Dear to my heart as life's warm stream, Which animates this mortal clay; For thee I court the waking dream, And deck with smiles the future day; And thus beguile the present pain, With hopes that we shall meet again! Yet will it be as when the past Twined every joy, and care, and thought, And o'er our minds one mantle cast, Of kind affections finely wrought. Ah, no! the groundless hope were vain, For so we ne'er can meet again! May he who claims thy tender heart, Deserve its love as I have done! For, kind and gentle as thou art, If so beloved, thou 'rt fairly won. Bright may the sacred torch remain, And cheer thee till we meet again! [5] These lines were addressed by Mrs Hunter to her daughter, on the occasion of her marriage. THE LOT OF THOUSANDS. When hope lies dead within the heart, By secret sorrow close conceal'd, We shrink lest looks or words impart What must not be reveal'd. 'Tis hard to smile when one would weep, To speak when one would silent be; To wake when one should wish to sleep, And wake to agony. Yet such the lot by thousands cast, Who wander in this world of care, And bend beneath the bitter blast, To save them from despair. But Nature waits her guests to greet, Where disappointments cannot come, And Time guides, with unerring feet, The weary wanderers home. ALEXANDER, DUKE OF GORDON. Alexander, the fourth Duke of Gordon, was born in the year 1743, and died on the 17th of January 1827, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. Chiefly remembered as a kind patron of the poet Burns, his name is likewise entitled to a place in the national minstrelsy as the author of an excellent version of the often-parodied song, "Cauld Kail in Aberdeen." Of this song, the first words, written to an older tune, appeared in the second volume of Herd's "Collection," in 1776. These begin-- "Cauld kail in Aberdeen, And castocks in Strabogie; But yet I fear they 'll cook o'er soon, And never warm the cogie." The song is anonymous, as is the version, first published in Dale's "Scottish Songs," beginning-- "There 's cauld kail in Aberdeen, And castocks in Strabogie, Where ilka lad maun hae his lass, But I maun hae my cogie."