The Spirit of the Ideal, throned in glory, Shines with superior brightness on that brow:— O, laurel-crowned! thou famed in song and story, How sweetly float thy spell-strains o’er me now! Doth this rapt, earnest, mournful face resemble In all its shaded lineaments thine own? Did the soft love-vow on that proud lip tremble— Yet fear to deepen to a tenderer tone? And the rare love that haunts thy magic numbers— Didst thou not hope to make such worship thine? The passionate paleness on thy cheek that slumbers, Tells that thy heart was but Love’s lonely shrine! The love of Genius!—with its dream and vision— Its hopes and fears—vainest of earthly things. Only in spiritual visitings Elysian Are realized the bard’s imaginings. Meanwhile thine image rises oft before me, With memories that to mine own heart belong; And as I muse on thy life’s hist’ry, o’er me Comes the conviction, O, sad son of song! That the celestial gift can never, _never_ For all the _unrest_ it hath cost atone; The Unattained still haunts us _here_ forever— _There_, in _thy_ world, vain yearnings are unknown! ELIZABETH J. EAMES. * * * * * THE MUSICIAN. A TALE FOUNDED UPON FACT. BY HENRY COOD WATSON. I was traveling outside the coach from B——, early in the year 18—, after a season of fashionable dissipation, tired with the important nothings which eke out the existence of the beau monde, and determined to seek relief in change of scene, from the daily increasing ennui that oppressed me. I am not one of those who travel from Dan to Beersheeba without seeing any thing worthy of attention. To me the face of every human being is a book, in which strange and eventful histories are written legibly by the hand of time and passion, and with the assistance of my somewhat active imagination, I often fancy that I can trace the actions and events, the hopes and fears, that have made up their sum of life. It is a pleasing and grateful task to watch the face of youth; to trace love, hope, and confidence, in every line of the countenance. There is not to be seen one doubt, one look of distrust in this the brightest page of life’s eventful history.