O give again those rapturous hours When first my soul with beauty thrilled, And mad with ecstasy I dared To love, nor cared if loving killed When every radiant face I saw Flashed with enchantment on my brain, Till earth seemed changing spheres with heaven; O give to me that dream again. Those aspirations for a fame Immortal through all coming time; That faith which soared on angel wings From gladsome earth to heights sublime; When every air a perfume breathed, Melodious with the voice of song, That swayed me with resistless power And nerved my soul with purpose strong. O give me back my boyhood’s dream, Those gleams of glory from above, That hope which grasped a deathless name, And blest me with undying love; O let me taste that joy again Which riots in my thought to-day— That earnest and exulting youth When all the blessed year was May. * * * * * EDITOR’S TABLE. [Illustration] FREAKS OF THE PEN. “GRAHAM” TO “JEREMY SHORT.” MY DEAR JEREMY,—I write you while a hail-storm is rattling at the window-panes, as if anxious to get in and warm its nose, and while the fire in my Radiator is roaring as angrily as a young lion, as if anxious to get out and have a battle with the storm. The clouds without, too, have a warlike aspect, look blue, and go tumbling about as if they had taken whisky-toddy not over warm. Nature, after the sulks, is hysterical. The wind goes moaning and howling around the house, as if anxious to vent its temper in a blow at somebody. The solitary oysterman in the street, is raising a cry as dolorous as if he had taken a breeze—been on a gale—on his own account, was melancholy, and had not the heart to sing-“away;” yet in fact he keeps singing away, in tones rather inviting to blue-devils. He does not feel, evidently, as well as his oysters, though he is their master. The vanity of riches is thus made apparent,—wealth does not always produce happiness. Patient industry in the storm is dismal—so another apophthegm is exploded. Knowledge is not the grand specific either. Their ignorance of the roasting which awaits them, is bliss. His knowledge of the roasting which awaits him—if he goes home without market-money—is, perhaps, the particular misery which weighs upon his soul, and renders his cry so plaintive.