DEATH OF A MAIDEN.

Her laughing voice made all rejoice,
Who caught the happy sound;
There was gladness in her very step,

As it lightly touched the ground.
The echoes of voice and step are gone;
There is silence still and deep:

Yet we know she sings by God's bright throne,
Then wherefore do we weep?

The cheek's pale tinge, the lid's dark fringe,

That lies like a shadow there,

Were beautiful in the eyes

of all

And her glossy golden hair!

But though that lid may never wake

From its dark and dreamless sleep,

She is gone where young hearts do not break-
Then wherefore do we weep?

That world of light with joy is bright,

This is a world of woe:

Shall we grieve that her soul hath taken flight,

Because we dwell below?

We will bury her under the mossy sod,

And one long bright tress we'll keep ; We have only given her back to God, Ah! wherefore do we weep ?

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Death.

THOMAS HOOD.

Ir is not death that sometime in a sigh This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight; That sometime these bright stars that now reply In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night;

That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite,
And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow;
That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite
Be lapp'd in alien clay and laid below:

It is not death to know this-but to know
That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves,
In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go
So duly and so oft, and when grass waves
Over the passed-away, there may be then
No resurrection in the minds of men.

Was come, and faithful to his promise, stood Prepared to walk with her through Death's dark vale.

And now her eyes grew bright, and brighter still,

Too bright for ours to look

upon-suffused

With many tears, and closed without a cloud.
They set as sets the morning star, which goes
Not down behind the darkened west, nor hides
Obscured among the tempests of the sky,
But melts away into the light of heaven.

She Came and Went.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

As a twig trembles, which a bird
Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent,
So is my memory thrilled and stirred ;—
I only know she came and went.

As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven,
The blue dome's measureless extent,
my soul held that moment's heaven ;—
I only know she came and went.

So

As at one bound, our swift spring heaps
The orchards full of bloom and scent,
So clove her May my wintry sleeps ;
I only know she came and went.

SHE CAME AND WENT.

An angel stood and met my gaze,
Through the low doorway of my tent;
The tent is struck, the vision stays;

I only know she came and went.

Oh, when the room grows slowly dim,
And life's last oil is nearly spent,
One gush of light these eyes will brim,
Only to know she came and went.

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