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"Twould fill thy soul with sorrow and surprise;
Sorrow to gaze upon the ruin there,

And deep surprise to think that aught so fair
And seeming beautiful to common eyes,
Was ruined so, an unimagined thing

In one whose spirit sports so light a wing,

For I conceal whate'er I bear with pride,

And school my soul to play the trifler's part,

And smile, though smiling frets and wears my heart As ivies fair and green the wasted wall they hide.

VI.

How can I cease to love thee? Thirza tell,—
Unfold the wondrous secret-let me know

What potent magic, or what mighty spell
Will ease my burthened heart of all its wo.
Love not? alas it is impossible!
For will in us is overruled by Fate,
The soul was made to love, created full
Of longings for affection; scorn and hate
And coldness such as thine affect it not,
Nor tears nor torture, anguish nor despair,
Nor all the catalogue of human woes,
It cannot be repressed, a spring that flows
As free, though watering a distant spot,
And sinking in the sands, as in an Eden fair.

VII.

Alas! It cannot be-I call on pride,

Manhood and scorn to help me, hate and shame,
But all in vain, I love thee still the same;
I've often thought I would, and sore I've tried,

To root affection like a poisonous weed

From out my breast, and found to my despair,
It was too deeply set and rooted there,
The idle effort made my spirit bleed.
No more I still love on and must,
Quenched only at affection's burning spring;
Its Temple's holiest place is set apart
And dedicate to Love, and every thing
Set Dagon-like therein, falls, crumbled into dust.

VIII.

I sit in pensive solitude and sigh,

O'er all my faded hopes and visions flown;
And one who should, but cannot be my own,
And think how sweet a thing it were to die.

I live without an aim from day to day, Plodding the dull and weary round of Life, Indifferent what it brings me, calm or strifeNo feeling save the solemn one, Decay! I was a Poet once, my heart was light, And full of sparkling wit and fancies fine, And flung its choicest efforts, as wine From out its depths the beaded bubbles bright; But this is past, the cup is drained, and nought Remains but bitterness, the dregs of sparkling thought.

IX.

Albeit thou art so wildly loved and dear,
Thirza, I would that we had never met,
It would have spared me many a bitter tear
In secret shed, and many a vain regret;
A distant brightness unattainable,

I see thee often hopeless and accurst;
Athirst-I can not quench my spirit's thirst,
A desert pilgrim fainting near the well.—
There is a pensive sadness on my mind,
Pressing it down like dew the folded flowers,
A weight of tears unshed, an undefined
And cureless grief which in my lonely hours,
Burns like the curse of Cain upon my brow,
Maddening till bitter tears come gushing free-as now !

X.

Forgive me dearest if I speak in hate,

Mocking and full of scorn, my heart is wild-
I seem an outcast from the world exiled,
Shut out from sympathy and desolate.-
Love ill consorts with Poverty, and crost,
What darkness follows! maddened in its pride
The spirit throws its shaft on every side,
A reckless warrior-now the field is past.
There was a fountain in my early youth,
A spring of sweet affection welling forth,
Limpid from out my heart to all on Earth;
Coldness and mockery and lack of truth,
And our unhappy passion, more than all,
Embittering life has turned its waters into gall.

XI.

Forget thee then? I would to Heaven I might―
I strive to do it every day. I know

My love is hopeless, vain, a solemn blight,
And waste on all my energies, but oh!

I cannot rid me of it, 'tis entwined

Around my very heart strings. Death alone,
Breaking, will loose its meshes; years have flown,
And changed in many things my fickle mind;
Sinful apostate to my early creeds,

The freshness of my heart has passed away,
And left it but a waste and ruin wild,—
Thy love alone survives and mocks decay,
Holy and pure where all things are defiled-
A lily growing in a bed of rankest weeds.

XII.

We part! and thou art nothing to me now,
And yet I cannot cease to think of thee-
Thy picture with a halo round the brow,
Drawn by the delicate limner-Memory,
Hangs craped and curtained on the solemn walls,
In the deserted chamber of my heart-

Thy statue in a lofty niche apart

From meaner statues in its storied halls, Yea! like the image of a saint it stands Over the altar of its Temple fairAnd tearful memories with clasped hands, Adoring it like pilgrims kneel in prayer Laying the riches of a thousand lands, The gems of Intellect for gifts and offerings there.

XIII.

But now a last adieu-farewell again!

