As the boys together grew, Happy fled their hours-- Grief or care they never knew In the Paphian bowers. See them roaming, hand in hand, The pride of all the choral band. Music with harp of golden strings, Love with bow and quiver, Airy sprites on radiant wings, Nymphs of wood and river, Joined the Muses' constant song As Rhyme and Reason pass'd along. But the scene was changed--the boys Left their native soil-- Rhyme's pursuit was idle joys, Reason's manly toil. Soon Rhyme was starving in a ditch, While Reason grew exceeding rich. Since that dark and fatal hour When the brothers parted, Reason has had wealth and power-- Rhyme's poor and broken-hearted. And now, on bright or stormy weather, They twain are seldom seen together. AH NO! AH NO! _To a Favourite Child._ BY JAMES NACK. In life, perhaps, thou hast only trod As yet in a path as soft and sweet As the flowerets wreathed on a verdant sod, Which bend to the pressure of delicate feet. In the path thou hast only begun to tread, Perhaps no thorn has betrayed its sting; And the clouds that brood there too oft have fled, By innocence chased on her snow-white wing: For often a paradise seems to attend Our earliest steps in this world below; But ah! will that paradise bloom to the end? Stern destiny answers, "Ah No! Ah No!" The tree with verdure adorns the shore While the laving spray at its foot is thrown; But the waves roll on to return no more, And the tree stands withering all alone. Each friend of our early years is a wave In the sea of joy we are flourishing by; But they roll away to the gulf of the grave, And our hearts in loneliness withering sigh. And such is the doom I must bear--for now, While yet in my boyhood I find it so-- But never, dear cherub, may heaven allow Such doom to await thee, Ah No! Ah No! A HEALTH. BY MISS ELIZABETH C. CLINCH. _Ob. 1832: æt. 17._ Fill high the cup!--the young and gay Are met with bounding hearts to-night; And sunny smiles around us play, And eyes are sparkling bright: Let wit and song the hours beguile, But yet, amid this festal cheer, Oh, let us pause to think awhile Of him who is not here. Fill high the cup!--yet ere its brim One young and smiling lip has pressed, Oh, pledge each sparkling drop to him Now far o'er ocean's breast! The cordial wish each lip repeats, By every heart is echoed here; For none within this circle beats, To whom he is not dear. A sudden pause in festive glee-- What thought hath hushed the thought of mirth, Hath checked each heart's hilarity, And given to sadness birth? O! read it in the shades that steal Across each animated brow; The wish none utters, yet all feel, "Would he were with us now!"