Oh! did we meet when brighter star
Sent its fair promise from afar,

I then might hope to call thee mine ;
The minstrel's heart and harp were thine;
But now 'tis past-it cannot be ;
Farewell! and think no more on me.

Or do!-but let it be the hour
When Mercy's all-atoning power
From His high throne of glory hears
Of souls like thine, the prayers, the tears;
Then, whilst you bend the suppliant knee,
Then-then, oh Lady! think on me.

Callanan.

Power of her Social Influence.
But know, my fair (to whom belong
The poet and his artless song),
When female cheeks refuse to glow,
Farewell to virtue here below.
Our sex is lost to every rule,
Our sole distinction, knave or fool.
'Tis to your innocence we run;
Save us, ye fair, or we're undone ;
Maintain your modesty and station,
So women shall preserve the nation.

Prior.

As a Wife-Her Soothing Influence.

Yes, a world of comfort

Lies in that one word, wife--After a bickering day,

To come with jaded spirit home at night,
And find the cheerful fire, the sweet repast,

At which, in dress of happy cheeks and eyes,
Love sits, and smiling, lightens all the board.

Knowles.

We sit serenely 'neath the night,
As still as stars with swift delight;
In tears, that show how in life's deep
The hidden pearls of beauty sleep!
And quiet, as of sleeping trees,
And silence, as of sleeping seas.
The channels of our bliss run fill'd,
Their faintest happy murmur still'd.

Upon my forehead rests thy palm,
And on my spirit rests thy calm.
I cannot see thy cheek, but know
Its sea of rose-bloom hath a glow
Like ruby light, and richly lies
The dew i' the shadow of thine eyes:
Deep eyes! like wells of tenderness,
That ask how they may soothliest bless.

Warm fragrance like the soul o' the South,
Is round us, and thy damask mouth,
With the sweet spirit of its breath,
Dissolves me in delicious death.
Musk-roses, blowing in the gloom,
Drop fragrance fainting in the room.

Such sensuous sadness fills the air,
Ripe life a bloom of dew doth wear.

The harping hand hath dull'd the lyre
Of thrilling heartstrings-by their fire
That droops, the dreamy passions doze
In large luxuriance of repose.
While we our fields of pleasure reap,
Our babes lie in the wood of sleep :
One, first-love's dream of beauty wrought!
One, the more perfect afterthought.

We sit with silent glory crown'd,

And Love's arms wound like heaven round:

Or on rich clouds of fragrance swim

The summer dusk so cool and dim.

I only see that thou art near,

I only feel I have thee, dear!

I only hear thy throbbing heart,

And know that we can never part.

Massey.

Her Influence universal.

Oh, woman! whose form and whose soul

Are the spell and the light of each path we pursue, Whether sunn'd in the tropics, or chill'd at the pole, If woman be there, there is happiness too.

Moore.

Her Primeval Innocence.

When lovely woman, perfect at her birth,
Blest with her early charms the wondering earth,
Her soul, in sweet simplicity array'd,

Nor shared my guidance nor required my aid.
Her tender frame, nor confident nor coy,
Had every fibre tuned to gentle joy.
No vain caprices swell'd her pouting lip,
No gold produced a mercenary trip;
Soft innocence inspired her willing kiss,
Her love was nature, and her life was bliss.
Guide of his reason, not his passion's prey,

She tamed the savage, Man, who bless'd her sway.
No jarring wishes fill'd the world with woes,

But youth was ecstasy, and age repose.

Cowper.

Invulnerable, if Chaste.

She'll not be hit

With Cupid's arrow, she hath Dian's wit;

And, in strong proof of chastity, well arm'd,

From Love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd.
She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide th' encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold.

Shakespeare.

Virulence of her Jealousy.

The venom clamours of a jealous woman

Poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.

Shakespeare.

Innate Judgment of.

In a conversation I once held with an eminent minister of our Church, he made this fine observation: "We will say nothing of the manner in which that sex usually conduct an argument; but the intuitive judgments of women are often more to be relied upon than the conclusions which we reach by an elaborate process of reasoning." No man that has an intelligent wife, or who is accustomed to the society of educated women, will dispute this. Times without number you must have known them decide questions on the instant, and with unerring accuracy, which you had been poring over for hours, perhaps, with no other result than to find yourself getting deeper and deeper into the tangled maze of doubts and difficulties. It were hardly generous to allege that they achieve these feats less by reasoning than by a sort of sagacity which approximates to the sure instinct of the animal races; and yet there seems to be some ground for the remark of a witty French writer, that, when a man has toiled, step by step, up a flight of stairs, he will be sure to find a woman at the top; but she will not be able to tell how she got there. How she got there, however, is of little moment. If the conclusions a woman has reached are sound, that is all that concerns us. And that they are very apt to be sound on the practical matters of domestic and secular life, nothing but