Thou desolate and dying year! Earth's brightest pleasures fade like thine; Like evening shadows disappear, And leave the spirit to repine. The stream of life that used to pour Its fresh and sparkling waters on, While Fate stood watching on the shore, And numbered all the moments gone:-- Where hath the morning splendour flown, Which danced upon that crystal stream? Where are the joys to childhood known, When life was an enchanted dream? Enveloped in the starless night, Which destiny hath overspread; Enroll'd upon that trackless flight Where the death wing of time hath sped! Oh! thus hath life its even-tide Of sorrow, loneliness, and grief; And thus divested of its pride, It withers like the yellow leaf: Oh! such is life's autumnal bower, When plundered of its summer bloom; And such is life's autumnal hour, Which heralds man unto the tomb! NEW-YORK: Printed by SCATCHERD & ADAMS, No. 38 Gold Street. FOOTNOTES: ____________ [A] Goethe and his Faust. [B] Cuvier. [C] Spurzheim. [D] Scott. [E] Champollion. [F] Crabbe. [G] Jeremy Bentham. [H] Adam Clarke. [I] The Duke of Reichstadt. [J] Charles Carroll. [K] Not the sportsman's favourite (_scolopax minor_) of our Atlantic shores, but the large crested woodpecker, so called in the western counties. [L] Or "Lake Kau-na-ong-ga," meaning literally "_two wings_." White Lake, which is the unmeaning modern epithet of this beautiful sheet of water, is situated in the town of Bethel, Sullivan County, N. Y. It is in the form of a pair of huge wings expanded. [M] The Rev. James W. Eastburn, by whom, in conjunction with Mr. Sands, the poem of Yamoyden was written, in separate portions. [N] _Hesiod. Theog._ 1. 1. 60. 30. [O] It may perhaps, to some, appear incongruous thus to mingle Heathen musicians among the Hebrews; but it is believed the incongruity will disappear on a moment's reflection upon the history and character of Herod the Great. His expeditions to Rome, Greece, and Syria, &c., were frequent, and he was not scrupulous in the introduction of games, sports, and gorgeous customs of the oriental nations, to heighten the effect of his own pageants. He built and rebuilt divers Heathen temples, and among them the Temple of Apollo, in Greece. Some historians deny that he was a Jew; but say that he was originally the guardian of the Temple of Apollo at Askalon, who, having been taken prisoner among the Idumeans, afterwards turned Jew. [P] These lines, so musical in the original, and susceptible of equally melodious translation, were penned by the unfortunate Mary a few hours before her execution. [Q] The substance usually called French chalk has this singular