BY MRS. L. S. GOODWIN.

" Far out of the usual course of vessels crossing that ocean, they discovered an unknown island, covered with ma-
jestic trees. The captain, with a portion of the crew, went on shore, and after traversing its entire circumference
without seeing a solitary representative of the animal kingdom, were about to return to their ship, when the skeleton
of a man was found upon the beach, and beside it lay a partially constructed boat."
BLEACHING upon the sands that pave

Believe you not that in his pain,
An unknowu islet strand,

His agony of soul,
Where surges bear from mermaid cave

Flew o'er the dark engirding main
The music of her band,

The thoughts which spurn control?
A clayey temple's ruin lies--

Abiding with the cherished ones
Of that grand pile a part

Whơ blest a far-off home;
Whereon the Architect Divine

O how his sinking spirit yearned
Displayed His wondrous art;

To view once more that dome;
Its tenant long since hath obeyed

To hear young voices gayly shout
The sumrnons to depart.

For joy that he had come.
Mysterious, as dire, the doom

He mused how love with pining frame
That cast a death-scene where

Her grief-fount would exhaust,
Deep solitude couverts to gloom

As on time's laggard wing there came
What else were brightly fair :

No tidings of the lost.
Perchance wild waves that made a wreck

Ah! who may speak the bitter pangs
Of some ill-fated bark,

That exile's bosom knew,
Giving his valiant comrades all

As, day by day, and hour by hour,
To feast the rav'nous shark,

Faint, and yet fainter, grew
Swept hither this lone mariner,

The hope that erst had nerved him on
For misery a mark.

His labor to pursue.
Yon half-completed boat his lot

To ply their wonted task, at length,
In mournful tones doth tell;

Refused his weary hands ;
With what assiduous zeal he wrought

His form was stretched, bereft of strength. l'pon that tiny cell,

Upon the burning sands.
Which promised o'er the billows broad

Haply his latest wish besought
The worn one to convey

Mong kindred dend to lie;
Within compassion's genial realm,

But fate denied the boon, and death
Where woes find sweet allay;

Seized him 'neath stranger sky; 'T were better e'en the sea should whelm

While mercy drew a mystic veil
Than thus with want hold fray.

'Twixt him and friendship's eye.

REMINISCENCES OF A READER.

BY THE LATE WALTER UERRIES, ESQ.

Ou! 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 was treated with all that marked distinction which, relative terms; they denote position or attainment, even among her rude people, continues to be paid to comparable with some other. And hence a queen is preeminence. And while she sought to do the best a queen at the head of a band of gipsies as much as for all, she received all this homage with that ease, if she sat upon a throne, at the head of a nation and that apparent absence of wonder, which denote whose morning drum beats an eternal reveille. It the right to distinction—this was a part of her queenly was therefor, and for another cause yet to be told, character admirably sustained, natural, easy, dignithat I listed my hat with particular deference when fied. But the queen was a woman. I had heard her I opened suddenly upon the head woman of a gipsy / give orders, which sent certain of the most active of tribe, as I was passing through a small piece of the young, male and female, to the other side of the woodland. Though, truth to say, I had been looking village, and then she gave employment to the old and at her for some time, an hour previous, as she was the young in the moving hamlet, and seeing the first giving some directions to one or two of her ragged depart, and the last busy, she left the camp, and took and dirty train. Now I had known that woman in her way through the wood. I followed her and other circumstances. I had seen her in the family, traced her rapid steps to the burying-ground of the had heard her commended by the men for her grace town, which stood a distance from any dwelling. ful movements, and berated by the women for ex- Seating myself out of view, I saw the queen walk hibiting those movements to the men, and being as directly to a recently sodded grave, upon which she free with her tongue in presence of her female supe looked down for a moment, and then clasping ber riors as she had been with her feet before her male hands wildly above her head she threw herself with admirers. But neither the admiration of the men nor a subdued cry upon the grave. I was too far from the rebuke of the women produced any effect. All her to distinguish all the words of her lament, but that this woman received from a long sojourn with they were wild and agonizing. the people of the village, was a little loss of the dark- After a short time the woman arose, and said with ·ness of the skin, and a pretty good understanding of a distinct, clear voice, “With thee and for thee 1 the wants and weaknesses of society. Everybody could have endured the mockery of their boasted knew that she had been left in exchange for a health civilization, and suffered the ceremories of their ful child—and some years before it had been dis- tame creed. With thee and for thee I would have covered that the healthful child would be worth no- foregone my native tribe and my hereditary rights. thing to the gipsies, and the gipsy girl would, at the So persuasive was thy affection that I could have first opportunity, return to her “ brethren and kin- forgotten-or at least would not have boasted—that dred according to the flesh.” And such was the skill I was of the glorious race ibat knows no manacles of which she manifested on her retu n, such her ability body or of mind, but what it chooses to impose. But to direct, such her knowledge of the wants of the thou art gone, and with thee all my attraction to the villagers, and her power to take advantage of these idle, wearisome life of thy race. I have returned to wants, that she became the head of the tribe with my people, and I may lead them, and power and which she was associated, and might have directed activity may for a time weaken my agony. I need numerous tribes, could they have been collected for no longer sacrifice my love for my race-but yet one her guidance.

sacrifice I will make, and thy grave shall be the I could not learn that there was much of a story altar. With thee my heart is buried. To thee do I connected with the life of the queen, much indeed here swear an eternal fidelity-and year by year that would interest the general reader. But she was will I lead my tribe hither, that I may pour out my a woman-and her heart, a mystery to the uninitiated, anguish upon the sod that rises above thee. And I would, if exposed, have been worth a world's pe- may hope that such devotion may lead the spirit that rusal. A woman's heart-alas ! how few are ad- made our race for future happiness as for present mitted to loose the seals and open that secret volume! | freedom, to give thee back to me when I enter on How very few could understand the revelation if it my world of changeless love and glorious recomwere made., I could not, I confess; and it is only pense.” when a peculiar light is thrown upon here and there Kneeling again, the Gipsy Queen kissed the grave, a page, that I can acquire even a partial knowledge and gathered a few blades of grass and one or two of what is manifested. The Queen of the Gipsies, flowers, shook away the tears which she had let fall though elevated by right, and sustained by knowledge, upon them, and placing them in her bosom turned was no less a woman than a queen. She c , Id and and left the burying-place, and proceeded toward the did command male and female, old and young. She camp. I left my position by the other route, and