On that deep-retiring shore
Frequent pearls of beauty lie,
Where the passion-waves of yore
Fiercely beat and mounted high;
Sorrows-that are sorrows still-
Lose the bitter taste of woe;
Nothing's altogether ill

In the griefs of Long-ago.

Tombs where lonely love repines,
Ghastly tenements of tears,
Wear the look of happy shrines

Through the golden mist of years;
Death, to those who trust in good,
Vindicates his hardest blow;
Oh! we would not, if we could,
Wake the sleep of Long-ago!

Though the doom of swift decay

Shocks the soul where life is strong;

Though for frailer hearts the day
Lingers sad and overlong :-
Still the weight will find a leaven,
Still the spoiler's hand is slow,
While the future has its Heaven,
And the past its Long-ago.

RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES.

Sunken Treasures.

WHEN the uneasy waves of life subside,

And the soothed ocean sleeps in glassy rest,

I see, submerged beyond or storm or tide,
The treasures gathered in its greedy breast.

SUNKEN TREASURES.

There still they shine through the translucent Past,
Far down on that forever quiet floor;

No fierce upheaval of the deep shall cast

Them back-no wave shall wash them to the shore.

I see them gleaming, beautiful as when

Erewhile they floated, convoys of my fate;

The barks of lovely women, noble men,

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Full-sailed with hope, and stored with Love's own freight

The sunken ventures of my heart as well
Look up to me, as perfect as at dawn;
My golden palace heaves beneath the swell
To meet my touch, and is again withdrawn.

There sleep the early triumphs, cheaply won,
That led Ambition to his utmost verge;
And still his visions, like a drowning sun,
Send up receding splendors through the surge.

There wait the recognitions, the quick ties,
Whence the heart knows its kin, wherever cast;
And there the partings, when the wistful eyes
Caress each other as they look their last.

There lie the summer eves, delicious eves,

The soft green valleys drenched with light divine,
The lisping murmurs of the chestnut leaves,
The hand that lay, the eyes that looked in mine.

There lives the hour of fear and rapture yet,
The perilled climax of the passionate years;
There still the rains of wan December wet
A naked mound-I cannot see for tears!

There are they all; they do not fade or waste,
Lapped in the arms of the embalming brine;
More fair than when their beings mine embraced,-
Of nobler aspect, beauty more divine.

I see them all, but stretch my hands in vain;
No deep-sea plummet reaches where they rest;
No cunning diver shall descend the main,
And bring a single jewel from its breast.

BAYARD TAYLOR.

Oft, in the Stilly Night.

OFT, in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light

Of other days around me;

The smiles, the tears,

Of boyhood's years,

The words of love then spoken;

The eyes that shone,

Now dimmed and gone,

The cheerful hearts now broken!

Thus, in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber's chain hath bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

When I remember all

The friends so linked together,

I've seen around me fall

Like leaves in wintry weather;

I feel like one

Who treads alone

Some banquet-hall deserted,

Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed!

Thus, in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

THOMAS MOORE

AMONG THE BEAUTIFUL PICTURES.

Among the Beautiful Pictures.

AMONG the beautiful pictures

That hang on Memory's wall,

Is one of a dim old forest,

That seemeth best of all;

Not for its gnarled oaks olden,

Dark with the mistletoe;

Not for the violets golden

That sprinkle the vale below;

Not for the milk-white lilies

That lean from the fragrant ledge,
Coquetting all day with the sunbeams,
And stealing their golden edge;
Not for the vines on the upland,

Where the bright red berries rest;
Nor the pinks, nor the pale, sweet cowslip,

It seemeth to me the best.

I once had a little brother

With eyes that were dark and deep;

In the lap of that old dim forest
He lieth in peace asleep;
Light as the down of the thistle,

Free as the winds that blow,

We roved there the beautiful summers,
The summers of long ago;

But his feet on the hills grew weary,
And one of the autumn eves

I made for my little brother
A bed of they ellow leaves.

Sweetly his pale arms folded
My neck in a meek embrace,
As the light of immortal beauty
Silently covered his face;

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And when the arrows of sunset
Lodged in the tree-tops bright,
He fell, in his saint-like beauty,
Asleep by the gates of light.
Therefore, of all the pictures

That hang on Memory's wall,
The one of the dim old forest

Seemeth the best of all.

ALICE CARY.

When on my Bed.

HEN on my bed the moonlight falls,

WE

I know that in thy place of rest, By that broad water of the west, There comes a glory on the walls:

'Thy marble bright in dark appears,
As slowly steals a silver flame
Along the letters of thy name,
And o'er the number of thy years,

The mystic glory swims away;

From off my bed the moonlight dies;
And, closing eaves of wearied eyes,

I sleep till dusk is dipt in gray:

And then I know the mist is drawn,
A lucid veil from coast to coast;
And in the dark church, like a ghost,
Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn.

ALFRED TENNYSON.