But fairer than his maiden love, And lovelier than his native glen, Inviting him with novel charms, His fairy world held out its arms. The Old yields always to the New, And so the youth with just such steps As one would run to meet a bride, Ran lightly down the mountain side. Day after day, year after year, He wandered in his golden world: A shadow-hunter he became:— The Shadow which he sought was Fame. But Age, who walks on velvet feet, Followed his footsteps like a wolf, And when the fame he sought was won, He only saw the setting sun. Cold as his native granite rocks, And hard, had grown the wanderer’s heart: For many weary, desolate years His eyes had lost the power of tears. The name his genius had acquired, The wealth which Fortune had bestowed, Instead of pleasure gave him pain: Sadness was in his heart and brain. The great are friendless: he was great: His very fortune hedged him round And shut him from the love of all; He could not leap the lofty wall. But somehow, like an angel’s tear, The memory of his early home Fell on his heart: he saw the glen He loved so in his youth again. A wan and worn and wrinkled man He stood upon his native hills: There was each old familiar spot; There stood his silent shepherd cot. Downward with trembling, painful steps The wanderer took his lonely way: Like one who wakens from a dream He stood beside the mournful stream. Above him, in a green old age, He saw a weeping-willow trail Its murmuring leaves; and at its foot A single rose had taken root. It grew upon a grassy mound, At head of which a rustic cross Pointed to heaven;—there last he met— There last he clasped the fair Florette. The old man’s eyes were full of tears, As, like a penitent child, he knelt And sobbed and prayed in pale despair: Next day a maiden found him there. The hillock where reposed his form Was circled by his feeble arms: Pale, pitying Death his seal had set On love, and laid him with Florette. * * * * * A RECEPTION MORNING: OR PEOPLE IN GLASS HOUSES, ETC. BY F. E. F., AUTHOR OF “A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE,” ETC. _Je m’oublie,_ _Tu t’oublies,_ _Il ou elle s’oublis,_ _etc._ _Verb S’oublier._ “WHY were you not at Elliot’s last night, Mrs. Fortesque?” asked Mrs. Lyman. “We do not visit,” replied Mrs. Fortesque, with a slight shade of mortification.