So, on the idle dreams of youth
Breaks the loud trumpet-call of Truth,
Bids each fair vision pass away,
Like landscape on the lake that lay;
As fair, as flitting, and as frail,
As that which fled the Autumn gale;
For ever dead to Fancy's eye,
Be each fair form that glided by ;

While dreams of love, and lady's charms,
Give place to honour and to arms!

Waverley.

A PRAYER.

BY WILLIAM BECKFORD, ESQ.

LIKE the low murmur of the secret stream,

Which, through dark alders, winds its shaded way, My suppliant voice is heard:-Ah! do not deem That on vain toys I throw my hours away.

In the recesses of the forest vale,

On the wild mountain,-on the verdant sod, Where the fresh breezes of the morn prevail,— I wander lonely, communing with God.

When the faint sickness of a wounded heart,

Creeps in cold shudderings through my sinking frame,

I turn to thee,-that holy peace impart

Which soothes the invokers of thy awful name.

O all-pervading Spirit!-Sacred beam!

Parent of life and light!-Eternal Power!

Grant me, through obvious clouds, one transient gleam Of thy bright essence in my dying hour!

Britton's Fonthill Abbey.

THE CONTRAST,

WRITTEN UNDER WINDSOR TERRACE, 17TH FEB. 1820.

BY HORACE SMITH, ESQ.

I SAW him last on this Terrace proud,
Walking in health and gladness;

Begirt with his Court, and in all the crowd,
Not a single look of sadness.

Bright was the sun, and the leaves were green,—
Blithely the birds were singing;—

The cymbal replied to the tambourine,
And the bells were merrily ringing.

I have stood with the crowd beside his bier,
When not a word was spoken,

But every eye was dim with a tear,

And the silence by sobs was broken.

I have heard the earth on his coffin pour,
To the muffled drum's deep rolling ;
While the minute gun, with its solemn roar,
Drowned the death-bell's tolling.

The time since he walked in his glory thus,
To the grave till I saw him carried,
Was an age of the mightiest change to us,
But to him a night unvaried.

We had fought the fight; from his lofty throne
The foe of our land we had tumbled,

And it gladdened each eye-save his alone
For whom that foe we humbled.

A daughter beloved—a Queen—a son—
And a son's sole child had perished;—
And sad was each heart, save the only one
By which they were fondest cherished.

For his eyes were sealed, and his mind was dark,
And he sat in his age's lateness,

Like a vision throned,-as a solemn mark
Of the frailty of human greatness.

His silver beard, o'er a bosom spread,
Unvexed by life's commotion,

Like a yearly-lengthening snow-drift, shed
On the calm of a frozen ocean.

Still o'er him oblivion's waters lay,

Though the stream of time kept flowing; When they spoke of our King twas but to say, That the old man's strength was going.

He is gone at length. He is laid in dust—
Death's hand his slumbers breaking,
For the coffined sleep of the good and just,
Is a sure and blissful waking.

His people's heart is his funeral urn;

And should a sculptured stone be denied him, There will his name be found, when in turn We lay our heads beside him.

London Magazine.

FRAGMENT.

SEE April comes! a primrose coronal,
Circling her sunny temples, and her vest,
Pranked with the hare-bell and the violet,
Like a young widow, beautiful in tears,
She ushers in the Spring!