PRIVATE LIBRARY |
OF I
I JAMES H. BURKE. .
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GEMS
FOR THI- FIRESIDE
COMPRISING
THE MOST UNIQUE, TOUCHING. PITHY, AND BEAUTIFUL
LITERARY TREASURES
FROM THE GREATEST MINDS IN THE REALMS OF POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY,
WIT AND HnMOR. STATESMANSHIP AND RELIGION.
||ljC0atxtla ilXustratccl
Among the Brilliant Men and Women of Genius whose Very Choicest Productions enrich the.se
PAGES ARE Shakespeare, Milton, Mooee, Burns, Bryant, Byron, Shelley, Scott, Campbell,
Hood, Wordsworth, Longfellow, Tenny.son, Holmes, Hemans, Whittier, Saxe,
SiGOURNEY, Dickens, Lovek, Everett, Bret Harte, Franklin, Macaulay,
and about Two Hundred other Authors of established Fame.
AL,SO
MANY RARE AND EXCELLENT PIECES OF PECULL\R MERIT
WHOSE AUTHORSHIP IS UNKNOWN,
ARE INCLUDED,
To WHICH ARE ADDED BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE MOST CELEBRATED POETS AND AUTHORS; OVER
One Thousand Tep^sely put Thoughts from the World's Gre.\^test Thinkers; and
Numerous Autograph Album Sentiments,
MAKING A WONDERFULLY RICH
TREJISURY FOR THE HOME CIRCLE
A CHARMING
LIBRARY OF PROSE AND VERSE.
Rev. 0. H. TIFFANY, D, D., EDITOR
TECUMSEH. MICH.:
A. W. Mills. Publisher.
1881.
Entered according to Act of Congress.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE 9
INTRODQCTION , '11
INDEX OF AUTHORS (Peose) 15
INDEX OF AUTHORS (Poetry) 19
LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS .27
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 29
GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY 37
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 709
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS 781
SELECTIONS FOR ALBUMS 839
INDEX OF PROSE (Titles) 845
INDEX OF POEMS (Titles) 849
INDEX OF POEMS (First Lines) 859
1
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
ppN preparing '' Gems for the Fireside," the Publishers have cooperated
«J^ heartily with the Editor in his effort to produce a book of unequalled
'^:^^ excellence. He has gathered the "apples of gold;" they have set
them in " pictures of silver."
Particular attention has been given to every detail of the
publication. Paper has been prepared expressly for this volume. Its
texture is firm and durable ; its surface is elegantly finished ; and its
tone is delicate and pleasing to the sye.
Typographical effects have been carefully studied at every point, the
aim being to secure beauty in the page, with the greatest possible com-
fort to the reader. In the matter of binding, materials have been
selected with reference to durability and elegant appearance, while the
workmanship is in the best style of the art.
9
10 PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
Illustrative art has been taxed to the utmost in the adornment ot
the book, and in its pictorial embellishment. At greatly increased edi-
torial and pecuniary expense, the illustrations are all made to elucidate
the various poems and prose pieces of the text. They form an artistic
commentary on the choice subject-matter, and give a charming and pic-
turesque effect to the entire work.
In addition to the numerous full-page illustrations, and those of
smaller size, there is a superb steel-plate Frontispiece of Longfellow,
the world-renowned and beloved American poet. In view of the
special fitness of "Gems for the Fireside" as a gift book, a beautifully-
wrought illuminated Presentation Plate is inserted also.
Among the distinguished artists whose pictorial gems adorn these
pages, are Bensell, Darley, Grey, Hill, Hennessey, Heine, Herrick,
Kensett, Linton, Macdonough, McEntee, Moran, Parsons,* Smillie, Sooy,
Schell, Sweeney (Boz)., and many others equally skillful.
A complete double system of Indexing, gives ready access to all
the contents of this Treasury. Illustrations, with their titles and des-
criptive quotations ; Authors, with their several works as found in this
casket; Poems, by titles and by first lines; and Prose articles, by titles,
are all given in the copious and carefully prepared indexes.
In short, whatever care and generous experiditure has been able to
do to secure completeness and elegance, has been done in " Gems for
the Fireside." And now it is presented to the consideration of an ap-
precia.tive public.
■GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE."
"TREASURY FOR THE HOME CIRCLE."
"LIBRARY OF PROSE AND VERSE.
NfnlHESE terms from the title-page of the Publishers, admirably and
erf^^ sufficiently express the scope and aim of the present beautifully
Y illustrated volume. It has been the constant endeavor of both
?
Publishers and Editor to gather from the entire range of litera-
"^ ture the very finest pieces, and the accumulated productions of
the ages have been scanned, again and again, in order to secure such
Gems as shall reach the high standard of excellence indicated by the
Publishers in their prospectus.
Every unique work in literature has a history which may be
thoroughly known and felt by its author, and yet be unknown and unsus-
pected by its reader. This history may be an extended one. Great
preachers have said of their best sermons, that it had taken them many
years to prepare them. They were the product of a lifetime spent in ob-
servation and study. Gray's Elegy, revolved in his own mind, was re-
written under fresh inspiration, and pruned again and again, until that
brief poem stands as the one beautiful monument of his literary life.
12 INTRODUCTION.
Poe's name and fame live chiefly in that wonderful production " The
Raven;" the outcome, doubtless, of some deep, wild, intense, personal
experience. Miss Nancy Priest wrote nothing comparable with her
exquisite " Over the River," and Mrs. Alexander gave us, to be treasured
forever, " The Burial of Moses."
Exquisite gems of literature, in prose and poetry, are not often the pro-
ductions of the cool thought of men and women of genius, but rather they
are the outcome of some all-absorbing inspiration resulting from intense
personal feeling, or from some momentous event. Patrick Henry's ever-
memorable words were fired to the white heat of devotion to his country
by the crisis upon which hung the destinies of her three millions of peo-
ple, and the question of freedom to this New World. Only the demands
of a terrible crisis in the great war of the Rebellion, could have produced
the immortal Emancipation Proclamation.
Not unfrequently the accumulated thought of years is fixed and
formulated by the occurrences of an instant. Glowing devotion to our
country's flag found quick expression in " The Star Spangled Banner,"
when, after a night of fierce bombardment, dawn disclosed it still proudly
floating over the w^alls of old Fort McHenry. The overwhelming pride
of an obedient British soldiery gave expression to the pen of Tennyson, in
that intense and thriUing poem, ''The Charge of the Light Brigade,"
when the noble six hundred made their famous dash at Balaklava.
As tiie great crises of human history call forth the great utterances,
the world may never have another " Uncle Tom's Cabin," or " Fool's
Errand." As but few men have been permitted to impress humanity by
many heroic deeds, so but few poets, philosophers, statesmen, or orators,
have given many " apples of gold in pictures of silver " to the world.
Because of these well-attested facts one may possess many volumes,
in most of which a few beauties form the chief attraction. The gems im-
part the value. Without them the volumes would lack their lustre. Not
the mass of soil and rock, but the gold and jewels in that mass give
value to the El Dorados and the Grreat Bonanzas of the world. And so it
is with books.
In gathering "Gems for the Fireside," real gems only have been
sought. Numberless productions of average worth have been passed by.
INTRODUCTION. 13
Nothing but excellence finds a place in this treasury. By reason of its
unique character and wonderful variety, the book will prove a welcome
companion ; it will meet every mood of the human heart. The most
exquisite humor, the most touching pathos, the most thrilling patriotism,
the grandest words of statesmanship, the most impressive utterances of
the orator, the profound reasonings of the philosopher, the cutting satire
of the critic, indeed every department of literature is fittingly repre-
sented in this treasury.
And these " Gems " are for the "Fireside." Nothing harmful must
ever enter that Eden, but all influences of good must shield the purity,
and stimulate the holy ambitions, which are so appropriately enshrined in
that sanctuary of embowered bliss.
''Home," to an ear refined, is sweetest of spoken words; "Home,"
to an appreciative heart, is fullest of good impulses and holiest memo-
ries. " Home " is the goal to which wanderers return in thought
and hope; it is the influence which longest retains its hold on earnest
youth, casting its starry brightness even over the stormy seas of vice
and dissipation ; it is the attraction which oftenest lures weary prodigals
back from error and from sin to the peaceful happy isles of the blest;
so. Home, which is to all men the symbol of love, and purity, and hope,
must have its "treasury" of "gems of purest ray serene."
To constitute this "Library of Prose and Verse," the literary stores
of many lands have been put under contribution; England and Germany,
and France and Italy are represented by their choicest Poets. Russia,
India, China, Greece and Rome are present in admirable translations.
Our own America will be seen to be no whit behind the foremost in the
full and copious list of men and women, who have made, and are daily
increasing her claims for prominence in the world of letters. We have
from Europe, the master mind of Shakespeare, the solid grandeur of
Milton, the romantic beauty of Scott, the homely sincerity of Burns, the
philosophic meditations of Wordsworth, the impassioned lines of Byron,
the delicate fancy of Shelly, the melodious beauty of Moore, the mirth-
ful humor of Hood, and from America the " very choicest productions "
of the most fiimous of her sons and daughters. The topics and themes
are as vaxied as the authors.
14
INTRODUCTION.
Since " freedom's battle once begun " is a perpetual inheritance, so
round the fireside the ruddy flame of a loyal patriotism must glow.
And heroic sires will find inspiration for their sons in the selections from
Campbell, Longfellow, Baker, Everett, Webster and Lincoln.
As the Home must be the place for holy breathings and for conse-
crated hearts, it will be found that a number of selections have been made
from Addison, Bunyan, Montgomery, Muhlenburg, Bonar, Willis and
others, whose verse and meditations are alike free from pious cant and
bigoted sectarianism.
It is believed that this collection contains vastly more of entertain-
ment, culture and inspiration than any other volume of like size and price.
It has been prepared at great expense and labor, to meet a want Mt in
every home, for a volume, that shall be for every day use, a source of
constant instruction, inexhaustible entertainment and permanent good,
that will cheer the solitary hour and charm the entire family circle.
0. H. Tiffany.
INDEX OF AUTHORS,
(PROSE)
Adeleb, Max, (Charles Heber Clarke).
Catching the Morning Train . . 61
Andersen, Hans Cheistian.
The Little Match Girl 156
Anonymous.
The Generous Soldier Saved . . 91
Jimmy Butler and the Owl . . . 101
Good-night Papa, 118
Too Late for the Train . .... 125
Yankee and the Dutchman's Dog. 131
United in Death 137
De Pint wid Old Pete 143
Jenkins goes to a Picnic .... 163
Pledge with Wme 166
The Old Wife's Kiss 244
The Last Station 271
Schooling a Husband 313
Lord Dundreary at Brighton . . 363
Regulus to the Roman Senate. . 370
Hypochondriac 403
Mariner's description of Piano . 495
A Husband's Experience in Cook
ing 519
The Life of a Child Fairy . . . 529
Selling a Coat 585
My Mother's Bible 611
The Noble Revenge 621
The Grotto of Antiparos .... 636
Fingal's Cave 648
Winter Sports 667
Bailey, J. M., (Danbury News Man).
Mr. Stiver's Horse ...... 112
Sewing on a Button 169
Baxtee, Richaed.
The Rest of the Just 545
Beechee, Henry Waed.
'Biah Cathcart's Proposal. ... 293
Death of President Lincoln . . . 598
Loss of the Arctic 683
Berkley, Bishop Geoege.
Industry the Source of Wealth . 180
15
16
AUTHORS OF PROSE.
Billings, Josh, (Henry W. Shaw).
Manifest Destiny 457
Brown, Charles F., (Artemus Ward).
Artemus Ward at the Tomb of
Shakespeare 152
Artemus Ward visits the Shakers 420
Burke, Edmund.
The Order of Nobility 227
On the Death of his Sou ... . 231
BuNYAN, John.
The Golden City 303
Baker, Edward Dickinson.
Worse than Civil War 516
Chapin, Rev. Dr. Edwi?^ Hubbell.
The Ballot-Box 617
Ghoate, Rufus.
The Birth-day of Washington . 444
Clemens, Samuel L., (Mark Twain).
Uncle Dan'l's Apparition and
Prayer 121
European Guides 211
Jim Smiley's Frog 510
Buck Fanshaw's Funeral .... 671
OozzENS, Frederick S.
The Dumb-Waiter 279
Croly, George.
Constantius and the Lion . . . 239
Gumming, Rev. John, D. D.
Voices of the Dead 298
Cttrtis, George William.
Ideas the Life of a People ... 440
DiOKENS, Charles.
Mr. Pickwick in a Dilemma . . 71
Death of Little Joe ..... . 134
The Drunkard's Death ..... 189
Death of Little Nell 256
Pip's Fight 287
Recollections of my Christmas
Tree 307
A Child's Dream of a Star ... 345
The Pauper's Funeral 365
Mr. Pickwick in the Wrong Room 375
Nicholas Nickleby leaves Dothe-
boys' Hall 399
Sam Weller's Valentine 532
Disraeli, Benjamin.
The Hebrew Race 67
Jerusalem by Moonlight .... 568
De Quincey, Thomas.
Execution of Joan of Arc. . . . 145
Dougherty, Daniel.
Pulpit Oratory 81
DwiGHT, Timothy.
The Notch of the White Moun-
tains 423
Emmet, Robert.
A Patriot's Last Appeal .... 546
Emerson, Ralph Waldo.
Self-Reliance 607
Everett, Edward, Hon. LL.D.
Last Hours of Webster .... 153
Morning 355
The Indian to the Settler .... 463
The Pilgrim Fathers 524
The Clock-work of the' Skies . . 630
Franklin, Benjamin.
Arrival in Philadelphia 657
Froude, James Anthony.
The Coronation of Anne Boleyn 194
Garfield, James A., President.
Golden Gems (Selected from Ora-
tions and Writings) .... 640
Greenwood, Francis W. P.
Poetry and Mystery of the Sea . 175
GouGH, John B.
Buying Gape-seed 57
What IS a Minority 270
A Glass of Cold Water 332
Halibueton, Thomas C.
Soft Sawder and Human Natur. 646
Hervey, James.
Meditation at an Infant's Tomb 321
Hawthorne, Nathaniel.
Sights from a Steeple 470
Holland, Josiah Gilbert.
Tramp, Tramp, Tramp 201
Holmes, Oliver Wendell.
The Front and Side Doors ... 43
Sea-shore and Mountains .... 415
Howitt. Mrs. Mary.
Mountains 427
Hugo, Victor.
Caught in the Quicksand .... 223
The Gamin 275
Rome and Carthage 350
AUTHORS OF PROSE.
17
[rving, Edward.
Phillips, Wendell.
David, King of Israel
486
Political Agitation
506
Irving, Washington.
PoE, Edgar A.
• Baltus Van Tassel's Farm . . .
49
The Domain of Arnheim ....
433
Sorrow for the Dead
88
PooLE, John.
Rural Life in England
284
Old Coaching Days
579
A Time of Unexampled Prosperity
448
Porter, Noah.
The Organ of Westminster Abbey
474
Advice to Young Men
598
Sights on the Sea
The Tombs of Westminster
b/4
621
Prime, William C.
Morality of Angling
39
Jefferson, Thomas.
Habits of Trout
643
The Character of Washington .
559
Prentiss, S. S.
Jerrold, Douglas.
New England
105
Winter
55
PuRCHAs, Samuel
Praise of the Sea
Mrs. Caudle needs Spring Clothing
478
75
Mrs. Caudle on Shirt Buttons . .
499
Jones, J. William.
Richter, Jean Paul.
The Responsive Chord
614
The Two Roads
109
Kane, Elisha Kent.
RiDDLS, Mrs. J. H.
Formation of Icebergs ....
627
The Ghosts of Long Ago ....
99
Arctic Life
652
Russell, William H.
Kelly, Rev. William V.
The Light Brigade at Balaklava 58
Sunrise at Sea
337
RusKiN, John.
Improving on Nature
503
Lamartine.
Book Buyers
660
Execution of Madame Roland . .
686
Landor, Walter Savage.
The Genius of Milton
487
Gathered Gold Dust
48
Lincoln, Abraham.
Diamond Dust
521
Dedication at Gettysburg ....
141
Shelley, Percy Bysshe.
Retribution
162
The Divinity of Poetry ....
394
Macaulay, Thomas Babington.
Shillaber, B. p., (Mrs. Partington.)
The Puritans
182
Mouse Hunting
217
Milton
232
264
Sprague, William B.
Voltaire and Wilberforce . . .
661
Tacitus
390
Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn.
Massillon, Jean Baptiste.
Children of the Desert
385
Immortality
207
Stowe, Mrs. Harriet Beecher.
MacLean, Mrs. Letitia E.
Zeph Higgins' Confession . . .
248
The Ruined Cottage . .
96
The Little Evangelist
359
Milton, John.
Sumner, Charles.
The Freedom of the Press . . .
172
Progress of Humanity
453
Truth
198
Scott, Sir Walter.
Moseley, Litchfield
Rebecca Describes the Siege . .
539
The Charity Dinner
326
Making Love in a Balloon . . .
590
Talmage, Rev. T. De Witt, D. D.
Paek, Mungo.
Dress Reform
550
African Hospitality
66
Mother's Vacant Chair ....
555
Parker, Theodore.
Grandmother's Spectacles ....
675
The Beauty of Youth
697
Shooting Porpoises
704
18
AUTHORS OF PROSE.
Tarson, Charles.
Scene at J^iagara 234
Taylor, Jeremy.
Useful Studies 292
Warner, Charles Dudley.
Uncle Dan'l's Apparition and Prayer 121
The Coming of Thanksgiving . . . 148
Our Debt to Irving 563
Washington, George.
Address to his Troops 408
Inaugural Address 603
Webster, Daniel.
Crime Self-Revealed 632
Whitcher, Frances Miriam.
The Widow Bedott's Poetry
Whitney, Mrs. Adeline D. T.
The Little Rid Hin . . . .
Whipple, Edwin P.
The Power of Words. . . .
Wirt, William.
The Blind Preacher . . . .
Wiley, Charles A.
Caught in the Maelstrom .
Wylie, J. A.
Defence of Pra Del Tor . .
82
•
482
665
185
412
690
INDEX OF AUTHORS.
(POETRY)
Adams, Charles F.
The Puzzled Dutchman 151
Pat's Criticism 154
The Little Conqueror 165
Der Drummer 297
Hans and Fritz 311
Leedle Yawcob Strauss 418
Addison, Joseph.
Cato on Immortality 391
Akebs, Elizabeth.
Rock me to Sleep, Mother . . . 274
Alexander, Mrs. C. F.
The Burial of Moses 289
Alger, H., Jr.
John Maynard 406
Alger, William R., (TranslatorV
The Sufi Saint 284
The Parting Lovers 356
Altenburg, Michael.
Battle Song of Gustavus Adol-
phus 430
Anacreon.
The Grasshopper King 42
Anosymous.
Shall we know each other there? 69
Song of the Decanter 87
The Farmer and the Counsellor . 100
Charley's Opinion of the Baby . 120
Socrates Snooks 124
Papa's Letter .... . . 168
Betty and the Bear 171
Love lightens Labor 182
" Love me little Love me long ". 191
Scatter the Germs of the Beautiful 195
Old School Punishment
The Poor Indian .
Two Little Kittens
Motherhood . . .
Roll on thou Sun .
Twenty Years Ago
The Nation's Dead
Call me not Dead .
The Sufi Saint . .
Putting up o' the Stove
The Engineer's Story
The Baggage Fiend .
209
227
229
229
234
261
266
269
284
290
295-
300
19
20
AUTHORS OF POEMS.
The Song of the Forge .... 304
Civil War 318
Go feel what I have felt . . . . 31C
Paddy's Excelsior 323
Chinese Excelsior 324
Father Time's Changeling ... 324
Prayers of Children 329
Now I lay me down to sleep . . 332
The Frenchman and the Rats . 335
The Parting Lovers 356
Annie Laurie 385
A Kiss at the Door 401
Clerical Wit 401
Lines on a Skeleton 417
Song of the Stormy Petrel ... 440
Paying her Way 452
The Cliemist to his Love .... 469
No Sects in Heaven 500
Evening brings us Home . . . 502
John Jankin's Sermon .... 543
The Laugh of a Child 549
Dot Lambs what Mary Haf Got 567
St. John the Aged 575
" The Penny ye meant to Gi'e." 581
The Mystic Weaver 587
Mrs. Lofty and I 596
Our Skater Belle ....... 597
Searching for the Slam .... 602
The True Temple 615
The Drummer Boy 616
Two Views 625
Our Lambs 629
Dorothy Sullivan 685
The Eggs and the Horses .... 694
The Maple Tree 699
A Woman's Love 702
A Mother's Love 703
Arkwright, Peleg. V
Poor Little Joe 358
Allinguam, William.
The Fairies 515
Arnold, Edwin, (Translator).
Call me not Dead 269
Abnold, Geohoe.
Tlie Jolly Old Pedagogue. ... 258
Aytoune, William E.
The Buried Flower . . . • . ■ 272
Bache, Anna.
The Quilting 56
Barn.vrd, Lady Anne.
Auld Robin Gray 173
Beattie, James.
The Hermit 595
Law 679
Bell, Chas. A.
Tim Twinkleton's Twins .... 106
Bernard De Morlaix.
The Celestial Country 650
BiCKERSTETH, EdWARD.
The Ministry of Jesus 703
Blake, William.
The Tiger 357
BoKER, George H.
Battle of Lookout Mountain . . 570
BONAR, HoRATIUS.
Life from Death 170
Beyond the Smiling and the
Weeping 268
Brainard, M.\ry G.
He Knows 577
Brooks, Charles T., (Translator).
Winter Song 596
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett.
Sonnet from the Portuguese . . 370
A Portrait ■ . 388
The Cry of the Children .... 699
Brown, Emma Alice.
Measuring the Baby 520
Bryant, Wm. Cullen.
Forest Hymn 37
Waiting by the Gate 77
Song of Marion's Men 133
Thanatopsis 214
" Blessed are they that Mourn ". 242
The Death of the Flowers ... 349
Robert of Lincoln 387
The Murdered Traveler .... 402
To a Water Fowl 526
The Crowded Streets 567
God in the Seas 694
Buchanan, Robert.
Nell 393
Bungay, George William.
The Creeds of the Bells .... 309
Burns, Robert.
Highland Mary 262
Duncan Gray cam' here to woo. 336
John Anderson. My Jo 466
AUTHORS OF POEMS.
21
Bybon, Loed Geoege Gordon.
Cooke, Philip P.
The Orient
224
262
Florence Vane
Coolidge, Susan.
•;^8i
The Sea
The Destruction of Sennacherib
296
When
450
His Latest Verses
484
Cornwall, Baery, (Bryan W. Procter).
The Blood Horse
42
Campbell, Thomas.
The Poet's Song to his Wife . .
68
Lord Ullin's Daughter
551
The Sea
362
The Soldier's Dream
578
The Owl
422
Canning, George.
The Stormy Petrel
439
The Needy Knife-Grinder . . .
228
Cranch, Christopher Peaese.
Cart, Phcebe.
By the Shore of the River . . .
517
Kate Ketchem
461
Cunningham, Allan.
Dreams and Realities
485
A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea
587
Gary, Alice.
Cotter, George W.
My Creed
266
The Miser
?,'>fi
Carleton, Will. M.
Gone with a handsomer Man . .
139
Dana, Richaed Henry.
Goin' Home To-day
265
The Pleasure Boat
60
Betsy and I are out
381
Derzhavin, Gabriel Romanovitch.
Betsey Destroys the Paper . . .
383
God
537
The New Church Organ ....
588
DoBELL, Sydney.
Over the Hills to the Poor-House 679
How's my Boy ?
353
Out of the Old House, Nancy . .
697
Dodge, Mrs. Mary Mapes.
Case, Phila H.
Learning to Pray
331
Nobody's Child
302
The Minuet
340
Catlin, George L.
Drake, Joseph Rodman.
The Fire-Bell's Story
554
The American Flag
467
Bread on the Waters
612
Donnelly, Eleanor C.
Chalkhill, John, (Isaak Walton).
Vision of Monk (Jabriel . . . .
659
The Angler
205
DuFFERiN, Lady.
ClBBER, COLLEY. *
Lament of the Irish Emigrant .
62
The Blind Boy
365
DuRYEA, Rev. William E.
Cleveland, E. H. J.
A Song for Hearth and Home .
548
Shibboleth
583
Clough, Arthur Hugh.
Eager, Cora M.
As Ships Becalmed
422
The Ruined Merchant
197
Coates, Reynell.
Eastman, Charles Gamage.
The Gambler's Wife
688
A Snow-Storm
409
Cobb, Henry N.
Effie, Aunt.
Father, Take my Hand ....
333
The Dove Cote
232
The Gracious Answer
334
Emerson, Ralph Waldo.
Collins, William.
The Snow-Storm
63
Sleep of the Brave
605
Mountain and Squirrel . . . .
590
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor.
Sunrise in Valley of Chamounix
663
Fawcett, Edgar.
Coles, Abraham, (Translator).
A Prayer for my Little One. . .
682
Dies Irae
456
Fields, James T.
Stabat Mater
504
The Tempest
208
Cook, Eliza.
Ford, Mary A.
The Old Arm-Chair
285
A Hundred Years from Now . .
187
22
AUTHORS OF POEMS.
Feeiligeath, Ferdinand.
The Lion's Ride 453
Freneau, Philip.
Indian Death Song 518
Gage, Mrs. F. D.
The Housekeeper's Sohloquy. . 78
Gaedette, C. D.
TheFire-Fiend IGO
Garrett, Edward.
The Unbolted Door 129
Gerot, Paul.
The Children's Church 602
GiLMAN, Caroline.
The American Boy 268
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang.
The Soul of Eloquence 97
The Church Window 358
Goddard, Julia.
Hide and Seek 454
Goodrich, Orrin .
Borrioboola Gha 525
Grahame, James, Rev.
The Sabbath 610
Geat, Thomas.
Elegy in a Country Church-Yard. 203
Hart, T. B.
The Reveille 618
Harte, Francis Bret.
Miss Edith helps things Along . 254
Fate 258
Jim 339
Dow's Flat 426
Bill Mason's Bride ^^8
Havergal, Frances Ridley.
The Lull of Eternity 626
Hat, John.
The Law of Death 547
Heine, Heinrich.
The Fisher's Cottage 253
Remans, Felicia Dorothea.
The Homes of England 64
Landing of the Pilgrim.'* . . . 205
The Meeting of the Ships . . . 230
Hour of Death 674
Henderson, William H.
" No more Sea." 644
Heywood, Thomas.
Song of Birds 374
Holland, Josiah Gilbert.
Cradle Song 277
Gradatim 558
Where Shall Baby's Dimple Be? 689
Holmes, C. E. L.
You put no Flowers on my Papa's
Grave 192
Holmes, Oliver Wendell.
The wonderful One-hoss Shay . 69
Under the Violets 2G7
Union and Liberty ...... 273
A Tailor's Poem on Evening . . 415
Bill and Joe 458
The Last Leaf 542
Hood, Thomas.
The Death-Bed 199
The Comet 260
I Remember 273
The Song of the Shirt 282
The Bridge of Sighs 354
Ruth 367
Faithless Nelly Gray 405
No
. . 506
Nocturnal Sketch
. . 609
Holty, Ludwig.
Winter Song
. . 596
Hoyt, Ralph.
Old
. . 431
Hugo, Victor.
The Djinns
. . 463
Hunt, Leigh.
Abou Ben Adhem. . . .
. . 225
Ingelow, Jean.
When Sparrows Build . .
. . 471
Seven Times Two ....
. . 619
Jones, J. A.
The Gladiator. .
Jones, Sir William.
What Constitutes
State?
565
367
Key, Francis Scott.
The Star-Spangled Banner . . . 466'
King, Henry.
Life 642
Kingsley, Charles.
The Lost Doll 341
The Sands o' Dee 392
The Merry Lark 463
Knox, William.
Whv should the Spirit of mortal
"be Proud? 411
Korner, Charles Theodore.
Sword Song 312
Lampertius.
I A German Trust Song 589
AUTHORS OF POEMS.
23
Leighton, Robert.
J ohn and Tibbie Davison's Dispute 572
Leland, Charles G., (Translator).
The Fisher's Cottage 253
Lever, Charles James.
Widow Malone 375
LoiraFELLow, Henry Wadsworth.
The Old Clock on the Stairs. . . 40
The Bridge 51
The Rainy Day . 88
Embarkation of the Exiles. . . 90
The Silent River 220
A Psalm of Life 241
Maidenhood 246
Resignation 251
Excelsior 322
Hiawatha's Journey 342
Hiawatha's Wooing 344
Hiawatha's Return 345
The Launching of the Ship. . . 389
The Arsenal at Springfield . . . 424
God's Acre 498
Evangeline on the Prairie. . . . 505
Day-dawn 549
The Children's Hour 656
The Chamber Over the Gate . . 693
The Day is Done 706
Lover, Samuel.
The Angel's Whisper 277
Lowell, James Russell.
The First Snow-fall 137
The Rose 669
LowEY, Rev. Robert, D. D.
I Love the Morning Sunshine . . 275
Dust on her Bible 666
Lynn, Ethel.
Why ? 655
Lytton, Lord Edward Bulwer.
There is no Death 451
Macdonald, George.
Baby 82
Mackay, Charles.
Little and Great 441
Cleon and 1 597
Clear the Way 623
Mignonette, May.
Over the Hills from Poor-House . 681
Miller, Joaquin.
Kit Carson's Ride 472
Miller, William E.
Wounded. ....... .188
Milman, Henry Hart.
Jewish Hymn in Jerusalem ■ 502
Milnes, Richard AIonckton.
London Churches ...•••, 237
The Brook Side 247
Mitchell, William.
The Palace o' the King. . = . . 286
M'Callum, D. C.
The Water-Mill 200
M'Keever. Harriet B.
The Moravian Requiem .... 225
Snow-flakes 243
Montgomery, James.
My Country . 179
Servant of God, well done . 254
Night 301
The Pelican 446
Moore, Thomas.
The Home of Peace 337
The Meeting of the Waters. . . 484
The Light-House .513
Echoes ..... 645
Morris, George P.
My Mother's Bible 523
Moultrie, John.
The Three Sons 528
Muhlenberg, Rev. William A., D.D.
I would not live alway. . . . 353
MuLocK, Dinah Maria.
Buried To-day 243
Munford, William.
To a Friend in Affliction .... 689
Nairne, Lady Carolina.
The Land o' the Leal 421
Norton, Caroline E.
Bingen on the Rhine 86
The King of Denmark's Ride. . 378
O'Brien, Fitz James.
The Cave of Silver 362
Osgood, Frances S.
Labor is Worship 610
Palmer, John W.
For Charlie's Sake .641
Payne, John Howard.
Home, Sweet Home ... 628
AUTHORS OF POEMS.
Percival, James Gates
The Coral (irove 678
Pettee, George W.
Sleighing Song 338
PlEBPONT, JouN.
Not on the Battle-field 531
Po£, EiKiAB Allen.
The Raven 158
Annabel Lee 553
The Bells 593
Pollard, Josephine.
The First Party 414
Prentiss, E.
The Mystery of Life in Christ . 233
PnESTON, iL\UGARET J.
The Hero of the Coinmuno . . . 278
Priest, Nancy Amelia Woodeury.
Over the River 142
Proctor, Adelaide Anne.
A Legend of Bregenz 52
A First Sorrow 179
A Woman's Question 358
Per Pacem ad Lucem 553
The Angel's Story G37
Prout, Father.
The Bells of Shandon 573
Raleigh, Sir Walter.
The Nymph's Reply to the Shep-
herd • . 381
Ralph, Rev. W. S.
Whistling in Ileaveii 116
Raymond, Rossiter W.
Ramblings in Greece 696
Read, Thomas Buchanan.
Drifting 210
Sheridan's Ride 536
The Closing Scene 556
Ror.BiNS, Alice.
Left Alone at Eighty 372
Joe 514
RofSENOARTEN.
Through Trials 658
Baxe John Godfrey.
American Aristocracy 71
Song of Saratoga ...... 95
The Cockney 193
Early Rising . . 341
Blinri Men and the Elephant . . 398
I'm Growing Old 438
Scott, Sir Walter.
Patriotism ........ 233
Selected.
Life (From Thirty-eight authors) 496
Shakespeare, William.
Hark, hark the Lark ..... 319
Airy Nothings 325
Mercy • • 379
Quarrel of Erutus and Cassiu? . 476
Selected Gems 634
Shelley, Percy Bys.she.
To Night 242
The Cloud 437
The Sun is Warm, the Sky ... 601
Shillaber, B. p., (Mrs. Partington.)
My Childhood's Home .... 196
SiGouRNEY, Mrs. Lydia Huntley.
The Coral Insect 146
The Bell of " The Atlantic " . . 184
Niagara 647
Smith, Dexter.
Ring the Bsll Softy 282
Smith, Mary Riley.
Sometime 373
Smith, James.
The Soldier's Pardon 236
Smith, Hor-^ce.
The Gouty Merchant 216
Hymn to the Flowers . . . ■ . 255
Smith, Seba.
The Mother in the Snow-Storm . 513
Snow, Sophia P.
Annie and Willie's Prayer . 395
Southey, Mrs. Caroline Bowles.
The Pauper's Death-Bed .... 216
Southet, Robert.
The Cataract of Lodore . ■ . . 248
The Ebb-Tide 418
Spenser, Edmund.
The Ministry of Angels .... 702
Spooner, a. C.
Old Times and New 429
Sprague, Charles
I See Thee Still 144
Stedman, Edmund Clarence
The Door-Step 368
Stoddart, William 0.
The Deacon's Prayer 320
Stoddard, Richard Henry.
Wind and Rain 414
Funeral of Lincoln 600
AUTHORS OF POEMS.
25
Story, Robert.
The Whistle 283
Suckling, Sie John.
The Bride 642
SwiNBUENE, Algernon Charles.
Kissing her Hair 52
Taylor, Benjamin F.
The River Time 64
The Old Village Choir 677
Taylor, Bayard.
The Quaker Widow 110
Taylor, Jeffeeys.
The Milkmaid 199
Tennyson, Alfred.
Charge of the Light Brigade . . 59
Song of the Brook 222
Enoch Arden at the Window . 252
Death of the Old Year .... 316
Break, Break, Break .... 348
The Eagle 364
New Year's Eve 387
The Bugle 436
The Day Dream 480
Lady Clare 631
Thomas of Celano.
Dies Ira . 456
TnuRLOw, Lord, (Edward Hovel).
The Patient Stork ...... 450
Trowbridge, John Townsend.
The Vagabonds 130
Farm-Yard Song 352
The Charcoal Man ..... 425
Uhland, Johann Ludwig.
The Lost Church 622
Vandyke, Mary E.
The Bald-Headed Tyrant . . 687
Watson, James W.
Beautiful Snow 443
Weatherly, G.
" A Lion's Head." 181
Westwood, Thomas.
The Voices at the Throne. ... 527
White, Henry Kirke.
The Star of Bethlehem .... 469
White, Mrs. Sallie J.
Little Margery 330
Whitcher, Frances Miriam.
Widow Bedott to Elder Sniffles . 548
Whittier, John Greenleaf.
Cobbler Keezar's Vision .... 44
Skipper Ireson's Ride 79
Trust 230
Barbara Frietchie 317
Benedicite 350
The Poet's Reward 402
The Vaudois Teacher 405
The Barefoot Boy 416
Maud Muller 459
Mabel Martin 488
The Ranger 507
Mary Garvin 560
The River Path 566
My Playmate 582
The Countess 605
The Changeling 654
Wilcox, Carlos.
Doing Good True Happiness . . 219
Willis, Nathaniel Paeker.
David's Lament for Absalom . . 305
The Dying Alchemist 497
The Belfry Pigeon 613
WooDWORTH, Samuel.
The Old Oaken Bucket 549
Wilson, Mrs. Cornwall, Baeon.
Answer to the Hour of Death . 675
Wordsworth, William.
Intimations of Immortality . . . 209
The Reaper 368
The Lost Love 670
Yates, John H.
The Old Ways and the New . . 104
The Model Church 544
YouL, Edward.
Song of Spring 98
FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
1
NO. PAGE.
I. FRONTISPIECE. (STEEL.l 4
II. " THE GROVES WERE GOD'S FIRST TEMPLES." 38
III. THE GRASSHOPPER KING 42
IV. SUMMER 68
V. DOMINION OVER THE FISH OF THE SEA 75
VI. MODERN TIMES IN THE GOLDEN AUTUMN 104
VII. " A TYPE OF GRANDEUR. STRENGTH AND MAJESTY." 181
VIII. DRIFTING 210
IX. " TO HIM WHO IN THE LOVE OF NATURE." 214
27
FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
28
PAGE.
HO. 242
X. NIGHT
.... 342
XI. "THUS DEPARTED HIAWATHA.-
XII. "ON
XIII
■244.
..ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF THE FOREST." ^**
THE FIERCE. FOAMING. BURSTING TIDE." 362
416
XIV. "BLESSINGS ON THEE, LITTLE MAN."
... .438
XV. " I'M GROWING OLD."
. . 443
XVI. "THE BEAUTIFUL SNOW."
.... 450
XVII. PATIENCE.
.... 469
XVIII. THE CHEMIST
472
XIX. FLYING FROM THE FIRE
482
XX. THE CRAFTY OLD FOX
XXI. "ICE-BOUND TREES ARE GLITTERING." ^96
636
XXII. GROTTO OF ANTIPAROS
652
XXIII. ARCTIC LIFE
XXIV. GRANDPA AND HIS PETS ^^^
. . 668
XXV. WINTER JOYS
-•^^
QUOTATION^.
Vase . {Ornament.)
Royal Necklace "
Poet Laureate . . • "
An Outlook "
Entablature " • . .
Heraldic Eagle "
Sculpture "
Commemorative Vase "
Art Emblems . "
Good Luck "
Repousse Work "
Cupid "
Tablet "
The Djinn •
Studiousness "
The Old Skipper " Sitting in the. boat at work." . . .
Getting Ready " Youmust first catch them." ....
The Old Clock " Half- wat/ up the stairs it stands." .
The Blood Horse " Full of fire, and full of bone." . .
Cobbler at Work " Keezar sat on the hill-side.'' . . .
The Falls " Flashing in foam and spray.'' . .
The Arched Bridge " Down the grand old river Rhine.'' .
Poultry " Grand were the strutting turkeys."
The Cobbler's Joy " Loud laughed the cobbler Keezar." 47
The Dutch Mill " Which the Dutchfarmers are so fond of . . 49
The Cock " Clapping his burnished wings, and crowing." . 50
The Bridge " I had stood on that bridge at midnight." . . . 51
Heart of the Alps " Oirt round with rugged mountains." 53
Winter in the Country " The untrodden snow." 55
Off for a Sail " The ripples lightly toss the boat." 60
29
30
ILLUSTRATIONS.
TITLE. QUOTATION. PAGE
Graveyard " ^'v« laid you., darling, down to sleep." .... 63
Ancestral IIomestkad ' The stately homes of England." 65
Mother AND Guild '' Look where our children start." 68
The Meadow Road '' This morning the parson takes a drive." . ■ ■ ■ 71
Barriers of tue Sea "A wall of defence." • • 70
Skipper Ireson's Ride - Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart." . 79
Chaleur Bay '■ Looked for a coming that migJd not be." ... 80
Baby Dear " Where did you come from, baby dear'". . . 8?
Burial Flace " A voice from the tomb sweeter than song." . . . 88
Embarkation OF THE Exiles " Busily plied the freighted boats." 90
President Lincoln " ' God bless you, sir,' said Blossorn." 94
Ruined Cottage " None will dwell in that cottage." 97
Vase OF Flowers '' Learn of these gentle flowers." 98
Jimmy Butler directed " Youve no time to lose." 101
The Attack " I saw a pair of big eyes." 103
The Twins ON the Train " My twins, 1 shall ne'er see again." 108
TwiNKLETON ON Triai " You deserted your infants." 108
Stivers Horse '■ His ears back, his mouth open." 113
Stiver's Horse " He exercised me." 114
Stiver's Horse "' He turned about, and slwt for the gate." . . . 116
Charley " Muzzer's bought a baby." 120
Charley AND THE Baby " Ain't he awful ugly." 120
Charley's Cry " Nose ain't out of joy ent." 120
Charley's Hair Pulled " Zink I ought to love him !" 120
Charley and Biddy " Be a good boy, Charley." 121
Charley's Comfort " Beat him on ze head." 121
Mr. Mann's Haste . " Fly aroxmd." 126
Mr. Mann's Struggles "He began to sweat." 127
Mr. Mann's Defe.at " Glaring at the departing train ." 129
Roger and I " TFe are two travelers." 130
Surgery " Chock up." 133
The E.VPLANATioN " He s that ' handsomer than than you.' ". . . . 141
Pete by the Chimney " Toasting his shins." 143
Pete in Retreat "No, sa, I runs." 143
Coral Reef "Who build iii the tossing and treacherous main." 147
Nutting " The squirrel is not more nimble." 149
Puzzled Dutchman " I'm a pi-oken-hcarted Dcutscher." 151
Hans and Yawcob " Idoosn't know my name." 152
Pat AND THE Doctor " Pat, how is that for a sign f" 155
The Quack "The song that it sings is ' Quack, Quack. " . . 156
Lincoln's Monument " With malice towards ?ione; with charity for all." 1G2
The Little Conqueror " My arms are round my darling thrown." . . . 165
Betty AND the Bear " Seated himself on the hearth." 171
Betty and the Bear . " The bear was no more." 172
The Sea ..... . . " The calm, gently -heaving, silent sea." 176
Cliffs BY the Sea " What rocks and cliffs arc so glorious?" . . . . 173
Ctolone "It vanquished them at last." 185
Papa's Grave " Cover with rosc^ each lowly green mound." . . 192
Mt Childhood Home " A little low hut by the river s side." 196
ILLUSTRATIONS. 3X
TITLE. QUOTATION. PAGE
The Water-Mill " The mill will never grind again." 201
Old Chuecii- Yard '' Through the church-way path we saw him borne." 203
Angling " The gallant fisher s life, it is the best of any." . 206
Forest Depths . " The venerable woods." 215
The Silent River '' Thou, hast taught me, Silent River." 221
The Brook " I come from haunts of coot and hem." ... 222
Tower "Sounds of low wailing from the tower." .... 226
Nobility " Nobility is a graceful ornament." 22S
Two Kittens " The two little kittens had nowhere te go." . . . 229
Whittier's Birth-place " A picture me'/iory brings to me." 230
Dove-Cote " A pretty nursery." 233
The Old Church " I stood before ... a large church door." . . . 238
Maidenhood " Maiden with the meek brown eyes." 246
The Brook Side " J wandered by the mill" 247
Cataract of Lodore " How does the water come down at Lodoref. . 248
The Fisher's Cottage " We sat by the fisher's cottage" 253
Jolly Old Pedagogue " He took the little ones upon his hiee." .... 259
Ships on the Sea " Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee." 263
The American Boy " Look up, my boy." 268
Rock ME TO Sleep '' Mother, come back from the echolcss shore." . 274
Ruined Church " The ruin lone and hoary." 281
Rural Comfort " In rural occupation there is nothing mean" . . 285
Mother's Chair " A sacred thing is that old arm-chair." . . . . 286
The Student " Spend not your time in that which profits not." 292
The Country Church " The steeplewas the only thing that folks could see." 294
Der Drummer . " Who puts oup at der pest hotel?" 297
The Greeting " How you vas to-day." 207
At Business " Look, and see how nice." 297
In Society " Und kiss Katrina on the mouilt." ..... 297
Indignation " Und mit a black eye goes away" 298
Gathering Night • • . . " When all around is peace." 302
The Forge " Clang, clang! the massive anvils ring " .... 304
The Church Bell "In mellow tones rang out a bell." 310
Hans AND Fritz " Two Deutschers who lived side by side." . . . . 311
Dead on the Field " Till death united." 313
Singing Birds " The lark at heaven's gate sings." 319
Excelsior " His brow ivas sad ; his eye beneath, flashed." . 322
Father Time '' He lives forever, and his name is Time." . . . 325
Fruit Piece " The dinner now makes its appearance." . . . 329
Little Margery " Dreaming of the coming years." 330
Learning to Pray " Kneeling fair in the twilight gray." 331
Rats at Work " The rats a nightly visit paid." 335
Sleighing ,• • • '" Tis the merry, merry sleigh." 339
Hiawatha's Home " I will bring her to your tvigwam." 342
The Breaking Sea " Break, break, break, on thy cold stones, sea." 348
Rabbit " They rustle to the rabbit's tread." 349
Triumphal Arch " Eome with her army." 351
Farm-yard " Into the yard the farmer goes." 352
Morning " The east began to kindle." 355
32
ILLUSTRATIONS.
The Elephant ....
The Glen
The Burning Steamer
Buried in Snow . . .
Frozen to Death . .
Sea-Shore
TITLE. quotation. PAGE.
The Tiger '• Burning bright, in the forest of the night." . . 357
The Minsti;r Window "The minster window, richly glowing." .... 358
Ship AT Sea " J was born on the open sea."
Cave BY the Sea " Seek me the cave of Silver."
Sickle AND Sheaf " She cuts and binds the grain."
The Lover's By-way . . ._ •• We left the old folks have the highway " ■ .
Birds " Notes from the lark I'll borrow.''
King of Denmark's Ride " The king rode first."
Mirage " Bare as the surface of the desert."
Sands o' Dee " Never home came she."
Annie AND Willie ■' Well, why 'tant we pray t"
. " TF7io went to see the Elephant."
. . . . " Far down a narrow glen."
.... "A noble funeral pyre."
.... " All day had the snow come down." ....
. . . . " Cold and Dead."
, . . . " The sea remembers nothing. It is feline." .
Leedle Yawcob " I dinks mine hed vas schplit abart." ....
The Owl " The king of the night is the bold brown owl."
Alpine Peaks " The far more glorious ridges."
The Old Man " Sat a hoary pilgrim sadly musing ." . . . .
Approach to Arnheim " The channel now became a gorge." ....
Stormy Petrels " The stormy petrel finds a home."
Little and Great " Mighty at the last."
Pelicans " Tliat lonely couple on their isle."
Mother and Babe " Love is a legal tender."
Maud Muller " Simple beauty and rustic health."
The Lark " The merry, merry lark was up and singing."
IsNOVATioNS OF the White Man . . ." The red man is thy foe."
Star of Bethlehem " One alone a Saviour speaks." 469
The Birds' Home " When sparrows build." 471
Interior of Westminster Abbey . . " These lofty vaults." 475
Terrace-Lawn " Every slanting terrace-lawn"
Meeting OF THE Waters " The bright waters meet." . .....
The River Valley " You see the dull plain fall."
The Barn . . ." The old swallow-haunted barns. ' . . .
TheTiranary " Lay the heaped ears." 490
Mabel Martin " Mabel Martin sat apart." 490
The Horseshoe Charm " To guard against her mother's harm." . ... 491
Mabel IN Grief " Small leisure havcihe poor." 492
The Champion " I brook no insult to my guest." 492
The Streaming Lights . ' Tfie hanest lights of Harden shone " 493
The Betrothal .... " Her tears of grief were tears of joy." 494
God's .Vcue ' The burial ground Ood's acre." 498
The Comet ' Save when a blazing comet was seen." .... 505
News from THE Forest " Straggling rangers ... homeward fai-ing' . . 508
Call to the Boat " To the beach we all arc going" 509
IntheI-orkst " Som^ red squaw his moose-meat's broiling." . 509
The Return "' Robert !'' Martha !'" all they say." . ... 510
362
363
368
369
374
380
386
392
396
398
403
407
409
410
415
419
423
428
431
434
439
442
447
452
459
463
465
480
484
488
489
ILLUSTRATIONS.
33
TITLE. QUOTATION. PAGE.
Smiley's Frog " He was planted as solid as an anvil." 512
The Light House " The Light-house fire blazed" 513
The River Shore " I hear the keel grating " 518
Steam-train " Down came the night express." 519
Old-time Fire-place " A fire in the kitchen." 520
Mother's Bible "My Mothers hands this Bible clasped." ... 523
Plymouth Rock " The ice-clad rocks of Plymouth." 524
The Swan " Seek' st thou the plashy brink f" 527
Battle Monument "The Battle Monument at Baltimore." 531
Sheridan's Ride " Here is the steed that saved the day." 536
Ancient Stronghold " Stone ivalls and bulwarks." 540
The Old Man " The last leaf upon the tree." 542
The Stream " She found a Lotus by the stream." 547
Scene of my Childhood " The rude bucket which hung in the well." ... 549
Lord Ullin " Lord Ullin reached that fatal shore" .... 552
Birds at Home "By every light wind . . . swung ." 557
By The Fireside " Right and left sat dame and goodman "... 561
The Surprise " What is this f" 562
The Forest Grave " On her wooden cross at Simcoe." 563
The River "No ripple from the water's hem.'' 566
The Lamb " Mary haf got one little lambs already ." . . . 567
Battle of Lookout Mountain . . . . " Fortified Lookout." 570
Porpoise " Tumbling about the bow of the ship." .... 574
The Dead Soldier " The wounded to die." 578
The Playmates " The blossoms in the sweet May field." .... 582
The Tempest " The lightning flashing free ." 587
Ballooning " The balloon was cast off." . . . 591
The Mountain Torrent " The torrent is heard on the hill.'' 595
The Surf " I see the waves upon the shore." 601
Mount Vernon " Washington's modest home.'' 604
Draw-bridge " The dark tunnel of the bridge." 605
IIay-boat " The heavy hay-boats crawl" 605
The Abutment " The gray abutment's wall." 606
The Evening AValk " The walk on pleasant Newbury's shore." ... 607
Calmness " Calmness sits throned on yon unmoving cloud." 610
The Cathedral Tower " Proud Cathedral towers.'' 615
The Shore ■' Never the ocean wave falters in flowing." . . . 619
Harvesting " Lo, the husbandman reaping." 620
Work in the Meadows " With meadows wide." . . ■ 625
Iceberg . . " It then floated on the sea, an iceberg." . . . 627
Home " My lowly thatched cottage." 628
Castle AND Lawn " My lands so broad ajid fair." 631
The Ravens " Child and flowers both were dead." 639
Trout " I have killed many flsh.'' 643
Cooking the Fish " Men have their hours of eating" 644
The Rocky Shore " Not of the watery home thou tellest." 645
Fingal'sCave " The cave of music." 649
Ecclesiastical Emblems " The cohort of the fathers." .652
Salt Meadows " The sweetness of the hay." . . • 654
34
ILLUSTRATIONS.
TITLE QUOTATION. PAGE.
At the Ferry " He set his horse to the river.'' 655
Day Dawk "Awake! it is the day." 661
Vallky of Chamounix " Oreen vales and icy cliffs." 664
The Cutter 'Spring to their cutters." 667
Fustic Gam !■:.'< " Its rough accompaniment of blind mans buff." 667
Snow Bali.inu " The s-nowbalFs com2)lime7its." 668
The Poet " Forth into the night he hurled it." 669
The Maiden " Tracing words upon the sand." 669
The Rose. " Full of bliss she takes the token.'' 670
Blessedness " Kiss his moonlit forehead.'' 670
Grandmother's Spectacles " She would often let her glasses slip down." . . 676
Beauties of the Deep " Deep in the wave is a coral grove." 678
Work in the Field " Aiid so we worked together." 680
The Steamship " The great hull sicayed to the current.' .... 683
The Bald-headed Tyrant "He rides them all with relentless hand." . . . 687
Mountaineer's Warfare "A murderous rain of rocks." 691
The Gateway " The chamber over the gate." 693
Surges and Shore " These restless surges eat away the shores." . . . 694
Greece " In Pcestum' s ancient fanes I trod." 696
The Old House " Bid the old house good-bye." 698
Country Rambles " Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do." . . 700
The Holy Land " Pavement for his footstep." 703
Shooting Porpoises " Tickling them with shot." 705
The Arab's Tent " Shall fold their tents like the Arabs." 707
The Scribe (Ornament.) 708
History " 709
Culture. ' 713
loLANTUE Dreaming ' , 722
Music ' 723
I
GEMS FOE THE FIRESIDE.
FOREST HYMN.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
Ej|]||pHE groves were God's first temples,
-/w^^ ere man learned
%1^?i To hew the shaft, and lay the
i/l» architrave,
•^ And spread the roof above them, —
I ere he framed
J The lofty vault, to gather and roll
back
The sound of anthems ; in the darkling wood.
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down.
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication. For his simple heart
Might not resist the sacred influences
Which, from the stilly twilight of the place,
And from the gray old trunks that high in
heaven
Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the
sound
Of the invisible breath that swayed at once
All their green tops, stole over him, and
bowed
His spirit with the thought of boundless
power
And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why
Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect
God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore
Only among the crowd, and under roofs
That our frail hands have raised ? Let me,
at least,
Here, in the shadow of this aged wood,
Offer one hymn, — thrice happy if it find
Acceptance in His ear.
Father, Thy hand
Hath reared these venerable columns. Thou
Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst
look down
Upon the naked earth, and forthwith rose
All these fair ranks of trees. They in Thy
sun
Budded, and shook their green leaves in Thy
breeze,
And shot towards heaven. The century-
living crow.
Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and
died
Among their branches, till at last they stood.
As now they stand, massy and tall and dark.
Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold
Communion with his Maker. These dim
vaults.
These winding aisles, of human pomp or
pride.
Report not. No fantastic carvings show
The boast of our vain race to change the form
Of Thy fair works. But Thou art here. —
Thou fill'st
The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds
37
3S
A FOREST HYMN.
That run along the summit of these trees
In music; Thou art in the cooler breath
That from the inmost darkness of the place
Comes.scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the
trround, ,
The fresh, moist ground, are all mstmct with
Theo :
Here is continual worship ;-nature, here,
In the tranquility that Thou dost love.
Enjoys Thy presence. Noiselessly around.
From p.rch to perch, the solitary bird
Passes; and yon clear spring that, midst its
herbs,
Wells softly forth, and, wandering, steeps the
roots
Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale
Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left
Thyself without a witness, in these shades,
"Of Thy perfection. Grandeur, strength, and
grace
Are here to speak of Thee. This mighty
oak, —
By whose immovable st«m I stand and seem
Almost annihilated,— not a prince.
In all that proud old world beyond the deep.
E'er wore his crown as loftily as he
Wears the green coronal of leaves with
which
Thy hand hath graced him. Nestled at his
root
Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare
Of the broad sun. That delicate forest
flower,
With scented breath, and look so like a
smile,
Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould.
An einanation of the indwelling life,
A visible token of the upholding Love,
That are the soul of this wide universe.
My heart is awed within me when I think
Of the great miracle that still goes on,
In silence, round mo,--the perpetual work
01 Thy creation, finished, yet renewed
Forever. Written on Thy works, I read
The lesson of Thy own eternity.
Lo 1 all grow old and die ; but see again,
How on the faltering footsteps of decay
Youth presses,— ever gay and beautiful
youth,
In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees
Wave hot less proudly that their ancestors
Moulder beneath them. 0. there is not
lost
One of Earth's charms! Upon her bosom
yet,
After the flight of untold centuries.
The freshness of her far beginning lies.
And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle
hate
Of his arch-enemy ,-Death,-yca, seats him-
Upon the tyrant's throne, the sepulchre.
And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe
Makes his own nourishment. For he came
forth
From Thine own bosom, and shall have no
end.
There have been holy men who hid them-
selves
Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave
Their Uves to thought and prayer, till they
outlived
The generation born with them, nor seemed
Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks
Around them;-and there have been holy
men
Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus.
But let me often to these solitudes
Retire, and in Thy presence, reassure
My feeble virtue. Here its enemies,
The passions, at Thy plainer footsteps
shrink.
And tremble, and are still. God! when
Thou
Dost scare the world with tempests, set on
fire
The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or
fill.
With all the waters of the firmament.
The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the
woods
And drowns the villages ; when, at Thy call,
Uprises the great deep, and throws himself
Upon the continent, and overwhelms '
Its cities,— who forgets not, at the sight
Of these tremendous tokens of Thy power,
Hifl prides, and lay his strifes and follies
by?
"The groves were God's first Tempi
MORALITY OF ANGLING.
39
0, from these sterner aspects of Thy face
Spare me and mine, nor let us need the
wrath
Of the mad, unchained elements, to teach
Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate
In these calm shades, Thy milder majesty,
And to the beautiful order of Thy works
Learn to conform the order of our lives.
MORALITY OF ANGLING.
WILLIAM C. PRIME.
S^UT how about killing fish for sport? In the name of sense, man, if
ii^ God made fish to be eaten, what difierence does it make if I enjoy
' * the killing of them before I eat them ? You would have none but
a fisherman by trade do it, and then you would have him utter a
T sigh, a prayer, and a pious ejaculation at each cod or haddock that
J he killed ; and if by chance the old fellow, sitting in the boat at
work, should for a moment think there was, after all, a little fun and a
little pleasure in his .^ ==^
business, you would have *■ - -3^
him take a round turn
with his line, and drop
on his knees to ask for-
giveness for the sin of
thinking there was sport
in fishing.
I can imagine the sad-
faced melancholy-eyed
man, who makes it his
business to supply game
for the market as you
would have him, sober
as the sexton in Hamlet,
and forever moralizing
over the gloomy neces-
sity that has doomed
him to a life of murder ?
Why, good sir, he would
frighten respectable fish, and the market would soon be destitute.
The keenest day's sport in my journal of a great many years of sport
was when, in company with some other gentlemen, I took three hundred
blue-fish in three hours' fishina; ofi" Block Island, and those fish were eaten
40
THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS.
the same night or the next morning in Stonington, and supplied from fifty
to one hundred <lifforent tables, as we threw them up on the dock for any
one to help himself. I am unable to perceive that I committed any sin in
takino- them, or any sin in the excitement and pleasure of taking them.
It is time moralists had done with this mistaken morality. If you
eschew animal food entirely, then you may argue against killing animals,
and I will not argue with you. But
the logic of this business is simply
this : The Creator made fish and flesh
for the food of man, and as we can't
eat them alive, or if we do, we can't
digest them alive, the result is we
must kill them first, and (see the old
rule of cooking a dolphin) it is some-
times a further necessity, since they
won't come to be killed when we call
them, that we must first catch them.
Show first, then, that it is a painful
necessity, a necessity to be avoided if
possible, which a good man must
shrink from and abhor, unless starved
into it, to take fish or birds, and
which he must do when he does it
with regret, and with sobriety and
seriousness, as he would whip his
child, or shave himself when his beard is three days old, and you have
your case. But till you show this, I will continue to think it great sport
to supply my market with fish.
THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
>MEWHAT back from the village
street
Standa the old-fashioned country-seat;
Across its antique portico
Tall poplar trees their shadows throw ;
And, from its station in the hall,
An ancient timepiece says to all,
" Forever — never !
Never — forever !"
Half -way up the stairs it stands,
And points and beckons with its hands,
From its case of massive oak.
Like a monk who, under his cloak,
Crosses himself, and sighs, alas !
With sorrowful voice to all who pass,
" Forever — never !
Never — forever !"
THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS.
41
By day its voice is low and light ;
But in the silent dead of night,
Distinct as a passing footstep's fall,
It echoes along the vacant hall,
Along the ceiling, along the floor.
And seems to say at each chamber door,
" Forever — never !
Never — forever !"
Through days of sorrow and of mirth,
Through days of death and days of
birth,
Through every swift vicissitude
Of changeful time, unchanged it has
stood,
And as if, like God, it all things saw.
It calmly repeats those words of awe,
" Forever — never !
Never — forever !"
In that mansion used to be
Free-hearted Hospitality ;
His great fires up the chimney roared ;
The stranger feasted at his board ;
But, like the skeleton at the feast.
That warning timepiece never ceased,
" Forever — never !
Never — forever !"
There groups of merry children played;
There youths and maidens dreaming
strayed ;
Oh, precious hours ! oh, golden prime
And af&uence of love and time !
Even as a miser counts his gold,
Those hours the ancient timepiece
told,—
" Forever — never !
Never — forever !"
All are scattered, now, and fled, —
Some are married, some are dead :
And when I ask, with throbs of pain,
" Ah ! when shall they all meet again
As in the days long since gone by.
The ancient timepiece makes reply,
" Forever — never !
Never — forever !"
From that chamber, clothed in white.
The bride came forth on her wedding
night ;
There, in that silent room below.
The dead lay, in his shroud of snow ;
And, in the hush that followed the
prayer,
Was heard the old clock on the stair, —
" Forever— never !
Never — forever !"
Never here, forever there,
Where all parting, pain, and care.
And death, and time shall disap-
pear, —
Forever there, but never here !
The horologue of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly,
" Forever — never !
Never — forever !"
42
THE BLOOD HORSE.
THE GRASSHOPPER KING.
FROM THE GREEK OF ANACREON, B. C, 560.
^fjArPY insect, what can be
1^1^ In hapjiiness compared to thee?
'[W Fed with nourishment divine,
The dewy morning's gentle wine !
Nature waits upon thee still,
And thy verdant cup does fill ;
"Tis filled wherever thou dost tread.
Nature's self thy Ganymede.
Thou dost drink and dance and sing,
Happier than the happiest king !
All the fields which thou dost see,
All the plants belong to thee ;
All the summer hours produce.
Fertile made with early juice,
Man for thee does sow and plough.
Farmer he, and landlord thou !
i
THE BLOOD HORSE.
, r^rl^ ,
BARRY CORNWALL.
iAMARRA is a dainty steed,
Strong, black, and of noble breed,
Full of fire, and full of bone.
With all his lino of fathers known ;
Fine his nose, his nostrils thin.
But blown abroad by the pride within I
His mane is like a river flowing,
And his eyes like embers glowing
In the darkness of the night.
And bis pace as swift as light.
Look, — how round his straining throat
Grace and shifting beauty float ;
Sinewy strength is in his reins,
And the red blood gallops through his veins
Richer, redder, never ran
Through the boasting heart of man.
He can trace his lineage higher
Than the Bourbon dare aspire, —
Douglas, Guzman, or the Guelph,
Or O'Brien's blood itself !
He, who hath no peer, was born
Here, upon a red March morn ;
But his famous fathers dead
Were Arabs all, and Arab-bred,
And the last of that great line
Trod like one of a race divine!
I
THE FRONT AND SIDE DOORS. 43
And yet, — he was but friend to one,
Who fed him at the set of sun
By some lone fountain fringed with green ;
He lived (none else would he obey
Through all the hot Arabian day),
And died untamed upon the sands
With him, a roving Bedouin, Where Balkh amidst the desert stands I
THE FRONT AND SIDE DOORS.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
^1^ VERY person's feelings have a front-door and side-door by which
^i^ they may be entered. The front-door is on the street. Some keep
JL it always open; some keep it latched; some, locked; some, bolted,
♦ — with a chain that will let you peep in, but not get in ; and some
1 nail it up, so that nothing can pass its threshold. This front-door
• leads into a passage which opens into an ante-room, and this into
the interior apartments. The side-door opens at once into the sacred
chambers.
There is almost always at least one key to this side-door, This is
carried for years hidden in a mother's bosom, fathers, brothers, sisters,
and friends, often, but by no means so universally, have duplicates of it.
The wedding-ring conveys a right to one; alas, if none is given with it!
Be very careful to whom you trust one of these keys of the side-door.
The fact of possessing one renders those even who are dear to you very
terrible at times. You can keep the world out from your front-door, or
receive visitors only when you are ready for them ; but those of your own
flesh and blood, or of certain grades of intimacy, can come in at the side-
door, if they will, at any hour and in any mood. Some of them have a
scale of your whole nervous system, and can play all the gamut of your
sensibilities in semitones, — touching the naked nerve-pulps as a pianist
strikes the keys of his instrument. I am satisfied that there are as great
masters of this nerve-playing as Vieuxtemps or Thalberg in their lines of
performance. Married life is the school in which the most accomplished
artists in this department are found. A delicate woman is the best instru-
ment; she has such a magnificent compass of sensibilities! From the deep
inward moan which follows pressure on the great nerves of right, to the
sharp cry as the filaments of the taste are struck with a crushing sweep, is
a range which no other instrument possesses. A few exercises on it daily
at home fit a man wonderfully for his habitual labors, and refresh him im-
mensely as he returns from them. No stranger can get a great many notes
44
COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION.
of torture out of a human soul; it takes one that knows it well, — parent,
child, brother, sister, intimate. Be very careful to whom you give a side-
door key; too many have them already.
COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION.
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
jIIE beaver cut his timber
With patient teeth that day,
r'" , Tlie minks were fish-wards, and the
crowB
Surveyors of highway, —
When Keezar eat on the hillside
Upon his cobbler's form,
With a pan of coals on either hand.
To keep his waxed-ends warm.
And there, in the golden weather.
He stitched and hammered and sung ;
In the brook he moistened his leather,
In the pewter mug his tongue.
Well knew the tough old Teuton
Who brewed the stoutest ale,
And he paid the goodwife's reckonings
In the coin of song and tale.
The songs they still are singing
Who dress the hills of vine
The tales that haunt the Brocken,
And whisper down the Rhine.
COBBLER KEEZARS VISION.
45
Woodsy and wild and lonesome,
The swift stream wound away,
Through birches and scarlet maples,
Flashing in foam and spray, —
" Why should folks be glum," said Keszar.
When Nature herself is glad,
And the painted woods are laughing
At the faces so sour and sad ?"
Down on the sharp-horned
Plunging in steep cascade.
Tossing its white-maned waters
Against the hemlock's shade.
Woodsy and wild and lonesome.
East and west and north and south ;
Only the village of fishers
Down at the river's mouth ;
Only here and there a clearing,
With its farm-house rude and new.
And tree-stumps, swart as Indians,
Where the scanty harvest grew.
No shout of home-bound reapers,
No vintage-song he heard,
And on the green no dancing feet
The merry violin stirred.
Small heed had the careless cobbler
What sorrow of heart was theirs
Who travailed in pain with the births of God,
And planted a state with prayers, —
Hunting of witches and warlocks,
Smiting the heathen horde, —
One hand on the mason's trowel,
And one on the soldier's sword !
But give him his ale and cider,
Give him his pipe and song,
Little he cared for Church or State,
Or the balance of right and wrong.
" Tis work, work, work," he muttered, —
And for rest a snuffle of psalms !"
He smote on his leathern apron
With his brown and waxen palms.
16
COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION.
" for the purple harvests
Of the days when I was young!
For the merry grape-stained maidens,
And the pleasant songs they sung !
" for the breath of vineyards,
Of apples and nuts and wine !
For an oar to row and a breeze to blow
Down the grand old river Rhine !"
A tear in his blue eye glistened,
And dropped on his beard so gray.
" Old, old am I," said Keezar,
" And the Rhine flows far away !"
But a cunning man was the cobbler ;
He could call the birds from the trees,
Charm the black snake out of the ledges.
And bring back the swarming bees.
All the virtues of herbs and metals.
All the lore of the woods, he knew.
And the arts of the Old World mingled
With the marvels of the New.
Well he knew the tricks of magic,
And the lapstone on his knee
Had the gift of the Mormon's goggles,
Or the stone of Doctor Dee.
For the mighty master, Agrippa,
Wrought it with spell and rhyme
From a fragment of mystic moonstone
In the tower of Nettesheim.
To a cobbler, Minnesinger,
The marvelous stone gave he, —
And he gave it, in turn, to Keezar,
Who brought it over the sea.
He held up that mystic lapstone.
He held it up like a lens,
And he counted the long years coming
By twenties and by tens.
" One hundred years," quoth Keezar,
" And fifty have I told :
Now open the new before me.
And shut me out the old!"
Like a cloud of mist, the blackness
Rolled from the magic stone.
And a marvelous picture mingled.
The unknown and the known.
Still ran the stream to the river,
And river and ocean joined ;
And there were the bluffs and the blue sea-line,
And cold north hills behind.
But the mighty forest was broken,
By many a steepled town.
By many a white-walled farm-house,
And many a garner brown.
Turning a score of mill-wheels,
The stream no more ran free ;
White sails on the winding river.
White sails on the far-off sea.
Below in the noisy village
The flags were floating gay,
And shone on a thousand faces
The light of a holiday.
Swiftly the rival ploughmen
Turned the brown earth from their shares;
Here were the farmer's treasures,
There were the craftsman's wares.
Golden the goodwife's butter,
Ruby the currant-wine ;
^M£^^
Grand were the strutting turkeys.
Fat were the beeves and
COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION.
47
Yellow and red were the apples,
And the ripe pears russet-brown,
And the peaches had stolen blushes
From the girls who shook them down.
" Here's a priest, and there is a Quaker, —
Do the cat and dog agree ?
Have they burned the stocks for oven-wood)
Have they cut down the gallows-tree ?
And with blooms of hill and wild-wood,
That shame the toil of art,
Mingled the gorgeous blossoms
Of the garden's tropic heart.
" Would the old folk know their children ?
Would they own the graceless town,
Witli never a ranter to worry.
And never a witch to drown ?"
" What is it I see ?" said Keezar,
" Am I here, or am I there ?
IsitafeteatBingen?
Do I look on Frankfort fair ?
Loud laughed the cobbler Keezar,
Laughed like a school-boy gay ;
Tossing his arms above him,
The lapstone rolled away.
" But where are the clowns and puppets,
And imps with horns and tail ?
And where are the Rhenish flagons ?
And where is the foaming ale ?
"Strange things I know will happen, —
Strange things the Lord permits;
But that droughty folks should be jolly
Puzzles my poor old wits.
" Here are smiling manly faces.
And the maiden's step is gay.
Nor sad by thinking, nor mad by drinking,
Nor mopes, nor fools, are they.
" Here's pleasure without regretting,
And good without abuse.
The holiday and bridal
Of beauty and of use.
It rolled down the rugged hillside,
It spun like a wheel bewitched.
It plunged through the leaning willows,
And into the river pitched.
There in the deep, dark water,
The magic stone lies still,
Under the leaning willows
In the shadow of the hill.
But oft the idle fisher
Sits on the shadowy bank.
And his dreams make marvelous picturi
Where the wizard's lapstone sank.
And still, in the summer twilights.
When the river seems to run
Out from the inner glory.
Warm with the melted sun.
48
GATHERED GOLD DUST.
The weary mill-girl lingers
Beside the charmed stream,
And the sky and the golden water
Shape and color her dream.
Fair wave the sunset gardens,
The rosy signals fly ;
Her homestead beckons from the cloud,
And love goes sailing by I
GATHERED GOLD DUST.
Ha^RITICS are sentinels in the grand army
Wmk of letters, stationed at the corners
of newspapers and reviews, to
challenge every new author.
{Longfellow.
fWe can refute assertions, but who can
refute silence. {Dickens.
Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere
long thou shalt sell thy necessaries.
{Franklin.
The great secret of success in life is, for a
man to be ready when his opportunity
comes. {Disraeli.
The truly illustrious are they who do not
court the praise of the world, but per-
form the actions which deserve it.
{Tilton.
Christ awakened the world's thought, and it
has never slept since. {Howard.
The Cross is the prism that reveals to us the
beauties of the Sun of Righteousness.
{Goulbum.
Men have feeling : this is perhaps the best
way of considering them. (Richtcr.
Fidelity is seventh-tenths of business suc-
cess. " {Parton.
In the march of life don't heed the order of
" right about " when you know you are
about right. {Holmes.
He that lacks time to mourn lacks time to
mend :
Eternity mourns that. 'Tis an ill cure
For life's worst ills, to have no time to feci
th'-m. {Shakespeare.
The worst kind of vice is advice. {Coleridge
A self-suspicion of hypocrisy is a good evi
denco of sincerity. {Hannah More.
A page digested is better than a volume hur
riedly read. {Macaulay
I am not one of those who do not believe in
love at first sight, but I believe in tak-
ing a second look. {Henry Vincent.
A man is responsible for how he uses his
common sense as well as his moral sense.
{Beecher.
When a man has no design but to speak
plain truth, he isn't apt to be talkative.
{Pre7itice.
The year passes quick, though the hour tarry,
and time bygone is a dream, though we
thought it never would go while it was
going. {Newman.
Good temper, like a sunny day, sheds a
brightness over everything. It is the
sweetener of toil and the soother of dis-
quietude. {Irving.
A profound conviction raises a man above
the feeling of ridicule. {Mill.
Our moods are lenses coloring the world
with as many diS'erent hues. {Emerson.
Men believe that their reason governs their
words, but it often happens that words
have power to react on reason. {Bacon.
Minds of moderate calibre ordinarily con-
demn everything which is beyond their
range. {La Rochefoucault.
Geology gives us a key to the patience of
God. {Holland.
Do to-day thy nearest duty. {Groethe.
Many of our cares are bat a morbid way of
looking at our privileges.
{Walter Scott.
1 The greatness of melancholy men is seldom
strong and healthy. {Bulwcr.
Cowardice asks, Is it safe ? Expediency asks.
Is it politic? Vanity asks, Is it popu-
I lar? but Conscience asks, Is it right?
' {Punshon,
BALTUS VAN TASSEL'S FARM.
49
God made the country and man made the
town. {Cowper.
Sorrows humanize our race. Tears are the
showers that fertilize the world. {Ingelow.
It is remarkable with what Christian fortitude
and resignation we can bear the suffer-
ing of other folks. (Z)ea?i Swift.
One can neither protect nor arm himself
against criticism. We must meet it
defiantly, and thus gradually please it.
{Ooethe.
Silence and reserve suggest latent power.
What some men think has more effect
than what others say. (Chesterfield.
Stratagems in war and love are only honor-
able when successful. {Bulwer.
A man behind the times is apt to speak ill of
them, on the principle that nothing
looks well from behind. (Holmes.
He who isn't contented with what he has
wouldn't be contented with what he
would like to have. (Auerbach.
Architecture is a handmaid of devotion. A
beautiful church is a sermon in stone,
and its spire a finger pointing to Heaven.
(Schaff.
A sorrow's crown of sorrow,
Is remembering happier things. (Dante.
BALTUS VAIi TASSLJL'S FARM.
WASHINGTON IRVING.
mGHABOD Crane had a soft and foolish heart toward the sex ; and it is
iis not to be wondered at, that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in
Y^ his eyes; more especially after he had visited her in her paternal
1 mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving,
contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either his
eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm; but within
those everything was snug, happy, and well-conditioned. He was satisfied
with his wealth, but not proud of it ; and piqued himself upon the hearty
abundance, rather than the style in which he lived. His stronghold was
situated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fer-
tile nooks, in which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A great
elm-tree spread its branches over it, at the foot of which bubbled up a
50 ' BALTUS VAN TASSEL'S FARM.
spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a little well formed of a barrel ;
and then stole sparkling away through the grass, to a neighboring brook,
that bubbled along among alders and dwarf willows. Hard by the farm-
house was a vast barn, that might have served for a church ; every window
and crevice of which seemed bursting forth with the treasures of the farm ;
the flail was busily resounding within it from morning to night; swallows
and martins skimmed twittering about the eaves; and rows of pigeons,
some with one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their
heads under their wings, or buried in their bosoms, and others swelling,
and cooing, and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the sunshine on
the roof. Sleek, unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and abun-
dance of their pens; whence sallied forth, now and then, troops of sucking
pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding
in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys
were gobbling through the farmyard, and guinea fowls fretting about it,
like ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. Before
the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a husband, a war-
rior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished wings, and crowing in
the pride and gladness of his heart —
sometimes tearing up the earth with
his feet, and then generously calling his
ever hungry family of wives and child-
ren to enjoy the rich morsel which he
had discovered.
The pedagogue's mouth watered, as
he looked upon this sumptuous promise
of winter fare. In his devouring mind's
eye, he pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding
in his belly, and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed
in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were
swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like
snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion sauce. In the
porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon, and juicy relish-
ing ham ; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard
under its wing, and, peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages; and even
bright chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back, in a side-dish, with
uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit dis-
dained to ask while living.
As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his great
green eyes over the fat meadow -lands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of
THE BRIDGE.
51
buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchards burdened with ruddy fruit,
which surrounded the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart yearned
after the damsel, who was to inherit those domains, and his imagination
expanded with the idea, how they might be readily turned into cash, and
the money invested in immense tracts of wild land, and shingle palaces in
the wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and pre-
sented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children,
mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots
and kettles dangling beneath; and he beheld himself bestriding a pacing
mare, with a colt at her heels, setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee, or the
Lord knows where.
THE BRIDGE.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
^.
STOOD on the bridge at midnight,
As the clocks were striking the
hour,
(t-;^ And the moon rose o'er the city,
^ Behind the dark church tower ;
I; Ami like the waters rushing
' Among the wooden piers,
A flood of thought came o'er me.
That filled my eyes with tears.
How often, how often,
In the days that had gone by,
I had stood on that bridge at midnight,
And gazed on that wave and sky !
How often, how often,
I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its bosom
O'er the ocean wild and wide !
For my heart was hot and restle.«s,
And my life was full of care,
4
And the burden laid upon me,
Seemed greater than I could bear.
But now it has fallen from me,
It is buried in the sea ;
And only the sorrow of others
Throws its shadow over me.
Yet whenever I cross the river
On its bridge with wooden piers,
Like the odor of brine from the ocean
Comes the thought of other years.
And I think how many thousands
Of care-encumbered men.
Each having his burden of sorrow,
Have crossed the bridge since then.
I see the long procession
Still passing to and fro.
The young heart hot and restless.
And the old, subdued and slow !
52
A LEGEND OF BREGENZ.
And forever and forever,
The moon and its broken reflection
As long as the river flows,
And its shadows shall appear,
As long as the heart has passions,
As the symbol of love in heaven.
As long as life has woes ;
And its wavering image here.
KISSING HER HAIR.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.
.^^f^ISSING her hair, I sat against her feet :
ll^JP Wove and unwove it, — wound, and
^:!
found it sweet ;
Made fast therewith her hands, drew
f down her eyes,
•|^ Deep as deep flowers, and dreamy like
J dim skies ;
With her own tresses bound and found her
fair, —
Kissing her hair.
Sleep were no sweeter than her face to me, —
Sleep of cold sea-bloom under the cold
sea:
What pain could get between my face and
hers?
What new sweet thing would Love not relish
worse ?
Unless, perhaps, white Death had kissed me
there, —
Kissing her hair.
A LEGEND OF BREGENZ.
ADELAIDE ANNIE PROCTER.
^^IRT round with rugged mountains the
Sb: fair Lake Constance lies ;
In her blue heart reflected, shine back
the starry skies ;
And watching each white cloudlet float
L silently and slow,
T You think a piece of heaven lies on our
earth below !
Midnight is there : and silence enthroned in
heaven, looks down
Upon her own calm mirror, upon a sleeping
town :
For Bregenz, that quaint city upon the Tyrol
shore,
Has stood above Lake Constance, a thousand
years and more.
Her battlements and towers, upon their rocky
steep.
Have cast their trembling shadows of ages
on the deep ;
Mountain, and lake, and valley, a sacred
legend know,
Of how the town was saved one night, three
hundred years ago.
Far from her home and kindred, a Tyrol maid
had fled,
To serve in the Swiss valleys, and toil for
daily bread ;
And every year that fleeted so silently and
fast.
Seemed to bear farther from her the memory
of the past.
She served kind, gentle masters, nor asked
for rest or change ;
Her friends seemed no more new ones, their
speech seemed no more strange ;
And when she led her cattle to pasture every
day.
She ceased to look and wonder on which
side Bregenz lay.
She spoke no more of Bregenz, with longing
and with tears ;
Her Tyrol home seemed faded in a deep mist
of years ;
A LEGEND OF BREGENZ.
53
She heeded not the rumors of Austrian war
The men seemed stern and altered, with looks
or strife ;
cast on the ground ;
Each day she rose contented, to the calm
With anxious faces, one by one, the women
toils of life.
gathered round ;
All talk of flax, or spinning, or work, was
Yet, when her master's children would clus-
put away ;
tering round her stand,
The very children seemed afraid to go alone
Sin sang them the old ballads of her own na-
to play.
tive land ;
And when at morn and evening she knelt
One day, out in the meadow with strangers
before God's throne.
from the town.
The accents of her childhood rose to her lips
Some secret plan discussing, the men walked
alone.
up and down.
Girt round with rugged mountains."
And so she dwelt : the valley more peaceful
year by year ;
When suddenly strange portents of some great
deed seemed near.
The golden corn was bending upon its fragile
stalk.
While farmers, heedless of their fields, paced
up and down in talk.
Yet now and then seemed watching a strange
uncertain gleam,
That looked like lances 'mid the trees that
stood below the stream.
At eve they all assembled, all care and doubt
were fled ;
With jovial laugh they feasted, the board
was nobly spread.
64
A LEGEND OF BREGENZ.
The elder of the village rose up, his glass in
hand,
And cried, " Wo drink the downfall of an
accursed laud !
* The night is growing darker, ere one more
day is flown,
Bregenz, our foemen's stronghold, Bregenz
shall be our own ! "
The women shrank in terror, (yet pride, too,
had her part,)
But one poor Tyrol maiden felt death within
her heart.
Before her, stood fair Bregenz, once more
her towers arose ;
What were the friends beside her ? Only her
country's foes !
The faces of her kinsfolk, the day of childhood
flown.
The echoes of lier mountains reclaimed her
as their own !
Nothing she heard around her, (though shouts
rang forth again,)
Gone were the green Swiss valleys, the pas-
ture, and the plain ;
Before her eyes one vision, and in her heart
one cry.
That said, " Go forth, save Bregenz, and
then if need be, die! "
With trembling haste and breathless, with
noiseless step she sped ;
Horses and weary cattle were standing in
the shed ;
She loosed the strong white charger, that fed
from out her hand.
She mounted and she turned his head toward
her native land.
Out — out into the darkness — faster, and still
more fiist;
Tlie smootl) grass flies behind her, the chest-
nut wood is passed ;
iShe looks up ; clouds arc heavy : Why is her
Bteed 80 slow ? —
Scarcely the wind beside them, can pass them
as they go.
"Faster!" she cries, "Oh, faster!" Eleven
the church belLt chime ;
" God," ehe cries, " help Bregenz, and
bring me there in time ! "
But louder than bells' ringing, or lowing of
the kine.
Grows nearer in the midnight the rushing of
the Rhine.
Shall not the roaring waters their headlong
gallop check ?
The steed draws back in terror, she leans
above his neck
To watch the flowing darkness, the bank is
high and steep.
One pause — he staggers forward, and plunges
in the deep.
She strives to pierce the blackness, and looser
throws the rein ;
Her steed must breast the waters that dash
above his mane.
How gallantly, how nobly, he struggles
through the foam,
And see — in the far distance, shine out the
lights of home !
Up the steep bank he bears her, and now
they rush again
Towards the heights of Bregenz, that tower
above the plain.
They reach the gate of Bregenz, just as the
midnight rings.
And out come serf and soldier to meet the
news she brings.
Bregenz is saved ! Ere daylight her battle-
ments are manned ;
Defiance greets the army that marches on the
land.
And if to deeds heroic should endless fame
be paid,
Bregenz does well to honor the noble Tyrol
maid.
Three hundred years are vanished, and yet
upon the hill
An old stone gateway rises, to do her honor
still.
And there, when Bregenz women sit spinning
in the shade,
They see the quaint old carving, the charger
and the maid.
WINTER.
65
And when, to guard old Bregenz, by gateway,
street, and tower,
The warder paces all night long, and calls
each passing hour :
"Nine," "ten," "eleven," he cries aloud,
and then (0 crown of fame !)
When midnight pauses in the skies he calls
the maiden's name.
WINTER.
DOUGLAS JERROLD.
jii|HE streets were empty. Pitiless cold had driven all who had the
*^=»^ shelter of a roof to their homes ; and the north-east blast seemed
to howl in triumph above the untrodden snow. Winter was at the
heart of all things. The wretched, dumb with excessive misery,
suffered, in stupid resignation, the tyranny of the season. Human
blood stagnated in the breast of want ; and death in that despair-
ing hour, losing its terrors, looked in the eyes of many a wretch a sweet
deliverer. It was a time when the very poor, barred from the commonest
things of earth, take strange counsel with themselves, and, in the deep
humility of destitution, believe they are the burden and the offlil of the
world.
It was a time when the easy, comfortable man, touched with finest
sense of human suffering, gives from his abundance ; and, whilst bestow-
ing, feels almost ashamed that, with such wide-spread misery circled round
him, he has all things fitting, all things grateful. The smitten spirit asks
wherefore he is not of the multitude of wretchedness ; demands to know
for what especial excellence he is promoted above the thousand thoue^nd
starving creatures : in his very tenderness for misery, tests his privilege of
56 THE QUILTING.
exemption from a woe that withers manhood in man, bowing him down-
ward to the brute. And so questioned, this man gives in modesty of spirit
in very thankfulness of soul. His alms are not cold, formal charities ;
but reverent sacrifices to his suffering brother.
It was a time when selfishness hugs itself in its own warmth ; with no
other thoughts than of its pleasant possessions ; all made pleasanter,
sweeter, by the desolation around. When the mere worldling rejoices the
more in his warm chamber because it is so bitter cold without, when he
eats and drinks with whetted appetite, because he hears of destitution
prowling like a wolf around his well-barred house ; when, in fine, he bears
his every comfort about him with the pride of a conqueror. A time when
such a man sees in the misery of his fellow-beings nothing save his own
victory of fortune — his own successes in a suffering world. To such a
man, the poor are but the tattered slaves that grace his triumph.
It was a time, too, when human nature often shows its true divinity,
and with misery like a garment clinging to it, forgets its wretchedness in
sympathy with suffering. A time, when in the cellars and garrets of the
poor are acted scenes which make the noblest heroism of life; which
prove the immortal texture of the human heart, not wholly seared by the
branding-iron of the torturing hours. A time when in want, in anguish,
in throes of mortal agony, some seed is sown that bears a flower in
heaven.
THE QUILTING.
ANNA BACHE.
sHE day is set, the ladies met,
And at the frame are seated.
In order placed, they work in haste.
To get the quilt completed ;
'Tis time to roll ;" "my needle's broke;
" So Martin's stock is selling."
Louisa's wedding gown's bespoke ;"
" Lend mo your scissors, Ellen ;'
While fingers fly, their tongues they ! " That match will never come about ;
Pv • " Now don't fly in a passion ;"
And animate their labors j " Hair puffs they say are going out ;"
By counting beaux, discussing clothes, " Yes, curls are all the fashion."
Or talking of their neighbors.
Dear ! what a pretty frock you've on
" I'm very glad you like it ;"
I'm told that Miss Micomicon
Don't speak to Mr. Micate."
The quilt is done, the tea begun,
The beaux are all collecting ;
The table's cleared, the music's heard, —
His partner each selecting ;
" I saw Miss Belle, the other day, ! The merry band in order stand.
Young Green's new gig adorning ;" i The dance begins with vigor,'
" What keeps your sister Ann away ''" And rapid feet the measure beat,
" She went to town this morning." i And trip the mazy figure.
GAPE-SEED.
Unheeded fly the minutes by,
" Old time " himself is dancing,
Till night's dull eye is op'ed to spy
The light of morn advancing.
57
All closely stowed ; to each ahode
The carriages go tilting ;
And many a dream has for its theme
The pleasures of the quilting.
BUYING GAPE-SEED.
JOHN B. GOUGH.
. p^^^ .
fM^^^ YANKEE, walking the streets of London, looked through a win-
^^ dow upon a group of men writing very rapidly; and one of them
|f^ 4 said to him in an insulting manner, " Do you wish to buy some
J gape-seed ?" Passing on a short distance the Yankee met a man,
^ and asked him what the business of those men was in the office he
J had just passed. He was told that they wrote letters dictated by
others, and transcribed all sorts of documents ; in short, they were writers.
The Yankee returned to the office, and inquired if one of the men would
write a letter for him, and was answered in the affirmative. He asked the
price, and was told one dollar. After considerable talk, the bargain was
made ; one of the conditions of which was that the scribe should write
just what the Yankee told him to, or he should receive no pay. The
scribe told the Yankee he was ready to begin ; and the latter said, —
" Dear marm :" and then asked, " Have you got that deown ?"
" Yes," was the reply, "go on."
" I went to ride t'other day : have you got that deown ?"
" Yes ; go on, go on."
"And I harnessed up the old mare into the wagon: have you got that
deown?"
" Yes, yes, long ago ; go on."
" Why, how fast you write ! And I got into the wagon, and sat
deown, and drew up the reins, and took the whip in my right hand : have
you got that deown ?"
" Yes, long ago ; go on."
" Dear me, how fast you write ! I never saw your equal. And 1
said to the old mare, ' Go 'long,' and jerked the reins pretty hard : have
you got that deown ?"
" Yes ; and I am impatiently waiting for more. I wish you wouldn't
bother me with so many foolish questions. Go on with your letter."
" Well, the old mare wouldn't stir out of her tracks, and I hollered,
' Go 'long, you old jade ! go 'long.' Have you got that deown ?"
58 THE LIGHT BRIGADE AT BALAKLAVA.
" Yes, indeed, you pestersome fellow ; go on."
" And I licked her, and licked her, and licked her [continuing to
repeat these words as rapidly as possible.]
" Hold on there ! I have written two pages of ' licked her,' and I
want the rest of the letter.'
" Well, and she kicked, and she kicked, and she kicked — [continuing
to repeat these words with great rapidity.]
" Do go on with your letter ; I have several pages of ' she kicked.' "
[The Yankee clucks as in urging horses to move, and continues the
clucking noise with rapid repetition for some time.]
The scribe throws down his pen.
" Write it deown ! write it deown /"
"I can't!"
"Well then, I won't pay you."
[The scribe, gathering up his papers.] " What shall I do with all
these sheets upon which I have written your nonsense ?"
" You may use them in doing up your gape-seed. Good-by !"
THE LIGHT BRIGADE AT BALAKLA VA.
WILLIAM H. RUSSELL.
HE whole brigade scarcely made one effective regiment according to
.._ the numbers of continental armies; and yet it was more than we
'W' * could spare. As they rushed towards the front, the Russians
opened on them from the guns in the redoubt on the right, with
volleys of musketry and rifles. They swept proudly past, glitter-
ing in the morning sun in all the pride and splendor of war.
We could scarcely believe the evidence of our senses ! Surely that handful
of men are not going to charge an army in position ? Alas ! it was but
too true — their desperate valor knew no bounds, and far indeed was it
removed from its so-called better part— discretion. They advanced in two
lines, quickening their pace as they closed towards the enemy. A more
fearful spectacle was never witnessed than by those who, without the
power to aid, beheld their heroic countrymen rushing to the arms of death.
At the distance of 1200 yards, the whole line of the enemy belched forth,
from thirty iron mouths, a flood of smoke and flame, through which hissed
the deadly balls. Their flight was marked by instant gaps in our ranks,
CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.
69
by dead men and horses, by steeds flying wounded or riderless across the
plain. The first line is broken ; it is joined by the second ; they never
halt or check their speed an instant. With diminished ranks, thinned by
those thirty guns, which the Eussians had laid with the most deadly accu-
racy, with a halo of flashing steel above their heads, and with a cheer
which was many a noble fellow's death-cry, they flew into the smoke of the
batteries, but ere they were lost from view, the plain was strewed with
their bodies and with the carcasses of horses. They were exposed to an
oblique fire from the batteries on the hills on both sides, as well as to a
direct fire of musketry. Through the clouds of smoke we could see their
sabres flashing as they rode up to the guns and dashed between them,
cutting down the gunners as they stood. "We saw them riding through
the guns, as I have said ; to our delight we saw them returning, after
breaking through a column of Kussian infantry, and scattering them like
chafi", when the flank fire of the battery on the hill swept them down,
scattered and broken as they were Wounded men and dismounted
troopers flying towards us told the sad tale — demigods could not have
done what we had failed to do.
CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
;ALF a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.
" Forward, the Light Brigade !
Charge for the guns !" he said.
Into the valley of death, •
Rode the six hundred.
" Forward, the Light Brigade !"
Was there a man dismayed ?
Not though the soldiers knew
Some one had blundered :
Theirs not to make reply.
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die :
Into the valley of death,
Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them.
Volleyed and thundered :
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well :
Into the jaws of death,
Into the mouth of hell.
Rode the six hundred.
Flashed all their sabers bare.
Flashed as they turned in air,
Sab'ring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered :
Plunged in the battery smoke.
Right through the line they broke :
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the saber-stroke.
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back — but not.
Not the six hundred.
60
THE PLEASURE BOAT.
Cannon to riglit of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them,
Volle)-ed and thundered :
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell.
They that had fought so well.
Came through the jaws of death,
Back from the mouth of hell.
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade ?
0, the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made !
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred !
THE PLEASURE BOAT.
RICHARD HENRY DANA.
j^KOMB, hoist the sail, the fast let go !
W^K. They're seated side by side ;
! '>? Wave chases wave in pleasant flow ;
<;','f The bay is fair and wide.
i
|[ The ripples lightly tap the boat.
I' Loose ! Give her to the wind !
She shoots ahead ; they're all afloat ;
The strand is far behind.
The sunlight falling on her sheet,
It glitters like the drift.
Sparkling, in scorn of summer's heat.
High up some mountain rift.
The#vinds are fresh ; she's driving fasat
Upon the bending tide ;
The crinkling sail, and crinkling mast.
Go with her side by side.
The parting sun sends out a glow
Across the placid bay,
Touching with glory all the .show, —
A breeze ! Up helm ! Away !
Careening to the wind, they reach.
With laugh and call, the shore.
They've left their footprints on the beach.
But them I hear no more.
CATCHING THE MORNING TRAIN. Qi
CATCHING THE MORNING TRAIN.
MAX ADELER.
FIND that one of the most serious objections to living out of town
lies in the difficulty experienced in catching the early morning train
by which I must reach the city and my business. It is by no means
a pleasant matter, under any circumstances, to have one's movements
j regulated by a time-table, and to be obliged to rise to breakfast and
■^ to leave home at a certain hour, no matter how strong the temptation
to delay may be. But sometimes the horrible punctuality of the train is
productive of absolute suffering. For instance : I look at my watch when
I get out of bed and find that I have apparently plenty of time, so I dress
leisurely, and sit down to the morning meal in a frame of mind which is
calm and serene. Just as I crack my first egg I hear the down train from
Wilmington. I start in alarm ; and taking out my watch I compare it with
the clock and find that it is eleven minutes slow, and that I have only five
minutes left in which to get to the depot.
I endeavor to scoop the egg from the shell, but it burns my fingers,
the skin is tough, and after struggling with it for a moment, it mashes into
a hopeless mass. I drop it in disgust and seize a roU ; while I scald my
tongue with a quick mouthful of coffee. Then I place the roll in my
mouth while my wife hands me my satchel and tells me she thinks she
hears the whistle. I plunge madly around looking for my umbrella, then
I kiss the family good-by as well as I can with a mouth full of roll, and
dash toward the door.
Just as I get to the gate I find that I have forgotten my duster and the
bundle my wife wanted me to take up to the city to her aunt. Charging
back, I snatch them up and tear down the gravel- walk in a frenzy. I do
not like to run through the village : it is undignified and it attracts atten-
tion ; but I walk furiously. I go faster and faster as I get away from the
main street. When half the distance is accomplished, I actually do hear
the whistle ; there can be no doubt about it this time. I long to run,
but I know that if I do I will excite that abominable speckled dog sitting
by the sidewalk a little distance ahead of me. Then I really see the train
coming around the curve close by the depot, and I feel that I must make
better time ; and I do. The dog immediately manifests an interest in ray
movements. He tears down the street after me, and is speedily joined by five
or six other dogs, which frolic about ray legs and bark furiously. Sundry
small boys as I go plunging past, contribute to the exciteraent by whistling
02
LAMENT OF THE IRISH EMIGRANT.
with their fingers, and the men who are at work upon the new meeting-
house stop to look at me and exchange jocular remarks with each other. I
do feel ridiculous ; but I must catch that train at all hazards.
I become desperate when I have to slacken my pace until two or three
women who are standing upon the sidewalk, discussing the infamous price
of butter, scatter to let me pass. I arrive within a few yards of the sta-
tion with my duster flying in the wind, with my coat tails in a horizontal
position, and with the speckled dog nipping my heels, just as the train
begins to move. I put on extra pressure, resolving to get the train or
perish, and I reach it just as the last car is going by. I seize the hand-
rail ; I am jerked violently around, but finally, after a desperate effort, I
get upon the step with my knees, and am hauled in by the brakeman, hot,
dusty and mad, with my trousers torn across the knees, my legs bruised
and three ribs of my umbrella broken.
Just as I reach a comfortable seat in the car, the train stops, and then
backs up on the siding, where it remains for half an hour while the
engineer repairs a dislocated valve. The anger which burns in my bosom
as I reflect upon what now is proved to have been the folly of that race is
increased as I look out of the window and observe the speckled dog
engaged with his companions in an altercation over a bone. A man who
permits his dog to roam about the streets nipping the legs of every one
who happens to go at a more rapid gait than a walk, is unfit for association
with civilized beings. He ought to be placed on a desert island in mid-
ocean, and be compelled to stay there.
LAMENT OF THE IRISH EMIGRANT.
LADY DUFFERIN.
^^'M Bitting on the stile, Mary,
^j^ Where we eat side by side
'. i<T On a bright May morning, long ago,
^yf When first you were my bride ;
I The corn was springing fresh and green,
i And the lark sang loud and high ;
<] And the red was on your lip, Mary,
And the love-light in your eye.
The place is little changed, Mary,
The day ba bright as then ;
The lark's loud song is in my ear,
And the corn is green again ;
But I miss the soft clasp of your hand,
And your breath warm on my cheek ;
And I still keep listening for the words
You never more will speak.
' Tis but a step down j^onder lane,
And the little church stands near —
The church where we were wed, Mary;
I see the spire from here.
THE SNOW-STORM.
63
But the graveyard lieB between, Mary,
And my step might break your rest —
For I've laid you, darling, down to sleep
With your baby on your breast.
I'm very lonely now, Mary,
For the poor make no new friends ;
But, Oh ! they love the better still
The few our Father sends !
And you were all I had, Mary —
My blessing and my pride ;
There's nothing left to care for now,
Since my poor Mary died.
Tours was the good, brave heart, Mary,
That still kept hoping on.
When the trust in God had left mj'- soul,
And my arm's young strength was gone
There was comfort ever on your lip,
And the kind look on your brow —
i bless you, Mary, for that same,
Tho' you cannot hear me now.
I thank you for the patient smile
When your heart was fit to break — •
When the hunger pain was gnawing there..
And you did it for my sake ;
I bless you for the pleasant word,
When your heart was sad and sore —
Oh ! I'm thankful you are gone, Mary,
Where grief can't reach you morel
I'm bidding you a long farewell.
My Mary — kind and true !
But I'll not forget you darling,
In the land I'm going to ;
They say there's bread and work for all,
And the sun shines always there^
But I'll not forget old Ireland,
Were it fifty times as fair !
And often in those grand old woods
I'll sit, and shut my eyes,
And ray heart will travel back again
To the place where Mary lies ;
And I'll think I see the little stile
Where we sat side by side.
And the springing corn, and the bright May
morn
When first you were my bride.
THE SNOW-STORM.
EMERSON.
=XXOUNCED by all the trumpets of
the sky.
Arrives the snow ; and, driving o'er
the fields.
Seems nowhere to alight ; the whited
> air
J Hides hills and woods, the river, and the
heaven.
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's
feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates
sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north-wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry, evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake or tree or door ;
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage ; naught cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths ;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn ;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall
Maugre the farmer's sighs ; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the
world
64
THE HOMES OF ENGLAND.
Is all his own, retiring as he were not,
Leaves when the sun appears, astonished
Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.
THE RIVER TIME.
BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR.
(H ! a wonderful stream is the river
Time,
f'? As it runs through the realm of tears,
^% With a faultless rhythm and a musical
rhyme
And a broader sweep and a surge sub-
[ lime,
As it blends in the ocean of years !
How the winters are drifting like flakes of
snow.
And the summers like birds between.
And the years in the sheaf, how they come
and they go
On the river's breast with its ebb and its flow,
As it glides in the shadow and sheen !
There's a magical isle up the river Time,
Where the softest of airs are playing.
There's a cloudless sky and a tropical clime.
And a song as sweet as a vesper chime.
And the Junes with the roses are straying.
And the name of this isle is the " Long Ago,"
And we bury our treasures there ;
There are brows of beauty and bosoms of
snow,
There are heaps of dust — oh ! we loved them
so—
There are trinkets and tresses of hair.
There are fragments of songs that nobody
sings.
There are parts of an infant's prayer.
There's a lute unswept and a harp without
strings.
There are broken vows and pieces of rings,
And the garments our loved used to wear.
There are hands that are waved when the
fairy shore
By the fitful mirage is lifted in air,
And we sometimes hear through the turbu-
lent roar
Sweet voices we heard in the days gone be-
fore.
When the wind down the river was fair.
Oh ! remembered for aye be that blessed isle.
All the day of our life until night ;
And when evening glows with its beautiful
smile.
And our eyes are closing in slumbers awhile,
May the greenwood of soul be in sight.
THE HOMES OF ENGLAND.
FELICIA D. HEMANS.
JBSgHE stately Homes of England,
^K^ How beautiful they stand !
^*'^-T Ami<lst their tall ancestral trees,
■ • U'er all the pleasant land ;
The deer across their greensward
\ bound
J Through shade and sunny gleam,
And the swan glides pa-st them with the
sound
Of Pome rejoicing stream.
The merry Homes of England !
Around their hearths by niglit.
What gladsome looks of household
love
Meet in the ruddy light.
There woman's voice flows forth m
song,
Or childish tale is told ;
Or lips move tunefully along
Some glorious page of old.
I
THE HOMES OF ENGLAND.
The blessed Homes of England !
How softly on their bowers
Is laid the holy quietness
That breathes from Sabbath hours !
65
The cottage Homes of England !
By thousands on her plains,
They are smiling o'er the silvery brooks.
And round the hamlet-fanes.
AN ENGLISH ANCESTRAL HOMESTEAD.
Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bell's chime
Floats through their woods at morn ;
All other sounds, in that still time,
Of breeze and leaf are born.
Through glowing orchards forth they peej.
Each from its nook of leaves ;
And fearless there the lowly sleep,
Aa the bird beneath their eaves.
66
AFRICAN HOSPITALITY.
The free, fair Homes of England !
Long, long in hut and hall,
May hearts of native proof be reared
To guard each hallowed wall !
And green forever be the groves,
And bright the flowery sod.
Where first the child's glad spirit loves
Its country and its God.
AFRICAN HOSPITALITY.
MUNGO PARK.
WAITED more than two hours without having an opportunity of
crossing the river, during which time the people who had crossed
carried information to Man-song, the king, that a white man was
waiting for a passage, and was coming to see him. He immediately
sent over one of his chief men, who informed me that the king could
not possibly see me until he knew what had brought me into his
country ; and that I must not presume to cross the river without the king's
permission. He therefore advised me to lodge at a distant village, to which
ho pointed, for the night, and said that in the morning he would give me
further instructions how to conduct myself.
This was very discouraging. However, as there was no remedy, I set
off for the village, where I found, to my great mortification, that no
person would admit me into his house. I was regarded with astonishment
and fear, and was obliged to sit all day without victuals in the shade of a
tree ; and the night threatened to be very uncomfortable — for the wind
rose, and there was great appearance of a heavy rain — and the wild beasts
are so very numerous in the neighborhood, that I should have been
under the necessity of climbing up the trees and resting amongst the
branches. About sunset, however, as I was preparing to pass the night in
this manner, and had turned my horse loose that he might graze at
liberty, a woman, returning from the labors of the field, stopped to
observe me, and perceiving that I was weary and dejected, inquired into my
situation, which I briefly explained to her ; whereupon, with looks of great
compassion, she took up my saddle and bridle, and told me to follow her.
Having conducted me into her hut, she lighted up a lamp, spread a mat
on the floor, and told me I might remain there for the night. Finding
that I was very hungry, she said she would procure me something to eat.
She \vent out, and returned in a short time with a very fine fish, which,
having caused to bo half broiled upon some embers, she gave me for
supper.
THE HEBREW RACE. Q>j
The rites of hospitality being thus performed towards a stranger in
distress, my worthy benefactress — pointing to the mat, and telling me I
might sleep there without apprehension — called to the female part of her
family, who had stood gazing on me all the while in fixed astonishment, to
resume their task of spinning cotton, in which they continued to employ
themselves a great part of the night. They lightened their labor by songs,
one of which was composed extempore, for I was myself the subject of it.
It was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a sort of
chorus. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, literally trans-
lated, were these : " The winds roared, and the rains fell. The poor white
man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree. He has no mother to
bring him milk — no wife to grind his corn. Chorus — Let us pity the
white man — no mother has he," etc. Trifling as this recital may appear to
the reader, to a person in my situation the circumstance was affecting in
the highest degree. I was oppressed by such unexpected kindness, and
sleep fled from my eyes. In the morning I presented my compassionate
landlady with two of the four brass buttons which remained on my waist-
coat — the only recompense I could make her.
THE HEBREW RACE.
BENJAMIN DISRAELI.
pi^AVOKED by nature and by nature's God, we produced the lyre of
eA-M David ; we gave you Isaiah and Ezekiel ; they are our Olynthians,
a:;a our Philippics. Favored by nature we still remain ; but in exact
! proportion as we have been favored by nature, we have been per-
secuted by man. After a thousand struggles — after acts of heroic
courage that Eome has never equalled — deeds of divine patriotism
that Athens, and Sparta, and Carthage have never excelled — we have en-
dured fifteen hundred, years of supernatural slavery ; during which, every
device that can degrade or destroy man has been the destiny that we have
sustained and baffled. The Hebrew child has entered adolescence only to
learn that he was the Pariah of that ungrateful Europe that owes to him
the best part of its laws, a fine portion of its literature, all its religion.
Great poets require a public ; we have been content with the immor-
tal melodies that we sung more than two thousand years ago by the waters
of Babylon and wept. They record our triumphs ; they solace our afflic-
THE POET'S SONG TO HIS WIFE.
tion. Great orators are the creatures of popular assemblies ; we were
permitted only by stealth to meet even in our temples. And as for great
writers, the catalogue is not blank. What are all the school-men,
Aquinas himself, to Maimonides? and as for modern philosophy, all
springs from Spinoza ! But the passionate and creative genius that is the
nearest link to divinity, and which no human tyranny can destroy, though
it can divert it; that should have stirred the hearts of nations by its
inspired sympathy, or governed senates by its burning eloquence, has
found a medium for its expression, to which, in spite of your prejudices
and your evil passions, you have been obliged to bow. The ear, the voice,
the fancy teeming with combination — the imagination fervent with picture
and emotion, that came from Caucasus, and which we have preserved
unpolluted — have endowed us with almost the exclusive privilege of music;
that science of harmonious sounds which the ancients recognized as most
divine, and deified in the person of their most beautiful creation.
THE POETS SONG TO HIS WIFE.
BARRY CORNWALL.
i^OW many summers, love,
;.-;
Have I been thine?
How many flays, thou dove,
Hast thou been mine ?
Time, like the winged wind
When 't bends the flowers,
Hath left no mark behind,
To count the hours!
Some weight of thought, though loath.
On thee he leaves ;
Some lines of care round both
Perhaps he weaves ;
Some fears, — a soft regret
For joy scarce known ;
Sweet looks we half forget ; —
All else is flown !
THE WONDERFUL ONE-HOSS SHAY.
Ah ! With what thankless heart
With tongues all sweet and low
I mourn and sing !
Like a pleasant rhyme,
Look, where our children start,
They tell how much I owe
Like sudden spring !
To thee and time !
SHALL WE KNOW EACH OTHER THERE f
ANONYMOUS.
^HEN we hear the music ringing
In the bright celestial dome —
When sweet angels' voices, singing,
Gladly bid us welcome home
To the land of ancient story,
Where the spirit knows no care ;
In that land of life and glory —
Shall we know each other there ?
When the holy angels meet us,
As we go to join their band,
Shall we know the friends that greet us
In that glorious spirit land ?
Shall we see the same eyes shining
On us as in days of yore ?
Shall we feel the dear arms twining
Fondly round us as before ?
Yes, my earth-worn soul rejoices,
And my weary heart grows light.
For the thrilling angel voices
And the angel faces bright,
That shall welcome us in heaven,
Are the loved of long ago ;
And to them 'tis kindly given
Thus their mortal friends to know.
Oh, ye weary, sad, and tossed ones,
Droop not, faint not by the way !
Ye shall join the loved and just ones
In that land of perfect day.
Harp-strings, touched by angel fingers,
Murmured in my raptured ear ;
Evermore their sweet song lingers —
" We shall know each other there."
THE WONDERFUL ONE-HOSS SHA Y.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
IIh^AVE you heard of the wonderful
one-hoss shay,
r- • That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day.
And then, of a sudden, it — Ah, but
stay,
I'll tell you what happened, with-
out delay —
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits —
Have you ever heard of that I say ?
Seventeen hundred and fifty-five,
Georgius Secundus was then alive —
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down.
And Braddock's army was done so brown.
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.
Now, in building of chaises, I tell you what.
70
THE WONDERFUL ONE-HOSS SHAY.
There is always, somewhere, a weakest spot —
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace — lurking still,
Find it somewhere you must and will^
Above or below, or within or without —
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out.
But the Deacon swore — (as Deacons do.
With an " I dew vum " or an " I tell yeou ") —
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'N' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';
It should be so built that it couldn't break
daown : —
" Fur," said the Deacon, " 't's mighty plain
That the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain
'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain.
Is only jest
To make that place uz strong uz the rest."
So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak.
That couldn't be split, nor bent, nor broke —
That was for spokes, and floor, and sills ;
He sent for lancewood, to make the thills ;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest
trees ;
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like
But lasts like iron for things like these ;
The hubs from logs from the "Settler's
ellum" —
Last of its timber — they couldn't sell 'em —
Never an ax had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips.
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips ;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue ;
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide,
Found in the pit where the tanner died.
That was the way he " put her through."
" There !" said the Deacon, " naow she'll
dew !"
Do ! I tell you, I rather guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less !
Colt* grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away.
Children and grandchildren — where were
they ?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay,
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day !
Eighteen Hundred — it came, and found
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred, increased by ten —
" Hahnsum kerridge " they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came —
Running as usual — much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive ;
And then came fifty — and Fifty-five.
Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large ;
Take it. — You're welcome. — no extra charge.)
First of November— the Earthquake-day —
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavor of mild decay —
But nothing local, as one may say,
There couldn't be — for the Deacon's art
Had made it so like in every part
That there wasn't a chance for one to start
For the wheels were just as strong as the
thills.
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor.
And the whipple-tree neither less nor more,
And the back crossbar as strong as the fore.
And spring, and axle, and hub encore.
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be worn out !
First of November, 'Fifty-five !
This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way !
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay.
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
" Huddup !" said the parson. — Ofi" went they.
The parson was working his Sunday text —
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the — Moses — was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
MR. PICKWICK IN A DILEMMA.
71
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.
First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill —
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half-past nine by the meet'n'-house
clock —
•Just the hour of the Earthquake shock !
What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around ?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground !
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce.
How it went to pieces all at once —
All at once, and nothing first —
Just as the bubbles do when they burst.
End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.
Logic IS Logic. That's all I say.
AMERICAN ARISTOCRACY.
JOHN G. SAXE.
JF all the notable things on earth,
The queerest one is pride of birth
Among our " fierce democracy !"
A bridge across a hundred years.
Without a prop to save it from sneers,
J* Not even a couple of rotten peers, —
J A thing for laughter, fleers, and jeers,
Is American aristocracy !
English and Irish, French and Spanish,
Germans, Italians, Dutch and Danish,
Crossing their veins until they vanish
In one conglomeration !
So subtle a tangle of blood, indeed,
No Heraldry Harvey will ever succeed
In finding the circulation.
Depend upon it, my snobbish friend,
Your family thread you can't ascend,
Without good reason to apprehend
You may find it waxed, at the farther
end,
By some plebeian vocation :
Or, worse than that, your boasted line
May end in a loop of stronger twine.
That plagued some worthy relation I
^m..^
MR. PICKWICK IN A DIIEMMA.
CHARLES DICKENS.
,. PICKWICK'S apartments in Goswell street, although on a
Hmited scale, were not only of a very neat and comfortable
description, but peculiarly adapted for the residence of a man of
his genius and observation. His sitting-room was the first floor
front, his bed-room was the second floor front ; and thus, whether
72 MR. PICKWICK IN A DILEMMA.
he was sitting at his desk in the parlor, or standing before the dressing-
glass in his dormitory, he had an equal opportunity of contemplating
human nature in all the numerous phases it exhibits, in that not more
populous than popular thoroughfare.
His landlady, Mrs. Bardell — the rehct and sole executrix of a de-
ceased custom-house officer — was a comely woman of busthng manners
and agreeable appearance, with a natural genius for cooking, improved by
study and long practice into an exquisite talent. There were no children,
no servants, no fowls. The only other inmates of the house were a large
man and a small boy ; the first a lodger, the second a production of Mrs.
Bardell's. The large man was always at home precisely at ten o'clock at
night, at which hour he regularly condensed himself into the limits of a
dwarfish French bedstead in the back parlor ; and the infantine sports and
gymnastic exercises of Master Bardell were exclusively confined to the
neighboring pavements and gutters. Cleanliness and quiet reigned
throughout the house ; and in it Mr. Pickwick's will was law.
To any one acquainted with these points of the domestic economy of
the establishment, and conversant with the admirable regulation of
Mr. Pickwick's mind, his appearance and behaviour, on the morning
previous to that which had been fixed upon for the journey to Eatansville,
would have been most mysterious and unaccountable. He paced the room
to and fro with hurried steps, popped his head out of the window at inter-
vals of about three minutes each, constantly referred to his watch, and
exhibited many other manifestations of impatience, very unusual with
him. It was evident that something of great importance was in contem-
plation ; but what that something was, not even Mrs. Bardell herself had
been able to discover.
" Mrs. Bardell," said Mr. Pickwick, at last, as that amiable female
approached the termination of a prolonged dusting of the apartment.
" Sir," said Mrs. Bardell. " Your little boy is a very long time gone." "Why,
it's a good long way to the Borough, sir," remonstrated Mrs. Bardell.
"Ah," said Mr. Pickwick, "very true; so it is." Mr. Pickwick relapsed
into silence, and Mrs. Bardell resumed her dusting.
"Mrs. Bardell," said Mr. Pickwick, at the expiration of a few
minutes. " Sir," said Mrs. Bardell again. " Do you think it's a much
greater expense to keep two people, than to keep one ?" "La, Mr. Pick-
wick," said Mrs. Bardell, coloring up to the very border of her cap, as she
fancied she observed a species of matrimonial twinkle in the eyes of her
lodger; "La, Mr. Pickwick, what a question!" "Well, but do you?"
inquired Mr. Pickwick. " That depends," said Mrs. Bardell, approaching
MR. PICKWICK IN A DILEMMA. /^g
the duster very near to Mr. Pickwick's elbow, which was planted on the
table ; " that depends a good deal upon the person, you know, Mr. Pick-
wick ; and whether it's a saving and careful person, sir." " That's very
true," said Mr. Pickwick; "but the person I have in my eye (here he
looked very hard at Mrs. Bardell) I think possesses these qualities; and
has, moreover, a considerable knowledge of the world, and a great deal of
sharpness, Mrs. Bardell, which may be of material use to me."
" La, Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Bardell, the crimson rising to her cap-
border agam. " I do," said Mr. Pickwick, growing energetic, as was his
wont m speaking of a subject which interested him. " I do indeed • and
to tell you the truth, Mrs. Bardell, I have made up my mind." "Dear
me, sir," exclaimed Mrs. Bardell. " You'll think it not very strange now "
said the amiable Mr. Pickwick, with a good-humored glance at his com-
pamon, " that I never consulted you about this matter, and never men-
tioned it, till I sent your little boy out this morning— eh ?"
Mrs. Bardell could only reply by a look. She had long worshipped
Mr. Pickwick at a distance, but here she was, all at once, raised to a
pinnacle to which her wildest and most extravagant hopes had never dared
to aspire. Mr. Pickwick was going to propose— a deliberate plan, too-
sent her httle boy to the Borough to get him out of the way— how
thoughtful— how considerate !— " Well," said Mr. Pickwick, " what do you
thmk r " Oh, Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Bardell, trembling with agitation
" you're very kind, sir." " It will save you a great deal of trouble, won't
it?" said Mr. Pickwick. " Oh, I never thought anything of the trouble
sir," replied Mrs. Bardell; "and of course, I should take more trouble iL
please you then than ever; but it is so kind of you, Mr. Pickwick, to have
so much consideration for my loneliness."
"Ah to be sure," said Mr. Pickwick; " I never thought of that.
When I am m town, you'll always have somebody to sit with you To
be sure, so you will." "Pm sure I ought to be a very happy woman,"
said Mrs. Bardell. " And your little boy-" said Mr. Pickwick. " Bless
his heart," interposed Mrs. Bardell, with a maternal sob. " He too will
have a companion," resumed Mr. Pickwick, " a lively one, who'll teach'him
i 11 be bound, more tricks in a week, than he would ever learn, in a year "'
And Mr. Pickwick smiled placidly.
" Oh, you dear—" said Mrs. Bardell. Mr. Pickwick started. " Oh
you kind, good, playful dear," said Mrs. Bardell; and without more ado
she rose from her chair, and flung her arms round Mr. Pickwick's neck,'
with a cataract of tears and a chorus of sobs. " Bless my soul " cried the
astonished Mr. Pickwick ;-" Mrs. BardeU, my good woman-dear me,
MR. PICKWICK IN A DILEMMA.
what a situation — pray consider. Mrs. Bardell, don't — if anybody should
come—" "Oh, let them come," exclaimed Mrs. Bardell, frantically;
"I'll never leave you — dear, kind, good, soul:" and with these words,
Mrs. Bardell clung the tighter.
" Mercy upon me," said Mr. Pickwick, struggling violently, " I hear
somebody coming up the stairs. Don't, don't, there's a good creature,
don't." But entreaty and remonstrance were alike unavailing ; for Mrs.
Bardell had fainted in Mr. Pickwick's arms ; and before he could gain
time to deposit her on a chair. Master Bardell entered the room, ushering
in Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass. Mr. Pickwick was
struck motionless and speechless. He stood with his lovely burden in his
arms, gazing vacantly on the countenances of his friends, without the
slightest attempt at recognition or explanation. . They, in their turn,
stared at him ; and Master Bardell, in his turn, stared at everybody.
The astonishment of the Pickwickians was so absorbing, and the
perplexity of Mr. Pickwick was so extreme, that they might have
remained in exactly the same relative situation until the suspended anima-
tion of the lady was restored, had it not been for a most beautiful and
touching expression of filial affection on the part of her youthful son.
Clad in a tight suit of corduroy, spangled with brass buttons of a very
considerable size, he at first stood at the door astounded and uncertain ;
but by degrees, the impression that his mother must have sufiered some
personal damage, pervaded his partially developed mind, and considering
Mr. Pickwick the aggressor, he set up an appalling and semi-earthly kind
of howling, and butting forward, with his head, commenced assailing that
immortal gentleman about the back and legs, with such blows and pinches
as the strength of his arm, and the violence of his excitement allowed.
" Take this little villain away," said the agonized Mr. Pickwick,
" he's mad." " What is the matter ?" said the three tongue-tied Pick-
wickians. " I don't know," replied Mr. Pickwick, pettishly. " Take away
the boy — (here Mr. Winkle carried the interesting boy, screaming and
struggling, to the farther end of the apartment.) Now help me to lead
this woman down stairs. "Oh, I'm better now," said Mrs. Bardell,
faintly. " Let me lead you down stairs," said the ever gallant Mr. Tup-
man. " Thank you, sir — thank you ;" exclaimed Mrs. Bardell, hysterically.
And down stairs she was led, accordingly, accompanied by her affectionate
son.
" I cannot conceive " — said Mr. Pickwick, when his friend returned —
" I cannot conceive what has been the matter with that woman. I had
merely announced to her my intention of keeping a man-servant, when
PRAISE OF THE SEA. 75
she fell into the extraordinary paroxysm in whicli you found her. Very
extraordinary thing." " Very," said his three friends. " Placed me in
such an extremely awkward situation," continued Mr. Pickwick. " Very;"
was the reply of his followers, as they coughed slightly, and looked
dubiously at each other.
This behaviour was not lost upon Mr. Pickwick. He remarked their
incredulity. They evidently suspected him. — " There is a man in the
passage now," said Mr. Tupman. " It's the man that I spoke to you
about," said Mr. Pickwick, " I sent for him to the Borough this morning.
Have the goodness to call him up, Snodgrass."
PRAISE OF TEE SEA.
SAMUEL PURCHAS.
bS God hath combined the sea and land into one globe, so their joint
combination and mutual assistance is necessary to secular happi-
ness and glory. The sea covereth one-half of this patrimony of
I man, whereof Ood set him in possession when he said, " Replenish
the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the
sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over eveiy living thing that moveth
upon the earth." .... Thus should man at once lose half his inheritance,
if the art of navigation did not enable him to manage this untamed beast,
and with the bridle of the winds and saddle of his shipping to make him
serviceable. Now for the services of the sea, they are innumerable : it is
the great purveyor of the world's commodities to our use ; conveyer of the
excess of rivers ; uniter, by traffic, of all nations : it presents the eye with
diversified colors and motions, and is, as it were, with rich brooches,
adorned with various islands. It is an open field for merchandise in peace ;
a pitched field for the most dreadful fights of war ; yields diversity of fish
and fowl for diet ; materials for wealth, medicine for health, simples for
medicines, pearls, and other jewels for ornament ; amber and ambergris
for delight ; " the wonders of the Lord in the deep " for instruction, variety
of creatures for use, multiplicity of natures for contemplation, diversity of
accidents for admiration, compendiousness to the way, to full bodies health-
ful evacuation, to the thirsty earth fertile moisture, to distant friends pleasant
meeting, to weary persons delightful refreshing, to studious and religious
minds a map of knowledge, mystery of temperance, exercise of continence ;
76
PRAISE OF THE SEA.
school of prayer, meditation, devotion and sobriety ; refuge to the dis-
tressed, portage to the merchant, passage to the traveller, customs to the
prince, springs, lakes, rivers to the earth; it hath on it tempests and
calms to chastise the sins, to exercise the faith of seamen ; manifold
WAITING BY THE GATE.
77
affections in itself, to affect and stupefy the subtlest philosopher ; sustaineth
movable fortresses for the soldier ; maintaineth (as in our island) a wall
of defence and watery garrison to guard the state ; entertains the sun with
vapors, the moon with obsequiousness, the stars also with a natural looking-
glass, the sky with clouds, the air with temperateness, the soil with sup-
pleness, the rivers with tides, the hills with moisture, the valleys with
fertility : containeth most diversified matter for meteors, most multiform
shapes, most various, numerous kinds, most immense, difformed, deformed,
unformed monsters ; once (for why should I longer detain you ?) the sea
yields action to the body, meditation to the mind, the world to the world,
all parts thereof to each part, by this art of arts, navigation.
WAITING BY THE GATE.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
^I^^ESIDE the massive gateway built up
in years gone by,
Upon whose top the clouds in eter-
nal shadow lie,
While streams the evening sunshine
on the quiet wood and lea,
I stand and calmly wait until the
hinges turn for me.
The tree tops faintly rustle beneath the
breeze's flight,
A soft soothing sound, yet it whispers of the
night ;
I hear the woodthrush piping one mellow
descant more.
And scent the flowers that blow when the
heat of day is o'er.
Behold the portals open and o'er the thres-
hold, now,
There steps a wearied one with pale and fur-
rowed brow ;
His count of years is full, his alloted task is
wrought ;
He passes to his rest from a place that needs
him not.
In sadness, then, I ponder how quickly fleets
the hour
Of human strength and action, man's cour-
age and his power.
I muse while still the woodthrush singe
down the golden day,
And as I look and listen the sadness wears
away.
Again the hinges turn, and a youth, depart-
ing throws
A look of longing backward, and sorrowfully
goes;
A blooming maid, unbinding the roses from
her hair.
Moves wonderfully away from amid the
young and fair.
Oh, glory of our race that so suddenly de-
cays !
Oh, crimson flush of morning, that darkens
as we gaze !
Oh, breath of summer blossoms that on the
restless air
Scatters a moment's sweetness and flies we
know not where.
I grieve for life's bright promise, just shown
and then withdrawn ;
But still the sun shines round me ; the even-
ing birds sing on ;
78
THE HOUSEKEEPER'S SOLILOQUY.
And I again am soothed, and beside the an-
cient gate,
In this soft evening sunlight, I calmly stand
and wait.
Once more the gates are opened, an infant
group go out,
The sweet smile quenched forever, and stilled
the sprightly shout.
Oh, frail, frail tree of life, that upon the
greensward strews
Its fair young buds unopened, with every
wind that blows !
So from every region, so enter side by side.
The strong and faint of spirit, the meek and
men of pride.
Steps of earth's greatest, mightiest, between
those pillars gray.
And prints of little feet, that mark the dust
away.
And some approach the threshold whose
looks are blank with fear.
And some whose temples brighten with joy
are drawing near,
As if they saw dear faces, and caught the
gracious eye
Of Him, the Sinless Teacher, who came for
us to die.
I mark the joy, the terrors; yet these, with-
in my heart.
Can neither wake the dread nor the longing
to depart ;
And, in the sunshine streaming of quiet wood
and lea,
I stand and calmly wait until the hinges
turn for me.
THE HOUSEKEEPERS SOLILOQUY.
MRS. F. D. GAGE.
^iM!
HERE'S a big washing to be done —
One pair of hands to do it —
Sheets, shirts and stockings, coats
and pants,
How will I e'er get through it ?
^ Dinner to get for six or more.
No loaf left o'er from Sunday ;
And baby cross as he can live —
He's always so on Monday.
'Tis time the meat was in the pot.
The bread was worked for baking,
The clothes were taken from the boil —
Oh dear ! the baby's waking !
Hush, baby dear! there, hush-sh-sh !
I wish he'd sleep a little,
'Till I could run and get some wood.
To hurry up the kettle.
Oh dear ! oh dear ! if P comes home.
And finds things in this pother,
He'll just begin and tell me all
About hifl tidy mother!
How nice her kitchen used to be,
Her dinner always ready
Exactly when the noon-bell rang —
Hush, hush, dear little Freddy !
And then will come some hasty words,
Right out before I'm thinking —
They say that hasty words from wives
Set sober men to drinking.
Now is not that a great idea,
That men should take to sinning,
Because a weary, half-sick wife.
Can't always smile so winning ?
When I was young I used to earn
My living without trouble,
Had clothes and pocket money, too,
And hours of leisure double,
I never dreamed of such a fate.
When I, a-lass ! was courted —
Wife, mother, nurse, seamstress, cook, house-
keeper, chambermaid, laundress, dairywo-
man, and scrub generally, doing the work
of six.
For the sake of being supported !
SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE.
79
SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
[F all the rides since the birth of time,
Told in story or sung in rhyme, —
On Apuleius's Golden Ass,
Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass,
Witch astride of a human hack,
Islam's prophet on Al-Borak, —
The strangest ride that ever was sped
Was Ireson's out from Marblehead !
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead !
Body of turkey, head of owl.
Wings adroop like a rained-on fowl,
Ffcv\thered and rufiled in every part,
Skipper Ireson stood in the cart.
Scores of women, old and young,
ptrong of muscle, and glib of tongue,
Pushed and pulled un the rockv lane.
Shouting and singing the shrill refrain •
" Here's Flud Oirson, for his horrd horrt,
Torr'd an futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt,
By the women o' Marble'ead !"
Wrinkled scolds, with hands on hips.
Girls in bloom of cheek and lips,
Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase
Bacchus round some antique vase,
Brief of skirt, with ankles bare.
Loose of kerchief and loose of hair,
With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns
twang.
Over and over the Maenads sang :
" Here's Flud Oirson, far his horrd horrt,
Torrd an' futhered an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Marble'ead !
Small pity for him ! — he sailed away
From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay, —
80
SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE.
Sailed away from a sinking wreck,
"With his own towns-people on her deck !
" Lay by ! lay by !" they called to him,
Back he answered, " Sink or swim !
Brag of your catch of fish again !"
And off he sailed through fog and rain !
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hnnl lionrt,
Sweetly along the Salem road
Bloom of orchard and lilac showed,
Little the wicked skipper knew
Of the fields so green and the iky so blue
Riding there in his sorry trim.
Like an Indian idol, glum and grim,
Scarcolv In: seemed the sound to hear,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a
cart
By the women of Marblehead !
Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur
That wreck shall lie forevermore.
Mother and sister, wife and maid.
Looked from the rocks of Marblehead
Over the moaning and rainy sea, —
Looked for the coming that might not be !
What did the winds and the sea-birds say
Of the cruel captain who sailed away ? —
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart.
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead !
Tlirough the street, on either side,
Up flew windows, doors swung wide ;
Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray,
Treble lent to the fish-horn's bray.
Sea-worn grandsires, cripple bound.
Hulks of old sailors run aground.
Shook head and fist, and hat, and cane.
And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain :
" Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
Tnrr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Marhlu'ead '"
Of voices shouting, far and near :
" Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Marble'ead !
" Hear me, neighbors !" at last he cried, —
" What to me is this noisy ride ?
What is the shame that clothes the skin,
To the nameless horror that lives within ?
Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck,
And hear a cry from a reeling deck !
Hate me and curse me, — I only dread
The hand of God and the face of the dead!"
Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead !
The wife of the skipper lost at sea
Said, " God has touched him! why should we?"
Said an old wife, mourning her only son,
" Cut the rogue's tether, and let him run 1"
So with soft relentings, and rude excuse.
Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose,
And gave him a cloak to hide him in.
And left him alone with his shame and sin,
Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a ca
By the women of Marblehead !
PULPIT ORATORY. Ql
PULPIT ORATORY.
DANIEL DOUGHERTY.
llpiHE daily work of the pulpit is not to convince the judgment, but to
^i^ touch the heart. We all know it is our duty to love our Creator
and serve him, but the aim is to make mankind do it. It is not
enough to convert our belief to Christianity, but to turn our
souls towards God. Therefore the preacher will find in the
armory of the feelings the weapons with which to defend against sin,
assail Satan and achieve the victory, the fruits of which shall never perish.
And oh, how infinite the variety, how inexhaustible the resources, of this
armory ! how irresistible the weapons, when grasped by the hand of a
master !
Every passion of the human heart, every sentiment that sways the
soul, every action or character in the vast realms of history or the bound-
less world about us, the preacher can summon obedient to his command.
He can paint in vivid colors the last hours of the just man — all his temp-
tations and trials over, he smilingly sinks to sleep, to awake amid the
glories of the eternal morn. He can tell the pampered man of ill-gotten
gold that the hour draws nigh when he shall feel the cold and clammy
hand of Death, and that all his wealth cannot buy him from the worm.
He can drag before his hearers the slimy hypocrite, tear from his heart
his secret crimes and expose his damnable villainy to the gaze of all. He
can appeal to the purest promptings of the Christian heart, the love of God
and hatred of sin. He can depict the stupendous and appalling truth
that the Saviour from the highest throne in heaven descended, and here,
on earth, assumed the form of fallen man, and for us died on the cross
like a malefactor. He can startle and awe-strike his hearers as he descants
on the terrible justice of the Almighty in hurling from heaven Lucifer
and his apostate legions ; in letting loose the mighty waters until they
swallowed the wide earth and every living thing, burying the highest
mountains in the universal deluge, shadows of the coming of that a,wful
day for which all other days are made. He can roll back the sky as a
scroll, and, ascending to heaven, picture its ecstatic joys, where seraphic
voices tuned in celestial harmony sing their canticles of praise. He can
dive into the depths of hell and describe the howling and gnashing of teeth
of the damned, chained in its flaming caverns, ever burning yet never con-
sumed. He can, in a word, in imagination, assume the sublime attributes
of the Deity, and, as the supreme mercy and goodness, make tears of
82
THE WIDOW BEDOTT'S POETRY.
contrition start and stream from every eye ; or, armed with the dread
prerogatives of the inexorable judge, with the lightning of his wrath
strike unrepentant souls until sinners sink on their knees and quail ae
Felix quailed before St. Paul.
BABY.
GEORGE MACDONALD.
HERE did you come from, baby
dear ?
Out of the everywhere into here.
Where did you get those eyes so
blue?
Out of the sky as I came through.
What makes the light in them sparkle and
spin ?
Some of the starry spikes left in.
Where did you get that little tear ?
I found it waiting when I got here.
What makes your forehead so smooth and
high?
A soft hand stroked it as I went by.
What makes your cheek like a warm white
rose? •
I saw something better than any one knows.
Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss ?
Three angels gave me at once a kiss.
Where did you get this pearly ear?
God spoke and it came out to hear.
Where did you get those arms and hands ?
Love made itself into bonds and bands.
Feet, whence did you come, you darling
things ?
From the same box as the cherubs' wings.
IIow did they all just come to be you?
God thought about me, and so I grew.
But how did you come to us, you dear ?
God thought about you, and so I am here.
THE WIDOW BEDOTT'S POETRY.
F. M. WHITCHER.
^C^FiS, — he was one o' the best men that ever trod shoe-leather, husband
..-A.-;,' was, though Miss Jinkins says (she 'twas Poll Bingham,) she says,
ifC ^ never found it out till after he died, but that's the consarndest
L lie that ever was told, though it's jest a piece with everything else
THE WIDOW BEDOTT'S POETRY. 83
she says about me. I guess if everybody could see the poitry I writ to
his memory, nobody wouldn't think I dident set store by him. Want
to hear it ? Well, I'll see if I can say it ; it ginerally aflfects me wonder-
fully, seems to harrer up my feelin's ; but I'll try. Dident know I ever
writ poitry ? How you talk ! used to make lots on't ; haint so much late
years. I remember once when Parson Potter had a bee, I sent him an
amazin' great cheeze, and writ a piece o' poitry, and pasted on top on't.
It says :
Teach him for to proclaim
Salvation to the folks ;
No occasion give for any blame,
Nor wicked people's jokes.
And so it goes on, but I guess I won't stop to say the rest on't now, seein'
there's seven and forty verses.
Parson Potter and his wife was wonderfully pleased with it ; used to
sing it to the tune o' Haddem. But I was gwine to tell the one I made
in relation to husband ; it begins as follers : —
He never jawed in all his life,
He never was onkind, —
And (tho' I say it that was his wife)
Such men you seldom find.
(That's as true as the Scripturs ; I never knowedhim to say a harsh word.)
I never changed my single lot, —
I thought 'twould be a sin —
(Though widder Jinkins says it's because I never had a chance.) Now
'tain't for me to say whether I ever had a numerous number o' chances or
not, but there's them livin' that might tell if they wos a mind to ; why,
this poitry was writ on account of being joked about Major Coon, three
years after husband died. I guess the ginerality o' folks knows what was
the nature o' Major Coon's feelin's towards me, tho' his wife and Miss
Jinkins does say I tried to ketch him. The fact is. Miss Coon feels won-
derfully cut up 'cause she knows the Major took her "Jack at a pinch,"
— seein' he couldent get such as he wanted, he took such as he could get,
— but I goes on to say —
I never changed my single lot,
I thought 'twould be a sin, —
For I thought so much o' Deacon Bedott,
I never got married agin.
84 THE WIDOW BEDOTT'S POETRY.
If ever a hasty word he spoke,
His anger dident last,
But vanished like tobacker smoke
Afore the wintry blast.
And since it was my lot to be
The wife of such a man,
Tell the men that's after me
To ketch me if they can.
If I was sick a single jot,
He called the doctor in —
That's a fact, — he used to b^ scairt to death if anything ailed me. Now
only jest think, — widder Jinkins told Sam Pendergrasses wife (she 'twas
Sally Smith) that she guessed the deacon dident set no great store by me,
or he wouldent a went off to confrence meetin' when I was down with the
fever. The truth is, they couldent git along without him no way. Parson
Potter seldom went to confrence meetin', and when he wa'n't there, who
was ther' pray tell, that knowed enough to take the lead if husband dident
do it? Deacon Kenipe hadent no gift, and Deacon Crosby hadent no
inclination, and so it all come onto Deacon Bedott, — and he was always
ready and willin' to do his duty, you know ; as long as he was able to
stand on his legs he continued to go to confrence meetin' ; why, I've
knowed that man to go when he couldent scarcely crawl on account o' the
pain in the spine of his back.
He had a wonderful gift, and he wa'n't a man to keep his talents hid
up in a napkin, — so you see 'twas from a sense o' duty he went when I
was sick, whatever Miss Jinkins may say to the contrary. But where
was I ? Oh !—
If I was sick a single jot.
He called the doctor in —
I sot so much store by Deacon Bedott
I never got married agin.
A wonderful tender heart ho had,
That felt for all mankind, —
It made him feel amazin' bad
To see the world so blind.
Whiskey and rum ho tasted not —
That's as true a.s the Scripturs, — but if you'll believe it, Betsy, Ann
Kenipe told my Melissy that Miss Jinkins said ono day to their house,
THE WIDOW BEDOTT'S POETRY. 85
how't she'd seen Deacon Bedott high, time and agin ! did you ever !
Well, I'm glad nobody don't pretend to mind anything she says. I've
knowed Poll Bingham from a gal, and she never knowed how to speak the
truth —besides she always had a partikkeler spite against husband and me,
and between us tew I'll tell you why if you won't mention it, for I make
it a pint never to say nothin' to injure nobody. Well, she was a ravin'-
distracted after my husband herself, but it's a long story, I'll tell you about
it some other time, and then you'll know why widder Jinkins is etarnally
runnin' me down. See, — where had I got to? Oh, I remember
now, —
Whiskey and rum he tasted not, —
He thought it was a sin, —
I thought 60 much o' Deacon Bedott
I never got married agin.
But now he's dead ! the thought is killin',
My grief I can't control —
He never left a single shillin'
His widder to console.
But that wa'n't his fault — he was so out o' health for a number o' year afore
he died, it ain't to be wondered at he dident lay up nothin' — however,
it dident give him no great oneasiness, — he never cared much for airthly
riches, though Miss Pendergrass says she heard Miss Jinkins say Deacon
Bedott was as tight as the skin on his back, — begrudged folks their vittals
when they came to his house ! did you ever ! why, he was the hull-souldest
man I ever see in all my born days. If I'd such a husband as Bill Jinkins
was, I'd hold my tongue about my neighbors' husbands. He was a dretful
mean man, used to git drunk every day of his life, and he had an awful high
temper, — used to swear like all possest when he got mad, — and I've heard
my husband say, (and he wa'n't a man that ever said anything that wa'n't
true), — I've heard him say Bill Jinkins would cheat his own father out of
his eye teeth if he had a chance. Where was I? Oh! " His widder to
console," — ther ain't but one more verse, 'tain't a very lengthy poim.
When Parson Potter read it, he says to me, says he, — " What did you stop
so soon for ?" — but Miss Jinkins told the Crosby's she thought I'd better
a' stopt afore I'd begun, — she's a purty critter to talk so, I must say. I'd
like to see some poitry o' hern, — I guess it would be astonishin' stuff; and
mor'n all that, she said there wa'n't a word o' truth in the hull on't, — said
I never cared tuppence for the deacon. What an everlastin' lie ! Why,
when he died, I took it so hard I went deranged, and took on so for a spell
86
BINGEN ON THE RHINE.
But
they was afraid they should have to send me to a Lunattic Arsenal,
that's a painful subject, I won't dwell on't. I conclude as foUers : —
I'll never change my single lot, —
I think 'twould be a sin, —
The inconsolable widder o' Deacon Bedott
Don't intend to get married agin.
Excuse my cryin' — my feelin's always overcomes me so v^hen I say that
poitry — 0-0-0-0-0-0 !
BINGEN ON THE RHINE.
CAROLINE E. NORTON.
OLDIER of the Legion lay dying in
Algiers,
There was lack of woman's nursing,
there was dearth of woman's tears ;
But a comrade stood beside him,
while his life-blood ebbed away,
'j And bent, with pitying glances, to hear
what he might say.
The dying soldier faltered, as he took that
comrade's hand.
And he said, " I never more shall see my
own, my native land ;
Take a message, and a token, to some distant
friends of mine,
For I was born at Bingen — at Bingen on the
Rhine.
" Tell my brothers and companions, when
they meet and crowd around
To hear my mournful story in the pleasant
vineyard ground,
Tliat wo fought the battle bravely, and when
the day was done,
Full many a corse lay ghastly pale, beneath
the setting sun ;
And midst the dead and dying were some
grown old in wars,
The death-wound on their gallant breasts,
the last of many scars ;
But some were young, and suddenly beheld
life's morn decline :
And one had come from Bingen — fair Bingen
on the Rhino I
" Tell my mother that her other sons shall
comfort her old age,
And I was aye a truant bird, that thought
his home a cage :
For my father was a soldier, and even as a
child
My heart leaped forth to hear him tell of
struggles fierce and wild ;
And when he died, and left us to divide his
scanty hoard,
I let them take whate'er they would but kept
my father's sword,
And with boyish love I hung it where the
bright light used to shine.
On the cottage-wall at Bingen — calm Bingen
on the Rhine !
" Tell my sister not to weep for me, and sob
with drooping head.
When the troops come marching home again,
with glad gallant tread ;
But to look upon them proudly, with a calm
and steadfast eye.
For her brother was a soldier too, and not
afraid to die ;
And if a comrade seek her love, 1 ask her in
my name
To listen to him kindly, without regret or
shame ;
And to hang the old sword in its place (my
fathers sword and mine,)
For the honor of old Bingen — dear Bingen
on the Rhine I
SONG OF THE DECANTER.
87
" There's another, not a sister ; in the happy
days gone by,
You'd have known her by the merriment
that sparkled in her eye ;
Too innocent for coquetry, — too fond for idle
scorning,—
Oh ! friend, I fear the lightest heart makes
sometimes heaviest mourning !
Tell her the last night of my life (for ere the
moon be risen.
My body will be out of pain — my soul be out
of prison,)
I dreamed I stood with her, and saw the yel-
low sunlight shine
On the vine-clad hills of Bingen — fair Bin-
gen on the Rhine !
" I saw the blue Rhine sweep along — I heard,
or seemed to hear.
The German songs we used to sing, in chorus
sweet and clear ;
And down the pleasant river, and up the
slanting hill.
The echoing chorus sounded, through the
evening calm and still ;
And her glad blue eyes were on me, as we
passed, with friendly talk,
Down many a path beloved of yore, and well
remembered walk.
And her little hand lay lightly, confidingly
in mine :
But we'll meet no more at Bingen — loved
Bingen on the Rhine!"
His voice grew faint and hoarse — his grasp
was childish weak, —
His eyes put on a dying look, — he sighed and
ceased to speak :
His comrade bent to lift him, but the spark
of life had fled !
The soldier of the Legion, in a foreign land —
was dead !
And the soft moon rose up slowly, and calmly
she looked down
On the red sand of the battle-field with
bloody corses strown ;
Yes, calmly on that dreadful scene her pale
light seemed to shine,
As it shone on distant Bingen — fair Bingen
on the Rhine !
SONG OF THE DECANTER.
There was an old decanter,
and its mouth was gaping
wide; the rosy wine
had ebbed away
and left
its crys-
tal side;
and the wind
went humming,
humming;
up and
down the
sides it flew,
and through the
reed-like,
hollow neck
the wildest notes it
blew. I placed it in the
window, where the blast was
blowing free, and fancied that its
pale mouth sang the queerest strains
to me. " They tell me — puny con-
querors ! — the Plague has slain his ten,
and War his hundred thousands of the
very best of men ; but I " — 'twas thus
the bottle spoke — "but I have con-
quered more than all your famous con-
querors, so feared and famed of yore.
Then come, ye youths and maidens,
come drink from out my cup, the bev-
erage that dulls the brain and burns
the spirit up ; that puts to shame
the conquerors that slay their
scores below ; for this has del-
uged millions with the lava tide
of woe. Though, m the path
of battle, darkest waves of
blood may roll ; yet Avhile
I killed the body, T have
damned the very soul.
The cholera, the sword,
such ruin never wrought,
as I, in mirth or malice, on
the innocent have brought.
And still I breathe upon them,
and they shrink before my breath ;
and year by year my thousands tread
THE FEARFUL KOAD TO DEATH.
88
SORROW FOR THE DEAD.
THE RAINY DA Y.
LONGFELLOW.
IJMrHE day is cold, and dark, and dreary ;
W]f^ It rains, and the wind is never
<i^fi;^ weary ;
©1'^ The vine still clings to the moldering
I wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves
J fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary ;
It rains and the wind is never weary ;
My thoughts still cling to the moldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart ! and cease repining ;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining ;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
SORROW FOR THE DEAD.
WASHINGTON IRVING.
yprilE sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to
•^^ be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal, every other
', ""^ affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep
I open ; this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. Where
J is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished
like a blossom from her arras, though every recollection is a pang ? Where
is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though
to remember be but to lament ? Who, even in the hour of agony, would
SORROW FOR THE DEAD. 39
forget the friend over whom he mourns ? Who, even when the tomb is
closing upon the remains of her he most loved — when he feels his heart,
as it were, crushed in the closing of its portals — would accept of consola-
tion that must be bought by forgetfulness ?
No, the love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes
of the soul. If it has its woes, it has its delights ; and when the over-
whelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection,
ffhen the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins
of all that we most loved is softened away into pensive meditation on all
that it was in the days of its loveliness, who would root out such a sorrow
from the heart ? Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud over
the bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of
gloom, yet who would exchange it even for the song of pleasure, or the
burst of revelry ?
No, there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a
remembrance of the dead to which we turn, even from the charms of the
living. Oh, the grave ! the grave ! It buries every error, covers every
defect, extinguishes every resentment ! From its peaceful bosom spring
none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down, even
upon the grave of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb that he
should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies molder-
ing before him ?
But the grave of those we loved, what a place for meditation ! There
it is that we call up in long review the whole history of virtue and gentle-
ness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us, almost unheeded in
the daily intercourse of intimacy ; there it is that we dwell upon the
tenderness, the solemn, awful tenderness of the parting scene ; the bed of
death, with all its stifled griefs, its noiseless attendance, its mute, watchful
assiduities. The last testimonies of expiring love ! the feeble, fluttering,
thrilling, — oh, how thrilling ! — pressure of the hand ! The faint, faltering
accents, struggling in death to give one more assurance of affection ! The
last fond look of the glazing eye, turned upon us even from the threshold
of existence ! Ay, go to the grave of buried love and meditate. There
settle the account with thy conscience for every past benefit unrequited,
every past endearment unregarded, of that departed being who can never,
never, never return to be soothed by thy contrition.
If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul, or a
furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent; if thou art a hus-
band, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that ventured its whole happi-
ness in thy arms to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth ; i^
90
EMBARKATION OF THE EXILES.
thou art a friend, and hast evor wronged, in thought, or word, or deed, the
spirit that generously confided in thee; if thou art a lover, and hast ever
given one unmerited pang to that true heart that now lies cold and still
beneath thy feet ; then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious
word, every ungentle action will come thronging back upon thy memory, and
knock dolefully at thy soul ; then be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrowing
and repentant in the grave and utter the unheard groan, and pour the un-
availing tear, more deep, more bitter, because unheard and unavailing.
Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and strew the beauties of nature
about the grave; console thy broken spirit, if thou canst, with these
tender, yet futile tributes of regret ; but take warning by the bitterness of
this thy contrite affliction over the dead, and henceforth be more faithful
and aifectionate in the discharge of thy duties to the living.
EMBARKATION OF THE EXILES.
FROM Longfellow's "evangeline.
!IEN disorder prevailed, and the tu-
mult and stir of embarking.
j^ Busily plied the freighted boats ; and
in the confusion
Wives were torn from their husbands, and
mothers, too late, saw their children
Left on the land, extending their arms, with
wildest entreaties.
THE GENEROUS SOLDIER SAVED.
91
So unto separate ships are Basil and Gabriel
carried,
While in despair on the shore, Evangeline
stood with her father.
Half the task was not done when the sun
went down, and the twilight
Deepened and darkened around ; and in haste
the refluent ocean
Fled away from the shore, and left the line
of the sand-beach
Covered with waifs of the tide, with kelp and
the slippery sea-weed.
Farther back in the midst of the household
goods and the wagons,
Like to a gypsy camp, or a leaguer after a
battle,
All escape cut off by the sea, and the senti-
nels near them.
Lay encamped for the night, the houseless
Acadian farmers.
Back to its nethermost caves retreated the
billowing ocean.
Dragging adown the beacli the rattling peb-
bles, and leaving
Inland far up the shore the stranded boats of
the sailors.
Then, as the night descended, the herds re-
turned from their pastures ;
Scent was the moist still air with the odor of
milk from their udders ;
Lowing, they waited, and long at the well
known bars of the farm-yard, —
Waited and looked in vain for the voice and
the hand of the milkmaid.
Silence reigned in the streets ; from the
Church no Angelus sounded,
Rose no smoke from the roofs, and gleamed
no lights from the windows.
THE GENEROUS SOLDIER SAVED.
THOUGHT, Mr. Allan, when I gave my Bennie to his country,
that not a father in all this broad land made so precious a gift, — •
no, not one. The dear boy only slept a minute, just one little
minute, at his post ; I know that was all, for Bennie never dozed
over a duty. How prompt and reliable he was ! I know he only
fell asleep one little second ; — he was so young, and not strong, that
boy of mine ! Why, he was as tall as I, and only eighteen ! and now they
shoot him because he was found asleep when doing sentinel duty. Twenty-
four hours the telegram said, — only twenty-four hours. Where is Bennie
now ?"
" We will hope, with his heavenly Father," said Mr. Allan, sooth-
ingly.
" Yes, yes ; let us hope ; God is very merciful !"
" ' I should be ashamed, father,' Bennie said, ' when I am a man, to
think I never used this great right arm ' — and he held it out so proudly
before me—* for my country, when it needed it. Palsy it rather than keep
it at the plow.'
"*Go, then, my boy,' I said, 'and God keep you !' God has kept him,
I think, Mr. Allan !" and the farmer repeated these words slowly, as if, in
spite of his reason, his heart doubted them.
92 THE GENEROUS SOLDIER SAVED.
" Like the apple of his eye, Mr. Owen ; doubt it not."
Blossom sat near them listening, with blanched cheek. She had not
shed a tear. Her anxiety had been so concealed that no one had noticed
it. She had occupied herself mechanically in the household cares. Now
she answered a gentle tap at the kitchen door, opening it to receive from
a neighbor's hand a letter. " It is from him," was all she said.
It was like a message from the dead ! Mr. Owen took the letter, but
could not break the envelope, on account of his trembling fingers, and held
it toward Mr, Allan, with the helplessness of a child.
The minister opened it, and read as follows : —
"Dear Father: — When this reaches you I shall be in eternity. At
first it seemed awful to me ; but I have thought about it so much now,
that it has no terror. They say they will not bind me, nor blind me ; but
that I may meet my death like a man. I thought, father, it might have
been on the battle-fieid, for my country, and that, when I fell, it would be
fighting gloriously ; but to be shot down like a dog for nearly betraying
it, — to die for neglect of duty ! 0, father, I wonder that the very thought
does not kill me ! But I shall not disgrace you. I am going to write you
all about it ; and when I am gone, you may tell my comrades. I can not
now.
" You know I promised Jemmie Carr's mother, I would look after
her boy ; and, when he fell sick, I did all I could for him. He was not
strong when he was ordered back into the ranks, and the day before that
night, I carried all his luggage, besides my own on our march. Towards
night we went in on double quick, and though the luggage began to feel
very heavy, every body else was tired too ; and as for Jemmie, if I had
not lent him an arm now and then, he would have dropped by the way.
I was all tired out when we came into camp, and then it was Jemmie's
turn to be sentry, and I would take his place ; but I was too tired, father.
I could not have kept awake if a gun had been pointed at my head ; but
I did not know it until — well, until it was too late."
" God be thanked !" interrupted Mr. Owen, reverently. " I knew
Bonnie was not the boy to sleep carelessly at his post."
" They tell me to-day that I have a short reprieve, given to me by
circumstances, — ' time to write to you,' our good colonel says. Forgive
him, father, ho only does his duty; he would gladly save me if he could;
and do not lay my death up against Jemmie. The poor boy is broken-
hearted, and does nothing but beg and entreat them to let him die in my
Btcad.
" I cannot bear to think of mother and Blossom. Comfort them.
THE GENEROUS SOLDIER SAVED. 93
father ! Tell them I die as a brave boy should, and that, when the war is
over, they will not be ashamed of me, as they must be now. God help
me ; it is very hard to bear ! Good-by, father ! God seems near and dear
to me ; not at all as if he wished me to perish for ever, but as if he felt
sorry for his poor, sinful, broken-hearted child, and would take me to be
with him and my Saviour in a better, — better life."
A deep sigh burst from Mr, Owen's heart. "Amen," he said
solemnly, "Amen."
" To-night, in the early twilight, I shall see the cows all coming home
from pasture, and precious little Blossom stand on the back stoop, waiting
for me ; but I shall never, never come ! God bless you all ! Forgive your
poor Bennie."
Late that night the door of the " back stoop " opened softly and a little
figure glided out, and down the foot-path that led to the road by the mill. She
seemed rather flying than walking, turning her head neither to the right
nor the left, looking only now and then to Heaven, and folding her hands,
as if in prayer. Two hours later, the same young girl stood at the Mill
Depot, watching the coming of the night train ; and the conductor, as he
reached down to lift her into the car, wondered at the tear-stained face
that was upturned toward the bright lantern he held in his hand. A few
questions and ready answers told him all ; and no father could have cared
more tenderly for his only child than he for our little Blossom. She was
on her way to Washington, to ask President Lincoln for her brother's life.
She had stolen away, leaving only a note to tell where and why she had
gone. She had brought Bennie's letter with her; no good, kind heart,
like the President's, could refuse to be melted by it. The next morning
they reached New York, and the conductor hurried her on to Washington.
Every minute, now, might be the means of saving her brother's life. And
so, in an incredibly short time. Blossom, reached the Capital, and hastened
immediately to the White House.
The President had but just seated himself to the task of overlookincr
and signing important papers, when, without one word of announcement,
the door softly opened, and .Blossom, with downcast eyes and folded hands,
stood before him.
" Well, my child," he said, in his pleasant, cheerful tones, "what do
you want ?"
"Bennie's life, please sir!" faltered Blossom.
" Bennie ? Who is Bennie ?"
"My brother, sir. They are going to shoot him for sleeping at his post."
" Oh, yes;" and Mr. Lincoln ran his eye over the papers before him.
94
THE GENEROUS SOLDIER SAVED.
"I remember. It waa a fatal sleep. You see, child, it was at a time of
special danger. Thousands of lives might have been lost for his culpable
negligence."
" So my father said," replied Blossom, gravely, " but poor Bennie was
BO tired, sir, and Jemmie so weak. He did the work of two, sir, and it
LITTLK l;i.
was Jemmie's night, not his ; but Jemmie was too tired, and Bennie never
thought about himself, that he was tired too."
" What is this you say, child ? Come here ; I do not understand,"
and the kind man caught eagerly, as ever, at what seemed to be a justifi-
cation of an offence.
Blossom went to him ; he put his hand tenderly on her shoulder, and
SONG OF SARATOGA. 95
turned up the pale, anxious face towards his. How tall he seemed ! and
he was President of the United States, too.
A dim thought of this kind passed for' a moment through Blossom's
mind ; but she told her simple and straightforward story, and handed Mr.
Lincoln Bennie's letter to read. * .
He read it carefully ; then, taking up his pen, wrote a few hasty
lines, and rang his bell.
Blossom heard this order given : " Send this dispatch at once."
The President then turned to the girl and said, " Go home, my child,
and tell that father of yours, who could approve his country's sentence,
even when it took the life of a child like that, that Abraham Lincoln
thinks the life llir too precious to be lost. Go back, or — wait until to-
morrow ; Bennie will need a change after he has so bravely faced death ;
he shall go with you."
"God bless you, sir," said Blossom; and who shall doubt that God
heard and registered the request ?
Two days after this interview, the young soldier came to the White
House with his little sister. He was called into the President's private
room, and a strap fastened upon the shoulder. Mr. Lincoln then said :
''The soldier that could carry a sick comrade's baggage, and die for the
act so uncomplainingly, deserves well of his country." Then Bennie and
Blossom took their way to their Green Mountain home. A crowd gathered
at the Mill Depot to welcome them back ; and as farmer Owen's hand
grasped that of his boy, tears flowed down his cheeks and he was heard
to say fervently : " The Lord he praised !"
SOJ^G OF SABA TOGA.
JOHN G. SAXE.
what do they do at the | Imprimis, my darling, they drink
The waters so sparkling and clear ;
Though the flavor is none of the best,
And the odor exceedingly queer :
But the fluid is mingled you know,
With wholesome medicinal things ;
So they drink, and they drink, and they
drink, —
And that's what they do at the Springs !
fThe question is easy to ask :
But to answer it fully, my dear,
, Were rather a serious task.
I And yet, in a bantering way,
j As the magpie or mocking-bird sings
I'll venture a bit of a song.
To tell what they do at the Springs.
7
THE RUINED COTTAGE.
Then with appetites keen as a knife,
They hasten to breakfast, or dine ;
The latter precisely at three.
The former from seven till nine.
Ye gods ! what a rustle and rush,
When the eloquent dinner-bell rings !
Then they eat, and they eat, and they eat —
And that's what they do at the Springs !
Now they stroll in the beautiful walks,
Or loll in the shade of the trees ;
Where many a whisper is heard
That never is heard by the breeze ;
And hands are commingled with hands.
Regardless of conjugal rings:
And they flirt, and they flirt, and they flirt —
And that's what they do at the Springs !
The drawing-rooms now are ablaze,
And music is shrieking away ;
Terpsichore governs the hour.
And fashion was never so gay !
An arm round a tapering waist —
IIow closely and how fondly it clings !
So they waltz, and they waltz, and they waltz,
And that's what they do at the Springs !
In short, — as it goes in the world, —
They eat, and they drink, and they sleep ;
They talk, and they walk, and they woo ;
They sigh, and they laugh, and they weep ;
They read, and they ride, and they dance ;
(With other remarkable things :)
They pray, and they play, and they pay, —
And that's what they do at the Springs !
THE RUINED COTTAGE.
, MRS. LETITIA E. MACLEAN.
Pi||ONE will dwell in that cottage, for they say oppression reft it from
an honest man, and that a curse clings to it ; hence the vine trails
its green weight of leaves upon the ground ; hence weeds are in
that garden ; hence the hedge, once sweet with honeysuckle, is
^ half dead ; and hence the gray moss on the apple-tree. One once
dwelt there who had been in his youth a soldier, and when many
years had passed, he sought his native village, and sat down to end his
days in peace. He had one child — a little, laughing thing, whose large,
dark eyes, he said, were like the mother's he had left buried in strangers'
land. And time went on in comfort and content — and that fair girl had
grown far taller than the red rose tree her father planted on her first Eng-
lish birthday ; and he had trained it up against an ash till it became his
pride ; it was so rich in blossom and in beauty, it was called the tree of
Isabel. 'Twas an appeal to all the better feelings of the heart, to mark their
quiet happiness, their home — in truth a home of love, — and more than all,
to see them on the Sabbath, when they came among the first to
church, and Isabel, with her bright color and her clear, glad eyes, bowed
down so meekly in the house of prayer, and in the hymn her sweet voice
audible; her father looked so fond of her, and then from her looked up so
thankfully to heaven ! And their small cottage was so very neat ; their
garden filled with fruits and herbs and flowers ; and in the winter there
was no fireside so cheerful as their own.
THE SOUL OF ELOQUENCE.
97
But other days and other fortunes came — an evil power ! They bore
against it cheerfully, and hoped for better times, but ruin came at last; and
the old soldier left his own dear home, and left it for a prison ! 'Twas in June
— one of June's brightest days ; the bee, the bird, the butterfly, were on
their lightest wing ; the fruits had their first
tinge of summer light ; the sunny sky, the very
leaves seemed glad ; and the old man looked
back upon his cot and wept aloud. They hur-
ried him away from the dear child that would
not leave his side. They led him from the sight
of the blue heaven and the green trees into a
low, dark cell, the windows shutting out the
blessed sun with iron grating ; and for the first
time he threw him on his bed, and could not
hear his Isabel's good night ! But the next
morn she was the earliest at the prison gate,
the last on whom it closed ; and her sweet voice
and sweeter smile made him forget to pine, notwithstanding his deep sorrow.
She brought him every morning fresh wild flowers ; but every morning
he could mark her cheek grow paler and more pale, and her low tones
get fainter and more faint, and a cold dew was on the hand he held. One
day he saw the sunshine through the grating of his cell — yet Isabel came
not; at every sound his heart-beat took away his breath — yet still she
came not near him ! But one sad day he marked the dull street through
the iron bars that shut him from the world ; at length he saw a coflin car-
ried carelessly along, and he grew desperate — he forced the bars, and he
stood on the street free and alone ! He had no aim, no wish for liberty ;
he only felt one want — to see the corpse that had no mourners. When
they set it down, ere it was lowered into the new-dug grave, a rush of pas-
sion came upon his soul, and he tore off" the lid — he saw the face of Isabel,
and knew he had no child ! He lay down by the coffin quietly — his heart
was broken !
THE SOUL OF ELOQUENCE.
^y^lpOW shall we learn to swa}^ the minds
,^^^pL, By eloquence ?— to rule them, to
persuade ? —
JOHANN W. GOETHE.
Do you seek genuine and worthy fame?
Reason and honest feeling want no arts
Of utterance, ask no toil of elocution !
And, when you speak in earnest do you need
98
SONG OF SPRING.
A search for words ? Oh ! these fine holiday
phrases,
In which you robe your worn-out common-
places,
These scraps of paper which you crimp and
curl
And twist into a thousand idle shapes,
These filigree ornaments, are good for
nothing, —
Cost time and pains, please few, impose on no
one ;
Are unrefreshing as the wind that whistles.
In autumn, 'mong the dry and wrinkled
leaves.
If feeling does not prompt, in vain you
strive.
If from the soul the language does not come.
By its own impulse, to impel the hearts
Of hearers with communicated power.
In vain you strive, in vain you study
earnestly !
Toil on forever, piece together fragments,
Cook up your broken scraps of sentences.
And blow, with puffing breath, a struggling
light.
Glimmering confusedly now, now cold in
ashes ;
Startle the school-boys with your meta-
phors, —
And, if such food may suit your appetite,
"Win the vain wonder of applauding child-
ren, —
But never hope to stir the hearts of men,
And mould the souls of many into one.
By words which come not native from tfie
heart !
SO^Tr OF SFFiI^^G.
EDWARD YOUL.
^'Y' A\UD the first sjtring daisies;
^Jyjiy Chant aloud their praises;
''Jr\i '^'^"'^ ^'"^ children up
■^ To tho high hill's top ;
Tax not the strength of their young hands
To increase your lands.
Gather the primroses.
Make handfuls into posies ;
THE GHOSTS OF LONG AGO.
99
Take them to the little girls who are at work
in mills:
Pluck the violets blue,^
Ah, pluck not a few !
Knowest thou what good thoughts from
Heaven the violet instils ?
Give the children holidays,
(And let these be jolly days,)
Grant freedom to the children in this joyous
spring ;
Better men, hereafter,
Shall we have, for laughter
Freely shouted to the woods, till all the
echoes ring.
Send the children up
To the high hill's top,
Or deep into the wood's recesses,
To woo spring's caresses.
Ah, come and woo the spring ;
List to the birds that sing ;
Pluck the primroses ; pluck the violets ;
Pluck the daisies.
Sing their praises ;
Friendship with the flowers some noble thought
begets.
Come forth and gather these sweet elves,
(More witching are they than the fays of old,)
Come forth and gather them yourselves ;
Learn of these gentle flowers whose worth ie
more than gold.
Come forth on Sundays ;
Come forth on Mondays ;
Come forth on any day ;
Children, come forth to play : —
Worship the God of nature in your childhood ;
Worship him at your tasks with best endeavor ;
Worship him in your sports ; worship him ever ;
Worship him in the wildwood ;
Worship him amidst the flowers ;
In the greenwood bowers ;
Pluck the buttercups, and raise
Your voices in his praise !
THE GHOSTS OF LONG AGO.
MRS. J. H. RIDDELL.
||P|HE ghosts of the long ago — laid and buried, as you fancied, years and
^^ years since, friends, — though your present sight may fail to
"*^" discern them, — they are traveling with you still, a ghastly com-
i pany. While you drive in your carriage along life's smoothest turn-
«• pike-roads, or pace, footsore and weary, over the flinty by-paths of
existence, past events are skipping on beside you, mocking, jeering, at your
profound self-delusion. Shall fleet steeds leave them behind? Shall
liveried servants keep them at bay ? Shall an unsuccessful existence,
drawing to a still more unsuccessful close, be able to purchase their for-
bearance ? Nay, invisible now, they shall be visible some day ; voiceless,
they shall yet find tongues ; despised, they shall rear their head and hiss
at you ; forgotten, they shall reappear with more strength than at their
first birth ; and when the evil day comes, and your power, and your
energy, and your youth and your hope, have gone, they shall pour the
overflowing drop into your cup, they shall mingle fennel with your wine,
they shall pile the last straw on your back, they shall render wealth
valueless and life a burden ; they shall make poverty more bitter, and add
another pain to that which' already racks you ; they shall break the
100
THE FARMER AND THE COUNSELLOR.
breaking heart, and make you turn your changed face to the wall, and
gather up your feet into your bed, and pray to be deHvered from your
tormentors by your God, who alone knows all.
Wherefore, young man, if you would ensure a peaceful old age, be
careful of the acts of each day of your youth ; for with youth the deeds
thereof are not to be left behind. They are detectives, keener and more
unerring than ever the hand of sensational novelist depicted; they will dog
you from the hour you sinned till the hour your trial comes off. You are
prosperous, you are great, you are "beyond the world," as I have heard peo-
ple say, meaning the power or the caprice thereof; but you are not beyond
the power of events. Whatever you may think now, they are only biding
their time ; and when you are weak and at their mercy, when the world
you fancied you were beyond has leisure to hear their story and scoff at
you, they will come forward and tell all the bitter tale. And if you take
it one way, you will bluster and bully, and talk loud, and silence society
before your face, if you fail to still its tattle behind your back ; while if
you take it another way, you will bear the scourging silently, and cover up
the marks of the lash as best you may, and go home and close your door,
and sit there alone with your misery, decently and in order, till you die.
THE FARMER AND THE COUNSELLOR.
1^^^^ —
^IP COUNSEL in the " Common Pleas,"
IJ? Who was esteemed a mighty wit,
Upon the strength of a chance hit,
'^X ' Amid a thousand flippancies,
e^ And his occasional bad jokes,
I In bullying, bantering, browbeating,
Ridiculing and maltreating
Women, or other timid folks;
In a late cause, resolved to hoax
A rlownish Yorkshire farmer — one
Who by his uncouth look and gait,
Appeared expressly meant by fate
For being quizzed and played upon.
So having tipped the wink to those
In the back rows,
Who kept their laughter bottled down,
I'ntil our wag should draw the cork —
He smiled jocosely on the clown,
And went to work.
" Well, Farmer Numskull, how go calves at " "Why no, sir, no ! we've got our share.
York ? " But not so many as when you were there."
" Why — not, sir, as they do wi' you ;
But on four legs instead of iwo."
" Officer," cried the legal elf.
Piqued at the laugh against himself,
" Do, pray, keep silence down bel;
there !
Now look at me, clown and attend.
Have I not seen you somewhere, friend?'
" Yees, very like, I often go there."
" Our rustic's waggish-^uite lanconic,"
(The counsel cried, with grin sardonic,)
" I wish I'd known this prodigy.
This genius of the clods, when I
On circuit was at York residing.
Now, farmer, do for once speak true.
Mind, you're on oath, so tell me, you
Who doubtless think yourself so clever,
Are there as many fools as ever
In the West Riding ? "
JIMMY BUTLER AND THE OWL.
101
JIMMY B UTLER AND THE WL.
that I landed at Hamilton, fresh as a new
and wid a light heart and a
I^T was in the summer of '46
Hi pratie just dug from the "ould sod,'
X heavy bundle I sot off for the township of Buford, tiding a taste of a
i song, as merry a young fellow as iver took the road. Well, I
s' trudged on and on, past many a plisint place, pleasin' myself wid the
1 thought that some day I might have a place of my own, wid a world
of chickens and ducks and pigs and childer about the door ; and along in
the afternoon of the sicond day I got to Buford village. A cousin of me
mother's, one Dennis O'Dowd, lived about sivin miles from there, and I
wanted to make his place that night, so I inquired the way at the tavern,
and was lucky to find a man who was goin' part of the way an' would show
me the way to find Dennis. Sure he was very kind indade, an' when I got
out of his wagon he pointed me through the wood and tould me to go
straight south a mile an' a half, and the first house would be Dennis's.
" An' you've no time to lose now,"
said he, " for the sun is low, and mind
you don't get lost in the woods."
" Is it lost now," said I, " that I'd
be gittin, an' me uncle as great a navi-
gator as iver steered a ship across the
thrackless say ! Not a bit of it, though
I'm obleeged to ye for your kind advice,
and thank yez for the ride."
An' wid that he drove ofi" an' left me
alone. I shouldered me bundle bravely,
an' whistlin' a bit of tune for company
like, I pushed into the bush. Well, I
went a long way over bogs, and turnin'
round among the bush an' trees till I
began to think I must be well nigh to Dennis's. But, bad cess to it ! all
of a sudden I came out of the woods at the very identical spot where I
started in, which I knew by an ould crotched tree that seemed to be standi n'
on its head and kickin' up its heels to make divarsion of me. By this
time it was growin' dark, and as there was no time to lose, I started in a
second time, determined to keep straight south this time and no mistake.
I got on bravely for a while, but och hone ! och hone ! it got so dark I
couldn't see the trees, and I bumped me nose and barked me shins, while
YOU VE KO TIME TO LOSE NOW.
102 JIMMY BUTLER AND THE OWL.
the miskaties bit me hands and face to a blister ; an' after tumblin' and
sturablin' around till I was fairly bamfoozled, I sat down on a log, all of a
trimble, to think that I was lost intirely, an' that maybe a lion or some
other wild craythur would devour me before morning.
Just then I heard somebody a long way off say, " Whip poor Will ! "
" Betlad," sez I, " I'm glad that it isn't Jamie that's got to take it, though
it seems it's more in sorrow than in anger they are doin' it, or why should
they say, ' poor Will ? ' an' sure they can't be Injin, haythin, or naygur,
for it's plain English they're afther spakin'. Maybe they might help me
out o' this," so I shouted at the top of my voice, " A lost man ! " Thin I
listened. Prisently an answer came.
"Who? Whoo? Whooo?"
"Jamie Butler, the waiver ! " sez I, as loud as I could roar, an' snatchin'
up me bundle an' stick, I started in the direction of the voice. Whin I
thought I had got near the place I stopped and shouted again, " A lost
man ! "
"Who ! AVhoo ! Whooo ! " said a voice right over my head.
" Sure," thinks I, " it's a mighty quare place for a man to be at this
time of night ; maybe it's some settler scrapin' sugar off a sugar-bush for
the children's breakfast in the mornin'. But where's Will and the rest of
them ? " All this wint through me head like a flash, an' thin I answered
his inquiry.
" Jamie Butler, the waiver," sez I ; " and if it wouldn't inconvanience
yer honor, would yez be kind enough to step down and show me the way
to the house of Dennis O'Dowd ? "
" Who ! Whoo ! Whooo ! " sez he.
" Dennis O'Dowd," sez I, civil enough, " and a dacent man he is, and
first cousin to me own mother."
" Who ! Whoo ! Whooo ! " sez he again.
"Me mother! " sez I, "and as fine a woman as iver peeled a biled pratie
wid her thumb nail, and her father's name was Paddy McFiggin.
"Who! Whoo! Whooo!"
" Paddy McFiggin ! bad luck to yer deaf ould head, Paddy McFiggin,
I say — do ye hear that? An' he was the tallest man in all county Tipper-
ary, excipt Jim Doyle, the blacksmith."
" Who ! Whoo ! Whooo ! "
" Jim Doyle, the blacksmith," sez I, " ye good for nothin' blaggurd
naygur, and if yez don't come down and show me the way this min't. Til
climb up there and break every bone in your skin, ye spalpeen, so sure as
me name is Jimmy Butler ! "
JIMMY BUTLER AND THE OWL.
103
" Who ! Whoo ! Whooo ! " sez he, as
impident as ever.
I said niver a word, but lavin' down
me bundle, and takin' me stick in me
teeth, I began to climb the tree. Whin
I got among the branches I looked
quietly around till I saw a pair of big
eyes just forninst me.
" Whist," sez I, " and I'll let him
have a taste of an Irish stick," and wid
that I let drive and lost me balance an'
came tumblin' to the ground, nearly
breakin' me neck wid the fall. Whin
I came to me sinsis I had a very sore
head wid a lump on it like a goose egg,
and half of me Sunday coat-tail torn off intirely. I spoke to the chap in
the tree, but could git niver an answer, at all, at all.
Sure, thinks I, he must have gone home to rowl up his head, for by the
powers I didn't throw me stick for nothin'.
Well, by this time the moon was up and I could see a little, and I
detarmined to make one more effort to reach Dennis's.
I wint on cautiously for a while, an' thin I heard a bell. " Sure," sez
I, " I'm comin' to a settlement now, for I hear the church bell." I kept
on toward the sound till I came to an ould cow wid a bell on. She started
to run, but I was too quick for her, and got her by the tail and hung on,
thinkin' that maybe she would take me out of the woods. On we wint, like
an ould country steeple-chase, till, sure enough, we came out to a clearin'
and a house in sight wid a light in it. So, leaving the ould cow puffin'
and blowin' in a shed, I went to the house, and as luck would have it,
whose should it be but Dennis's.
He gave me a raal Irish welcome, and introduced me to his two
daughters — as purty a pair of girls as iver ye clapped an eye on. But
whin I tould him my adventure in the woods, and about the fellow who
made fun of me, they all laughed and roared, and Dennis said it was an
owl.
" An ould what ? " sez I.
" Why, an owl, a bird," sez he.
" Do ye tell me now ? " sez I. " Sure it's a quare country and a quare
bird."
And thin they all laughed again, till at last I laughed myself, that
104
THE OLD WAYtJ AND THE NEW.
hearty like, and dropped right into a chair between the two puny girls,
and the ould chap winlced at me and roared again.
Dennis is me father-in-law now, and he often yet delights to tell our
children about their daddy's adventure wid the owl.
THE OLD WAYS AND THE NEW.
JOHN H. YATES.
g|§
VE just come in from the meadow, wife,
J where the grass is tall and green ;
^^, I hobbled out upon my cane to see
m John's new machine ;
%. It made my old eyes snap again to see
that mower mow.
And I heaved a sigh for the scythe I
swung some twenty years ago.
Many and many's the day I've mowed 'neath
the rays of a scorching sun,
Till I thought my poor old back would break
ere my task for the day was done ;
I often think of the days of toil m the fields
all over the farm,
Till I feel the sweat on my wrinkled brow,
and the old pain come m my arm.
It was hard work, it was slow work, a-swing-
ing the old scythe then ;
Unlike the mower that went through the
grass like death through the ranks of men.
I stood and looked till my old ejes ached,
amazed at its speed and power ;
The work that it took me a day to do, it done
in one short hour.
John said that I hadn't seen the half : when
he puts it into his wheat,
I shall see it reap and rake it, and put it in
bundles neat ;
Tli<m soon a Yankee will come along, and set
to work and lam
To reap it, and thresh it, and bag it up, and
send it into the barn.
John kinder laughed when he said it , but I
said to the hired men,
" I have seen so much on my pilgrimage
through my threescore years and ten.
That I wouldn't be surprised to see a railroad
in the air,
Or a Yankee in a flyin' ship a-goin' most any-
where."
There's a difference m the work I done, and
the work my boys now do ;
Steady and slow in the good old way, worry
and fret in the new ;
But somehow I think there was happiness
crowded into those toiling days,
That the fast young men of the present will
not see till they change their ways.
To think that I ever should live to see work
done in this wonderful way !
Old tools are of little service now, and farmin'
is almost play ;
The women have got their sewin' -machines
their wringers, and every sich thing.
And now play croquet in the door-yard, or
sit in the parlor and sing.
'Twasn't you that had it so easy, wife, in the
days so long gone by ;
You riz up early, and sat up late, a-toilin' for
you and I.
There were cows to milk ; there was butter to
make ; and many a day did you stand
A-washin' my toil-stained garments, and
wringin' em out by hand.
NEW ENGLAND.
105
Ah ! wife, our children will never see the hard
work we have seen,
For the heavy task and the long task is now
done with a machine ;
No longer the noise of the scythe I hear, the
mower — there ! hear it afar ?
A-rattlin' along through the tall, stout grass
with the noise of a railroad car.
Well ! the old tools now are shoved away ;
they stand a-gatherin' rust,
Like many an old man I have seen put aside
with only a crust ;
When the eye grows dim, when the step is weak,
when the strength goes out of his arm.
The best thing a poor old man can do is to
hold the deed of the farm.
There is one old way that they can't improve;
although it has been tried
By men who have studied and studied, and
worried till they died ;
It has shone undimmed for ages, like gold re-
fined from its dross ;
It's the way to the kingdom of heaven, by
the simple way of the cross.
NEW ENGLAND.
S. S. PRENTISS.
^^LORIOUS New England ! thou art still true to thy ancient fame,
1^1 and worthy of thy ancestral honors. We, thy children, have
■^^^ assembled in this far distant land to celebrate thy birthday. A
?^ thousand fond associations throng upon us, roused by the spirit of the
hour. On thy pleasant valleys rest, like sweet dews of morning, the
gentle recollections of our early life ; around thy hills and mountains
cling, like gathering mists, the mighty memories of the Revolution ; and,
far away in the horizon of thy past, gleam, like thy own bright northern
lights, the awful virtues of our pilgrim sires ! But while we devote this
day to the remembrance of our native land, we forget not that in which
our happy lot is cast. We exult in the reflection, that though we count by
thousands the miles which separate us from our birth-place, still our
country is the same. We are no exiles meeting upon the banks of a foreign
river, to swell its waters with our home- sick tears. Here floats the same
banner which rustled above our boyish heads, except that its mighty folds
are wider, and its glittering stars increased in number.
The sons of New England are found in every state of the broad repub-
lic ! In the East, the South, and the unbounded West, their blood mingles
freely with every kindred current. We have but changed our chamber in
the paternal mansion ; in all its rooms we are at home, and all who inhabit
it are our brothers. To us the Union has but one domestic hearth ; its
household gods are all the same. Upon us, then, peculiarly devolves the
105 TIM TWINKLETON'S TWINS.
duty of feeding the fires upon that Ivindly hearth; of guarding with pious
care those sacred household gods.
We cannot do with less than the whole Union ; to us it admits of no
division. In the veins of our children flows Northern and Southern blood;
how shall it be separated? — Who shall put asunder the best affections of the
heart, the noblest instincts of our nature ? We love the land of our adop-
tion : so do we that of our birth. Let us ever be true to both; and always
exert ourselves in maintaining the unity of our country, the integrity of the
republic.
Accursed, then, be the hand put forth to loosen the golden cord of
union ! thrice accursed the traitorous lips which shall propose its severance !
But no ! the Union cannot be dissolved. Its fortunes are too brilliant
to be marred ; its destinies too powerful to be resisted. Here will be their
greatest triumph, their most mighty development.
And when, a century hence, this Crescent City shall have filled her
golden horns : — when within her broad-armed port shall be gathered the
products of the industry of a hundred millions of freemen ; — when galleries
of art and halls of learning shall have made classic this mart of trade ; then
may the sons of the Pilgrims, still wandering from the bleak hills of the
north, stand up on the banks of the Great River, and exclaim, with mingled
pride and wonder. — " Lo ! this is our country ; — when did the world ever
behold so rich and magnificent a city — so great and glorious a republic ! "
TIM TWINKLETON'^ TWINS.
CHARLES A. BELL.
IM TWINKLETON was, I would
have you to know,
^!? A cheery-faced tailor, of Pineapple
.p * Row ;
> Hit) sympathies warm as the irons ho
T used,
And his temper quite even, because not
abused.
As a fitting reward for his kindness of heart,
But another "surprise" was in store for Tim
T.,
Who, one bright Christmas morning was
sipping coffee.
When a neighbor (who acted as nurse,) said
with glee,
" You've just been presented with twins! Do
you see?"
"Good gracious!" said Tim, overwhelmed
He was blessed with a partner, both comely i with surprise,
and smart, i For he scarce could be made to believe his
And ten " olive branches," — four girls and j own eyes ;
six boys — His astonishment o'er, ho acknowledged, of
Completed the household, divided its joys. | course,
TIM TWINKLETON'S TWINS.
107
That the trouble, indeed, might have been a
deal worse.
The twins were two boys, and poor Tim was
inclined
To believe them the handsomest pair you
could find.
But fathers' and mothers' opinions, they say.
Always favor their own children just the
same way.
" Would you like to step up, sir, to see Mrs.
T. ?"
The good lady said : "she's as pleased as can
be."
Of course the proud father dropp'd both fork
and knife,
And bounded up stairs to embrace his good
wife.
Now, Mrs. Tim Twinkleton — I should have
said —
An industrious, frugal life always had led.
And kept the large family from poverty's
woes,
By washing, and starching, and ironing
clothes.
But, before the young twins had arrived in
the town.
She'd intended to send to a family named
Brown,
Who resided some distance outside of the city,
A basket of clothes ; so she thought it a pity
That the basket should meet any further de-
lay,
And told Tim to the depot to take it that
day.
He promised he would, and began to make
haste,
For he found tiiat there was not a great while
to waste,
So, kissing his wife, he bade her good-bye,
And out of the room in an instant did hie ;
And met the good nurse, on the stairs, com-
ing up
With the " orthodox gruel," for his wife, in
a cup.
Where's the twins?" said the tailor
they are all right,"
Oh,
The good nurse replied: "they are looking
so bright !
I've hushed them to sleep, — they look so
like their Pop, —
And I've left them down stairs, where they
sleep like a top."
In a hurry Tim shouldered the basket, and got
To the rail-station, after a long and sharp
trot.
And he'd just enough time to say " Brown —
Nornstown —
A basket of clothes — ' and then the train
was gone.
The light-hearted tailor made haste to return
For his heart with affection for his family
did burn ;
And it's always the case, with a saint or a
sinner,
Whate'er may occur, he's on hand for his
dinner.
" How are the twins ?" was his first inquiry ;
" I've hurried home quickly, my darlings to
see,"
In ecstacy, quite of his reason bereft.
" Oh, the dear little angels hain't cried since
you left !
"Have you, my sweets?" — and the nurse
turned to where
Just a short time before, were her objects of
care.
" Why — which of you children," said she,
with surprise,
" Removed that ar basket? — now don't tell
no lies !"
"Basket! what basket?" cried Tim with af-
fright ;
" Why, the basket of clothes — I thought it
all right
To put near the fire, and, fearing no harm.
Placed the twins in so cozy, to keep them
quite warm."
Poor Tim roared aloud : " Why, what have
I done?
You surely must mean what you say but in
fun!
That basket', my twins I shall ne'er see
again !
lOS
TIM TWINKLETON'S TWINS.
Why, I sent them both off by the 12 o'clock
train!"
The nurse, at these words, sank into a chair
And exchiimed, " Oh, my precious dears, you
hain't there!
Go, Twinkleton, go, telegraph like wildfire!"
" Why," said Tim, " they can't send the twins
home on the wire!"
" What's the charge?" asked the tailor of the
magistrate,
" I'd like to find out, for it's getting quite
late;"
" So you shall," he replied, " but don't look
so meek, —
You deserted your infants, — now hadn't you
cheek ?"
" Oh dear I" cried poor Tim, getting ready to
go;
" Could ever a body have met with such woe ?
Sure this is the greatest of greatest mistakes ;
Why, the twins will be all squashed down into
pancakes !"
Tim Twinkleton hurried, as if all creation
Were after him, quick, on his way to the sta-
tion.
" That's the man, — you wretch !" and, tight
as a rasp.
Poor Tim found himself in a constable's
grasp.
" Ah ! ha! I have got yer, nov/ don't say a
word,
Yer know very well about what has occurred ;
Come 'long to the station-house, hurry up
now,
Or 'tween you and me there'll be a big row."
Now it happened that, during the trial of
the case.
An acquaintance of Tim's had stepped into
the place,
And he quickly perceived, when he heard in
detail
The facts of the case, and said he'd go bail
To any amount, for good Tim Twinkleton,
For he knew he was innocent, " sure as a gun.'
And the railway-clerk's evidence, given in
detail,
Was not quite sufl5cient to send him to jail.
It was to effect, that the squalling began
Just after the basket in the baggage- van
Had been placed by Tim T., who solemnly
swore
That he was quite ignorant of their presence
before.
So the basket was brought to the magistrate's
sight,
THE TWO ROADS. 109
And the twins on the top of the clothes
But the nurse said with joy, " Since you left
looked so bright,
she has slept.
That the magistrate's heart of a sudden en-
And from her the mistakes of to-day I have
larged,
kept."
And he ordered that Tim Twinkleton be dis-
Poor Tim, and the nurse, and all the small
charged.
fry.
Before taking dinner, indulged in a cry.
Tim grasped up the basket and ran for dear
The twins are now grown, and they time and
life.
again
And when he reached home he first asked
Relate their excursion on the railway
for his wife ;
train.
THE TWO ROADS.
^T was New Year's night. An aged man was standing at a window,
^^^ He mournfully raised his eyes towards the deep blue sky, where the
JV stars were floating like white lilies on the surface of a clear, calm
I lake. Then he cast them on the earth, where few more helpless
4; beings than himself were moving towards their inevitable goal — the
J tomb. Already he had passed sixty of the stages which lead to it,
and he had brought from his journey nothing but errors and remorse.
His health was destroyed, his mind unfurnished, his heart sorrowful, and
his old age devoid of comfort.
The days of his youth rose up in a vision before him, and he recalled
the solemn moment when his father had placed him at the entrance of two
roads, one leading into a peaceful, sunny land, covered with a fertile har-
vest, and resounding with soft, sweet songs ; while the other conducted
the wanderer into a deep, dark cave, whence there was no issue, where
poison flowed instead of water, and where serpents hissed and crawled.
He looked towards the sky, and cried out in his anguish : " youth,
return ! my father, place me once more at the crossway of life, that I ■
may choose the better road ! " But the days of his youth had passed away,
and his parents were with the departed. He saw wandering lights float
over dark marshes, and then disappear. "Such," he said, "were the days
of my wasted life ! " He saw a star shoot from heaven, and vanish in
darkness athwart the church-yard. " Behold an emblem of myself! " he
exclaimed ; and the sharp arrows of unavailing remorse struck him to
the heart.
Then he remembered his early companions, who had entered life with
no
THE QUAKER WIDOW.
him, but who having trod the paths of virtue and industry, were now
happy and honored oh this New Year's night. The clock in the high
church-tower struck, and the sound, falling on his ear, recalled the many
tokens of the love of his parents for him, their erring son ; the lessons
they had taught him; the prayers they had offered up in his behalf.
Overwhelmed with shame and grief, he dared no longer look towards that
heaven where they dwelt. His darkened eyes dropped tears, and, with
one despairing effort, he cried aloud, "Come back, my early days! Come
back ! "
And his youth did return ; for all this had been but a dream, visiting
his slumbers on New Year's night. He was still young, his errors only
were no dream. He thanked God fervently that time was still his own ;
that he had not yet entered the deep, dark cavern, but that he was free to
tread the road leading to the peaceful land where sunny harvests wave.
Ye who still linger on the threshold of life, doubting which path to
choose, remember that when years shall be passed, and your feet shall
stumble on the dark mountain, you will cry bitterly, but cry in vain, "0
youth return ! Oh, give me back my early days ! "
THU QUAKER WIDOW.
BAYARD TAYLOR.
g^nri^IIEE finds me in the garden, Hannah ;
^kM| come in ! 'Tis kind of thee
r^cs^ To wait until the Friends were gone
who came to comfort me,
•^ The still and quiet company a peace
J may give indeed,
But blessed is the single heart that
comes to us at need.
Come, nit thee down ! Here is the bench
where Benjamin would sit
On Fir.st-day afternoons in spring, and watch
the swallows flit ;
He loved to smell the sprouting box, and hear
the pleasant bees
(Jo humming round the lilacs and through
the apple trees.
I think he loved the spring : not that he cared
for flowers : most men
Think such things foolishness ; but we were
first acquainted then,
One spring ; the next he spoke his mind ; the
third I was his wife.
And in the spring (it happened so) our chil-
dren entered life.
He was but seventy-five : I did not think to
lay him yet
In Kennett graveyard, where at Monthly
Meeting first we met.
The Father's mercy shows in this : 'tis better
I should be
Picked out to bear the heavy cross — alone in
age — than he.
We've lived together fifty years ; it seems but
one long day,
One quiet Sabbath of the heart, till he was
called away ;
THE QUAKER WIDOW.
Ill
And as we bring from Meeting-time a sweet
I used to blush when he came near, but then
contentment home,
I showed no sign ;
So, Hannah, I have store of peace for all the
With all the meeting looking on, I held his
days to come.
hand in mine.
It seemed my bashfulness was gone, now I
I mind (for I can tell thee now) how hard it
was his for life :
was to know
Thee knows the feeling, Hannah ; thee, too,
If I had heard the spirit right, that told me I
hast been a wife.
should go ;
For father had a deep concern upon his mind
As home we rode, I saw no fields look half so
that day.
green as ours ;
But mother spoke for Benjamin ; she knew
The woods were coming into leaf, the mea-
what best to say.
dows full of flowers ;
The neighbors met us in the lane, and every
Then she was still : they sat awhile ; at last
face was kind ;
she spoke again.
'Tis strange how lively everything comes
" The Lord incline thee to the right !" and
back upon my mind.
" Thou shalt have him, Jane !"
My father said. I cried. Indeed, 'twas not
I see, as plain as thee sits there, the wedding-
the least of shocks.
dinner spread ;
For Benjamin was Hicksite, and father Or-
At our own table we were guests, with father
thodox.
at the head.
And Dinah Passmore helped us both ; 'twas
I thought of this ten years ago, when daugh-
she stood up with me.
ter Ruth we lost :
And Abner Jones with Benjamin: and now
Her husband's of the world, and yet I could
they're gone, all three !
not see her crossed.
She wears, thee knows, the gayest gowns, she
It is not right to wish for death ; the Lord
hears a hireling priest ;
disposes best.
Ah, dear ! the cross was ours ; her life's a
His Spirit comes to quiet hearts, and fits them
happy one, at least.
for His rest ;
And that He halved our little flock was mer-
Perhaps she'll wear a plainer dress when she's
ciful, I see :
as old as I.
For Benjamin has two in heaven, and two
Would thee believe it, Hannah '' once I felt
are left with me.
temptation nigh !
My wedding-gown was ashen silk, too simple
Eusebius never cared to farm ; 'twas not his
for my taste :
call in truth,
I wanted lace around the neck, and a ribbon
And I must rent the dear old place, and go to
at the waist.
daughter Ruth.
Thee'll say her ways are not like mine ; young
How strange it seemed to sit with him upon
people now-a-days
the women's side !
Have fallen sadly oS", I think, from all the
I did not dare to lift my eyes ; I felt more
good old ways.
fear than pride,
Till, " in the presence of the Lord," he said.
But Ruth is still a Friend at heart ; she keeps
and then there came
the simple tongue.
A holy strength upon my heart, and I could
The cheerful, kindly nature we loved when
say the same.
she was young ;
112
MR. STIVER'S HORSE.
And it was brought upon my mind, remem-
The soul it is that testifies of righteousness or
bering her, of late,
sin.
That we on dress and outward things perhaps
lay too much weight.
Thee mustn't be too hard on Ruth ; she's anx-
ious I should go.
I once heard Jesse Kersey say, " a spirit
And she will do her duty as a daughter should
clothed with grace,
I know.
And pure, almost, as angels are, may have a
'Tis hard to change so late in life, but we mu.st
homely face."
be resigned ;
And dress may be of less account ; the Lord
The Lord looks down contentedly upon a
will look within :
willing mind.
MR. STIVER'S HORSE.
BAILEY.
^HE other morning at breakfast, Mrs. Perkins observed that Mr.
Stiver, in whose house we Uve, had been called away, and wanted
•^ to know if I would see to his horse through the day.
I knew that Mr. Stiver owned a horse, because I occasionally
fsaw him drive out of the yard, and I saw the stable every day ; but
what kind of a horse I didn't know. I never went into the stable
for two reasons : in the first place, I had no desire to ; and secondly,
I didn't know as the horse cared particularly for company.
I never took care of a horse in my life, and had I been of a less
hopeful nature, the charge Mr. Stiver had left with me might have had
a very depressing efiect ; but I told Mrs. Perkins I would do it.
"You know how to take care of a horse, don't you?" said she.
I gave her a reassuring wink. In fact, I knew so little about it that
I didn't think it safe to converse more fluently than by winks.
After breakfast I seized a toothpick and walked out toward the
stable. There was nothing particular to do, as Stiver had given him his
breakfast, and I found him eating it; so I looked around. The horse
looked around, too, and stared pretty hard at me. There was but little
said on either side. I hunted up the location of the feed, and then sat
down on a peck measure, and fell to studying the beast. There is a wide
difference in horses. Some of them will kick you over and never look
around to see what becomes of you. I don't like a disposition like that,
and I v/ondered if Stiver's horse was one of them.
When I came home at noon I went straight to the stable. The
MR. STIVER'S HORSE.
113
canimal was there all right. Stiver hadn't told me what to give him for
dinner, and I had not given the subject any thought ; but I went to the
oat box and filled the peck measure, and sallied up to the manger.
When he saw the oats he almost smiled; this pleased and amused
him. I emptied them into the trough, and left him above me to admire the
way I parted my hair behind. I just got my head up in time to save
the whole of it. He had his ears back, bis mouth open, and looked as
if he were on the point of committing murder. I went out and filled the
measure again, and climbed up the side of the stall and emptied it on top
of him. He brought his head up so suddenly at this that I im.mediately
got down, letting go of everything to do it. I struck on the sharp edge
of a barrel, rolled over a couple of times, and
then disappeared under a hay-cutter. The peck
measure went down on the other side, and got
mysteriously tangled up in that animal's heels,
and he went to work at it, and then ensued the
most dreadful noise I ever heard in all my life,
and I have been married eighteen years.
It did seem as if I never would get out from
under that hay-cutter; and all the while I was
struggling and wrenching myself and the cut-
ter apart, that awful beast was kicking around
in that stall, and making the most appalling
sound imaginable.
When I got out I found Mrs. Perkins at the
door. She had heard the racket, and had sped
out to the stable, her only thought being of me
and three stove-lids which she had under her
arm, and one of which she was about to fire at
the beast.
