Margaret, at nearer sight,
Own'd her observation right;
But they did not far proceed
Ere they knew 'twas she indeed.
Shembut, ah! how chang'd they view her:
From that person which they knew her!
Her fine face disease had scarr'd,
And its matchless beauty marr'd :-
But enough was left to trace
Mary's sweetness-Mary's grace.
When her eye did first behold them,
How they blush'd !--but, when she told them,
How on a sick bed she lay
Months, while they had kept away,
And had no inquiries made
If she were alive or dead ;-
How, for want of a true friend,
She was brought near to her end,
And was like so to have died,
With no friend at her bed-side ;
How the constant irritation,
Caus’d by fruitless expectation
Of their coming, had extended
The illness, when she might have mended,
Then, O then, how did reflection
Come on them with recollection!

All that she had done for them,
How it did their fault condemn !

But sweet Mary, still the same, Kindly eas’d them of their shame; Spoke to them with accents bland, Took them friendly by the hand; Bound them both with promise fast, Not to speak of troubles past; Made them on the spot declare A new league of friendship there; Which, without a word of strife, Lasted thenceforth long as life. Martha now and Margaret Strove who most should pay the debt Which they ow'd her, nor did vary Ever after from their Mary.

TO A RIVER IN WHICH A CHILD WAS

DROWNED.

SMILING river, smiling river,

On thy bosom sun-beams play;
Though they're fleeting, and retreating,

Thou hast more deceit than they.

In thy channel, in thy channel,

Choak’d with ooze and grav'lly stones,
Deep immersed, and unhearsed,
Lies

young Edward's corse : his bones

Ever whitening, ever whitening,

As thy waves against them dash;
What thy torrent, in the current,

Swallow'd, now it helps to wash.

As if senseless, as if senseless

Things had feeling in this case;
What so blindly, and unkindly,

It destroy'd, it now does grace.

THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES.

I have had playmates, I have had companions, In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days, All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing, Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies, All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a love once, fairest among women ; Closed are her doors on me, I must not see herAll, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man;
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling? So might we talk of the old familiar faces

How some they have died, and some they have

left me,

And some are taken from me ; all are departed; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.