The ages perish into pleasure.

SHADOW AND SHINE.

They will find in this life who are grieved with its gladness
No songs for the heart and no hopes for the soul,
But will faint in the glooms where the dirges of sadness
In tremulous murmurs of wretchedness roll;
For the sweets of this earth never lavish their kisses
Where lives in the valleys of rapture repine;
In the tortures they mourn who denounce all the blisses,--
They weep in the shadow that rail at the shine.

In the fields that are fair with the blooms of the clover,
No garlands are grown for the arbors of shade
Where the woes of the wood in their darkness hang over
The grasses that wave with the winds of the glade;
From the chimes of the breezes there echo no measures
That gladden the gale with a music divine;
In the troubles they languish who shrink from the pleasures,
They weep in the shadow that rail at the shine.

Ah, the world is abounding with wonderful glories
And wild are the warbles that sweeten its ways
While the songs of the land sing their beautiful stories,
And scatter their melodies over the days!
There are smiles, there are joys, never mingled with sorrow,
O, man, in return for the tears that are thine,
And the soul never sobs that has hopes for the morrow,
Nor weeps in the shadow nor rails at the shine!

THE GROWTH OF SONG.

A tender song in shadows grew,
And humble hearts were homes it knew.

But through its wondrous music stole
The longings of the human soul;

The hopes of hosts unsatisfied
Within its numbers wandered wide;

And strangely wet with toilsome tears
It held the yearnings of the years;

Till millions with their woes oppressed,
Proclaimed the song of peace and rest;

Till nations in their troubled ways
Found comfort in the joyous lays,

And all the halting race of wrong
Exalts the loving might of song!

Ah, song that soothes our many cries
With fondness of thy lullabies,

We love, we bless, we scepter thee
Proud empress of the hearts that be!

SPRING AND MUSIC.

Spring, among her sylvan shades,
And the gladness of her glades,
Once in dreamy hours was straying,
Where sweet Music with her throngs
Of glad melodies and songs
In the happy vales was playing.

Pan beheld the fairy maids
As they gamboled in the shades,
And he swore they should not se