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But cool Magendie proves beyond a doubt,
If mammals try it, that their eyes drop out.

No reasoning natures find it safe to feed, For their sole diet, on a single creed;

It spoils their eyeballs while it spares their tongues, And starves the heart to feed the noisy lungs.

When the first larvæ on the elm are seen,
The crawling wretches, like its leaves, are green;
Ere chill October shakes the latest down,
They, like the foliage, change their tint to brown;
On the blue flower a bluer flower you spy,
You stretch to pluck it 't is a butterfly;
The flattened tree-toads so resemble bark,
They're hard to find as Ethiops in the dark;
The woodcock, stiffening to fictitious mud,
Cheats the young sportsman thirsting for his blood.
So by long living on a single lie,

Nay, on one truth, will creatures get its dye;
Red, yellow, green, they take their subject's hue,-
Except when squabbling turns them black and blue !

OUR LIMITATIONS.

WE trust and fear, we question and believe,
From life's dark threads a trembling faith to weave,
Frail as the web that misty night has spun,
Whose dew-gemmed awnings glitter in the sun.
While the calm centuries spell their lessons out,
Each truth we conquer spreads the realm of doubt;
When Sinai's summit was Jehovah's throne,
The chosen Prophet knew his voice alone;
When Pilate's hall that awful question heard,
The Heavenly Captive answered not a word.

Eternal Truth! beyond our hopes and fears Sweep the vast orbits of thy myriad spheres! From age to age, while History carves sublime On her waste rock the flaming curves of time, How the wild swayings of our planet show

That worlds unseen surround the world we know!

THE OLD PLAYER.

THE curtain rose; in thunders long and loud
The galleries rung; the veteran actor bowed.
In flaming line the telltales of the stage
Showed on his brow the autograph of age;
Pale, hueless waves amid his clustered hair,
And umbered shadows, prints of toil and care;
Round the wide circle glanced his vacant eye,

He strove to speak, — his voice was but a sigh.

Year after year had seen its short-lived race
Flit past the scenes and others take their place;
Yet the old prompter watched his accents still,
His name still flaunted on the evening's bill.
Heroes, the monarchs of the scenic floor,

Had died in earnest and were heard no more;
Beauties, whose cheeks such roseate bloom o'erspread
They faced the footlights in unborrowed red,
Had faded slowly through successive shades
To gray duennas, foils of younger maids;
Sweet voices lost the melting tones that start
With Southern throbs the sturdy Saxon heart,
While fresh sopranos shook the painted sky

With their long, breathless, quivering locust-cry.
Yet there he stood, the man of other days,

In the clear present's full, unsparing blaze,
As on the oak a faded leaf that clings

While a new April spreads its burnished wings.
How bright yon rows that soared in triple tier,
Their central sun the flashing chandelier!
How dim the eye that sought with doubtful aim
Some friendly smile it still might dare to claim!
How fresh these hearts! his own how worn and cold!
Such the sad thoughts that long-drawn sigh had told.
No word yet faltered on his trembling tongue;
Again, again, the crashing galleries rung.

As the old guardsman at the bugle's blast
Hears in its strain the echoes of the past;
So, as the plaudits rolled and thundered round,
A life of memories startled at the sound.

He lived again, the page of earliest days,-
Days of small fee and parsimonious praise;
Then lithe young Romeo - hark that silvered tone,
From those smooth lips alas! they were his own.
Then the bronzed Moor, with all his love and woe,
Told his strange tale of midnight melting snow;
And dark-plumed Hamlet, with his cloak and blade,
Looked on the royal ghost, himself a shade.

All in one flash, his youthful memories came,
Traced in bright hues of evanescent flame,
As the spent swimmer's in the lifelong dream,
While the last bubble rises through the stream.

Call him not old, whose visionary brain Holds o'er the past its undivided reign. For him in vain the envious seasons roll Who bears eternal summer in his soul. If yet the minstrel's song, the poet's lay, Spring with her birds, or children at their play, Or maiden's smile, or heavenly dream of art, Stir the few life-drops creeping round his heart, Turn to the record where his years are told, Count his gray hairs, - they cannot make him old! What magic power has changed the faded mime? One breath of memory on the dust of time.

As the last window in the buttressed wall

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Of some gray minster tottering to its fall,
Though to the passing crowd its hues are spread,
A dull mosaic, yellow, green, and red,

Viewed from within, a radiant glory shows

When through its pictured screen the sunlight flows,

And kneeling pilgrims on its storied pane

See angels glow in every shapeless stain;

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