So with a frown and stern "Begone!"
Shook Falsehood off by force;

And onward walked, with Nature's face
And mine own thoughts content,
And none to tell, or true or false,

Which way it was I went.

Rosamond, Rathgar Road, Dublin, Sept. 27, 1859.

PHILOSOPHY'S LABOUR LOST.

"I DON'T mean to disturb the thorns and weeds, Only

to sow the fallow with good seeds."

Entering the field I said, and scattered wide,

In plenteous showers, the grain on every side.
The thorns and weeds outgrew and choked the grain;
I lost my labour, and, too late, saw plain,
Where error, vice, and prejudice abound,
In vain Philosophy would sow the ground.
ROSAMOND, March 16, 1860.

"Glaubt mir, es ist kein Mährchen, die Quelle der Jugend, sie rinnet Wirklich und immer. Ihr fragt, wo? In der dichtenden Kunst."

SCHILLER.

ETERNAL youth cannot be and was never,
In spite of all thou say'st, beloved Schiller!
Nay, even thine own sweet Muse's cheek already
Shows wrinkles, and her golden locks turn gray;
Live on, indeed, she shall and must, for ever,
But men even now begin to call her, Sibyl.
ROSAMOND, March 14, 1860.

"Fresh fish from Helicon! who 'll buy? who 'll buy?"

LORD BYRON, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.

"FRESH fish from Helicon! who 'll buy? who 'll buy?"
Through London's streets I heard Lord Byron cry,
And, curious, stopped, and asked his lordship where
He found on Helicon a thing so rare,

So very rare as fish must always be
Upon a mountain, high above the sea.
His lordship, smiling civilly, replied,

That high on Hippocrene's steep mountain side
There was a fountain, Helicon by name,
Whence fish to market in great plenty came,

And asked me would I have some, and when I

No cash had, left me, and went on to cry

"Fresh fish from Helicon! who 'll buy? who 'll buy?" ROSAMOND, Febr. 29, 1860.

LOOK circumspect round you before Danger comes; When Danger is come stand to arms, beat your drums; When Danger's gone by, you may play with your thumbs, But your play must be short, for, behold! Danger comes, Like a race-horse, again stand to arms; beat your drums: Life's a porridge of wormwood and sweet sugar-plums. ROSAMOND, May 13, 1860.

THE TWO LOOKING-GLASSES.

WI
ITH two looking-glasses, the wise man of Greece said,
Most bountiful Nature supplied us;

One to show us what passes in other men's hearts;

This glass it's placed queerly

In our own hearts what passes we see
Which is placed just as queerly

inside us.

in the other,
outside us;

And, of all places, where in the world do you think?
Why, deep in our friends' hearts --

ROSAMOND, March 16, 1860.

beside us.

"Das Gemeine geht klanglos zum Orkus hinab."

SCHILLER.

LIKE weeds which a gardener throws out on the dunghill, The vulgar go down, unremembered, to Orcus;

But we weep the high-minded, and Poetry gathers,

And encloses their bones in a cerement of amber.

With such cerement of amber I'd fain wrap thy bones round,
Highest-minded of poets, my own beloved Schiller,
Did I not know thy bones more enduring than amber,
More hallowed thy bier than the tears of thy poet.

ROSAMOND, March 16, 1860.

IN all things else thou mayst agree
With thy best friend, and he with thee;
In all things else but one alone
Guess, if thou canst, what is that one.

"Nay, in two things I can't agree
With my best friend, nor he with me:
First, I were out and out a fool,

Myself to measure by the rule

With which he 's pleased to measure me;
And next, I'll die ere I agree

To buy my friend at his own price

Say, haven't I read your riddle, nice?”
ROSAMOND, May 10, 1860.

Anniversary of my mother's death.

FOR what our pleasures, and our pains for what,
But occupation till Decay's slow hand,
Assiduous, shall have made sufficient room
Among our foresires' crowded bones for ours?
Full fifteen years ago this very day,

The longest lived of two loved parents died

Their first born child's place should be nearly ready.

ROSAMOND, March 27, 1860.