This made me mad.
"Go away, you unfortunate idiot," I shouted;
"do you want to knock my brains out ? " For
I remembered seeing Mrs. Perkins sling a mis-
sile once before, and that I nearly lost an eye
by the operation, although standing on the
other side of the house at the time.
She retired at once. And at the same time the animal quieted
down, but there was nothing left of that peek measure, not even the
maker's name.
114
MR. STIVER'S HORSE.
I followed Mrs. Perkins into the house, and had her do me up, and then
sat down in a chair, and fell into a profound strain of meditation. After
a while I felt better, and went out to the stable again. The horse was
leaning against the stable stall, with eyes half-closed, and appeared to be
very much engrossed in thought.
"Step off to the left," I said, rubbing his back.
He didn't step. I got the pitchfork and punched him in the leg with
the handle. He immediately raised up both hind-legs at once, and that
fork flew out of my hands, and went rattling up against the timbers above,
and came down again in an instant, the end of the handle rapping me
with such force on the top of the head that I sat right down on the floor
under the impression that I was standing in front of a drug store in the
evening. I went back to the house and got some more stufi' on me. But
I couldn't keep away from that stable. I went out there again. The
thought struck me that what the horse wanted was exercise. If that
thought had been an empty glycerine can, it would have saved a windfall
of luck for me.
But exercise would tone him down, and exercise him I should. I
laughed to myself to think how I would trounce him around the yard.
I didn't laugh again that afternoon. I got him unhitched, and then won-
dered how I was to get him out of the
stall without carrying him out. I
pushed, but he wouldn't budge. I
stood looking at him in the face, think-
ing of something to say, when he sud-
denly solved the difficulty by veering
and plunging for the door. I followed^
as a matter of course, because I had
a tight hold on the rope, and hit about
every partition stud worth speaking of
on that side of the barn. Mrs. Per-
kins was at the window and saw us
come out of the door. She subse-
quently remarked that we came out
skipping like two innocent children.
The skipping was entirely unintentional on my part. I felt as if I stood
on the verge of eternity. My legs may have skipped, but my mind was
filled with awe,
I took that animal out to exercise him. He exercised me before I
got through with it. He went around a few times in a circle; then he
HE EXEKCISED ME.
MR. STIVER'S HORSE. US
stopped suddenly, spread out his fore-legs and looked at me. Then he
leaned forward a little, and hoisted both hind-legs, and threw about two
coal-hods of mud over a line full of clothes Mrs. Perkins had just hung
out.
That excellent lady had taken a position at the window, and when-
ever the evolutions of the awful beast permitted, I caught a glance at her
features. She appeared to be very much interested in the proceedings ;
but the instant that the mud flew, she disappeared from the window, and
a moment later she appeared on the stoop with a long poker in her
hand, and fire enough in her eye to heat it red hot.
Just then Stiver's horse stood up on his hind-legs and tried to hug
me with the others. This scared me. A horse never shows his strength
to such advantage as when he is coming down on you like a frantic pile-
driver. I instantly dodged, and the cold sweat fairly boiled out of me.
It suddenly came over me that I once figured in a similar position
years ago. My grandfather owned a little white horse that would get up
from a meal at Delmonico's to kick the President of the United States.
He sent me to the lot one day, and unhappily suggested that I often went
after that horse, and suffered all kinds of defeat in getting him out of the
pasture, but I had never tried to ride him. Heaven knows I never
thought of it. I had my usual trouble with him that day. He tried to
jump over me, and push me down in a mud hole, and finally got up on his
hind-legs and came waltzing after me with facilities enough to convert me
into hash, but I turned and just made for that fence with all the agony a
prospect of instant death could crowd into me. If our candidate for the
Presidency had run one-half as well, there would be seventy-five post-
masters in Danbury to-day, instead of one.
I got him out finally, and then he was quiet enough, and took him up
alongside the fence and got on him. He stopped an instant, one brief
instant, and then tore off down the road at a frightful speed. I laid down
on him and clasped my hands tightly around his neck, and thought of my
home. When we got to the stable I was confident he would stop, but he
didn't. He drove straight at the door. It was a low door, just high
enough to permit him to go in at lightning speed, but there was no room
for me. I saw if I struck that stable the struggle would be a very brief
one. I thought this all over in an instant, and then, spreading out my
arms and legs, emitted a scream, and the next moment I was bounding
about in the filth of that stable yard. All this passed through my mind
as Stiver's horse went up into the air. It frightened Mrs. Perkins dread-
fully.
116
WHISTLING IN HEAVEN.
" Why, you old fool ! " she said, •' why don't you get rid of him ? "
" How can 1?" said I in desperation.
"Why, there are a thousand ways," said she.
This is just like a woman. How different a statesman would have
answered.
But I could only think of two ways to dispose of the beast, I could
either swallow him where he stood and then sit down on him, or I could
crawl inside of him and kick him to death.
But I was saved either of these expedients by his coming toward me so
abruptly that I dropped the rope in terror, and then he turned about,
and, kicking me full of mud, shot for the gate, ripping the clothes-line in
two, and went on down the street at a horrible gallop, with two of Mrs.
Perkins's garments, which he hastily snatched from the line, floating over
his neck in a very picturesque manner.
So I was afterwards told. I was too full of mud myself to see the
way into the house.
Stiver got his horse all right, and stays at home to care for him.
Mrs. Perkins has gone to her mother's to recuperate, and I am healing as
fast as possible.
WHISTLING IN HEA VEN.
W. S. RALPH.
i^OUR'E surprised that I aver should
'^ say so?
Just wait till the reason I've given
Why I say I shan't care for the music,
Unless there is whistling in heaven.
Then you'll think it no very great wonder,
Nor 80 strange, nor so bold a conceit,
That unless there's a boy there a- whistling,
Ita music will not be complete.
It was late in the autumn of '40 ;
We had come from our far Eastern honii^
Just in season to build us a cabin,
Ere the cold of the winter should come ;
And we lived all the while m our wagon
That husband was clearing the place
Where the house was to stand ; and the clear
ing
And building it took many days.
WHISTLING IN HEAVEN.
117
So that our heads were scarce Weltered
In under its roof, when our store
Of provisions was almost exhausted
And husband must journey for more ;
And the nearest place where he could get them
Was yet such a distance away,
That it forced him from home to be absent
At least a whole night and a day.
You see, we'd but two or three neighbors,
And the nearest was more than a mile ;
And we hadn't found time yet to know them,
For we had been busy the while.
And the man who had helped at the raising
Just staid till the job was well done ;
And as soon as his money was paid him,
Had shouldered his axe and had gone.
Well, husband just kissed me and started —
I could scarcely suppress a deep groan
At the thought of remaining with baby
So long in the house all alone ;
For, my dear, I was childish and timid.
And braver ones might well have feared.
For the wild wolf was often heard howling,
And savages sometimes appeared.
But I smothered my grief and my terror
Till husband was off on his ride.
And then in my arms I took Josey,
And all the day long sat and cried.
As I thought of the long, dreary hours
When the darkness of night should fall.
And I was so utterly helpless.
With no one in reach of my call.
And when the night came with its terrors
To hide ev'ry ray of the light,
I hung up a quilt by the window,
And almost dead with affright,
I kneeled by the side of the cradle,
Scarce daring to draw a full breath.
Lest the baby should wake, and its crying
Should bring us a horrible death.
There I knelt until late in the evening,
And scarcely an inch had I stirred,
When suddenly, far in the distance,
A sound as of whistling I heard,
I started up dreadfully frightened,
For fear 'twas an Indian's call ;
And then very soon I remembered
The red man ne'er whistles at all.
And when I was sure 'twas a white man,
I thought, were he coming for ill.
He'd surely approach with more caution-
Would come without warning, and still.
Then the sounds, coming nearer and nearer.
Took the form of a tune light and gay.
And I knew I needn't fear evil
From one who could whistle that way.
Very soon I heard footsteps approaching,
Then came a peculiar dull thump,
As if some one was heavily striking
An axe in the top of a stump ;
And then, in another brief moment.
There came a light tap on the door,
When quickly I undid the fast'ning.
And in stepped a boy, and before
There was either a question or answer,
Or either had time to speak,
I just threw my glad arms around him,
And gave him a kiss on the cheek.
Then I started back, scared at my boldness,
But he only smiled at my fright.
As he said, " I'm your neighbor's boy, Alick,
Come to tarry with you through the night
" We saw your husband go eastward.
And made up our minds where he'd gone,
And I said to the rest of our people,
' That woman is there all alone.
And I venture she's awfully lonesome.
And though she may have no great fear,
I think she would feel a bit safer
If only a boy were but near.'
" So, taking ray axe on my shoulder.
For fear that a savage might stray
Across my path and need scalping,
I started right down this way ;
And coming in sight of the cabin.
And thinking to save you alarm,
I whistled a tune, just to show you
I didn't intend any harm.
118
GOOD-NIGHT, PAPA.
" And so here I am. at your service ;
But if you don't want mo to stay,
Why, all you need do is to say so.
And should'ring my axe, I'll away."
I dropped in a chair and near fainted.
Just at thought of his leaving ine then,
And his eye gave a knowing bright twinkle.
As he said, " I guess I'll remain."
And then I just sat there and told him
How terribly frightened I'd been.
How his face was to me the most welcome
Of any I ever had seen ;
And then I lay down with the baby,
And slept all the blessed night through.
For 1 felt i was safe from all danger
Near so brave a young fellow and true.
So now, my dear friend, do you wonder,
Since such a good reason I've given,
Why I think it the sweetest music.
And wisli to hear whistling in heaven '!
Yes, often I've said so in
And now what I've said I
That unless there's a boy there a-whistling,
Its music will not be complete.
GOOD-NIGHT, PAPA.
PIIS^HE words of a blue-eyed child as she kissed her chubby hand and
looked down the stairs, " Good-night, papa ; Jessie see you in the
morning."
It came to be a settled thing, and every evening as the mother
slipped the white night-gown over the plump shoulders, the little one
stopped on the stairs and sang out, " Good-night, papa," and as the
father heard the silvery accents of the child, he came, and taking the
cherub in his arms, kissed her tenderly, while the mother's eyes filled, and
a swift prayer went up, for, strauge to say, this man who loved his child
with all the warmth of his great noble nature, had one fault to mar his
manliness. From his youth he loved the wine-cup. Genial in spirit, and
with a fascination of manner that won him friends, he could not resist when
surrounded by his boon companions. Thus his home was darkened, the
heart of his wife bruised and bleeding, the future of his child shadowed.
Three years had the winsome prattle of the baby crept into the
avenues of the father's heart, keeping him closer to his home, but still the
fatal cup WHS in his hand. Alas for frail humanity, 'insensible to the calls
of love! With unutterable tenderness God saw there was no other way ;
this father was dear to him, the purcha.se of his Son; he could not see him
perish, and, calling a swift messenger, he said, "Speed thee to earth and
bring the babe."
" Good-night, papa," soimded from the stairs. What was there in
the voice ? was it the echo of the mandate, " Bring me the babe ? " — a
Bilvery plaintive sound, a lingering music that touched the father's heart,
GOOD-NIGHT. PAPA. HQ
as when a cloud crosses the sun. " Good- night, my darling; " but his lips
c[uivered and his broad brow grew pale. " Is Jessie sick, mother ? Her
cheeks are flushed, and her eyes have a strange light."
" Not sick," and the mother stooped to kiss the flushed brow ; " she
may have played too much. Pet is not sick ? "
"Jessie tired, mamma; good-night, papa; Jessie see you in the
morning."
" That is all, she is only tired," said the mother as she took the small
hand. Another kiss and the father turned away; but his heart was not
satisfied.
Sweet lullabies were sung; but Jessie was restless and could not sleep.
"Tell me a story, mamma;" and the mother told her of the blessed babe
that Mary cradled, following along the story till the child had grown to
walk and play. The blue, wide open eyes, filled with a strange light, as
though she saw and comprehended more than the mother knew.
That night the father did not visit the saloon; tossing on his bed,
starting from a feverish sleep and bending over the crib, the long weary hours
passed. Morning revealed the truth — Jessie was smitten with the fever.
" Keep her quiet," the doctor said ; " a few days of good nursing, and
•she will be all right."
Words easily said ; but the father saw a look on that sweet face such
as he had seen before. He knew the messenger was at the door.
Night came. " Jessie is sick ; can't say good-night, papa ; " and the
little clasping fingers clung to the father's hand.
"0 God, spare her ! I cannot, cannot bear it ! " was wrung from his
sufiering heart.
Days passed ; the mother was tireless in her watching. "With her
babe cradled in her arms her heart was slow to take in the truth, doing
her best to solace the father's heart ; "A light case ! the doctor says, Pet
will soon be well."
Calmly as one who knows his doom, the father laid his hand upon the
hot brow, looked into the eyes even then covered with the film of death,
and with all the strength of his manhood cried, " Spare her, O God ! spare
my child, and I will follow thee."
With a last painful effort the parched lips opened : " Jessie's too sick ;
can't say good-night, papa — in the morning." There was a convulsive
shudder, and the clasping fingers relaxed their hold ; the messenger had
taken the child.
Months have passed. Jessie's crib stands by the side of her father's
couch ; her blue embroidered dress and white hat hang in his closet ; her
120
CHARLEY'S OPINION OF TPIE BABY.
boots with the print of her feet just as she had last worn them, as sacred
in his eyes as they are in the mother's. Not dead, but merely risen to a
higher life; while, sounding down from the upper stairs, "Good-night,
papa, Jessie see you in the morning," has been the means of winning to a
better way one who had shown himself deaf to every forme:' call.
CHARLETS OPINION OF THE BABY.
SUZZER'S bought a baby,
Ittle bit's of zing ;
Zink I mos could put him
Ain't he awful ugly?
Ain't he awful pink?
Jus come down from Heaven,
Cat's a fib, I zink.
Doctor told anozzer
Great big awful lie;
Nose ain't out of joyent,
Dat ain't why I cry.
Zink I ought to love him !
No, I won't! so zere;
Nassy, crying baby,
Ain't got anv b.nr
UNCLE DAN'L'S APPARITION AND PRAYER.
121
Send me oS wiz Biddy
Evry single day ;
' Be a good boy, Charlie,
Run away and play."
Dot all my nice
Dot my place in bed;
Mean to take my drumstick
And beat Lim on ze head.
UNCLE DAN'L'S APPARITION AND PEA YER.
FROM " THE GILDED AGE OF CLEMENS AND WARNER.
^HATEVEE the lagging, dragging journey may have been to the
15 rest of the emigrants, it was a wonder and a delight to the
children, a world of enchantment ; and they believed it to be
peopled with the mysterious dwarfs and giants and goblins that
figured in the tales the negro slaves were in the habit of telling them
nightly by the shuddering light of the kitchen fire.
At the end of nearly a week of travel, the party went into camp near
a shabby village which was caving, house, by house into the hungry Missis-
sippi. The river astonished the children beyond measure. Its mile-
breadth of water seemed an ocean to them, in the shadowy twilight, and
the vague riband of trees on the further shore, the verge of a continent
which surely none but they had ever seen before.
" Uncle Dan'l " (colored,) aged 40 ; his wife, " aunt Jinny," aged 30,
"Young Miss" Emily Hawkins, "Young Mars" Washington Hawkins and
" Young Mars " Clay, the new member of the family, ranged themselves
on a log, after supper, and contemplated the marvelous river and discussed
122 UNCLE DAN'L'S ArPARITION AND PRAYER.
it. The moon rose and sailed aloft through a maze of shredded cloud-
wreaths ; the sombre river just perceptibly brightened under the veiled
light ; a deep silence pervaded the air and was emphasized, at intervals,
rather than broken, by the hooting of an owl, the baying of a dog, or the
muffled crash of a caving bank in the distance.
The little company assembled on the log were all children, (at least in
simplicity and broad and comprehensive ignorance,) and the remarks they
made about the river were in keeping with their character ; and so awed
were they by the grandeur and the solemnity of the scene before them, and
by their belief that the air was filled with invisible spirits and that the
faint zephyrs were caused by their passing wings, that all their talk took
to itself a tinge of the supernatural, and their voices were subdued to a low
and reverent tone. Suddenly Uncle Dan'l exclaimed :
" Chil'en, dah's sumfin a comin' ! "
All crowded close together and every heart beat faster. Uncle Dan'l
pointed down the river with his bony finger.
A deep coughing sound troubled the stillness, way toward a wooded
cape that jutted into the stream a mile distant. All in an instant a fierce
eye of fire shot out from behind the cape and sent a long brilliant pathway
quivering athwart the dusky water. The coughing grew louder and louder,
the glaring eye grew larger and still larger, glared wilder and still wilder.
A huge shape developed itself out of the gloom, and from its tall duplicate
horns dense volumes of smoke, starred and spangled with sparks, poured
out and went tumbling away into the farther darkness. Nearer and
nearer the thing came, till its long sides began to glow with spots of light
which mirrored themselves in the river and attended the monster like a
torchlight procession.
" What is it ! Oh. what is it, Uncle Dan'l ! "
With deep solemnity the answer came :
" It's do Almighty ! Git down on yo' knees ! "
It was not necessary to say it twice. They were all kneeling, in a
moment. And then while the mysterious coughing rose stronger and
stronger and the threatening glare reached farther and wider, the negro's
voice lifted up its supplications :
" Lord, we's ben mighty wicked, an' we knows dat we 'zerve to go
to de bad place, but good Lord, deah Lord, we aint ready yit, we aint
ready — let these po' chil'en hab one mo' chance, jes' one mo' chance. Take
de ole niggah if you's got to hab somebody. — Good Lord, good deah Lord,
we don't know whah you's a gwine to, we don't know who you's got yo'
eye on, but we knows by de way you's a comin', we knows by the way
UNCLE DAN'L'S APPARITION AND PRAYER. 123
you's a tiltin' along in yo' charyot o' fiah dat some po' sinner's a gwine to
ketch it. But good Lord, dese ciiiren don't b'long heah, dey's f m Obeds-
town whah dey don't know nuffin, an' yoii knows, yo' own sef, dat dey aint
'sponsible. An' deah Lord, good Lord, it aint like yo' mercy, it aint like
yo' pity, it aint like yo' long-sufferin' lovin'-kiiidness for to take dis kind o'
'vantage o' sich little cliil'en as dese is when dey's so many ornery grown
folks chuck full o' cussedness dat wants roastin' down dah. Lord, spah
de little chil'en, don't tar de little chil'en away f'm dey frens, jes' let 'em
off dis once, and take it out'n de ole niggah. Heah I is. Lord, heah I
IS ! De ole niggah's ready, Lord, de ole "
The flaming and churning steamer was right abreast the party, and
not twenty steps away. The awful thunder of a mud- valve suddenly burst
forth, drowning the prayer, and as suddenly Uncle Dan'I snatched a child
under each arm and scoured into the woods with the rest of the pack at his
heels. And then, ashamed of himself, he halted in the deep darkness and
shouted, (but rather feebly :)
" Heah I is, Lord, heah I is ! "
There was a moment of throbbing suspense, and then, to the surprise
and comfort of the party, it was plain that the august presence had gone
by, for its dreadful noises were receding. Uncle Dan'I headed a cautious
reconnoissance in the direction of the log. Sure enough " the Lord " was
just turning a point a short distance up the river, and while they looked,
the lights winked out and the coughing diminished -by degrees and pre-
sently ceased altogether.
" H'wsh ! Well now dey's some folks says dey aint no 'ficiency in
prah. Dis chile would like to know whah we'd a ben now if it warn't fo'
dat prah ? Dat's it. Dat's it ! "
" Uncle Dan'I, do you reckon it was the prayer that saved us ? " said
Clay.
" Does I reckon f Don't I knoio it ! Whah was yo' eyes ? Warn't
de Lo]'d jes' a comin' choio ! chow ! chow ! an' a goin' on turrible — an' do
de Lord carry on dat way 'dout dey's sumfin don't suit him ? An' warn't
he a lookin' right at dis gang heah, an' warn't he jes' a reachin' for 'em ?
An' d'you spec' he gwine to let 'em off 'dout somebody ast him to do it ?
No indeedy ! ''
" Do you reckon he saw us, Uncle Dan'I ? "
" De law sakes, chile, didn't I see him a lookin' at us ? "
" Did you feel scared, Uncle Dan'I ? "
" No sah ! When a man is 'gaged in prah, he aint 'fraid o' nuffin —
dey can't nuffin tetch him."
124: SOCRATES SNOOKS.
" Well what did you run for ? "
" Well, I — I — Mars Clay, when a man is under de influence ob de
sperit, he do-no what he's 'bout — no sah ; dat man do-no what he's 'bout.
You might take an' tah de head ofi''n dat man an' he wouldn't scasely line
it out. Dah's de Hebrew chil'en dat went frough de fiah ; dey was burnt
considable — ob coase dey was; but dey didn't know nuffin 'bout it — heal
right up agin; if dey'd ben gals dey'd missed dey long liaah, (hair,) maybe,
but dey wouldn't felt de burn."
" /don't know but what they were girls. I think they were."
" Now Mars Clay, you knows better'n dat. Sometimes a body can't
tell whedder you's a sayin' what you means or whedder you's a saying what
you don't mean, 'case you says 'em bofe de same way."
" But how should /know whether they were boys or girls ? '
" Goodness sakes, Mars Clay, don't de good book say ? 'Sides, don't
it call 'em de /Ze-brew chil'en ? If dey was gals would'n dey be de she-
brew chil'en? Some people dat kin read don't 'pear to take no notice when
dey do read."
" Well, Uncle Dan'l, I think that My ! here comes another
one up the river ! There can't be two ! "
" We gone dis time — we done gone dis time sho' ! Dey aint two, Mars
Qlay — dat's de same one. De Lord kin 'pear eberywhah in a second.
Goodness, how de fiah an' de smoke do belch up ! Dat mean business,
honey. He comin' now like he fo'got sumfin. Come 'long, chil'en, time
vou's gwine to roos'. Go 'long wid you — ole Uncle Dan'l gwine out in de
woods to rastle in prah — de ole niggah gwine to do what he kin to sabe
you agin."
He did go to the woods and pray; but he went so ftir that he doubted,
himrself, if the Lord heard him when He went by.
SOCRATES SNOOKS
■TSTER Socrates Snooks, a lord of] When one morning to Xantippe, Socrates s
" I think, for a man of my standing in life,
This house is too small, as I now have a wife;
So, as early as possible, carpenter Carey
Shall be sent for to widen my house and my
dairy."
creation.
The second time entered the married
relation :
Xantippe Caloric accepted his hand,
And they thought him the happiest man
in the land. |
But scarce had the honeymoon passed i " Now, Socrates, dearest," Xantippe replied.
o'er his head, " I hate to hear everything vulgarly my'd;
TOO LATE FOR THE TRAIN.
125
Now, whenever you speak of your chattels
again,
Say, our cow-house, our barn-yarrl, our pig-
pen."
" By your leave, Mrs. Snooks, I will say
what I please
Of my houses, my lands, my gardens, my
trees."
"Say our" Xantippe exclaimed in a rage.
' I won't, Mrs. Snooks, though you ask it an
age!"
Oh, woman! though only a part of man's
rib,
If the story in Genesis don't tell a fib.
Should your naughty companion e'er quarrel
with you.
You are certain to prove the best man of the
two.
In the following case this was certainly true;
For the lovely Xantippe just pulled off her
shoe.
And laying about her, all sides at random,
The adage was verified — " Nil desperandum."
Migter Socrates Snooks, after trying in vain,
To ward off the blows which descended like
Concluding that valor's best part was discre-
tion —
Crept under the bed like a terrified Hessian ;
But the dauntless Xantippe, not one whit
afraid,
Converted the siege into a blockade.
At last, after reasoning the thing in his pate,
He concluded 'twas useless to strive against
fate:
And 90, like a tortoise protruding his head,
Said, " My dear, may we come out from un-
der our bed ?"
" Hah ! hah !" she exclaimed, " Mr. Socrates
Snooks,
I perceive you agree to my terms by your
looks :
Now, Socrates — hear me — from this happy
hour,
If you'll only obey me, I'll never look sour."
'Tis said the next Sabbath, ere going to
church.
He chanced for a clean pair of trowsers to
search :
Having found them, he asked, with a few
nervous twitches,
" My dear, may we put on our new Sunday
TOO LATE FOR THE TRAIN.
|HEN they reached the depot, Mr. Mann and his wife gazed in
unspeakable disappointment at the receding train, which was
just pulling away from the bridge switch at the rate of a mile a
minute. Their first impulse was to run after it, but as the train
1 was out of sight and whistling for Sagetown before they could
J act upon the impulse, they remained in the carriage and discon-
solately turned their horses' heads homeward.
Mr. Mann broke the silence, very grimly : " It all comes of having to
wait for a woman to get ready."
" I was ready before you were," replied his wife.
''Great heavens," cried Mr. Mann, with great impatience, nearly
jerking the horse's jaws out of place, "just listen to that ! And I sat in
9
126
TOO LATE FOR THE TRAIN.
the buggy ten minutes yelling at you to come along until the whole neigh-
borhood heard me."
" Yes," acquiesced Mrs. Mann, with the provoking placidity which no
one can assume but a woman, " and every time I started down stairs, you
sent me back for something you had forgotten."
Mr. Mann groaned. " This is too much to bear," he said, " when
everybody knows that if I were going to Europe I would just rush into
the house, put on a clean shirt, grab up my grip-sack, and fly, while you
would want at least six months for preliminary preparations, and then
dawdle around the whole day of starting until every train had left town."
"Well, the upshot of the matter was that the Manns put off their visit
to Aurora until the next week, and it was agreed that each one should get
himself or herself ready and go down to the train and go, and the one who
failed to get ready should be left. The day of the match came around in
due time. The train was going at 10.30, and Mr. Mann, after attending
to his business, went home at 9.45.
"Now, then," he shouted, "only three-quarters of an hour's time.
Fly around; a fair field and no favors, you know."
And away they flew. Mr. Mann bulged
into this room and flew through that one, and
dived into one closet after another with incon-
ceivable rapidity, chuckling under his breath
all the time to think how cheap Mrs. Mann
would feel when he started off alone. He
stopped on his way up stairs to pull off his
heavy boots to save time. For the same rea-
son he pulled off his coat as he ran through
the dining-room, and hung it on a corner of
the silver-closet. Then he jerked off his vest
as he rushed through the hall and tossed it on
the hat-rack hook, and by the time he had
reached his own room he was ready to plunge
into his clean clothes. He pulled out a bureau-
drawer and began to paw at the things like a
Scotch terrier after a rat.
"Eleanor," he shrieked, "where are my
shirts ? "
" In your bureau drawer," calmly replied Mrs. Mann, who was standing
before a glass calmly and deliberately coaxing a refractory crimp into
place.
TOO LATE FOR THE TRAIN.
127
" Well, but they ain't," shouted Mr. Mann, a little annoyed. " I've
emptied everything out of the drawer, and there isn't a thing in it I ever
saw before."
Mrs. Mann stepped back a few paces, held her head on one side, and
after satisfying herself that the crimp would do, replied : " These things
scattered around on the floor are all mine. Probably you haven't been
looking into your own drawer."
" I don't see," testily observed Mr. Mann, " why you couldn't have
put my things out for me when you had nothing else to do all the
morning."
" Because," said Mrs. Mann, setting herself into an additional article
of raiment with awful deliberation, " nobody put mine out for me. A fair
field and no favors, my dear."
Mr. Mann plunged into his shirt like a bull at a red flag.
" Foul ! " he shouted in malici-
ous triumph. " No buttons on the
neck ! "
"Because," said Mrs. Mann, sweet-
ly, after a deliberate stare at the
fidgeting, impatient man, during which
she buttoned her dress and put eleven
pins where they would do the most
good, " because you have got the shirt
on wrong side out."
When Mr. Mann slid out of the
shirt he began to sweat. He dropped
the shirt three times before he got it
on, and while it was over his head he
heard the clock strike ten. When his
head came through he saw Mrs. Mann coaxing the ends and bows of her
necktie.
" Where are my shirt-studs ? " he cried.
Mrs. Mann went out into another room and presently came back with
gloves and hat, and saw Mr. Mann emptying all the boxes he could find
in and around the bureau. Then she said, " In the shirt you just
pulled off."
Mrs. Mann put on her gloves while Mr. Mann hunted up and down
the room for his cufi'-buttons,
" Eleanor," he snarled at last, " I believe you must know where
those cufi'-buttons are."
128 TOO LATE FOR THE TRAIN.
" I haven't soon them," said the lady settling her hat; " didn't you
lay them down on the window-sill in the sitting-room last night ? "
Mr. Mann remembered, and he went down stairs on the run. He
stepped on one of his boots and was immediately landed in the hall at the
foot of the stairs with neatness and dispatch, attended in the transmis-
sion with more bumps than he could count with Webb's Adder, and landed
with a bang like the Hell Gate explosion.
" Are you nearly ready, Algernon ? " sweetly asked the wife of his
bosom, leaning over the banisters.
The unhappy man groaned. '' Can't you throw me down the other
boot ? " he asked.
Mrs. Mann piteously kicked it down to him.
" My valise ? " he inquired, as he tugged at the boot.
" Up in your dressing-room," she answered.
" Packed ? "
"I do not know; unless you packed it yourself, probably not," she
replied, with her hand on the door-knob ; " I had barely time to pack my
own."
She was passing out of the gate when the door opened, and he
shouted, " Where in the name of goodness did you put my vest ? It has
all my money in it."
" You threw it on the hat-rack," she called. ''Good-bye, dear."
Before she got to the corner of the street she was hailed again :
" Eleanor ! Eleanor ! Eleanor Mann ! Did you wear off my coat ? "
She paused and turned, after signaling the street-car to stop, and
cried, " You threw it in the silver-closet."
The street-car engulfed her graceful form and she was seen no more.
But the neighbors say that they heard Mr. Mann charging up and down
the house, rushing out of the front-door every now and then, shrieking
after the unconscious Mrs. Mann, to know where his hat was, and where
she put the valise key, and if she had his clean socks and undershirts, and
that there wasn't a linen collar in the house. And when he went away
at last, he left the kitchen-door, the side-door and the front-door, all the
down-stairs windows and the front-gate wide open.
The loungers around the depot were somewhat amused, just as the
train was pulling out of sight down in the yards, to see a flushed, enter-
prising man, with his hat on sideways, his vest unbuttoned and necktie
flying, and his grip-sack flapping open and shut like a demented shutter
on a March night, and a door-key in his hand, dash wildly across the plat-
form and halt in the middle of the track, glaring in dejected, impotent,
THE UNBOLTED DOOR.
129
wrathful mortification at the departing train, and shaking his fist at a
pretty woman who was throwing kisses at him from the rear platform of
the last car.
THE UNBOLTED DOOR.
EDWARD GARRETT.
^UPP CARE-WORN widow sat alone
Sjmn|fe Beside her fading hearth ;
^^^ Her silent cottage never hears
^^^ The ringing laugh of mirth.
Six children once had sported there, but now
the church-yard snow
Fell softly on five little graves that were not
long ago.
She mourned them all with patient love ;
But since, her eyes had shed
Far bitterer tears than those which dewed
The faces of the dead, —
The child which had been spared to her, the
darling of her pride.
The woful mother lived to wish that she had
also died.
Those little ones beneath the snow,
She well knew where they are ;
" Close gathered to the throne of God,"
And that was better far.
But when she saw where Katy was, she saw
the city's glare.
The painted mask of bitter joy that need
gave sin to wear.
Without, the snow lay thick and white ;
No step had fallen there ;
Within, she sat beside her fire.
Each thought a silent prayer ;
When suddenly behind her seat unwonted
noise she heard.
As though a hesitating hand the rustic latch
had stirred.
She turned, and there the wanderer stood
With snow-flakes on her hair ;
A faded woman, wild and worn.
The ghost of something fair.
And then upon the mother's breast the
whitened head was laid,
" Can God and you forgive me all ? for I have
sinned," she said.
The widow dropped upon her knees
Before the fading fire,
And thanked the Lord whose love at last
Had granted her desire ;
The daughter kneeled beside her, too, tears
streaming from her eyes,
And prayed, " God help me to be good t«
mother ere she dies."
130
THE VAGABONDS.
They did not talk about the sin,
" My child," the widow said, and smiled
The shame, the bitter woe ;
A smile of love and pain,
They spoke about those little graves
" I kept it so lest you should come
And things of long ago.
And turn away again !
And then the daughter raised her eyes
and
I've waited for you all the while — a mother's
asked in tender tone.
love is true ;
•' Why did you keep your door unbarred
Yet this is but a shadowy type of His who
when you were all alone ?"
died for you!"
THE VAGABONDS.
J. T. TROWBRIDGE.
M:^
V. are two travelers, Roger and I.
K'ger's my dog ; — come here, you
scamp!
Jump for the gentleman, — mind
your eye!
Over the table, — look out for the
lamp ! —
The rogue is growing a little old :
Five years we've tramped through wind
and weather.
And slept out-doors when nights were cold,
And ate and drank — and starved to-
gether.
We've learned what comfort is, I tell you !
A bed on the floor, a bit of rosin,
THE YANKEE AND THE DUTCHMAN'S DOG.
131
A fire to thaw our thumbs, (poor fellow !
The paw he holds up there's been frozen,)
Plenty of catgut for my fiddle,
(This out-door business is bad for strings,)
Then a few nice buckwheats, hot from the
griddle,
And Roger and I set up for kings !
Why not reform ? That's easily said ;
But I've gone through such wretched treat-
ment.
Sometimes forgetting the taste of bread.
And scarce remembering what meat meant.
That my poor stomach 's past reform ;
And there are times when, mad with think-
ing.
I'd sell out heaven for something warm
To prop a horrible inward sinking.
Is there a way to forget to think ?
At your age, sir, home, fortune, friends,
A dear girl's love, — but I took to drink ; — •
The same old story ; you know how it ends.
If you could have seen these classic features, —
You needn't laugh, sir ; they were not then
Such a burning libel on God's creatures •.
I was one of your handsome men !
If you had seen her, so fair and young.
Whose head was happy on this breast !
If you could have heard the songs I sung
When the wine went round, you wouldn't
have guessed
That ever I, sir, should be straying
From door to door, with fiddle and dog.
Ragged and penniless, and playing
To you to-night for a glass of grog !
She's married since, — a parson's wife :
'Twas better for her that we should part,—
Better the soberest, prosiest life
Than a blasted home and a broken heart.
I have seen her ? Once : I was weak and
spent
On the dusty road, a carriage stopped ;
But little she dreamed, as on she went.
Who kissed the coin that her fingers
dropped !
You've set me talking, sir ; I'm sorry ;
It makes me wild to think of the change !
What do you care for a beggar's story ?
Is it amusing ? you find it strange ?
I had a mother so proud of me !
'Twas well she died before Do you know
If the happy spirits in heaven can see
The ruin and wretchedness here below ?
Another glass, and strong, to deaden
This pain ; then Roger and I will start.
I wonder, has he such a lumpish, leaden,
Aching thing, in place of a heart ?
He is sad sometimes, and would weep, if he
could.
No doubt, remembering things that were, —
A virtuous kennel, with plenty of food,
And himself a sober, respectable cur.
I'm better now ; that glass was warming, —
You rascal ! limber your lazy feet !
We must be fiddling and performing
For supper and bed, or starve in the street
Not a very gay life to lead, you think ?
But soon we shall go where lodgings are
free.
And the sleepers need neither victuals nor
drink ; —
The sooner the better for Roger and me !
THE YANKEE AND THE DUTCHMAN'S DOG
'^^^'RKM. was
^it^wi^ .csnmA fern
a quiet, peaceable sort of a Yankee, who lived on the
same farm on which his fathers had lived before him, and was
^ ^ generally considered a pretty cute sort of a fellow, — always ready
J I with a trick, whenever it was of the least utility ; yet, when he did
132 THE YANKEE AND THE DUTCHMAN'S DOG.
play any of his tricks, 'twas done in such an innocent manner, that his
victim coukl do no better than take it all in good part.
Now, it happened that one of Hiram's neighbors sold a farm to a
tolerably green specimen of a Dutchman, — one of the real unintelligent,
stupid sort.
Von Vlom Schlopsch had a dog, as Dutchmen often have, who was
less unintelligent than his master, and who had, since leaving his " fader-
land," become sufficiently civilized not only to appropriate the soil as
common stock, but had progressed so far in the good work as to obtain his
dinners from the neighbors' sheepfold on the same principle.
When Hiram discovered this propensity in the canine department of
the Dutchman's family, he walked over to his new neighbor's to enter com-
plaint, which mission he accomplished in the most natural method in the
world.
" Wall, Von, your dog Blitzen's been killing my sheep."
" Ya ! dat ish bace— bad. He ish von goot tog : ya ! dat ish
bad ! "
" Sartin, it's bad; and you'll have to stop 'im,"
" Ya ! dat ish alias goot ; but ich weis nicht."
" What's that you say ? he loas nicked ? Wall, now look here, old
fellow ! nickin's no use. Crop 'im ; cut his tail off close, chock up to his
trunk ; that'll cure 'im."
" Vat ish dat? " exclaimed the Dutchman, while a faint ray of intelli-
gence crept over his features. " Ya ! dat ish goot. Dat cure von sheep
steal, eh ? "
" Sartin it will : he'll never touch sheep meat again in this world,"
said Hiram gravely.
" Den come mit me. He von mity goot tog ; all the way from Yar-
many : I not take von five dollar — but come mit me, and hold his tail, eh?
Ich chop him off."
"Sartin," said Hiram: "I'll hold his tail if you want me tew; but
you must cut it up close."
" Ya ! dat ish right. Ich make 'im von goot tog. There, Blitzen,
Blitzen ! come right here, you von sheep steal rashcull : I chop your tail
in von two pieces."
The dog obeyed the summons ; and the master tied his feet fore and
aft, for fear of accident, and placing the tail in the Yankee's hand, re-
quested him to lay it across a large block of wood.
" Chock up," said Hiram, as he drew the butt of the tail close over
the log.
SONG OF MARION'S MEN.
133
" Ya ! dat ish right. Now, you von
tief sheep, I learns you better luck,"
said Von Vlom Schlopsch, as he raised
the axe.
It descended ; and as it did so,
Hiram, with characteristic presence of
mind, gave a sudden jerk, and brought
Blitzen's neck over the log ; and the
head rolled over the other side.
" Wall, I swow ! " said Hiram
with apparent astonishment, as he
dropped the headless trunk of the dog ;
"that was a leetle too close."
" Mine cootness ! " exclaimed the
Dutchman, "you shust cut 'im off de
wrong end /"
CHOCK UP '
SONG OF MARION'S MEN.
W. C. BRYANT.
^UR band is few, but true and tried,
Our leader frank and bold ;
The British soldier trembles
When Marion's name is told.
Our fortress is the good greenwood,
Our tent the cypress-tree ;
We know the forest round us,
As seamen know the sea ;
We know its walls of thorny vines,
Its glades of reedy grass,
Its safe and silent islands
Within the dark morass.
Woe to the English soldiery
That little dread us near !
On them shall light at midnight
A strange and sudden fear ;
When, waking to their tents on fir
They grasp their arms in vain.
And they who stand to face us
Are beat to earth again ;
And they who fly in terror deem
A mighty host behind.
And hear the tramp of thousands
Upon the hollow wind.
Then sweet the hour that brings release
From danger and from toil ;
We talk the battle over.
And share the battle's spoil.
The woodland rings with laugh and shout
As if a hunt were up.
And woodland flowers are gathered
To crown the soldier's cup.
With merry songs we mock the wind
That in the pine-top grieves.
And slumber long and sweetly
On beds of oaken leaves.
Well knows the fair and friendly moon
The band that Marion leads, —
The glitter of their rifles,
The scampering of their steeds.
134
DEATH OF LITTLE JO.
'Tis life to guide the fiery barb
Across the moonlit plain ;
'Tis life to feel the night-wiad
That lifts his tossing mane.
A moment in the British camp —
A moment — and away-
Back to the pathless forest,
Before the peep of day.
Grave men there are by broad Santee,
Grave men with hoary hairs ;
Their hearts are all with Marion,
For Marion are their prayers.
And lovely ladies greet our band
With kindliest welcoming.
With smiles like those of summer,
And tears like those of spring.
For them we wear these trusty arms,
And lay them down no more
Till we have driven the Briton
Forever from our shore.
DEATH OF LITTLE JO.
CHARLES DICKENS.
■^
^0 is very glad to see his old friend ; and says, when they are left
alone, that he takes it uncommon kind as Mr. Sangsby should
come so far out of his way on accounts of sich as him. Mr.
Sangbsy, touched by the spectacle before him, immediately lays
upon the table half-a-crown ; that magic balsam of his for all
kinds of wounds.
"And how do you find yourself, my poor lad?" inquired the sta-
tioner, with his cough of sympathy.
" I'm in luck, Mr. Sangsby, I am," returns Jo, " and don't want for
nothink. I'm more cumfbler nor you can't think, Mr. Sangsby. I'm
wery sorry that I done it, but I didn't go fur to do it, sir."
The stationer softly lays down another half-crown, and asks him what
it is that he is sorry for having done.
" Mr. Sangsby," says Jo, " I went and giv a illness to the lady as wos
and yet as warn't the t'other lady, and none of 'em never says nothink to
me for having done it, on accounts of their being so good and my having
been s' unfortnet. The lady come herself and see me yes'day, and she ses,
'Ah Jo ! ' she ses. ' We thought we'd lost you, Jo ! ' she ses. And she
sits down a smilin so quiet, and don't pass a word nor yit a look upon me
for having done it, she don'-t, and I turns agin the wall, I doos, Mr.
Sangsby. And Mr. Jarnders, I see him a forced to turn away his own
self. And Mr. Woodcot, he come fur to give me somethink for to ease
me, wot he's alius a doin on day and night, and wen he comes a bendin
over me and a speakin up so bold, I see his tears a fallin, Mr. Sangsby."
DEATH OF LITTLE JO. I35
Tlie softened stationer deposits another half-crown on the table.
Nothing less than a repetition of that infallible remedy will relieve his
feelings.
" Wot I wos thinkin on, Mr. Sangsby," proceeds Jo, " wos, as you
wos able to write wery large, p'raps ? "
" Yes, Jo, please God," returns the stationer.
"Uncommon, precious large, p'raps?" says Jo, with eagerness.
" Yes, my poor boy."
Jo laughs with pleasure. " Wot I wos thinkin on then, Mr. Sangsby,
wos, that wen I wos moved on as fur as ever I could go, and couldn't be
moved no furder, whether you might be so good, p'raps, as to write out,
wery large, so that any one could see it anywheres, as that I was wery
truly hearty sorry that I done it, and that I never went fur to do it ; and
that though I didn't know nothink at all, I knowd as Mr. Woodcot once
cried over it, and was alius grieved over it, and that I hoped as he'd be
able to forgive me in his mind. If the writin could be made to say it
wery large, he might."
" I shall say it, Jo ; very large."
Jo laughs again. " Thankee, Mr. Sangsby. It's wery kind of you,
sir, and it makes me more cumf bier nor I wos afore."
The meek little stationer, with a broken and unfinished cough, slips
down his fourth half-crown, — he has never been so close to a case requiring
so many, — and is fain to depart. And Jo and he, upon this little earth,
shall meet no more. No more.
(Another scene. — Enter Mr. Woodcourt?)
" Well, Jo, what is the matter ? Don't be frightened."
" I thought," says Jo, who has started, and is looking round, " I
thought I was in Tom-All-alone's agin. An't there nobody here but you,
Mr. Woodcot?"
" Nobody."
"And I an't took back to Tom-All-alone's, am I, sir?"
"No."
Jo closes his eyes, muttering, " I am wery thankful."
After watching him closely a little while, Allan puts his mouth very
near his ear, and says to him in a low, distinct voice : " Jo, did you ever
know a prayer ? "
"Never knowd nothink, sir."
" Not so much as one short prayer ? "
" No, sir. Nothing at all. Mr. Chadbands he wos a prayin wunst
136 DEATH OF LITTLE JO.
at Mr. Sangsby's, and I heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a speakin
to hisself, and not to me. He prayed a lot, but / couldn't make out
nothink on it. Different times there wos other genlnien come down Tom-
all- Alone's a prayin, but they all mostly sed as the t'other wuns prayed
wrong, and all mostly sounded to be talkin to theirselves, or a passin
blame on the t'others, and not a talkin to us. We never knowd nothink.
/never knowd what it wos all about."
It takes him a long time to say this ; and few but an experienced and
attentive listener could hear, or, hearing, understand him. After a short
relapse into sleep or stupor, he makes, of a sudden, a strong effort to get
out of bed.
" Stay, Jo, stay ! What now ? "
" It's time for me to go to that there berryin ground, sir," he re-
turns, with a wild look.
" Lie down, and tell me. What burying ground, Jo ?"
" Where they laid him as wos wery good to me ; wery good to me
indeed, he wos. It's time for me to go down to that there berryin ground,
sir, and ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there and be berried.
He used fur to say to me, ' I am as poor as you to-day, Jo,' he ses. I
wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now, and have come there to
be laid along with him."
" By-and-by, Jo ; by-and-by."
" Ah ! P'raps they wouldn't do it if I was to go myself. But will
you promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him ?" •
" I will, indeed."
" Thankee, sir ! Thankee, sir ! They'll have to get the key of the
gate afore they can take me in, for it's alius locked. And there's a step
there, as I used fur to clean with my broom. — It's turned wery dark, sir.
Is there any light a comin ? "
" It is coming fast, Jo."
Fast. The cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is very
near its end.
" Jo, my poor follow ! "
" I hear, you sir, in the dark, but I'm a gropin — a gropin — let me
catch hold of your hand."
" Jo, can you say what I say?"
" I'll say anything as you say, sir, for I knows it's
"Our Father."
"Our Father! — yes, that's wery good, sir."
"Which art in Heaven."
UNITED IN DEATH.
137
"Art iu Heaven!" — Is the light a comin', sir?"
"It is close at hand. Hallowed be thy name."
"Hallowed be — thy — name !"
The light has come upon the benighted way. Dead.
Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my Lords and Gentlemen. Dead, Eight
Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Dead, men and women,
born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around
us every day.
THE FIRST SNOW-FALL.
JAMES R. LOWELL.
l^j^HE snow had begun in the gloaming,
1^ And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
"With a silence deep and white.
Every pine and fir and hemlock
Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree
"Was ridged inch deep with pearl.
From sheds new-roofed with Carrara
Came Chanticleer's mufiled crow,
The stiff rails were softened to swan's down.
And still fluttered down the snow.
I stood and watched by the window
The noiseless work of the sky,
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds,
Like brown leaves whirling by.
I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
"Where a little headstone stood ;
How the flakes were folding it gently,
As did robins the babes in the wood.
Up spoke our own little Mabel,
Saying, " Father, who makes it snow ?"
And I told of the good All-father
"Who cares for us here below.
Again I looked at the snow-fall,
And thought of the leaden sky
That arched o'er our first great sorrow,
"When that mound was heaped so high.
I remembered the gradual patience
That fell from that cloud like snow,
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar of our deep-plunged woe.
And again to the child I whispered,
" The snow that husheth all,
Darling, the merciful Father
Alone can make it fall !"
Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her ;
And she, kissing back, could not know
That my kiss was given to her sister,
Folded close under deepening snow.
UNITED IN DEATH.
^P|HERE was no fierceness in the eyes of those men now, as they sat
^i^ face to face on the bank of the stream ; the strife and the anger
J^" had all gone now, and they sat still, — dying men, who but a few
J hours before had been deadly foes, sat still and looked at each
138 UNITED IN DEATH.
other. At last one of them spoke : " We haven't either of us a chance to
hold on much longer, I judge."
" No," said the other, with a little mixture of sadness and reckless-
ness, " you did that last job of yours well, as that bears witness," and he
pointed to a wound a little above the heart, from which the life blood was
glowly oozing.
" Not better than you did yours," answered the other, with a grim
smile, and he pointed to a wound a little higher up, larger and more
ragged, — a deadly one. And then the two men gazed upon each other
again in the dim light ; for the moon had come over the hills now, and
stood among the stars, like a pearl of great price. And as they looked a
soft feeling stole over the heart of each toward his fallen foe, — a feeling of
pity for the strong manly life laid low, — a feeling of regret for the in-
exorable necessity of war which made each man the slayer of the other ;
and at last one spoke : " There are some folks in the world that'll feel
worse when you are gone out of it."
A spasm of pain was on the bronzed, ghastly features. "Yes," said
the man, in husky tones, " there's one woman with a boy and girl, away
up among the New Hampshire mountains, that it will well-nigh kill to hear
of this ; " and the man groaned out in bitter anguish, " God have pity on
my wife and children ! "
And the other drew closer to him: ''And away down among the
cotton fields of Georgia, there's a woman and a little girl whose hearts will
break when they hear what this day has done ; " and then the cry wrung
itself sharply out of his heart, " God, have pity upon them ! "
And from that moment the Northerner and the Southerner ceased to
be foes. The thought of those distant homes on which the anguish was to
fall, drew them closer together in that last hour, and the two men wept
Uke little children.
And at last the Northerner spoke, talking more to himself than to
any one else, and he did not know that the other was listening greedily to
every word : —
" She used to come, — my little girl, bless her heart ! — every night to
meet me when I came home from the fields ; and she would stand under
the great plum-tree, that's just beyond the back-door at home, with the
sunlight maldng yellow- brown in her golden curls, and the laugh dancing
in her eyes when she heard the click of the gate, — I see her now, — and I'd
take her in my arms, and she'd put up her little red lips for a kiss ; but
my little darling will never watch under the plum-tree by the well, for her
father, again. I shall never hear the cry of joy as she catches a glimpse
GONE WITH A HANDSOMER MAN. 139
of me at the gate. I shall never see her little feet running over the grass
to spring into my arms again ! "
" And then," said the Southerner, " there's a little brown-eyed,
brown-haired girl, that used to watch in the cool afternoons for her father,
when he rode in from his visit to the plantations. I can see her sweet
little face shining out now, from the roses that covered the pillars, and
hear her shout of joy as I bounded from my horse, and chased the little
flying feet up and down the verandah again."
And the Northerner drew near to the Southerner, and spoke now in
a husky whisper, for the eyes of the dying men were glazing fast : " We
have fought here, like men, together. We are going before God in a little
while. Let us forgive each other."
The Southerner tried to speak, but the sound died away in a mur-
mur from his white lips ; but he took the hand of his fallen foe, and his
stiffening fingers closed over it, and his last look was a smile of forgive-
ness and peace. When the next morning's sun walked up the gray stairs
of the dawn, it looked down and saw the two foes lying dead, with their
hands clasped in each other, by the stream which ran close to the battle-
field. And the little girl with golden hair, that watched under the
plum-tree among the hills of New Hampshire, and the little girl witli
bright brown hair, that waited by the roses among the green fields of
Georgia, were fatherless.
GONE WITH A HANDSOMER MAN.
WILL CAELETON.
John. —
'VE worked in the field all day, a plowin'
the " stony streak ;"
I've scolded my team till I'm hoarse ;
I've tramped till my legs are weak ;
I've choked a dozen swears, (so's not to
tell Jane fibs,)
When the plow-pint struck a stone, and the
handles punched my ribs.
I've put my team in the barn, and rubbed
their sweaty coats ;
I've fed 'em a heap of hay and half a bushel
of oats ;
And to see the way they eat makes me like
eatin' feel,
And Jane won't say to-night thai I don't
make out a meal.
Well said ! the door is locked ! Out here .she's
left the key.
Under the step, in a place known only to her
and me ;
I wonder who's dyin' or dead, that she's hus-
tled off pell-mell ;
But here on the table's a note, and probably
this will tell.
140
GONE WITH A HANDSOMER MAN.
Good God ! my wife is gone ! my wife is gone
She'll do what she ought to have done, and
astray !
coolly count the cost ;
The letter it says, "Good-bye, for I'm a going
And then she'll .see things clear, and know
away;
what she has lost.
I've lived with you six months, John, and so
far I've been true ;
And thoughts that are now asleep will wake
But I'm going away to-day with a handsomer
up in her mind.
man than you."
And she will mourn and cry for what she has
left behind ;
A han'somer man than me ! Why, that ain't
And maybe she'll sometimes long for me — for
much to say ;
me— but no !
There's han'somer men than me go past here
I've blotted her out of my heart, and I will
. every day.
not have it so.
There's handsomer men than me — I ain't of
the han'some kind ;
And yet in her girlish heart there was some-
But a loven'er man than I was, I guess she'll
thin' or other she had
never find.
That fastened a man to her, and wasn't en-
tirely bad ;
Curse her ! curse her ! I say, and give my
And she loved me a little, I think, although
curses wings !
it didn't last ;
May the words of love I've spoken be changed
But I mustn't think of these things — I've
to scorpion stings !
buried 'em in the past.
Oh, she filled my heart with joy, she emptied
my heart of doubt,
I'll take my hard words back, nor make a bad
And now, with a scratch of a pen, she lets
matter worse ;
my heart's blood out !
She'll have trouble enough ; she shall not
have my curse ;
Curse her ! curse her ! say I, she'll some time
But I'll live a life so square — and I well know
rue this day ;
that I can,—
She'll some time learn that hate is a game
That she always will sorry be that she went
that two can play ;
with that han'somer man.
And long before she dies she'll grieve she ever
was born.
Ah, here is her kitchen dress ! it makes my
poor eyes blur ;
And I'll plow her grave with hate, and seed
it down to scorn.
It seems when I look at that, as if 'twas
holdin' her.
As sure as the world goes on, there'll come a
And here are her week-day shoes, and there
time when she
is her week-day hat.
Will read the devilish heart of that han'somer
And yonder's her weddin' gown ; I wonder
man than me ;
she didn't take that.
And there'll be a time when he will find, as
others do,
'Twas only this raornin' she came and called
That she who is false to one, can be the same
me her "dearest dear,"
with two.
And said I was makin' for her a regular pa-
radise here ;
A.nd when her face grows pale, and when her
God ! if you want a man to sense the pams
eyes grow dim,
of hell.
And when he is tired of her and she is tired
Before you pitch him in just keep him in hea-
of him,
ven a spell !
DEDICATION OF GETTYSBURG CEMETERY.
141
Grood-bye ! I wish that death had severed us
two apart.
You've lost a worshiper here, you've crushed
a lovin' heart.
I'll worship no woman again ; but I gaesa I'll
learn to pray,
And knoel as you used to kneel, before you
run away.
And if I thought I could bring my words on
Heaven to bear,
And if I thought I had some little influence
there,
I would pray that I might be, if it only could
be so.
As happy and gay as I was a half hour ago.
Jane {entering).
hat a litte
things all around!
Come, what's the matter now ? and what have
you lost or found ?
And here's my father here, a waiting for sup-
per, too ;
I've been a riding with him — he's that "hand-
somer man than you."
Ha ! ha ! Pa, take a seat, while I put the
kettle on.
And get things ready for tea, and kiss my
dear old John.
Why, John, you look so strange ! come, what
has crossed your track ?
I was only a joking, you know; I'm willing
to take it back.
John (aside)
Well, now, if this aint a joke, with rather a
bitter cream !
It seems as if I'd woke from a mighty ticklish
dream ;
And I think she " smells a rat," for she smiles
at me so queer,
I hope she don't ; good gracious ! I hope that
they didn't hear !
'Twas one of her practical drives — she thought
I'd understand !
But I'll never break sod again till I get the
lay of the land.
But one thing's settled with me — to appreci-
ate heaven well,
'Tis good for a man to have some fifteen mi-
nutes of hell.
DEDICATION OF GETTYSBURG CEMETERY.
PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
^OUPiSCORE and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon
pi this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to
the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are en-
gaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any
nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met
on a great battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a por-
lu
142
OVER THE RIVER.
tion of it as the final restiug-place of those who here gave their lives that
that nation might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a
larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow
this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have
consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little
note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what
they did here.
It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here
dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored
dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last
full measure of devotion ; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall
not have died in vain, that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth
of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, and for
the people, shall not perish from the earth.
OVER THE RIVER.
N. A. W. PRIEST.
gVER the river they beckon to me,
Loved ones who crossed to the
other side ;
The gleam of their snowy robes I see,
\ But their voices are drowned by
■%■ the rushing tide.
There's one with ringlets of sunny gold,
And eyes the reflection of heaven's own
blue;
He crossed in the twilight gray and cold,
And the pale mist hid him from mortal view.
We saw not the angels that met him there —
The gate of the city we could not see ;
Over the river, over the river,
My brother stands, waiting to welcome me.
Over the river the boatman pale
Carried another, the household pet ;
Her brown curls waved in the gentle gale —
Darling Minnie ! I see her yet!
She closed on her bosom her dimpled hands,
And fearlessly entered the phantom bark ;
We watched it glide from the silver sands,
And all our sunshine grew strangely dark.
We know she is safe on the further side.
Where all the ransomed and angels be ;
Over the river, the mystic river.
My childhood's idol is waiting for me.
For none return from those quiet shores.
Who cross with the boatman, cold and pale ;
We hear the dip of the golden oars,
And catch a glimpse of the snowy sail ;
And lo ! they have passed from our yearning
hearts —
They cross the stream and are gone for aye.
We may not sunder the vail apart
That hides from our vision the gates of
day;
We only know that their barks no more
Sail with us o'er life's stormy sea ;
Yet somewhere, I know, on the unseen shore.
They watch, and beckon, and wait for
DE PINT WID OLD PETE.
143
And I sit and think when the sunset's gold
Is flashing on river, and hill, and shore,
I shall one day stand by the waters cold
And list to the sound of the boatman's oar.
I shall watch for a gleam of the flapping sail ;
I shall hear the boat as it gains the strand .
I shall pass from sight with the boatman pale
To the better shore of the spirit-land.
I shall know the loved who have gone before.
And joyfully sweet will the meeting be.
When over the river, the peaceful river.
The angel of death shall carry me.
DE PINT WID OLD PETE.
pPON the hurricane deck of one of our gunboats, an elderly darkey,
with a very philosophical and retrospective cast of countenance,
squatted on his bundle, toast-
ing his shins against the chim-
j ney and apparently plunged into a
state of profound meditation. Finding
upon inquiry, that he belonged to the
Ninth Illinois, one of the most gallantly
behaved and heavy losing regiments at
the Fort Donaldson battle, I began to
interrogate him upon the subject.
" Were you in the fight ? "
"Had a little taste of it, sa."
"Stood your ground, did you?"
" No, sa, I runs."
" Eun at the first fire, did you ? "
" Yes, sa, and would hab run soona,
had I know'd it war comin'."
"Why, that wasn't very creditable to your courage."
" Massa, dat isn't ray line, sa ; cookin's my profeshun."
" Well, but have you no regard for your re-
putation ? "
" Yah, yah ! reputation's nuffin to me by de
side ob life."
" Do you consider your life worth more than
other people's ? "
" It is worth more to me, sa."
" Then you must value it very highly."
" Yes, sa, I does ; more dan all dis world, more
dan a million ob dollars, sa ; for what would dat
be worth to a man wid de bref out of him?
Self-preservation am de first law wid me."
TOAisTINU HIS SHINS
' NO, SA, 1 RUNS.
144
I SEE THEE STILL.
" But why should you act upon a different rule from other men?"
" Because different men set different values upon their lives ; mine is
not in de market."
" But if you lost it, you would have the satisfaction of knowing that
you died for your country."
"What satisfaction would dat be to me when de power ob feelin' was
gone ? "
" Then patriotism and honor are nothing to you?"
" Nuffin whatever, sa ; I regard them as among the vanities."
" If our soldiers were like you, traitors might have broken up the
government without resistance."
" Yes, sa; dar would hab been no help for it."
" Do you think any of your company would have missed you if you
had been killed ? "
" Maybe not, sa ; a dead white man ain't much to dese sogers, let
alone a dead nigga; but I'd miss myself, and dat was de pint wid me."
I SEE THEE STILL.
CHARLES SPRAGUE.
ROCK'D her in the cradle,
And laid her in the tomb. She was the
youngest.
What fireside circle hath not felt the
charm
Of that sweet tie ? The youngest ne'er
grow old,
The fond endearments of our earlier days
"We keep alive in them, and when they die
Our youthful joys we bury with them.
I see thee still ,
Remembrance, faithful to her trust,
Calls thee in beauty from the dust ;
Thou comest in the morning light,
Thou'rt with me through the gloomy night;
In dreams I meet thee as of old ;
Then thy soft arms my neck enfold
And thy sweet voice is in my ear :
In every scene to memory dear,
I see thee still.
I see thee still;
j In every hallow'd token round ;
This little ring thy finger bound.
This lock of hair thy forehead shaded,
1 This silken chain by thee was braided,
I These flowers, all wither'd now, like thee,
I Sweet Sister, thou didst cull for me;
This book was thine ; here didst thou read ;
This picture — ah ! yes, here indeed
I see thee still.
I see thee still ;
Here was thy summer noon's retreat,
Here was thy favorite fireside seat;
This was thy chamber — here, each day,
I sat and watch'd thy sad decay :
Here, on this bed, thou last didst lie ;
Here, on this pillow, — thou didst die.
Dark hour ! once more its woes unfold:
As tiion I saw thee, pale and cold,
I see thee still.
EXECUTION OF JOAN OF ARC. 145
I see thee still.
Thou art not in the grave confined —
Death cannot claim the immortal Mind :
Let Earth close o'er its sacred trust,
But Goodness dies not in the dust ;
Thee, my Sisteb ! 'tis not thee
Beneath the coffin's lid I see ;
Thou to a fairer land art gone ;
There, let me hope, my journey done,
To see thee still !
EXECUTION OF JOAN OF ARC.
THOMAS DE QUINCEY.
il^pAVING placed the king on his throne, it was her fortune thence-
giyis forward to be thwarted. More than one military plan was en-
■*^^ tered upon which she did not approve. Too well she felt that the
I" end was now at hand. Still, she continued to expose her person
I in battle as before ; severe wounds had not taught her caution ;
and at length she was made prisoner by the Burgundians, and
finally given up to the English. The object now was to vitiate the coro-
nation of Charles VII, as the work of a witch ; and, for this end, Joan was
tried for sorcery. She resolutely defended herself from the absurd ac-
cusation.
Never, from the foundation of the earth, was there such a trial as
this, if it were laid open in all its beauty of defence, and all its malignity
of attack. 0, child of France, shepherdess, peasant girl ! trodden under
foot by all around thee, how I honor thy flashing intellect, — quick as the
lightning, and as true to its mark, — that ran before France and laggard
Europe by many a century, confounding the malice of the ensnarer, and
making dumb the oracles of falsehood ! " Would you examine me as a
witness against myself?" was the question by which many times she
defied their arts. The result of this trial was the condemnation of Joan to
be burnt alive. Never did grim inquisitors doom to death a fairer victim
by baser means.
Woman, sister I there are some things which you do not execute as
well as your brother, man ; no, nor ever will. Yet, sister, woman ! cheer-
fully, and with the love that burns in depths of admiration, I acknowledge
that you can do one thing as well as the best of men, — you can die
grandly! On the twentieth of May, 1431, being then about nineteen
years of age, Joan of Arc underwent her martyrdom. She was conducted
before mid-day, guarded by eight spearmen, to a platform of prodigious
height, constructed of wooden billets, supported by occasional walls of lath
146
THE CORAL INSECT.
and plaster, and traversed by hollow spaces in every direction, for the
creation of air-currents.
With an undaunted soul, but a meek and saintly demeanor, the
maiden encountered her terrible fate. Upon her head was placed a mitre,
bearing the inscription, " Bclapsed heretic, apostate, idolatress." Her piety
displayed itself in the most touching manner to the last, and her angelic
foro'etfulness of self was manifest in a most remarkable degree. The
executioner had been directed to apply his torch from below. He did so.
The fiery smoke rose upwards in billowing volumes. A monk was then
standing at Joan's side. Wrapt up in his sublime office, he saw not the
danger, but still persisted in his prayers. Even then, when the last
enemy was racing up the fiery stairs to seize her, even at that moment,
did this noblest of girls think only for him,— the one friend that would
not forsake her, — and not for herself; bidding him with her last breath to
care for his own preservation, but to leave her to God. "Go down," she
said ; " lift up the cross before me, that I may see it in dying, and speak
to me pious words to the end." Then protesting her innocence, and
recommending her soul to Heaven, she continued to pray as the flames
leaped up and walled her in. Her last audible word was the name of
Jesus. Sustained by faith in Him, in her last fight upon the scaff"old, she
had triumphed gloriously ; victoriously she had tasted death.
Few spectators of this martyrdom were so hardened as to contain
their tears. All the English, with the exception of a few soldiers who
made a jest of the aff'air, were deeply moved. The French murmured that
the death was cruel and unjust. " She dies a martyr ! " " Ah, we are
lost, we have burned a saint! " "Would to God that my soul were with
hers ! " Such were the exclamations on every side. A fanatic English
soldier, who had sworn to throw a fagot on the funeral-pile, hearing Joan's
last prayer to her Saviour, suddenly turned away, a penitent for life, say-
ing everywhere that he had seen a dove, rising upon white wings to
heaven from the ashes where she stood.
THE CORAL INSECT.
MRS. SIGOURNEY.
JSWfjraiOIL on! toil on! ye ephemeral train,
WJ^ Who build in the tossing and treach-
erous main ;
Toil on— for the wisdom of man ye
With your sand-based structures and domes
of rock ;
Your columns the fathomless fountains lave,
And your arches spring up to the crested
rnoc
k. wave;
THE COKAL INSECT.
147
Ye're a puny race, thus to boldly rear
A fabric so vast, in a realm so drear.
Ye bind the deep with your secret zone,
The ocean is seal'd, and the surge a stone;
Fresh wreaths from the coral pavement
spring,
Like the terraced pride of Assyria's king ;
The turf looks green where the breakers
roll'd ;
O'er the whirlpool ripens the rind of gold ;
The sea-snatch'd isle is the home of men.
There's a poison-drop in man's purest cup ;
There are foes that watch for his cradle
breath ;
And why need ye sow the floods with death?
With mouldering bones the deeps are white,
From the ice-clad pole to the tropics
bright ;
The mermaid hath twisted her fingers cold
With the mesh of the sea-boy 'a curls of
gold.
And the gods of ocean have frown'd to see
The mariner's bed in their halls of glee ;
CORAL TIEEF BUILDERS.
And the mountains exult where the wave
hath been.
But why do ye plant 'neath the billows dark
The wrecking reef for the gallant bark ?
There are snares enough on the tented field,
'Mid the blossom'd sweets that the valleys
yield ;
There are serpents to coil, ere the flowers are
up;
Hath earth no graves, that ye thus must
spread
The boundless sea for the thronging dead ?
Ye build — ye build — but ye enter not in.
Like the tribes whom the desert devour'd in
their sin ;
From the land of promise ye fade and die,
Ere its verdure gleams forth on your weary
eye;
148
THE COMING OF THANKSGIVING.
As the kings of the cloud-crown'd pyra-
mid,
Their noteless bones in oblivion hid,
Ye slumber unmark'd 'mid the desolate main.
While the wonder and pride of your works
remain.
THE COMING OF THANKSGIVING.
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.
|S|NE of the best things in farming is gathering the chestnuts, hickory-
^^ nuts, butternuts, and even bush-nuts, in the late ftill, after the
-^ frosts have cracked the husks, and the high winds have sliaken
f them, and the colored leaves have strewn the ground. On a
1 bright October day, when the air is full of golden sunshine, there
is nothing quite so exhilarating as going nutting. Nor is the pleasure of
it altogether destroyed for the boy by the consideration that he is making
himself useful in obtaining supplies for the winter household. The getting-
in of potatoes and corn is a different thing ; that is the prose, but nutting
is the poetry of farm life. I am not sure but the boy would find it very
irksome, though, if he were obliged to work at nut-gathering in order to
procure food for the family. He is willing to make himself useful in his
own way. The Italian boy, who works day after day at a huge pile of
pine-cones, pounding and cracking them and taking out the long seeds,
which are sold and eaten as we eat nuts (and which are almost as good q&
pumpkin-seeds, another favorite with Italians), probably does not see the
fun of nutting. Indeed, if the farmer-boy here were set at pounding off
the walnut-shucks and opening the prickly chestnut-burs, as a task, he
would think himself an ill-used boy. What a hardship the prickles in his
fing(}rs would be ! But now he digs them out with his jack-knife, and
enjoys the process on the whole. The boy is willing to do any amount of
work if it is called play.
In nutting, the squirrel is not more nimble and industrious than the
boy. I like to see a crowd of boys swarm over a chestnut grove ; they
leave a desert behind them like the seventeen years locusts. To climb a
tree and shake it, to club it, to strip it of its fruit and pass to the next, is
the sport of a brief time. I have seen a legion of boys scamper over our
grass-plot under the chestnut- trees, each one as active as if he were a new
patent, picking-machine, sweeping the ground clean of nuts, and disappear
over the hill before I could go to the door and speak to them about it.
Indeed I have noticed that boys don't care much for conversation with
THE COMING OF THANKSGIVING.
149
the owners of fruit-trees. They could speedily make their fortunes if they
would work as rapidly in cotton-fields. I have never seen anything like
it except a flock of turkeys busily employed removing grasshoppers from
a piece of pasture.
The New England boy u^ed to look forward to Thanksgiving as the
great event of the year. He was apt to get stents set him, — so much corn
to husk, for instancy before that day, so that he could have an extra play-
spell ; and in order to gain a day or two, he would work at his task with
the rapidity of half-a-dozen boys. He had the day after Thanksgiving
always as a holiday, and this was the day he counted on. Thanksgiving
itself was rather an awful festival, — very much like Sunday, except for
the enormous dinner, which filled his imagination for months before as
completely as it did his stomach for that day and a week after. There
was an impression in the house that that dinner was the most important
event since the landing from the Mayflower. Heliogabalus, who did not
resemble a Pilgrim Father at all, but who had prepared for himself in his
150 THE COMING OF THANKSGIVING.
day some very sumptuous banquets in Rome, and ate a great deal of the
best he could get (and liked peacocks stuffed with asafoetida for one
thing), never had anything like a Thanksgiving dinner; for do you sup-
pose that he, or Sardanapalus either, ever had twenty-four different
kinds of pie at one dinner ? Therein many a New England boy is greater
than the Eoman emperor or the Assyrian king, and these were among the
most luxurious eaters of their day and generation. But something more
is necessary to make good men than plenty to eat, as Heliogabalus no
doubt found when his head was cut off. Cutting off the head was a mode
the people had of expressing disapproval of their conspicuous men. Nowa-
days they elect them to a higher office, or give them a mission to some
foreign country, if they do not do well where they are.
For days and days before Thanksgiving the boy was kept at work
evenings, pounding and paring and cutting up and mixing (not being
allowed to taste much), until the world seemed to him to be made of
fragrant spices, green fruit, raisins, and pastry, — a world that he was only
yet allowed to enjoy through his nose. How tilled the house was with the
most delicious -smells ! The mince-pies that were made ! If John had
been shut up in solid walls with them piled about him, he couldn't have
eaten his way out in four weeks. There were dainties enough cooked in
those two weeks to have made the entire year luscious with good living, if
they had been scattered along in it. But people were probably all the
better for scrimping themselves a little in order to make this a great feast.
And it was not by any means over in a day. There were weeks deep of
chicken-pie and other pastry. The cold buttery was a cave of Aladdin,
and it took a long time to excavate all its riches.
Thanksgiving Day itself was a heavy day, the hilarity of it being so
subdued by going to meeting, and the universal wearing of the Sunday
clothes, that the boy couldn't see it. But if he felt little exhilaration, he
ate a great deal. The next day was the real holiday. Then were the
merry-making parties, and perhaps, the skatings and *feleigh-rides, for the
freezing weather came before the governor's proclamation in many parts
of New England. The night after Thanksgiving occurred, perhaps, the
first real party that the boy had ever attended, with live girls in it,
dressed so bewitchingly. And there he heard those philandering songs,
and played those sweet games of forfeits, which put him quite beside him-
self, and kept him awake that night till the rooster crowed at the end of
his first chicken-nap. AVhat a new world did that party open to him !
I think it likely that he saw there, and probably did not dare say ten words
to, some tall, graceful girl, much older than himself, who seemed to him
THE PUZZLED DUTCHMAN.
151
like a new order of being. He could see her face just as plainly in the
darkness of his chamber. He wondered if she noticed how awkward he
was, and how short his trousers-legs were. He blushed as 'he thought of
his rather ill-fitting shoes ; and determined, then and there, that he
wouldn't be put off with a ribbon any longer, but would have a young
man's necktie. It was somewhat painful thinking the party over, but it
was delicious, too. He did not think, probably, that he would die for that
tall, handsome girl ; he did not put it exactly in that way. But he rather
resolved to live for her, — which might in the end amount to the same
thing. At least he thought that nobody would live to speak twice dis-
respectfully of her in his presence.
THE PUZZLED DUTCHMAN.
CHARLES F. ADAMS.
I'M a proken-hearted Deutscher,
Vot's villed mit crief und shame.
I dells you vot der drouple ish :
/ doosnt know my name.
You dinks dis fery vunay, eh?
Ven you der schtory hear,
You vill not vonder den so mooch,
It vas so Bchtrange und queer.
Mine moder had dwo leedle twins;
Dey vas me und mine broder :
Ve lookt so fery mooch alike,
No von knew vich vrom toder.
Von off der poys vas " Yawcob,"
Und "Hans" der oder's name:
But den it made no tifferent;
Ve both got called der same.
152
AKTEMUS WARD AT THE TOMB OF SHAKSPEARE.
Veil ! von off us got tead, —
Yaw, Mynheer, dot ish so !
But vedder Hans or Yawcob,
Mine moder she don'd know.
Und so I am in drouples :
I gan't kit droo mine hed
Vedder I'm Hans vol's lifing.
Or Yawcob vol is lead!
ARTEMUS WARD AT THE TOMB OF SHAKSPEARE.
CHARLES F. BROWNE.
Pp'VE been lingerin by the Tomb of the lamentid Shakspeare.
«^ It is a success.
A I do not hes'tate to pronounce it as such.
't You may make any use of this opinion that you see fit. If you
I think its publication will subswerve the cause of litteratoor, you may
^ publicate.
I told my wife Betsey, when I left home, that I should go to the birth-
place of the orthur of Otheller and other Plays. She said that as long as I
kept out of Newgate she didn't care where I went. " But," I said, " don't
you know he was the greatest Poit that ever lived? Not one of these
common poits, like that young idyit who writes verses to our daughter,
about the Roses as groses, and the breezes as blowses — but a Boss poit —
also a philosopher, also a man who knew a great deal about everything."
Yes. I've been to Stratford onto the Avon, the Birth-place of
Shakespeare. Mr. S. is now no more. He's been dead over three hun-
dred (300) years. The peple of his native town are justly proud of him.
They cherish his mem'ry, and them as sell picturs of his birth-place, &c.,
LAST HOURS OF WEBSTER. 153
make it prof'tible cherishin it. Almost everybody buys a pictur to put
into their Albiom.
" And this," I said, as I stood in the old church-yard at Stratford,
beside a Tombstone, '' this marks the spot where hes William W. Shakes-
peare. Alars ! and this is the Spot where — "
"You've got the wrong grave," said a man, — a worthy villager.'
" Shakespeare is buried inside the church."
" Oh," I said, " a boy told me this was it." The boy larfed and put
the shillin I'd given him into his left eye in a inglorious manner, and com-
menced moving backwards towards the street.
I pursood and captered him, and, after talking to him a spell in a
sarkastic stile, I let him went.
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford in 1564. All the com-
mentators, Shaksperian scholars, etsetry, are agreed on this, which is
about the only thing they are agreed on in regard to him, except that his
mantle hasn't fallen onto any poet or dramatist hard enough to hurt
said poet or dramatist much. And there is no doubt if these commen-
tators and persons continner investigatin Shakspeare's career, we shall not
in doo time, know anything about it at all. When a mere lad little
William attended the Grammar School, because, as he said, the Grammar
School wouldn't attend him. This remarkable remark coming from one
so young and inexperunced, set peple to thinkin there might be something
in this lad. He subsequently wrote Hamlet and George Barnwell. When
his kind teacher went to London to accept a position in the offices of the
Metropolitan Railway, little William was chosen by his fellow-pupils to
deliver a farewell address. "Go on, sir," he said, "in a glorous career.
Be like a eagle, and soar, and the soarer you get the more we shall be
gratified! That's so."
LAST HOURS OF WEBSTER.
EDWAED EVERETT.
;MONG the many memorable words which fell from the lips of our
friend just before they were closed forever, the most remarkable
are those which have been quoted by a previous speaker : " I still
live." They attest the serene composure of his mind, the Chris-
tian heroism with which he was able to turn his consciousness in
upon himself, and explore,- step by step, the dark passage, (dark to
154 PAT'S CRITICISM.
US, but to him, we trust, already lighted from above), which connects this
world with the world to come. But I know not what words could have
been better chosen to express his relation to the world he was leaving, —
" I still live." This poor dust is just returning to the dust from which it
was taken, but I feel that I live in the affections of the people to whose
services I have consecrated my days. "I still live." The icy hand of
death is already laid on my heart, but I shall still live in those words of
counsel which I have uttered to my fellow-citizens, and which I now leave
them as the bequest of a dying friend.
In the long and honored career of our lamented friend, there are
efforts and triumphs which will hereafter fill one of the brightest pages of
our history. But I greatly err if the closing scene, — the height of the
religious sublime, — does not, in the judgment of other days, far transcend
in interest the brightest exploits of public life. Within that darkened
chamber at Marshfield was witnessed a scene of which we shall not readily
find the parallel. The serenity with which he stood in the presence of the
King of terrors, without trepidation or flutter, for hours and days of
expectation ; the thouglitfulness for the public business when the sands of
life were so nearly run out ; the hospitable care for the reception of the
friends who came to Marshfield ; that affectionate and solemn leave sepa-
rately taken, name by name, of wife, and children, and kindred, and
family, — down to the humblest members of the household ; the designation
of the coming day, then near at hand, when " all that was mortal of
Daniel "Webster should cease to exist ; " the dimly-recollected strains of
the funeral poetry of Gray; the last faint flash of the soaring intellect ; the
feebly-murmured words of Holy Writ repeated from the lips of the good
physician, who, when all the resources of human art had been exhausted,
had a drop of spiritual balm for the parting soul; the clasped hands; the
dying prayers. Oh ! my fellow-citizens, this is a consummation over
which tears of pious sympathy will be shed ages after the glories of the
forum and the senate are forgotten.
FATS CRITICISM.
CUARLES F. ADAMS
^^
llIERE'S a story that's old,
But good if twice told,
Of a doctor of limited skill.
Who cured beast and man
On the " cold-water plan,"
Without the small help of a pill.
PAT'S CRITICISM.
155
On his portal of pine
When the doctor with pride
Hung an elegant sign,
Stepped up to his side,
Depicting a beautiful rill,
Saying, "Pat, how is that for a sign?'
And a lake where a sprite,
" There's wan thing," says Pat,
With apparent delight.
"You've lift out o' that,
Was sporting in sweet dishabille.
Which, be jabers ! is quoite a mistake-
"pat, how is that for a sign?"
Pat McCarty one day,
As he sauntered that way,
Stood and gazed at that portal of pine ;
It's trim and it's nate;
But, to make it complate,
Ye shuJ have a foine burd on the lake.'
156
THE LITTLE MATCH-GIRL.
"Ah ! indeed ! pray then, tell,
To make it look well,
What bird do you think it may lack?"
Says Pat, " Of the same
I've forgotten the name.
But the song that he sings is ' Quack ! quack !
THE LITTLE MATCH-GIRL.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDEESEN.
^T was very cold, the snow fell, and it was almost quite dark ; for it
was evening — yes, the last evening of the year. Amid the cold and
the darkness, a poor little girl, with bare head and naked feet, was
roaming through the streets. It is true she had a pair of slippers
when she left home, but they were not of much use. They were very
large slippers ; so large, indeed, that they had hitherto been used by her
mother; besides, the little creature lost them as she hurried across the
street, to avoid two carriages that were driving very quickly past. One
of the slippers was not to be found, and the other was pounced upon by a
boy, who ran away with it, saying that it would serve for a cradle when
he should have children of his own. So the little girl went along, with
her little bare feet that were red and blue with cold. She carried a
number of matches in an old apron, and she held a bundle of them in her
hand. Nobody had bought anything from her the whole livelong day ;
nobody had even given her a penny.
Shivering with cold and hunger, she crept along, a perfect picture of
misery — poor little thing ! The snow-flakes covered her long, flaxen hair,
which hung in pretty curls round her throat ; but she heeded them not
now. Lights were streaming from all the windows, and there was a
savory smell of roast goose ; for it was New Year's Eve. And this she
did heed.
THE LITTLE MATCH-GIRL. 157
She now sat down, cowering in a corner formed by two houses, one
of which projected beyond the other. She had drawn her little feet under
her, but she felt colder than ever ; yet she dared not return home, for she
had not sold a match, and could not bring home a penny ! She would
certainly be beaten by her father; and it was cold enough at home,
besides — for they had only the roof above them, and the wind came
howling through it, though the largest holes had been stopped with
straw and rags. Her little hands were nearly frozen with cold. Alas ! a
single match might do her some good, if she might only draw one out of
the bundle, and rub it against the wall, and warm her fingers.
So at last she drew one out. Ah ! how it sheds sparks, and how it
burns ! It gave out a warm, bright flame, like a little candle, as she held
her hands over it, — truly it was a wonderful little sight ! It really
seemed to the little girl as if she were sitting before a large iron stove,
with polished brass feet, and brass shovel and tongs. The fire burned so
brightly, and warmed so nicely, that the little creature stretched out
her feet to warm them likewise, when lo ! the flame expired, the stove
vanished, and left nothing but the little half-burned match in her hand.
She rubbed another match against the wall. It gave a light, and
where it shone upon the wall, the latter became as transparent as a veil,
and she could see into the room. A snow-white table-cloth was spread
upon the table, on which stood a splendid china dinner-service, while a
roast goose stuffed with apples and prunes, sent forth the most savory
fumes. And what was more delightful still to see, the goose jumped
down from the dish, and waddled along the ground with a knife and fork
in its breast, up to the poor girl. The match then went out, and nothing
remained but the thick, damp wall.
She lit yet another match. She now sat under the most magnificent
Christmas tree, that was larger, and more superbly decked, than even the
one she had seen through the glass door at the rich merchant's. A
thousand tapers burned on its green branches, and gay pictures, such as
one sees on shields, seemed to be looking down upon her. She stretched
out her hands, but the match then went out. The Christmas lights kept
rising higher and higher. They now looked like stars in the sky. One of
them fell down, and left a long streak of fire. " Somebody is now dying,"
thought tlie little girl, — for her old grandmother, the only person who had
ever loved her, and who was now dead, had told her, that, when a star
falls, it is a sign that a soul is going up to heaven.
She again rubbed a match upon the wall, and it was again light all
round ; and in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and shining
11
158
THE RAVEN.
like a spirit, yet looking so mild and loving. " Grandmother," cried the
little one, "oh, take me with you ! I know you will go away when the
match goes out, — you will vanish like the warm stove, and the delicious
roast goose, and the fine, large Christmas-tree ! " And she made haste to
rub the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to hold her grandmother
fast. And the matches gave a light that was brighter than noonday.
Her grandmother had never appeared so beautiful nor so large. She took
the little girl in her arms, and both flew upwards, all radiant and joyful,
far, far above mortal ken, where there was neither cold, nor hunger, nor
care to be found ; where there was no rain, no snow, or stormy wind, but
calm, sunny days the whole year round.
But, in the cold dawn, the poor girl might be seen leaning against
the wall, with red cheeks and smiling mouth ; she had been frozen on the
last night of the old year. The new year's sun shone upon the little dead
girl. She sat still holding the matches, one bundle of which was burned.
.People said : " She tried to warm herself." Nobody dreamed of the fine
things she had seen, nor in what splendor she had entered, along with her
grandmother, upon the joys of the New Year.
THE RA VEN.
EDGAR A. rOE.
pNCE upon a midnight dreary, while I
pondered, weak and weary.
Over many a quaint and curious
volume of forgotten lore, —
j. While I nodded, nearly napping,
t suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rap-
ping at my chamber-door.
•* 'Tis some visitor," I mutter'd, " tapping at
my chamber-door —
Only this, and nothing more."
Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak
December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its
ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had
sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow
for the lost Lenore, —
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the
angels name Lenore, —
Nameless here forevermore.
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each
purple curtain.
Thrilled me, — filled me with fantastic terrors
never felt before ;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart,
I stood repeating,
" 'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my
chamber-door, —
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my
chamber-door ;
That it is, and nothing more."
THE RAVEN.
159
Presently my soul grew stronger : hesitating
then no longer,
" Sir," said I, " or Madam, truly your for-
giveness I implore ;
But the fact is, I was napping, and so gently
you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at
my chamber-door.
That I scarce was sure I heard you " — here I
opened wide the door :
Darkness there, and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood
there, wondering, fearing.
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever
dared to dream before ;
But the silence was unbroken, and the still-
ness gave no token.
And the only word there spoken was the
whispered word, " Lenore !"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured
back the word, " Lenore !"
Merely this, and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul
within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping, something
louder than before.
" Surely," said I, " surely that is something
at my window-lattice ;
Let me see then what thereat is and this
mystery explore, —
Let my heart be still a moment, and this
mystery explore ; —
'Tis the wind, and nothing more."
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with
many a flirt and flutter.
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly
days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he ; not a
minute stopped or stayed he ;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above
my chamber-door, —
Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my
chamber-door —
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy
into smiling.
By the grave and stern decorum of the coun-
tenance it wore,
" Though thy crest be shorn and shaven,
thou," I said, " art sure no craven ;
Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering
from the nightly shore,
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the
night's Plutonian shore?"
Quoth the raven, " Nevermore !"
Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear
discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning, little rele-
vancy bore ;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living
human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above
his chamber-door.
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above
his chamber-door
"With such name as " Nevermore !"
But the raven, sitting lonel}'- on the placid
bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word
he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered ; not a feath-
er then he fluttered —
Till I scarcely more than muttered, " Other
friends have flown before,
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes
have flown before.
Then the bird said, " Nevermore !"
Startled at the stillness, broken by reply so
aptly spoken,
" Doubtless," said I, " what it utters is its
only stock and store.
Caught from some unhappy master, whom
unmerciful disaster
FoUow'd fast and foUow'd faster, till his songs
one burden bore,
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy
burden bore,"
Of — ' Never — nevermore !' "
But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul
into smiling.
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front
of bird and bust and door.
160
THE FIRE-FIEND.
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook ray-
Belf to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this omi-
nous bird of yore —
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt,
and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore!"
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no sylla-
ble expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned in-
to my bosom's core ;
This and more I sat divining, with my head
at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-
light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-
light gloating o'er
She shall press — ah ! nevermore 1
Then methought the air grew denser, per-
fumed from an unseen censer
Swung by seraphim, whose foot-falls tinkled
on the tufted floor,
"Wretch," I cried, " thy God hc.th lent thee,
— by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite — respite and nepenthe from thy mem-
ories of Lenore !
Quaff, oh, quaff this kind nepenthe, and for-
get this lost Lenore !"
Quoth the raven, " Nevermore !"
" Prophet !" said I, " thing of evil ! — prophet
still, if bird or devil !
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest
tossed thee here ashore.
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert
land enchanted —
On this home by horror haunted — tell me
truly, I implore, —
Is there — is there balm in Gilead ? — tell me
— tell me, I implore!"
Quoth the raven, " Nevermore !"
" Prophet !" said I, " thing of evil ! — prophet
still, if bird or devil !
By that heaven that bends above us, by that
God we both adore.
Tell this soul, with sorrow laden, if within
the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the an-
gels name Lenore ;
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the
angels name Lenore !"
Quoth the raven, " Nevermore I"
" Be that word our sign of parting, bird or
fiend !" I shrieked, upstarting, —
" Get thee back into the tempest and the
night's Plutonian shore.
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie
thy soul hath spoken !
Leave my loneliness unbroken ! — quit the
bust above my door !
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take
thy form from off my door !"
Quoth the raven, " Nevermore I"
And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting,
still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas, just above my
chamber-door ;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a de-
mon's that is dreaming.
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws
his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies
floating on the floor
Shall be lifted — nevermore I
THE FIRE-FIEND.
C. D. GARDETTE.
jN the deepest dearth of Midnight, while
the sad and solemn swell
Still was floating, faintly echoed from
the Forest Chapel Bell-
Fainting, falteringly floating o' er the
eable waves of air
That were through the Midnight rolling,
chafed and billowy with the tolling —
In my chamber I lay dreaming by the fire-
light's fitful gleaming,
And my dreams were dreams foreshadowed
on a heart fore-doomed to Care 1
THE FIRE-FIEND.
161
As the last long lingering echo of the Mid-
nig>t's mystic chime —
Lifting through the sable billows to the
Thither Shore of Time-
Leaving on the starless silence not a token
nor a trace —
In a quivering sigh departed; from my
couch in fear I started :
Started to my feet in terror, for my Dream's
phantasmal Error
Painted in the fitful fire, a frightful, fiend-
ish, flaming face !
On the red hearth's reddest centre, from a
blazing knot of oak,
Seemed to gibe and grin this Phantom when
in terror I awoke,
And my slumberous eyelids straining as I
staggered to the floor,
Still in that dread Vision seemir^g, turned my
gaze toward the gleaming
Hearth, and — there ! — oh, God ! I saw It !
and from out Its flaming jaw It
Spat a ceaseless, seething, hissing, bubbling,
gurgling stream of gore !
Speechless ; struck with stony silence ; fro-
zen to the floor I stood.
Till methought my brain was hissing with
that hissing, bubbling blood : —
Till I felt my life-stream oozing, oozing from
those lambent lips : —
Till the Demon seemed to name me : — then
a wondrous calm o'ercame me.
And my brow grew cold and dewy, with a
death-damp stifif and gluey.
And I fell back on my pillow in apparent
soul-eclipse !
Then, as in Death's seeming shadow, in the
icy Pall of Fear
I lay stricken, came a hoarse and hideous
murmur to my ear : —
Came a murmur like the murmur of assas-
sins in their sleep : —
Muttering, " Higher ! higher ! higher ! I am
Demon of the Fire !
I am Arch-Fiend of the Fire! and each
blazing roof's my pyre,
And my sweetest incense is the blood and
tears my victims weep <
How I revel on the Prairie! How I roar
cmong the Pines !
How I laugh when from the village o'er the
snow the red flame shines,
And I hear the shrieks of terror, with a Life
in every breath !
How I scream with lambent laughter as 1
hurl each crackling rafter
Down the fell abyss of Fire, until higher !
higher! higher!
Leap the High-Priests of my Altar in their
merry Dance of Death !
" I am Monarch of the Fire ! I am Vassal-
King of Death !
World-encircling, with the shadow of its
Doom upon my breath !
With the symbol of Hereafter flaming from
my fatal face !
I command the Eternal Fire ! Higher !
higher ! higher ! higher !
Leap my ministering Demons, like Phantas-
magoric lemans
Hugging Universal Nature in their hideous
embrace!"
Then a sombre silence shut me in a solemn,
shrouded sleep,
And I slumbered, like an infant in the " Cra-
dle of the Deep,"
Till the Belfry in the Forest quivered with
the matin stroke.
And the martins, from the edges of its lichen-
lidded ledges.
Shimmered through the russet arches where
the Light in torn files marches.
Like a routed army struggling through the
serried ranks of oak.
Through my ivy-fretted casement filtered in
a tremulous note
From the tall and stately linden where a Ro-
bin swelled his throat : —
Querulous, quaker-crested Robin, calling
quaintly for his mate !
Then I started up, unbidden, from my slum-
ber Nightmare ridden,
With the memory of that Dire Demon in my
central Fire,
Ou mv eve's interior mirror like the shadow
of a Fate !
162
RETRIBUTION.
Ah ! the fiendish Fire had smouldered to a
white and formless heap,
And no knot of oak was flaming as it flamed
upon my sleep ;
But around its very centre, where the Demon
Face had Bhone,
Forked Shadows seemed to linger, pointing
as with spectral finger
To a Bible, massive, golden, on a table carv-
ed and olden —
And I bowed, and said, "All Power is of
God, of God alone !"
RETRIBUTION.
A. LINCOLN.
||liE Almighty has His own purposes. " "Woe unto the world because
of offences ! for it must needs be that offences come ; but woe to
that man by whom the offence cometh." If we shall suppose that
American slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence
of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through
His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that Ho gives to
JENKINS GOES TO A PICNIC. X63
both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom
the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine
attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him !
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of
war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until
all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of
unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with
the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three
thousand years ago, so still it must be said, " The judgments of the Lord
are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none ; with charity for all ; with firmness in the
right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work
we are in ; to bind up the nation's wounds ; to care for him who shall
have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which
may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves, and
with all nations.
JENKINS GOES TO A PICNIC.
|l§i^AEIA ANN recently determined to go to a picnic.
Maria Ann is my wife— unfortunately she had planned it to
go alone, so far as I am concernetl, on that picnic excursion ;
but when I heard about it, I determined to assist.
She pretended she was very glad ; I don't believe she was.
" It will do you good to get away from your work a day, poor fellow,"
she said ; " and we shall so much enjoy a cool morning ride on the cars, and
a dinner in the woods."
On the morning of that day, Maria Ann got up at five o'clock. About
three minutes later she disturbed my slumbers, and told me to come to
breakfast. I told her I wasn't hungry, but it didn't make a bit of differ-
ence, I had to get up. The sun was up ; I had no idea that the sun began
business so early in the morning, but there he was.
" Now," said Maria Ann, " we must fly around, for the cars start at
half-past six. Eat all the breakfast you can, for you won't get anything
more before noon."
I could not eat anything so early in the morning. There was ice to
be pounded to go around the pail of ice-cream, and the sandwiches to be
cut, and I thought I would never get the legs of the chicken fixed so that
I could get the cover on the big basket. Maria Ann flew around and
154 JENKINS GOES TO A PICNIC.
piled up groceries for me to pack, giving directions to the girl about
taking care of the house, and putting on her dress all at once. There is a
deal of energy in that woman, perhaps a trifle too much.
At twenty minutes past six I stood on the front steps, with a basket
on one arm and Maria Ann's waterproof on the other, and a pail in each
hand, and a bottle of vinegar in my coat-skirt pocket. There was a camp-
chair hung on me somewhere, too, but I forget just where.
" Now," said Maria Ann, " we must run or we shall not catch the
train."
"Maria Ann," said I, "that is a reasonable idea. How do you
suppose I can run with all this freight ? "
" You must, you brute. You always try to tease me. If you don't
want a scene on the street, you will start, too."
So I ran.
I had one comfort, at least. Maria Ann fell down and broke her para-
sol. She called me a brute again because I laughed. She drove me all
the way to the depot at a brisk trot, and we got on the cars ; but neither
of us could get a seat, and I could not find a place where I could set the
things down, so I stood there and held them.
" Maria," I said, " how is this for a cool morning ride ? "
Said she, " You are a brute, Jenkins."
Said I, " You have made that observation before, my love."
I kept my courage up, yet I knew there would be an hour of wrath
when we got home. While we were getting out of the cars, the bottle in
my coat-pocket broke, and consequently I had one boot half-full of vinegar
all day. That kept me pretty quiet, and Maria Ann ran ofi" with a big
whiskered music-teacher, and lost her fan, and got her feet wet, and
tore her dress, and enjoyed herself so much, after the fashion of picnic
goers.
I thought it would never come dinner-time, and Maria Ann called me
a pig because I wanted to open our basket before the rest of the baskets
were opened.
At last dinner came — the " nice dinner in the woods," you know.
Over three thousand little red ants had got into our dinner, and they
were worse to pick out than fish-bones. The ice-cream had melted, and
there was no vinegar for the cold meat, except what was in my boot, and
of course that was of no immediate use. The music-teacher spilled a
cup of hot coffee on Maria Ann's head, and pulled all the frizzles out
trying to wipe off the coffee with his handkerchief. Then I sat on a piece
of riispberry-pie, and spoiled my white pants, and concluded I didn't want
THE LITTLE CONQUEROR.
165
anything more. I had to stand up against a tree the rest of the after-
noon The day offered considerable variety, compared to every-day hfe,
but there were so many drawbacks that I did not enjoy it so much as I
might have done.
THE LITTLE CONQUEROR.
CHARLES F. ADAMS.
jrl^WAS midnight ; not a sound was heard ;
Wm Within the —"Papa! won't 'ou 'ook
Sg^^ An' see my pooty 'ittle house ?
W^ ♦ I wis' 'ou wouldn't wead 'ou book "—
J " Within the palace, where the king
Upon his couch in anguish lay " —
"Papa! Pa-j3a/ I wis' 'ou'd turn
An' have a 'ittle tonty play — "
• No gentle hand was there to bring
The cooling draft, or bathe his brow;
His courtiers, and his pages gone" —
" Tum, papa, turn ; I want 'ou now— "
Down goes the book with needless force,
And, with expression far from mild,
With sullen air, and clouded brow,
I seat myself beside the child.
166
PLEDGE WITH WINE.
Her little, trusting eyes of blue
With mute surprise gaze in my face,
As if, in its expression, stern,
Reproof, and censure, she could trace ;
Anon her little bosom heaves,
Her rosy lip begins to curl;
And, with a quiv'ring chin, she sobs;
" Papa don't 'uv his 'ittle dirl !"
King, palace, book — all are forgot ;
My arms are 'round my darling thrown -
The thunder cloud has burst, and, lo !
Tears fall and mingle with her own.
PLEDGE WITH WINE.
^^H^jLEDGE with wine — pledge with wine!" cried the young and
thoughtless Harry Wood. "Pledge with wine," ran through the
brilliant crowd.
The beautiful bride grew pale — the decisive hour had come,
— she pressed her white hands together, and the leaves of her bridal
wreath trembled on her pure brow; her breath came quicker, her
heart beat wilder. From her childhood she had been most solemnly
opposed to the use of all wines and liquors.
" Yes, Marion, lay aside your scruples for this once," said the Judge,
in a low tone, going towards his daughter, " the company expect it, do not
so seriously infringe upon the rules of etiquette ; — in your own house act
as you please ; but in mine, for this once please me."
Every eye was turned towards the bridal pair. Marion's principles
were well known. Henry had been a convivialist, but of late his friends
noticed the change in his manners, the difference in his habits— and to-
night they watched him to see, as they sneeringly said, if he was tied down
to a woman's opinion so soon.
Pouring a brimming beaker, they held it with tempting smiles towards
Marion. She was very pale, though more composed, and her hand shook
not, as smiling back, she gratefully accepted the crystal tempter and raised
it to her lips. But scarcely had she done so, when every hand was arrested
by her piercing exclamation of " Oh, how terrible ! " " What is it ? " cried
cue and all, thronging together, for she had slowly carried the glass at
arm's length, and was fixedly regarding it as though it were some hideous
object.
" Wait," she answered, while an inspired light shone from her dark
eyes, " wait and I will tell you. I see," she added, slowly pointing one
jewelled finger at the sparkling ruby liquid, " a sight that beggars all de-
scription ; and yet listen ; I will paint it for you if I can : It is a lonely
PLEDGE WITH WINE. I67
spot; tall mountains, crowned with verdure, rise in awful sublimity around;
a river runs through, and bright flowers grow to the water's edge. There
is a thick, warm mist that the sun seeks vainly to pierce ; trees, lofty and
beautiful, wave to the airy motion of the birds ; but there, a group of
Indians gather ; they flit to and fro with something like sorrow upon their
dark brow; and in their midst lies a manly form, but his cheek, how
deathly; his eye wild with the fitful fire of fever. One friend stands beside
him, nay, I should say kneels, for he is pillowing that poor head upon hia
breast.
" Genius in ruins. Oh ! the high, holy-looking brow ! Why should
death mark it, and he so young ? Look how he throws the damp curls ! see
him clasp his hands ! hear his thrilling shrieks for life ! mark how he
clutches at the form of his companion, imploring to be saved. Oh ! hear
him call piteously his father's name ; see him twine his fingers together as
he shrieks for his sister — his only sister — the twin of his soul — weeping for
him in his distant native land.
" See ! " she exclaimed, while the bridal party shrank back, the un-
tasted wine trembling in their faltering grasp, and the Judge fell, over-
powered, upon his seat ; " see ! his arms are lifted to heaven ; he prays,
how wildly, for mercy ! hot fever rushes through his veins. The friend
beside him is weeping ; awe-stricken, the dark men move silently, and
leave the living and dying together."
There was a hush in that princely parlor, broken only by what seemed
a smothered sob, from some manly bosom. The bride stood yet upright,
with quivering lip, and tears stealing to the outward edge of her lashes.
Her beautiful arm had lost its tension, and the glass, with its little troubled
red waves, came slowly towards the range of her vision. She spoke again;
every lip was mute. Her voice was low, faint, yet awfully distinct : she
still fixed her sorrowful glance upon the wine-cup.
"It is evening now; the great white moon is coming up, and her
beams lay gently on his forehead. He r^oves uot ; his eyes are set in their
sockets ; dim are their piercing glan-jes ; in vain his friend whispers the
name of father and sister — death is there. Death ! and no soft hand, no
gentle voice to bless and soothe him. His head sinks back! one convulsive
shudder ! he is dead ! "
A groan ran through the assembly, so vivid was her description, so
unearthly her look, so inspired h^r manner, that what she described seemed
actually to have taken place then and there. They noticed also, that the
bridegroom hid his face in his hands and was weeping.
" Dead! " she repeated a^ain, her lips quivering faster and faster, and
168
PAPA'S LETTER.
her voice more and more broken : "and there they scoop him a grave; and
there without a shroud, they lay him down in the damp reeking earth.
The only son of a proud father, the only idolized brother of a fond sister.
And he sleeps to-day in that distant country, with no stone to mark the
spot. There he lies — my father's son — my own twin brother ! a victim to
this deadly poison." " Father," she exclaimed, turning suddenly, while the
tears rained down her beautiful cheeks, " father, shall I drink it now ? "
The form of the old Judge was convulsed with agony. He raised his
head, but in a smothered voice he faltered — " No, no, my child, in God's
name no."
She lifted the glittering goblet, and letting it suddenly fall to the floor
it was dashed into a thousand pieces. Many a tearful eye watched her
movements, and instantaneously every wine-glass was transferred to the
marble table on which it had been prepared. Then, as she looked at the
fragments of crystal, she turned to the company, saying : — "Let no friend,
hereafter, who loves me, tempt me to peril my soul for wine. Not firmer
the everlasting hills than my resolve, God helping me, never to touch or
taste that terrible poison. And he to whom I have given my hand ; who
watched over my brother's dying form in that last solemn hour, and buried
the dear wanderer there by the river in that land of gold, will, I trust,
sustain me in that resolve. Will you not, ray husband ? "
His glistening eyes, his sad, sweet smile was her answer.
The Judge left the room, and when an hour later he returned, and
with a more subdued manner took part in the entertainment of the bridal
guests, no one could fail to read that he, too, had determined to dash the
enemy at once and forever from his princely rooms.
Those who were present at that wedding, can never forget the impres-
sion so solemnly made. Many from that hour forswore the social glass.
PAPA'S LETTER.
WAS sitting in my stady,
Writing letters, when I heard,
" Please, dear mamma, Mary told me
Mamma mustn't be 'isturbed.
" But I'se tired of the kittj',
Want some ozzer fing to do.
Witing letters, is 'ou, mamma?
Tan't I wite a letter too?"
" Not now, darling, mamma's busy;
Run and play with kitty, now."
" No, no, mamma; me wite letter,
'. Tan if 'ou will show me how."
I would paint my darling's portrait
As his sweet eyes searched my face —
Hair of gold and eyes of azure,
lorm of childish, witching grace.
SEWING ON A BUTTON.
169
But the eager face was clouded,
Mamma sent me for a letter.
As I slowly shook my head,
Does 'ou fink 'at I tan go ?"
Till I said, " I'll make a letter
Of you, darling boy, instead."
But the clerk in wonder answered,
" Not to-day, my little man,"
So I parted back the tresses
" Den I'll find anozzer office.
From his forehead high and white.
'Cause I must do if I tan."
And a stamp in sport I pasted
'Mid its waves of golden light.
Fain the clerk would have detained him,
But the pleading face was gone,
Then I said, " Now, little letter.
And the little feet were hastening —
Go away and bear good news."
By the busy crowd swept on.
And I smiled as down the staircase
Clattered loud the little shoes.
Suddenly the crowd was parted.
People fled to left and right.
Leaving me, the darling hurried
As a pair of maddened horses
Down to Mary in his glee,
At the moment dashed in sight.
" Mamma's witing lots of letters ;
I'se a letter, Mary — see !"
No one saw the baby figure —
No one saw the golden hair.
No one heard the little prattler,
Till a voice of frightened sweetness
As once more he climbed the stair,
Rang out on the autumn air.
Reached his little cap and tippet,
Standing on the entry stair.
'Twas too late — a moment only
Stood the beauteous vision there,
No one heard the front door open.
Then the little face lay lifeless,
No one saw the golden hair,
Covered o'er with golden hair.
As it floated o'er his shoulders
In the crisp October air.
Reverently they raised my darling.
Brushed away the curls of gold,
Down the street the baby hastened
Saw the stamp upon the forehead,
Till he reached the office door.
Growing now so icy cold.
" I'se a letter Mr. Postman ;
Is there room for any more ?
Not a mark the face disfigured,
Showing where a hoof had trod ;
" 'Cause dis letter's doin' to papa,
But the little life was ended—
Papa lives with God, 'ou know,
" Papa's letter " was with God.
SEWING ON A BUTTON.
J. M. BAILEY.
wm
@i®T is bad enough to see a bachelor sew on a button, but be is the
^^ embodiment of grace alongside of a married man. Necessity has
r^ compelled experience in the case of the former, but the latter has
I always depended upon some one else for this service, and fortunately,
for the sake of society, it is rarely he is obliged to resort to the needle
himself. Sometimes the patient wife scalds her right hand, or runs a
170 LIFE FROM DEATH.
sliver under the nail of the index finger of that hand, and it is then the
man clutches the needle around the neck, and forgetting to tie a knot in
the thread commences to put on the button. It is always in the morning,
and from five to twenty minutes after he is expected to be down street.
He lays the button exactly on the site of its predecessor, and pushes the
needle through one eye, and carefully draws the thread after, leaving
about three inches of it sticking up for leeway. He says to himself, —
" Well, if women don't have the easiest time I ever see." Then he comes
back the other way, and gets the needle through the cloth well enough,
and lays himself out to find the eye, but in spite of a great deal of patient
jabbing, the needle point persists in bucking against the solid parts of
that button, and finally, when he loses patience, his fingers catch the
thread, and that three inches he had left to hold the button slips through
the eye in a twinkling, and the button rolls leisurely across the floor.
He picks it up without a single remark, out of respect to his children,
and makes another attempt to fasten it. This time when coming back
with the needle he keeps both the thread and button from slipping by
covering them with his thumb, and it is out of regard for that part of
him that he feels around for the eye in a very careful and judicious
manner ; but eventually losing his philosophy as the search becomes more
and more hopeless, he falls to jabbing about in a loose and savage manner,
and it is just then the needle finds the opening, and comes up through
the button and part way through his thumb with a celerity that no
human ingenuity can guard against. Then he lays down the things, with
a few familiar quotations, and presses the injured hand between his knees,
and then holds it under the other arm, and finally jams it into his mouth,
and all the while he prances about the floor, and calls upon heaven and
earth to witness that there has never been anything like it since the
world was created, and howls, and whistles, and moans, and sobs. After
awhile, he calms down, and puts on his pants, and fastens them together
with a stick, and goes to his business a changed man.
LIFE FROM DEATH.
nORATIUS BONAR.
S^fl^riE star ia not extinguished when it seta
OT^ Upon the dull horizon ; it but goes
'<i(^oJ>' To shine in other skies, then reappear
' ' In ours, as fresh as when it first
The river is not lost, when, o'er the rock,
It pours its flood into the abyss below ;
Its scattered force re-gathering from the
shock,
It hastens onward with yet fuller flow.
BETTY AND THE BEAR.
171
The bright sun dies not, when the shading
orb
Of the eclipsing moon obscures its ray
It still is shining on ; and soon to us
Will burst undimmed into the joy of day.
The lily dies not, when both flower and leaf
Fade, and are strewed upon the chill, sad
ground;
Gone down for shelter to its mother-earth,
'Twill rise, re-bloom, and shed its fragrance
round.
The dew-drop dies not, when it leaves the
flower.
And passes upward on the beam of morn ;
It does but hide itself in light on high,
To its loved flower at twilight, to return.
The fine gold has not perished, when the
flame
Seizes upon it with consuming glow ;
In freshened splendor it comes forth anew.
To sparkle on the monarch's throne or
brow.
Thus in the quiet joy of kindly trust.
We bid each parting saint a brief fare-
,well ;
Weeping, yet smiling, we commit their dust
To the safe keeping of the silent cell.
The day of re-appearing ! how it speeds !
He who is true and faithful speaks the
word.
Then shall we ever be with those we love —
Then shall we be forever with the Lord.
BETTY AND THE BEAR.
jN a pioneer's cabin out West, so they say,
A great big black grizzly trotted one
day.
And seated himself on the hearth, and
began
To lap the contents of a two-gallon
Of milk and potatoes, — an excellent meal, —
And then looked about to see what he could
steal.
The lord of the mansion awoke from his sleep,
And, hearing a racket, he ventured to peep
Just out in the kitchen, to see what was there.
And was scared to behold a great grizzly
bear.
So he screamed in alarm to his slumbering
from,
" Thar's a bar in the kitching as big's a cow !"
" A what ?" " Why a bar !" " Well, murder
him, then !"
" Yes, Betty, I will, if you'll first venture in."
So Betty leaped up, and the poker she seized.
While her man shut the door, and against it
he squeezed.
As Betty then laid on the grizzly her blows,
Now on his forehead, and now on his nose,
Her man through the key -hole kept shouting
within,
" Well done, my brave Betty, now hit him
agm,
Now a rap on the ribs, now a knock on the
snout.
Now poke with the poker, and poke his eyes
out."
So, with rapping and poking, poor Betty,
alone,
At last laid Sir Bruin as dead as a stone.
172
THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.
Now when the old man saw the bear was no
more,
He ventured to poke his nose out of the
door,
And there was the grizzly, stretched on the
floor.
Then off to the neighbors he hastened, to
tell
All the wonderful things that that morning
befell ;
And he published the marvellous story
afar.
How "me and my Betty jist slaughtered a
bar!
yes, come and see, all the neighbors hev
sid it,
Come see what we did, me and Betty, we
did it."
THU FREEDOM OF TEE PRESS.
JOHN MILTON.
lORDS and Commons of England ! consider what nation it is whereof
__..l ye are, and whereof ye are the governors; a nation not slow and
^^^ dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit ; acute to invent,
? subtile and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any
I point that human capacity can soar to.
Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing
herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks ;
methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling
her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam ; purging and unsealing her
long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance ; while the
whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the
twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means.
Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the
earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and pro-
hibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple ;
whoever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?
Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing. He who hears what
praying there is for light and clear knowledge to be sent down among us,
would think of other matters to be constituted beyond the discipline of
AULD ROBIN GRAY. I73
Geneva, framed and fabricked already to our hands. Yet when the new
light which we beg for shines in upon us, there be who envy and oppose,
if it come not first in at their casements. What a collusion is this, when as
we are exhorted by the wise men to use diligence, " to seek for wisdom as
for hidden treasures," early and late, that another order shall enjoin us to
know nothing but by statute! When a man hath been laboring the
hardest labor in the deep mines of knowledge, hath furnished out his
findings in all their equipage, drawn forth his reasons, as it were a battle
ranged, scattered and defeated all objections in his way, calls out his
adversary into the plain, ofiers him the advantage of wind and sun, if he
please, only that he may try the matter by dint of argument; for his
opponents then to skulk, to lay ambushments, to keep a narrow bridge of
licensing where the challenger should pass, though it be valor enough in
soldiership, is but weakness and cowardice in the wars of Truth. For
who knows not that Truth is strong, next to the Almighty? She needs
no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings, to make her victorious; those
are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power; give her
but room, and do not bind her when she sleeps.
A ULD ROBIN GRA Y.
ANNE BARNARD.
Lady Anne Barnard, daughter of the Earl of Balcarres, was born in 1750. Robin Gray chanced to
be the name of a shepherd at Balcarres. While she was writing this ballad, a little sister looked in on
her. '■ What more shall I do," Anne a.=;ked, " to trouble a poor girl ? I've sent her Jamie to sea, broken
her father's arm, made her mother ill, and given her an old man for a lover. There's room in the four
lines for one sorrow more. What shall it be?" "Steal the cow, sister Anne." Accordingly the cow
was stolen.
The second part, it i.s said, was written to please her mother, who often asked " how that unlucky
business of Jeanie and Jamie ended."
FIRST PART.
gfi^If^HEN the sheep are in the fauld, j But saving a crown he had naething else
when the kye'.s a' at hame, \ beside;
Wg And a' the weary warld to rest are j To mak the crown a pound my Jamie gaed
gane, ! to sea,
The woes 0' my heart fa' in showers ■ And the crown and the pound — they were
i" frae my e'e, baith for me.
T Unkent by my gudeman, wha sleeps
sound bv me * -^^ hadna been gane a twelvemonth and a
j day
Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and sought me When my father brake his arm, and the co-vy
for his bride, I was stown away ;
12
174
AULD ROBIN GRAY.
My mother she fell sick— my Jamie was at
sea —
And auld Robm Gray came a-courting me.
My father couldna work, my mother couldna
spin,
I toiled day and night, but their bread I
couldna win ;
Auld Rob maintained them baith, and, wi'
tears in his e'e,
Said, " Jeanie, for their sakes, will ye no
marry me?"
My heart it said na, and I looked for Jamie
back.
But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a
wrack ;
His ship was a wrack — why didna Jamie
dee?
Or why am I spared to cry, Wac is me ?
My father urged me sair— my mother didna
speak.
But she lookit in my face till my heart was
like to break ;
They gied him my hand — my heart was in
the sea —
And so Robin Gray he was gudeman to me.
I hadna been his wife a week but only four.
When, mournfu' as I sat on the stane at my
door,
I saw my Jamie's ghaist, for I couldna think
it he.
Till he said, " I'm come hame, love, to marry
thee."
Oh ! sair, sair did we greet, and mickle say
o' a',
I gied him ae kiss and bade him gang awa'.
I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to
dee,
For tho' my heart is broken, I'm young —
wae 's me !
I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin,
I darena think on Jamie, for that would be a
sin,
But I'll do my best a gude wife to be,
For oh ! Robin Gray he is kind to me.
SECOND PART.
The winter was come, 'twas simmer nae
mair.
And, trembling, the leaves were fleeing thro'
th' air :
" winter," says Jeanie, " we kindly agree,
For the sun he looks wae when he shines
upon me."
Nae longer she mourned, her tears were a'
spent.
Despair it was come, and she thought it con-
tent —
She thought it content, but her cheek it grew
pale.
And she bent like a lily broke down by the
Her father was vexed and her mother was
wae.
But pensive and silent was auld Robin Gray;
He wandered his lane, and his face it grew
lean.
Like the side of a brae where the torrent has
been.
He took to his bed — nae physic he sought.
But ordered his friends all around to be
brought ;
While Jeanie supported his head in its place.
Her tears trickled down, and they fell on his
face.
" Oh, greet nae mair, Jeanie," said he wi' a
groan,
" I'm no worth your sorrow — the truth maun
be known ;
Send round for your neighbors, my hour it
draws near.
And I've that to tell that it's fit a' should
hear.
" I lo'ed and I courted her mony a day,
The auld folks were for me, but still she said
nay ;
I kentna o' Jamie, nor yet of her vow.
In mercy forgive me — 'twas I stole the cow.
" I cared not for Crummie, I thought but o'
thee —
I thought it was Crummie stood 'twixt you
and me ;
POETRY AND MYSTERY OF THE SEA.
175
While she fed your parents, oh, did you not
say
You never would marry wi' auld Robin
Gray?
" But sickness at hame and want at the door,
You gied me your hand, while your heart it
was sore ;
I saw it was sore, — why took I her hand?
Oh, that was a deed to my shame o'er the
land!
" How truth soon or late comes to open day-
light!
For Jamie cam' back, and your cheek it grew
white —
White, white grew your cheek, but aye true
unto me —
Ay, Jeanie, I'm thankfu' — I'm thankfu' to
■ Is Jamie come here yet ? " — and Jamie they
saw —
I've injured you sair, lad, so leave you
my a' ;
Be kind to my Jeanie, and soon may it be ;
Waste nae time, my dauties, in mourning for
me."
They kissed his cauld hands, and a smile o'er
his face
Seemed hopefu' of being accepted by grace ;
" Oh, doubtna," said Jamie, " forgi'en he will
be—
Wha wouldna be tempted, my love, to wiu
thee ? "
*****
The first days were dowie while time slipt
awa',
But saddest and sairest to Jeanie o' a'
Was thinkin' she couldna be honest and
right,
Wi' tears in her e'e while her heart was sae
light.
But nae guile had she, and her sorrow away,
The wife o' her Jamie, the tear couldna stay ;
A bonnie wee bairn — the auld folks by the
fire —
Oh, now she has a' that her heart can desire.
POETB Y AND MYSTER Y OF THE SEA.
DR. GEEEN'TVOOD.
HmM — 7-
?HE sea is liis, and He made it," cries the Psalmist of Israel, in one
I of those bursts of enthusiasm in which he so often expresses the
Xt ""^l" whole of a vast subject by a few simple words. Whose else, in-
Ideed, could it be, and by whom else could it have been made?
Who else can heave its tides and appoint its bounds ? Who else can
, urge its mighty waves to madness with the breath and wings of
the tempest, and then speak to it again in a master's accents and
bid it be still ? Who else could have peopled it with its countless inhabi-
tants, and caused it to bring forth its various productions, and filled it
from its deepest bed to its ^expanded surface, filled it from its centre to ita
remotest shores, filled it to the brim with beauty and mystery and power ?
Majestic Ocean! Glorious Sea! No created being rules thee or made
thee.
176
POETRY AND MYSTERY OF THE SEA.
What is tliere more sublime than the trackless, desert, all-surrounding,
unfathomable sea ? What is there more peacefully sublime than the calm,
ffently -heaving, silent sea? What is there more terribly sublime than the
angry, dashing, foaming sea? Power — resistless, overwhelming power —
is its attribute and its expression, whether in the careless, conscious
"THE GENTLY-HEAVING SEA.
grandeur of its deep rest, or the wild tumult of its excited wrath. It is
awful when its crested waves rise up to make a compact with the black
clouds and the howling winds, and the thunder and the thunderbolt, and
they sweep on, in the joy of their dread alliance, to do the Almighty's
bidding. And it is awful, too, when it stretches its broad level out to
meet in quiet union the bended sky, and show in the line of meeting the
vast rotundity of the world. There is majesty in its wide expanse, sepa-
rating and enclosing the great continents of the earth, occupying two-
thirds of the whole surface of the globe, penetrating the land with its bays
and secondary seas, and receiving the constantly-pouring tribute of every
river, of every shore. There is majesty in its fulness, never diminishing
and never increasing. There is majesty in its integrity, — for its whole
vast substance is uniform in its local unity, for there is but one ocean, and
the inhabitants of any one maritime spot may visit the inhabitants of any
other in the wide world. Its depth is sublime : who can sound it ? Its
POETRY AND MYSTERY OF THE SEA. I77
strength is sublime : what fabric of man can resist it? Its voice is sub-
hme, whether in the prolonged song of its ripple or the stern music of its
roar, — whether it utters its hollow and melancholy tones within a labyrinth
of wave-worn caves, or thunders at the base of some huge promontory, or
beats against a toiling vessel's sides, lulling the voyager to rest with the
strains of its wild monotony, or dies away, in the calm and fading twilight,
in gentle murmurs on some sheltered shore.
The sea possesses beauty, in richness, of its own ; it borrows it from
earth, and air, and heaven. The clouds lend it the various dyes of their
wardrobe, and throw down upon it the broad masses of their shadows as
they go sailing and sweeping by. The rainbow laves in it its many-colored
feet. The sun loves to visit it, and the moon and the glittering brother-
hood of planets and stars, for they delight themselves in its beauty. The
sunbeams return from it in showers of diamonds and glances of fire ; the
moonbeams find in it a pathway of silver, where they dance to and fi^o,
with the breezes and the waves, through the livelong night. It has a
light, too, of its own, — a soft and sparkling light, rivaling the stars ; and
often does the ship which cuts its surface leave streaming behind a Milky
Way of dim and uncertain lustre, like that which is shining dimly above.
It harmonizes in its forms and sounds both with the night and the day. It
cheerfully reflects the light, and it unites solemnly with the darkness. It
imparts sweetness to the music of men, and grandeur to the thunder of
heaven. What landscape is so beautiful as one upon the borders of the
sea ? The spirit of its loveliness is from the waters where it dwells and
rests, singing its spells and scattering its charms on all the coasts. What
rocks and cliffs are so glorious as those which are washed by the chafing
sea ? What groves and fields and dwellings are so enchanting as tlfcse
which stand by the reflecting sea ?
There is mystery in the sea. There is mystery in its depths. It is
unfathomed, and, perhaps, unfathomable. Who can tell, who shall know,
how near its pits run down to the central core of the world ? Who can
tell what wells, what fountains, are there, to which the fountains of the
earth are but drops ? Who shall say whence the ocean derives those in-
exhaustible supplies of salt which so impregnate its waters that all the
rivers of the earth, pouring into it from the time of the creation, have not
been able to freshen them ? What undescribed monsters, what unimagi-
nable shapes, may be roving in the profoundest places of the sea, never
seeking— and perhaps never able to seek — the upper waters and expose
themselves to the gaze of man ! What glittering riches, what heaps of
gold, what stores of gems, there must be scattered in lavish profusion in
178
POETRY AND MYSTERY OF THE SEA.
the ocean's lowest bed ! What spoils from all climates, what works of art
from all lands, have been engulfed by the insatiable and reckless waves !
Who shall go down to examine and reclaim this uncounted and idle wealth ?
Who bears the keys of the deep ?
And oh ! yet more affecting to the heart and mysterious to the
mind, what companies of human beings are locked up in that wide, welter-
ing, unsearchable grave of the sea ! Where are the bodies of those lost
ones over whom the melancholy waves alone have been chanting requiem ?
CLIi'FS BY TUK sKA.
What shrouds were wrapped round the limbs of beauty, and of manhood,
and of placid infancy, when they were laid on the dark floor of that secret
tomb ? Where are the bones, the relics, of the brave and the timid, the
good and the bad, the parent, the child, the wife, the husband, the brother,
the sister, the lover, which have been tossed and scattered and buried by
the washing, wasting, wandering sea ? The journeying winds may sigh as
year after year they pass over their beds. The solitary rain-cloud may
weep in darknesss over the mingled remains which lie strewed in that un-
wonted cemetery. But who shall tell the bereaved to what spot their
affections may cling ? And where shall human tears be shed throughout
MY COUNTRY.
179
that solemn sepulchre ? It is mystery all. When shall it be resolved ?
Who shall find it out ? Who but He to whom the wildest waves listen
reverently, and to whom all nature bows ; He who shall one day speak, and
be heard in ocean's profoundest caves ; to whom the deep, even the lowest
deep, shall give up its dead ; when the sun shall sicken, and the earth and
the isles shall languish, and the heavens be rolled together like a scroll,
and there shall be no more sea !
A FIRST SORROW.
ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTOR.
SRISE ! this day shall shine
Forevermore,
To thee a star divine
On Time's dark shore.
Till now thy soul has been
All glad and gay ;
Bid it awake, and look
At grief to-day !
No shade has come between
Thee and the sun ;
Like some long childish dream
Thy life has run :
But now the stream has reached
A dark, deep sea,
And Sorrow, dim and crowned
Is waiting thee.
Each of God's soldiers bears
A sword divine :
Stretch out thy trembling hands
To-day for thine !
To each anointed priest
God's summons came :
Soul, he speaks to-day,
And calls thy name.
Then, with slow, reverent step,
And beating heart.
From out thy joyous days
Thou must depart,
And, leaving all behind.
Come forth alone.
To join the chosen band
Around the throne.
Raise up thine eyes — be strong,
Nor cast away
The crown that God has given
Thy soul to-day !
MY COUNTRY.
JAMES MONTGOMERY.
,,,jiHERE is a land, of every land the
pride.
Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world
beside.
Where brighter suns dispense serener
light,
And milder moons imparadise the night ;
A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth.
Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth :
The wandering mariner, whose eye explores
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting
shores,
Views not a realm so bountiful and fair,
Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air.
In every clime, the magnet of his soul.
Touched by remembrance, trembles to that
pole;
For in this land of Heaven's peculiar race
180
INDUSTRY THE ONLY TRUE SOURCE OF WEALTH.
The heritage of nature's noblest grace,
There is a spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.
Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside
His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride,
While in his softened looks benignly blend
The sire, the son, the husband, brother,
friend.
Here woman reigns ; the mother, daughter,
wife,
Strew with fresh flowers the narrow way of
life:
In the clear heaven of her delightful eye.
An angel-guard of love and graces lie ;
Around her knees domestic duties meet.
And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet.
" Where shall that laud, that spot of earth
be found ? "
Art thou a man ? — a patriot ? — look around ;
0, thoti shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps
roam,
That land thy country, and that spot thy
home!
Man, through all ages of revolving time,
Unchanging man, in every varying clime
Deems his own land of every land the pride,
Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world beside ;
His home the spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.
INDUSTRY THE ONLY TRUE SOURCE OF WEALTH.
DR. GEORGE BERKELEY.
?NDUSTKY is the natural sure way to success; this is so true, that it
^^ is impossible an industrious free people should want the necessaries
and comforts of life, or an idle enjoy them under any form of govern-
ment. Money is so far useful to the public, as it promoteth industry,
and credit having the same effect, is of the same value with money; but
money or credit circulating through a nation from hand to hand, without
producing labor and industry in the inhabitants, is direct gaming.
It is not impossible for cunning men to make such plausible schemes,
as may draw those who are less skilful into their own and the public ruin.
But surely there is no man of sense and honesty but must see and own,
whether he understands the game or not, that it is an evident folly for
any people, instead of prosecuting the old honest methods of industry and
frugality, to sit down to a public gaming-table and play off their money
one to another.
The more methods there are in a state for acquiring riches without
industry or merit, the less there will be of either in that state : this is as
evident a.s the ruin that attends it. Besides, when money is shifted from
hand to hand in such a bhnd fortuitous manner, that some men shall from
nothing acquire in an instant vast estates, without the least desert; while
others are as suddenly stripped of plentiful fortunes, and left on the parish
by their own avarice and credulity, what can be hoped for on the one
A TYPE OF GRANDEUR, STRENGTH AND MAJESTY.
■A LION'S HEAD.
181
hand but abandoned luxury and wantonness, or on the other but extreme
madness and despair!
In short, all projects for growing rich by sudden and extraordinary
methods, as they operate violently on the passions of men, and encourage
them to despise the slow moderate gains that are to be made by an honest
industry, must be ruinous to the public, and even the winners themselves
will at length be involved in the public ruin. . . .
God grant the time be not near when men shall say, " This island was
once inhabited by a religious, brave, sincere people, of plain, uncorrupt
manners, respecting inbred worth rather than titles and appearances,
assertors of liberty, lovers of their country, jealous of their own rights,
and unwilling to infringe the rights of others ; improvers of learning and
useful arts, enemies to luxury, tender of other men's lives, and prodigal of
their own; inferior in nothing to the old Greeks or Romans, and superior
to each of those people in the perfections of the other. Such were our
ancestors during their rise and greatness ; but they degenerated, grew
servile flatterers of men in power, adopted Epicurean notions, became
venal, corrupt, injurious, which drew upon them the hatred of God and
man, and occasioned their final ruin."
■■A LION'S head:
G. WEATHERLY.
fij||fflvw^PON the wall it hung where all might
A living picture — so the people
said —
A type of grandeur, strength and
J- majesty —
T "A lion's head."
Yet, if you gazed awhile, you seemed to see
The eyes grow strangely sad, that should
have raged ;
And, lo ! your thoughts took shape uncon-
sciously —
" A lion
You saw the living type behind his bars,
His eyes so sad with mute reproach, but
still
A very King, as when beneath the stars
He roved at will.
And then your thoughts took further ground,
and ran
From real to ideal, till at length .
The lion caged seemed but the type of man
In his best strength ;
Man grand, majestic in both word and deed,
A giant in both intellect and will,
Yet trammeled by some force he can but heed
And cannot still ;
Man in his highest attributes, but bound
By chains of circumstance around him casV
Yet nobly living out life's daily round.
Till work be past.
So musing, shadows fall all silently
And swift recall the thoughts that wan-
dering fled :
The dream has ended, and you can but see
" A lion's head."
182
THE PURITANS.
LO VE LIGHTENS LABOR.
<?«^ GOOD wife rose from her bed one
^ui^ morn,
*^^^. And thought with a nervous
^jp I (]read
J^ Of the piles of clothes to be
^ washed, and more
T Than a dozen mouths to he fed.
There's the meals to get for the men in the
field,
And the children to fix away
To school, and the milk to be skimmed and
churned ;
And all to be done this day.
It had rained in the- night, and all the wood
Was wet as it could be ;
There were puddings and pies to bake, be-
sides
A loaf of cake for tea.
And the day was hot, and her aching head
Throbbed wearily as she said,
" If maidens but knew what good wives know.
They would not be in haste to wed!"
'• Jennie, what do you think I told Ben
Brown ? "
Called the farmer from the well ;
And a flush crept up to his bronzed brow.
And his eyes half bashfully fell ;
" It was this," he said, and coming near
He smiled, and stooping down.
Kissed her cheek — " 'twas this : that yor
were the best
And the dearest wife in town ! "
The farmer went back to the field, and the
wife
In a smiling, absent way
Sang snatches of tender little songs
She'd not sung for many a day.
And the pain in her head was gone, and the
clothes
Were white as the foam of the sea ;
Her bread was light, and her butter was
sweet
And as golden as it could be.
" Just think," the children all cried in a
breath,
" Tom Wood has run off to sea !
He wouldn't, I know, if he'd only haJ
As happy a home as we."
The night came down, and the good wife
smiled
To herself, as she softly said:
" 'Tis so sweet to labor for those we love, —
It's not strange that maids will wed! "
THE PURITANS.
T. B. MACAULAY.
PPIHE Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character
^^^ from the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal inter-
n's' * ests. Not content with acknowledging, in general terms, an
overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every event to
the will of the Great Being for whose power nothing was too
vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To know
him, to serve him, to enjoy him was with them the great end of existence.
They rejected with contempt the ceremonious homage which other sects
THE PURITANS. 183
substituted for the pure worship of the souL Instead of catching
occasional glimpses of the Deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired
to gaze full on his intolerable brightness, and to commune with him face
to face. Hence originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. The
diflference between the greatest and the meanest of mankind seemed to
vanish, when compared with the boundless interval which separated the
whole race from him on whom their own eyes were constantly fixed.
They recognized no title to superiority but his favor; and, confident of
that favor, they despised all the accomplishments and all the dignities of
the world. If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers
and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names
were not found in the registers of heralds, they were recorded in the
Book of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train
of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge of them.
Their palaces were houses not made with hands ; their diadems
crowns of glory which should never fade away. On the rich and the
eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with contempt : for
they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious treasure, and eloquent
in a more sublime language — nobles by the right of an earlier creation,
and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. The very meanest of
them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible importance
belonged, on whose slightest action the spirits of light and darkness
looked with anxious interest, who had been destined, before heaven and
earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue when heaven
and earth should have passed away. Events which short-sighted poli-
ticians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained on his account. For
his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and decayed. For his sake
the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the evangelist and the
harp of the prophet. He had been wrested by no common deliverer from
the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of no
vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the
sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had
risen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God.
Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men, — the one aU
self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion ; the other proud, calm, in-
flexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker ;
but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional retirement
he prayed with convulsions and groans and tears. He was half-maddened
by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the lyres of angels or the
tempting whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision,
184
THE BELL OF "THE ATLANTIC
or woke screaming from dreams of fire. Like Vane, he thought himself
entrusted with the sceptre of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he
cried in the bitterness of his soul that God had hid his face from him.
But when he took his seat in the council, or girt on his sword for war,
these tempestuous workings of the soul had left no perceptible trace
behind them. People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth
visages, and heard nothing from them but their groans and their whining
hymns, might laugh at them. But those had little reason to laugh who
encountered them in the hall of debate or in the field of battle.
TEE BELL OF " THE A TLANTLCr
-^r
MRS. SIGOURNEY.
IpOLL, toll, toll, toll !
*- Thou bell by billows swung,
And, night and day, thy warning
words
Repeat with mournful tongue I
Toll for the queenly boat.
Wrecked on yon rocky shore !
Sea-w.eed is in her palace halls —
She rides the surge no more.
Toll for the master bold,
The high-souled and the brave.
Who ruled her like a thing of life
Amid the crested wave !
Toll for the hardy crew.
Sons of the storm and blast,
Who long the tyrant ocean dared ;
But it vanquished them at last.
Toll for the man of God,
Whose hallowed voice of prayer
Rose calm above the stifled groan
Of that intense despair !
How precious were those tones,
On that sad verge of life,
Amid the fierce and freezing storm,
And the mountain billows' strife !
Toll for the lover, lost
To the summoned bridal train.
Bright glows a picture on his breast^
Beneath the unfathomed main.
One from her casement gazeth
Long o'er the misty sea :
He Cometh not, pale maiden —
His heart is cold to thee !
Toll for the absent sire.
Who to his home drew near.
To bless a glad, expecting group —
Fond wife, and children dear !
They heap the blazing hearth,
The festal board is spread.
But a fearful guest is at the gate ; —
Room for the sheeted dead !
Toll for the loved and fair.
The whelmed beneath the tide —
The broken harps around whose strings
The dull sea-monsters glide !
Mother and nursling sweet.
Reft from the household throng ;
There's bitter weeping in the nest
Where breathed their soul of song,
Toll for the hearts that bleed
'Neath misery's furrowing trace ;
Toll for the hapless orphan left.
The last of all his race !
THE BLIND PREACHER.
185
Yea, with thy heaviest knell,
From surge to rocky shore,
Toll for the living — not the dead,
Whose mortal woes are o'er.
Toll, toll, toll !
O'er breeze and billow free ;
And with thy startling lore instruct
Each rover of the sea.
Tell how o'er proudest joys
May swift destruction sweep.
And bid him build his hopes on high-
Lone teacher of the deep !
THE CYCLONE.
THE BLIND PREACHER.
WILLIAM WIET.
^^T was one Sunday, as I was traveling through the county of Orange,
p| that my eye was caught by a cluster of horses tied near a ruinous,
^ old, wooden house, in the forest, not far from the roadside. Having
\i' frequently seen such objects before, in traveling through these States,
I had no difficulty in understanding that this was a place of religious wor-
ship. Devotion alone should have stopped me, to join in the duties of the
congregation ; but I must confess that curiosity to hear the preacher of
such a wilderness was not the least of my motives. On entering, I was
struck with his preternatural appearance. He was a tall and very spare
old man; his head, which was covered with a white linen cap, his shriv-
eled hands, and his voice, were all shaking under the influence of palsy ;
and a few moments ascertained to me that he was perfectly blind.
The first emotions which touched my breast were those of mingled
IQQ THE BLIND PREACHER.
pity and veneration. But how soon were all my feelings changed ! The
lips of Plato were never more worthy of a prognostic swarm of bees than
were the lips of this holy man. It was a day of the administration of the
sacrament; and his subject, of course, was the passion of our Saviour. I
had heard the subject handled a thousand times ; I had thought it ex-
hausted long ago. Little did I suppose that, in the wild woods of America,
I was to meet with a man whose eloquence would give to this topic a new
and more sublime pathos than I had ever before witnessed.
As he descended from the pulpit, to distribute the mystic symbols,
there was a peculiar, a more than human solemnity in his air and manner,
which made my blood run cold and my whole frame shiver. He then drew
a picture of the sufferings of our Saviour ; his trial before Pilate ; his as-
cent up Calvary ; his crucifixion, and his death. I knew the whole history,
but never, until then, had I heard the circumstances so selected, so
arranged, so colored. It was all new, and I seemed to have heard it for
the first time in my life. His enunciation was so deliberate, that his voice
trembled on every syllable, and every heart in the assembly trembled in
unison. His peculiar phrases had such force of description, that the ori-
ginal scene appeared to be at that moment acting before our eyes. We
saw the very faces of the Jews ; the staring, frightful distortions of malice
and rage. "We saw the buffet ; my soul kindled with a flame of indigna-
tion, and my hands were involuntarily and convulsively clinched.
But when he came to touch on the patience, the forgiving meekness,
of our Saviour; when he drew, to the life, his blessed eyes streaming in
tears to heaven ; his voice breathing to God a soft and gentle prayer of
pardon for his enemies, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do ! " — the voice of the preacher, which all along faltered, grew
fainter and fainter, until, his utterance being entirely obstructed by the
force of his feelings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into
a loud and irrepressible flow of grief. The effect was inconceivable. The
whole house resounded with the mingled groans and sobs and shrieks of
the congregation.
It was some time before the tumult had subsided so far as to permit
hira to proceed. Indeed, judging by the usual but fallacious standard of
my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situation of the
preacher. For I could not conceive how he would be able to let his audi-
ence down from the height to which he had wound them, without impair-
ing the solemnity and dignity of his subject, or perhaps shocking them by
the abruptness of the fall. But — no; the descent was as beautiful and
sublime as the elevation had been rapid and enthusiastic. The first sen-
A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW. 187
tence with which he broke the awful silence was a quotation from Rous-
seau: " Socrates died like a philosopher ; but Jesus Christ like a God."
I despair of giving you any idea of the effect produced by this short
sentence, unless you could perfectly conceive the whole manner of the
man, as well as the peculiar crisis in the discourse. Never before did I
completely understand what Demosthenes meant by laying such stress on
delivery. You are to bring before you the venerable figure of the
preacher, his blindness constantly recalling to your recollection old Homer,
Ossian and Milton, and associating with his performance the melancholy
grandeur of their genius : you are to imagine that you hear his slow, sol-
emn, well-accented enunciation, and his voice of affecting, trembling mel-
ody; you are to remember the pitch of passion and enthusiasm to which
the congregation were raised ; and then the few moments of portentous,
death-like silence which reigned throughout the house : the preacher, re-
moving his white handkerchief from his aged face (even yet wet from the
recent torrent of his tears), and slowly stretching forth the palsied hand
which holds it, begins the sentence : " Socrates died like a philosopher" —
then pausing, raised his other hand, pressing them both, clasped together,
with warmth and energy to. his breast, lifting his " sightless balls" to hea-
ven, and pouring his whole soul into his tremulous voice — "but Jesus
Christ — like a God ! " If he had been in truth an angel of light, the effect
could scarcely have been more divine.
A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW.
MARY A. FOED.
JT'l^HE surging sea of human life forever Broad fields uncultured and unclaimed are
^j^ onward rolls, waiting for the plow
oJ^^^^ And bears to the eternal shore its i Of progress that shall make them bloom a.
daily freight of souls,
Though bravely sails our bark to-
day, pale Death sits at the prow,
And few shall know we ever lived j short narrow
hundred years from now.
Why should we try so earnestly in life's
a hundred years from now.
mighty human brotherhood ! why fiercely
war and strive,
span.
On golden stairs to climb so high above our
brother-man ?
Why blindly at an earthly shrine in slavish
homage bow ?
\\Tiile God's great world has ample space for ] Our gold will rust, ourselves be dust, a hun-
everything alive ? i dred years from now.
13
188
WOUNDED.
Why prize so much the world's applause ?
Why dread so much its blame ?
A fleeting echo is its voice of censure or of
fame;
The praise that thrills the heart, the scorn
that dyes with shame the brow,
Will be as long-forgotten dreams a hundred
years from now.
patient hearts, that meekly bear your
weary load of wrong !
earnest hearts, that bravely dare, and,
striving, grow more strong !
Press on till perfect peace is won ; you'll
never dream of how
You struggled o'er life's thorny road a hun-
dred years from now.
Grand, lofty souls, who live and toil that
freedom, right, and truth
Alone may rule the universe, for you is end-
less youth !
When 'mid the blest with God you rest, the
grateful land shall bow
Above your clay in reverent love a hundred
years from now.
Earth's empires rise and fall. Time ! like
breakers on thy shore
They rush upon thy rocks of doom, go down,
and are no more.
The starry wilderness of worlds that gem
night's radiant brow
Will light the skies for other eyes a hundred
years from now.
Our Father, to whose sleepless eye the past
and future stand
An open page, like babes we cling to thy
protecting hand ;
Change, sorrow, death are naught to us if we
may safely bow
Beneath the shadow of thy throne a hundred
years from now.
WOUNDED.
^^
WILLIAM E. MILLER.
^ET me lie down
ll Just here in the shade of this can-
^ non-torn tree.
Here, low on the trampled grass,
where I may see
¥ The surge of the combat, and where I
T may hear
The glad cry of victory, cheer upon cheer :
Let me lie down.
Oh, it was grand !
Like the tempest we charged, in the triumph
to share ;
The tempest, — its fury and thunder were
there :
On, on, o'er entrenchments, o'er living and
dead.
With the foe under foot, and our flag over-
head ;
Oh, it was grand !
Weary and faint.
Prone on the soldier's couch, ah, how can I
rest.
With this shot-shattered head and sabre-
pierced breast?
Comrades, at roll-call when I shall be
sought,
Say I fought till I fell, and fell where I fought,
Wounded and faint.
Oh, that last charge !
Right through the dread hell-fire of shrapnel
and shell,
Througli without faltering, — clear through
with a yell !
Right in their midst, in the turmoil and
gloom.
Like heroes we dashed, at the mandate of
doom!
Oh, that last charge !
THE DRUNKARD'S DEATH.
189
It was duty !
Some things are worthless, and some others
so good
That nations who buy them pay only in blood.
For Freedom and Union each man owes his
part;
And here I pay my share, all warm from my
heart :
It is duty.
Dying at last !
My mother, dear mother ! with meek tearful
eye,
Farewell! and God bless you, for eyer and
aye!
Oh that I now lay on your pillowing breast.
To breathe my last sigh on the bosom first
prest !
Dying at last !
I am no saint ;
But, boys, say a prayer. There's one that
begins
" Our Father," and then says, " Forgive us
our sins:"
Don't forget that part, say that strongly, and
then
I'll try to repeat it, and you'll say "Amen!"
Ah ! I'm no saint.
Hark ! there's a shout.
Raise me up, comrades ! We have conquered,
I know ! —
Up, on my feet, with my face to the foe !
Ah ! there flies the flag, with its star-soan-
gles bright,
The promise of glory, the symbol of right !
Well may they shout !
I'm mustered out.
God of our fathers, our freedom prolong,
And tread down rebellion, oppression, and
wrong !
land of earth's hope, on thy blood-reddened
sod,
1 die for the nation, the Union, and God !
I'm mustered out.
THE DRUNK ARUS DEATH.
CHARLES DICKENS.
^T last, one bitter night, he sunk down on the door-step, faint and
ilL The premature decay of vice and profligacy had worn him
to the bone. His cheeks were hollow and livid ; his eyes were
sunken, and their sight was dim. His legs trembled beneath his
weight, and a cold shiver ran through every limb.
And now the long-forgotten scenes of a mis-spent life crowded thick
fast upon him. He thought of the time when he had a home — a
happy, cheerful home — and of those who peopled it, and flocked about him
then, until the forms of his elder children seemed to rise from the grave,
and stand about him — so plain, so clear, and so distinct they were, that he
could touch and feel them. Looks that he had long forgotten were fixed
upon him once more; voices long since hushed in death sounded in his ears
like the music of village bells. But it was only for an instant. The rain
beat heavily upon him ; and cold and hunger were gnawing at his heart
again. He rose, and dragged his feeble limbs a few paces further. The
190 THE DRUNKARD'S DEATH.
street was silent and empty ; the few passengers who passed by, at that
late hour, hurried quickly on, and his tremulous voice was lost in the
violence of the storm. Again that heavy chill struck through his frame,
and his blood seemed to stagnate beneath it. He coiled himself up in a
projecting doorway, and tried to sleep.
But sleep had fled from his dull and glazed eyes. His mind wandered
strangely, but he was awake and conscious. The well-known shout of
drunken mirth sounded in his ear, the glass was at his lips, the board was
covered with choice rich food — they were before him ; he could see them
all, he had but to reach out his hand, and take them, — and, though the
illusion was reality itself, he knew that he was sitting alone in the deserted
street, watching the rain-drops as they pattered on the stones ; that death
was coming upon him by inches — and that there were none to care for or
help him. Suddenly he started up in the extremity of terror. He had
heard his own voice shouting in the night air, he knew not what or why.
Hark ! A groan ! — another ! His senses were leaving him : half-formed
and incoherent words burst from his lips ; and his hands sought to tear
and lacerate his flesh. He was going mad, and he shrieked for help till
his voice failed him.
He raised his head and looked up the long dismal street. He recollected
that outcasts like himself, condemned to wander day and night in those
dreadful streets, had sometimes gone distracted with their own loneliness.
He remembered to have heard many years before that a homeless wretch
had once been found in a solitary corner, sharpening a rusty knife to
plunge into his own heart, preferring death to that endless, weary, wan-
dering to and fro. In an instant his resolve was taken, his limbs received
new life ; he ran quickly from the spot, and paused not for breath until he
reached the river side. He crept softly down the steep stone stairs that
lead from the commencement of Waterloo Bridge, down to the water's level.
He crouched into a corner, and held his breath, as the patrol passed.
Never did prisoner's heart throb with the hope of liberty and life, half so
eagerly as did that of the wretched man at the prospect of death. The
watch passed close to him, but he remained unobserved ; and after waiting
till the sound of footsteps had died away in the distance, he cautiously
descended, and stood beneath the gloomy arch that forms the landing-place
from the river.
The tide was in, and the water flowed at his feet. The rain had ceased,
the wind was lulled, and all was, for the moment, still and quiet, — so quiet,
that the slightest sound on the opposite bank, even the rippling of the
water against the barges, that were moored there, was distinctly audible
LOVE ME LITTLE, LOVE ME LONG. 191
to his ear. The stream stole languidly and sluggishly on. Strange and
fantastic forms rose to the surface, and beckoned him to approach ; dark
gleaming eyes peered fi'om the water, and seemed to mock his hesitation,
while hollow murmurs from behind urged him onward. He retreated a
few paces, took a short run, a desperate leap, and plunged into the
water.
Not five seconds had passed when he rose to the water's surface — but
what a change had taken place in that short time, in all his thoughts and
feehngs ! Life — life — in any form, poverty, misery, starvation — anything
but death. He fought and struggled with the water that closed over his
head, and screamed in agonies of terror. The curse of his own son rang
in his ears. The shore — but one foot of dry ground — he could almost
touch the step. One hand's breadth nearer, and he was saved — but the
tide bore him onward, under the dark arches of the bridge, and he sank to
the bottom. Again he rose and struggled for life. For one instant — for
one brief instant — the buildings on the river's banks, the lights on the bridge
through which the current had borne him, the black water, and the fast-
flying clouds, were distinctly visible — once more he sunk, and once again
he rose. Bright flames of fire shot up from earth to heaven, and
reeled before his eyes, while the water thundered in his ears, and stunned
him with its furious roar.
A week afterwards the body was washed ashore, some miles down the
river, a swollen. and disfigured mass. Unrecognized and unpitied, it was
borne to the grave ; and there it has long since mouldered away !
LOVE ME LITTLE, LOVE ME LONG.
ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN 1569.
£OVE me little, love me long
Is the burden of my song
Love that is too hot and strong
Burneth soon to waste
If thou lovest me too much,
'Twill not prove as true a touch ;
Love me little more than such,—
For I fear the end.
Still I would not have thee cold, — j I'm with little well content,
Not too backward, nor too bold ; | And a little from thee sent
Love that lasteth till 'tis old i Is enough, with true intent
Fadeth not in haste.
Love me little, love me long!
Is the burden of my song.
To be steadfast, friend.
Love me little, love me long !
Is the burden of my song.
192
YOU PUT NO FLOWERS ON MY PAPA'S GRAVE.
Say thou lovest me, while thou live
I to thee my love will give,
Never dreaming to deceive
While that life endures ;
Nay, and after death, in sooth,
I to thee will keep my truth,
As now when in my May of youth :
This my love assures.
Constant love is moderate ever.
And it will through life persever ;
Give me that with true endeavor, —
I will it restore.
A suit of durance let it be,
For all weathers, — that for me, —
For the land or for the sea :
Lasting evermore.
Winter's cold or summer's heat,
Autumn's tempests on it beat ;
It can never know defeat.
Never can rebel :
Such the love that I would gain,
Such the love, I tell thee plain.
Thou must give, or woo in vain :
So to thee — farewell !
YOU PUT NO FLOWERS ON MY PAPAS GRAVE.
C. E. L. HOLMES.
sITH sable-draped banners, and slow
measured tread,
The flower-laden ranks pass the
gates of the dead ;
And seeking each mound where a
comrade's form rests.
Leave tear-bedewed garlands to
bloom on his breast.
Ended at last is the labor of love ;
Once more through the gateway the saddened
lines move —
A wailing of anguish, a sobbing of grief.
Falls low on the ear of the battle-scarred
chief;
Close crouched by the portals, a sunny-haired
child
Besought him in accents which grief render-
ed wild :
" Oh ! sir, he was good, and they say he died
brave —
Why ! why ! did you pass by my dear papa's
grave ?
I know he was poor, but as kind and as true
As ever marched into the battle with you —
His grave is so humble, no stone marks the
spot.
You may not have seen it. Oh, say you did
not!
For my poor heart will break if you knew
he was there.
And thought him too lowly your offerings
to share.
He didn't die lowly — he poured his heart's
blood,
In rich crimson streams, from the top-
crowning sod
Of the breastworks which stood in front of
the fightr—
And died shouting, ' Onward ! for God and
the right!'
O'er all his dead comrades your bright gar-
lands wave,
THE COCKNEY.
193
But you haven't put one on my papa's grave.
" Oh ! thank you, kind sir ! I ne'er can repay
If mamma were here — but she lies by his side,
The kindness you've shown little Daisy to-
Her wearied heart broke when our dear papa
day ;
died."
But I'll pray for you here, each day while I
live,
"Battalion! file left! countermarch!" cried
' Tis all that a poor soldier's orphan can give.
the chief,
" This young orphan'd maid hath full cause
I shall see papa soon, and dear mamma too—
for her grief"
I dreamed so last night, and I know 'iwill
Then up in his arms from the hot, dusty
come true;
street,
And they will both bless you, I know, when
He lifted the maiden, while in through the
I say
gate
How you folded your arms round their dear
The long line repasses, and many an eye
one to-day —
Pays fresh tribute of tears to the lone orphan's
How you cheered her sad heart, and soothed
sigh.
it to rest.
And hushed its wild throbs on your strong.
" This way, it is — here, sir — right under this
noble breast ;
tree;
And when the kind angels shall call you to
They lie close together, with just room for
come.
me."
We'll welcome you there to our beautiful
home,
" Halt ! Cover with roses each lowly green
Where death never comes, his black banners
mound —
to wave.
A love pure as this makes these graves hal-
And the beautiful flowers ne'er weep o'er a
lowed ground."
grave."
THE COCKNEY.
JOHN G. SAXE.
|T was in my foreign travel,
5 At a famous Flemish inn,
I That I met a stoutish person
' With a very ruddy skin ;
And his hair was something sandy,
And was done in knotty curls,
And was parted in the middle,
In the manner of a girl's.
He was clad in checkered trousers,
And his coat was of a sort
To suggest a scanty pattern.
It was bobbed so very short ;
And his cap was very little.
Such as soldiers often use ;
And he wore a pair of gaiters,
And extremely heavy shoee.
I addressed the man in English,
And he answered in the same.
Though he spoke it in a fashion
That I thought a little lame ;
For the aspirate was missing
Where the letter should have been.
But where'er it wasn't wanted,
He was sure to put it in !
When I spoke with admiration
Of St. Peter's mighty dome,
He remarked : " 'T is really nothing
To the sights we' ave at 'ome !"
And declared upon his honor, —
Though, of course, 't was very queer,
That he doubted if the Romans
'Ad the Aart of making beerl
194
THE CORONATION OF ANNE BOLEYN.
Then we talked of the countries,
When I left the man in gaiters.
And he said that he had heard
He was grumbling, o'er his gin,
That h Americans spoke h English,
At the charges of his hostess
But he deemed it quite Aabsurd ;
At that famous Flemish inn ;
Yet he felt the deepest Aintrest
And he looked a very Briton,
In the missionary work,
(So, methinks, I see him still,)
And would like to know if Georgia
As he pocketed the candle
Was in Boston or New York !
That was mentioned in the bill 1
THE CORONATION OF ANNE BOLEYN.
J. A. FROUDE.
^LOEIOUS as the spectacle was, perhaps, however it passed unheeded.
i^ Those eyes were watching all for another object, which now drew
near. In an open space behind the constable there was seen
approaching " a white chariot," drawn by two palfreys in white
damask which swept the ground, a golden canopy borne above it
1 making music with silver bells : and in the chariot sat the observed
of all observers, the beautiful occasion of all this glittering homage;
fortune's plaything of the hour, the Queen of England — queen at last ! —
borne along upon the waves of this sea of glory, breathing the perfumed
incense of greatness which she had risked her fair name, her delicacy, her
honor, her self-respect, to win ; and she had won it.
There she sat, dressed in white tissue robes, her fair hair flowing
loose over her shoulders, and her temples circled with a light coronet of
gold and diamonds — most beautiful — loveliest — most favored, perhaps, as
she seemed at that hour, of all England's daughters. Alas ! " within the
hollow round of that coronet —
Kept Death his court, and there the antick sate
Scoffing her state and grinning at her pomp ;
Allowing her a little breath, a little scene
To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks,
Infusing her with self and vain conceit.
As if the flesh which walled about her life
Were brass impregnable ; and humored thus,
Bored thro' her castle walls ; and farewell. Queen '
Fatal gift of greatness ! so dangerous ever ! so more than dangerous
in those tremendous times when the fountains are broken loose of the
SCATTER THE GERMS OF THE BEAUTIFUL. I95
great deeps of thought, and nations are in the throes of revolution ; when
ancient order and law and traditions are splitting in the social earthquake ;
and as the opposing forces wrestle to and fro, those unhappy ones who
stand out above the crowd become the symbols of the struggle, and fall the
victims of its alternating fortunes. And what if into an unsteady heart
and brain, intoxicated with splendor, the outward chaos should find its
way, converting the poor silly soul into an image of the same confusion —
if conscience should be deposed from her high place, and the Pandora box
be broken loose of passions and sensualities and follies; and at length there
be nothing left of all which man or woman ought to value, save hope of
God's forgiveness.
Three short years have yet to pass, and again, on a summer morning,
Queen Anne Boleyn will leave the Tower of London — not radiant then
with beauty on a gay errand of coronation, but a poor, wandering ghost,
on a sad, tragic errand, from which she will never more return, passing
away out of an earth where she may stay no longer, into a presence where,
nevertheless, we know that all is well — for all of us — and therefore for
her.
Did any twinge of remorse, any pang of painful recollection, pierce at
that moment the incense of glory which she was inhaling ? Did any
vision flit across her of a sad, mourning figure which once had stood where
she was standing, now desolate, neglected, sinking into the darkening twi-
light of a life cut short by sorrow ? Who can tell ? At such a time that
figure would have weighed heavily upon a noble mind, and a wise mind
would have been taught by the thought of it, that, although life be fleet-
ing as a dream, it is long enough to experience strange vicissitudes of for-
tune.
SCA TTER THE GERMS OF THE BEA UTIFUL.
'ATTER the germs of the beautiful, Let the pure, and the fair, and the graceful
1^1 By the wayside let them fall, there
C^ That the rose may spring by the In the loveliest lustre come
cottage gate, Leave not a trace of deformity
And the vine on the garden wall ; j In the temple of the heart,
Cover the rough and the rude of earth
With a veil of leaves and flowers,
And mark with the opening bud and cup
The march of summer hours !
Scatter the germs of the beautiful
In the holy shrine of home ;
But gather about its hearth the gems
Of nature and of art !
Scatter the germs of the beautiful
In the temples of our God —
The God who starred the uplifted sky,
And flowered the trampled sod !
196
MY CHILDHOOD HOME.
When he built a temple for himself,
And a home for his priestly race,
He reared each arm in symmetry.
And covered each line in grace.
Scatter the germs of the beautiful
In the depths of the human soul !
They shall bud and blossom and bear the
fruit.
While the endless ages roll ;
Plant with the flowers of charity
The portals of the tomb,
And fair and pure about thy path
In Paradise shall bloom.
MY CHILDHOOD HOME.
fOlf HERE'S a little low hut by the river's
^ side,
j^'^^ Within the sound of its rippling tide ;
Its walls are grey with the mosses of
years.
And its roof all crumbled and old
B. P. SHILLABER.
appears ;
But fairer to me than castle's pride
Is the little low hut by the river's side.
The little low hut was ny natal nest.
When my childhood passed — Life's spring-
time blest;
Where the hopes of ardent youth are formed,
And the sun of promise my young heart
warmed.
Ere I threw myself on life's swift tide.
And left the dear hut by the river's side.
That little low hut, in lowly guise,
Was soft and grand to my youthful eyes,
And fairer trees were ne'er known before.
Than the apple-trees by the humble door, —
That my father loved for their thrifty pride, —
That shadowed the hut by the river's side.
That little'low hut had a glad hearthstone.
That echoed of old with a pleasant tone,
THE RUINED MERCHANT.
197
And brothers and sisters, a merry crew,
Filled the hours with pleasure as on they
flew;
But one by one the loved ones died,
That dwelt in the hut by the river's side.
The father revered and the children gay
The graves of the world have called away ;
But quietly, all alone, here sits
By the pleasant window, in summer, and
knits,
An aged woman, long years allied
With the little low hut by the river's side.
That little low hut to the lonely wife
Is the cherished stage of her active life ;
Each scene is recalled in memory's bsam.
As she sits by the window in pensive dream.
And joys and woes roll back like a tide
In that little low hut by the river's side.
My mother — alone by the river's side
She waits for the flood of the heavenly tide.
And the voice that shall thrill her heart witli
its call
To meet once more with the dear ones all,
And forms in a region beautified,
The band that once met by the river's side.
The dear old hut by the river's side
With the warmest pulse of my heart is
allied, —
And a glory is over its dark walls thrown.
That statelier fabrics have never known, —
And I shall love with a fonder pride
That little low hut by the river's side.
THE RUINED
CORA M.
MERCHANT,
EAGER.
fM^ COTTAGE home with sloping lawn,
^■^fe and trellised vines and flowers.
And little feet to chase away the
rosy-fingered hours ;
aT A fair young face to part, at eve,
^ the shadows in the door ; —
I I picture thus a home I knew in
happy days of yore.
Says one, a cherub thing of three, with
childish heart elate,
" Papa is tomin let me do to meet 'im at te
date!"
Another takes the music up, and flings it on
the air,
" Papa has come, but why so slow his footstep
on the stair?"
* father ! did you bring the books I've
waited for so long,
The baby's rocking-horse and drum, and
mother's ' angel song ?'
And did you see " — but something holds the
questioning lips apart.
And something settles very still upon that
joyous heart.
The quick-discerning wife bends down, with
her white hand to stay
The clouds from tangling with the curls that
on his forehead lay ;
To ask, in gentle tones, "Beloved, by what
rude tempest tossed ?"
And list the hollow, " Beggared, lost, — all
ruined, poor, and lost !"
" Nay, say not so, for I am here to share
misfortune's hour,
And prove how better far than gold is love's
unfailing dower.
Let wealth take wings ana fly away, as lai
as wings can soar.
The bird of love will hover near, and only-
sing the more."
" All lost, papa? why here am I ; and, father,
see how tall ;
I.measure fully three feet four, upon the kit-
chen wall ;
I'll tend the flowers, fe 1 the birds, and have
such lots of fun,
I'm big enough to work, papa, for I'm the
oldest son."
198
TRUTH.
"And I, papa, am almost five," says curly-
headed Rose,
" And I can learn to sew, papa, and make all
dolly's clothes.
But what is ' poor,' — to stay at home and have
no place to go ?
Oh ! then I'll ask the Lord, to-night, to make
us always so."
' I'se here, papa; I isn't lost!" and on his
father's knee
He lays his sunny head to rest, that baby-
boy of three.
" And if we get too poor to live," says little
Rose, " you know
There is a better place, papa, a heaven where
we can go.
"And God will come and take us there, dear
father, if we pray.
We need'nt fear the road, papa, He surely
knows the way."
Then from the corner, staff in hand, the
grandma rises slow.
Her snowy cap-strings in the breeze soft
fluttering to and fro :
Totters across the parlor floor, by aid of
kindly hands,
Counting in every little face, her life's declin
ing sands ;
Reaches his side, and whispers low, " God's
promises are sure ;
For every grievous wound, my son. He sends
a ready cure."
The father clasps her hand in his, and quickly
turns aside,
The heaving chest, the rising sigh, the com-
ing tear, to hide ;
Folds to his heart those loving ones, and kis-
ses o'er and o'er
That noble wife whose faithful heart he little
knew before.
" May God forgive me ! What is wealth to
these more precious things,
Whose rich affection round my heart a cease-
less odor flings ?
I think He knew my sordid soul was getting
proud and cold,
And thus to save me, gave me these, and took
away my gold.
" Dear ones, forgive me ; nevermore will I
forget the rod
That brought me safely unto you, and led
me back to God.
I am not poor while these bright links of
priceless love remain,
And, Heaven helping, never more shall
blindness hide the chain."
TB UTH.
JOHN MILTON.
•RUTH, indeed, came once into the world with her Divine Master,
and was a perfect shape, most glorious to look on; but when he
ascended, and his apostles after him were laid asleep, then straight
arose a wicked race of deceivers, who, as that story goes of the
Egyptian Typhon with his conspirators, how they dealt with the
god Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a
thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From that time,
ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear, imitating the
careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and
THE MILKMAID.
199
down gathering up limb by limb, still as they could find them. We have
not yet found them all, Lords and Commons, nor ever shall do, till
her Master's second coming; he shall bring together every joint and
member, and mould them into an immortal feature of loveliness and
perfection.
THE DEATH-BED.
THOMAS HOOD.
m
lirii!^^ watched her breathing through
g^P the night,—
1^ Her breathing soft and low, —
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.
So silently we seemed to speak,
So slowly moved about,
As we had lent her half our powers,
To eke her living out.
I Our weary hopes belied our fears.
Our fears our hopes belied, —
j We thought her dying when she slept,
j And sleeping when she died.
For when the morn came, dim and sad
And chill with early showers.
Her quiet eyelids closed ; — she had
I Another morn than ours.
THE MILKMAID.
JEFFERYS TAYLOR.
^T^9
fV-? MILKMAID, who poised a full pail
on her head,
Thus mused on her prospects in life,
it is said :
" Let me see, — I should think that
this milk will procure
One hundred good eggs, or fourscore, to be
sure.
" Well then, — stop a bit, — it must not be
forgotten.
Some of these may be broken, and some may
be rotten ;
But if twenty for accident should be detached,
It will leave me just sixty sound eggs to be
hatched.
" Well, sixty sound eggs, — no, sound chick-
ens, I mean :
Of these some may die, — we'll suppose seven-
teen.
Seventeen ! not so many, — say ten at the most,
Which will leave fifty chickens to boil or to
roast.
" But then there's their barley : how much
j will they need ?
Why, they take but one grain at a time when
they feed, —
So that's a mere trifle ; now then, let us see.
At a fair market price how much money
there'll be.
" Six shillings a pair — five — four — three-and-
six,
To prevent all mistakes, that low price I
will fix ;
200
THE WATER-MILL.
Now what will that make? fifty chickens,
" Twenty pounds, I am certain, will buy me
I said,—
a cow,
Fifty times three-and-sixpence — I'll ask
Thirty geese, and two turkeys, — eight pigs
Brother Ned.
and a sow ;
Now if these turn out well, at the end of the
" 0, but stop, — three-and-sixpence a pair I
year.
must sell 'em :
I shall fill both my pockets with guineas, 'tis
"Well, a pair is a couple, — now then let us tell
clear."
em ;
A couple in fifty will go (my poor brain !)
Forgetting her burden, when this she had
Why, just a score times, and five pair will
said,
remain.
The maid superciliously tossed up her head ;
When, alas for her prospects ! her milk-pail
" Twenty five pair of fowls — now how tire-
descended.
some it is
And so all her schemes for the future were
That I can't reckon up so much money as
ended.
this !
Well, there's no use in trying, so let's give a
This moral, I think, may be safely attached ;
guess,—
" Reckon not on your chickens before they
I'll say twenty pounds, and it can't be no less.
are hatched."
THJ^ WA TUB-MILL.
D. C. M CALLUM.
^^I^H ! listen to the water-mill, through
|ra| all the live-long day,
^^•■^ As the clicking of the wheels wears
' ^ hour by hour away ;
'^ How languidly the autumn wind
J doth stir the withered leaves,
As on the fields the reapers sing, while bind-
ing up the sheaves !
A solemn proverb strikes my mind, and as a
spell is cast,
" The mill will never grind again with water
that is past."
The summer winds revive no more leaves
strewn o'er earth and main.
The sickle never more will reap the yellow
garnered grain ;
The rippling stream flows ever on, aye tran-
quil, deep and still.
But never glideth back again to busy water-
mill.
The solemn proverb speaks to all, with
meaning deep and vast,
" The mill will never grind again with water
that is past."
Oh ! clasp the proverb to thy soul, dear loving
heart and true,
For golden years are fleeting by, and youth
is passing too ;
Ah ! learn to make the most of life, nor lose
one happy day.
For time will ne'er return sweet joys
neglected, thrown away ;
Nor leave one tender word unsaid, thy kind-
ness sow broadcast —
" The mill will never grind again with water
that is past."
Oh! the wasted hours of life, that have
swiftly drifted by,
Alas ! the good we might have done, all gone
without a sigh ;
Love that we might once have saved by a
single kindly word.
Thoughts conceived but ne'er expressed,
perishing unpenned, unheard.
Oh! take the lesson to thy soul, forever
clasp it fast,
"The mill will never grind again with water
that is past."
TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP.
20]
Work on while yet the sun doth shine, thou
man of strength and will.
The streamlet ne'er doth useless glide by-
clicking water-mill ;
Nor wait until to-morrow's light beams
brightly on thy way,
For all that thou canst call thine own, lies
in the phrase " to-day :"
Possessions, power, and blooming health,
must all be lost at last —
" The mill will never grind again with water
that is past."
Oh ! love thy God and fellow-man, thyself
consider last,
For come it will when thou must scan dark
errors of the past ;
Soon will this fight of life be o'er, and earth
recede from view,
And heaven in all its glory shine where all
is pure and true,
Ah ! then thou'lt see more clearly still the
proverb deep and vast,
THE WATER-MILL.
The mill will never grind again with water
that is past."
TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP.
J. G. HOLLAND.
JE,AMP, tramp, tramp, the boys are marchiug; how many of them?
^«^ Sixty thousand ! Sixty full regiments, every man of which will,
before twelve months shall have completed their course, lie down
in the grave of a drunkard ! Every year during the past decade
has witnessed the same sacrifice ; and sixty regiments stand behind
this army ready to take its place. It is to be recruited from our children
and our children's children. Tramp, tramp, tramp — the sounds come to
us in the echoes of the army just expired ; tramp, tramp, tramp — rthe
earth shakes with the tread of the host now passing ; tramp, tramp,
tramp — comes to us from the camp of the recruits. A great tide of life
flows resistlessly to its death. What in God's name are they fighting for ?
The privilege of pleasing an appetite, of conforming to a social usage, of
filling sixty thousand homes with shame and sorrow, of loading the public
with the burden of pauperism, of crowding our prison-houses with felons,
of detracting from the productive industries of the country, of ruining for-
202 TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP.
tunes and breaking hopes, of breeding disease and wretchedness, of de-
stroying both body and soul in hell before their time.
The prosperity of the liquor interest, covering every department of it,
depends entirely on the maintenance of this army. It cannot live without
it. It never did live without it. So long as the liquor interest maintains
its present prosperous condition, it will cost America the sacrifice
of sixty thousand men every year. The effect is inseparable from the
cause. The cost to the country of the liquor trafiic is a sum so stu-
pendous that any figures which we should dare to give would convict
us of trifling. The amount of life absolutely destroyed, the amount
of industry sacrificed, the amount of bread transformed into poison,
the shame, the unavailing sorrow, the crime, the poverty, the pauperism,
the brutality, the wild waste of vital and financial resources, make
an aggregate so vast — so incalculably vast, — that the only wonder is that
the American people do not rise as one man and declare that this great
curse shall exist no longer.
A hue-and-cry is raised about woman-suffrage, as if any wrong which
may be involved in woman's lack of the suffrage could be compared to the
wrongs attached to the liquor interest.
Does any sane woman doubt that women are suffering a thousand
times more from rum than from any political disability ?
The truth is that there is no question before the American people
to-day that begins to match in importance the temperance question. The
question of American slavery was never anything but a baby by the side
of this ; and we prophesy that within ten years, if not within five, the
whole country will be awake to it, and divided upon it. The organizations
of the liquor interest, the vast funds at its command, the universal feeling
among those whose business is pitted against the national prosperity and
the public morals— these are enough to show that, upon one side of this
matter, at least, the present condition of things and the social and political
questions that lie in the immediate future are apprehended. The liquor
interest knows there is to be a great struggle and is pr'^'^aring to meet it.
People both in this country and in Great Britain are beginning to see the
enormity of this business — are beginning to realize that Christian civiliza-
tion is actually poisoned at its fountain, and that there can be no purifica-
tion of it until the source of the poison is dried up.
Temperance laws are being passed by the various Legislatures, which
they must sustain, or go over, soul and body, to the liquor interest and
influence. Steps are being taken on behalf of the public health, morals,
and prosperity, which they must approve by voice and act, or they must
ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.
203
consent to be left behind and left out. There can be no concession and
no compromise on the part of temperance men, and no quarter to the foe.
The great curse of our country and our race must be destroyed.
Meantime, the tramp, tramp, tramp, sounds on, — the tramp of sixty
thousand yearly victims. Some are besotted and stupid, some are wild
with hilarity and dance along the dusty way, some reel along in pitiful
weakness, some wreak their mad and murderous impulses on one another,
or on the helpless women and children whose destinies are united to theirs,
some stop iu wayside debaucheries and infamies for a moment, some go
bound in chains from which they seek in vain to wrench their bleeding
wrists, and all are poisoned in body and soul, and all are doomed to death.
EXTRACT FROM GRA Y'S ELEGY.
THOMAS GRAY.
I^ULL many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark, unfatliomed caves of
ocean bear ;
Full many a flower is born to blush
unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
14
Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless
breast,
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute, inglorious ^lilton here may rest ;
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's
blood.
204
ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.
The applause of listening senates to com-
mand,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land.
And read their history in a nation's eyes.
Their lot forbade ; nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes
confined ;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a
throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind ;
The struggling pangs of conscious truth to
hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride
With incense kindled at the muse's flame.
Far from the mad'ning crowd's ignoble
strife,
Their sober wishes never learned to stray ;
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their
way.
Yet even these bones from insult to protect.
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture
decked,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
Their name, their years, spelt by the unlet-
tered muse.
The place of fame and elegy supply ;
And many a holy text around she strews.
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey.
This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned.
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day.
Nor cast one longing, lingering look
behind?
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires ;
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature
cries.
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.
For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale re-
late ;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led.
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate.
Haply some hoary-headed swain may say : —
" Oft have we seen him, at the peep ol
dawn,
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.
" There at the foot of yonder nodding beech.
That wreathes its old, fantastic roots so
high.
His listless length at noontide would he
stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles
by.
" Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn.
Muttering his wayward fancies, he would
rove ;
Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn.
Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless
love.
" One morn I missed him on the customed
hill.
Along the heath, and near his favorite
tree;
Another came, — nor yet beside the rill.
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was
he;
" The next, with dirges due, in sad array.
Slow through the church-way path we saw
him borne ; —
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the
lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged
thorn."
THE EPITAPH.
Here rests liis head upon the lap of earth
A youth to fortune and to fame unknown ;
Fair science frowned not on his humble
birth.
And melancholy marked him for her own.
THE ANGLER.
205
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere ;
Heaven did a recompense as largely send;
He gave to misery (all he had) a tear,
He gained from heaven ('twas all he
wished) a friend.
No further seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread
abode, —
(There they alike in trembling hope repose,)
The bosom of his Father and his God.
LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS.
FELICIA HEMANS.
^HE breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
^5^ And the woods against a stormy sky
'^ Their giant branches tossed ;
I And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and waters o'er.
When a band of exiles moored their
bark
On the wild New England shore.
Not as the conqueror comes.
They, the true-hearted, came ;
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame ;
Not as the flying come.
In silence and in fear ; —
They shook the depths of the desert gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.
Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard, and the sea ;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To tlie anthem of the free.
The ocean eagle soared
From his nest by the white wave's foam.
And the rocking pines of the forest roared,—
This was their welcome home.
There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim-band :
Why had they come to wither there.
Away from their childhood's land ?
There was woman's fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love's truth ;
There was manhood's brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.
What sought they thus afar ?
Bright jewels of the mine ?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war ? —
They sought a faith's pure shrine !
Ay, call it holy ground.
The soil where first they trod ;
They have left unstained what there they
found, —
Freedom, to worship God.
THE ANGLER.
CHALKHILL.
THE gallant fisher's life,
It is the best of any !
'Tis full of pleasure, void of strife!
And 'tis beloved by many ;
Other joys
Are but toys;
Only this
Lawful is ;
For our skill
Breeds no ill.
But content and pleasure.
206
THE ANGLER.
In a morning, up we rise,
When we please to walk abroad
Ere Aurora's peeping;
For our recreation.
Drink a cup to wasli our eyes,
In the fields is our abode,
Leave the sluggard sleeping ;
Full of delectation,
Then we go
Where, in a brook,
' the gallant fisher's life,
It is the best of any !"
To and fro.
With our knacks
At our backs.
To such streams
As the Thames,
If we have the leisure.
With a hook,—
Or a lake, —
Fish we take ;
There we sit,
For a bit.
Till we fish entangle.
IMMORTALITY.
207
We have gentles in a horn,
We have paste and worms too ;
We can watch both night and morn,
Suffer rain and storms too ;
None do here
Use to swear:
Oaths do fray
Fish away ;
We sit still.
Watch our quill :
Fishers must not wrangle.
If the sun's excessive heat
Make our bodies swelter.
To an osier hedge we get,
For a friendly shelter ;
Where, in a dike.
Perch or pike,
Roach or dace.
We do chase,
Bleak or gudgeon.
Without grudging ;
We are still contented.
Or we sometimes pass an hour
Under a green willow,
That defends us from a shower,
Making earth our pillow ;
Where we may
Think and pray.
Before death
Stops our breath ;
Other joys
Are but toys.
And to be lamented.
UniORTALITY
MASSILLON.
^F we wholly perish with the body, what an imposture is this whole
system of laws, manners, and usages, on which human society is
founded ! If we wholly perish with the body, these maxims of
charity, patience, justice, honor, gratitude, and friendship, which
f sages have taught and good men have practised, what are they but
empty words possessing no real and binding efficacy? "Why should
we heed them, if in this life only we have hope? Speak not of duty.
What can we owe to the dead, to the Hving, to ourselves, if all are or
loill he, nothing? "Who shall dictate our duty, if not our own pleasures, —
if not our own passions ? Speak not of morality. It is a mere chimera,
a bugbear of human invention, if retribution terminate with the grave.
If we must wholly perish, what to us are the sweet ties of kindred ?
"What the tender names of parent, child, sister, brother, husband, wife, or
friend ? The characters of a drama are not more illusive. We have no
ancestors, no descendants ; since succession cannot be predicated of nothing-
ness. Would we honor the illustrious dead ? How absurd to honor that
which has no existence ! W^ould we take thought for posterity ? How
frivolous to concern ourselves for those whose end, like our own, must soon
be annihilation ! Have we made a promise ? How can it bind nothing to
nothing ? Perjury is but a jest. The last injunctions of the dying, what
208
THE TEMPEST.
sanctity have they, more than the last sound of a chord that is snapped, of
an instrument that is broken ?
To sum up ail : If we must wholly perish, then is obedience to the laws
but an insane servitude; rulers and magistrates are but the phantoms
which popular imbecility has raised up ; justice is an unwarrantable in-
fringement upon the liberty of men, — an imposition, a usurpation ; the law
of marriage is a vain scruple; modesty a prejudice; honor and probity,
such stuff as dreams are made of; and incests, murders, parricides, the
most heartless cruelties and the blackest crimes, are but the legitimate
sports of man's irresponsible nature ; while the harsh epithets attached to
them are merely such as the policy of legislators has invented, and imposed
upon the credulity of the people.
Here is the issue to which the vaunted philosophy of unbelievers must
inevitably lead. Here is that social felicity, that sway of reason, that
emancipation from error, of which they eternally prate, as the fruit of
their doctrines. Accept their maxims, and the whole world falls back into
a frightful chaos ; and all the relations of life are confounded; and all ideas
of vice and virtue are reversed ; and the most inviolable laws of society
vanish ; and all moral discipline perishes ; and the government of states
and nations has no longer any cement to uphold it ; and all the harmony
of the body politic becomes discord ; and the human race is no more than
an assemblage of reckless barbarians, shameless, remorseless, brutal, de-
naturalized, with no other law than force, no other check than passion, no
other bond than irreligion, no other God than self! Such would be the
world which impiety would make. Such would be this world, were a belief
in God and immortality to die out of the human heart.
THE TEMPEST.
J. T. FIELDS.
E were crowded in the cabin,
Not a soul would daro to sleep,-
|sMfc It was midnight on the waters
^^^'^ And a storm upon the deep.
'T is a fearful thing in winter
To be shattered by the blast,
And to hear the rattling trumpet
Thunder, " Cut away the mast !"
So we shuddered there in silence, —
For the stoutest held his breath,
While the hungry sea was roaring.
And the breakers talked with Death.
As thus we sat in darkness,
Each one busy in his prayers,
" We are lost !" the captain shouted
As he staggered down the stairs.
OLD-SCHOOL PUNISHMENT.
209
But his little daughter whispered,
As she took his icy hand,
" la n't God upon the ocean
Just the same as on the land ?"
Then we kissed the little maiden,
And we spoke in better cheer,
And we anchored safe in harbor
When the morn was shining clear.
INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
UR birth ;
3 but
ting ;
sleep and a forget-
The soul that rises with us, our life's
star.
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And Cometh from afar.
Not in entire forgetfulness.
And not in utter nakedness.
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
From God, who is our home.
Heaven lies about us in our infancy !
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy ;
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,-
He sees it in his joy.
The youth who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is nature's priest.
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended :
At length the man perceives it die away.
And fade into the light of common day.
Oh joy ! that in our embers
Is something that doth live.
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive !
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction : not, indeed,
For that which is most worthy to be blest, —
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest.
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his
breast, —
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise ;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things.
Fallings from us, vanishings.
Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realized.
High instincts before which our mortal nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised, —
But for those first affections.
Those shadowy recollections.
Which, be they what they may.
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day
Are yet a master light of all our seeing,
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal silence : truths that wake.
To perish never, —
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor.
Nor man nor boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy !
Hence in a season of calm weather.
Though inland far we be.
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither, —
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the children sport upon the shore.
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
OLD-SCHOOL PUNISHMENT.
-^^
SLD Master Brown brought his ferule
down,
And his face looked angry and
red.
" Go, seat you there, now, Anthony Blair,
Along with the girls," he said.
Then Anthony Blair, with a mortified air,
With his head down on his breast,
210
DRIFTING.
Took his penitent seat by the maiden sweet
That he loved, of all, the best.
And Anthony Blair, seemed whimpering
there,
But the rogue only made believe ;
For he peeped at the girls with the beautiful
curls.
And ogled them over his sleeve.
DRIFTING.
T. BUCHANAN READ
]Y soul to-day
1^^ Is far away
Sailing the Vesuvian Bay ;
My winged boat,
A bird afloat,
Swims round the purple peaks remote : —
Round purple peaks
It sails, and seeks
Blue inlets and their crystal creeks,
Where high rocks throw,
Through deeps below,
A duplicated golden glow.
Far, vague, and dim.
The mountains swim ;
"While on Vesuvius' misty brim,
With outstretched hands,
The gray smoke stands
O'erlooking the volcanic lands.
Here Ischia smiles
O'er liquid miles ;
And yonder, bluest of the isles,
Calm Capri waits.
Her sapphire gates
Beguiling to her bright estates.
I heed not, if
My rippling skiff
Float swift or slow from cliff to cliff; —
With dreamful eyes
My spirit lies
Under the walls of Paradise.
Under the walls
Where swells and falls
The bay's deep breast at intervals
At peace I lie.
Blown softly by,
A cloud upon this liquid sky.
The day, so mild.
Is Heaven's own child.
With earth and ocean reconciled ; —
The airs I feel
Around me steal
Are murmuring to the murmuring keeh
Over the rail
My hand I trail
Wichin the shadow of the sail,
A joy intense.
The cooling sense
Glides down my drowsy indolence.
With dreamful eyes
My spirit lies
Where summer sings and never dies. —
O'erveiled with vines.
She glows and shines
Among her future oil and wines.
Iler children, hid
The cliffe amid.
Are gamboling with the gamboling kid;
Or down the walls,
With tipsy calls.
Laugh on the rocks like waterfalls.
The fisher's child,
With tresses wild,
Unto the smooth, bright sand beguiled.
With glowing lips
Sings as she skips,
Or gazes at the far off ships.
Yon deep bark goes
Where traffic blows,
From lands of sun to lands of snows ;—
This happier one,
Its course is run
From lands of snow to lands of sun.
EUROPEAN GUIDES. 211
happy ship,
To rise and dip,
"With the blue crystal at your lip !
O happy crew,
No more, no more
The worldly shore
Upbraids me with its loud uproar !
With dreamful eyes
My heart with you ' My spirit lies
Sails, and sails, and sings anew ! Under the walls of Paradise !
EUROPEAN GUIDES.
S. C. CLEMENS.
^UROPEAN guides know about enough English to tangle everything
*^ up so that a man can make neither head nor tail of it. They know
their story by heart, — the history of every statue, painting, cathe-
dral, or other wonder they show you. They know it and tell it
as a parrot would, — and if you interrupt, and throw them off the
track, they have to go back and begin over again. All their lives long they
are employed in showing strange things to foreigners and listening to their
bursts of admiration.
It is human nature to take delight in exciting admiration. It is what
prompts children to say " smart " things, and do absurd ones, and in other
ways "show off" when company is present. It is what makes gossips turn
out in rain and storm to go and be the first to tell a startling bit of news.
Think, then, what a passion it becomes with a guide, whose privilege it is,
every day, to show to strangers wonders that throw them into perfect
ecstacies of admiration ! He gets so that he could not by a,ny possibility
live in a soberer atmosphere.
After we discovered this, we n&oer went into ecstacies any more, — ^we
never admired anything, — we never showed any but impassible faces and
stupid indifference in the face of the sublimest wonders a guide had to dis-
play. We had found their weak point. We have made good use of it
ever since. We have made some of those people savage, at times, but we,
have never lost our serenity.
The doctor asks the questions generally, because he can keep his
countenance, and look more like an inspired idiot, ajid throw more imbe-
cility into the tone of his voice than any man that lives. It comes natural
to him.
The guides in Genoa are delighted to secure an American party,
because Americans so much wonder, and deal so much in sentiment and
emotion before any relic of Columbus. Our guide there fidgeted about as
212 EUROPEAN GUIDES.
if he liad swallowed a spring mattress. He was full of animation, — full of
impatience. He said : —
" Come wis me, genteelmen ! — come ! I show you ze letter writing
by Christopher Colombo! — write it himself! — write it wis his own hand I
— come !"
He took us to the municipal palace. After much impressive fumbling
of keys and opening of locks, the stained and aged document was spread
before us. The guide's eyes sparkled. He danced about us and tapped
the parchment with his finger : —
What I tell you, genteelmen I Is it not so ? See ! handwriting
Christopher Colombo ! — write it himself!"
We looked indifferent, — unconcerned. The doctor examined the docu-
ment very deliberately, during a painful pause. Then he said, without any
show of interest, — ■
*' Ah, — Ferguson, — what — what did you say was the name of the
party who wrote this ?"
" Christopher Colombo ! ze great Christopher Colombo !"
Another deliberate examination.
" Ah, — did he write it himself, or, — or how ?"
" He write it himself ! — Christopher Colombo ! he's own handwriting,
write by himself!"
Then the doctor laid the document down and said, — " Why, I have seen
boys in America only fourteen years old that could write better than that."
" But zis is ze great Christo— ■"
" I don't care who it is ! It's the worst writing I ever saw. Now
you mustn't think you can impose on us because we are strangers. We are
not fools, by a good deal. If you have got any specimens of penmanship
of real merit, trot them out! — and if you haven't, drive on !"
We drove on. The guide was considerably shaken up, but he made
one more venture. Her had something which he thought would overcome
U8. He said, —
" Ah, genteelmen, you come wis us ! I show you beautiful, oh, mag-
nificent bust Christopher Colombo ! — splendid, grand, magnificent !"
He brought us before the beautiful bust, — for it ivas beautiful, — and
sprang back and struck an attitude : —
" Ah, look, genteelmen ! — beautiful, grand, — bust Christopher Co-
lombo ! — beautiful bust, beautiful pedestal !"
The doctor put up his eye-glass, — procured for such occasions : —
" Ah, — what did you say this gentleman's name was ?"
" Christopher Colombo ! ze great Christopher Colombo !"
EUROPEAN GUIDES. £13
"Christopher Colombo, — the great Christopher Colombo. Well, what
did he do ?"
"Discover America! — discover America, oh, ze devil!"
" Discover America ? No, — that statement will hardly wash. We
are just from America ourselves. We heard nothing about it. Christo-
pher Colombo, — pleasant name, — is — is he dead ?"
" Oh, corpo di Baccho ! — three hundred year !"
"What did he die of ?"
" I do not know. I cannot tell,"
" Small-pox, think ?"
" I do not know, genteelmen, — I do not know what he die of."
" Measles, likely ?"
"Maybe, — maybe. I do not know, — I think he die of something."
" Parents living ?"
" Im-posseeble !
" Ah, — which is the bust an(i which is the pedestal ?"
" Santa Maria ! — zis ze bust I — zis ze pedestal !"
" Ah, I see, I see, — happy combination, — very happy combination
indeed. Is — is this the first time this gentleman was ever on a bust ?"
That joke was lost on the foreigner, — guides cannot master the sub-
tleties of the American joke.
We have made it interesting for this Eoman guide. Yesterday
we spent three or four hours in the Vatican again, that wonderful
world of curiosities. We came very near expressing interest sometimes,
even admiration. It was hard to keep from it. We succeeded, though.
Nobody else ever did, in the Vatican museums. The guide was bewildered,
nonplussed. He walked his legs off, nearly, hunting up extraordinary
things, and exhausted all his ingenuity on us, but it was a failure ; we
never showed any interest in anything. He had reserved what he con-
sidered to be his greatest wonder till the last, — a royal Egyptian mummy,
the best preserved in the world, perhaps. He took us there. He felt so
sure, this time, that some of his old enthusiasm came back to him : —
" See, genteelmen ! — Mummy ! Mummy !"
The eye-glass came up as calmly, as deliberately as ever.
" Ah, — Ferguson, — what did I understand you to say the gentleman's
name was ?"
" Name ? — he got no name ! — mummy ! — 'Gyptian mummy I"
" Yes, yes. Born here ?"
" No. 'Gyptian mummy."
" Ah, just so. Frenchman, I presume ?"
214
THANATOPSIS.
Playing us
Trying to
"No! — not Frenchman, not Roman! — born in Egypta !"
" Born in Egypta. Never heard of Egypta before. Foreign locality,
likely. Mummy, — mummy. How calm he is, how self-possessed ! Is —
ah ! — is he dead ?"
"Oh, sacre bleu! been dead three thousan' year !"
The doctor turned on him savagely : —
" Here, now, what do you mean by such conduct as this ?
for Chinamen because we are strangers and trying to learn !
impose your vile, second-hand carcasses on us ! Thunder and lightning !
I've a mind to — to — if you've got a nice fresh corpse, fetch him out ! — or,
by George, we'll brain you!"
We make it exceedingly interesting for this Frenchman. However,
he has paid us back, partly, without knowing it. He came to the hotel
this morning to ask if we were up, and he endeavored, as well as he could
to describe us, so that the landlord would know which persons he meant.
He finished with the casual remark that we were lunatics. The observa-
tion was so innocent and so honest that it amounted to a very good thing
for a guide to say.
Our Roman Ferguson is the most patient, unsuspecting, long-suffering,
subj ect we have had yet. We shall be sorry to part with him. We have
enjoyed his society very much. We trust he has enjoyed ours, but we are
harassed with doubts.
THANATOPSIS.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
^MBO him, who, in the love of Nature,
^Mm toids
f' Communion with her visible forms,
l» she speaks
, A various language: for his gayer
^ hours
J She has a voice of gladness and a
smile
And eloquence of beauty ; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When
thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
•Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart,
Go forth under the open sky and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all
around —
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air —
Comes a still voice, — Yet a few days, and
thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many
tears.
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
' To him, who, in the love of Nature, holds
CommunioQ with her visible forms, she speakc
A irarinna lancrnaae'
TIIANATOrSIS.
215
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee,
shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again ;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements ;
To be a brother to the insensible rock.
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude
swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The
oak
THE VE^'EEABLE WOODS.
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy
mould.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, — nor couldst thou
wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie
down
With patriarchs of the infant world, — with
The powerful of the earth, — the wise, the
good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills,
Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun ; the
vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between ;
The venerable woods ; rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks,
That make the meadows green ; and, poured
round all,
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, —
1)
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man! The golden
sun.
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death.
Through the still lapse of ages. All that
tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, traverse Barca's desert sands,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings. — Yet the dead are
there !
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them
down
In their last sleep,— the dead reign there
alone !
So shalt thou rest ; and what if thou with-
draw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? The gay will
laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of
care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall
leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall
come
And make their bed with thee. As the long
train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men —
The youth in life's green spring, and he who
goes
In the full strength of years, matron and
maid,
The bowed with age, the infant in the smiles
And beauty of its innocent age cut off —
Shall one by one, be gathered to thy side
By those who in their turn shall follow
them.
So live that when thy summons comes to
join
The innumerable caravan that moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall
take
His chamber in the silent halls of death.
216
THE PAUPER'S DEATH-BED.
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and
soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his coucli
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
THE GOUTY MERCHANT AND THE STRANGER.
HORACE SMITH.
ffijfgsN Broad Street buildings (on a winter
night),
^\jM| Snug by his parlor fire, a gouty wight
Sat all alone, with one hand rubbing
His feet rolled up in fleecy hose,
J With t'other he'd beneath his nose
The Public Ledger, in whose columns
grubbing.
He noted all the sales of hops.
Ships, shops, and slops ;
Gum, galls, and groceries ; ginger, gin.
Tar, tallow, turmeric, turpentine, and tin ;
Wlien lo ! a decent personage in black.
Entered and most politely said —
" Your footman, sir, has gone his nightly
track
To the King's Head,
And left your door ajar, which I
Observed in passing by ;
And thought it neighborly to give you
notice."
"Ten thousand thanks!" the gouty man
replied ;
" You see, good sir, how to my chair I'm
tied ; —
" Ten thousand thanks how very few do get.
In time of danger.
Such kind attention from a stranger !
Assuredly, that fellow's throat is
Doomed to a final drop at Newgate ;
He knows, too, (the unconscionable elf,)
That there's no soul at home except my-
self."
"Indeed," replied the stranger (looking
grave,)
" Then he's a double knave:
He knows that rogues and thieves by scores
Nightly beset unguarded doors ;
And see, how easily might one
Of these domestic foes,
Even beneath your very nose.
Perform his knavish tricks:
Enter your room as I have done.
Blow out your candles — thus — and thus —
Pocket your silver candlesticks :
And — walk off — thus " —
So said, so done ; he made no more remark
Nor waited for replies,
But marched off with his prize,
Leaving the gouty merchant in the dark.
THE PAUPERS DEATH-BED.
MRS. C. B. SOUTHEY.
iipREAD softly, bow the head ;
MS In reverent silence bow ;
reii? No passing bell doth toll,
Yet an immortal soul
Is passing now.
I- Stranger ! however great.
With lowly reverence bow
There's one in that poor shed,
One by that paltry bed,
Greater than thou.
Beneath that beggar's roof,
Lo ! Death doth keep his state j
Enter — no crowds attend ;
Enter — no guards defend
This palace gate.
That pavement, damp and cold,
No smiling courtiers tread ;
One silent woman stands.
Lifting with meagre hands
A dying head.
MOUSE-HUNTING.
217
No mingling voices sound —
An infant wail alone ;
A sob suppressed — again
That short, deep gasp, and then
The parting groan.
Oh, change ! — Oh, wondrous change
Burst are the prison bars—
This moment there, so low,
So agonized, and now
Beyond the stars !
Oh, change — stupendous change I
There lies the soulless clod !
The sun eternal breaks —
The new immortal wakes —
Wakes with his God 1
MO USE-HUNTING.
B. P. SHILLABER.
ppT was midnight, deep and still, in the mansion of Mrs. Partington, — ^as
fs^ it was, very generally, about town, — on a cold night in March. So
profound was the silence that it awakened Mrs. P., and she raised
* herself upon her elbow to listen. No sound greeted her ears, save
1 the tick of the old wooden clock in the next room, which stood there
^ in the dark, like an old crone, whispering and gibbering to itself.
Mrs. Partington relapsed beneath the folds of the blankets, and had one
eye again well-coaxed towards the realm of dreams, while the other was
holding by a very frail tenure upon the world of reality, when her ear was
saluted by the nibble of a mouse, directly beneath her chamber window,
and the mouse was evidently gnawing her chamber carpet.
Now, if there is an animal in the catalogue of creation that she dreads
and detests, it is a mouse ; and she has a vague and indefinite idea that
rats and mice wp-re made with especial regard to her individual torment.
As she heard the sound of the nibble by the window, she arose again upon
her elbow, and cried " Shoo ! Shoo !" energetically, several times. The
sound ceased, and she fondly fancied that her trouble was over. Again
she laid herself away as carefully as she would have lain eggs at forty-five
cents a dozen, when— m66^^, nibble, nibble ! — she once more heard the
odious sound by the window. " Shoo !" cried the old lady again, at the
same time hurling her shoe at the spot from whence the sound proceeded,
where the little midnight marauder was carrying on his depredations.
