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Ecclesiastes said that "all is vanity," Most modern preachers say the same, or show it By their examples of true Christianity: In short, all know, or very short may know it.

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand; I saw from out the wave of her structure's rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying Glory smiles O'er the far times, when many a subject land Look'd to the winged Lion's marble pines, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles.

In Venice, Tass's echoes are no more, And silent rows the songless gondolier; Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, And music meets not always now the ear.

Venice once was dear, The pleasant place of all festivity, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy.

To sanction Vice, and hunt Decorum down.

The devil hath not, in all his quiver's choice, An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice.

While Washington's a watchword, such as ne'er Shall sink while there's an echo left to air.

Where may the wearied eye repose, When gazing on the Great; Where neither guilty glory glows, Nor despicable state? Yes--one the first, the last, the best, The Cincinnatus of the West Whom envy dared not hate, Bequeathed the name of Washington To make man blush; there was but one.

Till taught by pain, Men really know not what good water's worth; If you had been in Turkey or in Spain, Or with a famish'd boat's-crew had your berth, Or in the desert heard the camel's bell, You'd wish yourself where Truth is--in a well.

As winds come whispering lightly from the West, Kissing, not ruffling, the blue deep's serene.

Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach Who please, the more because they preach in vain,-- Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after.

Which cheers the sad, revives the old, inspires The young, makes Weariness forget his toil, And Fear her danger; opens a new world When this, the present, palls.

Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels.

But these are foolish things to all the wise, And I love wisdom more than she loves me; My tendency is to philosophise On most things, from a tyrant to a tree; But still the spouseless virgin Knowledge flies, What are we? and whence come we? what shall be Our ultimate existence? What's our present? Are questions answerless, and yet incessant.

Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life! The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!

A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour!

If a man proves too clearly and convincingly to himself . . . that a tiger is an optical illusion--well, he will find out he is wrong. The tiger will himself intervene in the discussion, in a manner which will be in every sense conclusive.

Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes; But no too humbly, or she will despise Thee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes: Disguise even tenderness if thou art wise.

Not much he kens, I ween, of woman's breast, Who thinks that wanton thing is won by sighs.

'Tis an old lesson; time approves it true, And those who know it best, deplore it most; When all is won that all desire to woo, The paltry prize is hardly worth the cost.