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AN EXHIBITION OF A SCHOOL OF
YOUNG LADIES.

How fair upon the admiring sight,
In Learning's sacred fane,

With cheek of bloom, and robe of white,
Glide on yon graceful train!
Blest creatures! to whose gentle eye
Earth's gilded gifts are new,
Ye know not that distrustful sigh
Which deems its vows untrue.

There is a bubble on your cup
By buoyant fancy nurst,

How high its sparkling foam leaps up!
Ye do not think't will burst:

And be it far from me to fling

On budding joys a blight,

Or darkly spread a raven's wing
To shade a path so bright.

There twines a wreath around your brow,
Blent with the sunny braid,

Love lends its flowers a radiant glow,
Ye do not think't will fade;

And yet 't were safer there to bind
That plant of changeless die,
Whose root is in the lowly mind,
Whose blossom in the sky.

Yet who o'er Beauty's form can hang
Nor think how future years
May bring stern sorrow's speechless pang,
Or Disappointment's tears,

Unceasing toil, unpitied care,

Cold treachery's serpent moan, Ills that the tender heart must bear,

Unanswering and alone!

But as the frail and fragrant flower,
Crush'd by the sweeping blast,
Doth even in death an essence pour,
The sweetest and the last,
So woman's deep, enduring love,
Which nothing can appal,

Her steadfast faith, that looks above
For rest, can conquer all.

MRS. SIGOURNEY.

GERTRUDE OF WYOMING.

THE rose of England bloom'd on Gertrude's cheek-
What though these shades had seen her birth, her sire
A Briton's independence taught to seek

Far western worlds; and there his household fire
The light of social love did long inspire,
And many a halcyon day he lived to see
Unbroken, but by one misfortune dire,

When fate had reft his mutual heart-but she
Was gone-and Gertrude claim'd a widow'd father's
knee:-

A loved bequest, and I may half impart,
To them that feel the strong paternal tie,
How like a new existence to his heart
That living flow'r uprose beneath his eye,
Dear as she was, from cherub infancy,

From hours when she would round his garden play;
To time when, as the rip'ning years went by,
Her lovely mind could culture well repay,
And more engaging grew, from pleasing day to day.

I may not paint those thousand infant charms;
(Unconscious fascination, undesign'd!)

The orison repeated in his arms,

For God to bless her sire and all mankind;
The book, the bosom on his knee reclin'd,

Or how sweet fairy-lore he heard her con,
(The playmate ere the teacher of her mind :)
All uncompanion'd else her years had gone,

Till now in Gertrude's eyes their ninth blue summer shone.

SONG.

CAMPBELL.

I LIKE not beauty's roseate brightness;
I like not beauty's sparkling eye:

Give me the cheek whose marble whiteness
Feeling's faint blush alone can dye;

Give me the pure and tranquil glance
Where no vain triumphs proudly dance,
Serene and blue as heaven's expanse ;-
Thy cheeks, thine eyes, my Mary!

I like not lips for ever smiling;
I like not speech for ever gay:
Give me the softness more beguiling
Which gently veils wit's brilliant ray;
Give me the mellow voice that tells
What sweetness in the bosom dwells;
The sigh that oft that bosom swells;-
Thy voice, thy sigh, my Mary!

MISS MITFORD

WINTER.

SEE wither'd Winter bending low his head;
His ragged locks stiff with the hoary dew;
His eyes, like frozen lakes, of livid hue;
His train a sable cloud, with murky red
Streak'd.-Ah! behold his nitrous breathings shed
Petrific death! Lean, waleful birds pursue,
On as he sweeps o'er the dun lonely moor,
Amid the battling blasts of all the winds
That, while their sleet the climbing sailor blinds,
Lash the white surges to the sounding shore.

So comest thou, Winter, finally to doom The sinking year; and with thy ice-dropp'd sprays, Cypress and yew, engarland her pale tomb, Her vanish'd hopes and aye departed days. ANNA SEWARD.

SUMMER.

Now on hills, rocks, and streams and vales and plains Full looks the shining day. Our gardens wear The gorgeous robes of the consummate year. With laugh and shout and song, stout maids and swains

Heap high the fragrant hay, as through rough lanes Rings the yet empty wagon.-See in air

The pendent cherries, red with tempting stains, Gleam through their boughs.-Summer, thy bright

career

Must slacken soon in Autumn's milder sway;

Then thy now heap'd and jocund meads shall stand Smooth, vacant-silent, through th' exulting land As waves thy rival's golden fields, and gay

Her reapers throng. She smiles, and binds the sheaves,

Then bends her parting step o'er fallen and rustling leaves.

ANNA SEWARD.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

How happily, how happily the flowers die away
Oh, could we but return to earth as easily as they!
Just live a life of sunshine, of innocence and bloom,
Then drop without decrepitude, or pain, into the tomb!
The gay and glorious creatures! they neither "toil
nor spin;"

Yet, lo! what goodly raiment they're all apparelled in;

No tears are on their beauty, but dewy gems more

bright

Than ever brow of eastern queen endiadem'd with light.

The young rejoicing creatures! their pleasures never

pall;

Nor lose in sweet contentment, because so free to

all!

The dew, the showers, the sunshine, the balmy, blessed air,

Spend nothing of their freshness, though all may freely share.

The happy careless creatures! of time they take no heed;

Nor weary of his creeping, nor tremble at his speed; Nor sigh with sick impatience, and wish the light

away;

Nor when 'tis gone, cry dolefully, “would God that it were day!"

And when their lives are over, they drop away to rest, Unconscious of the penal doom, on holy Nature's breast;

No pain have they in dying-no shrinking from de

cay

Oh! could we but return to earth as easily as they! MISS BOWLES.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the

year,

Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.

Heap'd in the hollows of the grove, the wither'd leaves lie dead;

They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread.

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