Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours, When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers, The violet, the pink, and jessamine, I pricked them into paper with a pin, (And thou wast happier than myself the while, Wouldst softly speak, and stroke my head, and smile ;) Could those few pleasant days again appear, Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here? Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast But higher far my proud pretensions rise And, while the wings of Fancy still are free, LESSON LXVIII. EXERCISES IN ARTICULATION. Smooth, snail, lisť'n'd, lisť'ns, list'n'st, spear, spleen, spring, asps, clasp'd, stead, strong, tastes, tast'st. Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain, Hold all that enters thy unbreathing reign. Far in thy realm withdrawn, Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom; Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb. Childhood, with all its mirth, Youth, manhood, age, that draws us to the ground, And last, man's life on earth, Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound. Thou hast my better years, Thou hast my early friends—the good—the kind, Yielded to thee with tears The venerable form. the exalted mind. And struggles hard to wring Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence. In vain thy gates deny All passage, save to those who hence depart; Thou giv'st them back- nor to the broken heart. In thy abysses hide Beauty and excellence unknown to thee Earth's wonder and her pride Labors of good to man, Unpublished charity, unbroken faith Love, that 'midst grief began, And grew with years, and faltered not in death. Full many a mighty name Thine, for a space, are they — Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past' All that of good and fair Has gone into thy womb, from earliest time, The glory and the beauty of its prime. They have not perished—no! Kind words, remembered voices, once so sweet, And features, the great soul's apparent seat; All shall come back, each tie Of pure affection shall be knit again; And sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign. And then shall I behold Him, by whose kind paternal side I sprung, LESSON LXIX. EXERCISES IN ARTICULATION Length'n, length'n'd, length'n'dst, length'ns, truths, throne, smooth'd, smooths, smooth'st. Better Moments. N. P. WILLIS. My mother's voice! how often creep I can forget her melting prayer But in the still, unbroken air, Her gentle tones come stealing by, And years, and sin, and manhood, flee, And leave me at my mother's knee. The book of nature, and the print Of beauty on the whispering sea, Give aye to me some lineament Of what I have been taught to be. My manliness hath drunk up tears, I have been out, at eventide, Beneath a moonlit sky of spring, With wilder fleetness, thronged the night; When all was beauty-then have I, With friends on whom my love is flung, Like myrrh on winds of Araby, Gazed up where evening's lamp is hung. And when the beauteous spirit there Then, as on childhood's bended knee, |