You push'd right onward, while the loose-zoned maid Your toil is o'er, and yours is now the palm, Yes! I was fresh and vigorous as you, And might, like you, have speeded. Now the race my shame Past is my pride, my honour among men. The frame's incumbent weight seems lighten'd, raised, Yet soon, too soon, the paroxysm subsides Ah! now no more complacent musings spring From self-inspection; discontent, despair, He blots the canvas, or destroys the page. Alas! for him, who in this woe-fraught hour, Finds nought within to prop his sinking soul, No secret flattery, no consciousness, That on the walks of life he is revered, And named with honour by the sage and good- Then all the common places, which the world Q 5 That lectures woe, are realized and felt, What then remains, since all is worthless, vain, To burst the toil, and flee?-Rash mind! forbear ; Back to thy sheath, detested poniard!-No, In each affliction he decrees, design There is, and doubtless that design is good: The field of Virtue, fair beneath thy feet: Act well thy part, and smooth thy wrinkled brow, And kiss the rod, and do the will of Heaven; CONSUMPTION, OR THE THREE SISTERS. CAROLINE was the first to die. Her character, unlike that of both her sisters, had been distinguished by great spirit and vivacity, and when they were present, had always diffused something of its own glad light over the serene composure of the one, and the melancholy stillness of the other, without seeming ever to be inconsistent with them; nor did her natural and irrepressible buoyancy altogether forsake her even to the With her the disease assumed its most very last. beautiful show. Her light-blue eyes sparkled with astonishing brilliancy-her cheeks, that had always hitherto been pale, glowed with a rose-like lustrealthough she knew that she was dying, and strove to subdue her soul down to her near fate, yet, in spite of herself, the strange fire that glowed in the embers of her life, kindled it often into a kind of airy gladness: so that a stranger would have thought her one on whom opening existence was just revealing the treasures of its joy, and who was eager to unfold her wings, and sail on into the calm and sunny future. Her soul, till within a few days of her death, was gay in the exhilaration of disease; and the very night before she died she touched the harp with a playful hand, and warbled, as long as her strength would permit, a few bars of a romantic tune. No one was with her when she died, for she had risen earlier than her sisters, and was found by them, when they came down to the parlour, leaning back with a smiling face on the sofa, with a few lilies in her hand, and never more to have her head lifted up in life. 1 The youngest had gone first, and she was to be followed by Emma, the next in age. Emma, although so like her sister who was now dead, that they had always been thought by strangers to be twins, had a character altogether different. Her thoughts and feelings ran in a deeper channel: nature had endowed her with extraordinary talents, and whatever she attempted, serious acquisition, or light accomplishment, in that she easily excelled. Few, indeed, is the number of women that are eminently distinguished among their sex, and leave names to be enrolled in the lists of fame. Some accidental circumstances of life or death have favoured those few, and their sentiments, thoughts, feelings, fancies, and opinions, retain a permanent existence. But how many sink into the grave in all their personal beauty, and all their mental charms, and are heard of no more! Of them no bright thoughts are recorded, no touching emotions, no wild imaginations. All their fine and true perceptions, all their instinctive knowledge of the human soul, and all their pure speculation on the mystery of human life, vanish for ever and aye with the parting breath. A fair, amiable, intelligent young maiden has died and is buried-that is all, and her lies grave in its unvisited rest. Such an one was Emma Beatoun. Her mother, her sisters, and a few dear friends, knew what treasures of thought were in her soul, what gleams of genius, and what light of unpretending wisdom. But she carried up her pure and high thoughts with her to heaven, nor did any of them survive her on earth, but a few fragments of hymns set by herself to plaintive music, which no voice but her own, so deep and yet so sweet, so mellow yet so mournful, could ever have fitly sung. The sufferings of this sister were heavy indeed, and she at last prayed to be relieved. Constant sickness, interrupted only by fits of racking pain, kept the fair Shadow for the last weeks of her life to bed, and nothing seemed to disturb her so much as the incessant care of her dying sister, who seemed to forget her own approaching doom in the tenderest ministrations of |