Soil not my angel wing;
 Keep not from rest;
How can I upward spring,
 Clasped to thy breast?

Hold me not, lover—­friend—­
 Earth I would fly;
Passion and torture end
 In the blest sky!

Life brought but woe to me,
 Even thy kiss
Gave me but agony—­
 Remorse with bliss!

Let go thy earthly hold—­
  Fain would I fly;
Voices with love untold
  Call from on high.

Farewell—­the dregs are drank
  Of life’s sad cup;
It proved but poison rank;
  Life’s lease is up!

N.P.  WILLIS.

OFF-HAND SKETCHES.

Since my friend Morris joined me, we’ve been as busy as Wall street brokers in a gold panic—­eyes and ears, and every sense filled with the novel sights and sounds that greet us on every side in this most delightful, charming, incomparably beautiful summer land.

Whom have we not seen, from Napoleon down to the last suicide?

I have a memorandum which would reach from here to Idlewild, filled with the names of notables and celebrities, whom I have met in the short space of a year.

We do matters quickly here, among the celestials.  I used to think life sped fast in the great cities of London, Paris, and New York, but we live faster here.  With every means of travelling which human ingenuity can invent—­flying machines, balloons, the will and the magnet—­we fairly outdo thought and light, which you consider emblems of rapidity on earth.

Morris and I made a point of visiting Byron, Moore, Hunt, Scott, and that clique.  You must bear in mind that we do not all live on one point of space here; among so many thousand million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, sextillion, and countless illions, there must be some persons who are further apart than Morris and I, who are side by side!

It is a peculiarity which you Yankees seldom think of, that Englishmen can’t endure to live in America.  Well, that peculiarity is just as active after they “shuffle off the mortal coil.”  They must have their little England, even in the spirit world.

So I telegraphed to that quarter of the celestial planet that two strangers from the great emporium of intellect, and civilization, New York City, were about to visit that locality.  We so arranged our journey as to arrive about a day after the dispatch had reached them.

It was proposed that we should meet at the beautiful villa belonging to the Countess of Blessington.

I can assure you that on arriving there it was with a slightly palpitating heart I ascended the noble steps of her residence.  The Countess met us graciously, and by her vivacity and charming candor dispelled the feeling of modest diffidence as to our merits, naturally awakened by the thought of being presented to those illustrious persons who so long held sway over English literature.