The rich, dark maple sugar! thus it brings to me the joy, The dear warm joy of my heart, when I was a careless, happy boy; When pleasures so scorned in after life, like flowers, then strewed my way, And no dark sad experience breathed “doomed sufferer be not gay!” When Life like a summer ocean spread before me with golden glow, And soft with the azure of Hope, but concealing the wrecks that lay below. * * * * * TO MY LOVE. BY HENRY H. PAUL. Dewy buds of Paphian myrtle Strew, ye virgins, as I sing; Chaplets weave from Love’s bright fountain— O’er my lyre their fragrance fling. What—what is gay Pieria’s rose, What is Paphos’ blushing flower, Whilst Beauty doth my spirit thrall, Whilst all my pulses feel thy power? With Cyprian fire thine eye is sparkling, Like the morning’s tender light; Through thy silken lashes straying, Shafts resistless wing their flight: O! the time I first beheld thee, Blushing in thy early teens, Rose nor lily ne’er excelled thee, Though the garden’s rival queens. * * * * * SOFTLY O’ER MY MEMORY STEALING. MUSIC COMPOSED FOR “GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE,” BY PROFESSOR JOHN A. JANKE, JR. _WORDS BY SAMUEL D. PATTERSON._ [Illustration] Softly o’er my mem’ry stealing, Comes the light of other days, Visions of past joys revealing, Lit by Hope’s enchanting rays. ’Twas [Illustration] in that blest time I knew thee, And thy glance and gentle tone, Thrill’d with magic influence through me, Waking joys till then unknown. SECOND VERSE. Time has sped with ceaseless motion; Chance and change have wrought their will— But my heart, with fond devotion, Clings to thee, belov’d one, still. Nor can life yield richer pleasure, Or a brighter gift impart, Than the pure and priceless treasure, Of thy fond and faithful heart. * * * * * CATHARA. BY WALTER COLTON, U. S. N.