Calm sleeps the sea when storms are o'er,
With bosom silent and serene,
And but the plank upon the shore
Reveals that wrecks have been.
So some frail leaf like this may be
Left floating on Time's silent tide,--
The sole remaining trace of me,--
To tell I lived and died.
_Malcolm's Scenes of War, &c._
* * * * *
THE SUICIDE LOVER.
A young man, of rich and respectable parents, was for a long time
passionately in love with a young lady of the same town, whose birth
and fortune were equal to his own; he had also the good fortune not
to displease the young lady. Both families were anxious to bring the
business to a conclusion; notwithstanding which the intended always found
some specious pretext to put off the ceremony. The parents of the lady,
after yielding for some time to the different excuses of their future
son-in-law, as they could not find out the motive, began to be weary of
being put off so often, and at last declared to him that a rival, who was
his equal in every thing, had presented himself, and that if he did not
soon make up his mind, they should be obliged to give up to the desire of
his rival. The young man upon this information made up his mind; and,
after the necessary arrangements, the day for the ceremony arrived. The
bride, the two families and friends, were assembled, and waited only for
the bridegroom in order to proceed to church, when a servant arrived with
the sad intelligence that his master was taken suddenly ill, and in
consequence requested that the celebration of the nuptials might once
more be deferred for a few days.
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