A Hght burned upon the hearth — she couldn't sleep without a light, —
and she strained her eyes in vain to catch a glimpse of her tormentor play-
ing about amid the shadows of the room. All again was silent, and the
clock, giving an admonitory tremble, struck twelve. Midnight! and Mrs.
Partington counted the tintinabulous knots as they ran ofi" the reel of Time,
with a saddened heart.
218 MOUSE-HUNTING.
Nibble, nibble, nibble! — again that sound. The old lady sighed as she
hurled the other shoe at her invisible annoyance. It was all without avail,
and "shooing" was bootless, for the sound came again to her wakeful ear.
At this point her patience gave out, and, conquering her dread of the cold,
she arose and opened the door of her room that led to a corridor, when,
taking the light in one hand, and a shoe in the other, she made the circuit
of the room, and explored every nook and cranny in which a mouse could
ensconse himself. She looked under the bed, and under the old chest of
drawers, and under the wash-stand, and " shooed " until she could "shoo "
no more.
The reader's own imagination, if he has an imagination skilled in limning,
must draw the picture of the old lady while upon this exploring expedition,
" accoutred as she was," in search of the ridiculous mouse. We have our
own opinion upon the subject, and must say, — with all due deference to
the years and virtues of Mrs. P., and with all regard for personal attrac-
tions very striking in one of her years, — we should judge that she cut a
very queer figure, indeed.
Satisfying herself that the mouse must have left the room, she closed
the door, deposited the light upon the hearth, and again sought repose.
How gratefully a warm bed feels, when exposure to the night air has
chilled us, as we crawl to its enfolding covert ! How we nestle down, like
an infant by its mother's breast, and own no joy superior to that we feel, —
coveting no regal luxury while revelling in the elysium of feathers ! So
felt Mrs. P., as she again ensconsed herself in bed. The clock in the next
room struck one.
She was again near the attainment of the state when dreams are rife,
when, close by her chamber-door, outside she heard that hateful nibble
renewed which had marred her peace before. With a groan she arose, and,
seizing her lamp, she opened the door, and had the satisfaction to hear the
mouse drop, step by step, until he reached the floor below. Convinced that
she was now rid of him for the night, she returned to bed, and ad-
dressed herself to sleep. The room grew dim ; in the weariness of her
spirit, the chest of drawers in the corner was fast losing its identity and
becoming something else ; in a moment more — nibble, nibble, nibble ! again
outside of the chamber-door, as the clock in the next room struck two.
Anger, disappointment, desperation, fired her mind with a new deter-
mination. Once more she arose, but this time she put on a shoe ! — her
dexter shoe. Ominous movement ! It is said that when a woman wets
her finger, fleas had better flee. The star of that mouse's destiny was set-
ting, and was now near the horizon. She opened the door quickly, and,
DOING GOOD, TRUE HAPPINESS. 219
as she listened a moment, she heard him drop again from stair to stair, on
a speedy passage down.
The entry below was closely secured, and no door was open to admit
of his escape. This she knew, and a triumphant gleam shot athwart her
features, revealed by the rays of the lamp. She went slowly down the
stairs, until she arrived at the floor below, where, snugly in a corner, with
his little bead-like black eyes looking up at her roguishly, was the gnawer of
her carpet, and the annoyer of her comfort. She moved towards him, and
he not coveting the closer acquaintance, darted by her. She pursued him to
the other end of the entry, and again he passed by her. Again and again she
pursued him, with no better success. At last, when in most doubt as to which
side would conquer, Fortune perched upon the banister, turned the scale in
favor of Mrs. P. The mouse, in an attempt to run by her, presumed too
much upon former success. He came too near her upraised foot. It fell
upon his musipilar beauties, like an avalanche of snow upon a new tile,
and he was dead forever ! Mrs. Partington gazed upon him as he lay
before her. Though she was glad at the result, she could but sigh at
the necessity which impelled the violence; but for which the mouse might
have long continued a blessing to the society in which he moved.
Slowly and sadly she marched up stairs,
With her shoe all sullied and gory ;
And the watch, who saw't through the front door squares,
Told us this part of the story.
That mouse did not trouble Mrs. Partington again that night, and the
old clock in the next room struck three before sleep again visited the eye-
lids of the relict of Corporal Paul.
DOING GOOD, TRUE HAPPINESS.
CARLOS WILCOX.
^§OULDST thou from sorrow find a
sweet relief?
Or is thy heart oppress'd with
..».>. woes untold ?
f Balm wouldst thou gather from
¥ corroding grief?
j Pour blessings round thee like a
shower of gold.
*Tis when the rose is wrapp'd in many a fold
Close to its heart, the worm is wasting there
Its life and beauty ; not when, all un-
roll'd.
Leaf after leaf, its bosom, rich and fair,
Breathes freely its perfumes throughout the
ambient air.
Wake, thou that sleepest in enchanted
bowers.
220
TO THE SILENT RIVER.
Lest these lost years should haunt thee on
the night
When death is waiting for thy number'd hours
To take their swift and everlasting flight ;
"Wake, ere the earth-born charm unnerve
thee quite,
And be thy thoughts to work divine address'd ;
Do something — do it soon — with all thy
might ;
An angel's wing would droop if long at rest,
And God himself, inactive, were no longer
blest.
Some high or humble enterprise of good
Contemplate, till it shall possess thy mind,
Become thy study, pastime, rest, and food.
And kindle in thy heart a flame refined.
Pray Heaven for firmness thy whole soul
to bind
To this thy purpose — to begin, pursue.
With thoughts all fix'd, and feelings purely
kind ;
Strength to complete, and with delight review.
And grace to give the praise where all is ever
due.
No good of worth sublime will Heaven permit
To light on man as from the passing air ;
The lamp of genius, though by nature lit.
If not protected, pruned, and fed with care.
Soon dies, or runs to waste with fitful
glare ;
And learning is a plant that spreads and towers
Slow as Columbia's aloe, proudly rare.
That 'mid gay thousands, with the suns and
showers
Of half a century, grows alone before it
flowers.
Has immortality of name been given
To them that idly worship hills and groveSj
And burn sweet incense to the queen of hea-
ven?
Did Newton learn from fancy, as it roves,
To measure worlds, and follow where each
Did Howard gain renown that shall not cease,
By wanderings wild that nature's pilgrim
loves ?
Or did Paul gain heaven's glory and its peace
By musing o'er the bright and tranquil isles
of Greece?
Beware lest thou, from sloth, that would ap-
pear
But lowliness of mind, with joy proclaim
Thy want of worth, — a charge thou couldst
not hear
From other lips, without a blush of shame.
Or pride indignant ; then be thine the
blame.
And make thyself of worth ; and thus enlist
The smiles of all the good, the dear to fame ;
'Tis infamy to die and not be miss'd,
Or let all soon forget that thou didst e'er exist.
Rouse to some work of high and holy love,
And thou an angel's happiness shalt know ;
Shalt bless the earth while in the world above ;
The good begun by thee shall onward flow
In many a branching stream, and wider
grow ;
The seed that, in these few and fleeting hours,
Thy hand, unsparing and unwearied, sow
Shall deck thy grave with amaranthine flow'rs,
And yield thee fruits divine in heaven's
immortal bowers.
TO THE SILENT RIVER.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
^IVER that in silence windest
^^ Through the meadows bright and
~ '\, free,
"Till at length thy rest thou findest
In the bosom of the sea !
Four long years of mingled feeling.
Half in rest, and half in strife,
I have seen thy waters stealing
Onward, like the stream of life.
TO THE SILENT RIVER
Thou hast taught me, Silent River !
Many a lesson deep and long ;
Thou hast been a generous giver ;
I can give thee but a song.
Oft in sadness, and in illness
I have watched thy current glide,
Till the beauty of its stillness
Overflowed me, like a tide,
222
SONG OF THE BROOK.
And in bitter hours and brighter,
When 1 saw thy waters gleam,
I have felt my heart beat lighter.
And leap forward with thy stream.
Not for this alone I love thee,
Nor because thy waves of blue
From celestial seas above thee
Take their own celestial hue.
Where yon shadowy woodlands hide thee,
And thy waters disappear,
Friends I love have dwelt beside thee.
And have made thy margin dear.
Friends my soul with joy remembers !
How like quivering flames they start.
When I fan the living embers
On the hearth-stone of my heart !
'Tis for this, then, Silent River !
That my spirit leans to thee ;
Thou hast been a generous giver.
Take this idle song from me.
SONG OF THE BROOK.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
^JP COME from haunts of coot and hern
|M I make a sudden sally
^p And sparkle out among the fern,
4vh To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges.
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river.
For men may come and men may go.
But I go on forever.
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubl)le into eddying bays,
I babble on the ])ebbles.
With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow.
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river ;
For men may come and men may go.
But I go on forever.
I wind about, and in and out.
With here a blossom sailing.
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling.
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,
CAUGHT IN THE QUICKSAND. 223
And draw them all along, and flow | I make the netted sunbeam dance
To join the brimming river, ' Against my sandy shallows.
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever. I murmur under moon and star.s
I steal by lawns and grassy plots ;
' I slide by hazel covers ;
I love the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among rny skimming swallows ;
In brambly wilder
I linger by my shingly bars ;
I loiter round my
And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
CAUGHT IJS^ THE QUICKSAND.
VICTOR HUGO.
PpT sometimes happens that a man, traveler or fisherman, walking on
^ the beach at low tide, far from the bank, suddenly notices that for
2k several minutes he has been walking with some difficulty. The
^ strand beneath his feet is like pitch ; his soles stick in it ; it is sand
'X no longer ; it is glue.
si The beach is perfectly dry, but at every step he takes, as soon
as he lifts his foot, the print which it leaves fills with water. The eye,
however, has noticed no change ; the immense strand is smooth and tran-
quil; all the sand has the same appearance; nothing distinguishes the
surface which is solid from that which is no longer so ; the joyous little
crowd of sand-flies continue to leap tumultuously over the wayfarer's feet.
The man pursues his way, goes forward, inclines to the land, endeavors to
get nearer the upland.
He is not anxious. Anxious about what ? Only he feels, somehow, as
if the weight of his feet increases with every step he takes. Suddenly he
sinks in.
He sinks in two or three inches. Decidedly he is not on the right
road ; he stops to take his bearings ; now he looks at his feet. They have
disappeared. The sand covers them. He draws them out of the sand ;
he will retrace his steps. He turns back, he sinks in deeper. The sand
comes -up to his ankles; he pulls himself out and throws himself to the
left — the sand half leg deep. He throws himself to the right ; the sand
comes up to his shins. Then he recognizes with unspeakable terror that
he is caught in the quicksand, and that he has beneath him the terrible
224
THE ORIENT.
medium in which man can no more walk than the fish can swim. He
throws off his load if he has one, Hghtens himself as a ship in distress ; it is
already too late ; the sand is above his knees. He calls, he waves his hat
or his handkerchief ; the sand gains on him more and more. If the beach
is deserted, if the land is too far off, if there is no help in sight, it is all over.
He is condemned to that appalling burial, long, infallible, implacable,
and impossible to slacken or to hasten ; which endures for hours, which
seizes you erect, free, and in full health, and which draws you by the feet ;
which, at every effort that you attempt, at every shout you utter, drags
you a little deeper, sinking you slowly into the earth while you look upon
the horizon, the sails of the ships upon the sea, the birds flying and singing,
the sunshine and the sky. The victim attempts to sit down, to lie down,
to creep ; every movement he makes inters him ; he straightens up, he sinks
in ; he feels that he is being swallowed. He howls, implores, cries to the
clouds, despairs.
Behold him waist deep in the sand. The sand 'reaches his breast ; he
is now only a bust. He raises his arms, utters furious groans, clutches the
beach with his nails, would hold by that straw, leans upon his elbows to
pull himself out of this soft sheath ; sobs frenziedly ; the sand rises ; the
sand reaches his shoulders ; the sand reaches his neck ; the face alone is
visible now. The mouth cries, the sand fills it — silence. The eyes still
gaze, the sand shuts them — night. Now the forehead decreases, a little
hair flutters above the sand ; a hand comes to the surface of the beach,
moves, and shakes, disappears. It is the earth-drowning man. The earth
filled with the ocean becomes a trap. It presents itself like a plain, and
opens like a wave.
THE ORIENT.
FEOM BYRON S " BRIDE OF ABYDOS.
'now ye the land where the cypress
and myrtle
Are emblems of deeds that are done
in their clime,
Where the rage of the vulture, the
love of the turtle.
Now melt into sorrow, now madden
to crime ?
Know ye the land of the cedar and vine,
Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams
ever shine :
Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed
with perfume.
Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gul in hf r
bloom!
Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit,
And the voice of the nightingale never is
mute.
Where tints of the earth, and the hues of the
sky,
In color though varied, in beauty may vie.
And the purple of ocean is deepest in dye ;
THE MORAVIAN REQUIEM.
225
"Where the virgins are soft as the roses they
twine,
And all, save the spirit- of man, is divine ?
'T is the clime of the East ; 't is the land of
the Sun, —
Can he smile on such deeds as his children
have done?
0, wild as the accents of lover's farewell
Are the hearts which they bear and the tales
which they tell !
ABOU BEN ADEEM.
LEIGH HUNT.
^^BOU Ben Adhem,— may his tribe in-
' R»„ crease,—
Awoke one night from a sweet
dream of peace.
And saw, within the moonlight in
his room,
"*" Making it rich, and like a lily in
bloom,
An angel, writing in a book of gold.
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem
bold.
And to the Presence in the room he said,
" What writesi thou ?" The vision raised its
head.
And with a look made all of sweet accord.
Answered, " The names of those who love
the Lord."
" And is mine one ?" said Abou. " Nay, not
so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerily still ; and said, " I pray thee,
then.
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men."
The angel wrote and vanished. The next
night
It came again, with a great wakening light.
And showed the names whom love of God
had bless'd ;
And lo ! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.
THE MORA VI AN REQUIEM.
HARRIET B. M KEEVER.
It is customary with the Moravians at Bethleliem, Pa., to announce the decease of a member of their com-
munion, from tlie tower of the church adjoining the cemetery, by three appropriate strains of melody rendered
by a trombone band. The closing strains designate the age and se.\ of the departed one. I heard it for the first
time at sunset, in the cemetery, unexpectedly ; the efiect was indescribable ; the custom is beautiful, sweetly ex-
pressive of loving brotherhood.
|B^T twilight hour, when mem'ry's power
^fe Wakes up the visions of the buried
past,
. From earth retreating, soft silence
i greeting,
J I wandered, where the weary rest
at last.
The sun retiring, sad thoughts inspiring,
I mused in solemn silence 'mid the
dead;
When softly stealing, death's call reveal-
ing.
Sounds of low wailing from the tower
226
THE MISER.
First faintly swelling, the tidings telling,
lu notes of tenderest sorrow, one has gone ;
We've lost another, a youthful brother ;
Mourn for a home bereft, a spirit flown.
The notes of anguish first seem to lan-
guish,
Like to the moaning of a parting sigh ;
Then raptured swelling, a tale they're tell-
ing,
Of triumph over death, of victory.
"Farewell to sorrow ! TU'wake to-morrow,
When the long slumber of the tomb ia
o'er;
Then rising glorious, o'er death victorious,
We'll meet, we'll meet, where partings are
no more."
Thus wails the trombone, and as its soft
tone
Breathes a sad requiem for death's fre-
quent calls,
'Tis sweet to render this tribute tender,
Whene'er a brother from among us
falls.
THE MISER.
GEORGE W. CUTTER.
^^N old man sat by a fireless hearth,
i^ Though the night was dark and
chill,
And mournfully over the frozen
earth
The wind sobbed loud and shrill.
His locks were gray, and his eyes were
gray,
And dim, but not with tears ;
And his skeleton form had wasted away
With penury, more than years.
A rush-light was casting its fitful glare
O'er the damp and dingy walls.
Where the lizard hath made his slimy lair.
And the venomous spider crawls ;
But the meanest thing in this lonesome room
Was the raiser worn and bare,
Where he sat like a ghost in an empty tomb.
On his broken and only chair.
He had bolted the window and barred the
door.
And every nook had scanned ;
And felt the fastening o'er and o'er.
With his cold and skinny hand ;
And yet he sat gazing intently round,
And trembled with silent fear.
And started and shuddered at every sound
That fell on his coward ear.
" Ha, ha !" laughed the miser: " I'm safe at
last
From this night so cold and drear.
From the drenching rain and driving
blast.
With my gold and treasures here.
I am cold and wet with the icy rain.
And my health is bad, 'tis true ;
Yet if I sliould light that fire again.
It would cost me a cent or two.
THE ORDER OF NOBILITY.
227
" But I'll take a sip of the precious wine :
It will banish my cold and fears:
It was given long since by a friend of mine —
lie turned to an old worm-eaten chest,
And cautiously raised the lid,
And then it shone like the clouds of the
I have kept it for many years."
So he drew a flask from a mouldy nook,
And drank of its ruby tide ;
And his eyes grew bright with each draught
he took,
And his bosom swelled with pride.
west,
With the sun in their splendor hid :
And gem after gem, in precious store,
Are raised with exulting smile ;
And he counted and counted them o'er and
o'er.
" Let me see ; let me see !" said the miser
In many a glittering pile.
then,
" 'Tis some sixty years or more
Since the happy hour when I began
To heap up the glittering store ;
And well have I sped with my anxious toil.
Why comes the flush to his pallid brow.
While his eyes like his diamonds shine ?
Why writhes he thus in such torture
now?
What was there in the wine ?
As my crowded chest will show :
I've more than would ransom a kingdom's
He strove his lonely seat to gain ;
To crawl to his nest he tried ;
spoil.
Or an emperor could bestow."
But finding his efforts all in vain,
He clasped his gold, and — died.
THE POOR INDIAN!
W^ KNOW him by his falcon eye,
^Ip His raven tress and mien of pride ;
Si| Those dingy draperies, as they fly,
|i© Tell that a great soul throbs inside !
'ki No eagle-feathered crown he wears,
1 Capping in pride his kingly brow ;
' But his crownlesss hat in grief de-
clares,
" I am an unthroned monarch now !"
' noble son of a royal line !"
I exclaim, as I gaze into his face,
" How shall I knit my soul to thine ?
How right the wrongs of thine injured race?
" What shall I do for thee, glorious one?
To soothe thy sorrows my soul aspires.
Speak ! and say how the Saxon's son
May atone for the wrongs of his ruthless
sires !"
He speaks, he speaks ! — that noble chief!
From his marble lips deep accents come ;
And I catch the sound of his mighty grief, —
" Pie gi' me tree cent for git some rum!"
THE ORDER OF NOBILITY.
EDMUND BURKE.
||iO be honored and even privileged by tlie laws, opinions, and in-
^ veterate usages of our country, growing out of the prejudice of
ages, has nothing to provoke horror and indignation in any man.
Even to be too tenacious of those privileges is not absolutely a
crime. The strong struggle in every individual to preserve posses-
sion of what he has found to belong to him, and to distinguish him, is
228
THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE KNIFE-GRINDER.
one of the securities against injustice and des-
potism implanted in our nature. It operates as
an instinct to secure property, and to preserve
communities in a settled state. What is there
to shock in this? Nobility is a graceful orna-
ment to the civil order. It is the Corinthian
capital of polished society. Omnes honi nohili-
tati semper favemus, was the saying of a wise
and good man. It is, indeed, one sign of a
liberal and benevolent mind to incline to it with
some sort of partial propensity. He feels no
ennobling principle in his own heart who wishes
to level all the artificial institutions which have
been adopted for giving a body to opinion and
permanence to fugitive esteem. It is a sour,
malignant, and envious disposition, without taste
for the reality, or for any image or representa-
tion of virtue, that sees with joy the unmerited
fall of what had long flourished in splendor and in honor,
to see anything destroyed, any void produced in society, any
face of the land.
I do
not like
on the
THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE KNIFE- GFINDEB.
GEORGE CANNING.
FRIEND OF HUMANITY.
6™vM,w;pEEDY knife-erinder ! whither are
^iMiS you going ?
Rough is the road; your wheel is [
out of order.
..I Bleak blows the blast; — your hat
I has got a hole in't;
T So have your breeches !
Weary knife-grinder ! little think the proud
ones,
Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike-
road,
What hard work 't is crying all day " Knives
and
Scissors to grind !"
Tell me, knife-grinder, how came you to
grind knives ?
Did some rich man tyrannically use you ?
Was it the squire? or parson of the parish?
Or the attorney ?
Was it the squire for killing of his game? or
Covetous parson for his tithes distraining ?
Or roguish lawyer made you lose your little
All in a lawsuit ?
(Have you not read the Rights of Man, by
Tom Paine ?)
Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids,
Ready to fall as soon as you have told your
Pitiful story.
MOTHERHOOD.
229
KNIFE-GRINDER.
Story ! God bless you ! I have none to tell, sir ;
Only, last night, a-drinking at the Chequers,
This poor old hat and breeches, as you see,
were
Torn in a scuffle.
Constables came up for to take me into
Custody ; they took me before the justice ;
Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish-stocks
For a vagrant.
I should be glad to drink your honor's health
in
A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence ;
But for my part, I never love to meddle
With politics, sir.
FRIEND OF HUMANITY.
I give thee sixpence ! I will see thee dead
first, —
Wretch ! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse
to vengeance, —
Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded.
Spiritless outcast !
[Kicks the knife-grinder, overturns his wheel,
and exit in a transport of republican enthu-
siasm and universal philanthropy .]
TWO LITTLE KITTENS.
KWO little kittens, one stormy night,
1^ Began to quarrel and then to fight ;
3>^ One had a mouse, the other had none,
And that was the way the quarrel
begun.
" ril have that mouse," said the biggest
cat.
You'll have that mouse, we'll see about
that."
" I will have that mouse," said the eldest
son.
" You shant have that mouse," said the little
one.
I told you before 'twas a stormy night
When these two little kittens began to fight ;
The old woman seized her sweeping-broom
And swept the two kittens right out of the
room.
The ground was covered with frost and snow.
And the two little kittens had nowhere to go,
So they laid them down on the mat at the
door.
While the old woman finished sweeping the
floor.
Then they both crept in, as quiet as mice.
All wet with snow and cold as ice ;
For they found it was better, that stormy
night,
To lie down and sleep, than to quarrel and
fight.
MOTHERHOOD.
\Y neighbor's house is not so big!
Nor half so nice as mine ;
^ I often see the blind ajar.
And tho' the curtain's fine,
'Tis only muslin, and the steps
Are not of stone at all,
And yet I long for her small home
To give mine all in all.
230
TJIE MEETING OF THE SHIPS.
Her lawn is never left to grow,
The children tread it down,
And when the father comes at night
I hear them clatter down
The gravel walk — and such a noise.
Comes to my listening ears,
As my sad heart's been waiting for
So many silent years.
Sometimes I peep to see them
Seize his coat, and hand, and knees,
All three so eager to be first.
And hear her call, " Don't teaze.
Papa !" the baby springs —
And then the low brown door
Shuts in their happiness — and I
Sit wishing as before.
That my neighbor's little cottage,
And the jewels of her crown
Had been my own — my mansion
With its front of freestone brown,
Its damask, and its Honiton,
Its lawn so green and bright.
How gladly would I give them.
For her motherhood, to-night.
TRUST.
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
|,| PICTURE memory brings to me :
I look across the years and see
Myself beside my mother's knee.
I feel her gentle hand restrain
My selfish moods, and know again
A child's blind sense of wrong and pai
But wiser now, a man gray grown,
My childhood's needs are better known
My mother's chastening love I own.
Gray grown, but in our Father's sight
A child still groping for the light
To read his works and ways aright.
I bow myself beneath his hand ;
That pain itself for good was planned,
I trust, but cannot understand.
I fondly dream it needs must be.
That as my mother dealt with me,
So with His children dealeth He.
BIRTH-PLACE OF WHITTIER.
I wait, and trust the end will prove
That here and there, below, above.
The chastening heals, the pain is love !
THE MEETING OF THE SHIPS.
FELICIA HEMANS.
|W0 barks met on the deep mid-sea.
When calms had stilled the tide ;
®Y A few bright days of summer glee
There found them side by side.
And voices of the fair and brave
Rose mingling thence in mirth ;
And sweetly floated o'er the wave
The melodies of earth.
Moonlight on that lone Indian main
Cloudless and lovely slept ;
While dancing step and festive strain
Each deck in triumph swept.
BURKE ON THE DEATH OF HIS SON. 231
And hands were linked, and answering eyes And proudly, freely on their way
With kindly meaning shone ; j The parting ve-^els bore ;
0, brief and passing sympathies, I In calm or storm, by rock or bay.
Like leaves together blown ! j To meetr— 0, nevermore !
A little while such joy was cast Never to blend in victory's cheer,
Over the deep's repose, ' To aid in hours of woe ;
Till the loud singing winds at last And thus bright spirits mingle here.
Like trumpet music rose. i Such ties are formed below.
BURKE ON THE DEATH OF HIS SON.
, '•>-Y"^ ■
l^pAD it pleased God to continue to me the hopes of succession, I
l^i should have been, according to my mediocrity, and the mediocrity
^ T of the age I live in, a sort of founder of a family ; I should have
I I left a son, who, in all the points in which personal merit can be
viewed, in science, in erudition, in genius, in taste, in honor, in
generosity, in humanity, in every liberal sentiment, and every liberal
accomplishment, would not have shown himself inferior to the Duke of
Bedford, or to any of those whom he traces in his line. His Grace very
soon would have wanted all plausibility in his attack upon that provision
which belonged more to mine than to me. He would soon have supplied
every deficiency, and symmetrized every disproportion. It would not
have been for that successor to resort to any stagnant wasting reservoir of
merit in me, or in any ancestry. He had in himself a salient living spring
of generous and manly action. Every day he lived, he would have pur-
chased the bounty of the crown, and ten times more, if ten times more he
had received. He was made a public creature, and had no enjoyment
whatever but in the performance of some duty. At this exigent moment
the loss of a finished man is not easily supplied.
But a Disposer, whose power we are little able to resist, and whose wis-
dom it behooves us not at all to dispute, has ordained it in another manner,
and — whatever my querulous weakness might suggest — a far better. The
storm has gone over me, and I lie like one of those oaks which the late
hurricane has scattered about me. I am stripped of all my honors ; I am
torn up by the roots, and lie prostrate on the earth ! There, and prostrate
there, I most unfeignedly recognize the divine justice, and in some degree
submit to it. But whilst I humble myself before God, I do not know that
it is forbidden to repel the attacks of unjust and inconsiderate men. The
patience of Job is proverbial. After some of the convulsive struggles of
16
232 THE DOVE-COTE.
our irritable nature, he submitted himself, and repented in dust and ashes.
But even so, I do not find him blamed for reprehending, and with a con-
siderable degree of verbal asperity, those ill-natured neighbors of his who
visited his dung-hill to read moral, political, and economical lectures on his
misery. I am alone. I have none to meet my enemies in the gate. In-
deed, my lord, I greatly deceive myself, if in this hard season I would give
a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called fame and honor in the world.
This is the appetite but of a few. It is a luxury, it is a privilege ; it is
an indulgence for those who are at their ease. But we are all of us made
to shun disgrace, as we are made to shrink from pain, and poverty, and
diseag-e. It is an instinct : and under the direction of reason, instinct is
always in the right. I live in an inverted order. They who ought to
have succeeded me are gone before me ; they who should have been to me
as posterity, are in the place of ancestors. I owe to the dearest relation —
which ever must subsist in memory — that act of piety which he would
have performed to me ; I owe it to him to show, that he was not de-
scended, as the Duke of Bedford would have it, from an unworthy parent.
MILTON.
T. B. MACAULAY.
iiipO Milton, and to Milton alone, belonged the secrets of the great
^■^ deep, the beach of sulphur, the ocean of fire; the palaces of the
fallen dominations, glimmering through the everlasting shade, the
silent wilderness of verdure and fragrance where armed angels
kept watch over the sleep of the first lovers, the portico of dia-
mond, the sea of jasper, the sapphire pavement empurpled with
celestial roses, and the infinite ranks of the Cherubim, blazing with
adamant and gold.
THE DOVE-COTE.
AUNT EFFIES RHYMES.
^ERY high in the dove-cote
The little Turtle Dove
Made a pretty nursery
To please her little love.
She was gentle, she was soft,
And her large dark eye
Often turned to her mate,
Who was sitting close by.
" Coo," said the Turtle Dove,
" Coo," said she,
THE MYSTERY OF LIFE IN CHRIST.
233
• Oh, I love thee," said the Turtle Dove,
" And I love thee."
'Neath the long shady branches
Of the dark pine tree.
How happy were the doves
In their little nursery !
The young Turtle Doves
Never quarreled in their nest ;
For they dearly loved each other.
Though they loved their mother best.
" Coo," said the Turtle Doves,
" Coo," said she.
And they played together kindly
In their little nursery.
Is this nursery of yours,
Little sister, little brother,
Like the Turtle Dove's nest? —
Do you love one another ?
Are you kind, are you gentle,
As children ought to be ?
Then the happiest of nests
Is your own nursery.
PATRIOTISM.
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
SREATHES there the man with soul so
dead
Who never to himself hath said.
This is my own, my native land !
Whose heart hath ne'er within him
burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand !
If such there breathe, go, mark him well ;
For him no minstrel raptures swell ;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,
Despite those titles, power, and pelf.
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living shall forfeit fair renown.
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
THE MYSTERY OF LIFE IN CHRIST.
MRS. E. PRENTISS.
WALK along the crowded streets, and
mark
The eager, anxious, troubled faces ;
Wondering what this man seeks, what
^ that heart craves,
In earthly places.
Do I want anything that they are want-
ing?
Is each of them my brother ?
Could we hold fellowship, speak heart to
heart.
Each to the other ?
234
SCENE AT NIAGARA FALLS.
Nay, but I know not! only this I know,
And in the awful loneliness of crowds
That sometimes merely crossing
Another's path, where life's tumultuous
waves
I am not lonely.
Ah, what a life is theirs who live in Christ ;
Are ever tossing.
How vast the mystery !
Reaching in height to heaven, and in its
He, as He passes, whispers in mine ear
One magic sentence only.
depth
The unfathomed sea.
ROLL ON, THOU SUN.
ANONYMOUS.
I^^OLL on, thou Sun, forever roll,
M^ Thou giant, rushing through the
heaven!
Creation's wonder, nature's soul.
Thy golden wheels by angels
driven !
The planets die without thy blaze,
And cherubim, with star-dropt wing.
Float in thy diamond-sparkling rays,
Thou brightest emblem of their king !
Roll, lovely Earth, and still roll on.
With ocean's azure beauty bound ;
While one sweet star, the pearly moon,
Pursues thee through the blue profound ;
And angels, with delighted eyes.
Behold thy tints of mount and stream,
From the high walls of Paradise,
Swift wheeling like a glorious dream.
Roll, Planets ! on your dazzling read,
Forever sweeping round the sun !
What eye beheld when first ye glowed ?
What eye shall see your courses done ?
Roll in your solemn majesty.
Ye deathless splendors of the skies !
High altars, from which angels see
The incense of creation rise.
Roll, Comets ! and ye million Stars !
Ye that through boundless nature roam ;
Ye monarchs on your flame-wing cars ;
Tell us in what more glorious dome, —
What orbs to which your pomps are dim.
What kingdom but by angels trod, —
Tell us where swells the eternal hymn
Around His throne where dwells your
God?
SCENE AT NIAGARA FALLS.
CHARLES TARSON.
IT is summer. A party of visitors are just crossing the iron bridge that
extends from the American shore to Goat's Island, about a quarter
of a mile above the Falls. Just as they are about to leave, while
watching the stream as it plunges and dashes among the rocks
below, the eye of one fastens on something clinging to a rock —
caught on the very verge of the Falls. Scarcely willing ig) believe his
SCENE AT NIAGARA FALLS. 235
own vision, he directs the attention of his companions. The terrible news
spreads hke Hghtning, and in a few minutes the bridge and the surround-
ing shores are covered with thousands of spectators. " Who is he?" "How
did he get there ?" are questions every person proposed, but answered by
none. No voice is heard above the awful flood, but a spy-glass shows
frequent efforts to speak to the gathering multitude. Such silent appeals
exceed the eloquence of words ; they are irresistible, and something must
be done. A small boat is soon upon the bridge, and with a rope attached
sets out upon its fearless voyage, but is instantly sunk. Another and
another are tried, but they are all swallowed up by the angry waters. A
large one might possibly survive; but none is at hand. Away to Buffalo
a car is dispatched, and never did the iron horse thunder along its steel-
bound track on such a godlike mission. Soon the most competent life-boat
is upon the spot. All eyes are fixed upon the object, as trembling and
tossing amid the boiling white waves it survives the roughest waters.
One breaker past and it will have reached the object of its mission. But
being partly filled with water and striking a sunken rock, that next wave
sends it hurling to the bottom. An involuntary groan passes through the
dense multitude, and hope scarcely nestles in a single bosom. The sun
goes down in gloom, and as darkness comes on and the crowd begins to
scatter, methinks the angels looking over the battlements on high drop a
tear of pity on the scene. The silvery stars shine dimly through the cur-
tain of blue. The multitude are gone, and the suffer^ is left with his God.
Long before morning he must be swept over that dreadful abyss ; he clings
to that rock with all the tenacity of life, and as he surveys the horrors of
his position, strange visions in the air come looming up before him. He
sees his home, his wife and children there ; he sees the home of his child-
hood; he sees that mother as she used to soothe his childish fears upon
her breast ; he sees a watery grave, and then the vision closes in tears.
In imagination he hears the hideous yells of demons, and mingled prayers
and curses die upon his lips.
No sooner does morning dawn than the multitude again rush to the
scene of horror. Soon a shout is heard : he is there — he is still alive !
Just now a carriage arrives upon the bridge, and a woman leaps from it
and rushes to the most favorable point of observation. She had driven
from Chippewa, three miles above the Falls; her husband had crossed
the river, night before last, and had not returned, and she fears he may be
clinging to that rock. All eyes are turned for a moment toward the
anxious woman, and no sooner is a glass handed to her, fixed upon the
object than she shrieks, "Oh, my husband!" and sinks senseless to the
236 THE SOLDIER'S I'AUDON.
earth. The excitement, before intense, seems now almost unendurable,
and something must again be tried. A small raft is constructed, and, to
the surprise of all, swings up beside the rock to which the sufferer has
clung for the last forty- eight hours. He instantly throws himself full
length upon it. Thousands are pulling at the end of the rope, and with
skillful management a few rods are gained toward the nearest shore. What
tongue can tell, what pencil can paint, the anxiety with which that little
bark is watched, as, trembling and tossing amid the roughest waters, it
nears that rock-bound coast ? Save Niagara's eternal roar, all is silent as
the grave. His wife sees it, and is only restrained by force from rushing
into the river. Hope instantly springs into every bosom, but it is only to
sink into deeper gloom. The angel of death has spread his wings over that
little bark ; the poor man's strength is almost gone ; each wave lessens his
grasp more and more, but all will be safe if that nearest wave is past.
But that next surging billow breaks his hold upon the pitching timbers,
the next moment hurling him to the awful verge, where, with body erect,
hands clenched, and eyes that are taking their last look of earth, he shrieks,
above Niagara's eternal roar, ''Lost!" and sinks forever from the gaze of
man.
THE SOLDIER'S PARDON.
JAMES SMITH.
?ILD blew the gale in Gibraltar one I Oh ! sad was the thought to a man that had
^ night, fought
As a soldier lay stretched in his 'Mid the ranks of the gallant and
cell ; i brave, —
And anon, 'mid the darkness, the I To be shot through the breast at a coward's
moon's silver light ] behest.
On his countenance dreamily fell, i And laid low in a criminal's grave !
Nought could she reveal, but a man true as ,
gteel I The night call had sounded, when Joe wa^s
That oft for his country had bled ; , aroused
And the glance of his eye might the grim By a step at the door of his cell ;
king defy, ! ' Twas a comrade with whom he had often
For despair, fear, and trembling had fled. \ caroused,
j That now entered to bid him farewell.
But in rage he had struck a well-merited ' " Ah, Tom ! is it you come to bid me
blow I adieu ?
At a tyrant who held him in scorn ; I 'Tis kind my lad ! give me your hand !
And his fate soon was sealed, for alas ! I Nay — nay — don't get wild, man, and make
honest Joe ! me a child ! —
"Was to die on the following morn. I'll be soon in a happier land !"
LONDON CHURCHES.
237
With hands clasped in silence, Tom mourn-
fully said,
" Have you any request, Joe, to make ? —
Remember by me 'twill be fully obeyed :
Can I anything do for your sake ?"
When it's over, to-morrow !" he said, filled
with sorrow,
" Send this token to her whom I've sworn
All my fond love to share !" — 'twas a lock
of his hair,
And a prayer-book, all faded and worn.
"Here's this watch for my mother* and
when you write home,"
And he dashed a bright tear from his
eye —
" Say I died with my heart in old Devon-
shire, Tom,
Like a man, and a soldier ! — Good bye !"
Then the sergeant on guard, at the grating
appeared.
And poor Tom had to leave the cold cell.
By the moon's waning light, with a husky
" Good-night !
God be with you, dear comrade ! — fare-
well !"
Gray dawned the morn in a dull cloudy sky,
When the blast of a bugle resounded ;
And Joe ever fearless, went forward to die,
By the hearts of true heroes surrounded.
" Shoulder arms " was the cry as the pris-
oner passed by :
" To the right about — march !" was the
word;
And their pale faces proved how their com-
rade was loved,
And by all his brave fellows adored.
Right onward they marched to the dread
field of doom :
Sternly silent, they covered the ground ;
Then they formed into line amid sadness
and gloom,
While the prisoner looked calmly around.
Then soft on the air rose the accents of prayer,
And faint tolled the solemn death-knell.
As he stood on the sand, and with uplifted
hand,
Waved the long and the lasting farewell.
" Make ready !" exclaimed an imperious voice:
"Present!" struck a chill on
each mind ;
Ere the last word was spoke, Joe had cause
to rejoice.
For " Hold ! — hold !" cried a voice from
behind.
Then wild was the joy of them all, man and
boy.
As a horseman cried, "Mercy! — Forbear!"
With a thrilling " Hurrah ! a free pardon !
huzzah !"
And the muskets rang loud in the air.
Soon the comrades were locked in each other's
embrace :
No more stood the brave soldiers dumb :
With a loud cheer they wheeled to the right-
about-face,
Then away at the sound of the drum I
And a brighter day dawned in sweet Devon's
fair land.
Where the lovers met never to part ;
And he gave her a token — true, warm, and
unbroken —
The gift of his own gallant heart I
LONDON CHURCHES.
RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES.
STOOD, one Sunday morning.
Before a large church door.
The congregation gathered
And carriages a score, —
From one out stepped a lady
I oft had seen before.
Her hand was on a prayer-book,
And held a vinaigrette ;
The sign of man's redemption
Clear on the book was set, —
But above the Cross there glistened
A golden Coronet.
238
LONDON CHURCHES.
THE OLD CHUECH.
For her the obsequious beadle
The inner door flung wide,
Lightly, as up a ball-room,
Her footsteps seemed to glide, —
There might be good thoughts in her
For all her evil pride.
But after her a woman
Peeped wistfully within
On whose wan face was graven
Life's hardest discipline, —
The trace of the sad trinity
Of weakness, pain, and sin.
The fow free-seats were crowded
Where she could rest and pray ;
With her worn garb contrasted
Each side in fair array, —
God's house holds no poor sinners.
She sighed, and crept away.
CONSTANTIUS AND THE LION. 239
CONSTANTIUS AND THE LION.
GEORGE CROLY.
f^^p PORTAL of the arena opened, and the combatant, with a mantle
^^^ thrown over his face and figure, was led into the surroundery.
"^^^^ The lion roared and ramped against the bars of his den at the
f sight. The guard put a sword and buckler into the hands of the
I Christian, and he was left alone. He drew the mantle from his
face, and bent a slow and firm look around the amphitheatre.
His fine countenance and lofty bearing raised a universal shout of admira-
tion. He might have stood for an Apollo encountering the Python, His
eye at last turned on mine. Could I believe my senses? Constantius was
before me.
All my rancor vanished. An hour past I could have struck the be-
trayer to the heart, — I could have called on the severest vengeance of man
and heaven to smite the destroyer of my child. But to see him hopelessly
doomed, the man whom I had honored for his noble qualities, whom I had
even loved, whose crime was, at the worst, but the crime of giving way to
the strongest temptation that can bewilder the heart of man; to see that
noble creature flung to the savage beast, dying in tortures, torn piecemeal
before my eyes, and his misery wrought by me, I would have obtested
heaven and earth to save him. But my tongue cleaved to the roof of my
mouth. My limbs refused to stir. I would have thrown myself at the
feet of Nero ; but I sat like a man of stone — pale — paralyzed — the beating
of my pulse stopped — my eyes alone alive.
The gate of the den was thrown back, and the lion rushed in with a
roar and a bound that bore him half across the arena. I saw the sword
glitter in the air : when it waved again, it was covered with blood. A
howl told that the blow had been driven home. The lion, one of the lar-
gest from Numidia, and made furious by thirst and hunger, an animal of
prodigious power, crouched for an instant, as if to make sure of his prey,
crept a few paces onward, and sprang at the victim's throat. He was met
by a second wound, but his impulse was irresistible, A cry of natural
horror rang round the amphitheatre. The struggle was now for an
instant, life or death. They rolled over each other ; the lion, reared upon
his hind feet, with gnashing teeth and distended talons, plunged on the
man ; again they rose together. Anxiety was now at its wildest height.
The sword now swung around the champion's head in bloody circles. They
fell again, covered with blood and dust. The hand of Constantius had
240 CONSTANTiUS AND THE LION.
o-rasped the lion's mane, and the furious bounds of the monster could not
loose his hold ; but his strength was evidently giving way, — he still struck
his terrible blows, but each was weaker than the one before ; till, collecting
his whole force for a last effort, he darted one mighty blow into the lion's
throat, and sank. The savage beast yelled, and spouting out blood, fled
howling around the arena. But the hand still grasped the mane, and the
conqueror was dragged whirling through the dust at his heels. A uni-
versal outcry now arose to save him, if he were not already dead. But
the lion, though bleeding from every vein, was still too terrible, and all
shrank from the hazard. At last the grasp gave way, and the body lay
motionless on the ground.
What happened for some moments after, I know not. There was a
struggle at the portal ; a female forced her way through the guards, and
flung herself upon the victim. The sight of a new prey roused the lion ;
he tore the ground with his talons ; he lashed his streaming sides with his
tail ; he lifted up his mane and bared his fangs ; but his approaching was
no longer with a bound ; he dreaded the sword, and came snuflSing the
blood on the sand, and stealing round the body in circuits still
diminishing.
The confusion in the ' vast assemblage was now extreme. Voices
innumerable called for aid. Women screamed and fainted, men burst into
indignant clamors at this prolonged cruelty. Even the hard hearts of the
populace, accustomed as they were to the sacrifice of life, were roused to
honest curses. The guards grasped their arms, and waited but for a sign
from the emperor. But Nero gave no sign.
I looked upon the woman's face ; it was Salome ! I sprang upon my
feet. I called on her name, — called on her, by every feeling of nature, to
fly from that place of death, to come to my arms, to think of the agonies
of all that loved her.
She had raised the head of Constantius on her knee, and was wiping
the pale visage with her hair. At the sound of my voice, she looked up,
and, calmly casting back the locks from her forehead, fixed her eyes upon
me. She still knelt ; one hand supported the head, — with the other she
pointed to it as her only answer. I again adjured her. There was the
silence of death among the thousands around me. A fire flashed into her
eye, — her cheek burned, — she waved her hand with an air of superb
sorrow.
" I am come to die," she uttered, in a lofty tone. " This bleeding body
was my husband, — I have no father. The world contains to me but this
clay in my arms. Yet," and she kissed the ashy lips before her, " yet, my
A PSALM OF LIFE.
241
I
Constantius, it was to save that father that your generous heart defied the
peril of this hour. It was to redeem him from the hand of evil that you
abandoned your quiet home ! — Yes, cruel father, here lies the noble being
that threw open your dungeon, that led you safe through the conflagration,
that, to the last moment of his liberty, only sought how he might serve
and protect you. Tears at length fell in floods from her eyes. " But,"
said she, in a tone of wild power, " he was betrayed, and may the Power
whose thunders avenge the cause of his people, pour down just retribution
upon the head that dared " —
I heard my own condemnation about to be pronounced by the lips of
my own child. Wound up to the last degree of suffering, I tore my hair,
leaped upon the bars before me, and plunged into the arena by her side,
The height stunned me ; I tottered a few paces and fell. The lion gave a roar
and sprang upon me. I lay helpless under him, I heard the gnashing of
his white fangs above.
An exulting shout arose. I saw him reel as if struck, — gore filled
his jaws. Another mighty blow was driven to his heart. He sprang high
in the air with a howl. He dropped ; he was dead. The amphitheatre
thundered with acclamations.
"With Salome clinging to my bosom, Constantius raised me from the
ground. The roar of the lion had roused him from his swoon, and two
blows saved me. The falchion had broken in the heart of the monster.
The whole multitude stood up, supplicating for our lives in the name of
filial piety and heroism. Nero, devil as he was, dared not resist the
strength of popular feeling. He waved a signal to the guards ; the portal
was opened, and my children, sustaining my feeble steps, showered with
garlands from innumerable hands, slowly led me from the arena.
A PSALM OF LIFE.
iJUlpELL me not, in mournful numbers,
^1^ Life is but an empty dream !
4^:;^ For the soul is dead that slumbers,
X And things are not what they
Life is real ! Life is earnest !
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way ;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting.
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
242
TO NIGHT.
In the world's broad field of battle,
And, departing, leave behind us
In the bivouac of Life,
Footprints on the sands of time ; —
Be not like dumb, driven cattle !
Be a hero in the strife !
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant !
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother.
Let the dead Past bury its dead !
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Act, — act in the living Present !
Heart within, and God o'erhead !
Let us, then, be up and doing.
With a heart for any fate ;
Lives of great men all remind us
Still achieving, still pursuing.
We can make our lives sublime.
Learn to labor and to wait.
BLESSED ABE THEY THAT MOURN:
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
DEEM not they are blest alone
Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep ;
The Power who pities man has
shown
A blessing for the eyes that weep.
The light of smiles shall fill again
The lids that overflow with tears ;
And weary hours of woe and pain
Are promises of happier years.
There is a day of sunny rest
For every dark and troubled night ;
And grief may bide an evening guest,
But joy shall come with early light.
And thou, who, o'er thy friend's low bier,
Sheddest the bitter drops like rain,
Hope that a brighter, happier sphere
Will give him to thy arms again.
Nor let the good man's trust depart,
Though life its common gifts deny, —
Though with a pierced and bleeding heart,
And spurned of men, he goes to die.
For God hath marked each sorrowing day.
And numbered every secret tear,
And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay
For all his children sufi'er here.
TO NIGHT
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
pWIFTLY walk over the western wave.
Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave.
Where all the long and lone daylight.
Thou weav est dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear, —
Swift be thy flight !
Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
Star-inwrought !
Blind with thy hair the eyes of day,
Kiss her until she be wearied out,
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand —
Come, long-sought !
NIGHT.
SNOW-FLAKES.
243
When I arose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee !
When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on floor and tree.
And the weary Day turned to his rest,
Lingering, like an unloved guest,
I sighed for thee !
Thy brother Death came, and cried,
Wouldst thou me ?
Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed.
Murmured like a noontide bee.
Shall I nestle near thy side ?
Wouldst thou me ? — and I replied.
No, not thee!
Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon, —
Sleep will come when thou art fled ;
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night —
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon, soon!
BURIED TO-DAY.
DINAH MARIA MULOCK.
Ij^URIED to-day.
^^^ When the soft green buds are burst-
ing out.
And up on the south-wind comes a
shout
Of village boys and girls at play
In the mild spring evening gray.
Taken away
Sturdy of heart and stout of limb,
From eyes that drew half their light from
him,
And put low, low underneath the clay,
In his spring, — on this sprin;^ day
Passes away.
All the pride of boy-life begun,
All the hope of life yet to run ;
Who dares to question when One
"Nay."
Murmur not, — only pray.
saith
Enters to-day
Another body in churchyard sod.
Another soul on the life in God.
His Christ was buried — and lives alway :
Trust Him, and go your way.
SNOW-FLAKES.
HARRIET B. M KEEVER.
lEAUTIFUL snow! beautiful snow!
Falling so lightly,
Daily and nightly.
Alike round the dwelling of lofty
and low.
Horses are prancing,
Children are dancing,
Stirr'd by the spirit that comes with
the snow.
Beautiful snow ! beautiful snow !
Atmosphere chilling.
Carriage wheels stilling.
Warming the cold earth, and kindling the
glow
Of Christian pity
For the great city.
For wretched creatures, who freeze 'mid the
snow.
Beautiful snow ! beautiful snow !
Fierce the wind blowing.
Deep the drifts strowing.
Night gathers round us, how warm the red
244 THE OLD WIFE'8 KISS.
Of the fire so bright, In that sweet eventide,
On the cold winter night, (j^^^^^^ ^^ gather, though keen the wind
m draw in the curtains, to shut out the i i ,
I Safely defended.
Beautiful snow! beautiful snow | Kindly befriended.
Round the dear fireside, | Pity the houseless, exposed to the snow.
TRU OLD WIFE'S KISS.
[pHE funeral services were ended ; and as the voice of prayer ceased,
.^. ^^^ tears were hastily wiped from wet cheeks, and long-drawn sighs
# I relieved suppressed and choking sobs, as the mourners prepared
<i to take leave of the corpse. It was an old man who lay there,
|. robed for the grave. More than three-score years had whitened those
J locks, and furrowed that brow, and made those stiff limbs weary of
life's journey, and the more willing to be at rest where weariness is no
longer a burden.
The aged have few to weep for them when they die. The most of those
who would have mourned their loss have gone to the grave before them ;
harps that would have sighed sad harmonies are shattered and gone ; and
the few that remain are looking cradleward, rather than to life's closing
goal ; are bound to and living in the generation rising, more than in the
generation departing. Youth and beauty have many admirers while
living, — have many mourners when dying, — and many tearful ones bend
over their coffined clay, many sad hearts follow in their funeral train ! but
age has few admirers, few mourners.
This was an old man, and the circle of mourners was _ small : two
children, who had themselves passed the middle of life, and who had
children of their own to care for and be cared for by them. Beside these,
and a few friends who had seen and visited him while he was sick, and
possibly had known him for a few years, there were none others to shed
a tear, except his old wife ; and of this small company, the old wife
seemed to be the only heart- mourner. It is respectful for his friends
to be sad a few moments, till the service is performed and the hearse is
out of sight. It is very proper and suitable for children, who have out-
grown the fervency and affection of youth, to shed tears when an aged
parent says farewell, and lies down to quiet slumber. Some regrets,
some recollection of the past, some transitory griefs, and the pangs are
over.
THE OLD WIFE'S KISS. 245
The old wife arose with difl&culty from her seat, and went to the
coffin to look her last look — to take her last farewell. Through the fast
falling tears she gazed long and fondly down into the pale, unconscious
face. What did she see there ? Others saw nothing but the rigid features
of the dead ; she saw more. In every wrinkle of that brow she read the
history of years ; from youth to manhood, from manhood to old age, in
joy and sorrow, in sickness and health, it was all there ; when those chil-
dren, who had not quite outgrown the sympathies of childhood, were
infants lying on her bosom, and every year since then — there it was. To
others those dull, mute monitors were unintelligible ; to her they were
the alphabet of the heart, familiar as household words.
Then the futui'e : " What will become of me ? What shall I do now?"
She did not say so, but she felt it. The prospect of the old wife is clouded ;
the home circle is broken, never to be reunited ; the visions of the hearth-
stone are scattered forever. Up to that hour there was a home to which
the heart always turned with fondness. That magic is now sundered, the
key-stone of that sacred arch has fallen, and home is nowhere this side of
heaven ! Shall she gather up the scattered fragments of the broken arch,
make them her temple and her shrine, sit down in her chill solitude beside
its expiring fires, and die ? What shall she do now ?
They gently crowded her away from the dead, and the undertaker came
forward, with the coffin-lid in his hand. It is all right and proper, of course,
it must be done ; but to the heart-mourner it brings a kind of shudder, a
thrill of agony. The undertaker stood for a moment, with a decent. pro-
priety, not wishing to manifest rude haste, but evidently desirous of being
as expeditious as possible. Just as he was about to close the coffin, the old
wife turned back, and stooping down, imprinted one long, last kiss upon
the cold lips of her dead husband, then staggered to her seat, buried her
face in her hands, and the closing coffin hid him from her sight forever !
That kiss ! foii,d token of affection, and of sorrow, and memory, and
farewell ! I have seen many kiss their dead, many such seals of love upon
clay-cold lips, but never did I see one so purely sad, so simply heart-
touching "and hopeless as that. Or, if it had hope, it was that which looks
beyond coffins, and charnel-houses, and damp, dark tombs, to the joys of the
home above. You would kiss the cold cheek of infancy ; there is poetry; it is
beauty hushed ; there is romance there, for the faded flower is still beauti-
ful. In childhood the heart yields to the stroke of sorrow, but recoils
again with elastic faith, buoyant with hope ; but here was no beauty, no
poetry, no romance.
The heart of the old wife was like the weary swimmer, whose strength
17
246
MAIDENHOOD.
has often raised him above the stormy waves, but now, exhausted, sinks
amid the surges. The temple of her earthly hopes had fallen, and what
was there left for her but to sit down in despondency, among its lonely
ruins, and weep and die ! or, in the spirit of a better hope, await the
dawning of another day, when a Hand divine shall gather its sacred dust,
and rebuild for immortality its broken walls !
MAIDENHOOD.
(^U^AIDEN ! with the meek, brown eyes,
^^^^ In whose orbs a shadow lies
^^S^ Like the dusk in evening skies !
T Thou whose locks outshine the sun,
I Golden tresses, wreathed in one,
® As the braided streamlets run !
Standing with reluctant feet.
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet !
Gazing, with a timid glance.
On the brooklet's swift advance,
On the river's broad expanse !
Deep and still, that gliding stream
Beautiful to thee must seem.
As the river of a dream !
Then why pause with indecision,
When bright angels in thy vision
Beckon thee to fields Elysian ?
Seest thou shadows sailing by,
As the dove, with startled eye,
Sees the falcon's shadow fly ?
O, thou child of many prayers !
Lifehalh quicksands, — Life hath snares !
Cat^e and age come unawares !
Bear a lily in thy hand ;
Gates of brass cannot withstand
One touch of that magic wand.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. .
Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth,
i
In thy heart the dew of youth,
On thy lips the smile of truth.
THE BROOK SIDE.
247
THE BROOK SIDE.
RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES.
WANDERED by the brook side,
I wandered by the mill ;
I could not hear the brook flow,
The noisy wheel was still :
There was no burr of grasshopper,
No chirp of any bird ;
But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.
He came not — no he came not ;
The night came on alone ;
The little stars sat, one by one.
Each on his golden throne :
The evening wind passed by my cheek,
The leaves above were stirred ;
But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.
I sat beneath the elm-tree ;
I watched the long, long shade,
And as it grew still longer,
I did not feel afraid ;
For I listened for a footfall,
I listened for a word ;
But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.
Fast silent tears were flowing.
When something stood behind :
A hand was on my shoulder,
I knew its touch was kind :
It drew me nearer — nearer,
We did not speak a word ;
For the beating of our own hearia
Was all the sound we heard.
248
ZEPII HIGGINS' CONFESSION.
THE CATARACT OF LODORE.
ROBERT SOUTUEY,
(^I^OW does the water
1 Come down at Lodore ?
■A'
From its sources which well
In the tarn on the fell ;
From its fountains
In the mountains,
Its rills and its gills ;
Through moss and through brake
It runs and it creeps,
For a while, till it sleeps
In its own little lake.
And thence at departing,
Awakening and starting,
It runs through the reeds,
And away it proceeds,
Through meadow and glade,
In sun and in shade.
And through the wood-shelter,
Among crags in its flurry,
Helter-skelter,
Ilurry-skarry.
Here it comes sparkling,
And there it lies darkling ;
Now smoking and frothing,
Its tumult and wrath in.
Till, in this rapid race.
On which it is bent,
It reaches the place
Of its steep descent.
ZEPH HIGGINS' CONFESSION
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
Zeph Higgins was quarrelsome, exacting, and stubborn to such a degree that he was repulsive to the
village people. His first real trouble came in the death of li's loving, patient wife— whose last request was
that he would put away all hard feelings, and make up his old feud with the church.
4
poGANUc peopl:
NOTHING could be rougher and more rustic than the old school-
Ki?Kg house, — its walls hung with cobwebs ; its rude slab benches and
r desks hacked by many a schooolboy's knife ; the plain, ink-stained
^ pine table before the minister, with its two tallow candles, whose
ZEPH HIGGINS' CONFESSION. 249
dim rays scarcely gave light enough to read the hymns. There was
nothing outward to express the real greatness of what was there in
reality.
From the moment the Doctor entered he was conscious of a present
Power. There was a hush, a stillness, and the words of his prayer seemed
to go out into an atmosphere thrilling with emotion, and when he rose to
speak he saw the countenances of his parishioners with that change upon
them which comes from the waking up of the soul to higher things. Hard,
weather-beaten faces were enkindled and eager ; every eye was fixed upon
him ; every word he spoke seemed to excite a responsive emotion.
The Doctor read from the Old Testament the story of Achan. He
told how the host of the Lord had turned back because there was one in
the camp who had secreted in his tent an accursed thing. He asked,
" can it be now and here, among us who profess to be Christians, that we
are secreting in our hearts some accursed thing that prevents the good
Spirit of the Lord from working among us ? Is it our hard feeling
against a brother ? Is there anything that we know to be wrong that we
refuse to make right — anything that we know belongs to God that we are
withholding ? If we Christians lived as high as we ought, if we lived up
to our professions, would there be any sinners unconverted ? Let us
beware how we stand in the way. If the salt have lost its savor where-
with shall it be salted ? Oh, my brethren, let us not hinder the work of
God. I look around on this circle and I miss the face of a sister who was
always here to help us with her prayers ; now she is with the general
assembly and church of the first-born, whose names are written in
heaven, with the spirits of the just made perfect. But her soul will rejoice
with the angels of God if she looks down and sees us all coming
up to where we ought to be.. God grant that her prayers may be
fulfilled in us. Let us examine ourselves, brethren; let us cast out the
stumbling-block, that the way of the Lord may be prepared."
The words, simple in themselves, became powerful by the atmosphere
of deep feeling into which they were uttered ; there were those solemn
pauses, that breathless stillness, those repressed breathings, that magnetic
sympathy that unites souls under the power of one overshadowing con-
viction.
When the Doctor sat down, suddenly there was a slight movement,
and from a dark back seat rose the gaunt form of Zeph Higgins. He was
deathly pale, and his form trembled with emotion. Every eye was fixed
upon him, and people drew in their breath, with involuntary surprise and
suspense.
250 ^^PI^ HIGGINS' CONFESSION.
" Wal, I must speak," he said. " Fm a stumbling-block. I've allers
been one. I hain't never ben a Christian, that's jest the truth on't. I
never hed oughter 'a'ben in the church. I've ben all wrong — wrong —
WRONG ! I knew I was wrong, but I wouldn't give up. It's ben jest my
awful WILL. I've set up my will agin God Almighty. I've set it agin my
neighbors — ^agin the minister and agin the church. And now the Lord's
come out agin me ; He's struck me down. I know He's got a right — He
can do what He pleases — but I ain't resigned —not a grain. I submit 'cause
I can't help myself; but my heart's hard and wicked. I expect my day
of grace is over. I ain't a Christian, and I can't be, and I shall go to hell
at last, and sarve me right !"
And Zeph sat down, grim and stony, and the neighbors looked one on
another in a sort of consternation. There was a terrible earnestness in
those words that seemed to appall every one and prevent any from uttering
the ordinary commonplaces of religious exhortation. For a few moments
the circle was silent as the grave, when Dr. Cushing said, " Brethren, let
us pray ;" and in his prayer he seemed to rise above earth and draw his
whole flock, with all their sins, and needs, and wants, into the presence-
chamber of heaven.
He prayed that the light of heaven might shine into the darkened
spirit of their brother ; that he might give himself up utterly to the will
of God ; that we might all do it, that we might become as little children
in the kingdom of heaven. With the wise tact which distinguished his
ministry he closed the meeting immediately after the prayer with one or
two serious words of exhortation. He feared lest what had been gained
in impression might be talked away did he hold the meeting open to the
well-meant, sincere, but uninstructed efforts of the brethren to meet a case
like that which had been laid open before them.
After the service was over and the throng slowly dispersed, Zeph
remained in his place, rigid and still. One or two approached to speak
to him ; there was in fact a tide of genuine sympathy and brotherly feeling
that longed to express itself. He might have been caught up in this
powerful current and borne into a haven of peace, had he been one to trust
himself to the help of others ; but he looked neither to the right nor to
the left; his eyes were fixed on the floor ; his brown, bony hands held his
old straw hat in a crushing grasp ; his whole attitude and aspect were
repelling and stern to such a degree that none dared address him.
The crowd slowly passed on and out. Zeph sat alone, as he thought ;
but the minister, his wife, and little Dolly had remained at the upper end
of the room. Suddenly, as if sent by an irresistible impulse, Dolly
i
RESIGNATION.
251
stepped rapidly down the room and with eager gaze laid her pretty little
timid hand upon his shoulder, crying, in a voice tremulous at once with
fear and with intensity, " 0, why do you say that you cannot be a
Christian ? Don't you know that Christ loves you ?"
Christ loves you ! The words thrilled through his soul with a strange,
new power; he opened his eyes and looked astonished into the little
earnest, pleading face,
" Christ loves you," she repeated; "oh, do believe it!"
" Loves me /" he said, slowly. " Why should He ?"
. "But He does ; He loves us all. He died for us. He died for you.
Oh, believe it. He'll help you ; He'll make you feel right. Only trust
Him. Please say you will !"
Zeph looked at the little face earnestly, in a softened, wondering way.
A tear slowly stole down his hard cheek.
" Thank'e, dear child," he said.
" You will believe it ?"
"I'll try."
" You will trust Him ?"
Zeph paused a moment, then rose up with a new and different expres-
sion in his face, and said, in a subdued and earnest voice, " / ivill.'"
"Amen!" said the Doctor, who stood listening; and he silently
grasped the old man's hand.
RESIGNATION.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW,
UpRlIERE IS no flock, however watched
^i^ and tended,
•«-35>iti ^^^ '^^^ dead lamb is there !
[ There is no fireside, howsoe'er de-
¥ fended,
T But has one vacant chair !
■§•
The air is full of farewells to the dying
And mournings for the dead ;
The heart of Eachel, for her children crying,
Will not be comforted !
Let us be patient ! These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise,
But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.
We see but dimly through the mists and
vapors ;
Amid these earthly damps
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
May be heaven's distant lamps.
There is no Death ! What seems so is tran-
sition :
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.
She is not dead, — the child of our affection, —
But gone unto that school
Where she no longer needs our poor protection;
And Christ himself doth rule.
252
ENOCH ARDEN AT THE WINDOW.
In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,
By guardian angels led,
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollu-
tion,
She lives whom we call dead.
Day after day we think what she is doing
In those bright realms of air ;
Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,
Behold her grown more fair.
Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken
The bond which nature gives,
Thinking that our remembrance, though un-
spoken.
May reach her where she lives.
Not as a child shall we again behold her ;
For when with raptures wild
In our embraces we again enfold her.
She will not be a child :
But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion.
Clothed with celestial grace;
And beautiful with all the soul's expansion
Shall we behold her face.
And though, at times, impetuous with emotion
And anguish long suppressed.
The swelling heart heaves moaning like the
ocean.
That cannot be at rest, —
We will be patient, and assuage the feeling
We may not wholly stay ;
By silence sanctifying, not concealing
The grief that must have way.
ENOCH ARDEN AT THE WINDOW.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
;|lp|j|UT Enoch yearned to see her face
^^^ again ;
If I might look on her sweet face
again
And know that she is happy." So
the thought
Haunted and harassed him and drove
him forth
At evening when the dull November day
Was growing duller twilight, to the hill.
There he sat down gazing on all below :
There did a thousand memories roll upon him,
Unspeakable for sadness. By and by
The ruddy square of comfortable light.
Far-blazing from the rear of Philip's house.
Allured him, as the beacon-blaze allures
The bird of passage, till he madly strike
Against it, and beats out bis weary life.
For Philip's dwelling fronted on the street.
The latest house to landward ; but behind.
With one small gate that opened on the waste.
Flourished a little garden square and walled :
And in it throve an ancient evergreen,
A yew-tree, and all around it ran a walk
Of shingle, and a walk divided it :
But Enoch shunned the middle walk and stole
Up by the wall, behind the yew ; and thence
That which he better might have shunned,
griefs
Like his have worse or better, Enoch saw.
For cups and silver on the burni.shed board
Sparkled and shone ; so genial was the heartli ;
And on the right hand of the hearth he saw
Philip, the slighted suitor of old times,
Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees
And o'er her second father stoopt a girl,
A later but a loftier Annie Lee,
Fair-haired and tall, and from her lifted
hand
Dangled a length of ribbon and a ring
To tempt the babe, who reared his creasy
arms.
Caught at and ever missed it, and they
laughed :
And on the left hand of the hearth he saw
4
THE FISHER'S COTTAGE.
253
The mother glancing often at her babe,
But turning now and then to speak with him,
Her son, who stood beside her tall and strong,
And saying that which pleased him, for he
smiled.
Now when the dead man come to life
beheld
Plis wife his wife no more, and saw the babe
Hers, yet not his, upon the father's knee,
And all the warmth, the peace, the happiness,
And his own children tall and beautiful,
And him, that other, reigning in his place.
Lord of his rights and of his children's love, —
Then he, though Miriam Lane had told him
all,
things seen are mightier than things
heard,
Staggered and shook, holding the branch,
and feared
To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry.
Which in one moment, like the blast of doom.
Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth.
He therefore turning softly like a thief.
Lest the harsh shingle -should grate underfoot.
And feeling all along the garden-wall.
Lest he should swoon and tumble and be
found,
Crept to the gate, and opened it, and closed.
As lightly as a sick man's chamber-door,
Behind him, and came out upon the waste.
And there he would have knelt, but that
his knees
Were feeble, so that falling prone he dug
His fingers into the wet earth, and prayed
THE FISHER'S COTTAGE.
HENRY HEINE, TRANSLATED BY CHARLES G. LELAND.
^iJlll^E sat by the fisher's cottage,
"^]m|iS And looked at the stormy tide ;
"^ i?-^ The evening mist came rising,
■s. And floating far and wide.
One by one in the lighthouse
The lamps shone out on high ;
And far on the dim horizon
A ship went sailing by.
We spoke of storm and shipwreck, —
Of sailors, and how they live ;
Of journeys 'twixt sky and water.
And the sorrows and joys they give.
We spoke of distant countries,
In regions strange and fair,
And of the wondrous beings
And curious customs there ;
254
MISS EDITH HELPS THINGS ALONG.
Of perfumed lamps on the Ganges,
Which are launched in the twilight hour ;
And the dark and silent Brahmins,
Who worship the lotos flower.
Of the wretched dwarfs of Lapland, —
Broad-headed, wide-mouthed, and small, —
Who crouch round their oil fires, cooking,
And chatter and scream and bawl.
And the maidens earnestly listened.
Till at last we spoke no more ;
The ship like a shadow had vanished,
And darkness fell deep on the shore.
SERVANT OF GOD, WELL DONE.
Suggested by the sudden death of the Rev. Thomas Taylor, who had preached the previous evening.
JAMES MONTGOMERY.
iERVANT of God, well done ;
Rest from thy loved employ ;
The battle fought, the victory won,
Enter thy master's joy."
The voice at midnight came ;
He started up to hear,
A mortal arrow pierced his frame ;
He fell, — but felt no fear.
Tranquil amidst alarms.
It found him in the field,
A veteran slumbering on his arms,
Beneath his red-cross shield :
His sword was in his hand.
Still warm with recent fight ;
Ready that moment, at command.
Through rock and steel to smite.
At midnight came the cry,
" To meet thy God prepare ! "
He woke, — and caught the Captain':
Then strong in faith and prayer,
His spirit, with a bound,
Burst its encumbering clay ;
His tent at sunrise, on the ground,
A darkened ruin lay.
The pains of death are past.
Labor and sorrow cease ;
And life's long warfare closed at last,
His soul is found in peace.
Soldier of Christ ! well done ;
Praise be thy new employ ;
And while eternal ages run,
Rest in thy Saviour's joy.
eye ;
i
MISS EDITH HELPS THINGS ALONG.
^^
F. BRET HARTE.
sister'llbedownin a minute, and
^^ays you're to wait, if you please;
\. , \ ml says I might stay till she came,
; • if I'd promise her never to tease,
T Nor speak till you spoke to me first.
i But that's nonsense ; for how would
el you know
What she told me to say if I didn't ? Don't
you really and truly think so ?
" And then you'd feel strange here alone.
And you wouldn't know just where to
sit;
For that chair isn't strong on its legs, and
we never use it a bit :
We keep it to match with the sofa ; but Jack
says it would be like you
To flop yourself right down upon it, and
knock out the very last screw.
HYMN TO THE FLOWERS.
255
" Suppose you try ! I won't tell. You're
afraid to ! Oh ! you're afraid they would
think it mean !
Well, then, there's the album : that's pretty if
you're sure that your fingers are clean.
For sister says sometimes I daub it ; but she
only says that when she's cross.
There's her picture. You know it ? It's like
her ; but she ain't good-looking, of course.
'This is ME." It's the best of 'em all. Now,
tell me, you'd never have thought
That once I was little as that ? It's the only
one that could be bought ;
For that was the message to pa from the
photograph-man where I sat, —
That he wouldn't print oil any more till he
first got his money for that.
" What ? Maybe you're tired of waiting.
Why, often she's longer than this.
There's all her back hair to do up, and all
her front curls to friz.
But it's nice to be sitting here talking like
grown people, just you and me !
Do you think you'll be coming here often T
Oh, do ! But don't come like Tom Lee, —
" Tom Lee, her last beau. Why, my goodness !
he used to be here day and night,
Till the folks thought he'd be her husband .;
and Jack says that gave him a fright.
You won't run away then, as he did? for
you're not a rich man, they say.
Pa says you're as poor as a church-mouse.
Now, are you ? and how poor are they ?
" Ain't you glad that you met me ? Well, I
am ; for I know now your hair isn't red ;
But what there is left of it's mousy, and not
what that naughty Jack said.
But there I must go : sister's coming ! But I
wish I could wait, just to see
If she ran up to you, and she kissed you in
the way that she used to kiss Lee."
HYMN TO THE FLO WEBS.
HORACE SMITH.
^AY-STARS! that ope your eyes at
morn to twinkle
From rainbow galaxies of earth's
creation ;
And dewdrops on her lovely altars
sprinkle
As a libation.
Ye matin worshippers ! who bending lowly
Before the uprisen sun, God's lidless eye.
Pour from your chalices a sweet and holy
Incense on high.
Ye bright mosaics ! that with storied beauty
The floor of nature's temple tesselate —
^Tiat numerous lessons of instructive duty
Your forms create !
'Neath cloister'd bough each floral bell that
swingeth,
And tolls its perfume on the passing air,
Makes Sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth
A call to prayer.
Not to those domes where crumbling arch
and column
Attest the feebleness of mortal hand,
But to that fane most catholic and solemn.
Which God hath plann'd ;
To that cathedral boundless as our wonder,
Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon
supply ;
Its choir, the wind and waves ; its organ,
thunder ;
Its dome, the sky.
256
DEATH OF LITTLE NELL.
There, as in solitude and shade, I wander
Through the lone aisles, or stretched upon
the sod.
Awed by the silence, reverently ponder
The ways of God.
Not useless are ye, flowers, though made for
pleasure.
Blooming o'er hill and dale, by day and
night;
On every side your sanction bids me treasure
Harmless delight !
Your voiceless lips, flowers! are living
preachers ;
Each cup a pulpit, and each leaf a book ;
Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers,
In loneliest nook.
Floral apostles, that with dewy splendor
Blush without sin, and weep without a
crime !
Oh ! may I deeply learn, and ne'er sur-
render
Your lore divine !
" Thou wert not, Solomon, in all thy glory,
Array'd," the lilies cry " in robes like ours ;
How vam your glory — Oh ! how transitory
Are human flowers !"
In the sweet-scented pictures, heavenly artist.
With which thou paintest nature's wide-
spread hall,
What a delightful lesson thou impartest
Of love to all !
Posthumous glories — angel-like collection.
Upraised from seed and bulb interr'd in
earth ;
Ye are to me a type of resurrection
And second birth !
Ephemeral sages — what instructors hoary
To such a world of thought could furnish
scope ?
Each fading calyx a memento mori,
Yet fount of hope.
Were I, God ! in churchless lands remaining,
Far from the voice of teachers and divines,
My soul would find in flowers of thy ordaining
Priests, sermons, shrines!
DEATH OF LITTLE NELL.
CHARLES DICKENS.
^Y little and little, the old man bad drawn back towards tbe inner
cbamber, wbile tbese words were spoken. He pointed there,
he replied, with trembling lips, —
" You plot among you to wean my heart from her. You
will never do that— never while I have life. I have no relative or
friend but her — I never had — I never will have. She is all in all to
me. It is too late to part us now."
Waving them off with his hand, and calling softly to her as he went.
he stole into the room. They who were left behind drew close together,
and after a few whispered words, — not unbroken by emotion, or easily
uttered, — followed him. They moved so gently that their footsteps made
no noise, but there were sobs from among the group and sounds of grief
and mourning.
DEATH OF LITTLE NELL. 257
For she was dead. There, upon her httle bed, she lay at rest. The
solemn stillness was no marvel now.
She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of
pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh from the hand of
God, and waiting for the breath of Hfe ; not one who had lived and suffered
death.
Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries and
green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favor. " When I
die, put near me something that has loved the light, and had the sky above
it always." Those were her words.
She was dead. Lear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. Her
little bird — a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would have crushed
— was stirring nimbly in its cage ; and the strong heart of its child-mis-
tress was mute and motionless forever.
"Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings and fatigues ?
All gone. Sorrow was dead indeed in her, but peace and perfect happiness
were born ; imaged in her tranquil beauty and profound repose.
And still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change. Yes.
The old fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face ; it had passed like
a dream through haunts of misery and care ; at the door of the poor
schoolmaster on the summer evening, before the furnace fire upon the cold,
wet night, at the still bedside of the dying boy, there had been the same
mild, lovely look. So shall we know the angels in their majesty after
death.
The old man held one languid arm in his, and had the small hand
tight folded to his breast for warmth. It was the hand she had stretched
out to him with her last smile — the hand that had led him on through all
their wanderings. Ever and anon he pressed it to his lips, then hugged
it to his breast again, murmuring that it was warmer now ; and as he said
it, he looked in agony to those who stood around, as if imploring them to
help her.
She was dead, and past all help, or need of it. The ancient rooms
she had seemed to fill with life, even while her own v/as waning fast, — the
garden she had tended, — the eyes she had gladdened — the noiseless haunts
of many a thoughtless hour — the paths she had trodden as it were but
yesterday — could know her no more.
"It is not," said the schoolmaster, as he bent down to kiss her on the
cheek, and give his tears free vent, "it is not on earth that heaven's justice
ends. Think what it is compared with the world to which her young
spirit has winged its early flight, and say, if one deliberate wish expressed
258
THE JOLLY OLD PEDAGOGUE.
in solemn terms above this bed could call her back to life, which of us
would utter it?"
FATE.
F. BRET HARTE.
^HE sky is clouded, the rocks are bare,
The spray of the tempest is white in
air.
The winds are out with the waves
at play —
And I shall not tempt the sea to-day.
The trail is narrow, the wood is dim.
The panther clings to the arching limb:
And the lion's whelps are abroad at play —
And I shall not join the chase to-day.
But the ship sailed safely over the sea,
And the hunters came from the chase in glee;
And the town that was built upon a rock
Was swallowed up in the earthquake shock.
THE JOLLY OLD PEDAGOGUE.
GEORGE ARNOLD.
'l^jHWAS a jolly old pedagogue, long ago,
mK Tall and slender, and sallow and
(|J|l|i His form was bent, and his gait was
* slow,
¥ His long, thin hair was as white as
r snow.
But a wonderful twinkle shone in
his eye ;
And he sang every night, as he went to bed,
" Let us be happy, down here below ;
The living should live, though the dead be
dead,"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.
He taught his scholars the rule of three,
Writing, and reading, and history, too ;
He took the little ones upon his knee,
For a kind old heart in his breast had he.
And the wants of the littlest child he knew :
" Learn while you're young," he often said;
" There is much to enjoy, down here below;
Life for the living, and rest for the dead !"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.
With the stujiidcst lioys he was kind and cool,
Speaking only in gentlest tones ;
The rod was hardly known in his school —
Whipping to him was a barbarous rule,
And too hard work for his poor old bones ;
Beside, it was painful, he sometimes said:
" We should make life pleasant, down here
below.
The living need charity more than the dead,"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.
He lived in the house by the hawthorn Ian
With roses and woodbine over the doo
His rooms were quiet, and neat, and plain
But a spirit of comfort there held reign
And made him forget he was old and poor
" I need so little," he often said ;
" And my friends and relatives here below
Won't litigate over me when I am dead,"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.
But the pleasantest times that he had, of all,
Were the sociable hours he used to pass,
With his chair tipped back to a neighbor's wall
Making an unceremonious call.
Over a pipe and a friendly glass :
This was the finest pleasure, he said,
Of the many he tasted here below ,
" Who has no cronies, had better be dead !"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.
Then the jolly old pedagogue's wrinkled face
Melted all over in sunshiny smiles:
THE JOLLY OLD PEDAGOGUE.
269
He stirred his glass with an old-school grace,
Chuckled, and sipped, and prattled apace,
Till the house grew merry from cellar to tiles.
" I'm a pretty old man," he gently said,
" I have lingered a long while, hero below ;
Leaving his tenderest kisses there,
On the jolly old pedagogue's jolly old
crown ;
And, feeling the kisses, he smiled, and said,
Twas a glorious world, down here below;
' He took the little ones upon his knee."
But my heart is fresh, if my youth is fled !"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.
He smoked his pipe in the balmy air.
Every night when the sun went down,
While the soft wind played in bia silvery
hair.
" Why wait for happiness till we are dead ?'
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.
He sat at his door, one midsummer night.
After the sun had sunk in the west,
And the lingering beams of golden light
Made his kindly old face look warm and bright
260
THE COMET.
While the odorous night-wind whispered,
"Rest!"
Gently, gently, he bowed his head —
There were angels waiting for him, I know ;
He was sure of happiness, living or dead,
This jolly old pedagogue, long ago.
THE COMET.
THOMAS HOOD.
f>H|^MONG professors of astronomy,
^/mj^ Adepts in the celestial economy,
c^..^ The name of Herschel's very often
i cited ;
"n And justly so, for he is hand in glove
5 With every bright intelligence above.
Indeed, it was his custom so to stop,
Watching the stars, upon the house's top ;
That once upon a time he got benighted.
In his observatory thus coquetting.
With Venus or with Juno gone astraj'-,
All sublunary matters quite forgetting
In his flirtations with the winking stars,
Acting the spy, it might be, upon Mars, —
A new Andre ;
Or, like a Tom of Coventry, sly peeping
At Dian sleeping ;
Or ogling through his glass
Some heavenly lass.
Tripping with pails along the Milky way ;
Or looking at that wain of Charles, the
Martyr's.
Thus was he sitting, watchman of the sky.
When lo ! a something with a tail of flame
M.xde him exclaim,
" My stars !" — he always puts that stress
on my, —
" My stars and garters !"
" A comet, sure as I'm alive !
A noble one as I should wish to view ;
It can't bo Halloy's though, that is not due
Till eighteen thirty-five.
Magnificent ! How fine his fiery trail !
Zounds! 'tis a pity, though, he comes
unsought,
Unasked, unrcckoned, — in no human
thought ;
He ought — ho ought — he ought
To have been caught
With scientific salt upon his tail.
" I looked no more for it, I do declare.
Than the Great Bear !
As sure as Tycho Brahe is dead.
It really entered in my head
No more than Berenice's hair !"
Thus musing, heaven's grand inquisitor
Sat gazing on the uninvited visitor.
Till John, the serving man, came to the upper
Regions, with " Please your honor, come to
supper."
" Supper ! good John, to-night I shall not sup.
Except on that phenomenon — look up."
" Not sup !" cried John, thinking with con-
sternation
That supping on a star must be stor-vation.
Or even to batten
On ignesfatui would never fatten.
Ills visage seemed to say, " that very odd
But still his master the same tune rg
" I can't coroo down ; go to the pari
And say I'm supping with the h^
bodies."
" The heavenly bodies !" echoed John, "ahem!"
Tlis mind still full of famishing alarms,
" Zounds ! if your honor sups with them,
In helping, somebody must make long
arms."
He thought his master's stomach was in
danger,
But still in the same tone replied the
knight,
" Go down, John, go, I have no appetite ;
Say I'm engaged with a celestial stranger."
Quoth John, not much aufait in such affair.t,
"Wouldn't the stranger take a bit down
stairs ?"
" No," said the master, smiling, and no
wonder.
At such a blunder,
TWENTY YEARS AGO.
261
" The stranger is not quite the thing you
think ;
He wants no meat or drink ;
And one may doubt quite reasonably whether
He has a mouth,
Seeing his head and tail are joined together.
Behold him ! there he is, John, in the south."
John looked up with his portentous eyes.
Each rolling like a marble in its socket ;
At last the fiery tadpole spies,
And, full of Vauxhall reminiscence, cries,
" A rare good rocket !"
" A what ? A rocket, John ! Far from it!
What you behold, John, is a comet ;
One of those most eccentric things
That in all ages
Have puzzled sages
And frightened kings ;
With fear of change, that flaming meteor
John,
Perplexes sovereigns throughout its range."
" Do he ?" cried John ;
" Well, let him flare on,
J haven't got no sovereigns to
TWENTY YEARS AGO.
P'VE wandered to the village, Tom, I've
sat beneath the tree.
Upon the school-house play-ground, that
i sheltered you and me ;
X, But none were left to greet me, Tom ; and
few were left to know,
Who played with us upon the green, some
twenty years ago.
The grass is just as green, Tom ; bare-footed
boys at play
Were sporting, just as we did then, with
spirits just as gay.
But the "master" sleeps upon the hill, which,
coated o'er with snow,
Afforded us a sliding-place, some twenty
years ago.
The old school-house is altered now ; the
benches are replaced
By new ones, very like the same our pen-
knives once defaced ;
But the same old bricks are in the wall, the
bell swings to and fro ;
Its music's just the same, dear Tom, 'twas
twenty years ago.
The boys were playing some old game,
beneath that same old tree ;
I have forgot the name just now, — you ve
played the same with me.
On that same spot ; 'twas played with knives,
by throwing so and so ;
18
The loser had a task to do, — there, twenty
years ago.
The river's running just as still ; the willows
on its side
Are larger than they were, Tom ; the stream
appears less wide ;
But the grape-vine swing is ruined now,
where once we played the beau,
And swung our sweethearts, — pretty girls, —
just twenty years ago.
The spring that bubbled 'neath the hill, close
by the spreading beech,
Is very low, — 'twas then so high that we
could scarcely reach.
And, kneeling down to get a drink, dear Tom.
I started so,
To see how sadly I am changed since twenty
years ago.
'Twas by that spring, upon an elm, you know
I cut your name.
Your sweetheart's just beneath it, Tom, and
you did mine the same ;
Some heartless wretch has peeled the bark,
'twas dying sure but slow,
Just as she died, whose name you cut, some
twenty years ago.
My lids have long been dry, Tom, but tears
came to my eyes ;
262
THE SEA.
I thought of her I loved so well, those early-
broken ties ;
I visited the old church-yard, and took some
flowers to strow
Upon the graves of those we loved, some
twenty years ago.
Some are in the churcli-yard laid, some sleep
beneath the sea ;
But few are left of our old class, excepting
you and me ;
And when our time shall come, Tom, and
we are called to go,
I hope they'll lay us where we played, just
twenty years ago,
HIGHLAND MARY.
ROBERT BURNS
mwa^^ banks and braes and streams around
Ihe castle o' Montgomery,
Green be your woods, and fair your
flowers.
Your waters never drumlie !
There simmer first unfaulds her robes,
And there the langest tarry ;
For there I took the last fareweel
0' my sweet Highland Mary.
How sweetly bloomed the gay green birk.
How rich the hawthorn's blossom.
As underneath their fragrant shade
I clasped her to my bosom !
The golden hours on angel wings
Flew o'er me and my dearie ;
For dear to me as light and life
Was my sweet Highland Mary.
Wi' mony a vow and locked embrace
Oar parting was fu' tender ;
And pledging aft to meet again,
We tore oursels asunder ;
But, 0, fell death's untimely frost,
That nipt my flower sae early !
Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay
That wraps my Highland Mary !
O pale, pale now, those rosy lips,
I aft hae kissed sae fondly !
And closed for aye the sparkling gla;
That dwelt on me sae kindly ;
And mouldering now in silent dust
That heart that lo'ed me dearly !
But still within my bosom's core
Shall live my Highland Mary.
THE SEA.
FROM BYRON'S " CHILDE HAROLD.
^mpHERE is a pleasure in the pathless
^111^ woods,
^W^ There is a rapture on the lonely
eji'^ shore,
There is society where none intrudes
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these oui; interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all
conceal.
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, — roll !
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ;
Man marks the earth with ruin, — his control
THE SEA.
263
Stops with the shore; — upon the watery-
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which
plain
mar
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth
Alike the Armafl^a's pride or spoils of
remain
Trafalgar.
A shadow of man's ravage save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
Thy shores are empires, changed in all
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling
save thee ;
groan.
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and
they?
unknown.
Thy waters washed them power while they
were free.
His steps are not upon thy paths, — thy
And many a tyrant since; their shores
fields
obey
Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise
The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay
And shake him from thee ; the vile strength
Has dried up realms to deserts ; not so thou ;
he wields
Unchangeable save to thy wUd waves'
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
play,
liJi^
JfdL
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful
spray
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay.
And dashest him again to earth : — there
let him lay.
The armaments which thunderstrike the
walls
Of rock -built cities, bidding nations quake
And monarchs tremble in their capitals.
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee and arbiter of war, —
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy
flake, ^
Time writes no wrinkles on thine azure
brow;
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's
form
Glasses itself in tempests : in all time
Calm or convulsed, — in breeze, or gale, or
storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and
sublime,
The image of Eternity, — the throne
Of the Invisible ! even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made ; each
264 IMAGES.
Obeys thee : thou goest forth, dread, fathom-
less, alone.
And I have loved thee. Ocean ! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward ; from a
boy
I wantoned with thy breakers, — they to me
Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear ;
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane, — as I do
here.
IMAGES.
T. B, MACAULAY.
^OGICIANS may reason about abstractions. But the great mass of
i men must have images. The strong tendency of the multitude in
It all ages and nations to idolatry can be explained on no other prin-
»; ciple. The first inhabitants of Greece, there is reason to believe, wor-
J shipped one invisible Deity. But the necessity of having something
more definite to adore produced, in a few centuries, the innumerable cro
of gods and goddesses. In like manner, the ancient Persians thou
impious to exhibit the Creator under a human form. Yet even these
ferred to the sun the worship which, in speculation, they consic
only to the Supreme Mind. The history of the Jews is the rec^
continued struggle between pure Theism, supported by the most
sanctions, and the strangely fascinating desire of having some visible an
tangible object of adoration. Perhaps none of the secondary causes which
Gibbon has assigned for the rapidity with which Christianity spread over
the world, while Judaism scarcely ever acquired a proselyte, operated more
powerfully than this feeling. God, the uncreated, the incomprehensible,
the invisible, attracted few worshippers. A philosopher might admire so
noble a conception; but the crowd turned away in disgust from words
which presented no image to their minds. It was before Deity, embodied
in a human form, walking among men, partaking of their infirmities,
leaning on their bosoms, weeping over their graves, slumbering in the
manger, bleeding on the cross, that the prejudices of the Synagogue, and
the doubts of the Academy, and the pride of the Portico, and the fasces of
the Lictor, and the swords of thirty legions, were humbled in the dust.
Soon after Christianity had achieved its triumph, the principle which had
assisted it began to corrupt it. It became a new Paganism. Patron saints
assumed the ofiices of household gods. St. George took the place of Mars.
St. Elmo consoled the mariner for the loss of Castor and Pollux. The
GOIN' HOME TO-DAY.
265
Virgin Mother and Cecilia succeeded to Venus and the muses. The fasci-
nation of sex and lovehness was again joined to that of celestial dignity ;
and the homage of chivalry was blended with that of religion. Reformers
have often made a stand against these feelings ; but never with more than
apparent and partial success. The men who demolished the images in
cathedrals have not always been able to demolish those which were
enshrined in their minds. It would not be difficult to show that in politics
the same rule holds good. Doctrines, we are afraid, must generally be
embodied before they can exercise a strong public feeling. The multitude
is more easily interested for the most unmeaning badge, or the most
insigniticant name than for the most important principle.
GOIW HOME TO-DA Y.
WILL CARLETON,
!|r||[pY business on the jury's done — the
quibblin' all is through —
txHj^^j^ytp I've watched the lawyers, right and
left, and give my verdict true;
I stuck so long unto my chair, I
thought I would grow in ;
And if I do not know myself, they'll
get me there ag'in.
But now the court's adjourned for good, and
I have got my pay ;
I'm loose at last, and thank the Lord, I'm
goin' home to-day.
I've somehow felt uneasy, like, since first day
I come down ;
It is an awkward game to play the gentle-
man in town ;
And this 'ere Sunday suit of mine, on Sunday
rightly sets,
But when I wear the stuS a week, it some-
how galls and frets.
I'd rather wear my homespun rig of pepper-
salt and gray —
I'll have it on in half a jiff, when I get home
to-day.
I have no doubt my wife looked out, as well
as any one —
As well as any woman could — to see that
things were done :
For though Melinda, when I'm there, won't
set her foot out doors.
She's very careful, when I'm gone, to 'tend
to all the chores.
But nothing prospers half so well when I go
off to stay.
And I will put things into shape, when I get
home to-day.
The mornin' that I come away, we had a little
bout;
I coolly took my hat and left, before the show
was out.
For what I said was naught whereat she
ought to take offense ;
And she was always quick at words, and
ready to commence.
But then, she's first one to give up when she
has had her say ;
And shp will meet me with a kiss, when I go
home to-day
My little boy — I'll give 'em leave to match
him, if they can ;
It's fun to see him strut akout, and try to be
a man !
266
THE NATION'S DEAD.
The gamest, cheeriest little chap you'd ever
want to see !
And then they laugh because I think the
child resembles me.
The little rogue ! he goes for me like robbers
for their prey ;
He'll turn my pockets inside out, when I get
home to-day.
My little girl — I can't contrive how it should
happen thus —
That God could pick that sweet bouquet, and
fling it down to us !
My wife, she says that han'some face will
some day make a stir ;
And then I laugh, because she thinks the
child resembles her.
She'll meet me half way down the hill, and
kiss me, anyway ;
And light my heart up with her smiles, when
I go home to-day !
If there's a heaven upon the ep.rth, a fellow
knows it when
He's been away from home a week, and then
gets back again.
If there's a heaven above the earth, there
often, I'll be bound.
Some homesick fellow meets his folks, and
hugs 'em all around.
But let my creed be right or wrong, or be it
as it may.
My heaven is just ahead of me — I'm goin'
home to-day.
MY CREED.
ALICE CAEY.
hold that Christian grace abounds
Where charity is seen ; that when
We climb to heaven, 'tis on the rounds
Of love to men.
fl hold all else, named piety,
A selfish scheme, a vain pretence ;
Where centre is not, can there be
Circumference ?
This I moreover hold, and dare
Affirm where'er my rhyme may go, —
Whatever things be sweet or fair,
Love makes them so.
Whether it be the lullabies
That charm to rest the nursing bird,
4
i fiuslT^H^
Or that sweet confidence of si
And blushes, made without
Whether the dazzling and thi
Of softly sumptuous garden bowers
Or by some cabin door, a bush
Of ragged flowers.
'Tis not the wide phylactery,
Nor stubborn fasts, nor stated prayers,
That makes us saints ; we judge the tree
By what it bears.
And when a man can live apart
From works, on theologic trust,
I know the blood about his heart
Is dry as dust.
THE NATION'S DEAD.
|i«50UR hundred thousand men
The brave — the good — the true,
f,g.-j In tangled wood, in mountain glen,
On battle plain, in prison pen,
Lie dead for me and you I
Four hundred thousand of the brave
Have made our ransomed soil their
grave.
For me and you !
Good friend, for me and you I
UNDER THE VIOLETS.
267
In many a fevered swamp,
By many a black bayou,
In many a cold and frozen camp,
The weary sentinel ceased his tramp.
And died for me and you !
From Western plain to ocean tide
Are stretched the graves of those who died
For me and you !
Good friend, for me and you !
On many a bloody plain
Their ready swords they drew.
And poured their life-blood, like the rain
A home — a heritage to gain.
To gain for me and you !
Our brothers mustered by our side ;
They marched, they fought, and bravely died
For me and you !
Good friend, for me and you !
Up many a fortress wall
They charged — those boys in blue —
'Mid surging smoke, the volley'd ball ;
The bravest were the first to fall !
To fall for me and you !
These noble men — the nation's pride —
Four hundred thousand men have died
For me and you I
Good friend, for me and you 1
In treason's prison-hold
Their martyr spirits grew
To stature like the saints of old,
While amid agonies untold,
They starved for me and you !
The good, the patient, and the tried,
Four hundred thousand men have died
For me and you !
Good friend, for me and you !
A debt we ne'er can pay
To them is justly du.3.
And to the nation's latest day
Our children's children still shall say,
" They died for me and you ! "
Four hundred thousand of the brave
Made this, our ransomed soil, their grave,
For me and you !
Good friend, for me and you !
UNDER THE VIOLETS.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
ER hands are cold ; her face is white ; I lyhen o'er their boughs the squirrels run.
No more her pulses come and go ;
!§!^^i^ Her eyes are shut to life and light ; —
Fold the white vesture, snow on
snow,
And lay her where the violets blow.
But not beneath a graven stone,
To plead for tears with alien eyes ;
A slender cross of wood alone
Shall say, that here a maiden lies
In peace beneath the peaceful skies.
And gray old trees of hugest limb
Shall wheel their circling shadows round
To make the scorching sunlight dim
That drinks the greenness from the ground,
And drop their dead leaves on her mound.
And through their leaves the robins call,
And, ripening in the autumn sun.
The acorns and the chestnuts fall.
Doubt not that she will heed them all.
For her the morning choir shall sing
Its matins from the branches high,
And every minstrel-voice of spring.
That trills beneath the April sky,
Shall greet her with its earliest cry.
When, turning round their dial-track.
Eastward the lengthening shadows pass
Her little mourners clad in black.
The crickets, sliding through the grass,
Shall pipe for her an evening mass.
268
BEYOND THE SMILING AND THE WEEriNG.
At last the rootlets of the trees
Shall find the prison where she lies,
And bear the buried dust they seize
In leaves and blossoms to the skies.
So may the soul that warmed it rise !
If any, born of kindlier blood,
Should ask, What maiden lies below ?
Say only this : A tender bud,
That tried to blossom in the snow.
Lies withered where the violets blow
THE AMERICAN BO Y.
CAEOLINE OILMAN.
|00K up, my young American !
H Stand firmly on the earth,
Where noble deeds and mental power
Give titles over birth.
A hallow'd land thou claim'st my boy.
By early struggles bought,
Heaped up with noble memories.
And wide, ay, wide as thought!
What though we boast no ancient towers
Where " ivied " streamers twine,
The laurel lives upon our soil,
The laurel, boy, is thine.
And though on " Cressy's distant field,"
Thy gaze may not be cast.
While through long centuries of blood
Rise spectres of the past, —
The future wakes thy dreamings high,
And thou a note mayst claim —
Aspirings which in after times
Shall swell the trump of fame.
And when thou'rt told of knighthood':
And English battles won,
shield.
Look up, my boy, and breathe one word-
The name of Washington.
BEYOND THE SMILING AND THE WEEPING.
HORATIUS BONAR.
^j^gEYOND the smiling and the weeping
^^TO I shall be soon ;
.;^^v{^ Beyond the waking and the sleeping,
^^ Beyond the sowing and the reaping,
I shall be soon.
Love, rest, and home !
Swed home I
Lord, tarry not, but come.
CALL ME NOT DEAD.
269
Beyond the blooming and the fading
I shall be soon ;
Beyond the shining and the shading,
Beyond the hoping and the dreading,
I shall be soon.
Love, rest, and home !
Beyond the rising and the setting
I shall be soon
Beyond the calming and the fretting,
Beyond remembering and forgetting,
I shall be soon.
Love, rest, and home !
Beyond the gathering and the strowing
I shall be soon ;
Beyond the ebbing and the flowing,
Beyond the coming and the going,
I shall be soon.
Love, rest, and home!
Beyond the parting and the meeting
I shall be soon ;
Beyond the farewell and the greeting,
Beyond the pulse's fever beating,
I shall be soon.
Love, rest, and home !
Beyond the frost chain and the fever
I shall be soon ;
Beyond the rock waste and the river.
Beyond the ever and the never,
I shall be soon.
Love, rest, and home !
Sweet home !
Lord, tarry not, but come.
CALL ml: not dead.
Translated from the Persian of the 12th Century by Edwin Aunold.
■mw^E who dies at Azim sends
This to comfort all his friends. —
Faithful friend, it lies, I know.
Pale and white, and cold as snow ;
And ye say, " Abdallah's dead " —
Weeping at the feet and head.
I can see yoiir falling tears ;
I can see your sighs and prayers ;
Yet I smile and whisper this :
I am not the thing you miss !
Cease your tears and let it lie ;
It was mine, it is not I.
Sweet friends, what the women lave
For the last sleep of the grave
Is a hut which I am quitting,
Is a garment no more fitting ;
Is a cage from which, at last
Like a bird my soul has passed.
Love the inmate, not the room ;
The wearer, not the garb — the plume
Of the oagle, not the bars
That kept him from the splendid stars.
Loving friends, rise and dry
Straightway every weeping eye !
What ye lift upon the bier
Is not worth a single tear.
'Tis an empty sea-shell — one
Out of which the pearl is gone.
The shell is broken, it lies there ;
The pearl, the all, the soul is here.
'Tis an earthen jar whose lid
Allah sealed, the while it hid
The treasure of his treasury —
A mind that loved him, let it lie.
Let the shards be earth once more,
Since the gold is in his store.
Allah, glorious! Allah, good!
Now thy world is understood —
Now the long, long wonder ends;
Yet we weep, my foolish friends.
While the man whom you call dead
In unbroken bliss instead
Lives and loves you — lost, 'tis true,
In the light that shines for you ;
270
WHAT IS A MINORITY?
But in the light you cannot see,
In undisturbed felicity —
In a perfect paradise,
And a life that never dies.
Farewell, friends, yet not farewell,
Where I go, you too shall dwell,
I am gone before your face —
A moment's worth, a little space.
When you come where I have stept,
Ye will wonder why ye wept ;
Ye will know, by true love taught,
That here is all and there is naught.
Weep awhile, if ye are fain —
Sunshine still must follow rain ;
Only not at death, — for death.
Now I know, is that first breath
Which our souls draw when we enter
Life, which is, of all life, centre.
Be ye certain all seems love,
Viewed from Allah's throne above ;
Be ye stout of heart, and come
Bravely onward to your home !
La Allah ilia Allah. Yea !
Thou love divine ! Thou love alway !
He that died at Azim gave
This to those who made his grave.
WHA T IS A MINORITY?
JOHN B. GOUGH.
q^l^HAT is a minority ? The chosen heroes of this
fj^f^ in a minority. There is not a social, political, or ?
^Jp'^i'^ lege that you enjoy to-day that was not bought for y^
X blood and tears and patient suffering of the minority. It is the
1 minority that have vindicated humanity in every struggle. It is
a minority that have stood in the van of every moral conflict, and achieved
all that is noble in the history of the world. You will find that each
generation has been always busy in gathering up the scattered ashes of
the martyred heroes of the past, to deposit them in the golden urn of a
nation's history. Look at Scotland, where they are erecting monuments —
to whom ? — to the Covenanters. Ah, thcij were in a minority. Read
their history, if you can, without the blood tingling to the tips of your
fingers. These were in the minority, that, through blood, and tears, and
bootings and scourgings — dying the waters with their blood, and staining
the heather with their gore — fought the glorious battle of religious free-
dom. Minority ! if a man stand up for the right, though the right be on
the scaffold, while the wrong sits in the seat of government; if he stand
for the right, though he eat, with the right and truth, a wretched crust ; if
he walk with obloquy and scorn in the by-lanes and streets, while the
falsehood and wrong ruffle it in silken attire, lot him remember that
wherever the right and truth are there are always
Troops of beautiful, tall angels "
THE LAST STATION.
271
gathered round him, and God Himself stands within the dim future, and
keeps watch over His own ! If a man stands for the right and the truth,
though every man's finger be pointed at him, though every woman's lip be
curled at him in scorn, he stands in a majority ; for God and good angels
are with him, and greater are they that are for him, than all they that be
against him.
THE LAST STATION.
^ _
^E had been sick at one of the hotels for three or four weeks, and the
boys on the road dropped in daily to see how he got along, and to
learn if they could render him any kindness. The brakeman was
+ a good fellow, and one and all encouraged him in the hope that he
el would pull through. The doctor didn't regard the case as danger-
ous ; but the other day the patient began sinking, and it was seen that he
could not live the night out. A dozen of his friends sat in the room when
night came, buthis mind wandered, and he did not recognize them.
It was near one of the depots, and after the great trucks and noisy
drays had ceased rolling by, the bells and the short, sharp whistles of the
yard-engines sounded painfully loud. The patient had been very quiet for
half an hour, when he suddenly unclosed his eyes, and shouted : —
"Kal-a-ma-zoo!"
One of the men brushed the hair back from the cold forehead, and the
brakeman closed his eyes, and was quiet for a time. Then the wind
whirled around the depot and banged the blinds on the window of his room,
and he lifted his hand, and cried out: —
" Jack-son ! Passengers going north by the Saginaw Eoad change
cars !"
The men understood. The brakeman thought he was commg east on
the Michigan Central. The effort seemed to have greatly exhausted him,
for he lay like one dead for the next five minutes, and a watcher felt for
his pulse to see if life had not gone out. A tug going down the river
sounded her whistle loud and long, and the dying brakeman opened his
eyes, and called out : —
"Ann Arbor!"
He had been over the road a thousand times, but had made his last
trip. Death was drawing a spectral train over the old track, and he was
brakeman, engineer, and conductor.
One of the yard engines uttered a shrill whistle of warning, as if the
272
THE BURIED FLOWER.
glare of the headlight had shown to the engineer some stranger in peril,
and the brakeman called out : —
" Yp-silanti ! Change cars here for the Eel River Road !"
" He is coming in fast," whispered one of the men.
" And the end of his ' run ' will be the end of his life," said a second.
The dampness of death began to collect on the patient's forehead, and
there was that ghastly look on the face that death always brings. The
slamming of a door down the hall startled him again, and he moved his
head, and faintly said : —
" Grand Trunk Junction ! Passengers going east by the Grand Trunk
change cars!"
He was so quiet after that that all the men gathered around the bed,
believing that he was dead. His eyes closed, and the brakeman lifted his
hand, moved his head, and whispered : —
"De— "
Not " Detroit," but Death ! He died with the half-uttered whisper on
his lips. And the headlight on death's engine shone full in his face, and
covered it with such pallor as naught but death can bring.
THE BURIED FLO WEB..
W. E. AYTOUN.
^j^N the silence of my chamber,
^^ When the night is still and deep,
^°s^rf And the drowsy heave ot ocean
^m Mutters in its charmed sleep,
I Oft 1 hear the angel voices
I That have thrilled me long ago, —
Voices of my lost companions,
Lying deep beneath the snow.
Where are now the flowers we tended ?
Withered, broken, branch and stem ;
Where are now the hopes we cherished '.
Scattered to the winds with them.
For ye, too, were flowers, ye dear ones !
Nursed in hope and reared in love,
Looking fondly ever upward
To the clear blue heaven
Smiling on the sun that cheered us
Rising lightly from the rain.
Never folding up your freshness
Save to give it forth again.
0, 'tis sad to lie and reckon
All the days of faded youth.
All the vows that we believed in.
All the words we spoke in truth.
Severed, — were it severed only
By an idle thought of strife,
Such as time may knit together ;
Not the broken chord of life !
I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER.
273
0, I fling my spirit backward,
And I pass o'er years of pain ;
All I loved is rising round me,
All the lost returns again.
Robed in everlasting beauty.
Shall I see thee once again.
By the light that never fadeth,
Underneath eternal skies.
Brighter, fairer far than living,
When the dawn of resurrection
With no trace of woe or pain,
Breaks o'er deathless Paradise.
UNION AND LIBERTY.
0. W. HOLMES.
jLAG of the heroes who left us their
glory,
Borne through their battle-fields'
thunder and flame.
Blazoned in song and illumined in story.
Wave o'er us all who inherit their fame.
Up with our banner bright,
Sprinkled with starry light,
Spread its fair emblems from mountain to
shore,
While through the sounding sky
Loud rings the Nation's cry —
Union and Liberty ! One Evermoee !
Light of our firmament, guide of our Nation,
Pride of her children, and honored afar.
Let the wide beams of thy full constellation
Scatter each cloud that would darken a
star!
Empire unsceptred ! what foe shall assail
thee
the standard of Liberty's van ?
Think not the God of thy fathers shall fail
thee.
Striving with men for the birthright of man !
Yet if, by madness and treachery blighted,
Dawns the dark hour when the sword thou
must draw
Then with the arms to thy million united.
Smite the bold traitors to Freedom and
Law!
Lord of the universe ! shield us and guide ua,
Trusting Thee always, through shadow
and sun !
Thou hast united us, who shall divide ub?
Keep us, keep us the Many in One I
Up with our banner bright,
Sprinkled with starry light,
Spread its fair emblems from mountain to
shore,
While through the sounding sky
Loud rings the Nation's cry —
Union and Liberty I One Evermore !
/ REMEMBER, I REMEMBER.
THOMAS HOOD.
REMEMBER, I remember
The house where I was born.
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn.
He never came a wink too soon.
Nor brought too long a day ;
But now I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away !
ROCK ME TO SLEEP.
I remember, I remember
My spirit flew in feathers then.
The roses, red and white,
That is so heavy now,
The violets, and the lily-cups, —
And summer pools could hardly cool
Those flowers made of light!
The fever on my brow !
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
I remember, I remember
The laburnum on his birth-day, —
The fir-trees dark and high ;
The tree is living yet !
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky.
I remember, I remember
It was a childish ignorance,
Where I was used to swing.
But now 'tis little joy
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To know I'm farther off from heaven
To swallows on the wing ;
Than when I was a boy.
ROCK ME TO SLEEP.
ELIZABETH AKERS.
ACKWARD, turn backward, Time,
in your flight,
5E^^ Make me a child again just for to-
night !
Mother, come back from the echoless
shore,
Take me again to your heart as of
yore;
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
Smooth the few silver threads out of my
hair ;
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep ; —
Rock me to sleep, mother, — rock me to sleep!
Backward, flow backward, oh, tide of the
years !
I am so weary of toil and of tears, —
Toil without recompense, tears all in vain, —
Take them, and give me my childhood
again !
I have grown weary of dust and decay, —
Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away ;
Weary of sowing for others to reap : —
Rock me to sleep, mother, — rock me to sleepl
Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,
Ivlother, Mother, my heart calls for you !
Many a summer the grass has grotvn green.
Blossomed and faded, our faces between ;
Yet, with strong yearning and passionate
pain.
Long I to-night for your presence again.
THE GAMIN.
275
Come from the silence so long and so deep ; —
Rock me to sleep, mother, — rock me to sleep !
Over my heart, in the days that are flown,
No love like mother-love ever has shone ;
No other worship abides and endures, —
Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours;
None like a mother can charm away pain
From the sick soul and the world-weary
brain.
Slumber's soft calms o'er my heavy lids
creep ;
Rock me to sleep, mother, — rock me to sleep !
Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with
gold,
Fall on your shoulders again as of old ;
Let it drop over my forehead to-night,
Shading my faint eyes away from the light;
For with its sunny-edged shadows once more
Ilaply will throng the sweet visions of
yore;
Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep ; —
Rock me to sleep, mother, — rock me to sleep !
Mother, dear mother, the years have been
long
Since I last listened your lullaby song ;
Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem
Womanhood's years have been only a dream.
Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,
With your light lashes just sweeping my face,
Never hereafter to wake or to weep ; —
Rock me to sleep, mother, — rock me to sleep !
THE GA2IIK
VICTOR HUGO.
pARIS has a child ; the forest has a bird. The bird is called a spar-
row ; the child is called a gamin. His origin is from the rabble.
The most terrible embodiment of the rabble is the barricade, and
the most terrible of barricades was that of Faubourg St. Antoine.
iThe street was deserted as far as could be seen. Every door and
window was closed ; in the background rose a wall built of paving
stones, making the street a cul-de-sac. Nobody could be seen ; nothing
could be heard; not a cry, not a sound, not a breath. A sepulchre! From
time to time, if anybody ventured to cross the street, the sharp, low
whistling of a bullet was heard, and the passer fell dead or wounded. For
the space of two days this barricade had resisted the troops of Paris, and
now its ammunition was gone. During a lull in the firing, a gamin, named
Gavroche, took a basket, went out into the street by an opening, and began
to gather up the full cartridge-boxes of the National Guards who had been
killed in front of the barricade. By successive advances he reached a
point where the fog from the firing became transparent, so that the sharp-
shooters of the line, drawn up and on the alert, suddenly discovered some-
thing moving in the smoke. Just as Gavroche was relieving a Grenadier
of his cartridges a ball struck the body. " They are killing my dead for
me," said the gamin. A second ball splintered the pavement behind him.
276 I LOVE THE MORNING SUNSHINE.
A third upset his basket, Gavroche rose up straight on his feet, his hair
in the wind, his hands upon his hips, his eyes fixed upon the National
Guard, who were firing ; and he sang :
" They are ugly at Naterre — 'tis the fault of Voltaire ;
And beasts at Palaeseau — 'tis the fault of Rousseau."
Then he picked up his basket, put into it the cartridges wliich had fallen
out, without losing a single one ; and advancing toward the fusilade, began
to empty another cartridge-box. Then a fourth ball just missed him
again ; Gavroche sang :
" I am only a scribe, 'tis the fault of Voltaire ;
My life one of woe — 'tis the fault of R.ousseau."
The sight was appalling and fascinating. Gavroche fired at, mrocked the
firing and answered each discharge with a couplet. The National Guards
laughed as they aimed at him. He lay down, then rose up ; hid himself
in a door-way, then sprang out; escaped, returned. The insurgents,
breathless with anxiety, followed him with their eyes ; the barricade was
trembling, he was singing. It was not a child, it was not a man ; it was
a strange fairy gamin, playing hide and seek with Death.
Every time the face of the grim spectre approached, the gamin snapped
his fingers. One bullet, however, better aimed or more treacherous than
the others, reached the will-o'-the-wisp child. They saw Gavroche totter,
then fall. The whole barricade gave a cry. But the gamin had fallen
only to rise again. A long stream of blood rolled down his face. He
raised both arms in the air, looked in the direction whence the shot came,
and began to sing:
" I am buried in earth — 'tis the fault "
He did not finish. A second ball from the same marksman cut him
short. This time he fell with his face upon the pavement and did not stir
again. That little great soul had taken flight.
/ LOVE THE MORNING SUNSHINE.
EGBERT LOWRY.
LOVE the morning sunshine —
For 'tis bringing to the singing
Of the early-matined birds,
Daylight's treasure, without measure,
Speaking joy with gentle words.
I love the morning sunshine —
For it lightens, warms, and brightens
Every hillside tinged with gloom ;
And its power, every hour,
Calls e'en spirits from their tomb.
/-I I
CRADLE SONG.
277
I love the morning sunshine —
For its gushing, like the rushing
Of a molten tide of gold,
Ripples o'er me and before me.
And my heart cannot be cold.
I love the morning sunshine —
For 'tis telling that the knelling
Of each cycling day shall cease.
And the dawning of a morning
Never ending will bring peace.
I love the morning sunshine —
For it lies on Life's horizon,
Pointing out an untombed sward,
Where the spirit shall inherit
Golden daysprings from the Lord.
THE ANGEL'S WHISPER.
SAMUEL LOVER.
^ BABY was sleeping ;
Its mother was weeping ;
For her husband was far on the
wild raging sea ;
And the tempest was swelling
Round the fisherman's dwelling ;
And she cried, " Dermot, darling,
come back to me!"
Her beads while she numbered,
The baby still slumbered.
And smiled in her face as she bended her knee :
" 0, blest be that warning,
My child, thy sleep adorning,
For I know that the angels are whispering
with thee.
" And while they are keeping
Bright watch o'er thy sleeping,
0, pray to them softly, my baby, with me !
And say thou wouldst rather
They'd watch o'er thy father !
For I know that the angels are whispering
to thee."
The dawn of the morning
Saw Dermot returning,
And the wife wept with joy her babe's
father to see ;
And closely caressing
Her child with a blessing,
Said, " I knew that the angels were whisper-
ing with thee."
CRADLE SONG.
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND.
'^HAT is the little one thinking about?
L'i Very wonderful things, no doubt;
?*% Unwritten history !
Unfathomed mystery !
Yet he chuckles, and crows, and
nods and winks
As if his head were as full of kinks.
And curious riddles as any sphinx !
Warped by colic, and wet by tears,
lU
Punctured by pms, and tortured by fears
Our little nephew will lose two years ;
And he'll never know
Where the summers go ;
He need not laugh, for he'll find it so.
Who can tell what a baby thinks?
Who can follow the gossamer links
By which the manikin feels its way
278
THE HERO OF THE COMMUNE.
Out from the shore of the great unknown,
Blind, and wailing, and alone,
Into the light of the day ?
Out from the shore of the unknown sea.
Tossing in pitiful agony ;
Of the unknown sea that reels and rolls,
Specked with the barks of little souls, —
Barks that were launched on the other side.
And slipped from heaven on an ebbing tide !
What does he think of his mother's eyes ?
What does he think of his mother's hair ?
What of the cradle-roof, that flies
Forward and backward through the air ?
What does he think of his mother's breast.
Bare and beautiful, smooth and white,
Seeking it ever with fresh delight,
Cup of his life, and couch of his rest ?
What does he think when her quick embrace
Presses his hand and buries his face
Deep where the heart-throbs sink and fiwell.
With a tenderness she never can tell,
Though she murmur the words
Of all the birds,—
Words she has learned to murmur well ?
Now he thinks he'll go to sleep !
I can see the shadow creep
Over his eyes in soft eclipse.
Over his brow and over his lips,
Out to his little finger-tips !
Softly sinking, down he goes !
Down he goes ! down he goes !
See ! he's hushed in sweet repose.
THE HERO OF THE COMMUNE.
^^fer
MARGARET J. PRESTON.
JARGON! You, you
Snared along with this cursed crew ?
(Only a child, and yet so bold.
Scarcely as much as ten years old !)
Do you hear ? do you know
Why the gens d'armes put you
there, in the row.
You with those Commun3 wretches tall,
With your face to the wall ?
" Knowf To be sure I know! Why not?
We're here to be shot;
And there by the pillar's the very spot.
Fighting for France, my father fell.
Ah, well !—
That's just the way J would choose to fall,
With my back to the wall !"
" (Sacre ! Fair, open fight I say,
Is something right gallant in its way,
And fine for warming the blood ; but
who
Wants wolfish work like this to do ?
Bah ! 'tis a butcher's business !) How f
(The boy is beckoning to me now :
I knew that this poor child's heart would
fail,
Yet his cheek's not pale :)
Quick ! say your say, for don't you see
When the church-clock yonder tolls out Three,
You are all to be shot ?
— What f
' Excuse you one moment f 0, ho, ho !
Do you think to fool a gen d'armes so ?"
" But, sir, here's a watch that a friend, one
day,
(My father's friend) just over the way.
Lent me ; and if you let me free —
It still lacks seven minutes of Three —
I'll come on the word of a soldier's son,
Straight back into line, when my errand's
done."
"Ha, ha! No doubt of it! Off! Begone!
(Now, good St. Dennis, speed him on !
The work will be easier since he's saved ;
For I hardly see how I could have braved
The ardor of that innocent eye,
THE DUMB-WAITER.
279
As he stood and heard,
While I gave the word,
Dooming him like a dog to die.)"
" In time? Well, thanks, that my desire
Was granted ; and now I'm ready ; — Fire
One word ! — that's all !
— You'll let me turn my back to the
wall?"
" Parbleu ! Come out of the line, I say.
Come out! (Who said that his name was
Ney?)
Ha! France will hear of him yet, one day !"
THE DUMB-WAITER.
FREDERICK S. COZZENS.
|i|||if E have put a dumb-waiter in our house. A dumb-waiter is a good
yiki'yl thing to have in the country, on account of its convenience. If
^f^ you have company, every thing can be sent up from the kitchen
without any trouble; and if the baby gets to be unbearable, on
account of his teeth, you can dismiss the complainant by stuffing
him into one of the shelves, and letting him down upon the help.
To provide for contingencies, we had all our floors deafened. In conse-
quence, you cannot hear anything that is going on in the story below ;
and when you are in an upper room of the house, there might be a demo-
cratic ratification- meeting in the cellar, and you would not know it.
Therefore, if any one should break into the basement, it would not disturb
us; but to please Mrs. Sparrowgrass, I put stout iron bars on all the lower
windows. Besides, Mrs. Sparrowgrass had bought a rattle when she was
in Philadelphia ; such a rattle as watchmen carry there. This is to alarm
our neighbor, who, upon the signal, is to come to the rescue with his revol-
ver. He is a rash man, prone to pull trigger first, and make inquiries
afterward.
One evening Mrs. S. had retired, and I was busy writing, when it struck
me a glass of ice-water would be palatable. So I took the candle and a
pitcher, and went down to the pump. Our pump is in the kitchen. A
country pump in the kitchen is more convenient; but a well with buckets
is certainly most picturesque. Unfortunately our well-water has not been
sweet since it was cleaned out.
First, I had to open a bolted door that lets you into the basement hall,
and then I went to the kitchen door, which proved to be locked. Then I
remembered that our girl always carried the key to bed with her, and
slept with it under her pillow. Then I retraced my steps; bolted the
basement door, and went up into the dining-room. As is always the
280 THE DUMB-WAITER.
case, I found, when I could not get any water I was thirstier than I
supposed I was. Then I thought I would wake our girl up. Then I con-
cluded not to do it. Then I thought of the well, but I gave that up on
account of its flavor. Then I opened the closet doors : there was no water
there; and then I thought of the dumb-waiter! The novelty of the idea
made rae smile; I took out two of the movable shelves, stood the pitcher
on the bottom of the dumb-waiter, got in myself with the lamp ; let myselt
down until I supposed I was within a foot of the floor below, and then let
go.
We came down so suddenly that I was shot out of the apparatus as if it
had been a catapult ; it broke the pitcher, extinguished the lamp, and
landed me in the middle of the kitchen at midnight, with no fire, and the
air not much above the zero point. The truth is, I had miscalculated the
distance of the descent, — instead of falling one foot, I had fallen five. My
first impulse was, to ascend by the way I came down, but I found that im-
practicable. Then I tried the kitchen door: it was locked. I tried to
force it open ; it was made of two-inch stuff, and held its own. Then I
hoisted a window, and there were the rigid iron bars. If I ever felt angry
at anybody it was at myself, for putting up those bars to please Mrs
Sparrowgrass. I put them up, not to keep people in, but to keep people
out.
I laid ray cheek against the ice-cold barriers, and looked at the sky; not
a star was visible ; it was as black as ink overhead. Then I thought of
Baron Trenck and the prisoner of Chillon. Then I made a noise ! I
shouted until I was hoarse, and ruined our preserving-kettle with the
poker. That brought our dogs out in full bark, and between us we made
the night hideous. Then I thought I heard a voice, and listened : it was
Mrs. Sparrowgrass calling to me from the top of the stair-case. I tried
to make her hear me, but the infernal dogs united with howl, and growl,
and bark, so as to drown my voice, which is naturally plaintive and ten-
der. Besides, there were two bolted doors and double-deafened floors be-
tween us. How could she recognize my voice, even if she did hear it?
Mrs. Sparrowgrass called once or twice, and then got frightened ;
the next thing I heard was a sound as if the roof had fallen in, by which I
understood that Mrs. Sparrowgrass was springing the rattle ! That called
out our neighbor, already wide awake; he came to the rescue with a bull-
terrier, a Newfoundland pup, a lantern, and a revolver. The moment he
saw me at the window, he shot at me, but fortunately just missed me, I
threw myself under the kitchen table, and ventured to expostulate with
him, but he would not listen to reason. In the excitement I had forgotten
FLORENCE VANE.
281
his name, and that made matters worse. It was not until he had roused
up everybody around, broken in the basement door with an axe, gotten
into the Icitchen with his cursed savage dogs and shooting-iron, and seized
me by the collar, that he recognized me, — and then he wanted me to ex-
plain it ! But what kind of an explanation could I make to him ? I told
him he would have to wait until my mind was composed, and then I would
let him understand the matter fully. But he never would have had the
particulars from me, for I do not approve of neighbors that shoot at you,
break in your door, and treat you in your own house as if you were a jail-
bird. He knows all about it, however, — somebody has told him — some-
body tells everybody every thing in our village.
FLORENCE VANE.
PHILIP P. COOKE.
Kl LOVED thee long and dearly,
@J|P Florence Vane ;
f^p My life's bright dream and early
4lf Hath come again ;
r I renew in my fond vision
L My heart's dear pain,
My hopes and thy derision,
Florence Vane !
The ruin, lone and hoary,
The ruin old,
Wliere thou did'st hark my story
At even told,
That spot, the hues elysian
Of sky and plain
I treasure in my vision,
Florence Vane !
Thou wast lovelier than the roses
In their prime ;
Thy voice excelled the closes
Of sweetest rhyme ;
Thy heart was as a river
Without a main,
Would I had loved thee never,
Florence Vane.
But fairest, coldest wonder !
Thy glorious clay
Lieth the green sod under ;
Alas the day !
282
THE SONG OF THE SHIRT.
And it boots not to remember
Thy disdain,
To quicken love's pale ember,
Florence Vane !
The lilies of the valley
By young graves weep,
The daisies love to dally
Where maidens sleep.
May their bloom in beauty vying
Never vsrane
Where thine earthly part is lying,
Florence Vane.
RING THE BELL SOFTLY.
^^OME one has gone from this strange
world of ours,
No more to gather its thorns with
its flowers ;
No more to linger where sunbeams must fade.
Where on all beauty death's fingers are laid ;
Weary with mingling life's bitter and sweet.
Weary with parting and never to meet.
Some one has gone to the bright golden shore ;
Ring the bell softly, there's crape on the door !
Ring the bell soTtly, there's crape on the door !
Some one is resting from sorrow and sin,
Happy where earth's conflicts enter not in.
Joyous as birds when the morning is bright,
When the sweet sunbeams have brought us
their light.
DEXTER SMITH.
Weary with sowing and never to reap,
Weary with labor, and welcouiing sleep,
Some one's departed to heaven's bright shore;
Ring the bell softly, there's crape on the door !
Ring the bell softly, there's crape on the door !
Angels were anxiously longing to meet
One who walks with them in heaven's bright
street ;
Loved ones have whispered that some one
is blest, —
Free from earth's trials and taking sweet rest.
Yes ! there is one more in angelic bliss, —
One less to cherish and one less to kiss ;
One more departed to heaven's bright shore ;
Ring the bell softly, there's crape on the door !
Ring the bell softly, there's crape on the door i
THE SONG OF THE SHIET
THOMAS HOOD.
^^P^ITH fingers weary and worn,
' '" ' With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags.
Plying her needle and thread —
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt.
And still, with a voice of dolorous
pitch,
She sang the " Song of the Shirt !"
" Work 1 work ! work !
While the cock is crowing aloof:
And work — work — work !
Till the stars shine through the roof!
It's oh ! to be a slave
Along with the barbarous Turk,
Where woman has never a soul to save,
If THIS is Christian work !
" Work — work — work !
Till the brain begins to swim !
Work — work — work !
Till the eyes are heavy and dim !
Seam, and gusset, and baml.
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
And sew them on in niv dream !
THE WHISTLE.
283
" Oh ! men with sisters dear !
" Work — work — work !
Oh ! men with mothers and wives !
In the dull December light ;
It is not linen you're wearing out,
And work — work — work !
But human creatures' lives !
When the weather is warm and bright:
Stitch— stitch— stitch !
While underneath the eaves
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
The brooding swallows cling,
Sewing at once, with a double thread,
As if to show me their sunny backs,
A SHROUD as well as a shirt !
And twit me with the Spring.
" But why do I talk of death,
" Oh ! but to breathe the breath
That phantom of grisly bone ?
Of the cowslip and primrose sweet ;
I hardly fear his terrible shape,
With the sky above my head.
It seems so like my own-
And the grass beneath my feet:
It seems so like my own,
For only one short hour
Because of the fast I keep :
To feel as I used to feel.
God ! that bread should be so dear,
Before I knew the woes of want.
And flesh and blood so cheap !
And the walk that costs a meal !
" Oh ! but for one short hour !
" Work — work — work !
A respite, however brief!
My labor never flags ;
No blessed leisure for love or hope,
And what are its wages ? A bed of straw,
But only time for grief !
A crust of bread — and rags :
A little weeping would ease my heart —
A shatter'd roof— and this naked floor —
But in their briny bed
A table — a broken chair —
My tears must stop, for every drop
And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank
Hinders the needle and thread !"
For sometimes falling there !
With fingers weary and worn.
" Work— work— work !
With eyelids heavy and red.
From weary chime to chime ;
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags.
Work — work — work !
Plying her needle and thread :
As prisoners work for crime !
Stitch— stitch— stitch !
Band, and gusset, and seam.
In poverty, hunger, and dirt ;
Seam, and gusset, and band.
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch —
Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumb'd,
Would that its tone could reach the rich !—
As well as the weary hand !
She sung this " Song of the Shirt !"
THE WHISTLE.
ROBERT STORY.
r^OU have heard," said a youth to
his sweetheart, who stood,
t^fi^"'-" While he sat on a corn-sheaf, at
(;Ji» daj^light's decline, —
You have heard of the Danish
boy's whistle of wood?
I wish that that Danish boy's
whistle were mine."
And what would you do with it ? — tell me,"
she said.
While an arch smile played over her beau-
tiful face.
I would blow it," he answered; ' and then
my fair maid
Would fly to my side, and would here take
her place."
284
RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND.
" Is that all you wish it for ?— That may be
" Yet once more would I blow, and the music
youra
divine
"Without any magic," the fair maiden
Would bring me the third time an exqui-
cried:
site bliss :
"A favor so light one's good nature secures" ;
You would lay your fair cheek to this brown
And she playfully seated herself by his
one of mine,
side.
And your li[)S, stealing past it, would give
me a kiss."
" I would blow it again," said the youth,
" and the charm
The maiden laughed out in her innocent
Would work so, that not even Modesty's
glee,-
check
" What a fool of yourself with your whistle
Would be able to keep from my neck your
you'd make !
fine arm" :
For only consider, how silly 't would be,
She smiled, — and she laid her fine arm
To sit there and whistle for — what you
round his neck.
might take."
A SUFI SAINT.
TRANSLATED FROM THE PERSIAN BY WM. R. ALGER.
^^MKT heaven approached a Sufi Saint,
^^fi^^ From groping in the darkness late,
'^^'^'1 ^^^1 tapping timidly and faint,
(■A Besought admission at God's gate.
Said God, " Who seeks to enter here ?"
" 'Tis I, dear Friend," the Saint replied.
And trembling much with hope and fear.
" If it be thou, without abide."
Sadly to earth the poor Saint turned,
To bear the scourgmg of life's rods ;
But aye his heart within him yearned
To mix and lose its love in God's.
He roamed alone through weary years.
By cruel men still scorned and mocked.
Until from faith's pure fires and tears
Again he rose, and modest knocked.
Asked God, " Who now is at the door?"
" It is thyself, beloved Lord,"
Answered the Saint, in doubt no more,
But clasped and rapt in his reward.
RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND.
WASHINGTON IRVING.
gi.Y«^N rural occupation there is nothing mean and debasing. It leads a
man forth among scenes of natural grandeur and beauty ; it leaves
him to the workings of his own mind, operated upon by the purest
and most elevating of external influences. The man of refinement,
i therefore, finds nothing revolting in an intercourse with the lower
orders of rural life, as he does when he casually mingles with the
lower orders of cities. He lays aside his distance and reserve, and is glad
to waive the distinctions of rank, and to enter into the honest heartfelt
enjoyments of common life. Indeed the very amusements of the country
THE OLD ARM-CHAIR.
285
bring men more and more together, and the sound of hound and horn
blend all feelings into harmony. I believe this is one great reason why
the nobility and gentry are more popular among the inferior orders in
England than
they are in any
other country ;
and why the lat-
ter have endured
so many exces-
sive pressures
and extremities,
without repining
more generally
at the unequal
distribution of
fortune and privilege.
To this mingling of cultivated and rustic society may also be attribu-
ted the rural feeling that runs through British literature ; the frequent use
of illustrations from rural life ; those incomparable descriptions of nature
which abound in the British poets, that have continued down from " The
Flower and the Leaf " of Chaucer, and have brought into our closets all
the freshness and fragrance of the dewy landscape. The pastoral writers
of other countries appear as if they had paid Nature an occasional visit,
and become acquainted with her general charms ; but the British poets
have revelled with her — they have wooed her in her most secret haunts —
they have watched her minutest caprices. A spray could not tremble in
the breeze — a leaf could not rustle to the ground — a diamond drop could
not patter in the stream — a fragrance could not exhale from the humble
violet, nor a daisy unfold its crimson tints to the morning, but it has been
noticed by these impassioned and delicate observers, and wrought up into
some beautiful morality.
THE OLD ARM-CHAIR.
ELIZA COOK.
LOVE it, I love it ! and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that old arm-
chair?
I've treasured it long as a sainted prize,
I've bedewed it with tears, I've embalmed
it with sighs.
'Tis bound by a thousand bands to my heart;
Not a tie will break, not a link will start;
286
THE PALACE 0' THE KING.
Would you know the spoil ? — a mother sat
there !
And a sacred thing is that old arm-chair.
In childhood's hour I lingered near
The hallowed seat with listening ear ;
And gentle words that mother would give
To fit me to die, and teach me to live.
And I almost worshipped her when she
smiled,
And turned from her Bible to bless her
child.
Years rolled on, but the last one sped, —
My idol was shattered, my earth-star fled \
I learnt how much the heart can bear.
When I saw her die in her old arm-chair.
" In childhood's hour I lingered near
The hallowed seat with listening ear
She told me that shame would never betide
With truth for my creed, and God for my
guide ;
She taught me to lisp my earliest prayer,
A-s 1 knelt beside that old arm-chair.
I sat and watched her many a day.
When her eyes grew dim, and her locks were
gray;
'Tis past, 'tis past ! but I gaze on it now.
With quivering breath and throbbing brow :
'Twas there she nursed me, 'twas there she
died,
And memory flows with lava tide.
Say it is folly, and deem me weak,
Whilst scalding drops start down my cheek ;
But I love it, I love it, and cannot tear
My soul from a mother's old arm-chair.
THE PALACE 0' THE XING.
WILLIAM MITCHELL.
^T'S a bonnie, bonnie warl' that we're
livin' in the noo.
An' sunny is the Ian' we aften traivel
thro';
But in vain we look for something to
J which our hearts can cling,
For its beauty is as naething to the palace
o' the King.
We like the gilded simmer, wi' its merry,
merry tread.
An' we sigh when hoary winter lays its beau-
ties wi' the dead ;
PIP'S FIGHT.
287
For though bonnie are the snawl
the down on winter's wing,
It's fine to ken it daurna' touch the palace o'
the King.
Then again, I've juist been thinkin' that
when a'thing here's sae bricht,
The sun in a' its grandeur an' the mune wi'
quiverin' licht.
The ocean i' the simmer or the woodland i'
the spring,
What maun it be up yonder i' the palace o'
the King.
It's here we hae oor trials, an' it's here that
he prepares
A' his chosen for the raiment which the ran-
somed sinner wears,
An' it's here that he wad hear us, 'mid oor
tribulations sing,
" We'll trust oor God wha reigneth i' the
palace o' the King."
Though his palace is up yonder, he has king-
doms here below.
An' we are his ambassadors, wherever we
may go ;
We've a message to deliver, an' we've lost
anes hame to bring
To be leal and loyal-heartit i' the palace o'
the King.
Oh, it's honor heaped on honor that his cour-
tiers should be ta'en
Frae the wand'rin' anes he died for i' this
warl' o' sin an' pain.
An' it's fu'est love an' service that the Chris-
tian aye should bring
To the feet o' him wha reigneth i' the palace
o' the King.
An' let us trust him better than we've ever
done afore,
For the King will feed his servants frae his
ever bounteous store.
Let us keep closer grip o' him, for time is on
the wing,
An' sune he'll come and tak' us to the palace
o' the King.
Its iv'ry halls are bonnie, upon which the
rainbows shine,
An' its Eden bow'rs are trellised wi' a never
fadin' vine.
An' the pearly gates o' heaven do a glorious
radiance fling
On the starry floor that shimmers i' the pai-
» ace o' the King.
Nae nicht shall be in heaven an' nae deso-
latin' sea,
An' nae tyrant hoofs shall trample i' the city
o' the free.
There's an everlastin' daylight, an' a never-
fadin' spring,
Where the Lamb is a' the glory, i' the pal-
ace o' the King.
We see oor frien's await us ower yonder at
his gate:
Then let us a' be ready, for ye ken it's gettin'
late.
Let oor lamps be brichtly burnin' ; let's raise
oor voice an' sing,
"Sune we'll meet, to pairt nae mair, i' the
palace o' the King."
PIP'S FIGHT.
CHARLES DICKENS.
" ^wOME and fight," said the pale young gentleman.
i^ What could I do but follow him ? I have often asked myself
\L the question since : but what else could I do ? His manner was so
* final and I was so astonished, that I followed where he led, as if I
I had been under a spell.
288 PIP'S FIGHT.
" Stop a minute, though/' he said, wheehng round before we had
got many paces. " I ought to give you a reason for fighting, too. There
it is ! " In a most irritating manner he instantly slapped his hands
against one another, daintily flung one of his legs up behind him, pulled
my hair, slapped his hands again, dipped his head, and butted it into my
stomach.
The bull-like proceeding last mentioned, besides that it was unquestion-
ably to be regarded in the light of a liberty, was particularly disagreeable
just after bread and meat. I therefore hit out at him, and was going to
hit out again, when he said, "Aha! Would you?" and began dancing
backward and forward in a manner quite unparalleled within my limited
experience.
" Laws of the game ! " said he. Here he skipped from his left leg on
to his right. " Regular rules !" Here he skipped from his right leg on to
his left. ''Come to the ground and go through the preliminaries ! " Here
he dodged backward and forward, and did all sorts of things, while I
looked helplessly at him,
I was secretly afraid of him when I saw him so dexterous; but I felt
morally and physically convinced that his light head of hair could have had
no business in the pit of my stomach, and that I had a right to consider it
irrelevant when so obtruded on my attention. Therefore, I followed him
without a word to a retired nook of the garden, formed by the junction of
two walls and screened by some rubbish. On his asking me if I was satis-
fied with the ground, and on my replying Yes, he begged my leave to ab-
sent himself for a moment, and quickly returned with a bottle of water
and a sponge dipped in vinegar. " Available for both," he said, placing
these against the wall. And then fell to pulling off, not only his jacket
and waistcoat, but his shirt too, in a manner at once light-hearted, busi-
ness-like and blood-thirsty.
Although he did not look very healthy — having pimples on his face,
and a breaking-out at his mouth — these dreadful preparations quite appalled
me. I judged him to be about my own age, but he was much taller, and
he had a way of spinning himself about that was full of appearance. For
the rest, he was a young gentleman in a gray suit (when not denuded for
battle), with his elbows, knees, wrists, and heels considerably in advance of
the rest of him as to development.
My heart failed me when I saw him squaring at me with every de-
monstration of mechanical nicety, and eying my anatomy as if he were
minutely choosing his bone. I never have been so surprised in my life as
I was when I let out the first blow, and saw him lying on his back, look-
THE BURIAL OF MOSES.
289
ing up at me with a bloody nose and his face exceedingly fore-
shortened.
But he was on his feet directly, and after sponging himself with a great
show of dexterity began squaring again. The second greatest surprise I
have ever had in my life was seeing him on his back again, looking up at
me out of a black eye.
His spirit inspired me with great respect. He seemed to have no
strength, and he never once hit me hard, and he was always knocked
down; but he would be up again in a moment, sponging himself or drink-
ing out of the water-bottle, with the greatest satisfaction in seconding
himself according to form, and then came at me with an air and show that
made me believe he really was going to do for me at last. He got heavily
bruised, for I am sorry to record that the more I hit him, the harder I hit
him ; but he came up again and again and again, until at last he got a bad
fall with the back of his head against the wall. Even after that crisis in our
affairs, he got up and turned round and round confusedly a few times, not
knowing where I was ; but finally went on his knees to his sponge and
threw it up : at the same time panting out, " That means you have won."
He seemed so brave and innocent, that although I had not proposed
the contest I felt but a gloomy satisfaction in my victory. Indeed, I go so
far as to hope that I regarded myself, while dressing, as a species of savage
young wolf, or other wild beast. However, I got dressed, darkly wiping
my sanguinary face at intervals, and I said, "Can I help you?" and he
said, " No, thankee," and I said, " Good afternoon," and he said, " Same
to you."
THE BURIAL OF MOSES.
MRS. C. F. ALEXANDER.
And he buried him
valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor; but no man kaoweth of his
sepulchre unto this day." Deut. xixiv. 6.
j^^^Y Nebo's lonely mountain,
On this side Jordan's wave,
In a vale in the land of Moab,
There lies a lonely grave ;
But no man dug that sepulchre.
And no man saw it e'er,
For the angels of God upturned the
sod,
And laid the dead man there.
That was the grandest funeral
That ever passed on earth ;
But no man heard the tramping,
Or saw the train go forth ;
Noiselessly as the daylight
Comes when the night is done,
And the crimson streak on the
cheek
Grows into the grea-t sun, —
290
PUTTING UP O' THE STOVE.
Noiselessly as the spring-time
This was the bravest warrior
Her crown of verdure weaves,
That ever buoKled sword ;
And all the trees on all the hills
This the most gifted poet
Open their thousand leaves, —
That ever breathed a word ;
So, without sound of music,
And never earth's philosopher
Or voice of them that wept,
Traced, with his golden pen,
Silently down from the mountain crown
On the deathless page, truths half so sage
The great procession swept.
As he wrote down for men.
Perchance the bald old eagle,
And had he not high honor ?
On gray Beth-peor's height.
The hill-side for his pall.
Out of his rocky eyrie,
To lie in state while angels wait,
Looked on the wondrous sight.
With stars for tapers tall ;
Perchance the lion, stalking.
And the dark rock pines, like tossing plumes
Still shuns the hallowed spot ;
Over his bier to wave ;
For beast and- bird have seen and heard
And God's own hand, in that lonely land,
That which man knoweth not.
To lay him in the grave, —
Lo ! when the warrior dieth.
In that deep grave, without a name,
His comrades in the war.
Whence his uncoffined clay
With arms reversed, and muffled drum,
Shall break again, — wondrous thought 1—
Follow the funeral car.
Before the judgment day ;
They show the banners taken.
And stand, with glory wrapped around.
They tell his battles won.
On the hills he never trod,
And after him lead his masterless steed,
And speak of the strife that won our life.
While peals the minute gun.
With the incarnate Son of God.
Amid the noblest of the land
lonely tomb in Moab's land !
Men lay the sage to rest.
dark Beth-peor's hill !
And give the bard an honored place,
Speak to these curious hearts of ours,
With costly marble dressed.
And teach them to be still.
In the great minster transept.
God hath his mysteries of grace, —
Where lights like glories fall.
Ways that we cannot tell ;
And the choir sings and the organ rings
He hides them deep, like the secret sleep
Along the emblazoned wall.
Of him he loved so well.
PUTTING UP a THE STOVE.
OR THE RIME OF THE ECONOMICAL HOUSEHOLDER.
^IIE melancholy days have come that
ijivl no householder loves.
Days of the taking down of blinds
and putting up of stoves ;
The lengths of pipe forgotten lie in
the shadow of the shed.
Dinged out of symmetry they be
and all with rust are red ;
The husband gropes amid the mass that hs
placed there anon,
And swears to find an elbow joint and eke a
leg are gone.
So fared it with good Mister Brown, when
his spouse remarked: " Behold !
PUTTING UP 0' THE STOVE.
291
Unless you wish us all to go and catch our
deaths of cold,
Swift be yon stove and pipes from out their
storing place conveyed,
And to black-lead and set them up, lo 1 I
will lend my aid."
This, Mr. Brown he trembling heard, I trow
his heart was sore,
For he was married many years and had
been there before,
And timidly he said, " My love, perchance
the better plan
'Twere to hie to the tinsmith's shop and bid
him send a man?"
His spouse replied indignantly : " So you
would have me then
To waste our substance upon riotous 'tin-
smith's journeymen ?
' A penny saved is twopence earned,' rash
prodigal of pelf,
Go ! false one, go ! and I will black and set
it up myself."
When thus she spoke the husband knew that
she had sealed his doom .
" Fill high the bowl with Samian lead and
gimme down that broom,"
He cried ; then to the outhouse marched.
Apart the doors he hove
And closed in deadly conflict with his enemy,
the stove.
Round 1. — They faced each other ; Brown,
to get an opening, soarred
Adroitly. His antagonist was cautious — on
its guard.
Brown led off with his left to where a length
of stove-pipe stood
And nearly cut his fingers off. {The stove
allowed First Blood.)
Hound 2.— Brown came up swearing, in
Graeco-Roman style
Closed with the stove, and tugged and strove
at it a weary while ;
At last the leg he held gave way ; flat on his
back fell Brown,
And the stove fell on top of him and claimed
the First Knock-down.
* * * The fight is done and Brown has won ;
his hands are rasped and sore,
And perspiration and black lead stream from
his every pore ;
Sternly triumphant, as he gives his prisoner
a shove,
He cries, " Where, my good angel, shall I put
this blessed stove?"
And calmly Mrs. Brown to him she indicates
the spot.
And bids him keep his temper and remarks
that he looks hot.
And now comes in the sweet o' the day •, the
Brown holds in his gripe
And strives to fit a six-inch joint into a five
inch pipe ;
He hammers, dinges, bends, and shakes, while
his wife scornfully
Telia him how she would manage if only she
were he.
At last the joints are joined, they rear a
pyramid m air,
A tub upon the table, and upon the tub a
chair,
And on chair and supporters are the stove-
pipe and the Brown,
Like the lion and the unicorn, a-fighting for
the crown ;
While Mistress Brown she cheerily says to
him, " I expec'
'Twould be just like your clumsiness to fall
and break your neck."
Scarce were the piteous accents said before
she was aware
Of what might be called " a miscellaneous
music in the air,"
And in wild crash and confusion upon the
floor rained down
Chairs, tables, tubs, and stovepipes, anathe-
mas and — Brown.
There was a moment's silence — Brown had
fallen on the cat ;
She was too thick for a book-mark but too
thin for a mat,
And he was all wounds and bruises, from his
head to his foot,
And seven breadths of Brussels were ruined
with the soot.
292
USEFUL STUDIES.
" wedded love, how beautiful, how sweet a
thing thou art!"
U{> from her chair did Mistress Brown, as she
saw him falling, start,
Aud shrieked aloud as a sickening fear did
her inmost heart-strings gripe,
" Josiah Winterbotham Brown, have you
gone and smashed that pipe?"
Then fiercely starts that Mister Brown, as
one that had been wode
And big his bosom swelled with wrath, and
red his visage glowed ;
Wild rolled his eye as he made reply (and his
voice was sharp and shrill),
" I have not, madam, but, by — by — by the
nine gods, I will !"
He swung the pipe above his head, he dashed
it on the floor.
And that stove-pipe, as a stove-pipe, it did
exist no more ;
Then he strode up to his shrinking wife, and
his face was stern and wan.
As in a hoarse, changed voice he hissed:
" Send for that tinsmith's man! "
USEFUL STUDIES.
JEREMY TAYLOR.
iPEND not your time in that which profits not; for your lahor and
your health, your time and your studies, are very valuable ; and
it is a thousand pities to see a diligent and hopeful person spend
himself in gathering cockle-shells and little pebbles, in telling
sands upon the shores, and making garlands of useless daisies.
Study that which is profitable, that which will make you useful to
churches and commonwealtlia^ that which will make you desirable and
'BIAH CATHCART'S PROPOSAL.
293
wise. Only I shall add this to you, that in learning there are a variety of
things as well as in religion : there is mint and cummin, and there are the
weighty things of the law ; so there are studies more and less useful, and
everything that is useful will be required in its time : and. I may in' this
also use the words of our blessed Saviour, " These things ought you to look
after, and not to leave the other unregarded." But your great care is to
be in the things of God and of religion, in holiness and true wisdom, re-
membering the saying of Origen, " That the knowledge that arises from
goodness is something that is more certain and more divine than all
demonstration," than all other learnings of the world.
'BIAH CATHCART'S PROPOSAL.
HENRY WARD BEECHER.
lil^riEY were walking silently and gravely home one Sunday after-
^K noon, under the tall elms that lined the street for half a mile.
'*^^ Neither had spoken. There had been some little parish quarrel,
I" and on that afternoon the text was, " A new commandment I
\ write unto you, that ye love one another." But after the sermon
was done the text was the best part of it. Some one said that
Parson Marsh's sermons were like the meeting-house, — the steeple was
the only thing that folks could see after they got home.
They walked slowly, without a word. Once or twice 'Biah essayed to
speak, but was still silent. He plucked a flower from between the pickets
of the fence, and unconsciously pulled it to pieces, as, with a troubled face,
he glanced at Eachel, and then, as fearing she would catch his eye, he
looked at the trees, at the clouds, at the grass, at everything, and saw nothing
— nothing but Rachel. The most solemn hour of human experience is not
that of Death, but of Life, — when the heart is born again, and from a natural
heart becomes a heart of Love ! What wonder that it is a silent hour and
perplexed !
Is the soul confused ? "Why not, when the divine Spirit, rolling clear
across the aerial ocean, breaks upon the heart's shore with all the mystery
of heaven ? Is it strange that uncertain lights dim the eye, if above the
head of him that truly loves hover clouds of saintly spirits ? Why should
not the tongue stammer and refuse its accustomed offices, when all the world
— skies, trees, plains, hills, atmosphere, and the solid earth — springs forth in
new color, with strange meanings, and seems to chant for the soul the
20
294 'BIAH CATHCART'S PROPOSAL.
glory of that mystic Law with which God has bound to himself his infinite
realm, — the law of Love ? Then, for the first time, when one so loves that
love is sacrifice, death to self, resurrection, and glory, is man brought
into harmony with the whole universe; and, like him who beheld the
seventh heaven, hears things unlawful to be uttered.
The great elm-trees sighed as the fitful breeze swept their tops. The
soft shadows flitted back and forth beneath the walker's feet, fell upon
them in light and dark, ran over the ground, quivered and shook, until
sober Cathcart thought that his heart was throwing its shifting network
of hope and fear along the ground before him. How strangely his voice
sounded to him, as, at length,
r all his emotions could only
say, " Rachel, — how did you
like the sermon ? "
Quietly she answered, —
" I liked the text."
" ' A new commandment
I write unto you, that ye love
one another.' Rachel, will
you help me to keep it ? "
At first she looked down
and lost a little color ; then, raising her face, she turned upon him her large
eyes, with a look both clear and tender. It was as if some painful restraint
had given way, and her eyes blossomed into full beauty.
Not another word was spoken. They walked home hand in hand.
He neither smiled nor exulted. He saw neither the trees, nor the long level
rays of sunlight that were slanting across the fields. His soul was over-
shadowed with a cloud, as if God were drawing near. He had never felt
so solemn. This woman's life had been entrusted to him !
Long years, — the whole length of life, — the eternal years beyond,
seemed in an indistinct way to rise up in his imagination. All he could
say, as he left her at the door, was — " Rachel, this is forever — 'forever."
She again said nothing, but turned to him with a clear and open face,
in which joy and trust wrought beauty. It seemed to him as if a light fell
upon him from her eyes. There was a look that descended and covered
him as with an atmosphere ; and all the way home he was as one walking
in a luminous cloud. He had never felt such personal dignity as now.
He that wins such love is crowned, and may call himself king. He did
not feel the earth under his feet. As he drew near his lodgings, the sun
went down. The children began to pour forth, no longer restrained.
THE ENGINEER'S STORY.
295
Abiah turned to his evening chores. No animal that night but had rea-
son to bless him. The children found him unusually good and tender.
And Aunt Keziah said to her sister, — " Abiah's been goin' to meetin' very
regular for some weeks, and I shouldn't wonder, by the way he looks, if he
had got a hope : I trust he ain't deceivin' himself."
He had a hope, and he was not deceived ; for in a few months, at the
close of the service one Sunday morning, the minister read from the pul-
pit : " Marriage is intended between Abiah Cathcart and Eachel Liscomb,
both of this town, and this is the first publishing of the banns."
THE ENGINEER'S STORY.
, rsCJ?^ ,
i^ji5|0, children, my trips are over
The Engineer needs rest
My hands is shaky ; I'm feeling
A tugging pain i' my breast;
But here, as the twilight gathers
I'll tell you a tale of the road,
That'll ring in my head forever.
Till it rests beneath the sod.
We were lumbering along in the twilight,
The night was dropping her shade,
And the " Gladiator " labored^
Climbing the top of the grade ;
The train was heavily laden.
So I let my engine rest,
Climbing the grading slowly,
Till we reached the upland's crest.
I held my watch to the lamplight —
Ten minutes behind the time !
Lost in the slackened motion
Of the up grade's heavy climb ;
But I knew the miles of the prairie
That stretched a level track,
80 I touched the gauge of the boiler.
And pulled the lever back.
Over the rails a-gleaming,
Thirty an hour, or so.
The engine leaped like a demon.
Breathing a fiery glow ;
But to me — ahold of the lever —
It seemed a child alway.
Trustful and always ready
My lightest touch to obey.
I was proud you know, of my engine^
Holding it steady that night,
And my eye on the track before us.
Ablaze with the Drummond light.
We neared a well-known cabin,
Where a child of three or four,
As the up train passed, oft called me,
A playing around the door.
My hand was firm on the throttle
As we swept around the curve,
When something afar in the shadow,
Struck fire through every nerve.
I sounded the brakes, and crashing
The reverse lever down in dismay,
Groaning to Heaven — eighty paces
Ahead was a child at its play !
One instant — one awful and only.
The world flew around in my brain.
And I smote my hand hard on my forehead
To keep back the terrible pain ;
The train I thought flying forever,
With mad irresistible roll.
While the cries of the dying, the night-wind
Swept into my shuddering soul.
Then I stood on the front of the engine, —
How I got there I never could tell, —
My feet planted down on the crossbar.
Where the cow-catcher slopes to the rail,
One hand firmly locked on the coupler,
And one held out in the night.
While my eye gauged the distance, and
measured
The speed of our slackening flight.
296
THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.
My mind, thank the Lord ! it was steady ;
I saw the curls of her hair,
And the face that, turning in wonder,
Was lit by the deadly glare.
I know little more — but I heard it —
The groan of the anguished wheels.
And remember thinking — the engine
In agony trembles and reels.
One rod ! To the day of my dying
I shall think the old engine reared back.
And as it recoiled, with a shudder
I swept my hand over the track ;
Then darkness fell over my eyelids,
But I heard the surge of the train,
And the poor old engine creaking.
As racked by a deadly pain.
They found us they said, on the gravel,
My fingers enmeshed in her hair,
And she on my bosom a-climbing,
To nestle securely there.
We are not much given to crying —
We men that run on the road — •
But that night, they said, there were faces,
With tears on them, lifted to God.
For years in the eve and the morning
As I neared the cabin again.
My hand on the lever pressed downward
And slackened the speed of the train.
When my engine had blown her a greeting.
She always would come to the door ;
And her look with a fullness of heaven
Blessed me evermore.
THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.
LORD BYRON.
MlipHE Assyrian came down like the wolf
P5 on the fold,
','^ And his cohorts were gleaming in
purple and gold ;
And the sheen of their spears was
like stars on the sea
When the blue wave rolls nightly on
deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when summer
is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were
seen ;
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn
hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and
strown.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings
on the blast.
And breathed in the face of the foe as he
passed ;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly
and chill.
And their hearts but once heaved, and for-
ever grew still.
And there lay the steed with his nostrils all
wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of
his pride :
And the foam of his gasping lay white on
the turf.
And cold as the spray of the rock-beaten surf
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on
his mail ;
And the tents were all silent, the bannert
alone;
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their
wail.
And the idols are broke in the temples of
Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by
the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the
Lord!
DER DRUMMER.
297
DER DRUMMER.
CHAS. F. ADAMS.
no puts oup at der pest hotel,
Unci dakes his oysders on der schell,
Und mit der frauleins cuts a schwell ?
Der drui
Who vas it gomes indo mine schtore,
Drows down his pundles on der vloor,
Und nefer schtops to shut der door ?
Der drummer.
^iiis^-^
g;_..-.^^
Who dakes me py der handt, und say,
" Hans Pfeiffer, how you vas to-day ?"
Und goes vor peeseness righdt avay ?
Der drummer.
Who shpreads his zamples in a trice,
Und dells me, " Look, und see how nice?"
Und says I gets "der bottom price?"
Der drummer.
Who dells how sheap der goods vas bought,
Mooch less as vot I gould imbort,
But lets dem go as he vas " short?"
Der drummer.
Who says der tings vas eggstra vine, —
" Vrom Sharraany, ubon der Rhine," —
Und sheats me den dimes oudt off nine?
Der drummer.
298
VOICES OF THE DEAD.
Who varrants all der goots to suit
Der gustomers ubon his route,
Und ven dey gomes dey vas no goot?
Der drummer.
Und kiss Katrina in der mout' ?
Der drummer.
Who, ven he gomes again dis vay,
Vill hear vot Pfeiffer has to say,
Who gomes aroundt ven I been oudt,
Drinks oup mine bier, and cats mine kraut,
Und mit a plack eye goes avay ?
Der drummer.
VOICES OF THE DEAD.
JOHN GUMMING.
^E die, but leave an influence behind us that survives. The echoes
of our words are evermore repeated, and reflected along the ages.
It is what man was that lives and acts after him. What he said
sounds along the years like voices amid the mountain gorges ; and
what he did is repeated after him in ever-multiplying and never-
ceasing reverberations. Every man has left behind him influences for
good or for evil that will never exhaust themselves. The sphere in which he
acts may be small, or it may be great. It may be his fireside, or it may be a
kingdom ; a village, or a great nation ; it may be a parish, or broad Europe ;
but act he does, ceaselessly and forever. His friends, his family, his succes-
sors in office, his relatives, are all receptive of an influence, a moral influ-
ence which he has transmitted and bequeathed to mankind ; either a bless-
ing which will repeat itself in showers of benedictions, or a curse which
will multiply itself in ever-accumulating evil.
Every man is a missionary, now and forever, for good or for evil,
whether he intends and designs it, or not. He may be a blot, radiating his
VOICES OF THE- DEAD. 299
dark influence outward to the very circumference of society, or he may be
a blessing, spreading benedictions over the length and breadth of the
world ; but a blank he cannot he. The seed sown in life springs up in
harvests of blessings, or harvests of sorrow. Whether our influence be
great or small, whether it be for good or evil, it lasts, it lives somewhere,
within some limit, and is operative wherever it is. The grave buries the
dead dust, but the character walks the world, and distributes itself, as a
benediction or a curse, among the families of mankind.
The sun sets beyond the western hills, but the trail of light he leaves
behind him guides the pilgrim to his distant home. The tree falls
in the forest ; but in the lapse of ages it is turned into coal, and our
fires burn now the brighter because it grew and fell. The coral insect
dies, but the reef it raised breaks the surge on the shores of great conti-
nents, or has formed an isle in the bosom of the ocean, to wave with har-
vests for the good of man. We live and we die ; but the good or evil that
we do lives after us, and is not " buried with our bones."
The babe that perished on the bosom of its mother, like a flower that
bowed its head and drooped amid the death-frosts of time — that babe, not
only in its image, but in its influence, still lives and speaks in the cham-
bers of the mother's heart.
The friend with whom we took sweet counsel is removed visibly from
the outward eye ; but the lessons that he taught, the grand sentiments
that he uttered, the holy deeds of generosity by which he was character-
ized, the moral lineaments and likeness of the man, still survive and ap-
pear in the silence of eventide, and on the tablets of memory, and in the
light of morn and noon and dewy eve ; and, being dead, he yet speaks elo-
quently, and in the midst of us.
Mahomet still lives in his practical and disastrous influence in the East.
Napoleon still is France, and France is almost Napoleon. Martin Luther's
dead dust sleeps at Wittenberg, but Martin Luther's accents still ring
through the churches of Christendom. Shakspeare, Byron, and Milton,
all live in their influence for good or evil. The apostle from his chair, the
minister from his pulpit, the martyr from his flame-shroud, the statesman
from his cabinet, the soldier in the field, the sailor on the deck, who all
have passed away to their graves, still live in the practical deeds that they
did, in the lives they lived, and in the powerful lessons that they left be-
hind them.
" None of us liveth to himself; " — others are affected by that life ; — " or
dieth to himself;" — others are interested in that death. Our queen's
crown may moulder, but she who wore it will act upon the ages which are
300 THE BAGGAGE-FIEND.
yet to come. The noble's coronet may be reft in pieces, but the wearer of
it is now doing what will be reflected by thousands who will be made and
moulded by him. Dignity, and rank, and riches, are all corruptible and
worthless ; but moral character has an immortality that no sword-point can
destroy ; that ever walks the world and leaves lasting influences behind.
What we do is transacted on a stage of which all in the universe are
spectators. What we say is transmitted in echoes that will never cease.
What we are is influencing and acting on the rest of mankind. Neutral
we cannot be. Living we act, and dead we speak ; and the whole universe
is the mighty company forever looking, forever listening; and all nature
the tablets forever recording the words, the deeds, the thoughts, the pas-
sions of mankind.
Monuments, and columns, and statues, erected to heroes, poets, orators,
statesmen, are all influences that extend into the future ages. " The blind
old man of Scio's rocky isle" still speaks. The Mantuan bard still sings in
every school. Shakspeare, the bard of Avon, is still translated into every
tongue. The philosophy of the Stagyrite is still felt in every academy.
Whether these influences are beneficent or the reverse, they are influences
fraught with power. How blest must be the recollection of those who,
like the setting sun, have left a trail of light behind them by which others
may see the way to that rest which remaineth for the people of God !
It is only the pure fountain that brings forth pure water. The good
tree only will produce the good fruit. If the centre from which all pro-
ceeds is pure and holy, the radii of influence from it will be pure and holy
also. Gro forth, then, into the sphere that you occupy, the employments,
the trades, the professions of social life ; go forth into the high places, or
into the lowly places of the land; mix with the roaring cataracts of social
convulsions, or mingle amid the eddies and streamlets of quiet and domestic
life ; whatever sphere you fill, carrying into it a holy heart, you will radi-
ate around you life and power, and leave behind you holy and beneficial
influences.
THE BAGGAGE-FIEND.
sWAS a ferocious baggage-man, with
Atlantean back,
And biceps upon each arm piled in
a formidable stack,
That plied his dread vocation beside
a railroad track. eggshell.
Wildly he tossed the baggage round the
I-latform there, pellmell,
And crushed to naught the frail bandbox
where'er it shapeless fell,
Or stove the "Saratoga" like the flimsiest
NIGHT.
301
On ironclads, especially, he fell full ruthlessly,
And eke the trunk derisively called "Cottage
by the Sea;"
And pulled and hauled and rammed and
jammed the same vindictively,
Until a yearning breach appeared, or frac-
tures two or three.
Or straps were burst, or lids fell ott, or some
catastrophe
Crowned his Satanic zeal or moved his dia-
bolic glee.
The passengers surveyed the wreck with di-
verse discontent.
And some vituperated him, and some made
loud lament,
But wrath or lamentation on him were vainly
spent.
To him there came a shambling man, sad-
eyed and meek and thin.
Bearing an humble carpet-bag, with scanty
stuff therein.
And unto that fierce baggage-man he spake,
with quivering chin :
" Behold this scanty carpet-bag ! I started a
month ago.
With a dozen Saratoga trunks, hat-box, and
portmanteau,
But baggage-men along the route have
brought me down so low.
" Be careful with this carpet-bag, kind sir,"
said he to him.
The baggage-man received it with a smile
extremely grim.
And softly whispered " Mother, may I go
out to swim ?"
Then fiercely jumped upon that bag in wild,
sardonic spleen.
And into countless fragments flew — to hi.i
profound chagrin —
For that lank bag contained a pint of nitro- "
glycerine.
The stranger heaved a gentle sigh, and
stroked his quivering chin.
And then he winked with one sad eye, and
said, with smile serene,
" The stuff to check a baggage-man is nitro-
glycerine!"
NIGHT.
JAMES MONTGOMERY,
pIGHT is the time for rest;
How sweet, when labors close.
To gather round an aching breast
The curtain of repose,
Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the
head
Down on our own delightful bed !
Night is the time for dreams :
The gay romance of life,
When truth that is, and truth that seems,
Mix in fantastic strife ;
Ah ! visions, less beguiling far
Than waking dreams by daylight are !
Night is the time for toil :
To plough the classic field.
Intent to find the buried spoil
Its wealthy furrows yield ;
Till all is ours that sages taught,
That poets sang, and heroes wrought.
Night is the time to weep :
To wet with unseen tears
Those graves of Memory, where sleep
The joys of other years ;
Hopes, that were Angels at their birth,
But died when young, like things of earth
Night is the time to watch :
O'er ocean's dark expanse,
To hail the Pleiades, or catch
The full moon's earliest glance,
That brings into the homesick mind
All we have loved and left behind.
302
NOBODY'S CHILD.
Night is the time for care :
Night is the time to pray :
Brooding on hours misspent,
Our Saviour oft withdrew
To see the spectre of Despair
To desert mountains far away ;
Come to our lonely tent;
So will his followers do,
Like Brutus, midst his slumbering
host,
Steal from the throng to haunts untrod,
Summoned to die by Caesar's ghost.
And commune there alone with God.
Night is the time to think :
Night is the time for Death :
"When, from the eye, the soul
When all around is peace,
Takes flight ; and on the utmost brink
Calmly to yield the weary breath,
Of yonder starry pole
From sin and suffering cease.
Discern beyond the abyss of night
Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign
The dawn of uncreated light.
To parting friends ; — such death be mine.
NOBODY'S CHILD.
PHILA H. CASE.
J^R^jLONE, in the dreary, pitiless street,
^m^ With my torn old dress and bare
%" cold feet,
All day I wandered to and fro,
Hungry and shivering and nowhere
to go;
The night's coming on in darkness
and dread,
And the chill sleet beating upon my bare
head ;
Oh ! why does the wind blow upon me so
wild ?
Is it because I'm nobody's child? x
Just over the way there's a flood of light,
And warmth and beauty, and all things
bright ;
Beautiful children, in robes so fair,
Are caroling songs in rapture there.
I wonder if they, in their blissful glee,
Would pity a poor little beggar like me,
Wandering alone in the merciless street.
Naked and shivering and nothing to eat.
Oh ! what shall I do when the night comes
down
In its terrible blackness all over the town ?
Shall I lay me down 'neath the angry sky,
On the cold hard pavements alone to die ?
When the beautiful children their prayers
have said,
And mammas have tucked them up snugly
in bed.
No dear mother ever upon me smiled —
Why is it, I wonder, that I'm nobody's child'
No father, no mother, no sister, not one
THE GOLDEN CITY.
In all the world loves me ; e'en the little dogs
run
When I wander too near them ; 'tis won-
drous to see,
How everything shrinks from a beggar like
me !
Perhaps 'tis a dream ; but, sometimes, when
I lie
Gazing far up in the dark blue sky,
Watching for hours some large bright star,
I fancy the beautiful gates are ajar,
And a host of white-robed, nameless things.
Come fluttering o'er me in gilded wings;
A hand that is strangely soft and fair
Caresses gently my tangled hair,
And a voice like the carol of some wild bird
The sweetest voice that was ever heard —
Calls me many a dear pet name.
Till my heart and spirits are all aflame ;
And tells me of such unbounded love.
And bids me come up to their home above.
And then, with such pitiful, sad surprise.
They look at me with their sweet blue eyes.
And it seems to me out of the dreary night,
I am going up to the world of light.
And away from the hunger and storms so
wild —
I am sure I shall then be somebody's child.
THE GOLDEN CITY,
JOHN BUNYAN.
lllpOW just as the gates were opened to let in the men, I looked in after
^^^ them, and behold the city shone like the sun ; the streets, also
were paved with gold, and in them walked many men with crowns
on their heads, palms in their hands, and golden harps, to sino-
praises withal.
There were also of them that had wings, and they answered one
another without intermission, saying, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord." And
after that they shut up the gates ; which when I had seen, I wished myself
among them.
Now, while I was gazing upon all these things, I turned my head to
look back, and saw Ignorance coming up to the river side ; but he soon
got over, and that without half the difficulty which the other two men
met with. For it happened that there was then in that place one Vain-
Hope, a ferryman, that with his boat helped him over ; so he, as the other,
I saw, did ascend the hill, to come up to the gate, only he came alone ;
neither did any man meet him with the least encouragement. When he was
coming up to the gate, he looked up to the writing that was above, and then
began to knock, supposing that entrance should have been quickly admin-
istered to him : but he was asked by the men that looked over the top of
the gate, " Whence come you, and what would you have ?" . . He answered,
" I have eat and drank in the presence of the King, and he has taught in
304
THE SONG OF THE FORGE.
our streets." Then they asked for his certificate, that they might go in
and show it to the King; so he fumbled in his bosom for one, and found
none. Then said they, " You have none !" but the man answered never a
word. So they told the King, but he would not come down to see him,
but commanded the two shining ones that conducted Christian and Hope-
ful to the city to go out and take Ignorance, and bind him hand and foot,
and have him away. Then they took him up and carried him through the
air to the door that I saw on the side of the hill, and put him in there.
Then I saw that there was a way to hell, even from the gates of heaven,
as well as from the City of Destruction. " So I awoke. It was a dream."
THE SONG OF THE FORGE.
apffl^LANG, clang ! the massive anvils ring ;
nM^ Clang, clang ! a hundred hammers
^fl? swing ;
YI'^ Like the thunder-rattle of a tropic sky,
The mighty blows still multiply, —
Clang, clang!
Say, brothers of the dusky brow.
What are your strong arms forging now ?
Clang, clang ! — we forge the coulter now, —
The coulter of the kindly plough.
Sweet Mary mother, bless our toil !
May its broad furrow still unbind
To genial rains, to sun and wind,
The most benignant soil !
Clang, clang ! — our coulter's course shall be
On many a sweet and sheltered lea,
By many a streamlet's silver tide ;
Amidst the song of morning birds,
Amidst the low of sauntering herds.
Amidst soft breezes, which do stray
Through woodbine hedges and sweet May,
Along the green hill's side.
When regal Autumn's bounteous nand
With wide-spread glory clothes the land, —
When to the valleys, from the brow
Of each resplendent slope, is rolled
A ruddy sea of living gold, —
We bless, we bless the plough.
DAVID'S LAMENT FOR ABSALOM
805
Clang, clang ! — again, my mates, what grows
Beneath the hammer's potent blows?
Clink, clank ! — -we forge the giant chain,
Which bears the gallant vessel's strain
Midst stormy winds and adverse tides ;
Secured by this, the good ship braves
The rocky roadstead, and the waves
Which thunder on her sides.
Anxious no more, the merchant sees
The mist drive dark before the breeze,
The storm-cloud on the hill ;
Calmly he rests, — though far away.
In boisterous climes, his vessel lay,—
Reliant on our skill.
Say on what sands these links shall sleep.
Fathoms beneath the solemn deep ?
By Afric's pestilential shore ,
By many an iceberg, lone and hoar ;
By many a balmy western isle.
Basking in spring's perpetual smile ;
By stormy Labrador.
Say, shall they feel the vessel reel.
When to the battery's deadly peal
The crashing broadside makes reply ;
Or else, as at the glorious Nile,
Hold grappling ships, that strive the while
For death or victory ?
Hurrah' — cling, clang! — once more, what
glows,
Dark brothers of the forge, beneath
The iron tempest of your blows.
The furnace's red breath ?
Clang, clang ! — a burning torrent, clear
And brilliant of bright sparks, is poured
Around, and up in the dusky air,
As our hammers forge the sword.
The sword !— a name of dread ! yet when
Upon the freeman's thigh 'tis bound, —
While for his altar and his hearth,
While for the land that gave him birth,
The war-drums roll, the trumpets sound, —
How sacred is it then !
Whenever for the truth and right
It flashes in the van of fight, —
Whether in some wild mountain pass,
As that where fell Leonidas ;
Or on some sterile plain and stern,
A Marston or a Bannockburn ;
Or amidst crags and bursting rills,
The Switzer's Alps, gray Tyrol's hills ;
Or as, when sunk the Armada's pride,
It gleams above the stormy tide, —
Still, still, whene'er the battle word
Is liberty, when men do stand
For justice and their native land, —
Then Heaven bless the sword !
DAVIUS LAMENT FOR ABSALOM.
N. P. WILLIS.
j^HE waters slept. Night's silvery veil
hung low
On Jordan's bosom, and the eddies
curled
Their glassy rings beneath it, like
the still.
Unbroken beating of the sleeper's
pulse.
The reeds bent down the stream : the willow
leaves
With a soft cheek upon the lulling tide.
Forgot the lifting winds ; and the long
Whose flowers the water, like a gentle nurso
Bears on its bosom, quietly gave way.
And leaned, in graceful attitude, to rest.
How strikingly the course of nature tells
By its light heed of human suff'ering,
That it was fashioned for a happier world.
King David's limbs were weary. He had
fled
From far Jerusalem : and now he stood
With his faint people, for a little space,
Upon the shore of Jordan The light wind
306
DAVID'S LAMENT FOR ABSALOM.
Of morn was stirring, and he bared his brow,
To its refreshing breath ; for he had worn
The mourner's covering, and had not felt
That he could see his people until now.
They gathered round him on the fresh green
bank
And spoke their kindly words : and as the
sun
Rose up in heaven, he knelt among them
there.
And bowed his head upon his hands to pray.
Oh ! when the heart is full, — when bitter
thoughts
Come crowding thickly up for utterance.
And the poor common words of courtesy.
Are such a very mockery — how much
The bursting heart may pour itself in prayer !
He prayed for Israel : and his voice went up
Strongly and fervently. He prayed for those.
Whose love had been his shield: and his
deep tones
Grew tremulous. But, oh ! for Absalom, —
For his estranged, misguided Absalom,—
The proud bright being who had burst away
In all his princely beauty, to defy
The heart that cherished him — for him he
poured
In agony that would not be controlled
Strong supplication, and forgave him there.
Before his God, for his deep sinfulness.
The pall was settled. He who slept beneath
Was straightened for the grave : and as the
folds
Sank to the still proportions, they betrayed
The matchless symmetry of Absalom.
His hair was yet unshorn, and silken curls
Were floating round the ta-^seh as they
swayed
To the admitted air, as glossy now
As when, in hours of gentle dalliance, bathing
The snowy fingers of Judea's girls.
His helm was at his feet: his banner soiled
With trailing through Jerusalem, was laid,
Reversed, beside him ; and the jeweled hilt
Whose diamonds lit the passage of his blade,
Rested like mockery on his covered brow.
The soldievs of the king trod to and fro,
Clad in the garb of battle ; and their chief,
The mighty Joab, stood beside the bier,
And gazed upon the dark pall steadfastly,
As if he feared the slurnberer might stir.
A slow step startled him. He grasped hia
blade
As if a trumpet rang : but the bent form
Of David entered, and he gave command
In a low tone to his few followers,
And left him with his dead. The King stood
still
Till the last echo died : then, throwing off
The sackcloth from his brow, and laying back
The pall from the still features of bis child.
He bowed his head upon him, and broke forth
In the resistless eloquence of woe :
"Alas! my noble boy! that thou should'st
die, —
Thou who wert made so beautifully fair !
That death should settle in thy glorious eye,
And leave his stillness in this clustering
hair —
How could he mark thee for the silent tomb,
My proud boy, Absalom !
" Cold is thy brow, my son ! and I am chill
As to my bosom I have tried to press thee —
How was I wont to feel my pulses thrill.
Like a rich harp string, yearning to caress
thee —
And hear thy sweet ' My father' from these
dumb
And cold lips, Absalom !
" The grave hath won thee. I shall hear the
gush
Of music, and the voices of the young :
And life will pass me in the mantling blush.
And the dark tresses to the soft winds
flung, —
But thou no more with thy sweet voice shalt
come
To meet me, Absalom !
" And, oh ! when I am stricken, and my heart
Like a bruised reed, is waiting to be
broken,
How will its love for thee, as I depart.
Yearn for thine ear to drink its last deep
token !
RECOLLECTIONS OF MY CHRISTMAS TREE.
307
It were so sweet, amid death';
gloom,
To see thee, Absalom !
gathering
" And now farewell. 'Tis hard to give thee
up.
With death so like a gentle slumber on
thee;
And thy dark sin — oh ! I could drink the
cup
If from this woe its bitterness had won
thee.
May God have called thee, like a wanderer,
home,
My lost boy, Absalom !"
He covered up his face, and bowed himself
A moment on his child ; then giving him
A look of melting tenderness, he clasped
His hands convulsively, as if in prayer:
And as if strength were given him of God,
He rose up calmly and composed the pall
Firmly and decently, — and left him there.
As if his rest had been a breathing sleep.
RECOLLECTIONS OF MY CHRISTMAS TREE.
CHARLES DICKENS.
^1^ HAVE been looking on, this evening, at a merry company of children
^ assembled round that pretty German toy, a Christmas tree.
Being now at home again, and alone, the only person in the house
awake, my thoughts are drawn back, by a fascination which I do
not care to resist, to my own childhood. Straight in the middle of
the room, cramped in the freedom of its growth by no encircling walls
or soon-reached ceiling, a shadowy tree arises ; and, looking up into the
dreamy brightness of its top, — for I observe in this tree the singular
property that it appears to grow downward towards the earth, — I look
into my youngest Christmas recollections.
All toys at first I find. But upon the branches of the tree lower
down, how thick the books begin to hang ! Thin books, in themselves, at
first, but many of them, with deliciously smooth covers of bright red or
green. What fat black letters to begin with !
" A was an archer, and shot at a frog." Of course he was. He was
an apple-pie also, and there he is ! He was a good many things in his
time, was A, and so were most of his friends, except X, who had so little
versatility that I never knew him to get beyond Xerxes or Xantippe : like
Y, who was always confined to a yacht or a yew-tree ; and Z, condemned
forever to be a zebra or a zany.
But now the very tree itself changes, and becomes a bean-stalk, — the
marvelous bean-stalk by which Jack climbed up to the giant's house.
Jack, — how noble, with his sword of sharpness and his shoes of swiftness !
Good for Christmas-time is the ruddy color of the cloak in which the
308 RECOLLECTIONS OF MY CHRISTMAS TREE.
tree making a forest of itself for her to trip through with her basket,
Little Red Riding-Hood comes to me one Christmas eve, to give me infor-
mation of the cruelty and treachery of that dissembling wolf who ate her
grandmother, without making any impression on his appetite, and then ate
her, after making that ferocious joke about his teeth. She was my first
love, I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding-Hood I should
have known perfect bliss. But it was not to be, and there was nothing for
it but to look out the wolf in the Noah's Ark there, and put him late in
the procession, on the table, as a monster who was to be degraded.
Oh, the wonderful Noah's Ark ! It was not found seaworthy when
put in a washing-tub, and the anhnals were crammed in at the roof, and
needed to have their legs well shaken down before they could be got in
even there ; and then ten to one but they began to tumble out at the door,
which was but imperfectly listened with a wire latch; but what was that
against it ?
Consider the noble fly, a size or two smaller than the elephant ; the
lady-bird, the butterfly, — all triumphs of art ! consider the goose, whose
feet were so small, and whose balance was so indifferent that he usually
tumbled forward and knocked down all the animal creation ! consider Noah
and his family, like idiotic tobacco-stoppers ; and how the leopard stuck to
warm little fingers ; and how the tails of the larger animals used gradually
to resolve themselves into frayed bits of string.
Hush ! Again a forest, and somebody up in a tree, — not Robin Hood,
not Valentine, not the Yellow Dwarf,— I have passed him and all Mother
Bunch's wonders without mention, — but an Eastern King with a glittering
scimitar and turban. It is the setting in of the bright Arabian Nights.
Oh, now all common things become uncommon and enchanted to
me ! All lamps are wonderful ! all rings are talismans ! Common flower-
pots are full of treasure, with a little earth scattered on the top ; trees are
for Ali Baba to hide in ; beefsteaks are to throw down into the Valley of
Diamonds, that the precious stones may stick to them, and be carried by
the eagles to their nests, whence the traders, with loud cries, will scare
them. All the dates imported come from the same tree as that unlucky
one with whose shell the merchant knocked out the eye of the genii's
invisible son. All olives are of the same stock of that fresh fruit, con-
cerning which the Commander of the Faithful overheard the boy conduce
the fictitious trial of the fraudulent olive-merchant. Yes, on every object
that I recognize among the upper branches of my Christmas tree I see
this fairy light !
But hark ! the Waits are playing, and they break my childish sleep !
THE CREEDS OF THE BELLS. 309
What images do I associate with the Christmas music as I see them set
forth on the Christmas tree ! Known before all the others, keeping far apart
from all the others, they gather round my little bed. An ang^l, speaking
to a group of shepherds in a field ; some travelers, with eyes uplifted, fol-
lowing a star ; a baby in a manger ; a child in a spacious temple, talking
with grave men : a solemn figure with a mild and beautiful face, raising a
dead girl by the hand ; again, near a city gate, calling back the son of a
widow on his bier, to life ; a crowd of people looking through the opened
roof of a chamber where he sits, and letting down a sick person on a bed,
with ropes ; the same, in a tempest, walking on the waters ; in a ship,
again, on a sea-shore, teaching a great multitude ; again, with a child upon
his knees, and other children around ; again, restoring sight to the blind,
speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, health to the sick, strength to the
lame, knowledge to the ignorant; again, dying upon a cross, watched by
armed soldiers, a darkness coming on, the earth beginning to shake, and
only one voice heard, " Forgive them, for they know not what they do !"
Encircled by the social thoughts of Christmas time, still let the
benignant figure of my childhood stand unchanged ! In every cheerful
image and suggestion that the season brings, may the bright star that
rested above the poor roof be the star of all the Christian world !
A moment's pause, vanishing tree, of which the lower boughs are
dark to me yet, and let me look once more. I know there are blank spaces
on thy branches, where eyes that I have loved have shone and smiled, from
which they are departed. But, far above, I see the Raiser of the dead girl
and the widow's son, — and God is good !
THE CREEDS OF THE BELLS.
GEORGE W. BUNGAY.
Sabbath ] " This is the church not built on sands,
bells !
Each one its creed in music tells,
In tones that float upon the air.
As soft as song, as pure as prayer ;
And I will put in simple rhyme
The language of the golden chime ;
My happy heart with rapture swells
Responsive to the bells, sweet bells.
" In deeds of love excel ! excel !"
Chimed out from ivied towers a bell ;
21
Emblem of one not built with hands ;
Its forms and sacred rights revere.
Come worship here ! come worship here !
In rituals and faith excel !"
Chimed out the Episcopalian bell.
" Oh heed the ancient landmarks well!"
In solemn tones exclaimed a bell ;
" No progress made by mortal man
Can change the just eternal plan :
310
THE CREEDS OF THE BELLS.
With God there can be nothing new ;
Ignore the false, embrace the true,
While all is well ! is well ! is well !"
Pealed out the good old Dutch church bell.
:' Ye purifying waters swell!"
In mellow tones rang out a bell ;
'• Though faith alone in Christ can save,
Man must be plunged beneath the wave.
To show the world unfaltering faith
In what the sacred scripture saith ;
P swell ! ye rising waters, swell !"
Pealed out the clear-toned Baptist bell.
" Not faith alone, but works as well,
Must test the soul !" said a soft bell ;
" Come here and cast aside your load,
And work your way along the road,
With faith in God, and faith in man,
And hope in Christ, where hope began ;
Do well! do well ! do well! do well;"
Rang out the Unitarian bell.
" Farewell ! farewell ! base world, farewell !'
In touching tones exclaimed a bell ;
" Life is a boon, to mortals given.
To fit the soul for bliss in heaven ;
Do not invoke the avenging rod,
Come here and learn the way to God ;
Say to the world farewell ! farewell !"
Pealed forth the Presbyterian bell.
" To all the truth we tell ! we tell !"
Shouted in ecstacies a bell ;
" Come all ye weary wanderers, see !
Our Lord has made salvation free !
Repent, believe, have faith, and then
Be saved, and praise the Lord, Amen !
Salvation's free, we tell 1 we tell 1"
Shouted the Methodistic bell.
" In after life there is no hell !"
In raptures rang a cheerful bell ;
" Look up to heaven this holy day,
Where angels wait to lead the way ;
There are no fires, no fiends to blight
The future life ; be just and right.
No hell ! no hell! no hell ! no hell!"
Rang out the Universalist bell.
" The Pilgrim Fathers heeded well
My cheerful voice," pealed forth a bell:
" No fetters here to clog the soul ;
No arbitrary creeds control
The free heart and progressive mind.
That leave the dusty past behind.
Speed well, speed well, speed well,
well !"
Pealed out the Independent bell.
" No pope, no pope, to doom to hell !"
The Protestant rang out a bell ;
" Great Luther left his fiery zeal
Within the hearts that truly feel
That loyalty to God will be
The fealty that makes man free.
No images where incense fell !"
Rang out old Martin Luther's bell.
" All hail, ye saints in heaven that dwell
Close by the cross !" exclaimed a bell ;
" Lean o'er the battlements of bliss,
And deign to bless a world like this ;
Let mortals kneel before this shrine —
Adore the water and the wine !
All hail ye saints, the chorus swell !"
Chimed in the Roman Catliolic bell.
" Ye workers who have toiled so well,
To save the race !" said a sweet bell ;
" With pledge, and badge, and banner, com(^
Each brave heart beating like a drum ;
Be royal men of noble deeds.
For love is holier than creeds ;
Drink from the well, the well, the well !"
In rapture rang the Temperance bell.
HANS AND FRITZ.
311
HAA^S AND FRITZ.
CHARLES F. ADAMS.
l^pANS and Fritz were two Deutscliers
1^^ who lived side by side,
Remote from the world, its deceit
and its pride :
With their pretzels and beer the
spare moments were spent,
And the fruits of their labor were peace
and content.
Hans purchased a horse of a neighbor ore
day,
And, lacking a part of the Geld,— as they
say, — •
Made a call upon Fritz to solicit a loan
To help him to pay for his beautiful roan.
Fritz kindly consented the money to lend.
312
KORNER'S SWORD SONG.
And gave the required amount to his friend ;
Remarking, — his own simple language to
quote, —
" Berhaps it vas bedder ve make us a note."
The note was drawn up in their primitive
way, —
" I Hans, gets from Fritz feefty toUars to-
day ;"
When the question arose, the note being made,
" Vich von holds dot baper until it vas baid?"
"You geeps dot," says Fritz, "und den you
vill know
You owes me dot money." Says Hans, " Dot
ish so :
Dot makes me remempers I haf dot to bay,
Und I prings you der note und der money
some day."
A month had expired, when Hans, as agreed,
Paid back the amount, and from debt he waa
freed.
Says Fritz, " Now dot settles us." Hans re-
plies, " Yaw :
Now who dakes dot baper accordings by
law ?"
"I geeps dot now, aind't it?" say.s Fritz;
"den you see,
I alvays remempers you paid dot to me."
Says Hans, "Dot ish so: it vas now shust so
blain.
Dot I knows vot to do ven I porrows again.'
KOBNEES SWORD SONG.
Completed one hour before he fell on the battle-field, August 26, 1813.
r^wJ|WORD at my left side gleaming !
Why is thy keen glance, beaming,
So fondly bent on mine ?
I love that smile of thine !
Hurrah !
" Borne by a trooper daring,
t My looks his fire glance wearing,
I arm a freeman's hand :
This well delights thy band
Hurrah !"
Ay, good sword, free I wear thee ;
And, true heart's love, I bear thee.
Betrothed one, at my side,
As my dear, chosen bride !
Hurrah !
•' To thee till death united.
Thy steel's bright life is plighted ;
Ah, were my love but tried !
When wilt thou wed thy brido ?
Hurrah ! "
The tempest's festal warning
Shall hail our bridal morning ;
When loud the cannon chide,
Then clasp I my loved bride !
Hurrah !
" joy, when thine arms hold me !
I pine until they fold me.
Come to me! bridegroom, come!
Thine is my maiden bloom.
Hurrah !"
Why, in thy sheath upspringing,
Thou wild, dear steel, art ringing ?
Why clanging with delight,
So eager for the fight ?
Hurrah !
" Well may thy scabbard rattle ;
Trooper, I pant for battle ;
Right eager for the fight,
I clang with wild deliglit.
Hurrali !"
Why thus, my love, forth creeping?
Stay in thy chamber, sleeping ;
Wait still, in the narrow room ;
Soon for my bride I come.
Hurrah !
SCHOOLING A HUSBAND.
313
" Keep me not longer pining !
God plights your bride in the light !
for love's garden shining
Hurrah !
With roses bleeding red,
And blooming with the dead !
Hurrah !"
Then press with warm caresses,
Close lips and bridal kisses,
Your steel ; — cursed be his head
Come from thy sheath, then, treasure !
Who fails the bride he wed !
Thou trooper's true eye-pleasure !
Hurrah !
Come forth, my good sword, come
^^^^^^^-.^
Enter thy father-home !
^^^^^P^'^WS.
Hurrah !
mS^^^-jr ^
" Ha ! in the free air glancing,
JisgdiBfltttt^
How brave this bridal dancing !
^^H^BbBHHH^^^
How, in the sun's glad beams !
BBfe||jtfy^^fe||fl^^^g
Bride -like, thy bright steel gleams!
^m^I^^^MSSSr^^^'^^
Hurrah !"
wi^^^^^^^^^'
Come on, ye German horsemen !
^R^^^^9^r
Come on, ye valiant Norsemen !
^^^S^^^^uBt^
Swells not your hearts' warm tide ?
^^^jjj^^^^^^
Clasp each in hand his bride !
Hurrah !
Now till your swords flash, flinging
Clear sparks forth, wave them singing.
Once at your left side sleeping,
Day dawns for bridal pride ;
Scarce her veiled glance forth peeping,
Hurrah, thou iron bride !
Now wedded with your right.
Hurrah!
SCHOOLING A HUSBAND.
r
'■3RS. CENTRE was jealous. She was one of those discontented
women who are never satisfied unless something goes wrong.
When the sky is bright and pleasant they are annoyed because
there is nothing to grumble at. The trouble is not with the out-
I ward world, but with the heart, the mind : and every one who
1 wishes to grumble will find a subject.
Mrs. Centre was jealous. Her husband was a very good sort of
person, though he probably had his peculiarities. At any rate, he had a
cousin, whose name was Sophia Smithers, and who was very pretty, very
intelligent, and very amiable and kind-hearted. I dare say he occasionally
made her a social call, to which his wife solemnly and seriously objected,
for the reason that Sophia was pretty, intelligent, amiable, and kind-
hearted. These were the sum total of her sins.
Centre and his wife boarded at a private establishment at the South
314 SCHOOLING A HUSBAND.
end of Boston. At the same house also boarded Centre's particular, inti-
mate, and confidential friend, Wallis, with his wife. Their rooms might
almost be said to be common ground, for the two men and the two women
were constantly together.
Wallis could not help observing that Mrs. Centre watched her husband
very closely, and Centre at last confessed that there had been some
difficulty. So they talked the matter over together, and came to the con-
clusion that it was very stupid for any one to be jealous, most of all for
Mrs. Centre to be jealous. What they did I don't know, but one evening
Centre entered the room, and found Mrs. Wallis there,
"My dear, I am obliged to go oat a few moments to call upon a
friend," said Centre.
" To call upon a friend !" sneered Mrs. Centre.
" Yes, my dear, I shall be back presently;" and Mr. Centre left the room.
" The old story," said she, when he had gone.
" If it was my husband I would follow him," said Mrs. Wallis.
" I will !" and she immediately put on her bonnet and shawl. " So-
phia Smithers lives very near, and I am sure he is going there."
Centre had gone up stairs to put on his hat and overcoat, and in a
moment she saw him on the stairs. She could not mistake him, for there
was no other gentleman in the house who wore such a peculiarly shaped
Kossuth as he wore.
He passed out, and Mrs. Centre passed out after him. She followed
the queer shaped Kossuth of her husband, and it led her to C Street,
where she had suspected it would lead her. And further, it led her to the
house of Smithers, the father of Sophia, where she suspected also it would
lead her.
Mrs. Centre was very unhappy. Her husband had ceased to love her;
he loved another ; he loved Sophia Smithers. She could have torn the
pretty, intelligent, amiable, and kind-hearted cousin of her husband in
pieces at that moment ; but she had the fortitude to curb her belligerent
tendencies, and ring the door-bell.
She was shown into the sitting-room, where the beautiful girl of many
virtues was engaged in sewing.
" Is my husband here ?" she demanded.
" Mr. Centre ? Bless you, no ! He hasn't been here for a month."
Gracious! What a whopper ! Was it true that she whose multitudi-
nous qualities had been so often rehearsed to her could tell a lie ? Hadn't she
.seen the peculiar Kossuth of her husband enter that door? Hadn't she
followed that unmistakable hat to the house ?
SCHOOLING A HUSBAND. 315
She was amazed at the coolness of her husband's fair cousin. Before,
she had believed it was only a flirtation. Now, she was sure it was some-
thing infinitely worse, and she thought about a divorce, or at least a separa-
tion.
She was astounded, and asked no more questions. Did the guilty pair
hope to deceive her — her, the argus-eyed wife ? She had some shrewd-
ness, and she had the cunning to conceal her purpose by refraining from
any appearance of distrust. After a few words upon commonplace topics,
she took her leave.
When she reached the sidewalk, there she planted herself, determined
to wait till Centre came out. For more than an hour she stood there,
nursing the yellow demon of jealousy. He came not. While she, the true,
faithful, and legal wife of Centre, was waiting on the cold pavement,
shivering in the cold blast of autumn, he was folded in the arms of the
black-hearted Sophia, before a comfortable coal-fire.
She was catching her death a-cold. What did he care — the brute !
He was bestowing his affections upon her who had no legal right to them.
The wind blew, and it began to rain. She could stand it no longer.
She should die before she got the divorce, and that was just what the
inhuman Centre would wish her to do. She must preserve her precious
life for the present, and she reluctantly concluded to go home. Centre had
not come out, and it required a struggle for her to forego the exposure of
the nefarious scheme.
She rushed into the house, — into her room. Mrs. Wallis was there
still. Throwing herself upon the sofa, she wept like a great baby. Her
friend tried to comfort her, but she was firmly resolved not to be comforted.
In vain Mrs. Wallis tried to assure her of the fidelity of her husband. She
would not listen to the words. But while she was thus weeping, Mr.
Centre entered the room, looking just as though nothing had happened,
"You wretch !" sobbed the lady.
"What is the matter, my dear?" coolly inquired the gentleman, for he
had not passed through the battle and storm of matrimonial warfare with-
out being able to " stand fire."
" You wretch !" repeated the lady, with compound unction.
" What has happened ?"
" You insult me, abuse me, and then ask me what the matter is '"
cried the lady. " Haven't I been waiting in C Street for two hours
for you to come out of Smithers' house?"
"Have you?"
" I have, you wretch !"
316 THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR.
"And I did not come out ?"
" No ! You know you didn't i"
" There was an excellent reason for that, my dear. I wasn't there,"
said Centre, calmlv.
" You weren't there, you wretch ! How dare you tell me such an
abominable lie ! But I have found you out. You go there every day, yes,
twice, three times, a day ! I know your amiable cousin, now ! She can lie
as well as you !"
" Sophia tell a lie ! Oh, no, my dear !"
" But she did. She said you were not there."
"That was very true; I was not."
" How dare you tell me such a lie ! You have been with Sophia all
the evening. She is a nasty baggage !"
" Nay, Mrs. Centre, you are mistaken," interposed Mrs. Wallis. "Mr.
Centre has been with me in this room all the evening."
" What ! didn't I see him go out, and follow him to C Street ?"
" No, my dear, I haven't been out this evening. I changed my
mind."
Just then Wallis entered the room with that peculiar Kossuth on his
head, and the mystery was explained. Mrs. Centre was not a little con-
fused, and very much ashamed of herself.
Wallis had been in Smithers' library smoking a cigar, and had not
seen Sophia. Her statement that she had not seen Centre for a month was
strictly true, and Mrs. Centre was obliged to acknowledge that she had
been jealous without a cause, though she was not "let into" the plot of
Wallis.
But Centre should have known better than to tell his wife what a
pretty, intelligent, amiable, and kind-hearted girl Sophia was. No hus-
band should speak well of any lady but his wife.
THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
^l^ULL knoe-deep lies the winter snow,
jjp^l And the winter winds are wearily
f-4f^ sighing:
'u Toll ye the church-bell, sad and slow,
-' And tread softly and speak low ;
J For the old year lies a-dying.
Old year, you must not die ;
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily ;
Old year, you shall not die.
He lieth still ; he doth not move ;
He will not see the dawn of day;
He hath no other life above :
BARBARA FRIETCHIE.
317
He gave me a friend, and a true, true love,
And the New-year will take them away.
Old year, you must not go ;
So long as you have been with us,
Such joy as you have seen with us, —
Old year, you shall not go.
