MEMORY.

But ever and anon, of grief subdued

There comes a token, like a serpent's sting,
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued.

BYRON'S Childe Harold

And other days came back to me

With recollected music, tho' the tone

Is chang'd and solemn, like the cloudy groan
Of dying thunder on the distant wind.

399

BYRON'S Childe Harold.

We ne'er forget, tho' there we are forgot.

BYRON'S Don Juan.

Oh! friends regretted, scenes for ever dear,
Remembrance hails you with her warmest tear!
Drooping she bends o'er pensive Fancy's urn,
To trace the hours which never can return.

Ah! tell me not that memory
Sheds gladness o'er the past;
What is recall'd by faded flowers,
Save that they did not last?
Were it not better to forget,
Than but remember and regret?

BYRON.

MISS L. E. LANDON.

There are moments of life that we never forget,

Which brighten, and brighten, as time steals away;

They give a new charm to the happiest lot,

And they shine on the gloom of the loneliest day.
J. G. PERCIVAL.

As we look back thro' life in our moments of sadness,
How few and how brief are the gleamings of gladness!
Yet we find, 'midst the gleam that our pathway o'ershaded,
A few spots of sunshine-a few flowers unfaded;
And memory still hoards, as her richest of treasures,
Some moments of rapture- -some exquisite pleasures.
PROSPER M. WETMORE

On this dear jewel of my memory
My heart will ever dwell, and fate in vain,
Possessing that, essay to make me wretched.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL

"T is sweet to remember. I would not forego
The charm which the past o'er the present can throw
For all the gay visions that fancy may weave,

In her web of illusion, that shines to deceive.

Our hopes are flown-yet parted hours
Still in the depths of memory lie,
Like night-gems in the silent blue

Of summer's deep and brilliant sky.

W. G. CLARK

G. D. PRENTICE

We have been bless'd;-tho' life is made
A tear, a silence, and a shade,

And years have left the vacant breast
To loneliness

we have been bless'd!

G. D. PRENTICE

Thy words have touch'd a chord of memory's lyre,
And wak'd the key-note of the saddest dirge
That fancy ever play'd to melancholy.

RUFUS DAWES.

There's a feeling within us that loves to revert
To the merry old times that are gone.

This memory brightens o'er the past,
As when the sun, conceal'd

Behind some cloud that near us hangs
Shines on a distant field.

H. W. LONGFELLOW

The mind will, in its worst despair,

Still ponder o'er the past,

On moments of delight that were

Too beautiful to last.

BALFE'S Bohemian Girl.

MEMORY.

Youth's eager life and changeful lot,
Nor sterner manhood's graver toys,
Nor trembling age himself, can blot
The memory of our earliest joys.

J. H. McILVANE

But thank'd be memory - her sweet power can bring

Back to my heart its early joys again;

Her magic spell revives the frozen spring
Of youth and hope, and reunites the chain
Of sever'd sympathies.

Fond memory, to her duty true,

Brings back their faded forms to view;
How lifelike, thro' the mist of years,
Each well-remember'd face appears!

HOFLAND

CHARLES SPRAGUE.

'Tis vain, and worse than vain to think on joys Which, like the hour that's gone, return no more.

ISAAC CLASON.

And thus, as in memory's bark we shall glide,
To visit the scenes of our boyhood anew,
Though oft we may see, looking down on the tide,
The wreck of full many a hope shining through-
Yet still, as in fancy we point to the flowers

That once made a garden of all the gay shore,
Deceiv'd for a moment, we'll think them still ours,
And breathe the fresh air of life's morning once more.

Memory's that mirror which affliction throws
Down to the earth, as cruelest of its foes,

Hoping to drive remorse thus from its side;
But when the mirror down to earth is dash'd,
And rudely in ten thousand pieces mash'd,
Each fragment shows the reflection multiplied.
J. T. WATSON

401

He that is of reason's skill bereft,
And wants the staff of wisdom him to stay,
Is like a ship in midst of tempest left,

Without an helm or pilot her to stay.

When men have several faiths, to find the true
We only can the aid of reason use;

"T is reason shows us which we should eschew,
When by comparison we learn to choose.

Thought

SPENSER.

SIR W. DAVENANT.

Precedes the will to think, and error lives
Ere reason can be born.

'The mind in its own place, and, in itself,
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

CONGREVE.

MILTON'S Paradise Lost.

MIND-REASON - THOUGHT.

The workman in his stuff his skill doth show,
And yet the stuff gives not the man his skill;
Kings their affairs do by their servants know,
But order them by their own royal will.

403

DAVIES' Immortality of the Sou.

The immortal mind, superior to his fate,
Amid the outrage of external things,
Firm as the solid base of this great world,
Rests on its own foundation.

'Tis Reason's part

To govern and to guard the heart,

To lull the wayward soul to rest,

When hopes and fears distract the breast;—
Reason may calm this doubtful strife,

And steer thy bark thro' various life.

How fleet is the glance of the mind!
Compar'd with the speed of its flight,
The tempest itself lags behind,

And the swift-winged arrow of light.

Within the brain's most secret cells

A certain lord-chief-justice dwells,

AKENSIDE.

COTTON.

COWPER.

Of sov'reign power, whom, one and all,
With common voice we Reason call.

CHURCHILL.

With curious art the brain, too finely wrought,
Preys on itself, and is destroy'd by thought;

Constant attention wears the active mind,
Blots out her powers, and leaves a blank behind.

CHURCHILL

The mind doth shape itself to its own wants,
And can bear all things.

JOANNA BAILLIE.