THE
LADY’S a
BOOK.
oe
NOVBWBBR,
180d.
BY MISS LESLIE.
The Duchess reclines on her cushions of down,
Wiile Sancho delivers his proverbs profound;
And her damsels, unheeding the duenna’s frown,
Are listening, and glancing, and smiling around.
And great is the glee of that child of the sun,
The African handmaid, whose broad-grinning race
Ne’er were known to resist the contagion of fun,
No matter the cause, or the time, or the place.
There he dwells on his woful adventures—and chief,
Dulcinea’s enchantment he argues upon;
And mysteriously tells, as his private belief,
That the wits of his master long since have been gone.
And were this fair dame, and her mirth-loving lord,
These pleasant patricians, mischievous though kind,
Whose tastes and whose humours so gaily accord,
But phantoms of fiction, creations of mind?
Oh no! let us hope that their pictures, in sooth,
Were painted from life with that pencil divine,
The pencil of nature, whose touches of truth
No fancy can equal, no art can outshine.
Let us hope that they lived, and were known to the bard;
That they humoured his genius and cherish’d his fame;
That they made his hard destiny somewhat less hard;
That their bounty relieved him when poverty came.
Yhe wreath of the warrior has faded and gone,
While the laurel of genius is green in the land; '
And the fight of Lepanto will only be known,
As the fight where Cervantes was maimed of his hand.
From the Token for 1835.
THE DAYS THAT ARE PAST.
WE will not deplore them, the days that are past;
The gloom of misfortune is over them cast, 4
They were lengthened by sorrow and sullied by care,
Their griefs were too many, their joys were too rare;
Yet know that their shadows are on us no more,
Let us welcome the prospect that brightens before!
We have cherished fair hopes, we have plotted brave schemes,
We have lived till we find them illusive as dreams,
Wealth has melted like snow that is grasped in the hand,
And the steps we have climbed have departed like
sand,
Yet shall we despond, while of health unbereft,
And honour, bright honour, and freedom are left!
O! shall we despond, while the pages of time
Yet open before us their records sublime,
While books lend their treasures unfailing, which
still
Have been our high solace when compass’d by ill;
While humanity whispers such truths in the ear
As it softens the heart, like sweet music, to hear!
O! shall we despond, while with vision still free,
We can gaze on the sky, and the earth, and the sea;
While the sunshine can waken a burst of delight
And the stars are a joy and a glory at night;
While each harmony running through nature can
raise
In our spirits the impulse of gladness and praise!
O! let us no longer then vainly lament
Over scenes which have faded, and days that are spent;
But by faith unforsaken, unawed by mischance,
On hope’s waving banner still fix’d be our glance;
And should fortune prove cruel and false to the last,
Let us look to the future and not to the past!