He frothed his bumpers to the brim ;
A jollier year we shall not see.
But though his eyes are waxing dim.
And though his foes speak ill of him,
He was a friend to me.
Old year, you shall not die ;
We did so laugh and cry with you,
I've half a mind to die with you.
Old year, if you must die.
He was full of joke and jest ;
But all his merry quips are o'er.
To see him die, across the waste
His son and heir doth ride post haste.
But he'll be dead before.
Every one for his own.
The night is starry and cold, my friend.
And the New-year blithe and bold, my
friend,
Comes up to take his own.
How hard he breathes ! o'er the snow
I heard just now the crowing cock.
The shadows flicker to and fro,
The cricket chirps, the light burns low, —
'Tis nearly twelve o'clock.
Shake hands before you die.
Old year, we'll dearly rue for you.
What is it we can do for you? —
Speak out before you die.
His face is growing sharp and thin ; —
Alack ! our friend is gone.
Close up his eyes, tie up his chin.
Step from the corpse, and let him in
Who standeth there alone.
And waiteth at the door.
There's a new foot on the floor, my friend.
And a new face at the door, my friend,
A new face at the door.
BARBARA FRIETCHIE.
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
ipP from the meadows rich with corn,
-«™1^ Clear in the cool September morn,
The clustered spires of Frederick
stand.
Green-walled by the hills of Mary-
land.
Round about them orchards sweep,
Apple and peach tree fruited deep,
Fair as a garden of the Lord,
To the eyes of the famished rebel horde.
On that pleasant morn of the early Fall,
When Lee marched over the mountain wall.
Over the mountains winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.
Forty flags with their silver stars.
Forty flags with their crimson bars.
Flapped in the morning wind : the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.
Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her four-score years and ten ;
Bravest of all in Frederick town.
She took up the flag the men hauled down.
In her attic-window the staff she set.
To show that one heart was loyal yet.
Up the street came the rebel tread,
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead ;
Under his slouched hat left and right
He glanced : the old flag met his sight.
318
CIVIL WAR.
" Halt! " — the dust-brown ranks stood fast ;
" Fire ! " — out blazed the nfle-blast.
It shivered the window, pane and sash,
It rent the banner with seam and gash.
Quick, as it fell from the broken staff,
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf;
She leaned far out on the window-sill.
And shook it forth with a royal will.
" Shoot, if you must, this old gray head.
But spare your country's flag," she said.
A shade of sadness, a blush of shame.
Over the face of the leader came ;
The nobler nature within him stirred
To life at that woman's deed and word.
" Who touches a hair of yon gray head
Dies like a dog ! March on ! " he said.
All day long through Frederick street
Sounded the tread of marching feet ;
All day long that free flag tossed
Over the heads of the rebel host.
Ever its torn folds rose and fell
On the loyal winds that loved it well ;
And through the hill-gaps sunset-light
Shone over it with a warm good-night.
Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er,
And the rebel rides on his raids no more.
Honor to her ! and let a tear
Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier.
Over Barbara Frietchie's grave
Flag of Freedem and Union, wave !
Peace and order and beauty draw
Round thy symbol of light and law ;
And ever the stars above look down
On thy stars below in Frederick town.
I
CIVIL WAR
Rifleman, shoot me a fancy shot
^^ Straight at the heart of yon
prowling vedette ;
Ring me a ball in the glittering spot
That shines on his breast like an
J amulet ! "
'Ah, captain ! here goes for a fine-drawn bead.
There's music around when my barrel's in
tune ! "
Crack ! went the rifle, the messenger sped,
And dead from his horse fell the ringing
dragoon.
" Now, rifleman, steal through the bushes
and snatch
From your victim some trinket to hansel
first blood ;
A button, a loop, or that luminous patch
That gleams in the moon like a diamond stud !"
" Oh captain ! I staggered, and sunk on my
track,
When I gazed on the face of that fallen
vedette,
For he looked so like you, as he lay on his
back.
That my heart rose upon me, and masters me
yet.
" But I snatched off the trinket, — ihis locket
of gold ;
An inch from the centre my lead broke its
way,
Scarce grazing the picture, so fair to behold,
Of a beautiful lady in bridal array."
" Ha ! rifleman, fling me the locket ! — 'tis she,
My brother's young bride, — and the fallen
dragoon
Was her husband — Hush ! soldier, 'twas
Heaven's decree.
We must bury him there, by the light of the
moon !
" But hark ! the far bugles their warnings
unite ;
War is a virtue, — weakness a sin ;
There's a lurking and loping around us
to-night; —
Load again, rifleman, keep your hand in ! "
GO, FEEL WHAT I HAVE FELT.
319
HARK, HARK! THE LARK
f^f^k'KK, hark ! the lark at heaven's gate
sings,
And Phoebus 'gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies ;
SHAKESPEARE.
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes ;
With everything that pretty bin,
My lady sweet, arise ;
Arise, arise !
GO, FEEL WHAT T HA VE FELT.
i^O, feel what I have felt.
Go, bear what I have born ;
aSink 'noath a blow a father dealt,
And the cold, proud world's scorn.
Thus struggle on from year to year,
Thy sole relief the scalding tear.
Go, weep as I have wept
O'er a loved father's fall ;
See every cherished promise swept,
Youth's sweetness turned to gall ;
Hope's faded flowers strewed all the way.
That led me up to woman's day.
Go, kneel as I have knelt:
Implore, beseech and pray,
Strive the besotted heart to melt,
The downward course to stay ;
Be cast with bitter curse aside, —
Thy prayers burlesqued, thy tears defied.
Go, stand where I have stood.
And see the strong man bow ;
With gnashing teeth, lips bathed in blood,
And cold and livid brow ;
Go, catch his wandering glance, and see
There mirrored his soul's misery.
320
THE DEACON'S PRAYER.
Go, hear what I have heard, —
The sobs of sad despair,
As memory's feeling fount hath stirred,
And its revealings there
Have told him what he might have been,
Had he the drunkard's fate foreseen.
Go to my mother's side,
And her crushed spirit cheer;
Thine own deep anguish hide, ,
Wipe from her cheek the tear;
Mark her dimmed eye, her furrowed brow,
The gray that streaks her dark hair now.
The toil-worn frame, the trembling limb,
And trace the ruin back to him
Whose plighted faith in early youth.
Promised eternal love and truth,
But who, forsworn, hath yielded up
This promise to the deadly cup,
And led her down from love and light.
From all that made her pathway bright.
And chained her there mid want and strife,
That lowly thing, — a drunkard's wife !
And stamped on childhood's brow, so mild,
That withering blight, — a drunkard's child!
Go, hoar, and see, and feel, and know
All that my soul hath felt and known,
Then look within the wine-cup s glow;
See if its brightness can atone ;
Think of its flavor would you try,
If all proclaimed, — ' Tis drink and die.
Tell me I hate the bowl, —
Hate is a feeble word ;
I loathe, abhor, my very soul
By strong disgust is stirred
Whene'er I see, or hear, or tell
Of the DARK BEVERAGE OF HELL I
THE DEACON'S PRAYER.
WILLIAM 0. STODDART.
?N the regular evening meeting
\ That the church-holds every w
* One night a listening angel sat
To hear them pray and
It puzzled the soul of the angel
Why some to that gathering came.
But sick and sinful hearts he saw,
With grief and guilt aflame.
They were silent, but said to the angel,
" Our lives have need of Him !"
While doubt, with dull, vague, throbbing
pain,
Stirred through their spirits dim.
You could see 'twas the regular meeting,
And fhe regular seats were filled,
And all knew who would pray and talk,
Though any one might that willed.
From his place in front, nogtr the pulpit,
In his long-accustomed way,
When the Book was read, and the hymn waa
sung,
The Deacon arose to pray.
First came the long preamble —
If Peter had opened so.
He had been, ere the Lord his prayer had
heard,
Full fifty fathom below.
Then a volume of information
Poured forth, as if to the Lord,
Concerning His ways and attributes,
And the things by Him abhorred.
But not in the list of the latter
Was mentioned the mocking breath
Of the hypocrite prayer that is not a prayer,
And the make-believe life in death.
Then he prayed for the church; and the
pastor ;
And that " eouls might be his hire" —
MEDITATION AT AN INFANT'S TOMB.
321
Whatever his stipend otherwise —
Now, if all of that burden had really
And the Sunday-school ; and the choir ;
And the swarming hordes of India;
Been weighing upon his soul,
'Twould have sunk him through to the China
And the perishing, vile Chinese ;
And the millions who bow to the Pope of
side,
And raised a hill over the hole.
Rome ;
And the pagan churches of Greece ;
********
And the outcast remnants of Judah,
'Twas the regular evening meeting.
Of whose guilt he had much to tell —
And the regular prayers were made,
He prayed, or he told the Lord he prayed.
For everything out of Hell.
But the listening angel told the Lord
That only the silent prayed.
MEDITATION AT AN INFANTS TOMB.
JAMES HERVEY.
■=mj|pONDEIl white stone, emblem of the innocence it covers, informs the
"'^^ beholder of one who breathed out its tender soul almost in the
'^'^ instant of receiving it. There, the peaceful infant, without so
much as knowing what labor and vexation mean, " lies still and is
quiet; it sleeps and is at rest." What did the little sojourner find
so forbidding and disgustful in our upper world, to occasion its
precipitate exit ? 'Tis written, indeed, of its suffering Saviour, that when
he had tasted the vinegar mingled with gall, he would not drink. And did
our new-come stranger begin to sip the cup of life ; but, perceiving the
bitterness, turn away its head, and refuse the draught ?
Happy voyager ! no sooner launched, than arrived at the haven ! But
more eminently happy they, who have passed the waves, and weathered all
the storms of a troublesome and dangerous world ! who, " through many
tribulations, have entered into the kingdom of heaven;'' and thereby
brought honor to their divine Convoy, administered comfort to the com-
panions of their toil, and left an instructive example.
Highly favored probationer ! accepted, without being exercised ! It
was thy peculiar privilege, not to feel the shghtest of those evils which
oppress thy surviving kindred ; which frequently fetch groans from the
most manly fortitude or most elevated faith. The arrows of calamity,
barbed with anguish, are often fixed deep in our choicest comforts. The
fiery darts of temptation, shot from the hand of hell, are always flying in
showers around our integrity. To thee, sweet babe, both these distresses
and dans;ers were ahke unknown
322
EXCELSIOR.
Consider this, ye mourning parents, and dry up your tears. Why
should you lament that your little ones are crowned with victory, before
the sword is drawn or the conflict begun ? Perhaps, the Supreme Disposer
of events foresaw some inevitable snare of temptation forming, or some
dreadful storm of adversity impending. And why should you be so
dissatisfied with that kind precaution, which housed your pleasant plant,
and removed into shelter a tender flower, before the thunders roared ; before
the lightnings flew; before the tempest poured its rage ?
At the same time, let survivors, doomed to bear the heat and burden of
the day, for their encouragement reflect, that it is more honorable to have
entered the lists, and to have fought the good fight ; before they come off
conquerors. They who have borne the cross, and submitted to afflictive
providences, with a cheerful resignation ; have girded up the loins of their
mind, and performed their Master's will, wdth an honest and persevering
fidelity ; these, having glorified their Kedeemer on earth, will, probably,
be as stars of the first magnitude in heaven.
I
EXCELSIOR.
. r4: | ?^ .
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
|HE shades of night were falling fast,
^^ A youth,
bore, mid snow and
A banner with a strange device,
Excelsior !
His brow was sad ; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath ;
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior !
In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright ;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone ;
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior !
" Try not the pass !" the old rnan said ;
" Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide !" —
And loud that clarion voice replied,
Excelsior !
"Oh! stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye ;
PADDY'S EXCELSIOR.
323
But still he answered, with
Excelsior !
sigh,
" Beware the pine-tree's withered branch !
Beware the awful avalanche !"
This was the peasant's last good-night ; —
A voice replied far up the height.
Excelsior !
At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of St. Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior !
A traveler, — by the faithful hound.
Half buried in the snow was found.
Still grasping in his hand of ice.
That banner with the strange device.
Excelsior !
There, in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay ;
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star, —
Excelsior !
PADDY'S EXCELSIOR.
sh^
iWAS growin dark so terrible fasht.
Whin through a town up the moun-
tain there pashed
(g^!^ A broth of a boy, to his neck in
^ the shnow ;
4* As he walked, his shillalah he
J swung to and fro,
Saying : " It's up to the top I am
bound for to go,
Be jabbers!"
He looked mortal sad, and bin eye was as
bright
As a fire of turf on a cowld winther night;
And niver a word that he said could ye tell
As he opened his mouth and let out a yell,
" It's up till the top of the mountain I'll go,
Onless covered up wid this bodthersome
shnow.
Be jabbers!"
Through the windows he saw, as he thra-
veled along.
The light of the candles and fires so warm,
But a big chunk of ice hung over his head ;
Wid a shnivel and groan, " By St. Patrick !"
he said,
" It's up to the very tip-top I will rush.
And then if it falls, it's not meself it'll crush.
Be jabbers !"
" Whisht a bit," said an owld man, whose
hair was as white
As the shnow that fell down on that miser-
able night ;
'• Shure ye'll fall in the wather, me bit of a
lad,
Fur the night is so dark and the walkin' is
bad."
Bedad! he'd not lisht to a word that was
said.
But he'd go to the top, if he went on his
head,
Be jabbers !
A bright, buxom young girl, such as likes to
be kissed.
Axed him wouldn't he stop, and how could
he resist ?
So shnapping his fingers and winking his
eye.
While shmiling upon her, he made this re-
ply—
" Faith, I meant to kape on till I got to the
top,
But, as yer shwate self has axed me, I may
as well shtop
Be jabbers !"
He shtopped all night and he shtopped all
day, —
324
FATHER TIME'S CHANGELING.
And ye musn't be axin whin he did go
away ;
Fur wouldn't he bo a bastely gossoon
To be lavin his darlint in the swate honey-
moon ?
Whin the owld man has peraties enough and
to spare,
Shure he moight as well shtay if he's com>
fortable there,
Be jabbers!
THE CHINESE EXCELSIOR.
FROM "THE BOY TEAVELEIIE
Ifiji^IIAT nightee teem he come chop-chop
^^ One young man walkee, no can stop ;
Maskee snow, maskee ice ;
He cally flag wit'h chop so nice —
Top-side Galah !
'He muchee solly : one piecee eye
Lookee sharp — so fashion — my ;
He talkee large, he talkee stlong.
Too muchee culio ; allee same gong. —
Top-side Galah !
'Insidee house he can see light.
And evly loom got fire all light,
He lookee plenty ice more high,
Insidee mout'h he plenty cly —
Top- side Galah !
'Ole man talkee, " No can walk,
Bimeby lain come, velly dark ;
Have got water, velly wide ! "
Maskee, my must go top-side, —
Top-side Galah !
" Man-man " one girlee talkee he :
" What for you go top-side look — see ? "
And one teem more he plenty cly,
But allee teem walk plenty high —
Top -side Galah!
" Take care t'hat spilum tlee, ycung man,
Take care t'hat ice, must go man-man."
One coolie chin-chin he good-night ;
He talkee, " My can go all light " —
Top-side Galah !
T'hat young man die : one large dog see
Too muchee bobbly findee he,
He hand b'long coldee, all same like ice,
He holdee flag, wit'h chop so nice —
Top-side Galah !
FATHER TIME'S CHANGELING.
A STORY TOLD TO GRACIE.
SNE day in summer's glow.
Not many j^ears ago,
A little babe lay on my knee,
With rings of silken hair.
And fingers waxen fair.
Tiny and soft, and pink as
could be.
pink
We watched it thrive and grow —
Ah me ! We loved it so —
And marked its daily gain in sweeter charms ;
It learned to laugh and crow.
And play and kiss us — so —
Until one day we missed it from our arms.
In sudden, strange surprise
We met each other's eyes,
Asking, " Who stole our pretty babe away ?"
We questioned earth and air,
But, seeking everywhere,
We never found it from that summer day.
But in its wonted place
There was another face —
A little girl's, with yellow curly hair
About her shoulders tossed ;
And the sweet babe we lost
Seemed sometimes looking from her eyes so
fair.
AIRY NOTHINGS.
325
She dances, romps, and sings.
Ah, Blue-eyes, do you see
And does a hundred things
Who stole my babe from me.
Which my lost baby never tried to do ;
And brought the little girl from fairy clime ?
She longs to read in books,
A gray old man with wings,
And with bright eager looks
Who steals all precious things ;
Is always asking questions strange and
new.
He lives forever, and his name is Time.
And I can scarcely tell,
He rules the world they say ;
I love the rogue so well,
He took my babe away —
Whether I would retrace the four years'
My precious babe — and left me in its place
track,
This little maiden fair.
And lose the merry sprite
With yellow curly hair,
Who makes my home so bright
Who lives on stories, and whose name is
To have again my little baby back.
Grace !
AIRY NOTHINGS.
SHAKESPEARE
^UR revels now are ended. These, our
actors,
%f As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
""^ Are melted into air — into thin air ;
And, like the baseless fabric of this
vision.
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
22
The solemn temples, the great globe it?elf,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such
stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with sleep.
326 THE CHARITY DINNER.
THE CHARITY DINNER.
Time: liulf-past six o'clock. Place: The London Tavern. Occasion: Fifteenth Annual Festival of the So-
ciety for t)ie Distribution of Blankets and Top-Boots among the Natives of tlie Cannibal Islands.
LITCHFIELD MOSELY.
WKN entering the room we find more than two hundred noblemen and
^P gentlemen already assembled ; and the number is increasing every
it^'^'i minute. The preparations are now complete, and we are in
readiness to receive the chairman. After a short pause, a little
door at the end of the room opens, and the great man appears, attended
by an admiring circle of stewards and toadies, carrying white wands
like a parcel of charity-school boys bent on beating the bounds. He
advances smilingly to his post at the principal table, amid deafening and
long-continued cheers.
The dinner now makes its appearance, and we yield up ourselves to the
enjoyments of eating and drinking. These important duties finished, and
grace having been beautifully sung by the vocalists, the real business of the
evening commences. The usual loyal toasts having been given, the noble
chairman rises, and after passing his fingers through his hair, places his
thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, gives a short preparatory cough,
accompanied by a vacant stare round the room, and commences as follows :
"My Lords and Gentlemen: — It is with feelings of mingled pleasure
and regret that I appear before you this evening : of pleasure, to find that
this excellent and world-wide-known society is in so promising a condition ;
and of regret, that you have not chosen a worthier chairman ; in fact, one
who is more capable than myself of dealing with a subject of such vital im-
portance as this. (Loud cheers.) But, although I may be unworthy of the
honor, I am proud to state that I have been a subscriber to this society
from its commencement ; feeling sure that nothing can tend more to the
advancement of civilization, social reform, fireside comfort, and domestic
economy among the Cannibals, than the diffusion of blankets and top-boots.
(Tremendous cheering, which lasts for several minutes.) Here in this
England of ours, which is an island surrounded by watei', as I suppose you
all know — or, as our great poet so truthfully and beautifully expresses the
same fact, ' England bound in by the triumphant sea ' — what, down the
long vista of years, have conduced more to our successes in arms, and arts,
and song, than blankets ? Indeed I never gaze upon a blanket without my
thoughts reverting fondly to the days of my early childhood. Where
should we all have been now but for those warm and fleecy coverings ?
THE CHARITY DINNER. 327
My Lords and Gentlemen ! Our first and tender memories are all
associated with blankets : blankets when in our nurses' arms, blankets
in our cradles, blankets in our cribs, blankets to our French bedsteads in
our school-days, and blankets to our marital four-posters now. Therefore, I
say, it becomes our bounden duty as men — and, with feelings of pride, I add,
as Englishmen — to initiate the untutored savage, the wild and somewhat un-
cultivated denizen of the prairie, into the comfort and warmth of blankets ;
and to supply him, as far as practicable, with those reasonable, seasonable,
luxurious and useful appendages. At such a moment as this, the lines of
another poet strike familiarly upon the ear. Let me see, they are some-
thing like this — ah — ah —
" Blankets have charms to soothe the savage breast,
And to — to do — a — ''
I forget the rest. (Loud cheers.)
" My Lords and Gentlemen ! I will not trespass on your patience by
making any further remarks; knowing how incompetent I am — no, no!
I don't mean that — knowing how incompetent you all are — no ! I don't
mean that either — but you all know what I mean. Like the ancient
Roman lawgiver, I am in a peculiar position ; for the fact is I cannot
sit down— I mean to say, that I cannot sit down without saying that, if
there ever ivas an institution, it is this institution; and therefore, I beg to
propose, ' Prosperity to the Society for the Distribution of Blankets and
Top-Boots among the Natives of the Cannibal Islands.' "
The toast having been cordially responded to, his lordship calls upon
Mr. Buffer, the secretary, to read the report. Whereupon that gentle-
man, who is of a bland and oily temperament, and whose eyes are con-
cealed by a pair of green spectacles, produces the necessary document, and
reads in the orthodox manner —
" Thirtieth Half-yearly Report of the Society for the Distribution of
Blankets and Top-Boots to the Natives of the Cannibal Islands."
The reading concluded, the secretary resumes his seat amid hearty ap-
plause which continues until Mr. Alderman Gobbleton rises, and, in a
■3om.ewhat lengthy and discursive speech — in which the phrases, ' the Cor-
poration of the City of London,' 'suit and service,' 'ancient guild,' 'liber-
ties and privileges,' and 'Court of Common Council,' figure frequently —
states that he agrees with everything the noble chairman has said ; and
has, moreover, never listened to a more comprehensive and exhaustive
document than the one just read ; which is calculated to satisfy even the
most obtuse and hard-headed of individuals.
328 THE CHARITY DINNER.
Gobbleton is a great man in the city. He lias either been lord mayor,
or sheriff, or something of the sort; and, as a few words of his go a long
way with his friends and admirers, his remarks are very favorably received.
" Clever man, Gobbleton ! " says a common councilman, sitting near us,
to his neighbor, a languid swell of the period.
" Ya-as, vewy ! Wemarkable style of owatowy — gweat fluency," replies
the other.
But attention, if you please ! — for M. Hector de Longuebeau, the great
French writer, is on his legs. He is staying in England for a short time,
to become acquainted with our manners and customs,
" Milors and Gentlemans ! " commences the Frenchman, elevating his
eyebrows and shrugging his shoulders. " Milors and Gentlemans — You
excellent chairman, M. le Baron de Mount-Stuart, he have to say to me,
' Make de toast.' Den I say to him I have no toast to make ; but he nudge
my elbow very soft, and say dat dere is one toast dat nobody but von
Frenchman can make proper ; and, darefore, wid your kind permission, I
vill make de toast. ' De brevete is de sole of de feet," as your great philo-
sophere, Dr. Johnson, do say, in dat amusing little vork of his, de Pro-
nouncing Dictionnaire; and, darefore, I vill not say ver moch to de point.
Ven I was a boy, about so moch tall, and used for to promenade the streets
of Marseilles et of Rouen, vid no feet to put onto my shoe, I nevare to
have expose dat dis day vould to have arrive. I was to begin de vorld as
von garcon — or what you call in dis countrie von vaitaire in a cafe —
vere I vork ver hard, vid no habillements at all to put onto myself,
and ver little food to eat, excep' von old bleu blouse vat vas give
to me by de proprietaire, j ust for to keep myself fit to be showed at ; but,
tank goodness, tings dey have change ver moch for me since dat time and
I have rose myself, seulement par mon Industrie et perseverance. (Loud
cheers.) Ah ! mes amis ! ven I hear to myself de flowing speech, de oration
magnifique of you Lor' Maire, Monsieur Gobbledown, I feel dat it is von
great privilege for von stranger to sit at de same table, and to eat de same
food, as dat grand, dat majestique man, who are de terreur of de voleurs
and de brigands of de metropolis ; and who is also, I for to suppose, a halter-
man and de chief of you common scoundrel. Milors and gentlemans, I
feel dat I can perspire to no greatare honneur dan to be von common
scoundrelman myself ; but helas ! dat plassir are not for me, as I are not
freeman of your great city, not von liveryman servant of von of you cora-
pagnies joint-stock. But I must not forget de toast. Milors and Gentle-
mans ! De immortal Shakispeare he have write, * De ding of beauty are
de joy for nevermore.' It is de ladies who are de toast. Vat is more en-
PRAYERS OF CHILDREN.
329
trancing dan de charmante smile, de soft voice, de vinking eye of de beau-
tiful lady ! It is de ladies who do sweeten the cares of life. It is de ladies
who are de guiding stars of our existence. It is de ladies who do cheer
but not inebriate, and, darefore, vid all homage to dere sex, de toast dat I
have to propose is, ' De Ladies ! God bless dera all ! ' "
And the little Frenchman sits down amid a perfect tempest of cheers.
A few more toasts are given, the list of subscriptions is read, a vote of
thanks is passed to the noble chairman ; and the Fifteenth Annual Festival
of the Society for the Distribution of Blankets and Top-Boots among the
Natives of the Cannibal Islands is at an end.
PRA YERS OF CHILDREN.
^N the quiet nursery chambers, —
Snowy pillor/s yet unpressed, —
See the forms of little children
Kneeling, white robed, for
irest.
All in quiet nursery chambers,
While the dusky shadows creep,
Hear the voices of the children ;
" Now I lay me down to sleep."
In the meadow and the mountain
Calmly shine the Winter stars,
But across the glistening lowlands
Stand the moonlight's silver bars.
In the silence and the darkness,
Darkness growing still more deep.
Listen to the little children.
Praying God their souls to keep.
" If we die " — so pray the children,
And the mother's head droops low,
One from out her fold is sleeping
Deep beneath the winter's snow —
" Take our souls ;" — and past the casement
Flits a gleam of crystal light.
Like the trailing of his garments,
Walking evermore in white.
Little souls that stand expectant.
Listening at the gates of life.
Hearing, far away the murmur
Of the tumult and the strife,
330
LITTLE MARGERY.
We who fight beneath those banners,
In the warring of temptation,
Meeting ranks of foemen there,
Firm and true your souls to keep.
Find a deeper, broader meaning
In your simple vesper prayer.
When the combat ends, and slowly
Clears the smoke from out the skies ;
When your hand shall grasp this standard
When, far down the purple distance,
Which to-day you watch from far,
All the noise of battle dies ;
When your deeds shall shape the conflict
When the last night's solemn shadow
In this universal war:
Settles down on you and me.
Pray to Him, the God of battles,
May the love that never faileth
Whose strong eyes can never sleep,
Take our souls eternally !
LITTLE MARGERY.
MRvS. SALLIE J. WHITE.
H^^NEELING, white-robed, sleepy eyes,
^j^^ Peeping through the tangled hair,
¥#^3^ " Now I lay me — I'm so tired —
ijl* Aunty, God knows all my prayer;
4 He'll keep little Margery."
Watching by the little bed.
Dreaming of the coming years,
Much I wonder what they'll bring,
Most of smiles or most of tears,
To my little Margery.
LEARNING TO PRAY.
331
Will the simple, trusting faith
Shining in the childish breast
Always be so clear and bright?
Will God always know the rest,
Loving little Margery ?
As the weary years go on,
And you are a child no more,
But a woman, trouble-worn.
Will it come — this faith of yours-
you, dear Margery ?
If your sweetest love shall fail.
And your idol turn to dust,
Will you bow to meet the blow.
Owning all God's ways are just?
Can you, sorrowing Margery ?
Should your life-path grow so dark
You can see no steps ahead.
Will you lay your hand in His,
Trusting by him to be led
To the light, my Margery ?
Will the woman, folding down
Peaceful hands across her breast,
Whisper, with her old belief,
" God, my Father, knows the rest,
He'll take tired Margery ?"
True, my darling, life is long.
And its ways are dark and dim ;
But God knows the path you tread ;
I can leave you safe with Him,
Always, little Margery.
He will keep your childish faith.
Through your weary woman years,
Shining ever strong and bright,
Never dimmed by saddest tears,
Trusting little Margery.
You have taught a lesson sweet
To a yearning, restless soul ;
We pray in snatches, ask a part.
But God above us knows the whole,
And answers, baby Margery.
LEARNING TO PRA Y.
MARY M. DODGE.
1^|§NEELING fair in the twilight gray,
J^P A beautiful child was trying to
ffi^'f pi-ay ;
i] l» His cheek on his mother's knee,
His bare little feet half hidden,
His smile still coming unbidden.
And his heart brimful of glee.
" I want to laugh. Is it naughty ? Say,
mamma ! I've had such fun to-day
1 hardly can say my prayers.
I don't feel just like praying ;
I want to be out-doors playing.
And run, all undressed, down stairs.
" I can see the flowers in the garden bed.
Shining so pretty, and sweet, and red ;
And Sammy is swinging, I guess.
Oh ! everything is so fine out there,
I want to put it all in the prayer, —
Do you mean I can do it by ' Yes ?'
" When I say, ' Now I lay me,'-word for word,
It seems to me as if nobody heard.
Would ' Thank you dear God,' be right?
He gave me my mammy.
And papa, and Sammy, —
mamma ! you nodded I might.
332
A GLASS OF COLD WATER.
Clasping his hands and hiding his face,
Unconsciously yearning for help and grace,
The little one now began ;
His mother's nod and sanction sweet
Had led him close to the dear Lord's feet,
And his words like music ran :
" Thank you for making this home so nice.
The flowers, and my two white mice, —
I wish I could keep right on ;
I thank you, too, for every day —
Only I'm most too glad to pray.
Dear God, I think I'm done.
" Now, mamma, rock me — just a minute —
And sing the hymn with ' darling ' in it.
I wish I could say my prayers !
When I get big, I know I can.
Oh I won't it be nice to be a man,
And stay all night down stairs !"
The mother, singing, clasped him tight,
Kissing and cooing her fond " Good-night,"
And treasured his every word.
For well she knew that the artless joy
And love of her precious, innocent boy,
Were a prayer that her Lord had heard.
NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP.
^i^OLDEN head so lowly bending,
^^fk Little feet so white and bare,
ftii'-j Dewy eyes, half shut, half opened,
<i£^ Lisping out her evening prayer.
" Now I lay," — repeat it, darling —
" Lay me," lisped the tiny lips
Of my daughter, kneeling, bending
O'er the folded finger tips.
" Down to sleep,"-" To sleep," she murmured,
And the curly head bent low ;
" I pray the Lord," I gently added,
" You can say it all, I know."
"Pray the Lord," the sound came faintly.
Fainter still — "My soul to keep;"
Then the tired heart fairly nodded,
And the child was fast asleep.
But the dewy eyes half opened
When I clasped her to my breast.
And the dear voice softly whispered,
" Mamma, God knows all the rest."
Oh, the trusting, sweet confiding
Of the child-heart ! would that I
Thus might trust my Heavenly Father,
He who hears my feeblest cry.
0, the rapture, sweet, unbroken.
Of the soul who wrote that prayer !
Children's myriad voices floating
Up to Heaven, record it there.
If, of all that has been written,
I could choose what might be mine,
It should be that child's petition.
Rising to the throne divine.
A GLASS OF COLD WATER.
J. B. GOUGH.
iHERE is the liquor which God the Eternal brews for all his child-
ren ? Not in the simmering still, over smoky fires choked with
poisonous gases, surrounded with the stench of sickening odors,
and rank corruptions, doth your Father in heaven prepare the
precious essence of life, the pure cold water. But in the green
FATHER, TAKE MY HAND.
333
glade and grassy dell, where the red deer wanders, and the child loves to
play ; there God brews it. And down, low down in the lowest valleys,
where the fountains murmur and the rills sing; and high upon the tall
mountain tops, where the naked granite glitters like gold in the sun ; where
the storm-cloud broods, and the thunder-storms crash ; and away far out
on the wide wild sea, where the hurricane howls music, and the big waves
roar ; the chorus sweeping the march of God : there he brews it — that
beverage of life and health-giving water. And everywhere it is a thing of
beauty, gleaming in the dew-drop ; singing in the summer rain ; shining in
the ice-gems till the leaves all seem to turn to living jewels; spreading a
golden veil over the setting sun ; or a white gauze around the midnight
moon.
Sporting in the cataract; sleeping in the glacier; dancing in the hail
shower ; folding its bright snow curtains softly about the wintry world ;
and waving the many-colored iris, that seraph's zone of the sky, whose
warp is the rain-drop of earth, whose woof is the sunbeam of heaven ; all
checkered over with celestial flowers, by the mystic hand of refraction.
Still always it is beautiful, that life-giving water ; no poison bubbles on
its brink ; its foam brings not madness and murder ; no blood stains ita
liquid glass ; pale widows and starving orphans weep no burning tears in
its depth ; no drunken, shrieking ghost from the grave curses it in the
words of eternal despair ; speak on, my friends, would you exchange for it
demon's drink, alcohol !
FATHER, TAKE MY HAJSfD."
HENRY N. COBB.
|HE way i.<? dark, my Father ! Cloud
on cloud
#5.'^ Is gathering thickly o'er my head,
'' ^ and loud
The thunders roar above me. See,
I stand
Like one bewildered! Father, take
my hand.
And through the gloom
Lead safely home
Thy child !
The day goes fast, my Father ! and the night
Is drawing darklydown. My faithless sight
Sees ghostly visions. Fears, a spectral band,
Encompass me. Father ! take my hand,
And from the night
Lead up to light
Thy child!
The way is long, my Father ! and my soul
Longs for the rest and quiet of the goal ;
"While yet I journey through this weary
land.
Keep me from wandering. Father, take my
hand ;
334
THE GRACIOUS ANSWER.
Quickly and straight
Lead to lioaven's gate
Thy child !
The path is rough, my Father! Many a
thorn
Has pierced me ; and my weary feet, all
torn
And bleeding, mark the way. Yet thy
command
Bids me press forward. Father, take my
hand ;
Then safe and blest,
Lead up to rest
Thy child!
The throng is great, my Father ! Many a
doubt
And fear and danger compass me about ;
And foes oppress me sore. I cannot stand
Or go alone. Father I take my hand,
And through the throng
Lead safe along
Thy child ;
The cross is heavy. Father ! I have borne
It long, and still do bear it. Let my worn
And fainting spirit rise to that blest land
Where crowns are given. Father, take my
hand ;
And reaching down
Lead to the crown
Thy child !
THE GRACIOUS ANSWER.
HENRY N. COBB.
jiHE way is dark, my child ! but leads
to light.
I would not always have thee walk
by sight.
My dealings now thou canst not un-
derstand.
I meant it so ; but I will take thy
hand,
And through the gloom
Lead safely home
My child !
The day goes fast, my child ! But is the
night
Darker to me than day ? In me is light !
Keep close to me, and every spectral band
Of fears shall vanish. I will take thy hand.
And through the night
Lead up to light
My child !
The way is long, my child ! But it shall be
Not one step longer than is best for thee ;
And thou shalt know, at last, when thou
8halt stand
Safe at the goal, how I did take thy hand.
And quick and straight
Lead to heaven's gate
lij child 1
The path is rough, my child ! But oh ! how
sweet
Will be the rest, for weary pilgrims meet.
When thou shalt reach the borders of that
land
To which I lead thee, as I take thy hand.
And safe and blest
With me shall rest
My child !
The throng is great, my child ! But at thy
side
Thy Father wulks: then be not terrified,
For I am with thee; will thy foes com
mand
To let thee freely pass ; will take thy hand,
And through the throng
Lead safe along
Mv child!
THE FRENCHMAN AND THE RATS.
335
The cross is heavy, child ! Yet there was
One
Who bore a heavier for thee ; my Son,
My well-beloved. For him bear thine; and
stand
With him at last; and, from thy Father's
hand,
Thy cross laid down,
Receive a crown.
My child!
THE FRENCHMAN AND THE RATS.
^^P FRENCHMAN once, who was a
pi!^l| merry wight,
%^=Y Passing to town from Dover, in the
^'° night,
4 Near the roadside an alehouse
¥ chanced to spy,
j And being rather tired as well as
dry.
Resolved to enter ; but first he took a peep.
In hopes a supper he might get, and cheap.
He enters : " Hallo ! Garcon, if you please.
Bring me a leetel bit of bread and cheese,
And hallo ! Garcon, a pot of porter, too !"
he said,
" Vich I shall take, and den myself to bed."
His supper done, some scraps of cheese were
left.
Which our poor Frenchman, thinking it no
theft,
Into his pocket put ; then slowly crept
To wished-for bed ; but not a wink he slept —
For on the floor some sacks of flour were laid,
To which the rats a nightly visit paid.
Our hero, now undressed, popped out the
light.
Put on his cap and bade the world good-
night ;
But first his breeches, which contained the
fare.
Under his pillow he had placed with care.
Sans ceremonie, soon the rats all ran.
And on the flour-sacks greedily began ;
At which they gorged themselves; then
smelling round,
Under the pillow soon the cheese they found ;
And while at this they all regaling sat,
Their happy jaws disturbed the Frenchman's
nap ;
Who, half-awake, cries out, "Hallo! hallo!
Vat is dat nibble at my pillow so ?
336
DUNCAN GRAY CAM' HERE TO WOO.
Ah ! 'tis one big — one very big, huge rat !
Vat is it that he nibble — nibble at/"
In vain our little hero sought repose ;
.Sometimes the vermin galloped o'er his
nose;
And such the pranks they kept up all the
night,
That he, on end — antipodes upright
Brawling-aloud, called stoutly for a light.
" Hallo ! Maison ! Garcon, I say !
Bring me the bill for vat I have to pay !"
The bill was brought, and to his great sur-
prise.
Ten shillings was the charge : he scarce be-
lieved his eyes.
With eager haste, he quickly runs it o'er,
And every time he viewed it thought it
more.
" Vy, zounds and zounds !" he cries, " I sail
no pay ;
Vat ! charge ten shelangs for what I have
mange ?
A leetel sop of portar, dis vile bed,
Vare all de rats do run about my head ?"
"Plague on those rats !" the landlord mut-
tered out ;
" I wish, upon my word, that I could make
'em scout:
I'll pay him well that can." "Vat's dat you
say ?"
'•I'll pay him well that can." " Attend to
me, I pray :
Vill you dis charge forego, vat I am at,
If from your house I drive away de rat?"
" With all my heart," the jolly host re-
plies.
" Ecoutez, done ami;" the Frenchman cries.
" First den — Regardez, if you please,
Bring to dis spot a leetel bread and cheese :
Eh bien ! a pot of portar, too ;
And den invite de rats to sup vid you:
And after dat — no matter dey be villing —
For vat dey eat, you charge dem just ten
shelang :
And I am sure, ven dey behold de score,
Dey'U quit your house, and never come no
more."
DUNCAN GRAY CAM' HERE TO WOO.
ROBERT BURNS.
H^jUNCAN Gray cam' here to woo—
Ha, ha! the wooing o't !
On blythe Yule night when we
were fu' —
Ha, ha! the wooing o't!
Maggie coost her head fu' high.
Looked asklent and unco sneigh.
Cart poor Duncan stand abeigh —
Ila, ha! the wooing o't!
Duncan fleeched and Duncan prayed —
Ha, ha ! the wooing o't !
Meg was deaf as Ailsa craig —
Ha, ha ! the wooing o't !
Duncan sighed baith oot and in,
Gart his een baith bleer't and blin'
Spake o' lowpin o'er a linn —
Ha, ha ! the wooing o't !
Time and chance are but a tide —
Ha, ha! the wooing o't!
Slighted love is sair to bide —
Ha, ha ! the wooing o't —
Shall I, like a fule, quoth he.
For a haughty hizzie dee ?
She may gae to — France for me !
Ha, ha ! the wooing o't !
How it comes let doctors tell —
Ha, ha ! the wooing o't I
Meg grew sick as he grew well —
Ha, ha ! the wooing o't !
Something in her bosom wrings, —
For relief a sigh she brings, —
And 0, her ccn the}' speak sic things I
Ha ha ! the wooing o't '
SUNRISE AT SEA.
337
Duncan was a lad o' grace —
Ha, ha! the wooing o't!
Maggie's was a piteous case —
Ha, ha ! the wooing o't !
Duncan could na be her death :
Swelling pity smoored his wrath,
Now they're crouse and canty baith,
Ha, ha ! the wooing o't I
THE HOME OF PEACE.
THOMAS MOORE.
^Ij^ KNEW by the smoke that so gracefully
Mm curled
\^vj Above the green elms, that a cottage
(|!i© was near.
And I said, " H there's peace to be
found in the world,
A heart that is humble might hope
for it here!"
It was noon, and on flowers that languished
around
In silence, reposed the voluptuous bee ;
Every leaf was at rest, and I heard not a
sound
But the woodpecker tapping the hollow
beech-tree.
And " Here in this lone little wood," I ex-
claimed,
" With a maid who was lovely to soul and
to eye ;
Who would blush when I praised her, and
weep if I blamed.
How blest could I live, and how calm
could I die !
" By the shade of yon sumach, whose red
berry dips
In the gush of the fountain, how sweet to
recline,
And to know that I sighed upon innocent lips,
Which had never been sighed on by any
but mine !"
SUNRISE AT SEA.
W. V. KELLY.
JpOW slowly the day dawns, yet how suddenly the sun rises ! Did
*^ you ever witness a sunrise at sea on a calm morning? You look
out of your port-hole before dawn and see the faintest possible
hint of daylight yonder. You go on deck. The east gives a pale
promise of the morning, just the first soft glimmer from the gates
ajar of that heavenly chamber whence the sun will, by-and-
come rejoicing. A low, doubtful, slowly-growing light, spreads
encroaching on the shadows on the east. The sky beds itself on the
dark gray sea, with a deep foundation of intense dark rich orange, and
builds upwards with gradations of yellow, and green, and colors no one
could name. Infinite changes gently succeed. Miracles of transforma-
tion, glory passing into glory. The stars fade slowly, blinking at the
338 SLEIGHING SONG.
increasing light, lilce old religions dying before the Gospel. So smooth is
the water, it is certain that when the sun rises above the horizon he will
stand with his feet on a sea of burnished glass. The clouds have bent a
triumphal arch over the place of his coming, and one broad cloud makes
a crimson canopy to the pavilion which awaits the king. Graceful, airy
clouds hover like spirits that expect a spectacle ; shortly they put on
glorious robes, and their faces are bright, as if, like Moses, in some lofty
place, they had seen God face to face : the meanest tattered cloud that lies
waiting, like a beggar, at the gates of the morning, for the coming of the
King from his inaccessible chambers of splendor, is dressed, while it waits,
in glory beside which the apparel of princes is sordid and vile. For more
than an hour, a long, long hour, you watch the elaborate unfolding pageant
of preparation go on in the east. With a trembling hush of culminating
wonder, you await impatiently the grand uprise of the sun. Will he ever
come ? You almost doubt. At last, when the ecstacy of expectation has
grown intense, a thin, narrow flash of brilliant, dazzling fire shoots level
along the sea, swift as lightning. Swiftly it rises and broadens till, in one
moment, the dusk immensity above is kindled by it ; another moment, and
the far-off, gloomy west sees it; in another, the whole heaven feels it ; and
yet one moment more, and the wide circle of the level sea is molten silver.
It is done, all done. The thing, so long preparing and approaching, bursts
into completion. The day is full-blown in a moment. The few heavy
piles of cloud on the horizon, look like castles in conflagration and consume
away ; the sun's burning gaze scorches from the rafters of the sky the
light cobwebs of mist and fleece ; and now the sun has the clean temple of
the heavens all to himself, paved with silver, domed with azure, pillared
with lijrht.
SLEIGHING SONG.
G. W. PETTEE.
^I^INGLE, jingle, clear the way, Roguish archers, I'll be bound,
|fe|l(s 'Tis the merry, merry sleigh,
■ ~ " As it swiftly scuds along
Hear the burst of happy song.
See the gleam of glances bright.
Flashing o'er the pathway white.
Jingle, jingle, past it flies.
Sending shafts from hooded eyes, —
Little heeding who they wound ;
See them, with capricious pranks,
Ploughing now the drifted banks ;
Jingle, jingle, mid the glee
Who among them cares for me ?
Jingle, jingle, on they go.
Capes and bonnets white with snow.
JIM.
339
Not a single robe they fold
To protect them from the cold ;
Jingle, jingle, mid the storm,
Fun and frolic keep them warm ;
Jingle, jingle, down the hills.
O'er the meadows, past the mills,
Now 'tis slow, and now 'tis fast;
Winter will not always last.
Jingle, jingle, clear the way,
'Tis the merry, merry
JIM.
F. BRET HARTE.
?AY there ! P'r'aps
}^i Some on you chaps
f^^ Might know Jim Wild?
Well, — no offence:
Thar aint no sense
In gittin' riled !
Jim was my chum
Up on the Bar :
That's why I come
Down from up thar,
Lookin' for Jim.
Thank ye, sir ! you
Ain't of that crew, —
Blest if vou are !
Well, this yer Jim,
Did you know him ? —
Jess 'bout your size ;
Same kind of eyes ! —
Well that is strange :
Why it's two year
Since he come here,
Sick, for a change.
Well, here's to us ;
Eh?
The deuce you say !
Dead?
That little cuss ?
Money ? — Not much :
That ain't my kind
I ain't no such.
Rum ? — I don't mind,
Seem' it's you.
What makes you staar,-
You over thar ?
Can't a man drop
's glass in yer shop
But you must rar'?
340
THE MINUET.
It wouldn't take
Demed much to break
You and your bar.
Dead!
Poor — little — Jim !
—Why there was me,
Jones, and Bob Lee,
Harry and Ben, —
No-account men :
Then to take him I
Well, thar— Good by,-
No more, sir, — I —
Eh?
What's that you say ? —
Why, dern it ! — sho ! —
No? Yes! By Jo!
Sold!
Sold ! Why you limb,
You onery,
Derned old
Long-legged Jim I
THE MINUET.
MRS. MARY M. DODGE.
JRANDMA told me all about it,
1^ Told me so I couldn't doubt it.
How she danced — my grandma
danced —
Long ago.
How she held her pretty head,
How her dainty skirt she spread,
How she turned her little toes —
Smiling little human rose 1 —
Long ago.
Grandma's hair was bright and sunny ;
Dimpled cheeks, too — ah, how funny !
Really quite a pretty girl,
Long ago.
Bless her ! why she wears a cap,
Grandma does, aud takes a nap
Every single day ; and yet
Grandma danced the minuet
Long ago.
Now she sits there, rocking, rocking,
Always knitting grandpa's stocking —
(Every girl was taught to knit
Long ago,)
Yet her figure is so neat.
And her way so staid and sweet,
I can almost see her now
Bending to her partner's bow,
Long aeo.
Grandma says our modern jumping.
Hopping, rushing, whirling, bumping,
Would have shocked the gentle folk
Long ago.
No — they moved with stately grace,
Everything in proper place.
Gliding slowly forward, then
Slowly courtesying back again,
Long ago.
Modern ways are quite alarming,
Grandma says; but boys were charming-
Girls and boys, I mean, of course —
Long ago.
Bravely modest, grandly shy —
What if all of us should try
Just to feel like those who met
In the graceful minuet
Long ago ?
With the minuet in fashion,
Who could fly into a passion ?
All would wear the calm they wore
Long ago.
In time to come, if I perchance.
Should tell my grandchild of our dance,
I should really like to say,
" We did it, dear, in some such way
Long ago."
EARLY RISING.
34i
TEE LOST DOLL,
C. KINGSLEY.
®l® ONCE had a sweet little doll, dears,
H^ The prettiest doll in the world ;
"^ Her cheeks were so red and so white,
i dears,
X And her hair was so charmingly
¥ curled,
j But I lost my poor little doll, dears,
As I played on the heath one day ;
And I cried for her more than a week, dears.
But I never could find where she lay.
I found my poor little doll, dears,
As I played on the heath one day ;
Folks say she is terribly changed, dears.
For her paint is all washed away.
And her arm's trodden off by the cows,
dears,
And her hair's not the least bit curled ;
Yet for old times' sake, she is still, dears.
The prettiest doll in the world.
EARLY RISING.
I^^OD bless the man who first invented
'^'^ sleep!"
So Sancho Panza said, and so say
I;
SAnd bless' him, also, that he didn't
keep
His great discovery to himself,
nor try
To make it — as the lucky fellow might —
A close monopoly by patent-right !
Yes, — bless the man who first invented sleep,
(I really can't avoid the iteration ;)
But blast the man with curses loud and
deep,
Whate'er the rascal's name or age or
station.
Who first invented, and went round advising,
That artificial cut-off, — Early Rising !
" Rise with the lark, and with the lark to
bed,"
Observes some solemn, sentimental owl ;
Maxims like these are very cheaply said ;
But, ere you make yourself a fool or fowl.
Pray just inquire about his rise and fall.
And whether larks have any beds at all!
23
JOHN G. SAXE.
" The time for honest folks to be abed
Is in the morning, if I reason right;
And he who cannot keep his precious head
Upon his pillow till it's fairly light,
And so enjoy his forty morning winks,
Is up to knavery, or else — he drinks !
Thomson, who sung about the " Seasons,"
said
It was a glorious thing to rise in season ;
But then he said it — lying — in his bed.
At ten o'clock, a. m., — the very reason
He wrote so charmingly. The simple fact is.
His preaching wasn't sanctioned by his
practice.
'Tis doubtless, well to be sometimes awake, —
Awake to duty, and awake to truth, —
But when, alas ! a nice review we take
Of our best deeds and days, we find, in
sooth.
The hours that leave the slightest cause to
weep
Are those we passed in childhood, or asleep !
'Tis beautiful to leave the world awhile
For the soft visions of the gentle night ;
342
HIAWATHA'S JOURNEY.
And free, at last, from mortal care or guile,
To live as only in the angel's sight,
In sleep's sweet realm so cosily shut in,
Where, at the worst, we only dream of sin !
So let us sleep, and give the Maker praise.
I like the lad who, when his father thought
To clip his morning nap by hackneyed
phrase
Of vagrant worm by early songster caught,
Cried, "Served him right! — it's not at all
surprising ;
The worm was punished, sir, for early
risinsr!"
HIAWATHA'S JOURNEY.
H. W. LONaFELLOW.
^|S unto the bow the cord is.
So unto the man is woman.
Though she bends him, she obeys
him.
Though she draws him, yet she
follows,
Useless one without the other ! "
Like a fire upon the hearth-stone
Is a neighbor's homely daughter,
Like the starlight or the moonlight
Is the handsomest of strangers!"
Thus dissuading spake Nokomis,
And my Hiawatha answered
Thus the youthful Hiawatha,
Said within himself and pondered,
Much perplexed by various feelings,
Listless, longing, hoping, fearing,
Dreaming still of Minnehaha,
Of the lovely Laughing Water,
In the land of the Dacotahs.
" Wed a maiden of your people,"
Warning said the old Nokomis ;
" Go not eastward, go not westward,
For a stranger, whom we know not !
Only this : " Dear old Nokomis,
Very pleasant is the firelight.
But I like the starlight better.
Better do I like the moonlight !"
Gravely then said old Nokomis :
" Bring not here an idle maiden,
Bring not here a useless woman,
Hands unskillful, feet unwilling ;
Bring a wife with nimble fingers.
"Thus departed Hiawatha
To the land of the Dacotahs.
I
HIAWATHA'S JOURNEY.
343
Heart and hand that move together,
Feet that run on willing errands!"
Smiling answered Hiawatha :
" In the land of the Dacotahs
Lives the Arrow-maker's daughter,
Minnehaha, Laughing Water,
Handsomest of all the women,
I will bring her to your wigwam.
She shall run upon your errands.
Be your starlight, moonlight, firelight,
Be the sunlight of my people !"
Still dissuading said Nokcmis :
" Bring not to my lodge a stranger
From the land of the Dacotahs !
Very fierce are the Dacotahs,
Often is there war between us,
There are feuds yet unforgotten.
Wounds that ache and still may open !"
Laughing answered Hiawatha :
" For that reason, if no other,
Would I wed the fair Dacotah,
That our tribes might be united.
That old feuds might be forgotten,
And old wounds be healed forever !"
Thus departed Hiawatha
To the land of the Dacotahs,
To the land of handsome women ;
Striding over moor and meadow,
Through interminable forests.
Through uninterrupted silence.
With his moccasins of magic,
At each stride a mile he measured ;
Yet the way seemed long before him.
And his heart outran his footsteps ;
And he journeyed without resting,
Till he heard the cataract's laughter.
Heard the Falls of Minnehaha
Calling to him through the silence.
" Pleasant is the sound !" he murmured,
" Pleasant is the voice that calls me !"
On the outskirts of the forest,
'Twixt the shadow and the sunshine.
Herds of fallow deer were feeding,
But they saw not Hiawatha ;
To his bow he whispered, " Fail not !"
To his arrow whispered, "Swerve not!"
Sent it singing on its errand,
To the red heart of the roebuck ;
Threw the deer across his shoulder,
And sped forward without pausing.
At the doorway of his wigwam
Sat the ancient Arrow-maker,
In the land of the Dacotahs,
Making arrow-heads of jasper,
Arrow-heads of chalcedony.
At his side, in all her beauty,
Sat the lovely Minnehaha,
Sat his daughter. Laughing Water,
Plaiting mats of flags and rushes ;
Of the past the old man's thoughts were.
And the maiden's of the future.
He was thinking, as he sat there.
Of the days when with such arrows
He had struck the deer and bison.
On the Muskoday, the meadow ;
Shot the wild goose, flying southward,
On the wing, the clamorous Wawa ;
Thinking of the great war-parties.
How they came to buy his arrows.
Could not fight without his arrows.
Ah, no more such noble warriors
Could be found on earth as they were !
Now the men were all like women.
Only used their tongues for weapons I
She was thinking of a hunter,
From another tribe and country,
] Young and tall and very handsome,
j Who one morning in the Spring-time,
Came to buy her father's arrows.
Sat and rested in the wigwam,
j Lingered long about the doorway.
Looking back as he departed.
She had heard her father praise him,
Praise his courage and his wisdom ;
Would he come again for arrows
! To the falls of Minnehaha ?
I On the mat her hands lay idle,
And her eyes were very dreamy.
344
HIAWATHA'S WOOING.
HIAWATHA'S WOOING.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
^fjplT the feet of Laughing Water
^it^^ Hiawatha laid his burden,
Threw the red deer from his should-
ers ;
And the maiden looked up at him,
Looked up from her mat of rushes,
Said with gentle look and accent,
" You are welcome, Hiawatha !"
Very spacious was the wigwam,
Made of deer-skm dressed and whitened,
With the gods of the Dacotahs
Drawn and painted on its curtains,
And so tall the doorway, hardly
Hiawatha stooped to enter.
Hardly touched his eagle-feathers
As he entered at the doorway.
Then uprose the Laughing Water,
From the ground fair Minnehaha,
Laid aside her mat unfinished,
Brought forth food and set before them.
Water brought them from the brooklet.
Gave them food in earthen vessels,
Gave them drink in bowls of bass-wood,
Listened while the guest was speaking,
Listened while her father answered,
But not once her lips she opened,
Not a single word she uttered.
Yes, as in a dream she listened
To the words of Hiawatha,
As he talked of old Nokomis,
Who had nursed him in his childhood,
As he told of his companions,
Chibiabos, the musician,
And the very strong man, Kwasind,
And of happiness and plenty,
In the land of the Ojibways,"
In the pleasant land and peaceful.
" After many years of warfare,
Many years of strife and bloodshed,
There is peace between the Ojibways
And the tribe of the Dacotahs :"
Thus continued Hiawatha,
And then added, speaking slowly,
" That this peace may last forever,
And our hands be clasped more closely.
And our hearts be more united,
Give me as my wife this maiden,
Minnehaha, Laughing water.
Loveliest of Dacotah women ?"
And the ancient Arrow-maker
Paused a moment ere he answered,
Smoked a little while in silence.
Looked at Hiawatha proudly,
Fondly looked at Laughing Water,
And made answer very gravely :
"Yes, if Minnehaha wishes ;
Let your heart speak, Minnehaha!"
And the lovely Laughing Water
Seemed more lovely as she stood there,
Neither willing nor reluctant.
As she went to Hiawatha,
Softly took the seat beside him,
While she said, and blushed to say it,
" I will follow you, my husband !"
This was Hiawatha's wooing !
Thus it was he won the daughter
Of the ancient Arrow-maker,
In the land of the Dacotahs !
From the wigwam he departed.
Leading with him Laughing Water ;
Hand in hand they went together,
Through the woodland and the meadow,
Left the old man standing lonely
At the doorway of his wigwam.
Heard the Falls of Minnehaha
Calling to them from the distance.
Crying to them from afar off,
" Fare thee well, Minnehaha!"
And the ancient Arrow-maker
Turned again unto his labor,
Sat down by his sunny doorway,
Murmuring to himself, and saying :
"Thus it is our daughters leave us,
Those we love, and those who love us !
Just when they have learned to help us,
When we are old and lean upon them.
Comes a youth with flaunting feathers,
With his flute of reeds, a stranger
Wanders piping through the village.
Beckons to the fairest maiden,
And she follows where he leads her.
Leaving all things for the stranger !"
"On the outskirts of the forest,
'Twixt the shadow and the sunshine,
Herds of fallow deer were feeding."
A CHILD'S DREAM OF A STAR.
345
HIAWATHA S RETURN.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
gLEASANT was the journey home-
ward
Through interminable forests,
Over meadow, over mountain.
Over river, hill, and hollow.
Short it seemed to Hiawatha,
Though they journeyed very slowly,
Though his pace he checked and
• slackened
To the steps of Laughing Water.
Over wide and rushing rivers
In his arms he bore the maiden ;
Light he thought her as a feather,
As the plume upon his head-gear ;
Cleared the tangled pathway for her,
Bent aside the swaying branches,
Made at night a lodge of branches.
And a bed with boughs of hemlock.
And a fire before the doorway
With the dry cones of the pine-tree.
All the traveling winds went with them
O'er the meadow, through the forest ;
All the stars of night looked at them,
Watched with sleepless eyes their slumber ;
From his ambush in the oak-tree
Peered the squirrel, Adjidaumo,
Watched with eager eyes the lovers ;
And the rabbit, the Wabasso,
Scampered from the path before them.
Peeping, peeping from his burrow.
Sat erect upon his haunches.
Watched with curious eyes the lovers.
Pleasant was the journey homeward 1
All the birds sang loud and sweetly
Songs of happiness and heart's-ease ;
Sang the blue-bird, the Owaissa,
" Happy are you, Hiawatha,
Having such a wife to love you ! "
Sang the robin, the Opechee,
" Happy are you. Laughing Water,
Having such a noble husband ! "
From the sky the sun benignant
Looked upon them through the branches,
Saying to them, " my children.
Love is sunshine, hate is shadow.
Life is checkered shade and sunshine,
Rule by love, Hiawatha ! "
From the sky the moon looked at them.
Filled the lodge with mystic splendors.
Whispered to them, " my children.
Day is restless, night is quiet,
Man imperious, woman feeble ;
Half is mine, although I follow ;
Ruled by patience, Laughing Water ! "
Thus it was they journeyed homeward.
Thus it was that Hiawatha
To the lodge of old Nokomis
Brought the moonlight, starlight, firelight.
Brought the sunshine of his people,
Minnehaha, Laughing Water,
Handsomest of all women
In the land of the Dacotahs,
In the land of handsome women.
A CHILD'S DREAM OF A STAR.
CHARLES DICKENS.
pHEEE was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought
of a number of things. He had a sister who was a child too, and
his constant compaHion. They wondered at the beauty of flowers;
346 A CHILD'S DREAM OF A STAR.
they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky ; they wondered at
the depth of the water ; they wondered at the goodness and power of God,
who made them so lovely.
They used to say to one another sometimes : Supposing all the
children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the
sky be sorry ? They believed they would be sorry. For, said they, the
buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that
gambol down the hillsides are the children of the water, and the smallest
bright specks playing at hide and seek in the sky all night must surely be
the children of the stars; and they would all be grieved to see their
play-mates, the children of men, no more.
There was one clear shining star that used to come out in the sky
before the rest, near the church spire, above the graves. It was larger
and more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and every night they
watched for it, standing hand-in-hand at a window. Whoever saw it first,
cried out, " I see the star." And after that, they cried out both together,
knowing so well when it would rise, and where. So they grew to be such
friends with it, that before laying down in their bed, they always looked
out once again to bid it good night ; and when they were turning around
to sleep, they used to say, " God bless the star !"
But while she was still very young, oh, very young, the sister
drooped, and came to be so weak that she could no longer stand at the
window at night, and then the child looked sadly out by himself, and when
he saw the star, turned round and said to the patient pale face on the bed,
" I see the star !" and then a smile would come upon the face, and a little
weak voice used to say, " God bless my brother and the star !"
And so the time came, all too soon, when the child looked out all
alone, and when there was no face on the bed, and when there was a grave
among the graves, not there before, and when the star made long rays
down toward him as he saw it through his tears. Now these rays were so
bright, and they seemed to make such a shining way from earth to heaven,
that when the child went to his solitary bed, he dreamed about the star ;
and dreamed that, lying where he was, he saw a train of people taken up
that sparkling road by angels ; and the star, opening, showing him a great
world of light, where many more such angels waited to receive them.
All these angels, who were waiting, turned their beaming eyes upon
the people who were carried up into the star ; and some came out from the
long rows in which they stood, and fell upon the people's necks, and kissed
them tenderly, and went away with them down avenues of light, and were
so happy in their company, that lying in his bed he wept for joy.
A CHILD'S DREAM OF A STAR. 347
But there were many angels who did not go with them, and among
them one he knew. The patient face that once had lain upon the bed was
glorified and radiant, but his heart found out his sister among all the
host.
His sister's angel lingered near the entrance of the star, and said to the
leader among those who had brought the people thither :
" Is my brother come ?"
And he said, " No !"
She was turning hopefully away, when the child stretched out his
arms, and cried, " Oh, sister, I am here ! Take me !" And then she
turned her beaming eyes upon him, — and it was night ; and the star was
shining into the room, making long rays down towards him as he saw it
through his tears.
From that hour forth the child looked out upon the star as the home
he was to go to when his time should come ; and he thought that he did
not belong to the earth alone, but to the star too, because of his sister's
angel gone before.
There was a baby born to be a brother to the child, and, while he was
so little that he never yet had spoken a word, he stretched out his tiny
form on his bed, and died.
Again the child dreamed of the opened star, and of the company of
angels, and the train of people, and the rows of angels with their beaming
eyes all turned upon those people's faces.
Said his sister's angel to the leader :
" Is my brother come ?"
And he said, " Not that one, but another !"
As the child beheld his brother's apgel in her arms, he cried, " Oh,
my sister, I am here ! Take me !" And she turned and smiled upon
him, — and the star was shining.
He grew to be a young man, and was busy at his books, when an old
servant came to him and said :
" Thy mother is no more. I bring her blessing on her darling son."
Again at night he saw the star, and all that former company. Said
his sister's angel to the leader, " Is my brother come ?"
And he said, '' Thy mother !"
A mighty cry of joy went forth through all the star, because the
mother was re-united to her two children. And he stretched out his arms
and cried, " Oh, mother, sister, and brother, I am here ! Take me !'*
And they answered him, " Not yet !" — and the star was shining.
He grew to be a man, whose hair was turning gray, and he was
348
BREAK, BREAK, BREAK.
sitting in his chair by the fireside, heavy with grief, and with his face
bedewed with tears, when the star opened once again.
Said his sister's angel to the leader, " Is my brother come ?"
And he said, " Nay, but his maiden daughter !"
And the man who had been a child, saw his daughter, newly lost to
him, a celestial creature among those three, and he said : " My daughter's
head is on my sister's bosom, and her arm is around my mother's neck,
and at her feet is the baby of old time, and I can bear the parting from
her, God be praised !" — And the star was shining.
Thus the child came to be an old man, and his once smooth face was
wrinkled, and his steps were slow and feeble, and his back was bent. And
one night as he lay upon his bed, his children standing round, he cried, as
he cried so long ago : " I see the star !"
They whispered one another, " He is dying." And he said, " I am.
My age is falHng from me like a garment, and I move towards the star aa
a child. And 0, my Father, now I thank Thee that it has so often opened
to receive those dear ones who await me !" —
And the star was shining ; and it shines upon his grave.
BREAK, BREAK, BREAK.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
?REAK, break, break.
On thy cold gray stones, Sea !
And I would that my tongue could
utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at
play,
well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the
THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.
349
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill ;
But for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still !
Break, break, break.
At the foot of thy crags, Sea !
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.
P|HE melancholy days a
I saddest of the year,
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
thf
Of wailing winds, and naked woods,
and meadows brown and sear.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove,
the autumn leaves lie dead ;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and
to the rabbit's tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from
the shrubs the jay.
And from the wood-top calls the crow through
all the gloomy day.
Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers,
that lately sprang and stood
In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous
sisterhood ?
Alas ! they all are in their graves ; the gentle
race of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds with the fair
and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie ; but the
cold November rain
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely
ones again.
The wind-flower and the violet, they perished
long ago.
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid
the summer glow ;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster
in the wood,
And the yellow sunflower by the brook in
autumn beauty stood.
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven,
as falls the plague on men,
And the brightness of their smile was gone
from upland, glade, and glen,
And now, when comes the calm mild day, as
still such days will come.
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their
winter home ;
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard,
though all the trees are still.
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters
of the rill.
The south-wind searches for the flowers
whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by
the stream no more.
And then I think of one who in her youth-
ful beauty died.
The fair meek blossom that grew up and
faded by my side.
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the
forests cast the leaf.
And we wept that one so lovely should have
a life so brief;
Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that
young friend of ours.
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with
the flowers.
350
ROME AND CARTHAGE.
BENEDICITE.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
fOD'S love and peace be with thee, where
Soe'er this soft autumnal air
Lifts the dark tresses of thy hair !
Whether through city casements comes
1 Its kiss to thee, in crowded rooms,
Y Or, out among the woodland blooms.
The hills we climbed, the river seen
By gleams along its deep ravine, —
All keep thy memory fresh and green.
Where'er I look, where'er I stray,
Thy thought goes with me on my way.
And hence the prayer I breathe to-day ;
O'er lapse of time and change of scene,
The weary waste which lies between
Thyself and me, my heart I lean.
Thou lack'st not Friendship's spellword, nor
The half-unconscious power to draw
All hearts to thine by Love's sweet law.
It freshens o'er thy thoughtful face.
Imparting, in its glad embrace,
Beauty to beauty, grace to grace !
Fair Nature's book together read,
The old wood-paths that knew our tread.
The maple shadows overhead, —
With these good gifts of God is cast
Thy lot, and many a charm thou hast
To hold the blessed angels fast.
If, then, a fervent wish for thee
The gracious heavens will heed from me,
What should, dear heart, its burden be ?
The sighing of a shaken reed, —
What can I more than meekly plead
The greatness of our common need ?
God's love, — unchanging, pure, and true,
The Paraclete white-shming through
His peace, — the fall of Hermon's dew !
With such a prayer, on this sweet day.
As thou mayst hear and I may say,
I greet thee, dearest, far away !
ROME AND CARTHAGE.
VICTOR HUGO.
OME and Carthage ! — behold them drawing near for the struggle
»^jy that is to shake the world ! Carthage, the metropolis of Africa,
jlt^ * is the mistress of oceans, of kingdoms, and of nations ; a magni-
'■y ficent city, burthened with opulence, radiant with the strange arts
i and trophies of the East. She is at the acme of her civilization. She
^ can mount no higher. Any change now must be a decline. Rome is
comparatively poor. She has seized all within her grasp, but rather from
the lust of conquest than to fill her own coffers. She is demi-barbarous,,
ROME AND CARTHAGE.
351
and has her ed-
ucation and her
fortune both to
make. All is be-
fore her, noth-
ing behind. For
a time these two
nations exist in
distinct view of
each other. The
TRIUMPHAL ARCH AT ROME.
one r(
the noontide of
her splendor ;
the other waxes
strong in the
shade. But, lit-
tle by little, air
and space are
wanting to each,
for the develop-
ment of each.
Rome begins to
systematically
perplex Carth-
age, and Carthage is an eyesore to Rome. Seated on opposite banks of
the Mediterranean, the two cities look each other in the face. The sea
no longer keeps them apart. Europe and Africa weigh upon each other.
Like two clouds surcharged with electricity, they impend. With their
contact must come the thunder-shock.
The catastrophe of this stupendous drama is at hand. "What actors
are met ! Two races, — that of merchants and mariners, that of laborers
and soldiers ; two Nations, — the one dominant by gold the other by steel ;
two Republics, — the one theocratic, the other aristocratic. Rome and
Carthage ! Rome with her army, Carthage with her fleet ; Carthage old,
rich, and crafty, — Rome, young, poor, and robust ; the past and the
future ; the spirit of discovery, and the spirit of conquest ; the genius of
commerce, the demon of war ; the East and the South on one side, the
West and the North on the other ; in short, two worlds, — the civilization
of Africa, and the civilization of Europe. They measure each other from
head to foot. They gather all their forces. Gradually the war kindles.
352
FARM-YARD SONG.
The world takes fire. These colossal powers are locked in deadly strife.
Carthage has crossed the Alps ; Eome the seas. The two Nations, per-
sonified in two men, Hannibal and Scipio, close with each other, wrestle,
and grow infuriate. The duel is desperate. It is a struggle for life.
Rome wavers. — She utters that cry of anguish — Hannibal at the gates 1
But she rallies, — collects all her strength for one last, appalling effort, —
throws herself upon Carthage, and sweeps her from the face of the
earth !
FARM-YARD SONG.
J. T. TROWBRIDGE.
jVER the hill the farm-boy goes :
His shadow lengthens along the land,
A giant staff in his giant hand ;
In the poplar-tree above the spring
The katydid begins to sing ;
The early dews are falling :
Into the stone-heap darts the mink,
The swallows skim the river's brink.
And home to the woodland fly the crows,
When over the hill the farm-boy goes,
Cheerily calling —
" Co', boss ! co', boss ! co' ! co' ! co' !'
Farther, farther over the hill,
Faintly calling, calling still —
" Co', boss ! go', boss ! co' 1 co' !"
Into the yard the farmer goes.
With grateful heart, at the close of day :
Harness and chain are hung away ;
In the wagon-shed stand yoke and plough ;
The straw's in the stack, the hay in the mow ;
The cooling dews are falling :
The friendly sheep his welcome bleat,
The pigs come grunting to his feet.
The whinnying mare her master kno-ws.
When into the yard the farmer goes,
His cattle calling —
"Co", boss! co', boss! co' ! co' ! co' I"
While still the cow-boy, far away,
Goes seeking those who have gone astray —
Co',
i! co', boss! co' ! co'I
Now to her task the milkmaid goes ;
The cattle come crowding through the gate,
Lowing, pushing, little and great ;
About the trough, by the farm-yard pump.
The frolicksome yearlings frisk and jump,
While the pleasant dews are falling :
The new milch heifer is quick and shy,
But the old cow waits with tranquil eye ;
And the white stream into the bright pail
flows,
When to her task the milkmaid goes.
Soothingly calling —
" So, boss ! so, boss ! so ! so ! so !
The cheerful milkmaid takes her stool,
And sits and milks in the twilight cool,
Saying, "So, so, boss! so, so I"
To supper at last the farmer goes :
The apples are pared, the paper is read,
The stories are told, then all to bed :
Without, the cricket's ceaseless song
Makes shrill the silence all night long ;
HOW'S MY BOY'
353
The heavy dews are falling :
The housewife's hand has turned the lock ;
Drowsily ticks the kitchen clock ;
The household sinks to deep repose ;
But still in sleep the farm-boy goes
Singing, calling —
" Co', boss ! co', boss! co' ! co' ! co' !
And oft the milkmaid, in her dreams,
Drums in the pail with the flashing streams,
Murmuring, "So, boss! so V
I WOULD NOT LIVE ALWAY.
R. MUHLENBEEG.
^^ would not live alway ; I ask not to stay
Mm ^^^^® storm after storm rises dark o'er
1^ the way;
!^M\ The few lurid mornings that dawn on
'|,* us here
!Are enough for life's joys, full enough
for its cheer.
I would not live alway ; no, — welcome the
tomb !
Since Jesus hath lain there, I dread not its
gloom ;
There sweet be my rest till he bid me arise.
To hail him in triumph descending the skies.
Who, who would live alway, away from his
God,—
Away from yon heaven, that blissful abode,
Where rivers of pleasure flow bright o'er the
plains.
And the noontide of glory eternally reigns ?
There saints of all ages in harmony meet,
Their Saviour and brethren /^ransported to
greet ;
While anthems of rapture unceasingly roll,
And the smile of the Lord is the feast of the
soul.
HOW'S MY BOY?
SYDNEY DOBELL.
^jpO, Sailor of the sea ! [ How's my boy — my boy ?
^^ How's my boy — my boy ? And unless you let me know
What's your boy's name, good wife, | I'll swear you are no sailor,
And in what good ship sailed he?"
My boy John —
He that went to sea —
What care I for the ship, sailor ?
My boy's my boy to me.
You come back from sea,
And not know my John ?
I might as well have asked some landsman
Yonder down in the town.
There's not an ass in all the parish
But he knows my John.
24
Blue jacket or no.
Brass button or no, sailor.
Anchor or crown or no !
Sure his ship was the JoUy Briton —
" Speak low, woman, speak low '"
And why should I speak low, sailor ?
About my own boy John ?
If I was loud as I am proud
I'd sing him over the town !
Why should I speak low, sailor ? —
" That good ship went down."
354
THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.
How's my boy — ^my boy ?
What care I for the ship, sailor,
I never was aboard her.
Be she afloat, or be she aground,
Sinking or swimming, I'll be bound,
Her owners can afford her !
I say, how's my John ? —
" Every man on board went down,
Every man aboard her."
How's my boy — my boy ?
What care I for the men, sailor ?
I'm not their mother —
How's my boy — my boy ?
Tell me of hira and no other I
How's my boy — my boy ?
THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.
►^fe.
THOMAS HOOD.
^NE more unfortunate
Weary of breath,
^ Rashly importunate.
Gone to her death !
Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care ;
Fashioned so slenderly —
Young, and so fair !
Look at her garments,
Clinging like cerements,
Whilst the wave constantly ,
Drips from her clothing;
Take her up instantly,
Loving, not loathing \
Touch her not scornfully !
Think of her mournfully.
Gently and humanly —
Not of the stains of her ;
All that remains of her
Now is pure womanly.
Make no deep scrutiny.
Into her mutiny,
Rash and undutiful ;
Past all dishonor,
Death has left on her
Only the beautiful.
Still, for all slips of hers, —
One of Eve's family, —
Wipe those poor lips of here.
Oozing so clammily.
Loop up her tresses
Escaped from the comb, —
Her fair auburn tresses, —
Whilst wonderment guesses,
Where was her home?
Who was her father?
Who was her mother ?
Had she a sister?
Had she a brother ?
Or was there a dearer one
Still, and a nearer one
Yet, than all other ?
Alas ! for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun !
Oh, it was pitiful !
Near a whole city full,
Home she had none.
Sisterly, brotherly,
Fatherly, motherly
Feelings had changed, —
Love, by harsh evidence.
Thrown from its eminence ;
Even God's providence
Seeming estranged.
Where the lamps quiver
So far in the river.
With many a light
From window and casement,
From garret to basement,
She stood, with amazement.
Houseless by night.
MORNING.
355
The bleak wind of March
Made her tremble and shiver ;
But not the dark arch,
Or the black, flowing river ;
Mad from life's history.
Glad to death's mystery,
Swift to be hurled —
Anywhere, anywhere
Out of the world !
In she plunged boldly, —
No matter how coldly
The rough river ran, —
Over the brink of it !
Picture it, — think of it
Dissolute man !
Lave in it, drink of it
Then, if you can !
Take her up tenderly.
Lift her with care ;
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young, and so fair !
Ere her limbs, frigidly.
Stiffen too rigidly,
Decently, kindly.
Smooth and compose them ;
And her eyes, close them,
Staring so blindly ! —
Dreadfully staring
Through muddy impurity,
As when with the daring
Last look of despairing
Fixed on futurity.
Perishing gloomily,
Spurred by contumely,
Cold inhumanity.
Burning insanity,
Into her rest !
Cross her hands humbly,
As if praying dumbly.
Over her breast !
Owning her weakness,
Her evil behaviour,
And leaving, with meekness
Her sins to her Saviour !
MORNING.
EDWARD EVERETT.
^I^S we proceeded, the timid approach of twilight became more per-
ceptible ; the intense blue of the sky began to soften ; the smaller
stars, like little children, went first to rest ; the sister beams of the
Pleiades soon melted together ; but the bright constellations of the
west and north remained unchanged. Steadily the wondi'ous trans-
figuration went on. Hands of angels hidden fi^om mortal eyes shifted
35G
A WOMAN'S QUESTION.
the scenery of the heavens ; the glories of night dissolved into the glories
of dawn. The blue sky now turned more softly gray ; the great watch-
stars shut up their holy eyes ; the east began to kindle. Faint streaks of
purple soon blushed along the sky; the whole celestial concave was filled
with the inflowing tides of the morning light, which came pouring down
from above in one great ocean of radiance ; till at length, as we reached the
Blue Hills, a flash of purple fire blazed out from above the horizon, and
turned the dewy tear-drops of flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds.
In a few seconds the everlasting gates of the morning were thrown wide
open, and the lord of day, arrayed in glories too severe for the gaze of
man, began his state.
THE PARTING LOVERS.
TRANSLATED FROM THE CHINESE BY WILLIAM R. ALGER.
^^HE says, " The cock crows, — hark !"
^^m He saya, " No ! still 't is dark."
She says, "The dawn grows bright,"
He says, " no, my Light."
' ■ She says, " Stand up and say.
Gets not the heaven gray?"
He says, " The morning star
Climbs the horizon's bar."
She says, " Then quick depart:
Alas ! you now must start ;
But give the cock a blow
Who did begin our woe !"
A WOMAN'S QUESTION.
ADELAIDE A. PROCTER.
^^EFORE I trust my fate to thee.
Or place my hand in thine,
Before I let thy future give
Color and form to mine.
Before I peril all for thee,
Question thy soul to-night for i
I break all slighter bonds, nor feel
A shadow of regret :
Is there one link within the past
That holds thy spirit yet ?
Or is thy faith as clear and free
As that which I can pledge to thee ?
I Does there within thy dimmest dreams
A possible future shine,
Wherein thy life could henceforth breathe,
Untouched, unshared by mine ?
If so, at any pain or cost,
0, tell me before all is lost !
Look deeper still : if thou cansi feel,
Within thy inmost soul,
Tliat thou hast kept a portion back,
While I have staked the whole.
Let no false jiity spare the blow,
But in true mercy tell me so.
THE TIGER.
357
Is there within thy heart a need
Couldst thou withdraw thy hand one day
That mine cannot fulfil ?
And answer to my claim,
One chord that any other hand
That fate, and that to-day's mistake, —
Could better wake or still ?
Not thou, — had been to blame ?
Speak now, last at some future day
Some soothe their conscience thus ; but thou
My whole life wither and decay.
Wilt surely warn and save me now.
Lives there within thy nature hid
Nay, answer not, — I dare not hear.
The demon-spirit, change.
The words would come too late ;
Shedding a passing glory still
Yet I would spare thee all remorse,
On all things new and strange ?
So comfort thee, my fate :
It may not be thy fault alone, —
Whatever on my heart may fall,
But shield my heart against thine own.
Remember I would risk it all !
TRF TIGEE.
WILLIAM BLAKE.
SIGER ! tiger ! burning bright.
In the forest of the night.
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry ?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burned the ardor of thine eyes ?
On what wings dare he aspire ?
What the hand dare seize the fire ?
And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat.
What dread hand forged thy dread feet ?
What the hammer ? what the chain ?
In what furnace was thy brain ?
What the anvil ? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp ?
358
POOR LITTLE JOE.
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did God smile his work to see ?
Did He who made the lanih make thf^e ?
Tiger ! tiger ! burning bright,
In the forest of the night.
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry.
THE CHURCH WINDOW.
JXO. W. GOETHE.
PrHE minster window, richly glowing i But enter once the holy portal
1^ With many a gorgeous stain and dye,
-jltself a parable, is showing
The might, the power of Poesy.
Look on it from the open square.
And it is only dark and dreary ;
Yon blockhead views it always there,
And vows its aspect makes him weary.
What splendor bursts upon the eye !
There symbols, deeds and forms immortal,
Are blazing forth in majesty.
Be thankful, you who have the gift
To read and feel each sacred story ;
And, oh ! be reverent, when you lift
Your eyes to look on heavenly glory.
POOR LITTLE JOE.
r. ARKWRKIHT.
kROP yer eyes wide open Joey,
For I've brought you sumpin' great.
Apples f No, a heap sight better !
Don't you take no int'rest ? Wait !
Flowers, Joe — I know'd you'd like
Ain't them scrumptious ? Ain't them high ?
Tears, my boy ? Wot's them fur, Joey ?
There — poor little Joe ! — don't cry !
I was skippin' past a winder.
Where a bang-up lady sot.
THE LITTLE EVANGELIST.
359
All amongst a lot of bushes —
Each one climbin' from a pot ;
Every bush had flowers on it —
Pretty f Mebbe not ! Oh, no !
Wish you could a seen 'em growin',
It was sich a stunnin' show.
Well, I thought of you, poor feller,
Lyin' here so sick and weak,
Never knowin' any comfort,
And I puts on lots o' cheek.
" Missus," says I, " If you please, mum,
Could I ax you for a rose ?
For my little brother, missus —
Never seed one, I suppose."
Then I told her all about you, —
How I bringed you up — poor Joe !
(Lackin' women folks to do it.)
Sich a' imp you was, you know —
Till yer got that awful tumble,
Jist as I had broke yer in.
(Hard work, too,) to earn yer livin'
Blackin' boots fo- honest tin.
How that tumble crippled of you.
Sp's you couldn't hyper much —
Joe, it hurted when I seen you
Fur the first time with yer crutch.
" But," I says, " he's laid up now, mum,
'Pears to weaken every day ;"
Joe, she up and went to cuttin' —
That's the how of this bokay.
Say ! It seems to me, ole feller,
You is quite yerself to-night ;
Kind o' chirk — it's been a fortnit
Sence yer eyes has been so bright.
Better f Well, I'm glad to hear it !
Yes, they're mighty pretty, Joe.
Smelliri of 'evis made you happy f
Well, I thought it would, you know I
Never see the country, did you ?
Flowers growin' everywhere !
Some time when you're better, Joey,
Mebbe I kin take you there.
Flowers in heaven f 'M — I s'pose so ;
Dunno much about it, though ;
Ain't as fly as wot I might be
On them topics, little Joe.
But I've heard it hinted somewheres
That in heaven's golden gates
Things is everlastin' cheerful — •
B'lieve that's wot the Bible states.
Likewise, there folks don't git hungry ;
So good people, when they dies.
Finds themselves well fixed forever —
Joe, my boy, wot ails yer eyes ?
Thought they looked a little sing'ler.
Oh, no ! Don't you have no fear ;
Heaven was made fur such as you is —
Joe, wot makes you look so queer ?
Here — wake up ! Oh, don't look that way !
Joe ! My boy ! Hold up yer head !
Here's yer flowers — you dropped 'em Joey 1
Oh, my God, can Joe be dead f
THE LITTLE EVANGELIST.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
'^|^|OME here, Tops, you monkey !" said St. Clare, calling the child up
"^Y" Topsy came up ; her round, hard eyes glittering and blinking
I with a mixture of apprehensiveness and their usual odd drollery.
i " What makes you behave so ?" said St. Clare, who could not help
being amused with the child's expression.
360 THE LITTLE EVANGELIST.
" Spects it's my wicked heart," said Topsy, demurely ; " Miss Feely
says so."
" Don't you see how much Miss Ophelia has done for you ? She says
she has done every thing she can think of."
" Lor, yes, Mas'r ! old Missus used to say so, too. She whipped me
a heap harder, and used to pull my har, and knock my head agin the door;
but it didn't do me no good ! I spects, if they's to pull every spear o' har
out o' my head it wouldn't do no good, neither — I's so wicked ! Laws !
I's nothin' but a nigger, no ways !"
''Well, I shall have to give her up," said Miss Ophelia; "I can't
have that trouble any longer."
" Well, I'd just like to ask one question," said St. Clare.
"What is it?"
" Why, if your Gospel is not strong enough to save one heathen
child, that you can have at home here, all to yourself, what's the use of
sending one or two poor missionaries off with it among thousands of just
such ? I suppose this child is about a fair sample of what thousands of
your heathen are."
Miss Ophelia did not make an immediate answer ; and Eva, who had
stood a silent spectator of the scene thus far, made a silent sign to Topsy
to follow her. There was a little glass room at the corner of the verandah,
which St. Clare used as a sort of reading-room ; and Eva and Topsy dis-
appeared into this place.
" What's Eva going about now ?" said St. Clare ; " I mean to see."
And advancing on tiptoe, he lifted up a curtain that covered the
glass door, and looked in. In a moment, laying his finger on his lips, he
made a silent gesture to Miss Ophelia to come and look. There sat the
two children on the floor, with their side faces towards them, Topsy with
her usual air of careless drollery and unconcern ; but opposite to her, Eva,
her whole face fervent with feeling, and tears in her large eyes.
" What does make you so bad, Topsy ? Why won't you try and be
good ? Don't you love anybody, Topsy?"
" Dunno nothin' 'bout love ; I loves candy and sich, that's all," said
Topsy.
" But you love your father and mother ?"
" Never had none, ye know. I telled ye that. Miss Eva."
" Oh, I know," said Eva, sadly ; " but had you any brother, or sister,
or aunt, or — "
" No, none on 'cm — never had nothin' nor nobody."
" But, Topsy, if you'd only try and be good, you might — "
THE LITTLE EVANGELIST. 361
" Couldn't never be nothin' but a nigger if I war ever so good," said
Topsy. " If I could be skinned, and come white, I'd try then."
" But people can love you, if you are black, Topsy. Miss Ophelia
would love you, if you were good."
Topsy gave a short, blunt laugh that was her common mode of ex-
pressing incredulity.
"Don't you think so ?" said Eva.
"No; she can't bar me, 'cause I'm a nigger — she'd 's soon have a
toad touch her ! There can't nobody love niggers, and niggers can't do
nothin'! /don't care," said Topsy, beginning to whistle.
"Oh, Topsy, poor child, / love you!" said Eva, with a sudden burst
of feeling, and laying her little thin, white hand on Topsy 's shoulder; "I
love you, because you haven't had any father, or mother or friends; because
you've been a poor, abused child ! I love you, and I want you to be good.
I am very unwell, Topsy, and I think I sha'n't live a great while ; and it
really grieves me to have you be so naughty. I wish you would try to
be good for my sake — it's only a little while I shall be with you."
The round, keen eyes of the black child were overcast with tears —
large, bright drops rolled heavily down, one by one, and fell on the little
white hand. Yes, in that moment a ray of real belief, a ray of heavenly
love had penetrated the darkness of her heathen soul ! She laid her head
down between her knees, and wept and sobbed — while the beautiful child,
bending over her, looked like the picture of some bright angel stooping to
reclaim a sinner.
"Poor Topsy!" said Eva, "Don't you know that Jesus loves all
alike? He is just as willing to love you as me. He loves you just as I
do — only more, because He is better. He will help you to be good ; and
you can go to heaven at last, and be an angel forever, just as much as if
you were white. Only think of it, Topsy ! you can be one of those spirits
bright. Uncle Tom sings about."
"0, dear Miss Eva, dear Miss Eva!" said the child; "I will try; I
never did care nothin' about it before."
St. Clare, at that instant, dropped the curtain. " It puts me in mind
of mother," he said to Miss Ophelia. " It is true what she told me ; if
we want to give sight to the blind, we must be willing to do as Christ did
— call them to us, and^i our hands on them."
" I've always had a prejudice against negroes," said Miss Ophelia,
" and it's a fact, I never could bear to have that child touch me ; but I
didn't think she knew it."
" Trust any child to find that out," said St. Clare; "there's no keep-
362
THE CAVE OF SILVER.
ing it from them. But I believe that all the trying in the world to benefit
a child, and all the substantial favors you can do them, will never excite
one emotion of gratitude while that feeling of repugnance remains in the
heart — it's a queer kind of a fact — but so it is."
" I don't know how I can help it," said Miss Ophelia ; " they are
disagreeable to me — this child in particular — how can I help feeling so ?"
" Eva does, it seems."
" "Well, she is so loving ! After all though, she's no more than Christ-
like," said Miss Ophelia ; " I wish I were like her. She might teach me a
lesson."
" It wouldn't be the first time a little child has been used to instruct
an old disciple, if it were so," said St. Clare.
THE SEA.
BAERY CORNWALL.
iHEsea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free I
Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth's wide region
round ;
It plays with the clouds ; it mocks
the skies ;
Or like a cradled creature lies.
I'm on the sea ! I'm on the sea !
I am where I would ever be !
With the blue above, and the blue below,
And silence wheresoe'er I go ;
If a storm should come and wake the deep,
What matter ? I shall ride and sleep.
I never was on the dull tame shore.
But I love the great sea more and more,
And backward flew to her billowy breast.
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest •.
And a mother she was, and is to me,
For I was born on the open sea.
THE CA VE OF SIL VER.
FITZ-JAMES BRIEN.
'EEK me the cave of silver !
^^f Find me the cave of silver I
" - Rifle the cave of silver!
Said Ilda to Brok the Bold :
So you may kiss me often ;
So you may ring my finger ;
So you may bind my true love
In the round hoop of gold 1
' I love, 0, how I love to ride
On the fierce, foaming bursting tide
Where every mad wave drowns the moon
And whistles aloft its tempest tune."
LORD DUNDREARY AT BRIGHTON.
363
Bring me no skins of foxes ;
Bring me no beds of eider ;
Boast not your fifty vessels
That fish in the northern sea ;
And Ilda waited and waited,
And sat at the door till sunset.
And gazed at the wild Lapp mountain
That blackened the skies of gold.
For I would lie upon velvet,
And sail in a golden galley,
I want not a cave of silver !
I care for no caves of silver !
And naught but the cave of silver
Will win my true love for thee.
Rena, the witch, hath told me
That up in the wild Lapp moun-
tains
There lieth a cave of silver,
Down deep in a valley-side ;
So gather your lance and rifle,
And speed to the purple pastures,
And seek ye the cave of silver
As you seek me for your bride.
I go said Brok, right proudly ;
I go to the purple pastures.
To seek for the cave of silver
So long as my life shall hold ;
But when the keen Lapp arrows
Are fleshed in the heart that
loves you,
I'll leave my curse on the woman
Who slaughtered Brok the Bold !
But Ilda laughed as she shifted
The Bergen scarf on her shoulder,
And pointed her small white finger
Right up at the mountain gate ;
And cried, my gallant sailor,
You're brave enough to the fishes.
But the Lappish arrow is keener
Than the back of the thorny skate
The Summer passed, and the Winter
Came down from the icy ocean :
But back from the cave of silver
Returned not Brok the Bold-;
O €ar beyond caves of silver
I pine for my Brok the Bold !
O ye strong Norwegian gallants.
Go seek for my lovely lover.
And bring him to ring my finger
With the round hoop of gold !
But the brave Norwegian gallants
They laughed at the cruel maiden.
And left her sitting in sorrow.
Till her heart and her face grew old ;
While she moaned of the cave of silver.
And moaned of the wild Lapp mountains,
And him who never will ring her
With the round hoop of gold !
LORD DUNDREARY AT BRIGRTOJSf.
pj^^WIGHTON is filling fast now. You see dwoves of ladies evewy day
on horseback, widing about in all diwections. By the way, I — I
muthn't forget to mention that I met those two gii'ls that always
364 THE EAGLE.
laugh wlien tliey thee me, at a tea-fight. One of 'em — the young one
— told me, when I was intwoduced to her, — in — in confidence, mind, —
that she had often heard of me and of my widdles. Tho you thee I'm
getting quite a weputathun that way. The other morning at Mutton's, she
wath ch-chaffing me again, and begging me to tell her the latetht thing in
widdles. Now I hadn't heard any mythelf for thome time, tho I couldn't
give her any vewy great novelty, but a fwiend of mine made one latht
theason which I thought wather neat, tho I athked her. When ith a jar
not a jar? Thingularly enough, the moment she heard thith widdle she
burtht out laughing behind her pocket handkerchief !
"Good gwacious ! what'th the matter ?" said I. "Have you ever
heard it before?"
" Never," she said, " in that form; do please tell me the answer."
So I told her, — When it ith a door ! Upon which she — she went ofi" again
into hystewics. I — I — I — never did see such a girl for laughing. I know
it's a good widdle, but I didn't think it would have such an efiect as that.
By the way, Sloper told me afterwards that he thought he had heard
the widdle before, somewhere, but it was put in a different way. He said
it was : When ith a door not a door ? — and the answer. When it ith ajar !
I — I've been thinking over the matter lately, and though I dare thay it.
— d-don't much matter which way the question is put, still — pwaps the last
f-form is the betht. It— it seems*to me to wead better. What do you think ?
Now I weckomember, I made thuch a jolly widdle the other day on
the Ethplanade. I thaw a fellah with a big New — Newfoundland dog,
and he inthpired me — the dog, you know, not the fellah, — he wath a
lunatic. I'm keeping the widdle but I don't mind telling t/ou.
Why does a dog waggle his tail ? Give it up ? I think motht fellahs
will give that up !
You thee the dog waggles his tail becauth the dog's stwonger than
the tail. If he wathn't the tail would waggle the dog !
Ye-eth, — that'th what I call a widdle. If I can only wecollect him, I
shall athtonish those two girls thome of these days.
THIJ EAGLE.
TENNYSON.
jl^iJjj^E clasps the crag with hooked hands,
I^M Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls.
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
THE PAUPER'S FUNERAL. 355
THE BLIND BOY.
COLLEY GIBBER.
SAY what is that thing called Light, 1 And could I ever keep awake
Which I must ne'er enjoy ? j With me 't were always day.
What are the blessings of the sight, I
0, tell your poor blind boy ! | With heavy sighs I often hear
You talk of wondrous things you see,
You say the sun shines bright ;
I feel him warm, but how can he
Or make it day or night ?
My day or night myself I make
Whene'er I sleep or play ;
You mourn my hapless woe ;
But sure with patience I can bear
A loss I ne'er can know.
Then let not what I cannot have
My cheer of mind destroy :
Whilst thus I sing, I am a king.
Although a poor blind boy.
THE PAUPER'S FUNERAL.
CHARLES DICKENS.
ijlllpHERE was no fire in the room ; but a man was crouching mechani-
^1^ cally over the empty stove. An old woman, too, had drawn a stool
"^^^ to the cold hearth, and was sitting beside him. There were some
4 ragged children in another corner ; and in a small recess, opposite
J the door, there lay upon the ground something covered with an old
blanket. Oliver shuddered as he cast his eyes towards the place, and
crept involuntarily closer to his master ; for, though it was covered up, the
hoy felt that it was a corpse.
The man's face was thin and very pale ; his hair and beard were grizzly,
and his eyes were bloodshot. The old woman's face was wrinkled, her two
remaining teeth protruded over her under lip, and her eyes were bright
and piercing.
" Nobody shall go near her," said the man, starting fiercely up as the
undertaker approached the recess. " Keep back ! d — n you — keep back,
if you've a life to lose !"
" Nonsense, my good man," said the undertaker, who was pretty well
used to misery in all its shapes—" nonsense !"
" I tell you," said the man," clenching his hands and stamping furiously
on the floor — " I tell you I won't have her put into the ground. She
couldn't rest there. The worms would worry — not eat her — she is so worn
away."
360 THE PAUPER'S FUNERAL.
The undertaker offered no reply to this raving, but producing a tape
from his pocket, knelt down for a moment by the side of the body.
" Ah !" said the man, bursting into tears, and sinking on his knees at
the feet of the dead woman ; " kneel down, kneel down ; kneel around her
every one of you, and mark my words. I say she starved to death. I
never knew how bad she was till the fever came upon her, and then her
bones were starting through the skin. There was neither fire nor candle ;
she died in the dark — in the dark ! She couldn't even see her children's
faces, though we heard her gasping out their names. I begged for her in
the streets, and they sent me to prison. When I came back she was
dying ; and all the blood in my heart has dried up, for they starved her to
death. I swear it before the God that saw it — they starved her !" He
twined his hands in his hair, and with a loud scream rolled grovelling upon
the floor, his eyes fixed, and the foam gushing from his lips.
The terrified children cried bitterly ; but the old woman, who had hith-
erto remained as quiet as if she had been wholly deaf to all that passed,
menaced them into silence ; and having unloosened the man's cravat,
who still remained extended on the ground, tottered towards the under-
taker.
" She was my daughter," said the old woman, nodding her head in the
direction of the corpse, and speaking with an idiotic leer more ghastly than
even the presence of death itself. " Lord, Lord ! well it is strange that I
who gave birth to her, and was a woman then, should be alive and merry
now, and she lying so cold and stiff! Lord, Lord ! — to think of it ; it's as
good as a play, as good as a play !"
As the wretched creature mumbled and chuckled in her hideous merri-
ment, the undertaker turned to go away.
" Stop, stop !" said the old woman in a loud whisper. " Will she be
buried to-morrow, or next day, or to-night ? I laid her out, and I must
walk, you know. Send me a large cloak ; a good warm one, for it is bitter
cold. We should have cake and wine, too, before we go ! Never mind :
send some bread ; only a loaf of bread and a cup of water. Shall we have
some bread, dear ?" she said eagerly, catching at the undertaker's coat as
he once more moved towards the door.
" Yes, yes," said the undertaker ; " of course : anything, everything."
He disengaged himself from the old woman's grasp, and, dragging Oliver
after him, hurried away.
The next day — the family having been meanwhile relieved with a half-
quartern loaf, and a piece of cheese, left with them by Mr. Bumble himself
- Oliver and his master returned to the miserable abode, where Mr. Bum-
WHAT CONSTITUTES A STATE.
367
ble had already arrived, accompanied by four men from the work house
who were to act as bearers. An old black cloak had been thrown over the
rags of the old woman and the man ; the bare cof&n having been screwed
down, was then hoisted on the shoulders of the bearers, and carried down
stairs into the street.
BUTE.
THOMAS HOOD
-^
^j^HE stood breast high amid the corn,
I^H Clasped by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss hath won.
On her cheek an autumn flush
Deeply ripened ; — such a blush
In the midst of brown was born,
Like red poppies grown with corn.
Round her eyes her tresses fell, —
Which were blackest none could t-ell ;
But long lashes veiled a light
That had else been all too bright.
And her hat, with shady brim,
Made her tressy forehead dim ; — ■
Thus she stood amid the stocks.
Praising God with sweetest^ looks.
Sure, I said. Heaven did not mean
Where I reap thou shouldst but glean ;
Lay thy sheaf adown and come,
Share my harvest and my home.
WHAT CONSTITUTES A STATE?
SIB, WILLI
^"
'SlsA^^HAT constitutes a state ?
Not high-raised battlement or
labored mound,
Thick wall or moated gate ;
Not cities proud with spires and
turret-crowned ;
Not bays and broad-armed ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies
ride ;
Not starred and spangled courts.
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume
to pride.
No: — men, high-minded men,
With powers as far above dull brutes endued
In forest, brake, or den,
25
AM JONES.
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude,
Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and, knowing, dare
maintain.
Prevent the long-aimed blow.
And crush the tyrant while they rend the
chain ;
These constitute a state ;
And sovereign law, that state's collected will
O'er thrones and globes elate,
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill,
Smit by her sacred frown,
The fiend. Dissension, like a vapor sinks ;
And e'en the all-dazzling crown
Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding
shrinks ;
368
THE DOOR-STEP.
Such wa3 this heaven-loved isle,
Than Lesbos fairer and the Cretan shore !
No more shall freedom smile ?
Shall Britons languish, and be men no more ?
Since all must life resign,
Those sweet rewards which decorate the brave
'T is folly to decline,
And steal inglorious to the silent grave
THE B.EAPER.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
|EHOLD her single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass !
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass !
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain ;
listen ! for the vale profound
Ib overflowing with the sound.
^m^ ^
No nightingale did ever chant
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travelers in some shady haunt
Among Arabian sands ;
No sweeter voice was ever heard
In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird.
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings ?
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-ofi' things.
And battles long ago :
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day ?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain.
That has been, and may be again !
Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending ;
I saw her singing at her work.
And o'er the sickle bending;
I listened till I had my fill ;
And as I mounted up the hill
The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more.
THE DOOR-STEP.
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
I|HE conference meeting through at last.
We boys around the vestry waited.
To see the girls come tripping past
Like snow-birds willing to be
mated.
Not braver he that leaps the wall.
By level mu.sket-flashes litten,
Than I, who stepped before them all
Who longed to see me get the mitten.
But no, she blushed and took my arm !
We let the old folks have the highway,
And started toward the Maple Farm,
Along a kind of lovers' by-way.
THE DOOR-STEP.
369
I can't remember what we paid,
'Twas nothing worth a song or story,
Yet that rude path by which we sped
Seemed all transformed and in a glory.
The little hand outside her muff—
sculptor, if you could but mould it '
So slightly touched my jacket-cuff.
To keep it warm I had to hold it.
The snow wa^ crisp beneath our feet,
The moon was full, the fields were gleaming ;
By hood and tippet sheltered sweet
Her face with youth and health was
beaming.
To have her with me there alone,
'Twas love and fear and triumph
blended :
At last we reached the foot- worn stone
Where that delicious journey ended.
370
REGULUS TO THE ROMAN SENATE.
She shook her ringlets from her hood,
And with a " Thank you Ned," dissembled.
But yet I knew she understood
With what a daring wish I trembled.
A cloud passed kindly overhead.
The moon was slyly peeping through it,
Yet hid its face, as if it said,
" Come, now or never, do it, do it !"
My lips till then had only known
The kiss of mother and of sister,
But somehow full upon her own
Sweet, rosy, darling mouth — I kissed her I
Perhaps 'twas boyish love, yet still,
listless woman ! weary lover !
To feel once more that fresh wild thrill,
I'd give — But who can live youth over ?
SONNET FROM THE PORTUGUESE.
ELIZABETH B. BEOWNING.
ilRST time he kissed me, he but only
kissed
'j'^The fingers of this hand wherewith I
^f^ write ;
k" And, ever since, it grew more clean and
I white,
I Slow to world-greetings, quick with its
"Olist!"
When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst
I could not wear here, plainer to my sight
Than that first kiss. The second passed in
height »
The first, and sought the forehead, and hail
missed.
Half falling on the hair. 0, beyond meed !
That was the chrism of love, which love's
own crown,
With sanctifying sweetness, did precede.
The third upon my lips was folded down
In perfect, purple state ; since when, in-
deed,
I have been proud, and said, " My love, my
REGULUS TO THE ROMAN SENATE.
'LL does it become me, Senators of Rome, — ill does it become Rega-
lus, after having so often stood in this venerable assembly clothed
with the supreme dignity of the Republic, to stand before you a
captive, — the captive of Carthage. Though outwar(ily I am free,
.f though no fetters encumber the limbs, or gall the flesh, — yet the
J heaviest of chains, — the pledge of a Roman Consul, — makes me the
bondsman of th3 Carthaginians. They have my promise to return to them,
in the event of the fxilure of this, their embassy. My life is at their
mercy. My honor is my own ; — a possession which no reverse of fortune
can jeopard; aflame which imprisonment cannot stifle, time cannot dim,
death cannot extinguish.
Of the train of disasters which followed close on the unexampled
successes of our arms, — of the bitter fate which swept off the flower of
I
REGULUS TO THE ROMAN SENATE. 37 1
our soldiery, and consigned me, your General, wounded and senseless, to
Carthaginian keeping, — I will not speak. For tive years, a rigorous cap-
tivity has been my portion. For five years, the society of family and
friends, the dear amenities of home, the sense of freedom, and the sight of
country, have been to me a recollection and a dream, — no more. But
during that period Rome has retrieved her defeats. She has recovered
under Metellus what under Regulus she lost. She has routed armies. She
has taken unnumbered prisoners. She has struck terror into the heart of
the Carthaginians, who have now sent me hither with their ambassadors to
sue for peace, and to propose that, in exchange for me, your former Consul,
a thousand common prisoners of war shall be given up. You have heard
the ambassadors. Their intimations of some unimaginable horror, I know
not what, impending over myself, should I fail to induce you to accept their
terms, have strongly moved your sympathies in my behalf. Another
appeal, which I would you might have been spared, has lent force to their
suit. A wife and children, threatened with widowhood and orphanage,
weeping and despairing, have knelt at your feet on the very threshold of
the Senate-chamber : — Conscript Fathers ! shall not Regulus be saved ?
Must he return to Carthage to meet the cruelties which the ambassadors
brandish before our eyes? With one voice you answer, No !
Countrymen ! Friends ! For all that I have suiffered,— for all that
I may have to suffer, — I am repaid in the compensation of this moment !
Unfortunate you may hold me; but 0, not undeserving! Your confidence
in my honor survives all the ruin that adverse fortune could inflict. You
have not forgotten the past. Ptepublics are not ungrateful. May the
thanks I cannot utter bring down blessings from the gods on you and
Rome !
Conscript Fathers ! There is but one course to be pursued. Abandon
all thought of peace. Reject the overtures of Carthage. Reject them
wholly and unconditionally. What ! give back to her a thousand able-
bodied men, and receive in return this one attenuated, war-worn, fever-
wasted frame, — this weed, whitened in a dungeon's darkness, pale and
sapless, which no kindness of the sun, no softness of the summer breeze,
can ever restore to health and vigor ? It must not, — it shall not be ! !
were Regulus what he was once, before captivity had unstrung his sinews
and enervated his limbs, he might pause, — he might proudly think he were
well worth a thousand of the foe ; he might say, " Make the exchange !
Rome shall not lose by it!" But now, alas! now 'tis gone, — that impetu-
osity of strength, which could once make him a leader indeed, to penetrate
a phalanx or guide a pursuit. His very armor would be a burthen now.
372
LEFT ALONE AT EIGHTY.
His battle-cry would be drowned in the din of the onset. His sword would
fall harmless on his opponent's shield. But if he cannot Hoe, he can at
least die for his country. Do not deny him this supreme consolation.
Consider : every indignity, every torture, which Carthage shall heap on
his dying hours, will be better than a trumpet's call to your armies. They
will remember only Regulus, their fellow-soldier and their leader. They
will regard only his services to the Republic. Tunis, Sardinia, Sicily, —
every well-fought field, won by his blood and theirs — will flash on their
remembrance, and kindle their avenging wrath. And so shall E-egulus,
though dead, fight as he never fought before against the foe.
Conscript Fathers ! There is another theme. My family, — forgive
the thought ! To you and to Rome I confide them. I leave them no
legacy but my name, — -no testament but my example.
Ambassadors of Carthage ! I have spoken, though not as you
expected. I am your captive. Lead me back to whatever fate may await
me. Doubt not that you shall find, to Roman hearts, country is dearer
than life, and integrity more precious than freedom !
LEFT ALONE AT ELGHTY.
ALICE EOBBINS.
iIAT did you say, dear, — bi-eakfast ?
Somehow I've slept too late ;
You are very kind, dear Effie ;
Go tell them not to wait.
I'll dress as quick as ever I can,
My old hands tremble sore.
And Polly, who used to help, dear
heart,
Lies t'other side of the door.
Put up the old pipe, deary,
I couldn't smoke to-day :
I'm sort o' dazed and frightened.
And don't know what to say.
It's lonesome in the house here,
And lonesome out o' door —
I never knew what lonesome meant
In all my life before.
The bees go humming the whole day long,
And the first June rose has blown ;
And I am eighty, dear Lord, to-day.
Too old to be left alone !
Oh, heart of love ! so still and cold,
Oh, precious lips so white !
For the first sad hours in sixty years,
You were out of my reach last night.
You've cut tlie flower. You're very kind ;
She rooted it last May.
It was onl"y a slip ; I pulled the rose.
And threw the stem away.
But she, sweet, thrifty soul, bent down.
And planted it where she stood;
" Dear, maybe the flowers are living," she
said,
" Asleep in this bit of wood."
I can't rest, dear — I cannot rest ;
Let the old man have his will,
And wander from porch to garden-post —
The house is so deathly still ; —
SOMETIME.
373
Wander, and long for a sight of the gate
She has left ajar for me ;
We had got so used to each other, dear,
So used to each other, you see.
Sixty years, and so wise and good,
She made me a better man ;
From the moment I kissed her fair young face,
Our lover's life began.
And seven fine boys she has given mc.
And out of the seven not one
But the noblest father in all the land
Would be proud to call his son.
Oh, well, dear Lord, I'll be patient !
But I feel sore broken up ;
At eighty years it's an awesome thing
To drain such a bitter cup.
I know there's Joseph, and John, and Ilal,
And four good men beside ;
But a hundred sons couldn't be to me,
Like the woman I made my bride.
My little Polly— so bright and fair !
So winsome and good and sweet !
She had rosea twined in her sunny hair,
And white shoes upon her feet ;
And I held her hand — was it yesterday
That we stood up to be wed ?
And — no, I remember, I'm eighty to-day.
And my dear wife Polly is dead.
SOMETIME.
MARY RILEY SMITH,
SOMETIME, when all life's
have been learned,
And sun and stars forevermore have
set.
The things which our weak judg-
ments here have spurned —
The things o'er which we grieved
with lashes wet —
Will flash before us out of life's dark night,
As stars shine most in deepest tints of blue,
And we shall see how all God's plans were
right.
And how what seemed reproof was love
most true.
And we shall see how while we frown and
sigh,
God's plans go on as best for you and me ;
flow, when we called, he heeded not our crj',
Because his wisdon; to the end could see,
And e'en as prudent parents disallowed
Too much of sweet to craving babyhood,
So God, perhaps, is keeping from us now
Life's sweetest things, because it seemeth
good.
And if sometimes commingled with life's wine,
We find the wormwood, and rebel and
shrink,
Be sure a wiser hand than yours or mine
Pours out this potion for our lips to drink ;
And if some friend we love is lying low
Where human kisses cannot reach his face,
Oh, do not blame the loving Father so.
But wear your sorrows with obedient grace.
And you shall shortly know that lengthened
breath
Is not the sweetest gift God sends his friends,
And that sometimes the sable pall of death
Conceals the fairest boon his love can send.
If we could push ajar the gates of life,
And stand within and all God's workings
see,
We could interpret all this doubt and strife,
And for each mystery could find a key.
But not to-day. Then be content, poor heart ;
God's plans, like lilies, pure and white un-
fold;
We must not tear the close shut leaves apart —
Time will reveal the calyxes of gold ;
And if through patient toil we reach the land
Where tired feet, with sandals loosed, may
rest,
When we shall clearly know and understand,
I think that we will say, " God knew the
best."
374
SONG OF BIRDS.
SONG OF BIRDS.
THOMAS HEYWOOD.
fT^ffl|ACK, clouds, away ! and welcome, day !
1^ With night we banish sorrow ;
=iS^— °*Sweet air, blow soft ! mount lark, aloft !
^, To give my love good-morrow.
I Wings from the wind to please her mind,
1 Notes from the lark I'll borrow;
Bird, prune thy wing ! nightingale, sing !
To give my love good-raorrow :
To give my love good-morrow
Notes from them all I'll borrow.
Wake from thy rest, robin red-breast !
Sing, birds, in everj- furrow !
And from each hill let music shrill
Give my fair love good-morrow.
Blackbird and thrush in every bush,
Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow !
You pretty elves, among yourselves.
Sing my fair love good-morrow .-
To give my love good-morrow
Sing, birds, in every furrow.
MR. PICKWICK IN THE WRONG ROOM.
375
WIDOW 31AL0NK
CHARLES LEVER.
ID you hear of the Widow Malone,
t^JoK Ohone !
'^^ Who lived in the town of Athlone,
Alone !
0, she melted the hearts
Of the swains in them parts :
So lovely the Widow Malone,
Ohone !
So lovely the Widow Malone.
Of lovers she had a full score,
Or more.
And fortunes they all had galore,
In store ;
From the minister down
To the clerk of the Crown
All were courting the Widov/ Malone,
Ohone !
All were courting the Widow Malone.
But 30 modest was Mistress Malone,
'T was known
That no one could see her alone,
Ohone !
Let them ogle and sigh,
They could ne'er catch her eye,
So bashful the Widow Malone,
Ohone !
So bashful the Widow Malone.
Till one Misther O'Brien, from Clare,
(How quare !
It's little for blushing they care
Down there,)
Put his arm round her waist, —
Gave ten kisses at laste, — ■
" 0," says he, "you're my Molly Malone,
My own !
0," says he, " you're my Molly Malone !"
And the widow they all thought so shy.
My eye !
Ne'er thought of a simper or sigh, —
For why ?
But, " Lucius," says she,
" Since you've now made so free,
You may marry your Mary Malone,
Ohone !
You may marry your Mary Malone."
There's a moral contained in my song,
Not wrong ;
And one comfort, it's not very long,
But strong, —
If for widows you die.
Learn to kiss, not to sigh ;
For they're all like sweet Mistress Malone,
Ohone !
0, they're all like sweet Mistress Malone !
MB. PICKWICK IN THE WRONG ROOM.
CHARLES DICKENS.
^^EAR me, it's time to go to bed. It will never do, sitting here. I
shall be pale to-morrow, Mr. Pickwick !"
At the bare notion of such a calamity, Mr. Peter Magnus rang
the bell for the chambermaid; and the striped bag, the red bag,
* the leather hat-box, and the brown-paper parcel, having been
conveyed to his bed-room, he retired in company with a japanned candle-
stick to one side of the house, while Mr. Pickwick, and another japanned
376 MR. PICKWICK IN THE WRONG ROOM.
candlestick, were conducted through a multitude of tortuous windings, to
another.
" This is your room, sir," said the chambermaid.
" Very well," replied Mr. Pickwick, looking round him. It was a
tolerably large double-bedded room, with a fire ; upon the whole, a more
comfortable-looking apartment than Mr, Pickwick's short experience of the
accommodations of the Great White Horse had led him to expect.
" Nobody sleeps in the other bed, of course," said Mr. Pickwick.
" Oh, no, sir."
" Very good. Tell my servant to bring me up some hot water at half-
past eight in the morning, and that I shall not want him any more to-
night."
" Yes, sir." And bidding Mr. Pickwick good-night, the chambermaid
retired, and left him alone.
Mr. Pickwick sat himself down in a chair before the fire, and fell into
a train of rambling meditations, when he recollected he had left his watch
on the table down stairs. The possibility of going to sleep, unless it were
ticking gently beneath his pillow, or in his watch-pocket over his head,
had never entered Mr. Pickwick's brain. So as it was pretty late now, and
he was unwilling to ring his bell at that hour of the night, he slipped on
his coat, of which he had just divested himself, and taking the japanned
candlestick in his hand, walked quietly down stairs.
The more stairs Mr. Pickwick went down, the more stairs there seemed
to bo to descend, and again and again, when Mr. Pickwick got into some
narrow passage, and began to congratulate himself on having gained the'
ground-floor, did another flight of stairs appear before his astonished
eyes. At last he reached a stone hall, which he remembered to have seen
when he entered the house. Passage after passage did he explore ; room
after room did he peep into ; at length, just as he was on the point of
giving up the search in despair, he opened the dooi of the identical room
in which he had spent the evening, and beheld his missing property on the
tablt.
Mr. Pickwick seized the watch in triumph, and proceeded to retrace
his steps to his bed-chamber. If his progress downwards had been
attended with difficulties and uncertainty, his journey back was infinitely
more perplexing, He was reduced to the verge of despair, when an open
door attracted his attention. He peeped in — right at last. There were
the two beds, whose situation he perfectly remembered, and the fire still
burning. His candle, not a long one when he first received it, had
flickered away in the drifts of air through which he had passed, and sank
MR. nCKWICK IN THE WRONG ROOM. 377
into the socket, jast as he closed the door after him. "No matter," said
Mr. Pickwick, " I can undress myself just as well by the Hght of the fire."
" It is the best idea," said Mr. Pickwick to himself, smiling till he almost
cracked the night-cap strings — " It is the best idea, my losing myself in
this place, and wandering about those staircases, that I ever heard of. Droll,
droll, very droll." Here Mr. Pickwick smiled again, a broader smile than
before, and was about to continue the process of undressing, in the best
humor, when he was suddenly stopped by a most unexpected interruption :
to wit, the entrance into the room of some person with a candle, who, after
locking the door, advanced to the dressing-table, and set down the hght
upon it.
Mr. Pickwick almost fainted with horror and dismay. Standing before
the dressing-glass was a middle-aged lady in yellow curl-papers, busily
engaged in brushing what ladies call their ''back hair." However the
unconscious middle-aged lady came into that room, it was quite clear ^that
she contemplated remaining there for the night ; for she had brought a
rushlight and shade with her, which, with praiseworthy precaution
against fire, she had stationed in a basin on the floor, where it was glim-
mering away like a gigantic lighthouse, in a particularly small piece of
water.
"Bless my soul," thought Mr. Pickwick, "how very dreadful!"
"Hem !" said the lady; and in went Mr. Pickwick's head with auto-
maton-like rapidity.
" I never met with anything so awful as this," — thought poor Mr.
Pickwick, the cold perspiration starting in drops upon his night-cap.
"Never. This is fearful."
It was quite impossible to resist the urgent desire to see what was
going forward. So out went Mr. Pickwick's head again. The prospect
was worse than before. The middle-aged lady had finished arranging her
hair, and carefully enveloped it in a muslin night-cap with a small plaited
border, and was gazing pensively on the fire.
" This matter is growing alarming " — reasoned Mr. Pickwick with
himself. " I can't allow things to go on in this way. By the self-possession
of that lady, it's clear to me that I must have come into the wrong room.
If I call out, she'll alarm the house, but if I remain here, the consequence
will be still more frightful!"
He shrank behind the curtains, and called out very loudly : —
" Ha-hum."
That the lady started at this unexpected sound was evident, by her
falling up against the rush-light shade ; that she persuaded herself it must
378 MR. PICKWICK IN THE WRONG ROOM.
have been the effect of imagination was equally clear, for when Mr. Pick-
wick, under the impression that she had fainted away, stone-dead from
fright, ventured to peep out again, she was gazing pensively on the fire
as before.
" Most extraordinary female this," thought Mr. Pickwick, popping in
again. "Ha-hum."
" Gracious Heaven !" said the middle-aged lady, " what's that?"
" It's — it's — only a gentleman, Ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick from behind
the curtains.
" A gentleman !" said the lady with a terrific scream.
" It's all over," thought Mr. Pickwick.
" A strange man," shrieked the lady. Another instant and the house
would be alarmed. Her garments rustled as she rushed towards the door.
"Ma'am" — ^said Mr. Pickwick, thrusting out his head, in the
extremity of his desperation, " Ma'am."
" Wretch," — said the lady, covering her eyes with her hands, " what
do you want here ?"
"Nothing, Ma'am — nothing whatever. Ma'am;" said Mr. Pickwick,
earnestly.
" Nothing !" said the lady, looking up.
" Nothing, Ma'am, upon my honor," said Mr. Pickwick, nodding his
head so energetically, that the tassel of his night-cap danced again. " I am
almost ready to sink, Ma'am, because of the confusion of addressing a lady
in my night-cap (here the lady hastily snatched off her's), but I can't get
it off. Ma'am, (here Mr. Pickwick gave it a tremendous tug in proof of the
statement). It is evident to me. Ma'am, now, that I have mistaken this
bed-room for my own. I had not been here five minutes. Ma'am, when
you suddenly entered it."
" If this improbable story be really true, sir," — said the lady, sobbing
violently, "you will leave it instantly."
" I will, Ma'am, with the greatest pleasure," — i-eplied Mr. Pickwick.
" Instantly, sir," said the lady.
"Certainly, Ma'am," interposed Mr. Pickwick, very quickly. " Cer-
tainly, Ma'am. I — I— am very sorry, Ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick, making
his appearance at the bottom of the bed, " to have been the innocent occa-
sion of this alarm and emotion; deeply sorry. Ma'am."
The lady pointed to the door.
" I am exceedingly sorry. Ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick, bowing very low.
" If you are, sir, you will at once leave the room," said the lady.
" Immediately, Ma'am ; this instant. Ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick,
THE KING OF DENMARK'S RIDE.
379
opening the door, and dropping both his shoes with a loud crash in so
doing.
" I trust, Ma'am," resumed Mr. Pickwick, gathering up his shoes, and
turning round to bow again, '* I trust. Ma'am, that my unblemished charac-
ter, and the devoted respect I entertain for your sex, will plead as some
slight excuse for this " — but before Mr. Pickwick could conclude the
sentence, the lady had thrust him into the passage, and locked and bolted
the door behind him.
MERCY.
W. SHAKSPEAEE.
^j||ni^HE quality of mercy is not strained ;
^J^ It droppeth, ag the gentle rain from
fl|r heaven
<^P Upon the place beneath : it is twice
* blessed ;
^ It blesseth him that gives, and him
J that takes :
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown ;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power
Th' attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings ;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway, —
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest
God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this —
That in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation : we do pray for mercy ;
And that same prayer should teach us all to
render
The deeds of mercy.
THE KING OF DENMARK'S RIDE.
CAROLINE E. NORTON.
pf;<2^"Ǥ0RD was brought to the Danish king,
(Hurry!)
^)' That the love of his heart lay suf-
fering.
And p'ned for the comfort his voice
would bring ;
(0 ! ride as though you were flying !)
Better he loves each golden curl
On the brow of that Scandinavian girl
Than his rich crown -jewels of ruby and pearl ;
And his Rose of the Isles is dying.
Thirty nobles saddled with speed ; (Hurry ! )
Each one mounted a gallant steed
Which he kept for battle and days of need ;
(0 ! ride as though you were flying ! )
Spurs were struck in the foaming flank ;
Worn-out chargers struggled and sank-.
Bridles were slackened, and girtns were burst:
But ride as they would, the king rode first;
For his Rose of the Isles lay dying.
His nobles are beaten, one by one ; (Hurry !)
They have fainted, and faltered, and home-
ward gone;
His little fair page now follows alone,
For strength and for courage crying.
The king looked back at that faithful child ;
380
THE KING OF DENMARK'S RIDE.
Wan was the face that answering smiled.
They passed the draw-bridge with clattering
din:
Then he dropped ; and the king alone rode in
Where his Rose of the Isles lay dying.
None welcomed the king from that weary
ride;
For, dead in the light of the dawning day,
The pale sweet form of the welcomer lay,
Who had yearned for his voice while dying.
The king blew a blast on his bugle horn ;
(Silence!)
No answer carao, but faint and forlorn
An echo returned on the cold gray morn,
Like the breath of a spirit sighing.
The castle portal stood grimly wide ;
The panting steed with a drooping crest
Stood weary.
The king returned from her chamber
rest,
The thick sobs choking in his breast;
And, that dumb companion eyeing,
BETSY AND I ARE OUT.
381
The tears gushed forth, which he strove to
check ;
He bowed his head on his charger's neck ;
" 0, steed, that every nerve didst strain.
Dear steed, our ride hath been in vain,
To the halls where my love lay dying !"
THE NYMPH'S REPLY TO THE SHEPHERD.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
jiF that the world and love were
young,
^^ And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
^^l These pretty pleasures might me move
mh To live with thee and be thy love.
Ig But time drives flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage, and rocks grow cold ;
And Philomel becometh dumb.
And all complain of cares to come.
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields ;
A honey tongue, a heart of gall.
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.
Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses.
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten, —
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.
Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,
Thy coral clasps and amber studs, —
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee, and be thy love.
But could youth last, and love still breed.
Had joys no date, nor age no need,
Then those delights my mind might move
To live with thee, and be thy love.
BETSY AND I ARE OUT.
WILL. M, CARLETON.
|ipKRAW Tip the papers, lawyer, and ] So I have talked with Betsy, and Betsy has
U^^ make 'em good and stout,
* f^f For things at home are cross-ways,
^m and Betsy and I are out, —
* We who have worked together so
I long as man and wife
I Must pull in single harness the rest
» of our nat'ral life.
"What is the matter," says you? I swan
it's hard to tell !
Most of the years behind us we've passed by
very well ;
I have no other woman — she has no other
man;
Only we've lived together as long as ever we j And Betsy, like all good women, had a
can. I temper of her own.
talked with me ;
And we've agreed together that we can never
agree ;
Not that we've catched each other in any
terrible crime ;
We've been a gatherin' this for year.?, a little
at a time.
There was a stock of temper we both had
for a start ;
Although we ne'er suspected 'twould take us
two apart ;
I had my various failings, bred in the flesh
and bone.
382
BETSY AND I ARE OUT.
The first thing, I remember, whereon we
Was somethiu' concerning heaven — a differ-
ence in our creed ;
We arg'ed the thing at breakfast — we arg'ed
the thing at tea —
And the more we arg'ed the question, the
more we couldn't agree.
And the next that I remember was when we
lost a cow ;
She had kicked the bucket, for certain — the
question was only — How 7
I held my opinion, and Betsy another had ;
And when we were done a talkin', we both
of us was mad.
And the next that I remember, it started in
a j oke ;
But for full a week it lasted and neither of
us spoke.
And the next was when I fretted because
she broke a bowl ;
And she said I was mean and stingy, and
hadn't any soul.
And so the thing kept workin', and all the
self-same way ;
Always somethin' to ar'ge and something
sharp to say, —
And down on us came- the neighbors, a
couple o' dozen strong,
And lent their kindest sarvice to help the
thing along.
And there have been days together — and
many a weary week —
When both of us were cross and spunky,
and both too proud to speak ;
And I have been thinkin' and thinkin', the
whole of the summer and fall,
U I can't live kind with a woman, why, then
I won't at all.
And so I've talked with Betsy, and Betsy
has talked with rao ;
And we have agreed together that we can
never agree ;
And what is hers shall bo hor.?, and what is
mine shall be mine ;
And ni put it in the agreement and take it
to her to sign.
Write on the paper, lawyer — the very first
paragraph —
Of all the farm and live stock, she shall have
her half;
For she has helped to earn it through many
a weary day.
And it's nothin' more than justice that
Betsy has her pay,
Give her the house and homestead ; a man
can thrive and roam.
But women are wretched critters, unless
they have a home.
And I have always determined, and never
failed to say,
That Betsy never should want a home, if I
was taken away.
There's a little hard money besides, that's
drawin' tol'rable pay,
A couple of hundred dollars laid by for a
rainy day, —
Safe in the hands of good men, and easy to
get at ;
Put in another clause there, and give her all
of that.
I see that you are smiling, sir, at my givin'
her so much ;
Yes, divorce is cheap, sir, but I take no stock
in such ;
True and fair I married her, when she was
blythe and young,
And Betsy was always good to me exceptin'
with her tongue.
When I was young as you, sir, and not so
smart, perhaps.
For me she mittened a lawyer, and several
other chaps ;
And all of 'em was flustered, and fairly taken
down,
And for a time I was counted the luckiest
man in town.
Once when I had a fever — I won't forget it
soon —
I was hot as a basted turkey and crazy as a
loon —
Never an hour went by me when she was
out cf sight ;
BETSY DESTROYS THE PAPER.
383
She nursed me true and tender, and stuck to
And one thing put in the paper, that first to
me day and night.
me didn't occur ;
And if ever a house was tidy, and ever a
That when I am dead at last she will bring
kitchen clean.
me back to her.
Her house and kitchen was tidy as any I
And lay me under the maple we planted
ever seen,
years ago,
And I don't complain of Betsy or any of her
When she and I was happy, before we quar-
acts.
relled so,
Exceptin' when we've quarreled, and told
each other facts.
And when she dies, I wish that she would
So draw up the paper, lawyer ; and I'll go
be laid by me ;
home to-night,
And read the agreement to her, and see if it's
And lyin' together in silence, perhaps we'll
all right ;
then agree ;
And then in the morning I'll sell to a tradin'
And if ever we meet in heaven, I wouldn't
man I know —
think it queer
And kiss the child that was left to us, and
If we loved each other the better because
out in the world I'll go.
we've quarrelled here.
BETSY DESTROYS THE PAPER.
f'VE brought back the paper, lawyer,
and fetched the parson here.
To see that things are regular, and
"^if settled up fair and clear ;
1 For I've been talking with Caleb, and
¥ Caleb has with me,
1 And the 'mount of it is we're minded
to try once more to agree.
So I came here on the business, — only a word
to say
(Caleb is staking pea-vines, and couldn't
come to-day.)
Just to tell you and parson how that we've
changed our mind ;
So I'll tear up the paper, lawyer, you see it
wasn't signed.
And now if parson is ready, I'll walk with
him toward home ;
I want to thank him for something, 'twas
kind of him to come ;
He's showed a Christian spirit, stood by us
firm and true ;
We mightn't have changed our mind, squire,
if he'd been a lawyer too.
26
There ! — how good the sun feels, and the
grass, and blowin' trees.
Something about them lawyers makes me
feel fit to freeze ;
I wasn't bound to state particular to that
man.
But it's right you should know, parson,
about our change of plan.
We'd been some days a waverin' a little,
Caleb and me,
And wished the hateful paper at the bottom
of the sea ;
But I guess 'twas the prayer last evening,
and the few words you said.
That thawed the ice between us, and brought-
things to a head.
You see, when we came to division, there
was things that wouldn't divide ;
There was our twelve-year-old baby, she
couldn't be satisfied
To go with one or the other, but just kept
whimperin' low,
" I'll stay with papa and mamma, and where
they go I'll go."
384
BETSY DESTROYS THE PAPER.
Then there was grandsire's Bible — he died
on our wedding day ;
We couldn't halve the old Bible, and should
it go or stay ?
The sheets that was Caleb's mother's, her
sampler on the wall,
With the sweet old names worked in— Try-
phena, and Eunice, and Paul.
It began to be hard then, parson, but it grew
harder still,
Talkin' of Caleb established down at
McHenry'sville ;
Three dollars a week 'twould cost him ; no
mendin' nor sort of care.
And board at the Widow Meacham's, a
woman that wears false hair.
Still we went on a talkin' ; I agreed to knit
some socks.
And make a dozen striped shirts, and a pair
of wa'mus frocks ;
And he was to cut a doorway from the kit-
chen to the shed :
" Save you climbing steps much in frosty
weather," he said.
He brought me the pen at last; I felt a
sinkin' and he
Looked as he did with the agur, in the spring
of sixty-three.
'Twas then you dropped in, parson, 'twasn't
much that was said,
" Little children, love one another," but the
thing was killed stone dead.
I should like to make confession ; not that
I'm going to say
The fault was all on my side, that never was
my way.
But it may be true that women — tho' how
'tis I can't see —
Are a trifle more aggravatin' than men know
how to be.
Then, parson, the neighbors' meddlin' — it
wasn't pourin.oil;
And the church a laborin' with us, 'twas
worse than wasted toil ;
And I've thought and so has Caleb, though
maybe we are wrong,
If they'd kept to their own busine.ss, we
should have got along.
There was Deacon Amos Purdy, a good man
as we know.
But hadn't a gift of laborin' except with the
scythe and hoe ;
Then a load came over in peach time from
the Wilbur neighborhood,
" Season of prayer," they called it; didn't do
an atom of good.
Then there are pints of doctrine, and views
of a future state
I'm willing to stop discussin' ; we can both
afford to wait;
'Twon't bring the millenium sooner, disputin'
about when it's due,
Although I feel an assurance that's mines
the Scriptural view.
But the blessedest truths of the Bible, I've
learned to think don't lie
In the texts we hunt with a candle to prove
our doctrines by.
But them that come to us in sorrow, and
when we're on our knees ;
So if Caleb won't argue on free-will, I'll
leave alone the decrees.
But there's the request he made ; you know
it, parson, about
Bein' laid under the maples that his own
hand set out.
And me to be laid beside him when my turn
comes to go ;
As if — as if — don't mind me ; but 'twas that
unstrung me so.
And now, that some scales, as we think, have
fallen from our eyes.
And things brought so to a crisis have made
us both more wise,
Why Caleb says ami so I say, till the Lord
parts him and me.
We'll love each other better, and try our
I best to agree.
CHILDREN OF THE DESERT.
385
ANNIE LA UEIE.
VXWELTON braes are bonnie
; Where early fa's the dew,
^ And it's there that Annie Laurie
Gie'd me her promise true, —
Gie'd me her promise true,
Which ne'er forgot will be ;
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay me doune and dee.
Her brow is like the snaw-drift;
Her throat is like the swan ;
Her face it is the fairest
That e'er the sun shone on, —
That e'er the sun shone on ;
And dark blue is her e'e ;
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay me doune and dee.
Like dew on the gowan lying
Is the fa' o' her fairy feet ;
And like the winds in summer si
Her voice is low and sweet, —
Her voice is low and sweet ;
And she's a' the world to me ;
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay me doune and dee.
ghing,
CHILDREN OF THE DESERT.
ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY.
?HE relation of the Desert to its modern inhabitants is still illustra-
tive of its ancient history. The general name by which the
Hebrews called " the wilderness," including always that of Sinai,
was " the pasture." Bare as the surface of the Desert is, yet the
thin clothing of vegetation, which is seldom entirely withdrawn,
especially the aromatic shrubs on the high hillsides, furnish suffi-
cient sustenance for the herds of the six thousand Bedouins who constitute
the present population of the peninsula.
''Along the mountain ledges green,
The scatter'd sheep at will may glean
The Desert's spicy stores."
So were they seen following the daughters or the shepherd-slaves of
Jethro. So may they be seen climbing the rocks, or gathered round the
pools and springs of the valleys, under the charge of the black-veiled
Bedouin women of the present day. And in the Tiyaha, Toward, or Alouin
tribes, with their chiefs and followers, their dress, and manners, and habi-
tations, we probably see the likeness of the Midianites, the Amalekites,
and the Israelites themselves in this their earliest stage of existence. The
long strait lines of black tents which cluster round the Desert springs,
386
CHILDREN OF THE DESERT.
present to us, on a small scale, the image of the vast encampment gatlicred
round the one sacred tent which, with its coverings of dyed skins, stood
conspicuous in the midst, and which recalled the period of their nomadic
life lono- after their settlement in Palestine. The deserted villages, marked by
rude enclosures of stone, are doubtless such as those to which the Hebrew
wanderers gave the name of " Hazeroth," and which afterwards furnished
MIEAGE IN THE DESEET.
the type of the primitive sanctuary at Shiloh. The rude burial-grounds,
with the many nameless head-stones, far away from hum.an habitation, are
such as the host of Israel must have left behind them at the different stages
of their progress— at Massah, at Sinai, at Kibroth-hattaavah, "the graves
of desire." The salutations of the chiefs, in their bright scarlet robes, the
one " going out to meet the other," the " obeisance," the " kiss " on each
side of the head, the silent entrance into the tent for consultations, are all
graphically described in the encounter between Moses and Jethro. The
ROBERT OF LINCOLN.
387
constitution of the tribes, with the subordinate degrees of sheiks, recom-
mended by Jethro to Moses, is the very same which still exists amongst
those who are possibly his lineal descendants — the gentle race of the
Towara.
NEW YEAR'S EVE.
"^ING out, wild bells, to the wild sky.
The flying cloud, the frosty light ;
The year is dying in the night ;
Ring out, wild bells, and let hirn die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new ;
Ring, happy bells, across the snow ;
The year is going, let him go ;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more ;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause.
And ancient forms of party strife ;
ALFRED TENNYSON.
I Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite ;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul di
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold ;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand ;
Ring out the darkness of the land ;
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
ROBERT OF LINCOLN.
W. C. BRYANT.
^|yj??S^ERRILY swinging on brier and
" ■' '^ weed,
Near to the nest of his little dame.
Over the mountain-side or mead,
Robert of Lincoln is telling his
name:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink ;
and safe is that nest of ours.
Hidden among the summer flowers,
Chee, chee, chee.
Robert of Lincoln is gayly dressed.
Wearing a bright black wedding coat ;
"Uliite are his shoulders and white his crest,
Hear him call in his merry note ;
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink ;
Look what a nice new coat is mine,
Sure there was never a bird so fine.
Chee, chee, chee.
Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife,
Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings,
Passing at home a patient life,
Broods in the grass while her husband sings,
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink ;
388
A PORTRAIT.
Brood, kind creature ; you need not fear
Thieves and robbers, while I am here.
Chee, chee, chee.
Modest and shy as a nun is she,
One weak chirp is her only note.
Braggart and prince of braggarts is he,
Pouring boasts from his little throat ;
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink ;
Never was I afraid of man ;
Catch me, cowardly knaves if you can.
Chee, chee, chee.
Six white eggs on a bed of hay.
Flecked with purple, a pretty sight !
There as the mother sits all day,
Robert is singing with all his might :
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink ;
Nice good wife, that never goes out.
Keeping house while I frolic about.
Chee, chee, chee.
Soon as the little ones chip the shell
Six wide moutha are open for food ;
Robert of Lincoln bestirs him well,
Gathering seed for the hungry brood.
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink ;
This new life is likely to be
Hard for a gay young fellow like me.
Chee, chee, chee.
Robert of Lincoln at length is made
Sober with work and silent with care ;
Off is his holiday garment laid,
Half-forgotten that merry air,
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink ;
Nobody knows but my mate and I
Where our nest and our nestlings lie.
Chee, chee, chee.
Summer wanes ; the children are grown ;
Fun and frolic no more he knows ;
Robert of Lincoln's a humdrum crone ;
Off he flies, and we sing as he goes :
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink ;
When you can pipe that merry old strain,
Robert of Lincoln, come back again.
Chee, chee, chee.
A PORTRAIT.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
"One name is Elizabeth."— Ben Jonsos,
-^
^j^ WILL paint her as I see her,
^^ Ten times have the lilies blown
W#? Since she looked upon the sun.
^ And her face is lily-clear,
J. Lily-shaped, and dropped in duty
J To the law of its own beauty.
Oval cheeks encolored faintly,
Which a trail of golden hair
Keeps from fading off to air ;
And a forehead fair and saintly,
Which two blue eyes undershine,
Like meek prayers before a shrine.
Face and figure of a child, —
Though too calm, you think, and tender.
For the childhood you would lend her.
Yet child-simple, undefiled,
Frank, obedient, — waiting still
On the turnings of your will.
Moving light, as all your things,
As young birds, or early wheat,
When the wind blows over it.
Only, free from flutterings
Of loud mirth that scorneth measure,-
Taking love for her chief pleasure.
THE LAUNCHING OF THE SHIP.
389
Choosing pleasures, for the rest,
Which come softly, — ^just as she,
When she nestles at your knee.
Quiet talk she liketh best.
In a bower of gentle looks, —
Watering flowers, or reading books.
And her voice, it murmurs lowly.
As a silver stream may run.
Which yet feels, you feel, the sun.
And her smile, it seems half holy,
As if drawn from thoughts more far
Than our common jestings are.
And if any poet knew her,
He would sing of her with falls
Used in lovely madrigals.
And if any painter drew her,
He would paint her unaware
With a halo round the hair.
And if reader read the poem,
He would whisper, " You have done
Consecrated little Una."
And a dreamer (did you show him
That same picture) would exclaim,
" 'T is my angel wiih
And a stranger, when he sees her
In the street even, smileth stilly,
Just as you would at a lily.
And all voices that address her
Soften, sleeken every word.
As if speaking to a bird.
And all fancies yearn to cover
The hard earth whereon she passes.
With the thymy -scented grasses.
And all hearts do pray, " God love her !
Ay, and always, in good sooth.
We may all be sure He doth.
TEE LA UNCEING OF TEE SEIP.
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
^^H^LL is finished, and at length
^^|fe Has come the bridal day
^^^^ Of beauty and of strength.
^ To-day the vessel shall be launched !
•£ With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched !
J And o'er the bay.
Slowly, in all his splendors dight,
The great sun rises to behold the sight.
The ocean old,
Centuries old.
Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled,
Paces restless to and fro.
Up and down the sands of gold.
His beating heart is not at rest,
And far and wide
With ceaseless flow
His beard of snow
Heaves with the heaving of his breast.
He waits impatient for his bride.
There she stands,
With her foot upon the sands,
Decked with flags and streamers gay.
In honor of her marriage-day.
Her snow-white signals fluttering, blending,
Round her like a veil descending,
Pveady to be
The bride of the gray old sea.
Then the Master,
With a gesture of command,
Waved his hand ;
And at the word.
Loud and sudden there was heard,
All around them and below.
The sound of hammers, blow on blow.
Knocking away the shores and spur.'*.
And see ! she stirs !
390
TACITUS.
She starts, — she moves, — she seems to feel
The thrill of life along her keel,
And, spurning with her foot the ground,
With one exulting, joyous bound,
She leaps into the ocean's ^.rms.
And lo ! from the assembled crowd
There rose a shout, prolonged and loud,
That to the ocean seemed to say,
"Take her, 0, bridegroom, old and gray ;
Take her to thy protecting arms.
With all her youth and all her charms."
How beautiful she is ! how fair
She lies within those arms, that press
Her form with many a soft caress
Of tenderness and watchful care !
Sail forth into the sea, 0, ship !
Through wind and wave, right onward steer.
The moistened eye, the trembling lip.
Are not the signs of doubt or fear.
Sail forth into the sea of life.
Oh gentle, loving, trusting wife.
And safe from all adversity.
Upon the bosom of that sea
Thy comings and thy goings be !
For gentleness, and love, and trust,
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust ;
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives !
Thou, too, sail on, ship of State !
Sail on, Union, strong and great !
Humanity, with all its fears,
With all its hopes of future years.
Is hanging breathless on thy fate !
We know what Master laid thy keel
What workman wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge, in what a heat.
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope.
Fear not each sudden sound and shock ;
'Tis of the wave, and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail.
And not a rent made by the gale.
In spite of rock and tempest roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea.
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee :
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee — are all with thee.
TACITUS.
T. BABINGTON MACAULAY.
-^
^N the delineation of character, Tacitus is unrivalled among historians,
and has very few superiors among dramatists and novelists. By
the delineation of character we do not mean the practice of drawing
up epigrammatic catalogues of good and bad qualities, and append
ing them to the names of eminent men. No writer indeed has done
this more skillfully than Tacitus ; but this is not his peculiar glory.
All the persons who occupy a large space in hia works have an individual-
ity of character which seems to pervade all their words and actions. We
know them as if we had lived with them. Claudius, Nero, Otho, both the
Agrippinas, are masterpieces. But Tiberius is a still higher miracle of
art. The historian undertook to make us intimately acquainted with a
man singularly dark and inscrutable — whose real disposition long remain-
CATO ON IMMORTALITY.
391
ed swathed up in intricate folds of factitious virtues, and over whose
actions the hypocrisy of his youth and the seclusion of his old age threw a
singular mystery. He was to exhibit the specious qualities of the tyrant
in a light which might render them transparent, and enable us at once to
perceive the covering and the vices which it concealed. He was to trace
the gradations by which the first magistrate of a republic, a senator mingling
freely in debate, a noble associating with his brother nobles, was trans-
formed into an Asiatic sultan ; he \7as to exhibit a character distinguished
by courage, self-command, and profound policy, yet defiled by all
" th' extravagancy
And crazy ribaldry of fancy."
He was to mark the gradual efiect of advancing age and approaching death
on this strange compound of strength and weakness ; to exhibit the old
sovereign of the world sinking into a dotage which, though it rendered his
appetites eccentric and his temper savage, never impaired the powers of
his stern and penetrating mind, conscious of failing strength, raging with
oapricious sensuality, yet to the last the keenest of observers, the most
artful of dissemblers, and the most terrible of masters. The task was one
of extreme difficulty. The execution is almost perfect.
CATO ON IMMORTALITY.
JOSEPH ADDISON.
P|1T must be so. — Plato, thou reasonest well !
^i^ Else whence this pleasing hope, this
gg fond desire,
t|t This longing after immortality?
1 Or whence this secret dread, and in-
i ward horror,
«l Of falling into naught ? "^Tiy shrinks
the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction ?
Tis the divinity that stirs within us ;
'Tis heaven itself, that points out a hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man
Eternity ! — thou pleasing, dreadful thought ! <
Through what variety of untried being.
Through what new scenes and changes must
we pass !
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before
me;
But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon
it.
He-e will I hold. If there's a Power above
us, —
And that there is, all Nature cries aloud
Through all her works, He must delight in
virtue ;
And that which He delights in must be
happy,
But when ? or where ? This world was made
for Caesar.
I'm weary of conjectures, — this must end
them.
[Laying his hand on his sword.]
392
THE SANDS O' DEE.
Thus am I doubly armed. My death and lif
My bane and antidote, are both before me,
This in a moment brings me to my end ;
But this informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secure in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in
years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amid the war of elements.
The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.
THE SANDS 0' DEE.
CHARLES EINGSLEY.
MARY, go and call the cattle home,
f^M, ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ cattle home,
— - And call the cattle home,
Across the sands o'Dee !
The western wind was wild and dark
v/i' foam.
And all alone went she.
The creeping tide came up along the sand.
And o'er and o'er the sand.
And round and round the sand,
As far as eye could see ;
The blinding mist came down and hid the
land,
And never home came she.
" is it weed, or fish, or floating hair,
A tress o' golden hair,
0' drowned maiden's hair.
Above the nets at sea ?
Was never salmon yet that shone so fair,
Among the stakes on Dee.
They rowed her in across the rolling foam,
The cruel, crawling foam,
The cruel, hungry foam,
To her grave beside the sea -.
But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle
home
Across the sands o' Dee.
NELL.
393
NELL.
eafe*
ROBERT BUCHANAN,
t;w'<?
YOU'RE a kind woman, Nan ! ay, kind
and true !
God -will be good to faithful folk
flike you !
You knew my Ned !
L A better, kinder lad never drew breath.
We loved each other true, and we were wed
In church, like some who took him to his
death ;
A lad as gentle as a lamb, but lost
His senses when he took a drop too much.
Drink did it all — drink made him mad when
crossed —
He was a poor man, and they're hard on
such.
Nan ! that night! that night!
When I was sitting in this very chair,
Watching and waiting in the candle-light.
And heard his foot come creaking up the
stair.
And turned, and saw him standing yonder,
white
And wild, with staring eyes and rumpled
hair !
And when I caught his arm and called, in
fright.
He pushed me, swore, and to the door he
passed
To lock and bar it fast.
Then down he drops just like a lump of lead,
Holding his brow, shaking, and growing
whiter,
And— Nan ! — ^just then the light seemed grow-
ing brighter.
And I could see the hands that held his head,
All red ! all bloody red !
What could I do but scream ? He groaned
to hear.
Tumped to his feet, and gripped me by the
wrist ;
*' Be still, or I shall kill thee, Nell !" he hissed.
And I was still, for fear.
" They're after me — I've knifed a man !" he
said.
" Be still !— the drink — drink did it ! — he is
dead !"
Then we grew still, dead still. I couldn't
weep;
All I could do was cling to Ned and hark.
And Ned was cold, cold, cold, as if asleep,
But breathing hard and deep.
The candle flickered out — the room grew
dark —
And — Nan! — although my heart was true
and tried —
When all grew cold and dim,
I shuddered — not for fear of them outside.
But just afraid to be alone with him.
"Ned! Ned!" I whispered — and bemoaned
and shook.
But did not heed or look !
" Ned ! Ned ! speak, lad ! tell me it is not
true !"
At that he raised his head and looked so
wild;
Then, with a stare that froze my blood, he
threw
His arms around me, crying like a child,
And held me close— and not a word was
spoken.
While I clung tighter to his heart, and
pressed him.
And did not fear him, though my heart was
broken.
But kissed his poor stained hands, and cried,
and blessed him.
Then,
the dreadful daylight, coming
falling rain —
Nan,
cold
With sound o'
When I could see his face, and it looked old,
Like the pinched face of one that dies in
pain;
Well, though we heard folk stirring in the
sun.
We never thought to hide away or run.
Until we heard those voices in the street,
That hurrying of feet,
394
THE DIVINITY OF POETRY.
And Ned leaped up, and knew that they had
come.
" Run, Ned !" I cried, but he was deaf and
dumb !"
" Hide, Ned !" I screamed, and held him ;
" hide thee, man !"
He stared with bloodshot eyes, and heark-
ened. Nan !
And all the rest is like a dream — the sound
Of knocking at the door —
A rush of men — a struggle on the ground —
A mist — a tramp — a roar ;
For when I got my senses back again,
The room was empty — and my head went
round !
God help him ! God will help him ! Ay, no
fear !
It was the drink, not Ned — he meant no
wrong ;
So kind ! so good ! — and I am useless here,
Now he is lost that loved me true and long.
. . . That night before he died
I didn't cry — my heart was hard and dried ;
But when the clocks went " one," I took my
shawl
To cover up my face, and stole away.
And walked along the silent streets, where
all
Looked cold and still and gray.
And on I went, and stood in Leicester Square,
But just as "three" was sounded close at hand
I started and turned east, before I knew,
Then down Saint Martin's Lane, along the
Strand,
And through the toll-gate on to Waterloo.
Some men and lads went by.
And turning round, I gazed, and watched
'em go,
Then felt that they were going to see. him
die.
And drew my shawl more tight, and followed
slow.
More people passed me, a country cart with
hay
Stopped close beside me, and two or three
Talked about it! I moaned and crept away !
Next came a hollow sound I knew full well.
For something gripped me round the heart !
— and then
There came the solemn tolling of a bell !
God ! God ! how could I sit close by.
And neither scream nor cry ?
As if I had been stone, all hard and cold,
1 listened, listened, listened, still and dumb,
While the folk murmured, and the death-bell
tolled.
And the day brightened, and his time had
come . .
. . . Till — Nan ! — all else was silent, but
the knell
Of the slow bell !
And I could only wait, and wait, and wait.
And what I waited for I couldn't tell —
At last there came a groaning deep and
great —
Saint Paul's struck " eight " —
I screamed, and seemed to turn to fire, and
fell!
THE DIVINITY OF POETRY.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY,
lOETRY is the record of tlie best and happiest moments of the
happiest and best minds. "We are aware of evanescent visitations
of thought and feehng, sometimes associated with place or person,
sometimes regarding our own mind alone, and always arising
unforeseen and departing unbidden, but elevating and delightful
beyond all expression ; so that, even in the desire and the regret
ANNIE AND WILLIE'S PRAYER.
395
they leave, there cannot but be pleasure, participating as it does in the
nature of its object. It is, as it were, the interpenetration of a diviner
nature through our own ; but its footsteps are like those of a wind over
the sea, which the morning calm erases, and whose traces remain only, as
on the wrinkled sand which paves it. These and corresponding conditions
of being are experienced principally by those of the most delicate sensibility
and the most enlarged imagination ; and the state of mind produced by them
is at war with every base desire. The enthusiasm of virtue, love, patriot-
ism, and friendship, is essentially linked with such emotions; and whilst
they last, self appears as what it is, an atom to a universe. Poets are
not only subject to these experiences as spirits of the most refined
organization, but they can colour all that they combine with the evanes-
cent hues of this ethereal world; a word, a trait in the representation of
a scene or passion, will touch the enchanted chord, and reanimate, in
those who have ever experienced those emotions, the sleeping, the cold, the
buried image of the past. Poetry thus makes immortal all that is best
and most beautiful in the world; it arrests the vanishing apparitions
which haunt the interlunations of life, and veiling them, or in language
or in form, sends them forth among mankind, bearing sweet news of
kindred joy to those with whom their sisters abide — abide, because there
is no portal of expression from the caverns of the spirit which they
inhabit into the universe of things. Poetry redeems from decay the
visitations of the divinity in man.
ANNIE AND WILLIE'S ERA YEE.
SOPHIA r. SNOW.
3WAS the eve before Christmas, " Good-
night " had been said ;
And Annie and Willie had crept
^]^ into bed ;
r There were tears on their pillows,
«l and tears in their eyes,
And each little bosom was heaving with sighs.
For to-night their stern father's command
had been given
That they should retire precisely at seven —
Instead of at eight — for they troubled him
more
With questions unheard of than ever before :
He had told them he thought this delusion
a sin,
No such creature as " Santa Claus " ever had
been,
And he hoped, after this, he should never-
more hear
How he scrambled' down chimneys with pre-
sents each year.
And this was the reason that two little heads
So restlessly tossed on their soft, downy beds.
Eight, nine, and the clock on the steeple
tolled ten.
396
ANNIE AND WILLIE'S PRAYER.
Not a word had beea spoken by either till
then,
When Willie's sad face from the blanket did
peep,
As he whispered, " Dear Annie, is 'ou fast
aseep?"
" Why no, brother Willie," a sweet voice
replies,
" I've long tried in vain, but I can't shut my
eyes.
For somehow it makes me so sorry because
Dear papa has said there is no ' Santa Glaus.'
Now we know there is, and it can't be denied.
For he came every year before mamma died ;
But, then, I've been thinking that she used
to pray,
And God would hear everything mamma
would say,
And maybe she asked Him to send Santa
Glaus here
With the sack full of presents he brought
every year."
" Well, why tan't we pray dest as Mamma
did den.
And ask Dod to send him with presents
aden ?"
" I've been thinking so, too," and without a
word more
Four little bare feet bounded out on the
floor,
And four little knees the soft carpet pressed.
And two tiny hands were clasped close to
each breast.
" Now, Willie, you know we must firmly
believe
That the presents we ask for we're sure to
You must wait just as still till I say the
' Amen,'
And by that you will know that your turn
has come then."
" Dear Jesus, look down on ray brother and
me.
And grant us the favor we are asking of
Thee.
I want a wax dolly, a tea-set and ring.
And an ebony work-box, that shuts with a
spring.
Bless papa, dear Jesus, and cause him to see,
That Santa Glaus loves us as much as does he :
Don't let him get fretful and angry again
At dear brother Willie and Annie. Amen."
" Please, Desus, et Santa Taus turn down to-
night.
And bing us some presents before it is ight ;
I want he should div' me a nice 'ittle sed,
With bright shinin' unners, and all painted
red ;
A box full of tandy, a book and a toy.
Amen, and then Desus, I'll be a dood boy."
Their prayers being ended, they raised up
their heads
And with hearts light and cheerful, again
sought their beds.
They were soon lost in slumber, both peace-
ful and deep.
And with fairies in Dreamland were roaming
in sleep.
Eight, nine, and the little French clock had
struck ten.
Ere the father had thought of his children
again,
lie seems now to hear Annie's half suppressed
sighs,
And to see the big tears stand in Willie's
blue eyes.
" I was harsh with my darlings," he mentally
said,
" And should not have sent them so early to
bed;
But then I was troubled ; my feelings found
vent.
For bank stock to-day has gone down ten
per cent.
But of course they've forgotten their troubles
ere this.
ANNIE AND WILLIE'S PRAYER.
397
And that I denied them their thrice-asked-for
kiss ;
But just to make sure, I'll steal up to their
door,
For I never spoke harsh to my darlings
before."
So saying, he softly ascended the stairs.
And arrived at the door to hear both of their
prayers ;
His Annie's " Bless Papa " drew forth tho
big tears.
And Willie's grave promise fell sweet on hin
ears
'Strange — strange — I'd forgotten," said he,
with a sigh,
" How I longed when a child to have Christ-
mas draw nigh. "
' I'll atone for my harshness," he inwardly
said;
" By answering their prayers ere I sleep in
my bed."
Then turned to the stairs and softly went
down,
Threw off velvet slippers and silk dressing-
gown,
Donned hat, coat and boots, and was out in
the street —
A millionaire facing the cold driving sleet !
Nor stopped he until he had bought every-
thing.
From the box full of candy to the tiny gold
ring.
Indeed he kept adding so much to his store,
That the various presents outnumbered a
score ;
Then homeward he turned, when his holiday
load,
With Aunt Mary's help in the nursery was
stowed.
Miss Dolly was seated beneath a pine tree.
By the side of a table spread out for her tea ;
A work-box well filled in the centre was
laid,
And on it the ring for which Annie had
prayed :
A soldier in uniform stood by a sled,
" With bright shining runners and all painted
red."
There were balls, dogs and horses, books
pleasing to see.
And birds of all colors were perched in the
tree ;
While Santa Glaus, laughing, stood up in the
top.
As if getting ready more presents to drop.
And as the fond father the picture surveyed,
He thought for his trouble he had amply
been paid ;
And he said to himself, as he bru.shed off a
tear,
" I'm happier to-night than I've been for a
year ;
I've enjoyed more true pleasure than ever
before.
What care I if bank stock falls ten per cent.
more !
Hereafter, I'll make it a rule, I believe.
To have Santa Glaus visit us each Ghristmas
ev^."
So thinking, he gently extinguished the light.
And, tripping down stairs,- retired for the
night.
As soon as the beams of the bright morning
sun
Put the darkness to flight, and the stars one
by one.
Four little blue eyes out of sleep opened
wide.
And at the same moment the presents espied ;
Then out of their beds they sprang with a
bound,
And the very gifts prayed for were all of
them found.
They laughed and they cried in their inno-
cent glee.
And shouted for papa to come quick and
see
What presents old Santa Glaus brought in the
night,
(Just the things that they wanted), and left
before light :
" And now," added Annie, in voice soft and
low,
" You'll believe there's a ' Santa Glaus,' pf\pa,
I know ;"
While dear little Willie climbed up on his
knee.
Determined no secret between them should
398
BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT.
And told in soft whispers how Annie had
said
And knew just what presents my children
would please.
That their dear blessed mamma, so long ago
dead,
Used to kneel down and pray by the side of
her chair.
And that God up in heaven had answered
(Well, well let him think so, the dear little
elf,
'Twould be cruel to tell him I did it my-
self!"
Blind father ! who caused your stern heart to
her prayer.
" Den we dot up and prayed dust as well as
relent.
And the hasty words spoken, so soon to
we tould,
And Dod answered our nrayers ; now wasn't
repent ?
'Twas the Being who bade you steal softly
He dood ?"
" I should say that He was, if He sent you
all these.
up stairs,
And make you His agent to answer their
prayers.
BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT.
J. G. SAXE.
?T was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind,)
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
The First approached the Elephant,
And, happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl :
" God bless me ! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall !"
The Second, feeling of the tusk.
Cried : " Ho ! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp ?
To me 'tis mighty clear
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY LEAVES DOTHEBOYS' HALL.
399
This wonder of an Elephant
The Sixth no sooner had begun
Is very like a spear !"
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
The Third approached the animal,
That fell within his scope.
And, happening to take
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Is very like a rope !"
Thus boldly up and spake :
" I see," quoth he, " the Elephant
Is very like a snake !"
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
Each in his own opinion
And felt about the knee :
Exceeding stiff and strong,
" "What most this wondrous beast is like
Though each was partly in the right,
Is mighty plain," quoth he ;
And all were in the wrong !
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree! "
MORAL.
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
So, oft in theologic wars
Said : " E'en the blindest man
The disputants, I ween.
Can tell what this resembles most ;
Rail on in utter ignorance
Deny the fact who can.
Of what each other mean,
This marvel of an Elephant
And prate about an Elephant
Is very like a fan !"
Not one of than has seen !
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY LEAVES DOTHEBOYS' HALL.
CHARLES DICKENS.
ffHE news tliat the fugitive had been caught and brought back ran
like wiklfire through the hungry community, and expectation
t''^ ' ^ was on tiptoe all the morning. On tiptoe it remained until the
^ afternoon, when Squeers, having refreshed himself with his dinner
1 and an extra libation or so, made his appearance (accompanied
J by his amiable partner), with a fearful instrument of flagellation,
strong, supple, wax-ended, and new.
'■ Is every boy here ?"
Every boy was there, but every boy was afraid to speak ; so Squeers
glared along the lines to assure himself.
" Each ooy keep his place. Nickleby ! you go to your desk, sir !"
There vas a curious expression in the usher's face ; but he took his
seat, withou J opening his lips in reply. Squeers left the room, and shortly
afterwards returned, dragging Smike by the collar — or rather by that
fragment o^ his jacket which was nearest the place where his collar ought
to have been.
27
400 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY LEAVES DOTHEBOYS' HALL.
" Now, what have you got to ,say for yourself? (Stand a little out of
the way, Mrs. Squeers, my dear; I've hardly got room enough.) "
" Spare me, sir!"
" Oh, that's all you've got to say, is it ? Yes, I'll flog you within an
inch of your life, and spare you that."
One cruel blow had fallen on him, when Nicholas Nickleby cried,
"Stop!"
" Who cried stop ?"
"I did. This must not go on."
" Must not go on !"
" No ! Must not ! Shall not ! I will prevent it ! You have dis-
regarded all my quiet interference in this miserable lad's behalf; you have
returned no answer to the letter in which I begged forgiveness for him,
and offered to be responsible that he would remain quietly here. Don't
blame me for this public interference. You have brought it upon your-
self, not I."
"Sit down, beggar !"
" Wretch, touch him again at your peril ! I will not stand by, and
see it done. My blood is up, and I have the strength of ten such men as
you. By Heaven ! I will not spare you, if you drive me on ! I have a
series of personal insults to avenge, and my indignation is aggravated by
the cruelties practiced in this foul den. Have a care ; for if you raise the
devil in me, the consequences will fall heavily upon your head !"
Squeers, in a violent outbreak, spat at him, and struck him a blow
across the face. Nicholas instantly sprang upon him, wrested his weapon
from his hand, and, pinning him by the throat, beat the ruffian till he
roared for merc3^
fie flung him away with all the force he could muster, and the vio-
lence of his fall precipitated Mrs. Squeers over an adjacent form ; Squeers,
striking his head against the same form in his descent, lay at his full length
on the ground, stunned and motionless.
Having brought affairs to this happy termination, and having ascer-
tained, to his satisfaction, that Squeers was only stunned, and not dead
(upon which point he had some unpleasant doubts at first), Nicholas packed
up a few clothes in a small valise, and, finding that noboly offered to
oppose his progress, marched boldly out by the front door, ani struck into
the road. Then such a cheer arose as the walls of Dotheboys' Hall had
never echoed before, and would never respond to again. AVhen the sound
had died away, the school was empty ; and of the crowd of 1 oys not one
remained.
CLERICAL WIT.
401
A KISS AT THE DOOR.
Vj were standing in the door■waJ^
My little wife and I ;
^'eJ? The golden sun upon her hair
Fell down so silently ;
A small white hand upon my arm -
What could I ask for more
Than the kindly glance of loving ey
As she kissed me at the door?
I know she loves with all her heart
The one who stands beside,
And the years have been so joyous,
Since first I called her bride ;
We've had so much of happiness
Since we met in years before,
But the happiest time of all was when
She kissed me at the door.
Who cares for wealth of land or gold,
For fame or matchless power ?
It does not give the happiness
Of just one little hour
With one who loves me as her life —
She says she loves me more —
And I thought she did this morning,
When she kissed me at the door.
At times it seems that all the world,
With all its wealth of gold,
Is very small and poor indeed,
Compared with what I hold ;
And when the clouds hang grim and dark,
I only think the more
Of one who waits the coming step
To kiss me at the door.
If she lives till age shall scatter
Its frosts upon her head,
I know she'll love me just the same
As the morning we were wed ;
But if the angels call her,
And she goes to heaven before,
I shall know her when I meet her, —
For she'll kiss me at the door.
CLERICAL WIT,
missionary had
And hardships and privations oft
had seen.
While wandering far on lone and
desert strands.
Aweary traveler in benighted lands,
Would often picture to his little flock
The terrors of the gibbet and the block ;
IIow martyrs suffer'd in the ancient times,
And what men suffer now in other climes ;
And though his words were eloquent and
deep.
His hearers oft indulged themselves in sleep.
He marked with sorrow each unconscious nod.
Within the portals of the house of God,
And once this new expedient thought he'd
take
In his discourse, to keep the rogues awake —
Said he, " While traveling in a distant state,
I witness'd scenes which I will here relate :
'Twas in a deep, uncultivated wild.
Where noontide glory scarcely ever smiled ;
Where wolves in hours of midnight darkness
howl'd —
Where bears frequented, and where panthers
prowl'd ;
And, on my word, mosquitoes there were
found.
Many of which, I think, would weigh a
pound !
More fierce and ravenous than the hungry
shark —
They oft were known to climb the trees and
hark ! "
The audience seem'd taken by surprise —
All started up and rubbed their wondering
i02
THE MURDERED TRAVELER.
At such a tale they all were much amazed,
Each drooping lid was in an instant raised,
And we must say, in keeping heads erect,
It had its destined and desired efioct.
But tales like this credulity appall'd ;
Next day, the deacons on the pastor call'd,
And begg'd to know how he could ever tell
The foolish falsehoods from his lips that fell.
' Why, sir," said one, " think what a mons-
trous weight !
Were they as large as you wore pleased to
state ?
You said they'd weigh a pound! It can't be
true ;
We'll not believe it, though 'tis told by you ! ''
" Ah, but it is ! " the parson quick replied ;
"In what I stated you may well confide;
Many, I said, sir — and the story's good —
Indeed I think that many of them would ! "
The deacon saw at once that he was 'laught,
Yet deem'd himself relieved, on second
thought.
" But then the harking — think of that, good
man ;
Such monstrous lies! Explain it if you can !"
" Why, that, my friend, I can explain with
ease —
They climbed the bark, sir, when they diinhcd
the trees!"
THE POETS REWARD.
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
l^j^HANKS untraced to lips unknown
^M| Shall greet me like the odors blown
?^^^ From unseen meadows newly mown,
"*^^^ Or lilies floating in some pond.
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond ;
The traveler owns the grateful sense
Of sweetness near, he knows not
whence.
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare
The benediction of the air.
THE MURDERED TRAVELER.
WILLIAM C. BRYANT.
^pIIEN spring, to woods and wastes
around,
Brought bloom and joy again ;
The murdered traveler's bones were
found,
Far down a narrow glen.
The fragrant birch, above him, hung
Her tassels in the sky ;
And many a vernal blossom sprung,
And nodded careless by.
The red bird warbled, as ho wrought
His hanging nest o'erhcad ;
And fearless, near the fatal spot.
Her young the partridge led.
But there was weeping far away,
And gentle eyes, for him,
With watching many an anxious day.
Were sorrowful and dim.
They little knew, who loved him so,
The fearful death he met,
When shouting o'er the desert snow,
Unarmed and hard beset;
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
403
Nor how, when round the frosty pole,
The northern dawn was red,
The mountain-wolf and wild-cat stole
To banquet on the dead;
But long they looked, and feared, and wept,
Within his distant home ;
And dreamed, and started as they slept.
For joy that he was come.
Nor how, when strangers found his bones.
They dressed the hasty bier.
And marked his grave with nameless stones,
Unmoistened by a tear.
Long, long they looked— but never spied
His welcome step again.
Nor knew the fearful death he died
Far down that narrow glen.
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
^pOOD morning, Doctor; how do you do? I haint quite so well as I
1^ have been ; but I think I'm some better than I was. I don't think
"^^^ that last medicine you gin me did me much good. I had a terrible
404 THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
time with the ear-ache last night ; my wife got up and drapt a few drapa
of walnut sap into it, and that relieved it some; but I didn't get a wink
of sleep till nearly daylight. For nearly a week, Doctor, I've had the worst
kind of a narvous headache; it has been so bad sometimes that I thought
my head would bust open. Oh, dear! I sometimes think that I'm the
most afflictedest human that ever lived.
Since this cold weather sot in, that troublesome cough, that I have
had every winter for the last fifteen year, has began to pester me agin.
[Coughs) Doctor, do you think you can give me anything that will relieve
this desprit pain I have in my side ?
Then I have a crick at times, in the back of my neck, so that I can't
turn my head without turning the hull of my body. {Coughs.)
Oh, dear ! what shall I do ! I have consulted almost every doctor in
the country, but they don't any of them seem to understand my case. I
have tried everything that I could think of; but I can't find anything that
does me the leastest good. [Coughs)
Oh this cough— it will be the death of me yet! You know I had my
right hip put out last fall at the rising of Deacon Jones' saw mill; it's
getting to be very troublesome just before we have a change of weather.
Then I've got the sciatica in my right knee, and sometimes I'm so crippled
up that I can hardly crawl round in any fashion.
What do you think that old white mare of ours did while I was out
plowing last week? Why, the weacked old critter, she kept a backing and
backing, on till she back'd me right up agin the colter, and knock'd a
piece of skin off my shin nearly so big. [Coughs.)
But I had a worse misfortune than that the other day, Doctor. You
see it was washing-day — and my wife wanted me to go out and bring in a
little stove-wood — you know we lost our help lately, and ray wife has to
wash and tend to everything about the house herself.
I knew it wouldn't be safe for me to go out — as it was a raining at
the time — but I thought I'd risk it anyhow. So I went out, pick'd up a few
chunks of stove-wood, and was a coming up the steps into the house, when
my feet slipp'd from under me, and I fell down as sudden as if I'd been shot.
Some of the wood lit upon my face, broke down the bridge of my nose,
cut my upper lip, and knock'd out three of my front teeth. I suffered
dreadfully on account of it, as you may suppose, and my face aint well
enough yet to make me fit to be seen, specially by the women folks.
[Coughs.) Oh, dear! but that ain't all, Doctor, I've got fifteen corns
on my toes — and I'm afeard I'm a going to have the "yallar jandars."
[Coughs)
FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY.
405
THE VAUDOIS TEACHER.
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
_^^ -
" ^^^H, lady fair, these silks of mine
Srajl Are beautiful and rare,
^=^^ The richest web of the Indian loom,
"^Y Which beauty's queen might wear,
•r And these pearls are pure and mild
J to behold.
And with radiant light they vie ;
I have brought them with me a weary way,
Will my gentle lady buy ? "
And the lady smiled on the worn old man.
Through the dark and clustering curls,
Which veiled her brow as she bent to view
His silks and glittering pearls ;
And she placed their price in the old man's
hand,
And lightly turned awaj' ;
But she paused at the wanderer's earnest
call,
" My gentle lady, stay ! "
" Oh, lady fair, I have yet a gem
Which a purer lustre flings
Than the diamond flash of the jeweled
crown
On the lofty brow of kings ;
A wonderful pearl of exceeding price.
Whose virtue shall not decay ;
Whose light shall be as a spell to thee,
And a blessing on thy way ! "
The lady glanced at the mirroring steel
Where her form of grace was seen.
Where her eyes shone clear and her dark locks
waved
Their clasping pearls between.
" Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth,
Thou traveler gray and old ;
And name the price of thy precious gem.
And my pages shall count thy gold."
The cloud went ofi' from the pilgrim's brow.
As a small and meagre book,
Unchased with gold or gem of cost,
From his folding robe he took.
" Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price;
May it prove as such to thee !
Nay, keep thy gold ; I ask it not ;
For the Word of God is free."
The hoary traveler went his way ;
But the gift he left behind
Hath had its pure and perfect work
On that high-born maiden's mind ;
And she hath turned from the pride of sin
To the lowliness of truth,
And given her human heart to God,
In its beautiful hour of youth.
And she hath left the gray old halls
Where an evil faith had power ;
The courtly knights of her father's train.
And the maidens of her bower;
And she hath gone to the Vaudois vales,
By lordly feet untrod,
Where the poor and needy of earth are ricli
In the perfect love of God.
FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY.
THOMAS HOOD.
?EN BATTLE was a soldier bold,
And used to war's alarms ;
But a cannon-ball took off his l
So he laiil down his arms.
Now as they bore him off the field.
Said he, " Let others shoot ;
For here I have my second leg,
And the Forty-second Foot."
406
JOHN MAYNARD.
Tlie army-surgeons made him limbs;
And now you cannot wear your shoes
Said he, " They're only pegs ;
Upon your feats of arms !"
But there's as wooden members quite,
As represent my legs."
" false and fickle Nellie Gray !
I know why you refuse ;
Now Ben he loved a pretty maid,—
Though I've no feet, some other man
Her name was Nelly Gray ;
Is standing in my shoes.
So he went to pay her his devours,
When he devoured his pay.
" I wish I ne'er had seen your face ;
But, now, a long farewell !
But when he called on Nelly Gray ;
For you will be my death ; — alas !
She made him quite a scoff ;
You will not be my Nell !"
And when she saw his wooden legs,
Began to take them off.
Now when he went from Nelly Gray
His heart so heavy got.
*• Nelly Gray ! Nelly Gray !
A nd life was such a burden grown,
Is this your love so warm ?
It made him take a knot.
The love that loves a scarlet coat
Should be more uniform."
So round his melancholy neck
A rope he did intwine,
Said she, " I loved a soldier once,
And, for his second time in life,
For he was blithe and brave ;
Enlisted in the line.
But I will never have a man
With both legs in the grave.
One end he tied around a beam.
And then removed his pegs ;
" Before you had those timber toes
And, as his legs were off, — of course
Your love I did allow ;
He soon was off his legs.
But then, you know, you stand upon
Another footing now."
And there he hung till he was dead
As any nail in town ;
" Nelly Gray ! Nelly Gray !
For, though distress had cut him up.
For all your jeering speeches,
It could not cut him down.
At duty's call I left my legs
In Badajos's breaches."
A dozen men sat on his corpse,
To find out why he died,—
" Why, then," said she, " you've lost the feet
And they buried Ben in four cross-roads,
Of legs in war's alarms.
With a stake in his inside.
JOHN MA YNARD.
.^1^
H. ALGER. JR.
|r"^
WAS on Lake Erie's broad expanse.
One bright midsummer day.
The gallant steamer Ocean Queen
Swept proudly on her way.
Bright faces clustered on the deck.
Or leaning o'er the side.
Watched carelessly the feathery foam.
That flecked the rippling t'de.
Ah, who beneath that cloudless sky,
That smiling bends serene.
Could dream that danger, awful, vast,
Impended o'er the scene —
Could dream that ere an hour had sped.
That frame of sturdy oak
Would sink beneath the lake's blue waves,
Blackened with fire and smoke?
JOHN MAYNARD
407
A seaman sought the captain s side,
A moment whispered low ,
The captain's swarthy face grew pale,
He hurried down below
Alas, too late ! Though quick and sharp
And clear his orders came,
No human eflfort could avail
To quench the insidious flame-
The bad news quickly reached the deck,
It sped from lip to lip,
And ghastly faces everywhere
Looked from the doomed ship.
" Is there no hope — no chance of life ?"
A hundred lips implore :
" But one,'' the captain made reply,
" To run the ship on shore."
No terror pales the helmsman's cheek,
Or clouds his dauntless eye.
As in a sailor's measured tone
His voice responds, " Ay, Ay !'
Three hundred souls. — the steamer's freight
Crowd forward wild with fear.
While at the stern the dreadful flames
Above the deck appear.
John Maynard watched the nearing
But still with steady hand
He grasped the wheel and steadfastly
He steered the ship to land.
j "John Maynard," with an anxious voice
I The captain cries once more,
I " Stand by the wheel five minutes yet,
And we will reach the shore.''
A sailor, whose heroic soul
That hour should yet reveal —
By name John Maynard, eastern born.
Stood calmly at the wheel.
■' Head her southeast'' the captain shouts,
Above the smothered roar
" Head her southeast without delay !
Make for the nearest shore !''
Through flames and smoke that dauntless
heart
Responded firmly, still
Unawed, though face to face with death,
" With God's good help I will!"
The flames approach with giant strides,
They scorch his hands and brow ;
408
WASHINGTON'S ADDRESS TO HIS TROOPS.
One arm disabled seeks his side,
Ah, he*8 conquered now !
But no, his teeth are firmly set.
He crushes down the pain, —
His knee upon the staunchion pr(
He guides the ship again.
One moment yet ! one moment yet !
Brave heart thy task is o'er !
The pebbles grate beneath the keel.
The steamer touches shore.
Three hundred gratefiiv voices rise.
In praise to God that He
Ilath saved them from the fearful fire,
And from the engulfing sea.
But where is he, that helmsman bold ?
The captain saw him reel —
His nerveless hands released their task,
He sunk beside the wheel.
The waves received his lifeless corpse,
Blackened with smoke and fire.
God rest him i Hero never had
A nobler funeral pyre !
WASHINGTON'S ADDRESS TO HIS TROOPS.
BEFORE THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND, 1776.
IpIifHE time is now near at hand, which must probably determine whether
^1^ Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have
"^^W^ any property they can call their own ; whether their houses and
■r farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned
J to a state of wretchedness, from which no human efforts will deliver
them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the
courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy
leaves us only the choice of a brave resistance, or the most abject sub-
mission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or to die.
Our own, our country's honour, calls upon us for a vigorous and
manly exertion ; and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous
to the whole world. Let us, then, rely on the goodness of our cause, and
the aid of the Supreme Being, in whose hands victory is, to animate and
encourage us to great and noble actions. The eyes of all our countrymen
are now upon us, and we shall have their blessings and praises, if happily
we are the instruments of saving them from the tyranny m.editated against
them. Lot us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the
whole world, that a freeman contending for liberty on his own ground, is
superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.
Liberty, property, life, and hoDour are all at stake ; upon your cou-
rage and conduct rest the hopes of our bleeding and insulted country ; our
wives, children, and parents expect safety from us only ; and they have
every reason to believe that Heaven will crown with success so just a
cause.
A SNOW-STORM.
409
The enemy will endeavor to intimidate by show and appearance ;
but remember they have been repulsed on various occasions by a few brave
Americans. Their cause is bad — their men are conscious of it ; and, ii
opposed with firmness and coolness on their first onset, with our advantage
of works and knowledge of the ground, the victory is most assuredly ours.
Every good soldier will be silent and attentive — wait for orders — and re-
serve his fire until he is sure of doino; execution.
A SNOW-STOBM.
CHAELES G. EASTMAN.
|1^ IS a fearful night in the winter time,
As cold as it ever can be ;
The roar of the blast is heard, like
the chime
Of the waves on an angry sea ;
The moon is full, but her silver light
The storm dashes out with its wings
to-night ;
And over the sky from south to north
Not a star is seen, as the wind esmes forth
In the strength of a mighty glee.
II.
All day had the snow come down — all day,
As it never came down before ;
And over the hills, at sunset, lay
Some two or three feet, or more ;
The fence was lost, and the wall of stone.
410
A SNOW-STORM.
The windows blocked, and the well-curbs
gone;
The haystack had grown to a mountain lift,
And the wood-pile looked like a monster drift.
As it lay by the farmer's door.
The night sets in on a world of snow.
While the air grows sharp and chill,
And the warning roar of a fearful blow
Is heard on the distant hill ;
And the Norther ! See — on the mountain peak,
In his breath how the old trees writhe and
shriek.
He shouts on the plain. Ho, ho ! Ho, ho !
He drives from his nostrils the blinding snow.
And growls with a savage will.
Ilis nose is pressed on his quivering feet ;
Pray, what does the dog do there ?
A farmer came from the village plain,
But he lost the traveled way ;
And for hours he trod, with might and main,
A path for his horse and sleigh ;
But colder still the cold wind blew,
And deeper still the deep drifts grew,
And his mare, a beautiful Morgan brown.
At last in her struggles floundered down.
Where a log in a hollow lay.
In vain, with a neigh and a frenzied snort,
She plunged in the drifting snow.
While her master urged, till his breath grew
short,
-A. \
III.
Such a night as this to be found abroad.
In the drifts and the freezing air,
Sits a shivering dog in the field by the road,
With the snow in his shaggy hair !
He shuts his eyes to the wind, and growls ;
lie lifts his head, and moans and howls ;
Then crouching low from the cutting sleet,
With a word and a gentle blow ;
But the snow was deep, and the tugs were
tight.
His hands were numb, and had lost their
might ;
So he wallowed back to his half-filled sleigh.
And strove to shelter himself till day.
With his coat and the buffalo.
WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE PROUD?
411
IV.
He has given the last faint jerk of the rein
To rouse up his dying steed,
And the poor dog howls to the blast in vain,
For help in his master's need ;
For a while he strives, with a wistful cry,
To catch a glance from his drowsy eye.
And wags his tail if the rude winds flap
The skirt of the buffalo over his lap.
And whines when he takes no heed.
V.
The wind goes down, and the storm is o'er ;
'Tis the hour of midnight past ;
The old trees writhe and bend no more
In the whirl of the rushing blast ;
The silent moon, with her peaceful light,
Looks down on the hills, with snow all white;
And the giant shadow of Camel's Hump,
The blasted pine and the ghostly stump,
Afar on the plain are cast.
But cold and dead, by the hidden log,
Are they who came from the town :
The man in his sleigh, and his faithful dog,
And his beautiful Morgan brown —
In the wide snow-desert, far and grand.
With his cap on his head, and the reins in
his hand.
The dog with his nose on his master's feet.
And the mare half seen through the crusted
sleet.
Where she lay when she floundered down.
WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE PROUD?
WILLIAM KNOX.
President Lincoln's Favorite Poem.
why should the spirit of mortal be
proud ?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-
flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of
the wave,
Man passeth from life to his rest in
the grave.
The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around and together be laid ;
And the voung and the old, the low and the
high
Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie.
The infant a mother attended and loved ;
The mother that infant's affection who proved ;
The hu?;band that mother and infant who
blessed, —
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.
The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in
whose eye.
Shone beauty and pleasure, — her triumphs
are by ;
And the memory of those who loved her and
praised
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.
The hand of the king that the sceptre hath
borne ;
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath
worn ;
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave.
Are hidden and lost in the depth of the grave.
The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap ;
The herdsman who climbed with his goats up
the steep ;
The beggar who wandered in search of his
bread.
Have faded awaj^ like the grass that we tread.
The saint who enjoyed the communion of
heaven ;
The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven;
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the
dust.
412
CAUGHT IN THE MAELSTROM.
So the nmltitude goes, like the flowers or the
weed
That withers away to let othSrs succeed ;
So the multitude comes, even those we be-
hold,
To repeat every tale that has often been
told.
For we are the same our fathers have been ;
We see the same sights our fathers have
seen ;
We drink the same stream, and view the
same sun.
And run the same course our fathers have
run.
The thoughts we are thinking our fathers
would think ;
From the death we are shrinking our fathers
would shrink ;
To the life we are clinging they also would
cling ;
But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the
wing.
They loved, but the story we cannot unfold ;
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty
is cold ;
They grieved, but no wail from their slum-
bers will come ;
They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness
is dumb.
They died, aye ! they died ; and we things
that are now.
Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow.
Who make in their dwelling a transient
abode,
Meet the things that they met on their pil-
grimage road.
Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and
pain.
We mingle together in sunshine and rain ;
And the smiles and the tears, the song and
the dirge.
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.
'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a
breath.
From the blossom of health to the paleness
of death.
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the
shroud, —
Oh ! why should the spirit of mortal be
proud ?
CA UGHT IN THE MAELSTROM.
CHARLES A. WILEY.
|j|j^N the Arctic ocean near the coast of Norway is situated the famous
W^ Maelstrom or whirlpool Many are the goodly ships that have been
& caught in its circling power, and plunged into the depths below. On
t a fine spring morning, near the shore opposite, are gathered a com-
J pany of peasants. The winter and the long night have passed away ;
and, in accordance with their ancient custom, tliey are holding a greeting
to the return of the sunlight, and the verdure of spring. Under a green
shade are spread, in abundance, all the luxuries their pleasant homes could
afford. In the grove at one side are heard the strains of music, and the
light step of the dance.
At the shore lies a beautiful boat, and a party near are preparing for
a ride. Soon all things are in readiness, and, amid the cheers of their
CAUGHT IN THE MAELSTROM. 413
companions on shore, they push gayly away. The day is beautiful, and
they row on, and on. Weary, at length, they drop their oars to rest; but
they perceive their boat to be still moving. Somewhat surprised, — soon
it occurs to them that they are under the influence of the whirlpool.
Moving slowly and without an effort — presently faster, at length the
boat glides along with a movement far more delightful than with oars.
Their friends from the shore perceive the boat moving, and see no working
of the oars ; it flashes upon their minds that they are evidently within the
circles of the maelstrom. When the boat comes near they call to them,
" Beware of the whirlpool ! " But they laugh at fear, — they are too happy
to think of returning : " When we see there is danger then we will return."
Oh) that some good angel would come with warning unto them, " Unless ye
noio turn back ye cannot be saved." Like as the voice of God comes to the
soul of the impenitent, " Unless ye mend your ways ye cannot be saved."
The boat is now going at a fearful rate ; but, deceived by the moving
waters, they are unconscious of its rapidity. They hear the hollow
rumbling at the whirlpool's centre. The voices from the shore are no
longer audible, but every effort is being used to warn them of their danger.
They now, for the first time, become conscious of their situation, and head
the boat towards shore. But, like a leaf in the autumn gale, she quivers
under the power of the whirlpool. Fear drives them to frenzy ! Two of
the strongest seize the oars, and ply them with all their strength, and the
boat moves towards the shore. With joy they cherish hope ! and some, for
the first time in all their lives, now give thanks to God, — that they are saved.
But suddenly, crash, goes an oar ! and such a shriek goes up from that
ill-fated band, as can only be heard when a spirit lost, drops into perdition !
The boat whirls again into its death-marked channel, and skips on
with the speed of the wind. The roar at the centre grinds on their ears,
like the grating of prison doors on the ears of the doomed. Clearer, and
more deafening is that dreadful roar, as nearer and still nearer the
vessel approaches the centre ; then whirling for a moment on that awful
brink, she plunges with her freight of human souls into that dreadful
yawning hollow, where their bodies shall lie in their watery graves till the
sea gives up its dead !
And so, every year, ay, every month, thousands, passing along in
the boat of life, enter almost unaware the fatal circles of the wine-cup.
And, notwithstanding the earnest voices of anxious friends, "Beware of
the gutter ! of the grave ! of hell ! " they continue their course until the
■''force of habit" overpowers them ; and, cursing and shrieking, they whirl
for a time on the crater of the maelstrom, and are plunged beiow.
414
THE FIRST PARTY.
WIIW AND RAIN.
RICHARD H. STODDARD.
\TTLE the window, Winds !
Rain, drip on the panes !
"^^3^ There are tears and siglis in our
hearts and eyes,
And a weary weight on our brains.
The gray sea heaves and heaves,
On the dreary flats of sand ;
And the blasted limb of the churchyard yew,
It shakes like a ghostly hand !
The dead are engulfed beneath it,
Sunk in the grassy waves;
But we have more dead in our hearts to-day
Than the Earth in all her graves!
THE FIRST PARTY.
JOSEPHINE POLLARD.
jISS Annabel McCarty
Was invited to a party,
" Your company from four to ten,"
the invitation said ;
And the maiden was delighted
To think she was invited
To sit up till the hour when the big
folks went to bed.
The crazy little midget
Ran and told the news to Bridget,
Who clapped her hands, and danced a jig, to
Annabel's delight, i
And said, with accents hearty, i
" 'Twill be the swatest party
If ye're there yerself, me darlint ! I wish it
was to-night!"
The great display of frilling
Was positively killing ;
And, oh, the little booties ! and the lovely
sash so wide !
And the gloves so very cunning ■.
She was altogether " stunning,"
And the whole McCarty family regarded her
with pride.
They gave minute directions,
With copious interjections
Of " sit up straight !" and " don't do this or
that — 'twould be absurd !"
But, what with their caressing,
And the agony of dressing.
Miss Annabel McCarty didn't hear a single
word.
There was music, there was dancing.
And the sight was most entrancing,
As if fairyland and floral band were holding
jubilee;
There was laughing, there was pouting ;
There was singing, there was shouting ;
And old and young together made a carnival
of glee.
Miss Annabel McCarty
Was the youngest at the party.
And every one remarked that she was beau-
tifully dressed ;
Like a doll she sat demurely
On the sofa, thinking surely
It would never do for her to run and frolic
with the rest.
The noise kept growing louder ;
The naughty boys would crowd her ;
" I think you're very rude indeed !" the little
lady said ;
And then, without a warning,
Her home instructions scorning,
She screamed : " 1 want my supper — and 1
want to go to bed I"
THE SEA-SHORE AND THE MOUNTAINS.
415
Now big folks who are older,
Need not laugh at her, nor scold hor,
For doubtless, if the truth were known, we've
often felt inclined
To leave the ball or party,
As did Annabel McCarty,
Bnt we hadn't half the courage and we
couldn't speak our mind !
THE SEA-SHORE AND THE MOUNTAINS.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
^ HAVE lived by the sea-shore and by the mountains. No, I am not
1^ going to say which is best. The one where your place is, is the best
A for you. But this difference is : you can domesticate mountains,
t but the sea is fercB naturcc. You may have a hut, or know the owner
1 of one, on the mountain-side ; you see a light half-way up its ascent
in the evening, and you know there is a home, and you might share
it, You have noted certain trees, perhaps ; you know the particular zone
where the hemlocks look so black in October, when the maples and beeches
have faded. All its reliefs and intaglios have electro typed themselves in
the medallions that hang round the walls of your memory's chamber. The
sea remembers nothing. It is feline. It licks your feet, — its huge flanks
purr very pleasantly for you ; but it will crack your bones and eat you,
for all that, and wipe the crimsoned foam from its jaws as if nothing had
happened. The mountains give their lost children berries and water ; the
sea mocks their thirst and lets them die. The mountains have a grand,
stupid, lovable tranquillity ; the sea has a fascinating, treacherous intelli-
gence. The mountains lie about like huge ruminants, their broad backs
awful to look upon, but safe to handle. The sea smooths its silver scales
28
416
THE BAREFOOT BOY.
until you cannot see their joints, — but their shining is that of a snake's
belly, after all. In deeper suggestiveness I find as great a difference. The
mountains dwarf mankind and foreshorten the procession of its long gene-
rations. The sea drowns out humanity and time ; it has no sympathy with
either ; for it belongs to eternity, and of that it sings its monotonous song
for ever and ever.
Yet I should love to have a little box by the sea-shore. I should
love to gaze out on the wild feline element from a front window of my own,
just as. I should love to look on a caged panther, and see it stretch its
shining length, and then curl over and lap its smooth sides, and by-and-by
begin to lash itself into rage, and show its white teeth, and spring at its
bars, and howl the cry of its mad, but, to me, harmless fury.
THE BAREFOOT BOY.
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
U^LESSINGS on thee, little man,
^ra| Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan !
rWith thy turned up pantaloons.
And thy merry whistled tunes ;
With thy red lip, redder still
6 Kissed by strawberries on the hill ;
•k- With the sunshine on thy face.
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace!
From my heart I give thee joy ;
I was once a barefoot boy.
Prince thou art — the grown-up man,
Only is republican.
Let the million-doUared ride!
Barefoot, trudging at his side.
Thou hast more than he can buy,
In the reach of ear and eye :
Outward sunshine, inward joy,
Blessings on the barefoot boy.
! for boyhood's painless play.
Sleep that wakes in laughing day,
Health that mocks the doctor's rules.
Knowledge never learned of schools :
Of the wild bee's morning chase,
Of the wild flower's time and place,
Flight of fowl, and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood ;
How the tortoise bears his shell.
How the woodchuck digs his cell.
And the ground-mole sinks his well;
How the robin feeds her young,
How the oriole's nest is hung ;
Where the whitest lilies blow.
Where the freshest berries grow,
Where the ground-nut trails its vine.
Where the wood-grape's clusters shine \
Of the black wasp's cunning way,
Mason of his walls of clay.
And the architectural plans
Of gray hornet artisans !
For, eschewing books and tasks,
Nature answers all he asks ;
Hand in hand with her he walks,
Part and parcel of her joy,
Blessings on the barefoot boy.
for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw.
Me, their master, waited for I
1 was rich in flowers and trees,
Humming-birds and honey-bees ;
For my sport the squirrel played,
Plied the snouted mole his spade ;
Blessings on thee, little man."
LINES ON A SKELETON.
417
For my taste the blackberry cone
Purpled over hedge and stone ;
Langhed the brook for my delight,
Through the day, and through the night :
Whispering at the garden wall,
Talked with me from fall to fall ;
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond.
Mine the walnut slopes beyond.
Mine, on bending orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides !
Still, as my horizon grew.
Larger grew my riches too.
All the world I saw or knew
Seemed a complex Chinese toy.
Fashioned for a barefoot boy !
0, for festal dainties spread.
Like my bowl of milk and bread,
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood,
On the door-stone, gray and rude !
O'er me like a regal tent.
Cloudy ribbed, the sunset bent.
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swung fold ;
While for music came the play
Of the pied frogs' orchestra ;
And, to light the noisy choir,
Lit the fly his lamp of fire.
I was monarch ; pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy !
Cheerily, then, my little man !
Live and laugh as boyhood can ;
Though the flinty slopes be hard,
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,
Every morn shall lead thee through
Fresh baptisms of the dew ;
Every evening from thy feet
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat ;
All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison cells of pride.
Lose the freedom of the sod,
Like a colt's for work be shod,
Made to tread the mills of toil.
Up and down in ceaseless moil,
Happy if their track be found
Never on forbidden ground ;
Happy if they sink not in
Quick and treacherous sands of sin.
Ah ! that thou couldst know thy joy,
Ere it passes, barefoot boy '
LINES ON A SKELETON.
!EH0LD this ruin ! 'tis a skull.
Once of ethereal spirit full!
This narrow cell was life's retreat,
This space was thought's mysterious
seat.
What beauteous pictures filled this
epot —
What dreams of pleasure, long forgot 1
Nor grief, nor joy, nor hope, nor fear.
Has left one trace of record there.
Beneath this mouldering canopy
Once shone the bright and busy eye :
Yet start not at that dismal void ;
If social love thaj- eye employed.
If with no lawless fire it gleamed.
But through the dew of kindness beamed,
That eye shall be forever bright
When stars and sun have lost their light.
Here, in this silent cavern, hung
The ready, swift, and tuneful tongue;
If falsehood's honey it disdained.
And, when it could not praise, wa
chained :
If bold in virtue's cause it spoke.
Yet gentle concord never broke,
j That tuneful tongue shall plead for thee
When death unveils eternity.
Say, did these fingers delve the mine.
Or with its envied rubies shine ?
To hew the rock or wear the gem.
Can nothing now avail to them :
But if the page of truth they sought.
And comfort to the mourner brought,
These hands a richer meed shall claim
Than all that waits on wealth or fame!
418
YAWCOB STRAUSS.
Avails it wliether bare or shod
Those feet the path of duty trod ?
If from the bower of joy they sped
To soothe affliction's humble bed ;
If grandeur's guilty bribe they spurned,
And home to virtue's lap returned,
Those feet with angel wings shall vie,
And tread the palace of the sky !
THE EBB-TIDE.
R. SOUTHEY.
I^LOWLY thy flowing tide
jj^l Came in, old Avon ! Scarcely did mine
eyes,
As watchfully I roamed thy green-
wood side.
Perceive its gentle rise.
With many a stroke and strong
The laboring boatmen upward plied their
oars ;
Yet little way they made, tho' laboring long
Between thy winding shores.
Now down thine ebbing tide
The unlabored boat falls rapidly along ;
The solitary helmsman sits to guide,
And sings an idle song.
Now o'er the rocks that lay
So silent late the shallow current roars ;
Fast flow thy waters on their seaward way,
Through wider-spreading shores.
Avon, I gaze and know
The lesson emblemed m thy varying way ;
It speaks of human joys that rise so slow,
So rapidly decay.
