he sigh that none can breathe and live.
Like lovelier things, deluded flower,
Thy date is short; the very hour
That sees thee flourish, sees thee fade;
Thy blush, thy being, all a shade.
Yet, flower, I'll lay thee on a shrine,
That makes thy very death divine.

Couch'd on a bed of living snows,
Then breathe thy last, too happy rose!
Sweet Queen, thou'lt die upon a throne,
Where even thy sweetness is outdone;
Young weeper, thou shalt close thine eyes
Beside the gates of Paradise.
On my Idalia's bosom, thou,
Beneath the lustres of her brow,
Like pilgrims, all their sorrows past,
On Heaven their dying glances cast,
Thy crimson beauty shalt recline,
Oh, that thy rapturous fate were mine!

_Blackwood's Magazine_.

* * * * *

NEW BOOKS.

LIVES OF SCOTTISH WORTHIES, VOL. II., [Or the 34th volume of the
_Family Library_, is rife with interesting details of the proudest
areas of Scottish history; but more especially of the chivalric courses
of Robert Bruce and James the First. We quote half-a-dozen vividly
written pages, from the former, describing the memorable Siege of
Berwick, in 1319.]

Considering the importance of Berwick, and the care and expense with
which it had been fortified by the king, it was natural that any attempt
against it should be viewed with much interest; and when it was known
that the son-in-law of Bruce,--a young warrior, whose high rank was
rendered more conspicuous by the services he had already rendered to the
country,--had been selected as its governor, and that the whole army of
England, headed by king Edward, and under the command of the flower of
the nobility, had invested it by sea and land, the intense interest with
which the siege was watched by both countries may be easily imagined.
It concluded, however, in the complete triumph of the steward, and the
repulse of the English army; yet not before every device then known in
the rude engineering of the times had been essayed by the besiegers,
and effectually baffled by the ingenuity and persevering courage of the
enemy. After their earthen mounds had been completed, the English, on
St. Mary's eve, made a simultaneous assault both by land and by sea.
Whilst their force, led by the bravest of their captains, and carrying
with them, besides their usual offensive arms, the ladders, crows,
pick-axes, and other assistances for an escalade, rushed onwards to the
w