First Love.

HO' the false world may hide, and sly art may conceal,

THO

There is no love so pure as the first love we feel;

While we try to supplant it or tear it apart,

Like a sweet, clasping vine it clings close to the heart.

On the ruins of some broken heart it may lean,
And grow like wild weeds in the ocean unseen;
While roses of beauty may languish and fade,
Like some tender exotic that's kept in the shade.

The sweet smiles of a face and bright love-speaking eyes For a season the passion may partly disguise;

And the heart may be sad while the tongue may be still, Yet it lives warmly nursed, let us do what we will.

To remembrance it clings, and it clings to the soul,
And to banish it thence baffles human control;
It is true to its object of love and of worth,
As the mariner's needle that points to the north.

Just as well strive to flee from the presence of God,
As to pluck out the passion, at home or abroad;
It is nourished with sighs, it is watered with tears,
And how bitter and dark is the fruit that it bears.

Like some flower of rare beauty whose delicate form Is too fragile to brave the rude blasts of life's storm; Oh! for pity's sake spare it from slander's foul breath, Till its beatings are hushed in the stillness of death.

If you have, then away

With your cold heart of stone, And in some desert dwell,

Like a hermit, alone.

Let me bask in the smiles
Of the fond one I love,
Till my soul, tired of earth,

Seeks a blest home above.

I feel I'm Groming Auld, Gude-wife.

FEEL I'm growing auld, gude-wife-
I feel I'm growing auld;

My steps are frail, my een are bleared,
My pow is unco bauld.

I've seen the snaws o' fourscore years

O'er hill and meadow fa',

And, hinnie! were it no for you,
I'd gladly slip awa'.

I feel I'm growing auld, gude-wife—
I feel I'm growing auld;

Frae youth to age I've keepit warm
The love that ne'er turned cauld.

I canna bear the dreary thocht

That we maun sindered be;

There's naething binds my poor auld heart To earth, gude-wife, but thee.