Then aid our work; help us who strive
To check the' insidious ill

That gives to death those most alive,
And beautifies to kill ;

Help us who, at the worst, can sooth
The heart's last fatal swelling,
The' inevitable bed can smooth,

And light the narrow dwelling.

While Fortune's favours round you smile,

'Tis something, even then, To know you helped to reconcile

A man with brother men ;

And when, through waves that round you roll, Your heart is hardly faring,

'Tis more to think you saved one soul

From dying God-despairing!

SECOND CHILDHOOD.

TAKE not Childhood's name in vain,

Give it not to Him:

Can the lees of life retain

Bubbles from the brim?

What can Childhood-made to deck

Time with early flowers

Have in common with the wreck

Of uncounted hours?

Then the Few whose age endured

With untarnished worth,

Would go down with fame assured,

Moral kings of earth:

Then such memo'ries as the young
Now can only claim,

Would entrance the loving tongue

With the honoured name.

Then nor Love nor Life would pall,

Ere its work was done :

Honest tears would freely fall—

Tears that injure none.

Sad indeed to close dear eyes

That shall gaze no more;

How much sadder to despise

Those revered before!

Think not that the world would lose

By the' arrested heart;

All men, at some moment, choose

The diviner part:

Happy then to close their lot

Wheresoever found,

Garnered up, nor left to rot

On the' ungenial ground.

THE OLD MAN'S SONG.

AGE is not a thing to measure
By the course of moon or star;
Time's before us; at our pleasure
We may follow near or far:

Strength and Beauty he has given-
They are his to take away;

But the Heart that well has striven

Is no slave of Night or Day.

See, upon yon mountain-ridges,
How the fir-woods spread between,
Reconcile the snow-clad edges
With the valley's vernal green :
So the lines of grave reflection,
You decipher on my brow,
Keep my age in glad connexion
With the young that flourish now,

Not that now poetic fire

Can along my life-strings run,
As when my Memnonian lyre
Welcomed every rising sun;
Though my heart no more rejoices
In the flashes of my brain,
In the freshness of your voices
Let me hear my songs again.

Did I love ?-let Nature witness,
Conscious of my tears and truth;
Do I love?-O fatal fitness !

Still requiring youth for youth!

Yet, while thought the bliss remembers,

All delight is not gone by;

Warm your spirits o'er my embers,

Friends! and learn to love as I.

O my children! O my brothers!
If for self I lived too much,
Be my pleasures now for others,
Every passion now be such :
Be the chillness life-destroying,
That could make me slow to feel,
To enjoy with your enjoying,
To be zealous with your zeal.

Grant me not, ye reigning Hours !
Virtues that beseem the young,
Vigour for my failing powers,
Music for my faltering tongue :
Let me, cheerful thoughts retaining,
Live awhile, nor fear to die,

Ever new affections gaining,

Such as Heaven might well supply.

JUNE, 1843.

DOMESTIC FAME.

WHY is the Grave so silent? Why is the Tomb so dead? Wherefore this gloomy secret on each departed head?

Why do we name them seldom, and then with voices low, As if some shame were on them, or superhuman woe?

Were Death the sleep eternal that some despairing feign, Had never Faith engendered the hope to meet again,—

Still why should this great absence obliterate with its tears The happiest recollections and sympathies of years?