* * * * *
GLOAMING.
BY DELTA.
There is a beauty in the grey twilight,
Which minds unmusical can never know,
A holy quietude, that yields to woe
A pulseless pleasure, fraught with pure delight:
The aspect of the mountains huge, that brave
And bear upon their breasts the rolling storms;
And the soft twinkling of the stars, that pave
Heaven's highway with their bright and burning forms;
The rustle of the dark boughs overhead:
The murmurs of the torrent far away;
The last notes of the blackbird, and the bay
Of sullen watch-dog, from the far farm-stead--
All waken thoughts of Being's early day,
Loves quench'd, hopes past, friends lost, and pleasures fled.
_Blackwood's Magazine_.
* * * * *
ON READING NEW BOOKS.
There is a fashion in reading as well as in dress, which lasts only for
a season. One would imagine that books were, like women, the worse for
being old;[2] that they have a pleasure in being read for the first
time; that they open their leaves more cordially; that the spirit of
enjoyment wears out with the spirit of novelty; and that, after a
certain age, it is high time to put them on the shelf. This conceit
seems to be followed up in practice. What is it to me that another--that
hundreds or thousands have in all ages read a work? Is it on this
account the less likely to give me pleasure, because it has delighted so
many others? Or can I taste this pleasure by proxy? Or am I in any
degree the wiser for their knowledge? Yet this might appear to be the
inference.
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