An Ancient Prude.

COWPER

(ON ancient prude, whose withered features show She might be young some forty years ago, Her elbows pinioned close upon her hips, Her head erect, her fan upon her lips, Her eyebrows arched, her eyes both gone astray To watch yon amorous couple in their play, With bony and unkerchiefed neck defies The rude inclemency of wintry skies, And sails with lappet head and mincing airs Duly at clink of bell to morning prayers. To thrift and parsimony much inclined, She yet allows herself that boy behind; The shivering urchin, bending as he goes, With slipshod heels, and dewdrop at his nose, His predecessor's coat advanced to wear, Which future pages yet are doomed to share, Carries her Bible tucked beneath his arm, And hides his hands to keep his fingers warm. She, half an angel in her own account, Doubts not hereafter with the saints to mount, Though not a grace appears on strictest search, But that she fasts, and item, goes to church. Conscious of age, she recollects her youth, And tells, not always with an eye to truth,

Who spanned her waist, and who, where'er he came, Scrawled upon glass Miss Bridget's lovely name,

Who stole her slipper, filled it with tokay,

And drank the little bumper every day.

Of temper as envenomed as an asp,
Censorious, and her every word a wasp,
In faithful memory she records the crimes,
Or real, or fictitious, of the times;

Laughs at the reputations she has torn,

And holds them dangling at arm's length in scorn.
Such are the fruits of sanctimonious pride,

Of malice fed while flesh is mortified:

Take, madam, the reward of all your prayers,

Where hermits and where Brahmins meet with theirs ;
Your portion is with them; nay, never frown,
But, if you please, some fathoms lower down.

The

Wreck of the Hesperus.

LONGFELLOW.

T was the schooner Hesperus,

That sailed the wintry sea;

And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the lairy-flax,

Her cheeks like the dawn of day,

And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,

His pipe was in his mouth,

And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now west, now south.

Then up and spake an old sailor,
Had sailed the Spanish Main,

"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.

"Last night the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!"
The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.