Kingdoms which long have stood
And slow to strength and power attained at
last,
Thus from the summit of high Fortune's
flood.
They ebb to ruin fast.
Thus like thy flow appears
Time's tardy course to manhood's envied stage.
Alas ! how burryingly the ebbing years
Then hasten to old age !
YAWCOB STRAUSS.
CHARLES F. ADAMS.
HAF von funny leedle poy,
Vot gomes schust to mine knee ;
Der queerest schap, der Greatest rogue,
As efer you dit see.
He runs, und schumps, und schmashes
dings
In all barts ofi" der house :
vot oS" dot? he vas mine son,
[ine leedle Yawcob Strauss.
lie get der measles und der mumbs
Und eferyding dot's oudt;
He sbills mine glass off lager bier,
Boots schnuff indo mine kraut.
He fills mine pipe mit Limburg Ghee?e,-
Dot vas der roughest chouse :
I'd dake dot vrom no oder poy
But leedle Yawcob Strauss.
YAWCOB STRAUSS.
419
He dakes der milk-ban for a dhrum,
Und cuts mine cane in dwo,
To make der schticks to beat it mit, —
Mine cracious dot vas drue !
Und vhere der plaze goes vrom der lamp
Vene'er der glim I douse.
How gan I all dose dings epgsblam
To dot schmall Yawcob Strauss ?
^^^v^:s^-
I dinks mine hed vas schplit abart,
He kicks oup sooch a touse :
But nefer mind ; der poys vas few
Like dot young Yawcob Strauss.
He asks me questions sooch as dese :
Who baints mine nose so red ?
Who vas it cut dot schmoodth blace oudt
Vrom der hair ubon mine hed ?
I somedimes dink I schall go vild
Mit sooch a grazy poy,
Und vish vonce more I gould haf reet,
Und beaceful dimes enshoy ;
But ven he vas ashleep in ped,
So guiet as a mouse,
I prays der Lord, " Dake anyding,
But leaf dot Yawcob Strauss."
420 ARTEMUS WARD VISITS THE SHAKERS.
ARTEMUS WARD VISITS THE SHAKERS.
CHARLES F. BROWN.
Jl^R. SHAKER," sed I, "you see before you a Babe in the Woods,
so to speak, and he axes a shelter of you."
"Yay," said the Shaker, and he led the way into the
house, another bein sent to put my horse and wagon under
kiver.
A solum female, lookin somewhat like a last year's bean-pole
stuck into a long meal-bag, cum in and axed me was I athirst and did I
hunger ? To which I asserted, " A few." She went orf, and I endeavored
to open a conversation with the old man.
" Elder, I spect," sed I.
" Yay," he said.
"Health's good, I reckon?"
"Yay."
"What's the wages of a Elder, when he understands his bizness — or
do you devote your sarvices gratooitous ?"
"Yay."
" Storm nigh, sir ?"
"Yay."
" If the storm continues there'll be a mess underfoot, hay ?"
"Yay."
" If I may be so bold, kind sir, what's the price of that pecooler kind
of wesket you wear, includin trimmins ?"
"Yay."
I pawsed a minit, and, thinkin I'd be faseshus with him and see how
that would go, I slapt him on the shoulder, burst into a hearty larf, and
told him that as a yayer he had no living ekel.
He jumped up as if bilin water had been squirted into his ears,
groaned, rolled his eyes up tords the sealin and sed :
"You're a man of sin!"
He then walked out of the room.
Directly thar cum in two young Shakeresses, as putty and slick
lookin galls as I ever met. It is troo they was drest in meal-bags like the
old one I'd met previsly, and their shiny, silky hair was hid from sight by
long, white caps, such as I spose female gosts wear; but their eyes spar-
kled like diamonds, their cheeks was like roses, and they was charmin enuff
THE LAND 0" THE LEAL.
421
to make a man throw stuns at his grandmother, if they axed him to. They
commenst clearing away the dishes, casting shy glances at me all the time.
I got excited. I forgot Betsey Jane in my rapter, and sez I,
" My pretty dears, how air you ?"
" We air well," they solumly sed.
"Where is the old man?" said I, in a soft voice.
"Of whom dost thou speak — Brother Uriah?"
"I mean that gay and festive cuss who calls me a man of sin.
Shouldn't wonder if his name wasn't Uriah."
"He has retired."
"Wall, my pretty dears," sez I, "let's have some fun. Let's play puss
in the corner. What say ?"
"Air you a Shaker, sir?" they asked.
"Wall, my pretty dears, I haven't arrayed my proud form in a long
weskit yet, but if they wus all like you perhaps I'd jine 'em. As it is, I
am willing to be Shaker protemporary."
They was full of fun. I seed that at fust, only they was a little
skeery. I tawt 'em puss in the corner, "and sich like plase, and we had a
nice time, keepin quiet of course, so that the old man shouldn't hear.
When we broke up, sez I :
"My pretty dears, ear I go, you have no objections have you? to a
innersent kiss at partin ?"
" Yay," they said, and I — yayed.
THE LAND 0' THE LEAL.
LADY NAIRNE.
'M wear in' awa', Jean,
Like snow in a thaw, Jean ; —
I'm wearin' awa
To the Land o' the Leal.
There's nae sorrow there, Jean ;
I There's neither cauld nor care, Jean,
1 The day is ever fair
In the Land o' the Leal.
You've been leal and true, Jean ;
Your task's ended now, Jean !
And I'll welcome you
To the Land o' the Leal.
Then dry that tearfu' ee, Jean !
My soul langs to be free, Jean ;
And angels wait on me
To the Land o' the Leal.
Our bonnie bairn's there, Joan,
She was baith gude and fair, Jean ;
And we grudged her sair
To the Land o' the Leal !
But sorrow's sel' wears past, Jean,
And joy's a-comin' fast, Jean :
The joy that's aye to last.
In the Land o' the Leal
422
THE OWL.
A' our friends are gane, Jean ;
We've lang been left alane, Jean ;
We'll a' meet again
In the Land o' the Leal.
Now, fare ye weel, my ain Jean
This world's care is vain, Jean ;
We'll meet, an' ay' be fain,
In the Land o' the Leal.
AS SHIPS BECALMED.
ARTHUR H. CLOUGH.
ships becalmed at eve, that lay
With canvas drooping, side by side.
Two towers of sail, at dawn of day
Are scarce long leagues apart des-
cried.
Y When fell the night, up sprang the
!e breeze.
And all the darkling hours they plied ;
Nor dreamt but each the selfsame seas
By each was cleaving, side by side :
E'en so — but why the tale reveal
Of those whom, year by year unchanged,
Brief absence joined anew, to feel,
Astounded, soul from soul estranged ?
At dead of night their sails were filled.
And onward each rejoicing steered;
Ah ! neither blame, for neither willed
Or wist what first with dawn appeared.
To veer, how vain ! On, onward strain.
Brave barks ! — in light, in darkness too !
Through winds and tides one compass
guides :
To that and your own selves be true.
But blithe breeze ! and great seas !
Though ne'er that earliest parting past,
On your wide plain they join again,
Together lead them home at last.
One port, methought, alike they sought, —
One purpose hold where'er they fare ;
bounding breeze, rushing seas,
At last, at last, unite them there.
THE OWL.
BARRY CORNWALL.
jN the hollow tree, in the old gray tower,
The spectral owl doth dwell ;
Dull, hated, despised, in the sunshine
hour,
But at dusk he's abroad and well !
i- Not a bird of the forest e'er mates with
J him;
All mock him outright by day ;
But at night, when the woods grow still and
dim,
The boldest will shrink away I
0, when the night falls, and roosts the
fowl.
Then, then, is the reign of the horned owl !
And the owl hath a bride, who is fond and
bold.
And loveth the wood's deep gloom ;
And, with eyes like the shine of the moon-
stone cold.
THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.
423
She awaiteth her ghastly groom ;
Not a feather she moves, not a carol she
We know not alway
Who are kings by day,
sings,
As she waits in her tree so still ;
But when her heart heareth his flapping
wings.
She hoots out her welcome shrill !
! when the moon shines, and dogs do
howl,
Then, then, is the joy of the horned owl!
^^9^^9|H
Mourn not for the owl, nor his gloomy
plight!
The owl hath his share of good :
If a prisoner he be in broad daylight,
He is lord in the dark greenwood !
Nor lonely the bird, nor his ghastly mate,
They are each unto each a pride ;
Thrice fonder, perhaps, since a strange, dark
fate
Hath rent them from all beside !
So, when the night falls, and dogs do
howl,
Sing, ho! for the reign of the horned
owl!
But the king of the night is
brown owl '
the bold
THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.
TIMOTHY DWIGHT.
^jipHE Notch of the White Mountains is a phrase appropriated to a
Wl^ very narrow defile, extending two miles in length, between two
'''^^ huge cliffs apparently rent asunder by some vast convulsion of
i nature. This convulsion was, in my own view, that of the deluge.
There are here, and throughout New England, no eminent proofs of
volcanic violence, nor any strong exhibitions of the power of earthquakes.
Nor has history recorded any earthquake or volcano in other countries of
sufficient efficacy to produce the phenomena of this place. The objects
rent asunder are too great, the ruin is too vast and too complete, to have
been accomplished by these agents. The change seems to have been
effected when the surface of the earth extensively subsided ; when countries
and continents assumed a new face ; and a general commotion of the
elements produced a disruption of some mountains, and merged others
beneath the common level of desolation. Nothino; less than this will
424 THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD.
account for the sundering of a long range of great rocks, or rather of vast
mountains ; or for the existing evidences of the immense force by which
the rupture was effected.
The entrance of the chasm is formed by two rocks, standing perpen-
dicularly, at the distance of twenty-two feet from each other ; one about
twenty feet in height, the other about twelve. Half of the space is
occupied by the brook mentioned as the head-stream of the Saco; the other
half by the road. The stream is lost and invisible beneath a mass of frag-
ments, partly blown out of the road, and partly thrown down by some
great convulsion.
When we entered the Notch, we were struck with the wild and
solemn appearance of every thing before us. The scale on which all the
objects in view were formed was the scale of grandeur only. The rocks,
rude and ragged in a manner rarely paralleled, were fashioned and piled by
a hand operating only in the boldest and most irregular manner. As we
advanced, these appearances increased rapidly. Huge masses of granite,
of every abrupt form, and hoary with a moss which seemed the product of
ages, recalling to the mind the saxum vetustum of Virgil, speedily rose to
a mountainous height. Before us the view widened fast to the southeast.
Behind us it closed almost instantaneously, and presented nothing to the
eye but an impassable barrier of mountains.
About half a mile from the entrance of the chasm, we saw, in full
view, the most beautiful cascade, perhaps, in the world. It issued from a
mountain on the right, about eight hundred feet above the subjacent valley,
and at the distance from us of about two miles. The stream ran over a
series of rocks almost perpendicular, with a course so little broken as to
preserve the appearance of a uniform current ; and yet so far disturbed as
to be perfectly white. The sun shone with the clearest splendor, from a
station in the heavens the most advantageous to our prospect ; and the
cascade glittered down the vast steep like a stream of burnished silver.
THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
tTlliif^HIS is the Arsenal. From floor to
Like a huge organ, rise the burn-
ished arms ;
But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing
Startles the villages with strange alarms.
Ah ! what a sound will rise — how wild and
dreary —
When the death-angel touches those swift
keys!
Wliat loud lament and dismal Miserere
Will mingle with their awful symphonies.
THE CHARCOAL MAN.
425
I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus —
The cries of agony, the endless groan,
Which, through the ages that have gone be-
fore us,
In long reverberations reach our own.
On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer ,
Through Cimbric forest roars the Norse-
man's song;
And loud, amid the universal clamor.
O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.
I hear the Florentine, who from his palace
Wheels out his battle bell with fearful
din;
And Aztec priests upon their teocallis
Beat the wild war-drums made of serpents'
The tumult of each sacked and burning vil-
lage;
The shout that every prayer for mercy
drowns ;
The soldiers' revel in the midst of pillage ;
The wail of famine in beleaguered towns ;
Is it, man, with such discordant noises,
With such accursed instruments as these,
Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly
voices.
And jarrest the celestial harmonies?
Were half the power that fills the world with
terror.
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps
and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error.
There were no need of arsenals nor forts ;
The warrior's name would be a name ab-
horred ;
And every nation that should lift again
Its hand against a brother, on its forehead
Would wear forevermore the curse of Cain.
Down the dark future, through long genera-
tions,
The echoing sounds grow fainter and then
cease :
And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations,
I hear once more the voice of Christ say,
" Peace! "
The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched
asunder,
The rattling musketry, the clashing blade —
And ever and anon, in tones of thunder,
The diapason of the cannonade.
Peace ! — and no longer from its brazen portals
The blast of war's great organ shakes the
skies;
But, beautiful as songs of the immortals,
The holy melodies of love arise.
THE CHARCOAL MAN.
J. T. TROWBRIDGE.
plj|i|RHOUGII rudely blows the wintry blast,
yjimmi And sifting snows fall white and fast,
4|^^^ Mark Haley drives along the street,
*| Perched high upon his wagon seat ;
•r His sombre face the storm defies,
J And thus from morn till eve he cries, —
" Charco' ! charco' !"
While echo faint and far replies, —
" Hark, ! Hark, !"
" Charco' !" — " Hark, !"-Such cheery sounds
Attend him on his daily rounds.
The dust begrimes his ancient hat ;
His coat is darker far than that ;
'Tis odd to see his sooty form
All speckled with the feathery storm ;
Yet in his honest bosom lies
Nor spot, nor speck, though still he cries, —
" Charco' ! charco' !"
And manj' a roguish lad replies, —
" Ark, ho! ark, ho !"
" Charco' !"-" Ark, ho !"-Such various sounds
Announce Mark Haley's morning rounds.
426
DOW'S FLAT— 1856.
Thus all the cold and wintry day
He labors much for little pay ;
Yet feels no less of happiness
Than many a richer man, I guess,
When through the shades of eve he spies
The light of his own home, and cries,—
" Charco' ! charco' !"
And Martha from the door replies,—
" Mark, ho ! Mark, ho !"
" Charco' !"-" Mark, ho!"-Such joy abounds
"When he has closed his daily rounds.
The hearth is warm, the fire is bright.
And while his hand, washed clean and white,
Holds Martha's tender hand once more,
His glowing face bends fondly o'er
The crib wherein his darling lies,
And in a coaxing tone he cries,
"Charco' ! charco' !"
And baby with a laugh replies, —
" Ah, go! ah, go !"
"Charco' !"-"Ah, go;" — while at the sounds
The mother's heart with gladness bounds.
Then honored be the charcoal man !
Though dusky as an African,
'Tis not for you, that chance to be
A little better clad than he.
His honest manhood to despise.
Although from morn till eve he cries, —
" ChaiW ! charco' !"
While mocking echo still replies, —
" Hark, ! hark, !"
" Charco' ! Hark, !" Long may these sounds
Proclaim Mark Haley's daily rounds !
DOW'S FLAT— 185Q.
F. BRET HARTE.
jOW'S Flat. That's its name.
And I reckon that you
Are a stranger ? The same ?
Well, I thought it was true.
For thar isn't a man on the river as
C4,a't spot the place at first view.
It was called after Dow,—
Which the same was an ass, —
And as to the how
That the thing came to pass, —
Just tie up your boss to that buckeye, and
sit ye down here in the grass :
You see this yer Dow
Hed the worst kind of luck ;
He slipped up somehow
On each thing that he struck.
Why, ef he'd ha' straddled that fence-rail,
the derned thing 'ed get up and buck.
He mined on the bar
Till he couldn't pay rates ;
He was smashed by a car
When he tunnelled with Bates ;
And right on the top of his trouble kom his
wife and five kids from the States.
It was rough — mighty rough ;
But the boys they stood by.
And they brought him the stuff
For a house on the sly ;
And the old woman — well, she did washing,
and took on when no one was nigh.
But this yer luck o' Dow's
Was so powerful moan
That the spring near his house
Dried right up on the green ;
And he sunk forty feet down for water, but
nary a drop to be seen.
Then the bar petered out.
And the boys wouldn't stay -.
And the chills got about.
And his wife fell away ;
But Dow in his well, kept a peggin' in his
usual ridikilous way.
One day, — it was June,
And a year ago, jest, —
This Dow kem at noon
To his work, like the rest,
j With a shovel and pick on his shoulder, and
j a Derringer hid in his breast.
MOUNTAINS.
427
He goes to the well,
For
you see the dern cuss bed struck—
And he stands on the brink,
"Water?"— beg your parding, young
And stops for a spell.
man, there you lied.
Just to listen and think ;
For the sun in his eyes, (jest like this, sir,)
It was gold, in the quartz,
you see, kinder made the cuss blink.
And it ran all alike ;
His two ragged gals
I reckon five oughts
Was the worth of that strike ;
In the gulch were at play,
And
that house with the coopilow's his'n—
which the same isn't bad for a Pike.
And a gownd that was Sal's
Kinder flapped on a bay ;
Not much for a man to be leavin', but his
all, — as I've heerd the folks say.
Thet's why it's Dow's Flat;
And the thing of it is
And,— that's a pert boss
That he kinder got that
Thet you've got, ain't it now ?
Through sheer contrariness ;
What might be her cost?
For
'twas water the derned cuss was seekin';
Eh ? !— Well, then, Dow,—
and his luck made him certain to miss.
Let's see,— well, that forty-foot grave wasn't
his, sir, that day, anyhow.
Thet's so. Thar's your way
To the left of yon tree ;
For a blow of his pick
But — a — look h'yur, say !
Sorter caved in the side,
Won't you come up to tea ?
And he looked and turned sick.
No?
Well, then, the next time you're passin' ;
Then he trembled and cried.
and ask after Dow, — and thet's me.
MOUNTAINS.
MES. MARY HOWITT.
|ijjPj|HEE,E is a charm connected with mountains, so powerful that the
'W&^ merest mention of them, the merest sketch of their magnificent
'^'^^ features, kindles the imagination, and carries the spirit at once into
J the bosom of their enchanted regions. How the mind is filled
with their vast solitude ! how the inward eye is fixed on their silent,
their sublime, their everlasting peaks ! How our heart 'bounds to the
music of their solitary cries, to the tinkle of the gushing rills, to the sound
of their cataracts ! How inspiriting are the odors that breathe fi'om the
upland turf, from the rock-hung flower, from the hoary and solemn pine !
how beautiful are those lights and shadows thrown abroad, and that fine,
transparent haze which is diffused over the valleys and lower slopes, as
over a vast, inimitable picture !
At the autumnal season, the ascents of our own mountains are most
practicable. The heat of summer has dried up the moisture with which
428
MOUNTAINS.
winter rains saturate the spongy turf of the hollows ; and the atmosphere,
clear and settled, admits of the most extensive prospects. Whoever
has not ascended our
^^^^ mountains knows
little of the beauties
of this beautiful is-
land. Whoever has
not climbed their
long and heathy as-
cents, and seen the
trembling mountain
flowers, the glowing
moss, the richly
tinted lichens at his
feet ; and scented
the fresh aroma of
the uncultivated sod,
and of the spicy
shrubs ; and heard
the bleat of the flock
across their solitary
expanses, and the
wild cry of the moun-
tain plover, the ra-
ven, or the eagle;
and seen the rich
and russet hues of
distant slopes and
eminences, the livid
gashes of ravines and precipices, the white glittering line of falling waters,
and the cloud tumultuously whirling round the lofty summit; and then
stood panting oh that summit, and beheld the clouds alternately gather and
break over a thousand giant peaks and ridges of every varied hue, but all
silent as images of eternity ; and cast his gaze over lakes and forests, and
smoking towns, and wide lands to the very ocean, in all their gleaming
and reposing beauty, knows nothing of the treasures of pictorial wealth
which his own country possesses.
But when we let loose the imagination from even these splendid
scenes, and give it free charter to range through the far more glorious
ridges of continental mountains, through Alps, Apennines, or Andes, how
OLD TIMES AND NEW.
429
is it possessed and absorbed by all the awful magnificence of their scener^r
and character !
OLD TIMES AND NEW.
A. C. SPOONER.
IMWAS in my easy chair at home,
^^ About a week ago,
I sat and puffed my light cigar.
As usual, you must know.
I mused upon the Pilgrim flock,
Whose luck it was to land
Upon almost the only Rock
Among the Plymouth sand.
In my mind's eye, I saw them leave
Their weather beaten bark —
Before them spread the wintry wilds.
Behind, rolled Ocean dark.
Alone that noble handful stood
While savage foes lurked nigh —
Their creed and watchword, " Trust in God,
And keep your powder dry."
Imagination's pencil then
That first stern winter painted,
When more than half their number died
And stoutest spirits fainted.
A tear unbidden filled one eye,
My smoke had filled the other.
One sees strange sights at such a time.
Which quite the senses bother.
I knew I was alone — but lo !
(Let him who dares, deride me ;)
I looked, and drawing up a chair,
Down sat a man beside me.
His dress was ancient, and his air
Was somewhat strange and foreign ;
He civilly returned my stare,
And said, " I'm Richard Warren.
" You'll find my name among the list
Of hero, sage and martyr.
Who, in the Mayflower's cabin, signed
The first New England charter.
" I could some curious facta impart —
Perhaps, some wise suggestions —
But then I'm bent on seeing sights,
And running o'er with questions."
" Ask on," said I ; " I'll do my best
To give you information.
Whether of private men you ask.
Or our renowned nation."
Says he, " First tell me what is that
In your compartment narrow.
Which seems to dry my eye-balls up,
And scorch my very marrow."
His finger pointed to the grate.
Said I, " That's Lehigh coal.
Dug from the earth," — he shook his head-
" It is, upon my soul !"
I then took up a bit of stick,
One end as black as night.
And rubbed it quick across the hearth.
When, lo ! a sudden light !
My guest drew back, uproUed his eyes,
And strove his breath to catch ;
"What necromancy's that?" he cried.
Quoth I, "A friction match."
Upon a pipe just overhead
I turned a little screw,
When forth, with instantaneous flash,
Three streams of lightning flew.
Uprose my guest: "Now Heaven me sav
Aloud he shouted ; then,
" Is that hell-fire ?" " 'Tis gas," said I,
" We call it hydrogen."
Then forth into the fields we strolled ;
A train came thundering by.
Drawn by the snorting iron steed
Swifter than eagles fly.
430
BATTLE SONG OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.
Rumbled the wheels, the whistle shrieked,
Far streamed the smoky cloud ;
Echoed the hills, the valleys shook,
The flying forest bowed.
Down on his knees, with hand upraised
In worship, Warren fell;
" Great is the Lord our God," cried he;
" He doeth all things well.
Fve seen his chariots of fire,
The horsemen, too, thereof;
Oh may I ne'er forget his ire,
Nor at his threatenings scoff."
" Rise up, my friend, rise up," said I,
" Your terrors all are vain.
That was no chariot of the sky,
'Twas the New York mail train."
We stood within a chamber small —
Men came the news to know
From Worcester, Springfield and New York,
Texas and Mexico.
It came — it went — silent and sure —
He stared, smiled, burst out laughing ;
"What witchcraft's that?" "It's what we
call
Magnetic telegraphing."
Once more we stepped into the street ;
Said Warren, " What is that
Which moves along across the way
As smoothly as a cat ?
" I mean the thing upon two lega.
With feathers on its head —
A monstrous hump below its waiat
Large as a feather-bed.
" It has the gift of speech, I hear;
But sure it can't be human !"
" My amiable friend," said I,
" That's what we call a woman !"
" A woman ! no — it cannot be,"
Sighed he, with voice that faltered :
" I loved the women in my day,
But oh ! they're strangely altered."
I showed him then a new machine
For turning eggs to chickens —
A labor-saving hennery,
That beats the very dickens !
Thereat he strongly grasped my hand,
And said, " 'Tis plain to see
This world is so transmogrified
'Twill never do for me.
" Your telegraphs, your railroad-trains.
Your gas-lights, friction matches,
Your hump-backed women, rocks for coal
Your thing which chickens hatches,
" Have turned the earth so upside down,
No peace is left within it ;"
Then whirling round upon his heel,
He vanished in a minute.
BATTLE SONG OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.
MICHAEL ALTENBUEG.
jEAR not, little flock ! the foe
Who madly seeks your overthrow.
Dread not his rage and power ;
What though your courage some-
times faints ?
His seeming triumph o'er God's
sainta
Lasta but a little hour.
Be of good cheer ; your cause belongs
To Him who can avenge your wrongs,
Leave it to Him, our Lord.
Though hidden now from all our eyes,
He sees the Gideon who shall rise
To save us, and His word.
As true as God's own word is true,
OLD.
431
Not earth or hell with all their crew
Amen, Lord Jesus ; grant our praver !
Against us shall prevail.
Great Captain, now thine arm make bare ;
Fight for us once again !
A jest and by-word are they grown ;
So shall the saints and martyrs raise
God is with us, we are his own,
A mighty chorus to thy praise,
Our victory cannot fail.
World without end ! Amen.
OLD.
RALPH HOYT.
|Y the wayside, on a mossy stone,
Sat a hoary pilgrim sadly musing ;
Oft I marked him sitting there
alone.
All the landscape like a page pe-
rusing :
Poor, unknown,
By the wayside, on a mossy stone.
Buckled knee and shoe, and broad-brimmed
hat,
Coat as ancient as the form 'twas folding ;
Silver buttons, queue, and crimped cravat.
Oaken staff, his feeble hand upholding ;
There he sat !
Buckled knee and shoe, and broad-brimmed
hat.
432
ULD.
Seemed it pitiful he should sit there,
No one sympathizing, no one heeding,
None to love him for his thin, gray hair,
And the furrows all so mutely pleading
Age and care :
Seemed it pitiful he should sit there.
It was Summer, and we went to school.
Dapper country lads, and little maidens,
Taught the motto of the "dunce's stool,"
Its grave import still my fancy ladens :
" Here's a fool ! "
It was Summer and we went to school.
When the stranger seemed to mark our play
Some of us were joyous, some sad-hearted.
I remember well, too well, that day !
Oftentimes the tears unbidden started,
"Would not stay,
"When the stranger seemed to mark our play.
One sweet spirit broke the silent spell :
Ah ! to me her name was always Heaven !
She besought him all his grief to tell :
(I was then thirteen and she eleven),
Isabel !
One sweet spirit broke the silent spell.
" Angel," said he sadly, " I am old ;
Earthly hope no longer hath a morrow ;
Yet, why I sit here thou shalt be told."
Then his eye betrayed a pearl of sorrow ;
Down it rolled !
" Angel," said he sadly, " I am old."
" I have tottered here to look once more
On the pleasant scene where I delighted
In the careless, happy days of yore.
Ere the garden of my heart was blighted
To the core :
I have tottered here once more.
" All the picture now to me how dear ;
E'en this grave old rock, where I am seated.
Is a jewel worth my journey here ;
Ah, that such a scene must be completed
With a tear !
All the picture now to me how dear !
" Old stone school-house ! — it is still the same :
There's the very step I so oft mounted ;
There's the window creaking in its frame.
And the notches that I cut and counted
For the game :
Old stone school-house ! — it is still the same.
" In the cottage, yonder, I was born ;
Long my happy home that humble dwelling
There the fields of clover, wheat, and corn,
There the spring, with limpid nectar swell-
ing :
Ah, forlorn !
In the cottage, yonder, I was born.
" Those two gateway sycamores you see
Then were planted just so far asunder.
That long well-pole from the path to free.
And the wagon to pass safely under :
Ninety-three !
Those two gateway sycamores you see.
" There's the orchard where we used to climb
When my mates and I were boys together,
Thinking nothing of the flight of time,
Fearing naught but work and rainy
weather :
Past its prime !
There's the orchard where we used to climb.
" There's the rude, three-cornered chestnut
rails.
Round the pasture where the flocks were
grazing.
Where, so sly, I used to watch for quails —
In the crops of buckwheat we were raising :
Traps and trails !
There's the rude three-cornered chestnut rails.
"There's the mill that ground our yellow
grain :
Pond, and river still serenely flowing ;
Cot, there resting in the shaded lane.
Where the lily of my heart was blowing:
Mary Jane !
There's the mill that ground our yellow grain.
" There's the gate on which I used to swing,
Brook, and bridge, and barn, and old red
stable.
But alas ! no more the morn shall bring
That dear group around my father's table.
Taken wing !
There's the gate on which I used to swing.
THE DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM.
433
"I am fleeing — all I loved have fled.
Yon green meadow was our place for play-
ing-
That old tree can tell of sweet things said
When around it Jane and I were straying;
She is dead !
I am fleeing — all I loved have fled.
" Yon white spire, a pencil on the sky,
Tracing silently life's changeful story,
So familiar to my dim old eye,
Points to seven that are now in glory
There on high :
Yon white spire, a pencil on the sky !
" Oft the aisle of that old church we trod.
Guided thither by an angel mother ;
Now she sleeps beneath its sacred sod ;
Sire and sisters, and my little brother,
Gone to God !
Oft the aisle of that old church we trod.
" There I heard of Wisdom's pleasant ways :
Bless the holy lesson ! — but ah, never
Shall I hear again those songs of praise —
Those sweet voices — silent now forever ;
Peaceful days !
There I heard of Wisdom's pleasant ways.
" There my Mary blessed me with her hand
When our souls drank in the nuptial
blessing.
Ere she hastened to the spirit-land,
Yonder turf her gentle bosom pressing ;
Broken band !
There my Mary blessed me with her hand.
" I have come to see that grave once more,
And the sacred place where we delighted,
Where we worshipped, in the days of yore.
Ere the garden of my heart was blighted
To the core ;
I have come to see that grave once more.
" Angel," said he sadly, "I am old ;
Earthly hope no longer hath a morrow ;
Now, why I sit here thou hast been told."
In his eye another pearl of sorrow:
Down it rolled,
"Angel," said he sadly, " I am old."
By the wayside, on a mossy stone,
Sat the hoary pilgrim, sadly musing ;
Still I marked him sitting there alone.
All the landscape, like a page, perusing ;
Poor, unknown !
I By the wayside, on a mossy stone.
THE DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM.
EDGAR A. POE.
^^pHE usual approach to Arnheim was by the river. The visitor left
^^ the city early in the morning. During the forenoon he passed
"^^'^ between shores of a tranquil and domestic beauty, on which grazed
k innumerable sheep, their white fleeces spotting the vivid green of
J rolling meadows. By degrees the idea of cultivation subsided into
that of merely pastoral care. This slowly became merged in a
sense of retirement — this again in a consciousness of solitude. As the
evening approached, the channel grew more narrow ; the banks more and
more precipitous ; and these latter were clothed in richness, more profuse,
and more sombre foliage. The water increased in transparency. The
stream took a thousand turns, so that at no moment could its gleaming
surface be seen for a greater distance than a furlong. At every instant the
434
THE DOMAIN OF ARNIIEIM.
vessel seemed imprisoned within an enchanted circle, having insuperable
and impenetrable walls of foliage, a roof of ultra-marine satin, and no floor
APPKOACH TO AKNHEIM.
— the keel balancing itself with admirable nicety on that of a phantom
bark which, by some accident having been turned upside down, floated in
constant company with the substantial one, for the purpose of sustaining it.
THE DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM. 435
The channel now became a gorge — although the term is somewhat in-
applicable, and I employ it merely because the language has no word which
better represents the most striking — not the most distinctive — feature of
the scene. The character of gorge was maintained only in the height
and parallelism of the shores ; it was altogether lost in their other traits.
The walls of the ravine through which the water still tranquilly flowed,
arose to such an elevation, and were so precipitous as in a great measure, to
shut out the light of day ; while the long plume-like moss which depended
densely from the intertwining shrubberies overhead, gave the whole chasm
an air of funereal gloom. The windings became more frequent and more
intricate, and seemed often as if returning in upon themselves, so that
the voyager had long lost all idea of direction.
Having threaded the mazes of this channel for some hours, the gloom
deepening every moment, a sharp and unexpected turn of the vessel brought
it suddenly, as if dropped from heaven, into a circular basin of very con-
siderable extent when compared with the width of the gorge .... The
visitor, shooting suddenly into this bay from out of the gloom of the ravine,
is delighted, but astounded by the full orb of the declining sun, which he
had supposed to be already far below the horizon, but which now confronts
him, and forms the sole termination of an otherwise limitless vista seen
through another chasm-like rift in the hills.
But here the voyager quits the vessel which has borne him so far,
and descends into a light canoe of ivory, stained with arabesque devices
in vivid scarlet, both within and without. The poop and beak of this boat
arise high above the water, with sharp points, so that the general form is
that of an irregular crescent. It lies on the surface of the bay with the
proud grace of the swan. On its ermined floor reposes a single feathery
paddle of satin-wood ; but no oarsman or attendant is to be seen. The
guest is bidden to be of good cheer — that the Fates will take care of him.
The larger vessel disappears, and he is left alone in the canoe, which lies
apparently motionless in the middle of the lake. While he considers what
course to pursue, however, he becomes aware of a gentle movement in the
fairy bark. It slowly surges itself around until its prow points toward
the sun. It advances with a gentle but gradually accelerated velocity,
while the slight ripples it creates break about the ivory sides in divinest
melody, and seem to offer the only possible explanation of the soothing
yet melancholy music for whose unseen origin the bewildered voyager
looks around him in vain.
The canoe steadily proceeds, and the rocky gate of the vista is ap-
proached, so that its depths can be more distinctly seen .... On drawing
436 THE BUGLE.
nearer to this, however, its chasm-like appearance vanishes; a new outlet
from the bay is discovered to the left — in which direction the wall is also
seen to sweep, still following the general course of the stream. Down this
new opening the eye cannot penetrate very far; for the stream, accompanied
by the wall, still bends to the left, until both are swallowed up.
Floating gently onward, but with a velocity slightly augmented, the
voyager, after many short turns, finds his progress apparently barred by a
gigantic gate or rather door of burnished gold, elaborately covered and fret-
ted, and reflecting the direct rays of the now fast-sinking sun with an ef-
fulgence that seems to wreathe the whole surrounding forest in flames. This
gate is inserted in the lofty wall ; which here appears to cross the river at
right angles. In a few moments, however, it is seen that the main body of
the water still sweeps in a gentle and extensive curve to the left, the wall fol-
lowing it as before, while a stream of considerable volume, diverging from
the principal one, makes its way, with a slight ripple, under the door, and
is thus hidden from sight. The canoe falls into the lesser channel and
approaches the gate. Its ponderous wings are slowly and musically
expanded. The boat glides between them, and commences a rapid descent
into a vast amphitheatre, entirely begirt with purple mountains ; whose
bases are laved by a gleaming river throughout the whole extent of their
circuit. Meantime the whole Paradise of Arnheim bursts upon the view.
There is a gush of entrancing melody ; there is an oppressive sense of
strange sweet odor ; — there is a dream-like intermingling to the eye of tall
slender Eastern trees — bosky shubberies — flocks of golden and crimson
birds — lily-fringed lakes — meadows of violets, tulips, poppies, hyacinths
and tuberoses — long intertangled lines of silver streamlets — and, upspring-
ing confusedly from amid all, a mass of semi-Gothic, semi-Saracenic archi-
tecture, sustaining itself as if by miracle in mid air ; glittering in the red
sunlight with a hundred orioles, minarets, and pinnacles ; and seeming
the phantom handiwork, conjointly, of the Sylphs, of the Fairies, of the
Genii, and of the Gnomes.
THE BUGLE.
TENNYSON.
pHE splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story :
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes fly-
ing.
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying,
dying.
THE CLOUD.
437
hark ! hear ! how thin and clear,
love, they die in yon rich sky,
And thinner, clearer, farther going !
They faint on hill or field or river:
sweet and far, from cliff and scar.
Our echoes roll from soul to soul.
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing !
And grow forever and forever.
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying :
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying,
dying.
dying.
THE CLOUD.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
BRING fresh showers for the thirsty
flowers.
From the seas and the streams ;
I bear light shade for the leaves when
J laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews
that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain.
And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below.
And their great pines groan aghast ;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white.
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
While on the towers of my skiey bowers.
Lightning, my pilot, sits ;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder ;
It struggles and howls at fits.
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion.
This pilot is guiding me.
Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea ;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills.
Over the lakes and the plains.
Wherever he dream, under mountain and
stream,
The Spirit he loves remains ;
And I all the while bask in heaven's blue
smile.
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.
The sanguine surprise, with his meteor
eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread.
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack.
When the morning star shines dead.
As, on the jag of a mountain crag.
Which an earthquake rocks and swings.
An eagle, alit, one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings.
And when sunset may breathe, from the lit
sea beneath.
Its ardors of rest and love.
And the crimson pall of eve may fall,
From the depths of heaven above.
With wings folded I rest on mine airy
nest.
As still as a brooding dove.
That orb^d maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon.
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn ;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet.
Which only the angels hear.
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin
roof.
The stars peep behind her and peer :
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee.
Like a swarm of golden bees.
When I widen the rent in my wind-built
tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas.
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on
high.
Are each paved with the moon and these
438
I'M GROWING OLD.
I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl ;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and
swim.
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape.
Over a torrent sea.
Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof.
The mountains its columns be,
The triumphal arch, through which I march,
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the powers of the air are chained to
my chair.
Is the million colored bow ;
The sphere-fire above, its soft colors move,
Whilst the moist earth was laughing below.
I am the daughter of earth and water,
And the nurshng of the sky ;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and
I change, but I cannot die.
But after a rain, when, with never a stain,
The pavilion of heaven is bare.
And the winds and sunbeams, with theii
convex gleams.
Build up the blue dome of air —
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain.
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost
from the tomb,
I arise and build it aaiain.
FM GEO WING OLD.
JOHN G
hM4 —
■'.Y days pass pleasantly away.
My nights are blest with sweet-
i^M^ I feel no symptoms of decay,
y I have no cause to mourn or weep ;
=f My foes are impotent and shy,
J My friends are neither false nor cold ;
And yet of late, I often sigh :
" I'm growing old."
My growing talk of olden times.
My growing thirst for early news,
My growing apathy to rhymes,
My growing love of easy shoes.
My growing hate of crowds and noise.
My growing fear of taking cold ;
All whisper in the plainest voice,
I'm growing old.
Tm growing fonder of my staff,
I'm growing dimmer in the eyes,
I'm growing fainter in my laugh,
I'm growing deeper in my sighs,
I'm growing careless of my dress,
I'm growing frugal of my gold,
I'm growing wise, I'm growing — yes,
I'm growing old.
SAXE.
I see it in my changing taste,
I see it in my changing hair,
I see it in my growing waist,
I see it in my growing heir ;
A thousand signs proclaim the truth.
As plain as ever truth was told.
That even in my vaunted youth,
I'm growing old.
Ah me ! my very laurels breathe
The tale in my reluctant ears.
And every boon the hours bequeathe
But makes me debtor to the Years.
E'en Flattery's honeyed words declare
The secret she would fain withhold,
And tell me, in " How young you are,"
I'm growing old.
Thanks for the years whose rapid flight
My sombre muse too sadly sings !
Thanks for the gleams of golden light
That tint the darkness of their wings.
The light that beams from out the sky.
Those heavenly mansions to unfold
Where all are blest, and none may sigh
" I'm growing old."
" My days pass pleasantly away
My nights are blessed with sweetest
I feel no symptoms of decay,
I have no cause to mourn or weep;
My foes are impotent and shy,
My friends are neither false nor cold;
And yet, of late, I often sigh :
• I'm growing old.'
THE STORMY PETREL.
439
THE STORMY PETREL.
BAREY CORNWALL.
thousand miles from land are ■we,
Tossing about on the stormy sea,
'f^^f' From billow to bounding billow
cast,
Like fleecy snow on the stormy
blast.
The sails are scattered abroad like
weeds ;
The strong masts shake like quivering reeds;
The mighty cables and iron chains,
The hull, which all earthly strength dis-
dains,
They strain and they crack ; and hearts like
stone
Their natural, hard, proud strength disown.
Up and down '
From the basi
up and down !
of the wave to the billow's
crown.
And amidst the flashing and feathery foam
The stormy petrel finds a home,
A home, if such a place may be
For her who lives on the wide, wide sea.
On the craggy ice, in the frozen air.
And only seeketh her rocky lair
To warm her young and to teach them to
spring
At once o'er the waves on their stormv
O'er the deep ! o'er the deep !
Where the whale and the shark and tho
sword-fish sleep
Outflying the blast and the driving rain.
The petrel telleth her tale— in vain ;
For the mariner curseth the warning bird
Who bringeth him news of the storm un-
heard !
Ah ! thus does the prophet of good or ill
Meet hate from the creatures he serveth still;
Yet he ne'er falters, — so, petrel, spring
Once more o'er the waves on thy stormy wing.
440
IDEAS THE LIFE OF A PEOPLE.
SONG OF THE STORMY PETREL.
Etel^he lark sings for joy in her own loved
-^£^^ In the furrowed field, by the breezes
fanned ;
And so revel we
In the furrowed sea,
As joyous and glad as the lark can be
On the placid breast of the inland lake,
The wild duck delights her pastime to take ;
But the petrel braves
The wild ocean waves,
His wing in the foaming billow he laves.
The halcyon loves in the noontide beam
To follow his sj)ort on the tranquil stream.
He fishes at ease
In the summer breeze,
But we go angling in stormiest seas.
No song note have we but a piping cry,
That blends with the storm when the wind is
high.
When the land birds wail
We sport in the gale.
And merrily over the ocean we sail.
IDEAS THE LIFE OF A PEOPLE.
GEOEGE W. CUETIS.
ippHE leaders of our Eevolution were men of whom the simple truth is
' the highest praise. Of every condition in life, they were singularly
"^^^ sagacious, sober, and thoughtful. Lord Chatham spoke only the
I truth when he said to Franklin, of the men who composed the first
f colonial Congress: "The Congress is the most honorable assembly
1 of statesmen since those of the ancient Greeks and Romans in the
most virtuous times." Given to grave reflection, they were neither
dreamers nor visionaries, and they were much too earnest to be rhetori-
cians. It is a curious fact, that they were generally men of so calm a
temper that they lived to extreme age. With the exception of Patrick
Henry and Samuel Adams, they were most of them profound scholars, and
studied the history of mankind that they might know men. They were so
familiar with the lives and thoughts of the wisest and best minds of the
past that a classic aroma hangs about their writings and their speech; and
they were profoundly convinced of what statesmen always know, and the
adroitest mere politicians never perceive, — that ideas are the life of a
people; that the conscience, not the pocket, is the real citadel of a nation;
and that when you have debauched and demoralized that conscience by
teaching that there are no natural rights, and that therefore there is no
moral right or wrong in political action, you have poisoned the wells and
rotted the crops in the ground.
LITTLE AND GREAT.
441
The three greatest living statesmen of England knew this also.
Edmund Burke knew it, and Charles James Fox, and William Pitt, Earl
of Chatham. But they did not speak for the King, or Parliament, or the
English nation. Lord Gower spoke for them when he said in Parliament :
''Let the Americans talk about their natural and divine rights; their
rights as men and citizens ; their rights from God and nature ! I am for
enforcing these measures." My lord was contemptuous, and the King hired
the Hessians, but the truth remained true. The Fathers saw the scarlet
soldiers swarming over the sea, but more steadily they saw+that national
progress had been secure only in the degree that the political system had
conformed to natural justice. They knew the coming wreck of property
and trade, but they knew more surely that Rome was never so rich as when
she was dying, and, on the other hand, the Netherlands, never so powerful
as when they were poorest. Farther away they read the names of Assyria,
Greece, Egypt. They had art, opulence, splendor. Corn enough grew in
the valley of the Nile. The Syrian sword was as sharp as any. They
were merchant princes, and the clouds in the sky were rivaled by their sails
upon the sea. They were soldiers, and their frown frightened the world.
"Soul, take thine ease," those empires said, languid with excess of
luxury and life. Yes: but you remember the king who had built his
grandest palace, and was to occupy it upon the morrow; but when the
morrow came the palace was a pile of ruins. " Woe is me !" cried the
King, "who is guilty of this crime?" "There is no crime," replied the
sage at his side ; " but the mortar was made of sand and water only, and
the builders forgot to put in the lime." So fell the old empires, because the
governors forgot to put justice into their governments.
LITTLE AND GREAT.
CHARLES MACKAY.
^1^ TRAVELER through a dusty
road,
Strewed acorns on the lea ;
And one took root and sprouted up,
eT And grew into a tree.
§ Love sought its shade at evening
T time,
To breathe his early vows ;
And age was pleased, in heats of noon.
To bask beneath its boughs.
The dormouse loved its dangling twigs.
The birds sweet music bore ;
It stood a glory in its place,
A blessing evermore.
A little spring had lost its way
Amid the grass and fern ;
A passing stranger scooped a well,
Where weary men might turn.
442
LITTLE AND GREAT.
He walked in it, and hung with care
A ladle at the brink ;
He thought not of the deed he did,
But judged that Toil might drink.
It shone upon a genial mind.
And lo ! its light became
A lamp of life, a beacon ray,
A monitory flame
He passed again — and lo ! the well.
By summers never dried,
Had cooled ten thousand parching tongues.
And saved a life '
A dreamer dropped a random thought ;
'Twas old — and yet 'twas new,
A simple fancy of the brain.
But strong in being true.
The thought was small— its issue great.
A watch-fire on the hill.
It sheds its radiance far adown.
And cheers the valley still.
A nameless man, amid a crowd
That thronged the daily mart,
Let fall a word of hope and lovo,
Unstudied, from the heart.
BEAUTIFUL SNOW.
443
A whisper on the tumult thrown,
germ ! fount ! word of love !
A transitory breath,
thought at random cast !
It raised a brother from the dust,
Ye were but little at the first,
It saved a soul from death.
But mighty at the last !
BEAUTIFUL SNOW.
JAMES W. WATSON.
i''?
THE snow, the beautiful snow,
Filling the sky and the earth below !
Over the house-tops, over the street.
Over the heads of the people you
meet,
Dancing,
Flirting,
Skimming along.
Beautiful snow ! it can do nothing wrong.
Flying to kiss a fair lady's cheek ;
Clinging to lips in a frolicsome freak.
Beautiful snow, from the heavens above,
Pure as an angel and fickle as love !
the snow, the beautiful snow !
How the flakes gather and laugh as they go !
Whirring about in its maddening fun.
It plays in its glee with every one.
Chasing,
Laughing,
Hurrying by,
It lights up the face and it sparkles the eye ;
And even the dogs, with a bark and a bound,
Snap at the crystals that eddy around.
The town is alive, and its heart in a glow
To welcome the coming of beautiful snow.
How the wild crowd goes swaying along,
Hailing each other with humor and song !
How the gay sledges like meteors flash by, —
Bright for a moment, then lost to the eye.
Ringing,
Swinging,
Dashing they go
Over the crest of the beautiful snow:
Snow so pure when it falls from the sky,
To be trampled in mud by the crowd rushing
by;
30
To be trampled and tracked by the thou-
sands of feet
Till it blends with the horrible filth in the
street.
Once I was pure as the snow, — but I fell :
Fell, like the snowflakes, from heaven— to
hell;
Fell, to be tramped as the filth of the street :
Fell, to be scofi"ed, to be spit on, and beat.
Pleading,
Cursing,
Dreading to die,
Selling my soul to whoever would buy,
Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread,
Hating the living and fearing the dead.
Merciful God ! have I fallen so low ?
And yet I was once like this beautiful snow !
Once I was fair as the beautiful snow,
With an eye like its crystals, a heart like its
glow;
Once I was loved for my innocent grace, —
Flattered and sought for the charm of my
face.
Father,
Mother,
Sisters all,
God, and myself I have lost by my fall.
The veriest wretch that goes shivering by
Will take a wide sweep, lest I wander too
nigh ;
For of all that is on or about me, I know
There is nothing that's pure but the beautiful
How strange it should be that this beautiful
snow
444
THE BIRTHDAY OF WASHINGTON.
Should fall on a sinner with nowhere to go !
Too wicked for prayer, too weak for my
How strange it would be, when the night
moan
comes again,
To be heard in the crash of the crazy town.
If the snow and the ice struck my desperate
Gone mad in its joy at the snow's coming
brain !
down;
Fainting,
To lie and to die in my terrible woe,
Freezing,
With a bed and a shroud of the beautiful
Dying alone,
snow!
TEE BIRTEBAY OF WASEINGTON.
RUFUS CHOATE.
iijPpHE birlhday of the " Father of his Country !" May it ever be
^M^ freshly remembered by American hearts ! May it ever re-awaken
in them a fihal veneration for his memory; ever re-kindle the fires
of patriotic regard for the country which he loved so well, to which
f he gave his youthful vigor and his youthful energy, during the
"^ perilous period of the early Indian warfare ; to which he devoted
his life in the maturity of his powers, in the field ; to which again he
offered the counsels of his wisdom and his experience, as president of the
convention that framed our Constitution; which he guided and directed
while in the chair of state, and for which the last prayer of his earthly
supplication was ofiered up, when it came the moment for him so well, and
so grandly, and so calmly, to die. He was the first man of the time in
which he grew. His memory is first and most sacred in our love, and
ever hereafter, till the last drop of blood shall freeze in the last American
heart, his name shall be a spell of power and of might.
Yes, gentlemen, there is one personal, one vast felicity, which no man
can share with him. It was the daily beauty, and towering and matchless
glory of his life which enabled him to create his country, and at the same
time, secure an undying love and regard from the whole American people.
" The first in the hearts of his countrymen !" Yes, first ! He has our first
and most fervent love. Undoubtedly there were brave and wise and good
men, before his day, in every colony. But the American nation, as a nation,
I do not reckon to have begun before 1774. And the first love of that
Young America was Washington. The first word she lisped was his name.
Her earliest breath spoke it. It still is her proud ejaculation ; and it will
be the last gasp of her expiring life ! Yes ; others of our great men have
been appreciated — many admired by all ; — but him we love ; him we all
The beautiful snow, Filling the sky and the earth below!'
A TAILOR'S POEM ON EVENING.
445
love. About and around him we call up no dissentient and discordant
and dissatisfied elements — no sectional prejudice nor bias —no party, no
creed, no dogma of politics. None of these shall assail him. Yes ; when
the storm of battle blows darkest and rages highest, the memory of Wash-
ington shall nerve every American arm, and cheer every American heart.
It shall relume that Promethean fire, that sublime flame of patriotism, that
devoted love of country which his words have commended, which his
example has consecrated :
" 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.''
A TAILOR'S POEM ON EVENING,
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
F^AY hath put on his jacket, and
around
His burning bosom buttoned it with
ru' stars.
Here will I lay mo on the velvet grass,
That is like padding to earth's meagre
ribs.
And hold communion with the things about
me.
Ah me! how lovely is the golden braid
That binds the skirt of night's descending
robe!
The thin leaves, quivering on their silken
threads.
Do make a music like to rustling satin,
As the light breezes smooth their downy nap.
Ha ! what is this that rises to my touch,
So like a cushion ? Can it be a cabbage ?
It is, it is that deeply injured flower.
Which boys do flout us with ; — but yet I love
thee.
Thou giant rose, wrapped in a green surtout.
Doubtless in Eden thou didst blush as bright
As these, thy puny brethren ; and thy breath
Sweetened the fragrance of her spicy air ;
But now thou seemest like a bankrupt beau,
Stripped of his gaudy hues and essences.
And growing portly in his sober garments.
Is that a swan that rides upon the water?
no, it is that other gentle bird.
Which is the patron of our noble calling.
1 well remember, in my early years.
When these young hands first closed upon a
goose ;
I have a scar upon my thimble finger,
Which chronicles the hour of young ambition.
My father was a tailor, and his father,
And my sire's grandsire, all of them were
tailors ;
They had an ancient goose, — it was an heir-
loom
From some remoter tailor of our race.
446
THE PELICAN.
It hapjiencd I did seo it on a time
Whon none was near, and I did deal with it,
And it did burn me, — 0, most fearfully !
It is a joy to straighten out one's limbs.
And leap elastic from the level counter.
Leaving the petty grievances of earth.
The breaking thread, the din of clashing
shears,
And all the needles that do wound the spirit.
For such a pensive hour of soothing silence,
Kind Nature, shuffling in her loose undress,
Lays bare her shady bosom ;— I can fetil
With all around me ; — I can hail the flowers
That spring earth's mantle, — and yon quiet
bird.
That rides the stream, is to me as a brother.
The vulgar know not all the hidden pockets,
Where Nature stows away her loveliness.
But this unnatural posture of the legs
Cramps my extended calves, and I must go
Where I can coil them in their wonted
fashion.
THE PELICAN.
.^>.
JAMES MONTGOMERY.
^^MS^It early dawn I marked them m the
lil^l sky-
^l^^?',' Catching the morning colors on their
ii u plumes ;
<^ Not in voluptuous pastime reveling
«!• there,
J Among the rosy clouds, while orient
heaven
Flamed like the opening gates of Paradise,
Whence issued forth the angel of the sun.
And gladdened nature with returning day :
— Eager for food, their searching eyes they
fixed
On ocean's unrolled volume, from a height
That brought immensity within their scope ;
Yet with such power of vision looked they
down,
As though they watched the shcll-fish slowly
gliding
O'er sunken rocks, or climbing trees of coral.
On indefatigable wing upheld,
Breath, pulse, existence, seemed suspended
in them :
They were as pictures painted on the sky ;
Till suddenly, aslant, away they shot.
Like meteors changed from stars to gleams of
lightning,
And struck upon the deep, where, in wild
play,
Their quarry floundered, unsuspecting harm;
With terrible voracity, they plunged
Their heads among the afl'righted shoals, and
beat
A tempest on the surges with their wings.
Till flashing clouds of foam and spray con-
cealed them.
Nimbly they seized and secreted their prey.
Alive and wriggling in the elastic net ;
Which Nature hung beneath their grasping
beaks,
Till, swollen with captures, the unwieldy
burden
Clogged their slow flight, as heavily to land
These mighty hunters of the deep returned.
There on the cragged cliffs they perched at
ease.
Gorging their helpless victims one by one ;
Then, full and weary, side by side they slept.
Till evening roused them to the chase again.
Love found that lonely couple on their isle,
And soon surrounded them with blithe com-
panions.
The noble birds, with skill spontaneous,
framed
A nest of reeds among the giant-grass.
That waved in lights and shadows o'er the
soil.
There, in sweet thraldom, yet unweeninp
why,
THE PELICAN.
447
The patient dam, who ne'er till now had
known
Parental instinct, brooded o'er her eggs,
Long ere she found the curious secret out,
That life was hatching in their brittle shells.
Then, from a wild rapacious bird of prey.
Tamed by the kindly process, she became
That gentlest of all living things, — a mother;
Gentlest while yearning o'er her naked
young ;
Fiercest when stirred by anger to defend
them.
While the plump nestlings throbbed against
his heart.
The tenderness that makes the vulture mild;
Yea, half unwillingly his post resigned,
When, home-sick with the absence of an
hour,
She hurried back, and drove him from her
seat
With pecking bill and cry of fond distress,
Answered by him with murmurs of delight,
Whose gutturals harsh, to her were love's
own music.
Her mate himself the softenins
power con-
Forgot his sloth, restrained his appetite,
And ranged the sky and fished the stream
for her.
Or, when o'erwearied Nature forced her off
To shake her torpid feathers in the breeze,
And bathe her bosom in the cooling flood,
He took her place, and felt through every
nerve.
Then, settling down, like foam upon the wave,
White, flickering, effervescent, soon subsiding,
Her ruffled pinions smoothly she composed ;
And, while beneath the comfort of her wings,
Her crowded progeny quite filled the nest.
The halcyon sleeps not sounder, when thp
wind
Is breathless, and the sea without a curl,
— Nor dreams the halcyon of serener days.
Or nights more beautiful with silent stars.
448
A TIME OF UNEXAMPLED PROSPERITY.
Than, in that hour, the mother pelican,
When the warm tumults of affection sunk
Into calm sleep, and dreams of what they
were,
Dreams more delicious than reality.
— He sentinel beside her stood, and watched
With jealous eye the raven in the clouds.
And the rank sea-mews wheeling round the
cliffs.
Woe to the reptile then that ventured nigh !
The snap of his tremendous bill was like
Death's scythe, down-cutting everything it
struck.
The heedless lizard, in his gambols, peeped
Upon the guarded nest, from out the flowers,
But paid the instant forfeit of his life ;
Nor could the serpent's subtlety elude
Capture, when gliding by, nor in defence
Might his malignant fangs and venom save
him.
A TIME OF UNEXAMPLED PROSPERITY.
WASHINGTON IRVING.
W^'^ the course of a voyage from England, I once fell in with a convoy of
liH merchant ships, bound for the West Indies. The weather was
f uncommonly bland; and the ships vied with each other in spreading
sail to catch a light, favorable breeze, until their hulls were almost
I hidden beneath a cloud of canvass. The breeze went down with the
1 sun, and his last yellow rays shone upon a thousand sails, idly flap-
ping against the masts.
I exulted in the beauty of the scene, and augured a prosperous voyage;
but the veteran master of the ship shook his head, and pronounced this
halcyon calm a "weather-breeder." And so it proved. A storm burst
forth in the night; the sea roared" and raged; and when the day broke, I
beheld the gallant convoy scattered in every direction ; some dismasted,
others scudding under bare poles, and many firing signals of distress.
I have since been occasionally reminded of this scene by those calm,
sunny seasons in the commercial world, which are known by the name of
"times of unexampled prosperity." They are the sure weather-breeders of
traffic. Every now and then the world is visited by one of these delusive
seasons, when the "credit system," as it is called, expands to full luxu-
riance: everybody trusts everybody; a bad debt is a thing unheard of ; the
broad way to certain and sudden wealth lies plain and open ; and men are
tempted to dash forward boldly, from the facility of borrowing.
Promissory notes, interchanged between scheming individuals, are
liberally discounted at the banks, which become so many mints to coin
words into cash; and as the supply of words is inexhaustible, it may
readily be supposed what a vast amount of promissory capital is soon in
circulation. Everyone now talks in thousands; nothing is heard but
A TIME OF UNEXAMPLED PROSPERITY. 4^l
gigantic operations in trade; great purchases and sales of real property, and
immense sums made at every transfer. All, to be sure, as yet exists in
promise; but the believer in promises calculates the aggregate as solid
capital, and falls back in amazement at the amount of public wealth, the
"unexampled state of public prosperity !"
Now is the time for speculative and dreaming or designing men. They
relate their dreams and projects to the ignorant and credulous, dazzle them
with golden visions, and set them maddening after shadows. The example
of one stimulates another ; speculation rises on speculation ; bubble rises
on bubble ; everyone helps with his breath to swell the windy superstruc-
ture, and admires and wonders at the magnitude of the inflation he has
contributed to produce.
Speculation is the romance of trade, and casts contempt upon all its
sober realities. It renders the stock-jobber a magician, and the exchange
a region of enchantment. It elevates the merchant into a kind of knight-
errant, or rather a commercial Quixote. The slow but sure gains of snug
percentage become despicable in his eyes: no "operation" is thought
worthy of attention that does not double or treble the investment. JSTo
business is worth following that does not promise an immense fortune. x\s
he sits musing over his ledger, with pen behind his ear, he is like La
Mancha's hero, in his study, dreaming over his books of chivalry. His
dusty counting-house fades before his eyes, or changes into a Spanish mine ;
he gropes after diamonds, or dives after pearls. The subterranean garden
of Aladdin is nothing to the realms of wealth that break upon his imagina-
tion.
Could this delusion always last, the life of a merchant would indeed
be a golden dream; but it is as short as it is brilliant. Let but a doubt
enter, and the "season of unexampled prosperity" is at an end The
coinage of words is suddenly curtailed; the promissory capital begins to
vanish into smoke; a panic succeeds, and the whole superstructure, built
upon credit, and reared by speculation, crumbles to the ground, leaving
scarce a wreck behind.
"It is such stuff as dreams are made of." When a man of business,
therefore, hears on every side rumors of fortunes suddenly acquired; when
he finds banks liberal, and brokers busy; when he sees adventurers flush of
paper capital, and full of scheme and enterprise ; when he perceives a
greater disposition to buy than to sell ; when trade overflows its accustomed
channels, and deluges the country; when he hears of new regions of com-
mercial adventure; of distant marts and distant mines swallowing merchan-
dise, and disgorging gold; when he finds joint stock companies of all kinds
450
WHEN.
forming; railroads, canals, and locomotive-engines springing up on every
side; when idlers suddenly become men of business, and dash into the game
of commerce as the gambler would into the hazards of the faro-table ; when
he beholds the streets glittering with new equipages, palaces conjured up
by the magic of speculation ; tradesmen flushed with sudden success, and
vying with each other in ostentatious expense ; in a word, when he hears
the v/hole community joining in the theme of "unexampled prosperity," let
him look upon the whole as a "weather-breeder," and prepare for the
impending storm.
THE PATIENT STORK.
LORD THURLOW.
MELANCHOLY bird, the long, long
day
5^ Thou standest by the margin of
the pool,
And, taught by God, dost thy
whole being school.
To patience, which all evil can allay.
God has appointed thee the fish thy
prey,
And given thyself a lesson to the fool,
Unthrifty, to submit to moral rule.
And his unthinking course by thee to weigh,
There need not schools nor the professor's
chair.
Though these be good, true wisdom to impart :
He who has not enough for these to spare,
Of time or gold, may yet amend his heart,
And teach his soul by brooks and rivera
fair, —
Nature is always wise in every part.
WHEN.
SUSAN COOLIDGE.
y^;P I were told that I must die to-morrow,
J^ That the next sun
\^l Which sinks should bear me past all
'fl'f' fear and sorrow
t For any one,
¥ All the fight fought, all the short jour-
1 noy through.
What should I do ?
T do not think that I should shrink or falter.
But just go on.
Doing my work, nor change nor seek to alter
Aught that is gone ;
But rise and move and love and smile and
pray
For one more day.
And, lying down at night for a last sleeping,
Say in that ear
Which hearkens ever: "Lord, within Thy
keeping
How phould I fear?
And when to-morrow brings Thee nearei
still
Do Thou Thy will."
PATIENCE.
THERE IS NO DEATH.
451
I might not sleep for awe ; but peaceful,
tender,
My soul would lie
All the night long ; and when the morning
splendor
Flushed o'er the sky,
I think that I could smile — could calmly say,
"It is His day."
But if a wondrous hand from the blue yonder
Held out a scroll.
On which my life was writ, and I with wonder
Beheld unroll
To a long century's end its mystic clue,
"What should I do ?
What could I do, oh ! blessed Guide and
Master,
Other than this ;
Still to go on as now, not slower, faster,
Nor fear to miss
The road, although so very long it be,
While led by Thee ?
Step after step, feeling Thee close beside me,
Although unseen.
Through thorns, through flowers, whether the
tempest hide Thee
Or heavens serene.
Assured Thy faithfulness cannot betray,
Thy love decay.
I may not know ; my God, no hand re-
vealeth
Thy counsels wise ;
Along the path a deepening shadow stealeth,
No voice replies
To all my questioning thought, the time to
tell.
And it is well.
Let me keep on, abiding and unfearing
Thy will always.
Through a long century's ripening fruition
Or a short day's.
Thou canst not come too soon ; and I can
wait
If Thou come late.
THERE IS NO DEA TH.
LORD LYTTON.
iHERE is no death ! The stars go down
To rise upon some fairer shore :
J^fS^i] And bright in Heaven's jewelled
1 crown
i They shine forevermore.
There is no death ! The dust we tread
Shall change beneath the summer showers
To golden grain or mellowed fruit.
Or rainbow-tinted flowers,
The granite rocks disorganize,
And feed the hungry moss they bear ;
The forest leaves drink daily life.
From out the viewless air.
There is no death ! The leaves may fall,
And flowers may fade and pass away ;
They only wait through wintry hours.
The coming of the May.
There is no death ! An angel form
Walks o'er the earth with silent tread ;
He bears our best loved things away ;
And then we call them "dead."
He leaves our hearts all desolate.
He plucks our fairest, sweetest flowers ;
Transplanted into bliss, they now
Adorn immortal bowers.
The bird-like voice, whose joyous tones.
Made glad these scenes of sin and strife.
Sings now an everlasting song,
Around the tree of life.
452
PAYING HER WAY
Where'er he sees a smile too bright,
Or heart too pure for taint and vice,
He bears it to that world of light,
To dwell in Paradise.
Born unto that undying life,
They leave us but to come again ;
With joy we welcome them the sarae.-
Except their sin and pain.
And ever near us, though unseen,
The dear immortal spirits tread;
For all the boundless universe
Is life — tJierc arc no dead.
PA YING HER WA Y,
HAT has my darling been doing
to-day,
To pay for her washing and mend-
ing ?
■A. How can she manage to keep out of
debt
For so much caressing and tend-
ing ?
How can I wait till the years shall have flown
And the hands have grown larger and
stronger ?
Who will be able the interest to pay.
If the debt runs many years longer?
Dear little feet ! How they fly to my side
White arms my neck are caressing;
Sweetest of kisses are laid on my cheek ;
Fair head my shoulder is pressing.
Nothing at all from my darling is due —
From evil may angels defend her —
The debt is discharged as fast as 'tis made,
For love is a legal tender.
THE PROGRESS OF HUMANITY. 453
THE PROGRESS OF HUMANITY.
CHARLES SUMNER.
II^ET us, then, be of good cheer. From the great law of progress we
^^ may derive at once our duties and our encouragements. Humanity
"''^^ has ever advanced, urged by the instincts and necessities implanted
f by God, — thwarted sometimes by obstacles which have caused it for
^ a time — a moment only, in the immensity of ages — to deviate from
its true line, or to seem to retreat, — but still ever onward.
Amidst the disappointments which may attend individual exertions,
amidst the universal agitations which now surround us, let us recognize
this law, confident that whatever is just, whatever is humane, whatever is
good, whatever is true, according to an immutable ordinance of Provi-
dence, in the golden light of the future, must prevail. With this faith, let
us place our hands, as those of little children, in the great hand of God.
He will ever guide and sustain us — through pains and perils, it may be —
in the path of progress.
In the recognition of this law, there are motives to beneficent activity,
which shall endure to the last syllable of life. Let the young embrace it :
they shall find in it an everliving spring. Let the old cherish it still :
they shall derive from it fresh encouragement. It shall give to all, both
old and young, a new appreciation of their existence, a new sentiment of
their force, a new revelation of their destiny.
Be it, then, our duty and our encouragement to live and to labor,
ever mindful of the future. But let us not forget the past. All ages
have lived and labored for us. From one has come art, from another
jurisprudence, from another the compass, from another the printing-press;
from all have proceeded priceless lessons of truth and virtue. The earliest
and most distant times are not without a present influence on our daily
lives. The mighty stream of progress, though fed by many tributary
waters and hidden springs, derives something of its force from the earliest
currents which leap and sparkle in the distant mountain recesses, over pre-
cipices, among rapids, and beneath the shade of the primeval forest.
Nor should we be too impatient to witness the fulfilment of our aspi-
rations. The daily increasing rapidity of discovery and improvement, and
the daily multiplying eflforts of beneficence, in later years outstripping the
imaginations of the most sanguine, furnish well-grounded assurance that
the advance of man will be with a constantly accelerating speed. The
extending intercourse among the nations of the earth, and amouar all the
454
HIDE AND SEEK.
children of the human family, gives new promise of the complete diffusion
of truth, penetrating the most distant places, chasing away the darkness of
night, and exposing the hideous forms of slavery, of war, of wrong, which
must be hated as soon as they are clearly seen.
Cultivate, then, a just moderation. Learn to reconcile order with
change, stability with progress. This is a v^ise conservatism ; this is a
wise reform. Rightly understanding these terms, who would not be a
conservative? who would not be a reformer? — a conservative of all that
is good, a reformer of all that is evil ; a conservative of knowledge, a
reformer of ignorance ; a conservative of truths and principles whose seat
is the bosom of God, a reformer of laws and institutions which are but the
wicked or imperfect work of man ; a conservative of that divine order
which is found only in movement, a reformer of those early wrongs and
abuses which spring from a violation of the great law of human progress.
Blending these two characters in one, let us seek to be, at the same time,
EeforminsT Conservatives, and Conservative Reformers.
HIDE AND SEEK.
JULIA GODDAED.
^^jpIDE and seek ! Two children at play
1^1^ On a Bunshiny holiday —
" Where is the treasure hidden, I
pray?
Say — am I near it or far away ?
Hot or cold?" asks little Nell,
With her flaxen hair all tangled and
wild,
And her voice as clear as a fairy bell
That the fairies ring at eventide —
Scrambling under table and chair,
Peeping into the cupboards wide.
Till a joyous voice rings through the air —
"0 ho ! a very good place to hide !"
And little Nell, creeping along the ground,
Murmurs in triumph, " I've found, I've
found !"
Hide and seek ! Not children now —
Life's noontide sun hath kissed each brow,
Nell's turn to hide the treasure to-day ;
So safely she thinks it hidden away.
That she fears her lover cannot find it.
Say, shall she help him ? Her eyes, so shy,
Half tell the secret, and half deny ;
And the green leaves rustle with laughter
sweet.
And the little birds twitter, " Oh, foolish
lover,
Has love bewitched and blinded thine eyes —
So that the truth thou canst not discover ?"
Then the sun gleams out, all golden and
bright,
And sends through the wood-path a clearer
light;
See the lover raises his eyes from the ground,
And reads in Nell's face that the treasure
is found.
What are the angels seeking for
Through the world in the darksome night?
A treasure that earth has stolen away,
And hidden 'midst flowers for many a day,
THE LION'S RIDE.
455
Hidden through sunshine, tlirough storm,
through blight,
Till it wasted and grew to a form so slight
And worn, that scarce in the features white
Conld one trace likeness to gladsome Nell.
But the angels knew her as there she lay.
All quietly sleeping, and bore her away,
Up to the city, jasper-walled —
Up to the city with golden street —
Up to the city, like crystal clear,
Where the pure and the sinless meet
And through costly pearl-gates that
wide,
They bore the treasure earth tried to hi
And weeping mortals listened with awe
To the silver echo that smote the skies,
As "Found?" rang forth from Paradise.
THE LIOWS RIDE.
FERDINAND FREILIGRATH.
jHE lion is the desert's king ; through
his domain so wide
"I'^C^ Right swiftly and right royally this
4* L night he means to ride.
el By the sedgy brink, where the wild
M herds drink, close couches the grim
I chief;
The trembling sycamore above whis-
pers with every leaf.
At evening, on the Table Mount, when ye
can see no more
The changeful play of signals gay ; when the
gloom is speckled o'er
With kraal fires ; when the Caffre wends
home through the lone karroo ;
When the boshbok in the thicket sleeps, and
by the stream the gnu ;
Then bend your gaze across the waste — What
see ye ? The giraffe,
Majestic, stalks toward the lagoon, the turbid
lymph to quaff;
With outstretched neck and tongue adust,
he kneels him down to cool
His hot thirst with a welcome draught from
the foul and brackish pool.
A rustling sound — a roar — a bound — the
lion sits astride
Upon his giant courser's back. Did ever
king so ride?
Had ever a steed so rare, caparisons of
state
31
To match the dappled skin whereon that
rider sits elate ?
In the muscles of the neck his teeth are
plunged with ravenous greed ;
His tawny mane is tossing round the withers
of the steed.
Up leaping with a hollow yell of anguish
and surprise.
Away, away, in wild dismay, the camel
leopard flies.
His feet have wings ; see how he springs
across the moonlit plain !
As from their sockets they would burst, his
glaring eyeballs strain ;
In thick black streams of purling blood, full
fast his life is fleeting ;
The stillness of the desert hears his heart's
tumultuous beating.
Like the cloud that, through the wilderness,
the path of Israel traced —
Like an airy phantom, dull and wan, a spirit
of the waste —
From the sandy sea uprising, as the water-
spout from the ocean,
A whirling cloud of dust keeps pace with th«
courser's fiery motion.
Croaking companion of their flight, the vul-
ture whirs on high ;
456
DIES IR^.
Below the terror of the fold, the panther
fierce and sly,
And hyenas foul, round graves that prowl,
join in the horrid race ;
By the foot-prints wet with gore and sweat,
their monarch's course they trace.
They see him on his living throne, and quake
with fear, the while
With claws of steel he tears piecemeal his
cushion's painted pile.
On ! on ! no pause, no rest, giraffe, while life
and strength remain !
The stoed by such a rider backed, may madly
plunge in vain.
Reeling upon the desert's verge, he falls, and
breathes his last ;
The courser, strained with dust and foam, is
the rider's fell repast.
O'er Madagascar, eastward far, a faint flut-h
is descried :
Thus nightly, o'er his broad domain, the
king of beasts doth ride.
DIES IR^.
THOMAS OF CELANO, A. D., 1208.
Translated by Dr. Abraham Coles.
HiAY of wrath ! that day of burning,
^^K Seer and sibyl speak concerning,
*^p All the world to ashes turning !
|; Oh, what fear shall it engender,
^ When the Judge shall come m splen-
■'[• dor.
Strict to mark and just to render !
Trumpet, scattering sounds of wonder,
Rending sepulchres asunder.
Shall resistless summons thunder.
All aghast then Death shall shiver,
And great Nature's frame shall quiver,
When the graves their dead deliver.
Book, where actions are recorded.
All the ages have afforded.
Shall be brought and dooms awarded.
When shall sit the Judge unerring.
He'll unfold all here occurring,
No just vengeance then deferring.
What shall J say, that time pending?
Ask what advocate's befriending.
When the just man needs defen-ding ?
Think, Jesus, for what reason
Thou didst bear earth's spite and treason.
Nor me lose in that dread season !
Seeking me Thy worn feet hasted ;
On the cross Thy soul death tasted, —
Let such travail not be wasted !
Righteous Judge of retribution !
Make me gift of absolution
Ere that day of execution !
Culprit-like, I plead, heart-broken.
On my cheek shame's crimson token :
Let the pardoning word be spoken !
Thou, who Mary gav'st remission,
Heard'st the dying thief's petition,
Cheer'st with hope my lost condition.
Though my prayers be void of merit,
What is needful. Thou confer it,
Lest I endless fire inherit !
Be then, Lord, my place decided
With Thy sheep, from goats divided,
Kindly to Thy right hand guided!
MANIFEST DESTINY.
457
When the accursed away are driven,
To eternal burnings given,
Call me with the blest to heaven !
I beseech Thee, prostrate lying,
Heart as ashes, contrite, sighing,
Care for me when I am dying !
Day of tears and late repentance !
Man shall rise to hear his sentence :
Him, the child of guilt and error,
Spare, Lord, in that hour of terror !
MANIFEST DESTINY.
JOSH BILLINGS.
S-VNIFEST destiny iz the science ov going tew bust, or enny other
'^ place before yu git thare. I may be rong in this centiraent, but
f^' * that iz the way it strikes me ; and i am so put together that when
enny thing strikes n\Q i immejiately strike back. Manifest
destiny mite perhaps be blocked out agin as the condishun that man
and things find themselfs in with a ring in their nozes and sumboddy
hold ov the ring. I may be rong agin, but if i am, awl i have got tew sa
iz, i don't kno it, and what a man don't kno ain't no damage tew enny boddy
else. The tru way that manifess destiny had better be sot down iz, the
exact distance that a frog kan jump down hill with a striped snake after him ;
i don't kno but i may be rong oust more, but if the frog don't git ketched
the destiny iz jist what he iz a looking for.
When a man falls into the bottom ov a well and makes up hiz minde
tew stay thare, that ain't manifess destiny enny more than having yure
hair cut short iz ; but if he almoste gits out and then falls down in agin
16 foot deeper and brakes off hiz neck twice in the same plase and dies and
iz buried thare at low water, that iz manifess destiny on the square.
Standing behind a cow in fly time and gitting kicked twice at one time,
must feel a good deal like manifess destiny. Being about 10 seckunds tow
late tew git an express train, and then chasing the train with yure wife,
and an umbreller in yure hands, in a hot day, and not getting az near tew
the train az you waz when started, looks a leetle like manifess destiny
on a rale rode trak. Going into a tempranse house and calling for a little
old Bourbon on ice, and being told in a mild way that " the Bourbon iz jist
out, but they hav got sum gin that cost 72 cents a gallon in Paris,"
sounds tew me like the manifess destiny ov moste tempranse houses.
Mi dear reader, don't beleave in manifess destiny until yu see it.
Thare is such a thing az manifess destiny, but when it occurs it iz like the
number ov rings on the rakoon's tale, ov no great consequense onla for
458
BILL AND JOE.
ornament. Man wan't made for a machine, if he waz, it was a locomotiff
machine, and manifess destiny must git oph from the trak when the bell
rings or git knocked higher than the price ov gold. Manifess destiny iz a
disseaze, but it iz eazy tew heal ; i have seen it in its wust stages cured bi
sawing a cord ov dri hickory wood, i thought i had it onse, it broke out
in the shape ov poetry ; i sent a speciment ov the disseaze tew a magazine,
the magazine man wrote mo next day az follers,
" Dear Sur: Yu may be a phule, but you are no poeck. Yures, in
haste."
BILL AND JOE.
^d^
0. W. HOLMES.
^OME, dear old comrade, you and I
Will steal an hour from days gone
by-
The shining days when life was new,
And all was bright as morning dew.
The lusty days of long ago,
When you were Bill and I was Joe.
Your name may flaunt a titled trail,
Proud as a cockerel's rainbow tail ;
And mine as brief appendix wear
As Tarn O'Shanter's luckless mare ;
To-day, old friend, remember still
That I am Joe and you are Bill.
You've won the great world's envied prize,
And grand you look in people's eyes.
With HON. and LL.D.,
In big brave letters, fair to see —
Your fist, old fellow ! off they go ! —
How are you, Bill? How are you, Joe?
You've worn the judge's ermine robe ;
You've taught your name to half the globe
You've sung mankind a deathless strain ;
You've made the dead past live again ;
The world may call you what it will.
But you and I are Joe and Bill.
The chafSng young folks stare and say,
" See those old buffers, bent and gray ;
They talk like fellows in their teens !
Mad, poor old boys ! That's what
means " —
And shake their heads ; they little know
The throbbing hearts of Bill and Joe —
How Bill forgets his hour of pride,
While Joe sits smiling at his side ;
How Joe, in spite of time's disguise,
Finds the old schoolmate in his eyes —
Those calm, stern eyes that melt and fill
As Joe looks fondly up at Bill.
Ah, pensive scholar! what is fame?
A fitful tongue of leaping flame ;
A giddy whirlwind's fickle gust,
That lifts a pinch of mortal dust :
A few swift years, and who can show
Which dust was Bill, and which was Joe ?
The weary idol takes his stand,
Holds out his bruised and aching hand,
While gaping thousands come and go —
How vain it seems, this empty show ! —
Till all at once his pulses thrill:
'Tis poor old Joe's " God bless you. Bill ! "
And shall we breathe in happier spheres
The names that pleased our mortal ears, —
In some sweet lull of harp and song.
For earth-born spirits none too long, —
Just whispering of the world below,
Where this was Bill, and that was Joe?
MAUD MULLER.
459
No matter ; while our home is here
No sounding name is half so dear ;
When fades at length our lingering day,
Who cares what pompous tombstones say ?
Read on ihe hearts that love us still,
Hicjacet Joe. Hic jacet Bill.
MA UD MULLER.
J. G. WHITTIER.
jAUD MuUer, on a summer's day,
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.
Beneath her torn hat glowed the
wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.
Singing, she wrought, and her mer-
ry glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.
But, when she glanced to the far off town,
Wliite from its hill-slope looking down,
The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast —
A wish, that she hardly dared to own.
For something better than she had known
The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.
4G0
MAUD MULLER.
He drew his bridlo in the shade
Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,
And ask a draught from the spring that
flowed
Through the meadow across the road.
She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup,
And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown,
" Thanks !" said the Judge, " a sweeter
draught
From a fairer hand was never quaffed."
He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
Of the singing birds and the humming bees ;
Then talked of the haying, and wondered
whather
The cloud in the west would bring foul
■weather.
And Maud forgot her briar-torn gown.
And her graceful ankles bare and brown ;
And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel ej^es.
At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.
Maud Muller looked and sighed : " Ah me !
That I the Judge's bride might be !
" He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.
" My father should wear a broadcloth coat;
My brother should sail a painted boat.
" I'd dress my mother bo grand and gay.
And the baby should have anew toy each
day.
" And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the
poor.
And all should bless me who left our door."
The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill.
And saw Maud Muller standing still.
" A form more fair, a face more sweet.
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.
" And her modest answer and graceful air
Show her wise and good as she is fair.
" Would she were mine, and I to-day.
Like her, a harvester of hay :
" No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
Nor weary lawyer.s with endless tongues,
" But low of cattle, and song of birds,
And health, and quiet, and loving words."
But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold.
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.
So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.
But the lawyers smiled that afternoon.
When he hummed in court an old love-tune ;
And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.
He wedded a wife of richest dower.
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.
Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow.
He watched a picture come and go :
And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.
Oft when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead ;
And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.
And the proud man sighed, with a secret
pain,
" Ah, that I were free again !
" Free as when I rode that day.
Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay.'
She wedded a man unlearned and poor.
And many children played round her door.
But care and sorrow, and chiLl-ljirth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.
KATE KETCHEM.
461
And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new mown hay in the meadow lot,
And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall.
In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein.
And gazing down with timid grace.
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.
Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls ;
The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned ;
And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,
A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.
Then he took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, " It might have been."
Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge !
God pity them both ! and pity us all.
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall ;
For of all sad words of tongue or pen.
The saddest are these : " It might have been !'
Ah, well ! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes ;
And, in tie hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away !
KATE KETCHEM.
PHCEBE GARY.
^ATE Ketchem, on a winter's night,
1^ Went to a party, dressed in white.
Her chignon in a net of gold
Was about as large as they ever sold.
Gayly she went because her " pap "
Was supposed to be a rich old chap.
But when by chance her glances fell
On a friend who had lately married well,
Her spirits sunk, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast —
A wish she wouldn't have had made known.
To have an establishment of her own.
Tom Fudge came slowly through the throng.
With chestnut hair, worn pretty long.
He saw Kate Ketchem in the crowd.
And, knowing her slightly, stopped and
bowed.
Then asked her to give him a single flower.
Saying he'd think it a priceless dower.
Out from those with which she was decked
She took the poorest she could select.
And blushed as she gave it, looking down
To call attention to her gown.
" Thanks," said Fudge, and he thought how
dear
Flowers must be at this time of year.
Then several charming remarks he made.
Asked if she sang, or danced, or played ;
And being exhausted, inquired whether
She thought it was going to be pleasant
weather.
And Kate displayed her jewelry.
And dropped her lashes becomingly ;
And listened with no attempt to disguise
The admiration in her eyes.
At last, like one who has nothing to say,
He turned around and walked awav.
4:62
KATE KETCHEM.
Kate Ketchem smiled, and said " You bet
I'll catch that Fudge and his money yet.
" He's rich enough to keep mo in clothes,
And I think I could manage him if I chose.
" He could aid my father as well as not.
And buy my brother a splendid yacht.
" My mother for money should never fret,
And all that it cried for the baby should get ;
" And after that, with what he could spare,
I'd make a show at a charity fair."
Tom Fudge looked back as he crossed the sill,
And saw Kate Ketchem standing still.
" A girl more suited to my mind
It isn't an easy thing to find ;
" And every thing that she has to wear
proves her as rich as she is fair.
"Would she were mine, and that I to-day
Had the old man's cash my debts to pay ;
" No creditors with a long account.
No tradesmen waiting 'that little amount;'
" But all my scores paid up when due
By a father as rich as any Jew !"
But he thought of her brother, not worth a
straw,
And her mother, that would be his, in law ;
So, undecided, he walked along.
And Kate was left alone in the throng.
But a lawyer smiled, whom he sought by
stealth.
To ascertain old Ketchem's wealth ;
And as for Kate, she schemed and planned
Till one of the dancers claimed her hand.
He married her for her father's cash —
She married him to cut a dash.
Bui as to paying his debts, do you know
The father couldn't see it so ;
And at hints for help Kate's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise
And when Tom thought of the way he had
wed.
He longed for a single life instead,
And closed his eyes in a sulky mood.
Regretting the days of his bachelorhood ;
And said in a sort of reckless vein,
" I'd like to see her catch me again,
" If I were free as on that night
I saw Kate Ketchem dressed in white !"
She wedded him to be rich and gay ;
But husband and children didn't pay.
He wasn't the prize she hoped to draw.
And wouldn't live with his mother-in-law.
And oft when she had to coax and pout
In order to get him to take her out.
She thought how very attentive and bright
He seemed at the party that winter's night.
Of his laugh, as soft as a breeze of the south,
('Twas now on the other side of his mouth:)
How he praised her dress and gems in hia
talk.
As he took a careful account of stock.
Sometimes she hated the very walls —
Hated her friends, her dinners, and calls :
Till her weak affections, to hatred turned.
Like a dying tallow candle burned.
And for him who sat there, her peace to mar,
Smoking his everlasting segar —
He wasn't the man she thought she saw,
And grief was duty, and hate was law.
So she took up her burden with a groan,
Saying only, "I might have known!"
Ala-? tor Kate ! and alas for Fudge !
Though I do not owe them any grudge •
THE INDIAN TO THE SETTLER.
463
And alas for any that find to their shame
That two can play at their little game !
For of all hard things to bear and grin,
The hardest is knowing you're taken in.
Ah well ! as a general thing we fret
About the one we didn't get ;
But I think we needn't make a fuss
If the one we don't want didn't get i
THE MERR Y LARK.
CHARLES KINGSLEY.
™iM|HE merry, merry lark was up and
PH singing,
rAnd the hare was out and feeding
on the lea.
And the merry, merry bells below
were ringing.
When my child's laugh rang through me.
Now the hare is snared and dead beside the
snow-yard,
And the lark beside the dreary winter
sea,
And my baby in his cradle in the church-
yard
Waiteth there until the bells bring me.
THE INDIAN TO THE SETTLER.
EDWARD EVERETT.
jlliiHINK of the country for which the Indians fought ! Who can
'■^J^ blame them? As Philip looked down from his seat on Mount
Hope, that glorious eminence, that
4G4 THE INDIAN TO THE SETTLER.
" throne of royal 8tate, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold," —
as he looked down, and beheld the lovely scene which spread beneath, at a
summer sunset, the distant hill-tops glittering as with fire, the slanting
beams streaming across the waters, the broad plains, the island groups,
the majestic forest, — could he be blamed, if his heart burned within him,
as he beheld it all passing, by no tardy process from beneath his control,
into the hands of the stranger ?
As the river chieftains — the lords of the waterfalls and the mountains
— ranged this lovely valley, can it be wondered at if they beheld with
bitterness the forest disappearing beneath the settler's axe — the fishing-
place disturbed by his saw-mills ? Can we not fancy the feelings with
which some strong-minded savage, the chief of the Pocomtuck Indians,
who should have ascended the summit of the Sugar-loaf Mountain (rising
as it does before us, at this moment, in all its loveliness and grandeur,) —
in company with a friendly settler — contemplating the progress already
made by the white man, and marking the gigantic strides with which he
was advancing into the wilderness, should fold his arms and say, " White
man, there is eternal war between me and thee ! I quit not the land of
my fathers, but with my life. In those woods, where I bent my youthful
bow, I will still hunt the deer; over yonder waters I will still glide unre-
strained, in my bark canoe. By those dashing waterfalls I will still lay
up my winter's store of food; on these fertile meadows I will still plant
my corn.
" Stranger, the land is mine ! I understand not these paper-
rights. I gave not my consent, when, as thou say est, these broad regions
were purchased, for a few baubles, of my fathers. They could sell what
was theirs; they could sell no more. How could my father sell that which
the Great Spirit sent me into the world to live upon ? They knew not
what they did.
" The stranger came, a timid suppliant, — few and feeble, and asked to
lie down on the red man's bear-skin, and warm himself at the red man's
fire, and have a little piece of land to raise corn for his women and child-
ren; and now he is become strong, and mighty, and bold, and spreads out
his parchments over the whole, and says, ' It is mine.'
" Stranger 1 there is not room for us both. The Great Spirit has not
made us to live together. There is poison in the white man's cup; the
white man's dog barks at the red man's heels. If I should leave the land
THE INDIAN TO THE SETTLER.
465
of my fathers, whither shall I fly? Shall I go to the south, and dwell
among the graves of the Pequots? Shall I wander to the west, the fierce
Mohawk — the man-eater, — is my foe. Shall I fly to the east, the great
water is before me. No, stranger; hero I have lived, and here will I die;
and if here thou abidest, there is eternal war between me and thee.
INNOVATIONS OF THE WHITE MAN.
"Thou hast taught me thy arts of destruction; for that alone I thank
thee. And now take heed to thy steps ; the red man is thy foe. "When
thou goest forth by day, my bullet shall whistle past thee; when thou liest
down by night, my knife is at thy throat. The noonday sun shall not dis-
cover thine enemy, and the darkness of midnight shall not protect thy rest.
Thou shalt plant in terror, and I will reap in blood; thou shalt sow the
earth with corn, and I will strew it with ashes; thou shalt go forth with
the sickle, and I will follow after with the scalping-knife; thou shalt build,
456
THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER.
and I will burn, — till the white man or the Indian perish from the land.
Go thy way for this time in safety, — but remember, stranger, there is
eternal war between me and thee."
JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO.
ROBERT
""g OHN ANDERSON, my jo, John,
^ When we were first acquent
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonnie brow was brent ;
But now your brow is held, John,
Your locks are like the snaw ;
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo.
John Anderson, my jo, John
We clamb the hill thegither ;
And mony a canty day, John,
We've had wi' ane anither.
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand-in-hand we'll go :
And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my jo.
THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER.
FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.
^H! say, can you see, by the dawn's
early light.
What so proudly we hailed at tb"^
twilight's last gleaming ?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars
i through the perilous fight.
O'er the rampart, we watched were
so gallantly streaming :
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs burst-
ing in air.
Gave proof through the night that our flag
was still there ;
Oh ! say, does that star-spangled banner
yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of
the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mjsts
of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread
silence reposes.
What is that which the breeze, o'er the tow-
ering steep.
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half
discloses ?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's
first beam.
In full glory reflected now shines on the
stream ;
'Tis the star-spangled banner ! oh, long
may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of
the brave !
And where is that band, who so vauntingly
swore
That the havoc of war and th« battle's
confusion
A home and a country should leave us no
more?
Their blood has washed out their foul
footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and
slave.
From the terror of death and the gloom of
the grave ;
And the star-spangled banner in triumph
shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of
ih^: brave !
THE AMERICAN FLAG.
467
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall
stand
Between their loved homes and the war's
desolation ;
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is
just,
And this be our motto, "In God is out
trust."
Blest with victory aaJ peace, may the heav-
en-rescued land
And the star-spangled banner in triumph
shall wave
Praise the power that has made and pre-
served us a nation.
O'er the land of the free and the home of
the brave !
TEE AMERICAN FLAG.
JOSEPH EODMAN DRAKE.
^HEN Freedom, from her mountain
height.
Unfurled her standard to the air.
She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there !
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies.
And striped its pure celestial white
With streakings of the morning light,
Then, from his mansion in the sun,
She called her eagle bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land !
Majestic monarch of the cloud !
"Who rear'st aloft thy regal form.
To hear the tempest-trumpings loud.
And see the lightning lances driven.
When strive the warriors of the storm,
And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven, —
Child of the sun ! to thee 'tis given
To guard the banner of the free,
To hover in the sulphur smoke,
To ward away the battle stroke,
And bid its blendings fhine afar.
Like rainbows on the cloud of war,
The harbingers of victory !
Flag of the brave ! thy folds shall fly.
The sign of hope and triumph high !
When speaks the signal-trumpet tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on.
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet.
Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn,
To where thy sky-born glories burn.
And as his springing steps advance.
Catch war and vengeance from the glance
And when the cannon-mouthings loud
Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud.
And gory sabres rise and fall
Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall.
Then shall thy meteor glances glow.
And cowering foes shall shrink beneath
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.
Flag of the seas ! on ocean wave
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave ;
When death, careering on the gale.
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail.
And frighted waves rush wildly back
Before the broadside's reeling rack.
Each dying wanderer of the sea
Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
And smile to see thy splendors fly
In triumph o'er his closing eye.
Flag of the free heart's hope and home.
By angel hands to valor given.
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome.
And all thy hues were born in heaven .'
Forever float that standard sheet.
Where breathes the foe but falls before
us.
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet.
And Freedom's banner streaming o'er
us!
468
THE DJINNS.
THE DJINNS.
VICTOR HUGO.
IpOWN, towor.
l!|K Shore, deep,
li2s Where lower
Clouds steep ;
Waves gray
Where play
Winds gay-
All asleep.
Hark a sound,
Far and slight.
Breathes around
On the night —
High and higher.
Nigh and nigher,
Like a fire
Roaring bright.
New on it is sweeping
With rattling beat
Like dwarf imp leaping
In gallop fleet;
He flies, he prances,
In frolic fancies —
On wave crest dances
With pattering feet.
Hark, the rising swell.
With each nearer burst I
Like the toll of bell
Of a convent cursed ;
Like the billowy roar
On a storm-lashed shore-
Now hushed, now once more
Maddening to its worst,
Oh God ! the deadly sound
Of the djinns' fearful cry !
Quick, 'neath the spiral round
Of the deep staircase, fly !
See, our lamplight fade !
And of the balustrade
Mounts, mounts the circling shade
Up to the ceiling high !
•Tis the djinua' wild streaming swarm
Whistling in their tempest flight ;
Snap the tall yews 'neath the storm.
Like a pine-flame crackling bright ;
Swift and heavy, low, their crowd
Through the heavens rushing loud !—
Like a lurid thunder cloud
With its hold of fiery night!
Ha ! they are on us, close without !
Shut tight the shelter where we lie !
With hideous din the monster rout,
Dragon and vampire, fill the sky !
The loosened rafter overhead
Trembles and bends like quivering re«d ;
Shakes the old door with shuddering dread,
As from its ru^ty hinge 'twould fly !
Wild cries of hell ! voices that howl and shriek !
The horrid swarm before the tempest tossed
heaven !— descends my lonely roof to seek ;
Bends the strong wall beneath the furious hoat;-
Totters the houfle, as though, like dry leaf pborn
From autumn bough and on mad blast borne!
Up from its deep foundations it were torn
To join the stormy whirl. Ah ! all is lost !
Oh prophet ! if tliy hand but now
Save from these foul and hellish things,
A pilgrim at thy shrine I'll bow,
Laden with pious ofterings.
Bid their hot breath its tiery rain
Stream on my faithful door in vain,
Vainly upon my blackened pane
Grate the fierce claws of their dark wings !
T.hey have passed ! — and their wild legion
Cease to thunder at my door ;
Fleeting through night's rayless region.
Hither they return no more.
(. lanking chains and sounds of woe
Fill the forests as they go ;
And the tall oaks cower low.
Bent their flaming fliglit before.
On ! on ! the storm of wings
Beai 8 far the fiery fear.
Till scarce the breeze now brings
Dim murmurings to the ear ;
Like locusts humming hail,
Or thrash of tiny flail
Flied by the pattering hail
On some old roof-tree near.
Fainter now are borne
Fitful murmurings still
As, when Arab horn
Swells its magic peal.
Shoreward o'er the deep
Fairy voices sweep,
And the infant's sleep
Golden visions till.
Each deadly djinn.
Dark child of friglit,
Of death and sin,
Speeds the wild flight.
Hark, the dull nwau I
Like the deep tone
Of Ocean's groan.
Afar by night 1
More and more
Fades it now,
As on shore
Eipples flow —
As the plaint.
Far and faint,
Of a saint.
Murmured low.
Hark ! hist I
Around
I list !
The bound*
Of space
All trace
Efface
Of sound.
^Yf/' >v ">/ 'ym'' jj
THE CHEMIST.
THE CHEMIST TO HIS LOVE.
469
THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM.
^I^HEN, marshalled on the nightly
plain,
t^®p^ The glittering host bestud the
y One star alone of all the train
•f Can fix the sinner's wandering
J eye.
Hark ! hark ! to God the chorus breaks
From every host, from every gem ;
But one alone a Saviour speaks,
It is the Star of Bethlehem.
Once on the raging seas I rode,
The storm was loud, the night was dark.
HENRY KIEKE WHITE.
The ocean yawned — and rudely blowed
The wind that tossed my foundering bark.
Deep horror then my vitals froze.
Death-struck — I ceased the tide to stem ;
When suddenly a star arose,
It was the Star of Bethlehem.
It was my guide, my light, my all ;
It bade my dark forebodings cease ;
And through the storm and danger's thrall,
It led me to the port of peace.
Now safely moored — my perils o'er,
I'll sing, first in night's .diadem.
Forever and for evermore.
The Star !— the Star of Bethlehem.
THE CHEMIST TO HIS LOVE.
LOVE thee, Mary, and thou lovest me,-
Our mutual flame is like the affinity
. .„ . That doth exist between two simple
4|f bodies :
J I am Potassium to thine Oxygen.
T 'T is little that the holy marriage vow
J Shall shortly make us one. That unity
Is, after all, but metaphysical.
0, would that I, my Mary, were an acid,
A living acid ; thou an alkali
32
Endowed with human sense, that brought
together.
We might both coalesce into one salt.
One homogeneous crystal. that thou
Wert Carbon, and myself were Hydrogen !
We would unite to form olefiant gas.
Or common coal, or naphtha. Would to Hea
ven
That I were Phosphorus, and thou wert
Lime,
470
SIGHTS FROM A STEEPLE.
And we of Lime composed a Phosphuret !
I'd be content to be Sulphuric Acid,
So that thou might be Soda ; in that case
We should be Glauber's salt. Wert thou
Magnesia
Instead, we'd form the salt that's named from
Epsom.
Couldst thou Potassa be, I Aquafortis,
Our happy union should that compound
form.
Nitrate of Potash, — otherwise Saltpetre.
And thus our several natures sweetly blent,
We'd live and love together, until death
Should decompose the fleshy tertium quid,
Leaving our souls to all eternity
Amalgamated. Sweet, thy name is Briggs
And mine is Johnson. Wherefore should
not we
Agree to form a Johnsonate of Briggs?
We will. The day, the happy day is nigh,
When Johnson shall with beauteous Briggs
combine.
SIGHTS FROM A STEEPLE.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
|0W various are the situations of the people covered by the roofs
beneath me, and how diversified are the events at this moment
befalling them! The new-born, the aged, the dying, the strong in
life, and the recent dead, are in the chambers of these many man-
sions. The full of hope, the happy, the miserable, and the desper-
ate, dwell together within the circle of my glance. In some of the
houses over which my eyes roam so coldly, guilt is entering into hearts
that are still tenanted by a debased and trodden virtue — guilt is on the
very edge of commission, and the impending deed might be averted; guilt
is done, and the criminal wonders if it be irrevocable. There are broad
thoughts struggling in my mind, and, were I able to give them distinct-
ness, they would make their way in eloquence. Lo! the rain-drops are
descending.
The clouds, within a little time, have gathered over all the sky, hang-
ing heavily, as if about to drop in one unbroken mass upon the earth. At
intervals the lightning flashes from their brooding hearts, quivers, dis-
appears, and then comes the thunder, travelling slowly after its twin-born
flame. A strong wind has sprung up, howls through the darkened streets,
and raises the dust in dense bodies, to rebel against the approaching
storm. All people hurry homeward — all that have a home; while a few
lounge by the corners, or trudge on desperately, at their leisure.
And now the storm lets loose its fury. In every dwelling I perceive
the faces of the chambermaids as they shut down the windows, excluding
the impetuous shower, and shrinking away from the quick, fiery glare. The
large drops descend with force upon the slated roofs, and rise again in
WHEN SPARROWS BUILD.
471
smoke. There is a rush and roar, as of a river through the air, and muddy
streams bubble majestically along the pavement, whirl their dusky foam
into the kennel, and disappear beneath iron grates. Thus did Arethusa
sink. I love not my station here aloft, in the midst of the tumult which I
am powerless to direct or quell, with the blue lightning wrinkling on my
brow, and the thunder muttering its first awful syllables in my ear. I will
descend. Yet let me give another glance to the sea, where the foam breaks
in long white lines upon a broad expanse of blackness, or boils up in far
distant points, like snowy -mountain-tops in the eddies of a flood; and let
me look once more at the green plain, and little hills of the country, over
which the giant of the storm is riding in robes of mist, and at the town,
whose obscured and desolate streets might beseem a city of the dead ; and
turning a single moment to the sky, now gloomy as an author's prospects,
I prepare to resume my station on lower earth. But sta}^ ! A little speck
of azure has widened in the western heavens ; the sunbeams find a passage,
and go rejoicing through the tempest; and on yonder darkest cloud, born,
like hallowed hopes, of the glory of another world, and the trouble and
tears of this, brightens forth the Rainbow !
WHEN SPARROV:S BUILD.
JEAN INCtELOW.
pl^HEN sparrows build, and the leaves
.Jmm break forth,
^^^C|^ My old sorrow wakes and cries.
J For I know there is dawn in the far,
T far north,
J And a scarlet sun doth rise ;
Like a scarlet fleece the snow-field spreads,
And the icy fount runs free ;
And the bergs begin to bow their heads,
And plunge and sail in the sea.
0, my lost love, and my own, own love,
And mj- love that loved me so !
Is there never a chink in the world above
Where they listen for words from below ?
Nay, I spoke once, and I grieved thee sore ;
I remembered all that I said ;
And now thou wilt hear me no more — no more
Till the sea gives up her dead.
Thou didst set thy foot on the ship, and sail
To the ice-fields and the snow ; i
Thou wert sad, for thy love did not avail,
And the end I could not know.
472
KIT CARSON'S RILE.
How could I tell I should love thee to-day,
Whom that day I held not dear ?
How could I tell I should love thee away
When I did not love thee anear ?
We shall walk no more through the sodden
plain,
With the faded bents o'erspread ;
We shall stand no more by the seething
main
While the dark wrack drives o'erhead ;
We shall part no more in the wind and rain
Where thy last farewell was said ;
But perhaps I shall meet thee and know thee
again
When the sea gives up her dead.
KIT CARSON'S RIDE.
JOAQUIN MILLER.
UN ? Now you bet you ; I rather
IP guess so.
But he's blind as a badger. "Whoa,
Pache, boy, whoa.
No, you wouldn't think so to look
I at his eyes,
But he is badger bliml, and it happened
this wise ; —
We lay low in the grass on the broad plain
levels.
Old Revels and I, and my stolen brown bride.
" Forty full miles if a foot to ride.
Forty full miles if a foot, and the devils
Of red Camanches are hot on the track
When once they strike it. Let the sun go
down
Soon, very soon," muttered bearded old Revels
As he peered at the sun, lying low on his
back.
Holding fast to his lasso ; then he jerked at
his steed,
And sprang to his feet, and glanced swiftly
around.
And then dropped, as if shot, with his ear to
the ground, —
Then again to his feet and to mo, to my bride.
While his eyes were like fire, his face like a
shroud.
His form like a king, and his beard like a
cloud.
And his voice loud and shrill, as if blowji
from a reed, — '■
" Pull, pull in your lassos, and bridle to steed.
And speed, if ever for life you would speed ;
And ride for your lives, for your lives you
must ride,
For the plain is aflame, the prairie on fire.
And feet of wild horses, hard flying before
I hear like a sea breaking hard on the shore ;
While the bufi'alo come like the surge of the
sea,
Lriven far by the flame, driving fast on us
three
As a hurricane comes, crushing palms in his
ire."
We drew in the lassos, seized saddle and rein.
Threw them on, sinched them on, sinched
them over again,
And again drew the girth, cast aside the
macheer.
Cut away tapidaros, loosed the sash from its
fold.
Cast aside the catenas red and spangled with
gold.
And gold-mounted Colt's, true companions
for years.
Cast the red silk serapes to the wind in a breath
And so bared to the skin sprang all haste to
the horse.
Not a word, not a wail from a lip was let fall.
Not a kiss from my bride, not a look or low
call
Of love-note or courage, but on o'er the
plain
So steady and still, leaning low to the mane.
With the heel to the flank and the hand to
the rein.
i>N;i|S;ii;r«iiii
KIT CARSON'S RIDE.
473
Rode we on, rode we three, rode we gray
nose and nose, I
Reaching long, breathing loud, like a creviced
wind blows, j
Yet we spoke not a whisper, we breathed not ,
a prayer, i
There was work to be done, there was death
in the air,
And the chance was as one to a thousand for
all.
Gray nose to gray nose and each steady
mustang
Stretched neck and stretched nerve till the
hollow earth rang
And the foam from the flank and the croup
and the neck
Flew around like the spray on a storm-driven
deck.
Twenty miles ! thirty miles ! — a dim distant
speck —
Then a long reaching line and the Brazos in
sight.
And I rose in my seat with a shout of de-
light.
I stood in my stirrup and looked to my right,
But Revels was gone ; I glanced by my
shoulder
And saw his horse stagger ; I saw his head
drooping
Hard on his breast, and his naked breast
stooping
Low down to the mane as so swifter and
bolder
Ran reaching out for us the red-footed fire.
To right and to left the black buffalo came,
In miles and in millions, rolling on in despair,
With their beards to the dust and black tails
in the air.
As a terrible surf on a red sea of flame
Rushing on in the rear, reaching high, reach-
ing higher,
And he rode neck to neck to a buffalo bull,
The monarch of millions, with shaggy mane
full
Of smoke and of dust, and it shook with desire
Of battle, with rage and with bellowings loud
And unearthly and up through its lowering
cloud
Came the flash of his eyes like a half-hidden
fire,
While his keen crooked horns through the
storm of his mane
Like black lances lifted and lifted again ;
And I looked but this once, for the fire licked
through.
And he fell and was lost, as we rode two and
two.
I looked to my left then, and nose, neck, and
shoulder
Sank slowly, sank surely, till back to my
thighs ;
And up through the black blowing veil of
her hair
Did beam full in mine her two marvelous
eyes
With a longing and love, yet look of despair.
And a pity for me, as she felt the smoke fold
her.
And flames reaching far for her glorious hair.
Her sinking steed faltered, his eager ears fell
To and fro and unsteady, au'I all the neck's
swell
Did subside and recede, and the nerves fell as
dead.
Then she saw that my own steed still lorded
his head
With a look of delight, for this Pach^, you see,
Was her father's, and once at the South
Santafee
Had won a whole herd, sweeping everything
down
In a race where the world came to run for
the crown ;
And so when I won the true heart of my
bride, —
Ikly neighbor's and deadliest enemy's child,
And child of the kingly war-chief of his
tribe, —
Sh3 brought me this steed to the border the
night
She met Revels and me in her perilous flight.
From the lodge of the chief to the north
Brazos side ;
And said, so half guessing of ill as she smiled.
As if jesting, that I, and I only, should ride
The fleet-footed Pach^, so if kin should pursue
I should surely escape without other ado
474
THE ORGAN OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
Than to ride, without blood, to the north
Brazos side,
And await her, — and wait till the next hollow
moon
Hung her horn m the palms, when surely
and soon
And swift she would join me, and all would
be well
Without bloodshed or word. And now as
she fell
From the front, and went down in the ocean
of fire,
The last that I saw was a look of delight
That I should escape, — a love, — a desire, —
Yet never a word, not a look of appeal, —
Lest I should reach hand, should stay hand
or stay heel
One instant for her in my terrible flight.
Then the rushing of fire rose around me and
under.
And the howling of beasts like the sound of
thunder, —
Beasts burning and blind and forced onward
and over,
As the passionate flame reached around them
and wove her
Hands in their hair, and ki.ssed hot till they
died, —
Till they died with a wild and a desolate
moan.
As a sea heart-broken on the hard brown
stone.
And into the Brazos I rode all alone —
All alone, save only a horse long-limbed,
And blind and bare and burnt to the skin.
Then just as the terrible sea came in
And tumbled its thousands hot into the tide,
Till the tide blocked up and the swift stream
brimmed
In eddies, we struck on the opposite side.
THE ORGAN OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
WASHINGTON IRVING.
HE sound of casual footsteps had ceased from the abbey. I could
only hear, now and then, the distant voice of the priest repeating
c^l-^'^'l' the evening service, and the faint responses of the choir ; these
'^ paused for a time, and all was hushed. The stillness, the desertion
and obscurity that were gradually prevailing around, gave a
deeper and more solemn interest to the place :
For in the silent grave no conversation,
No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers,
No careful father's counsel — nothing's heard.
For nothing is, but all oblivion.
Dust, and an endless darkness.
Suddenly the notes of the deep-laboring organ burst upon the ear,
falling with doubled and redoubled intensity, and rolling, as it were, huge
billows of sound. How well do their volume and grandeur accord with
this mighty building ! With what pomp do they swell through its vast
vaults, and breathe their awful harmony through these caves of death, and
make the silent sepulchre vocal ! And now they rise in triumph and
acclamation, heaving higher and higher their accordant notes, and piling
THE ORGAN OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
475
INTERIOR OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
sound on sound. And now they pause, and the soft voices of the choir
break out into sweet gushes of melody; they soar aloft, and warble along
476
QUARREL OF BRUTUS AND CASSIUS.
the roof, and seem to play about these lofty vaults like the pure airs of
heaven. Again the pealing organ heaves its thrilling thunders, compress-
ing air into music, and rolling it forth upon the soul. What long-drawn
cadences ! What solemn sweeping concords ! It grows more and more
dense and powerful — it fills the vast pile, and seems to jar the very walls —
the ear is stunned — the senses are overwhelmed. And now it is winding
up in full jubilee — it is rising from the earth to heaven — the very soul
seems rapt away and floated upwards on this swelling tide of harmony !
I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie which a strain of music
is apt sometimes to inspire : the shadows of evening were gradually thick-
ening round me ; the monuments began to cast deeper and deeper gloom ;
and the distant clock again gave token of the slowly waning day.
UARREL OF BR UTUS AND CASSIUS.
SHAKESPEARE.
Julius CcEsar. — Act IV. Scene III.
lASSl US. — That you have wronged me
doth appear in this :
You have condemned and noted Lucius
Pella
For taking bribes here of the Sardians,
Wherein my letters, praying on his
side,
Because I knew the man, were slighted
off.
Brutus. — You wronged yourself to write
in such a case.
Cassius. — In such a time as this, it is not
meet
That every nice offence should bear its com-
ment.
Brutus. — Let me tell you, Cassius, you
yourself
Are much condemned to have an itching
palm.
To sell and mart your offices for gold
To undeservers.
Cassius. — I an itching palm?
You know that you are Brutus that speak
this,
Or, by the gods, this speech were else your
last.
Brutus. — The name of Cassius honors this
corruption.
And chastisement doth therefore hide his head.
Cassius. — Chastisement !
Brutus. — Remember March, the Ides of
March remember !
Did not great Julius bleed, for justice' sake ?
What villain touched his body, that did stab.
And not for justice ? What, shall one of us,
That struck the forsmost man of all this
world
But for supporting robbers ; shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes.
And sell the mighty space of our large
honors.
For so much trash as may be grasped thus?
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon.
Than such a Roman.
Cassius. — Brutus, bay not me.
I'll not endure it : you forget yourself.
To hedge me in ; I am a soldier, I,
Older in practice, abler than yourself
To make conditions.
Brutus. — Go to ; you are not, Cassius.
Cassius. — I am.
Brutus. — I say you are not.
QUARREL OF BRUTUS AND CASSIUS.
477
Cassius. — Urge me no more, I shall forget
myself;
Have mind upon your health, tempt me no
further.
Brutus. — Away, slight man !
Cassius. — Is't possible ?
Brutus. — Hear me for I will speak.
Must I give way and room to your rash
choler?
Shall I be frighted when a madman stares ?
Cassius. — ye gods ! ye gods ! must I en-
dure all this ?
Brutus. — All this ? Aye, more ; fret till
your proud heart break ;
Go, show your slaves how choleric you are,
And make your bondmen tremble. Must I
budge ?
Must I observe you ? Must I stand and
crouch
Under your testy humor ? By the gods,
You shall digest the venom of your spleen.
Though it do split you ; for from this day
forth,
I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laugh-
ter.
When you are waspish.
Cassius. — Is it come to this ?
Brutus. — You say you are a better soldier :
Let it appear so ; make your vaunting true,
And it shall please me well ; for mine own
part
I shall be glad to learn of noble men.
Cassius. — You wrong me every way ; you
wrong me, Brutus ;
I said an elder soldier, not a better ?
Did I say "better"?
Brutus. — If you did, I care not.
Cassius. — When Cassar liv'd, he durst not
thus have mov'd me.
Brutus. — Peace, peace! you durst not
thus have tempted him.
Cassius. — I durst not ?
Brutus. — No.
Cassias. — What? Durst not tempt him ?
Brutus— ^FoT your life you durst not.
Cassius. — Do not presume too much upon
my love ;
I may do that I shall be sorry for.
Brutus. — You have done that you should
be sorry for,
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats ;
For I am armed so strong in honesty
That they pass by me as the idle wind,
Which I respect not. I did send to you
For certain sums of gold, which you denied
me;
For I can raise no money by vile means ;
By heaven, I had rather coin my heart.
And drop my blood for drachmas, than to
wring
From the hard hands of peasants their vile
trash
By any indirection. I did send
To you for gold to pay my legions.
Which you denied me. Was that done like
Cassius ?
Should I have answered Caius Cassius so?
When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,
To lock such rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts ;
Dash him to pieces !
Cassius. — I denied you not.
Brutus. — You did.
Cassius. — I did not ; he was but a fool
That brought my answer back. Brutus hath
rived my heart.
A friend should bear his friend's infirmities.
But Brutus makes mine greater than they
are.
Brutus. — I do not, till you practice them
on me.
Cassius. — You love me not.
Brutus. — I do not like your faults.
Cassius. — A friendly ej^e could never see
such faults.
Brutus. — A flatterer's would not, though
they do appear
As huge as high Olympus.
Cassius. — Come, Antony, and young Octa-
vius, come !
Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius,
For Cassius is aweary of the world :
Hated by one he loves ; braved by his brother ;
Checked like a bondman ; all his faults ob-
served,
Set in a note-book, learned, and conned by
rote.
To cast into my teeth. Oh, I could weep
My spirit from mine eyes! There is my
dagger,
478
MRS. CAUDLE NEEDS SPRING CLOTHING.
And liere my naked breast ; -within, a heart,
Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold ;
If that thou be'st a Roman, take it forth ;
I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart :
Strike as thou didst at Csesar ; for, I know.
When thou didst hate him worst, thou lov-
edst him better
Than ever thou lovedst Cassius.
Brutus. — Sheathe your dagger :
Be angry when you will, it shall have scope;
Do what you will, dishonor shall be humor.
Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb
That carries anger as the flint bears fire :
Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark.
And straight is cold again.
Cassius. — Hath Cassius lived
To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus,
When grief and blood ill-tempered, vexeth
him?
Brutus. — When I spoke that I was ill-
tempered, too.
Cassius. — Do you confess so much? Give
me your hand.
Brutus. — And my heart too. [Uinhracing.]
Cassius. — Brutus !
Brutus. — What's the matter ?
Casius. — Have you not love enough to bear
with me.
When that rash humor which my mother
gave me
Makes me forgetful ?
Brutus. — Yes, Cassius ; and, from hence-
forth,
When you are over-earnest with your Bru-
tus,
He'll think your mother chides, and leave
you so.
MBS. CA UDLE NEEDS SPRING CLOTHING.
DOUGLAS JERROLD,
W^ there's anything in the world I hate — and you know it — it is, asking
P^ you for money. I am sure for myself, I'd rather go without a thing
f^ a thousand times, and I do, the more shame for you to let me.
•I Wliat do I loant now? As if you didn't know! I'm sure, if I'd
any money of my own, I'd never ask you for a farthing — never! It's
painful to me, gracious knows ! What do you say ? If it's painful, why
so often do it ? I suppose you call that a joke — one of your club-jokes I
As I say, I only wish I'd any money of my own. If there is anything that
humbles a poor woman, it is coming to a man's pocket for every farthing.
It's dreadful !
Now, Caudle, you shall hear me, for it isn't often I speak. Pray, do
you know what month it is ? And did you see how the children looked at
church to-day — like nobody else's children ? What loas the matter loith
them? Oh! Caudle how can you ask ! Weren't they all in their thick
merinoes and beaver bonnets? What do you say ? What of it ? What I
You'll tell me that you didn't see how the Briggs girls, in their new chips,
turned their noses up at 'em ! And you didn't see how the Browns
looked at the Smiths, and then at our poor girls, as much as to say,
MKS. CAUDLE NEEDS SPRING CLOTHING. 479
" Poor creatures! what figures for the first of May?" You didnt see it!
The more shame for you ! I'm sure, those Briggs girls — the little minxes !
— put me into such a pucker, I could have pulled their ears for 'em over
the pew. What do you say ! / ought to be ashamed to own it f Now,
Caudle, it's no use talking ; those children shall not cross over the threshold
next Sunday if they haven't things for the summer. Now mind — they
shan't; and there's an end of it !
Tm always wanting money for clothes ? How can you say that ?
I'm sure there are no children in the world that cost their father so little ;
but that's it — 'the less a poor woman does upon, the less she may. Now,
Caudle, dear ! What a man you are ! I know you'll give me the money,
because, after all, I think you love your children, and like to see 'em well
dressed. It's only natural that a father should. How much money do I
want ? Let me see, love. There's Caroline, and Jane, and Susan, and
Mary Ann, and What do you say ? I needn't count 'em ? You know
how many there are! That's just the way you take me up ! Well, hoio
much money will it take ? Let me see — I'll tell you in a minute. You
always love to see the dear things like new pins. I know that. Caudle ;
and though I say it, bless their little hearts ■! they do credit to you, Caudle.
How muehf Now, don't be in a hurry! Well, I think, with good
pinching — and you know, Caudle, there's never a wife who can pinch
closer than I can — I think, with pinching, I can do with twenty pounds.
What did you say ? Twenty fiddlesticks ? What! You won't give half
the money ? Very well, Mr. Caudle ; I don't care ; let the children go in
rags; let them stop from church, and grow up like heathens and cannibals;
and then you'll save your money, and, I suppose, be satisfied. What do
you say? Ten pounds enough? Yes, just like you men; you think
things cost nothing for women ; but you don't care how much you lay out
upon yourselves. TJoey only want frocks and bonnets ? How do you
know what they want ? How should a man know anything at all about
it ? And you won't give more than ten pounds ? Very well. Then you
may go shopping with it yourself, and see what you'll make of it ! I'll
have none of your ten pounds, I can tell you — no sir !
No ; you've no cause to say that. I don't want to dress the children
up like countesses ! You often throw that in my teeth, you do ; but you
know it's false, Caudle ; you know it ! I only wish to give 'em proper
notions of themselves ; and what, indeed, can the poor things think, when
they see the Briggses, the Browns, and the Smiths,— and their fathers
don't make the money you do. Caudle — when they see them as fine as
tulips? Why, they must think themselves nobody. However, the twenty
480
THE DAY-DREAM.
pounds I will have, if I've any; or not a farthing ! No, sir; no, — I don't
want to dress up the children Hke peacocks and parrots ! I only want to
make 'em respectable. What do you say? You'll give me fifteen pounds ?
No, Caudle, no, not a penny will I take under twenty. If I did, it would
seem as if I wanted to waste your money; and I am sure, when I come
to think of it twenty pounds will hardly do !
THE DA Y-DREAM.
A. TENNYSON.
THE SLEEPING PALACE.
JHE varying year with blade and
1^ sheaf
Clothes and re-clothes the happy
plains ;
Here rests the sap within the leaf;
Here stays the blood along the
veins.
Faint shadows, vapors lightly curled,
Faint murmurs from the meadows come,
I Here droops the banner on the tower.
On the hall, — hearths the festal fires,
The peacock in his laurel bower,
The parrot in his gilded wires.
Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs
In these, in those the life is stayed,
The mantels from the golden pegs
Droop sleepily. No sound is made —
Not even of a gnat that sings.
THE TEKRACE LAWN.
Like hints and echoes of the world
To spirits folded in the womb.
Soft lustre bathes the range of urns
On every slanting terrace-lawn.
The fountain to his place returns,
Deep in the garden lake withdrawn.
More like a picture seemeth all,
Than those old portraits of old kings,
That watch the sleepers from the wall.
Here sits the butler with a flask
Between his knees, half drained ; and there
The wrinkled steward at his task ;
THE DAY-DREAM.
481
The maid of honor blooming fair,
The page has caught her hand in his,
Her lips are severed as to speak ;
His own are pouted to a kiss ;
The blush is fixed upon her cheek.
Till all the hundred summers pass,
The beams that, through the oriel shine.
Make prisms in every carven glass.
And beaker brimmed with noble wine.
Each baron at the banquet sleeps ;
Grave faces gathered in a ring.
His state the king reposing keeps :
He must have been a jolly kmg.
All round a hedge upshoots, and shows
At distance like a little wood ;
Thorns, ivies, woodbine, mistletoes.
And grapes with bunches red as blood ;
All creeping plants, a wall of green.
Close-matted, burr and brake and briar,
And glimpsing over these, just seen.
High up, the topmost palace spire.
When will the hundred summers die,
And thought and time be born again,
And newer knowledge drawing nigh.
Bring truth that sways the soul of men?
Here all things in their place remain,
As all were ordered, ages since.
Come care and pleasure, hope and pain,
And bring the fated fairy prince !
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY.
Year after year unto her feet.
She lying on her couch alone.
Across the purple coverlet.
The maiden's jet-black hair has grown ;
On eityher side her tranced form
Forth streaming from a braid of pearl ;
The slumb'rous light is rich and warm.
And moves not on the rounded curl.
The silk star-broidered coverlid
Unto her limbs itself doth mould,
Languidly ever ; and, amid
Her full black ringlets, downward rolled.
Glows forth each softly shadowed arm,
With bracelets of the diamond bright.
Her constant beauty doth inform
Stillness with love, and day with light.
She sleeps ; her breathings are not heard
In palace chambers far apart.
The fragrant tresses are not stirred
That lie upon her charmed heart.
She sleeps ; on either hand upswells
The gold fringed pillow lightly prest ;
She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells
A perfect form in perfect rest.
THE ARRIVAL.
All precious things, discovered late.
To those who seek them issue forth,
For love in sequel works with fate.
And draws the veil from hidden worth-
He travels far from other skies —
His mantle glitters on the rocks —
A fairy prince, with joyful eyes.
And lighter-footed than the fox.
The bodies and the bones of those
That strove in other days tc pass.
Are withered in the thorny close.
Or scattered blanching in the grass.
He gazes on the silent dead :
" They perished in their daring deeds,"
This proverb flashes through his head :
" The many fail ; the one succeeds."
He comes, scarce knowing what he seeks,
He breaks the hedge ; he enters there ;
The color flies into his cheeks ;
He trusts to light on something fair ;
For all his life the charm did talk
About his path and hover near
With words of promise in his walk,
And whispered voices in his ear.
More close and close his footsteps wind ;
The magic music in his heart
Beats quick and quicker, till he find
The quiet chamber far apart.
His spirit flutters like a lark,
He stoops — to kiss her — on his knee :
" Love, if thy tresses be so dark.
How dark those hidden eyes must be !''
THE REVIVAL.
A touch, a kiss ! the charm was snapt,
There rose a noise of striking clocks ;
And feet that ran, and doors that clapt,
And barking dogs, and crowing cocks ;
482
THE LITTLE RID HIN.
A fuller light illumined all ;
A breeze through all the garden swept ;
A sudden hubbub shook the hall ;
And sixty feet the fountain leapt.
The hedge broke in, the banner blew,
The butler drank, the steward crawled.
The fire shot up, the martin flew,
The parrot screamed, the peacock squalled ;
The maid and page renewed their strife ;
The palace banged and buzzed and clackt ;
And all the long-pent stream of life
Dashed downward in a cataract.
And last of all the king awoke,
And in his chair himself upreared,
And yawned, and rubbed his face and spoke ;
" By holy rood, a royal beard!
How say you ? we have slept, my lords ;
My beard has grown into my lap."
The barons swore, with many words,
'Twas but an after-dinner's nap.
" Pardy !" returned the king, " but still
My joints are something stiff or so.
My lord, and shall we pass the bill
I mentioned half an hour ago?"
The chancellor, sedate and vain,
In courteous words returned reply ;
But dallied with his golden chain,
And, smiling, put the question by.
THE DEPARTURE.
And on her lover's arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold ;
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old.
Across the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim.
And deep into the dying day.
The happy princess followed him.
" I'd sleep another hundred years,
love, for such another kiss !"
" Oh wake for ever, love," she hears,
" love, 'twas such as this and this."
And o'er them many a sliding star,
And many a merry wind was borne.
And streamed through many a golden bar.
The twilight melted into morn.
" eyes long laid in happy sleep !"
" happy sleep that lightly fled !"
" happy kiss that woke thy sleep !"
" love, thy kiss would wake the dead.'
And o'er them many a flowering range,
Of vapor buoyed the crescent bark;
And, rapt through many a rosy change,
The twdight died into the dark.
" A hundred summers ! can it be ?
And whither goest thou, tell me where ?"
" seek my father's court with me,
For there are greater wonders there."
And o'er the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
Beyond the night, across the day,
Through all the world she followed him.
THE LITTLE RID HIN.
MRS. WHITNEY.
^ELL, thin, there was once't upon a time, away off in the ould coun-
try, livin' all her lane in the woods, in a wee bit iv a house be
herself, a little rid hin. Nice an' quiet she was, and niver did no
kind o' harrum in her life. An' there lived out over the hill, in a
din o' the rocks, a crafty ould felly iv a fox. An' this same ould
villain iv a fox, he laid awake o' nights, and he prowled round
33
' A crafty ould fellv iv a fox."
THE LITTLE RID HIN. 483
slyly IV a day-time, thinkin' always so busy how he'd git the little rid
hin, an' carry her home an' bile her up for his shupper. But the wise little
rid hin niver went intil her bit iv a house, but she locked the door afther
her, and pit the kay in her pocket. So the ould rashkill iv a fox, he
watched, an' he prowled, an' he laid awake nights, till he came all to skin
an' bone, an' sorra a ha'porth o' the little rid hin could he git at. But at
lasht there came a shcame intil his wicked ould head, and he tuk a big
bag one mornin', over his shouldher, an' he says till his mother, says he,
"Mother, have the pot all bilin' agin' I come home, for I'll bring the little
rid hin to-night for our shupper." An' away he wint, over the hill, an'
came crapin' shly an' soft through the woods to where the little rid hin
lived in her shnug bit iv a house. An' shure, jist at the very minute that
he got along, out comes the little rid hin out iv the door, to pick up
shticks to bile her tay-kettle. " Begorra, now, but I'll have yees," says
the shly ould fox, an' in he shlips, unbeknownst, intil the house, an' hides
behind the door. An' in comes the little rid hin, a minute afther, with her
apron full of shticks, an' shuts to the door an' locks it, an' pits the kay in
her pocket. An' thin she turns round, — an' there shtands the baste iv a
fox in the corner. "Well, thin, what did she do, but jist dhrop down her
shticks, and fly up in a great fright and flutter to the big bame acrass
inside o' the roof, where the fox couldn't git at her !
" Ah, ha ! " says the ould fox, " I'll soon bring yees down out o' that!"
An' he began to whirrul round, an' round, an' round, fashter, an' fashter,
an' fashter, on the floor, afther his big, bushy tail, till the little rid hin got
so dizzy wid lookin', that she jist tumbled down aff the bame, and the fox
whipped her up and popped her intill his bag, an' shtarted ofi" home in
a minute. An' he wint up the wood, an' down the wood, half the day
long, with the little rid hin shut up shmotherin' in the bag. Sorra a know
she knowd where she was at all, at all. She thought she was all biled an' ate
up, an' finished shure ! But, by an' by, she remimbered herself, an' pit her
hand in her pocket, an' tuk out her little bright scissors, and shnipped
a big hole in the bag behind, an' out she leapt, an' picked up a big shtone
an' popped it intil the bag, an' rin aff home, an' locked the door.
An' the fox he tugged away up over the hill, with the big shtone at
his back thumpin' his shouldhers, thinkin' to himself how heavy the little
rid hin was, an' what a fine shupper he'd have. An' whin he came in
sight iv his din in the rocks, and shpied his ould mother a watchin' for him
at the door, he says, " Mother ! have ye the pot bilin' ? " An' the ould
mother says, " Sure an' it is ; an' have ye the little rid hin ? " " Yes, jist
here in me bag. Open the lid o' the pot till I pit her in," says he.
484
BYRON'S LATEST VERSES.
An' tho ould mother fox she lifted the hd o' the pot, an' the rashliiil
untied the bag, an' hild it over the pot o' bilin' wather, an' shuk in the
big, heavy shtono. An' the bilin' water shplashed up all over the rogue
iv a fox, an' his mother, and shcaldcd them both to death. An' the little
rid hin lived safe in her house foriver aftlier.
THE MEETING OF THE WATERS.
THOMAS MOOEE.
|iR]lfflpHERE is not in the wide world a | 'Twas not her soft magic of streamlet or hill,
^y^ valley so sweet, \ Oh ! no — it was something more exquisite
'ffS'%' ^^ ^^^* ^^^® ^'^ whose bosom the still.
ii i» bright waters meet ;
Oh ! the last rays of feeling and life
must depart,
'Twas that friends, the beloved of my bosom
were near,
4 Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade ^yj^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^j^^^. ^^^^^ ^f enchantment
from my heart. ^^^^ ^^^^^
And who felt how the best charms of Nature
Yet it was not that Nature had shed o'er the j improve,
scene I When we see them reflected from looks that
Her purest of crystal and brightest of green ; I we love.
BYROWS LATEST VERSES
^IS time this heart should be unmoved.
Since others it has ceased to move ;
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love.
My days are in the yellow leaf,
Tho flowersandfruitsoflove are gone,
The worm, the canker, and the grief,
Are mine alone.
DREAMS AND REALITIES.
485
The fire that in my bosom preys
Is like to some volcanic isle,
No torch is kindled at its blaze,
A funeral pile.
The hope, the fear, the jealous care,
The exalted portion of the pain
And power of love, I cannot share.
But wear the chain.
But 't is not here, — it is not here.
Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor now
Where glory seals the hero's bier.
Or binds his brow.
The sword, the banner, and the field.
Glory and Greece about us see ;
The Spartan borne upon the shield
Was not more free.
Awake ! not Greece, — she is
Awake, my spirit ! think through whom
My life-blood tastes its parent lake.
And then strike home !
Tread those reviving passions down.
Unworthy manhood ! unto thee.
Indifferent should the smile or frown
Of beauty be.
If thou regrett'st thy youth, — why live?
The land of honorable death
Is here, — up to the field, and give
Away thy breath !
Seek out — less often sought than found —
A soldier's grave, for thee the best ;
Then look around and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest !
DREAMS AND REALITIES.
PHCEBE CARYS LAST POEM.
ROSAMOND, thou fair and good,
And perfect flower of womanhood,
Thou royal rose of June !
Why did'st thou droop before thy
time?
Why wither in the first sweet prime ?
Why did'st thou die so soon ?
For, looking backward through my tears
On thee, and on my wasted years,
I cannot choose but say.
If thou had'st lived to be my guide.
Or thou had'st lived and I had died,
'Twere better far to-day.
child of light, Golden head '—
Bright sunbeam for one moment shed
Upon life's lonely way —
Why did'st thou vanish from our sight ?
Could they not spare my little light
From Heaven's unclouded day ?
O Friend so true, Friend so good ! —
Thou one dream of my maidenhood.
That gave youth all its charms —
What had I done, or what hadst thou.
That, through this lonesome world till now
We walk with empty arms ?
And yet had this poor soul been fed
With all it loved and coveted, —
Had life been always fair —
Would these dear dreams that ne'er depart.
That thrill with bliss my inmost heart,
Forever tremble there ?
If still they kept their earthly place.
The friends I held in my embrace,
And gave to death, alas !
Could I have learned that clear, cairn faith
That looks beyond the bonds of death,
And almost long, to pass ?
Sometimes, I think, the things we see
Are shadows of the things to be ;
That what we plan we build ;
That every hope that hath been crossed.
And e%'ery dream we thought was lost,
In heaven shall be fulfilled.
486
DAVID, KING OF ISRAEL.
That even the children of the brain
Have not been born and died in vain,
Though here unclothed and dumb ;
But on some brighter, better shore
They live, embodied evermore,
And wait for us to come.
And when on that last day we rise,
Caught up between the earth and skies.
Then shall we hear our Lord
Say, Thou hast done with doubt and deatii.
Henceforth, according to thy faith,
Shall be thy faith's reward.
DA VID, XING OF ISRAEL.
EDWAED IRVING.
JlpHEEE never was a specimen of manhood so rich and ennobled as
' David, the son of Jesse, whom other saints haply may have equalled
in single features of his character; but such a combination of man-
ly, heroic qualities, such a flush of generous, godlike excellencies,
hath never yet been seen embodied in a single man. His Psalms,
to speak as a man, do place him in the highest rank of lyric poets, as they
set him above all the inspired writers of the Old Testament, — equalling in
sublimity the flights of Isaiah himself, and revealing the cloudy mystery
of Ezekiel; but in love of country, and glorying in its heavenly patronage,
surpassing them all. And where are there such expressions of the varied
conditions into which human nature is cast by the accidents of Providence,
such delineations of deep affliction and inconsolable anguish, and anon such
joy, such rapture, such revelry of emotion in the worship of the living God !
such invocations to all nature, animate and inanimate, such summonings of
the hidden powers of harmony and of the breathing instruments of melody!
Single hymns of this poet would have conferred immortality upon any
mortal, and borne down his name as one of the most favored of the sons
of men.
The force of his character was vast, and the scope of his life was im-
mense. His harp was full-stringed, and every angel of joy and of sorrow
swept over the chords as he passed; but the melody always breathed of
heaven. And such oceans of aff'ection lay within his brea^st as could not
always slumber in their calmness; for the hearts of a hundred men strove
and struggled together within the narrow continent of his single heart.
And will the scornful men have no sympathy for one so conditioned, but
scorn him because he ruled not with constant quietness the unruly host of
natures which dwelt within his single soul? Of self-command surely he will
not be held deficient who endured Saul's javelin to be so often launched at
him, while the people without were willing to hail him king; who endured
THE GENIUS OF MILTON. 487
all bodily hardships and taunts of his enemies when revenge was in his
hand, and ruled his desperate band like a company of saints, and restrained
them from their country's injury. But that he should not be able to enact
all characters without a fault, the simple shepherd, the conquering hero, and
the romantic lover; the perfect friend, the innocent outlaw, and the royal
monarch; the poet, the prophet, and the regenerator of the church; and
withal the man, the man of vast soul, who played not those parts by turns,
but was the original of them all, and wholly present in them all, — oh! that
he should have fulfilled this high-priesthood of humanity, this universal
ministry of manhood, without an error, were more than human ! With
the defence of his backsliding, which he hath himself more keenly scruti-
nized, more clearly discerned against, and more bitterly lamented than any
of his censors, we do not charge ourselves; but if, when of these acts he
became convinced, he be found less true to God, and to righteousness;
indisposed to repentance and sorrow and anguish ; exculpatory of himself;
stout-hearted in his courses ; a formalist in his penitence, or in any way
less worthy of a spiritual man in those than in the rest of his infinite moods,
then, verily, strike him from the canon, and let his Psalms become monkish
legends, or what you please. But if these penitential Psalms discover the
soul's deepest hell of agony, and lay bare the iron ribs of misery, whereon
the very heart dissolveth; and if they, expressing the same in words, shall
melt the soul that conceiveth and bow the head that uttereth them, — then,
we say, let us keep these records of the Psalmist's grief and despondency
as the most precious of his utterances, and sure to be needed in the case of
every man who essay eth to hve a spiritual life.
THE GENIUS OF MILTON.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
oi:[lo ,
Is the needle turns away from the rising sun, from the meridian, from
the occidental, from regions of fragrancy and gold and gems, and
^f^ * moves with unerring impulse to the frosts and deserts of the
north, so Milton and some few others, in politics, philosophy, and
(religion, walk through the busy multitude, wave aside the importunate
trader, and, after a momentary oscillation from external agency, are
found in the twilight and in the storm, pointing, with certain index, to the
pole-star of immutable truth.
I have often been amused at thinking in what estimation the greatest
488
MABEL MARTIN.
of mankind were liolden by their contemporaries. Not even the most
sagacious and prudent one could discover much of them, or could prognos-
ticate their future course in the infinity of space ! Men like ourselves are
permitted to stand near, and indeed in the very presence of Milton : what
do they see? dark clothes, gray hair and sightless eyes ! Other men have
better things ; other men, therefore, are nobler ! The stars themselves are
only bright by distance; go close, and all is earthy. But vapors illuminate
these; from the breath and from the countenance of God comes light on
worlds higher than they; worlds to which He has given the forms and
names of Shakspeare and Milton.
MABEL MARTIN.
JOHN Ot. WHTTTTER.
PART I.
THE RIVER VALLEY.
Across the level tableland,
A grassy, rarely trodden way,
With thinnest skirt of birchen spray
And stunted growth of cedar, leads
To where you see the dull plain fall
Sheer off steep-slanted, ploughed by
all
The season's rainfalls. On its brink
The over-leaning harebells swing,
With roots half bare the pine trees cling;
And through the shadow looking west.
You see the wavering river flow,
Along a vale, that far below
Holds to the sun, the sheltering hills.
And glimmering water-line between,
Broad fields of corn and meadows green.
And fruit-bent orchards grouped around
The low brown roofs and painted eaves.
And chimney tops half hid in leaves.
No warmer valley hides behind
Yon wind scourged sand-dunes, cold and
bleak ;
No fairer river comes to seek
The wave-sung welcome of the sea.
Or mark the northmost border line
Of sun-loved growths of nut and vine.
MABEL MARTIN.
489
Here, ground-fast in their native fields,
Untempted by the city's gain.
The quiet farmer folk remain
Who bear the pleasant name of Friends,
And keep their fathers' gentle ways
And simple speech of Bible days ;
In whose neat homesteads woman holds
With modest ease her equal place,
And wears upon her tranquil face
The look of one who, merging not
Her self-hood in another's will,
Is love's and duty's handmaid still.
Pass with me down the path that winds
Through birches to the open land,
Where, close upon the river strand
You mark a cellar, vine o'errun.
Above whose wall of loosened stones
The sumach lifts its reddening cones.
And the black nightshade's berries shine,
And broad unsightly burdocks fola
The household ruin, century-old.
Here, in the dim colonial time.
Of sterner lives and gloomier faith,
A woman lived, tradition saith,
Who wrought her neighbors foul annoy.
And witched and plagued the country-side
Till at the hangman's hand she died.
Sit with me while the westering day
Falls slantwise down the quiet vale,
And, haply, ere yon loitering sail.
That rounds the upper headland, falls
Below Deer Island's pines, or sees
Behind it Hawkswood's belt of trees
Rise black against the sinking sun,
My idyl of its days of old.
The valley's legend shall be told.
PART II.
THE HUSKING.
It was the pleasant harvest-time,
When cellar-bins are closely stowed,
And garrets bend beneath their load,
And the old swallow-haunted barns, —
Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams
Through which the moted sunlight streams
490
MABEL MARTIN.
And winds blow freshly in, to shake
The red plumes of the roosted cocks,
And the loose haymow's scented locks,-
Are filled with summer's ripened
Its odorous grass and barley sheaves.
From their low scaffolds to their eaves.
On Esek Harden's oaken floor.
With many an autumn threshing worn,
Lay the heaped ears of unhusked corn.
And thither canio young men and maids,
Beneath a moon that, large and low,
Lit that sweet eve of long ago.
They took their places ; some by chance.
And others by a merry voice
Or sweet smile guided to their choice.
How pleasantly the rising moon.
Between the shadows of the mows.
Looked on them through the great elm-
boughs !
On sturdy boyhood, suuembrowned,
On girlhood with its solid curves
Of healthful strength and painless nerves !
And jests went round, and laughs, that made
The house-dog answer with his howl.
And kept astir the barn-yard fowl ;
And quaint old songs their fathers sang
In Derby dales and Yorkshire moors,
Ere Norman William trod their shores ;
And tales, whose merry license shook
The fat sides of the Saxon thane.
Forgetful of the hovering Dane, —
Rude plays to Celt and Cimbri known,
The charms and riddles that beguiled
On Oxus' banks the young world's child,—
That primal picture-speech wherein
Have youth and maid the story told,
So new in each, so dateless old,
Recalling pastoral Ruth in her
Who waited, blushing and demure,
The red ear's kiss of forfeiture.
PART III.
THE WITCH S DAUGHTER.
Jut still the sweetest voice was mute,
That river-valley ever heard
From lip of maid or throat of bird ;
For Mabel Martin sat apart.
MABEL MARTIN.
491
And let the hay-mow's shadow fall
Upon the loveliest face of all.
She sat apart, as one forbid,
"Who knew that none would condescend
To own the Witch-wife's child a friend.
The seasons scarce had gone their round.
Since curious thousands thronged to see
Her mother at the gallows-tree ;
And mocked the prison-palsied limbs
That faltered on the fatal stairs,
And wan lip trembling with its prayers !
For the all-perfect love thou art.
Some grim creation of his heart.
Cast down our idols, overturn
Our bloody altars ; let us see
Thyself in Thy humanity !
Young Mabel from her mother's grave
Crept to her desolate hearth-stone,
And wrestled with her fate alone ;
With love, and anger, and despair.
The phantoms of disordered sense,
The awful doubts of Providence 1
0, dreary broke the winter days,
' And still o'er many a neighboring door
She saw the horseshoe's curved charm."
Few que.stioned of the sorrowing child,
Or, when they saw the mother die,
Dreamed of the daughter's agony.
They went up to their homes that day,
As men and Christians justified ;
God willed it, and the wretch had died !
Dear God and Father of us all,
Forgive our faith in cruel lies, —
Forgive the blindness that denies !
Forgive thy creature when he takes,
And dreary fell the winter nights
When, one by one, the neighboring lights
Went out, and human sounds grew still.
And all the phantom-peopled dark
Closed round her hearth-fire's dying spark
And summer days were sad and long,
And sad the uncompanioned eves,
And sadder sunset-tinted leaves,
And Indian Summer's airs of balm ;
She scarcely felt the soft caress.
The beauty died of loneliness !
492
MABEL MARTIN.
The school-boys jeered her as they passed,
And, when she sought the house of prayer,
Her mother's curse pursued her there.
And still o'er many a neighboring door
She saw the horseshoe's curved charm,
To guard against her mother's harm :
That mother, poor and sick and lame,
Who daily, by the old arm-chair.
Folded her withered hands in prayer ;
Who turned, in Salem's dreary jail.
Her worn old Bible o'er and o'er,
When her dim eyes could read no more !
Sore tried and pained, the poor girl kept
Her faith, and trusted that her way.
So dark, would somewhere meet the day.
And still her weary wheel went round
Day after day, with no relief:
Small leisure have the poor for grief.
PART IV.
THE CHAMPIOI
So in the shadow Mabel sits ;
Untouched by mirth she sees and hears,
Her smile is sadder than her tears.
But cruel eyes have found her out,
And cruel lips repeat her name.
And taunt her with her mother's shame.
She answered not with railing words,
But drew her apron o'er her face,
And, sobbing, glided from the place.
MABEL MARTIN.
493
And only pausing at the door,
Her sad eyes met the troubled gaze
Of one, who in her better days,
Had been her warm and steady friend,
Ere yet her mother's doom had made
Even Esek Harden half afraid.
He felt that mute appeal of tears.
And starting, with an angry frown,
Hushed all the wicked murmurs down.
" Good neighbors mine," he sternly said,
" This passes harmless mirth or jest ;
I brook no insult to my guest.
" She is indeed her mother's child ;
But God's sweet pity ministers
Unto no whiter soul than hers.
" Let Goody Martin rest in peace ;
I never knew her harm a fly.
And witch or not, God knows — not 1.
" I know who swore her life away ;
And as God lives, I'd not condemn
An Indian dog on word of them."
The broadest lands in all the town.
The skill to guide, the power to awe.
Were Harden's, and Lis word was law.
None dared withstand him to his face,
But one sly maiden spake aside :
" The little witch is evil-eyed !
" Her mother only killed a cow.
Or witched a churn or dairy-pan ;
But she, forsooth, must charm a man !"
PART V.
IN THE SHADO\
Poor Mabel, homeward turning
The nameless terrors of the wood.
And saw, as if a ghost pursued.
Her shadow gliding in the moon ;
The soft breath of the west wind gave
A chill as from her mother's grave.
How dreary seemed the silent house !
Wide in the moonbeams' ghastly glare
Its windows had a dead man's staro !
And, like a gaunt and spectral hand.
The tremulous shadow of a birch
Reached out and touched the door's low
porch.
As if to lift its latch : hard by,
A sudden warning call she heard,
The night-cry of a boding bird.
She leaned against the door ; her face,
So fair, so young, so full of pain.
White in the moonlight's silver rain.
The river, on its pebbled rim.
Made music such as childhood knew ;
The door-yard tree was whispered through
By voices such as childhood's ear
Had heard in moonlights long ago ;
And through the willow-boughs below.
494
MABEL MARTIN.
She saw the rippled waters shine ;
Beyond, in waves of shade and light,
The hills rolled off into the night.
She saw and heard, but over all
A sense of some transforming spell,
The shadow of her sick heart fell.
And still across the wooded space
The harvest lights of Harden shone,
And song and jest and laugh went on,
And he, so gentle, true and strong,
Of men the bravest and the best,
Had he, too, scorned her with the rest ?
She strove to drown her sense of wrong,
And, in her old and simple way.
To teach her better heart to pray.
Poor child! the prayer, begun in faith.
Grew to a low, despairing cry
Of utter misery ; " Let me die !
Oh ! take me from the scornful eyes
And hide me where the cruel speech
And mocking finger may not reach !
I dare not breathe my mother's name :
A daughter's right I dare not crave
To weep above her unblest grave !
Let me not live until my heart.
With few to pity, and with none
To love me, hardens into stone.
' God ! have mercy on Thy child,
Whose faith in Thee grows weak and small,
And take me ere I lose it all !"
A shadow on the moonlight fell,
And murmuring wind and wave became
A voice whose burden was her name.
PART VI.
THE BETROTHAL.
Had God then heard her ? Had He sent
His angel down ? In flesh and blood.
Before her Esek Harden stood !
He laid his hand upon her arm :
" Dear Mabel, this no more shall be ;
Who scoffs at you must scofi at me.
" You know rough Esek Harden well ;
And if he seems no suitor gay,
And if his hair is touched with gray,
" The maiden grown shall never find
His heart less warm than when she smiled
Upon his knees, a little child."
A MARINER'S DESCRIPTION OF A PIANO.
495
Her tears of grief were tears of joy,
As, folded in his strong embrace.
She looked in Esek Harden's face.
" 0, truest friend of all !" she said,
" God bless you for your kindly thought.
And make me worthy of my lot!"
He led her forth, and blent in one.
Beside their happy pathway ran
The shadows of the maid and man.
He led her through his dewy fields,
To where the swinging lanterns glowed.
And through the doors the buskers showed.
" Good friends and neighbors !" Esek said,
" I'm weary of this lonely life ;
In Mabel see my chosen wife!
" She greets you kindly, one and all;
The past is past, and all offence
Falls harmless from her innocence.
" Henceforth she stands no more alone ;
You know what Esek Harden is ; —
He brooks no wrong to him or his.
" Now let the merriest tales be told.
And let the sweetest songs be sung
That ever made the old heart young.
" For now the lost has found a home ;
And a lone hearth shall brighter burn,
As all the household joys return !"
0, pleasantly the harvest-moon,
Between the shadows of the mows.
Looked on them through the great elm
boughs !
On Mabel's curls of golden hair.
On Esek's shaggy strength it fell ;
And the wind whispered, " It is well !"
A MARINER'S DESCRIPTION OF A PIANO.
SEA captain, who was asked by liis wife to look at some pianos
while he was in the city, with a view of buying her one, wrote home
to her : " I saw one that I thought would suit you, black walnut
hull, strong bulk-heads, strengthened fore and aft with iron frame,
ceiled with white wood and maple. Rigging, steel wire — double
on the rat lines, and whipped wire on the lower stays, and heavier
cordage. Belaying pins of steel and well driven home. Length of taffrail
over all, six feet two inches. Breadth of beam thirty-eight inches ; depth
of hold fourteen inches. This light draft makes the craft equally servicea-
ble in high seas or low flats. It has two martingales, one for the light
airs and zephyr winds, and one for strong gusts and sudden squalls. Both
are worked with foot rests, near the kelson, handy for the quartermaster,
and out o' sight of the passengers. The running gear from the hand rail
to the cordage is made of white-wood and holly ; works free and clear ;
strong enough for the requirements of a musical tornado, and gentle enough
for the requiem of a departing class. Hatches, black walnut ; can be bat-
tened down proof against ten-year-old boys and commercial drummers, or
496
LIFE.
can be clewed up, on occasion, and sheeted home for a first-class instrumen-
tal cyclone. I sailed the craft a little, and thought she had a list to star-
board. Anyhow, I liked the starboard side better than the port, but the
ship-keeper told me the owners had other craft of like tonnage awaiting
sale or charter, which were on just even keel."
LIFE.
COMPOSED OF LINES SELECTED FROM THIRTY-EIGHT AUTHORS.
|t^3|^HY all this toil for triumphs of an
iillilllM hour ? ( Young.
'~^M0)M= Life's a short summer — man is but
a flower ;
{Johr
j^ By turns we catch the fatal breath
I and die — {Pope.
\ The cradle and the torab, alas ! so
nigh. {Prior.
To be is better far than not to be, {Sewell.
Though all man's life may seem a tragedy ;
{Spenser.
But light cares speak when mighty griefs are
dumb — {Paniel.
The bottom is but shallow whence they
come. {Raleigh.
Your fate is but the common fate of all ;
{Longfellow.
Unmingled joys can here no man befall ;
{Southwell.
Nature to each allots his proper sphere.
{Congreve.
Fortune makes folly her peculiar care ;
{Churchill.
Custom does often reason overrule,
{Rochester.
And throw a cruel sunshine on a fool.
{Armstrong.
Live well — how long or short permit to
heaven, {Milton.
They who forgive most, shall be most for-
given. {Bailey.
Sin may be clasped so close we cannot see its
face — {French.
Vile intercourse where virtue has no place.
{Somerville.
Then keep each passion down, however dear,
( Thompson.
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear ;
{Byron.
Her sensual snares let faithless pleasure lay,
{Smollett.
With craft and skill to ruin and betray.
{Crabbe.
Soar not too high to fall, but stoop to rise ;
{Massing er.
We masters grow of all that we despise.
{Crowley.
Oh, then, renounce that impious self-esteem ;
{Beattie.
Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream.
{Cowper.
Think not ambition wise because 'tis brave —
{Davenant.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave. ( Gray.
What is ambition? 'Tis a glorious cheat,
( milis.
Only destructive to the brave and great.
{Addison.
What's all the gaudy glitter of a crown?
Dryden.
The way to bliss lies not on beds of down.
( Quarles.
How long we live, not years but actions tell ;
( Watkins.
The man lives twice who lives the first life
well. {Herrick.
Make, then, whde yet we may, your God
your friend, {Mason.
Whom Christians worship, yet not compre-
hend. {Hill.
The trust that's given, guard, and to your-
self be just ; {Dana.
For live we how we may, yet die we must.
{Shakespeare.
THE DYING ALCHEMIST.
497
THE D YING ALCHEMIST.
N. P. WILLIS.
™|fsr/3 Li Ji] night-wind with a desolate moan
^12 swept by,
And the old shutters of the turret
swung
Creaking upon their hinges ; and the
moon,
As the torn edges of the clouds flew
past,
Struggled aslant the stained and broken panes
So dimly, that the watchful eye of death
Scarcely was conscious when it went and
came,
The fire beneath his crucible was low,
Yet still it burned : and ever, as his thoughts
Grew insupportable, he raised himself
Upon his wasted arm, and stirred the coals
With difficult energy ; and when the rod
Fell from his nerveless fingers, and his eye
Felt faint within its socket, he shrank back
Upon his pallet, and, with unclosed lips,
Muttered a curse on death !
The silent room.
From its dim corners, mockingly gave back
His rattling breath ; the humming in the fire
Had the distinctness of a knell ; and when
Duly the antique horologe beat one,
He drew a phial from beneath his head.
And drank. And instantly his lips com-
pressed.
And, with a shudder in his skeleton frame,
He rose with supernatural strength, and sat
Upright, and communed with himself:
" I did not think to die
Till I had finished what I had to do ;
I thouglit to pierce th' eternal secret through
"With this my mortal eye;
I felt, — Oh, God ! it seemeth even now —
This cannot be the death-dew on my brow ;
Grant me another year,
God of my spirit !-— but a day,— to win
Something to satisfy this thirst within !
I would hnow something here !
Break for me but one seal that is unbroken !
Speak for me but one word that is unspoken !
34
" Vain, — vain, — my brain is turning
With a swift dizziness, and my heart grows
sick.
And these hot temple-throbs come fast and
thick,
And I am freezing, — burning, —
Dying! Oh, God! if I might only live!
My phial Ha ! it thrills me, — I revive.
" Aye, — were not man to die.
He were too mighty for this narrow sphere!
Had he but time to brood on knowledge
here, —
Could he but train iiis eye, —
Might he but wait the mystic word and
hour, —
Only his Maker would transcend his power !
" This were indeed to feel
The soul-thirst slacken at the living stream,—
To live, Oh, God! that life is but a dream!
And death Aha ! I reel, —
Dim, — dim, — I faint, darkness comes o'er my
eye, —
Cover me! save me! God of heaven!
I die ! "
'Twas morning, and the old man lay alone.
No friend had closed his eyelids, and his lips,
Open and ashy pale, th' expression wore
Of his death struggle. His long silvery hair
Lay on his hollow temples, thin and wild.
His frame was wasted, and his features wan
And haggard as with want, and in his palm
His nails were driven deep, as if the throe
Of the last agony had wrung him sore.
The storm was raging still. The shutte?
swung.
Creaking as harshly in the fitful wind.
And all without went on, — as aye it will,
Sunshine or tempest, reckless that a heart
Is breaking, or has broken, in its change.
The fire beneath the crucible was out ;
The vessels of his mystic art lay round,
Useless and cold as the ambitious hand
498
GOD'S ACRE.
That fashioned them, and the small rod,
Familiar to his touch for threescore years,
Lay on th' alembic's rim, as if it still
Might vex the elements at its master's will.
And thus had passed from its unequal frame
A soul of fire, — a sun-bent eagle stricken.
From his high soaring, down,— an instru-
ment
Broken with its own compass. Oh, how
poor
Seems the rich gift of genius, when it lies,
Like the adventurous bird that hath out-
flown
His strength upon the sea, ambition-
wrecked, —
A thing the thrush might pity, as she sits
Brooding in quiet on her lowly nest.
GOD'S ACRE.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
LIKE that ancient Saxon phrase which : Into its furrows shall we all be cast,
Mip calls
^m The burial-ground God's acre! It
fis just ;
It consecrates each grave within its
I walls,
I And breathes a benison o'er the
sleeping dust.
God's- Acre ! Yes, that blessed name imparts
Comfort to those who in the grave have
sown
The seed that they had garnered in their
hearts,
Their bread of life, alas! no more their own. i
In the sure faith that we shall rise again
At the great harvest, when the archangel's
blast
Shall winnow, like a fan the chaff and
grain.
Then shall the good stand in immortal
bloom,
In the fair gardens of that second birth ;
And each bright blossom mingle its per-
fume
With that of flowers which never bloomed
on earth.
i
MRS. CAUDLE'S LECTURE ON SHIRT BUTTONS. 499
With thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up
the sod.
And spread the furrow for the seed we sow ;
This is the field and Acre of our God !
This is the place where human harvesta
grow!
MRS. CAUDLE'S LECTURE ON SHIRT BUTTONS
DOUGLAS JERROLD.
llllpHERE Mr. Caudle, I hope you're in a little better temper than you
^1^ were this morning. There, you needn't begin to whistle: people
■^'^^ don't come to bed to whistle. But it's just like you; I can't speak,
•f that you don't try to insult me. Once, I used to say you were the
J best creature hving: now, you get quite a fiend. Do let you rest ?
No, I won't let you rest. It's the only time I have to talk to you, and you
shall hear me. I'm put upon all day long : it's very hard if I can't speak
a word at night; and it isn't often I open my mouth, goodness knows!
Because once in your lifetime your shirt wanted a button, you must
almost swear the roof off the house. You didn't swear ? Ha, Mr. Caudle !
you don't know what you do when you're in a passion. You were not in
a passion, wern't you ? Well, then I don't know what a passion is ; and I
think I ought to by this time. I've lived long enough with you, Mr. Cau-
dle, to know that.
It's a pity you hav'nt something worse to complain of than a button
off your shirt. If you'd some wives, you would, I know. I'm sure I'm
never without a needle-and-thread in my hand ; what with you and the
children, I'm made a perfect slave of. And what's my thanks ? Why, if
once in your life a button's off your shirt — what do you say " a/i " at ? I
say once, Mr. Caudle ; or twice or three times, at most. I'm sure, Caudle,
no man's buttons in the world are better looked after than yours. I only
wish I'd kept the shirts you had when you were first married ! I should
like to know where were your buttons then ?
Yes, it is worth talking of ! But that's how you always try to put
me down. You fly into a rage, and then, if I only try to speak, you won't
hear me. That's how you men always will have all the talk to yourselves :
a poor woman isn't allowed to get a word in. A nice notion you have of a
wife, to suppose she's nothing to think of but her husband's buttons. A
pretty notion, indeed, you have of marriage. Ha ! if poor women only
knew what they had to go through ! What with buttons, and one thing
and another ! They'd never tie themselves to the best man in the world,
500
NO SECTS IN HEAVEN.
I'm sure. What would they do, Mr. Caudle? — Why, do much better
without you, I'm certain.
And it's my belief, after all, that the button wasn't off the shirt ; it's
my belief that you pulled it off, that you might have something to talk
about. Oh, you're aggravating enough, when you like, for anything ! All
I know is, it's very odd the button should be off the shirt ; for I'm sure no
woman's a greater slave to her husband's buttons than I am. I only say
it's very odd.
However, there's one comfort ; it can't last long. I'm worn to death
with your temper, and shan't trouble you a great while. Ha, you may
laugh ! And I dare say you would laugh ! I've no doubt of it ! That's
your love; that's your feeling ! I know that I'm sinking every day, though
I say nothing about it. And when I'm gone, we shall see how your second
wife will look after your buttons ! You'll find out the difference, then.
Yes, Caudle, you'll think of me, then ; for then, I hope, you'll never have a
blessed button to your back.
iVO SECTS IN HE A VEK
IJlRALKING of sects till late one eve,
H^ Of various doctrines the saints believe,
P''''^^f That night I stood, in a troubled
' dream,
By the side of a darkly flowing
stream.
And a " Churchman " down to the river
came :
When I heard a strange voice call his name,
" Good father, stop ; when you cross the tide.
You must leave your robes on the other side."
But the aged father did not mind ;
And his long gown floated out behind,
As down to the stream his way he took.
His pale hands clasping a gilt-edged book.
" I'm bound for heaven ; and when I'm
there.
Shall want my Book of Common Prayer ;
And, though I put on a starry crown,
I should feel quite lost without my gown."
Then he fixed his eyes on the shining track.
But his gown was heavy and held him back,
And the poor old father tried in vain
A single step in the flood to gain.
I saw him again on the other side,
But his silk gown floated on the tide ;
And no one asked in that blissful spot.
Whether he belonged to the "Church" or
not.
Then down to the river a Quaker strayed ;
His dress of a sober hue was made :
' My coat and hat must all be gray —
I cannot go any other way."
Then he buttoned his coat straight up to his
chin,
And staidly, solemnly waded in
And his broad-brimmed hat he pulled down
tight,
Over his forehead so cold and white.
But a strong wind carried away his hat ;
A moment he silently sighed over tliat ;
And then, as he gazed to the further shore.
The coat slipped off, and was seen no more.
NO SECTS IN HEAVEN.
501
As he entered heaven his suit of gray-
Went quietly, sailing, away, away ;
And none of the angels questioned him
About the width of his beaver's brim.
Next came Dr. Watts, with a butfdle of
psalms
Tied nicely up in his aged arms.
And hymns as many, a very wise thing.
That the people in heaven, " all round,"
might sing.
But I thought that he heaved an anxious
sigh,
And he saw that the river ran broad and
high.
And looked rather surprised, as one by one
The psalms and hymns in the wave went
down.
And after him, with his MSS.,
Came Wesley, the pattern of goodliness ;
But he cried, " Dear me ! what shall I do ?
The water has soaked them through and
through."
And there on the river far and wide.
Away they went down the swollen tide ;
And the saint, astonished, passed through
alone.
Without his manuscripts, up to the throne.
Then, gravely walking, two saints by name
Down to the stream together came ;
But, as they stopped at the river's brink,
I saw one saint from the other shrink.
" Sprinkled or plunged ? may I ask you,
friend.
How you attained to life's great end ?"
" Thus, with a few drops on my brow."
" But / have been dipped, as you'll see me
now,
" And I really think it will hardly do.
As I'm ' close comnninion,' to cross with
you.
You're bound, I know, to the realms of bliss,
But you must go that way, and I'll go this."
Then straightway plunging with all his
might,
Away to the left — his friend to the right,
Apart they went from this world of sin,
But at last together they entered in.
And now, when the river was rolling on,
A Presbyterian Church went down ;
Of women there seemed an innumerable
throng.
But the men I could count as they passed
along.
And concerning the road, they could never
agree
The old or the new way, which it could be,
Nor ever a moment paused to think
That both would lead to the river's brink.
And a sound of murmuring, long and loud,
Came ever up from the moving crowd ;
"You're in the old way, and I'm in the new ;
That is the false, and this is the true" —
Or, " I'm in the old way, and you're in the
new;
That is the false, and this is the true."
But the brethren only seemed to speak :
Modest the sisters walked and meek.
And if ever one of them chanced to say
What troubles she met with on the way,
How she longed to pass to the other side,
Nor feared to cross over the swelling tide,
A voice arose from the brethren then,
" Let no one speak but the ' holy men ; '
For have ye not heard the words of Paul,
' Oh, let the women keep silence all ?' "
I watched them long in my curious dream.
Till they stood by the borders of the stream;
Then, just as I thought, the two ways met ;
But all the brethren were talking yet,
And would talk on till the heaving tide
Carried them over side by side —
Side by side, for the way was one;
The toilsome journey of life was done;
And all who in Christ the Saviour died,
Came out alike on the other side.
No forms of crosses or books had they ;
No gowns of silk or suits of gray ;
No creeds to guide them, or MSS. ;
For all had put on Christ's righteousness.
502
JEWISH HYMN IN JERUSALEM.
EVENING BRING 8 US HOME.
=PON the bills the wind is sharp and
cold,
^ The sweet young grasses wither on
the wold,
And we, Lord ! have wandered
from thy fold ;
But evening brings us home.
Among the mists we stumbled, and the rocks
Where the brown lichen whitens, and the fox
Watches the straggler from the scattered
flocks ;
But evening brings us home.
The sharp thorns prick us, and our tender
feet
Are cut and bleeding, and the lambs repeat
Their pitiful complaints ; — Oh, rest is sweet
When evening brings us home !
We have been wounded by the hunter's darts ;
Our eyes are heavy, and our hearts
Search for Thy coming ; — when the light de-
parts
At evening, bring us home !
The darkness gathers. Through the gloom
no star
Rises to guide us ; we have wandered far ; —
Without Thy lamp we know not where we
are;
At evening, bring us home !
The clouds are round us, and the snow-drifts
thicken.
0, thou dear Shepherd ! leave us not to sicken
In the waste night ; our tardy footsteps
quicken ;
At evening, bring us home.
JEWISH HYMN IN JERUSALEM.
HENRY HART MILMAN.
^OD of the thunder ! from whose cloudy
tP| seat
f-i|'| The fiery winds of desolation flow ;
Father of vengeance ! that with pur-
ple feet
Like a full wine-press tread'st the
world below;
The embattled armies with thy sign
to slay.
Nor springs the beast of havoc on his prey.
Nor withering Famine walks his blasted
way.
Till thou hast marked the guilty land for
woe.
God of the rainbow ! at whose gracious sign
The billows of the proud their rage sup-
press ;
Father of mercies ! at one word of thine
An Eden blooms in the waste wilderness.
And fountains sparkle in the arid sands,
And timbrels ring in maidens' glancing hands,
And marble cities crown the laughing lands,
And pillared temples rise thy name to bless.
O'er Judah's land thy thunders broke,
Lord !
The chariots rattled o'er her sunken gate.
Her sons were wasted by the Assyrian's
sword.
Even her foes wept to see her fallen state ;
And heaps her ivory palaces became,
Her princes wore the captive's garb of shame,
Iler temples sank amid the smouldering flame.
For thou didst ride the tempest cloud of
fate.
O'er Judah's land thy rainbow. Lord, shall
beam,
And the sad City lift her crownless head,
IMPROVING ON NATURE.
503
And songs shall wake and dancing footsteps
gleam
In streets where broods the silence of the
dead.
The sun shall shine on Salem's gilded towers,
On Carmel's side our maidens cull the flowers
To deck at blushing eve their bridal bowers,
And angel feet the glittering Sion tread.
Thy vengeance gave us to the stranger's hand,
And Abraham's children were led forth for
With fettered steps we left our pleasant land,
Envying our fathers in their peaceful graves.
The strangers' bread with bitter tears we steep,
And when our weary eyes should sink to sleep,
In the mute midnight we steal forth to weep,
Where the pale willows shade Euphrates'
The born in sorrow shall bring forth in joy ;
Thy mercy. Lord, shall lead thy children
home ;
He that went forth a tender prattling boy
Yet, ere he die, to Salem's streets shall
come;
And Canaan's vines for us their fruits shall
bear.
And Hermon's bees their honeyed stores pre-
pare.
And we shall kneel again in thankful
prayer,
Where o'er the cherub-seated God full blaz-
ed the irradiate throne.
IMPROVING ON NATURE.
JOHN EUSKIN.
|||T was a maxim of RafFaelle's that the artist's object was to make things
i^ not as Nature makes them, but as she would make them ; as she ever
^K tries to make them, but never succeeds, though her aim may be de-
% duced from a comparison of her effects ; just as if a number of archers
f had aimed unsuccessfully at a mark upon a wall, and this mark were
1 then removed, we could by an examination of tlieir arrow-marks point
out the probable position of the spot aimed at, with a certainty of being
nearer to it than any of their spots.
We have most of us heard of original sin, and may perhaps, in our
modest moments, conjecture that we are not quite what God, or Nature,
would have us to be. Raffaelle had something to mend in humanity : I
should like to have seen him mending a daisy, or a pease-blossom, or a moth,
or a mustard-seed, or any other of God's slightest work ! If he had accom-
plished that, one might have found for him more xespectable employment,
to set the stars in better order, perhaps (they seem grievously scattered as
they are, and to be of all manner of shapes and sizes, except the ideal shape,
and the proper size) ; or, to give us a corrected view of the ocean, that at
least seems a very irregular and improvable thing: the very fishermen do
not know this day how far it will reach, driven up before the west wind.
Perhaps some one else does, but that is not our business. Let us go down
504
STABAT MATER.
and stand on the beach by the sea — the great irregular sea, and count
whether the thunder of it is not out of time— one, — two: — here comes a
well-formed wave at last, trembling a little at the top, but on the whole,
orderly. So ! Crash among the shingle, and up as far as this gray pebble !
Now, stand by and watch. Another; — Ah, careless wave! why couldn't
you have kept your crest on ? It is all gone away into spray, striking up
against the cliffs there — I thought as much — missed the mark by a couple
of feet! Another: — How now, impatient one ! couldn't you have waited
till your friend's reflux was done with, instead of rolling yourself up with
it in that unseemly manner ? You go for nothing. A fourth, and a goodly
one at last ! What think we of yonder slow rise, and crystalline hollow,
without a flaw ? Steady, good wave ! not so fast ! not so fast ! AVhere
are you coming to ? This is too bad; two yards over the mark, and ever so
much of you in our face besides ; and a wave we had so much hope of, behind
there, broken all to pieces out at sea, and laying a great white tablecloth
of foam all the way to the shore, as if the marine gods were to dine off it !
Alas, for these unhappy " arrow-shots " of Nature ! She will never hit her
mark with those unruly waves of her's, nor get one of them into the ideal
if we wait for a thousand years.
STABAT MATER.
fe.
TRANSLATION OF DR. ABRAHAM COLES.
|TOOD th' afilicted Mother weeping,
Near the cross her station keeping,
Whereon hung her Son and Lord ;
Through whose spirit sympathizing,
Sorrowing and agonizing,
Also passed the cruel sword.
how mournful and distressed
Was that favored and most blessed
Mother of the Only Son !
Trembling, grieving, bosom heaving,
While perceiving, scarce believing.
Pains of that Illustrious One.
Who the man, who, called a brother.
Would not weep, saw he Christ's mother
In such deep distress and wild ?
Who could not sad tribute render
Witnessing that mother tpnd(;r
Agonizing with her Child ?
For His people's sin atoning
Him she saw in torments groaning,
Given to the scourge's rod ;
Saw her darling offspring, dying
Desolate, forsaken, crying.
Yield His spirit up to God.
Make me feel thy sorrow's power.
That with thee I tears may shower.
Tender Mother, fount of love !
Make my heart with love unceasing
Burn toward Christ the Lord, that pleasing
I may be to Him above.
Holy Mother, this be granted.
That the Slain One's wounds be planted
Firmly in my heart to bide.
Of Him wounded, all astounded, —
Depths unbounded for me sounded, —
All the pangs with me divide.
EVANGELINE ON THE PRAIRIE.
505
Make me weep with thee in union ;
Wound for wound be there created ;
With the Crucified, communion,
With the Cross intoxicated
In His grief and suffering give ;
For thy Son's dear sake, I pray —
Near the cross with tears unfailing
May I, fired with pure affection.
I would join thee in thy wailing
Virgin, have through thee protection
Here as long as I shall live.
In the solemn Judgment Day.
Maid of maidens, all excelling,
Let me by the Cross be warded,
Be not bitter, me repelling.
By the death of Christ be guarded ;
Make thou me a mourner, too ;
Nourished by divine supplies.
Make me bear about Christ's dying.
When the body death hath riven.
Share His passion, shame defying.
Grant that to the soul be given,
All His wounds in me renew :
Glories bright of Paradise.
EVANGELINE ON THE PRAIRIE.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
gM-| Tipping its summit with silvc
■ir ^Q moon. *^" ^^" ri^7or
|EAUTIFUL was the night. Behind
^JII^K the black wall of the forest,
"' ' ■ " ■ ■ ■' ,Q^^ arose
On the river
Fell here and there through the
branches a tremulous gleam of
the moonlight,
Like the sweet thoughts of love on a dark-
ened and devious spirit.
Nearer and round about her, the manifold
flowers of the garden
Poured out their souls in odors, that were
their prayers and confessions
Unto the night, as it went its waj', like a
silent Carthusian.
Fuller of fragrance than they, and as heavy
with shadows and night dews,
Hung the heart of the maiden. The calm
and the magical moonlight
Seemed to inundate her soul with indefinable
longings,
As, through the garden gate, and beneath
the shade of the oak-trees,
Passed .«he along the path to the edge of the
measureless prairie.
Silent it lay, with a silvery haze upon it, and
fire-flies
Gleaming and floating away in mingled and
infinite numbers.
Over her head the stars, the thoughts of God
in the heavens.
Shone on the eyes of man, who had ceased
to marvel and worship.
Save when a blazing comet was seen on the
walls of that temple.
As if a hand had appeared and written upon
them, " Upharsin."
And the soul of the maiden, between the
stars and the fire flies.
Wandered alone, and she cried, " Gabriel \
my beloved !
506
POLITICAL AGITATION.
Art thou 80 near unto me, and yet I cannot
behold thee?
Art thou so near unto me, and yet thy voice
does not reach me ?
Ah ! how often thy feet have trod this path
to the prairie !
Ah ! how often thine eyes have looked on the
woodlands around me !
Ah ! how often beneath this oak, returning
from labor.
Thou hast lain down to rest, and to dream of
me in thy slumbers.
When shall these eyes behold, these arms be
folded about thee ? "
Loud and sudden and near the note of a
whippoorwill sounded
Like a flute in the woods ; and anon, through
the neighboring thickets.
Farther and farther away it floated and
dropped into silence.
" Patience ! " whispered the oaks from oracu-
lar caverns of darkness ;
And, from the moonlit meadow, a sigh re-
sponded, " To-morrow ! "
NO.
THOMAS HOOD.
sO sun — no moon !
No -morn — no noon —
No dawn — no dust — no proper time
of day —
No sky — no earthly view —
No distance looking blue —
No road — no sireet — no " t'other side the
way"—
No end to any Row —
No indication where the Crescents
go-
No top to any steeple —
No recognitions of familiar people —
No courtesies for showing 'em-
No knowing 'em —
No traveling at all — no locomotion.
No inkling of the way — no notion —
" No go " — by land or ocean —
No mail — no post —
No news from any foreign coast —
No park — no ring — no afternoon gentility —
No company — no nobility —
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful
ease.
No comfortable feel in any member —
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees.
No fruit, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
November !
POLITICAL AGITATION.
WENDELL PHILLIPS.
jM!!t^{iA^ Lail, Public Opinion ! To be sure, it is a dangerous thing under
which to live. It rules to-day in the desire to obey all kinds of
laws, and takes your life. It rules again in the love of liberty,
and rescues Shadrach from Boston Court House. It rules to-mor-
row in the manhood of him who loads the musket to shoot down
— God be praised ! — the man-hunter Gorsuch. It rules in Syracuse, and
the slave escapes to Canada. It is our interest to educate this people in
THE RANGER.
507
humanity, and in deep reverence for the rights of the lowest and humblest
individual that makes up our numbers. Each man here, in fact, holds his
property and his life dependent on the constant presence of an agitation
like this of anti-slavery. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty : power
is ever stealing from the many to the few. The manna of popular liberty
must be gathered each day, or it is rotten. The living sap of to-day out-
grows the dead rind of yesterday. The hand intrusted with power, be-
comes either from human depravity or esprit de corps, the necessary
enemy of the people. Only by continual oversight can the democrat in
office be prevented from hardening into a despot; only by unintermitted
agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake to principle not to let
liberty be smothered in material prosperity.
All clouds, it is said, have sunshine behind them, and all evils have
some good result; so slavery, by the necessity of its abolition, has saved
the freedom of the white race from being melted in the luxury or buried
beneath the gold of its own success. Never look, therefore, for an age
when the people can be quiet and safe. At such times Despotism, like a
shrouding mist, steals over the mirror of Freedom. The Dutch, a thou-
sand years ago, built against the ocean their bulwarks of willow and mud.
Do they trust to that ? No. Each year the patient, industrious peasant
gives so much time from the cultivation of his soil and the care of his chil-
dren to stop the breaks and replace the willow which insects have eaten,
that he may keep the land his fathers rescued from the water, and bid
defiance to the waves that roar above his head, as if demanding back the
broad fields man has stolen from their realm.
■fife-
^^^OBERT Rawlin !— Frosts were falling
pl^j^ When the ranger's horn was calling,
flFf Through the wooda to Canada.
Y^ Gone the winter's sleet and snowing,
f* Gone the spring-time's bud and blow-
ing.
Gone the summer's harvest mowing,
And again the fields are gray.
Yet away, he's away !
Faint and fainter hope is growing
In the hearts that mourn his stay.
THE RANGER.
JOHN G. WHITTIEB..
Where the lion crouching high on
Abraham's rock with teeth of iron,
Glares o'er wood and wave away,
Faintly thence, as pines far sighing.
Or as thunder spent and dying,
Come the challenge and replying,
Come the sounds of flight and fray.
Well-a-day ! Hope and pray !
Some are living, some are lying
In their red graves far away.
608
THE RANGER.
Straggling rangers, worn with dangers,
Homeward iaring, weary strangers
Pass the farm-gate on their way ;
Tidings of the dead and living,
Forest march and ambush, giving,
On the grain-lands of the mainlands
Stands a serried corn like train-bands,
Plume and pennon rustling gay ;
Out at sea, the islands wooded.
Silver birches, golden hooded,
Till the maidens leave their weaving.
And the lads forget their play.
" Still away, still away ! "
Sighs a sad one, sick with grieving,
" Why does Robert still delay?"
Nowhere fairer, sweeter, rarer,
Does the golden-locked fruit-bearer
Through his painted woodlands stray,
Than where hillside oaks and beeches
Overlook the long, blue reaches.
Silent coves and pebbled beaches.
And green isles of Casco Bay ;
Nowhere day, for delay,
With a tenderer look beseeches,
" Let me with my charmed earth stay.
Set with maples, crimson-blooded,
White sea-foam and sand-hills gray,
Stretch away, far away,
Dim and dreamy, over-brooded
By the hazy autumn day.
Gayly chattering to the clattering
Of the brown nuts downward pattering.
Leap the squirrels, red and gray.
On the grass-land, on the fallow.
Drop the apples, red and yellow.
Drop the russet pears and mellow.
Drop the red leaves all the day.
And away, swift away.
Sun and cloud, o'er hill and hollow
Chasing, weave their web of play.
THE RANGER.
509
" Martha Mason, Martha Mason,
Prithee tell us of the reason.
Why you mope at home to-day :
Surely smiling is not sinning ;
Leave your quilling, leave your spinning ;
What is all your store of linen,
If your heart is never gay ?
Come away, come away !
Never yet did sad beginning
Make the task of life a play."
Over-bending, till she's blending
With the flaxen skein she's tending.
Pale brown tresses smoothed away
From her face of patient sorrow.
Sits she, seeking but to borrow,
From the trembling hope of morrow,
Solace for the weary day.
" Go your way, laugh and play ;
Unto him who heeds the sparrow
And the lily, let me pray."
" With our rally rings the valley, — .
Join us ! " cried the blue-eyed Nelly ;
" Join us ! " cried the laughing May :
" To the beach we all are going.
And, to save the task of rowing.
West by north the wind is blowing.
Blowing briskly down the bay !
Come away, come away !
Time and tide are swiftly flowing,
Let us take them while we may !
" Never tell us that you'll fail us,
Where the purple beach-plum mellowa
On the bluffs so wild and gray.
Hasten, for the oars are falling ;
Hark, our merry mates are calling :
Tim3 it is that we were all in,
Singing tideward down the bay! "
" Nay, nay, let me stay ;
iore and sad for Robert Rawlin
Is my heart," she said, " to-day."
" Vain your calling for Rob Rawlin!
Some red squaw his moose-meat's broiling,
Or some French lass, singing gay ;
Just forget as he's forgetting ;
What avails a life of fretting ?
If some stars must needs be setting,
Others rise as good as they."
" Cease, I pray ; go your way ! "
Martha cries, her eyelids wetting ;
" Foul and false the words you say I'
" Martha Mason, hear to reason !
Prithee, put a kinder face on ! "
" Cease to vex me," did she say ;
" Better at his side be lying.
With the mournful pine-trees sighing,
And the wild-birds o'er us crying,
Than to doubt like mine a prey,
While away, far away,
Turns my heart, forever trying
Some new hope for each new day.
" When the shadows veil the meadows
And the sunset's golden ladders.
Sink from twilight's walls of gray,
From the window of my dreaming
I can see his sickle gleaming.
Cheery-voiced, can hear him teaming.
Down the locust shaded way ;
But away, swift away.
Fades the fond, delusive seeming,
And I kneel again to pray.
"When the growing dawn is showing.
And the barn-yard cock is crowing,
And the horned moon pales
From a dream of him awaking.
Every sound my heart is making,
Seems a footstep of his taking ;
510
JIM SMILEY'S FROG.
Then I hush the thought, and say,
When such lovers meet each other,
Nay, nay, he's away !
Why should prying idlers stay ?
Ah ! my heart, my heart is breaking
For the dear one far away."
Quench the timbers fallen embers,
Quench the red leaves in December's
Look up, Martha ! worn and swarthy,
Hoary rime and chilly spray.
Glows a face of manhood worthy ;
But the hearth shall kindle clearer,
"Robert!" "Martha!" all they say.
Household welcomes sound sincerer,
O'er went wheel and reel together,
Little cared the owner whither ;
Heart of lead, is heart of feather,
Noon of night is noon of day !
Come away, come away !
Heart to loving heart draw nearer.
When the bridal bells shall saj
" Hope and pray, trust alway ;
Life is sweeter, love is dearer.
For the trial and delay 1 "
JIM SMILEY'S FEOG.
SAMUEL C. CLEMENS.
^^^^ELL, this yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken-cocks, and all
them kind of thinp-s, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't fetch
^^^ nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frog
t' one day, and took him home, and said he cal'klated to edercate
JIM SMILEY'S FROG. ^n
him; and so he never done nothing for tliree months but set in his
back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet he did learn
him, too. He'd give him a little punch behind, and the next minute
you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut, — see him turn one
summerset, or maybe a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-
footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of catching
flies, and kept him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time
as far as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education,
and he could do most anything; and I believe him. Why, I've seen him
set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor, — Dan'l Webster was the name
of the frog,— and sing out, "Flies, Dan'l, flies," and quicker'n you could
wink he'd spring straight up, and snake a fly off 'n the counter there, and
flop down on the floor again, as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching
the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea
he'd been doing any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so
modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when
it came to fair and square jumping on a dead level, he could get over more
ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see. Jump-
ing on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand; and when it come
to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red.
Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellers
that had travelled and been everywheres, all said he laid over any frog
that ever they see.
Well, Smiley kept the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to fetch
him down town sometimes, and lay for a bet. One day a feller, — a stran-
ger in the camp, he was, — came across him with his box, and says :
" What might it be that you've got in the box ?"
And Smiley says, sorter indifferent like, " It might be a parrot, or it
might be a canary, may be, but it ain't, — it's only just a frog."
And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it
round this way and that, and says, '' H'm ! so 'tis. Well, what's he good
for?"
" Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, " he's good enough for one
thing, I should judge, — he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county."
The feller took the box again, and took another long particular look,
and gave it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, " Well, I don't see
no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog."
" May be you don't," Smiley says. " May be you understand frogs,
and may be you don't understand 'em; may be you've had experience, and
may be you an't only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I've got my
512
JIM SMILEY'S FROG.
opinion, and I'll risk forty dollars that he can outjump ary frog in Cala-
veras county.
And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, "Well,
I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no frog ; but if I had a frog, I'd
bet you."
And then Smiley says, " That's all right, — that's all right ; if you'll
hold my box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog." And so the feller took
the box, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley 's and set down to
wait. So he set there a good while, thinking and thinking to hisself, and
then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open, and took a teaspoon
and filled him full of quail shot, — filled him pretty near up to his chin, —
and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp, and slopped
around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and
fetched him in, and give him to this feller, and says :
" Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his fore-paws
just even with Dan'l, and I'll give the word." Then he says, ''One — two
— three — ;jump ;" and him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind,
and the new frog hopped ofi", but Dan'l give a heave, and hysted up his
shoulders, — so, — like a Frenchman, but it wan't no use, — he couldn't budge ;
he was planted as solid as an anvil, and he
couldn't no more stir than if he was anchored
out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and
he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no
idea what the matter was, of course.
The feller took the money and started
away ; and when he was going out at the door,
he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulders,
— this way, — at Dan'l, and says again, very
deliberate, " Well I don't see no p'ints about
that frog that's any better 'n any other frog."
Smiley he stood scratching his head and
looking down at Dan'l a long time, and at last he says, " I do wonder
what in the nation that frog throwed ofi" for; I wonder if there an't
something the matter with him, he 'pears to look mighty baggy, some-
how." And he ketched Dan'l by the nap of the neck, and lifted him
up, and says, "Why, blame my cats, if he don't weigh five pound!"
and turned him upside down, and he belched out a double handful of
shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man. He
set the frog dov/n, and took out after that feller, but he never ketched
him.
THE MOTHER IN THE SNOW STORM.
513
THE LIGHT-HOUSE.
THOMAS MOORE.
fHE scene was more beautiful far to
tlie eye,
Than if day in its pride had ar-
rayed it :
^ The land-breeze blew mild, and the
ej* azure-arched sky
T Looked pure as the spirit that
made it:
The murmur rose soft, as I silently gazed
On the shadowy waves' playful motion.
From the dim distant hill, till the light-
house fire blazed
Like a star in the midst of the ocean.
No longer the joy of the sailor-boy's breast
Was heard in his wildly-breathed numbers ;
The sea-bird had flown to her wave-girdled
nest,
The fisherman sunk to his slumbers :
One moment I looked from the hill's gentle
slope.
All hushed was the billows' commotion,
And o'er them the light-house looked lovely
as hope, —
That star of life's tremulous ocean.
The time is long past, and the scene is afar,
Yet when my head rests on its pillow.
Will memory sometimes rekindle the"star
That blazed on the breast of the billow :
In life's closing hour, when the trembling soul
flies.
And death stills the heart's last emotion ;
Oh, then may the seraph of mercy arise,
Like a star on eternity's ocean !
THE MOTHER IN TQE SHOWSTORM
SEBA SMITH.
jHE cold wind swept the mountain's
height.
And pathless was the dreary wild ;
And 'mid the cheerless hours of night
t A mother wander'd with her child.
I As through the drifting snow she
I pressed.
The babe was sleeping on her breast.
30
And colder still the winds did blow.
And darker hours of night came on.
And deeper grew the drifts of snow ;
Her limbs were chill'd, her strength
gone.
" God ! " she cried, in accents wild,
" If I must perish, save my child I "
514
JOE.
She stripp'd her mantle from her breast,
And bared her bosom to the storm,
And round the child she wrapp'd the vest,
And smiled to think her babe was warm.
With one cold kiss one tear she shed,
And sunk upon a snowy bed.
At dawn a traveller passed by,
And saw her 'neath a snowy veil ;
The frost of death was in her eye.
Her cheek was cold, and hard, and pale,-
He moved the robe from off the child.
The babe look'd up and sweetly smiled.
JOE.
ALICE ROBBINS.
E don't take vagrants in, sir.
And I am alone to-day.
Leastwise, I could call the good man —
He's not so far away.
={• You are welcome to a breakfast —
[ I'll bring you some bread and tea;
You might sit on the old stone yonder,
Under the chestnut tree.
You're traveling, stranger ? Mebbe '
You've got some notions to sell ?
We hev a sight of peddlers,
But we allers treat them well.
For they, poor souls, are trying
Like the rest of us to live :
And it's not like tramping the country
And calling on folks to give.
Not that I meant a word, sir —
No offence in the world to you :
I think, now I look at it closer.
Your coat is an army blue.
Don't say ? Under Sherman, were you ?
That was — how many years ago?
I had a boy at Shiloh,
Kearney — a sergeant — Joe !
Joe Kearney, you might a' met him ?
But in course you were miles apart,
He was a tall, straight boy, sir,
The pride of his mother's heart.
We were off to Kittory, then, sir,
Small farmers in dear old Maine;
It's a long stretch from there to Kansas,
But I couldn't go back again.
He was all we had, was Joseph ;
He and my old man and me
Had sort o' growed together.
And were happy as we could be.
I wasn't a lookin' for trouble
When the terrible war begun.
And I wrestled for grace to be able
To give up our only son.
Well, well, 'taint no use o' talking.
My old man said, said he;
" The Lord loves a willing giver ;"
And that's what I tried to be.
Well the heart and the flesh are rebels,
And hev to be fought with grace ;
But I'd give my life — yes, willin' —
To look on my dead boy's face.
Take care, you are spillin' your tea, sir,
Poor soul ! don't cry : I'm sure
You've had a good mother sometime —
Your wounds, were they hard to cure ?
Andersonville ! God help 5^ou!
Hunted by dogs, did you say !
Hospital ! crazy, seven years, sir ?
I wonder your'e living to-day.
I'm thankful my Joe was .shot, sir,
" How do you know that he died ?"
'Twas certified, sir, by the surgeon .
Here's the letter, and — " mebbe he lied !'
Well, I never ! you shake like the ager.
My Joe ! there's his name and the date ;
" Joe Kearney, 7th Maine, sir, a sergeant-
Lies here in a critical state —
THE FAIRIES.
515
Just died — will be buried to-morrow —
Can't wait for his parents to come."
Well, I thought God had left us that hour,
As for John, my poor man, he was dumb.
Didn't speak for a month to the neighbors.
Scarce spoke in a week, sir, to me;
Never been the same man since that Monday
They brought us this letter you see.
And you were from Maine ! from old Kittery ?
What time in the year did you go ?
I just disremember the fellows
That marched out of town with our Joe.
Lord love ye ! come into the house, sir ;
It's gettin' too warm out o' door.
If I'd known you'd been gone for a sojer,
I'd taken you in here afore.
Now make yourself easy. We're humbler,
We Kansas folks don't go for show, —
Set here — it's Joe's chair — take your hat off:
" Call father !" My God ! you are Joe !
THE FAIRIES.
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.
^P the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We dare n't go a hunting
For fear of little men ;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together ;
Green jacket, red cap.
And white owl's feather !
Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home, —
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam ;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain -lake.
With frogs for their watch-doga,
All night awake.
High on the hill-top
The old king sits ;
He is now so old and gray
He's nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses.
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rojses ;
Or going up with music
On cold starry nights,
To sup with the queen
Of the gay Northern Lights
They stole little Bridget
For seven years long ;
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back.
Between the night and morrow
They thought that she was fast
But she was dead with sorrow,
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lakes,
On a bed of flag-leaves.
Watching till she wakes.
By the craggy hill-side.
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn-trees
For pleasure here and there.
Is any man so daring
To dig one up in spite.
He shall find the thornies set
In his bed at night.
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen.
We dare n't go a hunting
For fear of little men ;
Wee folk, good folk.
Trooping all together ;
Green jacket, red cap.
And white owl's feather!
516 WORSE THAN CIVIL WAR.
WOBSU THAW CIVIL WAB.
From Senator Baker's Speech at Union Square, New York, April 20th, 1861.
ET no man underrate the dangers of this controversy. Civil war, for
the best of reasons on the one side, and the worst upon the other, is
always dangerous to liberty, always fearful, always bloody ; but, fel-
low-citizens, there are yet worse things than fear, than doubt and
dread, and danger and blood. Dishonor is worse. Perpetual
anarchy is worse. States forever commingling and forever sever-
ing are worse. Traitors and secessionists are worse. To have star after
star blotted out— to have stripe after stripe obscured — to have glory after
glory dimmed, to have our women weep and our men blush for shame through-
out generations to come — that and these are infinitely worse than blood.
When we march, let us not march for revenge. As yet we have noth-
ing to revenge. It is not much that where that tattered flag waved
guarded by seventy men against ten thousand; it is not much that starva-
tion effected what an enemy could not compel. We have as yet something to
punish; but nothing or very little to revenge. The President himself, a
hero without knowing it — and I speak from knowledge, having known him
from boyhood — 'the President says : " There are wrongs to be redressed
already long enough endured." And we march to battle and to victory
because we do not choose to endure this wrong any longer. They are
wrongs not merely against us — not against you, Mr. rresident — not
against me — but against our sons and against our grandsons that surround
us. They are wrongs against our Union; they are wrongs against our
Constitution ; they are wrongs against human hope and human freedom ;
and thus, if it be avenged, still, as Burke says, " It is a wild justice at
last."
Only thus we will revenge them. The national banners, leaning from
ten thousand windows in your city to-day, proclaim your affection and
reverence for the Union. You will gather in battalions
" Patient of toil, serene amidst alarms.
Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms ;"
and as you gather, every omen of present concord and ultimate peace will
surround you. The ministers of religion, the priests of literature, the his-
torians of the past, the illustrators of the present, capital, science, art,
invention, discoveries, the works of genius — all these will attend us in our
march, and we will conquer. And if from the far Pacific a voice feebler
BY THE SHORE OF THE RIVER.
517
than the feeblest murmur upon its shore may be heard to give you courage
and hope in the contest, that voice is yours to-day ; and if a man whose
hair is gray, who i« well-nigh worn out in the battle and toil of life, may
pledge himself on such an occasion and in such an audience, let me say, as
my last word, that when, amid sheeted fire and flame, I saw and led the
hosts of New York as ihey charged in contest upon a foreign soil for the
honor of your flag, so again, if Providence shall will it, this feeble hand
shall draw a sword, never yet dishonored — not to fight for distant honor in
a foreign land, but to fight for country, %for home, for law, for Government,
for Constitution, for right, for freedom, for humanity ; and in the hope that
the banner of my country may advance, and wheresoever that banner
waves, there glory may pursue and freedom be established.
£ Y THE SHORE OF THE RIVER.
C. p. CRANCH.
l!f|^HROUGH the gray willows the bleak
^|P§ winds are raving
tf^G^ Here on the shore with its driftwood
^^ and sands ;
el Over the river the lilies are waving,
Bathed in the sunshine of Orient
lands ;
Over the river, the wide dark river,
Spring-time and summer are blooming
forever.
Here, all alone on the rocks I am sitting,
Sitting and waiting — my comrades all
gone —
Shadows of mystery drearily flitting
Over the surf with its sorrowful moan,
Over the river, the strange cold river,
Ah ! must I wait for the Boatman forever ?
Wife and children and friends were around
me ;
Labor and rest were as wings to my soul ;
Honor and love were the laurels that
crowned me ;
Little I recked how the dark waters roll.
But the deep river, the gray, misty river,
All that I lived for has taken forever !
Silently came a black boat o'er the billows ;
Stealthily grated the keel on the sand ;
Rustling footsteps were heard through the
willows.
There the dark Boatman stood, waving
his hand,
Whisp'ring, " I come, o'er the shadowy
river ;
She who is dearest must leave thee forever."
Suns that were brightest and skies that were
bluest.
Darkened and paled in the message he bore.
Year after year went the fondest, the truest.
Following that beckoning hand to the
shore,
Down to the river, the cold grim nver.
Over whose waters they vanished forever.
Yet not in visions of grief have I wandered ;
Still have I toiled, though my ardors have
flown.
Labor is manhood, and life is but squandered
Dreaming vague dreams of the future
alone.
Yet from the tides of the mystical river
Voices of spirits are whispering ever.
518
BILL MASON'S BRIDE.
Lonely and old in the dusk I am waiting,
Till the dark Boatman, with soft, muffled
oar,
Glides o'er the waves, and I hear the keel
grating.
See the dim, beckoning hand on the
shore,
Wooing me over the welcoming river
To gardens and hSmes that are shining for-
ever !
INDIAN DEATH SONG.
PHILIP FRENEAU.
KjraiU^HE sun sets at night, and the stars
jaJSM^ shun the day ;
But glory remains when their lights
fade away.
Begin, you tormentors ! your threats
are in vain,
For the son of Alknomook will
never complain.
Remember the arrows he shot from his bow ;
Remember your chiefs by his hatchet laid low !
