LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP.

EMILY BRONTE.

LOVE is like the wild rose-briar;

Friendship like the holly-tree.

The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms, But which will bloom most constantly?

The wild rose-briar is sweet in spring,
Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again,

And who will call the wild-briar fair?

Then, scorn the silly rose-wreath now,
And deck thee with the holly's sheen,
That, when December blights thy brow,
He still may leave thy garland green.

SONG.

EMILY BRONTE.

THE linnet in the rocky dells,
The moor-lark in the air,
The bee among the heather bells,
That hide my lady fair:

The wild deer browse above her breast;
The wild birds raise their brood;
And they her smiles of love caress'd
Have left her solitude.

I ween, that when the grave's dark wall

Did first her form retain,

They thought their hearts could ne'er recall

The light of joy again.

They thought the tide of grief would flow

Uncheck'd through future years;

But where is all their anguish now,
And where are all their tears?

L

Well let them fight for honour's breath,

Or pleasure's shade pursue—

The dweller in the land of death
Is changed and careless too.

And, if their eyes should watch and weep,
Till sorrow's source were dry,

She would not, in her tranquil sleep,
Return a single sigh.

Blow, west wind, by the lonely mound,
And murmur, summer streams-
There is no need of other sound

To soothe my lady's dreams.

The foregoing pieces were composed at twilight, in a schoolroom on the Continent, when the leisure of the evening play-hour brought back in full tide the thoughts of home. My sister Emily loved the moors. Flowers brighter than the rose bloomed in the blackest of the heath for her; out of a sullen hollow in a livid hill-side her mind could make an Eden. She found in the bleak solitude many and dear delights; and not the least and best loved was-liberty. One day, in the autumn of 1845, I accidentally lighted on a MS. volume of verse in my sister Emily's hand-writing. Of course, I was not surprised, knowing that she could and did write verse: I looked it over, and something more than surprise seized me, a deep conviction that these were not common effusions, nor at all like the poetry women generally write. I thought them condensed and terse, vigorous and genuine. To my ear, they had also a peculiar music-wild, melancholy, and elevating. The fixed conviction I held, and

hold, of the worth of these poems has not indeed received the confirmation of much favourable criticism; but I must retain it notwithstanding.—Literary Remains of Emily Bronte, by the author of "Jane Eyre."

OH! bear me away to some quiet spot
Where life's unrest may be soon forgot,
Where the freshening dew on the glittering ground
Is the only tear that Time hath found,—
To some sylvan cloister, rapture-fraught,
The nursery of priceless thought,
Where grief may bask in fancy's ray,—
To some quiet spot, oh! bear me away.

The echoing mirth of Pleasure's throng,
The reckless tone of the reveller's song,
The lustrous links of beauty's chain,
Are things which alike allure in vain,-
Where nature's hand a couch has spread,
Where the balm of peace o'er all is shed,
Where grief may bask in fancy's ray,-
To some quiet spot, oh bear me away.

A HUNDRED YEARS.

A HUNDRED years! and still and low
Will be my sleeping head;

A hundred years! and grass will grow
Above my dreamless bed.

The grass will grow; the brook will run ;
Life still as fresh and fair

Will spring in beauty 'neath the sun ;
Where will my place be ?-where ?

A hundred years! some briefer space
My life perchance had spann'd;
But ere they lapse my feet must pass
Within the Silent Land.

While on the plains the lasting hills,
In shadow and in shine,

Still dial Time's slow chronicles,

What record will be mine?

A hundred years! O yearning heart!
O spirit true and brave!

With Doubt and Death thou hast no part,

No kindred with the grave!