Let me, lamb-like, share caresses, From thy hand that knows not stain; Flowers that woo, the smile that blesses, Hours that pass and leave no pain! Be with me in sleeping, waking; Be with me in toil and rest; Living, thine; and, life forsaking, Let me slumber on thy breast! [Illustration: INNOCENCE] A DRAMA OF REAL LIFE. (IN A LETTER FROM N. P. WILLIS TO THE EDITOR OF GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE.) TO GEO. R. GRAHAM, ESQ. _New York, December_ 1, 1847. DEAR SIR,--By to-night's mail should go to you a piece of mental statuary, which is yet in a marble block of the reluctant quarry of my brain--due to you by agreement on the first of December, one unconceived tale! But though we do so strangely bargain the invisible wares of the imagination, deliverable, like merchandize, on a certain day, the contractor is still liable to the caprices of the world he trades from, and your order on me for fancy yet undug, must, I fear, be protested. You would not believe me if I were to tell you literally why. But the truth is that I, and a certain cave (mentioned by Humboldt, on the banks of the Oronookoo, which he calls a "subterranean organ,") can only give out music in certain states of the weather. With the dry, sharp, icy north wind of the last few days, I could no more write than I could supply electricity to Morse's wire. But--no failure is _quite_ twenty shillings in the pound. What say you to the assets? The statue will not be forth coming--but will you have the model, after which the undug block was to have been chiseled? Shall I send you the literal truth which I had intended to drape with imagination--tell the facts of real life which I had designed to weave into a story. I shall thus, at least, clear _yourself_ of the non-fulfillment of the promise of your pre-advertised contents, and (engaging to send you a story properly completed for the next number) shall effect, perhaps, a compromise for my delinquent punctuality. This, then, is the thread of literal truth which was to have run through the fancy-woof of my story.