Why 60 slow ? do you wait till I shrink from
the pain ?
No ! the son of Alknomook shall never com-
plain,
Remember the wood where in ambush we lay,
And the scalps which we bore from your
nation away.
Now the flame rises fast, you exult in my
pain ;
But the son of Alknomook can never com-
plain.
I go to the land where my father is gone ;
His ghost shall rejoice in the fame of his
son.
Death comes like a friend to relieve me from
pain ;
And thy son, Alknomook ! has scorned to
complain.
BILL MASONS BRIDE.
F. BRET HARTE.
^^pALF an hour till train time, sir,
W^^^ An' a fearful dark time, too ;
Take a look at the switch lights.
Fetch in a stick when you're
through.
" On time?" well, yes, I guess so —
Left the last station all right —
She'll come round the curve a fly in' ;
Bill Mason comes up to-night.
You know Bill ? No ! He's engineer,
Been on the road all his life —
I'll never forget the morning
He married his chuck of a wife.
'Twas the summer the mill hands struck-
Just off work, every one ;
They kicked up a row in the village
And killed old Donevan's son.
A HUSBAND'S EXPERIENCE IN COOKING.
519
Bill hadn't been married mor'n an hour,
Up comes the message from Kress,
Orderin' Bill to go up there,
And bring down the night express.
He left his gal in a hurry.
And went up on number one,
Thinking of nothing but Mary,
And the train he had to run.
And Mary sat down by the window
To wait for the night express ;
And, sir, if she hadn't a' done so.
She'd been a widow, I guess.
For it must a' been nigh midnight
When the mill hands left the Ridge —
They come down — the drunken devils!
Tore up a rail from the bridge.
But Mary heard 'em a workin'
And guessed therewas something wrong
And in less than fifteen minutes,
Bill's train it would be along ?
She couldn't come here to tell us,
A mile — it wouldn't a' done —
So she jest grabbed up a lantern,
And made for the bridge alone.
Then down came the night express, sir.
And Bill was makin' her climb !
But Mary held the lantern,
A-swingin' it all the time.
Well ! by Jove ! Bill saw the signal,
And he stopped the night express,
And he found his Mary cryin',
On the track, in her weddin' dress ;
Cryin' and laughin' for joy, sir,
An' holdin' on to the light —
Hello ! here's the train — good-bye, sir,
Bill Mason's on time to-night.
A HUSBANUS EXPERIENCE IN COOKING.
FOUND fault, some time ago, with Maria Ann's custard pie, and tried
to tell her how my mother made custard pie. Maria made the pie
after my receipt. It lasted longer than any other pie we ever had.
Maria set it on the table every day for dinner, and you see I could
not eat it, because I forgot to tell her to put in any eggs or shortening. It
was economical, but in a fit of generosity I stole it from the pantry, and
gave it to a poor little boy in the neighborhood. The boy's funeral was
largely attended by his former playmates. I did not go myself.
Then there were the buckwheat cakes. I told Maria Ann any fool
could beat her making those cakes, and she said I had better try it. So I
did. I emptied the batter all out of the pitcher one evening, and set the
520
MEASURING THE BABY.
cakes myself. I got the flour, and the salt, and water, and warned by the
past, put in a liberal quantity of eggs and shortening. I shortened with
tallow from roast beef, because I could not find any lard. The batter did
not look right, and I lit my pipe and pondered: "Yeast! yeast, to be
sure !" I had forgotten the yeast. I went and woke up the baker, and got
six cents' worth of yeast. I set the pitcher behind the sitting-room stove,
and went to bed. In the morning I got up early, and prepared to enjoy
my triumph; but I didn't. That yeast was strong enough to raise the
dead, and the batter was running all over the carpet. I scraped it up and
put it into another dish. Then got a fire in the kitchen, and put on the
griddle. The first lot of cakes stuck to the griddle. The second dittoed,
only more. Maria came down and asked what was burning. Slie advised
me ta grease the griddle. I did it. One end of the griddle got too hot,
and I dropped the thing on my tenderest corn, while trying to turn it
around. Finally the cakes were ready for breakfast, and Maria got the
other things ready. We sat down. My cakes did not have exactly the
right flavor. I
took one mouth-
ful and it satisfied
me; I lost my
appetite at once.
Maria would not
let me put one on
her plate, and I
think those cakes
may be reckoned
a dead loss. The
cat would not eat them. The dog ran off and staid away three days after
one was offered him. The hens won't go within ten feet of them. I threw
them into the back yard, and there has not been a pig on the premises
since. I eat what is put before me now, and do not allude to my mother's
system of cooking.
MEASURING THE BABY.
EMMA ALICE BROWN.
K^l^E measured the riotous baby
J^Jy Against the cottage wall —
"c^)-;-^ A lily grew on the threshold,
And the boy was just as tall;
^
A royal tiger-lily,
With spots of purple and gold,
And a heart like a jewelled ehalice,
The fragrant dew to hold.
DIAMOND DUST.
521
Without, the bluebirds whistled
And the little bare feet, that were dimpled
High up in the old roof-trees,
And sweet as a budding rose,
And to and fro at the window
The red rose rocked her bees ; ■
Lay side by side together.
In a hush of a long repose !
And the wee pink fists of the baby
Were never a moment still,
Snatching at shine and shadow
That danced on the lattice-sill.
Up from the dainty pillow.
White as the risen dawn.
The fair little face lay smiling.
With the light of heaven thereon ;
His eyes were wide as bluebells —
And the dear little hands, like rose-leaves
His mouth like a flower unblown —
Dropped from a rose, lay still.
Two little bare feet like funny white mice.
Never to snatch at the sunshine
Peeped out from his snowy gown ;
And we thought, with a thrill of rapture
That yet had a touch of pain.
When June rolls around with her roses,
We'll measure the boy again.
That crept to the shrouded sill!
We measured the sleeping baby
With ribbons white as snow,
For the shining rosewood casket
That waited him below ;
Ah me ! in a darkened chamber.
And out of the darkened chamber
With the sunshine shut away
We went with a childless moan —
Through tears that fell like a bitter rain,
To the height of the sinless angels
We measured the boy to-day ;
Our little one had grown.
DIAMOND DUST.
^YiiiJiHE world is what we make it. For-
ward then, forward, in the power
of faith, fo.rward in the power of
truth, forward in the power of
friendship, forward in the power
W of freedom, forward in the power
I of hope, forward in the power
of God. {Henry Vincent.
To honor God, to benefit mankind,
To serve with lofty gifts the lowly needs
Of the poor race for which the God-man died.
And do it all for love — oh, this is great !
And he who does this will achieve a name
Not only great but good. {Holland.
He that has never known adversity is but
half acquainted with others or with him-
self. Constant success shows us but one
side of the world, for, as it surrounds us
with friends who will tell us only our
merits, so it silences those enemies from
whom alone we can learn our defects.
{CoUon.
We hear much now about circumstances
making us what we are and destroying
our responsibility ; but however much
the external circumstances in which we
are placed, the temptations to which we
are exposed, the desires of our own na-
tures, may work upon us, all these in-
fluences have a limit, which they do not
pass, and that is the limit laid upon them
by the freedom of the will, which is
essential to human nature, — to our per-
sonality. {Luthardt.
The vast cathedral of nature is full of holy
scriptures and shapes of deep mysterious
meaning, but all is solitary and silent
there ; no bending knee, no uplifted eye,
no lip adoring, praying. Into this vast
cathedral comes the human soul seeking
its Creator, and the universal silence is
changed to sound, and the sound is har-
monious and has a meaning and is com-
prehended and felt. {Longfellow.
522
DIAMOND DUST.
The shaping our own life is our own work.
It is a thing of beauty, it is a thing of
shame, as we ourselves make it. We
lay the corner and add joint to joint, we
give the proportion, we set the finish.
It may be a thing of beauty and of joy
forever. God forgive us if we pervert
our life from putting on its appointed
glory. ( Ware.
They who live most by themselves reflect
most upon others, and he who lives sur-
rounded by the million never thinks of
any but the one individual — himself.
We are so linked to our fellow-beings
that were we not chained to them by
action, we are carried to and connected
with them by thought. {Bulwcr.
Censure and criticism never hurt anybody.
If false, they can't hurt you unless you
are wanting in manly character ; and if
true, they show a man his weak points,
and forewarn him against failure and
trouble. [Gladstone.
The humble man, though surrounded with
the scorn and reproach of the worla, is
still in peace, for the stability of his
peace resteth not upon the world, but
upon God. (Kemins.
Leave consequences to God, but do right. Be
genuine, real, sincere, true, upright, God-
like. The world's maxim is, trim your
sails and yield to circumstances. But if
you would do any good in your genera-
tion, you must be made of sterner stuff,
and help make your times rather than be
made by them. You must not yield to
customs, but, like the anvil, endure all
blows, until the hammers break them-
selves. When misrepresented, use no
crooked means to clear yourself. Clouds
do not last long. If in the course of
duty you are tried by the distrust of
friends, gird up your loins and say in
your heart, " I was not driven to virtue
by the encouragement of friends, nor
will I be repelled from it by their cold-
ness." Finally, " be just and fear not ;"
" Corruption wins not more than
honesty;" truth lives and reigns when
falsehood dies and rots. {Spurgeon.
Some clocks do not strike. You must look at
them if you would know the time.
Some men do not talk their Christianity ;
you must look at their lives if you would
know what the gospel can do for human
nature. But a clock need not be incor-
rect because it strikes ; a man need not
be inconsistent because he speaks as
well as acts. (Joscjjh Parker.
I love all men. I know that at bottom they
cannot be otherwise ; and under all the
false and overloaded and glittering mas-
querade, there is in every man a noble
nature beneath, only they cannot bring
it out ; and whatever they do that is
false and cunning and evil, there still
remains the sentence of our Great Ex-
ample, " Forgive them for they know
not what they do." {Auerbach.
If on a cold, dark night you see a man
picking his way up a rickety pair of
stairs where one of God's poor children
lives, with a heavy basket on his arm,
you need not stop him to ask if he loves
the Lord. Whether he is an Orthodox,
a Catholic, or a heathen, he is laying up
treasures in heaven. {Golden Rule.
There is a beautiful Indian apologue, which
says: A man once said to a lump of
clay, " What art thou ?" The reply
was, " I am but a lump of clay, but I
was placed beside a rose and I caught
its fragrance." — So our prayers are
placed beside the smoke of the incense
ascending before God ; thus they are
made fragrant and a promise of suc-
cess is given. In the old dispensation,
a cloud hovered above the altar, and if
by some mysterious means that cloud was
borne down, it was a token that the offer-
ing was rejected ; but if the smoke rose
up, then the offering was accepted, and
sinners might rejoice. Our prayers are
always ascending to God in the cloud of
incense out of the angel's hand. There
is, then, an assurance of blessedness. It
is taken out of our hands altogether — he
makes our prayers his own, they are
his own prayers ascending up to God's
throne. [Punshon.
DIAMOND DUST.
523
The greatest thing a human soul ever does
ia this world is to see something, and
tell what it saw in a plain way. Hun-
dreds of people can talk for one who can
think, but thousands can think for one
who can see. To see clearly, is poetry,
prophecy, and religion, all in one.
(Huskin.
There can be no real conflict between Science
and the Bible — between nature and the
Scriptures — the two Books of the Great
Author. Both are revelations made by
him to man ; the earlier telling of God-
made harmonies coming up from the
deep past, and rising to their height
when man appeared ; the later teaching
man's relations to his Maker, and speak-
ing of loftier harmonies in the eternal
future. {Dana.
Modern discoveries, instead of detracting
from, increase the significance of, the
Bible symbolism. Every new revela-
tion of the beautiful or useful properties
of light adds something significant to the
meaning of our Lord's declaration,
" I am the Light of the world."
{R. B. Howard.
The flowers of rhetoric are only acceptable
when backed by the evergreens of truth
and sense. The granite statue, rough
hewn, though it be, is far more imposing
in its simple and stern though rude pro-
portions, than the plaster-cast, however
elaborately wrought and gilded.
[Macaulay.
There is a broad distinction between charac-
ter and reputation, for one may be de-
stroyed by slander, while the other can
never be harmed save by its possessor.
Reputation is in no man's keeping. You
and I cannot determine what other men
shall think and say about us. We can
only determine what they ought io think
of us, and say about us, and we can
only do this by acting squarely on our
convictions. {Holland.
We hold religion too cheaply, and speak of
the ease with which it may be had,
overlooking the stubborn depravity of
the heart and the power of Satan. Some
would like to ride to heaven in a close
carriage, that would never be jolted, or
enjoy sunshine all the way to the gates
of glory. {Theo. L. Cuyler.
MY MOTHER'S BIBLE.
.^^
GEO. P. MORmS.
?HIS book is all that's left me now, —
Tears will unbidden start, —
With faltering lip and throbbing brow
I press it to my heart.
For many generations past
Here is our family tree ;
My mother's hands this Bible clasped,
She, dying, gave it me.
Ah ! well do I remember those
Whose names these records bear ;
Who round the hearthstone used to close,
After the evening prayer,
And speak of what these pages said
In tones my heart would thrill !
Though they are with the silent dead,
Here are they living still !
My father read this holy book
To brothers, sisters, dear ;
How calm was my poor mother's look.
Who loved God's word to hear !
Her angel face, — I see it yet:
What thronging memories come !
Again that little group is met
Within the halls of home !
Thou truest friend man ever knew,
Thy constancy I've tried ;
When all were false, I found thee true,
My counsellor and guide.
The mines of earth no treasures give
That could this volume buy ;
In teaching me the way to live,
It taught me how to die !
524
THE PILGRIM FATHERS.
PLYMOUTH ROC
THE PILGRIM FATHERS.
EDWARD EVERETT.
%Ms
JgjgETHTNKS I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessel, the
Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a
future state, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it
J pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncert-ain, the tedious
L voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and winter
surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for
shore. I see them now, scantily supplied with provisions, crowded almost
to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a cir-
BORRIOBOOLA GHA. 525
cuitous route ; and now driven in fury before the raging tempest, on the
high and giddy wave. The awful voice of the storm howls through the
rigging ; the laboring masts seem straining from their base ; the dismal
sound of the pumps is heard ; the ship leaps, as it were, madly, from billow
to billow; the ocean breaks, and settles with ingulfing floods over the float-
ing deck, and beats, with deadening, shivering weight, against the
staggered vessel. I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing their all
but desperate undertaking, and landed, at last, after a few months passage,
on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth, — weak and weary from the voyage,
poorly armed, scantily provisioned, without shelter, without means, sur-
rounded by hostile tribes.
Shut now, the volume of history, and tell me, on any principle of
human probability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers ?
Tell me, man of military science, in how many months were they all swept
off by the thirty savage tribes enumerated within the early limits of New
England ? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on
which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the
distant coast ? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects,
the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures, of other times, and
find the parallel of this! Was it the winter's storm, beating upon the
houseless heads of women and children? was it hard labor and spare
meals ? was it disease ? was it the tomahawk ? was it the deep malady of
a blighted hope, a ruined enterprise, and a broken heart, aching, in its last
moments, at the recollection of the loved auvd left, beyond the sea? — was it
some or all of these united, that hurried this forsaken company to their
melancholy fate ? And is it possible that neither of these causes, that not
all combined, were able to blast this bud of hope ? Is it possible that from
a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, not so much of admiration as of
pity there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, an
expansion so ample, a reality so important, a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so
glorious ?
BORRIOBOOLA GHA.
ORRIX GOODRICH.
Stranger preached last Sunday,
And crowds of people came
To hear a two hours sermon
* On a theme I scarce can name ;
'Twas all about some heathen,
Thousand of miles afar.
\\Tio live in a land of darkness
Called Borrioboola Gha.
626
TO A WATERFOWL.
So well their wants he pictured.
For the mournful sight before me,
That when the box was passed,
So sad and sickening, — oh.
Each listener felt his pocket,
I had never, never pictured
And goodly sums were cast ;
A scene so full of woe!
For all must lend a shoulder
The famished and the naked.
To puph the rolling car
The babe that pined for bread,
That carries light and comfort
The squalid group that huddled
To Borrioboola Gha.
Around that dying-bed;
That night their wants and sorrows
All this distress and sorrow
Lay heavy on my soul,
Should be in lands afar !
And deep in meditation.
Was I suddenly transported
I took my morning stroll,
To Borrioboola Gha ?
When something caught my mantle
Ah, no ! the poor and wretched
With eager grasp and wild.
Were close beside my door.
And, looking down in wonder.
And I had passed them heedless
I saw a little child :
A thousand times before.
A pale and puny creature.
Alas, for the cold and hungry
In rags and dirt forlorn :
That met me every day,
"What do you want?" I asked her,
While all my tears were given
Impatient to be gone ; •
To the suffering far away 1
With trembling voice she answered,
There's work enough for Christians
In distant lands, we know,
" We live just down the street,
And mamma, she's a-dying.
Our Lord commands his servants
And we've nothing left to eat."
Through all the world to go,
Down in a dark, damp cellar.
Not only to the heathen ;
With mould o'er all the walls,
This was his command to them.
Through whose half-buried windows
" Go, preach the word, beginning
God's sunlight never falls ;
Here, at Jerusalem."
Where cold and want and hunger
Christian ! God has promised.
Whoe'er to such has given
A cup of pure, cold water,
Shall find reward in Heaven.
Crouched near her as she lay,
I found that poor child's mother,
Gasping her life away.
A chair, a broken table.
Would you secure this blessing ?
A bed of mouldy straw.
You need not seek it far ;—
A hearth all dark and fireless. —
Go find in yonder hovel
But these I scarcely saw.
A Borrioboola Gha !
TO A WATERFOWL.
W. C. BRYANT.
sHITHER, midst falling dew.
While glow the heavens with the
last steps of day.
Far, through their rosy depths, dost
thou pursue
Thy solitary way ?
Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee
wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky.
Thy figure floats along.
THE VOICES AT THE THRONE.
527
Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side ?
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,
The desert and illimitable air,
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere
Yet stood not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end ;
Soon shalt tbou find a summer home, and
rest,
And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall
bend,
Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.
Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form ; on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He who, from zoije to zone.
Guides through the boundless sky thy
certain flight.
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.
THE VOICES AT THE THRONE.
T. WESTWOOD.
LITTLE child,
A little meek-faced, quiet village
child.
Sat singing by her cottage door at
eve
I A low, sweet Sabbath song. No human ear
j Caught the faint melody, — no human eye
Beheld the upturned aspect, or the smile
That wreathed her innocent lips while they
breathed
The oft-repeated burden of the hymn,
"Praise God! Praise God!"
A seraph by the throne
In full glory stood. With eager hand
He smote the golden harp-string, till a flood
Of harmony on the celestial air
Welled forth unceasing. There, with a great
voice
He sang the " Holy, holy evermore.
Lord God Almighty !" and the eternal courts
Thrilled with the rapture, and the hierarchies,
Angel, and rapt archangel, throbbed and
burned
With vehement adoration.
Higher yet
Higher, with rich magnificence of sound.
Rose the majestic anthem, without pause.
To its full strength ; and still the infinite
heavens
Rang with the " Holy, holy evermore !"
Till, trembling with excessive awe and love,
Each sceptered spirit sank before the throne
With a mute hallelujah.
But even then
While the ecstatic song was at its height,
Stole in an alien voice — a voice that seomed
To float, float upward from some world afar —
A meek and childlike voice, faint, but how
sweet !
That blended with the spirit's rushing strain
528
THE THREE SONS.
Even as a fountain's music with the roll
Of the reverberate thunder.
Loving smiles
Lit up the beauty of each angel's face
At that new utterance, smiles of joy that
grew
More joyous yet as ever and anon
Was heard the simple burden of the hymn,
" Praise God ! Praise God !"
And when the seraph's song
Had reached its close, and o'er the golden lyre
Silence hung brooding, — when the eternal
courts
Rang with the echoes of his chant sublime.
Still through the abysmal space that wander-
ing voice
Came floating upward from its world afar,
Still murmured sweet on the celestial air,
"Praise God! Praise God!
THE THREE SONS.
JOHN MOULTRIE.
HAVE a son, a little son, a boy just ']
five years old,
With eyes of thoughtful earnestness,
and mind of gentle mould ;
They tell me that unusual grace in all
Shis ways appears.
That my child is grave and wise of
heart beyond his childish years.
I cannot say how this may be ; I know his
face is fair.
And yet his chiefest comeliness is his sweet
and serious air.
I know his heart is kind and fond ; I know
he loveth me.
But loveth yet his mother more, with grate-
ful fervency.
But that which others most admire is the
thought which fills his mind ;
The food for grave, inquiring speech he every-
where doth find:
Strange questions doth he ask of me when
we together walk ;
He scarcely thinks as children think, or talks
as children talk ;
Nor cares he much for childish sports, dotes
not on bat or ball.
But looks on manhood's ways and works,
and aptly mimics all.
His little heart is busy still, and oftentimes
perplexed
With thoughts about this world of ours, and
thoughts about the next ;
He kneels at his dear mother's knee, she
teaches him to pray.
And strange and sweet and solemn then are
the words which he will say.
Oh ! should my gentle child be spared to
manhood's years like me,
A holier and a wiser man I trust that he will
be:
And when I look into his eyes and stroke
his thoughtful brow,
I dare not think what I should feel, were I
to lose him now.
I have a son, a second son, a simple child of
three ;
I'll not declare how bright and fair his little
features be ;
How silver sweet those tones of his when he
prattles on my knee.
I do not think his light blue eye is like his
brother's keen,
Nor his brow so full of childish thought as
his hath ever been ;
But his little heart's a fountain pure of kind
and tender feeling,
And his every look's a gleam of light, rich
depths of love revealing.
When he walks with me the country folk
who pass us in the street.
Will speak their joy, and bless my boy, he
looks so mild and sweet.
THE LIFE OF A CHILD FAIRY.
629
A playfellow he is to all, and yet, with
cheerful tone.
Will sing his little song of love, when left to
sport alone.
His presence is like sunshine sent to gladden
home and hearth.
To comfort us in all our griefs, and sweeten
all our mirth.
Should he grow up to riper years, God grant
his heart may prove
As sweet a home for heavenly grace as now
for earthly love !
And if, beside his grave, the tears our aching
eyes must dim,
God comfort us for all the love which we shall
lose in him.
I have a son, a third sweet son ; his age I
cannot tell,
For they reckon not by years or months
where he has gone to dwell.
To us for fourteen anxious months, his infant
smiles were given.
And then he bade farewell to earth, and
went to live in heaven.
I cannot tell what form is his, what looks
he weareth now.
Nor guess how bright a glory crowns his
shining seraph brow.
The thoughts that fill his sinless soul, the
bliss which he doth feel.
Are numbered with the secret things which
God will not reveal.
But I know, (for God hath told me this) that
he is now at rest.
Where other blessed infants are — on their
Saviour's loving breast.
I know his spirit feels no more this wearv
load of flesh,
But his sleep is blest with endless dreams of
joy forever fresh.
I know the angels fold him close beneath
their glittering wings,
And soothe him with a song that breathes of
heaven's divinest things.
I know that we shall meet our babe, (his
mother dear and I),
Where God for aye shall wipe away all tears
from every eye.
Whate'er befalls his brethren twain, his bliss
can never cease ;
Their lot may here be grief and fear, but his
is certain peace.
It may be that the tempter's wiles their souls
from bliss may sever.
But if our own poor faith fail not, he must
be ours forever.
When we think of what our darling is, and
what we still must be ;
When we muse on that world's perfect bliss,
and this world's misery :
When we groan beneath this load of sin,
and feel this grief and pain ;
Oh ! we'd rather lose our other two, than
have him here again.
THE LIFE OF A CHILD FAIRY.
pEK name was Sunbeam. She had lovely, waving, golden hair, and
M beautiful deep blue eyes, and such a cunning little mouth ; and she
""^W^ was three inches tall. Perhaps you think that fairies have no les-
isons to learn, but in this country they had to learn the language
of the birds and animals, so that they could talk with them.
Sunbeam lived in the hollow trunk of an old tree. It was papered with
the lightest green leaves that could be found. The rooms were separated
by birch bark. Every morning when Sunbeam arose from her bed ol
36
530 THE LIFE OF A CHILD FAIRY.
apple blossoms, she had to learn a lesson in the bird language ; but it was
not hard, for her mother went with her and told her what they said.
When her lesson was done she sprang away to meet her playmates — and
oh ! what fun they had ! They made a swing out of a vine, and almost
flew ihrough the air. They sometimes jumped on a robin's back and had
a ride. They played hide and seek in the birds' nests, and in the spring
picked open the buds, and when they were tired, sat on the dandelions, or
on a horse chestnut leaf, or in a full blown apple blossom. But if any one
came into the woods they scampered away as fast as they could, for little
fairies are very shy.
The afternoon was much like the forenoon, but the evening was the
pleasantest time of all. Every pleasant night just before dark, Sunbeam's
mother dressed her in her apple-blossom dress, with two little lily-of-the-
valley bells fastened like tassels to her green sash of grass blades. Her
slippers were made from blue violets and her hair was tied with the threads
of blue forget-me-nots woven together. Her mother and her father were
dressed in light green. A little after dark they started for their fairy
haunt with fire-flies for lanterns. The haunt was in the thickest part of
the forest ; it was covered with moss, and a brook flowed through the
centre of the enclosure. One hundred gentlemen fairies with their wives
and children were waiting here. Each had a fire-fly lantern. Very soon,
from the brush wood, out sprang two white mice, harnessed to a carriage
made of dandelions with the stems so woven together that the flowers
formed the outside. The inside was lined with white violets. In this
chariot sat the queen of the Forget-me-not fairies (for there are different
families of fairies). The queen was dressed in a robe made of a deep red
tulip, and she had a sash of lilies of the valley. Her black hair was fas-
tened with what looked like a pearl, but really was a tiny drop of water
crystalized. Beside her rode her maids of honor with dresses of blue
violets. The queen took her place upon the throne, and around her stood
her maids of honor. The queen then began to sing, and the fairies danced
to the music. This lasted till midnight, and then the fairies went home.
You can easily imagine Sunbeam's life through the summer and
autumn ; but if you think she hid in her house all winter, you are mis-
taken. In the autumn the fathers of the fairies had gathered the bright
colored leaves, and the mothers had made them into warm winter dresses
and cloaks. Sunbeam had a muff" of swan's down. The great sport in
winter was the queen's ball, to which all the fairies came. I wish I had
time to tell you all about it, for it was Sunbeam's last appearance as a child
fairy, as the next spring she was tall enough to be a full-grown fairy.
NOT ON THE BATTLE-FIELD.
531
NOT ON THE BATTLE-FIELD.
JOHN PIERPONT.
NO, no, — let me lie
Not on a field of battle, when I die.
Let not the iron tread
Of the mad war-horse crush my
helmed head ;
Nor let the reeking knife,
That I have drawn against a brother's
life.
Be in my hand wheiv death
Thunders along, and tramples me beneath
His heavy squadron's heels.
Or gory felloes of his cannon's wheels.
From such a dying bed,
Though o'er it float the stripes of white and
red,
And the bald eagle brings
The clustered stars upon his wide-spread
wings,
To sparkle in my sight,
0, never let my spirit take her flight !
I know that beauty's eye
Is all the brighter where gay pennants fly.
And t)razen helmets dance.
And sunshine flashes on the lifted lance ;
I know that bards have sung.
And people shouted till the welkin rung,
In honor of the brave
Who on the battle-field have found
grave.
That issue from the gulf of Salami
And thine too have I seen,-
Thy mound of earth, Patroclu.-',
green.
robed
1 know that o'er their bones
Have grateful hands piled monumental stones.
Some of those piles I've seen :
The one at Lexington upon the green
Where the first blood was shed,
And to my country's independence led ;
And others on our shore,
The " Battle Monument" at Baltimore,
And that on Bunker's Hill.
Ay, and abroad a few more famous still :
Thy " tomb " Themistocles,
That looks out yet upon the Grecian seas,
And which the waters kiss
IHE B.\TILE .MuXUMEXT.
That like a natural knoll,
Sheep climb and nibble over as they stroll,
Watched by some turbaned boy,
Upon the margin of the plain of Troy.
Such honors grace the bed,
I know, whereon the warrior lays hi.'^ head,
And hears, as life ebbs out.
The conquered flying, and the conqueror ?
shout.
But, as his eye grows dim,
What is a column or a mound to him ?
What to the parting soul.
The mellow note of bugles ? WTiat the roll
532
SAM WELLER'S VALENTINE.
Of drums ? No, let me die
Where the blue heaven bends o'er me lovingly,
And the soft summer air,
As it goes by me, stirs my thin, white
hair.
And from my forehead dries
The death damp as it gathers, and the skies
Seem waiting to receive
My soul to their clear depths. Or let me leave
The world, when round my bed
Wife, children, weeping friends, are gathered,
And the calm voice of prayer
And holy hymning shall my soul prepare.
To go and be at rest
With kindred spirits, spirits who have blessed
The human brotherhood
By labors, cares, and counsels for their good.
In my dying hour,
When riches, fame, and honor, have no power
To bear the spirit up,
Or from my lips to turn aside the cup
That all must drink at last,
0, let me draw refreshment from the past !
Then let my soul run back.
With peace and joy, along my earthly track,
And see that all the seeds
That I have scattered there in virtuous deeds,
Have sprung up, and have given.
Already, fruits of which to taste in heaven.
And though no grassy mound
Or granite pile says 'tis heroic ground
Where my remains repose.
Still will I hope, — vain hope, perhaps, — th? t
those
Whom I have striven to bless, —
The wanderer reclaimed, the fatherless, —
May stand around my grave.
With the poor prisoner and the lowest slave,
And breathe an humble prayer.
That they may die like him whose bones are
moldering there.
SAM WELLEBS VALENTINE.
CHARLES DICKENS.
^' VE done now," said Sam, with slight embarrassment ; " I ve been a
writin'."
"So I see," replied Mr. Weller. "Not to any young 'ooman, I
hope, Sammy."
f " "Why, it's no use a sayin' it ain't," replied Sam. " It's a wal-
1 entine."
" A what ?" exclaimed Mr. "Weller, apparently horror-stricken by the
word.
"A walentine," replied Sam.
" Samivel, Samivel," said Mr. Weller, in reproachful accents, " I
didn't 'think you'd ha' done it. Arter the warnin' you've had o' your
father's wicious propensities; arter all I've said to you upon this here wery
subject ; arter actiwally seein' and bein' in the company o' your own
mother-in-law, vich I should ha' thought was a moral lesson as no man
could ever ha' forgotten to his dyin' day ! I didn't think you'd ha' done
it, Sammy, I didn't think you'd ha' done it." These reflections were too
HAU WELLER'S VALENTINE. 533
much for the good old man ; he raised Sam's tumbler to his lips and drank
off the contents.
" Wot's the matter now ?" said Sam.
*' Nev'r mind, Sammy," replied Mr. Weller, " it'll be a wery agonizin'
trial to me at my time o' life, but I'm pretty tough, that's vun consolation,
as the wery old turkey remarked ven the farmer said he vos afeerd he
should be obliged to kill him for the London market."
" Wot'll be a trial ?" inquired Sam.
"To see you married, Sammy; to see you a deluded wictim, and
thinkin' in your innocence that it's all wery capital," replied Mr. Weller.
" It's a dreadful trial to a father's feelin's, that 'ere, Sammy."
" Nonsense," said Sam, " I ain't a goin' to get married, don't you fret
yourself about that. I know you're a judge o' these things ; order in your
pipe, an' I'll read you the letter — there !"
Sam dipped his pen into the ink to be ready for any corrections, and
began with a very theatrical air —
" ' Lovely
" Stop," said Mr. Weller, ringing the bell. " A double glass 0' the
inwariable, my dear."
" Very well, sir," replied the girl, who, with great quickness, appeared,
vanished, returned, and disappeared.
" They seem to know your ways here," observed Sam.
" Yes," replied his father, " I've been here before, in my time. Go
on, Sammy."
" * Lovely creetur',' " repeated Sam.
" 'Taint in poetry, is it?" interposed the father.
" No, no," replied Sam.
" Wery glad to hear it," said Mr, Weller. " Poetry's unnat'ral. No
man ever talked in poetry 'cept a beadle on boxin' day, or Warren's black-
in' or Rowland's oil, or some 0' them low fellows. Never you let yourself
down to talk poetry, my boy. Begin again, Sammy."
" Mr. Weller resumed his pipe with critical solemnity, and Sam once
more commenced and read as follows :
" ' Lovely creetur' i feel myself a damned ' " —
" That ain't proper," said Mr. Weller, taking his pipe from his
mouth.
"No: it ain't damned," observed Sam, holding the letter up to the
light, " it's ' shamed,' there's a blot there ; ' i feel myself ashamed.' "
" Wery good," said Mr. Weller. " Go on."
" ' Feel myself ashamed, and completely cir — .' I forget wot this
534 SAM WELLER'S VxVLENTINE.
'ere word is," said Sam, scratching his head with the pen, in vain attempts
to remember.
" Why don't you look at it, then ?" inquired Mr. Weller.
" So I am a lookin' at it," repHed Sam, " but there's another blot :
here's a 'c,' and a ' i,' and a 'd.' "
" Circumwented, p'rhaps," suggested Mr. Weller.
"No, it aiut that," said Sam: " 'circumscribed,' that's it."
" That aint as good a word as circumwented, Sammy," said Mr.
Weller, gravely.
" Think not?" said Sam.
" Nothin' like it," replied his father.
"But don't you think it means more?" inquired Sam.
"Veil, p'rhaps it's a more tenderer word," said Mr. Weller, after a
few moments' reflection. " Go on, Sammy."
'"Feel myself ashamed and completely circumscribed in a dressin' of
you, for you are a nice gal and nothin' but it.' "
" That's a wery pretty sentiment," said the elder Mr. Weller, removing
his pipe to make way for the remark.
" Yes, I think it's rayther good," observed Sam, highly flattered.
"Wot I like in that 'ere style of writin'," said the elder Mr. Weller,
" is, that there ain't no callin' names in it — no Wenuses, nor nothin' o' that
kind ; wot's the good o' callin' a young 'ooman a Wenus or a angel,
Sammy?"
"Ah! wot indeed?" replied Sam.
"You might just as veil call her a griffin, or a 'unicorn, or a king's
arms at once, which is wery veil known to be a col-lection o' fabulous
animals," added Mr. Weller.
" Just as well," replied Sam.
" Drive on, Sammy," said Mr. Weller.
Sam complied with the request, and proceeded as follows : his father
continuing to smoke, with a mixed expression of wisdom and complacency,
which was particularly edifying.
" ' Afore i see you i thought all women was alike.' "
" So they are," observed the elder Mr. Weller, parenthetically.
" ' But now,' " continued Sam, " ' now I find wot a reg'lar soft-headed,
ink-red'lous turnip i must ha' been, for there ain't nobody like you, though
i like you better than nothin' at all.' I thought it best to make that ray-
ther strong," said Sam, looking up.
Mr. Weller nodded approvingly, and Sam resumed.
SAM WELLER'S VALENTINE. 535
"'So i take the privilidge of the day, Mary, my dear, — as the
gen'lem'n in difficulties did, ven he valked out of a Sunday, — to tell you
that the first and only time i see you your likeness wos took on my hart
in much quicker time and brighter colors than ever a likeness was taken
by the profeel macheen (wich p'rhaps you may have heerd on Mary my
dear), altho' it does finish a portrait and put the frame and glass on com-
plete with a hook at the end to hang it up by, and all in two minutes and
a quarter.' "
" I am afeerd that werges on the poetical, Sammy," said Mr. Weller,
dubiously.
" No it don't," replied Sam, reading on very quickly to avoid contest-
ing the point.
" ' Except of me Mary my dear as your walentine, and think over
what I've said. My dear Mary I will now conclude.' That's all," said
Sam.
"That's rayther a sudden pull-up, ain't it, Sammy ?" inquired Mr.
Weller.
" Not a bit on it," said Sam : " she'll vish there wos more, and that's
the great art o' letter writin'."
" Well," said Mr. Weller, " there's somethin' in that ; and I vish your
Mother-in-law 'ud only conduct her conwersation on the same gen-teel
principle. Ain't you a goin' to sign it?"
" That's the difficulty," said Sam ; " I don't know what to sign it."
" Sign it — Veller," said the oldest surviving proprietor of that
name.
" Won't do," said Sam. " Never sign a walentine with your own
name."
" Sign it Pickvick then," said Mr. Weller; ''it's a wery good name,
and a easy one to spell."
" The wery thing," said Sam. " I could end with a worse: what do
you think ?"
" I don't like it, Sam," rejoined Mr. Weller. " I never know'd a
respectable coachman as wrote poetry, 'cept one as made an afiectin' copy
o' worses the night afore he wos hung for a highway robbery, and he wos
only a Cambervell man, so even that's no rule."
But Sam was not to be dissuaded from the poetical idea that had
occurred to him, so he signed the letter —
" Your love-sick
Pickwick."
536
SHERIDAN'S RIDE.
SHERIDAN'S RIDE.
THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.
IwSjW^P from the South at break of day,
^yk; Bringing to Winchester fresh dismaj%
The affrighted air with a shudder
bore,
Like a herald in haste, to the chief-
tain's door.
The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.
And wider still those billows of war
Thundered along the horizon's bar ;
And louder yet into Winchester rolled
The roar of that red sea uncontrolled,
Making the blood of the listener cold.
As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray.
And Sheridan twenty miles away.
But there is a road from Winchester town,
A good, broad highway leading down ;
And there through the flush of the morning
light,
A steed as black as the steeds of night,
Was seen to pass, as with eagle flight.
As if he knew the terrible need,
He stretched away at his utmost \
GOD.
537
Hills rose and fell, but his heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles away.
Still sprung from those swift hoofs, thunder-
ing South,
The dust, like smoke from the cannon's
mouth ;
Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and
faster.
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster.
The heart of the steed, and the heart of the
master
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their
walls.
Impatient to be where the battle-field calls ;
Every nerve of the charger was strained to
full play,
With Sheridan only ten miles away.
Under his spurning feet, the road
Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed,
And the landscape sped away behind
Like an ocean flying before the wind.
And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace ire.
Swept on, with his wild eye full of fire.
But lo ! he is nearing his heart's desire ;
lie is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
And Sheridan only five miles away.
The first that the General saw were the groups
Of stragglers, and the retreating troops :
What was done, — what to do, — a glance told
him both,
And striking his spurs with a terrible oath.
He dashed down the line, 'mid a storm of
huzzas.
And the wave of retreat checked its course
there, because
The sight of the master compelled it to pause.
With foam and with dust the black charger
was gray ;
By the flash of his eye, and his red nostril's
play,
He seemed to the whole great army to say,
" I've brought you Sheridan all-the way,
From Winchester down to save the day."
Hurrah, hurrah for Sheridan !
Hurrah, hurrah for horse and man !
And when their statues are placed on high.
Under the dome of the Union sk}', —
The American soldier's Temple of Fame,
There with the glorious General's name
Be it said in letters both bold and bright :
" Here is the steed that saved the day
By carrying Sheridan into the fight,
From Winchester, — twenty miles away !"
GOD.
FROM THE RUSSIAN OF DERZHAVIN.
THOU eternal One! whose presence
"'^~ All space doth occupy, all motion
f f^ guide ;
i'^ Unchang'd through time's all-devasta-
ting flight !
Thou only God ! There is no God
beside !
Being above all beings ! Three-in one !
Whom none can comprehend, and none
explore ;
Who fill'st existence with Thyself alone;
Embracing all — supporting — ruling o'er —
Being whom we call God — and know no
more!
In its sublime research, philosophy
May measure out the ocean deep — may
count
The sands, or the sun's rays — but God ! for
Thee
There is no weight nor measure ; — none can
mount
Up to Thy mysteries. Reason's brightest
spark.
Though kindled by Thy light, in vain would
try
To trace Thy counsels, infinite and dark;
And thought is lost ere thought can soar so
high-
E'en like past moments in eternity.
638
GOD.
Thou from primeval notliingnoss didst call,
Fiist chaos, then existence ; — Lord! on Thee
Eternity had its foundation ; — all
Sprung forth from Thee; — of light, joy,
harmony.
Sole origin ; — all life, all beauty. Thine.
Thy word created all, and doth create ;
Thy splendor fills all space with rays divine ;
Thou art, and wert, and shalt be ! Glorious,
Life-giving, life-sustaining Potentate !
Thy chains the unmeasured universe
surround ;
Upheld by Thee ; by Thee inspired with
breath !
Thou the beginning with the end hast
bound,
And beautifully mingled life and death !
As sparks mount upward from the fiery blaze
So suns are born, so worlds spring forth from
Thee,
And as the spangles in the sunny rays
Shine round the silver snow, the pageantry
Of heaven's bright army glitters in Thy
praise.
A million torches lighted by Thy hand
Wander unwearied through the blue abyss ;
They own Thy power, accomplish Thy com-
mand.
All gay with life, all eloquent with bliss.
What shall we call them ? Pyres of crystal
light—
A glorious company of golden streams —
Lamps of celestial ether burning bright —
Suns lighting systems with their joyful
beams ?
But Thou to these art as the noon to night.
Yes ! as a drop of water in the sea.
All this magnificence in Thee is lost ;
What are ten thousand worlds compared to
Thee?
And what am I then? Heaven's unnum-
bered host.
Though multiplied by myriads, and arrayed
In all the glory of sublimest thought.
Is but an atom in the balance weighed
Against Thy greatness, — is a cipher brouglit
Against infinity ! What am I then ?
Naught !
Naught! But the effluence of Thy light
Divine,
Pervading worlds, hath reached my bosom.
too ;
Yes, in my spirit doth Thy Spirit shine.
As shines the sunbeam in a drop of dew.
Naught ! but I live, and on hope's pinions
fly
Eager toward Thy presence ; for in Thee
I live, and breathe, and dwell; aspiring
high
Even to the throne of Thy Divinity,
I am God ! and surely Thou must be !
Thou art! directing, guiding all! Thou art'
Direct my understanding then to Thee.
Control my spirit, guide my wandering
heart ;
Though but an atom midst immensity,
Still I am something, fashioned by Thy
hand !
I hold a middle rank, 'twixt heaven and
earth.
On the last verge of mortal being stand,
Close to the realm where angels have their
birth.
Just on the boundaries of the spirit-land !
The chain of being is complete in me ;
In me is matter's last gradation lost,
And the next step is spirit — Deity !
I can command the lightning, and am dust !
A monarch, and a slave ; a worm, a god !
Whence came I here, and how ? so marvel-
ously
Constructed and conceived? Unknown!
this clod
Lives surely through some higher energy ;
For from itself alone it could not be !
Creator, yes ! Thy wisdom and Thy word
Created me ! Thou source of life and good !
Thou Spirit of my spirit, and my Lord !
Thy light. Thy love, in the bright plenitude,
Filled me with an immortal soul to spring
Over the abyss of death, and bade it wear
The garments of eternal day, and wing
Its heavenly flight beyond the little sphere,
Even to its source — to Thee — its author there.
thoughts ineffable ! visions blest !
REBECCA DESCRIBES THE SIEGE TO IVANHOE. 539
Though worthless our conception all of Thee, \ Thus seek Thy presence — Being wise and
Yet shall Thy shadowed image fill our breast, i good,
And waft its homage to Thy Deity. ; Midst Thy vast works admire, obey, adore ;
U-od ! thus alone my lonely thoughts can And when the tongue is eloquent no more,
soar :
The soul shall speak in tears of gratitude.
BEBECGA DESCRIBES THE SIEGE TO IVANHOE.
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
|00K from the window once again, kind maiden, but beware that
you are not marked by the archers beneath — Look out once more,
and tell me if they yet advance to the storm."
With patient courage, strengthened by the interval which she
had employed in mental devotion, Rebecca again took post at the
^ lattice, sheltering herself, however, so as not to be visible from
beneath.
" What dost thou see, R.ebecca ? " again demanded the wounded
knight.
"Nothing but the cloud of arrows flying so thick as to dazzle mine
eyes, and to hide the bowmen who shoot them."
" That cannot endure," said Ivanhoe ; " if they press not right on to
carry the castle by pure force of arms, the archery may avail but little
against stone walls and bulwarks. Look for the Knight of the Fetterlock,
fair Rebecca, and see how he bears himself ; for as the leader is, so will
his followers be."
"I see him not," said R.ebecca.
" Foul craven ! " exclaimed Ivanhoe ; " does he blench from the helm
when the wind blows highest ? "
" He blenches not ! he blenches not ! " said Rebecca, "I see him now ;
he leads a body of men close under the outer barrier of the barbican.- —
They pull down the piles and palisades ; they hew down the barriers with
axes. — His high black plume floats abroad over the throng, like a raven
over the field of the slain. — They have made a breach in the barriers —
they rush in — they are thrust back ! — Front-de-Boeuf heads the defen-
ders ; I see his gigantic form above the press. They throng again to the
breach, and the pass is disputed hand to hand, and man to man. God of
Jacob ! it is the meeting of two fierce tides — the conflict of two oceans
moved by adverse winds!"
540
REBECCA DESCRIBES THE SIEGE TO IVANHOE.
She turned her head from the lattice, as if unable longer to endure a
sight so terrible.
"Look forth again, Eebecca," said Ivanhoe, mistaking the cause of her
retiring ; " the
archery must in
a degree have
ceased ; for they
are now fighting
hand to hand. —
Look, there is
now less dan-
ger."
Rebecca again
looked forth and
almost immedi-
ately exclaimed,
" Holy proph-
ets of the law !
Front-de - Boeuf
and the Black
Knight fight on
the beach hand
to hand, amid
the roar of their
followers, who
watch the prog-
ress of the strife.
Heaven strike
with the cause
of the oppressed
and of the cap-
tive!" She then
uttered a loud
shriek, and ex-
claimed, "He is
down ! — he is down ! "
*' Who is down ? " cried Ivanhoe.
"The Black Knight," answered Rebecca, faintly; then instantly
again shouted with joyful eagerness—" But no— but no !— the name of the
Lord of hosts be blessed !— he is on foot again, and fights as if there were
THE ANCIENT STRONGHOLD.
REBECCA DESCRIBES THE SIEGE TO IVANIIOE. 54I
twenty men's strength in his single arm— His sword is broken — he snatches
an axe from a yeoman — he presses Front-de-Boeuf with blow on blow —
The giant stoops and totters like an oak under the steel of the woodman
— he falls — he falls ! "
" Front-de-Boeuf? " exclaimed Ivanhoe.
"Front-de-Boeuf!" answered the Jewess; "his men rush to the
rescue, headed by the haughty Templar— their united force compels the
champion to pause — They drag Front-de-Boeuf within the walls."
" The assailants have won the barriers, have they not ? " said
Ivanhoe.
" They have — they have ! " exclaimed Rebecca "and they press the
besieged hard upon the outer wall ; some plant ladders, some swarm like
bees, and endeavor to ascend upon the shoulders of each other — down go
stones, beam?, and trunks of trees upon their heads, and as fast as they
bear the wounded to the rear, fresh men supply their places in the assault.
— Great God ! hast thou given men thine own image, that it should be
thus cruelly defaced by the hands of their brethren ! "
" Thmk not of that," said Ivanhoe ; '' this is no time for such
thoughts — Who yield ? — who push their way ? "
" The ladders are thrown down," replied Rebecca, shuddering ; " the
soldiers He grovelling under them like crushed reptiles— The besieged
have the better."
" Saint George strike for us ! " exclaimed the knight ; " do the false
yeomen give way ? "
"No !" exclaimed Rebecca, " they bear themselves right yeomanly —
the Black Knight approaches the postern with his huge axe — the thun-
dering blows which he deals, you may hear them above all the din and
shouts of the battle — Stones and beams are hailed down on the bold cham-
pion — he regards them no more than if they were thistle-down or
feathers ! "
" By Saint John of Acre," said Ivanhoe, raising himself joyfully on
his couch, " methought there was but one man in England that might do
such a deed ! "
"The postern gate shakes," continued Rebecca; "it crashes — it is
splintered by his blov/s — they rush in — the outwork is won— Oh, God ! —
they hurl the defenders from the battlements — they throw them into the
moat — men, if ye be indeed men, spare them that can resist no
longer ! "
"The bridge— the bridge which communicates with the castle— have
they won that pass ? " exclaimed Ivanhoe.
542
THE LAST LEAF.
"No," replied Rebecca, "the Templar has destroyed the plank on
which they crossed — few of the defenders escaped with him into the castle
— the shrieks and cries which you hear tell the fate of the others — Alas !
I see it is still more difficult to look upon victory than upon battle."
THE LAST LEAF.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
SAW him once before,
As he passed by the door ;
And again
The pavement stones resound
As he totters o'er the ground
With his cane.
They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of tim
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the crier on his round
Through the town.
JOHN JANKIN'S SERMON.
543
But now he walks the streets,
But now his nose is thin,
And he looks at all he meets
And it rests upon his chin,
So forlorn ;
Like a staff;
And he shakes his feeble head,
And a crook is in his back,
That it seems as if he said,
And a melancholy crack
" They are gone."
In his laugh.
The mossy marbles rest
I know it is a sin
On the lips that he has pressed
For me to sit and grin
In their bloom ;
At him here,
And the names he loved to hear
But the old three-cornered hat.
Have been carved for many a year
And the breeches, — and all tliac,
On the tomb.
Are so queer !
My grandmamma has said —
And if I should live to be
Poor old lady ! she is dead
The last leaf upon the tree
Long ago—
In the spring,
That he had a Roman nose,
Let them smile, as I do now,
And his cheek was like a rose
At the old forsaken bough
In the snow.
Where I cling.
JOHN JANKIN'S SERMON
SHE minister said last night, says he,
" Don't be afraid of givin' ;
If your life ain't nothin' to other
folks.
Why what's the use of livin' ?"
And that's what I say to my wife,
says I,
"There's Brown, that mis'rable sin-
ner.
He'd sooner a beggar would starve, than
give
A cent towards buyin' a dinner."
I tell you our minister's prime, he is,
But I couldn't quite determine.
When I heard him givin' it right and left,
Just who was hit by the sermon.
Of course there couldn't be no mistake.
When he talked of long-winded prayin',
For Peters and Johnson they sot and
scowled
At every word he was sayin'.
And the minister he went on to say,
" Ther's various kinds of cheatin',
And religion's as good for every day
As it is to bring to meetin'.
I don't think much of a man that gives
The loud Amens at my preachin'.
And spends his time the followin' week
In cheatin' and overreachin'."
I guess that dose was bitter
For a man like Jones to swaller ;
But I noticed he didn't open his mouth,
Not once, after that, to holler.
Hurrah, says I, for the minister —
Of course I said it quiet —
Give us some more of this open talk ;
It's very refreshin' diet.
The minister hit 'em every time ;
And when he spoke of fashion.
And a-riggin' out in bows and things.
As woman's rulin' passion,
And a-comin' to church to see the styles,
I couldn't help a-winkin'
And a nudgin' my wife, and, says I, " That
you,"
And I guess it sot her thinkin'.
/
544.
THE MODEL CHURCH.
Says I to myself, that sermon's pat ;
But man is a queer creation ;
And I'm much afraid that most o' the folks
Wouldn't take the application.
Now, if he had said a word about
My personal mode o' sinnin',
I'd have gone to work to right myself,
And not set there a-grinnin'.
Just then the minister says, says he,
" And now I've come to the fellers
Who've lost this shower by usin' their
friends
As a sort o' moral umbrellers.
Go home," says he, " and find your fai:lts.
Instead of huntin your brothers'.
Go home," he says, " and wear the coats
You've tried to fit on others."
My wife she nudged, and Brown he winked
And there was lots o' smilin',
And lots o' lookin' at our pew ;
It sot my blood a-bilin'.
Says I to myself, our minister
Is gettin' a little bitter;
I'll tell him when meetin's out, that I
Ain't at all that kind of a critter.
THE MODEL CHURCH.
JOHN H. YATES.
i^ELL wife, I've found the moc?e? church
'''-^ — I worshipped there to-day !
It made me think of good old times
before my hair wa.s gray.
The meetin' house was fixed up more
than they were years ago,
But then I felt when I went in it
wasn't built for show.
The sexton didn't seat me away back by the
door;
He knew that I was old and deaf, as well as
old and poor :
He must have been a Christian, for he led me
through
The long aisle of that crowded church, to find
a place and pew.
I wish you'd heard that singin' — it had the
old-time ring ;
The preacher said, with trumpet voice, " Let
all the people sing !"
The tune was Coronation, and the music up-
ward rolled.
Till I thought I heard the angels striking all
their harps of gold.
My deafness seemed to melt away ; my spirit
caught the fire ;
I joined my feeble, trembling voice with that
melodious choir,
And sang as in my youthful days, " Let an-
gels prostrate fall,
Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown Him
Lord of all."
I tell you, wife, it did me good to sing that
hymn once more ;
I felt like some wrecked mariner who gets a
glimpse of shore ;
I almost wanted to lay down this weather-
beaten form,
And anchor in the blessed port forever from
the storm.
The preachin f Well, I can't just tell all the
preacher said ;
I know it wasn't written ; I know it wasn't
read ;
He hadn't time to read it, for the lightnin' of
his eye
Went flashin' along from pew to pew, nor pas-
sed a sinner by.
The sermon wasn't flowery, 'twas simple gos-
pel truth ;
It fitted poor old men like me, it fitted hoj^e-
ful vouth.
THE REST OF THE JUST.
645
'Twas full of consolation for- weary hearts
that bleed ;
'Twa« full of invitations to Christ, and not to
creed.
The preacher made sin hideous in Gentiles
and in Jews ;
He shot the golden sentences down in the
finest pews,
And — though I can't see very well — I saw
the falling tear
That told me hell was someways off, and heav-
en very near.
How swift the golden moments fled within
that holy place !
How brightly beamed the light of heaven
from every happy face!
Again I longed for that sweet time when
friend shall meet with friend.
" Where congregations ne'er break up, and
Sabbaths have no end."
I hope to meet that minister — that congrega-
tion too —
In that dear home beyond the stars that shine
from heaven's blue.
I doubt not I'll remember, beyond life's even-
ing gray.
That happy hour of worship in that model
church to-day.
Dear wife, the fight will soon be fought, the
victory be won ;
The shining goal is just ahead : the race is
nearly run.
O'er the river we are nearin', they are throng-
in' to the shore
To shout our safe arrival where the weary
weep no more.
THE REST OF THE JUST.
' EICHARD BAXTER
, ^Y^ .
_ JPrEST ! how sweet the sound ! It is melody to my ears ! It lies as a
^^■^ reviving cordial at my heart, and fram thence sends forth lively
spirits which beat through all the pulses of my soul ! Eest, not as
the stone that rests on the earth, nor as this flesh shall rest in the
1 grave, nor such a rest as the carnal world desires. blessed rest !
•J when we rest not day and night saying, " Holy, holy, holy, Lord
God Almighty : " when we shall rest from sin, but not from worship; from
suffering and sorrow, but not from joy ! blessed day ! when I shall rest
with God ! when I shall rest in the bosom of my Lord ! when my perfect
soul and body shall together perfectly enjoy the most perfect God ! when
God, who is love itself, shall perfectly love me, and rest in this love to me,
as I shall rest in my love to Him ; and rejoice over me with joy, and jov
over me with singing, as I shall rejoice in Him !
This is that joy which was procured by sorrow, that crown which was
procured by the Cross. My Lord wept that now my tears might be wiped
away ; He bled that I might now rejoice ; he was forsaken that I might
not now be forsook ; He then died that I might now live. free mercy,
that can exalt so vile a wretch ! Free to me, though dear to Christ : free
grace that hath chosen me, when thousands were forsaken. Thus is not
rA6 A PATRIOT'S LAST APPEAL.
like our cottages of clay, our prisons, our earthly dwellings. This voice
of joy is not like our old complaints, our impa.tient groans and sighs ; nor
this melodious praise like the scoflfs and revilings, or the oaths and curses,
which we heard on earth. This body is not like that we had, nor this soul
like the soul we had, nor this life like the life we lived. We have changed
our place and state, our clothes and thoughts, our looks, language, and
company. Before, a saint was weak and despised ; but now, how happy
and glorious a thing is a saint ! Where is now their body of sin, which
wearied themselves and those about them ? Where are now our different
judgments, reproachful names, divided spirits, exasperated passions, strange
looks, uncharitable censures ? Now are all of one judgment, of one name,
of one heart, house and glory. sweet reconciliation ! happy union I
A PATRIOTS LAST APPEAL.
ROBERT EMMET.
IJKET no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor. I
i^p would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for the same rea-
^"■^'^ son that I would resist the present domestic oppressor. In the
dignity of freedom, I would have fought on the threshold of my
a) country, and its enemy should only enter by passing over my life-
less corpse. And am I, who lived but for my country, and who have sub-
jected myself to the dangers of a jealous and watchful oppressor, and the
bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their rights, and my
country its independence — am I to be loaded with calumny, and not
suffered to resent or repel it ? No, God forbid !
If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concern and
cares of those who are dear to them in this transitory life, ever-dear and
venerable shade of my departed father, look down with scrutiny upon the
conduct of your suffering son, and see if I have ever for a moment deviated
from those principles of morality and patriotism which it was your care to
instil into my youthful mind, and for which I am now to offer up my life.
My lords, you are impatient for the sacrifice — the blood which you
seek is not congealed by the artificial terrors that surround your victim ;
it circulates warmly and unruffled through the channels which God created
for nobler purposes, but which you are bent to destroy for purposes so
grievous that they cry to Heaven. Be ye patient ! I have but a few
words more to say. I am going to my cold and silent grave ; my lamp of
THE LAW OF DEATH.
547
life is nearly extinguished; my race is run, the grave opens to receive
me, and I sink into its bosom! I have but one request to ask at my
departure from this world ; it is the charity of its silence ! Let no man
write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dare now
vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and
me repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until
other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my
country takes her place among the nations of the earth — then, and not till
then, let my epitaph be written. I have done.
THE LA W OF DEATH.
JOHN HAY.
I^I^HE song of Kilvany. Fairest she
pjB In all the land of Savathi.
^M She had one child, as sweet and gay
m\% And dear to her as the light of day.
4^ She was so young, and he so fair,
i- The same bright eyes and the same
T dark hair,
To see them by the blossomy way
They seemed two children at their
play.
There came a death-dart from the sky,
Kilvany saw her darling die.
The glimmering shades his eye invades.
Out of his cheeks the red bloom fades ;
His warm heart feels the icy chill,
The round limbs shudder and are still.
And j'et Kilvany held him fast
Long after life's last pulse was past,
As if her kisses could restore
The smile gone out forevermore.
But when she saw her child was dead
She scattered ashes on her head.
And seized the small corpse, pale and sweet,
And rushing wildly through the street,
She sobbing fell at Buddha's feet.
" Master ! all-helpful ! help me now !
Here at thy feet I humbly bow :
Have mercy, Buddha ! help me now !"
She groveled on the marble floor,
And kissed the dead child o'er and o'er ;
And suddenly upon the air
There fell the answer to her prayer :
" Bring me to-night a Lotus, tied
With thread from a house where none has
died."
She rose and laughed with thankful joy.
Sure that the God would save her boy.
She found a Lotus by the stream ;
She plucked it from its noonday dream.
And then from door to door she fared,
To ask what house by death was spared.
Her heart grew cold to see the eyes
Of all dilate with slow surprise :
548
WIDOW BEDOTT TO ELDER SNIFFLES.
" Kilvany, thou hast lost thj- hea'l ;
Nothing can help a child that's di-ad.
There stands not by the Ganges' side
A house where none hath ever died."
Thus through the long and weary day,
From every door she bore away,
Within her heart, and on her arm,
A heavy load, a deeper harm.
By gates of gold and ivory.
By wattled huts of poverty.
The same refrain heard poor Kilvany,
The living are few — the dead are many.
The evening came, so still and fleet,
And overtook her hurrying feet,
And, heart-sick, by the sacred fane
She fell, and prayed the God again.
She sobbed and beat her bursting breast :
" Ah ! thou hast mocked me ! Mightiest !
Lo ! I have wandered far and wide — -
There stands no house where none hath
died."
A SONG FOR HEARTH AND HOME.
WILLIAM E. DURYEA.
.ARK is the night, and fitful and drear-
Rushes the wind like the waves of
the sea ;
Little care I, as here I sit cheerily,
Wife at my side and my baby on knee.
King, king, crown me the king :
Home is the kingdom, and Love is
the king !
Flashes the firelight upon the dear faces,
Dearer and dearer and onward we go,
Forces the shadow behind us, and places
Brightness around us with warmth in the
glow.
King, king, crown me the king :
Home is the kingdom, and Love is the
king!
Flashes the lovelight, increasing the glory.
Beaming from bright eyes with warmth of
the soul.
Telling of trust and content the sweet story,
Lifting the shadows that over us roll.
King, king, crown me the king :
Home is the kingdom and Love is the
king!
Richer than miser with perishing treasure,
Served with a service no conquest could
bring ;
Happy with fortune that words cannot meas-
ure.
Light-hearted I on the hearthstone can sing.
King, king, crown me the king :
Home is the kingdom, and Love is the
king.
WIDOW BEDOTT TO ELDER SNIFFLES.
REVEREND sir, I do declare
9]Mt ^^ drives me most to frenzy,
--- ■ To think of you a lying there
Down sick with influenzy.
A body'd thought it was enough
To mourn your wife's departer,
Without sich trouble as this ere
To come a follerin' arter.
But sickness and affliction
Are sent by a wise creation,
And always ought to be underwent
By patience an<i resignation.
I could to your bedside fly,
And wipe your weeping eyes.
And do my best to cheer you up,
If 't wouldn't create surprise.
THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET.
549
It's a world of trouble we tarry in,
But, Elder, don't despair ;
That you may soon be movin' again
Is constantly my prayer.
Both sick and well, you may depend
You'll never be forgot
By your faithful and affectionate friend,
Priscilla Pool Bedott.
THE LA UGH OF A CHILD.
LOVE it, I love it, the laugh of a child,
Now rippling and gentle, now merry
and wild;
Ringing out on the air with its inno-
cent gush, [hush;
Like the trill of a bird at the twilight's soft
Floating off on the breeze, like the tones of a
bell.
Or the music that dwells on the heart of a
shell;
Oh ! the laugh of a child, so wild and so free
Is the merriest sound in the world for me.
THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET.
SAMUEL WOODWORTH.
|0W dear to this heart are the scenes
ImIi of my childhood.
When fond recollection presents
them to view !
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-
tangled wild-wood,
And every loved spot which my in-
fancy knew ; —
The wide-spreading pond, and tlie mill which
stood by it.
The bridge, and the rock where the cat-
aract fell ;
The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh
it.
And e'en the rude bucket which hung in
the well.
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound
bucket,
The moss-covered bucket which hung in the
well.
550
DRESS REFORM.
That moss-covered vessel I bail as a trea-
sure;
For often, at uoon, when returned from the
field.
I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,
The purest and sweetest that nature can
yield.
How ardent I seized it, with hands that were
glowing !
And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it
fell;
Then soon, with the emblem of truth over-
flowing.
And dripping with coolness, it rose from
the well ; I
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket.
The moss-covered bucket, arose from the well.
How sweet from the green mossy brim to re-
ceive it.
As, poised on the curb, it inclined to my
lips !
Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to
leave it.
Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter
sips.
And now, far removed from the loved situa-
tion.
The tear of regret will intrusively swell,
As fancy reverts to my father's plantation.
And sighs for the bucket which hangs in
the well ;
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket which hangs in the
well.
DRESS REFORM.
T. DE WITT TALMAGE.
^g CONVENTION has recently
i^HH the women who are oi")Dose'
been held in Vineland, attended by
the women who are opposed to extravagance in dress. They
^^^^ propose, not only by formal resolution, but by personal example,
to teach the world lessons of economy by wearing less adornment
f and dragging fewer yards of silk. We wish them all success,
1 although we would have more confidence in the movement if so
many of the delegates had not worn bloomer dresses. Moses makes war
upon that style of apparel in Deuteronomy xxii. 5 : " The woman shall not
wear that which pertaineth unto man." Nevertheless we favor every
efibrt to stop the extravagant use of dry goods and millinery.
We have, however, no sympathy with the implication that women are
worse than men in this respect. Men wear all they can without interfer-
ing with their locomotion, but man is such an awkward creature he cannot
find any place on his body to hang a great many fineries. He could not
got round in Wall Street with eight or ten flounces and a big handled
parasol, and a mountain of back hair. Men wear less than women, not
because they are more moral, but because they cannot stand it. As it is,
many of our young men are padded to a superlative degree, and have
corns and bunions on every separate toe from wearing tight shoes.
Neither have we any sympathy with the implication that the present
LORD ULLINS DAUGHTER.
551
is worse than the past in matters of dress. Compare the fashion-plates of
tne seventeenth century with the fashion-plates of the nineteenth, and you
decide in favor of our day. The women of Isaiah's time beat anything
now. Do we have the kangaroo fashion Isaiah speaks of — the daughters
who walked forth with " stretched forth necks" ? Talk of hoops ! Isaiah
speaks of women with " round tires like the moon." Do we have hot
irons for curling our hair ? Isaiah speaks of " wimples and crisping pins."
Do we sometimes wear glasses astride our nose, not because we are near-
sighted, but for beautification ? Isaiah speaks of the " glasses, and the
earrings, and the nose jewels." The dress of to-day is far more sensible
than that of a hundred or a thousand years ago.
But the largest room in the world is room for improvement, and we
would cheer on those who would attempt reformation either in male or
female attire. Meanwhile, we rejoice that so many of the pearls, and
emeralds, and amethysts, and diamonds of the world are coming into the
possession of Christian women. Who knows but the spirit of consecra-
tion may some day come upon them, and it shall be again as it was in the
time of Moses, that for the prosperity of the house of the Lord the women
may bring their bracelets, and earrings, and tablets, and jewels ? The
precious stones of earth will never have their proper place till they are set
around the Pearl of Great Price.
LOBD ULLIWS DA UGHTER.
THOMAS CAMPBELL.
^1^ CHIEFTAIN to the Highlands bound,
Cries, " Boatman, do not tarry !
And I'll give thee a silver pound
To row us o'er the ferry."
. " Now who be ye, would cross Loch-
This dark and stormy water ?"
' 0, I'm the chief of Ulva's isle.
And this Lord Ullin's daughter.
" And fast before her father's men
Three days we've fled together;
For should he find us in the glen,
My blood would stain the heather.
" His horsemen hard behind us ride;
Should they our steps discover.
Then who will cheer my bonny bride
When they have slain her lover? '—
Out spoke the hardy Highland wight.
" I'll go, my chief — I'm readj'.
It is not for your silver bright.
But for your winsome lady."
" And by my word ! the bonny bird
In danger shall not tarry ;
So though the waves are raging white,
I'll row 5'ou o'er the ferry."
By this the storm grew loud apace ;
The water-wraith was shrieking ;
And in the scowl of heaven each face
Grew dark as they were speaking.
552
LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER.
But still as wilder blew the wind,
And as the night grew drearer,
Adown the glen rode armed men —
Their trampling sounded nearer.
The boat has left a stormy land,
A stormy sea before her —
When, oh ! too strong for human hand,
The tempest gathered o'er her.
•' 0, haste thee, haste !" the lady cries ;
" Though tempests round us gather;
I'll meet the raging of the skies,
But not an angry father."
And still they rowed amidst the roar
Of waters fast prevailing ; —
Lord Ullin reached that fatal shore ;
His wrath was changed to wailing,
ANNABEL LEE.
553
For sore dismayed, through storm and shade
His child he did discover ;
One lovely hand she stretched for aid,
And one was round her lover.
" Come back ! come back !" he cried in grief,
Across this stormy water ;
" And I'll forgive your Highland chief,
My daughter ! — Oh, my daughter !"
'Twasvain : — the loud waves lashed the shore.
Return or aid preventing ;
The waters wild went o'er his child,
And he was left lamenting.
PER PACEM AD LUCEM.
ADELAIDE ANNE PEOCTOR.
DO not ask, Lord ! that life may be
A pleasant road ;
pf I do not ask that Thou wouldst take
mh from me
^ Aught of its load ;
il do not ask that flowers should always
spring
Beneath my feet ;
I know too well the poison and the sting
Of things too sweet.
For one thing only, Lord, dear Lord ! I plead :
Lead me aright —
Though strength should falter, and though
heart should bleed —
Through Peace to Light.
I do not ask, Lord, that Thou shouldst
shed
Full radiance here ;
Give but a ray of peace, that I may tread
Without a fear.
I do not ask my cross to understand.
My way to see, —
Better in darkness just to feel Thy hand,
And follow Thee.
Joy is like restless day, but peace divine
Like quiet night.
Lead me, Lord, till perfect day shall
shine,
Through Peace to Light.
ANNABEL LEE.
EDGAR ALLAN POE.
^T was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden lived, whom you may
know.
By the name of Annabel Lee ;
I And this maiden she lived with no other
I thought
Than to love, and be loved by me.
I was a child, and she was a child.
In this kingdom by the sea ;
But we loved with a love that was more than
love,
I and my Annabel Lee, —
With a love that the winged seraphs of
heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee :
554
THE FIRE-BELL'S STORY.
So that her high-born kinsmen came,
Ami neither the angols in heaven above,
And bore her away from me,
Nor the demons down under the sea.
To shut her up in a sepulchre,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
In this kingdom by the sea.
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
The angols, not so happy in heaven.
For the moon never beams without bringing
Went envying her and me.
me dreams
Yes ! that was the reason (as all men know)
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee,
In this kingdom by the sea,
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright
That the wind came out of the cloud by
eyes
night,
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
And so, all the night-tide I lie down by the
side
But our love it was stronger by far than the
Of my darling, my darling, my life, and my
love
bride.
Of those who were older than we.
In her sepulchre there by the sea.
Of many far wiser than we ;
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
THE FIRE-BELL'S STORY.
GEORGE L
. . n^-)^ .
?|«^iK(9iV(? — Dong — the bells rang out I
^Inji Over the housetops ; and then a shout
Of " Fire ! " came echoing up the
street.
With the sound of eager, hurrying
feet.
Dong — Dong — the sonorous peal
Came mingled with clatter of engine wheel
And whistle shrill, and horse's hoof ;
And lo ! from the summit of yonder roof
A flame bursts forth, with a sudden glare.
Dong — Dong— on the midnight air
The sound goes ringing out over the town ;
And hundreds already are hurrying down.
Through the narrow streets, with breathless
speed
Following whither the engines lead.
Dong — Dong — and from windows high
Startled ones peer at the ruddy sky.
And still the warning loud doth swell
From the brazen throat of the iron-tongued
bell,
Sending a shudder, and sending a start
To many a home, and many a heart.
Up in yon tenement, where the glare
. CATLIN.
Shines dimly forth on the starlit air
Through dingy windows ; where flame and
smoke
Already begin to singe and choke.
See the affrighted ones look out
In helpless terror, in horrible doubt.
Begging for succor. Now behold
The ladders, by arms so strong and bold,
Are reared ; like squirrels the brave men climb
To the topmost story. Indeed, 'twere time —
" They all are saved !" said a voice below,
And a shout of triumph went up." But no —
" Not all — ah, no!" — 'twas a mother's shriek ;
The cry of a woman, agonized, weak.
Yet nerved to strength by her deep woe's
power,
" Great God, my child!" — even strong men
cower
'Neath such a cry. " Oh, save my child!"
She screamed in accents sorrowful, wild.
Up the ladders, a dozen men
Rushed in generous rivalry then,
Bravely facing a terrible fate.
Breathless the crowd below
MOTHER'S VACANT CHAIR.
555
See ! There's one who has gained the sill
Of yonder window. Now, with a will,
He bursts the sash with his sturdy blow ;
And it rattles down on the pave below.
Now, he has disappeared from sight —
Faces below are ashen and white.
In that terrible moment. Then a cry
Of joy goes up to the flame-lit sky —
Goes up to welcome him back to life.
God help him now in his terrible strife !
Once more he mounts the giddy sill.
Cool and steady and fearless still ;
Once more he grasps the ladder — see !
What is it he holds so tenderly ?
Thousands of tearful, upturned eyes
Are watching him now ; and with eager cries
And sobs and cheerings, the air is rent
As he slowly retraces the long descent,
And the child is saved!
Ah ! ye who mourn
For chivalry dead, in the days long gone,
And prate of the valor of olden time,
Remember this deed of love sublime.
And know that knightly deeds, and bold,
Are as plentiful now as in days of old.
MOTHERS VACANT CHAIR.
T. DE WITT TALMAGE.
pp GO a little farther on in your house, and I find the mother's chair. It
dis is very apt to be a rocking-chair. She had so many cares and
troubles to soothe, that it must have rockers, I remember it well.
It was an old chair, and the rockers were almost worn out, for I was
the youngest, and the chair had rocked the whole family. It made
a creaking noise as it moved, but there was music in the sound. It
was just high enough to allow us children to put our heads into her lap.
That was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries. Oh,
what a chair that was. It was different from the father's chair — it was
entirely different. You ask me how ? I cannot tell, but we all felt it was
different. Perhaps there was about this chair more gentleness, more ten-
derness, more grief when we had done wrong. When we were wayward,
father scolded, but mother cried. It was a very wakeful chair. In the
sick days of children other chairs could not keep awake ; that chair always
kept awake — kept easily awake. That chair knew all the old lullabies,
and all those wordless songs which mothers sing to their sick children —
songs in which all pity and compassion and sympathetic influences are
combined. That old chair has stopped rocking for a good many years. It
may be set up in the loft or the garret, but it holds a queenly power yet.
"When at midnight you went into that grog-shop to get the intoxicating
draught, did you not hear a voice that said, " My son, why go in there ? "
and a louder than the boisterous encore of the theatre, a voice saying,
" My son, what do you here ? " And when you went into the house of
556
THE CLOSING SCENE.
sin, a voice saying, " What would your mother do if she Icnew you were
here ? " and you were provoked at yourself, and you charged yourself with
superstition and fanaticism, and your head got hot with your own thoughts,
and you went home and you went to bed, and no sooner had you touched
the bed than a voice said, "What a prayerless pillow ! " Man ! what is
the matter ? This ! You are too near your mother's rocking chair. " Oh,
pshaw ! '■ you say, " there's nothing in that. I'm five hundred miles off
from where I was born — I'm three thousand miles off from the Scotch kirk
whose bell was the first music I ever heard." I cannot help that. You
are too near your mother's rocking-chair. "Oh !" you say, " there can't
be anything in that ; that chair has been vacant a great while." I cannot
help that. It is all the mightier for that ; it is omnipotent, that vacant
mother's chair. It whispers. It speaks. It weeps. It carols. It
mourns. It prays. It warns. It thunders. A young man went off and
broke his mother's heart, and while he was away from home his mother
died, and the telegraph brought the son, and he came into the room where
she lay, and looked upon her face, and cried out, " mother, mother, what
your life could not do your death shall effect. This moment I give my
heart to God." And he kept his promise. Another victory for the
vacant chair. With reference to your mother, the words of my text were
fulfilled: "Thou shalt be missed because thy seat will be empty."
THE CLOSING SCENE.
T. BUCHANAN READ.
i^ITHIN this sober realm of leafless
The russet year inhaled the dreamy
air ;
Like some tanned reaper, in his hour
of ease,
When all the fields are lying brown and bare.
The gray barns looking from their hazy hills
O'er the dim waters widening in the vales.
Sent down the air a greeting to the mills,
On the dull thunder of alternate flails.
All sights were mellowed and all sounds
subdued,
The hills seemed further and the streams
sang low.
As in a dream the distant woodman hewed
His winter log with many a muffled blow.
The embattled forests, erewhile armed in gold,
Their banners bright with every martial
hue,
Now stood, like some sad, beaten host of old,
Withdrawn afar in Time's remotest blue.
On slumberous wings the vulture tried his
flight,
The dove scarce heard his sighing mate's
complaint,
And, like a star slow drowning in the light.
The village church-vane seemed to pale and
faint.
THE CLOSING SCENE.
557
The sentinel cock upon the hillside crew, —
Crew thrice, and all was stiller than he-
fore ;
Silent till some replying wanderer blew
His alien horn, and then was heard no
more.
Where erst the jay; within the elm's tall crest;
Made garrulous trouble round the unt
young:
Foreboding, as the rustic mind believes,
An early harvest and a plenteous year :
Where every bird which charmed the vernal
feast
Shook the sweet slumber from its wings at
morn,
To warn the reapers of the rosy east —
All now was songless, empty, and lor-
lorn.
And where the oriole hung her swaying nest
By every light wind like a censer swung ;
Where sang the noisy masons of the eaves.
The busy swallows circling ever near,
Alone, from out the stubble piped the
quail,
And croaked the crow through all the
dreary gloom ;
558
GRADATIM.
Alone, the pheasant, drumming in the vale.
Made echo to the distant cottage loom.
There was no bud, no bloom upon the bowers ;
The spiders wove their thin shrouds night
by night;
The thistle-down, the only ghost of flowers,
Sailed slowly by — passed noiseless out of
sight.
Amid all this, in this most cheerless air,
And where the woodbine sheds upon the
porch
Its crimson leaves, as if the year stood there
Firing the floor with his inverted torch —
Amid all this, the centre of the scene.
The white-haired matron, with monoto-
nous tread.
Plied her swift wheel, and with her joyless
mien
Sat like a Fate, and watched the flying
thread.
She had known sorrow. He had walked
with her,
Oft supped, and broke with her the ashen
crust ;
And in the dead leaves still she heard the
stir
Of his black mantle trailing in the dust.
While yet her cheek was bright with summer
bloom.
Her country summoned, and she gave her
all;
And twice War bowed to her his sable plume —
Re-gave the swords to rust upon her wall.
Re-gave the swords — but not the hand that
drew, ,
And struck for liberty the dying blow ;
Nor him who, to his sire and country true,
Fell, mid the ranks of the invading foe.
Long, but not loud, the droning wheel went on,
Like the low murmur of a hive at noon ;
Long, but not loud, the memory of the gone
Breathed through her lips a sad and tremu-
lous tune.
At last the thread was snapped — her head
was bowed :
Life dropped the distaS' through his hands
serene ;
And loving neighbors smoothed her careful
shroud.
While Death and Winter closed the autumn
scene
GRADATIM.
J. G. HOLLA^'D.
^pEAVEN is not reached at a single
l^^ll bound ;
But we build the ladder by which
we rise
From the lowly earth to the
t^ vaulted skies,
J And we mount to the summit round
by round.
I count this thing to be grandly true ;
That a noble deed is a step toward God —
Lifting the soul from the common sod
To a purer air and a broader view.
We rise by things that are under our feet ;
By what we have mastered of good and
gain ;
By the pride deposed and the passion slain,
And the vanquished ills that we hourly
meet.
We hope, we aspire, we resolve, we trust.
When the morning calls us to life and
light;
But our hearts grow weary, and ere the
night
Our lives are trailing the sordid dust.
THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON.
559
We hope, we resolve, we aspire, we pray.
And we think that we mount the air on
wings
Beyond the recall of sensual things,
While our feet still cling to the heavy clay.
Winga for the angels, but feet for the men !
We may borrow the wings to find the way ;
We may hope, and resolve, and aspire, and
pray ;
But our feet must rise, or we fall again.
Only in dreams is a ladder thrown
From the weary earth to the sapphire
walls ;
But the dreams depart, and the vision falls,
And the sleeper wakes on his pillow of stone.
Heaven is not reached at a single bound ;
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies.
And we mount to the summit round by
round.
THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON.
THOMAS JEFFERSON.
^IS mind was great and powerful without being of the very first order :
his penetration strong, and so far as he saw, no judgment was ever
sounder. It was slow in operation, but sure in conclusion. Hence
the common remark of his officers of the advantage he derived from
councils of war, where, hearing all suggestions, he selected what-
ever was best; and certainly no general ever planned his battles more
judiciously. But if deranged during the course of the action, if any
member of his plan was dislocated by sudden circumstances, he was slow
in a re-adjustment. The consequence was, that he often failed in the field,
and rarely against an enemy in station, as at Boston and York. He was
incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern.
Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence, never
acting until every circumstance, every consideration was maturely weighed;
refraining if he saw a doubt, but when once decided, going through with
his purpose, whatever obstacles opposed. His integrity was most pure,
his justice the most inflexible I have ever known; no motives of interest
or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision.
He was, indeed, in every sense of the word, a wise, a good, and a great
man. His temper was naturally irritable and high-toned ; but reflection
and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendancy over it. If
ever, however, it broke its bounds, he was most tremendous in his wrath.
In his expenses he was honorable, but exact ; liberal in contributions to
whatever promised utility ; but frowning and unyielding on all visionary
projects, and all unworthy calls on his charity. His heart was not warm
in its affections ; but ho exactly calculated every man's value, and gave him a
560
MARY GARVIN.
solid esteem proportioned to it. His person, you know was fine, his stature
exactly what one would wish ; his deportment easy, erect, and noble, the
best horseman of his age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen
on horseback. Although in the circle of his friends, where he might be
unreserved with safety, he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial
talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas,
nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he
was unready, short, and embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily, rather dif-
fusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired by conversa-
tion with the world, for his education was merely reading, writing, and
common arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a later day.
His time was employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that only
in agriculture and English history. His correspondence became necessarily
extensive, and with journalizing his agricultural proceedings, occupied most
of his leisure hours withm doors. On the whole his character was, in its
mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in a few points indifferent ; and it may truly
be said, that never did nature and fortune combine more completely to
make a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with what-
ever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance. For
his was the singular destiny and merit of leading the armies of his country
successfully through an arduous war, for the establishment of its indepen-
dence ; of conducting its councils through the birth of a government, new
in its forms and principles, until it had settled down into a quiet and
orderly train.
MARY GARVIN.
J. G. WHITTIER.
5R0M the heart of Waumbek Methna,
from the lake that never fails,
Falls the Saco in the green lap of
Conway's intervales ;
There, in wild and virgin freshness,
its waters foam and flow.
As when Darby Field first saw them — two
hundred years ago.
But, vexed in all its seaward course with
bridges, dams and mills,
How changed is Saco's stream, how lost its
freedom of the hills,
Since traveled Jocelyn, factor Vines, and
stately Champernoon
Heard on its banks the grey wolf's howl, the
trumpet of the loon !
With smoking- axle hot with speed, with
steeds of fire and steam,
Wide-waked To-day leaves Yesterday behind
him like a dream.
Still from the hurrying train of Life fly back-
wards, far and fast.
The milestones of the fathers, the land-marks
of the past.
MARY GARVIN.
561
But human hearts remain unchanged ; the
sorrow and the sin,
The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to
our own akin ;
And if in tales our fathers told, the songs our
mothers sung,
Tradition wears a snowy beard, Romance is
always j'oung.
sharp-lined man of traffic, on Saco's banks
to-day !
mill-girl, watching late and long the shut-
tle's restless play !
Let, for the once, a listening ear the working
hand beguile.
And lend my old Provincial tale, as suits, a
tear or smile !
The evening gun had sounded from gray
Fort Mary's walls ;
Through the forest, like a wild beast, roared
and plunged the Saco's falls ;
And -westward on the sea-wind, that damp
and gusty grew,
Over cedars darkening inland, the smokes of
Spurwink blew.
On the hearth of Farmer Garvin blazed the
crackling walnut log ;
Right and left sat dame and good man, and
between them lay the dog.
Head-on paws, and tail slow wagging, and
beside him on her mat,
Sitting drowsy in the fire-light, winked and
purred the mottled cat.
38
"Twenty years!" said Goodman Garvin,
speaking sadly, under breath,
And his gray head slowly shaking, as one
who speaks of death.
The goodwife dropped her needles ; " It is
twenty years to-day
Since the Indians fell on Saco, and stole our
child away."
Then they sank into the silence, for each
knew the other's thought,
Of a great and common sorrow, and words
were needed not.
" Who knocks ?" cried Goodman Garvin. The
door was open thrown ;
On two strangers, man and maiden, cloaked
and furred, the fire-light shone ;
One with courteous gesture liltelthe bear-
skin from his head ;
" Lives here Elkanah Garvin ?" " I am he,"
the goodman said.
" Sit ye down, and dry and warm ye, for the
night is chill with rain."
And the goodwife drew the settle, and stirred
the fire amain.
The maid unclasped her cloak-hood, the fire-
light glistened fair
In her large, moist eyes, and over soft folds
of dark brown hair.
Dame Garvin looked upon her : " It is Mary's
self I see !
Dear heart!" she cried, "now tell me, ha,"
my child come back to me ?"
"My name indeed is Mary," said the stran-
ger, sobbing wild ;
'• Will you be to me a mother ? I am Mary
Garvin's child !
" She sleeps by wooded Simcoe, but on her
dying day
She bade my father take me to her kinsfolk
far away.
" And when the priest besought her to do
me no such wrong,
562
MAKY GARVIN.
She said, 'May (iod forgive mc ! I have
closed my heart too long.
" ' When I hid me from my father, and shut
out my mother's call,
I sinned against those dear ones, and the
Father ol us all.
" ' Christ's love rebukes no home-love, breaks
no tie of km apart ;
Better heresy in doctrine, than herei-y of
heart.
" ' Tell me not the Church must censure ; she
who wept the cross beside
Never made her own flesh strangers, nor the
claims of blood denied ;
'• Amen !" the old man answered, as he
brushed a tear away,
And, kneeling by the hearthstone, said, with
reverence, " Let us pray."
All its Oriental symbols, and its Hebrew
paraphrase,
"Warm with earnest life and feeling, rose his
prayer of love and praise.
But he started at beholding, as he rose from
off his knee,
The stranger cross his forehead with the sign
of Papistrie.
" What is this ?" cried Farmer Garvin. " la
an English Christian's home
" ' And if she who wronged her parents with
her child atones to them,
Earthly daughter. Heavenly mother ! thou
at least wilt not condemn !'
" So, upon her death-bed lying, my blessed
mother S[)ake ;
As we come to do her bidding, so receive us
for her sake."
" God be praised !" said Goodwife Garvin ;
" He taketh and he gives ;
He woundeth, but he healeth ; in her child
our daughter lives!"
A chapel or a mass-house, that you make the
sign of Rome?"
Then the young girl knelt beside him, kissed
his trembling hand, and cried :
" 0, forbear to chide, my father ; in that
faith my mother died !
'■ On her wooden cross at Simeoe the dews
and sunshine fall,
As they fell on Spurwink's graveyard ; and
the dear God watches all !"
OUR DEBT TO IRVING.
563
The old man stroked the fair head that rested
on his knee;
" Your words, dear child," he answered, " are
God's rebuke to me.
" Creed and rite perchance may differ, yet our
faith and hope be one.
Let me be your father's father, let him be to
me a son."
When the horn, on Sabbath morning, through
the still and frosty air.
From Spurwink, Pool, and Black Point,
called to sermon and to prayer.
To the goodly house of worship, where, in
order due and fit,
As by public vote directed, classed and
ranked, the people sit ;
Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly
squire before the clown,
From the brave coat lace embroidered, to the
gray frock shading down ;
From the pulpit read the preacher, — " Good-
man Garvin and his wife
Fain would thank the Lord, whose kindness
hath followed them through life.
" For the great and crowning mercy, that
their daughter, from the wild,
Where she rests (they hope in God's peace),
has sent to them her child ;
" And the prayers of all God's people they
ask, that they may prove
Not unworthy, through their weakness, of
such special proof of love."
As the preacher prayed, uprising, the aged
couple stood,
And the fair Canadian also, in her mode.-t
maidenhood.
Thought the elders, grave and doubting, " She
is Papist born and bred ";
Thought the young men, " 'Tis an angel in
Mary Garvin's stead !"
OUR DEBT TO IRVINa.
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.
-^
^HE service that Irving rendered to American letters no critic dis-
putes, nor is there any question of our national indebtedness to
him for investing a crude and new land with the enduring charms
of romance and tradition. In this respect, our obligation to him
f is that of Scotland to Scott and Burns ; and it is an obligation
1 due only, in all history, to here and there a fortunate creator to
whose genius opportunity is kind. The Knickerbocker Legend and the
romance wij:h which Irving has invested the Hudson are a priceless legacy ;
and this would remain an imperishable possession in popular tradition if
the literature creating it were destroyed. His position in American litem-
564 OUR DEBT TO IRVING.
ture, or in that of the English tongue, will be determined only by the
slow settling of opinion, which no critic can foretell, and the operation of
which no criticism seems able to explain. I venture to believe, however,
that the verdict will not be in accord with much of the present prevalent
criticism.
Irving was always the literary man; he had the habits, the idiosyn-
crasies of the literary man. I mean that he regarded life not from the
philanthropic, the economic, the poHtical, the philosophic, the metaphy-
sic, the scientific or the theologic, but purely from the literary point of
view.
He belongs to that class of which Johnson and Goldsmith are perhaps
as good types as any, and to which America has added very few. The
literary point of view is taken by few in any generation ; it may seem to
the world of very little consequence in the pressure of all the complex
interests of life, and it may even seem trivial "amid the tremendous ener-
gies applied to immediate affairs; but it is the point of view that
endures ; if its creations do not mould human life, like the Eoman law,
they remain to charm and civilize, like the poems of Horace. You must
not ask more of them than that.
And this leads me to speak of Irving's moral quality, which I cannot
bring myself to exclude from a literary estimate, even in the face of the
current gospel of art for art's sake. There is something that made Scott
and Irving personally loved by the millions of their readers, who had only
the dimmest ideas of their personality. This was some quality perceived
in what they wrote. Each one can define it for himself; there it is, and I
do not see why it is not as integral a part of the authors — an element in
the estimate of their future position — as what we term their intellect, their
knowledge, their skill, or their art. However you rate it, you cannot
account for Irving's influence in the world without it. In his tender tri-
bute to Irving, the great-hearted Thackeray, who saw as clearly as anybody
the place of mere literary art in the sum total of life, quoted the dying
words of Scott'to Lockhart, "Be a good man, my dear." We know well
enough that the great author of " The Newcomes " and the great author
of " The Heart of Midlothian " recognized the abiding value in literature
of integrity, sincerity, purity, charity, faith. These are beneficences ; and
Irving's literature, walk round it and measure it by whatever critical in-
struments you will, is a beneficent literature. The author loved good women
and little children and a pure life ; he had faith in his fellow-men, a kindly
sympathy with the lowest, without any subservience to the highest ; he
retained a belief in the possibility of chivalrous actions, and did not care
THE GLADIATOR.
565
to envelop them in a cynical suspicion ; he was an author still capable of
an enthusiasm. His books are wholesome, full of sweetness and charm, of
humor without any sting, of amusement without any stain ; and their
more sohd qualities are marred by neither pedantry nor pretension.
THE GLADIATOR.
J. A. JONES.
I|HEY led a lion from his. den,
*- The lord of Afric's sun-scorched
plain;
And there he stood, stern foe of
men,
And shook his flowing mane.
There's not of all Rome's heroes, ten
That dare abide this game.
His bright eye naught of lightning lacked ;
His voice was like the cataract.
They brought a dark-haired man along,
Whose limbs with gyves of brass were
bound ;
Youthful he seemed, and bold, and strong,
And yet unscathed of wound.
Blithely he stepped among the throng,
And careless threw around
A dark eye, such as courts the path
Of him who braves a Dacian's wrath.
Then shouted the plebeian crowd, —
Rung the glad galleries with the sound ;
And from the throne there spake aloud
A voice, — " Be the bold man unbound !
And, by Rome's sceptre, yet unbowed,
By Rome, earth's monarch crowned,
Who dares the bold, the unequal strife,
Though doomed to death, shall save his life."
Joy was upon that dark man's face :
And thus, with laughing eye, spake he :
" Loose ye the lord of Zaara's waste.
And let my arms be free :
' He has a martial heart,' thou sayest ;
But oh ! who will not be
A hero, when he fights for life,
For home and country, babes and wife?
" And thus I for the strife prepare :
The Thracian falchion to me bring,
But ask th' imperial leave to spare
The shield, — a useless thing.
Were I a Samnite's rage to dare,
Then o'er me would I fling
The broad orb ; but to lion's wrath
The shield were but a sword of lath."
And he has bared his shining blade,
And springs he on the shaggy foe ;
Dreadful the strife, but briefly played ; —
The desert-king lies low :
His long and loud death-howl is made ;
And there must end the show.
And when the multitude were calm.
The favorite freedman took the palm.
" Kneel down, Rome's emperor beside !"
He knelt, that dark man ; — o'er his brow
Was thrown a wreath in crimson dyed ;
And fair words gild it now :
" Thou art the bravest youth that ever tries
To lay a lion low ;
And from our presence forth thou go'st
To lead the Dacians of our host."
Then flushed his cheek, but not with pride,
And grieved and gloomily spake he :
" My cabin stands where blithely glide
Proud Danube's waters to the sea :
I have a young and blooming bride,
And I have children three ; —
No Roman wealth or rank can give
Such joy as in their arms to live.
" My wife sits at the cabin door,
With throbbing heart and swollen eyes ;—
566
THE RIVER PATH.
While tears her cheek are coursing o'er,
She speaks of sundered ties ;
She bids my tender babes deplore
The death their father dies ;
She tells these jewels of my home,
I bleed to please the rout of Rome
I cannot let those cherubs stray
Without their sire's protecting care ;
And I would chase the griefs away
Which cloud my wedded fair."
The monarch spoke ; the guards obey ;
The gates unclosed are :
He's gone ! No golden bribes divide
The Dacian from his babes and bride.
THE RIVER PATH.
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
ij^lpO bird song floated down the hill,
ll^j^ The tangled bank below was still ;
'#^W No rustle from the birchen stem,
my No ripple from the water's hem.
The dusk of twilight round us grew.
We felt the falling of the dew,
For from us, ere the day was done,
The wooded hills shut out the sun.
But on the river's farthest side
We saw the hill-tops, glorified, —
A tender glow, exceeding fair,
A dream of day without its glare.
With us the damp, the chill, the gloom :
With them the sunset's rosy bloom ;
While dark, through willowy vistas seen,
The river rolled in shade between.
From out the darkness where we trod,
We gazed upon those hills of God,
Whose light seemed not of moon or sun.
We spake not, but our thought was one.
We paused, as if from that bright shore
Beckoned our dear ones gone before ;
And stilled our beating hearts to hear
The voices lost to mortal ear !
THE CROWDED STREETS.
i67
Sudden our pathway turned from night ;
The hills swung open to the light;
Through their green gates the sunshine
showed,
A long, slant splendor downward flowed.
Do'.vn glade and glen and bank it rolled ;
It bridged and shaded stream with gold ;
And borne on piers of mist, allied
The shadowy with the sunlit side.
"So," prayed we, " when our feet draw near
The river dark, with mortal fear,
And the night cometh chill wi:h dew,
Father ! let thy light break through.
" So let the hills of doubt divide,
So bridge with faith the sunless tide !
So let the eyes that fail on earth
On thy eternal hills look forth ;
And in thy beckoning angels know
The dear ones whom we loved below !"
DOT LAMBS WHAT MARY HAF GOT
'"^- VPiY haf got a leetle lambs already ,
Dose vool vos yite like shnow ,
Und efery times dot Mary did vend ouJ,
Dot lambs vent also out, wid Mary.
Dot lambs dit follow Mary von day of der
school-house,
Vich vos obbosition to der rules of her
school-master ;
Also, vich ir did caused dose schillen to smile
out loud,
Ven dey did saw dose lambs on der insides
ov der school-house.
Und so dot school-master dit kick der lambs
gwick oud ;
Likewise dot lambs dit loaf around on dei
outsider,
Und did shoo der flies mit his tail oil
patiently aboud —
Until Mary did come also from dot school-
house oud.
Und den dot lambs did run right away gwick
to Mary, •
Und dit make his hot gwick on Mary's
arms.
Like he would said, " I don't was s -hared,
Mary would kejit me from droubles ena-
how !"
" Vot vos der reason aboud it, of dot lambs
und Mary ?"
Dose schillen did ask it dot school-master :
" Veil, don'd you know it. dot Mary lofo
dose lambs already ?"
Dot school-master did said.
THE CEO WDED STREETS.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
gSipET me move slowly through the street, How fast the flitting figures come
^i| Filled with an ever-shifting train
Amid the sound of steps that beat
The murmuring walks like autumn
rain.
The mild, the fierce, the stony face —
Some bright, with thoughtless smiles, anl
some
Where secret tears have left their trace,
5G8
JERUSALEM BY MOONLIGHT.
They pass to toil, to strife, to rest —
To halls in which the feast is spread —
To charrbers where the funeral guest
In silence sits beside the bed.
And some to happy homes repair.
Where children pressing cheek to cheek,
With mute caresses shall declare
The tenderness they cannot speak.
And some who walk in calmness here,
Shall shudder as they reach the door
Where one who made their dwelling dear,
Its flower, its light, is seen no more.
Youth, with pale cheek and tender frame,
And dreams of greatness in thine eye,
Go'st thou to build an early name,
Or early in the task to diC ?
Keen son of trade, with eager brow,
Who is now fluttering in thy snare.
Thy golden fortunes tower they now.
Or melt the glittering spires in air ?
Who of this crowd to-night shall tread
The dance till daylight gleams again ?
To sorrow o'er the untimely dead?
Who writhe in throes of mortal pain ?
Some, famine struck, shall think how long
The cold, dark hours, how slow the light ;
And some, who flaunt amid the throng.
Shall hide in dens of shame to-night.
Each where his tasks or pleasure call,
They pass and heed each other not ;
There is one who heeds, who holds them all
In His large love and boundless thought.
These struggling tides of life that seem
In wayward, aimless course to tend,
Are eddies of the mighty stream
That rolls to its appointed end.
JER USALEM B Y MOONLIGHT.
BENJAMIN DISRAELI.
I^HIHE broad moon lingers on the summit of Mount Olivet, but its beam
^^M has long left the garden of Gethsemane and the tomb of Absalom,
•^"^^^ the waters of Kedron and the dark abyss of Jehoshaphat. Full
i falls its splendor, however, on the opposite city, vivid and defined
I in its silvery blaze. A lofty wall, with turrets and towers, and fre-
quent gates, undulates with the unequal ground which it covers, as it en-
circles the lost capital of Jehovah. It is a city of hills, far more famous
than those of Rome ; for all Europe has heard of Sion and of Calvary, while
the Arab and the Assyrian, and the tribes and nations beyond, are igno-
rant of the Capitolian and Aventine Mounts.
The broad steep of Sion, crowned with the tower of David ; nearer still,
Mount Moriah, with the gorgeous temple of the God of Abraham, but built,
alas ! by the child of Hagar, and not by Sarah's chosen one ; close to its
cedars and its cypresses, its lofty spires and airy arches, the moonlight falls
upon Bethesda's pool ; farther on, entered by the gate of St. Stephen, the
eye, though 'tis the noon of night, traces with ease the Street of Grief, a
long, winding ascent to a vast cupolaed pile that now covers Calvary, called
the Street of Grief because there the most illustrious of the human as well
JERUSALEM BY MOONLIGHT. 569
as of the Hebrew race, the descendant of King David, and the divine Son
of the most favored of women, twice sank under that burden of suffering
and shame, which is now throughout all Christendom the emblem of triumph
and of honor; passing over groups and masses of houses built of stone, with
terraced roofs, or surmounted with small domes, we reach the hill of Salem,
where Melchisedeck built his mystic citadel; and still remains the hill of
Scopas, where Titus gazed upon Jerusalem on the eve of his final assault.
Titus destroyed the temple. The religion of Judea has in turn subverted
the fanes which were raised to his father and to himself in their imperial
capital ; and the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, is now worshipped
before every altar in Eome.
The moon has sunk behind the Mount of Olives, and the stars in the
darker sky shine doubly bright over the sacred city. The all-pervading
stillness is broken by a breeze that seems to have traveled over the plain of
Sharon from the sea. It wails among the tombs, and sighs among the cypress
groves. The palm tree trembles as it passes, as if it were a spirit of woe.
Is it the breeze that has traveled over the plain of Sharon from the
sea? Or is it the haunting voice of prophets mourning over the city that
they could not save ? Their spirits surely would linger on the land where
their Creator had deigned to dwell, and over whose impending fate Omni-
potence had shed human tears. Who can but believe that, at the midnight
hour, from the summit of the Ascension, the great departed of Israel as-
semble to gaze upon the battlements of their mystic city ? There might
be counted heroes and sages, who need shrink from no rivalry with the
brightest and the wisest of other lands ; but the law-giver of the time of
the Pharaohs, whose laws are still obeyed ; the monarch whose reign has
ceased for three thousand years, but whose wisdom is a proverb in all
nations of the earth ; the teacher whose doctrines have modeled civilized
Europe ; the greatest of legislators, the greatest of administrators, and
the greatest of reformers ; what race, extinct or living, can produce three
such men as these ?
The last light is extinguished in the village of Bethany. The wailing
breeze has become a moaning wind ; a white film spreads over the purple
sky ; the stars are veiled, the stars are hid ; all becomes as dark as the
waters of Kedron and the valley of Jehoshaphat. The tower of David
merges into obscurity ; no longer glitter the minarets of the mosque ot
Omar ; Bethesda's angelic waters, the gate of Stephen, the street of sacred
sorrow, the hill of Salem, and the heights of Scopas, can no longer be dis-
cerned. Alone in the increasing darkness, while the very line of the walls
gradually eludes the eye, the church of the Holy Sepulchre is a beacon-light.
570
BATTLE OF LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.
£A TTLE OF LOOKO UT MO UNTAIK
GEORGE H. BOKER.
me but two brigades," said
Hooker, frowning at fortified
Lookout,
And I'll engage to sweep yon
mountain clear of that mocking
rebel rout!"
At early morning came an order that set the
general's face aglow ;
" Now," said he to hia staff, " draw out my
soldiers. Grant sa3-s that I may go !"
Hither and thither dash'd each eager colonel
to join his regiment.
BATTLE OF LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.
571
Whilft a low rumor of the daring purpose ran
on from tent to tent ;
For the long-roll was sounded in the valley,
and the keen trumpet's bray,
And the wild laughter of the swarthy veter-
ans, who cried, " We fight to-day!"
The solid tramp of infantry, the rumble of
the great jolting gun,
The sharp, clear order, and the fierce steeds
neighing, "Why's not the fight begun ?"' —
All these plain harbingers of sudden conflict
broke on the startled ear ;
And, last, arose a sound that made your blood
leap — the ringing battle cheer.
The lower works were carried at one onset.
Like a vast roaring sea
Of le^d and fire, our soldiers from the trench-
es swept out the enemy ;
And we could see the gray coats swarm.ing up
from the mountain's leafy base.
To join their comrades in the higher fastness
— for life or death the race !
Then our long line went winding round the
mountain, in a huge serpent track.
And the slant sun upon it flash'd and glim-
mer'd, as on a dragon's back.
Higher and higher the column's head push'd
onward, ere the rear moved a man ;
And soon the skirmish-lines their straggling
volleys and single shots began.
Then the bald head of Lookout flamed and
bellow'd, and all its batteries woke,
And down the mountain pour'd the bomb-
shells, puffing into our eyes their smoke ;
And balls and grape-shot rained upon our col-
umn, that bore the angry shower
As if it were no more than that soft dropping
which scarcely stirs the flower.
Oh, glorious courage that inspires the hero,
and runs through all his men !
The heart that fail'd beside the Rappahan-
nock, it was itself again !
The star that circumstance and jealous faction
shrouded in envious night.
Here shone with all the splendor of its na-
ture, and w ith a freer flight !
Hark ! hark ! there go the well-known cra,h-
ing volleys, the long-continued roar.
That swells and falls, but never ceases wholly,
until the fight is o'er.
Up towards the crystal gates of heaven ascen-
ding, the mortal tempests beat.
As if they sought to try their cause together
before God's very feet !
We saw our troops had gain'd a footing al-
most beneath the topmost ledge,
And back and forth the rival lines went surg-
ing upon the dizzy edge.
Sometimes we saw our men fall backward
slowly, and groaned in our despair ;
Or cheer'd when now and then a stricken
rebel plunged out in open air,
Down, down, a thousand empty fathoms drop-
ping, his God alone knows where !
At eve, thick haze upon the mountain gath-
ered, with rising smoke stain'd black,
And not a glimpse of the contending armies
shone through the swirling rack.
Night fell o'er all ; but still they flash'd their
lightnings and rolled their thunders loud.
Though no man knew upon what side was
going that battle in the cloud.
Night! what a night! — of anxious thought
and wonder : but still no tidings came
From the bare summit of the trembling moun-
tain, still wrapp'd in mist and flame.
But towards the sleepless dawn, stillness, more
dreadful than the fierce sound of war.
Settled o'er Nature, as if she stood breathless
before the morning star.
As the sun rose, dense clouds of smoky vapor
boil'd from the valley's deeps,
Dragging their torn and ragged edges slowly
up through the tree-clad steeps.
And rose and rose, till Lookout, like a vision,
above us grandly stood,
And over his black crags and storm-blanch'J
headlands burst the warm, golden flood.
Thousands of eyes were fix'd upon the moun-
tain, and thousands held their breath.
And the vast army, in the valley watching
seem'd touched with sudden death.
572
JOHN AND TIBBIE DAVISON'S DISrUTE.
High o'er us soP;re(l great Lookout, robed in
purple, a glory on his face,
A human meaning in his hard, calm features,
beneath that heavenly grace.
Out on a crag walk'd something — What? an
eagle that treads yon giddy height ?
Surely no man ! But still he clamber'd for-
ward into the full, rich light ;
Then up he started, with a sudden motion,
and from the blazing crag
Flung to the morning breeze and sunny ra-
diance the dear old starry flag !
Ah ! then what follow'd ? Scarr'd and war-
worn soldiers, like girls, flush'd through
their tan.
And down the thousand wrinkles of the bat-
tles a thousand tear-drops ran ;
Men seized each other in return'd embraces,
and sobbed for very love ;
A spirit which made all that moment broth-
ers seem'd falling from above.
And, as we gazed, around the mountains
summit our glittering files appear'd ;
Into the rebel works we saw them marching ;
and we — we cheer'd, we cheer'd !
And they above waved all their flags before
us, and join'd our frantic shout,
Standing, like demigods, in light and triumph,
upon their own Lookout !
JOHN AND TIBBIE DAVISON'S DISPUTE.
EGBERT LEIGHTON.
^OHN Davisor. and Tibbie, his wife,
^ Sat toasi,ing their taes ae nicht
When something startit in the fluir.
And blinkit by their sicht.
" Guidwife," quoth John, " did ye see
that moose ?"
Whar sorra was the cat?"
" A moose ?" " Aye, a moose." " Na, na, guid-
man,
It was'na a moose, 'twas a rat."
* Ow, ow, guidwife, to think ye've been
Sae lang aboot the hoose.
An' no to ken a moose frae a rat !
Yon was'na a rat! 'twas a moose."
" I've seen mair mice than you, guidman —
An' what think ye o' that?
Sae baud your tongue an' say nae mair
I tell ye, it was a rat."
Me hand my tongue for you, guidwife !
I'll be mester o' this hoose —
I saw't as plain as een could see't.
An' I te'il ye, it was a moose!"
" If you're the mester o' the hoose
It's I'm the mistress o't ;
An' I ken best what's in the hoose,
Sae I tell ye it was a rat."
" Weel, weel, guidwife, gae mak' the brose,
An' ca' it what ye please."
So up she rose and made the brose,
While John sat toasting his taes.
They supit, and supit, and supit the brose,
And aye their lips played smack ;
They supit, and supit, and supit the brose,
Till their lugs began to crack.
" Sic fules we were to fa' oot guidwife,
Aboot a moose — " "A what ?
It's a lee ye tell, an' I say it again.
It was'na a moose, 'twas a rat !"
" Wad ye ca' me a leear to my very face ?
" My faith, but ye craw croose !
I tell ye, Tib, I never will bear't —
'Twas a moose!" " 'Twas a rat !" " 'Twas
I"
THE BELLS OF SHANDON.
573
Wi' her spoon she strack him ower the pow —
" Ye dour auld doit, tak' that ;
Gae to your bed, ye canker'd sumph —
'Twas a rat! 'Twas a moose! 'Twas a rat!"
She sent the brose caup at his heels,
As he hirpled ben the hoose ;
Yet he shoved oot his head as he streekit the
door,
And cried, " 'Twas a moose! 'twas a moose!"
But when the carle was fast asleep
She paid him back for that,
And roared into his sleeping lug,
" 'Twas a rat ! 'twas a rat ! 'twas a rat
The de'il be wi' me if I think
It was a beast ava ! —
Neist mornin', as she sweepit the fluir,
She faund wee Johnnie's ba' !
THE BELLS OF SHANDOK
FATHER PROUT.
dTH deep affection
And recollection
I often think of
Those Shandon bells.
Whose sounds so wild would.
In the days of childhood.
Fling round my cradle
• Their magic spells.
On this I ponder
Where'er I wander.
And thus grow fonder,
Sweet Cork, of thee, —
With thy bells of Shandon
That sound so grand, on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.
I've heard bells chiming
Full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in
Cathedral shrine ;
While at a glib rate
Brass tongues would vibrate ;
But all their music
Spoke naught like thine.
For memory, dwelling
On each proud swelling
Of thy belfry, knelling
Its bold notes free.
Made the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand,
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.
I've heal^Psells tolling
Old Adrian's Mole in.
Their thunder rolling
From the Vatican ;
And cymbals glorious
Swinging uproarious
In the gorgeous turrets
Of Notre Dame ;
But thy sounds were sweeter
Than the dome of Peter
Flings o'er the Tiber,
Pealing solemnly.
! the Bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand, on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.
There's a bell in Moscow ;
While on tower and kiosk, oh,
In Saint Sophia
The Turkman gets,
And loud in air
Calls men to prayer,
From the tapering summits
Of tall minarets.
674
SIGHTS ON THE SEA.
Such empty phantom
'Tis the bells of Shandon,
I freely grant them ;
That sound so grand, on
But there's an anthem
The pleasant waters
More dear to me —
Of the river Lee.
SIGHTS ON THE SEA.
WASHINGTON IRVING.
iJUlpO one given to day-dreaming, and fond of losing himself in reveries,
^i^ ~ a sea voyage is full of subjects for meditation ; but then they are
'''^^^ the wonders of the deep, and of the air, and rather tend to abstract
J the mind from worldly themes. I delighted to loll over the quar-
ter-railing, or climb to the main-top, of a calm day, and muse for
hours together on the tranquil bosom of a summer's sea ; to gaze upon the
piles of golden clouds just peering above the horizon, fancy them some fairy
realms, and people them with a creation of my own ; — to watch the gentle
undulating billows, rolling their silver volumes, as if to die away on those
happy shores. There was a delicious sensation of mingled security and awe
with which I looked down from my giddy height, on the monsters of the deep
at their uncouth gambols. Shoals of porpoises tumbling about the bow
-^memmm^v:
THE PORPOISE.
of the ship; the grampus slowly heaving his huge form above the surface;
or the ravenous shark, darting like a spectre, through the blue waters.
My imagination would conjure up all that I had heard or read of the watery
world beneath me ; of the finny herds that roam its fathomless valleys ; of
ST. JOHN THE AGED. 575
the shapeless monsters that lurk among the very foundations of the earth ;
ana of those wild phantasms that swell the tales of fishermen and sailors.
Sometimes a distant sail, gliding along the edge of the ocean, would
be another theme of idle speculation. How interesting this fragment of
a world, hastening to rejoin the great mass of existence ! What a glorious
monument of human invention ; which has in a manner triumphed over
wind and wave ; has brought the ends of the world into communication ; .
has established an interchange of blessings, pouring into the sterile regions
of the north all the luxuries of the south ; has difi'used the light of know-
ledge and the charities of cultivated life ; and has thus bound together
those scattered portions of the human race, between which nature seemed
to have thrown an insurmountable barrier.
We one day descried some shapeless object drifting at a distance.
At sea, everything that breaks the monotony of the surrounding expanse
attracts attention. It proved to be the mast of a ship that must have
been completely wrecked ; for there were the remains of handkerchiefs,
by which some of the crew had fastened themselves to this spar, to prevent
their being washed off by the waves. There was no trace by which the
name of the ship could be ascertained. The wreck had evidently drifted
about for many months ; clusters of shell-fish had fastened about it, and long
sea-weeds flaunted at its sides. But where, thought I, is the crew ? Their
struggle has long been over — they have gone down amidst the roar of the
tempest — their bones lie whitening among the caverns of the deep ; silence,
oblivion, like the waves, have closed over them, and no one can tell the story
of their end. What sighs have been wafted after that ship ! What prayers
ofiered up at the deserted fireside of home ! . How often has the mistress,
the wife, the mother, pored over the daily news, to catch some casual
intelligence of this rover of the deep ! How has expectation darkened
into anxiety — anxiety into dread — and dread into despair ! Alas ! not one
memento may ever return for love to cherish. All that may ever be
known, is, that she sailed from her port, "and was never heard of more ! "
ST. JOHN THE AGED.
I'M growing very old. This weary ! Is bent and hoary with its weight of years,
head ' The limbs that followed Him my Master oft.
That hath so often leaned on Jesus' •■ From Galilee to Judah ; yea, that stood
breast | Beneath the cross, and trembled with Hi)
In days long past, that seem almost i groans,
a dream — Refuse to bear me even throucrh the streets,
576
ST. JOHN THE AGED.
To preach unto my children. Even my lips
Refuse to form the words my heart sends
forth.
My ears are dull ; they scarcely hear the
sobs
Of my dear children gathered round my
couch ;
My eyes so dim they cannot see the tears.
God lays His hand upon me — yea, His hand,
And not His rod — the gentle hand that I
Felt those three years, so often pressed in
mine,
In friendship such as passeth woman's love.
■" I'm old, so old ! I cannot recollect
The faces of my friends, and I forget
The words and deeds that make up daily
life;
But that dear face, and every word He
spoke,
Grow more distinct as others fade away ;
So that I live with Him and holy dead
More than with living.
"Some seventy years ago
I was a fisher by the sacred sea ;
It was at sunset. How the tranquil tide
Bathed dreamily the pebbles ! How the
light
Crept up the distant hills, and in its wake
Soft purple shadows wrapped the dewy
fields ;
And then He came and called me : then I
For the first time on that sweet face. Those
eyes
From out of which, as from a window, shono
Divinity, looked on my inmost soul.
And lighted it forever. Then His words
Broke on the silence of my heart, and made
The whole world musical. Incarnate Love
Took hold of me, and claimed me for its
own ;
I followed in the twilight, holding fast
His mantle.
" Oh ! what holy walks we had
Through harvest fields, and desolate, dreary
wastes ;
And oftentimes He leaned upon my arm.
Weary and wayworn. I was young and
strong.
And so upbore Him. Lord ! now / am
weak.
And old, and feeble. Let me rest on Thee !
So put Thine arm around me closer still !
How strong Thou art ! The daylight draws
apace ;
Come, let us leave these noisy streets, and
take
The path to Bethany ; for Mary's smile
Awaits us at the gate, and Martha's hands
Have long prepared the cheerful evening
meal ;
Come, James, the Master waits, and Peter,
see,
Has gone some steps before.
" What say you, friends ?
That this is Ephesus, and Christ has gone
Back to His kingdom? Ay, 'tis so, 'tis so.
I know it all ; and yet, just now, I seemed
To stand once more upon my native hills.
And touch my Master. 0, how oft I've
seen
The touching of His garments bring back
strength
To palsied limbs ! I feel it has to mine.
Up ! bear me to my church once more,
There let me tell them of a Saviour's love ;
For by the sweetness of my Master's voice
Just now, I think He must be very near —
Coming, I trust, to break the vail which
time
Hath worn so thin that I can see beyond,
And watch His footsteps.
" So raise up my head ;
How dark it is ! I cannot seem to see
The faces of my flock. Is that the sea
That murmurs so, or is it weeping ! Hush .'
' My little children ! God so loved the
world
He gave His Son ; so love ye one another,
Love God and men. Amen.' Now bear me
back ;
My legacy unto an angry world is this.
I feel my work is finished. Are the streets
so full ?
What call the flock my name? the Holy
John ?
HE KNOWS.
577
Nay, write me rather, Jesus Christ's beloved,
And lover of my children.
" Lay me down
Once more upon my couch, and open wide
The eastern window. See ! there comes a
light.
Like that which broke upon my soul at e'en,
When, in the dreary isle of Patmos, Gabriel
came.
And touched me on the shoulder. See ! it
grows.
As when we mounted towards the pearly
gates ;
I know the way ! I trod it once before.
And hark ! it is the song the ransomed sung,
Of glory to the Lamb ! How loud it sounds ;
And that unwritten one ! Methinks my soul
Can join it now. But who are these who
crowd
The shining way?* Say! joy! 'tis the
eleven!
With Peter first ; how eagerly he looks I
How bright the smiles are beaming on James'
face!
I am the last. Once more we are complete
To gather round the Paschal feast.
" My place
Is next my Master — ! my Lord ! my Lord !
How bright Thou art, and yet the very same
I loved in Galilee ! 'Tis worth the hundred
years
To feel this bliss ! So lift me up, dear Lord,
Unto Thy bosom. There shall I abide."
HE KNOWS.
MARY G. BEAINARD.
KNOW not what will befall me !
God hangs a mist o'er my eyes;
And o'er each step of my onward path
He makes new scenes to rise,
And every joy He sends to me
Comes as a sweet and glad surprise.
I see not a step before me.
As I tread the days of the year,
But the past is still in God's keeping,
The future His merc)^ shall clear,
And what looks dark in the distance,
May brighten as I draw near.
For perhaps the dreaded future
Has less bitterness than I think ;
The Lord may sweeten the water
Before I atoop to drink.
Or, if Marah must be Marah,
He will stand beside its brink.
It may be there is waiting
For the coming of my feet.
Some gift of such rare blessedness.
Some joy so strangely sweet,
39
That my lips can only tremble
With the thanks I cannot speak.
0, restful, blissful ignorance !
'Tis blessed not to know.
It keeps me quiet in those arms
Which will not let me go.
And hushes my soul to rest
On the bosom which loves me so.
So I go on not knowing !
I would not if I might;
I would rather walk on in the dark with
God,
Than go alone in the light,
I would rather walk with Him by faith,
Than walk alone by sight.
My heart shrinks back from trials
W'hich the future may disclose.
Yet I never had a sorrow
But what the dear Lord chose;
So I send the coming tears back.
With the whispered word " He knows."
578
THE SOLDIER'S DREAM.
THE SOLDIERS DREAM.
THOMAS CAMPBELL.
Hl^^^UR bugles sang truce, for the night-
^^^ cloud had lowered,
^jf^";!:^ Aud the sentinel stars set their watch
- in the sky ;
And thousands had sunk on the
ground overpowered :
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.
Methought from the battle-field's dreadful
array
Far, far, I had roamed on a desolate track :
'Twas autumn, and sunshine arose on the
way
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed
me back.
When reposing that night on my pallet of
straw,
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded
the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it
again.
I How to thn pleasant fields, traversed so oi.
In life's morning march when my bosoui
was young ;
I heard my own mountain -goats bleating
aloft.
And knew the sweet strain that the corn
reapers sung.
OLD COACHING DAY£
579
Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I
swore
From my home and my weeping friends
never to part ;
My little ones kissed me a thousand times
o'er,
And my wife sobbed aloud in her full-
ness of heart.
Stay, stay with us ! — rest ; thou art weary
and worn !
And fain was their war-broken soldier
to stay ;
But sorrow returned with the dawning of
morn.
And the voice in my dreaming ear
melted
OLD COACHING DAYS.
c
JOHN POOLE.
KETUENED to Eeeves's Hotel, College Green, where I was lodging.
The individual who, at this time, so ably filled the important office
of " Boots " at the hotel was a character. Be it remembered that,
in his youth, he had been discharged from his place for omitting to
i call a gentleman, who was to go by one of the morning coaches, and
el who, in consequence of such neglect, missed his journey.
My slumbers were fitful— disturbed. Horrible dreams assailed me.
Series of watches each pointing to the hour of four passed slowly before
me — then, time-pieces — dials of larger size — and at last, enormous steeple-
clocks, all pointing to four, four, four.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream,
and endless processions of watchmen moved along, each mournfully dinning
in my ears, '•' Past four o'clock." At length I was attacke<l by nightmare.
Methought I was an hour-glass — old Father Time bestrode me — he
pressed upon me with unendurable weight — fearfully and threateningly
did he wave his scythe above my head — he grinned at me, struck three
blows, audible blows, with the handle of his scythe, on my breast, stooped
his huge head, and shrieked in my ear —
" Vor o'clock, zur ; I zay it be vore o'clock."
It was the awful voice of Boots.
"Well, I hear you," groaned I.
"But I doant hear you. Vor o'clock, zur."
"Very well, very well, that'll do."
" Beggin' your pardon, but it woan't do, zur. 'Ee must get up — past
vore, zur."
And he thundered away at the door ; nor did he cease knocking till 1
580 OLD COACHING DAYS.
was fairly up, and had shown myself to him in order to satisfy him of the
fact.
"That'll do, zur; 'ee told I to carl'ee, and I hope I ha' carld'ee
property."
I lit my taper at the rushlight. On opening a window-shutter, I was
regaled with the sight of a fog, a parallel to which London itself, on one
of its most perfect November days, could scarcely have produced. A dirty
drizzling rain was falHng. My heart sank within me. It was now twenty
minutes past four. I was master of no more than forty disposable minutes,
and, in that brief space, what had I not to do ! The duties of the toilet
were indispensable — the portmanteau m,ust be packed — and, run as fast
as I might, I could not get to the coach-office in less than ten minutes.
Hot water was a luxury not to be procured; at that villainous hour not a
human being in the house (nor, do I firmly believe, in the universe entire,)
had risen — my unfortunate self, and my companion in wretchedness, poor
Boots, excepted. The water in the jug was frozen ; but, by dint of ham-
mering upon it with the handle of the poker, I succeeded in enticing out
about as much as would have filled a tea-cup. Two towels, which had
been left wet in the room, were standing on a chair, bolt upright, as stiflF
as the poker itself, which you might almost as easily have bent. The
tooth-brushes were riveted to the glass in which I had left them, and of
which, (in my haste to disengage them from their stronghold,) they carried
away a fragment ; the soap was cemented to the dish ; my shaving-brush
was a mass of ice. In shape more appalling discomfort had never ap-
peared on earth. I approached the looking-glass. Even had all the
materials for the operation been tolerably thawed, it was impossible to use
a razor by such a light.
"Who's there?"
" Now, if 'ee please, zur ; no time to lose ; only twenty-vive minutes
to vive."
I lost my self-possession — I have often wondered that morning did not
unsettle my mind.
There was no time for the performance of anything like a comfortable
toilet. I resolved, therefore, to defer it altogether till the coach should
stop to breakfast. " I'll pack my portmanteau ; that viust be done." In
went whatever happened to come first to hand. In my haste, I had
thrust in, amongst my own things, one of mine host's frozen towels.
Everything must come out again.
"Who's there?"
"Now, zur; 'ee'l be too late, zur."
THE PENNY YE MEANT TO GI'E. 581
" Coming ! "
Everything was now gathered together — the portmanteau would not
lock. No matter, it must be content to travel to town in a deshabille of
straps. Where were my boots ? In my hurry I had packed away both
pair. It was impossible to travel to London on such a day in sHppers.
Again was everything to be undone.
" Now, zur, coach be going."
The most unpleasant part of the ceremony of hanging (scarcely ex-
cepting the closing act) must be the hourly notice given to the culprit of
the exact length of time he has to live. Could any circumstance have
added much to the miseries of my situation, most assuredly it would have
been those unfeeling reminders.
"I'm coming," again replied I, with a groan. " I have only to pull
on my boots." They were both left-footed ! Then must I open the rascally
portm.anteau again.
" Please, zur "
"What in the name of the do you want now ? "
" Coach be gone, please zur."
" Gone ! Is there a chance of my overtaking it ? '
" Bless 'ee ! noa zur ; not as Jem Eobbins do droive. He be vive
mile off by now."
" You are certain of that ? "
" I warrant'ee, zur."
At this assurance I felt a throb of joy, which was almost a compensa-
tion for all my sufferings past.
" Boots," said I, " you are a kind-hearted creature, and I will give
you an additional half-crown. Let the house be kept perfectly quiet, and
desire the chamber-maid to call me "
" At what o'clock, zur ? "
" This day three months at the earliest ! "
''THE PENNY YE MEANT TO GI'E."
^KI^TIERE'S a funny tale of a stingy man, | When the sexton came with his begging
^H^ Who was none too good, but might
'SX^ have been worse,
^"i^ Who went to his church on a Sun-
el day night,
i* And carried along his well filled
J purse.
plate.
The church was but dim with the candle's
light ;
The stingy man fumbled all through hif
purse,
And chose a coin by touch, and not sight.
582
MY PLAYMATE.
It's an odd thing, now, that guineas should
be
So like unto pennies in shape and size.
" I'll give a penny," the stingy man said :
" The poor must not gifts of pennies de-
The penny fell down with a clatter and ring!
And back in his seat leaned the stingy man.
" The world is so full of the poor," he thought :
" I can't help them all — I give what I can."
Ha, ha ! how tke sexton smiled, to be sure.
To see the gold guinea fall into his plate !
Ha, ha ! how the stingy man's heart was
wrung.
Perceiving his blunder, but just too late !
"No matter," he said: "in the Lord's ac-
count
That guinea of gold is set down to me.
They lend to him who give to the poor ;
It will not so bad an investment be."
" Na, na, men," the chuckling sexton cried
out:
" The Lord is na cheated — He kens thee
well;
He knew it was only by accident
That out o' thy fingers the guinea fell '
" He keeps an account, na doubt, for the
puir :
But in that account He'll set down to
thee
Na mair o' that golden guinea, my mon.
Than the one bare penny ye meant to gi'e !"
There's a comfort, too, in the little tale —
A serious side as well as a joke ;
A comfort for all the generous poor.
In the comical words the sexton spoke ;
A comfort to think that the good Lord knows
How generous we really desire to be,
And will give us credit in his account
For all the pennies we long " to gi'e."
MY PLAYMATE.
JOHN G. WHITTIEE.
^i[||iHE pines were dark on Raraoth Hill,
^IS*; Their song was soft and low ;
The blossoms in the sweet May wind
Were falling like the snow.
The blossoms drifted at our feet,
The orchard birds sang clear ;
The sweetest and the saddest day
It seemed of all the year.
For more to me than birds or flowers,
My playmate left her home.
And took with her the laughing spring
The music and the bloom.
She kissed the lips of kith and kin,
She laid her hand in mine :
What more could ask the bashful boy
Who fed her father's kine ?
SHIBBOLETH.
583
She left us in the bloom of May :
The constant years told o'er
Their seasons w_ith as sweet May morns,
But she came back no more.
I walk, with noiseless feet, the round
Of nneventful years ;
Still o'er and o'er I sow the Spring
And reap the Autumn ears.
She lives where all the golden year
Her summer roses blow;
The dusky children of the sun
Before her come and go.
There haply with her jeweled hands
She smooths her silken gown, —
No more the homespun lap wherein
I shook the walnuts down.
The wild grapes wait us by the brook,
The brown nuts on the hill.
And still the May-day flowers make sweet
The woods of FoUymill.
The lilies blossom m the pond,
The birds build in the tree,
The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill
The slow song of the sea.
I wonder if she thinks of them,
And how the old time seems, —
If ever the pines of Ramoth wood
Are sounding in her dreams.
I see her face, I hear her voice ;
Does she remember mine ?
And what to her is now the boy
Who fed her father's kine ?
What cares she that the orioles build
For other eyes than ours, —
That other hands with nuts are filled,
And other laps with flowers ?
O playmate in the golden time !
Our mossy seat is green.
Its fringing violets blossom yet,
The old trees o'er it lean.
The winds So sweet with birch and fern
A sweeter memory blow ;
And there in spring the veeries sing
The song of long ago.
And still the pines of Ramoth wood
Are moaning like the sea, —
The moaning of the sea of change
Between myself and thee !
SHIBBOLETH.
Then said they unto him : " Say now Shibboleth ;" and lie said Sibboleth. They took him and slew him at the
pjissages of Jordan ; and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites, forty and two thousand. Judges xii. 6.
, «^Y^^ ■
E. H. J. CLEVELAND.
|OWN to the stream they flying go ;
Right on the border stand the foe, —
Stand the foe, and this threat they
make :
" Shibboleth say, or your head we'll
take !"
Up to his desk the good man goes,
Down in the pews they sit, his foes, —
Sit his foes, and this threat they make :
"Shibboleth say, or your head we'll take!
Say : Remember the Sabbath day.
In it ye neither shall work nor play ;
Say it commences on Saturday night, —
Just about early candle-light;
Or, to make it a little surer still.
When the sun goes down behind the hill ;
And if the sun sets at half-past four,
Close the shutters, and bar the door ;
Tell the strangers your gates within
That to do otherwise is a sin ;
And at half-past four on the following day,
Take out your knitting, and work or play-
For the Lord allows, in his law sublime,
Twenty-four hours for holy time ;
Thus you must speak our Shibboleth."
Nothing daunted, the good man saith.
584
SHIBBOLETH.
"Ye must remember the Sabbath day —
In it ye neither shall work nor play,
Tell the strangers your gates within
That to do otherwise is a sin.
But at twelve o'clock it begins, I'm sure.
Not on Saturday at half-past four !
A.nd at twelve o'clock at night it ends —
This is the fourth command, my friends."
Down sits the parson in his seat.
Up rise his enemies from the pit ;
" Off with his head !" they wrathful say,
" How he abuses our Sabbath day !"
Up comes another to take his place.
Heated and panting from the chase,
And again the foe their menace make :
" Shibboleth say, or your head we'll take !
Say that the Lord made bond and free.
Slavery's an evil, not sin per se ;
Slaves there have been from the first man's
fall,
And a righteous God upholds it all.
This is the pass-word — speak it plain."
And the good man answers back again,
" I know that the Lord made bond and free
All of one blood — ' and cursed is he,'
Saith a righteous God in his holy ire,
'Who useth service and giveth no hire ! ' "
" This man will never our Shibboleth say !"
Thus cry the foe, as they eager lay
Their violent hands on the clerical crown,
" He is not one of us — hew him down !"
And again to the next in the sacred desk,
They look from below and propound this
text:
" Say that we fell in Adam's fall,
And that in Adam we sinned all ;
Say that in him we all are dead.
Else you'll oblige us to take your head."
A moment they wait to hear the word,
But shout as soon as his voice is heard,
" Oh, hear ye now what this rebel saith ?
Sibboleth only — not Shibboleth."
Another cry in the stifled air.
Another head with its gory hair
By the rolling stream, and another threat
The dire assassins are making yet :
" Shibboleth say, and the stream shall flow
Right and left as you onward go ;
Sibboleth say, and your head shall fall
Right in the pass, as fell they all.
Say that our sins we must all forsake —
That the yoke of Christ we rnust willing
take ;
Our tongues from evil we mui3t restrain.
And from the alluring cup abstain ;
But we have made an amendment fair,
And due allowance, here and there.
For such as have but little grace, —
Every one understands the case;
We who are young in grace must grow,
But still in the ways of folly go ;
We must have our pleasures, and perchance
Amuse ourselves in a little dance ,
And we who are somewhat older grown —
Though our lips are the Lord's and not our
own, —
Must now and then be allowed to speak.
Though our words be truly not over meek ;
And should we happen to speak in a hurry,
Why surely the parson needn't worry, —
Not even though we should blast his fame,
For the poor church members are not to
blame ;
And though we are not inclined to drink
Of the sparkling cup, yet we surely think
It will never answer to fully put down
The sale of the article in our town.
These things we vyillingly, freely tell,
That you may learn our Shibboleth well.
Thus do we all of our sins forsake,
And the yoke of Christ thus easy take.
For hath He not called the burden li(/ht*
Shibboleth say, as we indite."
But "Be ye holy," he calmly saith ;
" Brethren, this is my Shibboleth."
A sudden cry and a sudden gleam
Of a glancing sword by the crimson stream,
And " Off with his head !" they vengeful cry,
" He is an Ephrairaite, — let hira die ;"
And quick dispatch him with all their might,
Just as another one comes in sight.
Glad welcome give to the next who stands
With the " bread of life " in his pious hands.
SELLING A COAT.
585
In his pious hands, and they iiear him
through,
" We believe it all, and so do you ;
But this is not enough to say,
We must have it said in a particular way —
Say that the sinner can't repent
Without the Spirit is on him sent;
To the email word cant, have a due regard.
Else things will be apt to go very hard."
But the good man says : " He can, but won't;
1 know that my danger is imminent."
And they quick reply, " We're sorry to make
Such a very small word as this to take
Your head from your shoulders, — thus, —
entire, —
But you have incurred our holy ire ;*
The meaning of both is the same, 'tis true.
But such an excuse will never do ;
'Tis a very important word, my friend,
You wiU please to perceive you are near
your end."
Forty-two thousand fell that day.
Forty-two thousand bodies lay
Of the Ephraimites, in the narrow way
That led to the running river.
Forty-two thousand more will fall.
For when they accept the " unanimous call "
They may be assured they have staked their ali
By the theological river.
For still to the crossing do they hie,
And still the " Shibboleth " eager try,
But stop in the narrow pass to die,
And go not over the river.
SELLING A COAT.
fftw^ STORY is told of a clothing merchant on Chatham Street, New
York, who kept a very open store and drove a thriving trade, tho
natural consequence being that he waxed wealthy and indolent.
He finally concluded to get an assistant to take his place on the
sidewalk to " run in" customers, while he himself would enjoy his
otium cum dig within the store. Having advertised for a suiiaoie clerk,
he awaited applications, determined to engage none but a good talker who
would be sure to promote his interest.
Several unsuccessful applicants were dismissed, when a smart looking
Americanized Jew came along and applied for the situation. The '' boss"
was determined not to engage the fellow without proof of his thorough
capability and sharpness. Hence the following dialogue:
" Look here, young man ! I told you somedings. I vill gone up de
street und valk me back past dis shop yust like I vas coundrymans, and if
you can make me buy a coat of you, I vill hire you right away quick."
" All right," said the young man, " go ahead, and if I don't sell you a
coat I won't ask the situation."
The proprietor proceeded a short distance up the street, then sauntered
back toward the shop, where the young man was on the alert for him.
" Hi ! look here ! Don't you want some clothes to-day ?"
586 SELLING A COAT.
" No, I don't vant me nothing," returned the boss.
" But step inside and let me show you what an elegant stock we
have," said the '' spider to the fly," catching him by the arm, and forcing
him into the store.
After considerable palaver, the clerk expectant got down a coat, on
the merits of which he expatiated at length, and finally offered it to "the
countryman" at thirty dollars, remarking that it was '' dirt cheap."
" Dirty tollar ? My kracious ! I vouldn't give you dwenty. But I
don't vant de coat anyvays."
"You had better take it, my friend; you don't get a bargain like this
every day."
" No ; I don't vant it. I gone me out. Good-day."
" Hold on ! don't be in such a hurry," answered the anxious clerk.
" See here, now the boss has been out all day, and I haven't sold a dollar's
worth. I want to have something to show when he comes back, so take
the coat at twenty-five dollars ; that is just what it cost. I don't make a
cent on it ; but take it along."
" Young mans, don'd I told you three, four, couple of dimes dat I don't
vant de coat?"
" Well, take it at twenty dollars ; I'll lose money on it, but I want
to make one sale anyhow, before the boss comes in. Take it at twenty
dollars."
" Veil, I don't vant de coat, but I'll give you fifteen tollar, and not one
cent more."
" Oh, my friend, I couldn't do it! Why, the coat cost twenty-five;
yet sooner than not make a sale, I'll let you have it for eighteen dollars,
and stand the loss."
" No; I don't vant it anyvays. It ain't vurth no more as fifteen
tollar, but I vouldn't give a cent more, so help me kracious."
Here the counterfeit rustic turned to depart, pleased to think that he
had got the best of the young clerk ; but that individual was equal to the
emergency. Knowing that he must sell the garment to secure his place,
he seized the parting boss, saying :
" Well, I'll tell you how it is. The man who keeps this store is an
uncle of mine, and as he is a mean old cuss, I want to bust him. Here,
take the coat at fifteen dollars."
This settled the business. The proprietor saw that this was too valu-
able a salesman to let slip, and so engaged him at once ; and he may be
seen every day standing in front of the shop, urging innocent countrymen
to buy clothes which are " yust de fit," at sacrificial prices.
THE MYSTIC WEAVER.
587
A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA.
ALLAN CUjNTNINGHAM.
P WET sheet and a flowing sea, —
A wind that follows fast,
And fills the white and rustling sail,
And bends the gallant mast, —
And bends the gallant mast, my
boys,
While, like the eagle free,
Away the good ship flies, and
leaves
Old England on the lee.
for a soft and gentle wind !
I heard a fair one cry ;
But give to me the snorting breeze
And white waves heaving high —
And white waves heaving high, my boya.
The good ship tight and free ;
The world of waters is our home,
And merry men are we.
There's tempest in yon horned moon,
And lightning in you cloud ;
And hark the music, mariners !
The wind is piping loud, —
The wind is piping loud, my boys,
The lightning flashing free ;
While the hollow oak our palace is,
Our heritage the sea.
TEE MYSTIC WEA VER.
CALMLY see the Mystic Weaver,
Throw his shuttle to and fro ;
'Mid the noise and wild confusion.
Well the weaver seems to know
What each motion
And commotion.
What each fusion
And confusion,
In the grand result will show,
As the nations,
Kings and stations.
Upward, Downward,
Hither, thither.
As in mystic dances, go.
In the present all is mystery ;
In the past 'tis beauteous history.
O'er the mixing and the mingling,
How the signal bells are jingling '
See you not the weaver leaving
588
THE NEW CHURCH ORGAN.
Finished work behind, in weaving ?
See you not the reason subtle,
As the web and woof diminish.
Changing into beauteous finish.
Why the Weaver makes his shuttle,
Hither, thither, scud and scuttle ?
Glorious wonder ! what a weaving !
To the dull beyond believing !
Such, no fabled ages know.
Only faith can see the mystery,
How, along the aisles of History
Where the feet of sages go.
Loveliest to the purest eyes.
Grand the mystic tapet lies !
Soft and smooth, and even
As if made for angel's treadinj
Tufted circles touching ever.
In-wrought figures fading never ;
Every figure has its plaidings,
Brighter form and softer shadings
Each illumined, — what a riddle !
From a Cross that gems the middle.
'Tis a saying : — some reject it.
That its light is all reflected ;
That the tapet's hues are given
By a Sun that shines in Heaven !
'Tis believed, by all believing.
That great God himself is weaving —
Bringing out the world's dark mystery,
In the light of Truth and History ;
And as web and woof diminish.
Comes the grand and glorious finish ;
When begin the golden ages
Long foretold by seers and sages.
THE NEW CHURCH ORGAN.
WILL, M. CAELETON.
jHEY'VE got a bran new organ, Sue,
For all their fuss and search ;
They've done just as they said they'd
do.
And fetched it into church.
T They're bound the critter shall be seen.
And on the preacher's right.
They've hoisted up their new machine
In everybody's sight.
They've got a chorister and choir,
Ag'n my voice and vote ;
For it was never my desire.
To praise the Lord by note !
I've been a sister good an' true,
For five and thirty year ;
I've done what seemed my part to do,
An' prayed my duty clear ;
I've sung the hymns both slow and quick,
Just as the preacher read ;
And twice, when Deacon Tubbs was sick,
I took the fork an' led !
And now their bold, new-fangled ways
Is comin' all about ;
And I, right in my latter days.
Am fairly crowded out !
To-day, the preacher, good old dear.
With tears all in his eyes.
Read — " I can read my title clear
To mansions in the skies," —
I al'ays liked that blessed hymn —
I s'pose I al'ays will ;
It somehow gratifies my whim,
In good old " Ortonville ;"
But when that choir got up to sing,
I couldn't catch a word ;
They sung the most dog-gonedest thing
A body ever heard !
Some worldly chaps was standin' near
And when I seed them grin,
I bid farewell to every fear.
And boldly waded in.
I thought I'd chase their tune along,
An' tried with all my might ;
But though my voice i« good an' strong
I couldn't steer it right ;
When they was high, then I was low,
An' also contra' wise ;
A GERMAN TRUST SONG.
589
And I too fast, or they too slow,
To " mansions in the skies."
An' after every verse, you know
They played a little tune ;
I didn't understand, an' so
I started in too soon.
I pitched it pretty middlin' high,
I fetched a lusty tone.
But oh, alas ! I found that I
Was singing there alone !
They laughed a little, I am told,
But I had done my best :
And not a wave of trouble rolled
Across my peaceful breast.
And sister Brown — I could but look —
She sits right front of me ;
She never was no singin' book,
An' never meant to be ;
But then she al'ays tried to do
The best she could, she said ;
She understood the time right through,
An' kep' it with her head ;
But when she tried this mornin', oh,
I had to laugh, or cough —
It kep' her head a bobbin' so,
It e'en a' most came off !
An' Deacon Tubbs, — he all broke down,
As one might well suppose,
He took one look at sister Brown,
And meekly scratched his nose.
He looked his hymn book through and
through
And laid it on the seat.
And then a pensive sigh he drew,
And looked completely beat.
An' when they took another bout,
He didn't even rise.
But drawed his red bandanner out.
An' wiped his weepin' eyes.
I've been a sister good an' true,
For five an' thirty year ;
I've done what seemed my part to do,
And prayed my duty clear ;
But death will stop my voice, I know.
For he is on my track ;
And some day, I to church will go
And never more come back.
And when the folks get up to sing —
Whene'er that time shall be —
I do not want no patent thing
A squaalin' over me !
A GERMAN TRUST SONG.
-sfer
LAMPERTIUS, 1625.
sUST as God leads me I would go ;
I would not ask to choose my
way ;
Content with what He will bestow.
Assured He will not let me stray.
So as He leads, my path I
And step by step I gladly take,
A child in Him confiding.
Tust as God leads, I am content ;
I rest me calmly in His hands ;
That which He hath decreed and sent —
That which His will for me commands,
I would that He should all fulfil
That I should do His gracious will
In living or in dying.
Just as God leads, I all resign ;
I trust me to my Father's will ;
When reason's rays deceptive shine.
His counsel would I yet fulfill ;
That which His love ordained
right.
Before He brought me to the light,
My all to Him resigning.
Just as God leads me, I abide
In faith, in hope, in suffering, true;
His strength is ever by my side —
Can aught my hold on Him undo ?
590
MAKING LOVE IN A BALLOON.
I hold me firm in patience, knowing
That God my life is still bestowing —
The best in kindness sending.
Just as God leads, I onward
go.
Oft amid thorns and briars keen ;
God does not yet His guidance show —
But in the end it shall be seen
How by a loving Father's will,
Faithful and true He leads me still.
MOUNTAIN AND SQUIRREL.
11. W. EMERSON.
Sfi||iJlpHE mountain and the squirrel
gjg Had a quarrel ;
%-^-^^^ And the former called the latter
"M " Little Prig."
■«- Bun replied :
I " You are doubtless very big ;
j But all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together.
To make up a year
And a sphere.
And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.
If I'm not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.
I'll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel track ;
Talents differ; all is well and wisely put ;
If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut."
MAKING LOVE IN A BALLOON.
LITCHFIELD MOSELEY.
JHEKE was to be a balloon ascent from the lawn, and Fanny had
tormented her father into letting her ascend with the aeronaut. I in-
stantly took my plans ; bribed the aeronaut to plead illness at the
I moment when the machine should have risen ; learned from him the
! management of the balloon, though I understood that pretty well
before, and calmly awaited the result. The day came. The weather was
fine. The balloon was inflated. Fanny was in the car. Everything was
ready, when the aeronaut suddenly fainted. He was carried into the
house, and Sir George accompanied him. Fanny was in despair.
" Am I to lose my air expedition ? " she exclaimed, looking over the
side of the car ; " some one understands the management of this thing,
surely? Nobody! Tom!" she called out to me, "you understand it,
don't you ? "
"Perfectly," I answered.
" Come along, then," she cried ; " be quick, before papa comes back."
MAKING LOVE IN A BALLOON.
591
The company in general endeavored to dissuade her from her project,
but of course in vain. After a decent show of hesitation, I climbed into
the car. The balloon was cast off, and rapidly sailed heavenward. There
was scarcely a breath of wind, and we rose
almost straight up. We rose above the
house, and she laughed and said, " How
jolly ! "
We were higher than the highest trees,
and she smiled, and said it was very kind
of me to come with her. We were so high*
that the people below looked mere specks,
and she hoped that I thoroughly understood
the management of the balloon. Now was
my time.
" I understand the going up part," I an-
swered; "to come down is not so easy,"
and I whistled.
" AVhat do you mean," she cried.
" Why, when you want to go up faster,
you throw some sand overboard," I repHed,
suiting the action to the word.
" Don't be foolish, Tom," she said, trying
indifferent, but trembling uncommonly.
"Foolish ! " I said; " oh dear, no, but whether I go along the ground
or up in the air I like to go the pace, and so do you, Fanny, I know. Go
it, you cripples ! " and over went another sand-bag.
" Why, you're mad, surely," she whispered in utter terror, and tried
to reach the bags, but I kept her back.
" Only with love, my dear," I answered, smiUng pleasantly ; " only
with love for you. Oh, Fanny, I adore you ! Say you will be my wife."
" Never ! " she answered ; " I'll go to Ursa Major first, though I've
got a big enough bear here, in all conscience."
She looked so pretty that I was almost inclined to let her off. (I was
only trying to frighten her, of course I knew how high we could go safely,
well enough, and how valuable the life of Jenkins was to his country,) but
resolution is one of the strong points of my character, and when I've
begun a thing I like to carry it through ; so I threw over another sand-
bag, and whistled the Dead March in Saul.
" Come, Mr. Jenkins," she said suddenly, " come, Tom, let us descend
now, and I'll promise to say nothing whatever about all this."
s*^^^
to appear quite calm and
592 MAKING LOVE IN A BALLOON.
I continued the execution of the Dead March.
" But if you do not begin the descent at once I'll tell papa the moment I
set foot on the ground."
I laughed, seized another bag, and looking steadily at her said :
"Will you promise to give me your hand ? "
" I've answered you already," was the reply.
Over went the sand, and the solemn notes of the Dead March re-
sounded through the car.
" I thought you were a gentleman," said Fanny rising up in a terrible
rage from the bottom of the car, where she had been sitting, and looking
perfectly beautiful in her wrath. " I thought you were a gentleman, but
I find I was mistaken. Why, a chimney-sweeper would not treat a lady
in such a way. Do you know that you are risking your own life as well
as mine by your madness ? "
I explained that I adored her so much that to die in her company
would be perfect bliss, so that I begged she would not consider my feelings
at all. She dashed off her beautiful hair from her face, and standing per-
fectly erect, looking like the Goddess of Anger or Boadicea — if you can
imagine that personage in a balloon — she said, " I command you to begin
the descent this instant ! "
The Dead March, whistled in a manner essentially gay and lively,
wag the only response. After a few minutes' silence I took up another
bag, and said :
" We are getting rather high ; if you do not decide soon we shall have
Mercury coming to tell us that we are trespassing — will you promise me
your hand ? "
She sat in sulky silence in the bottom of the car. I threw over the
sand. Then she tried another plan. Throwing herself upon her knees,
and bursting into tears, she said :
" Oh, forgive me for my slight the other day. It was very wrong,
and I am very sorry. Take me home, and I will be a sister to you."
" Not a wife ? " said I.
" I can't! I can't ! " she answered.
Over went the fourth bag, and I began to think she would beat me
after all, for I did not like the idea of going much higher. I would not give
in just yet, however. I whistled for a few moments, to give her time for
reflection, and then said : " Fanny, they say that marriages are made in
heaven — if you do not take care, ours will be solemnized there."
I took up the fifth bag. " Come," I said, " my wife in life, or my
companion in death. Which is it to be ? " and I patted the sand-bag in
THE BELLS. 593
a cheerful manner. She held her face in her hands, but did not answer.
I nursed the bag in my arms, as if it had been a baby.
"Come, Fanny, give me your promise." I could hear her sobs. I'm
the softest-hearted creature breathing, and would not pain any living
thing, and I confess she had beaten me. I wason the point of flinging the
bag back into the car, and saying, " Dearest Fanny, forgive me for fright-
ening you. Marry whomsoever you wish. Give your lovely hand to the
lowest groom in your stables — endow with your priceless beauty the chief
of the Panki-wanki Indians. Whatever happens, Jenkins is your slave —
your dog — your footstool. His duty, henceforth, is to go whithersoever
you shall order, to do whatever you shall command." I was just on the
point of saying this, I repeat, when Fanny suddenly looked up, and said,
with a queerish expression upon her face :
" You need not throw that last bag over. I promise to give you my
hand."
''With all your heart ?" I asked, quickly.
" With all my heart," said she, with the same strange look.
I tossed the bag into the bottom of the car, and opened the valve.
The balloon descended. Gentlemen, will you believe it ? — when we had
reached the ground, and the balloon had been given over to its recovered
master, when I had helped Fanny tenderly to the earth, and turned to-
wards her to receive anew the promise of her hand — will you believe it ? —
she gave me a box on the ear that upset me against the car, and ruiming
to her father, who at that moment came up, she related to him and the
assembled company what she called my disgraceful conduct in the balloon,
and ended by informing me that all of her hand that I was likely to get
had been already bestowed upon my ear, which she assured me had been
given with all her heart.
TEE BELLS.
EDGAR A. POE,
f^iwEAR the sledges with the bells-
^ Silver bells
°p«;"%^ What a world of merriment their
J> melody foretells !
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night !
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
4U
With a crystalline delight ;
Keeping time, time, time.
In a sort of Runic rhyme.
To the tintinnabulation that so musically
wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
From the j ingling and the tinkling of the bells.
594
THE BELLS.
Hear the mellow wedding bells —
Golden bells !
What a world of happiness their harmony
foretells !
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight !
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she
On the moon !
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells !
How it swells !
How it dwells
On the future ! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells.
Bells, bells, bells—
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells !
Hear the loud alarum bells —
Brazen bells !
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency
tells !
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright !
Too much horrified to speak.
They can only shriek, shriek.
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the
fire.
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and
frantic fire
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor,
Now — now to sit or never.
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells !
What a tale their terror tells
Of despair !
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
WTiat a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air !
Yet the ear, it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging.
How the danger ebbs and flows ,
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells.
By the sinking or the swelling in the
of the bells —
Of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells !
Hear the tolling of the bells —
Iron bells !
What a world of solemn thought their mon-
ody compels !
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright,
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people — ah, the people —
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone.
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone —
They are neither man nor woman —
They are neither brute nor human —
They are ghouls :
And their king it is who tolls ;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls,
A pffian from the bells !
And his merry bosom swells
With the psean of the bells !
And he dances and he yells ;
Keeping time, time, time.
In a sort of Runic rhyme.
To the pasan of the bells —
Of the bells ;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme.
To the throbbing of the bells —
Of the bells, bells, bells,
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
THE HERMIT.
595
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells,
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells-
Bells, bells, bells,
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
THE HERMIT.
JAMES BEATTIE.
^^^T the close of the day, when the hara-
Wmm let i^ still-
And mortals the sweets of forgetful-
ness prove,
When naught but the torrent is
heard on the hill.
And naught but the nightingale's song in
the grove,
'Twas thus by the cave of the mountain afar.
While his harp rung symphonious, a her-
mit began ;
No more with himself or with nature at war.
He thought as a sage, though he felt as a
man ;
" Ah ! why, all abandoned to darkness and
woe,
Why, lone Philomela, that languishing
fall?
For spring shall return, and a lover be-
stow,
And sorrow no longer thy bosom inthrall.
But, if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay,--
Mourn, sweetest complainer, man
calls thee to mourn ;
0, soothe him whose pleasures like
thine pass away !
Full quickly they pass — but they
never return.
" Now gliding remote on the verge
of the sky,
The moon, half extinguished, her
crescent displays ;
But lately I marked when majestic
on high
She shone, and the planets were
lost in her blaze.
'11 on, thou fair orb, and with glad-
ness pursue
The path that conducts thee to
splendor again !
But man's faded glory what change shall
renew?
Ah, fool ! to exult in a glory so vain !
" 'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no
more.
I mourn, — but, ye woodlands, I mourn not
for you ;
For morn is approaching your charms to re-
store,
596
MRS. LOFTY AND I.
Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glit-
tering with dew.
Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn, —
Kind nature the embryo blossom will save :
But when shall spring visit the mouldering
urn?
0, when shall day dawn on the night of
the grave ?
•' 'Twas thus, by the glare of false science
betrayed.
That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to
blind,
My thoughts wont to roam from shade on-
ward to shade.
Destruction before me, and sorrow behind.
'0 pity, great Father of light,' then I cried,
' Thy creature, who fain would not wander
from thee !
Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquished my
pride ;
From doubt and from darkness thou only
canst free.' "
" And darkness and doubt are now flying
away ;
No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn.
So breaks on the traveler, faint and astraj',
The bright and the balmy effulgence of
morn.
See truth, love, and mercy in triumph de-
scending.
And nature all glowing in Eden's first
bloom !
On the cold cheek of death smiles and rosea
are blending.
And beauty immortal awakes from the
tomb."
WINTER SONG.
LUDWIG HOLTY.
^^UMMER joys are o'er;
Flowrets bloom no more,
Wintry winds are sweeping ;
Through the snow-drifts peeping
Cheerful evergreen
i- Rarely now is seen.
Now no plumed throng
Charms the wood with song ;
Ice-bound trees are glittering ;
Translated from the German by Charles T. Brooks.
Merry snow-birds twittering,
Fondly strive to cheer
Scenes so cold and drear.
"Winter, still I see
Many charms in thee, —
Love thy chilly greeting,
Snow-storms fiercely beating,
And the dear delights
Of the long, long nights.
MBS. LOFTY AND I.
}RS. LOFTY keeps a carriage,
So do I;
She has dapple grays to draw it,
None have I ;
She's no prouder with her coachman
Than am I
With my blue-eyed laughing baby
Trundling by ;
I hide his face, lest she should see
The cherub boy, and envy me.
Her fine husband has white fingers,
Mine has not ■
He could give his bride a palace,
Mine a cot :
Ice-bound trees are glittering
Merry snow-birds twittering,
Fondly strive to cheer
Scenes so cold and drear."
OUR SKATER BELLE.
59^
Her's comes beneath the star-light,
Ne'er cares she:
Mine comes in the purple twilight,
Kisses me.
And prays that He who turns life's sands,
Will hold his lov'd ones in His hands.
Mrs. Lofty has her jewels,
So have I ;
She wears her's upon her bosom.
Inside I ;
She will leave her's at death's portals,
By and by :
I shall bear the treasure with me,
When I die ;
For I have love, and she has gold ;
She counts her wealth, mine can't b*
told.
She has those that love her station.
None have 1 •
But I've one true heart beside me.
Glad am I ;
I'd not change it for a kingdom,
No not I ;
God will weigh it in his balance.
By and by ;
And then the diff 'rence 't will define
'Twixt Mrs. Lofty's wealth and mine.
CLEON
CHARLES
AND I.
MACKAY.
|O^LE0N hath a million acres — ne'er a one
!^ff* Cleon dwelleth in a palace — in a cot-
# tage, I;
J Cleon hath a dozen fortunes — not a
^ penny, I ;
J But the poorer of the twain is Cleon,
and not I.
Cleon, true, possesseth acres — but the land-
scape, I ;
Half the charms to me it yieldeth, money
cannot buy ;
Cleon harbors sloth and dullness — freshening
vigor, I ;
He in velvet, I in fustian ; richer man am I.
Cleon is a slave to grandeur— free as thought
am I ;
Cleon fees a score of doctors — need of none
have I.
Wealth-surrounded, care-environed, Cleoa
fears to die ;
Death may come — he'll find me ready — hap-
pier man am I.
Cleon sees no charm in nature — in a daisy, I ;
Cleon hears no anthem ringing in the sea
and sky.
Nature sings to me forever — earnest listen-
er, I;
State for state, with all attendants, who
would change? Not I,
OUB SKATER BELLE.
^^JJKLONG the frozen lake she comes
In linking crescents, light and
fleet ;
The ice-imprisoned Undine hums
A welcome to her little feet.
I see the jaunty hat, the plume
Swerve bird-like in the joyous gale, —
The cheeks lit up to burning bloom.
The young eyes sparkling through the veil
The quick breath parts her laughing lips,
The white neck shines through tossing
curls ;
Her vesture gently sways and dips.
As on she speeds in shell-like whorls.
698
DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
Men stop and smile to see her go ;
They gaze, they smile in pleased surprise
They ask her name, they long to show
Some silent friendship in their eyes.
She glances not ; she passes on ;
Her stately footfall quicker rings ;
She guesses not the benison
Whicn follows her on noiseless wings.
Smooth be her ways, secure her tread
Along the devious lines of life.
From grace to grace successive led, —
A noble maiden, nobler wife I
ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN.
NOAH PORTER.
I^IS^OUNG men, you are the architects of your own fortunes. Eely
upon your own strength of body and soul. Take for your star self-
reUance, faith, honesty, and industry. Inscribe on your banner,
" Luck is a fool, pluck is a hero." Don't take too much advice —
keep at your helm and steer your own ship, and remember that
the great art of commanding is to take a fair share of the work.
Don't practice too mach humanity. Think well of yourself. Strike out.
Assume your own position. Put potatoes in your cart, over a rough road,
and small ones go to the bottom. Kise above the envious and jealous.
Fire above the mark you intend to hit. Energy, invincible, determination,
with a right motive, are the levers that move the world. Don't drink.
Don't chew. Don't smoke. Don't swear. Don't deceive. Don't read
novels. Don't marry until you can support a wife. Be in earnest. Be
self-reliant. Be generous. Be civil. Bead the papers. Advertise your
business. Make money and do good with it. Love your God and fellow men.
Love truth and virtue. Love your country, and obey its laws. If this
advice be impHcitly followed by the young men of the country, the mil-
lennium is at hand.
DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
HENRY WARD BEECHER.
tW/EO shall recount our martyr's
ufFerings for this people since No-
vember, 1860 ? His horizon had been black with storm by day
and by night; he has trod the way of danger and of darkness;
on his shoulders rested a government dearer to him than his own
life. At its integrity millions of men were striking at home, and
upon this government foreign eyes lowered. It stood a lone island
DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 599
in the sea, full of storms, and every tide and wave seemed eager to devour
it. Upon thousands of hearts great sorrows and anxieties have rested, but
not on one such or in such a measure as upon that simple, truthful, noble
soul, our faithful and sainted Lincoln. Never rising to the enthusiasm of
more impatient natures in hours of hope, and never sinking with mercurial
natures in hours of defeat to such depths of despondency, he held on with
immovable patience and fidelity, putting caution against hope that it might
not be premature and hope against caution that it might not yield to
dread and danger. He wrestled ceaselessly through four black and dread-
ful purgatorial years wherein God was cleansing the sin of His people as
by fire. At last the watcher beheld the gray dawn for the country ; the
mountains began to give their forms forth from out of darkness, and the
East came rushing towards us with arms full of joy for all our sorrows.
Then it was for him to be glad exceedingly that had sorrowed immeasu-
rably. Peace could bring no heart such joy, such rest, such honor, trust
and gratitude. He but looked upon it as Moses looked upon the promised
land, and then the wail of the nation proclaimed that he had gone from
among us. Not thine the sorrow, but ours, sainted soul. Thou hast
indeed entered the promised land while we yet are on the march. To us
remains the rocking of the deep and the storm upon the land. Days of
duty and nights of watching, but thou art sphered high above all dark-
ness, far beyond all sorrow and weariness. Oh, weary heart, rejoice ex-
ceedingly thou that hast enough suffered. Thou hast beheld Him who,
invisibly, hath led thee in this great wilderness. Thou standest among
the elect; around thee are the royal men that have ennobled human life in
every age, and the coronet of glory on thy brow as a diadem of joy is upon
thee for evermore. Over all this land, over all the little cloud of years
that now from thy infinite horizon moves back as a speck, thou art lifted
up as high as the star is above the cloud. In the goodly company of
Mount Zion thou shalt find that rest which thou hast sorrowing sought ;
and thy name, an everlasting name in Heaven, shall flourish in fragrance
and beauty as long as the sun shall last upon the earth, and hearts remain
to revere truth, fidelity and goodness.
He who now sleeps has by this event been clothed with new influence.
Dead, he speaks to men who now willingly hear what before they refused
to listen to. Now his simple and weighty words will be gathered like
those of Washington, and your children and children's children shall
be taught to ponder the simplicity and deep wisdom of the utterances
which, in time of party heat, passed as idle words. The patriotism of men
will receive a new impulse, and men, for his sake, will love the whole
600
FUNERAL OF LINCOLN.
country which he loved so well. I swear you on the altar of his memory
to be more faithful to the country for which he has perished by his very
perishing, and swear anew hatred to that slavery which made him a
martyr and a conqueror.
And now the martyr is moving in triumphal march, mightier than
when alive. The nation rises up at every stage of his coming. Cities and
States are his pall-bearers, and the cannon speaks the hours with solemn
progression. Dead, dead, dead, he yet speaketh. Is Washington dead ?
Is Hampden dead ? Is David dead ? Is any man that ever was fit to live
dead? Disenthralled of flesh, risen to the unobstructed sphere where
passion never comes, he begins his illimitable work. His life is now
grafted upon the infinite, and will be fruitful, as no earthly life can be.
Pass on, thou that hast overcome ! Your sorrows, oh people, are his peans,
your bells and bands and muffled drums sound triumph in his ears. Wail
and weep here ; God makes it echo joy and triumph there. Pass on !
Four years ago, oh Illinois, we took from thy midst an untried man ; and
from among the people ; we return him to you a mighty conqueror. Not
thine any more, but the nation's ; not ours, but the world's. Give him
place, oh ye prairies. In the midst of this great continent his dust shall
rest, a sacred treasure to myriads who shall pilgrim to that shrine to kindle
anew their zeal and patriotism. Ye winds that move over the mighty
places of the West, chant his requiem ! Ye people behold the martyr
whose blood, as so many articulate words, pleads for fidelity, for law, for
liberty !
FUNERAL OF LINCOLN,
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
(lEACE ! Let the long procession come,
For, hark ! — the mournful, muffled
drum.
The trumpet's wail afar ;
And see ! the awful car !
Peace ! Let the sad procession go,
While cannon boom, and bells toll slow.
And go thou sacred car,
Bearing our woe afar !
Go, darkly borne, from State to State,
Whose loyal, sorrowing cities wait
To honor all they can,
The dust of that good man !
Go, grandly borne, with such a train
As greatest kings might die to gain :
The just, the wise, the brave
Attend thee to the grave !
And you, the soldiers of our wars,
Bronzed veterans, grim with noble scars.
Salute him once again.
Your late commander, — slain!
THE SUN IS WARM, THE SKY IS CLEAR.
601
Yes, let your tears indignant fall.
But leave your muskets on tlie wall ;
There shall his grave be made,
And there his bones be laid !
Your country needs you now
Beside the forge, the plough !
And there his countrymen shall come,
So sweetly, sadly, sternly goes
The fallen to his last repose.
Beneath no mighty dome,
But in his modest home.
The churchyard where his children rest,
With memory proud, with pity dumb,
And strangers, far and near.
For many and many a year !
For many a year and many an age.
While History on her ample page
The virtues shall enroll
The quiet spot that suits him best,
Of that paternal soul!
THE SUN IS WARM, TEE SKY IS CLEAR.
PERCY BYSSHE 8HELLEY.
KHE sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves are dancing fast and
bright,
S' l* Blue isles and snowy mountains
wear
• The purple noon's transparent light:
The breath of the moist air is light
Around its unexpanded buds ;
Like many a voice of one delight, —
The winds', the birds', the ocean-
floods', —
The City's voice itself is soft like Soli-
tude's.
I see the Deep's untrampled floor
With green and purple sea-weeds
strown ;
I see the waves upon the shore
Like light dissolved in star-showers
thrown ;
I sit upon the sands alone ;
The lightning of the noontide ocean
Is fla?hing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion, —
How sweet, did any heart now share
in my emotion !
Alas ! I have nor hope nor health,
Nor peace within nor calm around,
Nor that Content surpassing wealth
The sage in meditation found.
And walked with inward glory crowned, —
Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor lei-
sure;
Others I see whom these surround ;
Smiling they live, and call life pleasure ;
To me that cup has been dealt in another
measure.
Yet now despair itself is mild
Even as the winds and waters are :
I could lie down like a tired child,
G02
SEARCHING FOR THE SLAIN.
And weep away the life of care
"Which I have borne, and yet must bear
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air
My cheek grow cold, and hear the
sea
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last mo-
notony.
SEARCHING FOR THE SLAIN.
^piiROLD the lantern aside, and shudder
^|ffl|i not so;
f^gvL There's more blood to see than this
^ stain on the snow ;
I There are pools of it, lakes of it, just
I over there,
And fixed faces all streaked, and crimson-
soaked hair.
Did you think, when we came, you and I,
out to-night
To search for our dead, yon would be a fair
sight ?
You're his wife ; you love him — you think
so ; and I
Am only his mother ; my boy shall not lie
In a ditch with the rest, while my arms caji
bear
His form to a grave that mine own may soon
share.
So, if your strength failiS, best go sit by the
hearth.
While his mother alone seeks his bed on the
earth.
You will go ! then no faintings ! Give me
the light.
And follow my footsteps — my heart will lead
right.
Ah, God ! what is here? a great hejip of the
slain.
All mangled and gory ! — what horrible pain
These beings have died in ! Dear mothers,
ye weep.
Ye weep, oh, ye weep o'er this terrible sleep !
More! more! Ah! I thought I could never-
more know
Grief, horror, or pity, for aught here below,
Since I stood in the porch and heard his
chief tell
How brave was my son, how he gallantly
fell.
Did they think I cared then to see officers
stand
Before my great sorrow, each hat in each
hand?
Why, girl, do you feel neither reverence nor
fright.
That your red hands turn over toward this
dim light
These dead men that stare so ? Ah, if you
had kept
Your senses this morning ere his comrades
had left.
You had beard that his place was worst of
them all, —
Not 'mid the stragglers, — where he fought he
would fall.
There's the moon through the clouds :
Christ what a scene !
Dost Thou from Thy heavens o'er such vi-
sions lean,
And still call this cursed world a footstool of
Thine ?
Hark ! a groan ! there another, — here in this
line
Piled close on each other! Ah, here is the
flag,
Torn, dripping with gore; — bah! they died
for this rag.
Here's the voice that we seek ; poor soul, do
not start ;
We're women, not ghosts. What a gash o'er
the heart!
Is there aught we can do ? A message to
give
To any beloved one ? I swear, if I live,
To take it for sake of the words my boy said,
FROM WASHINGTON'S INAUGURAL.
603
" Home," " mother," " wife," ere he reeled
down 'moug the dead.
But, first, can you tell where his regiment
stood ?
Speak, speak, man, or point ; 'twas the Ninth.
Oh, the blood
Is choking his voice ! What a look of
despair !
There, lean on mj^ knee, while I put back
the hair
Froin eyes so fast glazing. Oh, my darling,
my own.
My hands were both idle when you died alone.
He's dying — he's dead! Close his lids, let
us go.
God's peace on his soul ! If we only could
Where our own dear one lies ! — my soul has
turned sick ;
Must we crawl o'er these bodies that lie here
so thick ?
I cannot ! I cannot ! How eager you are !
One might think you were nursed on the red
lap of War.
He's not here — and not here. What wild
hopes flash through
My thoughts, as, foot-deep, I stand in this
dread dew.
And cast up a prayer to the blue, quiet sky !
Was it you, girl, that shrieked ? Ah ! what
face doth lie
Upturned toward me there, so rigid and
white ?
God, my brain reels! 'Tis a dream. My
old sight
Is dimmed with these horrors. My son ! oh,
my son !
Would I had died for thee, my own, only one !
There, lift off your arms ; let him come to
the breast
Where first he was lulled, with my soul's
hymn, to rest.
Your heart never thrilled to your lover's
fond kiss
As mine to his baby-touch ; was it for this ?
He was yours, too ; he loved you ? Yes, yes.
you're right.
Forgive me, my daughter, I'm maddened to-
night.
Don't moan so, dear child; you're young,
and your j^ears
May still hold fair hopes ; but the old die of
tears.
Yes, take him again ; — ah ! don't lay your
face there ;
See the blood from his wound has stained
your loose hair.
How quiet you are ! Has she fainted '! — her
cheek
Is cold as his own. Say a word to me, — speak !
Am I crazed ? Is she dead ? Has her heart
broke first?
Her trouble was bitter, but sure mine is
worst.
I'm afraid, I'm afraid, all alone with these
dead ;
Those corpses are stirring ; God help my poor
head !
I'll sit by my children until the men come
To bury the others, and then we'll go home.
Why, the slain are all dancing ! Dearest,
don't move.
Keep away from my boy ; he's guarded by
love.
Lullaby, lullaby ; sleep, sweet darling, sleep !
God and thy mother will watch o'er thee keep !
FBOJf WASHINGTON'S INAUGURAL.
iiiT would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fer-
^ vent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the uni-
Jl verse, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential
% aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction, may conse-
604
FROM WASHINGTON'S INAUGURAL.
crate, to tlie liberties and happiness of the people of the United States,
a government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and
may enable every instrument employed in the administration to execute
with success the functions allotted to its charge. In tendering this homage
to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that
it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow-
citizens at lara-e less than either.
MOUNT VERNON, WASHINGTON'S MODEST HOME.
No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand
which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United
States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of
an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token
of Providential agency ; and in the important revolution just accom-
plished in the system of their united government, the tranquil deliberations
and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities from which the
event has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most
governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude,
along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past
seems to presage.
THE COUNTESS.
605
SLEEP OF THE BRA VE.
WILLIAM COLLINS,
?0W sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blessed !
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung ;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung ;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay ;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there !
i^^a
"*^25i*'. •'•'•■•^i---^''^«-
THE COUNTESS.
J. G. WHITTIEB.
ER the wooded northern ridge.
Between its houses brown.
To the dark tunnel of the bridge,
I The street comes straggling down.
You catch a glimpse, through birch and pine,
Of gable, roof, and porch.
The tavern with its swinging sign,
The sharp horn of the church.
The river's steel-blue crescent curves
To meet in ebb and flow,
The single broken wharf that serves
For sloop and gundelow.
With salt-sea scents along its shores,
The heavy hay boats crawl,
The long antennae of their oars
In lazy rise and fall.
.<<)t,
606
THE COUNTESS.
Along the gray abutment's wall
The idle shad-net dries :
The toll-man, in his cobbler's stall,
Sits smoking with closed eyes.
You hear the pier's low undertone
Of waves that chafe and gnaw ;
You start, — a skipper's horn is blown
To raise the creaking draw.
At times the blacksmith's anvil sounds
"With slow and sluggard beat,
Or stage-coach on its dusty rounds
Wakes up the staring street.
A place for idle eyes and ears,
A cob-webbed nook of dreams,
Left by the stream whose waves are years,
The stranded village seems.
And there, like other moss and rust,
The native dweller clings.
And keeps, in uninquiring trust,
The old, dull round of things.
The fisher drops his patient lines.
The farmer sows his grain.
Content to hear the murmuring pines,
Instead of railroad train.
Go where, along the tangled steep
That slopes against the west.
The hamlet's buried idlers sleep
In still profounder rest.
Throw back the locust's flowery plume.
The birch's pale-green scarf,
And break the web of brier and bloom
From name and epitaph.
A simple muster-roll of death.
Of pomp and romance shorn,
The dry, old names that common-breath
Has cheapened and outworn.
Yet pause by one low mound, and part
The wild vines o'er it laced.
And read the words, by rustic art,
Upon its head-stone traced.
Haply yon white-haired villager
Of four-score years can say,
What means the noble name of her
Who sleeps with common clay.
An exile from the Gascon land
Found refuge here and rest,
And loved of all the village band,
Its fairest and its best.
He knelt with her on Sabbath morns,
He worshiped through her eyes.
And on the pride that doubts and scoru:5
Stole in her faith's surprise.
Her simple daily life he saw
By homeliest duties tried.
In all things by an untaught law
Of fitness justified.
For her his rank aside he laid ;
He took the hue and tone
Of lowly life and toil, and made
Her simple ways his own.
Yet still, in gay and careless ease,
To harvest-field or dance
He brought the gentle courtesies.
The nameless grace of France.
And she who taught him love, not les?
From him she loved in turn,
Caught, in her sweet unconsciousness.
What love is quick to learn.
Each grew to each in pleased accord,
Nor knew the gazing town
If she looked upward to her lord,
Or he to her looked down.
How sweet when summer's day was o'or-
His violin's mirth and wail.
The walk on pleasant Newbury's shore,
The river's moonlit sail !
SELF-RELIANCE.
607
Ah ! Life is brief, though love be long ;
The altar and the bier,
The burial hymn and bridal song.
Were both in one short year.
Her rest is quiet on the hill,
Beneath the locust's bloom :
Far off her lover sleeps as still
Within his scutcheoned tomb.
The Gascon lord, the village maid,
In death still clasp their hands ;
The love that levels rank and grade
Unites their several lands.
What matter whose the hillside grave,
Or whose the blazoned stone?
Forever to her western wave
Shall whisper blue Garonne !
iove ! — so hallowing every soil
That gives thy sweet flowers room,
Wherever, nursed by ease or toil.
The human heart takes bloom !
Plant of lost Eden, from the sod
. Of sinful earth unriven,
White blossom of the trees of God
Dropped down to us from heaven !
This tangled waste of mound and stone
Is holy for thy sake ;
A sweetness which is all thy own,
Breathes out of fern and brake.
And while ancestral pride shall twine
The Gascon's tomb with flowers,
Fall sweetly here, song of mine,
With summer's bloom and showers.
And let the lines that severed seem
Unite again in thee.
As western wave and Gallic stream
Are mingled in one sea.
SELF-RELIANCE.
EALPH WALDO EMERSON,
1^ SUPPOSE no man can violate his nature. All the sallies of his will
^ are rounded in by the law of his being, as the inequalities of Andes
'•C and Himalaya are insignificant in the curve of the sphere. Nor does
% it matter how you gauge and try him. A character is like an
I acrostic or Alexandrian stanza ; read it forward, backward, or across,
r it still spells the same thing. In this pleasing, contrite, wood-life which
God allows me, let me record day by day my honest thought without pros-
pect or retrospect, and, I cannot doubt, it will be found symmetrical,
though I mean it not, and see it not. My book should smell of pines, and
resound with the hum of insects. The swallow over my window should
41
608 SELP-RELIANCE.
interweave that thread or straw he carries in his bill into my web also.
We pass for what we are. Character teaches above our wills. Men
imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions,
and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment. Fear
never but you shall be consistent in whatever variety of actions, so
they be each honest and natural in their hour. For if one will,
the actions will be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties
are lost sight of when seen at a little distance, at a little height of thought.
One tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag
line of a hundred tacks. This is on)y microscopic criticism. See the line
from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency.
Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine
actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you
have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness always appeals
to the future. If I can be great enough now to do right and scorn eyes
I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it
will, do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. The
force of character is cumulative. All the foregone days of virtue work
their health into this. What makes the majesty of the heroes of the senate
and the field, which so fills the imagination ? The consciousness of a train
of great days and victories behind. There they all stand and shed a
united light on the advancing actor. He is attended as by a visible escort
of angels to every man's eye. That is it which throws thunder into
Chatham's voice, and dignity into Washington's port, and America into
Adams' eye. Honor is venerable to us, because it is no ephemeris. It is
always ancient virtue. We worship it to-day, because it is not of to-day.
We love it, and pay it homage, because it is not a trap for our love and
homage, but is self-dependent, self-derived, and therefore of an old, immacu-
late pedigree, even if shown in a young person. I hope in these days we
have heard the last of conformity and consistency. Let the words be
gazetted, and ridiculous henceforward. Instead of the gong for dinner, let
us hear a whistle from the Spartan fife. Let us bow and apologize never
more. A great man is coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to
please him ; I wish that he should wish to please me. I will stand here for
humanity, and though I would make it kind, I would make it true. Let
us affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment
of the times, and hurl in the face of custom, and trade, and office, the tact
which is the upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible
Thinker and Actor moving wherever moves a man ; that a true man belongs
to no other time or place, but is the centre of things. Where he is there
NOCTURNAL SKETCH.
609
is nature. He measures you, and all men, and all events. You are con-
8tra",ned to accept his standard. Ordinarily, everybody in society reminds
us of somewhat else, or of some other person. Character, reality, reminds
you of nothing else. It takes place of the whole creation. The man
mucsi be so much that he must make all circumstances indifferent, — put all
means into the shade. This all great men are and do. Every true man
is a cause, a country, and an age; requires infinite spaces, and numbers,
and time, fully to accomplish his thought ; and posterity seems to follow
his steps as a procession. A man Caesar is born, and for ages after we
have a Roman Empire. Christ is born, and millions of minds so grow
and cleave to his genius, that he is confounded with virtue and the
possible of man. An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man ;
as the Reformation of Luther ; Quakerism of Fox ; Methodism of
Wesley ; Abolition of Clarkson. Scipio, Milton called " the height of
Rome ;" and all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a
few stout and earnest persons.
NOCTURNAL SKETCH.
THOMAS HOOD.
jgVEN is come; and from the dark Park,
hark,
The signal of the setting sun — one
gun!
And six is sounding from the chime,
prime time
To go and see the Drury-Lane Dane
slain, —
Or hear Othello's jealous doubt spout out, —
Or Macbeth raving at that shade-made
Clade,
Denying to his frantic clutch much touch: —
Or else to see Ducrow with wide stride ride
Jour horses as no other man can span ;
Or -^ the small Olympic Pitt sit split
ijAUghing at Liston, while you quiz his
phiz.
Anon night comes, and with her wings brings
tnings
Suf^h as, with his poetic tongue, Young
The gas up-blazes with its bright white
light,
And paralytic watchmen prowl, howl.
growl,
About the streets and take up Pall-Mall Sal,
Who, hasting to her nightly jobs, robs fobs.
Now thieves to enter for your cash, smash,
crash,
Past drowsy Charley, in a deep sleep, creep.
But, frightened by Policeman B. 3, flee,
And while they're going, whisper low, " No
Now puss, while folks are in their beds, treads
leads,
And sleepers waking, grumble, — " Drat that
cat!"
Who in the gutter caterwauls, squalls, mauls,
Some feline foe, and screams in shrill ill-will.
Now Bulls of Baihan, of a prize size, rise
610
THE SABBATH.
In childish dreams, and with a roar gore
poor
Gregory, or Charley, or Billy, willy-nilly ; —
But Nursemaid in a nightmare rest, chest-
Dreameth of one of her old flames, James
Games
And that she hears — what faith is man's —
Ann's banns
And his, from Reverend Mr. Rice, twici
thrice ;
White ribbons flourish, and a stout shout out
That upward goes, shows Rose knows those
bows' woes !
THE SABBATH.
JAMES GRAHAME.
^^:|2o ,
j^l^OW still the morning of the hallowed I Calmness sits throned on yon unmovinj
day ! | cloud.
Mute is the voice of rural labor, hushed
The ploughboy's whistle and the milk-maid's
song.
The scythe lies glittering in the dewy
wreath
Of tedded grass mingled with fading flowers.
That yestermorn bloomed, waving in the
breeze ;
Sounds the most faint attract the ear, — the
hum
Of early bee, the trickling of the dew.
The distant bleating, midway up the hill.
To him who wanders o'er the upland leas
The blackbird's note comes mellower from
the dale ;
And sweeter from the sky the gladsome
lark
Warbles his heaven-tuned song; the lu'nin^
brook
Murmurs more gently down the deep-worn
glen ;
While from yon lowly roof, whose circling
smoke
O'er mounts the mist, is heard at intervals
MY MOTHER'S BIBLE.
611
The voice of psalms, the simple song of
Stops, and looks back, and stops, and looks
praise.
With dove-like wings Peace o'er yon village
broods ;
on man.
Her deadliest foe. The toil-worn horse, set
free.
The dizzying mill-wheel rests; the anvil's
din
Hath ceased ; all, all around is quietness.
Less fearful on this day, the limping hare
Unheedful of the pasture, roams at large ;
And as his stiff, unwieldy bulk he rolls,
His iron-armed hoofs gleam in the morning
ray.
MY MOTHERS BIBLE.
ANONYMOUS.
IN one of the shelves in my hbraiy, surrounded by volumes of all kinds
on various subjects, and in various languages, stands an old book,
in its plain covering of brown paper, unprepossessing to the eye, and
apparently out of place among the more pretentious volumes that
stand by its side. To the eye of a stranger it has certainly
neither beauty nor comeliness. Its covers are worn ; its leaves
marred by long use ; yet, old and worn as it is, to me it is the most beauti-
ful and most valuable book on my shelves. No other awakens such asso-
ciations, or so appeals to all that is best and noblest within me. It is,
or rather it was, my mother's Bible — companion of her best and holiest
hours, source of her unspeakable joy and consolation. From it she derived
the principles of a truly Christian life and character. It was the light to
her feet, and the lamp to her path. It was constantly by her side ; and,
as her steps tottered in the advancing pilgrimage of life, and her eves
grew dim with age, more and more precious to her became the well-worn
pages.
One morning, just as the stars were fading into the dawn of the
coming Sabbath, the aged pilgrim passed on beyond the stars and beyond
the morning, and entered into the rest of the eternal Sabbath — to look
upon the face of Him of whom the law and the prophets had spoken, and
whom, not having seen, she had loved. And now, no legacy is to me more
precious than that old Bible. Years have passed; but it stands there on
its shelf, eloquent as ever, witness of a beautiful life that is finished, and a
silent monitor to the living. In hours of trial and sorrow it says, " Be
not cast down, my son ; for thou shalt yet praise Him who is the health of
thy countenance and thy God." '- In moments of weakness and fear it
says, " Be strong, my son ; and quit yourself manfully," When some-
612
BREAD ON THE WATERS.
times, from the cares and conflicts of external life, I come back to the
study, weary of the world and tired of men — of men that are so hard and
selfish, and a world that is so unfeeling — and the strings of the soul have
become untuned and discordant, I seem to hear that Book saying, as with
the well-remembered tones of a voice long silent, "Let not your heart be
troubled. For what is your life? It is even as a vapor." Then my
troubled spirit becomes calm ; and the little world, that had grown so
great and so formidable, sinks into its true place again. I am peaceful, I
am strong.
There is no need to take down the volume from the shelf, or open it.
A glance of the eye is sufficient. Memory and the law of association sup-
ply the rest. Yet there are occasions when it is otherwise ; hours in life
when some deeper grief has troubled the heart, some darker, heavier cloud
is over the spirit and over the dwelling, and when it is a comfort to take
down that old Bible and search its pages. Then, for a time, the latest edi-
tions, the original languages, the notes and commentaries, and all the
critical apparatus which the scholar gathers around him for the study of
the Scriptures, are laid aside ; and the plain old English Bible that was
my mother's is taken from the shelf.
BREAD ON THE WATERS.
hmA
GEORGE L. CATLIN.
' ^'Jf^^^TER," the little fellow said,
^<>J^ " Please give me a dime to buy
some bread."
, I turned to look at the ragged form,
¥ That, in the midst of the pitiless storm,
j Pinched and haggard and old with
care,
In accents pleading, was standing there.
'Twas a little boy not twelve years old :
He shivered and shook in the bitter cold.
His eyes were red — with weeping, I fear —
And adown his cheeks there rolled a tear
E'en then.
His misery struck me dumb ;
'Twas a street in a crowded city slum.
Where an errrand of duty led ray feet
That day, through the storm and blinding
sleet.
"Poor little fellow !" at last I said,
" Have you no father?"
"No, he's dead!"
The answer came : " You've a mother, then ?"
" Yes, sir," he said, with a sob : " She's been
Sick for a year, and the doctor said
She'd never' again get up from bed."
" You are hungry, too !" I asked in pain.
As I looked at his poor, wan face again.
'' Hungry," he said, with a bitter groan
That would melt to pity a heart of stone ;
" I am starved ; we are all starving," he said,
" We haven't had a crust of bread —
Me, nor mother, nor baby Kate —
Since yesterday morning."
THE BELFRY PIGEON.
613
I did not wait
To ask him more. " Come, come," I cried,
" You shall not hunger ;" and at my side
His poor little pattering footsteps fell
On my ear with a sadness I cannot tell ;
But his eyes beamed bright when he saw me
stop
Bsfore the door of a baker's shop,
And we entered.
" Now eat away, my boy,
As much as you like," I said. With joy,
And a soft expression of childish grace,
He looked up into my friendly face,
And sobbed, as he strove to hide a tear :
" Oh, if mother and baby Kate were hero !"
" But eat," said I, " never mind them now,"
A thoughtml look stole over his brow,
And lo ! from his face the joy had fled.
"What! While they're starving at home I"
he said :
" Oh, no, sir! I'm hungry, indeed, 'tis true.
But I cannot eat till they've had some too."
The tears came rushing — I can't tell why —
To my eyes, as he spoke these words. Said I:
" God bless you ! Here, you brave little man,
Here, carry home all the bread you can."
Then I loaded him down with loaves, until
He could carry no more. I paid the bill ;
And before he could quite understand
Just what I was doing, into his hand
I slipped a bright new dollar ; then said,
" Good-by," and away on my journey sped.
'Twas four years ago. But one day last May,
As I wandered by chance through East
Broadway,
A cheery voice accosted me. Lo !
'Twas the self-same lad of years ago,
Though larger grown — and his looks, in truth.
Bespoke a sober, industrious youth.
" Mister," he said, " I'll never forget
The kindness you showed when last we met.
I work at a trade, and mother is well,
So is baby Kate ; and I want to tell
You this — that we owe it all to you.
'Twas you — don't blush, sir — that helped us
through
In our darkest hour ; and we always say
Our luck has been better since that day
When you sent me home with bread to fe^d
Those starving ones in their hour of need."
THE BELFRY PIGEOK
N. P. WILLIS.
^N the cross-beam under the Old South
bell
The nest of a pigeon is builded well.
In summer and winter that bird is
there.
Out and in with the morning air.
I love to see him track the street,
With his wary eye and active feet ;
And I often watch him as he springs.
Circling the steeple with easy wings,
Till across the dial his shade has passed,
And the belfry edge is gained at last.
'Tis a bird I love, with its brooding note,
And the trembling throb in its mottled throat ;
There's a human look in its swelling breast,
And the gentle curve of its lowly crest;
And I often stop with the fear I feel.
He runs so close to the rapid wheel.
Whatever is rung on that noisy bell.
Chime of the hour or funeral knell.
The dove in the belfry must hear it well.
When the tongue swings out to the midnight
moon.
When the sexton cheerily rings for noon.
When the clock strikes clear at morning ligh*,
When the child is waked with " nine at night,"
When the chimes play soft in the Sabbath air.
Filling the spirit with tones of prayer,
Whatever tale in the bell is heard.
614
THE RESPONSIVE CHORD.
He broods on his folded feet, unstirred,
Or, rising half in his rounded nest,
He takes the time to smooth his breast ;
Then drops again, with filmed eyes,
And sleeps as the last vibration dies.
Sweet bird ! I would that I could be
A hermit in the crowd like thee !
With wings to fly to wood and glen.
Thy lot, like mine, is cast with men ;
And daily, with unwilling feet,
I tread, like thee, the crowded street ;
But, unlike me, when day is o'er,
Thou canst dismiss the world, and soar ;
Or, at a half-felt wish for rest,
Canst smooth the feathers on thy breast,
And drop, forgetful, to thy nest.
I would that in such wings of gold,
I could my weary heart up-fold ;
I would I could look down unmoved,
(Unloving as I am unloved,)
And while the world throngs on beneath.
Smooth down my cares, and calmly breathe ;
And never sad with others' sadness.
And never glad with others' gladness,
Listen, unstirred, to knell or chime.
And, lapped in quiet, bide my time.
THE RESPONSIVE CHORD.
J. WILLIAM JONES.
ijiN' tne early spring of 1863, when the Confederate and Federal armies
iP were confronting each other on the opposite hills of Stafford and
Jk Spottsylvania, two bands chanced one evening, at the same hour, to
I begin to discourse sweet music on either bank of the river. A large
f crowd of the soldiers of both armies gathered to listen to the music,
1 the friendly pickets not interfering, and soon the bands began to answer
each other. First the band on the northern bank would play " Star
Spangled Banner," " Hail Columbia," or some other national air, and at
its conclusion the " boys in blue " would cheer most histily. And then
the band on the southern bank would respond with " Dixie " or " Bonnie
Blue Flag," or some other Southern melody, and the " boys in gray "
would attest their approbation with an " old Confederate yell." But pres-
ently one of the bands struck up, in sweet and plaintive notes which were
wafted across the beautiful Rappahannock, were caught up at once by the
other band and swelled into a grand anthem which touched every heart,
" Home, Sweet Home ! " At the conclusion of this piece there went up a
simultaneous shout from both sides of the river — cheer followed cheer, and
those hills, which had so recently resounded with hostile guns, echoed and
re-echoed the glad acclaim. A chord had been struck responsive to which
the hearts of enemies — enemies then — could beat in unison ; and, on both
sides of the river,
" Something down the soldier's cheek
Washed off the stains of powder."
THE TRUE TEMPLE.
615
KM
^¥¥:t^l£,'*
i^i^^tmf^^.
THE TRUE TEMPLE.
«|k|OT where high towers rear
Their lofty heads above some costly
'^' fane,
Doth God our Heavenly Father on-
ly deign
Our humble prayers to hear, — ■
Not where the lapsing hours
The cankering footprints of the spoiler, time,
Are idly noted with a sounding chime,
From proud cathedral towers ;
Not where the chiseled stone.
And shadowy niche, and shaft and architrave,
The dim old chancel, or the solemn nave
Seem vast and chill and lone :
Not 'neath the vaulted dome,
Or fretted roof, magnificently flung,
O'er cushioned seats, or curtained desks oVm-
hung
With rare work of the loom ;
Not where the sunlight falls
From the stained oriel with a chastened shade.
O'er sculptured tombs where mighty ones aro
laid,
Till the last trumpet calb ;
Not where rich music floats
Through the hushed air until the soul isstirred,
As 't were a chord from that bright land as
heard
When angels swell the notes.
616
THE DRUMMER BOY.
Perchance 'tis well to raise
These palace temples, thus rich wrought, to
Him
Who 'midst His thousand thousand cherubims
Can stoop to list our praise.
Yet when our spirits bow
And sue for mercy at His sacred shrine,
Can all the trappings of the teeming mine
Light up the darkened brow ?
no I — God may be there —
His smile may on such costly altars rest ;
Yet are His humbler sanctuaries blest
With equal love and care.
Aye, wheresoe'er on earth
Or on the shore or on tlie far blue sea
His children, offspring of the true, may be,
There hath his spirit birth.
Our sins may be forgiven.
As, weak and few, our prayers go up to God ;
E'en though our temple floor be earth's green
sod.
Its roof the vault of heaven.
THE DRUMMER BOY.
AN INCIDENT OF THE CRIMEAN WAR.
LiPTAIN Graham, the
men wei
saym
Ye would want a drummer lad,
So I've brought my boy Sandie.
Tho' my heart is woful sad ;
But nae bread is left to feed us,
And no siller to buy more,
For the gudeman sleeps forever.
Where the heather blossoms o'er.
" Sandie, make your manners quickly,
Play your blithest measure true —
Give us ' Flowers of Edinboro','
While yon fifer plays it too.
Captain, heard ye e'er a player
Strike in truer time than he?"
" Nay, in truth, brave Sandie Murray
Drummer of our corps shall be."
" I give ye thanks— but. Captain, maybe
Ye will hae a kindly care
For the friendless, lonely laddie,
When the battle wark is sair ■
For Sandie's aye been good and gentle,
And I've nothing else to love.
Nothing— but the grave off yonder,
And the Father up above."
Then her rough hand gently laying
On the curl-encircled head.
She blest her boy. The tent was silent,
And not another word was said ;
For Captain Graham was sadly dreaming
Of a benison, long ago,
Breathed above his head, then golden.
Bending now, and touched with snow.
"Good-bye, Sandie" "Good-bye, mother,
I'll come back some summer day ;
Don't you fear — they don't shoot drummers
Ever. Do they, Captain Gra — ?
One more kiss — watch forme, mother.
You will know 'tis surely me
Coming home — for you will hear me
Playing soft the reveille."
After battle. Moonbeams ghastly
Seemed to link in strange affright.
As the scudding clouds before them
Shadowed faces dead and white ;
And the night wind softly whispered,
When low moans its light wing bore —
Moans that ferried spirits over
Death's dark wave to yonder shore.
Wandering where a footstep careless
Might go splashing down in blood.
Or a helpless hand lie grasping
Death and daisies from the sod —
THE BALLOT-BOX.
G17
Captain Graham walked swift onward,
While a faintly-beaten drum
Quickened heart and step together •
" Sandie Murray ! See, I come!
" Is it thus I find you, laddie ?
Wounded, lonely, lying here,
Playing thus the reveille ?
See — the morning is not near."
A moment paused the drummer boy.
And lifted up his drooping head :
" Oh, Captain Graham, the light is coming,
'Tis morning, and my prayers are said.
" Morning ! See, the plains grow brighter —
Morning — and I'm going home ;
That is why I play the measure,
Mother will not see me come;
But you'll tell her, won't you, Captain — "
Hush, the boy has spoken true ;
To him the day has dawned forever.
Unbroken by the night's tattoo.
THE BALLOT-BOX.
E. II. CHAPIN.
f^^ AM aware that the ballot-box is not everywhere a consistent symbol ;
fiJs but to a large degree it is so. I know what miserable associations
cluster around this instrument of popular power. I know that the
arena in which it stands is trodden into mire by the feet of reckless
¥ ambition and selfish greed. The wire-pulling and the bribing, the
^ pitiful truckling and the grotesque compromises, the exaggeration and
the detraction, the melo-dramatic issues and the sham patriotism, the party
watchwords and the party nicknames, the schemes of the few paraded as
the will of the many, the elevation of men whose only worth is in the votes
they command, — vile men, whose hands you would not grasp in friendship,
whose presence you would not tolerate by your fireside — incompetent men,
whose fitness is not in their capacity as functionaries, or legislators, but as
organ pipes ; — the snatching at the slices and ofial of office, the intemper-
ance and the violence, the finesse and the falsehood, the gin and the glory ;
these are indeed but too closely identified with that political agitation
which circles around the ballot box.
But, after all, they are not essential to it. They are only the masks
of a genuine grandeur and importance. For it is a grand thing, — some-
thing which involves profound doctrines of right, — something which has
cost ages of effort and sacrifice, — it is a grand thing that here, at last,
each voter has just the weight of one man; no more, no less; and the
weakest, by virtue of his recognized manhood, is as strong as the mightiest.
