STANZAS

IN MEMORY OF THE LATE EDWARD QUILLINAN, ESQ.

I SAW him sensitive in frame,

I knew his spirits low;

And wish'd him health, success, and fame :

I do not wish it now.

For these are all their own reward,

And leave no good behind;

They try us, oftenest make us hard,
Less modest, pure, and kind.

Alas! Yet to the suffering man,

In this his mortal state,

Friends could not give what Fortune can

Health, ease, a heart elate.

But he is now by Fortune foil'd
No more; and we retain

The memory of a man unspoil'd,
Sweet, generous, and humane;

With all the fortunate have not
With gentle voice and brow.

Alive, we would have chang'd his lot :
We would not change it now.

POWER OF YOUTH.

WHILE the locks are yet brown on thy head, While the soul still looks through thine eyes, While the heart still pours

The mantling blood to thy cheek,

Sink, O Youth, in thy soul!

Yearn to the greatness of Nature !

Rally the good in the depths of thyself!

MORALITY.

WE cannot kindle when we will

The fire that in the heart resides,

The spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides:

But tasks in hours of insight will'd

Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.

With aching hands and bleeding feet
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;
We bear the burden and the heat
Of the long day, and wish 'twere done.

Not till the hours of light return

All we have built do we discern.

Then, when the clouds are off the soul,
When thou dost bask in Nature's eye,
Ask, how she view'd thy self-controul,
Thy struggling task'd morality.

Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air,
Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair.

And she, whose censure thou dost dread,

Whose eye thou wert afraid to seek,
See, on her face a glow is spread,

A strong emotion on her cheek.

"Ah child," she cries, "that strife divineWhence was it, for it is not mine?

"There is no effort on my brow

I do not strive, I do not weep.

I rush with the swift spheres, and glow

In joy, and, when I will, I sleep. –

Yet that severe, that earnest air,

I saw, I felt it once- but where?"