BLEACHING upon the sands that pave

An unknown islet strand,
Where surges bear from mermaid cave

The music of her band,

A clayey temple's ruin lies

Of that grand pile a part Whereon the Architect Divine Displayed His wondrous art; Its tenant long since hath obeyed The summons to depart. Mysterious, as dire, the doom

That cast a death-scene where
Deep solitude couverts to gloom
What else were brightly fair:

Perchance wild waves that made a wreck
Of some ill-fated bark,
Giving his valiant comrades all

To feast the rav'nous shark,
Swept hither this lone mariner,
For misery a mark.

Yon half-completed boat his lot

In mournful tones doth tell;
With what assiduous zeal he wrought

Upon that tiny cell,

Which promised o'er the billows broad

The worn one to convey
Within compassion's genial realm,
Where woes find sweet allay;

'T were better e'en the sea should whelm Than thus with want hold fray.

Believe you not that in his pain,

His agony of soul,

Flew o'er the dark engirding main
The thoughts which spurn control?
Abiding with the cherished ones
Who blest a far-off home;

O how his sinking spirit yearned
To view once more that dome;
To hear young voices gayly shout
For joy that he had come.

He mused how love with pining frame
Her grief-fount would exhaust,

As on time's laggard wing there came
No tidings of the lost.

Ah! who may speak the bitter pangs

That exile's bosom knew,

As, day by day, and hour by hour,
Faint, and yet fainter, grew
The hope that erst had nerved him on
His labor to pursue.

To ply their wonted task, at length,
Refused his weary hands;

His form was stretched, bereft of strength.
Upon the burning sands.
Haply his latest wish besought

'Mong kindred dead to lie;

But fate denied the boon, and death

Seized him 'neath stranger sky; While mercy drew a mystic veil 'Twixt him and friendship's eye.

OH! the times will never be again

As they were when we were young, When Scott was writing "Waverlies,"

And Moore and Byron sung;

When "Harolds," "Giaours" and "Corsairs" came

To charm us every year,

And "Loves" of "Angels" kissed Tom's cup;
While Wordsworth sipped small beer.

When Campbell drank of Helicon,

And did n't mix his liquor;

When Wilson's strong and steady light

Had not begun to flicker;
When Southey, climbing piles of books,
Mouthed "Curses of Kehama ;"
And Coleridge, in his opium dreams,
Strange oracles would stammer;

When Rodgers sent his "Memory,"
Thus hoping to delight all,
Before he learned his mission was

To give "feeds" and invite all;

When James Montgomery's "weak tea" strains Enchanted pious people,

Who did n't mind poetic haze,

If through it loomed a steeple.

When first reviewers learned to show
Their judgment without mercy;
When Blackwood was as young and lithe
As now he 's old and pursy;

When Gifford, Jeffrey, and their clan,
Could fix an author's doom,

And Keats was taught how well they knew
To kill à coup de plume.

Few womenfolk were rushing then

To the Parnassian mount,
And seldom was a teacup dipped
In the Castalian fount;

Apollo kept no pursuivant,

To cry out "Place aux Dames:"

In life's round game they held GOOD hands,
And did n't strive for palms.

Oh! the world will never be again
What it was when we were young,
And shattered are the idols now
To which our boyhood clung;
Gone are the giants of those days,
For whom our wreaths we twined,
And pigmies now kick up a dust
To show the march of mind.

POWER, consequence, importance, greatness, are relative terms; they denote position or attainment, comparable with some other. And hence a queen is a queen at the head of a band of gipsies as much as if she sat upon a throne, at the head of a nation whose morning drum beats an eternal reveille. It was therefor, and for another cause yet to be told, that I lifted my hat with particular deference when I opened suddenly upon the head woman of a gipsy tribe, as I was passing through a small piece of woodland. Though, truth to say, I had been looking at her for some time, an hour previous, as she was giving some directions to one or two of her ragged and dirty train. Now I had known that woman in other circumstances. I had seen her in the family, had heard her commended by the men for her graceful movements, and berated by the women for exhibiting those movements to the men, and being as free with her tongue in presence of her female superiors as she had been with her feet before her male admirers. But neither the admiration of the men nor the rebuke of the women produced any effect. All that this woman received from a long sojourn with the people of the village, was a little loss of the dark⚫ness of the skin, and a pretty good understanding of the wants and weaknesses of society. Everybody knew that she had been left in exchange for a healthful child-and some years before it had been discovered that the healthful child would be worth nothing to the gipsies, and the gipsy girl would, at the first opportunity, return to her "brethren and kindred according to the flesh." And such was the skill which she manifested on her retu n, such her ability to direct, such her knowledge of the wants of the villagers, and her power to take advantage of these wants, that she became the head of the tribe with which she was associated, and might have directed numerous tribes, could they have been collected for her guidance.

I could not learn that there was much of a story connected with the life of the queen, much indeed that would interest the general reader. But she was a woman-and her heart, a mystery to the uninitiated, would, if exposed, have been worth a world's perusal. A woman's heart-alas! how few are admitted to loose the seals and open that secret volume! How very few could understand the revelation if it were made., I could not, I confess; and it is only when a peculiar light is thrown upon here and there a page, that I can acquire even a partial knowledge of what is manifested. The Queen of the Gipsies, though elevated by right, and sustained by knowledge, was no less a woman than a queen. She cld and did command male and female, old and young. She

was treated with all that marked distinction which, even among her rude people, continues to be paid to preeminence. And while she sought to do the best for all, she received all this homage with that ease, and that apparent absence of wonder, which denote the right to distinction-this was a part of her queenly character admirably sustained, natural, easy, dignified. But the queen was a woman. I had heard her give orders, which sent certain of the most active of the young, male and female, to the other side of the village, and then she gave employment to the old and the young in the moving hamlet, and seeing the first depart, and the last busy, she left the camp, and took her way through the wood. I followed her and traced her rapid steps to the burying-ground of the town, which stood a distance from any dwelling.

Seating myself out of view, I saw the queen walk directly to a recently sodded grave, upon which she looked down for a moment, and then clasping her hands wildly above her head she threw herself with a subdued cry upon the grave. I was too far from her to distinguish all the words of her lament, but they were wild and agonizing.

After a short time the woman arose, and said with a distinct, clear voice, "With thee and for thee I could have endured the mockery of their boasted civilization, and suffered the ceremonies of their tame creed. With thee and for thee I would have foregone my native tribe and my hereditary rights. So persuasive was thy affection that I could have forgotten-or at least would not have boasted-that I was of the glorious race that knows no manacles of body or of mind, but what it chooses to impose. But thou art gone, and with thee all my attraction to the idle, wearisome life of thy race. I have returned to my people, and I may lead them, and power and activity may for a time weaken my agony. I need no longer sacrifice my love for my race-but yet one sacrifice I will make, and thy grave shall be the altar. With thee my heart is buried. To thee do I here swear an eternal fidelity-and year by year will I lead my tribe hither, that I may pour out my anguish upon the sod that rises above thee. And I may hope that such devotion may lead the spirit that made our race for future happiness as for present freedom, to give thee back to me when I enter on my world of changeless love and glorious recompense."

Kneeling again, the Gipsy Queen kissed the grave, and gathered a few blades of grass and one or two flowers, shook away the tears which she had let fall upon them, and placing them in her bosom turned and left the burying-place, and proceeded toward the camp. I left my position by the other route, and