And consider, for a moment, what it is to cast a vote. It is the token o)
inestimable privileges, and involves the responsibilities of an hereditary
trust. It has passed into your hands as a right, reaped from fields of suf-
618
THE REVEILLE.
fering and blood. The grandeur of history is represented in your act.
Men have wrought with pen and tongue, and pined in dungeons, and died
on scaffolds, that you might obtain this symbol of freedom, and enjoy this
consciousness of a sacred individuality. To the ballot have been trans-
mitted, as it were, the dignity of the sceptre and the potency of the
sword.
And that which is so potent as a right, is also pregnant as a duty ;
a duty for the present and for the future. If you will, that folded leaf
becomes a tongue of justice, a voice of order, a force of imperial law;
securing rights, abolishing abuses, erecting new institutions of truth and
love. And, however you will, it is the expression of a solemn responsibil-
ity, the exercise of an immeasurable power for good or for evil, now and
hereafter. It is the medium through which you act upon your country, —
the organic nerve which incorporates you with its life and welfare. There
is no agent with which the possibilities of the republic are more intimately
involved, none upon v/hich we can fall back with more confidence than the
ballot-box.
THE REVEILLE.
T. B. HART.
^ARK ! I hear the tramp of thousands,
ill And of armed men the hum —
Lo ! a nation's hosts have gathered
r Round the quick alarming drum,
Saying, " Come,
Freemen, come.
Ere your heritage be wasted !" said the quick
alarming drum.
" Let me of my heart take counsel —
War is not of Life the sum ;
Who shall stay and reap the harvest
When the autumn days shall come ?"
But the drum
Echoed, "Come!
Death shall reap the braver harvest !" said
the solemn-sounding drum.
" But when won the coming battle,
What of profit springs therefrom ?
What if conquest, subjugation,
Even greater ills become ?"
But the drum
Answered, "Come!
You must do the sum to prove it !" said the
Yankee-answering drum.
What if, 'mid the cannon's thunder.
Whistling shot and bursting bomb,
When my brethren fall around me,
Should my heart grow cold and numb ?"
But the drum
Answered, " Come !
Better there in death united than in life a
recreant — come !"
Thus they answered— hoping, fearing—
Some in faith, and doubting some-
Till a trumpet-voice, proclaiming,
Said, " My chosen people, come I"
Then the drum,
Lo ! was dumb,
For the great heart of the nation, throbbing
answered, " Lord we come I"
LABOR IS WORSHIP.
619
SEVEN TIMES TWO.
JEAN INGELOW.
OP^OU bells in the steeple, ring, ring out | " Turn again, turn again," once they rang
cheerily
While a boy listened alone :
Made his heart yearn again, musing so
wearily
All by himself on a stone.
Poor bells! I forgive you; your good days
are over,
No magical sense conveys, , And mine, they are yet to be ;
And bells have forgotten their old art of j No listening, no longing, shall aught, aught
telling discover :
The fortune of future days. I You leave the story to me.
your
;a^^ How many soever they be,
¥^ And let the brown meadow-lark's
'^ note as he ranges
\ Come over, come over to me.
Yet birds' clearest carol by fall or by swell-
LABOR IS WORSHIP.
FRANCES S. OSGOOD.
||AUSE not to dream of the future be- i From the rough sod blows the soft-breathinc
flower ;
From the small insect, the rich coral bower ;
Only man, in the plan, ever shrinks from
his part.
^■^^ fore us
Pause not to weep the wild cares that
(|'% come o'er us
f Hark, how Creation's deep, musical
'I chorus,
■j Uniutermitting, goes up into
heaven !
Never the ocean wave falters in flowing ;
Never the little seed stops in its growing ;
More and more richly the rose-heart
keeps glowing.
Till from its nourishing stem it i^
riven.
" Labor is worship !" — the robin is sing-
" Labor is worship !" — the wild bee is
ringing ;
Listen ! that eloquent whisper upspring-
ing
Speaks to thy soul from out Nature's great ; Labor is life ! 'Tis the still water faileth ;
heart. I Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth ;
From the dark cloud flows the life-giving ; Keep the watch wound, for the dark rust as
shower ; saileth ;
620
LABOR IS WORSHIP.
Flowers droop and die in the stillness of
noon.
Labor is glory !— the flying cloud lightens ;
Only the waving wing changes and brightens ;
Idle hearts only the dark future frightens ;
Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep
them in tune.
Labor is rest from the sorrows that greet us,
Rest from all petty vexations that meet us.
Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us,
How his strong arm, in its stalwart pride
sweeping,
True as a sunbeam the swift sickle guides
Labor is wealth ! In the st-a the pearl grow-
eth;
Rich the queen's robe from the frail cocoon
floweth ;
From the fine acorn the strong forest blow
eth;
Temple and statue the marble block
hides.
Rest from world-sirens that lure us to ill.
Work— and pure slumbers shall wait on thy
pillow ;
Work — thou shalt riile over Care's coming
billow ;
Lie not down v.'caried 'neath Woe's weeping-
willow ;
Work with a stout heart and resolute will !
Labor is health ! Lo, the husbandman reaping,
How through his veins goes the life current
leaping !
Droop not, though shame, sin, and anguish
are round thee ;
Bravely fling off the cold chain that hath
bound thee ;
Look to yon pure heaven smiling beyond thee ;
Rest not content in thy darkness — a clod.
Work for some good, be it ever so slowly ;
Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly ;
Labor! all labor is noble and holy ;
Let thy great deeds be thy j)rayer to thy
God.
THE TOMBS OF WESTMINSTER. 621
THE TOMBS OF WESTMINSTER.
WASHINGTON IRVING.
|l^ ROSE and prepared to leave the abbey. As I descended the flight of
III steps which leads into the body of the building, my eye was caught
^ by the shrine of Edward the Confessor, and I ascended the small
^^ staircase that conducts to it, to take from thence a general survey of
I this wilderness of tombs. The shrine is elevated upon a kind of
1 platform, and close around it are the sepulchres of various kings and
queens. From this eminence the eye looks down between pillars and
funeral trophies to the chapels and chambers below, crowded with tombs ;
where warriors, prelates, courtiers and statesmen, lie mouldering in their
beds of darkness. Close by me stood the great chair of coronation,
rudely carved of oak, in the barbarous taste of a remote and Gothic age.
The scene seemed almost as if contrived, with theatrical artifice, to produce
an effect upon the beholder. Here was a type of the beginning and the end
of human pomp and power ; here it was literally but a step from the
throne to the sepulchre. "Would not one think that these incongruous
mementos had been gathered together as a lesson to living greatness ? —
to show it, even in the moment of its proudest exaltation, the neglect and
dishonor to which it must soon arrive, how soon that crown which encircles
its brow must pass away, and it must lie down in the dust and disgraces of
the tomb, and be trampled upon by the feet of the meanest of the multitude.
The last beams of day were now faintly streaming through the
painted windows in the high vaults above me; the lower parts of the
abbey were already wrapped in the obscurity of twilight. The chapels
and aisles grew darker and darker. The effigies of the kings faded into
shadows ; the marble figures of the monuments assumed strange shapes in
the uncertain light; the evening breeze crept through the aisles like the
cold breath of the grave ; and even the distant footfall of a verger, trav-
ersing the Poet's Corner, had something strange and dreary in its sound.
I slowly retraced my morning's walk, and as I passed out at the portals of
the cloisters, the door, closing with a jarring noise behind me, filled the
whole building with echoes.
I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the objects I
had been contemplating, but found they were already fallen into indistinct-
ness and confusion. Names, inscriptions, trophies, had all become con-
founded in my recollection, though I had scarcely taken my foot from ofif
the threshold. What, thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchres but
622
THE LOST CHURCH.
a treasury of humiliation ; a huge pile of reiterated homilies on the empti-
ness of renown, and the certainty of oblivion ! It is, indeed, the empire
of death; his great shadowy palace, where he sits in state, mocking at the
relics of human glory, and spreading dust and forgetfulness on the monu-
ments of princes. How idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a
name! Time is ever silently turning over his pages; we are too much
engrossed by the story of the present, to think of the characters and anec-
dotes that gave interest to the past, and each age is a volume thrown aside
to be speedily forgotten. The idol of to-day pushes the hero of yesterday
out of our recollection ; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor
to-morrow. '' Our fathers," says Sir Thomas Brown, " find their graves
in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our sur-
vivors." History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and
controversy ; the inscription moulders from the tablet ; the statue falls from
the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand ;
and their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust? What is the
security of a tomb, or the perpetuity of an embalmment ? The remains
of Alexander the Great have been scattered to the wind, and his empty
sarcophagus is now the mere curiosity of a museum. " The Egyptian
mummies, which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth ;
Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams."
What then is to insure this pile which now towers above me from
sharing the fate of mightier mausoleums ? The time must come when its
gilded vaults, which now spring so loftily, shall lie in rubbish beneath the
feet ; when, instead of the sound of melody and praise, the wind shall
whistle through the broken arches, and the owl hoot from the scattered
tower — when the garish sunbeam shall break into these gloomy mansions
of death, and the ivy twine round the fallen column ; and the fox-glove
hang its blossoms about the nameless urn, as if in mockery of the dead.
Thus man passes away ; his name perishes from record and recollection ;
his history is as a tale that is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin.
THE LOST CHURCIL
FROM THE GERMAN OF J. L. UHLAND.
riN yon dense wood full oft a bell
Is heard o'erhead in pealings hollow
f»? Yet whence it comes can no one tell,
W Nor scarce its dark tradition follow.
For winds the chimes are wafting o'er,
Of the lost church in mystery shrouded
The pathway, too, is known no more,
That once the pious pilgrims cro'vded.
I lately in that wood did stray.
CLEAR THE WAY.
623
Where not a footworn path extended,
And from corruptions of the day
My inmost soul to God ascended ;
And in the silent, wild repose
I heard that ringing deeper, clearer ;
The higher my aspirings rose.
The sound descended fuller, nearer.
That sound my senses so entranced.
My soul grew so retired and lowly,
I ne'er could tell how it had chanced
That I had reached a state so holy.
A century, it seemed to me,
Or more, had passed while I was dreaming.
When I a radiant place could see
Above the mists, with sunlight streaming.
The heavens a deep, dark blue appeared,
The sun's fierce light and heat were flow-
ing.
And in the golden light upreared,
A proud cathedral pile was glowing.
It seemed to me the clouds so bright.
As if on wings, that pile was raising,
Until its spires were lost to sight
Within the blessed heavens blazing.
And lo ! that sweet bell's music broke
In quivering streams from out ihe tower ;
No mortal hand its tones awoke —
That bell was rung by holy power.
And through my beating heart, too, swept
That power in full and perfect measure ;
And then in that high dome I stepped
With faltering feet and tim'rous pleasure.
Yet can I not in words make known
What then I felt. On windows painted,
And darkly clear, around me shown.
Were pious scenes of martyrs sainted.
Thus wondrous clear mine eyes before,
Did they of life a picture show me ;
And out into a world I saw,
Of women and God's warriors holy.
I knelt before the altar there —
Devotion, love, all through me stealing —
And all the Heaven's glory fair
Was o'er me painted on the ceiling ;
And lo ! when next I upward gazed,
The dome's vast arch had burst, and —
wonder ! —
The Heaven's gate wide open blazed.
And every veil was rent asunder!
What glories on mine eyes did fall
While thus in reverent awe still kneeling,
What holier sounds I heard than all
Of trumpet blast or organ pealing,
No words possess the power to tell !
Who truly would such bliss be feeling.
Go listen to the wondrous bell
That, weird-like, through the wood is peal-
ing.
CLEAR THE WAY.
CHARLES MACKAY
_^5.
rif'lr EN of thought, be up and stirring
night and day :
Sow the seed — withdraw the cur-
y^^\i^^ tain — clear the way !
^ Men of action, aid and cheer them,
I as ye may !
i There's a fount about to stream.
There's a light about to beam.
There's a warmth about to glow.
There's a flower about to blow ;
42
There's a midnight blackness changing into
gi-ay.
Men of thought and men of action, clear
the way !
Once the welcome light has broken, who
shall say
What the uuimagined glories of the day ?
What the evil that shall perish in its ray ?
Aid the dawning, tongue and pen ;
624
THE NOBLE REVENGE.
Aid it, hopes of honest men,
Aid it, paper ; aid it, type ;
Aid it, for the hour is ripe.
And our earnest must not slacken into
play.
Men of thought and men of action, clear the
way !
Lo ! a cloud's about to vanish from the
day;
And a brazen wrong to crumble into clay.
Lo ! the right's about to conquer; clear th-;
way!
With the right shall many more
Enter smiling at the door :
With the giant wrong shall fall
Many others, great and small.
That for ages long have held us for their
prey.
Men of thought and men of action, clear the
way !
THE NOBLE REVENGE.
iMiHE coffin was a plain one — a poor miserable pine coffin.
^1^ on the top ; no lining of white satin for the pale brow ;
2
No flowers
no smooth
ribbons about the coarse shroud. The brown hair was laid de-
cently back, but there was no crimped cap with neat tie beneath
the chin. The sufferer from cruel poverty smiled in her sleep ;
she had found bread, rest, and health.
" I want to see my mother," sobbed a poor little child, as the under-
taker screwed down the top.
" You cannot ; get out of the way, boy ; why don't somebody take
the brat ? "
" Only let me see her one minute ! " cried the helpless orphan, clutch-
ing the side of the charity box, and as he gazed upon the rough box,
agonized tears streamed down the cheeks on which no childish bloom ever
lingered. Oh ! it was painful to hear him cry the words, " Only once, let
me see my mother, only once ! "
Quickly and brutally the heartless monster struck the boy away, so
that he reeled with the blow. For a moment the boy stood panting with
grief and rage — his blue eyes distended, his lips sprang apart, fire glittered
through his eyes as he raised his little arm with a most unchildish laugh,
and screamed, "When I am a man, I'll be revenged for that ! "
There was a coffin and a heap of earth between the mother and the
poor forsaken child — a monument much stronger than granite built in the
boy's heart the memory of the heartless deed.
The court-house was crowded to suffocation.
" Does any one appear as this man's counsel ? " asked the Judge.
TWO VIEWS.
625
There was a silence when he had finished, until, with lips tightly
pressed together, a look of strange intelligence blended with a haughty re-
serve upon his handsome features, a young man stepped forward with a firm
tread and kindly eye to plead for the erring friendless. He was a stranger,
but at the first sentence there was silence. The splendor of his genius
entranced — convinced.
The man who could not find a friend was acquitted.
" May God bless you, sir ; I cannot," he said.
" I want no thanks," replied the stranger.
" I — I — I believe you are unknown to me."
" Man, I will refresh your memory. Twenty years ago, this day, you
struck a broken-hearted little boy away from his dear mother's coffin. I
was' that boy."
The man turned livid.
" Have you rescued rae then, to take my life ? "
"No, I have a sweeter revenge. I have saved the life of a man whose
brutal conduct has rankled in my breast for the last twenty years. Go
then, and remember the tears of a friendless child."
The man bowed his head in shame, and went from the presence oi
magnanimit}'' as grand to him as it was incomprehensible.
TWO VIEWS.
^ old farm-house with meadows wide,
And sweet with clover on each side ;
A blight-eyed boy who looks from out
1 The door with woodbine wreathed about,
i And wishes his one thought all day :
« " Oh ! if I could but fly away
From this dull spot the world to see,
How very happy I should be ! "
Amid the city's constant din,
A man who round the world has been,
Who, 'mid the tumult and the throng
Is thinking, thinking all day long ;
" Oh could I only tread once more
The field-path to the farm house door,
The old green-meadow could I see,
How very happy I should be ! "
626
THE LULL OF ETERNITY.
THE LULL OF ETERNITY.
FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL.
jr|¥pANY a voice has echoed the cry for
^^^ " a lull in life,"
^^ Fainting under the noontide, faint-
ing under the strife.
Is it the wisest longing? Is it the
.f truest gain ?
J Is not the Master withholding pos-
sible loss and pain ?
Perhaps if He sent the lull, we might fail of
our heart's desire !
Swift and sharp the concussion, striking out
living fire ;
Nightly and long the friction resulting in
living glow,
Heat that is force of the spirit, energy fruit-
ful in flow.
What if the blast should falter ? What if
the fire be stilled ?
What if the molten metal cool ere the mould
be filled ?
What if the hands hang down when a work
is almost done ?
What if the sword be dropped when a battle
won?
Past many an unseen maelstrom the strong
wind drives the skiff,
When a lull might drift it onward to fatal
swirl or cliff.
Faithful the guide who spurreth, sternly for-
bidding repose,
When treacherous slumber lureth to pause
amid Alpine snows.
The lull of Time may be darkness, falling in
lonely night,
But the lull of eternity neareth, rising in full,
calm light :
The earthly lull may be silence, desolate,
deep and cold,
But the heavenly lull shall be music, sweeter
a thousand fold.
Here it is "calling apart," and the place may
be desert indeed.
Leaving and losing the blessings linked with
our busy need.
There ! why should I say it ? hath not the
heart leaped up,
Swift and glad, to the contrast, filling the full,
full cup !
Still shall the key-word, ringing, echo the
same sweet " Come !"
" Come " with the blessed myriads, safe in the
Father's home ;
" Come," for the work is over; " Come," for
the feast is spread ;
" Come," for the crown of glory waits for the
weary head.
When the rest of faith is ended, and the rest
of hope is past.
The rest of love remaineth. Sabbath of life,
at last.
No more fleeting hours, hurrying down the
day,
But golden stillness of glory, never to pass
away.
Time, with its pressure of moments, mocking
us as they fell.
With relentless beat of a footstep, hour by
hour, the knell
Of a hope or an aspiration, then shall have
passed away,
Leaving a grand, calm leisure, leisure of end-
less day.
Leisure that cannot be dimmed by the touch
of time or place ;
Finding its counterpart measure only in in-
finite space ;
Full, and yet ever filling ; leisure without
alloy,
Eternity's seal on the lim'tless charter of
heavenly joy.
FORMATION OF ICEBERGS.
627
Leisure to fathom the fathomless, leisure to
seek and to know
Marvels and secrets and glories Eternity
only can show .
Leisure of holiest gladness, leisure of holiest
love,
Leisure to drink from the fountain of infinite
peace above.
Art thou patiently toiling, waiting the Jilas-
ter's will.
For a rest that seems never nearer, a hush
that is far off still ?
Does it seem that the noisy city never will
let thee hear
The sound of His gentle footsteps, drawing,
it may be, near ?
Does it seem that the blinding dazzle of noon-
day glare and heat
Is a fiery veil between thy heart and visions
high and sweet?
What though a lull in life may never be
made for thee ?
Soon shall a "better thing" be thine, the
Lull of Eternity.
FORMATION OF ICEBERGS.
ELISHA KENT KANE.
j^T an island known in the Esquimaux tongue as Ekarasak, there lived
a deputy assistant of the Eoyal Greenland Company, a worthy
man by the name of Grundeitz. It seems that the deep water of
Omenaks Fiord is resorted to for halibut fishing, an operation which
is carried on at the base of the cliffs, with very long lines of whale-
While Mr. Grundeitz, in a jolly-boat belonging to the company.
was fishin
gup
the fiord, his
attention was called to a large number of
bearded seals, who were
sporting about beneath
one of the glaciers that
protruded into the bay.
While approaching for
the purpose .of a shot,
he heard a strange
sound, repeated at in-
tervals like the ticking
of a clock, and appar-
ently proceeding from
the body of the ice.
At the same time the
seal, which the moment
before had been per-
fectly unconcerned, dis-
appeared entirely, and his Esquimaux attendants, probably admonished by
C28
HOME, SWEET HOME.
previous experience, insisted upon removing the boat to a greater distance.
It was well they did so ; for, gazing at the white face of the glacier at the
distance of about a mile, a loud explosive detonation, like the crack of a
whip vastly exaggerated, reached their ears, and at the same instant, with
reverberations like near thunder, a great mass fell into the sea, obscuring
everything in a cloud of foam and mist.
The undulations which radiated from this great centre of displace-
ment were fearful. Fortunately for Mr. Grundeitz, floating bodies do not
change their position very readily under the action of propagated waves,
and the boat, in consequence, remained outside the grinding fragments ;
but the commotion was intense, and the rapid succession of huge swells
such as to make the preservation of the little party almost miraculous.
The detached mass slowly adjusted itself after some minutes, but it
was nearly an hour before it attained its equilibrium. It then floated on
the sea, an iceberg.
HOME, SWEEI HOME.
JOHN HOWARD PAYNE.
ID pleasures and palaces though we
^1^^^ may roam,
"flfe^'^f Be it ever so humble there's no
)T place like home !
A charm from the skies seems to
hallow us here
Which, seek through the world is ne'er
met with elsewhere
Home ! home, sweet home !
There's no place like home !
An exile from home, splendor dazzles in
vain !
0, give me my lowly thatched cottage
again !
The birds singing gayly that came to my
call;
0, give me sweet peace of mind, dearer than
all!
Home! home, sweet home!
There's no place like home !
OUR LAMBS.
629
OUR LAMBS.
pli LOVED them so,
Ul Thatwhen the Elder Shepherd of the fold
f^? Came, covered with the storm and pale
# and cold,
!* And begged for one of my sweet lambs
to hold,
I bade Ilim go.
He claimed the pet,
A little fondling thing, that to my breast
Clung always, either in quiet or unrest — •
I thought of all my lambs I loved him best,
And yet— and yet —
I laid him down
In those white shrouded arms, with bitter
tears ;
For some voice told me that, in after years.
He should know naught of passion, grief or
fears.
As I had known.
And yet again
That Elder Shepherd came. — My heart grew
faint.
He claimed another lamb, with sadder plaint,
Another ! She, who gentle as a saint.
Ne'er gave me pain.
Aghast, I turned away,
There sat she, lovely as an angel's dream,
Her golden locks with sunlight all agleam.
Her holy eyes, with heaven in their beam.
I knelt to pray.
'" Is it Thy will ?
My Father, say, must this pet lamb be given?
Oh! Thou hast many such in heaven."
And a soft voice said ; " Nobly hast thou
striven,
But — peace, be still."
Oh how I wept.
And clasped her to my bosom, with a wild
And yearning love — my lamb, mv pleasant
child.
Her, too, I gave. The little angel smiled,
And slept.
' Go ! go!" I cried:
For once again that Shepherd laid his hand
Upon the noblest of our household band.
Like a pale spectre, there he took his stand.
Close to his side.
And yet how wondrous sweet
I The look with which he heard my passionate
I cry:
" Touch not my lamb ; for him, oh ! let me
I die!"
" A little while," he said, with smile and sigh,
" Again to meet."
Hopeless I fell ;
And when I rose, the light had burned so low,
So faint, I could not see my darling go :
He had not bidden me farewell, but, oh !
I felt farewell.
More deeply far
Than if my arms had compassed that slight
frame,
Though could I but have heard him call my
name —
" Dear Mother !" — but in heaven 'twill be the
same.
There burns my star !
He will not take
Another lamb, I thought, for only one
Of the dear fold is spared to be my sun.
My guide, my mourner when this life is i^lone.
My heart would break.
Oh ! with what thrill
I heard him enter : but I did not know
(For it was dark) that he had robbed me so.
The idol of ray soul — he could not go.
Heart ! be still I
Came morning, can I tell
How this poor frame its sorrowful tenant
kept?
For waking, tears were mine ; I, sleeping,
wept.
And days, months, years, that weary vigil
kept.
Alas ! " Farewell."
630
THE CLOCKWORK OF THE SKIES.
How often it is said !
Ay ! it is well.
I sit and think, and wonder too, some time,
Well with my lambs, and with their earthly
How ,it will seem, when, in that happier clime
guide.
It never will ring out like funeral chime
There, pleasant rivers wander they beside,
Over the dead.
Or strike sweet harps upon its silver tide,
Ay ! it is well.
No tears ! no tears !
Will there a day come that I shall not weep ?
Through the dreary day
For I bedew my pillow in my sleep.
They often come from glorious light to me ;
Yes, yes ; thank God ! no grief that cUme
I cannot feel their touch, their faces see.
shall keep.
Yet my soul whispers, they do come to me.
No weary years.
Heaven is not far away.
THE CLOCKWORK OF THE SKIES.
EDWARD EVERETT.
;E derive from the observations of tlie heavenly bodies which are
made at an observatory our only adequate measures of time, and
our only means of comparing the time of one place with the time
of another. Our artificial timekeepers, — clocks, watches, and
cbronometers, — however ingeniously contrived and admirably fa-
bricated, are but a transcript, so to say, of the celestial motions,
and would be of no value without the means of regulating them by obser-
vation. It is impossible for them, under any circumstances, to escape the
imperfection of all machinery, the work of human hands ; and the moment
we remove with our timekeeper east or west, it fails us. It will keep
home-time alone, like the fond traveler who leaves his heart behind him.
The artificial instrument is of incalculable utility, but must itself be regu-
lated by the eternal clockwork of the skies.
This single consideration is suificient to show how completely the daily
business of life is affected and controlled by the heavenly bodies. It is they
and not our main-springs, our expansion-balances, and our compensation-
pendulums, which give us our time. To reverse the line of Pope, —
'Tis with our watches and our judgments : none
Go just alike, but each believes his own.
But for all the kindreds and tribes and tongues of men, — each upon their
own meridian, — from the Arctic pole to the equator, from the equator to
the Antarctic pole, the eternal sun strikes twelve at noon, and the glorious
constellacions, far up in the everlasting belfries of the skies, chime twelve
LADY CLARE.
631
at midnight — twelve for the pale student over his flickering lamp — twelve
amid the flaming wonders of Orion's belt, if he crosses the meridian at
that fated hour — twelve by the weary couch of languishing humanity,
twelve in the star-paved courts of the Empyrean — twelve for the heaving
tides of the ocean ; twelve for the weary arm of labor ; twelve for the toil-
ing brain ; twelve for the watching, waking, broken heart ; twelve for the
meteor which blazes for a moment and expires ; twelve for the comet whose
period is measured by centuries ; twelve for every substantial, for every
imaginary thing, which exists in the sense, the intellect, or the fancy, and
which to speech or thought of man, at the given meridian, refers to the
lapse of time.
LADY CLARE.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
^T was the time
p when lilies
blow,
And clouds
are highest
up in air,
Lord Ronald
brought a
lily-white doe.
To give his cousin,
Lady Clare.
I trow they did not
part in scorn ;
Lovers long betroth-
ed were they ;
They two will wed the
morrow morn ;
God's blessing on the
day!
" He does not love me for my birth,
Nor for my lands so broad and fair ;
He loves me for my own true worth.
And that is well," said Lady Clare.
In there came old Alice, the nurse.
Said, " Who was this that went from thee?"
" It was my cousin," said Lady Clare,
" To-morrow he weds with me."
"Oh, God be thank 'd," said Alice the nurse,
" That all comes round so just and fair,
Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands,
And you are not the Lady Clare."
" Are you out of your mind, my nurse, my
nurse?"
Said Lady Clare, " that ye speak so wild?"
" As God's above," said Alice the nurse,
" I speak the truth ; you are my child.
"The old Earl's daughter died at my breast;
I speak the truth, as I live by bread !
I buried her like my own sweet child,
And put my child in her stead."
" Falsely, falsely have ye done,
Oh mother," she said ; " if this be true.
To keep the best man under the sun
So many years from his due."
"Nay, now, my child," said Alice the nurse,
" But keep the secret for your life.
And all you have will be Lord Ronald's
When you are man and wife."
632
CRIME SELF-REVEALED.
" If I'm a beggar born," she said,
" I will speak out, for I dare not lie.
Pull off, pull off the brooch of gold.
And fling the diamond necklace by."
'! Nay, now, my child," said Alice the nurse,
" But keep the secret all you can."
She said, " Not so ; but I will know
If there be any faith in man."
" Nay, now, what faith ?" said Alice the
nurse,
" The man will cleave unto his right."
"And he shall have it," the lady replied,
" Though I should die to-night."
" Yet give one kiss to your mother dear !
Alas, my child, I sinned for thee."
" Oh, mother, mother, mother," she said,
" So strange it seems to me.
" Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear.
My mother dear, if this be so,
And lay your hand upon my head,
And bless me, mother, ere I go."
She clad herself in a russet gown,
She was no longer Lady Clare :
She went by dale, and she went by down.
With a single rose in her hair.
The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought
Leapt up from where she lay,
Dropt her head in the maiden's hand,
And follow'd her all the way.
Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower ;
" Oh, Lady Clare you shame your worth 1
Why come you drest like a village-maid,
That are the flower of the earth ?"
" If I come drest like a village-maid,
I am but as my fortunes are :
I am a beggar-born," she said,
" And not the Lady Clare."
"Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald,
" For I am yours in word and in deed,
Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald,
" Your riddle is hard to read."
Oh and proudly stood she up !
Her heart within her did not fail ;
She look'd into Lord Ronald's eyes.
And told him all her nurse's tale.
He laughed a laugh of merry scorn ;
He turn'd and kiss'd her where she stood :
" If you are not the heiress born.
And I," said he, " the next in blood —
" If you are not the heiress born.
And I," said he, " the lawful heir,
We two will wed to-morrow morn.
And you shall still be Lady Clare."
CRIME SELF-REVEALED.
DANIEL WEBSTER.
^GAINST the prisoner at the bar, as an individual, I cannot have the
slightest prejudice. I would not do him the smallest injury or in-
justice. But I do not affect to be indifferent to the discovery and
the punishment of this deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the oppro-
brium, how much soever it may be, which is cast on those who
feel and manifest an anxious concern that all who had a part in planning^
or a hand in executing, this deed of midnight assassination, may be brought
to answer for their enormous crime at the bar of public justice.
CRIME SELF-REVEALED. 633
Gentlemen, this is a most extraordinary case. In some respects it has
hardly a precedent anywhere — certainly none in our New England history.
An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his
own bed, is made the victim of a butchery murder, for mere pay. Deep
sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof. A
healthful old man to whom sleep was sweet — the first sound slumbers of
the night hold him in their soft but strong embrace.
The assassin enters through the window, already prepared, into an
unoccupied apartment; with noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half
lighted by the moon ; he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches
the door of the chamber. Of this he moves the lock, by soft and con-
tinued pressure, till it turns on its hinges ; and he enters and beholds his
victim before him. The room was uncommonly light. The face of the inno-
cent sleeper was turned from the murderer ; and the beams of the moon,
resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, showed him where to strike.
The fatal blow is given, and the victim passes, without a struggle or a
motion from the repose of sleep to the repose of death ! It is the assas-
sin's purpose to make sure work ; and he yet plies the dagger, though it
was obvious that life had been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He
even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, and
replaces it again over the wound of the poniard ! To finish the picture,
he explores the wrist for the pulse ! he feels for it, and ascertains that it
beats no longer ! It is accomplished ! the deed is done ! He retreats —
retraces his steps to the window, passes through as he came in, and escapes.
He has done the murder ; no eye has seen him, no ear has heard him ; the
secret is his own, and it is safe !
Ah ! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret can be
safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner,
where the guilty can bestow it and say it is safe. Not to speak of that
eye which glances through all disguises, and beholds everything as in the
splendor of noon, — such secrets of guilt are never safe ; " murder will
out." True it is that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern
things, that those who break the great law of heaven, by shedding man's
blood, seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. Especially in a case excitingr
so much attention as this, discovery must and will come, sooner or later.
A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, every thing, every
circumstance, connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch
every whisper; a thousand excited minds intently dwell on the scene;
shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into
a blaze of discovery. Meantime the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret.
634
GEMS FROM SHAKSPEARE.
It is false to itself — or rather it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience
to be true to itself — it labors under its guilty possession, and knows not
what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence
of such an inhabitant; it finds itself preyed on by a torment which it
dares not acknowledge to God or man. A vulture is devouring it, and it
asks no sympathy or assistance either from heaven or earth. The secret
"which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him ; and like the evil
spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever
it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demand-
ing disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in
his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts.
It has become his master; — it betrays his discretion; it breaks down his
courage ; it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to
embarrass him, and the net of circumstances to entangle him, the fatal
secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be con-
fessed ; it will be confessed ; there is no refuge from confession but in
suicide, and suicide is confession.
GEMS FROM SHAKSPEARE.
||HEY well deserve to have,
That know the strong'st and surest
way to get.
f if So Judas kiss'd his Master ;
And cried — all hail! when as he
meant, — all harm.
A scar nohly got, or a noble scar, is a
good livery of honor.
He that is giddy thinks that the world turns
round.
A lady's verily is
As potent as a lord's.
What is yours to bestow is not yours to
Praising what is lost
Makes the remembrance dear.
"What is the city but the people ?
Let them obey, that know not how to rule.
A friend i' the court is better than a penny
in purse.
The plants look up to heaven, from whence
They have their nourishment.
Things in motion sooner catch the eye,
Than what not stirs.
Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks
draw deep.
A friend should bear his friend's infirmities.
Make not your thoughts your prisons.
There is no time so miserable but a man may
be true.
Let us be sacrificers, but no butchers.
Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.
Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.
Receive what cheer you may ;
The night is long, that never finds the day.
Wisely and slow : they stumble that run
fast.
Nor ask advice of any other thought
But faith, fulness, and courage.
GEMS FROM SHAKSPEARE.
635
Happy are they that hear their detractions,
and can put them to mending.
Nor seek for danger
Where there's no profit.
Brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward
flourishes.
Pity is the virtue of the law,
And none but tyrants use it cruelly.
All difficulties are but easy when they are
known.
When sorrows come, they come not single
spies,
But in battalions.
Fashion wears out more apparel than the
man.
Too light winning
Makes the prize light.
What great ones do.
The less will prattle of.
Men are men ; the best sometimes forget.
A Roman with a Roman's heart can suffer.
True valor still a true respect should have.
Oft the eye mistakes, the brain being trou-
bled.
Thoughts are but dreams, till their effects be
tried.
die — the young possess the
The old be
hive.
Mud not the fountain that gave drink to
thee.
Mar not the thing that cannot be amended.
The hearts of old gave hands :
But our new heraldry is— hands, not hearts.
Security
Is mortal's chiefest enemy.
Dull not device by coldness and delay.
Wisely weigh
Our sorrow with our comfort.
A custom
More honor'd in the breach than the observ-
ance.
Celerity is never more admired,
Than by the negligent.
The weakest kind of fruit
Drops earliest to the ground.
'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,
But to support him after.
Be to yourself
As you would to your friend.
Trust not him, that hath once broken faith.
There's place and means for every man alive.
There's not one wise man among twenty that
will praise himself.
Small things make base men proud.
A golden mind stoops not to i^how of dross.
How poor an instrument,
May do a noble deed.
Things ill got had ever bad success.
Every cloud engenders not a storm.
Pleasure and action make the hours seem
short.
Direct not him whose way himself will
choose.
It is religion that doth make vows kept.
An honest tale speeds best, being plainly
told.
There's beggary in the love that can be
reckon'd.
Take all the swift advantage of the hours.
Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the
brow.
'Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.
The better part of valour is — discretion.
Short-lived wits do wither as they grow.
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.
The words of Mercury are harsh after the
song of Apollo.
There's small choice in rotten apples.
Melancholy is the nurse of frenzy.
Strong reasons make strong actions.
Fly pride, says the peacock.
G36 THE GROTTO OF ANTIPAROS.
THE GROTTO OF ANTIPAROS.
«^
i^AVERNS, especially those which are situated in limestone, commonly
gl^K present the formations called stalactites, from a Greek word signi-
X fying distillation or dropping. The manner of their production
4 admits of a very plain and simple explanation. They proceed from
S water trickling through the roofs containing carbonate of lime,
held in solution by carbonic acid. Upon exposure to the air the
carbonic acid is gradually disengaged, and a pellicle of lime is deported.
The process proceeds, drop after drop, and eventually, descending points
hanging from the roof are formed, resembling icicles, which are composed
of concentric rings of transparent pellicles of lime, presenting a very
peculiar appearance, and, from their connection with each other, produc-
ing a variety of singular shapes. These descending points are the stalac-
tites properly so called, from which the stalagmites are to be distinguished,
which cover the floors of caverns with conical inequalities. These are pro-
duced by the evaporation of the larger drops which have fallen to the bot-
tom, and are stalactites rising upwards from the ground. Frequently, in
the course of ages, the ascending and descending points have been so in-
creased as to meet together, forming natural columns, a series of which
bears a striking resemblance to the pillars and arches of Gothic architec-
ture.
The amount of this disposition which we find in caverns capable of
producing it, is, in fact, enormous, and gives us an impressive idea of their
extraordinary antiquity. The grotto of Antiparos — one of the islands of the
Grecian Archipelago — is particularly celebrated on account of the size and
diversity of form of these deposits. It extends nearly a thousand feet
beneath the surface, in primitive limestone, and is accessible by a narrow
entrance which is often very steeply inclined, but divided by level landing
places. After a series of descents, the traveler arrives at the Great Hall,
AS it is called, the sides and roof of which are covered with immense in-
crustations of calcareous matter. The purity of the surrounding stone,
and the thickness of the roof in which the unfiltered water can deposit all
impure admixtures, give to its stalactites a beautiful whiteness. Tall
pillars stand in many places free, near each other, and single groups of
stalagmites form figures so strongly resembling plants, that Tournefort en-
deavored to prove from them a vegetable nature in stone. The remark of
that intelligent traveler is an amusing example of over confidence: —
"Once again I repeat it, it is impossible this should be done by the
GROTTO OF ANTIPAEOS.
THE ANGEL'S STORY.
637
droppings of water, as is pretended by those who go about to explain
the formation of congelations in grottoes. It is much more probable that
these other congelations we speak of, and which hang downwards or rise
out different ways, were produced by one principle, namely, vegetation."
The sight of the whole is described, by those who have visited this
cavern, as highly imposing. In the middle of the Great Hall, there is a
remarkably fine and large stalagmite, more than twenty feet in diameter,
and twenty-four feet high, termed the Altar, from the circumstance of the
Marquis de Nointel, the ambassador from Louis XIV. to the Sultan, hav-
ing caused high mass to be celebrated here in the year 1673. The cere-
mony was attended by five hundred persons ; the place was illuminated by
a hundred large wax torches ; and four hundred lamps burned in the
grotto, day and night, for the three days of the Christmas festival. This
cavern was known to the ancient Greeks, but seems to have been com-
pletely lost sight of till the seventeenth century.
THE ANGEL'S STOBY.
ADELAIDE A. PROCTOR.
iHROUGH the blue and frosty heav-
ens,
Christmas stars were shining bright ;
Glistening lamps throughout the city
Almost matched their gleaming
? light ;
] While the winter snow was lying,
And the winter winds were sighing,
Long ago, one Christmas night.
While, from every tower and steeple.
Pealing bells were sounding clear,
Never with such tones of gladness.
Save when Christmas time is near.
Many a one that night was merry
Who had toiled through all the year.
That night saw old wrongs forgiven :
Friends, long parted, reconciled ;
Voices all unused to laughter,
Mournful eyes that rarely smiled,
Trembling hearts that feared the morrow.
From their anxious thoughts beguiled.
43
Rich and poor felt love and blessing
From the gracious season fall ;
Joy and plenty in the cottage,
Peace and feasting in the hall ;
And the voices of the children
Ringing clear above it all !
Yet one house was dim and darkened ;
Gloom, and sickness, and despair,
Dwelling in the gilded chambers.
Creeping up the marble stair ;
Even stilled the voice of mourning.
For a child lay dying there.
Silken curtains fell around him.
Velvet carpets hushed the tread ;
Many costly toys were lying,
All unheeded, by his bed ;
And his tangled golden ringlets
Wore on downy pillows spread.
The skill of all that mighty city
To save one little life was vain :
038
THE ANGEL'S STORY.
One little thread from being broken,
One fatal word from being spoken ;
Nay, his very mother's pain,
And the mighty love within her.
Could not give him health again.
So she knelt there still beside him.
She alone with strength to smile.
Promising that he should suffer
No more in a little while,
Murmuring tender song and story.
Weary hours to beguile.
Suddenly an unseen Presence
Checked those constant moaning cries,
Stilled the little heart's quick fluttering,
Praised those blue and wondering eyes,
Fixed on some mysterious vision
With a startled, sweet surprise.
For a radiant angel hovered,
Smiling, o'er the little bed ;
White his raiment, from his shoulders
Snowy, dove-like pinions spread.
And a star-like light was shining
In a glory round his head.
While, with tender love, the ;
Leaning o'er the little nest.
In his arms the sick child folding.
Laid him gently on his breast,
Sobs and wailings told the mother
That her darling was at rest.
So, the angel, slowly rising.
Spread his wings, and through the air.
Bore the child, and while he held him
To his heart with loving care.
Placed a branch of crimson roses.
Tenderly beside him there.
While the child, thus clinging, floated
Toward the mansions of the blest.
Gazing from his' shining guardian.
To the flowers upon his breast.
Thus the angel spake, still smiling
On the little heavenly guest :
" Know dear little one, that heaven
Does no earthly thing disdain —
Man's poor joys find there an echo
Just as surely as his pain ;
Love, on earth so feebly striving.
Lives divine in heaven again !
" Once in that great town below us,
In a poor and narrow street.
Dwelt a little sickly orphan ;
Gentle aid, or pity sweet,
Never in life's rugged pathway
Guided his poor tottering feet.
" All the striving, anxious forethought
That should only come with age,
Weighed upon his baby spirit.
Showed him soon life's sternest page.
Grim want was his nurse, and sorrow
Was his only heritage.
" All too weak for childish pastimes,
Drearily the hours sped ;
On his hands, so small and trembling.
Leaning his poor aching head.
Or through dark and painful hours
Lying helpless on his bed.
" Dreaming strange and longing fancies
Of cool forests far away ;
And of rosy, happy children,
Laughing merrily at play,
Coming home through green lanes, bearing
Trailing boughs of blooming May.
" Scarce a glimpse of azure heaven
Gleamed above that narrow street,
And the sultry air of summer
(That you call so warm and sweet)
Fevered the poor orphan, dwelling
In that crowded alley's heat.
" One bright day, with feeble footsteps
Slowly forth he tried to crawl,
Through the crowded city's pathways.
Till he reached the garden wall ;
Where 'mid princely halls ami mansions
Stood the lordliest of all.
" There were trees with giant branches,
Velvet glades where shadows hide ;
THE ANGEL S STORY.
639
There were sparkling fountains glancing
Flowers which, in luxuriant pride,
Ever wafted breaths of perfume
To the child who stood outside.
" He against the gate of iron
Pressed his wan and wistful face,
Gazing with an awe-struck pleasure
At the glories of the place :
Never had his brightest day-dream
Shone with half such wondrous grace.
" You were playing in that garden,
Throwing blossoms in the air.
Laughing when the petals floated
Downward on your golden hair ;
And the fond eyes watching o'er you,
And the splendor spread before you,
Told a house's hope was there.
" When your servants, tired of seeing
Such a face of want and woe.
Turning to the ragged orphan.
Gave him coin and bade him go,
Down his cheeks so thin and wasted
Bitter tears began to flow.
But that look of childish sorrow
On your tender child-heart fell,
And you plucked the reddest roses
From the tree you loved so well,
Passed them through the stern, cold gra-
ting,
Gently bidding him ' Farewell !'
Dazzled by the fragrant treasure
And the gentle voice he heard.
In the poor forlorn boy's spirit
Joy, the sleeping seraph, stirred ;
In his hand he took the flowers.
In his heart the loving word.
So he crept to his poor garret :
Poor no more, but rich and bright,
For the holy dreams of childhood —
Love, and Rest, and Hope, and Light —
Floated round the orphan's pillow.
Through the starry summer night.
'■ Day dawned, yet the vision lasted —
All too weak to rise he lay ;
Did he dream that none spake harshly —
All were strangely kind that day ?
Surely, then, his treasured roses
Must have charmed all ills away,
" And he smiled, though they were fading ;
One by one their leaves were shed ;
' Such bright things could never perish ;
They would bloom again,' he said.
When the next day's sun had risen
Child and flowers both were dead.
" Know, dear little one ! our Father
Will no gentle deed disdain ;
Love on the cold earth beginning
Lives divine in heaven again.
While the angel hearts that beat there
Still all tender thoughts retain."
So the angel ceased, and gently
O'er his little burden leant ;
While the child gazed from the shining,
Loving eyes that o'er him bent,
To the blooming roses by him,
Wondering what their mystery meant
Thus the radiant angel answered.
And with tender meaning smiled :
" Ere your childlike, loving spirit
Sin and the hard world defiled,
God has given me leave to seek you —
I was once that little child !"
In the churchyard of that city
Rose a tomb of marble rare.
Decked, as soon as spring awakened.
With her buds and blossoms fair —
And a humble grave beside it —
None knew who rested there.
640
GOLDEN GRAINS.
GOLDEN GRAINS.
JAMES A. GARFIELD.
SELECTED FEOM VARIOUS OKATIOKS.
^ij^ FEEL a profounder reverence for a
W^ Boy than for a Man. I never meet
5*1^1 a ragged Boy in the street without
4m feeling that I may owe him a salute,
^ for I know not what possibilities
J may be buttoned up under his coat.
Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify ;
but nine times out of ten the best thing
that can happen to a young man is to
be tossed overboard and compelled to
sink or swim for himself. In all my
acquaintance I never knew a man to be
drowned who was worth the saving.
There are times in the history of men and
nations, when they stand so near the
veil that separates Mortals and Immor-
tals, Time from Eternity, and Men from
their God, that they can almost hear
their breathings and feel the pulsations
of the heart of the Infinite.
Growth is better than Permanence, and per-
manent growth is better than all.
It is no honor or profit merely to appear in
the arena. 'The Wreath is for those who
contend.
There is a fellowship among the Virtues by
which one great, generous passion stimu-
lates another.
The privilege of being a Young Man is a
great privilege, and the privilege of
growing up to be an independent Man
in middle life is a greater.
Many books we can read in a railroad car
and feel a harmony between the rushing
of the train and the haste of the Author.
If the power to do hard work is not Talent,
it is the best possible substitute for it.
Occasion may be the bugle-call that summons
an army to battle, but the blast of a
bngle can never make Soldiers or win
Victories.
Things don't turn up in this World until
somebody turns them up.
If there be one thing upon this earth that
mankind love and admire better than
another, it is a brave Man — it is a man
who dares look the Devil in the face
and tell him he is a Devil.
True art is but the anti-type of Nature^
the embodiment of discovered Beauty in
utility.
Every character is the joint product of Nature
and Nurture.
Not a man of Iron, but of Live Oak.
Power exhibits itself under two distinct
forms — strength and force — each pos-
sessing peculiar qualities and each perfect
in its own sphere. Strength is typified
by the Oak, the Rock, the Mountain.
Force embodies itself in the Cataract,
the Tempest, the Thunderbolt.
As a giant Tree absorbs all the elements of
growth within its reach and leaves only
a sickly Vegetation in its shadow, so do
towering great Men absorb all the
strength and glory of their surroundings
and leave a dearth of Greatness for a
whole generation.
It has been fortunate that most of our great-
est Men have left no descendants to
shine in the borrowed lustre of a great
name.
In order to have any success in life, or any
worthy success, you must resolve to
carry into your work a fullness ot
Knowledge — not merely a Sufficiency,
but more than a Sufficiency.
Be fit for more than the thing you are now
doing.
Young Men talk of trusting to the Spur of
the Occasion. That trust is vain. Occa-
sions cannot make Spurs. If you expect
to wear Spurs you must win them. It
you wish to use them you must buckle
them to j^our own heels before you go
into the Fight.
FOR CHARLIE'S SAKE.
641
That man will be a benefactor of his race
who shall teach us how to manage
rightly the first years of a Child's educa-
tion.
Great Ideas travel slowly and for a time
noiselessly, as the Gods whose Feet were
shod with wool.
He who would understand the real Spirit of
Literature should not select authors of
any one period alone, but rather go to
the fountain-head, and trace the little
rill as it courses along down the ages,
broadening and deepening into the great
ocean of Thought which the Men of the
present are exploring.
Eternity alone will reveal to the human race
its debt of gratitude to the peerless and
immortal name of Washington.
The scientific spirit has cast out the Demons
and presented us with Nature, clothed
in her right mind and living under the
reign of law. It has given us for the
sorceries of the Alchemist, the beautiful
laws of Chemistry ; for the dreams of
the Astrologer, the sublime truths of
astronomy : for the wild visions of Cos-
mogony, the monumental records of
geology; for the anarchy of Diabolism,
the laws of God.
We no longer attribute the untimely death
of infants to the sin of Adam, but to
bad nursing and ignorance.
Imagine if you can what would happen if
to-morrow morning the railway locomo-
tive and its corollary, the telegraph,
were blotted from the earth. To what
humble proportions Mankind would be
compelled to scale down the great enter-
prizes they are now puthing forward
with such ease !
Heroes did not Tnake our liberties, they but
reflected and illustrated them.
The Life and light of a nation are insepa-
rable.
We confront the dangers of Suffrage by the
blessings of universal education.
There is no horizontal Stratification of society
in this country like the rocks in the
earth, that hold one class down below
forevermore, and let another come to
the surface to stay there forever. Our
Stratification is like the ocean, where
every individual drop is free to move,
and where from the sternest depths of
the mighty deep any drop may come up
to glitter on the highest wave that rolls.
There is deep down in the -hearts of the
American people a strong and abiding
love of our Country which no surface
storms of passion can ever shake.
Our National safety demands that the foun-
tains of political power shall be made
pure by Intelligence and kept pure by
Vigilance.
FOR CHARLIE'S SAKE.
JOHN W. PALMER.
JS^IManE night is late, the house is still ;
Wm The angels of the hour fulfil
♦;^^L Their tender ministries, and move
^ From couch to couch in cares of love.
](• They drop into thy dreams, sweet
I wife.
The happiest smile of Charlie's life,
And lay on baby's lips a kiss.
Fresh from his angel-brother's bliss ;
And, as they pass, they seem to make
A strange, dim hymn, " For Charlie's
sake."
My listening heart takes up the strain.
And gives it to the night again,
Fitted with words of lowly praise.
And patience learned of mournful days
And memories of the dead child's ways.
His will be done, His will be done !
Who gave and took away my son.
642
LIFE.
In " the far land " to shine and sing
Before the Beautiful, the King,
Who every day doth Christmas make,
All starred and belled for Charlie's sake.
For Charlie's sake I will arise ;
I will anoint me where he lies,
And change my raiment, and go in
To the Lord's house, and leave my sin
Without, and seat me at his board,
Eat, and be glad, and praise the Lord.
For wherefore should I fast and weep,
And sullen moods of mourning keep ?
I cannot bring him back, nor he,
For any calling, come to me.
The bond the angel Death did sign,
God sealed — for Charlie's sake and mine.
THE BRIDR
SIR JOHN
. o-C|?o .
|HE maid, and thereby hangs a tale.
For such a maid no Whitsun-ale
Could ever yet produce :
No grape that's kindly ripe could be
So round, so plump, so soft as she.
Nor half so full of juice.
Her finger was so small, the ring
Would not stay on which they did bring, —
It was too wide a peck ;
And, to say truth, — for out it must, —
It looked like the great collar — just —
About our young colt's neck.
Her feet, beneath her petticoat.
Like little mice stole in and out,
As if they feared the light ;
But 0, she dances such a way !
No sun upon an Easter-day
Is half 60 fine a sisrht.
SUCKLING.
Her cheeks so rare a white was on.
No daisy makes comparison ;
Who sees them is undone ;
For streaks of red were mingled there.
Such as are on a Cath'rine pear,
The side that's next the sun.
Her lips were red ; and one was thin,
Compared to that was next her chin.
Some bee had stung it newly ;
But, Dick, her eyes so guard her face,
I durst no more upon them gaze.
Than on the sun in July.
Her mouth so small, when she does
Thou'dst swear her teeth her words did break,
That they might passage get ;
But she so handled still the matter,
They came as good as ours, or better,
And are not spent a whit.
LIFE.
HENRY KING.
^ ?IKE to the falling of a star,
ll Or as the flights of eagles are,
Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew.
Or like a wind that chafes the flood.
Or bubbles which on water stood, —
E'en such is man, whose borrowed light
Is straight called in, and paid to-night,
The wind blows out, the bubble dies,
The spring entombed in autumn lies,
The dew dries up, the star is shot.
The flight is past, — and man forgot !
HABITS OF TROUT.
G43
HABITS OF TROUT.
WILLIAM C. PRIME.
pl®T is noteworthy, and has doubtless often attracted the attention
^ of anglers, that different books give
totally different instructions and infor-
mation about the same fish. This is
easily explained. Most of the writers
on angling have written from experience ob-
tained in certain waters. One who has taken
trout for a score of years in the St. Kegis
waters forms his opinion of these fish from
their habits in those regions. But a St. Eegis
trout is no more like a Welakennebacook trout
in his habits than a Boston gentleman is
to a New Yorker, Who would think of de-
scribing the habits and customs of mankind
from a knowledge of the Englishman ? Yet
we have abundance of book-lore on the habits
of fish, founded on acquaintance with the fish
in one or another locality. To say truth, until
one has studied the habits of trout in all the
waters of the world, it is unsafe for him to ven-
ture any general account of those habits.
Take the simplest illustration. If you are
on the lower St. Regis, and seek large trout,
rise before the sun, and cast for the half hour
preceding and the half hour following sunrise.
You will find the fish plenty and voracious,
striking with vigor, and evidently on the feed.
But go to Profile Lake (that gem of all the
world of waters), wherein I have taken many
thousand trout, and you will scarcely ever have
a rise in the morning. In the one lake the fish
are in the habit of feeding at day-dawn. In the
other no trout breakfasts till nine o'clock, unless,
like the departing guests of the neighboring
hotel, business or pleasure lead him to be up for
once at an early hour.
644
'NO MORE SEA."
So, too, you may cast on Profile Lake at noon in the sunshine, and as
in most waters, though the trout are abundant, they will not be tempted
to rise. But in Echo Lake, only a half-mile distant, where trout are
scarce, I have killed many fish of two and three pounds' weight, and nearly
all between eleven and one in bright, sunshiny weather. In fact, when
they rise at all in Echo Lake, it is almost invariably at that hour, and
very seldom at any other. Men have their hours of eating, settled into
what we call habits. The Bostonian dines at one hour, the New Yorker
at another. One should not attempt to describe the eating habits of man
in general from either class, or from both. In many respects the habits of
fish are formed, as are the habits of men, by the force of circumstances, or
by the influence of the imitative propensity. They do some things only
because they have seen other fish do so. Instinct leads them to some
habits, education to others.
NO MORE SEA."
WILLIAM H. HENDERSON,
"^§S* LONELY, exiled one !
ii^||K Upon the Patmos shore I
stand :
thee
J"l^ ' Thou dreamest gravely of thine own
dear land,
I Far by the rising sun.
Thinking of Galilee,
And the hoarse waves that part thee from its
shore.
Not strange it seems to hear thee murmuring
o'er
Thy song of " No More Sea."
Shall we not then beside
Some friend or brother, count from pebbly
beach
The white-winged ships as far as eye can
reach
On the horizon wide ?
Alas ! and no more sea ?
No grey cloud-shadows flickering o'er the
deep?
No curling breakers by the rocky steep
Or beachy shore ? Ah, me!
ECHOES.
645
No more in foamy spray
Shall we with merry jest and full-voiced
laughter
Delight ourselves, and breast the surges after
The dust and heat of day ?
Shall there be no more shells ?
Nor golden sand? Nor crimson sea- weed
shine —
Nor pearls, nor coral that beneath the brine
Adorn the ocean cells ?
On balmy summer day
Shall we not float in dainty skiff along.
And suit the dipping oar to choral song.
Upon some sheltered bay ?
Its pure, chaste lips shall never cease to kiss
Its sister earth so dear.
A darker, sadder sea
Spreads its drear waste before the prophet's
eye —
A sea of sin across which floats the sigh
Of fallen humanity.
And surges of dark thought
And angry passion loom upon its face.
Telling the ruin of a shipwrecked race.
In countless centuries wrought.
This is the great Red Sea,
Whose waves shall yet at God's own voice
roll back.
Yes, apostolic seer;
Not of the watery brine thou tell est
this:
That through the pathway His redeemed
may walk.
Safe, fearless, joyful, free.
ECHOES.
THOMAS MOORE.
.,0W sweet the answer Echo makes
To Music at night
When, roused by lute or horn, she
wakes,
And far away o'er lawns and lakes
Goes answering light!
Yet Love hath echoes truf^r far
And far more sweet
Than e'er, beneath the moonlight's star,
Of horn or lute or soft guitar
The songs repeat.
6^6
SOFT SAWDER AND HUMAN NATUR.
SOFT SAWDER AND HUMAN NATUR.
THOMAS C. HALIBURTON.
®|^N the course of a journey which Mr. Slick performs in company with
iM, the reporter of his humors, the latter asks him how, in a country so
X poor as Nova Scotia he contrives to sell so many clocks. " Mr.
Slick paused," continues the author, "as if considering the propriety
of answering the question, and looking me in the face, said, in a con-
fidential tone: ' Why, I don't care if I do tell you, for the market is
glutted, and I shall quit this circuit. It is done by a knowledge of soft
saioder wcidi human natur. But here; — I have just one left. Neighbor
Steel's wife asked to have the refusal of it, but I guess I won't sell it. I
had but two of them, this one and the feller of it, that I sold Governor
Lincoln. General Green, secretary of state for Maine, said he'd give me
fifty dollars for this here one — it has composition wheels and patent axles;
it is a beautiful article — a real first chop — no mistake, genuine superfine ;
but I guess I'll take it back ; and, besides, Squire Hawk might think it
hard that I did not give him the offer.'
"'Dear me,' said Mrs. Flint, 'I should like to see it; where is it?'
' It is in a chest of mine over the way, at Tom Tape's store ; I guess he
can ship it on to Eastport.' 'That's a good man,' said Mrs. Flint, 'jist
let's look at it.' Mr. Slick, willing to oblige, yielded to these entreaties,
and soon produced the clock — a gaudy, highly varnished, trumpery-look-
ing affair. He placed it on the chimney-piece, where its beauties were
pointed out and duly appreciated by Mrs. Flint, whose admiration was about
ending in a proposal, when Mr. Flint returned from giving his directions
about the care of the horses. The deacon praised the clock ; he, too,
thought it a handsome one ; but the deacon was a prudent man : he had
a watch, he was sorry, but he had no occasion for a clock. ' I guess you're
in the wrong furrow this time, deacon; it ain't for sale,' said Mr. Slick;
' and if it was, I reckon neighbor Steele's wife would have it, for she gives
me no peace about it.' Mrs. Flint said that Mr. Steele had enough to do,
poor man, to pay his interest, without buying clocks for his wife. ' It's
no consarn of mine,' said Mr. Slick, ' as long as he pays me, what he has
to do ; but I guess I don't want to sell it ; and, beside, it comes too high ;
that clock can't be made at Khode Island under forty dollars.
" ' Why, it an't possible ! ' said the Clockmaker, in apparent surprise,
looking at his watch, ' why, as I'm alive, it is four o'clock, and if I haven't
been two hours here — how on airth shall I reach Kiver Philip to-night ?
I'll tell you what, Mrs. Flint ; I'll leave the clock in your care till I return
NIAGARA.
647
on my way to the States — I'll set it agoing, and put it to the right time.'
As soon as this operation was performed, he delivered the key to the deacon
with a sort of serio-comic injunction to wind up the clock every Saturday
night, which Mrs. Flint said she would take care should be done, and
promised to remind her husband of it, in case he should chance to for-
get it.
" ' That,' said the Clockmaker, as soon as we were mounted, ' that I
call human natur ! Now, that clock is sold for forty dollars — it cost me
six dollars and fifty cents. Mrs. Flint will never let Mrs. Steele have the
refusal — nor will the deacon learn until I call for the clock, that having
once indulged in the use of a superfluity, it is difficiflt to give it up. We
can do without any article of luxury we have never had, but when once
obtained, it is not in human natur to surrender it voluntarily. Of fifteen
thousand sold by myself and partners in this province, twelve thousand
were left in this manner, only ten clocks were ever returned — when we
called for them, they invariably bought them. We trust to soft sawder
to get them into the house, and to human natur that they never come out
of it."
NIAGARA.
LYDIA HUNTLY SIGOURNEY.
l^LOW on forever, in thy glorious robe
Of terror and of beauty. Yes, flow
on,
Unfathom'd and resistless. God hath
set
His rainbow on thy forehead, and
the cloud
Mantled around thy feet. — And he
doth give
Thy voice of thunder power to speak of him
Eternally, — bidding the lip of man
Keep silence, and upon thy rocky altar pour
Incense of awe-struck praise.
And who can dare
To lift the insect trump of earthly hope.
Or love, or sorrow, 'mid the peal sublime
Of thy tremendous hymn ? — Even Ocean
shrinks
Back from thy brotherhood, and his wild
waves
Retire abash'd. — For he doth sometimes seem
To sleep like a spent laborer, and recall
His wearied billows from their vexing play,
And lull them to a cradle calm : but thou.
With everlasting, undecaying tide,
Dost rest not night or day.
The morning stars.
When first they sang o'er young creation's
birth,
Heard thy deep anthem, — and those wreck'
ing fires
That wait the archangel's signal to dissolve
The solid earth, shall find Jehovah's name
Graven, as with a thousand diamond spears,
On thine unfathom'd page. — Each leafy bough
That lifts itself within thy proud domain,
Doth gather greenness from thy living spray,
And tremble at the baptism. — Lo ! yon birds
Do venture boldly near, bathing their wing
Amid thy foam and mist. — 'Tis meet for them
To touch thy garment's hem, — or lightly stir
The snowy leaflets of thy vapor wreath, —
648 FINGAL'S CAVE.
Who sport unharm'd upon the fleecy cloud,
And listen at the echoing gai,e of heaven,
Without reproof. — But as for us, — it seems
Scarce lawful with our broken tones to speak
Familiarly of thee. — JMothinks, to tint
Thy glorious features with our pencil'n point,
Or woo thee to the tablet of a song, In the dread presence of the Invisible
Were profanation. As if to answer to its God through thee,
Thou dost make the soul
A wondering witness of thy majesty ;
And while it rushes with delirious joy
To tread thy vestibule, dost chain its step.
And check its rapture with the humbling view
Of its own nothingness, bidding it stand
FINGAL'S CA VE.
^[iN the volcanic rocks, cavern formations are very common, and one of
i^ the most splendid examples in the world occurs in the basalt, a rock
ijk of comparatively modern igneous origin. This is the well-known
* cave of Fingal, in the island of Staffa, a small island on the western
! coast of Scotland, composed entirely of amorphous and pillared basalt.
The name of the island is derived from its singular structure, Staffa,
signifying, in the Norwegian language, a people who were early on the
coast, a staff, and figuratively, a column. The basaltic columns have in
various places yielded to the action of the waveg, which have scooped out
caves of the most picturesque description, the chief of which are the Boat
cave, the Cormorant cave, so called from the number of these birds visiting
the spot, and the great cave of Fingal.
It is remarkable that this grand natural object should have remained
comparatively unknown, until Sir Joseph Banks had his attention acci-
dentally directed to it, and may be said to have discovered it to the inhab-
itants of South Britain. This great cave consists of a lava-like mass at
the base, and of two ranges of basaltic columns resting upon it, which
present to the eye an appearance of regularity almost architectural, and
supporting an irregular ceiling of rock. According to the measurements
of Sir Joseph Banks, the cave from the rock without is three hundred
and seventy-one feet six inches ; the breadth at the mouth, fifty-three feet
seven inches ; the height of the arch at the mouth, one hundred and seven-
teen feet six inches ; depth of water at the mouth, eighteen feet ; and at
the bottom of the cave, nine feet. The echo of the waves which wash
into the cavern has originated its Celtic name, Llaimbh-bim, the Cave of
Music. Maculloch remarks : " If too much admiration has been lavished
on it by some, and if, in consequence, more recent visitors have left it with
disappointment, it must be recollected, that all descriptions are but pictures
of the feelings of the narrator ; it is, moreover, as unreasonable to expect
FINGAL'S CAVE.
649
that the same objects should produce corresponding effects on all minds,
on the enlightened and on the vulgar, as that every individual should
alike be sensible to the merits of Phidias and Raphael, of Sophocles and
of Shakespeare.
But if this cave were even destitute of that order and symmetry, that
richness arising from multiplicity of parts combined with greatness of
dimension and simplicity of style, which it possesses sti 1 the prolonged
len-th the twilight gloom half concealing the playful and varying effects
of Reflected light, the echo of the measured surge as it rises and lalls he
transparent green of the water, and the profound and fairy solitude of the
whole scene, could not fail strongly to impress a mir.d gifted with any sense
of beauty in art or in nature, and it will be compelled to own it is not
without cause that celebrity has been conferred on ^.he Cave of Fingal.
650
THE CELESTIAL CUUiMTKY.
THE CELESTIAL COUNTRY.
lyg^OR thee, dear, dear Country !
|j^;J Mine eyes their vigils keep ;
\^X For very love beholding
A Thy happiness, they weep.
Y The mention of thy glory,
tf- Is unction to the breast,
J And medicine in sickness,
And love, and life, and rest.
one, only Mansion !
Paradise of Joy !
Where tears are ever banished.
And smiles have no alloy,
Beside thy living waters,
All plants are great and small.
The cedar of the forest.
The hyssop of the wall ;
With jaspers glow thy bulwarks.
Thy streets with emeralds blaze,
The sardius and topaz
Unite in thee their rays ;
Thine ageless walls are bonded
With amethyst unpriced ;
The saints build up its fabric.
And the corner-stone is Christ.
The Cross is all thy splendor,
The Crucified thy praise ;
His laud and benediction
Thy ransomed people raise :
" Jesus, the Gem of Beauty,
True God and Man," they sing,
" The never-failing Garden,
The ever-golden Ring ;
The Door, the Pledge, the Husband,
The Guardian of His Court ;
The Day-star of Salvation,
The Porter and the Port!"
Thou hast no shore, fair ocean !
Thou hast no time, bright day !
Dear fountain of refreshment
To pilgrims far away !
Upon the Rock of Ages,
They raise the holy tower ;
behnard de morlaix, a. d., 1145.
Thine is the victor's laurel,
And thine the golden dower I
Thou feel'st in mystic rapture,
Bride that know'st no guile,
The Prince's sweetest kisses.
The Prince's loveliest smile ;
Unfading lilies, bracelets
Of living pearl, thine own ;
The Lamb is ever near thee.
The Bridegroom thine alone.
The Crown is He to guerdon,
The Buckler to protect.
And He, Himself the Mansion,
And He the Architect.
The only art thou need'st —
Thanksgiving for thy lot :
The only joy thou seek'st —
The Life where Death is not.
And all thine endless leisuire,
In sweetest accents sings
The ill that was thy merit,
The wealth that is thy King's !
Jerusalem the golden.
With milk and honey blest.
Beneath thy contemplation
Sink heart and voice oppressed .
I know not, I know not.
What social joys are there !
What radiancy of glory,
What light beyond compare !
And when I fain would sing them,
]\Iy spirit fails and faints ;
And vainly would it image
The assembly of the Saints.
They stand, those halls of Zion,
All jubilant with song,
And bright with many an angel,
And all the martyr throng ;
The Prince is ever in them.
The daylight is serene ;
Tlie pastures of the Blessed
Are decked in glorious sheen
THE CELESTIAL COUNTRY.
651
There is the Throne of David,
And there, from care released,
The song of them that triumph,
The shout of them that feast ;
And they who, with their Leader,
Have conquered in the fight,
For ever and for ever
Are clad in robes of white !
holy, placid harp-notes
Of that eternal hymn !
sacred, sweet reflection.
And peace of Seraphim !
thirst, forever ardent,
Yet evermore content !
true, peculiar vision
Of God omnipotent !
Ye know the many mansions
For many a glorious name,
And divers retributions
That divers merits claim ;
For midst the constellations
That deck our earthly sky,
This star than that is brighter —
And so it is on high.
Jerusalem the glorious !
The glory of the elect !
dear and future vision
That eager hearts expect !
Even now by faith I see thee,
Even here thy walls discern ;
To thee my thoughts are kindled,
And strive, and pant, and yearn.
O none can tell thy bulwarks.
How glorious they rise !
none can tell thy capitals
Of beautiful device !
Thy loveliness oppresses
All human thought and heart ;
And none, peace, Zion,
Can sing thee as thou art !
New mansion of new people.
Whom God's own love and light
Promote, increase, make holy,
Identify, unite !
Thou City of the Angels !
Thou City of the Lord !
Whose everlasting music
Is the glorious decachord !
And there the band of Prophets
United praise ascribes,
And there the twelve-fold chorus
Of Israel's ransomed tribes,
The lily-beds of virgins.
The roses' martyr glow,
The cohort of the Fathers
Who kept the Faith below,
And there the Sole-begotten
I Is Lord in regal state —
He, Judah's mystic Lion,
He, Lamb Immaculate.
fields that know no sorrow !
state that fears no strife !
princely bowers ! land of
realm and home of Life !
Jerusalem, exulting
On that securest shore,
1 hope thee, wish thee, sing thee,
And love thee ever more !
I ask not for my merit,
1 seek not to deny
!My merit is destruction,
A child of wrath am I ;
But yet with Faith I venture,
And Hope upon my way ;
For those perennial guerdons
I labor night and day.
The best and dearest Father,
Who made me and who saved.
Bore with me in defilement.
And from defilement saved,
When in His strength I struggle.
For very joy I leap.
When in my sin I totter,
I weep, or try to weep :
But grace, sweet grace celestial,
Shall all its love display.
And David's Royal fountain
Purge every sin away.
mine, my golden Zion !
lovelier far than gold.
With laurel-girt battalions,
And safe victorious fold !
662
ARCTIC LIFE.
sweet and blessed Country,
Exult, dust and ashes !
Shall I ever see thy face ?
The Lord shall be thy part ;
sweet and blessed Country,
His only. His forever,
Shall I ever win thy grace?
Thou shalt be, and thou art !
I have the hope within me
Exult, dust and ashes I
To comfort and to bless !
The Lord shall be thy part ;
Shall I ever win the prize itself ?
His only, His for ever,
Otellme, tellme, Yes!
Thou shalt be, and thou art i
ARCTIC LIFE.
ELISHA KENT KANE.
|l|^l|OW do we spend the day when it is not term- day, or rather the
^^K twenty-four hours? for it is either all day here, or all night, or a
"^"^^ twilight mixture of both. How do we spend the twenty-four
4; hours ?
J At six in the morning, McGary is called, with all hands who
have.sZep^ in. The decks are cleaned, the ice-hole opened, the refreshing
beef-nets examined, the ice-tables measured, and things aboard put to
rights. At half-past seven, all hands rise, wash on deck, open the doors
for ventilation, and come below for breakfast. We are short of fuel, and
therefore cook in the cabin. Our breakfast, for all fare alike, is hard tack,
pork, stewed apples frozen like molasses-candy, tea and coffee, with a deli-
cate portion of raw potato. After breakfast, the smokers take their pipe
till nine : then all hands turn to, idlers to idle, and workers to work ;
Ohlsen to his bench ; Brooks to his " preparations " in canvass ; McGary
ARCTIC LIFE.
ARCTIC LIFE. 653
to play tailor ; Whipple to make shoes ; Bonsall to tinker ; Baker to skin
birds, — and the rest to the "office ! " Take a look into the Arctic Bureau !
One table, one salt-pork lamp with rusty chlorinated flame, three stools,
and as many waxen-faced men with their legs drawn up under them, the
deck at zero being too cold for the feet. Each has his department : Kane 13
writing, sketching, and projecting maps ; Hayes copying logs and meteoro-
logicals ; Sontag reducing his work at Fern Eock. A fourth, as one of
the working members of the hive, has long been defunct: you will find him
in bed, or studying "Littell's Living Age." At twelve, a business round
of inspection, and orders enough to fill up the day with work. Next, the
'drill of the Esquimaux dogs, — my own peculiar recreation, — a dog-trot,
especially refreshing to legs that creak with every kick, and rheumatic
shoulders that chronicle every descent of the whip. And so we get on to
dinner-time; the occasion of another gathering, which misses the tea and
coffee of breakfast, but rejoices in pickled cabbage and dried peaches
instead.
At dinner as at breakfast the raw potato comes in, our hygienic lux-
ury. Like doctor stuff generally, it is not as appetizing as desirable.
Grating it down nicely, leaving out the ugly red spots liberally, and adding
the utmost oil as a lubricant, it is as much as I can do to persuade the
mess to shut their eyes and bolt it, like Mrs. Squeers' molasses and brim-
stone at Dotheboys' Hall. Two absolutely refuse to taste it. I tell them of
the Silesians using its leaves as a spinach, of the whalers* in the South Seas
getting drunk on the molasses which had preserved the large potatoes of
the Azores, — I point to this gum, so fungoid and angry the day before yes-
terday, and so flat and amiable to-day, — all by a potato poultice : my elo-
quence is wasted : they persevered in rejecting the admirable compound.
Sleep, exercise, amusement, and work at will, carry on the day till our
six o'clock supper, a meal something like breakfast, and something like
dinner, only a little more scant, and the officers come in with the reports
of the day. Doctor Hayes shows me the log, I sign it; Sontag the weather,
I sign the weather ; Mr. Bonsall the tides and thermometers. Thereupon
comes in mine ancient, Brooks ; and I enter in his journal No. 3 all the
work done under his charge, and discuss his labors for the morrow.
McGary comes next, with the cleaning-up arrangements, inside, out-
side, and on decks ; and Mr. Wilson follows with ice measurements. And
last of all comes my own record of the day gone by ; every line, as I look
back upon its pages, giving evidence of a weakened body and harassed
mind. We have cards sometimes, and chess sometimes, — and a few maga-
zines, Mr. Littell's thoughtful present, to cheer away the evening.
654
THE CHANGELING.
THE CHANGELING.
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
TOR the fairest maid in Hampton
They needed not to search,
Who saw young Anna Favor
Come walking into church, —
Or bringing from the meadows.
At set of harvest-day.
The frolic of the blackbirds,
The sweetness of the hay.
She'll come when she hears it crying,
In the shape of an owl or bat.
And she'll bring us our darling Anna
In place of her screeching brat."
Then the goodman, Ezra Dalton,
Laid his hand upon her head :
" Thy sorrow is great, woman !
I sorrow with thee," he said.
Now the weariest of all mothers,
The saddest two-years bride.
She scowls in the face of her husband.
And spurns her child aside.
" Rake out the red Coals, goodman,
For there the child shall lie.
Till the black witch comes to fetch her.
And both up chimney fly.
" It's never my own little daughter,
It's never my own," she said ;
" The witches have stolen my Anna,
And left me an imp instead.
" 0, fair and sweet was my baby.
Blue eyes, and ringlets of gold ;
But this is ugly and wrinkled.
Cross, and cunning, and old.
" I hate the touch of her fingers,
I hate the feel of her skin ;
It's not the milk from my bosom.
But my blood, that she sucks in.
" My face grows sharp with the torment ;
Look ! my arms are skin and bone ! —
Rake open the red coals, goodman.
And the witch shall have her own.
" The paths to trouble are many,
And never but one sure way
Leads out to the light beyond it :
My poor wife, let us pray."
Then he said to the great All-Father,
" Thy daughter is weak and blind ;
Let her sight come back, and clothe her
Once more in her right mind.
" Lead her out of this evil shadow,
Out of these fancies wild ;
Let the holy love of the mother,
Turn again to her child.
" Make her lips like the lips of Mary,
Kissing her blessed Son ;
Let her hands, like the hands of Jesus,
Rest on her little one.
" Comfort the soul of thy handmaid,
Open her prison door.
And thine shall be all the glory
And praise forevermore."
Then into the face of its mother,
The baby looked up and smiled ;
And the cloud of her soul was lifted,
And she knew her little child.
A beam of slant west sunshine
Made the wan face almost fair.
WHY?
G55
Lit the blue eyes' patient wonder
And the rings of pale gold hair.
She kissed it on lip and forehead,
She kissed it on cheek and chin ;
And she bared her snow-white bosom
To the lips so pale and thin.
0, fair on her bridal morning
Was the maid who blushed and smiled
But fairer to Ezra Dalton
Looked the mother of his child. j
With more than a lover's fondness
He stooped to her worn young face j
And the nursing child and the mother
He folded in one embrace.
" Now mount and ride, my goodman
As lovest thine own soul ! i
Woe's me if my wicked fancies
Be the death of Goody Cole !"
His horse he saddled and bridled.
And into the night rode he,—
Now through the great black woodland ;
Now by the white-beached sea.
He rode through the silent clearings.
He came to the ferry wide.
And thrice he called to the boatman
Asleep on the other side.
He set his horse to the river,
He swam to Newburg town.
And he called up Justice Sewall
In his nightcap and his gown.
And the grave and worshipful justice,
Upon whose soul be peace !
Set his name to the jailer's warrant
For Goody Cole's release.
Then through the night the hoof-beats
Went sounding like a flail :
And Goody Cole at cock crow
Came forth from Ipswich jail.
WHY!'
jS|^P!|OW kind Reuben Esmond is growing
IUJi of late,
'l^'^aW' How he stops every day as he goes
by the gate,
Asking after my health. 'Tis a good-
hearted lad.
To think of the soldier, so lonely and
The school-children hail me as " Gran 'father
Brown,"
Because I'm the oldest man left in the town ;
ETHEL LYNN.
But when the slant sunbeams come hither to
lie,
Reuben Esmond comes too — I cannot tell
why.
For I am a tedious and stupid old man,
Quite willing to do all the good that I can
But a crutch and a pension will tell you the
tale
Of the warm work I had in the Beech-For
est Vale.
656
THE CHILDREN'S HOUR.
I've told it to Reuben — well, ten times or
more —
I, sitting just here, little Jo in the door,
(Jo is poor Mary's child, she that came home
to die,
God knew it was best, I couldn't see why.)
And Reuben and Josie, they sit very still,
When I tell how I fought over Hazelton Hill ;
But the child turns away if I chance to look
round.
And stares at the apple-blooms strewn on
the ground.
Then she says I must move when the sun-
light is gone,
She isn't afraid to be left there alone ;
And Reuben springs up so cheerful and spry,
To help me in-doors — I do wonder why.
He don't go away — he isn't afraid
Of the dew on the grass or the deep-falling
shade.
It must be very tedious for Josie to stay,
But she says she don't mind 't is the girl's
pleasant way.
She knows I like Reuben ; and so every night
She pins up her hair with a posy so bright.
'T is strange — in the morning the red roses
lie
All crushed on the step — I do wonder why.
There's neighbor Grey's son, he acts very
queer.
He used to be always so neighborly here ;
When I call to him now he grows white and
red,
Never asks me if Josie is living or dead.
He don't seem to like her, I thought he did
once,
But perhaps the old soldier is only a dunce.
He won't speak to Reuben when passing him
by,
Nor stop at his call — I do wonder why.
Here's Reuben to-day. He looks round my
chair
In the doorway for Jo. The child isn't there,
And the lad looks abashed. " I called —
Captain Brown,"
And here he stops short, looking awkwardly
down,
" To ask you for Josie." The lad lifts his head,
While his cheek, like a girl's, flushed all over
red.
" I will love her and guard her until I shall
die,
And she loves me, she says, I cannot tell why."
I have surely forgotten how Time never
stays,
How the wave of the year gulfs the drops of
the days.
Little Jo seventeen ! Ah, yes, I remember.
Just seventeen years the eighteenth of No-
vember.
Little Josie a bride. " Take her, Reuben,
and be
Very tender and patient." More clearly I
Why Reuben should call every day going by,
To ask for ray welfare. Grandfather knows
why.
TEE CHILDREN'S HOUR.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
. o^.fo , —
^^ETWEEN the dark and the daylight,
^jj^» When night is beginning to lower,
*^^^Comes a pause in the day's occupations,
A That is known as the children's hour.
I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened.
And voices soft and sweet.
From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.
iiiiiii
GRANDPA AND HIS PET?
FRANKLIN'S ARRIVAL m THILADELPHIA.
657
A whisper and then a silence ;
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.
A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall,
By three doors left unguarded.
They enter my castle wall.
They climb up into my turret,
O'er the arms and back of my chair :
If I try to escape, they surround me :
They seem to be everywhere.
They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me intwine.
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine.
Do you think, blue -eyed banditti.
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all ?
I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day.
Till the walls shall crumble to ruic
And moulder in dust
FRANKLIN'S ARRIVAL IN PHILADELPHIA.
^T^N my arrival at Philadelphia, I was in my working dress, my best
clothes being to come by sea. I was covered with dirt; my
pockets were filled with shirts and stockings ; I was unacquainted
with a single soul in the place, and knew not where to seek a
lodging.
Fatigued with walking, rowing, and having passed the night
without sleep, I was extremely hungry, and all my money consisted of a
Dutch dollar, and about a shilHng's worth of coppers, which I gave to the
boatmen for my passage. As I had assisted them in rowing, they refused
it at first ; but I insisted on their taking it. A man is sometimes more
generous when he has little than when he has much money; probably
because, in the first case, he is desirous of concealing his poverty.
I walked towards the top of the street, looking eagerly on both sides,
till I came to Market Street, where I met with a child with a loaf of
bread. Often had I made my dinner on dry bread. I inquired where he
had bought it, and went straight to the baker's shop which he pointed out
to me.
I asked for some biscuits, expecting to find such as we had at Boston ;
but they made, it seems, none of that sort at Philadelphia. I then asked
for a three-penny loaf. They made no loaves of that price. Finding
myself ignorant of the prices, as well as of the difierent kinds of bread, I
058
THROUGH TRIALS.
desired him to let me have threepenny-worth of bread of some kind or
other. He gave mo three large rolls. I was surprised at receiving so
much : I took them, however, and, having no room in my pockets, I walked
on with a roll under each arm, eating a third. In this manner I went
through Market Street to Fourth Street, and passed the house of Mr. Read^
the father of my future wife. She was standing at the door, observed me, and
thought, with reason, that I made a very singular and grotesque aj^pearance.
I then turned the corner, and went through Chestnut Street, eating my
roll all the way; and, having made this round, I found myself again on
Market Street wharf, near the boat in which I arrived. I stepped into it to
take a draught of the river water ; and, finding myself satisfied with my
first roll, I gave the other two to a woman and her child, who had come
down with us in the boat, and was waiting to continue her journey. Thus
refreshed, I regained the street, which was now full of well-dressed people,
all going the same way. I joined them, and was thus led to a large
Quakers' meeting-house near the market-place. I sat down with the rest,
and, after looking round me for some time, hearing nothing said, and being
drowsy from my last night's labor and want of rest, I fell into a sound
sleep. In this state I continued till the assembly dispersed, when one of
the congregation had the goodness to wake me. This was consequently the
first house I entered, or in which T slept, at Philadelphia.
THROUGH TRIALS,
ROSENGARTEN.
|TJ||pnROUGH night to light. And though
^1^ to mortal eyes
■=Y Creation's face a pall of horror wear,
Good cheer, good cheer ! The gloom
of midnight flies,
Then shall a sunrise follow, mild and fair.
Through storm to calm. And though his
thunder car
The rumbling tempest drive through earth
and sky,
Good cheer, good cheer ! The elemental war
Tells that a blessed healing hour is nigh.
Through frost to spring. And though the
biting blast
Of Euru3 stiffen nature's juicy veins.
Good cheer, good cheer ! When winter's wrath
is past,
Soft murmuring spring breathes sweetly
o'er the plains.
Through strife to peace. And though with
bristling front,
A thousand frightful deaths encompass thee,
Good cheer, good cheer! Brave thou the
battle's brunt,
For the peace march and song of victory.
Through cross to crown. And through thy
spirit's life
Trials untold assail with giant strength,
Good cheer, good cheer! Soon ends the bittei
strife,
VISION OF THE MONK GABRIEL.
659
And thou shalt reign in peace with Christ
And through this thistle-field of life, as-
at length.
cend
To the great supper in that world, whose
Through death to life. And through this
years
vale of tears,
Of bliss unfading, cloudless, know no end.
VISION OF THE MONK GABRIEL.
ELEANOR C. DONNELLY.
IJIIIPIS the soft twilight. Round the
^H^Hf)^ shining fender, —
Two at my feet and one upon my
knee, —
Dreamy-eyed Elsie, bright-lipped Isa-
bel,
And thou, my golden-headed Raphael,
My fairy, small and slender.
Listen to what befell
Monk Gabriel,
In the old ages ripe with mystery :
Listen, my darlings, to the legend tender.
An aged man with grave, but gentle look —
His silence sweet with sounds
With which the simple-hearted spring
abounds ;
Lowing of cattle from the abbey grounds,
Chirping of insect, and the building rock
Mingled like murmurs of a dreaming shell ;
Quaint tracery of bird, and branch, and brook.
Flitting across the pages of his book,
Until the very words a freshness took —
Deep in his cell
Sat the monk Gabriel.
In his book he read
The words the Master to His dear ones said :
" A little while and ye
Shall see,
Shall gaze on Me ;
A little while again.
Ye shall not see Me then."
A little while !
The monk looked up — a smile
Making his visage brilliant, liquid-eyed :
" Thou who gracious art
Unto the poor of heart,
blessed Christ!" he cried,
" Great is the misery
Of mine iniquity ;
But would J now might see.
Might feast on Thee !"
— The blood with sudden start,
Nigh rent his veins apart —
(Oh condescension of the Crucified :)
In all the brilliancy
Of His Humanity —
The Christ stood by his side !
Pure as the early lily was His skin,
His cheek out-blushed the rose.
His lips, the glows
Of autumn sunset on eternal snows ;
And His deep eyes within.
Such nameless beauties, wondrous glories
dwelt
The monk in speechless adoration knelt.
In each fair hand, in each fair foot there shone
The peerless stars He took from Calvary ;
Around His brows in tenderest lucency
The thorn-marks lingered, like the flash of
dawn ;
And from the opening in His side there rilled
A light, so dazzling, that all the room was
filled
With heaven ; and transfigured in his place,
His very breathing stilled,
The friar held his robe before his face,
And heard the angels singing !
'Twas but a moment — then, upon the
spell
Of this sweet presence, lo ! a something broke-
660
BOOK-BUYERS.
A something trembling, in the belfry woko,
An hour hence, his duty nobly done
A shower of metal music ilinging
Back to his cell he came ;
O'er wold and moat, o'er park and lake and
Unasked, unsought, lo ! his reward was won !
fell.
— Rafters and walls and floor were yet
And through the open windows of the cell
aflame
In silver chimes came ringing.
"With all the matchless glory of that sun.
And in the centre stood the Blessed One
It was the bell
(Praise be His Holy Name !)
Calling monk Gabriel,
Who for our sakes our crosses made His own,
Unto his daily task.
And bore our weight of shame.
To feed the paupers at the abbey gate ;
No respite did he ask.
Down on the threshold fell
Nor for a second summons idly wait ;
Monk Gabriel,
But rose up, saying in his humble way ;
His forehead pressed upon the floor of clay,
"Fain would I stay,
And while in deep humility he lay,
Lord ! and feast alway
(Tears raining from his happy eyes away)
Upon, the honeyed sweetness of Thy beauty ;
" Whence is this favor, Lo':d ?" he strove to
But 'tis Thy will, not mine. I must obey.
say.
Help me to do my duty !"
The while the Vision smiled,
The Vision only said,
The monk went fortli, light-hearted as a
Lifting its shining head ;
child.
" If ihou hadst staid, son, Jmust have fled."
BOOK-BUYERS.
JOHN RUSKIN.
SAY we have despised literature; what do we, as a nation, care
about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our
libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our
horses ? If a man spends lavishly on his librai-y, you call him mad — a
bibliomaniac. But you never call one a horse-maniac, though men ruin
themselves every day by their horses, and you do not hear of people
ruining themselves by their books. Or, to go lower still, how much do
you think the contents of the book-shelves of the United Kingdom, public
and private, would fetch, as compared with the contents of its wine cellars?
What position would its expenditure on literature take as compared with
its expenditure on luxurious eating ? We talk of food for the mind, as of
food for 'the body : now, a good book contains such food inexhaustibly : it
is provision for life, and for the best part of us ; yet, how long most people
would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large
turbot for itl Though there have been men who have pinched their
stomachs and bared their backs to buy a book, whose libraries were cheaper
VOLTAIRE AND WILBERFORCE.
661
to them, I think, in theiend, than most men's dinners are. We are few of
us put to such a trial, and more the pity ; for, indeed, a precious thing is
all the more precious to us if it has been won by work or economy ; and if
public libraries were half as costly as public dinners, or books cost the
tenth part of what bracelets do, even foolish men and women might some-
times suspect there was good in reading as well as in munchingiand spark-
ling; whereas the very cheapness of literature is making even wiser people
forget that if a book is worth reading it is worth buying.
DAY DAWN.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
}^ WIND came up out of the sea.
And said, " 0, mists, mo,ke room for
Vr
^%
It bailed ; .
Ye mariners, tin
;Lt IS
And hurried landward far away,
Crying " Awake ! it is the d?y."
It said unto the forest, " Shout !
Hang all your leafy banners out !"
It touched the wood-bird's folded wing.
And said " bird, awake and sing."
And o'er the farms, " chanticleer.
Your clarion blow, the day is near."
It whispered to the fields of corn,
" Bow down, and hail the coming morn.
It shouted through the belfry tower,
" Awake ; bell ! proclaim the hour."
It crossed the churchyard with a sigh,
And said. " Not yet I in quiet lie."
VOLTAIRE AND WILBERFORCE.
WILLLVM B. SPRAGUE.
MET mo now, for a moment, show you what the two systems — Atheism
and Christianity — can do, have done, for individual character; and
''^^^ I can think of no two names to which I may refer with more con-
fidence, in the way of illustration, than Voltaire and "Wilberforce ;
both of them names which stand out with prominence.
562 VOLTAIRE AND WILBERFORCE.
Voltaire was perhaps tlie master-spirit in the school of French Atheism ;
and though he was not alive to participate in the horrors of the revolution,
probably he did more by his writings to combine the elements for that
tremendous tempest than any other man. And now I undertake to say
that you may draw a character in which there shall be as much of the
blackness of moral turpitude as your imagination can supply, and yet
you shall not have exceeded the reality as it was found in the character of
this apostle of Atheism. You may throw into it the darkest shades of
selfishness, making the man a perfect idolater of himself; you may paint
the serpent in his most wily form to represent deceit and cunning; you
may let sensuality stand forth in all the loathsomeness of a beast in the
mire; you may bring out envy, and malice, and all the baser and all the
darker passions, drawing nutriment from the pit; and when you have done
this, you may contemplate the character of Voltaire, and exclaim, "Here
is the monstrous original !" The fires of his genius kindled only to wither
and consume; he stood, for almost a century, a great tree of poison, not
only cumbering the ground, but infusing death into the atmosphere; and
though its foliage has long since dropped off, and its branches have with-
ered, and its trunk fallen, under the hand of time, its deadly root still
remains; and the very earth that nourishes it is cursed for its sake.
And now I will speak of Wilberforce; and I do it with gratitude and
triumph, — gratitude to the God who made him what he was; triumph that
there is that in his very name which ought to make Atheism turn pale.
Wilberforce was the friend of man. Wilberforce was the friend of enslaved
and wretched man. Wilberforce (for I love to repeat his name) consecrated
the energies of his whole life to one of the noblest objects of benevolence;
it was in the cause of injured Africa that he often passed the night in
intense and wakeful thought; that he counseled' with the wise, and
reasoned with the unbelieving, and expostulated with the unmerciful ; that
his heart burst forih with all its melting tenderness, and his genius with
all its electric fire; that he turned the most accidental meeting into a con-
ference for the relief of human woe, and converted even the Senate-House
into a theatre of benevolent action. Though his zeal had at one time
almost eaten him up, and the vigor of his frame was so far gone that he
stooped over and looked into his own grave, yet his faith failed not; and,
blessed be God, the vital spark was kindled up anew, and he kept on labor-
ing through a long succession of years; and at length, just as his friends
were gathering around him to receive his last whisper, and the angels were
gathering around to receive his departing spirit, the news, worthy to be
borne by angels, was brought to him, that the great object to which his
SUNRISE IN THE VALLEY OF CHAMOUNIX.
G63
life had been given was gained; and then, Simeon-like, he clasped his
hands to die, and went off to heaven with the sound of deliverance to the
captive vibrating sweetly upon his ear.
Both Voltaire and Wilberforce are dead; but each of them lives in
the character he has left behind him. And now who does not delight to
honor the character of the one ? who does not shudder to contemplate the
character of the other ?
SUNEISE 7iV TEF VALLEY OF CHAMOUNIX.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.
^^^PWAKE, my soul ! not only passive
P^^^ praise
i,^^ Thou owebt ! not alone these swell-
ing tears,
Mute thanks and secret ecstacy !
Awake,
Voice of sweet song ! Awake, my heart,
awake !
Green vales and icy cliiTs, all join my hymn.
Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the
vale !
0, struggling with the darkness all the night.
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky or when they
sink, —
Companion of the morning-star at dawn.
Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn,
Co-herald, — wake, 0, wake, and utter praise !
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth ?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light ?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?
And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad !
WTio called you forth from night and utter
death.
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks.
Forever shattered and tho same forever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life.
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and
your joy.
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam ?
And who commanded (and the silence came).
Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest ?
Ye ice-falls ! ye that from the mountain's
brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain, —
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice.
And stopped at once amid their maddest
plunge!
Motionless torrents ! silent cataracts '
Who made you glorious as the gates of
Heaven
Beneath the keen full moon ? Who bade the
sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with
living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ?
God ! — let the torrents, like a shout of
nations.
Answer ' and let the ice -plains echo, God !
God ! sing, ye meadow-streams, with glad-
some voice !
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like
sounds !
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow.
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God !
Ye living Howers that skirt the eternal frost '
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest !
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm !
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds !
Ye signs and wonders of the elements !
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!
Thou, too, hoar Mount !
pointing peaks.
with thy sky-
o64
SUNRISE IN THE VALLEY OF CHAMOUNIX.
Oft from whose feet the avalanche unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the
pure serene,
Into the deptli of clouds that veil thy breast,-
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,
To rise before me, — Rise, 0, ever rise !
Rise like a cloud of incense, from the Earth '.
Thou kingly Spiiit tlu'unod among the bins.
Then too again, stupendous Mountain ! thou
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoracion, upward from thy base
Slow traveling with dim eyes suffused with
tears.
Thou dread ambassador from Earth to
Heaven,
Great Hierarch ! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God
THE POWER OF WORDS. 665
THE POWER OF WORDS.
EDWIN P. WHIPPLE.
SI^OR-DS are most effective when arranged in that order which is
called style. The great secret of a good style, we are told, is to
have proper words in proper places. To marshal one's verbal
battalions in such order that they may bear at once upon all
4; quarters of a subject, is certainly a great art. This is done in
J different ways. Swift, Temple, Addison, Hume, Gibbon, Johnson,
Burke, are all great generals in the discipline of their verbal armies and
the conduct of their paper wars. Each has a system of tactics of his own,
and excels in the use of some particular weapon.
The tread of Johnson's style is heavy and sonorous, resembling that of
an elephant or a mail-clad warrior. He is fond of leveling an obstacle by
a polysyllabic battering-ram. Burke's words are continually practicing
the broad-sword exercise, and swooping down adversaries with every
stroke. Arbuthnot " plays his weapon like a tongue of flame." Addison
draws up his light infantry in orderly array, and marches through sentence
after sentence without having his ranks disordered or his line broken.
Luther is different. His words are " half battles ;" " his smiting idiomatic
phrases seem to cleave into the very heart of the matter." Gibbon's
legions are heavily armed, and march with precision and dignity to the
music of their own tramp. They are splendidly equipped, but a nice eye
can discern a little rust beneath their fine apparel, and there are sutlers in
his camp who lie, cog, and talk gross obscenity. Macaulay, brisk, lively,
keen, and energetic, runs his thought rapidly through his sentence, and
kicks out of the way every word which obstructs his passage. He reins
in his steed only when he has reached his goal, and then does it with such
celerity that he is nearly thrown backwards by the suddenness of his stop-
page. Gifford's words are moss-troopers, that waylay innocent travelers
and murder them for hire. Jeffrey is a fine " lance," with a sort of Arab
swiftness in his movement, and runs an iron-clad horseman through the eye
before he has had time to close his helmet.
John Wilson's camp is a disorganized mass, who might do effectual
service under better discipline, but who, under his lead, are suffered to
carry on a rambling and predatory warfare, and disgrace their general by
flagitious excesses. Sometimes they steal, sometimes swear, sometimes
drink, and sometimes pray. Swift's words are porcupine's quills, which he
throws with unerring aim at whoever approaches his lair. All of Ebene-
zer Elliot's words are gifted with huge fists, to pommel and bruise. Chat-
666 DUST ON HER BIBLE.
ham and Miraboau throw hot shot into their opponents' magazines.
Talfourd's forces are orderly and disciphned, and march to the music of
the Dorian flute; those of Keats keep time to the tones of the pipe of
Phoebus ; and the hard, harsh-fea.turcd battahons of Maginn are always
preceded by a brass band. Hallam's word infantry can do much execution
when they are not in each other's way. Pope's phrases are either daggers
or rapiers. Willis's words are often tipsy with the champagne of the
fancy, but even when they reel and stagger they keep the line of grace
and beauty, and, though scattered at first by a fierce onset from graver
cohorts, soon reunite without wound or loss.
John Neal's forces are multitudinous, and fire briskly at every thmg.
They occupy all the provinces of letters, and are nearly useless from being
spread over too much ground. Everett's weapons are ever kept in good
order, and shine well in the sun ; but they are little calculated for warfare,
and rarely kill when they strike. Webster's words are thunderbolts,
which sometimes miss the Titans at whom they are hurled, but always
leave enduring marks when they strike. Hazlitt's verbal army is some-
times drunk and surly, sometimes foaming with passion, sometimes cool
and malignant, but, drunk or sober, are ever dangerous to cope with.
Some of Tom Moore's words are shining dirt, which he flings with
excellent aim. This list might be indefinitely extended, and arranged with
more regard to merit and chronology. My own words, in this connection,
might be compared to ragged, undisciplined militia, which could be easily
routed by a charge of horse, and which are apt to fire into each others'
DUST ON HER BIBLE.
ROBERT LOWRY.
Wji) MET her where Folly was queen of the
^•f,)^ And Mirth bade the giddy ones come,
^'h And she, 'mid the wildest, in dance
^ and in song,
w Swept on with the current, so turgid
and strong —
There was dust on her Bible at home.
I met her again when away from the gay.
But the words of the scoffer that dropped by
the way
Betokened how sadly her heart was astray —
There was dust on her Bible at home.
I met her once more, but her brow had no care.
Her soul was Immanuel's throne ;
And I knew by the artless and tear-moistened
prayer.
That rose from the spirit in suppliance there.
In the stillness of thought she would roam ; That the dust on her Bible was gone.
I
WINTER SPORTS.
667
WINTER SPORTS.
1
J
-^
liJ^O some, the winter is a season to be dreaded. In their poverty they
^"^ are exposed to the cutting blasts, the snow, the ice, the long dark
nights, the lack of many sources of employment. To others, win-
ter brings exhilaration and enjoyment of the keenest sort. The
eyes need not close upon the more sombre views of this rigorous
season, nor need the heart refuse the appeals of the suffering, if for a time
the more cheery side be viewed and winter sports be contemplated.
Despite the chilling blasts the people generally are ready to spring to
their cutters and sleighs of more pretentious size whenever snow falls and
opportunity offers. The merry laugh,
the joyful shout, the cheery song mingle
with the jingling sleigh-bells on city
streets and country roads, and for the
time a carnival of joy prevails. The
heavy sledges of traffic gather up liv-
ing loads, the business wagon affixed
to runners becomes a pleasure vehicle for a happy family, while the small
boy with hand-sled, home-made and rough or factory-made and costly,
plies his vocation catching a ride from the passing team, or coasting upon
some convenient hill. All these pursuits are followed with a relish seldom
felt in summer pastimes. Away from the city's busy sleighing scenes
winter sports multiply and intensify. Whittier tells of —
The moonlit skater's keen delight,
The sleigh-drive through the frosty night,
The rustic party, with its rough
Accompaniment of blind man's buff."
658 WINTER sroRTS.
Something of these scenes is familiar to every one. To see them is
an inspiration ; to take part in them renews the youth of the aged, and
reinvigorates the young ; to remember them is Hke " the sound of distant
music, sweet, though mournful to the soul."
Few sports seem rougher than the tumble in the snow or the well-
contested battle with snow-balls. But who refuses to take a hand in such
a contest ? Even the staid and dignified men and matrons are led easily
into indulgences at this point. Considerations of health, or of garments
come before these prudent seniors, but down they go, regarded but for a
moment, when challenged to sport like this. The Quaker Poet himself
knew how this matter stood, for he declares in " Snow Bound," that
" the watchful young men saw
Sweet doorway pictures of the curls,
And curious eyes of merry girls,
Lifting their hands in mock defence
Against the snow-ball's compliments."
True, here the poet speaks of young people and their enjoyment, but
the evident relish he has for the whole matter shows that he himself
knew just how the matter stood. It may be doubted whether he could
long resist an appeal to toss these tender " missives " through some open
doorway, did curly heads and bright eyes but present themselves there.
To enter with zest and yet with care into the real enjoyment of out-
door sports — and especially in the bracing winter months— ;-is the part of
wisdom. Exhilaration, such as can be gained in no other way, is thus se-
cured. True health and vigor must exist before a hearty participation
can be had in such sports. But a helpful participation can be had on a
small physical capital. That effeminacy which dreads the bracing, highly
oxygenized atmosphere of midwinter is not conducive to manly strength.
On the other hand, there is a recklessness of exposure which is mistaken
THE ROSE.
669
for manliness. This is equally undesirable. It will break one's constitu-
tion, and between a good constitution broken and one never strong there
is but little choice. Wise care blended with hearty earnestness should
rule our winter enjoyments. And a kindly consideration for less favored
ones should never be neglected. Many need our help, and should have it
freely while we ourselves rejoice.
THE ROSE.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
^N his tower sat the poet
P Gazing on the roaring sea,
Take this rose," he sighed, "and
n^ throw it
T Where there's none that loveth
•T me.
J On the rock the billow bursteth,
And sinks back into the seas,
But in vain my spirit thirsteth
So to burst and be at ease.
' Take, sea ! the tender blossom
That hath lain against my breast ;
On thy black and angry bosom
It will find a surer rest,
Life is vain, and love is hollow,
Ugly death stands there behind,
Hate, and scorn, and hunger follow
Him that toileth for his kind."
Forth into the night he hurled it.
And with bitter smile did mark
How the surly tempest whirled it
Swift into the hungry dark.
Foam and spray drive back to leeward,
And the gale, with dreary moan.
Drifts the helpless blossom seaward.
Through the breaking, all alone.
II.
Stands a maiden, on the morrow.
Musing by the wave-beat strand,
Half in hope, and half in sorrow
Tracing words upon the sand :
" Shall I ever then behold him
Who hath been my life so long, —
Ever to this sick heart fold him, —
Be the spirit of his song ?
" Touch not, sea, the blessed letters
I have traced upon thy shore,
Spare his name whose spirit fetters
Mine with love forever more ! "
Swells the tide and overflows it,
But with omen pure and meet.
670
THE LOST LOVE.
Brings a little rose, and throws it
Humbly at the maiden's feet.
Full of bliss she takes the token,
And, upon her snowy breast,
Soothes the ruffled petals broken
With the ocean's fierce unrest.
" Love is thine, heart! and surely
Peace shall also be thine own,
For the heart that trusteth purely
Never long can pine alone."
in.
In his tower sits the poet.
Blisses new, and strange to him
Fill his heart and overflow it
With a wonder sweet and dim.
Up the beach the ocean slideth
With a whisper of delight,
And the moon in silence glideth,
Through the peaceful blue of night.
Poippling o'er the poet's shoulder
Flows a maiden's golden hair,
Maiden lips, with love grown bolder.
Kiss his moonlit forehead bare.
" Life is joy, and love is power.
Death all fetters doth unbind.
Strength and wisdom only flower
When we toil for all our kind.
Hope is truth, the future giveth
More than present takes away,
And the soul forever liveth
Nearer God from day to day."
Not a word the maiden muttered,
Fullest hearts are slow to speak.
But a withered rose-leaf fluttered
Down upon the poet's cheek.
THE LOST LOVE.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
»IIE dwelt among the untrodden ways
1^^] Beside the springs of Dove ;
^A maid whom there were noneto
And very few to love.
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be ;
But she is in her grave, and
The difference to me !
BUCK FANSHAW'S FUNERAL. g^j
BUCK FANSHA W'S FUNERAL.
S. C. CLEMENS.
mpHEEE was a grand time over Buck Fanshaw when he died. He
^1^ was a representative citizen. On the inquest it was shown that,
^L in the delirium of a wasting typhoid fever he had taken arsenic,
l> shot himself through the body, cut his throat, and jumped out of a
4 four-story window and broken his neck, and, after due deliberation,
J the j ury, sad and tearful, but with intelligence unblinded by its sor-
row, brought in a verdict of '' death by the visitation of Providence."
What could the world do without juries !
Prodigious preparations were made for the funeral. All the vehicles
in town were hired, all the saloons were put in mourning, all the muni-
cipal and fire-company flags were hung at half-mast and all the firemen
ordered to muster in uniform, and bring their machines duly draped in
black.
Eegretful resolutions were passed and various committees appointed ;
among others, a committee of one was deputed to call on the minister — a
fragile, gentle, spiritual new fledgling from an eastern theological semi-
nary, and as yet unacquainted with the ways of the mines. The commit-
tee-man, " Scotty " Briggs, made his visit.
Being admitted to his presence, he sat down before the clergyman,
placed his fire-hat on an unfinished manuscript sermon under the minister's
nose, took from it a red silk handkerchief, wiped his brow, and heaved a
sigh of dismal impressiveness, explanatory of his business. He choked and
even shed tears, but with an efi"ort he mastered his voice, and said, in lugu-
brious tones :
" Are you the duck that runs the gospel-naill next door ? "
"Am I the — pardon me, I believe I do not understand."
"With another sigh and a half sob, Scotty rejoined :
" Why you see we are in a bit of trouble, and the boys thought maybe
you'd give us a lift, if we'd tackle you, that is, if I've got the rights of it,
and you're the head clerk of the doxology works next door."
"I am the shepherd in charge of the flock whose fold is next
door."
"The which?"
" The spiritual adviser of the little company of believers whose sanc-
tuary adjoins these premises."
Scotty scratched his head, reflected a moment, and then said :
5^2 BUCK FANSHAW'S FUNERAL. •
" You ruther hold over me, pard. I reckon I can't call that card.
Ante and pass the buck."
" How ? I beg your pardon. What did I understand you to say ? "
" Well, you've ruther got the bulge on me. Or maybe we've both got
the bulge, somehow. You don't smoke me and I don't smoke you. You
see one of the boys has passed in his checks, and we want to give him a
good send off, and so the thing I'm on now is to roust out somebody to
jerk a little chin-music for us, and waltz him through handsome."
" My friend, I seem to grow more and more bewildered. Your obser-
vations are wholly incomprehensible to me. Can you not simplify them
some way ? At first I thought perhaps I understood you, but I grope
now. Would it not expedite matters if you restricted yourself to the cate-
gorical statements of fact unincumbered with obstructing accumulations of
metaphor and allegory ? "
Another pause and more reflection. Then Scotty said : " I'll have to
pass, I judge."
"How?"
" You've raised me out, pard."
" I still fail to catch your meaning."
" Why, that last lead of your'n is too many for me — that's the idea.
I can't neither trump nor follow suit."
The clergyman sank back in his chair perplexed. Scotty leaned his
head on his hand, and gave himself up to reflection. Presently his face
came up, sorrowful, but confident.
"I've got it now, so's you can savvy," said he. " What we want is a
gospel-sharp. See ? "
"A what?"
" Gospel-sharp. Parson."
" Oh ! Why did you not say so before ? I am a clergyman — a
parson."
" Now you talk ! You see my blind, and straddle it like a man. Put
it there !" — extending a brawny paw, which "closed over the minister's small
hand and gave it a shake indicative of fraternal sympathy and fervent
gratification.
" Take him all round, pard, there never was abuUier man in the mines.
No man ever know'd Buck Fanshaw to go back on a friend. But it's all
up, you know ; it's all up. It ain't no use. They've scooped him ! "
" Scooped him ? "
" Yes — death has. Well, well, well, we've got to give him up. Yes,
indeed. It's a kind of a hard world after all, ain't it ? But, pard, he was
BUCK FANSHAW'S FUNERAL. 673
a rustler. You ought to seen him get started once. He was a bully boy
with a glass eye ! Just spit in his face, and give him room according to
his strength, and it was just beautiful to see him peel and go in. He was
the worst son of a thief that ever draw'd breath. Pard, he was on it. He
was on it bigger than an injuu ! "
" On it ? On what ? "
" On the shoot. On the shoulder. On the fight. Understand ? He
didn't give a continental — for anyhoHy. Beg your pardon, friend, for
coming so near saying a cuss word — but you see I'm on an awful strain in
this palaver, on account of having to cramp down and draw everything so
mild. But we've got to give him up. There ain't any getting around
that, I don't reckon. Now if we can get you to help plant him — "
" Preach the funeral discourse ? Assist at the obsequies? "
" Obs'quies is good. Yes. That's it ; that's our little game. We are
going to get up the thing regardless, you know. He was always nifty
himself, and so you bet you his funeral ain't going to be no slouch ; solid
silver door-plate on his coffin, six plumes on the hearse, and a nigger on
the box, with a biled shirt and a plug hat on — how's that for high ? And
we'll take care of you, pard. We'll fix you all right. There will bfe a
kerridge for you ; and whatever you want you just 'scape out, and we'll
tend to it. We've got a shebang fixed up for you to stand behind in No.
I's house, and don't you be afraid. Just go in and toot your horn, if you
don't sell a clam. Put Buck through as bully as you can, pard, for any-
body that know'd him will tell you that he was one of the whitest men
that was ever in the mines. You can't draw it too strong to do him jus-
tice. Here once when the Micks got to throwing stones through the
Methodist Sunday-school windows, Buck Fanshaw, all of his own notion,
shut up his saloon, and took a couple of six-shooters and mounted guard
over the Sunday-school. Says he, ' No Irish need apply.' And they
didn't. He was the bulliest man in the mountains, pard ; he could run
faster, jump higher, hit harder, and hold more tangle-foot whiskey without
spilling it than any man in seventeen counties. Put that in, pard ; it'll
please the boys more than anything you could say. And you can say,
pard, that he never shook his mother."
" Never shook his mother ? "
" That's it — any of the boys will tell you so."
" Well, but why should he shake her ? "
" That's what I say — but some people does."
" Not people of any repute ? "
" Well, some that averages pretty so-so."
674
THE HOUR OF DEATH.
" In my opinion a man that would offer personal violence to liis
mother, ought to — "
"Cheese it, pard; you've banked your ball clean outside the string.
What I was a-drivin' at was that he never throwed off on his mother —
don't you see ? No indeedy ! He give her a house to live in, and town
lots, and plenty of money ; and he looked after her and took care of her all
the time ; and when she was down with the small-pox, I'm cuss'd if he
didn't set up nights and nuss her himself! Beg your pardon for saying it,
but it hopped out too quick for yours truly. You've treated me like a
gentleman, and I ain't the man to hurt your feelings intentional. I think
you're white. I think you're a square man, pard. I like you, and I'll
lick any man that don't. I'll lick him till he can't tell himself from a last
year's corpse. Put it there ! "
[Another fraternal handshake — and exit.]
TEE EOUR OF DEATE.
MKS. F. HEMANS.
Leaves have their time to fall,
J|And flowers to wither at the north
wind's breath,
And stars to set — but all.
Thou hast all seasons for thine own,
oh Death !
Day is for mortal care,
Eve for glad meetings round the joy ous hearth.
Night for the dreams of sleep, the voice of
prayer —
But all for Thee, thou mightiest of the earth.
The banquet hath its hour.
Its feverish hour of mirth, and song, and wine ;
There comes a day for griefs o'erwhelming
power,
A time for softer tears — but all are thine.
Youth and the opening rose
May look like things too glorious for decay.
And smile at thee — but thou art not of
those
That wait the ripened bloom to seize their
prey.
Leaves have their time to fall.
And flowers to wither at the north wind's
breath,
And stars to set — but all,
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, oh Death !
"We know when moons shall wane,
When summer-birds from far shall cross the
sea.
When autumn's hue shall tinge the golden
grain —
But who shall teach us when to look for
thee?
Is it when Spring's first gale
Comes forth to whisper where the violets
lie?
Is it when roses in our paths grow pale ? —
They have oiie season — all are ours to die !
Thou art where billows foam,
Thou art where music melts upon the air ;
Thou art around us in our peaceful home,
And the world calls us forth — and thou art
there.
GRANDMOTHER'S SPECTACLES.
675
Thou art whert friend meets friend,
Beneath the shadow of the elm to rest —
Thou art where foe meets foe, and trumpets
rend
The skies, and swords beat down the princely
crest.
Leaves have their time to fall.
And flowers to wither at the north wind's
breath.
And stars to set — but all,
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, oh
Death !
ANSWER '' TO THE HOUR OF DEATH:
MRS. CORNWALL BAROX WILSOX.
i|RUE, all we know must die,
' Though none can tell the exact ap-
pointed hour ;
Nor should it cost the virtuous heart
a sigh,
Whether death doth crush the oak, or
nip the opening flower.
The Christian is prepared.
Though others tremble at the hour of gloom !
His soul is always ready on his guard ;
His lamps are lighted 'gainst the bridegroom
come.
It matters not the time
When we shall end our pilgrimage below ;
Whether in youth's bright morn, or man-
hood's prime.
Or when the frost of age has whitened o'er
our brow.
The child has blossomed fair,
And looked so lovely on its mother's breast.
The source of many a hope and many a
prayer.
Why murmur that it sleeps when all at last
may rest ?
Snatched from a world of woe.
Where they must suffer most who longest
dwell,
It vanished like a flake of early snow,
That melts into the sea, pure as from heaven
it fell.
The youth whose pulse beats high.
Eager through glory's brilliant course to run.
Why should we shed a tear or breathe a
sigh.
That the bright goal is gained — the prize thus
early won !
Yes ! all we know must die.
Since none can tell the exact appointed hour.
Why need it cost the virtuous heart a sigh.
Whether death doth crush the oak, or nip the
opening flower ?
GRANDMOTHERS SPECTACLES
T. DE WITT TALMAGE.
fUT sometimes these optical instruments get old and dim. Grand-
^^ mother's pair had done good work in their day. They were large
and round, so that when she saw a thing she saw it. There was
a crack across the upper part of the glass, for many a baby had
made them a plaything, and all the grandchildren had at some
time tried them on. They had sometimes been so dimmed with tears that
676
GRANDMOTHER'S SRECTACLES.
she had to take them off and wipe them on her apron before she could see
through them at all. Her "second-sight" had now come, and she would
often let her glasses slip down, and then look over the top of them while
she read. Grandmother was pleased at this return of her vision. Getting
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along so well without them, she often lost her spectacles. Sometimes they
would lie for weeks untouched on the shelf in the red morocco case, the
flap unlifted. She could now look off upon the hills, which for thirty years
she had not been able to see from the piazza. Those were mistaken who
thought she had no poetry in her soul. You coulci see it in the way she
THE OLD VILLAGE CHOIR.
677
put her hand under the chin of a primrose, or cultured the geranium.
Sitting on the piazza one evening, in her rocking-chair, she saw a ladder
of cloud set up against the sky, and thought how easy it would be for a
spirit to climb it. She saw in the deep glow of the sunset a chariot of
fire, drawn by horses of fire, and wondered who rode in it. She saw a
vapor floating thinly away, as though it were a wing ascending, and grand-
mother muttered in a low tone: "A vapor that appeareth for a little sea-
son, and then vanisheth away." She saw a hill higher than any she had
ever seen before on the horizon, and on the top of it a king's castle. The
motion of the rocking-chair became slighter and slighter, until it stopped.
The spectacles fell out of her lap. A child, hearing it, ran to pick them
up, and cried : "Grandmother, what is the matter?" She answered not.
She never spake again. Second-sight had come ! Her vision had grown
better and better. What she could not see now was not worth seeing.
Not now through a glass darkly! Grandmother had no more need of
spectacles !
THE OLD VILLAGE CHOIR.
■^
BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR
HAVE fancied sometimes tlie Bethel-
bent beam
H That trembled to earth in the patri-
Yiy arch's dream,
Was a ladder of song in that wilder-
Jness rest,
From the pillow of stone to the blue
of the Blest,
And the angels descending to dwell with us
here,
"Old Hundred" and " Corinth," and "China"
and " Mear,"
All the hearts are not dead nor under the
sod,
That these breaths can blow open to heaven
and God.
Ah, "Silver Street" flows by a bright shining
road —
Oh, not to the hymns that in harmony flowed,
But the sweet human psalms of the old-
fashioned choir,
To the girl that sang alto, the girl that sang
air.
" Let us sing to God's praise !" the minister
said :
AH' the psalm books at once fluttered open at
"York."
Sunned their long-dotted wings in the words
that he read,
While the leader leaped into the tune just
ahead,
And politely picked up the key-note with a
fork,'
And the vicious old viol went growling along
At the heels of the girls in the rear of the
song.
Oh, I need not a wing ; — bid no genii come
With a wonderful web from Arabian loom,
To bear me again up the river of Time,
When the world was in rhythm and life was
its rhyme,
And the stream of the j-ears flowed so noise-
less and narrow
That across it there floated the song of a
sparrow ;
678
THE CORAL GROVE.
For a sprig of green caraway carries me
And dear sister Green, with more goodnesa
there,
than grace.
To the old village church and the old village
Rose and fell on the tunes as she stood in her
choir,
place.
Where clear of the floor my feet slowly
And where " Coronation " exultantly flows
swung
Tried to reach the high notes on the tips of
And timed the sweet pulse of the praise that
her toes !
they sung,
To the land of the leal they have gone with
fill the glory aslant from the afternoon sun
their song,
Seemed the rafters of gold in Gods temple
Where the choir and the chorus together be-
begun !
long.
Oh ! be lifted, ye gates ! Let us hear them
You may smile at the nasals of old Deacon
again.
Brown,
Blessed song! Blessed singers! forever,
Who followed by scent till he ran the tune
Amen!
down.
«^f^
.ihtiiVH'
THE CORAL GROVE.
JAMES G, PERCIVAL.
^EEP in the wave is a coral grove.
Where the purple mullet, and gold
fish rove ;
Where the sea-flower spreads its
leaves of blu«
That never are wet with falling dew,
But in bright and changeful beauty
shine
Far down in the green and glassy brine.
The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift.
And the pearl shells spangle the flinty snow ;
From coral rocks the sea plants lift
Their boughs, where the tides and billows
flow ;
The water is calm and still below,
For the wind and waves are absent there,
And the sands are bright, as the stars that
glow
In the motionless fields of upper air.
There, with its waving blade of green,
Tlie sea flag streams through the silent water,
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen
OVhia THE HILL TO THE POOR-HOUSE.
679
To blush, like a banner bathed in slaughter.
There, with a light and easy motion, [sea ;
The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep
And the 3-ellow and scarlet tufts of ocean
Are bending like corn on the upland lea
And life, in rare and beautiful forms,
Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,
And is safe when the wrathful spirit of
storms
Has made the top of the wave his own.
And when the ship from his fury flies,
Where the myriad voices of ocean roar,
When the wind -god frowns in the murky
skies, [shore,
And demons are waiting the wreck on
Then, far below, in the peaceful sea.
The purple mullet and gold fish rove.
Where the waters murmur iranquilly.
Through the bending twigs of the coral
grove.
LA W.
JAMES BEATTIE.
AWS, as we read in ancient sages,
I Have been like cobwebs in all ages.
,j.^^ Cobwebs for little flies are spread.
And laws for little folks are made ;
But if an insect of renown,
Hornet or beetle, wasp or drone,
Be caught in quest of sport or plunder,
The flimsy fetter flies in sunder.
OVUB THE RILL TO THE POOR-HOUSE.
WILL. M. CARLETON.
^VER the hill to the poor-house I'm
trudgin' my weary way —
I, a woman of seventy, and only a
trifle gray —
I, who am smart an' chipper, for all
the years I've told.
As many another woman, that's only
half as old.
Over the hill to the poor-house — I can't make
it quite clear !
Over the hill to the poor-house — it seems so
horrid queer !
Many a step I've taken a-toilin' to and fro.
But this is a sort of journey I never thought
to go.
What is the use of heapin' on me a pauper's
shame ?
Am I lazy or crazy ? am I blind or lame ?
True, I am not so supple, nor y^ so awful
stout,
46
But charity ain't no favor, if one can live
without.
I am willin' and anxious an' ready any day,
To work for a decent livm', an' pay my
honest way ;
For I can earn my victuals, an' more too, I'll
be bound.
If any body only is willin' to have me round.
Once I was young andhan'some — I was
upon my soul —
Once my cheeks was roses, my eyes as black
as coal ;
And I can't remember, in them days, of
hearin' people say.
For any kind of reason, that I waa in their
way.
'Taint no use of boastin'. or talkin' over
free,
But many a house an' home was open then to
680
OVER THE HILL TO THE POOR-HOUSE.
Many a han'some offer I bad from likely
men,
And nobody ever binted tbat I was a burden
tben.
And when to John I was married, sure be
was good and smart,
But he and all the neighbors would own I
done my part :
For life was all before me, an' I was young
an strong.
And I worked the best that I could in trym'
to get along.
And when, exceptin' Charley, they'd left us
there alone ;
When John he nearer an' nearer come, an'
dearer seemed to be,
The Lord of Hosts he come one day an' took
him away from me.
Still I was bound to struggle, an' never to
cringe or fall^
Still I worked for Charlie, for Cha.rlie was
now my all ;
And Charlie was pretty good to me, with
scarce a word or frown.
-'^^:.^ ^.%?
And so we worked together : and life was
hard but gay,
With now and then a baby, for to cheer us
on our way ;
Till we had half a dozen, an' all growed
clean an' neat,
An went to school like others, an' had
enough to eat.
So we worked for the childr'n, and raised
'em every one ;
Worked for 'em summer and winter, just as
we ought to 've done ;
Only perhaps we humored 'em, which some
good folks condemn,
But every couple's child'rn's a heap the best
to them.
Strange how much we think of our blessed
little ones ? —
I'd have died for my daughters, I'd have
died for my sons ;
And God he made that rule of love ; but
when we're old and gray,
I've noticed it sometimes somehow fails to
work the other way.
Till at last he went a courtin', and brought
a wife from town.
She was somewhat dressy, an' hadn't a pleas-
ant smile —
She was quite conceity, and carried a heap
o' style;
But if ever I tried to be friends, I did with
her, I know;
But she was hard and proud, an' I couldn't
make it go.
She had an edication, an' that was good for
her;
But when she twitted me on mine 'twas car-
ryin' things too fur ;
An' I told her once 'fore company (an it al-
most made her sick),
That I never swallowed a grammar, or 'et a
'rithmatic.
So 'twas only a few days before the thing
was done —
They was a family of themselves, and I
another one;
And a very little cottage for one family will
do,
Strange, another thing : when our boys an' gut I have*never seen a house that was big
girls was grown, 1 enough for two.
i
OVER THE HILLS FROM THE TOOR-HOUSE
681
An' I never could speak to suit her, never
An' then, I wrote to Rebecca, — ray girl who
could please her eye,
lives out West,
An' it made me independent, an' then I
And to Isaac, not far from her — some twenty
didn't try ;
miles at best ;
But I was terribly staggered, an' felt it like
An' one of 'em said 'twas too warm there,
a blow,
for any one so old,
When Charlie turned ag'in me, an' told me I
And t Other had an opinion the climate was
could go.
too cold.
I went to live with Susan, but Susan's house
So they have shirked and slighted me, an'
was small.
shifted me about —
And she was always a-hintin' how snug it
So they have well nigh soured me, an' worn
was for us all ;
my old heart out ;
And what with her husband's sisters, and
But still I've born up pretty well, an' wasn't
what with her childr'n three.
much put down.
'Twas easy to discover that there wasn't
Till Charlie went to the poor-master, an' put
room for me.
me on the town.
An' then I went to Thomas, the oldest son
Over the hill to the poor-house — my childr'n
I've got,
dear, good-bye !
For Thomas' buildings'd cover the half of an
Many a night I've watched you when only
acre lot ;
God was nigh ;
But all the childr'n was on me — I couldn't
And God'll judge between us; but I will
stand their sauce —
al'ays pray
And Thomas said I needn't think I was
That you shall never suffer the half I do
comin' there to boss.
to-day.
OVER THE HILLS FROM THE POOR-HOUSE.
►^r
MAY MIGNONETTE.
VER the hills to the poor-house sad
paths have been made to-day.
For sorrow is near, such asmaketh
the heads of the young turn
gray,
Causing the heart of the careless to
throb with a fevered breath-
To hear from her lips their last blessing before
she should start for her home
To Susan, poor Susan ! how bitter the agony
brought by the call,
For deep in her heart for her mother wide
rooms had been left after all ;
The sorrow that leads to the chamber whose And now, that she thought, by her fireside
light has gone out in death.
one place had been vacant for years, —
And while " o'er the hills " she was speeding
her path might be traced by her tears.
To Susan, Rebecca and Isaac, to Thomas and
Charley, word sped
That mother was ill and fast failing, perhaps I Rebecca! she heard not the tidings, but those
when they heard might be dead ; i who bent over her knew
But e'en while they wrote she was praying i That led by the Angel of Death, near tha
that some of her children might come, | waves of the river she drew;
682
A PRAYER FOR MY LITTLE OiVE.
Delirious, ever she told them her mother was
cooling her head,
V^'hile, weeping, they thought that ere morn-
ing both mother and child might be
dead,
And, kneeling beside her, stern Isaac was
quiv'ring in aspen-like grief,
While waves of sad mem'ry surged o'er him
like billows of wind o'er the leaf;
" Too late," were the words that had humbled
his cold, haughty pride to the dust,
And Peace, with her olive-boughs laden,
crowned loving forgiveness with trust.
Bowed over his letters and papers, sat
Thomas, his bro^ lined by thought,
But little he heeded the markets or news of
his gains that they bro.ught ;
His lips grew as pale as his cheek, but new
purpose seemed born in his eye,
And Thomas went " over the hills." to the
mother that shortly must die.
To Charley, her youngest, her pride, came the
mother's message that morn.
And he was away "o'er the hills" ere the
sunlight blushed over the corn ;
And, strangest of all, by his side, was the
wife he had " brought from the town,"
And silently Avept, while her tears strung
with diamonds her plain mourning
gown.
For each had been thinking, of late, how
they missed the old mother's sweet
smile,
And wond'ring how they could have been so
blind and unjust all that while ;
They thought of their harsh, cruel words,
and longed to atone for the past.
When swift o'er the heart of vain dreams
swept the presence of death's chilling
blast.
So into the chamber of death, one by one,
these sad children liad crept,
As they, in their childhood, had done, when
mother was tired and slept, —
And peace, rich as then, came to each, as
they drank in her blessing, so deep,
That, breathing into her life, she fell back in
her last blessed sleep.
And when "o'er the hills from the poor-
house,'' that mother is tenderly borne.
The life of her life, her loved children, tread
softly, and silently mourn.
For theirs is no rivulet sorrow, but deep as
the ocean is deep.
And into our lives, with sweet healing, the
balm of their bruising may creep
For swift come the flashings of temper, and
torrents of words come as swift.
Till out 'mong the tide-waves of anger, how
often we thoughtlessly drift !
And heads that are gray with life's ashes,
and feet that walk down 'mong the
dead.
We send " o'er the hills to the poor-house "
for love, and, it may be, for bread.
Oh ! when shall we value the living while
yet the keen sickle is stayed.
Nor slight the wild flower in its blooming,
till all its sweet life is decayed?
Yet often the fragrance is richest, when
poured from the bruised blossom's soul,
And " over the hills from the poor-house "
the rarest of melodies roll.
A PRA YER FOR MY LITTLE ONE.
EDGAR FAWCETT.
pD bless my little one ! How fair
l^te The mellow lamp-light gilds
'^^ hair.
Loose on the cradle-pillow there.
God bless my little one !
his
God guard my little one ! To me
Life, widowed of his life would be
As sea-sands widowed of the sea.
God guard my little one !
LOSS OF THE ARCTIC.
683
God love my little one! As clear
Cool sun3hiQ3 holds the first green spear
On April meadows, hold him dear.
God love my little one!
When these fond lips are mute, and when
I slumber, not to wake again,
God bless — God guard — God love him then.
My little one ! Amen.
LOSS OF THE AECTIC.
HENRY WARD BEECHER.
^T was autumn. Hundreds had wended their way from pilgrimages ;
from Kome and its treasures of dead art, and its glory of living
nature; from the sides of the Switzer's mountains, and from the
capitals of various nations, — all of them saying m their hearts, we
will wait for the September gales to have done with their equinoctial
fnry, and then we will embark ; we will slide across the appeased
684 LOSS OF THE ARCTIC.
ocean, and in the gorgeous month of October we will greet our longed-for
native land, and our heart-loved homes.
And so the throng streamed along from Berlin, from Paris, from the
Orient, converging upon London, still hastening toward the welcome ship,
and narrowing every day the circle of engagements and preparations.
They crowded aboard. ISfever had the Arctic borne sucli a host of pas-
sengers, nor passengers so nearly related to so many of us. The hour was
come. . The signal-ball fell at Greenwich. It was noon also at Liverpool.
The anchors were weighed; the great hull swayed to the current; the
national colors streamed abroad, as if themselves instinct with life and
national sympathy. The bell strikes ; the wheels revolve ; the signal-gun
beats its echoes in upon every structure along the shore, and the Arctic
glides joyfully forth from the Mersey, and turns her prow to the winding
channel, and begins her homeward run. The pilot stood at the wheel,
and men saw him. Death sat upon the prow, and no eye beheld him.
Whoever stood at the wheel in all the voyage. Death was the pilot that
steered the craft, and none knew it. He neither revealed his presence nor
whispered his errand.
And so hope was effulgent, and lithe gayety disported itself, and joy
was with every guest. Amid all the inconveniences of the voyage, there
was still that which hushed every murmur, — "Home is not far away."
And every morning it was still one night nearer home ! Eight days had
passed. They beheld that distant bank of mist that forever haunts the
vast shallows of Newfoundland, Boldly they made it ; and plunging in,
its pliant wreaths wrapped them about. They shall never emerge. The
last sunlight has flashed from that deck. The last voyage is done to ship
and passengers. At noon there came noiselessly stealing from the north
that fated instrument of destruction. In that mysterious shroud, that
vast atmosphere of mist, both steamers were holding their way with rush-
ing prow and roaring wheels, but invisible.
At a league's distance, unconscious; and at nearer approach, un-
warned ; within hail, and bearing right toward each other, unseen, unfelt,
till in a moment more, emerging from the gray mists, the ill-omened Vesta
dealt her deadly stroke to the Arctic. The death-blow was scarcely felt
along the mighty hull. She neither reeled nor shivered. Neither com-
mander nor officers deemed that they had suffered harm. Prompt upon
humanity, the brave Luce (let his name be ever spoken with admiration
and respect) ordered away his boat with the first officer to inquire if the
stranger had suffered harm. As Gourley went over the ship's side, oh,
that some good angel had called to the brave commander in the words of
DOROTHY SULLIVAN.
685
Paul on a like occasion, " Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be
saved."
They departed, and with them the hope of the ship, for now the waters
gaining upon the hold, and rising upon the fires, revealed the mortal blow.
Oh, had now that stern, brave mate, Gourley, been on deck, whom the
sailors were wont to mind, — had he stood to execute sufficiently the com-
mander's will, — we may believe that we should not have had to blush for
the cowardice and recreancy of the crew, nor weep for the untimely dead.
But, apparently, each subordinate officer lost all presence of mind, then
courage, and so honor. In a wild scramble, that ignoble mob of firemen,
engineers, waiters, and crew, rushed for the boats, and abandoned the
helpless women, children, and men, to the mercy of the deep! Four hours
there were from the catastrophe of collision to the catastrophe of sinking !
Oh, what a burial was here ! Not as when one is borne from his home,
among weeping throngs, and gently carried to the green fields, and laid
peacefully beneath the turf and flowers. No priest stood to pronounce a
burial-service. It was an ocean grave. The mists alone shrouded the
burial-place. No spade prepared the grave, nor sexton filled up the hol-
lowed earth. Down, down they sank, and the quick returning waters
smoothed out every ripple, and left the sea as if it had not been.
DOROTHY SULLIVAN.
jH ! a wedding ring's pretty to wear,
And a bride of all women is fair,
But then there's no trusting
in men ;
And if I were a girl I'd have
lovers beware.
They may court you to-day,
sweet as birds in the May,
But to-morrow look out they'll be all flown
away.''
Old Dolly Sullivan shook her gray head.
Lovers were now the last thing she need
dread.
But you never can tell who has once been a
belle.
" Sweethearts ! I've had 'em ! I know 'em !''
she said.
" Just as long as your company's new,
There is no one that's equal to you.
You then can have choice of the men,
It's the black eyes to-day and to-morrow the
blue.
I once had a brocade for my wedding gown
made.
On the shelf of the store-room my wedding
cake laid.
Never that cake on the table was set.
Here I am, Dorothy Sullivan yet.
Let it go ! Let it go ! I am glad it was so ;
Hardly earned lessons we're slow to forget.
" Could I keep all now that I know
With the face that I had long ago,
Ah ! then I would pay back the men ;
I would a small part of the debt that I owe,
For 't is little care they, spite the fine things
they say.
How a woman's hf^art ache?, if they have
their own way.
686
THE EXECUTION OF MADAME ROLAOT).
Promises ! little they keep men in awe
Trust 'em ! I'd sooner trust snow in a thaw,
For they're easy to make ; and more easy to
break.
Keep'in 'em's something that never I saw.
"When you come to your own wedding
morn,
Just to find you're a maid left forlorn,
Ah ! then, where's your faith in the men ?
When your wedding gown's on ; and your
bridegroom is gone,
You must take off that gown, and sit quietly
down."
Old Dolly Sullivan shook her gray head.
" Children once burnt of the fire have a dread,
Let your love stories be when you're talking
to me.
Sweethearts! I've had 'em, I know 'em," she
said.
THE EXECUTION OF MADAME ROLAND.
LAMARTINE.
4^
-■^
AM going to the guillotine," replied Madame Roland ; " a few
moments and I shall be there ; but those who send me thither
will follow me ere long. I go innocent, but they will come
stained with blood, and you who applaud our execution will then
I applaud theirs with equal zeal." Sometimes she would turn away
1 her head that she might not appear to hear the insults with which
she was assailed, and would lean with almost "filial tenderness over the
aged partner of her execution. The poor old man wept bitterly, and she
kindly and cheeringly encouraged him to bear up with firmness, and to
suffer with resignation. She even tried to enliven the dreary journey they
were performing together by little attempts at cheerfulness, and at length
succeeded in winning a smile from her fellow-sufferer.
A colossal statue of liberty, composed of clay, like the liberty of the
time, then stood in the middle of the Place de la Concorde, on the spot
now occupied by the Obelisk ; the scaffold was erected beside his statue.
Upon arriving there, Madame Roland descended from the cart in which
she had been conveyed. Just as the executioner had seized her arm to
enable her to be the first to mount to the guillotine, she displayed an in-
stance of that noble and tender consideration for others, which only a
woman's heart could conceive, or put into practice at such a moment.
" Stay ! " said she, momentarily resisting the man's grasp. " I have only
one favor to ask, and that is not for myself; I beseech you grant it me."
Then, turning to the old man, she said, " Do you precede me to the scaf-
fold ; to see my blood flow would be making you suffer the bitterness of
death twice over. I must spare you the pain of witnessing my punish-
ment." The executioner allowed this arrangement to be made.
THE BALD-HEADED TYRANT.
687
With what sensibility and firmness must the mind have been imbued
which could, at such a time, forget its own sufferings, to think only of
saving one pang to an unknown old man ! and how clearly does this one
little trait attest the heroic calmness with which this celebrated woman met
her death ! After the execution of Lamarche, which she witnessed with-
out changing color, Madame Roland stepped lightly up to the scaffold, and,
bowing before the statue of Liberty, as though to do homage to a power far
whom she was about to die, exclaimed, " Liberty ! Liberty ! how many
crimes are committed in thy name ! " She then resigned herself to the
hands of the executioner, and in a few seconds her head fell into the basket
placed to receive it.
THE BALD-HEADED TYRANT.
MARY E. VANDYKE.
kH ! the quietest home on earth had I,
No thought of trouble, no hint of
^»l care ;
m Like a dream of pleasure the days
\ fled by,
jj- And Peace had folded her pinions
J there.
But one day there joined in our house-
hold band
A bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-land.
Oh, the despot came in the dead of night,
And no one ventured to ask him why ;
Like slaves we trembled before his might,
Our hearts stood still when we heard him
cry;
For never a soul could his power withstand,
That bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-land.
He ordered us here, and he sent us there —
Though never a word could his small lips
speak —
With his toothless gums and his vacant stare.
And his helpless limbs so frail and weak,
Till I cried, in a voice of stern command,
"Go up, thou bald-head from No-man's-land."
But his abject slaves they turned on me:
Like the bears in Scripture, they'd rend me
there,
The while they worshiped with bended knee
The ruthless wretch with the missing hair,
For he rules them all with relentless hand.
This bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-land.
Then I searched for help in every clime,
For Peace had fled from my dwelling now
Till I finally thought of old Father Time,
And low before him I made my bow.
"Wilt thou deliver me out of his hand,
This bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-
land."
Old Time he looked with a puzzled stare,
And a smile came over his features grim.
I'll take the tyrant under my care:
Watch what my hour-glass does to him.
The veriest humbug that ever was planned.
Is this same bald-head from No-man's-land.
688
THE GAMBLER'S WIFE.
Old Time is doing his work full well —
Much less of might docs the tyrant wield;
But, ah ! with sorrow my heart will swell
And sad tears fall as I see him yield.
Could I stay the touch of that shriveled
hand
I would keep the bald-head from No-man's-
land.
For the loss of peace I have ceased to care ;
Like other vassals, I've learned, forsooth,
To love the wretch who forgot his hair,
And hurried along without a tooth.
And he rules me, too, with Lis tiny hand.
This bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-
land.
THE GAMBLER'S WIFE.
REYNELL COAXES.
pi|AIlK is the night ! How dark ! No
^B light: no fire!
"jj«y.e)s' Cold, on the hearth, the last faint
m ^ sparks expire !
<"■ Shivering, she watches by the cradle-
•f side,
J For him, who pledged her love — last year
a bride !
" Hark ! 't is his footstep ! No ! 't is past !-
't IS gone !"
Tick ! — tick ! — " How wearily the time crawls
on !
Why should he leave me thus? — He once
was kind !
And I believed 't would last ! — How mad ! —
How blind !
" Rest thee, my babe !— Rest on ! — Tis hun-
ger's cry !
Sleep ! — for there is no food ! — the fount is dry !
Famine and cold their wearying work have
done.
My heart must break ! And thou !" The
clock strikes one.
"Hush! 't is the dice-box! Yes! he's there!
he's there !
For this! — for this he leaves me to despair!
Leaves love ! leaves truth ! his wife ! his
child! for what?
The wanton's smile — the villain — and the
sot !
" Yet I'll not curse him. No ! 't is all in
vain!
'T is long to wait, but sure he'll come again!
And I could starve, and bless him, but for you.
My child ! his child ! Oh, fiend!" The clock
strikes two.
"Hark! how the signboard creaks! The
blast howls by.
Moan ! Moan ! a dirge swells through the
cloudy sky !
Ha! 't is his knock! he comes! he comes
once more!"
'Tis but the lattice flaps ! Thy hope is o'er i
" Can he desert us thus ? Ho knows I stay.
Night after night, in loneliness, to pray
For his return — and yet he sees no tear !
No ! no ! it cannot be ! He will be here !
"Nestle more closely, dear one, to my heart
Thou'rt cold ! thou'rt freezing ! But we wilJ
not part !
Husband ! — I die ! — Father ! — It is not he !
God ! protect my child !" The clock strike)-
three.
They're gone, they're gone ! the glimmering
spark hath fled !
The wife and child are numbered with the
dead,
On the cold hearth, outstretched in solemn
rest.
The babe lay, frozen on its mother's breast .
Tlie gambler came at last — but all was o'er —
Dread silence reigned around: — the clock
struck four I
WHERE SHALL THE BABY'S DIMPLE BE?
680
TO A FRIEND IN AFFLICTION.
WILLIAM MUNFORD.
S^^a
^^ KNOW in grief like yours how more
^M than vain
^^1 All comfort to the stricken heart
A appears ;
V And as the bursting cloud must spend
.(• its rain,
J So grief its tears.
I know that when your little darling's
form
Had freed the angel spirit fettered there,
You could not pierce beyond the breaking
storm,
In your despair.
You could not see the tender hand that
caught
Your little lamb, to shield him from all
harm ;
You missed him from your own, but never
thought
Of Jesus' arm !
You only knew those precious eyes were
dim;
You only felt those tiny lips were cold ;
You only clung to what remained of him
Beneath the mould.
But oh ! young mother, look ! the gate un-
bars !
And through the darkness, smiling from
the skies,
Are beaming on you, brighter than those
stars,
Your darling's eyes.
'Tis said that when the pastures down among
The Alpine hills have ceased to feed the
flocks.
And they must mount to where the grass is
young —
Far up the rocks.
The shepherd takes a little lamb at play,
And lifts him gently to his careful breast,
And, with its tender bleating, leads the way
For all the rest;
That quick the mother follows in the patii,
Then others go, like men whose faith gives
hopes,
And soon the shepherd gathers all he
hath—
Far up the
And on those everlasting hills He feeds
The trusting fold in green that never
palls ;
Look up ! see ! your little darling leads, —
The Shepherd calls !
WHERE SHALL THE BABY'S DUIPLE BE?
J. G. HOLLAND.
|VER the cradle the mother hung,
Softly cooing a slumber song,
And these were the simple words
she sung
All the evening long :
■'Cheek or chin, or knuckle or knee.
Where shall the baby's dimple be?
Where shall the angel's finger rest
When he comes down to the baby's nest?
Where shall the angel's touch remain
When he awakens my baby again ?
Still she bent and sang so low
A murmur into her music broke.
And she paused to hear, for she could bu«
know
690
The baby's angel spoke :
"Cheek or chin, or knuckle or knee,
Where shall the baby's dimple be?
Where shall my finger fall and rest
When I come down to the baby's nest?
Where shall my finger's touch remain
When I wake your babe again ?"
Silent the mother sat and dwelt
Long on the sweet delay of choice,
DEFENCE OF I'RA DEL TOK.
And then by her baby's side she knelt
And sang with pleasant voice :
" Not on the limb, angel dear !
For the charms with its youth will dis-
appear ;
Not on the cheek shall the dimple be,
For the harboring smile will fade and flee-.
But touch thou the chin with impress deep,
And my baby the angel's seal shall keep."
DEFENCE OF PRA DEL TOR.
J. A. WYLIE,
iilpEGOTIATIONS had been opened betAveen the men of the Valleys and
1^1^ the Duke of Savoy, and as they were proceeding satisfactorily, the
1^ * Vaudois were without suspicions of evil. This was the moment
that La Trinita chose to attack them. He hastily assembled his
troops, and on the night of the 16th of April he marched them
against the Pra del Tor, hoping to enter it unopposed, and give
the Vaudois " as sheep to the slaughter." f
The snows around the Pra were beginning to burn in the light of the
morning when the attention of the people, who had just ended their united
worship, was attracted by unusual sounds which were heard to issue from
the gorge that led into the valley. On the instant six brave mountaineers
rushed to the gateway that opens from the gorge. The long file of La
Trinita's soldiers was seen advancing two abreast, their helmets and cuiras-
ses glittering in the light. The six Vaudois made their arrangements, and
calmly waited till the enemy was near. The first two Vaudois, holding
loaded muskets, knelt down. The second two stood erect ready to fire
over the heads of the first two. The third two undertook the loading of
the weapons as they were discharged. The invaders came on. As the
first two of the enemy turned the rock they were shot down by the two
foremost Vaudois. The next two of the attacking force fell in like manner
by the shot of the Vaudois in the rear. The third rank of the enemy pre-
sented themselves only to be laid by the side of their comrades. In a few
minutes a little heap of dead bodies blocked the pass, rendering impossible
the advance of the accumulating file of the enemy in the chasm.
Meanwhile, other Vaudois climbed the mountains that overhung the
DEFENCE OF PRA DEL TOR.
691
gorge in which the Piedmontese army was imprisoned. Tearing up the
great stones with which the hill-side was strewn, the Vaudois sent them
rolling down upon the host. Unable to advance from the wall of dead in
front, and unable to flee from the ever accumulating masses behind, the
692
THE CHILDREN'S CHURCH.
joldiers were crushed in dozens by the falling rocks. Panic set in ; and
famine in such a position was dreadful. Wedged together on the narrow
ledge, with a murderous rain of rocks falling on them, their struggles to
escape was frightful. They jostled one another, and trod each other under
foot, while vast numbers fell over the precipice, and were dashed on the
rocks or drowned in the torrent.
When those at the entrance of the valley who were watching the result
saw the crystal of the Angrogna begin about midday to be changed into
blood, "Ah!" said they, "the Pra del Tor has been taken; La Trinita
has triumphed ; then flows the blood of the Vaudois." And, indeed, the
Count on beginning his march that morning is said to have boasted that
by noon the torrent of the Angrogna would be seen to change color ; and
so in truth it did. Instead of a pellucid stream, rolling along on a white
gravelly bed, which is its usual appearance at the mouth of the valley, it
was now deeply dyed from recent slaughter. But when the few who had
escaped the catastrophe returned to tell what had that day passed within
the defiles of the Angrogna, it was seen that it was not the blood of the
Vaudois, but the blood of the ruthless invaders, which dyed the waters of
the Angrogna. The Count withdrew on that same night, to return no
more to the Valley.
THE CHILDREN'S CHURCH.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF PAUL GEROT.
KHE bells of the church are ringing,
Papa and mamma are both gone;
^Y And three little children sit singing
Together this still Sunday morn.
While the bells toll away in the steeple,
Though too small to sit still in a pew.
These busy, religious small people
Determined to have their church too.
So as free as the birds or the breezes
By which their fair ringlets are fanned,
Each rogue sings away as he pleases.
With book upside-down in his hand.
Their hymn has no sense in its letter,
Their music no rythm nor tune ;
Our worship perhaps may be better,
But theirs reaches God quite as soon.
Their angels stand close to the Father,
His Heaven is made bright by these
And the dear God above us would rather
Hear praise from their lips than from ours.
Sing on, little children, your voices
Fill the air with contentment and love ;
All nature around you rejoices
And the birds warble sweetly above.
Sing on, for the proudest orations,
The liturgies sacred and long,
The anthems and worship of nations
Are poor, to your innocent song.
Sing on : our devotion is colder,
Though wisely our prayers may be planned.
For often we, too, who are older.
Hold our book the wrong way in our hand.
THE CHAMBER OVER THE GATE.
093
Sing on : our harmonic inventions
We study with labor and pain ;
Yet often our angry contentions
Take the harmony out of our strain.
Sing on : all our struggle and battle,
Our cry, when most deep and sincere-
What are they? a child's simple prattle,
A breath on the Infinite eai
THE CHAMBER OVER THE GATE.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
S|^S it so far from thee
^|p Thou canst no longer see,
fS| In the Chamber over the Gate,
That old man desolate.
Weeping and wailing sore
For his son, who is no more?
Absalom, my son.
Is it 80 long ago
That cry of human woo
From the walled city came,
Calling on his dear name,
That it has died away
In the distance of to-day?
O Absalom, my son !
There is no far or near.
There is neither there nor here.
There is neither soon nor late,
In that Chamber over the Gate,
Nor any long ago
To that cry of human woe,
Absalom, my son !
From the ages that are past
The voice sounds like a blast,
Over seas that wreck and drown,
Over tumult of traffic and town.
And for ages yet to be
Come the echoes back to me,
Absalom, my son !
Somewhere, at every hour.
The watchman on the tower
Looks forth, and sees the fleet
Approach of the hurrying feet
Of messengers, that bear
The tidings of despair.
O Absalom, m}- son !
He goes forth from the door.
Who shall return no more.
With him our joy departs;
The light goes out in our hearts ;
In the Chamber over the Gate
We sit disconsolate.
Absalom, mvson !
That 'tis a common grief
Bringeth but slight relief;
Ours is the bitterest loss, .
Ours is the heaviest cross ;
And forever that cry will be,
" Would God I had died for thee,
O Absalom, my son I "
694
THE EGGS AND THE HORSES.
GOD IN THE SEAS.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
SHESE restless surges eat away the
shores [plain
^^^^^Of earth's old continents- the fertile
Welters in shallows, headlands crumble down,
And the tide drifts the sea-sand in the streets
Of the drowned city. Thou, meanwhile,
afar
In the green chambers of the middle sea,
Where broadest spread the waters and the
line
Sinks deepest, while no eye beholds thy
work,
Creator ! thou dost teach the coral worm
To lay his mighty reefs. From age to age,
He builds beneath the waters, till, at last.
His bulwarks overtop the brine, and check
The long wave rolling from the southern
pole
To break upon Japan.
THE EGGS AND THE HORSES.
A MATEIMONIAL EPIC.
j^OHN Dobbins was so captivated
W) By Mary Trueman's fortune, face
and cap,
(With near two thousand pounds the
hook was baited,)
That in he popped to matrimony's
trap.
One small ingredient towards happiness,
It seems, ne'er occupied a single thought;
For his accomplished bride
Appearing well supplied
With the three charms of riches, beauty,
dress.
He did not, as he ought,
Think of aught else ; so no inquiry made he
As to the temper of the lady.
And here was certainly a great omission ;
None should accept of Hymen's gentle fet-
ter,
" For worse or butter,"
Whatever be their prospect or condition.
Without acquaintance with each other's
nature ;
For many a mild and gentle creature
Of charming disposition,
Alas ! by thoughtless marriage has de-
stroyed it.
So take advice ; let girls dress e'er so
tastily.
Don't enter into wedlock hastily
Unless you can't avoid it.
Week followed week, and, it must be confest.
The bridegroom and the bride had both been
blost:
Month after month had languidly transpired.
Both parties became tired :
Year after year dragged on ;
Their happiness was gone.
Ah ! foolish pair !
I '■ Bear and forbear,"
THE EGGS AND THE HORSES.
695
Should be the rule for married folks to take,
But blind mankind (poor discontented
elves !)
Too often make
The misery of themselves.
At length the hasband said " This will not do !
Mary, I never will be ruled by you :
So, wife, d'ye see?
To live together as we can't agree.
Suppose we part!"
With woman's pride,
Mary replied,
" With all my heart !"
John Dobbins then to Mary's father goes
And gives the list of his imagined woes.
" Dear son-in-law ! '' the father said, " I see
All is quite true that you've been telling me ;
Yet there in marriage is such strange fatality.
That when as much of life
You will have seen
As it has been
My lot to see, I think you'll own your wife
As good or better than the generality.
" An interest in your case I really take,
And therefore gladly this agreement make:
An hundred eggs within this basket lie.
With which your luck to-morrow you shall
try;
Also my five best horses with my cart ;
And from the farm at dawn you shall depart.
All round the country go,
And be particular, I beg ;
Where husbands rule, a horse bestow,
But where the wives, an egg.
And if the horses go before the eggs,
I'll ease you of your wife,— I will — I fegs! "
Away the married man departed, ■
Brisk and light-hearted ;
Not doubting that, of course,
The first five houses each would take a horse.
At the first house he knocked,
He felt a little shocked
To hear a female voice, with angry roar,
Scream out, — Hullo !
Who's there below ?
Why, husband, are you deaf ? Go to the
door,
47
See who it is, I beg."
Our poor friend John
Trudged quickly on,
But first laid at the door an egg.
I will not, all his journey through.
The discontented traveler pursue ;
Suffice it here to say
That when his first day's task was nearly
done.
He'd seen an hundred husbands, minus one.
And eggs just ninety-nine had given away.
" Ha, here's a house where he I seek must
dwell,"
At length cried John ; " I'll go and ring the
bell."
The servant came, — John asked him, " Pray,
Friend, is your master in the way ? '"
" No," said the man, with smiling phiz,
" Mj^ master is not, but my mistress is ;
Walk in that parlor, sir, my lady's in it:
Master will be himself there in a minute. '
The lady said her husband then was dressing.
And, if his business was not very pressing,
She would prefer that he should wait until
His toilet was completed ;
Adding, " Pray, sir, be seated."
" Madam, I will,"
Said John, with great politeness ; " but I own
That you alone
Can tell me all I wish to know ;
Will you do so ?
Pardon my rudeness.
And just have the goodness
(A wager to decide) to tell me — do —
Who governs in this house, — your spouse or
you?"
" Sir," said the lady with a doubting nod,
" Your question's very odd ;
But as I think none ought to be
Ashamed to do their duty (do you see ?)
On that account I scruple not to say
It always is my pleasure to obey.
But here's my husband (always sad without
me);
Take not my word, but a?k him, if you
doubt me."
" Sir," said the husband " it is most true ;
I promise you,
696
RAMBLINGB IN GREECE.
A more obedient, kind, and gentle woman
Does not exist."
"Give me your fist,"
Said John, and, as the case is something
more than common.
Allow me to present you with a beast
Worth fifty guineas at the very least.
" There's Smiler, Sir, a beauty, you must own.
There's Prince that handsome black,
Ball the gray mare, and Saladin the roan,
Beside old Dun ;
Come, Sir, choose one ;
But take advice from me.
Let Prince be he ;
Why, Sir, you'll look the hero on his back."
" I'll take the black, and thank you, too,"
" Nay, husband, that will never do ;
You know you've often heard me say
How much I long to have a gray ;
And this one will exactly do for me."
" No, no," said he,
" Friend, take the four others back,
And only leave the black."
" Nay, husband, I declare
I must have the gray mare :"
Adding (with gentle force),
" The gray mare is, I'm sure, the better horse "
" Well, if it must be so,— good Sir,
The gray mare we prefer ;
So we accept your gift." John made a feg:
"Allow me to present you with an egg ;
'Tis my last egg remaining,
The cause of my regaining,
I trust the fond affection of my wife,
Whom I will love the better of my life.
"Home to content has her kind fathei
brought me ;
I thank him for the lesson he has taught me."
EAMBLINGS IN GBEECE.
ROSSITER W. RAYMOND.
W^ PsBstum's ancient fanes I trod,
i^ And mused on those strange men of old,
^ Whose dark religion could unfold
^ So many gods, and yet no God.
Did they to human feelings own.
And had they human souls indeed ?
Or did the sternness of their creed
Frown their faint spirits into stone''
OUT OF THE OLD HOUSE, NANCY.
697
The southern breezes fan my face ; —
I hear the hum of bees arise,
And lizards dart, with mystic eyes
That shrine the secret of the place !
These silent columns speak of dread ;
Of lonely worship without love;
And yet the warm, deep heaven above
Whispers a softer tale instead !
THE BEAUTY OF YOUTH.
THEODORE PARKER.
j^^OW beautiful is youth, — early manhood, early womanhood, — how
wonderfully fair ! What freshness of life, cleanness of blood, purity
of breath ! What hopes ! There is nothing too much for the young
maid or man to put into their dream, and in their prayer to hope
i to put in their day. young men and women ! there is no picture
J of ideal excellence of manhood and womanhood that I ever draw
that seems too high, too beautiful for young hearts.
I love to look on these young faces, and see the firstlings of a young
man's beard, and the maidenly bloom blushing over the girl's fair cheek.
I love to see the pure eyes beaming with joy and goodness, to see the un-
conscious joy of such young souls, impatient of restraint, and longing for
the heaven which we fashion here.
So have I seen in early May, among the New England hills, the morning
springing in the sky, and gradually thinning out the stars that hedge
about the cradle of day ; and all cool and fresh and lustrous came the
morning light, and a few birds commenced their songs, prophets of very
many more ; and ere the sun was fairly up, you saw the pihky buds upon
the apple trees, and scented the violets in the morjiing air, and thought
of what a fresh and lordly day was coming up the eastern sky.
OUT OF THE OLD HOUSE, NANCY.
WILL M. CARLETON.
UT of the old house Nancy — moved up
'^Jl^ into the new ;
rAll the hurry and worry are just as
good as through ;
Only a bounden duty remains for you
and I,
And that's to stand on the door-step
here and bid the old house good-bye.
What a shell we've lived in these nineteen or
twenty years !
Wonder it hadn't smashed in and tumbled
about our ears ;
Wonder it stuck together and answered till
to-day.
But every individual log was put up here to
stay.
69S
OUT OF THE OLly HOUSE, NANCY.
Yes, a deal has happened to make this old
Here the old house will stand, but not as it
house dear :
stood bgfore ;
Christenin's, funerals, weddin's — what haven't
Winds will whistle through it and rains will
we had here ?
flood the floor ;
Not a log in this old buildin' bat its memo-
And over the hearth once blazing, the snow
ries has got — ■
drifts oft will pile,
And not a nail in this old floor but touches
And the old thing will seem to be a mournin'
a tender spot.
all the while.
Out of tlie old house, Nancy— moved up iuto
the new ;
All the hurry and worry is just as good as
through ;
But I tell you a thing right here, that I ain't
ashamed to say :
There's precious things in this old house we
never can take away.
Fare you well old house ! you're nought that
can feel or see.
But you seem like a liuman being — a dear
old friend to me ;
And we never will have a better home, if my
opinion stands,
Until we commence a keepin' house in the
" house not made with hands.''
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN
699
THE MAPLE-TREE.
?HEIs on the world's jQrst harvest-
day,
The forest trees before the Lord
y^ x^' Laid down their autumn offerings
"^ Of fruit, in golden sunshine stored,
I The Maple only, of them all,
i> Before the world's great harvest
King
With empty hands and silent stood —
She had no offering to bring
For m the early summer time,
While other trees laid by their board,
The Maple winged her fruit with love,
And sent it daily to the Lord.
There ran through all the leafy wood
A murmur and a scornful smile
But silent still the Maple stood,
And looked unmoved to God the while.
And then, while fell on earth a hush
So great it seemed like death to be,
From his white throne the mighty Lord
Stooped down and kissed the Maple-tiee
At that swift kiss there sudden thrilled
In every nerve, through every vein
An ecstasy of joy so great
It seemed almost akin to pain.
And there before the forest trees,
Blushing and pale by turns she stood ;
In every leaf, now red and gold,
Transfigured by the kiss of God.
And still when comes the autumn time.
And on the hills the harvest lies,
Blushing the Maple-tree recalls
Her life's one beautiful surprise.
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.
jO ye hear the children weeping,
my brothers.
Ere the sorrow comes with years ?
They are leaning their young heads
against their mothers, —
And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the
meadows.
The young birds are chirping in the nest.
The young fawns are playing with the sha-
dows.
The young flowers are blowing toward
the west —
But the young, young children, O my bro-
thers.
They are weeping bitterly ! —
They are weeping in the playtime of the
others,
In the country of the free.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
Do you question the young children in their
sorrow.
Why their tears are falling so? —
The old man may weep for his to-morrow,
Which is lost in Long Ago —
The old tree is leafless in the forest —
The old year is ending in the frost —
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest —
The old hope is hardest to be lost :
But the young, young children, my bro-
thers.
Do you ask them why they stand
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their
mothers.
In our happy Fatherland ?
They look up with their pale and sunken
faces.
And their looks are sad to see.
700
THE CRY OF THE CHILbREN.
For the man's hoary anguish draws and
presses
Down the cheeks of infancy ;
" Your old earth," they say, " is very dreary ;"
"Our young feet," they say, "are very
weak!
Few paces have we taken, yet are weary ;
Our grave-rest is very far to seek.
Ask the aged why they weep, and not the
children,
For the outside earth is cold,
And we young ones stand without, in our
bewildering,
And the graves are for the old."
"True," say the children, "it may happen
That we die before our time.
Little Alice died last year — the grave is
shapen
Like a snowball, in the rime.
We looked into the pit prepared to take her —
Was no room for any work in the close
clay:
From the sleep wherein she lieth none will
wake her,
Crying, "Get up, little Alice! it is day."
If you listen by that grave, in sun and
With your ear down, little Alice never
cries !
Could we see her face, be sure we should not
know her,
For the smile has time for growing in
her eyes !
And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled
in
The shroud, by the kirk chime !
"It is good when it happens," say the children,
" That we die before our time."
Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking
Death in life, as best to have!
They are binding up their hearts away from
breaking,
With a cerement from the grave.
Go out, children, from the mine and from the
city;
Sing out, children, as the little thrushes
do;—
Pluck you handfuls of the meadow-cowslips
pretty ;
Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let
them through !
But they answer, "Are your cowslips of the
meadows
Like our weeds anear the mine?
Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-
shadows.
From your pleasures fair and fine !
" For oh," say the children, "we are weary.
And we cannot run or leap ;
If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
To drop down in them and sleep.
Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping ;
We fall upon our faces, trying to go ;
And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping.
The reddest flower would look as pale
as snow.
For, all day, we drag our burden tiring
Through the coal-dark underground;
Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron
In the factories, round and round.
" For, all day, the wheels are droning, turn-
ing—
Their wind comes in our faces, —
Till our hearts turn — our heads, with pulses
burning,
And the walls turn in their places ;
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.
701
Turns the sky in the high window blank
and reeling ;
Turns the long light that drops adown
the wall ;
Turn the black flies that crawl along the
ceiling ;
All are turning, all the day, and we
with all.
And all day, the iron wheels are droning ;
And sometimes we could pray,
'0 ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moan-
ing)
' Stop ! be silent for to-day !' "
Ay ! be silent ! Let them hear each other
breathing
For a moment, mouth to mouth ;
Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh
wreathing
Of their tender human youth !
Let them feel that this cold metallic motion
Is not all the life God fashions or reveals ;
Let them prove their living souls against the
notion
That they live in you, or under you,
wheels !
Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,
Grinding life down from its mark ;
And the children's souls, which God is calling
sunward.
Spin on blindly in the dark.
Now tell the poor young children, my
brothers,
To look up to him and pray ;
So the Blessed One, who blesseth all the
others.
Will bless them another day.
They answer, "Who is God that He should
hear us.
While the rushing of the iron wheels is
stirred ?
When we sob aloud, the human creatures
near us
tasa by, hearing not, or answer not a
word;
And ive hear not (f(Jr the wheels in their
resounding)
Strangers speaking at the door :
Is it likely God, with angels singing round
him.
Hears our weeping any more ?
" Two words, indeed, of praying we remember,
And at midnight's hour of harm,
' Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber,
We say softly for a charm.
We know no other words, except ' Our Father,'
And we think that, in some pause of
angel's song,
God may pluck them with the silence sweet
to gather.
And hold both within His right hand
which is strong.
'Our Father!' If He heard us. He would
surely
(For they call Him good and mild)
Answer, smiling down the steep world very
purely,
'Come and rest with me, my child.'
"But, no!" say the children, weeping faster,
" He is speechless as a stone ;
And they tell us, of His image is the master
Who commands us to work on.
Go to!" say the children; "up in Heaven,
Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all
we find.
Do not mock us; grief has made us unbe-
lieving ;
We look up for God, but tears have made
us blind."
Do you hear the children weeping and dis-
proving,
0, my brothers, what ye preach ?
For God's possible is taught by his world's
loving,
And the children doubt of each.
And well may the children weep before you I
They are weary ere they run ;
They have never seen the sunshine, nor the
glory
Which is brighter than the sun :
They know the grief of man, without his
wisdom ;
They sink in man's despair, without his
calm;
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom,
702
THE MINISTRY OF ANGELS.
Are martyrs, by the pang without the
palm;
Are worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly
The blesslflg of its memory cannot keep ;
Are orphans of Ihe earthly love and heavenly :
Let them weep ! let them weep !
They look up, with their pale and sunken
faces.
And their look is dread to see,
For they mind you. of their angels in their
"With eyes turned on Deity; —
" How long," they say, "how long, cruel
nation.
Will you stand to move the world, on a
child's heart —
Stifle down with a mailed heel its palliation,
And tread onward to your throne amid
the mart?
Our blood splashes upward, gold-heaper,
And your purple shows your path !
But the child's sob curses deeper in the silence,
Than the strong man in his wrath!"
A WOMAN'S LOVR
dAN knows not love — such love as
woman feels.
w"In him it is a vast devouring flame —
Resistless fed — in its own strength
consumed.
In woman's heart it enters step by
step, [ray
Concealed, disowned, until its gentler
Breathes forth a light, illumining her world.
Man loves not for repose ; he woos the
flower
To wear it as the victor's trophied crown ;
Whilst woman, when she glories in her love,
More like the dove, in noiseless constancy,
Watches the nest of her affection till
'Tis shed upon the tomb of him she loves.
THE MINISTRY OF ANGELS!
EDMUND SPENSER.
iND is there care in heaven ? And is
there love
*M5^? •^'^ heavenly spirits to these crea-
K tures base,
That may compassion of their evils
move?
There is : — else much more wretched
were the case
Of men than beasts • but the exceeding
grace
Of highest God ! that loves his creatures so
And all his workes with mercy doth em-
brace.
That blessed angels he sends to and fro,
To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked
foe!
How oft do they their silver bowers leave.
To come to succour us that succour want ;
How oft do they with golden pinions cleave
The flitting skyes, like flying pursuivant,
Against fowle feende? to ayd us militant I
They for us fight, they watch, and dewly ward.
And their bright squadrons round about us
plant;
And all for love, and nothing for reward •,
0, why should heavenly God to men have
such regard !
A MOTHER'S LOVE.
703
THE LAND WHERE JESUS TOILED.
THE MINISTRY OF JESUS.
EDWARD EICKERSTETH.
IjKJfcROM his lips
^^1 Truth, limpid, without error, flowed.
^'^?:;s>_L Disease
'"f^ Fled from his touch. Pain heard
I him and was not.
j Despair smiled m his presence.
Devils knew,
And trembled. In the Omnipotence of faith,
Unintermittent, indefectible,
Leaning upon his Father's might, he bent
All nature to his will. The tempest sank,
He whispering, into waveless calm. The bread
Given from his hands fed thousands, and to
spare.
The stormy waters, as the solid rock
Were pavement for his footstep. Death itself,
With vain reluctancies yielded its prey
To the stern mandate of the Prince of Life.
A MOTHER'S LOVE.
MOTHER'S love ! oh, soft and low
Aa the tremulous notes of the ring-
dove's call,
Or the murmur of waters that
. gently flow
f On the weary heart those accents fall !
A mother's love ! the sacred thought
Unseals the hidden fount of tears,
As if the frozen waters caught
The purple light of earlier years.
A mother's love ! oh, 't is the dew
Which nourisheth life's drooping flowers,
And fitteth them to bloom anew
'Mid fairer scenes — in brighter bowers.
704 SHOOTING PORPOISES.
SHOOTING PORPOISES.
T. DE WITT TALMAGE.
?ANG, bang ! went the gun at the side of the San Jacinto, after we
p^^ had been two days out at sea on the way to Savannah. We were
Sii- ""f startled at such a strange sound on shipboard, and asked :
^ ** "What are they doing ? "
I A few innocents of the deep, for the purpose of breathing or
1 sport, had hfted themselves above the wave, and a gentleman found
amusement in tickling them with shot. As the porpoise rolled over
wounded, and its blood colored the wave, the gunner was congratulated by
his comrades on the execution made.
It may have been natural dullness tnat kept us from appreciating the
grandeur of the deed. Had the porpoise impeded the march of the San
Jacinto, I would have said :
" Dose it with lead ! "
If there had been a possibility that by coming up to breathe it would
endanger our own supply of air, I would have said :
" Save the passengers and kill the dolphins ! "
If the marksman had harpooned a whale there would have been the
oil for use, or had struck down a gull, in its anatomy, he . might have ad-
vanced science. If he had gunpowdered the cook it might, in small quan-
tities, have made him animated ; or the stewardess, there would have been
the fun of seeing her jump. But, alas for the cruel disposition of the man
who could shoot a porpoise !
There is no need that we go to sea to find the same style of gun-
ning.
After tea the parlor is full of romp. The children are playing ''■ Ugly
Mug," and " Bear," and " Tag," and " Yonder stands a lovely creature."
Papa goes in among the playing dolphins with the splash and dignity of a
Ban Jacinto. He cries, " Jim, get my slippers ! " " Mary, roll up the
stand ! " " Jane, get me the evening newspaper ! " " Sophia, go to bed ! "
" Harry, quit that snicker ! " " Stop that confounded noise, all of you ! "
The fun is over. The water is quiet. The dolphins have turned their
last somersault. Instead of getting down on his hands and knees,
and being as lively as a "bear," as any of them, he goes to shooting
•porpoises.
SHOOTING PORPOISES.
705
Here is a large school of famous pretension, professors high-salaried, ap-
paratus complete, globes on which you can travel round the world in five
minutes, spectroscopes, and Leyden jars, and chromatropes, and electric
batteries. No one disputed its influence or its well-earned fame. The
masters and misses that graduate come out equipped for duty. Long may
it stand the adornment of the town. But a widow whose sons were
killed in the war opens a school in her basement. She has a small
group of little children whose tuition is her sole means of subsistence.
SHOOTING PORPOISES.
The high school looks with sharp eyes on the rising up of the low school.
The big institution has no respect whatever for little institutions. The
parents patronizing the widow must be persuaded that they are wasting
their children's time in that basement. Women have no right to be
widows or have their sons killed in the war. From the windows of the
high school the arrows are pointed at the helpless establishment in the
corner. " Bang !" goes the artillery of scorn till one of the widow's
scholars has gone. " Bang!" go the guns from the deck of the great edu-'
cational craft till the innovating institution turns over and disappears.
Well done ! Used it up quick ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! Shooting porpoises !
706
THE DAY 18 DONE.
Grab, Chokcham & Co. have a large store. They sell more goods
than any in town. They brag over their income and the size of the glass
in their show-window. They have enough clerks on light salaries to man
a small navy. Mr. Needham, an honest man with small capital, opens a
store in the same business. One morning Mr. Grab says to his partner,
Mr. Chokehani : "Do you know a young chap has opened a store down
on the other end of this block in the same business ?"
" Has, eh ? We will settle him very speedily." Forthwith it is
understood that if at the small store a thing is sold for fifty cents, at the
large store you can get it for forty-five. That is less than cost, but Grab &
Chokeham are an old house, and can stand it, and Needham cannot. Small
store's stock of goods is getting low, and no money to replenish. Small
store's rent is due, and nothing with which to pay it. One day small store
is crowded with customers, but they have come to the sherifi"s sale. The
big fish has swallowed the little one. Grab & Chokeham roll on the floor
of counting-room in excess of merriment. Needham goes home to cry his
eyes out. Big store has pat an end to small store. Plenty of room for both,
but the former wanted all the sea to itself. No one had any right to
show his commercial head in those waters. " Pop !" " Pop !" Shooting
'porpoises !
Is it not time that the world stopped wasting its ammunition ? If
you want to shoot, there is the fox of cruel cunning, and the porcupine of
fretfulness, and the vulture of filth, and the weasel of meanness, and the
bear of religious grumbling. Oh, for more hunters who can "draw a bead "
so as every time to send plump into the dust a folly of sin ! But let alone
the innocent things of land and deep. The world is wide enough for us all.
Big newspaper, have mercy on the little Great merchants, spare the weak.
Let the San Jacinto plow on its majestic way and pass unhurt the porpoises.
THE DA Y IS DONE.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
■^[-lE day is done, and the darkness
'^ Falls from the wing of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist ;
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me,
That my soul cannot resist ;
A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain
THE DAY IS DONE.
707
Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay.
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day :
Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.
Not from the grand old masters.
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of time.
Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care.
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.
For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor ;
And to-night I long for rest.
Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice ;
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.
Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart.
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears irom the eyelids start ;
And the night shall be filled with music
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
' Words of genuine eloquence, spoken,
Thrill the passing hour;
Written, they inspire the ages."
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
AUTHORS AND POETS,
WHOSE BEST PRODtTCTIONS ARE GATHERED IN
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.
" He loved home, for he had known what it was to be homeless. Ho
wrote to gladden youthful hearts, for his own warm heart had often craved
gladness when he was but a youth."
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
^,^ CHARLES FOLLEN ADAMS.
||Tri|[iis humorous writer, author of " The Puzzled Dutchman," " Pat's
pi^ Criticism," and four other poems of this volume, was born in
Ipjl^'^'l' Dorchester, Mass., April 21st, 1842. His parents were natives
X of New Hampshire. He received a common-school education,
I" leaving school when about fifteen years of age to enter a prominent
t business house in Boston. In August, 1862, then being twenty years
of age, he enlisted in the Thirteenth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers.
He was in the battles of Bull P\,uu, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and
others, was wounded at Gettysburg, July 1, 1863, and held as prisoner for
three days until Federal troops retook the town. Upon his return home
he resumed business, and is now at the head of a large house in Boston.
His literary pursuits have but lately begun, his first poem having been
written in 1870, and his first dialect poem {" The Puzzled Dutchman ")
in February, 1872. From that time he was an occasional contributor of
the local papers, Oliver Optic's Magazine, Scribner's, etc., until 1876,
when he became a regular contributor to the Detroit Free Press, his first
poem in that paper being " Leedle Yawcob Strauss," which first appeared
June, 1876. All of his subsequent productions, with the exception of
" Hans and Fritz," have been written for that paper. His choicest
pieces have been selected to enrich the pages of this volume.
JOSEPH ADDISON.
iii^osEPH ADDISON, who is pre-eminent as an author, essavist, hu-
ly^ morist, and moralist, was born in Milston, in Wiltshire, England,
^^ May 1st, 1672. His father was the Rev. Lancelot Addison. He
^1* attended school at the Charter House, and when about fifteen years
of age he entered at the Queen's College, Oxford, with a splendid stock of
48 711
712 BIOGRArmCAL SKETCHES.
tlie best classical learning. In 1689 he removed to Magdalen College,
where he remained about ten years. Before he had decided on the choice
of a profession, he became acquainted with Charles Montague, the leading
Whig financier. He was persuaded by Montague to decline the clerical
profession, which his family preferred for him, and devote himself to the
service of the state. In 1705 Addison was appointed Under-Secretary of
State. He was elected to Parliament i:i 1708, and on one occasion rose to
speak, but was overcome by his natural diffidence, and at once abandoned
all effort to become a debater. His literary talents, however, rendered
him one of the main men of the Whig party, as at that time public opinion
was swayed by the pen more than by the tongue.
Addison was chief secretary to Lord Wharton, who was Lord-Lieutenant
of Ireland in 1709. In this year his friend Steele began the issue of " The
Tattler," which afforded Addison a fine opportunity for the display of his
genius. His graceful style, genial spirit, excellent invention and inimitable
humor rendered " The Tattler " and its successor, " The Spectator,"
immensely popular. The latter was issued daily from March 1st, 1711, to
December 6th, 1712. In 1714 it reappeared as a tri- weekly. Addison
himself wrote nearly one-half the editorial contents of the Spectator, the
success of which was quite phenomenal.
On the death of Queen Anne he became secretary to the regency.
After that date he again became secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland. He afterwards accepted a seat in the Board of Trade and began
to publish " The Freeholder." He became one of the two principal
secretaries of state in the ministry formed in 1717. He remained in office
but eleven months ; his retirement was attributed to his ill health and
inefficiency as a public speaker. He died on the 17th of June, 1719,
and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Of Addison's conversational powers Lady Mary Montague said, that
she had " known all the wits," and that Addison was " the best company
in the world." " Addison's conversation," said Pope, " had something in
it more charming than I have found in any other man."
, ELIZABETH AKERS
HJ^HE authoress of the exquisite ballad " Eock me to Sleep, Mother,"
pl^ holds a deservedly high place in the esteem of all who love pure
rand tender sentiment. She was a native of New England, born
in 1832, and volumes of her poems were published in 1853 and
1867. She subsequently became Mrs. Allen, and lived in Virginia.
MRS. C. F. ALEXANDER. 713
MRS. C. F. ALEXANDER.
If^HE " Burial of Mose.s " is one of the grandest descriptive poems of
SR the EngUsh language. Its gifted authoress has done much good
P'^^^ work, especially in her " Hymns for Little Children," of which a
quarter of a million copies have been sold. She is the wife of the
Rev. W. Alexander, and is a native of Ireland. She was born in 1823,
and belongs to the Church of England. The one poem from her gifted
pen selected for this volume, is of itself enough to immortalize her name.
In grandeur of thought and diction it rises into the truly sublime.
, H. ALGER, JR.
Ijj^EV. HORATIO ALGER, JR., the author of " John Maynard," was born
" ii at Nortli Chelsea, Mass., January 13th, 1834. He graduated
at Harvard in 1852. He afterwards studied theology, and, in
1864, became pastor of a Unitarian congregation at Brewster,
Mass. He has published several volumes of poems, besides making
many valuable contributions to periodical literature. The poem given
on page 406 of Gems is one of the most stirring he has written.
WILLIAM R. ALGER.
piLLiAM rounseville ALGER, a distinguished clergyman and au-
|||l^ thor, was born at Freetown, Mass., in 1822. His writings, in
i|^ the main, have been theological, though poetry and general
^ literature have been much enriched by his chaste and scholarly
i contributions. He has issued several volumes, one of which, entitled
J " Oriental Poetry," has furnished the two gems we have given. One
of these is from the Persian, the other from the Chinese, and both are good
illustrations of the best poesy of those far-off lauds, and of the Unguistic
learning and poetic skill of the translator.
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.
tM^HE author of the beautiful selection entitled "The Fairies," was born
at Ballyshannon, Ireland, in 1828. He published one volume
entitled "Day and Night Songs," whence "The Fairies," is taken.
Other works of his have "been very favorably received, and, in
t 1864, a literaiy pension was bestowed upon him.
7]^4 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
J. MICHAEL ALTENBERG.
MICHAEL ALTENBERG was a German, who was prominent in the
Lutheran Church, and active in her most trying experiences.
He was born 1583, and died 1640. His " Battle Song " (p. 430)
is grand in its noble and reverent spirit of faith and trust.
, ANACREON.
i||ii|His famous Greek poet is supposed to have been born about 563
pjj^ B. c, and to have died about 478. His native place was Teos, in
'^t Ionia. He spent a long time at the court of Poly crates, the tyrant
of Saraos, after whose death he removed to Athens, where he
remained many years ; then he journeyed in Greece, and finally met
his death, by accident, at a good old age. His reputed poems were
largely on love and wine, though some were elegies and epigrams, a fair
specimen of the latter being seen in " The Grasshopper King," on page 42.
Criticism denies many of the so-called Anacreontics to be from Anacreon.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.
I HIS most gifted writer was born at Odense, in the island of Fiinen,
.^^., April 2, 1805. His father was simply a poor shoemaker, though
l^'^ descended from a rich ancestry. Hans loved to dwell on the
^ wealth and splendor of those ancestors and to talk of those
4; departed glories. It seemed, indeed, to solace his own poverty. The
J father of Hans died when the boy was but nine years old, leaving the
mother to stagger under a heavy load. She thought of putting Hans at the
trade of a tailor, but she was prevailed upon to send him to Copenhagen,
where he sought employment on the stage. In this he did not succeed,
owing, as the story goes, to his emaciated and generally uninviting appear-
ance. But he had a fine voice, and this gained him some employment
as a singer. After a brief run of success in this line, his voice failed, and
he was again afloat upon the world.
In this emergency he came under the notice of his subsequent patron,
Councillor Collin, who obtained for Hans the privilege of a free education
in one of the State academies. Prior to this tiftie the boy had written
several short poems and stories. One of these, " The Dying Child," had
attracted considerable attention. So conspicuous did his genius soon become,
however, that the King of Denmark furnished the means for Hans to travel
in Germany, France and Italy. After this tour his reputation grew
EDWIN ARNOLD.
715
rapidly, and in 1834 he produced a very brilliant romance entitled "The
Improvisatore." It sets forth, in an inimitable manner, scenery and
customs in Southern Europe. Another sketch of life in the North of
Europe appeared the next year, and was almost equally successful. He
also wrought the story of his own early life into a series of very striking
pen pictures, which he entitled " Only a Fiddler." Andersen's genius was
most conspicuous in the realm of fairy lore, of which he published several
volumes. All these have met with a hearty reception. They are brilliant
in imagination, quaint in humor, and ofttimes melting in pathos.
The works of Hans Christian Andersen have been translated into almost
all the languages of Europe. His one story given in this work is "The
Little Match Girl," which is a perfect gem. Andersen died in 1875.
p. ARKWRIGHT.
IpiilNDER the above nom de pluiiUj or the fuller, Peleg Arkwright,
^^P David L. Proudfit has written much concerning the " gamins," or
^1^ street boys of our large cities. So graphic and tender have these
^1' descriptions been, that the public heart has turned very fondly
i toward this much neglected and abused class. " Poor Little
J Joe " (p. 358) is full of pathos and vivid description.
EDWIN ARNOLD.
J^iS
^^DWIN ARNOLD is a native of England, He was born June 10th,
1831. As early as 1852 he took a high prize at Oxford for a
'l poem. He subsequently became a master in a high school, but
f soon after removed to British India, where he became President of
4; the Sanskrit College at Poonah. He resigned this post in 18C0, and
J devoted himself wholly to literary pursuits. He has been a voluminous
contributor to periodicals, magazines, etc., and has produced some highly
meritorious poems, chief among which i«5 his last extended venture, " The
Light of Asia." His translation of the Persian poem, " Call me not Dead,"
given on page 269, is a rare piece of literary elegance.
GEORGE ARNOLD.
JHE author of " The Jolly Old Pedagogue," George Arnold, was
born in New York City, June 24th, 1834. and died November 9th,
^^^ 1865. He followed journalism and literature, making a good
716 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
reputation by his poems, stories, reviews, etc. He also attained some
distinction as a Immorist. His writings liave not been numerous, however,
but their choice character has won and held for them an honorable place.
WILLIAM E. AYTOUN.
(AUGUSTUS DUKSHUNNEK.)
LLiAM EDMONDSTOUNE AYTOUN, D.C.L., was a native of Scotland.
||J(^^ He was born at Edinburgh about the year 1813. He died
^""f August 4, 1865. He began his career at the Scottish bar in
1840, but so marked was his ability that, in 1845, he was appointed
i Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the University of his
J native city. He excelled as a poet and dramatist, and he was also one
of the most brilliant contributors of " Blackwood's Magazine." He wrote
under the nom de plume of Augustus Dunshunner. His most celebrated
poems are " Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers " and " Bothwell." These
poems are full of the old Scotch martial fire, and they have gone through
numerous editions. " The Buried Flower " (p. 272) is one of the most ex-
quisitely sweet poems which ever appeared from this gifted writer.
ANNA BACHE.
^^II^RS. ANNA BACHE, was a resident of the city of Philadelphia, where
^m^ she published a volume for juveniles in 1843. She also is-
^^^ sued several humorous descriptive poems, one of the very best and
most homelike of which, " The Quilting," is given in this volume. It is a
lifelike description of the old-time quilting parties in country places.
J. M. BAILEY.
(danbury news man.)
IJ^AMES MONTGOMERY BAILEY, was born in the city of Albany, New York,
September 25th, 1841. In 1865 he commenced journalism on the
"Danbury Times," afterwards known as the " Danbury News,"
and published at Danbury, Conn. From its constant flow of rich
I and healthy humor the paper soon gained a national reputation and
J circulation. Mr. Bailey has published a collection of his papers
under the title, " Life in Danbury," also " The Danbury News Man's
Almanac," and other works, all of which are characterized by the same
admirable veins, which first brought him into so favorable a prominence.
RICHARD BAXTER. 71^
EDWARD DICKINSON BAKER.
^^OLONEL BAKER, more generally known as Senator Baker, was a
^^ native of England. He was born February 24th, 1811, He came
-^^^^ to the United States while but a youth and adopted law as his profes-
sion. He was among the early settlers of California, having migrated to
that State in 1852. In 1860 he was chosen United States Senator
for Oregon, but on the outbreak of the civil war he raised a regiment
for the Union service, at the head of which he was killed at Ball's Bluff,
October 21st, 1861. The selection from one of his most celebrated
speeches, given on page 516, shows his spirit as that terrible struggle
began. He was at the very moment of speaking ready to march to the
front.
T^ LADY ANNE BARNARD.
||j|iHis distinguished Scottish poetess, whose maiden name was Lindsay,
^^^ was born at Fifeshire in 1750, She was a daughter of the Earl
^IQ of Balcarres. Her best literary effort, and that which made her
*|^ the widest reputation, was the poem given in this volume, " Auld
Eobin Gray." The history of this poem is related substantially in its few
introductory lines (p. 193). She died in 1825.
RICHARD BAXTER.
"■^feiCHARD BAXTER was an eminent English non-conformist minis-
ll^ ter, who was born at Rowdon, in Shropshire, Nov. 12th, 1615.
He was a man of very extensive learning, though he was not
educated at any college. He was ordained to the ministry in 1638
[ and was chosen Vicar of Kidderminster soon after. He was
distinguished as a very eloquent preacher. In the civil war of England
he sought to be neutral and to mediate between the contesting parties.
About 1615 he accepted the post of chaplain to a regiment of Cromwell's
army ; but he afterwards became hostile to the government of the
Protector, In 1650 he published the " Saints' Everlasting Eest," a work
which is generally and justly admired, and from which a selection in
" Gems " is taken. In 1685 Baxter was tried before the notoriously
unjust Jeffries on a charge of sedition, which was based on a passage in
one of his works. He was fined five hundred marks, for the non-payment
of which he was imprisoned eighteen months. He died in December, 1691-
718 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
JAMES BEATTIE.
dAMES BEATTIE was a Scottish poet and philosophical writer, who
was born in the county of Kincardine in 1735. In 1760 he was
f^ appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic at Marischal
i^ College, Aberdeen. In 1767 he brought out his " Essay on Truth,"
J written in refutation of the doctrines of Hume. It went through
five editions in a few years, and was translated into several languages.
The first book of " The Minstrel" appeared in 1771, and met with great
favor also. Beattie soon after visited London, where he secured the
friendship of Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith, and other distinguished literary
men. During a second visit, in 1773, he received from the University of
Oxford the degree of d.c.l. Soon after this time he published the second
part of " The Minstrel," and in a few years followed it with a series of
moral and critical essays, and a " Treatise on the Evidences of Christianity."
The two extracts given in this volume are fair specimens of Beattie's style.
HENRY WARD BEECHER.
REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER, who is One of America's most
distinguished clergymen, orators and writers, was born at
Litchfield, Conn., January 24th, 1813. His father, Dr. Lyman
Beecher, was a man distinguished for his sound theology and his
J great common sense. Of his boyish character his sister, Mrs.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, says : " He had precisely the organization
which passes in boyhood for dullness. He had great deficiency in verbal
memory ; ... he was excessively sensitive to praise and blame, extremely
diffident, and with a power of yearning, undeveloped emotion which he
neither understood nor could express. ... In forecasting his horoscope,
had any one taken the trouble to do it, the last success that ever would
have been predicted for him would have been that of an orator. But even
while a boy he proved that, if he did not inherit the eloquence, he inherited
at least something of the controversial ability of his father. A forward
school-boy among the elder scholars had got hold of Paine's ' Age of
Eeason,' and was flourishing largely among the boys with objections to
the Bible. Henry privately looked up Watson's ' Apology,' studied up
the subject, and challenged a debate with the big boy, in which he came
off victorious by the acclamation of his school-fellows." He entered
Amherst College in 1834. Soon after he commenced the study of theology
under the direction of his father. He began his ministry at Lawrenceburg,
GEORGE BERKELEY. 719
Ind., but soon removed to Indianapolis. In 1847 he became pastor of
Plymouth Congregational Church, of Brooklyn, N. Y. His congregation
here is probably the largest in the United States. He is a popular writer
and lecturer. In the cause of temperance, anti-slavery, etc., he has long
stood in the foremost rank, and been a most efficient champion.
GEORGE BERKELEY.
^^EORGE BERKELEY was an English Bishop, and a metaphysical
^^^ philosopher of rare merit. He was born at Kilcrin, Ireland, on
2g the 12th of March, 1684. He entered Trinity College, Dublin.
^1* His reputation as a philosopher was made about 1707 by " An
J Essay towards a New Theory of Vision." In 1710, he first published
" The Principles of Human Knowledge," in which he advanced his
celebrated theory that there is no proof of the existence of matter anywhere
but in our own perceptions. In 1713 he visited London, where he became
intimate with Addison, Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, and other eminent men.
He also wrote several essays for the " Guardian." He published in 1725
a "Proposal for Converting the Savage Americans to Christianity," and
wished to found a college in America for that object. He received a
promise of £ 20,000 from the government, and sailed for America, on this
mission, in 1728. At this time he wrote those celebrated lines :
" Westward the course of empire takes its way ;
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day ;
Time's noblest offering is the last."
He preached about two years in Newport, R. I., but abandoned the
project of the college because the government failed to send the funds, and
he returned to England. He was chosen Bishop of Cloyne in 1734. Among
his later works is " The Analyst," addressed to an infidel mathematician.
He finally removed to Oxford, and died there in January, 1753.
.sJL^ BERNARD DE MORLAIX.
Ijnf^His famous Latin poet was called also the Monk of Cluni. He was
^AJ of. the Benedictine Order, and must be distins:uished from St.
^^^ Bernard of the Romish Calendar. Bernard de Morlaix flourished
I in the first half of the twelfth century, but where, and just when
he was born and died are insoluble problems. Various places claim the
honor of his birth, but Morlaix, in Bretagne, has most in its favor. De
720 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
Contemptu Mundi is esteemed his greatest poem, though " The Celestial
Country," which is given on page 650, is doubtless his most pleasing. For
its exquisite English rendering, the world is indebted to Dr. John Mason
Neall, of Sussex, England. Nothing can be more magnificent.
EDWARD BICKERSTETH.
ffnE REV. EDWARD BICKERSTETH a distinguished English divine.
He was born in Westmoreland in 1786. In 1814 he published a
" Help to the Study of the Scriptures," which became very
popular. He visited Africa in 1816 for the purpose of inspecting
J the missionary stations of that country. He officiated as Secretary
of the Church Missionary Society for some fifteen years. In 1830 he
became Kector of Watton, in Hertfordshire, where he was very active in
promoting every good cause. His works have been numerous and valuable,
and he has issued many charming poems also, one of which, on "The
Ministry of Jesus," adorns these pages. He died in 1850.
^^, WILLIAM BLAKE.
|S|pHE author of "Tlie Tiger" (p. 357) was born in London, November
pl^ 28th, 1757. His earlier business years were spent as an engraver,
^^^ but he had begun the writing of verses when quite a boy. Blake
Trl attributed his inspirations to disembodied spirits, especially to that
i of his dead brother. Under this supposed impulse he illustrated
t as well as wrote his works, some of which are quaint, rare, and
costly. He believed that the spirits of Homer, Dante, and Milton
communed habitually with him. He died August 12th, 1827, singing as
he drew near his end and as he breathed his last. He was known as
" the poet-painter," and Charles Lamb said : " He paints in water-colors
marvelous, strange pictures, visions of his brain, which he asserts he
has seen." The tiger has a strange weirdness in every line.
. GEORGE H. BOKER.
^^EORGE HENRY BOKER, an American poet, was born in Phila-
fe| delphia in 1824. After graduating at Princeton in 1842 he made
^^^-^ an extensive tour of Europe, and has since then resided in his
I native city. His first volume, " The Lesson of Life, and other
J Poems," appeared in 1841. This was followed in 1848 by
" Calaynos," a tragedy, which has been received with marked favor
HORATIUS BONAR. 721
both in England and America. Among his other dramatic produc-
tions are "Anne Boleyn," a tragedy, " Leonore de Guzman," and
others. His "War Lyrics," or "Poems of the Civil War," have been
much admired and widely published. His " Battle of Lookout Mountain "
is given in this volume. Mr. Boker edited " Lippincott's Magazine" for
several years, but resigned that post in 1870, since when he has represented
the United States at Constantinople and subsequently at St. Petersburg.
, HORATIUS BONAR.
pHE author of "Beyond the Smiling and the Weeping," the Rev.
^ Horatius Bonar, will ever live in the hearts of those who love the
pure, the good and the true. He was born in Edinburgh, Scot-
ia land, in 1808. He began his ministerial work at Kelso in 1831,
and at Edinburgh in 1861. Some of his publications have reached an
almost fabulous circulation. His " Blood of Christ " has gone into almost
every land, and been translated into almost every tongue. He died 1869.
MARY G. BRAINARD.
^^^BOUT the authorship of the poem " Not Knowing " (p. 577) some
^^^ uncertainty arose a few years ago. When P. P. Bliss, the evan-
■^^^f^ gelist singer, went down in the railroad crash at Ashtabula, this
I poem was found among his baggage with annotations in his own
hand, and the impression went abroad that he was its author. It was,
however, written in the winter of 1868-9, by Miss Mary C Brainard, of
New London, Conn., a niece of the late G. C. Brainard, whose poem, on
"Niagara '' is regarded as the finest on that sublime theme. She came,
therfeore, of a poetic family. The poem, which is an exquisite production,
was first published in " The Congregationalist " in March, 1869. It was
afterwards issued on a leaflet from the Willard Tract Repository, Boston,
and included in compilations of poems published severally by the Amer-
ican Tract Society, and the Evangelical Knowledge Society.
.J CHARLES T. BROOKS.
HlliHE REV. CHARLES TIMOTHY BROOKS was a Unitarian minister and a
g^ poet. He was born at Salem, Mass., June 20th, 1813. He
•^^ graduated at Harvard in 1832, and settled as a pastor at Newport,
■^ R. I., in 1831. He is eminent as a translator of "Faust,"
" Hesperus," " Titan," and many small poems from the German.
The little gem on page 596 illustrates the beautiful English into which he
conveyed the form and sentiment of German poems.
722 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
CHARLES F. BEOWNE.
.K (artemus ward.)
