TO MEMORY. Come, Memory, and paint those scenes When meadows bloomed, and vernal greens, I mean those hours which I have known, When blossoms seemed just newly blown, Yet, ah! forbear, kind Memory, cease Let all my feelings rest in peace, For why should I on other days And when I backward turn my mind, And weep for joys I left behind, Yet now, through intellectual eyes, And circled with eternal skies, Youth sweetly smiles once more. Futurity displays the scene, Religion lends her aid; And decks with flowers forever green, Oh, happy time! when will it come, Throughout this chequer'd life 'tis mine To feel affliction's rod; But soon I'll overstep the line A DREAM. Night o'e rthe sky her sable mantle spread, I thought on man, and all his childless joys, And yet the sigh of recollection stole, Then heaved my breast with sorrow's poignant throb; For ah! I feel what some have never felt, That is, to be in one continued night, From January's sun till dark December's eve; And far through space, where suns unnumbered burn, Then back again to Erin's hill of green, I with her wandered; nor did night, nor gloom, Her honored mansion, seat of peace and love, Gave rapture to my breast, for there I've found True hospitality, which once did grace The hall's of Erin's chiefs of old; But soon, alas! the hum of nightly bands BEAUTIES FROM "A BLIND MAN'S OFFERING," TOGETHER WITH A SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. "Offerings there are, of moral worth and talents, To envy, hatred, loves inordinate, And all the baser passions of the soul. But thine are offerings sacred to the shrine Of reason, truth and sentiment, replete With beauties rare, and treasures of the mind." MAN's nature, like veneering, may be warped to almost every condition in life. It may be bent to angular circumstances, or shaped to infirmities; it may be marred and chafed by care and want; and still present a surface susceptible of the highest polish. Misfortunes which may seem at first almost insupportable, may grow in favor, like Crusoe's pet spider, and at length come to be regarded as old and tried friends, if not positive blessings. Afflictions are but the seasonings of life's dish, and without them it would be tasteless and insipid. Without the ills of life, we should be illy prepared to enjoy its blessings. By opposites, alone, we judge of the nature of things. Contrast is the betrayer of every object in nature. Were it not for darkness, or the absence of light, we should remain forever ignorant of the existence of light itself. Wrong is the only rule by which we can measure right action; and were there no pain there would be no pleasure. Sorrows are but ill-timed joys-wrong, right inverted—error, reason's blunders disappointment, only the broken links in life's chain of pleasant associations, and often, from the common ills of life spring our choicest blessings. It is folly to pine at misfortune, while the world is full of time, and effort is fruitful of success. The mind that is truly great, will rise above the petty annoyances of this world, and though the visible universe be shrouded in midnight darkness, knowledge will enter, if only at the finger's ends. True, thoughts, like plants, reach up for the light, but it is the light of truth; and he who is blind to this light, is blind indeed. Mr. Bowen, author of the work above alluded to, in his reflections on cheerfulness, says: "The smile that wreathes the lip with gladness comes not from the sunshine without, but from within. The physical world is not beautiful until the soul has breathed upon it. The highest happiness of which we are capable can proceed only from the heart that has been sanctified by sorrow." In the same connection he adds: “We can never be too grateful to God for so arranging the allotments of his providence that there is always something in the situation of every one, which exerts an alleviating influence." The truth of the Roman adage, that all things are not possible to all men, has been verified, we doubt |