Never to meet on earth! I tear apart]

The burning links that binds us, though my heart Will drag till death, I fear, the broken chain:Be gay and happy, now released and free, Forget the bitter Past and me-Yet no! Let me believe, 'twill lighten half my wo, That thou in distant years will think of me. Thrice happy he, who wins thee for his Bride, And thrice accursed he who loses thee: Brightness and darkness like the guiding light Of Israel, thou turn'st thy shining side To him, thy clouded gloomy side to me— A fadeless day to one,-to one a rayless night.

724

A FAMILIAR LETTER OF SOCIETY.

BY CHARLES LEARS.

SOCIETY is no more provident. It cannot be called a father or mother-hardly a friend to its people. It says to all men-"You may work if you can get the opportunity-you may have an education if you can afford it. These are your rights." Society, the State no where says, "here in these shops you may work at the trade you like best, and be certain of the reward of labor; here abroad in these fields your right to toil, and to the fruits thereof, is indisputable; here in these institutions around you, are all the means within the power of a whole community to bring together for social, intellectual, and moral culture, and it is not only your right, but your duty to avail yourself of them, and become what God designed you to be-a man—the full stature of a man in Christ Jesus."

There is nothing of this in Church or State, but man, laboring man is everywhere dependent upon chance opportunities for labor. He must ask his fellow for the privilege of earning his bread, and if his fellow be able to do without his services, he must beg, or steal, or starve. And he does beg, and steal, and starve, continually.

In some places, even the poor privilege of begging is denied. I know a City in which permission of the authorities must be obtained to circulate a petition among the citizens for relief.

Nor is there much better opportunity for education. As appropriate to the subject, I will quote from the Common School Journal (published in Boston,) an extract from the Literary Messenger.

"Did you see that ragged little straggler?"

"Yes, God help him," said my companion. "God help him!" With such easy adjuration do we leave thousands and tens of thousands of human souls to want and ignorance; doom them while yet walking the path of guiltlessness, to future demonstheir own unguided passions. We make them outcasts, wretches, and then punish, in their wickedness, our own selfishness, our own neglect. We cry "God help the boy," and hang the man.

Yet

a moment. The child is still before us, can you not see around it, contending for it, the principles of good and evil? A contest between the angels and the fiends? Come hither Statesman, you who live within a party circle; you who nightly fight some miserable fight, continually strive in some selfish struggle for power and place; considering men as only tools, the merest instruments of your aggrandizement; come here, in this filthy street, and look upon God's image in its boyhood. Consider this little man. Are not creatures such as these the noblest, grandest, things of Earth? Have they not human natures, are they not subtly touched for the highest purposes of human life? Come they not into this world to grace and dignify it? *** It lies before you a fair unsullied thing, fresh from the hand of God. Will you without an effort, let the grand fiend stamp his fiery brand upon it? Shall it, in its innocence, be made a trading thing by misery and vice? A creature driven from street to street, a piece of living merchandize for mingled beggary and crime? Say! what with its awakening soul shall it learn? What lessons whereby to pass through life, making an item in the social sum?

Why cunning will be its wisdom; hypocrisy its truth; theft its natural law of self-preservation."

"To this child, so nurtured, so taught, your whole code of morals, nay your brief right and wrong, are written in stranger figures than Egyptian hieroylgphics; and--time passes,--and you scourge the creature, never taught, for the heinous guilt of knowing naught but ill! The good has been a sealed book to him, and the dunce is punished with the jail."

"Doubtless there are great Statesmen; wizards in bullion and bank bills; thinkers profound in cotton, and every turn and variation of the markets abroad and at home; but there are Statesmen yet to come, Statesmen of nobler aims, of more heroic action; teachers of the people, vindicators of the universal dignity of man, apostles of the great social truth, that knowledge, which is the spiritual light of God, like his material light, was made to bless and comfort all men. And when these men arise-and it is worse than weak, it is sinful to despair of them, the youngling poor will not be bound upon the very threshold of human life, and made for force, by want and ignorance, life's shame and curse."

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There is not a babe lying in the public street upon its mother's lap, the unconscious mendicant to ripen into the future criminal, that is not a reproach to the State, a scandal and a crying shame upon men who study all politics, save the politics of the heart. How many of the earth's population can live up to the requirements of the laws of life and organization? How many can live up to the requirements of the law of life? Because of

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