I often wish that I could know The life in store for me, The measure of the joy and woe Of my futurity. I do not fear to meet the worst The gathering years can give; My life has been a life accurst From youth, and yet I live; The Future may be overcast, But never darker than the Past! My mind will grow, as years depart With all the wingéd hours; And all my buried seeds of Art Will bloom again in flowers; But buried hopes no more will bloom, As in the days of old; My youth is lying in its tomb, My heart is dead and cold! And certain sad, but nameless cares Have flecked my locks with silver hairs! No bitter feeling clouds my grief, No angry thoughts of thee; For thou art now a faded leaf Upon a fading tree. From day to day I sea thee sink, From deep to deep in shame; I sigh, but dare not bid thee think Upon thine ancient fame— For oh! the thought of what thou art Must be a hell within thy heart! My life is full of care and pain— My heart of old desires; But living embers yet remain Below its dying fires; Nor do I fear what all the years May have in store for me, For I have washed away with tears The blots of Memory: But thou—despite the love on high— What is there left thee but to die! MR. JUSTICE STORY, WITH SOME REMINISCENT REFLECTIONS.(4) WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE. BY A. OAKEY HALL. The hurrying pedestrian in Wall-street, or in some of its bisecting avenues of commercial bustle, if he have time to glance over his shoulder, is sure to observe a freshly-painted piece of tin (its brief rhetoric revelling in the pride and pomp of gold leaf alphabetically shaped), denominated by lawyers "a shingle"—setting forth that some sanguine gentleman has then and there established himself as an Attorney and Counsellor at Law. The sign is by the front door, shining with self-conceit at the passers by; and its owner is up some weary stairway, yawning over "twice told tales" of legal lore, copying precedents for the sake of practice, or keeping hope alive upon the back benches of the court-rooms in listening to the eloquence of his seniors while _he_ is waiting for clients. Heaven help many a young attorney in this "babel" of money-getting. The race should be prayed for in churches: and it should meet with a consideration as nearly divine as mortals can call up from crowded heart-chambers. Well: the sign keeps nailed up: and by and by the sun blisters it, and dries out the pomp of the gilded letters, and perhaps the owner yawns over his one case, or sitting upon a front bench in the court-room while case number thirty is being heard, waits for case nine hundred and thirty, against which on the calendar that is reposing by the side of the complaisant clerk in the corner, his name is placed as counsel—shining there like a pebble on a wide and extended beach.