e to the task--
|A boiled sheep's head on Sunday|
Is all the boon I ask.

_William E. Aytoun._

LINES WRITTEN AFTER A BATTLE

BY AN ASSISTANT SURGEON OF THE NINETEENTH NANKEENS

Stiff are the warrior's muscles,
Congeal'd, alas! his chyle;
No more in hostile tussles
Will he excite his bile.
Dry is the epidermis,
A vein no longer bleeds--
And the communis vermis
Upon the warrior feeds.

Compress'd, alas! the thorax,
That throbbed with joy or pain;
Not e'en a dose of borax
Could make it throb again.
Dried up the warrior's throat is,
All shatter'd too, his head:
Still is the epiglottis--
The warrior is dead.

_Unknown._

LINES

ADDRESSED TO ** **** ***** ON THE 29TH OF SEPTEMBER, WHEN WE PARTED FOR
THE LAST TIME

I have watch'd thee with rapture, and dwelt on thy charms,
As link'd in Love's fetters we wander'd each day;
And each night I have sought a new life in thy arms,
And sigh'd that our union could last not for aye.

But thy life now depends on a frail silken thread,
Which I even by kindness may cruelly sever,
And I look to the moment of parting with dread,
For I feel that in parting I lose thee forever.
Sole being that cherish'd my poor troubled heart!
Thou know'st all its secrets--each joy and each grief;
And in sharing them all thou did'st ever impart
To its sorrows a gentle and soothing relief.

The last of a long and affectionate race,
As thy days are declining I love thee the more,
For I feel that thy loss I can never replace--
That thy death will but leave me to weep and deplore.

Unchanged, thou shalt live in the mem'ry of years,
I cannot--I will not--forget what thou wert!
While the thoughts of thy love as they call forth my tears,
In fancy will wash thee once more--|My Last Shirt|.

_Unknown._

THE IMAGINATIVE CRISIS

Oh, solitude! thou wonder-working fay,
Come nurse my feeble fancy in your arms,
Though I, and thee, and fancy town-pent lay,
Come, call around, a world of country charms.
Let all this room, these walls dissolve away,
And bring me Surrey's fields to take their place:
This floor be grass, and draughts as breezes play;
Yon curtains trees, to wave in summer's face;
My ceiling, sky; my water-jug a stream;
My bed, a bank, on which to muse and dream.
The spell is wrought: imagination