xplain
This hidden mystery. Bring with thee
The head strong Atheist; who laughs at heaven
And impiously ascribes events to chance,
To help to solve this wonderful enigma!
First, tell me, ye proud haughty reasoners,
Where the vast strength this creature late possessed
Has fled to? how the bright sparkling fire,
Which flashed but now from those dim rayless eyes
Has been extinguished? Oh--he's dead you say.
I know it well:--but how, and by what means?
Was it the arm of chance that struck him down,
In height of vigor, and in pride of strength,
To stiffen in the blast? Come, come, tell me:
Nay shake not thus the head's that are enriched
With eighty years of wisdom, gleaned from books,
From nights of study, and the magazines
Of knowledge, which your predecessors left.
What! not a word!--I ask you, once again,
How comes it that the wond'rous essence,
Which gave such vigour to these strong nerved limbs
Has leaped from its enclosure, and compelled
This noble workmanship of nature, thus
To sink Into a cold inactive clod?
Nay sneak not off thus cowardly--poor fools
Ye are as destitute of information
As is the lifeless subject of my thoughts!

The _subject of my thoughts_? Yes--there he lies
As free from life, as if he ne'er had lived.
Where are his friends and where his old acquaintance
Who borrowed from his strength, when in the yoke,
With weary pace the steep ascent they climbed?
Where are the gay companions of his prime,
Who with him ambled o'er the flowery turf,
And proudly snorting, passed the way worn hack,
With haughty brow; and, on his ragged coat
Looked with contemptuous scorn? Oh yonder see,
Carelessly basking in the mid-day sun
They lie, and heed him not;--little thinking
While there they triumph in the blaze of noon.
How soon the dread annihilating hour
Will come, and death seal up their eyes,
Like his, forever. Now moralizer
Retire! yet first proclaim this sacred truth;
_Chance_ rules not over Death; but, when a fly
Falls to the earth, 'tis _Heaven_ that gives the blow.

--BLACKETT.

COQUETRY.

It was in one of the most picturesque parts of South Wales, on the
banks of the lovely Towy, that two ladies sat working at an open
casement, which led into a veranda, covered with clematis and
honey-suckle. The elder of the two might be about fifty, perhaps not
so much, for her features bore traces of sufferin