Silence and Darkness! mighty are your spells
To search the spirit! Guilt, that walks by day
With shameless front, and every fear repels,
Trembles like sentenc'd victim 'neath your sway;
For ye do tear each false disguise away,
And summon forth from memory's dread abyss
Follies and crimes, a long and black array,

Till, all unmask'd, he feels the thing he is,—

One to whom cleaves that curse which shuts the soul

from bliss!

Not so with him whose heart is purified

By heavenly grace; he loves your solemn reign;

He joys to see the pomp of day subside,

And trace your distant footsteps on the plain.

By day he communes with his fellow-men,

By night with God! 'Tis then his spirit pours

Its holiest sacrifice of prayer and praise;

Like that fam'd tree, the pride of eastern bowers,
Which keeps its choicest sweets for midnight's stilly hours.

Men call it sad-that fair and fragrant tree-
Because it wakens while the forest sleeps;

As false they deem of him who silently

Through the still night his prayerful vigil keeps.

Q

Ah! little do they know, even when he weeps,
How much of peace blends with his very tears,
Healing as dew, whose balmy nectar steeps

The sun-smit flower: while Hope, sweet Hope! appears,
An iris on the cloud, and smiles away his fears.

Silence and Darkness! soon the hour will come
When all must brave ye, for that all must die:
The night of death, the silence of the tomb!
These are realities which none may fly.

Thrice happy they who, when that hour is nigh,
Do feel their faith secure, their sins forgiven:
Soon 'twill be past; and then to ear and eye

What sounds, what sights of rapture shall be given!
For darkness, endless day!- for silence, songs of
Heaven!

THE IVY.

HEDERA HELIX.

"Oh! how could Fancy crown with thee,
In ancient days, the god of wine,

And bid thee at the banquet be,

Companion of the vine?

Thy home, wild plant, is where each sound

Of revelry hath long been o'er,

Where song's full notes once peal'd around,

But now are heard no more."

WE may indeed wonder, with the writer of these sweet lines, that the ivy should be desecrated to such unhallowed purposes. Besides the consideration of its usual haunts, there is something so sombre in its appearance as makes it seem but little akin to revelry. One might almost imagine that in wreathing the goblet with its graceful branches, garnished with handsome but poisonous berries, it was designed to point a moral by alluding to "the sweet poison of misused wine.”

We are indebted to the ivy for the picturesque beauty it throws around every object to which it at