Perfumes the heart--my warmest accents falter,
And beauty o'er my soul has lost her power--
Cold is the light I kindle on her altar!

The harp is this chilled bosom's only queen,
But how would homage from its depths have burst
In gushing minstrelsy at bright sixteen,
If _then_ these eyes had rested on thee first!

How many stanzas had thy lover given
To one sweet vaporous wreath that lately graced
Thy meditative lip, or how had striven
To stay that form by unseen artist traced!

That shadow's vague enchanting outline cast
On yonder wall, to arrest with poet's finger
Thy beauty's mystic image fading fast,
As round thy form fond moonbeams cease to linger!

[Footnote 1: The road of heaven, star-paved. PARADISE LOST]

PHANTOMS ALL.

A PHANTASY.

BY MRS. CAROLINE H. BUTLER.

It was with a feeling of regret, such as stirs one's heart at parting
with a dear friend, that I turned the last page of Irving's most
delightful visit to Abbotsford, which he has given us in language so
beautiful from its simplicity, so graphic in its details, and so
heart-deep in its sincerity, that with him we ourselves seem to be
partakers also of the hospitality and kindness of the immortal Scott.

"Every night," says Irving, "I retired with my mind filled with
delightful recollections of the day, and every morning I arose with
the certainty of new enjoyment."

And so vividly has he painted for the imagination of his happy readers
those scenes of delight, those hours of social interchange of two
great minds, that we are admitted as it were into free communion with
them. On the banks of the silvery Tweed we stroll delighted, or pause
to view the "gray waving hills," made so dear to all the lovers of
Scott and Burns, through the enchantment which romance and poetry have
thrown around them. We listen for the tinkling chime of the fairy
bells as we pass through the glen of Thomas the Rhymer, almost
expecting to see by our side, as we muse on the banks of the goblin
stream, the queen of the fairies on her "dapple gray pony." Again,
through the cloisters of Melrose Abbey we wander silently and in awe,
almost wishing that honest John Boyer would leave us awhile unmolested
even by the praises of his master the "_shirra_," whom he considers
"not a bit proud," notwithstanding he has such "_an awfu' knowledge o'
history!_" Or it may be we recline amid the purple heath