The dews fall softly from the dropping skies, And winds are dallying with the wanton flowers, That like young maidens in their coy retreats Unveil their beauties for the spirit stars Alone to gaze on.—Age, they say, dries up The fountain of enthusiasm, and the hues That morning sunlight pictures in the wave, Shrink like scared spirits away beneath the disc Of noontide sun, or evening’s cheerless beam. Now, I have seen old Time’s retreating tide Leave its white froth upon me—aye, gray hairs Have sprung from out the furrows of my brain, As weeds will grow upon the o’erwrought soil, To tell me that I’m _old_—bid me put off The misty mantle of life’s morning dreams, And plod in dull indifference to the grave. Why, ’tis a lie! I feel the air as fresh— I scent the fragrance of this beauteous eve As gratefully—I watch the paling moon Stealing to her magnificent repose Behind the starry curtains of the west, With as unchanged and vigorous delight As when, a boy, beside my own dear lake I lay, and saw the same moon kiss the wave That in strange music murmured out its joy. The whippoorwill amid the hazel boughs Sings his old tunes _unchanged_—as are the leaves And skies and waves that echo it. ’Tis _man_, And not man’s real _nature_, which dims o’er The gold of feeling with pernicious rust, Drawn, like the poison of the asp, from flowers Which spring forever, would he cherish them, Within his heart of hearts. What! I grow old? I haven’t felt so young for forty years! And, were it not my mother’s hair is white— My father dead, and all that’s _human_, changed— I’d deem the past but as a school-boy’s dream Over an ill-conned lesson—and awake To the reality of living joy. * * * * * STANZAS FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM. BY MRS. R. S. NICHOLS. “I have a passion” for the budding Spring, Who clasps the wanton Earth in her embrace, For, like a glorious vision, she doth bring Rich fruits and flowers, which the tropics grace; And shining bands, that make our forests ring With melodies so rich, that they efface All thoughts of gloomy winter from my mind, And leave my heart as free as is the summer wind! “I have a passion” for the girdled mountain, That rears its crowned head beneath the sky, Which bends above it like a blue, sealed fountain, Whose waters flow not in those realms on high! Though many of these hours I cannot count on, Yet when these glories meet mine eager eye, I stand entranced upon the mount or lea, For hours like these are years—are years of bliss to me!