O, may God bless that laughing e'e,
Preserve that happy look, love;
For there I read his gracious will,
His mercy and his kindness still,
As in a written book,

My love,

As in a written book.

And what though friends be often cold, And sometimes false and faithless? Though eyes we loved be closed in death, And hushed the music of the breath,

Yet there be true hearts nathless,

Love,

O, there be true hearts nathless!

There 's many a cheek will brighter glow,
And many a breast beat higher,
At our approach; and when we die,
Believe me, there is many an eye

Will weep above our pyre,
My love,

Will weep above our pyre.

And though the circle here be small
Of heartily approved ones,
There is a home beyond the skies,

Where vice shall sink and virtue rise,

Till all become the loved ones,
Love,

Till all become the loved ones.

Then let your eye be laughing still,

And cloudless be your brow;

For in that better world above

O, many myriads shall we love,
As one another now,

My love,

As one another now.

1835.

CHANGE NOT.

BE ever thus; though years must roll,
And add their wrinkles to thy cheek,
Still let thy ever-youthful soul

In word and action live and speak.

Unknowing of a wicked thought,
Untouched by any act of sin,
And all ungoverned and untaught,
Save by the monitor within,
Thou shalt know nothing of the things
That breed earth's countless quarrellings;

Yet of the learning of the sage,

The poet's rhyme, the scholar's page,

All that is pure and true shall be

A gift of instinct unto thee;
And so, as guileless and as wild,

Thou shalt live on, and die, a child.

When merry Spring, with crown of flowers,
Comes dancing through the budding bowers,
Thy laughing eye and voice of song
Shall swell the chorus of her throng;

1835.

And though the birds be all about,
And many a bee upon the wing,
Thy jocund tone shall mark thee out,
The very spirit of the spring.

And when the days of winter come,
And all is tempest, all is gloom,
Thy sunny cheek and sunny eye
Shall chase that tempest from the sky;
And though in ice be bound the earth,
Thy loving hope and careless mirth
Shall make it summer round our hearth.
Then ever, ever, be the same,

As pure, as thoughtless, and as wild,—
A woman, yet a little child;

For thus from God you came.

POVERTY AND KNOWLEDGE.

Ан, dearest, we are young and strong,
With ready heart and ready will
To tread the world's bright paths along;
But poverty is stronger still.

Yet, my dear wife, there is a might
That may bid poverty defiance, -
The might of knowledge; from this night
Let us on her put our reliance.

Armed with her sceptre, to an hour

We may condense whole years and ages;

Bid the departed, by her power,

Arise, and talk with seers and sages.

Her word, to teach us, may bid stop
The noonday sun; yea, she is able
To make an ocean of a drop,

Or spread a kingdom on our table.

In her great name we need but call

Scott, Schiller, Shakspeare, and, behold!