H^HAELES FARRAR BEOWNE, widely known by the nom de plume
^^ Artemus Ward, was a pioneer among American humorists. He
/^ was born in 1834, and died in 1861. He travelled extensively,
J looking up novelties, which he wove into letters and lectures with
admirable skill. His early death was from a pulmonary trouble, which
cut him down in the midst of a popular career.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
|his most gifted of the female poets was born at Hope End, Here-
fordshire, England, about the year 1801. She was the daughter,
of a wealthy merchant of London. She was highly educated
and well versed in the Greek and Latin languages. She began to
write verse when about ten years of age, and these childish pro-
ductions gave proofs of her high poetical genius. One of her first
published works was the ''Battle of Marathon." In 1826 she published
a volume entitled " Essay on Mind and other Poems." In 1823 she issued
" Prometheus Bound," which she translated from the Greek of Ji^schylus,
and which was a remarkable performance for one so young. Her reputa-
tion was greatly extended by " The Seraphim and other Poems," issued in
1838. In 1846 she married the poet Robert Browning, with whom she
resided many years in Italy. In 1851 she published " Casa Guidi
Windows," a poem which treats of the political condition of Italy. " This,"
says 'The North British Review,' "is the happiest of Mrs. Browning's
performances, because it makes no pretensions to high artistic character,
and is really a simple story of personal impressions." " Aurora Leigh "
is her largest work. It is a novel in verse. " The Cry of the Children,"
one of Mrs. Browning's gems, which with two others adorn these pages, is
one of the most pathetic showings of the sufferings of the poor of England
which ever was mad^. She died at Florence in June, 1861.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
^^MERICA has had few sons more widely known, more generally
beloved, and more justly honored, than was he whose name heads
this paragraph. This eminent poet was born at Cummington,
Hampshire county, Mass., on the 3rd of November, 1794. He
L wrote poems for newspapers when but ten years old, and when but
thirteen he wrote " The Embargo," a political satire, and " The Spanish
GEORGE WILLIAM BUNGAY. 723
Revolution," both of which were printed by his admiring friends in
1808. He entered Williams College in 1810, and there distinguished
himself by his marked proficiency in languages. He subsequently became
a student of law. Having been admitted to the bar in 1815, he devoted
himself to that calling for several years. In 1816 he published " Thana-
topsis," which is by many regarded as his finest poem, and which has
enjoyed a popularity equal to that of Gray's Elegy. In 1821 his first
volume appeared containing a didactic poem called " The Ages," besides
some other pieces. Soon after this date he removed to New York city,
and in 1826 became one of the editors of the " Evening Post." In this
connection he continued to the time of his death. He first visited Europa
in 1834, returning in 1836, after which time he made several journeys
abroad. In 1849 he travelled in Egypt and Syria. Since 1845, he resided
in a beautiful home of his own arrangement, at Roslyn, on Long Island.
Griswold says of Bryant : " No poet has described with more fidelity
the beauties of creation, nor sung in nobler song the greatness of the
Creator. He is the translator of the silent language of the universe to
the world. His poetry is pervaded by a pure and genial philosophy, a
solemn and religious tone, that influence the fancy, the understanding, and
the heart." Bryant's death occurred in New York on June 12th, 1878.
It was brought about by exposure to the sun while attending the unveiling
of the Halleck statue, and by a subsequent fall. He had been spared to
a ripe old age, but his powers seemed unabated, and his honors were
multiplied to the last.
I, ROBERT BUCHANAN.
Ij^pOBEET BUCHANAN was boni iu Scotland, August 18th, 1841,
p^l^ and received his college training at the University of Glasgow.
<^^ He has written poems, tragedies and comedies. He has given
I public readings and contributed to the newspapers, and altogether
has been a busy and helpful literary man. His " Nell " (p 393) is a weird,
wild piece, which chills the blood while it charms the reader.
GEORGE WILLIAM BUNGAY.
^EORGE w. BUNGAY, journalistic author and lyceum lecturer, was born
^Jl in England, came with his parents to this country in his childhood,
was educated in New York, was on the editorial staff of the New
York Tribune during the war of the Rebellion, is the author of
" Crayon Sketches and Off-hand Takings," " Pen Portraits," " Traits
of Representative Men," " Creeds of the Bells," and many other
724 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
poems, and of various addresses in prose and verse, delivered before
colleges and lyceunis. He was the founder and editor of the " Ilion
Independent " in Herkimer County, New York ; also of the " Central
Independent," published in Utica, New York. For several years
past he has held a Government appointment. He devotes his leisure
to literary labor. He is [1883] 58 years of age, of stout build and ruddy
countenance, is strictly temperate, never having used liquor nor tobacco
in any form. We give his " Creed of the Bells."
. JOHN BUNYAN.
(ipo book is more widely known than Banyan's " Pilgrim's
It has been translated into almost every language into which the
•^-^"ti Bible itself has been rendered. Its author, John Bunyan, was
born at Elstow, near Bedford, England, in the year 1628. He
followed the occupation of his father, who was a tinker, and for some time
John led a wandering, dissipated life. He married when about twenty
years of age. During the civil war of England he served in the army of
the Parliament. Having become deeply interested in religious things he
joined the Anabaptists of Bedford, about 1664, and soon became distin-
guished for his zeal. He finally became a Baptist minister. After the
restoration of peace he was sentenced to tran'^portation for life as a
promoter of seditious and disorderly assemblies. This sentence was not
executed, however, but he was detained in prison more than twelve years.
During his imprisonment he wrote the main part of his immortal work,
" Pilgrim's Progress." Besides which he wrote many other works, none
of which, however, at all compare with his one masterpiece. After his
release he ministered to a congregation at Bedford, and became extremely
popular. He died in 1688, but he lives through his works, and wields a
power such as few men ever exerted.
^j EDMUND BURKE.
mJH^iiis illustrious orator, statesman, and philanthropist, was born in
Dublin in 1730, or, according to some authorities, in 1728. Burke
was originally the same name as Burgh, De Burgh, De Burgho,
tor De Bourgo. His father was an attorney of the first rank in
his profession in Dublin. Edmund Burke was the second son of a
family of fourteen or fifteen children, all of whom died young but three
sons and one daughter. Edmund was of a delicate constitution. He
studied at Trinity College, Dublin. The range of his work there included
ROBERT BURNS. 725
the classics, history, philosophy, general literature, and metaphysics. He
was accustomed while at college to spend three hours every day in the
public library. While he devoted a large part of his time to studies of
the most solid character, he did not neglect the lighter reading, including
poetry, novels, and other works of imagination. Burke graduated in
1748. His destination was the bar, and in 1747 his name was enrolled
at the Middle Temple. In 1750 he went to London, but returned to
Ireland the next year. In 1755 Burke felt inclined to try his fortune in
America. Several of his most valued friends highly approved of it ; but
his father strongly opposed the scheme, and so it was abandoned. This
decided his life for England, and devoting his splendid talents and high
culture to her affairs he made a name of which she is justly proud. As a
pleader at the bar in some of her most famous cases, and as a secretary of
some of her most important trusts, he rendered services which can never
be forgotten. Burke's only son, Eichard, a man of superior talents and
great moral worth, died in 1794. The grief occasioned by this irreparable
loss contributed, there is reason to believe, materially to shorten his
father's life. It was this bereavement that called forth the eulogy on page
231 of this volume. Burke himself died in 1794.
ROBERT BURNS.
ptiis famous Scottish poet was born at Ayr, January 25, 1759. His
^^ father's home at that time was a hut of clay and straw, which he
built with his own hands, on a little tract of ground which he had
rented. The life of Robert's father was an unintermittent struggle
with adversity, and yet he spared no pains to secure his children
good education. He sent them to school, and sometimes after the day's
work was done he assisted their studies. " I owed much," says the poet,
" to an old woman who resided in the family. . . . She had, I suppose, the
largest collection in the country of tales concerning the devils, ghosts,
fairies, brownies, witches and warlocks, . . . enchanted towers, dragons, and
other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of poetry." Robert
possessed a strong intellect and acute sensibilities, a robust and active
body, so that when only fifteen he did the work of a man. He was early
familiarized with those hardships and sufferings which he has occasionally
touched upon in his poems with so much of pnthos and power. A little
before Burns reached his sixteenth year he " first committed the sin of
rhyme." In later years the fame which Burns had acquired, added to his
rare conversational powers, caused him to be eagerly sought in social
726 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
gatherings everywhere. This appears to have laid the foundation of the
dissipation which marked the latter part of his life. About 1785 Burns
says, " I resolved to publish my poems. I weighed my productions as
impartially as it was in my power. I thought they had merit, and it was
a delicious idea that I should be called a clever fellow, even though it
should never reach my ears." Scott has left an interesting account of
Burns' appearance at tliis time. He says : " His person was strong and
robust, his manners rustic, not clownish, with a sort of dignified plainness
and simplicity which received part of its effect, perhaps, from one's
knowledge of his extraordinary talents. There was a strong expression
of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments. The eye, alone, I think,
indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large and of a
dark cast, which glowed — I say, literally glowed — when he spoke with
feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though
I have seen the most distinguished men of my time. His conversation
expressed perfect self-confidence, without the slightest presumption."
Burns died on the 21st of July, 1796. His funeral was attended by
thousands of persons, of every rank and station. A costly mausoleum
was finally erected in the churchyard at Dumfries, to which his remains
were transferred June 5th, 1815, and where they now lie.
LORD BYRON.
I^EORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON, best known as Lord Byron, was born in
^^ London, January 22, 1788. The old family name was variously
'^'^^ spelled, passing by several gradations from Burun to its final and
I best- known form. His grandfather was an English admiral. His
father and mother lived unhappily together, and finally separated, she
returning to her native Aberdeen, in Scotland, where her son received his
schooling, and caught poetic inspiration from the scenery and history of
his adopted home.
When ten years of age, the lad succeeded to the estate and title of his
grand-uncle, Lord William Byron, of Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire,
England. Soon after this the effort was made to relieve him of a deformity
in one of his feet, but it proved unavailing and remained a source of
mortification and annoyance to him as long as he lived. He entered
Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1805, where he remained two years but
did not take a degree. During his stay here he published his first volume
of poems, entitled " Hours of Idleness," which was not received with
much favor, but in defense of which he replied to his critics in valiant
THOMAS CAMPBELL.
727
Style. In 1809 Byron set out on his travels through Europe, visitinf^
Portugal, Spain, Turkey, and Greece, being absent from England nearlv
two years On his return he published the first two cantos of " Childe
Harold's Pilgrimage," the success of which was so sudden that, as he tells
us, " he awoke one morning and found himself famous." Soon after, he
took his seat in the House of Lords. In 1813 he published '• The
Giaour," an Oriental tale in verse, which contains some of the most
exquisite poetry in the English language. The " Bride of Abydos," a
poem of the same general character, added to his already brilliant reputa-
tion. In 1814 was published " The Corsair," of which, it is said, nearly
14,000 copies were sold in a single day. In 1816 he left England, with
the determination of never more returning. He proceeded to Switzerland
and made his home near Geneva. He next went to Italy, and lived in
Venice. During his sojourn here he wrote several of his most remarkable
productions. Having caught a severe cold, he was attacked with fever
and inflammation of the brain, which terminated his life April 19th, 1824.
Tiie selections given in Gems are among the best Byron ever wrote.
.,U THOMAS CAMPBELL.
!his eminent British poet was born at Glasgow, Scotland, in 1777.
His father was a merchant of that city. In the University of his
<^^ native city Thomas distinguished himself as a classical scholar
I while he was yet a mere boy. In 1799 he produced " The
Pleasures of Hope," the success of which has perhaps had no parallel in
English literature. He visited the continent in 1800, and witnessed the
battle of Hohenlinden, which furnished him the subject of one of his
grandest lyrics. After his return from the continent he published " The
Exile of Erin," " Ye Mariners of England," " Lochiel's Warning," and
other short poems. In 1809 he published " Gertrude of Wyoming/'
which surpasses " The Pleasures of Hope " in simplicity, and is perhaps
not inferior in imaginative power. Ne was elected Lord Eector of the
Glasgow University in 1827, and made a journey to Algiers in 1832. He
died in 1844 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Sir Walter Scott
said to Washington Irving, in speaking of Campbell : " He has wings
that could bear him to the skies, and he does now and then spread them
grandly, but folds them up again and resumes his perch, as if he were
afraid to launch away. The fact is, Campbell is in a manner a bugbear to
himself; the brightness of his early success is a detriment to all further
efibrts. He is afraid of the shadow which his own fame casts before him.''
4\}
728 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
^JU -GEORGE CANNING.
m^EORGE CANNING was a famous British orator, statesman, and satirical
^^ poet. He was educated at Eton, where he greatly distinguished
■^^^^ himself as a scholar, and where his first literary efforts were made.
I His career at Oxford was equally satisfactory. He finally devoted
himself to law, and then to politics, in which he made good progress, rising
to the position of an under-secretaryship of state. He contributed largely
to " The Anti-Jacobin," in which journal, .as one of Canning's biographers
says, " the Whigs were wittily, unmercifully, and in some cases unjustifiaHy,
held up to popular contempt." Canning's ability to lampoon would be
philanthropists and mere pretenders appears strikingly in the poem on
" The Needy Knife-Grinder," page 228. Canning died in 1827.
WILL M. CARLETON.
^IIE author of "Betsey and I are Out,'' even had he done no other
work of note, would take a high rank as an author of the poetry
of every-day life. His full name is William M. Carleton. He
was born in Michigan, October 21st, 1815. His earlier years \vere
spent at farm work. He attended district school, and while quite young
he became a teacher. He subsequently graduated at Hillsdale College in
Michigan, and became popular as a writer of popular ballads and as a
literary lecturer. The " Toledo Blade " and " Harper's Weekly " have
been the chief channels of his literary productions.
ALICE GARY.
distinguished American authoress was born near Cincinnati,
Ohio, in 1820. She first attracted attention by her contributions
^^^ to the " National Era," for which she wrote under the nom dej^lu'ins
I of Patty Lee. She afterwards published several volumes of poems
and other works, including three novels — " Hagar, a Story of To-Day,"
" Married, not Mated," and "Hollywood." Her sketches of Western life,
entitled " Clovernook," have gained great popularity in tiiis country and
have been widely circulated in Europe. Alice Cary died in 1871.
^ PHOEBE CARY.
^pt|ilOEBE, younger and only sister of Alice Cary, was born in the Miami
^S> Valley, near Cincinnati, Ohio, September 4th, 1824. .She worked
>^^ busily with her sister, and in 1849 they had a volume of poems
1 ready for the press, for which they received one hundred dollars.
RUFUS CHOATE. 729
Subsequently they removed to New York, where they kept house in an
unpretentious manner and labored vigorously with their pens. They
finally purchased a beautiful home on Twentieth street, where they spent
the remainder of their days. Phoebe died in the summer of 1871 at
Newport, R. I., whither she had gone for her health. The selections of
the two sisters, which are given in " Gems," will be found very charmin^.
JOHN CHALKHILL.
(ISAAK WALTON.)
— "^HO John Chalkhill was is one of the problems of literature. Isaak
Walton, who lived in England 1653-1683, and who, in 1653,
published the '' Complete Angler," issued vseveral works in the
name of John Chalkhill. Critics believe these were the works
of Walton himself, his statements concerning their authorship not being
supported by other evidences. The poem on page 205 is certainly very
much in the favorite lines of Walton's work, though bearins; Chalkhill's
EDWIN H. CHAPIN.
W^ DWIN HUBBELL CHAPIN, D.D., was long regarded as foremost among
^P^ the orators of the American pulpit. He was born in Washington
■^^"^ county, N. Y., in 1814. His denominational connection was with
I the Universalists, among whom he was for many years an acknow-
ledged and competent leader. His first ministerial labors were at Charles-
town, Mass., whence, in 1848, he removed to New York, where he labored
unremittingly until 1881, when he died. He was not only an able pulpit
orator, but also a most popular platform speaker and lecturer. His pub-
lications, beyond several volumes of sermons, have been few, but they all
bear the impress of his scholarly and poetic mind. The selection here
given from his writings is indicative of his clear and potent style.
■^ RUFUS CHOATE.
^CJFUS CHOATE was the most distinguished advocate New England
1^ ever produced, and perhaps America itself has not surpassed
'^"X him. He was born at Ipswich, Mass., October 1st, 1799. As a
boy he possessed unusual quickness and vigor, and he was remark-
able for his love of reading. When only ten years old he had exhausted
the village library, though it contained some heavy works. He entered-
"30 BIOGRArillCAL SKETCHES.
Dartmouth College in 1815 and took his place at the head of an unusually
able and studious class. After graduating he spent a year as tutor, and
then entered upon the study of law at Cambridge. He then entered the
office of Mr. Wirt, Attorney- General of the United States. At Washington
he greatly extended his knowledge of public affairs and fixed his high
standard of professional work. After this preparation he entered upon
the practice of law at Danvers, Mass., and subsequently settled at Boston.
On taking up his residence in this city he devoted himself to his profession
and soon gained the highest position. In 1841 he was chosen Senator in
place of Daniel Webster. On leaving the Senate in 1845 he returned to
his profession, and never after entered into public life. He died suddenly
on July 13th, 1858, at Halifax, Nova Scotia, where ill health compelled
him to stop after starting on a voyage to Europe.
^,j^^ COLLEY GIBBER.
^KiipHis witty English dramatic author and actor was born in London
p|^ in 1671. He began his stage life as a comic actor in 1689. In
^1^ the same year he produced his first play, " Love's Last Shift, or
j; the fool in fashion," which was very successful. " The Careless
Husband " is considered his best production. It was performed with great
applause in 1704, Cibber himself acting the chief part. " The Nonjuror "
was so happy a hit that it procured him a pension of £200 from George I.
He was manager of Drury Lane for many years. In 1730 he was chosen
Poet-Laureate. He wrote an amusing " Apology for the Life of Colley
Cibber," which Dr. Johnson pronounced " very well done." His poems
were not numerous. The one given in this volume is perhaps the best he
produced. He died in 1757.
SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.
^r|ja^ (mark twain.)
^^AMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS, better known as " Mark Twain," is a
1^ distinguished American humorist. He was born in Monroe county,
^W Mo., November 30th, 1835. He began his work as journalist at
^^ Virginia City, Nev,, in 1862. He subsequently pursued this pro-
fession at San Francisco and later at Buffalo, N. Y. His largest works
are " The Innocents Abroad," " Roughing It," " The Tramp Abroad,"
" Gilded Age," etc. His fragmentary writings are very numerous and
popular. The four selections given in this volume are good samples of
the variety and excellence of his style.
SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE. 731
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.
land, in 1819 or
and became a
g^RTHUR HUGH CLOUGH was born in Liverpool, Engla
^g 1820. He was educated at Rugby and Oxford,
^^"T tutor in Oriel College. In 1848 he issued a " Long Vacation
J Pastoral," which has been much admired. In 1849 he became
Professor of English Literature in University College, London. In 1852
he visited the United States, and became the friend of Longfellow and
other distinguished poets. Among his works are " A Version of Plutarch's
Lives" and a collection of poems called " x\mbarvalia." "As Ships
Becalmed " (p. 422) is a beautiful production. He died November, 1861.
^rU REYNELL COAXES.
l^iiE gambler's wife " (p. 688) is an intense dramatic poem. Its
author still lives (1883) at Camden, N. J., far advanced in years
|t^f but enjoying a peaceful old age. He has been active in business,
politics and literature, especially in literature of the medical
profession, to which he was trained. Born in 1802.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.
jHis eminent English poet and critic was born atOttery Saint Marv,
Devonshire, England, October 21st, 1772. He was the youngest
among many children of John Coleridge, who was vicar of that
parish. Before Samuel was fifteen years of age he was deeply
interested in metaphysical studies. He entered Jesus College, Cambridge,
in 1791, but abruptly left without a degree in 1793. Coleridge had
already begun to write poetry. In 1794 he sold to Mr. Cottle, of Bristol,
for thirty guineas in advance, the first volume of his poems, which was
printed in 1796. He was full of literary projects, among them was " The
Watchman," a weekly periodical, of which he issued but ten numbers.
In 1798 he visited Germany with Wordsworth, and studied German litera-
ture. In 1800 he removed to Keswick in the lake district, where Southey
and Wordsworth resided, and from which locality the three received the
appellation of " Lake Poets." He died in 1834.
G,^^^,^ ABRAHAM COLES.
llj^ANY of the finest translations of Medioeval hymns which the world
^^ now enjoys are from the skillful pen of Abraham Coles, M. d.,
for many years a resident of Newark, N. J. Together with a
732 BIOnilAPlIICAL SKETCHES
very large medical practice, Dr. Coles has long combined laborious
literary pursuits. He has produced sevei^al valuable poems of considerable
length, chief of which is "The Evangel." Of the " Dies Ira " he has
made thirteen separate translations, and competent critics declare that
any one of them is sufficiently excellent to establish his reputation as a
scholar and a poet. Dr. Coles enjoys his literary leisure at a beautiful
country seat at Scotch Plains, N. J. Born in 1813.
WILLIAM COLLINS.
(y^^rJiLLiAM COLLINS made a good name as an English lyric poet. He
^J^Ml w^s ^°^^^ ^^ Chichester in 1720. After graduating at Oxford, he
r^ went to London about 1744, with little to depend on except his
genius. But he became the friend of the great Dr. Johnson. His
odes on "The Passions," "To Mercy," "To Evening," etc., all appeared in
1747. The latter part of his life was shrouded by melancholy, and he was
for a considerable time an inmate of a lunatic asylum. He died in 1756.
.| ELIZA COOK.
|his popular English poetess was born in Southwark, London, in
1817. At a very early age she became a regular contributor to
the " New Monthly Magazine," and to other periodicals. A
volume of her poems and songs was published in 1840, and
received great favor. In 1849 she began the publication of " Eliza Cook's
Journal." Among her most popular productions is " The Old Arm Chair."
PHILIP p. COOKE.
|hilip PENDLETON COOKE was an American poet, born at Martins-
B«a^* burg, Virginia, in 1816. He graduated at Princeton and subse-
1^ quently studied law. He wrote many poems of marked merit,
l chief of which are " Florence Vane " and " Ptosa Lee." He
wrote much for the " Southern Literary Messenger." He died in 1850.
SUSAN COOLIDGE
HIS is ihenom de vlui
^His is thenovi deplume of a delightful author, resident in Newport,
R. I. In answer to an earnest request lor a biographical sketch
of herself, she wrote: "A singer of songs, or a teller of tales is
after all but a voice to those who listen; and the merits of the
GEORGE CROLY. 733
\
song or the story are not enhanced when the utterer comes into view.
Pletise let me therefore remain a voice." So beautiful a plea could not be
disregarded. Let the many admirers of the sweet poem "When," say
with its author in that beautiful production, " I can wait/""
BARRY CORNWALL.
^4,_^ (BRYAIS W. PROCTER.)
^^RYAN WALLER PROCTER was an English poet, who wrote under the
^^ 710771 de plume of Barry Cornwall. He was born about 1790. He
^jt^ first studied law and began its practice about 1831. He acquired
.'; ' some literary distinction by his volume " Dramatic Scenes and
other Poems," issued in 1819. Among his other works are "The Flood
of Thessaly," " English Songs and other Small Poems," " Essays and
Tales in Prose," and " Charles Lamb : a Memoir." His songs have
obtained much popularity. The poetess, Adelaide Anne Procter, is a
daughter of this eminent writer. He died in 1874.
FREDERICK SWARTWOUT COZZENS.
IPI^his gentleman was an American writer of considerable repute. He
^1^ was born in New York in 1818. A volume entitled" Prismf
A volume entitled" Prismatics "
■jp^ was made up of his contributions to the "Knickerbocker Maga-
zine." It appeared in 1853. . He published " Sparrowgrass
Papers," and many other works in prose and verse. He died in 1869.
,;:j^C,, C. p. CRANCH.
i^HRTSTOPHER PEARCE CRANCH, author of " By the Shore of the River "
SSI (p. 517), was born at Alexandria, Va., in 1813. He was a land-
■':^ scape painter, as well as an author and poet, doing very creditable
H work in both these departments of Art.
^t^ GEORGE CROLY.
^^EORGE CROLY was a voluminous author and a poet of considerable
§^ power. He was born m Dublin in 1780. He was connected with
rthe Episcopal Church, and for many years was rector of Saint
^, Stephen's, in Wallbrook. London. He was eminent as a pulpit
orator. Besides numerous sermons, he published a volume of " Poetical
Works." " Personal History of George IV.," etc. His " Catiline," both
d& a poem and a drama, is a splendid piece of work. Croly died in 1860.
734 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
JOHN GUMMING.
pIpoHN GUMMING, D.D., was a popular English preacher and theologian.
^1^ He was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, in 1810. In 1832 he
'|f^ became pastor of the Scottish church in Crown Court, Covent
'^ Garden, London. He distinguished himself as an adversary of
Romanism and of the party which under Dr. Chalmers established the
Free Church in 1843. He was a very voluminous writer, his works
covering the parables, prophecies, etc. He died in 1881.
ALLAN GUNNINGHAM.
^^^LLAN GUNNINGHAM, who was a successful Scottish author and critic,
^1^ was born at Blackwood, Dumfrieshire, 1785. He was apprenticed
P^'^ in early age to a stone-mason. When a young man he went to
London, where he found employment as reporter for the daily
newspapers, after which his career in literary pursuits became settled. He
published an admirable dramatic poem, " Sir Marmaduke Maxwell," and
several popular romances. In 1829 he began the publication of a valuable
work entitled " The Lives of British Painters, Sculptors and Architects.''
He composed several good songs, the gem of which, "A AVet Sheet and a
Flowing Sea," is given in this volume. He died in 1842.
,1, GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
S^pHE subject of this sketch was born in Providence, E. I., February
^IM 24th, 1824. His early life was spent at school, on a farm, and
"^^^ for a year or more in a counting house. He went abroad in 1846,
%" visiting Egypt and Syria, but spending considerable time at
Berlin. These journeys enriched his stores of knowledge, which were
subsequently given to the world in " Nile Notes of a Howadji," and other
issues. He contributed richly to the " New York Tribune," was an editor
of " Putnam's Magazine," and otherwise distinguished himself in literary
work. He has been very popular as a lyceum lecturer and as a public
speaker on political and other important issues.
, GEORGE W. GUTTER.
i^nis spirited author, generally known as Captain Cutter, has produced
many stirring poems. His " Buena Vista and Other Poems"
appeared in Cincinnati, 1848, under the inspiration of the Mexican
War, then just closing, "The Song of Steam" and '' The Song
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 735
of Lightning " were decided hits at a later day. In 1857 he issued
"Poems National and Patriotic."
RICHARD HENRY DANA.
|[CHARD HENRY DANA, poet and essayist, was born November 17th,
1^^ 1787, at Cambridge, Mass. He was educated at Harvard College,
J^ and devoted himself to the law. He abandoned this pursuit how-
^^ ever and applied himself wholly to literature. His first poem
[ was "The Dying Kaven," followed quickly by "The Buccaneer and
other Poems." He also wrote numerous tales and essays. "The Pleasure
Boat," selected for Gems from this author's poems is beautiful in the ex-
treme. He died in 1879, in the ninety-second year of his age. He waa
the father of Ptichard Henry Dana, Jr., of wide reputation as an author.
• THOMAS DE QUINCEY.
^i|iHOMAS DE QUINCEY was born in Manchester, England, 1785. He
pl^ entered the University of Oxford in 1803; he there contracted
<W^ the habit of eating opium, to which he remained a slave for many
years. After leaving Oxford, he settled at Grasraere, where he resided
nearly twenty-seven years. Here he enjoyed the friendship of Words-
worth, Southey, Coleridge, Charles Lloyd and other distinguished literary
men. He made German literature a special study, and translated Kant,
Fichte, Schelling and Richter. In 1823 he went to London, where he
published his "Suspiria de Profundis," his "Templar's Dialogues," and
other works. In 1843 he settled near Edinburgh. The brief historic
sketch given on page 145 is characteristic of De Quincey's bright and
beautiful style. He died in Edinburgh, December 8th, 1859.
GABRIEL ROMANOVITCH DERZHAVIN.
^ijipHrs Russian poet was born in Kasan, in 1743. He was distinguished
^1^ both in the military and civil services, and was appointed Secretary
■*^^ of State in 1791, by Catharine II., and Minister of Justice in
1802 by Alexander I. His poems are of a very high order, both in sen-
timent and imagery, especially his world-renowned " Ode to God," which
has been translated into every European language, and even into Persian,
Chinese and Japanese. This grand poem received the honor of being hung,
embroidered with gold, in the great temple of Jeddo. He died in 1816.
736 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
CHARLES DICKENS.
Sj^HARLES DICKENS stands preeminent among the most distinguished
|B novelists of the English school. He was born at Portsmouth^
"^ England, February 7th, 1812. The law was selected as his pro-
j fession, and he was placed in an attorney's office. The drudgery
of legal business disgusted him, however, and before his twenty-first year,
he removed to London, and embarked on a literary career He began as
reporter to the "Morning Chronicle," to which he presently contributed a
series of papers sketching characteristics of English life as seen in the
middle and lower classes of society. In 1836 these papers were published
in two volumes. The issue proved a wonderful success both in England
and ihe United States, and the " Pickwick Papers," in the year following,
conclusively stamped him as a master in fiction,
Dickens further distinguished himself by the admirable course of lec-
tures he delivered in the United States in 1867-68. These were a mine
of pecuniary profit to the lecturer, and to thousands of intelligent Ameri-
cans a treat of the highest character. He died June 9th, 1870, and his
remains were interred in the Poet's corner of Westminster Abbey.
BENJAMIN DISRAELI.
"" '" ' 'lor,
[e
f^ early showed great literary taste and talent. In 1825 he caused a
f sensation bv his brilliant novel, "Vivian Grey." Other works of
^^ENJAMIN DISRAELI, Earl of Beaconsfield, the famous English author,
W^M orator, statesman and Premier, was born in London, in 1805. He
fiction soon followed his virgin effort ; among them " Henrietta Temple,"
which by many is deemed the finest love story in the English language.
In 1837, he entered Parliament. His maiden speech was so complete a
failure that it even elicited laughter in the House. Then it was he used
the memorable words, " I sit down now, but the time will come when you
shall hear me." In 1868, Lord Derby resigned office, when Disraeli
reached the summit of his ambition, in becoming first minister of the
Crown. Disraeli never abandoned literary pursuits, though so largely ab-
sorbed in state affairs. He died in London, April 19th, 1881.
^^ SYDNEY DOBELL.
I^^HE author of " How's my Boy ? " was born near London, April 5th,
^^ 1824. His father was a man of some literary distinction. Sydney
^"^^^ had little more than a home education, having spent considerable
JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. 737
of his earlier life in business pursuits, but devoting his leisure hours as-
siduously to literature. His poetic genius showed itself in boyish verses,
which he wrote when but nine years of age. He died August 24th,
1874, Several volumes of his works have appeared.
MARY MAPES DODGE.
|fi|iHis noted American writer for young folks was born in New York
m^ City. She first published " Irvington Stories " in 1864, and after-
^^^^:f wards became well known as the author of " Hans Brinker, or the
Silver Skates," a story which has been published many times in this coun-
try and in England, and has been translated into many foreign languages.
In France, its translator was given a prize by the French Academy. Mrs.
Dodge has also written ''Rhymes and Jingles," and several books for
grown-up people. Among her magazine articles is a funny sketch called
" Miss Maloney on the Chinese Question." Mrs. Dodge was for several
years one of the editors of "Hearth and Home," but when the "St.
Nicholas Magazine" was started, she became its editor, in which relation
she still continues. The two selections from Mrs. Dodge's works, which
appear in Gems, are worthy of the distinction so awarded them.
^^^^ _ DANIEL DOUGHERTY.
iROMiNENT among the lawyers of the Philadelphia bar stands the
gentleman whose name heads this sketch. He has attained a high
^ rank by his work as a writer and a speaker. He is a most entertain-
J. ing man in story also. Colonel Forney, in his " Sketches of Public
Men," says of Mr. Dougherty: " People will love him while he lives, and
many will regret they never knew him after he is gone. He is a ca.'=?ket
of fun, and he scatters his jewels with a lavish hand." No man is more
competent to speak on " Pulpit Oratory " than is this superb orator.
^T^^ JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.
^^His well known American poet was born in the city of New York,
10^^ August, 1795. He was educated at Columbia College. He sub-
■*^^^ fequently studied medicine. In 1819 he wrote many humorous
and satirical poems, which were published in the " Evening Post," over the
signature of " Croaker." His more extended works are " The Culprit
Fay," and the much-admired verses on " The American Flag." given in
this volume. He died in September, 1820, in New York City.
738 BIOGRAI'IIICAL SKETCHES.
LADY DUFFERIN.
hiE Lament of the Irish Emigrant," has commanded sufficient inter-
^ est in the public heart, to immortalize its talented authoress. Lady
DufFerin. Helen Selina Sheridan, was the proper name of this
gifted lady. She was a daughter of Thomas Sheridan and a sif-
ter of Caroline Norton. She was born in Ireland in 1807, and
died June 13th, 1867. The recent Governor-General of Canada, Lord
DufFerin, was her son. She was a great favorite everywhere, being greatly
admired for her beauty, her wit, and her general accomplishments.
TIMOTHY DWIGHT.
^[Ipiiis eminent American Divine was celebrated as a pulpit orator and
'M^ as an expounder of the Scriptures. He was born at Northampton,
^W Mass., in 1752. He studied at Yale College. During the war of
i Independence he was chaplain in the American army. In 1783
he became pastor of the Congregational church in Greenfield, Conn., where
he also conducted an Academy for twelve years. In 1795 he was chosen
President of Yale College and Professor of Divinity. He was a clear,
forcible and voluminous writer on theology and kindred subjects. He
wrote several poems. His description of the Notch of the White Moun-
tains is a gem in its line. It is from an extended sketch of travel.
CHARLES GAMAGE EASTMAN.
?HE author of the beautiful poem entitled "A Snow Storm " (p. 409),
was born at Fryeburg, Maine, June 1st, 1816. His parents re-
moved to Vermont when he was quite young. In 1837, he grad-
'^^ uated at the University of Vermont. Before his graduation he
wrote editorials and contributions for many current periodicals, and in
1846 he became owner and editor of the " Vermont Patriot," published at
Montpelier. He worked somewhat in politics and published a very ac-
ceptable volume of poems in 1848. He died in Burlington, Vt., in 1861.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
^fpHis distinguished author, two of whose graceful productions adorn
\Ml^ these pages, was born in
pages, was born in Boston, Mass., May 25th, 1803. He
graduated at Harvard College in 1821. As a boy he wrote verses;
as a collegian, he took prizes for composition and declamation ;
and on graduating was class-day poet. He taught school ; became
EDWARD EVERETT. 739
a precicher ; went abroad for several years ; and tlien became a lecturer on
literary, scientific and biographical themes. In 1834, he settled at Con-
cord, Mass., where he died April 27th, 1882.
^■^J^ ROBERT EMMETT.
M^OBERT EMMETT was a distinguished Irish revolutionist, born in Dub-
W^^ lin, in 1780. He was educated for the bar, and was a hi<j-hlv
'^^^l gifted and estimable man. He became actively involved in the
1' revolutionary troubles of 1802-3, and was consequently arrested,
tried, and sentenced to death, which he suffered on September 20th, 1803.
Emmett was engaged to be married to the daughter of Right Hon. J. P.
Curran, who, after the untimely death of her affianced, died of a broken
heart. This sad event suggested one of Moore's finest poems, "She is for
from the land where her young hero sleeps." Emmett 's "Last Appeal,"
is one of the most patriotic, and yet pathetic, appeals, ever uttered.
..:.^ EDWARD EVERETT.
gi^l^His eminent orator and scholar was born at Dorchester, Mass., in
pj^ 1794. He graduated at Harvard in 1811, and became Tutor of
^jf^ Latin there in 1812. He was ordained as a Unitarian minister in
"^ 1814 ; was elected Professor of Greek at Harvard in 1815. On
his return from Europe, in 1819, he entered upon the duties of this pro-
fessorship, which terminated in 1825. He was editor of the "North
American Review " for several years, and contributed to its pages, one
hundred and seventeen important papers. He was member of Congress
for ten years ; Governor of Massachusetts for four years ; Minister Pleni-
potentiary to the Court of St. James three years ; President of Harvard
College for three years ; Secretary of State of the United States under
President Fillmore ; U. S. Senator for two years ; and candidate for the
Vice-Presidency of the United States in 1860. He died at Boston,
January loth, 1865. The several selections of Everett given in Gems
are fairly illustrative of his superb diction and style.
^^^ EDGAR FAWCETT.
^^DGAR FAWCETT is a native and resident of New York City. He has
p|M devoted himself to literary pursuits from his youth. His poems
^.-. ■'''* are generally of the brief, light, but pure character, such as the
I* specimen on page 682. Mr. Fawcett's work has been chiefly for
the magazines and current periodicals, where it is favorably received.
740 BIOGRAPIIICAL SKETCHES.
JAMES T. FIELDS.
'■''^'^'ames t. fields, a.m., is a well known author and publisher. He
was born at Portsmouth, N. H., December 31st, 1817. So marked
,,. was his talent that he read an anniversary poem before the Mer-
4' cantile Library Association, of Boston, Mass., when in liis eighteenth
year, and again in 1848 he read another poem, "The Post of Honor,''
before the same scholarly society. He was a member of the firms. Tick •
nor, Reed & Fields, Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood & Co., for twenty-
five years, up to January, 1871. In 1849, 1854 and 1858, respectively,
he published volumes of his poems for private distribution. He edited
the "Atlantic Monthly " from 1862 to 1870. He has repeatedly visited
Europe, and has enjoyed the acquaintance of the leading literary men of
the world. " The Tempest " (p. 208) gives a beautiful raid-ocean incident.
' BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
^^^ENJAMIN FRANKLIN, famous as a statesman and philosopher, was
W^m born in Boston, 1706. His discoveries in electricity give him a
f permanent place in scientific history. He deserves high honor for
his services to the cause of liberty also. He began public life in
the struggle between the Pennsylvania Assembly and the old proprietary
Governors. He proposed to the several States what afterwards became the
basis of their confederation. He was sent on a mission to England regarding
the obnoxious Stamp Act; afterwards was Ambassador to France, and
finally. Minister to England. In his personal bearing Franklin was sedate
and benevolent. " Men instinctively felt his worth, and submitted them-
selves to his wisdom. Except Washington, whom in many qualities he
much resembled, this country yet ranks among her dead nowhere so great
a man." He died in Philadelphia, in 1790, and was buried in the old
graveyard at 5th and Arch streets, where his sepulchre can be seen by the
passers-by. The incident of his arrival in Philadelphia (p. 657), written
by his own hand, will be read with interest.
FERDINAND FREILIGRATH.
I^ERDINAND FREILIGRATH, a German poet and patriot, was born at
i^ Detmold, in 1810. His earlier years were passed in mercantile
^ pursuits, but in 1838 a volume of his poems appeared and quickly
%' placed him in the front rank of poets. In 1848 he took part in
J the revolution in Germany, and in the same year suffered impris-
JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. 74;^
onraent for publishing his poem, ^'The Dead to the Living." After
two months' confinement, he was tried and acquitted. He finally retired
to England and engaged again in mercantile pursuits. He died in 1876.
"The Lion's Ride" is one of the most spirited of all poems.
1 PHILIP FRENEAU.
^PpHis American poet and journalist was of French descent. He was
^^ born at New York in 1752. During the Eevolutionary War he
^ wrote many satirical and burlesque poems against the Tories. He
V also made several voyages as captain of a merchant-vessel. About
1790 he became a clerk to Thomas Jefferson, who was then Secretarv of
State. Freneau afterwards became editor of the "National Gazette,"
published at Philadelphia, and notorious for its fierce attacks upon the ad-
ministration at Washington. He died near Freehold, New Jersey, Decem-
ber, 1832, The Indian's "Death Song'" is one of the best of his poems.
JAMES ANTHONY FEOUDE.
'iiis distinguished English author was born at Totness, Devonshire,
in 1818. He was educated at the University of Oxford, where,
in 1842, he carried off the highest prize for the English Essay.
In the same year he was elected Fellow of Exeter College. He
published a novel, called "Shadow of Clouds;" also "The Nemesis of
Faith," a theologico-philosophical novel, and many other works. He con-
tributed to the " Lives of the English Saints," and for a short time edited
"Eraser's Magazine." His historical sketches have been especially valued,
and one of the choicest of them is given in Gems.
' MRS. F. D. gage.
ggl^RANCES DANA GAGE was bom at Marietta, Ohio, October 12th, 1808,
^^1 and became the wife of J. L. Gage, Esq. She was early distin-
llll guished as a temperance speaker and lecturer on slavery and wo-
i**4 man's rights. In 1853 she went to St. Louis, where she suffered
severely for her peculiar opinions and acts. She served without pay in the
care of sick and wounded soldiers from 1861-1865. She is the author of
a volume of entertaining "Poems;" also "Elsie Magoon," and of many
widely known and admirable pieces for the young, written under the nom
de plume of "Aunt Fanny." "The Housekeeper's Soliloquy " is one of
her lighter and more facetious efforts.
^42 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
JAMES A. GARFIELD.
" "'"''Ihe late honored President of the United States, James Abram Garfield,
was born in Cuyahoga county, Ohio, November 19th, 1831. Af-
ter an early life of a very laborious kind, he graduated at Wil-
liams College, Mass., in 1856. He became a teacher, a lawyer, a
College President, and, in 1859, a member of the Ohio Senate.
He entered the army at the outbreak of the civil war, and distinguished
himself in its severest experiences, until he was called from the field to
represent his home district in Congress. Here he became an active and
influential member, and retained his place there for eighteen years, until he
was called to the Presidency of the United States.
All Garfield's productions, whether speeches or letters, were finished
with the most painstaking care. Selections from them, such as are given
in this volume, are true and pure gems of thought. Every intelligent
reader must enjoy them and be profiled by their reading. The prosper-
ous career of Garfield during the brief term of his presidency, and the sad
circumstances of his untimely death, are too fresh in the hearts of the
whole world to need rehearsal. He died September 19th, 1881.
EDWARD GARRETT.
Sigli^
'rs. ISABELLA MAYO, Is the personage hidden behind the pseudonym
which heads this article. Her writings were gathered under the
^^ general title of "Occupations of a Retired Life." The incident
' "T^ wrought out in " The Unbolted Door/' is said to be founded
on fact, and aptly illustrates a mother's love.
CAROLINE GILMAN.
I^AROLINE HOWARD GILMAN was the daughter of Samuel How^ard, of
Hlk Boston, and was born October 8th, 1794. She married the Rev.
W Dr. Samuel Gilman, a Unitarian clergyman of Charleston, S. C.
7 She edited the first juvenile paper issued in this country, "The
Rosebud," which appeared in 1832. She has written many poems.
. JOHANN WOLFGANG GOETHE.
lll^pris distinguished poet was born August 28th, 1749, at Frankfort-
pl^ on-the-Main. He came of a rich and highly respected family,
^1^^ and received a varied and very excellent education. Under his
'^ father's direction the boy was taught drawing, music, grammar,
I
JOHN B. GOUGH.
743
rhetoric, languages, and natural history. His mother taught him to judge
characters as they appeared in social intercourse, to understand life as seen
in the streets, and to make frequent excursions into Fairyland. In the
nineteenth year of his age, he entered the University of Leipsic. After
taking his degree in law, he returned in 1771 to Frankfort, and began to
write poems and minor critical essays for periodicals. In 1775, the Duke
of Weimar invited Goethe to take up his abode at court, which invitation
was accepted, and from 1776 Weimar became his residence. A warm and
noble friendship sprang up between the duke and the poet ; and Goethe
occupied, at different times, many honorable positions in the Ducal gov-
ernment, that of a Minister of State crowning all, for thirteen years. He
then resigned all offices, and retired to private life. He died in Weimar,
March 22d, 1832, and lies interred in the Ducal burial vault beside the
Duke, Charles Augustus, his friend through so many years. The selec-
tions from Goethe given in Gems, illustrate in one case the statesman-like
mind of the poet, and in the other his lighter vein.
JOHN B. GOUGH.
;ll the English speaking world is femiliar with the name and work
of John B. Gough, the famous temperance worker and lecturer.
He was born at Sandgate, Kent, England, August 22d, 1817.
He came to this country when but a boy, and became a book-
He was addicted to intemperance during the years of his early
manhood, but in 1843, he threw off this terrible curse and became a tem-
perance lecturer ; since which time, his fame as an orator has scarce had
a rival. He resides at West Boylston, Mass. " Buying Gape Seed " is
one of his most effective stories. It always makes a decided hit.
JAMES GRAHAME.
?^P|his author's reputation rests mainly on his one famous poem, " The
^i^ Sabbath," given on page 610. It is conceded to be one of the
¥ finest compositions of its kind. Its author was born in Glasgow,
^ Scotland, in 1765. He studied at the University of Glasgow ;
practised law for a time ; entered clerical orders in 1809 ; became curate
at Shipton, in Gloucestershire ; and died in 1811. He published " British
Georgics," " The Birds of Scotland," etc. When Grahame had completed
''The Sabbath," he published it anonymously. He was very anxious to
know his wife's judgment on the work. He therefore gave her the poem
to read, he walking the floor nervously as she read. When through, she
50
744 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
said, "Ah, James, if you could write such a poem as that, it would be
worth your while to try." This praise confirmed him as a poetic writer.
.^ THOMAS GEAY.
P|^|ad Thomas Gray written nothing more than his immortal " Elegy
W^M in a Country Churchyard," his fame would have been permanently
r% established. Indeed all that he ever did or wrote, borrows lustre
from the Elegy, rather than sheds new lustre on it, or its author.
Gray was born in London, December 26th, 1716. He had much difficulty
in securing his education, but he finally graduated at Cambridge, in 1739.
He then traveled extensively, and on his return settled at Cambridge and
devoted himself wholly to literary work. His occasional articles on travel,
etc., are justly esteemed models of English composition. He began his
Elegy about 1742, but did not finish it till 1749, and then it lay unpub-
lished till 1752, when it appeared anonymously in the " Magazine of Maga-
zines." It won its way to highest favor at once, passing rapidly through
several editions. The scene of the poem is the old churchyard at Stoke-
Pogis in Buckinghamshire. He is said to have begun the poem while
sitting in the burial ground itself. His remains now rest in this place.
The original manuscript of the Elegy, with many erasures and inter-
lineations, and written upon two foolscap sheets, was sold, in 1875, for two
hundred and thirty pounds sterling. Gray died July 30th, 1771.
FRANCIS W. p. GREENWOOD.
jRANCis WILLIAM PITT GREENWOOD, D.D., was bom in Bostou, Feb-
ruary 5th, 1797. On graduating at Harvard College in 1814, he
studied theology. He began his ministry in the New South
Church in Boston, but remained in it only a single year because of
a pulmonary affection. He passed several years abroad, but after
his return became colleague pastor with Dr. Freeman of King's Chapel,
Boston. Three years later he became sole pastor, and, as far as health
would allow, discharged all the duties. He died August 2d, 1843. The
one selection of his given in this volume, is a beautiful description of the
" Poetry and Mystery of the Sea."
THOMAS CHANDLER IIALIBURTON.
|his humorous and popular English author was born in Nova Scotia,
WM, about 1802. In early life he practiced law. He obtained great
^ celebrity by his "Clocktnaker, or the Sayings and Doings of Sam
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 745
Slick of Slickville," which is an amusing delineation of Yankee character.
He also wrote "Sam Slick in England," and "Nature, and Human Na-
ture," from which the selection on page G4G is taken. He died in 1865.
oCt2o .
FRANCIS BEET HARTE.
^^RET HARTE, as he is called for brevity, was born in Albany, N. Y.,
^^ August 25th, 1839. He went to California when but fifteen years
<^^ old, and spent some years digging gold, teaching school, railroad-
I ing as express messenger, and finally becoming a compositor on a
j daily paper, and thence passing on to the editorial chair. His
busy literary life opened up in 1860, and in 1868, he took charge of the
" Overland Monthly." In this connection Ilarte began to do his charac-
teristic work, which soon made him a national reputation. In 1870 he
came east and settled in New York, where he has pushed literary work.
The selections in this volume fairly represent his characteristics.
FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL.
^j^prss HAVERGAL was the youngest daughter of an English clergyman,
Jj^Ji^ the Rev. W. H. Havergal. She inherited a poetic taste from
^^^ him, he having published about one hundred choice poems. Her
T work was in extent about equal to his. Her poems were all of
the most chaste and elevating character. Many of them are very choice de-
votional hymns, such as "I Give my Life for Thee." "The Lull of Eter-
nity " (p. 626) is exquisitely beautiful. Miss Havergal has recently died.
, NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
""'ipHis distinguished American author was born at Salem, Mass.,
i
l^ July 4th, 1804. He graduated at Bowdoin College, in 1825,
^1^^ Longfellow being one of his classmates. He began the publica-
% tion of his works very cautiously, but in 1836, he assumed edito-
rial charge of a magazine in Boston, which proved very short-lived, how-
ever. " Twice-Told Tales " appeared in 1837, after which his issues became
more numerous, as their author became more confident. In 1843, he mar-
ried and settled at Concord, Mass. His reputation grew rapidly in the
years that followed "The Scarlet Letter," "The House of Seven Gables,''
and other works, added greatly to his fame. During the presidency of
Franklin Pierce, Hawthorne was sent abroad as consul. Hawthorne died
in the spring of 1864, at Plymouth, N. H. "Sights from a Steepk
is a bright little effusion from his pen (p. 470).
le
746 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
W^ JOHN HAY.
_ ^OHN HAY was born at Salem, III, October 8tli, 1839. He graduated
HP at Brown University, and subsequently studied law at Springfield,
^ in his native State. He had just entered upon practice at the
i bar when Abraham Lincoln became President, and appointed Mr.
Hay his private secretary. He remained in this position during Mr.
Lincoln's life. He has since then filled several diplomatic positions, and
in 1870, he became connected with the New York Tribune. He is a
graceful writer, as "The Law of Death," in this volume, demonstrates.
HEINRICH HEINE.
I^JI^His celebrated German poet and author was born at Dusseldorf, in
1800. He studied at Bonn, Berlin, and Gcittingen. His first
poems appeared in 1822. He removed, in 1831, to Paris, where
^- he married a French lady, and where he resided until his death.
About 1848 his health became impaired, and he lost his sight ; but he still
clung to literary work. After a long and painful illness, he died in Feb-
ruary, 1856. The one poem from Heine given in this volume, will be
pronounced a gem by all readers.
FELICIA D. HEMANS.
^ELTCiA DOROTHEA BROWNE was bom in Liverpool, September 2oth,
1794. Her parentage was Irish on her father's side and Italian
^)-^ on her mother's. The child's poetic power was shown very early ;
1 1^ her first volume, "Early Blossoms," appearing when she was but
fourteen years old. She married a soldier. Captain Hemaus, in 1812, but
the union was not a happy one. Her later poems were numerous, and
were first collected in 1839, since when various complete editions have ap-
peared. The selections from her pen given in this volume are good sam-
ples of her very excellent work. "The Hour of Death" was part of her
last work, which consisted of numerous poems issued under the title
"Thoughts During Sickness." She died in 1835.
, JAMES HERVEY.
#?!i^AMES HERVEY was an English divine and author, born at Hardingstone,
^1^ Northampton, in 1714. He was educated at Oxford, and was a
^P thorough scholar. He was noted for his piety and benevolence,
%^ His " Meditations and Contemplations," from which a selection is
1, taken for this volume, were very popular, notwithstanding his
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 747
style, which is too flowery and grandiloquent to please the stricter taste.
For these peculiarities of style he became, however, a very marked favorite
with the ordinary readers. Hervey died in 1758.
A^ THOMAS HEYWOOD.
iijrTri^HOMAS HEYWOOD, author of the little poem, " Sonp- of Birds " (p.
^^ 374), was an English actor and dramatic author, who lived in the
^^- reigns of Elizabeth, James I. and Charles I. He produced numer-
ous dramas in verse and prose, which were once popular, and are
still admired. He died about 1650.
J. G. HOLLAND.
^§|^R. JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND, widely known as a journalist, essayist,
^__,|p poet, etc., was born at Belchertown, Mass., in 1819. He studied
' v= I medicine, and practiced it for a few years, and then turned at-
tention wholly to literary work. He was editorially associated
with the Springfield Republican, and afterwards with Scribner's Monthly.
He was also known widely and favorably as a lecturer. He was popularly
known as " Timothy Titcomb." His poems complete were published as
" Garnered Sheaves," in 1873. Three selections from Dr. Holland appear
in Gems, and they are characteristic of his style. He died Oct. 12th, 1881.
^j^^ OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
^jfil^R. HOLMES was a native of Cambridge, Mass., born August 29th,
§1^^ 1809. He graduated at Harvard when twenty years of age,
'^^'H studied medicine here and abroad, became Professor of anatomy
X in Dartmouth in 1838, and in Harvard, 1847. His first poetic
offerings appeared in the college paper while he was an undergraduate.
Since that time he has continued to issue occasional productions of greater
or less extent, and in various channels. Through the columns of the
"Atlantic Monthly," started in 1857, he gained his best laurels. A care-
fully chosen selection of his poems adorns these pages.
-4r- THOMAS HOOD.
^I^^OOD was born at London, May 23d, 1798. His education was but
^^^ meagre, and his first steps into active life were in the mercantile
|jp^ line. While he was still young, his verses attracted some attention,
I' and literary pursuits soon opened before him. In this direction
748 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
he found congenial employment, and gathered about himself the leading
literary men of his day. He continued at work until early in 1845,
when illness laid liiin aside. During these days of suffering he wrote
" The Bridge of Sighs," and "The Song of the Shirt," both of which, with
several others, have been selected for Gems. Hood died May 3d, 1845.
T LUDWIG HOLTY.
fwipHE author of the little winter song on page 596 was Ludwig Hein-
^^^ rich Christoph Holty, an excellent German lyric poet. He was
^W born near Hanover, in 1748. He studied at Gottingen. His po-
*|* ems are much admired for tenderness of feeling and artless grace.
He died at an early age, in 1776, leaving comparatively few mementos.
, MRS. MAEY HOWITT.
4''o ,
pHis popular English authoress was born at Uttoxeter, in 1804. Her
M maiden name was Botham. She was a member of the Society ol
^1^ Friends, and was married to William Howitt in 1823. They both
possessed fine literary taste and published jointly "The Forest
Minstrel " and other poems. She translated many works of Frederika
Bremer, and several stories of Hans Christian Andersen. " Her language,"
says Professor Wilson, " is chaste and simple, her feelings tender and pure,
and her observation of nature accurate and intense." Her sketch on
" Mountains " (p. 427) is a beautiful specimen of pure English.
m
RALPH IIOYT.
ALPH HOYT was an American Episcopal clei'gyman and poet, born
in New York City in 1810.- He published "The Chaunt of Life
and other Poems," one of the tenderest of which is " Old," given on
page 431. Hoyt's personal excellence was as admirable as his poems.
, VICTOR HUGO.
[^■ift»r|iCTOR MARIE HUGO, the distinguished French novelist and poet, four
mIMB choice productions from whom appear in this volume, was born at
^P Besancon, France, in 1802. His literary ability was shown at a
"^l^ very early age. When but fifteen years old, he read before the
French Academy a poem on "The Advantages of Study." A volume of
"Odes and Ballads," published by him in 1822, created a marked sensa-
JEAN INGELOW. 749
tion. Other works appeared in rapid succession; every new issue added
to his already wide reputation. In 1845, he was made a peer of France
by King Louis Philippe. He subsequently became active in the political
revolutions and agitations of his native land, becoming a refugee under
Napoleon HI., after whose fall he returned to Paris. He continued active
in politics as also in literature, some of his books having been issued in
eight or ten different languages at once. "The Djinns," from Hugo's
pen, and given in this volume, is one of the most remarkable poems in any
language. The correspondence of the rhythm to the rising and subsiding
of a storm, which is also the thought expressed by the words of the poem,
is a masterpiece of composition in its original form, and of translation as
it appears in the English.
JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT.
[Phis popular English poet and author was born near London, in 1784.
K^ He left school at fifteen and acted as clerk in the war office until
1808, when he arranged with his brother to issue "The Examiner,"
a journal of liberal politics. In 1812 he became editor of *' The
Indicator," a series of periodical essays, much admired for genial hu-
mour, easy style and brilliant fancy. Among the many productions of
his versatile pen are many popular poems. A pension of £.200 was granted
him in 1847. He died August 28th, 1859. "Abou Ben Adhem " is one
of Hunt's brightest little poems, and it carries an excellent moral.
. JEAN INGELOW.
dEAN INGELOW was born in Boston, England, in the year 1830. She
was quite unknown to fame, and unrecognized as a genius, until
1863, when she issued her first volume of poems. This was
greeted very enthusiastically, and at once made her reputation.
Her subsequent works have 'been quite numerous, but have hardly sur-
passed the excellence of her first publication. Two beautiful selections
have been placed in Gems, to illustrate her style.
.^L^ EDWARD IRVING.
§OT/^HE Rev. Edward Irving was born at Annan, Dumfriess-shire, Eng-
^J^ land, August 4th, 1792. He was educated for the Scottish Pres-
"^^ byterian ministry at the Edinburgh University. In 1819, he was
L chosen assistant to the Hev. Dr. Chalmers. Three years later he
accepted charge of a Presbyterian congregation in Loudon, where his elo-
750 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
quence attracted crowds of hearers. In 1832 he was dismissed from the
pastorate of this congregation on the charge of heresy. At a later day,
he was cast out of the Presbyterian Church. Shortly after, his old con-
gregation re-ordained him, and he officiated with them until a little time
before his death, which occurred at Glasgow, December 8th, 1834. A
sample of his eloquence will be found on page 486.
J WASHINGTON IRVING.
ppJEwnames are more honored, and more justly honored, in the literary
1^1 annals of America than that of Washington Irving, LL.D. He
^t was born in New York City, April 3d, 1783. His parents were
*4, English and Scotch, and his father was a merchant. He attended
school only till the sixteenth year of his age, after which he pursued lite-
rary studies at home with great diligence.
When nineteen years of age, he issued a series of local sketches in the
" Morning Chronicle," a paper owned by his brother. He employed the
nom de plume of Jonathan Oldstyle in these articles. In 1804, Irving
went abroad for his health, and traveled extensively in Europe. Eeturn-
ing to New York in 1806, he devoted himself assiduously to literary work,
producing "Salmagundi," "Knickerbocker's History of New York," and
some other works, but he then entered mercantile pursuits for a short time.
He subsequently traveled again, and in 1818 his "Sketch-Book" papers
appeared under the nom de plume of "Geoffrey Crayon." This venture
made the reputation of Irving on both sides of the Atlantic. At a later
period he spent seventeen years abroad, his fame growing with each new
work he produced.
Irving's works were republished in fifteen volumes in 1850, and of this
edition no less than 250,000 volumes were sold daring his lifetime. Ir-
ving never married. He passed the closing years of his career at Sunny-
side, near Tarrytown, on the Hudson, where he died November 28th, 1859.
In connection with the seven extracts from Irving contained in this vol-
ume, Charles Dudley Warner's article on ''Our Debt to Irving" (p. 563),
should also be read. High praise is here awarded Irving, but it is deserved.
., THOMAS JEFFERSON,
|||1|homas JEFFERSON, third President of the United States, was born in
^ft Virginia, April 13tb, 1743. He entered William and Mary Col-
^;[j1'^ lege in 1760, remained two years, began the study of the law un-
%^ der George Wythe in 1763, and in 1767 was admitted to the bar.
SIR WILLIAM JONES.
751
He took his seat in the Continental Congress, June 21st, 1775, the day on
which the news of the Battle of Bunker Hill reached Philadelphia, and
on which Washington left that city to command the army at Cambridge.
JeflFerson was no orator, but he gained great influence by courtesy, readi-
ness in composition, knowledge of law, general information, and his warm
devotion to his country. He was chosen to draft the Declaration of In-
dependence. In 1796, he was elected Vice-President of the United States.
In 1800, he was elected to the Presidency, and was inaugurated March
4th, 1801. He retired to private life March 4th, 1809, and died at Mon-
ticello on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a
few hours before his friend, John Adams. His tribute to his great
contemporary, Washington (p. 559), is worthy of both writer and subject.
DOUGLAS JERROLD.
50UGLAS WILLIAM JERROLD was born in London, January 3d, 1803.
He entered the navy in 1813, and afterwards became a printer.
When quite young he began to write poems and criticisms for the
journals, which won for him much attention. His comedy "Black-
eyed Susan" established his reputation. "The Caudle Lectures" were
first published in "Punch" in 1841. These, with many other sketches and
tales, extended his fame as a humorist and a powerful delineator of char-
acter. Jerrold died in London, June 8th, 1857. Three of his pieces
brighten these pages, one of them being in his more serious vein.
^ ^|.^ J. WILLIAM JONES.
SiipHE author of the little war reminiscence on page 614 was fully com-
^1^ petent to vouch for his incident. He was a Baptist minister, who
<^^ went into the war early and stayed long. He was intimately as-
?sociated with the famous Stonewall Jackson, of the Confederate
service. Chaplain Jones related the scene quoted, at a religious
convention held in Atlanta, Ga., in the spring of 1878. Its effect was thrilling.
SIR WILLIAM JONES.
§CT|iHis distinguished scholar was born in London, September 28th, 1746.
^X^ He early distinguished himself as a linguist, and finally became
•^ master of twenty-eight languages. Within a few weeks of his
death he began the study of three new grammars. He published
various grammars, translations, dissertations, poems, etc., all of which
added to his great reputation as a scholar. He also studied law, entered
752 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
somewhat into politics, was judge of the Supreme Court in Bengal, was
knighted for eminent worth. He died April 27th, 1794. The selection
on page 367 illustrates both his poetic and his statesmanly ability.
, ELISHA KENT KANE.
P^Ilisha KENT KANE, M.D., a distinguished American explorer, was
^g born in Philadelphia, February 20th, 1820. His father was the
-^^^ eminent Judge, John K. Kane. He studied medicine, and, in 1843,
f sailed to China with Commodore Parker, as surgeon to the embassy.
i He visited India, Ceylon and the Philippine Isles. In 1845, he
made an excursion to the Himalayas, ascended the Nile to Nubia, and tra-
versed Greece on foot. He served in the Mexican war in 1847. In May,
1850, he sailed as surgeon to the De Haven expedition in search of Sir
John Franklin. He commanded a second expedition sent out for the same
purpose, in May, 1853. He returned home in October, 1855, and pub-
lished the adventures of his party in his "Arctic Explorations," whence
selections in this volume are taken. To recruit his shattered health he
sailed for England, in October, 1856, and thence to the West Indies, where
he died, at Havana, February, 1857.
FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.
■m^E,Y, the author of our national song, the "Star Spangled Banner"
(p. 466), was an American jurist and poet, born in Frederick
county, Maryland, in 1779. He became District Attorney of the
District of Columbia. When Fort McHenry, in Baltimore Har-
bor, was subjected to bombardment in the war of 1812, Key witnessed
the scene from the city, and felt all the anxiety the citizens naturally
cherished. After a vigorous night's bombardment, he looked in the early
morning for the emblem of safety on the walls of the fort, and when he
saw the flag "still there," he wrote the song to which the nation has clung
ever since. He wrote other poems also. He died in 1843.
HENRY KING.
5N page 642, is a little gem, entitled "Life." It is from the pen of
Henry King, who was born in England in 1591. All the quaint-
ness of those old times in which he lived appears in these lines,
J and all the beauty of true poesy sparkles there. King was
oessively chaplain to James I. and to Charles I. He died in 1669.
sue-
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE. 753
CHARLES KINGSLEY.
|hree selections from Charles Kingsley adorn these pages. Like all
else from this author, these productions will abundantly repay every
one who reads them. Kingsley was born at Devonshire, England,
June 12th, 1819. He graduated at Cambridge in 1842, and took
orders in the Church of England. He was always an active helper
of the working classes. He published several volumes, including many ser-
mons, novels, fairy tales, lectures, poems, and educational works. For ten
years he was Professor of Modern History at Cambridge. He occupied
various high positions in the English church. In 1873, he visited the
United States. He died in London, January, 23d, 1875.
WILLIAM KNOX.
iBIpHE poem beginning " Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? "
^1^ was immortalized by the fact that it was a great favorite of Abra-
<^^ ham Lincoln's. Its author, William Knox, was born at Firth,
I Roxburghshire, Scotland, August 17th, 1789. He wrote verses at
an early age and, when about thirty, devoted himself entirely to literary
pursuits. He wrote for the papers extensively, and issued several volumes
of poems. Knox led a dissipated life, and died November 12th, 1825.
CHARLES THEODORE KORNER.
|NE of the most celebrated German poets was he whose name heads
this paragraph. He was born in Dresden, in 1791. At an early
age he displayed a rare poetical genius. He enlisted in the war
j. against Napoleon ; and, inspired with patriotism, he produced some
of the most spirited martial poems in the German language. These were
published under the title, "The Lyre and the Sword." His "Sword
Song" (p. 312), is a rare gem, made all the more charming by the sad
fact of his death before the ink of its manuscript was fairly dry.
^,l_ ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE.
^HIhis French poet, orator, and historian, was born at Mdcon on the
^M^ Saone, October 21st, 1792, He left college in 1809, and after-
^^J^ wards privately read and studied Dante, Petrarch, Shakspeare,
(Milton, and Ossian. In 1820, he published a volume of poems
entitled " Meditations Poetiques." This excited general admiration,
and 45,000 copies were sold in a few years. He displayed a marvellous
754 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
affluence of pure sentiments and beautiful images in many of his poems
and other works, especially so in " Jocelyn." After the coup d'etat of De-
cember, 1851, he took no part in political affairs, but published "A His.
tory of the Ke volution in 1848." Among his later works are several
other histories of great value, from one of which the sketch on page 686
is taken. His works have been translated into almost every European
lano;uao;e. Lamartine died in Februarv, 1869.
WALTEE SAVAGE LANDON.
^ROM this author's graceful pen but one sketch is given (p. 487). He
[| was an Englishman, born January 30th, 1775. He was educated
at Oxford, and being master of an independent fortune, he devo-
ted himself to literary pursuits. He issued several volumes of
poems and sketches. He died in Florence, September 1864.
CHARLES G. LELAND.
c l^iEiNRiCH HEINE, the German author, owed much to Charles Godfrey
^mm, Leland, for his. excellent translations of " Pictures of Travel," by
which Heine reached a large circle of admiring English readers.
Leland was born in Philadelphia in 1824, and published various
very excellent volumes of original and translated matter.
CHARLES JAMES LEVER.
mitejiHis popular Irish novelist and song writer was born in Dublin, in
SS 1806, He practiced medicine for a time, but abandoned that pur-
X suit for those of literature. He excelled in delineations of Irish
i character, whether in his novels, or in such songs as " Widow Ma-
hone" (p. 375). Lever spent many years in government positions. He
died in 1872.
. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
^M^ FEW sentences only from Abraham Lincoln are given in this volume,
but his sentences had a density of meaning seldom found. He
was born in Kentucky, February 12th, 1807, but removed to In-
diana in 1816. He received only one year of schooling, but, while
assisting his father on the frontier farm, he read all the books he could
secure, copying into a scrap book whatever best pleased him. In 1830,
he removed to Illinois, but his laborious life continued. He always was
I
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 755
famous as a teller of stories and a maker of stump speeches. He followed
the water for a time, kept a store, went into the Black Hawk war, became
a postmaster, studied law, entered the legislature for several successive
terms, and was elected to Congress in 1846.
Lincoln soon became the recognized leader of his party in Illinois, and
his debates with Stephen A. Douglas gave him a national reputation. In
1800, he was nominated for the Presidency of the United States, and was
chosen to that post. Then came the war, in which the proclamations,
messages, addresses, and pointed sayings of Lincoln became an unceasing
source of inspiration. His tragic death on April loth, 1865, is known the
■world over. His remains lie in Oak Ridge cemetery, Sprmgfield, 111.
, HENRY W. LONGFELLOW,
^iSERHAPS first of all American poets, is the revered Henry Wads-
^^ worth Longfellow. Twenty choice selections from his works have
^2 iiot been deemed too many for these pages. He was born at Port-
^^ land, Maine, February 27th, 1807, and graduated at Bowdoin Col-
lege in 1825, He soon after went abroad for travel and study. He then
took a Professorship at Bowdoin, and subsequently at Harvard. In 185-4,
he resigned this position, and spent the remainder of his days in a beauti-
ful old mansion at Cambridge, Mass., — the house once occupied by Wash-
ington as his headquarters.
"While yet a boy, Longfellow wrote many poems, and while an under-
graduate, contributed to the "North American Review." He was exceed-
ingly painstaking in all he did. One of his most laborious works was the
translation of Dante's "Divina Commedia" into English verse. He was
highly honored here and in England, both Oxford and Cambridge con-
ferring on him the degree of d.c.l. Many of his poems have been trans-
lated into various foreign languages. "The Bridge" was suggested to
Longfellow by his many journeys over the old bridge leading from Boston
to Cambridge. There is the tide that rushes among those " wooden piers "
to the sea beyond. Here can be seen the " church tower," and the
bells may be heard striking the hours, all indeed, is true to the facts stated
in the poem, and both in youth and old age, the poet " often, how often,"
passed there, and doubtless lingered there to think. On page 41, the
" Old Clock on the Stairs " of Longfellow's mansion is seen. He caught
the exact spirit of all he wrote about, and clothed all he wrote in robing
strictly harmonious with the facts. The same charming detail might be
added to all Longfellow's delightful poems. He died March 24th, 1882.
758 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
der the signature, L. E. L. Thus she won a wide reputation. She
produced, anonymously, two novels and several poems. Her poems
are chiefly of romantic or sentimental character. In 1838, she married
George Maclean, Governor of Cape Coast Castle, Africa, whither they went
to reside. She died in 1839. "The Ruined Cottage" (p. 9G) is a gem.
- I_ JEAN BAPTISTE MASILLON.
gji^His famous French pulpit orator was born at Heires, in 1663. He
pj^ was educated and became a priest. In 1699, he preached the
*^^^ Lent Sermon at Paris. The same year he was chosen to preach
the Advent at Court, on which occasion Louis XIV. said to him, "1 have
heard many great orators and been pleased with them ; but, after hearing
you, I am displeased with myself." He was appointed Bishop of Clermont
in 1717, and preached before the king the Lent Sermon, which is deemed
his masterpiece. Masillon died in 1742. His eloquence is well illustrated
in the extract from one of his sermons on ''Immortality" (p. 207).
CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER.
JOAQUIN MILLER.
OAQUIN MILLER is the best known title of this writer. He was born
^P in Indiana, November 10th, 1841. When but thirteen years old,
i
<^^ his parents Vv^ent to Oregon. He afterwards became a miner
I and adventurer in California, served in Nicaragua, and lived among
the Indiaus. In 1861, he began to edit a paper at Eugene City, Or
"Kit Carson's Ride" (p. 472) is characteristic of Miller's style.
HENRY HART MILMAN.
|his eminent English poet, historian, and divine, was born in London
in 1791. He graduated at Oxford, and in 1821, became Professor
•^^^ of Poetry in that University. He wrote extensively, producing
poems, tragedies, histories, etc. His "Evening Hymn," on page 502, is a
splendid poem. In 1840, he brought out his great work, " The History of
Christianity." He died in September, 1868.
, RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES,
Imlwo poetic beauties from the pen of this author adorns these pages,
Sp "The Brookside" (p. 247), and "London Churches" (p. 237).
4^^ Milues was born in Yorkshire, England, June 19th, 1809, and
JOHN MILTON. 759
graduated at Cambridge iu 1831. He was a member of Parliament, and
finally became Baron Houghton. He traveled extensively, and wrote
much on what he saw abroad, in addition to his many poems.
,s JOHN MILTON,
|)i^iLTON, author of "Paradise Lost," was born in London, December
9th, 1608. He was thoroughly trained in the classics, enjoyed
% the advantages of foreign travel, and was a man of remarkable
'^ personal beauty. He was a diligent student and a voluminous
writer on a wide range of subjects. When the Commonwealth was estab-
lished, Milton became Latin Secretary, all the diplomatic correspondence
being in that language. For twenty years he had been thinking upon a
great poem, which was begun finally in 1665, its result, " Paradise Lost,"
appearing in 1667. It sold for £ 5., an equal sum to be paid its author
when each edition of 1500, should sell up to 1300. He did see it pass
through several editions. It has passed through many editions since that
day, but after all, the best critics deem it a work of questionable merit.
The selections from MiltQu given in this volume are from his more severe
prose works. He died in London, November 8th, 167-1.
JAMES MONTGOMERY.
5MONG England's best poets, James Montgomery has a high rank.
He was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, in 1771. He was sent at an
^^^ early age to a Moravian school, where his progress was not very
satisliactory, as he spent the greater part of his time in writing
and reading poetry, which was prohibited by the rules of the school.
After leaving school, he found employment for a time in a book store, in
London, and in 1792, began to contribute political articles to the " Sheffield
Register." In 1794, he founded a reform journal, called the " Sheffield
Iris," of which he remained editor for about thirty years. He also wrote
a large number of very beautiful hymns, which still enjoy extensive popu-
larity. Four of his finished works appear on these pages. He died in 1854.
THOMAS MOORE.
IpRELAND's favorite poet, Thomas Moore, was born in Dublin, May 28th,
^ 1779, and graduated at Dublin University in 1799. When but
kL fourteen years of age poems from his pen appeared in the magazines
of the dav. He began the study of law, but soon abandoned it and
adopted poesy as his profession. He published one volume under
760 BiOGRAnncAL sketches.
the name of Thomas Little. His following publications were numerous
and very popular, one of them, "The Fudge Family in Paris" running
through five editions in two weeks' time. Four choice selections from
Moore will be found in this volume. He died February 25th, 1852.
Each of Moore's poems given in this volume is an exquisite gem.
Nothing could be more beautiful and touching than the rural and yet po-
etic simplicity of "The Home of Peace" (p. 337). And yet equally
charming is that gem of gems on page 484, "The Meeting of the Waters."
" The Light-House " (p. 513) is of different vein, but it is superb ; while
" Echoes " (p. 645), brief but beautiful, seems an echo of all the others.
s^'
GEORGE P. MORRIS.
Ihts gentleman was a distinguished American poet and journalist.
§ He was born at Philadelphia, in 1802. He removed to New York,
and in 1823 became associate editor of the "New York Mirror."
In 1844 he became one of the editors of the " Evening Mirror," a purely
literary journal. He afterwards founded, conjointly with N. P. Willis,
" The Home Journal." Mr. Morris published a number of beautiful and
popular songs, and wrote many other poems and a drama. He died in
New York City, July 6th, 1864. " My Mother's Bible," which is one of
his tenderest and best productions, is given in Gems.
JOHN MOULTRIE.
?oiiN MOULTRIE was an English poet, born about 1804. He was rec-
tor at Rugby, and published a volume of poems from which " The
Three Sons " (p. 528) is taken, and a poem which, for tenderness
and beauty, has few equals in onr language.
WILLIAM A. MUHLENBERG.
^ILLIAM AUGUSTUS MUHLENBERG, D.D., was born in Philadelphia,
September 16th, 1796, and graduated at the University of Penn-
^''-: ' i sylvania in 1814. From 1846 to 1858, he was rector of the
^^^ church of the Holy Communion, erected by his sister, on the
corner of 6th Ave. and 20th St., New York City. In 1858 he became the
superintendent and pastor of St. Luke's Hospital, which owes its estab-
lishment to her efforts. He has distinguished himself both as a philan-
thropist and a poet. He will ever be remembered as the author of " I
would not live alway " (p. 535), and other hymns of the same deep, rich
fullness of devotion and poesy. He died in 1877.
CAROLINE E. NORTON. 76I
^.I DINAH MARIA MULOCK.
;h:is estimable lady, the writer of many novels, tales, and sketches,
was the daughter of a clergyman, and was born in England, in
^f:''^ 1825. In 1865 she married Mr. George Lillie Craik. Her
" Buried To-Day '* (p. 243) is sad, but beautiful.
_i_ WILLIAM MUNFORD.
"%*#-'
hr^Ris author was born in Virginia, August loth, 1775, and graduated
yli^ at William and Mary College. He studied law, but passed his life
^4^ in various political positions. He published a volume of juvenile
poems, and devoted much of his leisure to the translation of Homer's
Iliad. He published many fine poems, one of which is in Gems (p. 689).
He died at Eichmond, June 21st, 1825.
• LADY CAROLINE NAIRNE.
^^AROLINE OLiPHA:frT, who, by marriage with the fifth Lord Nairne,
|Pg became Lady Nairne, was born in Perthshire, Scotland, July 16th,
p? 1766. She was very beautiful and highly accomplished. She un-
'4' dertook to write popular and elevating poems for the common
folk about her. Her " Land 0' the Leal " (or " the loyal "), was written in
1798, especially to comfort an afflicted friend. It is a world wide favorite,
and therefore befits this volume. (See p. 421). It has been set to music,
and in this form is a o-reat favorite wherever known.
♦ CAROLINE E. NORTON.
'aroltne ELIZABETH SARAH SHERIDAN, sister to Lady DufFerin, was
born in England in 1808. When but ten years old, she and her
gifted sister wrote and illustrated a small volume of poems. She
issued many poems in rapid succession, her strength being in
the line of ballads and songs, " Bingen on the Rhine," however, which
this volume gives, is one of her best. She died June 15th, 1866.
FRANCES S. OSGOOD.
;. FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD, author of '' Labor is 'Worship " (p.
619), was born at Boston, in 1812. She was an early contribu-
tor to the current periodicals. Her husband, Mr. S. S. Osgood^
was an artist of considerable eminence. She has published seve-
ral volumes of poems. Her death occurred in 1850.
762
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
JOHN W. PALMER.
'oHN WILLIAMSON PALMER, M. D., was born at Baltimore, April 4th,
1825. He studied medicine in Philadelphia ; was city physician
in San Francisco in 1849 ; afterwards went to China ; then served
as surgeon of the East India Company's service. '' For Charlie's
(p. 641), is one of his best poems.
. MUNGO PARK.
^UNGO PARK, the traveler, was born in Scotland, September 10th,
1771. He studied surgery at Edinburgh. He journeyed up the
'"'? Gambia and visited the Niger in 1795-1797, suffering extreme
hardships. In January, 1805, he took command of a military ex-
ploring party, despatched by the African Association and the British Gov-
ernment to trace the course of the Niger. Most of his party died of fever
before the Niger was reached, only five white men being left out of forty-
four. They were afterwards treacherously attacked by a party of natives,
and Park and all his company perished. His sketch on "African Hospi-
tality " (p. 66), gives a peep into the heart of that dark coniinent.
THEODORE PARKER.
^yrfsis divine and author was born at Lexington, Mass., August 24th,
1810. He was distinguished for a precocious memory, learning
^^^■^ by heart many pages of poetry, and knowing the names of all the
trees and plants familiar to Massachusetts while but a child. He studied
Latin, Greek and mental philosophy while a boy working on a farm ;
taught school at the age of seventeen, and entered Harvard College in
1830. He was proficient in many languages, including Syriac, Arabic,
Danish, Swedish, Anglo-Saxon and modern Greek. He settled at Eox-
bury, as pastor of a Unitarian Church, in 1837, but soon became the
leader of a school of theology, which diff"ered widely from the conservative
Unitarians. He continued preaching until January, 1859. He then
went abroad for his health, and died at Florence, Italy, May 10th, 1860.
" The Beauty of Youth " (p. 697), illustrates his lucid style.
4, JOHN HOWARD PAYNE,
^ipHE author of " Home, Sweet Home," was born in New York, June
Sm 9th, 1792. When but thirteen years old he wrote for a weekly
^^^ paper, and two years later published twenty-five numbers of a
WENDELL PHILLIFS. 763
periodical called " The Pastime." For a time he was an actor in New-
York, Boston, and other American cities, also in London. He wrot€ the
song " Home, Sweet Home," while he was U. S. Consul at Tunis, Africa,
where he died, April 20th, 1852. His remains have lately been brought
back to to his native country, and they now rest in his " Home, Sweet
Home." A splendid monument now marks their resting place in Wash-
ington, D. C, by the munificence of Mr. Corcoran, the great banker.
-^^ JAMES G. PERCIVAL.
Iti^AMES GATES PERCIVAL, M. D., was bom in Connecticut, September
^^ 15th, 1795. He graduated at Yale in 1815, and took a medical
X tlegree, and published several volumes of poetry. At Boston and
\ New Haven he engaged in literary and editorial work ; and as-
sisted Noah Webster in preparing his great dictionary. He was distin-
guished as a linguist and geologist, and wrote much poetry, which was
highly popular ; but his poetry is deemed crude, and therefore has been to
a great degree forgotten. He was of melancholy disposition, and was
hard-pressed by poverty, actually ending his days alone in a wretched
garret. His " Coral Grove " is a well finished poem (p. 678).
_j^_ WENDELL PHILLIPS.
Ihis distinguished orator was born in Boston, Mass., 1811. He en
tered Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1831. He
then entered the Cambridge Law School, and was admitted to the
i Suffolk Bar in 1834. Mr. Phillips gained his first prominence as
an orator in 1837, at a meeting in Boston to protest against the murder,
at Alton, III, of the Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy, the editor of an anti-slavery
newspaper, who had been killed by a mob in that place. From this time
Mr, Phillips devoted himself wholly and with untiring energy to the ad-
vocacy of the anti-slavery cause. It may iiiirly be questioned whether
such an orator as Wendell Phillips ever spoke in America. The little ex-
tract on " Political Agitation," given on p. 506, is a clear, sparkling gem.
JOHN PIERPONT.
|oT on the Battle Field " (p. 531), is from the pen of John Piorpont,
who was born at Litchfield, Conn., April 6th, 1785. He gradua-
ted at Yale College in 1804. He studied law, then theology, be-
came a pastor in Boston, was chaplain in the civil war, and died
August 27th, 1866. He wrote and published various poems.
764 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
EDGAR A. POE.
Ig^JEW geniuses more brilliant than Edgar Allan Poe have ever lived.
Read the selections from his pen, which appear in this volume, and
f'f^ be convinced of his amazing versa tin ty pnd ability. His "Raven,"
^^/f- his "Bells," and his prose sketches are peerless in their way. He
was born in Boston, February 19th, 1809. Edgar was educated in Eng-
land, and in Richmond, Va., but he contracted vicious habits and made no
progress. He was appointed to West Point, but was expelled from that
institution. In rags and poverty Poe pursued literary work at a later day,
till in 1833 he made considerable reputation. His opportunities thereafter
were brilliant, but he failed to improve them wisely. " The Raven " ap-
peared in 1845. He died in Baltimore, October 7th, 1849.
„ --'., „ JOSEPHINE POLLAKD.
WSM^iss POLLARD is a resident of New York City, and has done much
p^Kg good work in poems and stories for juveniles. Her " First Party "
^g^ (p. 414) well illustrates her unusually felicitous style of putting
'"%' pleasant things. She has written many good hymns.
JOHN POOLE.
^^OHN POOLE, author of "Old Coaching Days" (p. 579), was born in
England, in 1785, and died in London February 5th, 1872. The
period through which he lived enabled him to speak so graphically
on the theme selected for Gems. He was author of a large num-
ber of successful dramas and farces, of which the best known are "Paul
Pry," "Deaf as a Post," and " Turning the Tables." He also wrote novel?,
essays and character sketches, which take high rank for originality and
racy humor. Poole enjoyed a pension from the government.
NOAH PORTER.
'oAH PORTER, D.D., LL.D., the distinguished President of Yale Col-
lege, was born at Farmington, Conn., December 14th, 1811. He
graduated at Yale College in 1831 ; was then tutor at Yale for
three years, and then became pastor of a Congregational Church.
In 1846 he was chosen professor of metaphysics and moral philosophy at
Yale College, and was elected president of the same on the resignation of
Dr. Woolsey in 1871. He is admitted to be one of the ripest and most
scholarly of American metaphysicians, and his " Advice to Young Men "
(p. 598), is worthy of profound attention.
NANCY A. TRIEST. 755
SARGENT SMITH PRENTiaS.
^^^ARGENT SMITH PRENTISS, author of the tribute to New England on
^^ page 105, was bora at Portland, Me., September 30tli, 1808, and
jg graduated at Bowdoin College in 1826. He practiced law and en-
^^ tered somewhat into politics. He lived for several years at the
"Crescent City," of which he speaks in the selection given. He died at
Longwood, near Natchez, July 1st, 1850. Senator Crittenden, of Ken-
tucky, said of him : " It was impossible to know Mr. Prentiss without
feeling for him admiration and love. His genius, so rich, and his manners,
30 graceful and genial, could not fail to impress those sentiments on all
who approached him. Eloquence was part of his nature, and over his pri-
vate conversation, as well as his public speeches, it scattered its sparkling
jewels with more than royal profusion." Mr. Prentiss was, in fact, one of
those ideal gentlemen of whom we hear much but see comparatively little.
E. PRENTISS.
*RS. PRENTISS, who wrote "The Mystery of Life in Christ" (p. 233),
has written much of this style of poetry. She is the author of
i^^^ "More Love to Thee, Christ," and other devotional hymns.
^^^ She also published " Stepping Heavenward," an excellent book.
MARGARET J. PRESTON.
Margaret junkin preston was born about 1835. She was the
daughter of the Rev. George Junkin, and wife of Col. J. T. L.
i^^^ Preston, professor in the Virginia Military Institute at Lexing-
^^^ ton, Va. She has published " Silverwood," "A Book of Memo-
ries," etc., and many writings in prose and verse, chiefly upon topics con-
nected with the civil war. She has given a translation of " Dies Ir?e ''
also, which has been highly commended. Her "Hero of the Commune,"
on page 278, is a bright poem of French life.
^.^^ NANCY A. PRIEST.
"^^|ver the River" (p. 142) is the one poem of this lady. Her full
ISjp name was Nancy Amelia Woodbury Priest. She was born at
^ Hinsdale, N. H., in 1837. She married Lieutenant A. C. Wake-
^^ field in 1865, and died in 1870. Her poem appeared originally
in the Springfield Republican, in August, 1857. It was extensively
copied, and universally admired, as it well deserved to be. It is matter for
general regret that so marked a genius wrote so little.
7GG BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
t^ WILLIAM C. PRIME.
§w||^ JUS gentleman is an authority on scientific fishing, as well as on many
pi^ other matters, and therefore Gems contains two selections from him
iT.;^^ on this bewitching sport. He was born at Cambridge, N. Y., Oc-
I tober 31st, 1825, and graduated at Princeton, N. J., in 1843. He
studied law, but ran more to journalism, writing much for the "Journal
of Commerce," of which, in 1861, he became editor and joint proprietor.
^^,j^ ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER.
[VE gems from this authoress grace these pages, one of them her
^ celebrated "Legend of Bregenz." She was born in London, Octo-
V\l ber 30th, 1825, and was the daughter of Bryan Waller Procter,
i best known as Barry Cornwall. She showed decided literary
ability when quite young, and under the nom de plume of Mary Berwick,
wrote for Dickens' " Household Words." She published several volumes
of poems, all of which were very well received. Charles Dickens was her
special friend and admirer. She died in London, February 2d, 1864.
f FATHER PROUT.
jRANCis MAHONEY, who is kuown in literature chiefly as Father Prout,
was born in Ireland, about 1805. He took orders in the Catholic
Church, but abandoned them for literary pursuits. In " Fraser's
Magazine" he published an amusing series of articles, collected
finally as the "Beliques of Father Prout." He did much as a newspaper
correspondent, but finally retired to a monastery, and died May 19th,
1866. His "Bells of Shandon" (p. 573), is a genuine gem.
^ SAMUEL PURCHAS.
^1 AMUEL PURCHAS was bom at Essex, England, in 1577, and was edu-
^^ cated at St. John's College, Cambridge. He subsequently took
p^ orders in the Church of England. He died at London, in Sep-
l tember, 1626. His "Praise of the Sea" (p. 75), is a quaint scrap
in the olden style of the days wherein he lived and wrote.
.,, SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
pWNT page 381, a little gem of this English statesman and author will be
found. He was born in 1552 ; studied at Oxford ; entered the
army ; sailed for America ; returned home ; spread his cloak over
a muddy place in the street that the queen might pass ; so won
THOMAS BUCHANAN READ. 767
her favor; subsequently visited America; had varying experiences in court
favor and disfavor, and finally was beheaded, October 29th, 1618.
REV. W. S. RALPH.
I^^N page 116, is an odd poem, entitled "Whistling in Heaven." The
Si
experience on which it purports to be founded, actually occurred,
-*^^i the wife of the author being the one so charmed by the whistling.
On his return to their frontier cabin, Mr. Ealph was told of the occur-
rence, and soon after he surprised his wife by presenting her with the poem
as given in this book. Mr. Ralph now resides at Halifax, Nova Scotia,
^j^ THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.
^^F this author's excellent works, three appear in Gems. He was
m born in Pennsylvania, March 12th, 1822. He was a poet, a
4^;f sculptor, and painter. In all these spheres he did good work.
He published several volumes, and died in New York City, May 11th, 1872.
.J^ ■ JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.
||^[IE author of the superb gem, "The Two Roads" (p. 109), who was
SS commonly called Jean Paul, was a popular, quaint and original
^^^ German author, born in 1763. He made good progress in
Latin and Greek, and entered the University of Leipsic in 1780.
While a student he wrote a work entitled "Greenland Law-suits." He
also wrote "A Selection from the Papers of the Devil." He died in No-
vember, 1825. "Except by name," says Carlyle, "Richter is but little
known out of Germany. The only thing connected with him, we think,
that has reached this country, is his saying imported by Madame de Stael,
and thankfully pocketed by most newspaper critics: ' Providence has given
to the French the empire of the land, to the English that of the sea, and
to the Germans that of the air ! ' Of this last element, indeed, his own
genius might easily seem to have been a denizen."
MRS. J. H. RIDDLE.
g^f^His lady was an authoress of considerable repute as a juvenile writer.
From 1866 onward, she published several volumes, and in 1867,
became the editor of the "St. James's Magazine." Her first pub-
i lications were in England, with re-issues here. She wrote under
the name of F. G. Traff'ord also, and thus issued many valuable works.
" Ghosts of Long Ago " (p. 99) is a thoughtful and valuable address.
768 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
^T JOHN RUSKIN.
^vo choice prose extracts from Ruskin will be found in this volume.
Their distinguished author was born in London, in February,
M^"T 1819. He was wealthy and studious. At Oxford he distinguished
X himself and took a prize for poetry. He studied art, and soon
became famous by his brilliant discussions of its problems. He traveled
extensively ; wrote and re-wrote his volumes ; lectured on art ; and in
every direction has been a most assiduous and valuable leader of thought.
, WILLIAM HOWAED EUSSELL.
||||||his gentleman is an Irish writer, noted as correspondent of the Lon-
^1^ don ''Times." He was born in Dublin, in 1821. He accompanied
^t the British army in 1854, and wrote letters on the Crimean war.
'I* These attracted great attention, and were finally collected in two
volumes. In 1861, he came to the United States as war correspondent
for the " Times." The sketch of the charge of the Light Brigade (p. 58),
on which Tennyson's famous poem was based, is a splendid commentary
on that brilliant dash. It should be read in connection "with the poem.
JOHN G. SAXE.
pHE author of six very excellent humorous poems given in Gems
^ John Godfrey Saxe, was born in Vermont, in 1816. He gradua-
2|^ ted at Middleburg College, of that State, in 1839, and then became
I editor of a paper in Burlington. His first volume of poems ap-
peared in 1849. It had an extensive circulation. Other volumes appeared
in 1864 and in 1866. Mr. Saxe has practiced somewhat at law also.
SIR WALTEE SCOTT.
^His distinguished author and poet was born in Edinburgh, x\ugust
15th, 1771. He was both sickly as a child and lame for life. He
was a great reader. He studied at the University of Edinburgh,
practiced law for a few years, and then entered wholly into journalism.
His first laurels as a poet were won in 1805, by his "Lay of the Last Min-
strel." He subsequently gave himself more to history and romance, pro-
ducing the famous Waverley series. He became very wealthy ; was crea-
ted a baronet in 1820 ; built his residence at Abbotsford ; lost all by the
failure of his publishers ; but by assiduous work paid £ 150,000 after he
was fifty-five years of age. He died September 21st, 1832. "Patriotism,"
on page 233, and the prose selection on page 539, illustrate his style.
TERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY.
'69
^.:,^ WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
^j^VERYBODY kiiows more or less of the famous Shakespeare, who was
born at Stratford-on-Avon, England, April 23d, 15G4. He re-
ceived a grammar school education only. In 1589 he was an actor
in London ; he subsequently devoted himself to authorship, pro-
plays and poems in great profusion. His plays number thirty-
In 1610, he retired to his old home, and spent his last days in ease
and enjoyment. He died April 23d, 1616, and was buried in the old
church at Stratford. His varied genius is well shown in the selections
from his works which are contained in these pages.
HENRY W. SHAW.
_ ^f|;^ ^ (josh, billings).
jHis distinguished humorous moralist was born at Lanesborough,
Mass , in 1818. He spent many years in the west, and turned
his attention to various pursuits, especially farming and the auc-
tion business. In 1858 he settled in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and
began to write sketches for newspapers over the nom de plume of " Josh
Billings." He rapidly became popular as a writer and lecturer. He ex-
cels in his humorous putting of genuine good sense.
--1-,. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
i^^His famous English poet was born August 4th, 1792. He came of a
'^i^ noble family. He spent several years at Eton, and two at Oxford,
^^^ after which he led a roving, irregular life. He was Byron's com-
panion in Italy for considerable time, and there he wrote most of his best
works. He was drowned in the Gulf of Spezia in July, 1822. His body
was washed ashore, wdien Byron and other friends burned it, and the ashes
were buried at Rome. This volume contains three of Shelley's poems.
BENJAMIN p. SHILLABER'.
^X- (>IRS. PARTINGTON).
fiii^His humorous author was born at Portsmouth, N. H., in 1814. He
pj^ entered a printing office at Dover in 1830, and later spent several
^ years in travel. He afterwards entered the office of the Boston
^^ "Post," and became editorially connected with this paper. He
acquired great celebrity by his "Sayings of Mrs. Partington." He pub-
lished several very successful volumes on this and other subjects. His
" Mouse Hunting," on page 217, is a good specimen of his humorous work.
770 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
Q,rm<:,Ki LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.
Irs. LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY was an American poet and exten-
sive miscellaneous writer. She was born at Norwich, Conn., in
^^^ 1791. In 1819 she married Charles Sigourney, a merchant of
^-'' Hartford, in which city she resided until her death, which oc-
curred in 1865. She was a writer of chaste and elegant style. Her three
poems selected for Gems are eminently worthy of the honorable place
accorded them. Her "Niagara" is a standard poem.
^^J,^ JAMES SMITH.
'ames smith, author of "The Soldier's Pardon" (p. 236), was an En-
glish humorist and miscellaneous writer, born in London, 1775.
^^ He became extensively known by his contributions to "The Pic-
I Nic," "The London Eeview," and "The Monthly Mirror." In
1812, ho brought out "Rejected Addresses," which are humorous imita-
tions of the poems of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, Scott, and others.
They met with a brilliant success. He died in 1839, and his " Memoirs,
Letters, ets.," were collected and published in 1840.
^(.;,^ SEBA SMITH.
^^EBA SMITH was an American writer, born at Buckfield, Maine. In
1833, under the nom de plume of " Major Jack Downing," he
published a series of humorous letters on political subjects, which
became widely popular. His other principal works are " Pow-
hatan," a poem, and "Away down East, or Portraitures of Yankee Life."
He died in 1868. His " Mother in the Snow Storm " (p, 513) is one of
his more serious productions, founded on actual experience.
HORACE SMITH.
Ihe author of "Hymn to the Flowers " (p. 255), was born in London,
in 1779. He early became a writer for periodicals. He did much
literary work with his brother James. He produced novels and
poems, all of' a satisfactory kind. He died July 12th, 1849.
ROBERT SOUTHEY.
OBERT SOUTHEY was a poct laureate of England. He was born at
IHj^ Bristol, August 12th, 1774. He began to write verses before he
^j^^ was ten years old. In 1792, he was expelled from Westminster
2 school for writing an essay against corporal punishment He
EDMUND SPENSER.
entered Baliol College, at Oxford, in 1792. In 1793 he wrote " Wat Ty-
ler," a drama, and " Joan of Arc," an epic poem. In 1794, he was intro-
duced to the poet Coleridge, with whom he enjoyed a life-long friendship.
After various adventures, and several changes of occupation and residence,
he settled, in 1803, at Greta Hall, near Keswick, with Coleridge, who was
his brother-in-law. He then became a contributor to the " Quarterly Re-
view," and published various poems. He was appointed poet laureate in
1813. In 1835, he received a pension of three hundred pounds a year
from the government. Soon after this time his faculties became enfeebled,
and he sank into a state of mental imbecility. He died March 21st, 18-13.
Two of Southey's choicest poems adorn these pages.
• MRS. CAROLINE B. SOUTHEY.
^AROLTNE ANNE BOWLES was born in England in 1787. She led a re-
Wk tired literary life until 1839, when she mar:
■y life until 1839, when she married the poet laureate,
^F Robert Southey. She had previously issued several volumes of
\^ poems, and had long been an intimate friend of Southey's. Seve-
ral poems bear the initials of both these gifted writers. She died in 1854.
" The Pauper's Death-Bed " (p. 216) is one of her best productions.
EDMUND SPENSER.
^^DMUND SPENSER, or Spencer, was one of England's most celebrated
^a? poets. He was born in London in 1552, and died January 16th,
X 1599. He was a college-bred man, and had the ideal experience
V of poets with love and poverty in early life, crowned in old age
with plenty and peace. The "Faerie Queene" is Spenser's great work.
He was buried in Westminster, his monument, erected in 1620, being re-
stored in 1778. His "Ministry of xlngels" (p. 702) is very fine.
^,^ WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE.
§^p[LLiAM BUEL SPRAGUE, D.D., was an eminent American Presbyterian
^Jjji divine, born at Andover, Conn., in 1795. His ministerial life
^.■^^ was spent, in the main, at Albany, N. Y. , where he did a large
i amount of literary work in addition to his regular employments.
His comparison of Voltaire and Wilberforce (p. 661) is in the general
style of his literary works. He died in 1876.
EIOGRArillCAL SKETCHES.
, CHARLES SPRAGUE.
|iiARLES SPRAGUE, autlior of " I See Thee Still " (p. 144), was born
^ at Bosion, Mass., October 26th, 1791 ; he became a mercantile clerk
at the age of thirteen, and rose rapidly in business. He early
displayed a fine talent for poetry, and devoted his spare time for
many years to the study of old English classics. He was the civic orator
at Boston, July 4th, 1825. He died January 14th, 1875.
ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY.
; Eev. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, better known as Dean Stanley,
was born in 1815. He studied at Rugby under the famous Dr.
Arnold, and subsequently graduated at Oxford. He was appointed
chaplain to Prince Albert, and in 1856 became Regius professor of
ecclesiastical history at Oxford. He visited the Holy Land in company
with the Prince of Wales, and wrote a very valuable volume on the subject,
whence an extract is taken for this collection. He became Dean of West-
minster in 1864, and died in 1882, greatly lamented by the Queen of
England, and by all the learned and religious world.
ROBERT STORY.
Ihe author of the bright little poem, "The Whistle," on page 283,
I was Robert Story, born in Northumberland, England, about 1790.
He was a clergyman of eminent worth, and a poet of considerable
ability. His death occurred in 1859.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
9^
'rs. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE is one of the most distinguished lady
authors of America. She was born at Litchfield, Conn., June
14th, 1812. While but a child she was passionately fond of such
' "^^ books as Scott's novels, "Arabian Nights," and " Don Quixote."
Before she was twelve years of age she wrote a composition, maintaining
the negative of the question, " Can the immortality of the soul be proved
by the light of nature ? " At the age of thirteen she became a pupil of
her sister Catharine, then principal of the Female Seminary at Hartford.
In 1836 she was married to Professor Calvin E. Stowe. In 1850 she ac-
companied her husband to Brunswick, Maine, where she wrote her famous
" Uncle Tom's Cabin." The success of this work has been without a par-
allel. It is thought that half a million copies have been sold in this country.
CHARLES SUMNER. 773
and probably more than that number in the British dominions. It has
been translated also into all the principal European languages, and into
several of Asia, including, it is said, the Chiaese and Japanese. Two dif-
ferent translations of it have been made into Russian, three into the Mag-
yar language, and thirteen or fourteen into German. One selection given
in Gems, " The Little Evangelist," is from this wonderful book.
. SIR JOHN SUCKLING.
^^IR JOHN SUCKLING, author of one poem in Gems, " The Bride," was
^^ born at Middlesex, England, in 1609, and was educated at Cam-
pf bridge. In 1631, he offered his services to Gustavus Adolphus, of
I Sweden, who was then waging war against Germany. Subse-
quently he was attached to the Court of Charles I., and in 1639 he
equipped a troop of horse for service against the Scotch. His works in-
clude plays, songs, poems, and metaphysics. He died about 1642.
CHARLES SUMNER.
IminE great Senator, Charles Sumner, was born in Boston, January 6th,
1811. He was educated at the Boston Public, Latin School and
f^ Harvard College, where he graduated in 1830. He was conspicu-
ously studious. In 1831 he entered the Harvard Law School,
then under the charge of Judge Story, and gave himself, without relaxa-
tion, to profound study. His leisure was devoted to preparing a catalogue
of the Law Library, and to work on the "American Jurist," of which he
became editor-in-chief. In 1837 he went to Europe, and was received
with most flattering attention. His days were passed in society and in
the galleries, but his nights were spent in diligent study.
He had purposed a lawyer's life, and his ambition was to reach the Su-
preme bench. But, in 1845, he turned to politics, speaking and working
against the admission of Texas and the war with Mexico. In 1851, he
was elected United States Senator for Massachusetts, the first civil office,
and the only one, he ever held. In 1852, he began his Congressional as-
sault on slavery by a masterly argument for the repeal of the Fugitive
Slave Law, entitled "Freedom National-Slavery Sectional." This phrase
became the watchword of his party, and gave the key to most of his later
arguments.
In 1857, he was again chosen to the Senatorship ; again, in 1863, and
subsequently in 1869, thus passing the last twenty-three years of his life
in that body. An attack of severe illness in the Senate chamber, on
774 Biographical sketches.
March 10th, 1874, proved fatal in his own house in Washington on the
day following. Almost his last words were addressed to Judge Hoar,
"Take care of my Civil Eights Bill." His remains lie at Mount Auburn,
near Boston. The extract on page 453 is a fair specimen of his style.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.
M|||a^His author was born near London, April 5th, 1837. His education
Sim was obtained partly at Eaton, partly in France, and partly at Ox-
ford. He spent some time subsequently in Italy. He has pub-
lished several dramas and many poems. " Kissing her Hair " (p.
52) is one of his peculiar yet pleasing productions.
^^ T. DEWITT TALMAGE.
' " ' |HE Eev. Thomas De Witt Talmage, d.d., was born in Boundbrook,
li
^^^^^ Somerset Co., IST. J., January 7th, 1832. He entered New York
^^T University and graduated in 1853. He graduated also from the
^2 New Brunswick Theological Seminary in 1856, and in the same
year became minister of the Beformed Church. In 1S69 he accepted the
call of his present charge, the Central Congregational Church in Brooklyn.
He has done much newspaper editorial work. He has also published five
volumes of sermons, besides several books in lighter vein, and has always
been an active pastor, a diligent lecturer, and a man of great general activity.
BAYARD TAYLOE.
^^Iayaed TAYLOR was bom at Kennett Square, Chester County, Penn-
^^ sylvania, January 11th, 1825. He began life as a printer, then
iW appeared as a poet, then as a traveler and newspaper correspon-
^^ dent and proprietor, in connection with the New York Tribune.
As a traveler he visited all parts of the world. He finally became con-
nected with consular appointments abroad, becoming Minister to Germany
in 1878, where he died, after a short residence, in December of the same
year. He was a most popular lecturer and author. " The Quaker
Widow" (p. 110) is one of Bayard Taylor's earlier gems.
BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR.
|wo exquisite gems from Benjamin Franklin Taylor brighten these
pages. He was born in New York State in 1822. He was edu-
cated at Madison University, where his father was the honored
I president. He published poems and fragmentary papers in 1845,
ALFRED TENNYSON.
and from that time became an active journalist. His railway sketches,
under the title " The World on Wheels," were peerless. All his works
were immensely popular. He is a popular lyceum lecturer also.
JEFFERYS TAYLOR.
BRIGHT little juvenile poem, an improvement of the old story of
the milkmaid who counted her chickens before they were hatched,
is given on page 199. It is from ihe pen of JefFerys Taylor, an
English writer, who was born in 1792, and who wrot-e chiefly for
the young, being distinguished for his quaint, practical manner of putting
his thoughts. He died August 8th, 1853.
JEREMY TAYLOR.
JEREMY TAY'LOR, D.D , was born in Cambridge, England, in 1613.
He entered Caius College in 1826, and waited at the public tables
for support. After graduating he gained the friendship of Bishop
Laud, and in 1636, obtained a fellowship at Oxford. In 1642 his
rectory was sequestered by Parliament, and he was forced to take refuge
in Wales, where he supported himself by teaching, and wrote some of his
best works. As a preacher and as a writer, he occupies a high place.
" Useful Studies " (p. 292) is a characteristic effusion from his pen. He
died at Lisburne, Ireland, August 13th, 1667.
ALLRED TENNY'SON.
H^ngland's present poet laureate was born in 1809 in Lincolnshire. He
^IMj^ grnduated at Cambridge, and was early distinguished for poetic
■*^^^ ability, gaining the Chancellor's Medal in 1829. His reputation
' as a poet grew slowly, however, and it was not until 1842 that he
really became famous. Since that time he has stood confessedly as the
world's first poet. Every one of the ten selections given in Gems, from
his poems, is exquisitely beautiful in its line. On the death of Words-
worth in 1850, Tennyson was appointed poet laureate.
THOMAS OF CELANO.
^NE of the grandest hymns ever written is the old Latin Dh.'^ Tree, a
translation of which is given on page 456. Its author was Thomas,
a Franciscan monk, born near the beginning of the thirteenth
century, at Celano, a Neapolitan village. This wonderful poem
52
776
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
Las had the highest encomiums from such critics and scholars as Mozart,
Haydn, Goethe, Schlegel, Dryden, Scott, Milman, etc. Dr. W. K, Wil-
hams, of New York, perhaps the first scholar of America, critically de-
scribes this hymn as "combining somewhat of the rhythm of classic Latin,
with the rhymes of the mediaeval Latin, treating of a theme full of awful
sublimity, and grouping together the most startling imagery of Scripture
as to the last judgment, and throwing this into yet stronger relief by the
barbaric simplicity of the style in which it is set, and adding to all these
its full and trumpet-like cadences, and uniting with the impassioned feel-
ings of the South, whence it emanated, the gravity of the North, whose
severer style it adopted." It is a poem that may be studied and dwelt
upon, with ever increasing profit and delight.
LORD EDWARD THURLOW.
iJpfoRD THURLOW was an eminent English lawyer, born in Norfolk, in
1732. He was sent to Cambridge, but he was compelled to leave
-*^^" without a degree on account of his refractory conduct. He after-
i wards studied law. In early life he was an intimate friend of the
poet Cowper. He rose rapidly in his profession, and obtained the
rank of king's counsel in 1761. He died September, 1806. His legal
eminence was deemed by many to be due to happy accidents, rather than
to real ability. His "Patient Stork " (p. 450) is a good poem.
, ^ JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE.
^gHE author of "The Vagabonds" (p. 130) is well known through that
11^ poem, as well as by the other two from his pen given in this vol-
ume. He was born in Monroe county, N. Y., in 1827. He wrote
considerably for the "Atlantic Monthly," and has been much en-
joyed as a writer of light literature.
JOHANN LUDWIG UHLAND.
EHLAND was a celebrated German poet, born in 1787. He studied
law and took the degree of ll.d. He was a member of the rep-
'^^^ resentative assembly of Wurtemburg in 1819, and in 1830 was
X appointed professor of the German language and literature at
Tubingen. He published a rich collection of patriotic songs. As a poet,
he was characterized by simplicity, tenderness, and deep religious feeling,
m "The Lost Church " (p. 622) shows. He -died, November, 1862.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
777
^\^ ^ CHAELE3 DUDLEY WARKER.
?rn|His gentleman, author of three extracts in Gems, was born in Plain-
^1^ field, Mass., September 12th, 1829. Ho graduated at Hamilton
<>^-^ College, practiced law in Chicago, and became a journalist in
J Hartford, where he now resides. His publications meet with
very general favor.
..,1.^ GEORGE WASHINGTON.
|Sfj|pASHiNGTON, the first President of the United States, was born in
fjlpft|1 AVestmoreland county, Va., February 22d, 1732. He was left an
P^'^t orphan when but twelve years of age and inherited 'a large estate.
His early education was defective. He had some rough frontier
experiences, in the early Indian wars, but he abandoned the army for civil
pursuits. On the opejiing of hostilities in the Eevolutionary War, he was
unanimously chosen to command the American forces. He accepted it on
the condition that he was to receive no salary. At the close of the war
he laid down his commission. Then it was he issued his address to his
troops, given on page 408. He was unanimously chosen first President of
the newly-organized Federal government. The organization started on
March 4th, 1789, but the inauguration of Washington was delayed till
April 30th, when it took place, in New York City, and he delivered the
address from which the selection on page 603 is taken.
Washington was strongly urged to serve a third term in the presidency,
but he refused, and retired to private life at Mount Vernon. Here he
enjoyed the repose and the many honors he had so nobly earned. He died
at Mount Vernon, Va., from a short illness, December 14, 1799.
DAXIEL WEBSTER.
jHE great Daniel Webster was born at Salisbury (now Franklin), N.
H., January 18th, 1782. He received only a limited education,
and was greatly indebted for his early instruction to his mother.
He completed his preparation for college in the family of Kev.
Samuel Wood, of Boscawen, and entered Dartmouth College in 1797. He
was considered the foremost scholar of his class. He was decidedly pro-
ficient in the classics and English literature, and was distinguished con-
spicuously in the debates of the college societies. Several of his collegiate
addresses found their way into print. He graduated in 1801 and began
the study of law. He soon rose to eminence at the bar where Samuel
Dexter, Joseph Story and Jeremiah Mason were at the height of their
fame. He was nominated and elected to Congress by the Federalists in
778
BIOGRAnilCAL SKETCHES.
1812, Taking his seat in the special session of May, 1813, he was ap-
pointed to the committee on foreign alTairs, and- made his maiden Con-
gressional speech June 10th, 1813.
Webster was afterwards admitted to practice in the Supreme Court at
Washington. He then devoted himself with great zeal to the practice ot
his profession, and gained rank among the most distinguished jurists of
this country. He added to his world-wide fame as an orator by his ad-
dress at the laying of the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monument,
June 17th, 1825, and by his eulogy of Adams and Jefferson, delivered at
Faneuil Hall, Boston, August, 1826. He served as Secretary of State
under President Harrison, and was continued in office by President Tyler.
He died at Marshfield, October 24th, 1852, and was buried in his fomily
vault in the cemetery of that town. "Crime Self-Bevealed," from one ol
his pleas in a murder case (p. 632), is a matchless piece of oratory.
THOMAS WESTWOOD.
ICES AT THE THRONE " (p. 527) was Written by Thomas Westwood,
who was born at Enfield, England, November 26th, 1814. He
^^^i led an active business life, and was, for twenty-five years, direc-
} tor of a railway company in Belgium. He has been a frequent
contributor of verses to the London "Athenaeum and Gentleman's Maga-
zine," and is author of several volumes of very excellent poems.
EDWIN PEECY WHIPPLE.
IfgDWiN PERCY WHIPPLE was boru at Gloucester, Mass., March 8th'
1819. He received his early education in the public schools of
Salem, and at the age of fourteen, he began to write for a news-
paper. He then applied himself to banking for many years.
Since 1860, he has devoted himself to literature, being a frequent contribu-
tor to current periodicals, and a popular lyceum lecturer. He also enjoys
considerable reputation as a critic, his skill in this department being illus-
trated by his clear analysis in "The Power of AVords" (p. 665.)
HENRY KIRKE WHITE.
i^l^His author is better known simply as Kirke White. He was an
^^ English poet, born in 1785. As a child he was remarkable for
f precocity, and he soon distinguished himself in ancient and mod-
ern languages, music and natural philosophy. Having made seve-
JOHN G. WHITTIER. 779
rcil random contributions to the "Monthly Mirror," he ventured to publish
a collection of poems, which attracted the notice of Southey, who became
his warm friend and generous patron. White entered St. John's College,
Cambridge, in 1804. Severe application to study was too much for his
constitution, and he fell into a rapid decline, and died October, 1806. His
works were published by Southey, with a very interesting biography.
"The Star of Bethlehem" (p. 469) is one of the finest gems of poetry.
;,-(i>V«> MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY.
Ihe little rid hin" (p. 482) is as bright and well told an Irisii
1^ legend, of the fabulous order, as can readily be found. It was
A written by Mrs. Adeline D. Train Whitney, who was born at
Boston, Mass., in 1824. Her husband is Seth D. Whitney, of
Milton, Mass. She has long been a favorite contributor to the current
magazines, especially those for the younger readers.
♦ JOHN G. WHITTIER.
"?W|pHE QUAKER POET," as John Grccnleaf Whitter has been familiarly
^1^ called, is a native of Haverhill, Mass., where he was born in 1807.
•^^^ After an academic education he devoted himself to journalism.
I He also had some political experience, but in 1840 he settled at
Amesbury, Mass., where he still resides. He has written extensively,
both in prose and poetry. Sixteen splendid selections from Whittier are
given in Gems. Like Washington Irving, Whittier never married.
CARLOS WILCOX.
siLCOX was an American poet, born at Newport, N. H., October,
1794. He studied theology and began to preach. In 1822, he
published the first book of a poem called "The Age of Benevo-
lence." He gained a high reputation for eloquence. He died in
1827. His poem on page 219 is beautiful in sentiment and structure.
-fe
J. A. WILEY.
^ir^AMES A. WILEY, D.D., is an eminent divine of the Free Church of
m^ Scotland. He published the "History of Protestantism," " Edom
2|! in Prophecy," and other valuable works. His sketch, given on
%^ page 690, illustrates the charming style in which he deals with
historic detail, investino; his narrative with the attractiveness of romance.
78U BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
. N. P. WILLIS.
LTHANIEL PARKER WILLIS, author of three of the selections of this
volume, was a native of Portland, Maine. He was born January
jj/' 20th, 1807. He was graduated at Yale in 1827, before which hu
%^ took a prize for a poem. He devoted himself to journalism at
once after completing his college course, and adhered to it closely till his
death, which occurred January 20th, 1867. He made several journeys
abroad, and wrote voluminously, both in prose and verse.
WILLIAM WIRT.
^j^jMiLLiAM WIRT, LL.D., was boru at Bladensbu^g, Md., November 8th,
^^J^l^^ 1772. He was left an orphan at the age of eight years, but was
ll^^f brought up by an uncle. He studied law, and commenced prac-
X tice in Culpepper and Albemarle counties, Va. He was appointed
United States Attorney for the District of Virginia in 1816, and was At-
torney-General of the United States for three full terms under the admin-
istrations of Monroe and John Quincy Adams. He delivered, at Wash-
ington, on October 19th, 1826, a discourse commemorative of the deaths
of Adams and Jefferson. His sketch of "The Blind Preacher" (p. 185)
is a good illustration of his ability as a word painter. He died at Wash-
ington, D. C, February 18th, 1834, deeply lamented by all.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
:^2^
Iouthey's successor as poet laureate, and Tennyson's immediate pre-
decessor, was William Wordsworth, born April 7th, 1770, in Cum-
berland, England. His alma mater was Cambridge, where he
excelled in the classics. At thirteen his poesy began to appear,
and he began to make it his chief study. After much foreign
travel and little success as a poet, he began to loom up in the public favor
about 1814, and he was sixty years old when he really became popular.
He then began to live comfortably, received a pension and an honorary
D. c. L. from Oxford, and in 1843, when seventy-three years of ago, be-
came the royal poet. He died in 1850. Three of his poems are in Gems.
LIVING THOUGHTS
FROM
THE WORLD'S GREAT THINKERS.
ACTION.
Speak out in acts; the time for words has
passed, and deeds alone suffice.
( Whittier.
Everywhere in life, the true question is, not
what we gain, but what we do. [Carlyle.
A slender acquaintance with the world must
convince every man, that actions, not
words, are the true criterion of the at-
tachment of friends. Washington.
He hath no power that hath not power to
use. (Bailey.
Oar deeds determine us, as much as we de-
termine our deeds. {Oeorge Eliot.
It is better to wear out than to rust out.
(Bishop Home.
Men must be decided on what they will not
do, and then they are able to act with
vigor in what they ought to do.
(Mencius.
Our acts, our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.
(John Fletcher.
Our grand busine.s8 is, not to see what lies
dimly at a distance, but to do what lies
clearly at hand. {Carlyle.
Push on — keep moving. ( Thomas Morton.
Heaven never helps the men who will not
act. (Sophocles.
No man lives without jostling and being jos-
tled; in all ways he has to elbow himself
through the world, giving and receiving
offence. {Carlyle.
The only cure for grief is action.(G.jy.Zcw)es
A stirring dwarf we do allowance give
Before a sleeping giant. (Shakespeare.
Better to sink beneath the shock
Than moulder piecemeal on the rock.
(Byron.
1 have lived to know that the secret of hap-
piness is never to allow your energies
to stagnate. (Adam Clarke.
God be thank'd that the dead have left still
Good undone for the living to do —
Still some aim for the heart and the will
And the soul of a man to pursue.
(Owen Meredith.
ADVERSITY.
Sweet are the uses of adversity ;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
(Shakespeare.
Cicero has said of men : "They are like wine ;
age sours the bad, and betters the good."
We can say that misfortune has the
same effect upon them. {Ricker.
Calamity is man's true touch-stone.
(Beaumont and Fletcher.
Trials teach us what we are ; they dig up the
soil, and let us see what we are made of;
they just turn up some of the ill weeds
on to the surface. (Spurgeon.
For gold is tried in the fire, and acceptable
men in the furnace of adversity. (SiracJi
781
782
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
Afflictions fall, not like the lightning strokes
upon the tree, to blast and shatter it the
more, but like the blows of the sculptor
which shape the marble into a thing of
beauty. {Howard Malcom.
It is often better to have a great deal of harm
happen to one than a little; a great deal
may rouse you to remove what a little
will only accustom you to endure.
( Greville.
The greater our dread of crosses, the more
necessary they are for us. {Fenelon.
We know not of what we are capable till the
trial comes; — till it comes, perhaps, in a
form which makes the strong man quail,
and turns the gentler woman into a her-
oine. {Mrs. Jameson.
Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the
only balance to weigh friends. (P^wtorc/i.
He that wrestles with us strengthens our
nerves and sharpens our skill. Our
antagonist is our helper. {Burke.
Men think God is destroying them because
he is tuning them. The violinist screws
up the key till the tense cord sounds the
concert pitch ; but it is not to break it,
but to use it tunefully, that he stretches
the string upon the musical rack.
{Beecher.
Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man ;
but for one man who can stand prosper-
ity, there are a hundred that will stand
adversity. {Carhjle.
His overthrow heap'd happiness upon him ;
For then, and not till then, he felt himself.
And found the blessedness of being little.
{Shakespeare.
There are no crown weareis in heaven who
were not cross-bearers here below.
But noble souls, through dust and heat.
Rise from disaster and defeat
The stronger. {Longfellow.
The eternal stars shine out
dark enough.
soon as it is
( Carlyle.
AMBITION.
Ambition has but one reward for all :
A little power, a little transient fame,
A grave to rest in, and a fading name !
( William Winter.
Oh, sons of earth ! attempt ye still to rise.
By mountains pil'd on mountains to the
skies ?
lleav'n still with laughter the vain toil sur-
veys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.
[Pope.
Most people would succeed in small things if
they were not troubled with great ambi-
tions. {Longfellow.
Remember Milo's end.
Wedged in that timber which he strove to
rend. ( Wentworth Dillon.
Who knows but he, whose hand the light-
ning forms,
Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the
storms ;
Pours fierce Ambition in a Csesar's mind.
{Pope.
One contented with what he has done, stands
but small chance of becoming famous
for what he will do. He has lain down
to die. The grass is already growing
over him. {Bovce.
They that stand high have many blasts to
shake them ;
And if they fall they dash themselves to
pieces. {Shakespeare.
Who shoots at the midday sun, though he be
sure he shall never hit the mark, yet as
sure he is that he shall shoot higher than
he who aims but at a bush.
{Sir P. Sidneij.
Fling away ambition ; by that sin fell tlie
angels : how can man then, the image
of his Maker hope to win by it?
{Shakespeare.
Men would be angels, angols would be god.-;
{Pope.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
783
Say what we will, you may be sure that am- Art is Nature made by Man
bition IS an error ; its wear and tear of | To Man the interpreter of God.
heart are never recompensed, —it steals
away the freshness of life, — it deadens
Its vivid and social enjoyments, — it shots
our souls to our own youth,— and we are
old ere we remember that we have made
a fever and a labor of our raciest years.
(Bulwer.
(Owen Meredith.
His heart was in his work, and the heart
Giveth grace unto every Art. {Longellow.
The one thing that marks the true artist is a
clear perception and a firm, bold hand,
in distinction from that imperfect mental
vision and uncertain touch which give
us the feeble pictures and the lumpy
statues of the mcie artisans on canvas
or in stone. (Holmes.
Dead he is not, "but departed,— for the artist
never dies. (Longfellow.
He best can paint them who shall feel them
most. (Pope.
In sculpture did ever any body call the
Apollo a fancy piece? Or say of the
Laocoon how it might be made different ?
A master-piece of art has in the mind a
fixed place in the chain of being, as
much as a plant or a crystal. (Emerson.
Nature is a revelation of God ;
Art a revelation of man. (Longfellow.
The Gothic cathedral is a blossoming in stone
subdued by the insatiable demand of
harmony in man. The mountain of
granite blooms into an eternal flower,
with the lightness and delicate finish, as
well as the aerial proportions and per-
spective of vegetable beauty. (Emerson.
The stone unhewn and cold.
Becomes a living mould,
The more the marble wastes
The more the statue grows. (Michael Angelo.
Doubtless the human face is the grandest of
all mysteries ; yet fixed on canvas, it can
hardly tell of more than one sensation :
no struggle, no successive contrasts ac-
cessible to dramatic art, can painting
give, as neither time nor motion exists
for her. (Madame de Stael.
"light in petal and in limb that move ; -^°d ^^^ cold marble leapt to life a god.
you, then the spirit is upon you, and the ] (Milman.
earth is yours, and the fullness thereof, i Were builded, with his own, into the walls,
(Buskin, i As offerings unto God. (Longfellow.
ART.
Art is the child of Nature : yes,
Her darling child in whom we trace
The features of the mother's face ;
Her aspect and her attitude. (Longfellow.
Seraphs share with thee
Knowledge ; But Art, Man, is thine alone !
{Schiller.
I think I love and reverence all arts equally,
only putting my own just above the
others ; because in it I recognize the
union and culmination of them all. To
me it seems as if when God conceived the
world, that was Poetry ; He formed it,
and that was Sculpture ; He colored it,
and that was Painting; He peopled it
with living beings, and that was the
grand, divine, eternal Drama.
( Charlotte Cushnian.
He that seeks popularity in art closes the
door on his own genius ; as he must
needs paint for other minds, and not for
his own. (Mrs. Jameson.
The art of a thing is. first, its aim, and next,
its manner of accomplishment. (Bovee.
If it is the love of that which your work rep-
resents — if, being a landscape painter, it
is love of hills and trees that moves you
— if, being a figure painter, it is love of
human beauty, and human soul that
moves you — if, being a flower or animal
painter, it is love, and wonder, and de-
784
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
Nature is not at variance with art, nor art
with nature; they being both the ser-
vants of his providence. Art is the per-
fection of nature. Were the world now
as it was the sixth day, there were yet a
chaos. Nature hath made one world,
and art another. In brief, all things
are artificial; for nature is the art of
God. [Sir Thomas Browne.
The architect
Built his great heart into these sculptured
stones.
And with him toiled his children, — and their
lives.
I once asked a distinguished artist what place
he gave to labor in art. " Labor,'' he in
effect said, "is the beginning, the middle,
and the end of art.'' Turning then to
another — "And you," I inquired, "what
do you consider the great force in art?"
"Love,'' he replied. In 'their two an-
swers I found but one truth. (Bovee.
BEAUTY.
The most beautiful object in the world, it
will be allowed, is a beautiful woman.
(^Macaulay.
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;
Its loveliness increases ; it will never
Pass into nothingness ; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet
breathing. (Keats.
"We do love beauty at first sight ; and we do
cease to love it, if it is not accompanied
by amiable qualities.
(Lydia Maria Child.
"What as Beauty here is won
We shall as Truth in some hereafter know.
{Schiller.
If to her share some female errors fall
Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.
[Pope.
Beauty with a bloodless conquest, finds
A welcome sov'reignty m rudest minds.
( Waller.
Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self.
( Thomson.
I pray thee, God, that I may be beautiful
within. (Socrates.
Loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
But is, when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most.
(Tliomson.
If the nose of Cleopatra had been a little
shorter, it would have changed the his-
tory of the world. {Pascal.
BLESSINGS.
Like birds, whose beauties languish half con-
cealed.
Till, mounted on the wing, their glossy
plumes
Expanded, shine with azure, green and gold ;
How blessings brighten as they take their
flight ! ( Young.
Blessings star forth forever ; but a curse
Is like a cloud — it passes. {Bailey.
For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds.
And though a late, a sure reward succeeds.
{Congreve.
What is remote and difficult of success we
are apt to overrate; what is really best
for us lies always within our reach,
though often overlooked. {Longfellow.
Forever from the hand that takes
One blessing from us, others fall;
And soon or late, our Father makes
His perfect recompense to all ! ( Whittier.
BOOKS.
'Tis pleasant sure to see one's name in print;
A book's a book, although there's nothing
in't. (Byron.
Pray thee, take care, that tak'st my book in
hand.
To read it well ; that is to understand.
(Ben. Jonson.
Books cannot always please, however good ;
Minds are not ever craving for their food.
( Cro.hhe.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
785
I love to lose myself iu other men's minds.
When I am not walking, I am reading ;
I cannot sit and think. Books think lor me.
{Lamb.
There is no Past, so long as Books shall live !
(Bulwer.
A good book is the precious lifeblood of a
master spirit, embalmed and treasured up
on purpose to a life beyond. {Milton.
Books are friends, and what friends they
are! Their love is deep and unchang-
ing'; their patience inexhaustible ; their
gentleness perennial, their forbearance
unbounded ; and their sympathy with-
out selfishness. Strong as man, and
tender as woman, they welcome you in
every mood, and never turn from you'in
distress. (Langford-
Look, then, into thine heart and write.
{Longfellow.
Books should to one of these four ends con-
duce.
For wisdom, piety, delight, or use.
{Sir John Denham.
We get no good
By being ungenerous, even to a book.
And calculating profits— so much help
By so much reading. It is rather when
We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge
Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's pro-
found.
Impassioned for its beauty, and salt of
truth—
'Tis then we get the right good from a book,
{E. B. Browning.
If a book come from the heart, it will con-
trive to reach other hearts ; all art and
authorcraft are of small amount to that.
{Carlyk.
Books are the best things, well used : abused,
among the worst. C Emerson.
Books are life-long friends whom we come
to love and know as we do our children.
{S. L. Boardman.
If time is precious, no book that will not im-
prove by repeated readings deserves to
be read at all, {Carlyle.
They are true friends, that will neither flat-
ter nor dissemble: be you but true to
yourself, applying that which they
teach unto the party grieved, and you
shall need no other comfort nor counsel.
{Bacon.
Worthy books
Are not companions — they are solitudes :
We lose ourselves in them and all our cares.
( Bailey.
Some books are to be tasted, others to be
swallowed, and some few to be chewed
and digested ; that is, some books are to
be read only in parts; others to be read,
but not seriously ; and some few to be
read wholly, and with diligence and
attention. {Bacon.
Ono cannot celebrate books sufficiently. Af-
ter saying his best, still something better
remains to be spoken in their praise.
{Alcott.
In literature, quotation is good only when
the writer whom I follow goes my way,
and, being better mounted than I, gives
me a cast as we say ; but if I like the
gay equipage so well as to go out of my
road, I had better have gone afoot.
{Emerson.
The true University of these days is a Col-
lection of Books. ( Carlyle.
I have ever gained the most profit, and the
most pleasure also, from the books which
have made me think the most: and,
when the difficulties have once been
overcome, these are the books which
have struck the deepest root, not only
in my memory and understanding, but
likewise in my affections.
( W. A. Hare.
Write to the mind and heart, and let the ear
I Glean after what it can. {Bailey.
That is a good book which is opened with
expectation and closed with profit.
{Alcott.
If you once understand an author's charac-
ter, the comprehension of his writing
becomes easy. {Longfellow
r86
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
Of all those arts in which the wise excel,
Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.
{Sheffield.
It is generally supposed that where there is
no Quotation, there will be found most
originality The greater
part of our writers, in consequence, have
become so original, that no one cares to
imitate them ; and those who never
quote, in return are seldom quoted.
{Isaac Disraeli.
Beneath the rule of men entirely great
The pen is mightier than the sword. {Bulwer.
Let your literary compositions be kept from
the public eye for nine years at least.
{Horace.
A man may write at any time if he set him-
self doggedly at it. (Bam'l Johnson.
But words are things, and a small drop of
ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps mil-
lions think. {Byron.
The most original modern authors are not so
because they advance what is new, but
simply because they know how to put
what they have to say, as if it had never
been said before. ( Goethe.
Readers may be classed into an infinite num-
ber of divisions ; but an author is a soli-
tary being, who, for the same reason he
pleases one, must consequently displease
another. {Isaac Disraeli.
None but an author knows an author's cares.
Or Fancy's fondness for the child she bears.
( Cowper.
Hear, land o' cakes, and brither Scots,
Frae Maidenkirk to Johnny Groat's,
If there's a hole in a' your coats,
I rede ye tent it;
A chiel's amang you taking notes.
And, faith, he'll prent it. {Burns.
Every author, in some degree, portrays him-
self in his works even be it against his
will. {Goethe.
When a book raises your spirit, and inspires
you with noble and courageous feelings,
seek for no other rule to judge the work
by ; it is good, and made by a good work-
man. {Bruycre-
That writer does the most, who gives his
reader the most knowledge and takes
from him the least time. ( C. C. Colton_
A library may be regarded as the solemn
chamber in which a man may take
counsel with all that have been wise and
great and good and glorious amongst
the men that have gone before them.
{Dawson.
Whatever hath been written shall remain.
Nor be erased nor written o'er again ;
The unwritten only still belongs to thee :
Take heed, and ponder well what that shall
be. {Longfellow.
God be thanked for books. They are the
voices of the distant and the dead, and
make us heirs of the spiritual life of past
ages. Books are the true levellers.
They give to all, who will faithfully use
them, the society, the spiritual presence
of the best and greatest of our race. No
matter how poor I am, no matter though
the prosperous of my own time will not
enter my obscure dwelling. If the sa-
cred writers will enter and take up their
abode under my roof, if Milton will
cross my threshold to sing to me of
Paradise, and Shakespeare, to open to
me the worlds of imagination and the
workings of the human heart, and
Franklin to enrich me with his practical
wisdom, I shall not pine for want of in-
tellectual companionship, and I may
become a cultivated man though excluded
from what is called the best society, in
the place where I live. {Channing.
polished perturbation! golden care that
keepest the ports of slumber open wide
to many a watchful night! {Shakespeare.
I
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS
787
Hang sorrow, care '11 kill a cat. [Ben Joiison.
Care, admitted as guest, quickly turns to be
master. {Bovce.
Care to our coffia adds a nail no doubt;
And every grin, so merry, draws one out.
(John Wolcot.
Care is no care, but rather a corrosive.
For things that are not to be remedied.
( Shakespeare.
A crown! what is it?
It is to bear the miseries of a people !
To hear their murmurs, feel their discontents.
And sink beneath a load of splendid care.
{Hannah More.
I am sure, care's an enemy to life.
{Shakespeare.
Care that is entered once into the breast,
Will have the whole possession ere it rest.
{Johnso7i.
Care keeps his watch in every old man's oye.
And where care lodges, sleep will never lie;
But where unbruised youth with unstufFd
brain
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth
reign. {Shakespeare.
I am persuaded, that every time a man
laughs, it adds something to the frag-
ments of life. {Sterne
CHARACTER.
Talenta are nurtured best in solitude, but
character in life's tempestuous sea.
{Godhe.
Character, good or bad, has a tendency to \
perpetuate itself {Dr. A. A. Hodge. '
not lose his
{Mencius. j
Take my word for this, reader, and say a fool
told it you, if you please, that he who
hath not a dram of folly in his mixture
hath pounds of much worse matter in his '
composition. {Lamb.
All men are alike in their lower natures; it '
is in their higher characters that they
differ. {Bovce. I
The great man is he who dc
child's heart.
He makes no friend who never made a foe.
( Tennyson.
He was not merely a chip of the old block,
but the old block itself [Burke.
When a man puts on a Character he is a
stranger to, there's as much difference
between what he appears, and what he
is really in himself, as there is between
a Vizor and a Face. {Bruyhre.
He is truly great that is little in himself, and
that maketh no account of any height of
honors. ( Thomas cl Kempis.
This is that which we call character, — a re-
served force which acts directly by pres-
ence, and without means. {Emerson.
Tlie man that makes a character, makes foes.
( Young.
Reputation is what men and women think of
us. Character is what God and angels
know of us. ( Thomas Faine.
I will be lord over myself. No one who can-
not master himself is worthy to rule,
and only he can rule. {Goethe.
No circumstances can repair a defect of char-
acter. {Emerson.
Strong characters are brought out by change
of situation, and gentle ones by perma-
nence. {Richter.
Suffering becomes beautiful when any one
bears great calamities with cheerfulness,
not through insensibility, but through
greatness of mind. {Aristotle.
The True Grandeur of Nations is in those i
qualities which constitute the true great- /
ness of the individual. {Charles Sumner.^
lie only is a well-made man whq has a good
determination. {Eincrson.
In this world a man must either be anvil or
hammer. {LonrifeUoxo.
Circumstances form the character ; but, like
petrifying matters, they harden while
they form. {Landor.
What the superior man seeks is in himself;
what the small man seeks is in others.
{Confucius.
*
788
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
Self-distrust is the Ccause of most . of our
failures. In the assurance of strength
there is strength, and they are the weak-
est, however strong, who have no faith
in themselves or their powers. [Bovee.
Character ia higher than intellect. . . .
A great soul will be strong to live, as
well as to think. {Emerson.
I hope I shall always possess firmness and
virtue enough, to maintain, what I con-
sider the most enviable of all titles, that
of an " Honest Man." {Geo. Washington.
Conflict, which rouses up the best and highest
powers in some characters, in others not
only jars the whole being, but paralyzes
the faculties. {Mrs. Jameson.
Not in the clamor of the crowded street.
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng.
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
{Longfellow.
Alany men build as cathedrals were built, the
part nearest the ground finished ; but
that part which soars toward heaven, the
turrets and the spires, forever incomplete.
{Henry Ward Beecher.
We must have a weak spot or two in a char-
acter before we can love it much. Peo-
ple that do not laugh or cry, or take
more of anything than is good for them,
or use anything but dictionary-words,
are admirable subjects for biographies.
But we don't care most for those flat-
pattern flowers that press best in the
herbarium. {Holmes.
That man is great, and he alone,
Who serves a greatness not his own,
For neither praise nor pelf :
Content to know and be unknown :
Whole in himself. {Oxuen Meredith.
CONSCIENCE.
Conscience, true as the needle to the pole,
points steadily to the pole-star of God's
eternal justice, reminding the soul of the
fearful realities of the life to come.
{Rev. E. H. Gillctt.
Labor to keep alive in your breast that little
spark of celestial fire, called Conscience.
( George Washington.
I know myself now ; and I feel within me
A peace above all earthly dignities ;
A still and quiet conscience. {Shakespeare.
'Tis the first constant punishment of sin,
That no bad man absolves himself within.
( Juvenal.
Conscience is harder than our enemies.
Knows more, accuses with more nicety.
{George Eliot.
There is no future pang
Can deal that justice on the self-condemn'd
He deals on his own soul. {Byron.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all .
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
{Shakespeare.
Why should not conscience have vacation
As well as other courts o' th' nation ?
Have equal power to adjourn.
Appoint appearance and return. {Butler.
Some persons follow the dictates of their con
science only in the same sense in which
a coachman may be said to follow the
horses he is driving. ( Whately.
He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit i' th' centre and enjoy bright day ;
But he that hides a dark soul and foul
thoughts
Benighted walks under the mid-daj sun.
{Milton.
CONTENTMENT.
Happy the man, of mortals happiest he
Whose quiet mind from vain desires is free ;
Whom neither hopes deceive nor fears tor-
ment.
But lives at peace, within himself content,
In thought or act accountable to none
But to himself and to the gods alone.
{Geo. Oranville.
Content with poverty, my soul I arm ;
And virtue, though in rags, will keep me
warm. {Dry den.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
•89
Contentmeut furnishes constant joy. Much
covetousness, constant grief. To the
contented, even poverty is joy. To the
discontented, even wealth is a vexation.
[Ming Sam Paou Keen.
If it were now to die,
'Twere to be most happy ; for, I fear
My soul hath her content so absolute.
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate.
{Shakespeare.
Lord of himself, though not of lands ;
And having nothing, yet hath all.
{Sir Henry Wotton.
No one can bring you peace but yourself
Nothing can bring you peace but the
triumph of principle. {Emerson.
My God, give me neither poverty nor riches ;
but whatsoever it may be thy will to
give, give me with it a heart which
knows humbly to acquiesce in what is
thy will. {Qotthold.
Enjoy your own life without comparing it
with that of another. {Condorcet.
Poor and content is rich, and rich enough ;
but riches, fineless, is as poor as winter
to him that ever fears he shall be poor.
{Shakespeare.
Sweet are the thoughts that savour of con-
tent;
The quiet mind is richer than a crown ;
Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent ;
The poor estate scorns fortune's angry frown :
Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep,
such bliss,
Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss.
{Robert Greene.
He is well paid that is well satisfied.
{Shakeq->eare.
This floating life hath but this port of rest
A heart prepared, that fears no ill to come.
{Samuel Daniel.
Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or
pelf
Not one will change his neighbor with him-
self {Foj^e.
The noblest mind the best contentment has.
{Spenser.
My crown is in my heart, not on my head,
Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones,
Nor to be seen : my crown is called content ;
A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.
( Shakespeare.
With equal minds what happens let us bear,
Nor joy, nor grieve too much for things be-
yond our care. {Dryden.
what a glory doth this world put on.
For him who, with a fervent heart goes forth.
Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks
On duties well performed and days well spent.
{Longfellow.
CONVERSATION.
I profess not talking; only this — Let each
man do his best. {Shakespeare.
Speak not at all, in any wise, till you have
somewhat to speak ; care not for the re-
ward of your speaking, but simply and
with undivided mind for the truth of
your speaking. { Carlyle.
The next best thing to being witty one's self,
is to be able to quote another's wit.
{Bovee.
Under all speech that is good for anything
there lies a silence that is better. Si-
lence is deep as eternity ; speech is shal-
low as time. {Carlyle.
Oh ! many a shaft, at random sent.
Finds mark the archer little meant !
And many a word, at random spoken,
May soothe or wound a heart that's broken !
{Scott.
Words once spoke can never be recalled.
(^ Wentworth Dillon.
The best Society and Conversation is that in
which the Heart has a greater share than
the head. {Bruyirc-
There is a gift beyond the reach of art, of
being eloquently silent. {Bovee.
You heat your pate, and fancy wit will come;
Knock as you please, there's nobody at home.
{Pope.
790
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
Iq the commerce of speech
gold and silver.
Discourse may want an animated " No,''
To brush the surface, and to make it flow ;
But still remember, if you mean to please,
To press your point with modesty and ease.
[Cowper.
It is as easy to draw back a stone thrown
with force from the hand, as to recall a
word once spoken. {Menander.
Society is like a large piece of frozen water ;
and skating well is the great art of social
life. {Letitia Elizabeth Landon.
Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.
[Hazlitt.
Some folk's tongues are like the clocks as run
on strikin', not to tell you the time o' the
day, but because there's summat wrong
i' their own inside. [Oeorge Eliot.
only coin of
{Jouhert.
Words learn'd by rote a parrot may rehearse,
But talking is not always to converse ;
JS'ot more distinct from harmony divine,
The constant I'reaking of a country sign.
{Coivper.
Repartee is perfect, when it effects its purpose
with a double edge. Repartee is the
highest order of wit, as it bespeaks the
coolest yet quickest exercise of genius at
a moment when the passions are roused.
(C. a Colton.
True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'd.
What oft was thought, but, ne'er so well ex-
pressed. (Pope.
My tongue within my lips I rein,
For who talks much, must talk in vain.
{Gay.
Were we as eloquent as angels, we should
please some men, some women, and some
children much more by listening than by
talking. (C. C. Colton.
But far more numerous was the herd of such.
Who think too little, and who talk too much.
{Dry den.
It is with narrow-souled people as with nar-
row-necked bottles ; the less they have
in them, the more noise they make in
pouring it out. {Pupe.
There are moments when silence, prolong'd
and unbroken,
More expressive may be than all words ever
spoken,
It is when the heart has an instinct of what
In the heart of another is passing.
{Owen Meredith.
Think all you speak ; but speak not all you
think :
Thoughts are your own ; your words are so
no more.
Where Wisdom steers, wind cannot make you
sink :
Lips never err, when she does keep the door.
{Henry Delaune.
COURAGE.
friends, be men, and let your hearts be
strong,
And let no warrior in the heat of fight
Do what may bring him shame in others'
eyes ;
For more of those who shrink from shame
are safe
Than fall in battle, while with- those who flee
Is neither glory nor reprieve from death.
{Bryant.
The direst foe of courage is the fear itself, not
the object of it; and the man who can
overcome his own terror is a hero and
more. ( George MacDonald.
Dream not helm and harness
The sign of valor true ;
Peace hath higher tests of manhood
Than battle ever knew. ( Whittier.
Our doubts are traitors.
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt. {Shakespeare.
'Tis more brave
To live, than to die. {Owen Meredith.
Sleep, soldiers ! still in honored rest
Your truth and valor wearing :
The bravest are the tenderest, —
The loving are the daring.
{Bayard Taylor.
Courage in danger is half the battle.
{Plaut}is.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
791
No man can answer for his own valor or \
courage, till he has been in danger.
(Eochefoucaidd.
I dare do all that may become a man :
Who dares do more is none.
{Shakespeare.
Tender handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains ;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.
{Aaron mil.
Courage is, on all hands, considered as an
essential of high character. {Froude.
When desp'rate ills demand a speedy cure,
Distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly.
{Cam'l Johnson.
Cowards (may) fear to die ; but courage
stout
Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.
{Sir Walter Raleigh.
He that fights and runs away
May turn and fight another day ;
But he that is in battle slain
Will never rise to fight again. {Ray.
At the bottom of a good deal of the bravery
that appears in the world there lurks a
miserable cowardice. Men will face pow-
der and steel because they cannot face
public opinion. {Chapin.
Come one, come all ! this rock shall fly
From its firm base, as soon as I. {Scott.
What! shall one monk, scarce known beyond
his cell,
Front Rome's far-reaching bolts, and scorn
her frown ?
Brave Luther answered, " Yes '' ; that thun-
der swell
Rocked Europe, and discharged the triple
crown. {Lowell.
There are some critics so with spleen diseased.
They scarcely come inclining to be pleased:
And sure he must have more than mortal
skill.
Who pleases one against his will. {Congreve.
53
For I am nothing if not critical.
(Shakespeare.
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer.
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer.
{Pope.
The strength of criticism lies only in the
weakness of the thing criticised.
{Kavanagh.
For, poems read without a name
We justly praise, or justly blame ;
And critics have no partial views.
Except they know whom they abuse.
And since you ne'er provoke their spite.
Depend upon't their judgment's right.
(Jonathan Swift.
How commentators each dark passage shun,
And hold their farthing candle to the sun.
( Young.
Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true;
But are not Critics to their judgment too?
(Pope.
Attack is the reaction ; I never think I have
hit hard unless it rebounds.
(Sam' I Johnson.
In every work regard the writer's End,
Since none can compass more than they in-
tend;
And if the means be just, the conduct true,
Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due.
{Pope.
Abuse is often of service. There is nothing
so dangerous to an author as silence.
His name, like a shuttle-cock, must be
beat backward and forward, or it falls to
the ground. {Johnson.
With pleasure own your errors past,
And make each day a critic on the last.
{Pope.
Reviewers are forever telling authors, they
can't understand them. The author
might often reply: Is that my fault?
(A. W.Hare.
The readers and the hearers like my books.
But yet Pome writers cannot them digest ;
But what care I ? for when I make a feast,
I would my guests should praise it, not the
cooks. (Sir John Harrington.
792
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
It is much easier to be critical than to be cor-
rect. (Disraeli.
Critics are sentinels in the grand army of
letters, stationed at the corners of news-
papers and reviews, to challenge every
new author. {Longfellow.
He was in Logic a great critic,
Profoundly skill'd in Analytic ;
He could distinguish, and divide
A hair 'twixt south and south-west side.
{Butler.
A man must serve liis time to every trade,
Save censure— critics all are ready made.
Take hackney'd jokes from Miller, got by
rote,
With just enough of learning to misquote ;
A mind well skill'd to find or forge a fault,
A turn for punning, call it Attic salt ;
To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet.
His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet,
Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a lucky hit ;
Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for
wit;
Care not for feeling— pass your proper jest,
And stand a critic, hated yet caress'd.
{Byron.
DAY AND NIGHT.
But yonder comes the powerful King of Day
Rejoicing in the east. ( Thomson.
Whence are thy beams, O sun ! thy everlast-
ing light? Thou comest forth in thy
awful beauty ; the stars hide themselves
in the sky ; the moon, cold and pale,
sinks in the western wave ; but thou
thyself movest alone. {Macpherson.
The rising sun complies with our weak sight,
First gilds the clouds, then, shows his globe of
light
At such a distance from our eyes, as though
He knew what harm his hasty beams would
do. ( Waller.
And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful.
That God alone was to be seen in heaven.
(Bi/ron.
The day was dying, and with feeble hands
Caressed the mountain-tops ; the vales be-
tween
Darkened ; the river in the meadow-lands
Sheathed itself as a sword, and was not seen.
{Longfellow.
Hail, twilight ! sovereign of one peaceful
hour ! ( Wordsworth.
The sun is set ; and in his latest beams
Yon little cloud of ashen gray and gold.
Slowly upon the amber air unrolled,
The falling mantle of the Prophet seems.
( Longfellow.
the wierd northern twilight, which is nei-
ther night or day.
When the amber wake of the long-set sun
still marks his western way.
( D. M. Mulock.
A cloud lay cradled near the setting-sun,
A gleam of crimson tinged its braided snow .
* * * * * * *
Tranquil its spirit seemed, and floated slow !
Even in its motion there was rest ;
While every breath of eve that chanced to
blow
Wafted the traveler to the beauteous west.
{John Wilson.
Sweet shadows of twilight ! how calm their
repose,
While the dew drops fall soft in the breast of
the rose !
How blest to the toiler his hour of release
When the vesper is heard with its whisper of
peace! {Holmes.
The day is done : and slowly from the scene
The stooping sun up-gathers liis spent shafts,
And puts them back into his golden quiver !
{Longfellow.
Now in his Palace of the West,
Sinking to slumber the bright Day,
Like a tired monarch fann'd to rest,
'Mid the cool airs of evening lay ;
While round his couch's golden rim
The gaudy clouds, like courtiers, crept —
Struggling each other's light to dim,
And catch his last smile ere he slept.
( Moore.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
793
The evening came. The setting sun stretched
his celestial rods of light across the level
landscape, and, like the Hebrews in
Egypt, smote the rivers, the brooks, and
the ponds, and they became as blood.
{Longfellow.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary
way.
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
(Gray.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast.
Let fall the curtain, wheel the sofa round.
And, while the bubbling and loud hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each.
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.'
( Cowper.
Nature hath appointed the twilight as a
bridge to pass us out of day into night.
{Fuller.
Eve's silent footfall steals
Along the eastern sky,
And one by one to earth reveals
Those purer fires on high. {Keble.
'Twas twilight, and the sunless day went
down
Over the waste of waters ; like a veil
Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the
frown
Of one whose hate is mask'd but to assail.
{Byron
How lovely are the portals of the night,
When stars come out to watch the daylight
die. {TJiomas Cole.
The Night is come, but not too soon;
And sinking silently,
All silently, the little moon
Drops down behind the sky.
There is no light in earth or heaven,
But the cold light of stars ;
And the first watch of night is given
To the red planet Mars. {Longfellow.
Night drew her sable curtain down
And pinned it with a star.
{Jr Donald Clarke.
See yonder fire ! It is the moon
Slow rising o'er the eastern hill.
It glimmers on the forest tips
And through the dewy foliage drips
In little rivulets of light.
And majies the heart in love with night.
{Longfellow.
Night! that great shadow and profile of the
day. {Richter.
The night is calm and cloudless.
And still as still can be.
And the stars come forth to listen
To the music of the sea.
They gather, and gather, and gather.
Until they crowd the sky.
And listen, in breathless silence.
To the solemn litany. {Longfellow.
When I gaze into the stars, they look down
upon me with pity from their serene and
silent spaces, like eyes glistening with
tears over the little lot of man. Thou-
sands of generations, all as noisy as our
own, have been swallowed up by time,
and there remains no record of them any
more. Yet Arcturus and Orion, Sirius
and Pleiades, are still shining in their
courses, clear and young, as when the
shepherd first noted them in the plain of
Shinar! {Carlylc.
The moon was pallid, but not faint;
And beautiful as some fair saint.
Serenely moving on her way
In hours of trial and dismay.
As if she heard the voice of God,
Unharmed with naked feet she trod
Upon the hot and burning stars,
As on the glowing coals and bars,
That were to prove her strength, and try
Her holiness and her purity. {Longfellow.
If the stars should appear one night in a
thousand years, how would men believe
and adore : and preserve for many gen-
erations the remembrance of the city of
God which had been shown But every
night come out these envoys of beauty,
and light the universe with their ad-
monishing smile. {Emerson.
794
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
How beautiful the silent hour, when morning
and, evening thus sit together, hand in
hand, beneath the starless sky of mid-
night. {Longfellow.
Midnight,— strange, mystic hoar, — when the
veil between the frail present and the
eternal future grows thin. {Mrs. Stowe.
Midnight! the outpost of advancing day!
The frontier town and citadel of night !
The watershed of Time, from which the
streams
Of Yesterday and To-morrow take their way,
One to the land of promise and of light.
One to the land of darkness and of dreams.
{Longfellow.
DEATH.
How wonderful is death, death and his bro-
ther, sleep ! {Shelley.
There is no Death ! What seems eo is tran-
sition ;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life Elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.
{Longfellow.
On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses
are blending,
And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.
{James Beattie.
Good-bye, proud world ! I'm going home :
Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine.
{Emerso7i.
In this dim world of clouding cares.
We rarely know, till 'wildering eyes
See white wings lessening up the skies,
The Angels with us unawares.
( Oerald Massey.
Death hath so many doors to let out life.
{Beaumont and Fletcher.
Then 'tis our best, since thus ordained to die,
To make a virtue of necessity. {Dry den.
I have been dying for years, now I shall bo-
gin to live.
{Last words of Jas. Drummond Burns.
Oh, God ! it is a fearful thing
To see the human soul take wing
In any shape, in any mood. [Byron.
And, as she looked around, she saw how
Death, the consoler,
Laying his hand upon many a heart, had
healed it forever. {Longfellow.
Thou know'st 'tis common ; all that live must
die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
{Shakespeare.
Leaves have their time to fall,
And flowers to wither at the north wind's
breath,
And stars to set — but all,
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, oh !
Death. {Mrs. Hemans.
Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow.
( Young.
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ^
Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of
death? {Gray.
We count it death to falter, not to die.
{Slmomdes.
There are slave drivers quietly whipt under-
ground.
There bookbinders, done up in boards are
fast bound.
There card-players wait till the last trump
be played,
There all the choice spirits get finally laid.
There the babe, that's unborn is supplied
with a berth.
There men without legs get their six feet of
earth.
There lawyers repose, each wrapt up in hi-s
case,
There seekers of office are sure of a place,
There defendant and plaintiff get equally
cast,
There shoemakers quietly stick to the last.
[Lowell.
To die is landing on some silent shore.
Where billows never break nor tempests
roar :
Ere well we feel the friendly stroke 'tis o'er.
( Oarth.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
{Gray.
«
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
795
Cowards die many times before their death ;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard.
It seems to me most strange that men should
fear ;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come, when it will come. {Shakespeare.
There is no flock, however watched and
tended,
But one dead lamb is there.
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended.
But has one vacant chair. {Longfellow.
One short sleep past, we wake eternally.
And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou
shalt die. (Donne.
The trumpet ! the trumpet ! the dead have
all heard ;
Lo the depths of the stone-cover'd charnels
are stirr'd ;
From the sea, from the land, from the south
and the north,
The vast generations of man are come forth.
{Milman.
How sleep the brave, who sink to rest.
By all their country's wishes blest !
******
By fairy hands their knell is sung,
By forms unseen their dirge is rung.
(Collins.
God's finger touched him and he slept.
( Tennyson.
Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom.
A shadow on those features fair and thin ;
And softly, from that hushed and darkened
room.
Two angels issued, where but one went in.
(Longfellow.
After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well ;
Treason has done his worst ; nor steel, nor
poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing.
Can touch him further. (Shakespeare.
Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er.
Dream of fighting fields no more ;
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking.
Morn of toil, nor night of waking. (Scott.
So live that when thy summons comes to
join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall
take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night.
Scourged to his dungeon ; but, eustain'd and
sooth'd
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one that draws the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
(Bryant.
DREAMS.
" Do you believe in dreams?'' ''Why, yes
and no.
When they come true, then I believe in
them ;
When they come false, I don't believe in
them." (Longfellow.
Dream after dream ensues ;
And still they dream that they shall still
succeed.
And still are disappointed. (Cowper.
Dreams are but interludes, which fancy
makes ;
When monarch Reason sleeps, this mimic
wakes. (Dryden.
'Twas but a dream, — let it pass, — let it vanish
like so many others !
What I thought was a flower, is only a weed,
and is worthless. (Longfellow.
Oh ! I have pass'd a miserable night.
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night.
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days.
(Shakespeare.
The fisher droppeth his net in the stream.
And a hundred streams are the same as
one ;
And the maiden dreameth her love-lit dream ;
And what is it all, when all is done ?
The net of the fi.^her the burden breaks,
And always the dreaming the dreamer wakes.
(Alice Gary.
796
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
My eyes make pictures when tliey are shut.
(Coleridge.
Sweet sleep be with us, one and all !
And if upon its stillness fall
The visions of a busy brain,
We'll have our pleasure o'er again,
To warm the heart, to charm the sight,
Gay dreams to all ! good night good night!
[Joanna Baillie.
EDUCATION.
Education is the only interest worthy the
deep, controlling anxiety of the thought-
ful man. ( Wendell Phillips.
Every person has two educations — one which
he receives from others, and one more
important which he gives himself.
( Gibbon.
Education commences at the mother's knee,
and every word spoken within the hear-
say of little children tends towards the
formation of character. {Hosea Ballou.
True ease in writing comes from art, not
chance.
As those move easiest who have learn'd to
dance. {Po2:)e.
Instruction ends in the schoolroom, but edu-
cation ends only with life. A child is
given to the universe to educate.
( Robertson.
Do not ask if a man has been through college.
Ask if a college has been through him.
( Chapin.
There is nothing more frightful than for a
teacher to know only what his scholars
are intended to know. {Goethe.
Histories make men wise ; poets, witty; the
mathematics, subtile ; natural philoso-
phy, deep; morals, grave; logic and
rhetoric, able to contend. (Bacon.
Give a boy address and accomplishments, and
you give him the mastery of palaces and
fortunes where he goes. lie has not the
trouble of earning or owning them ; they
Bolicit him to enter and possess.
( Emerson.
The Self-Educated are marked by stubborn
peculiarities. Isaac Disraeli.
How much a dunce, that has been sent to
roam,
Excels a dunce, that has been kept at home.
( Cowper.
Instruction does not prevent waste of time
or mistakes ; and mistakes themselves
are often the best teachers of all.
( Froude.
Uneasy lie the heads of all that rule,
His worst of all whose kingdom is a school.
(Holmes.
When I am forgotten, as I shall be.
And sleep in dull cold marble,
Say, I taught thee. (Shakespeare.
The mother's heart is the child's sch-oolroom.
(Beecher.
Learn to live, and live to learn,
Ignorance like a fire doth burn.
Little tasks make large returns.
(Bayard Taylor.
'Tis education forms the common mind,
Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.
(Pope.
Better a little chiding than a great deal of
heartbreak. (Shakespeare.
Education is the cheap defence of nations.
(Edmund Burke.
Educate men without religion and you make
them but clever devils.
(Duke of Wellington.
And say to mothers what a holy charge
Is theirs — with what a kingly power their
love
Might rule the fountains of the newborn
mind. (Mrs. Sigournei/.
EXPERIENCE.
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools
will learn in no other. (Erankliyi.
To Truth's house there is a single door.
Which is Experience He teaches best.
Who feels the hearts of all men in his breast,
And knows their strength or weakness
through his own. (Bayard Taylor.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
797
To most men experience is like the stern
lights of a ship, which illumine only the
track it has passed. {Coleridge.
All is but lip wisdom which wants experi-
ence. {Sir P. Sidney.
Nor deem the irrevocable Past,
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its wrecks, at last
To something nobler we attain.
{Longfellow.
We read the past by the light of the present,
and the forms vary as the shadows fall,
or as the point of vision alters. {Froude.
In her experience all her friends relied,
Heaven was her help and nature was her
guide. {Orabbe.
The finest poetry was first experience.
{Emerson.
What man would be wise, let him drink of
the river
That bears on its waters the record of
Time;
A message to him every wave can deliver
To teach him to creep till he knows how
to climb. {John Boyle O'Reilly.
It is some compensation for great evils that
they enforce great lessons. {Bovee.
I think there are stores laid up in our hu-
man nature that our understandings can
make no complete inventory of
{George Eliot.
We gain
Justice, judgment, with years, or el'^e years
are in vain. {Owen Meredith.
Time will teach thee soon the truth.
There are no birds in last year's nest.
{Longfellow.
The child, through stumbling, learns to walk
erect Every fall is a fall upward.
( Theodore Parker.
Only so much do I know, as I have lived.
{Emerson.
Experience is no more transferable in morals
than in art. {Froude.
Do not cheat thy Heart, and tell her,
" Grief will pass away,
Hope for fairer times in future,
And forget to-day."
Tell her, if you will, that sorrow
Need not come in vain ;
Tell her that the lesson taught her
Far outweighs the pain.
{Adelaide A. Proctor.
Behold, we live through all things,— famine,
thirst.
Bereavement, pain ; all grief and misery.
All woe and sorrow ; life inflicts its worst
On soul and body,— but we cannot die
Though we be sick, and tired, and faint, and
worn, —
Lo, all things ()an be borne !
{Elizabeth Akers.
Making all futures fruits of all the pasts.
{Edwin Arnold.
A face that had a story to tell. How dififer-
ent faces are in this particular ! Some
of them speak not. They are books in
which not a line is written, save perhaps
a date. {Longfellow.
Walls must get the weather stain
Before they grow the ivy. {E. B. Browning.
And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art,
That readest this brief psalm.
As one by one thy hopes depart,
Be resolute and calm.
fear not in a world like this.
And thou shalt know ere long —
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong. {Longfellow.
FAITH.
Faith builds a bridge across the gulf of death,
To break the shock blind nature cannot shun
And lands thought smoothly on the farther
shore. ( Yonug.
There is no strength in unbelief Even the
unbelief of what is false is no source of
might. It is the truth shining from be-
hind that gives the strength to disbelieve.
{Oeorge MacDonald.
^98
GEM8 FOR THE FIRESIDE.
Faith is not reason's labor, but repose.
{ Young.
What good I see humbly I seek to do,
And live obedient to the law, in trust
That what will come, and must come, shall
come well. {Edwin Arnold.
But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.
{Moore.
The practical effect of a belief is the real test
of its soundness. {Fronde.
When in God thou believest, near God thou
wilt certainly be ! {Leland.
thou, whose days are yet all spring,
Faith, blighted once is past retrieving;
Experience is a dumb, dead thing;
The victory's in believing. {Lowell.
For forms of government let fools contest;
Whate'er is best administer'd is best;
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight.
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right,
In faith and hope, the world will disagree,
But all mankind's concern is charity;
All must be false, that thwarts this one great
end;
And all of God that bless mankind, or mend.
{Pope.
"Orthodoxy, my Lord," said Bishop War-
burton, in a whisper, — "orthodoxy is
my doxy, — heterodoxy is another man's
doxy.'' {Joseph Priestly.
Dare to look up to God and say, Deal with
me in the future as Thou wilt ; I am of
the same mind as Thou art ; I am Thine ;
I refuse nothing that pleases Thee ; lead
me where Thou wilt; clothe me in any
dress Thou choosest. {Epictetus.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe rae, than in half the creeds.
( Tennyson.
Every one cleaves to the doctrine he has
happened upon, as to a rock against
which he has been thrown by tempest
[Oicero.
Faith is a higher faculty than reason.
{Bailey.
To add greater honours to his age
Than man could give him, he died fearing
God. {Shakespeare.
To-morrow I the mysterious unknown guest,
Who cries to me : " Remember Barmecide,
And tremble to be happy with the rest."
And I make answer : " I am satisfied ;
I dare not ask; I know not what is best ;
God hath already said what shall betide."
[Longfellow.
There is one inevitable criterion of judgment
touching religious faith in doctrinal
matters. Can you reduce it to practice ?
If not, have none of it. {Hosea Ballon.
Faith is the subtle chain
Which binds us to the Infinite : the voice
Of a deep life within, that will remain
Until we crowd it thence.
{Elizabeth Oakes Smith.
Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers :
Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.
( Tennyson.
To will what God doth will, that is the only
science
That gives us any rest. {Malherbe.
They that deny a God destroy man's nobility,
for certainly man is of kin to the beasts
by his body ; and if he be not of kin to
God by his spirit, he is a base and igno-
ble creature. {Bacon.
Better had they ne'er been born,
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.
{Scott.
Through this dark and stormy night
Faith beholds a feeble light
Up the blackness streaking ;
Knowing God's own time is best,
In a patient hope I rest
For the full day-breaking !
( Whittier.
We shall be made truly wise if we be made
content ; content, too, not only with
what we can understand, but content
with what we do not understand — the
habit of mind which theologians call —
and rightly— faith in God.
( Chas. Klngsley.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
799
"Patience!" . . . have faith, and thy
prayer will be answered ! {Longfellow.
Surely at last, far off, sometimes, somewhere,
The veil would lift for his deep-searching
eyes,
The road would open for his painful feet,
That should be won for which he lost the
world,
And Death might find him conqueror of
death. {Edwin Arnold.
Behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping
watch above his own. {Lowell.
FAME.
What is the end of Fame? 'tis but to fill
A certain portion of uncertain paper:
Some liken it to climbing up a hill, ■
Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in
vapor ;
For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes
kill,
And bards burn what they call their " mid-
night taper,"
To have, when the original is dust,
A name, a wretched picture, and worse
bust. [Byron.
Fame, we may understand, is no sure test of '
merit, but only a probability of such : it
is an accident, not a property of a man.
{Carlyle.
The mightier man, the mightier is the thing
That makes him honor'd, or begets him hate ;
For greatest scandal waits on greatest state.
{Shakespeare.
Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in
spouts the swallows huild. [Longfellow.
I awoke one morning and found myself fa-
mous. {Byron.
Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end
and aim of weak ones. ( C. C. Colton.
And though the warrior's sun has set.
Its light shall linger round us yet, —
Bright, radiant, blest. {Don Jorge Manrique.
The world knows the worst of me, and I can
say that I am better than my fame.
{Schiller.
Who fears not to do ill yet fears the name,
And, free from conscience, is a slave to fame.
{Denham.
Nor fame I slight, nor for her favors call ;
She comes unlooked for, if she comes at all.
{Pope.
He lives in fame, that died in virtue's cause.
{Shakespeare.
Reputation being essentially contemporane-
ous, is always at the mercy of the Envi-
ous and the Ignorant. But Fame, whose
very birth is posthumous, aud which is
only known to exist by the echo of its
footsteps through congenial minds, can
neither be increased nor diminished by
any degree of wilfulness. {Mrs. Jameson.
He left the name, at which the world grew
pale,
To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
{Sam'l Johnson.
Money will buy money's worth, but the thing
men call fame what is it ? {Carlyle.
Were not this desire of fame very strong, the
difficulty of obtaining it, and the danger
of losing it when obtained, would be suf-
ficient to deter a man from so vain a
pursuit. {Addison.
Seven cities warr'd for Homer being dead.
Who living had no roofe to shroud his head.
{ Thos. Hey wood.
Reputation is a most idle and most false im-
position ; oft got without merit, and lost
without deserving. {Shakespeare.
Good-will, like a good name, is got by many
actions, and lost by one. {Jeffrey.
Unblemish'd let me live, or die unknown ;
Oh grant an honest fame, or grant me none!
{Pope.
The silent organ loudest chants
The master's requiem. {Emefson.
Fame is the echo of actions, resounding them
to the world, save that the echo repeats
only the last part, but fame relates all,
and often more than all. {Fuller.
800
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
The sweetest of all sounds is praise.
( Xenophon.
Who pants for glory, finds but short repose ;
A breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows.
{Fope.
Glory is like a circle in the water.
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
Till, by broad spreading, it disperse to naught.
(Shakespeare.
The sweet remembrance of the just
Shall flourish when he sleeps in dust.
( Tate and Brady.
The man is vain who writes for praise ;
Praise no man e'er deserved who sought no
more. ( Young.
Oh Fame !— if I e'er took delight in thy
'Twas less for the sake of thy high sounding
phrases.
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one
discover
She thought that I was not unworthy to love
her. {Byron.
Scarcely two hundred years back can Fame
recollect articulately at all; and there
she but maunders and mnmhles.^Carlyle.
After your death you were better have a bad
epitaph, than their ill report while you
lived. [Shakespeare.
Good men will yield thee praise ; then slight
the rest;
'Tis best, praise-worthy, to have pleased the
best. {Capt. John Smith.
The love of praise, howe'er conceal'd hy art.
Reigns more or less, and glows in ev'ry heart.
( Young.
Great men die and are forgotten,
Wise men speak ; their words of wisdom
Perish in the ears that hear them.
{Longfellow.
FASHION.
New customs.
Though they be never so ridiculous,
Nay, let 'em be unmanly, yet are followed.
{Shakespeare.
Every generation laughs at the old fashions,
but follows religiously the new.
( Tfioreau.
Your supper ia like the Hidalgo's dinner:
very little meat, and a great deal of ta-
ble-cloth. {Longfellow.
I see; that the fashion wears out
more apparel than the man.
{Shakespeare.
Every fancy you consult, consult your purse.
{Franklin.
Nothing is thought rare
Which is not new, and follow'd; yet we know
That what was worn some twenty years ago
Comes into grace again.
{Beaumont and Fletcher.
Be not the first by whom the new are tryd,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. {Fopc_
There can be no kernel in this light nut; the
soul of this man is in his clothes.
{Shakespeare.
FATE AND FORTUNE.
Fate is the friend of the good, the guide of
the wise, the tyrant of the foolish, the
enemy of the bad. ( W. R. Alger.
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads onto fortune,
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
{Shakespeare.
Heaven from all creatures hides the book of
Fate. {Pope.
Except wind stands as never it stood.
It is an ill wind turns none to good. ( Tusser.
A woman's lot is made for her by the love
she accepts. {George Eliot.
I have touch'd the highest point of all my
greatness:
And, from that full meridian of my glory,
I haste now to my setting. {Shakespeare.
What a glorious thing human life is
and how glorious man's destiny.
{Longfellow.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
801
The future works out great men's destinies;
The present is enough for common souls,
Who, never looking forward, are indeed
Mere clay wherein the footprints of their age
Are petrified forever. {Lowell.
For fortune's wheel is on the turn,
And some go up and some go down.
{Mary F. Tucker.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene.
The dark unfathom'd caves of Ocean bear.
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
{Gray.
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate.
{Pope.
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will. {Shakespeare.
Pitch a lucky man into the Nile, says the
Arabian proverb, and he will come up
with a fish in his mouth. ( Willis.
On the pinnacle of fortune man does not long
stand firm. {Goethe.
Who shall shut out Fate ? {Edwin Arnold.
Men are the sport of circumstances, when
The circumstances seem the sport of men.
{Byron,
All other doubts, by time let them be clear'd ;
Fortune brings in some boats, that are not
steer'd. {Shakespeare.
Some day, some day of days, threading the
street,
With idle, heedless pace,
Unlooking for such grace,
I shall behold your face !
Some day, some day of days, thus may we
meet. {Nora Perry.
Blind to former, as to future fate.
What mortal knows his pre-existent state?
{Pope.
The irrevocable Hand
That opes the year's fair gate, doth ope and
shut
The portals of our earthly destinies ;
We walk through blindfold, and the noiseless
doors
Close after us, forever. {D. M. Mulock.
A man may fish with the worm that hath eat
of a king ; and eat of the fish that hath
fed of that worm. {Shakespeare.
With equal pace, impartial fate
Knocks at the palace as the cottage gate.
{Francis.
And out of darkness came the hands
That reach thro' nature, moulding men.
( Tennyson.
Fate has carried me
'Mid the thick arrows: I will keep my stand.
Not shrink and let the shaft pass by my
breast
To pierce another. ( George Eliot.
But yesterday, the word of Caesar might
Have stood against the world ; now lies he
there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.
( Shakespeare.
Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to im-
portune ;
He had not the method of making a fortune.
Gray.
Fortune, men say, doth give too much to
many,
But yet she never gave enough to any.
{Sir John Harrington.
Fortune comes well to all that comes not late.
{Longfellow.
Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet
they grind exceeding small ;
Though with patience He stands waiting,
with exactness grinds He all.
{Friederich von Logau.
But, vain boast.
Who can control his fate. {Shakespeare.
Turn, turn my wheel ! turn round and round
Without a pause, without a sound ;
So spins the flying world away !
This clay, well mixed with marl and sand.
Follows the motion of my hand ;
For some must follow, and some command.
Though all are made of clay !
(Longfellow.
I am not now in fortune's power,
He that is down can fall no lower. {Butler,
802
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
Oh blindness to the future ! kindly giv'n,
Tliat each may till the circle niark'd by
heaven. (Pope.
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.
[Shakespeare.
No living man can send me to the shades
Before my time ; no man of woman born,
Coward or brave, can shun his destiny.
(Bryant.
The heart is its own fate. (Bailey.
Sometimes an hour of Fate's serenest weather,
Strikes through our changeful sky its com-
ing beams ;
Somewhere above us, in elusive ether,
Waits the fulfilment of our dearest dreams.
(Bayard Taylor-
Man proposes, but God disposes.
( Thomas cl Kempis.
Ships that pass in the night, and speak each
other in passing,
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in
the darkness :
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one
another,
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again
and a silence. (Longfellow
Some are born great, some achieve greatness,
And some have greatness thrust upon them.
(Shakespeare.
We walk amid the currents of actions left
undone,
The germs of deeds that wither before they
see the sun.
For every sentence uttered a million more
are dumb :
Men's lives are chains of chances, and History
their sun. (Bayard Taylor.
Who thinks that Fortune cannot change her
mind.
Prepares a dreadful jest for all mankind,
And who stands safest? tell me, is it he
That spreads and swells in puff'd prosperity,
Or blest with little, whose preventing care
In peace provides fit arms against a War.
(Pope.
Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate,
Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate.
(Sam I Johnson.
'Tis writ on Paradise's gate,
" Woe to the dupe that yields to Fate!"
(Hafiz.
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men,
Gang aft a-gley.
And leave us nought but grief and pain.
For promised joy. (Burns.
Two lives that once part, are as ships that
divide
When, moment on moment, there rushes be-
tween
The one and the other, a sea ; —
Ah, never can fall from the days that have
been
A gleam on the years that shall be !
(Bulwer.
All are architects of Fate
Working in these walls of Time ;
Some with massive deeds and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.
(Longfellow.
Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness !
This is the state of man ; To-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope ; to-morrow blos-
soms,
And bears his blushing honors thick upon
him:
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost ;
And, when he thinks, good easy man, full
surely
His greatness is a ripening, — nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do. (Shakespeare.
FRIENDSHIP.
Friendship is the holiest of gifts ;
God can bestow nothing more sacred upon
us !
It enhances every joy, mitigates every pain.
Everyone can have a friend,
Who himself knows how to be a friend.
( Tiedge.
Life is to be fortified by many friendships.
To love and to be loved is the greatest
happiness of existence. (Sydney Smith.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
803
Every friend is to the other a sun, and a
sunflower also. He attracts and follows.
{Richter.
If we would build on a sure foundation in
friendship, we must love our friends for
their sakes rather than for our own.
{Charlotte Bronte.
Friendship is constant in all other things.
Save in the office and affairs of love ;
Therefore, all hearts in love use their own
tongues ;
Let every eye negotiate for itself.
And trust no agent. {Shakespeare.
Friendship, of itself an holy tie.
Is made more sacred by adversity. {Dryden.
Give me the avowed, the erect, and manly foe ;
Bold I can meet — perhaps may turn his
blow ;
But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath
can send.
Save, save, oh ! save me from the candid
friend. {George Canning.
No friend's a friend till he shall prove a
friend. {Beaumont and Fletcher.
Dear is my friend — yet from my foe, as from
my friend, comes good ;
My friend shows what I can do, and my foe
what I should. (Schiller.
A true friend is forever a friend.
{George MacDonald.
Friends are like melons. Shall I tell you
why?
To find one good, you must a hundred try.
{Claude Menuet.
He who has a thousand friends has not a
friend to spare,
And he who has one enemy shall meet him
everywhere. {Ali Ben Abu Taleb.
For my boyhood's friend hath fallen, the pil-
lar of my trust,
The true, the wise, the beautiful, is sleeping
in the dust. {Hillard.
What good man is not his own friend '
{Sophocles.
There are plenty of acquaintances in the
world, but very few real friends.
( Chinese Moral Maxims.
A foe to God was ne'er true friend to man,
Some sinister intent taints all he does.
( Young.
Sweeter none than voice of fiiithful friend ;
Sweet always, sweetest beard in loudest storm.
Some I remember, and will ne'er forget.
{Pollok.
Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first prin-
ciples. Have no friends not equal to
yourself.
( Confucius.
Who heart-whole, pure in faith, once written
friend,
In life and death are true, unto the end!
{John Eslcn Cooke
Friendship above all ties does bind the heart
And faith in friendship is the noblest part.
( Earle.
Friendship, like love, is but a name,
Unless to one you stint the flame.
The child, whom many fathers share,
Haih seldom known a father's care.
'Tis thus in friendships: who depend
On many, rarely find a friend. {Gay.
For tho' the faults were thick as dust in va-
cant chambers, I could trust your kind-
ness. {Tennyson.
He that will lose his friend for a jest, de-
serves to die a beggar by the bargain.
{Fuller.
True friendship is like sound health, the val-
ue of it is seldom known until it be lost.
(C. C. Colton.
All are friends in heaven, all faithful friends ;
And many friendships in the days of time
Begun, are lasting here, and growing still.
{Pollok.
True happiness
Consists not in the multitude of friends.
But in the worth and choice. Nor would I
have
Virtue a popular regard pursue :
Let them be good that love me, though but
few. {Ben Jonson.
804
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
f
'Tis sweet, as year by year we lose
Friends out of sight, in faith to muse
How grows in Paradise our store. {Keble.
Friendship is a wide portal, and sometimes
admits love. (Anna Katharine Oreen.
"Wal'r, my boy," replied the captain, "in
the Proverbs of Solomon you will find
the following words, ' May we never want
a friend in need, nor a bottle to give
him!' When found, make a note of."
{Dickens.
An open foe may prove a curse.
But a pretended friend is worse. {Go,y-
One faithful Friend is enough for a man's
self; 'tis much to meet with such an one,
yet we can't have too many for the sake
of others. {Bruyere.
First, on thy friend, deliberate with thyself;
Pause, ponder, sift ; not eager in the choice,
Nor jealous of the chosen ; fixing, fix ;
Judge before friendship, then confide till
death. ( Young.
No one is so accursed by fate.
No one so utterly desolate.
But some heart, though unknown,
unto his own. {Longfellow
Whatever the number of a man's friends,
there will be times in his life when he
has one too few ; but if he has only one
enemy, he is lucky indeed if he has not
one too many. {Bulivcr.
Great souls by instinct to each other turn,
Demand alliance, and in friendship burn.
{Addison.
Defend me from my friends, I can defend
myself from my enemies. [Shakespeare.
Whoever knows how to return a kindness he
has received, must be a friend above all
price. [Buckley.
Friends, if we be honest with ourselves.
We shall be honest, with each other.
[George MacDonald.
I have loved my friends, a" I do virtue,
My soul, my God. [Sir Thomas Browne.
The highest compact we can make with our
fellow, is,— Let there be truth between
us two forevermore It is
sublime to feel and say of another, I
need never meet, or speak, or write to
him ; we need not reinforce ourselves, or
send tokens of remembrance ; I rely on
him as on myself; if he did thus or thus,
I know it was right. [Emerson.
False friends are like our shadows, keeping
close to us while we walk in the sun-
shine, but leaving us the instant we cross
into the shade. [Bovee.
Our chief want in life, is, somebody who
shall make us do what we can. This is
the service of a friend. With him we are
easily great." There is a sublime attrac-
tion in him to whatever virtue is in us.
How he flings wide the doors of exist-
ence ! What questions, we ask of him !
what an understanding we have ! how
few words are needed ! It is the only
real society. [Emerson.
There is no man so friendless but what he can
find a friend sincere enough to tell him
disagreeable truths. [Bulwer.
Come back ! ye friendships long departed !
That like o'erflowing streamlets started,
And now are dwindled, one by one,
To stony channels in the sun !
Come back ! ye friends, whose lives are ended,
Come back, with all that light attended.
Which seemed to darken and decay
When ye arose and went away !
[Longfellow.
All the means of action —
The shapeless mass, the materials —
Lie everywhere about us. What we need
j Is the celestial fire to change the flint
Into transparent crystal, bright and clear.
That fire is genius. [Longfellow.
Talent is some one faculty unusually devel-
oped; genius commands all the faculties.
{F. H. Hedge.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
805
Genius can never despise labor.
{Abel Stevens.
Humor has justly been regarded as the finest
perfection of poetic genius. {Carlyle.
Genius is essentially creative; it bears the
character of the individual who pos-
{ Madame de Stael.
Genius must be born, and never can be taught.
{Dry den.
Genius and its rewards are briefly told :
A liberal nature and a niggard doom,
A difficult journey to a splendid tomb.
{Forster.
Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.
{Hazlitt.
As diamond cuts diamond, and one hone
smooths a second, all the parts of in-
tellect are whetstones to each other ; and
genius, which is but the result of their
mutual sharpening is character too.
{Bartol.
Fortune has rarely condescended to be the
companion of genius. {Isaac Disraeli.
Genius inspires this thirst for fame ; there is
no blessing undesired by those to whom
Heaven gave the means of winning it.
{Madame de Stael.
Genius finds its own road and carries its own
lamp. ( Wilmot.
Every man who observes vigilantly and re-
solves steadfastly grows unconsciously
into genius. {Bulwcr Lytton.
{Buffon.
G-nius is only great patience.
Father of All ! in ev'ry Age,
In ev'ry clime ador'd,
By Saint, by Savage, and by Sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord ! {Pope.
Open, ye heavens, your living doors ! let in
The great Creator, from his work returned
Magnificent, his sis days' work, a world. }
{Milton, j
Thou, my all !
My theme ! my inspiration ! and my crown I
My strength in age ! my rise in low estate !
My soul's ambition, pleasure, wealth ! my
world !
My light in darkness ! and my life in death !
My boast through time ! bliss through eter-
nity !
Eternity, too short to speak thy praise !
Or fathom thy profound love to man !
( Young.
Twas much, that man was made like God
before ;
But, that God should be made like man, much
more. {Donne.
Heaven is above all yet ; there sits a Judge,
That no King can corrupt. {Shakespeare.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole.
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
{Pope.
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform ;
He plants his footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm. {Cowper.
" God !" sing, ye meadow-streams, with glad-
some voice !
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like
sounds !
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow.
And in their perilous fall shall thunder
"God!" {Coleridge.
HAPPINESS.
To be strong
Is to be happy. {Longfellow.
No longer I follow a sound,
No longei; a dream I pursue ;
happiness not to be found,
Unattainable treasure. Adieu. {Qnuper.
The long days are no happier than the short
ones. {Bailey.
A light heart lives long. {Shakespeare.
No eye to watch and no tongue to wound us.
All earth forgot, and all heaven around us.
{Moore.
80G
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
Fix'd to no spot is Happiness sincere;
'Tis nowhere to be found, or ev'rywhere ;
'Tis never to be bought, but always free.
{Pope.
To be happy is not the purpose for which you
were placed in this world. [Froude.
The rays of happiness, like those of light, are
colorless when unbroken. [Longfellow.
Mankind are always happier for having been
happy ; so that,if you make them happy
now, you make them happy twenty
years hence by the memory of it.
(Sydney Smith.
Bliss in possession will not last ;
Remember'd joys are never past ;
At once the fountain, stream, and sea.
They were, — they are, — they yet shall be.
(Montgomery.
The joy late coming la
(Lewis J. Bates.
A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any
market. (Lamb.
How bitter a thing it is to look into happi-
ness through another man's eyes.
Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centres in the mind.
( Goldsmith.
The most happy man is he who knows how
to bring into relation the end and begin-
ning of his life. {Goethe.
Joys too exquisite to last,
And yet more exquisite when past.
(Montgomery.
From the crown of his head to the sole of
his foot, he is all mirth ; he hath twice
or thrice cut Cupid's bow string, and the
little hangman dare not*shoot at him;
he hath a heart as sound as a bell, and
his tongue is the clapper ; for what his
heart thinks, his tongue speaks.
(Shakespeare.
Pleasure can be supported by illusion, but
happiness rests upon truth. (Chamfort.
Happiness is a ball after which we run
wherever it rolls, and we push it with
our feet when it stops. ( Goethe.
Jog on, jog on the foot-path way
And merrily hent the stile-a ;
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.
(Shakespeare.
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He, who can call to-day his own ;
He, who secure within, can say.
To. morrow do thy worst, for 1 have lived to-
day. (Dryden.
HEAVEN.
Earth may be darkness; Heaven will give
thee light. (Alice Bradley Neal.
World ! if to thee, sin-stained, such lavish
charms are given.
How can a human thought conceive the
spirit joys of heaven !
(Elizabeth F. Swift.
When the shore is won at last.
Who will count the billows past ? (Keble.
The hasty multitude
Admiring enter'd ; and the work some praise
And some the architect: his hand was known
In heaven by many a tower'd structure high,
Where scepter'd angels held their residence,
And sat as princes. (Milton.
Attempt not to fathom the secrets of heaven.
But gratefully use what to thee is here given :
For none have returned from that realm of
bliss,
To tell how those fared who have prayed
much in this. ( Omar Khayyam,
No man saw the building of the New Jeru-
salem, the workmen crowded together,
the unfinished walls and unpaved street ;
no man heard the clink of trowel and
pickaxe; it descended out of heaven
from God. (Seeley.
We see but dimly through the mists and
vapors ;
Amid these earthly damps
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
May be Heaven's distant lamps.
(Longfellow.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GliEAT THINKERS.
807
A broad and ample road, whose dust is cold
And pavement stars, as stars to thee appear,
Sfiem in the galaxy, that milky way.
{Milton.
Eye hath not seen it, my gentle boy ;
Ear hath not heard its deep songs of joy ;
Dreams can not picture a world so fair —
Sorrow and death may not enter there ;
Time doth not breathe on its fadeless bloom.
For beyond the clouds, and beyond the tomb.
It is there, it is there, my child !
(Mrs. Hemans.
On every mountain height
Is rest. (Goethe.
Oh, some seek bread— no more — life's mere
subsistence.
And some seek wealth and ease— the common
quest ;
And some seek fame, that hovers in the dis-
tance ;
But all are seeking rest. (Langbridge.
The commander says Rest ! and the weary
soldier stacks his arms ; so will God give
his people eternal rest, and they shall
stack their arms in Heaven.
(Niblock.
The strength of a nation, especially of a re-
publican nation, is in the intelligent and
well-ordered homes of the people.
(Afrs. Sigourney.
At night returning, every labor sped.
He sits him down the monarch of a shed ;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round survej's
His children's looks that brighten at the
blaze ;
While his lov'd partner, boastful of her hoard, |
Displays her cleanly platter on the board. |
( Goldsmith. {
The house of every one is to him as his cas- i
tie and fortress, as well for his defence
against injury and violence, as for his
repose. (Sir Edward Coke.
He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who
finds peace in his home. (Goethe.
54
Home is the resort
Of love, of joy, of peace, and plenty; where,
Supporting and supported, polished friends
And dear relations mingle into bliss.
( Thomson.
By the fireside still the light is shining.
The children's arms round the paienta twin-
ing.
From love so sweet, who would roam ?
Be it ever so homely, home is home.
(B. M. Mulock.
There is no place like homo.
(/. Howard Payne.
HONOR.
Take honor from me, and my life is done.
(Shakespeare.
Glory is sweet when our heart says to us that
the wreath of honor ought to grace our
head. ( Krummacher.
The sense of honor is of so fine and delicate
a nature, that it is only to be met with
in minds which are naturally noble, or
in such as have been cultivated by great
examples, or a refined education.
(Addison.
Our own heart, and not other men's opinions,
forms our true honor. (Coleridge.
A scar nobly got, or a noble scar, is a good
livery of honor, (Shakespeare.
Honor and fortune exist for him who always
recognizes the neighborhood of the great,
always feels himself in the presence of
high causes. (Emerson.
His honor rooted in dishonor stood,
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.
( Tennyson.
When honor comes to you be ready to take
it;
But reach not to seize it before it is near.
(John Boyle O'Reilly.
Honors soften fatigue. It is easier riding in a
gilded and embossed saddle. Atlas, while
he sustains the world upon his shoulders,
IS himself sustained by the admiration
his feat excites. (Bovee.
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
Better to die ten thousand deaths,
Than wound my honor. {Addison.
HOPE.
He who hath health, hath hope, and he who
hath hope hath everything.
Despondency is ingratitude. Hope is God's
worship. {Beecher.
The setting of a great hope is like the set-
ting of the sun. The brightness of our
life is gone. The shadows of the evening
fall around us, and the world seems but
a dim reflection, itself a broader sha-
dow, {Longfellow.
Hope against hope, and ask till ye receive.
{Montgomery.
Where there is no hope there can be no en-
deavor. [Samuel Johnson.
Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day,
Live till to-morrow, will have pass'd away.
{Cowper.
In all my wanderings through this world of
care,
In all my griefs— and God has given my
share —
I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown.
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down.
{Goldsmith.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast :
Man never is but always to be blest. ( Fope.
Auspicious Hope ! in thy sweet garden grow
Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe.
{Campbell.
Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope without an object cannot live.
( Coleridge.
No hope so bright but is the beginning of its
own fulfilment. {Emerso7i.
'Tis expectation makes a blessing dear ;
Heaven were not heaven, if we knew what
it were. {Suckling.
Races, better than we, have leaned on her
wavering promise,
Having naught eke but Hope.
{Longfellow.
For hope is but the dream of those that wake.
{Prior.
Behold, we know not anything ;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At la?t — far off— at last, to all —
And every winter change to spring.
( Tennyson.
Be still, sad heart ! and cease repining ;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall.
Some days must be dark and dreary.
{Longfellow.
IMMORTALITY.
It must be so — Plato thou reasonest well ! —
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond
desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread, and inward
horror.
Of falling into nought ? Why shrinks the
soul
Back on herself and startles at destruction ?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us ;
'Tis Heaven itself that points oul an hereafter
And intimates Eternity to man. [Addison.
We are born for a higher destiny than that of
earth ; there is a realm where the rain-
bow never fades, where the stars will be
spread before us like islands that slumber
on the ocean, and where the beings that
pass before us like shadows will stay in
our presence forever. {Bulwer.
There is nothing strictly immortal, but immor-
tality. Whatever hath no beginning
may be confident of no end.
{Sir Tliomas Browne.
Thy eternal summer shall not fade.
[Shakespeare.
Ah Christ, that it were possible
For one short hour to see
The souls we loved, tliat they might tell us
What and where they be. ( Tennyson.
If there was no future life, our souls would
not thirst for it. (lachter-
LIVlNCr THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
809
The stars shall fade away, the snn himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in
years ;
But thou shall flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,
The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.
{Addison.
I feel my immortality oversweep all pains,
all tears, all time, all fears, — and peal,
like the eternal thunders of the deep,
into my ears this truth, — thou livest for-
ever ! (Byron.
INFLUENCE.
So when a great man dies,
For years beyond our ken,
The light he leaves behind him lies
Upon the paths of men. {Longfellow.
I want to help you to grow as beautiful as
God meant you to be when he thought
of you first. {George Mac Donald.
Example has more followers than reason.
We unconsciously imitate what pleases
us, and insensibly approximate to the
characters we most admire. In this way,
a generous habit of thought and of action
carries with it an incalculable influence.
{Bovee.
Blessed influence, of one true loving human
soul on another. {George Eliot.
Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away.
{Byron.
The work an unknown good man has done is
like a vein of water flowing hidden
underground, secretly making the ground
green. {Carlyle.
Each man is a hero and an oracle to some-
body, and to that person whatever he
says has an enhanced value. {Emerson.
No nobler feeling than this, of admiration for
one higher than himself, dwells in the
breast of man. It is to this hour, and
at all hours, the vivifying influence in
man's life. ( Carlyle.
I am a part of all that I have met.
{Tennyson.
§0
Those that think must govern those that toil.
( Goldsmith.
No action, whether foul or fair, ^.^ ,
Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere Y^ ry y-^^
A record, written by fingers ghostly, J I o ' '
As a blessing or a curse, and mostly i^.j! — ^^"7"^^
In the greater weakness or greater strength" ' ^^ — ^
Of the acts which follow it. {Longfellow.
may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence ; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self.
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night
like stars.
And with their mild persistence urge man's
search
To vaster issues. {George Eliot.
INTELLECT.
'lis with our judgments as our watches ; none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
{Pope.
The hand that follows intellect can achieve.
{Michael Angela.
It is no proof of a man's understanding to be
able to confirm whatever he pleases ; but
to be able to discern that what is true is
true, and that what is false is false ; this
is the mark and character of intelligence.
( Emerson.
The more we know of any one ground of
knowledge, the farther we see into the
general domains of intellect.
{Leigh Hunt.
There are some mind? of which we can say,
they make light; and for others only,
they are warm. {Joubert.
Mind unemployed is mind unenjoyed.(£ove€.
Not Hercules
Could have knock'd out his brains, for he
had none. (Shakespeare.
Works of the intellect are great only by com-
parison with each other. (Emerson.
810
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
(Milton.
Minds which never rest are subject to many-
digressions. {Joubert.
The very might of the human intellect re-
veals its limits. [Madame Swetchine.
Each mind has its own method. (Emerson.
It requires a surgical opeiation to get a joke
well into a Scotch understanding
(Sidney Smith.
He that will not reason is a bigot ; he that
can not reason is a fool, and he that
dares not reason is a slave.
(Sir W. Drummond.
Glorious indeed is the world of God around
us, hut more glorious the world of God
within us. There lies the Land of Song ;
there lies the poet's native land.
(Longfellow.
JUSTICE.
Justice is the key-note of the world, and all
else is ever out of tune
( Theodore Parker.
The gods
Grow angry with your patience. 'Tis their
care,
And must be yours, that guilty men escape
not:
As crimes do grow, justice should rouse itself.
(Ben Jonson.
Be just in all thy actions; and if join'd with
those that are not, never change thy
mind. (Denham
Give the devil his due. (Dryden.
One of the Seven was wont to say : " That
laws were like cobwebs ; where the
small flies were caught, and the great
break through. (Bacon.
Our human laws are but the copies, more or
less imperfect, of the eternal laws, so far
as we can read them. (Froude.
"Where law ends, tyranny b^crins.
(Earl of Chatham.
This even handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our jioisoned
chalice
To our own lips. {Shakespeare.
Whatever is, is in its causes just. (Dry den.
Just laws are no restraint upon the freedom
of the good, for the good man desires
nothing which ajust law will interfere
with. (Froude.
Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally
justice triumphs. (Longfellow.
The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science, that
smiles in yer face while it picks yer
pocket ; and the glorious uncertainty of
it is of mair use to the professors than
the justice of it. (Macklin.
When the state is most corrupt, then the laws
are most multiplied. ( Tacitus.
What stronger breast-plate than a heart un-
tainted?
Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just ;
And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
(Shakespeare.
KINDNESS.
Kindness is the golden chain by which society
is bound together. ( Ooethe.
There is nothing so kingly as kindness and
nothing so noble as truth. (Alice Cary.
The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good
action by stealth, ajid to have it foimd
out by accident. (Lamb.
As "unkindness has no remedy at law,"
let its avoidance be with you a point of
honor. (Hosca Ballou.
Swift kindnesses are best ; a long delay
In kindness takes the kindness all away,
( Greek Anthology.
There's no dearth of kindness
In this world of ours ;
Only in our blindness
We gather thorns for flowers. (Masscv.
Feet that run on willing errands!
(Longfciiow.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
811
Kindness — a language which the dumb can
speak, and the deaf can understand.
{Bovee.
Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And e'en his failings lean'd to virtue's side.
( Goldsmith.
'Tis a little thing
To give a cup of water ; yet its draught
Of cool refreshment, drain'd by feverish lips
May give a thrill of pleasure to the frame
More exquisite than when nectarian juice
Renews the life of joy in happiest hours.
( Taljourd.
The cheapest of all things is kindness, its ex-
ercise requiring the least possible trouble
and self-sacrifice. " Win hearts,'' said
Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, " and you
have all men's hearts and purses."
{Samuel Smiles.
LABOR.
No man is born into the world, whose work
Is not born with him ; there is always work.
And tools to work withal, for those who will ;
And blessed are the horny hands of toil !
(Lowell.
" To be employed," said the poet Gray, " is to
be happy." " It is better to wear out
than rust out," said Bishop Cumberland.
" Have we not all eternity to rest in ?"
exclaimed Arnauld. {Samuel Smiles.
God helps them that help themselves.
{Sir Philip Sidney.
From labor there shall come forth rest.
( Longfellow.
Let no one till his death
Be called unhappy. Measure not the work
Until the day's out and the labor done.
{E. B. Browning.
Without Labor there were no Ease, no Rest,
so much as conceivable. ( Carlyle.
Such hath it been— shall be— beneath the sun
The many still must labor for the one.
( Byron.
Toil is the lot of all, and bitter woe
The fate of many. (Bryant.
When we build, let us think that wo build
(public edifices) for ever. Let it not be
for the present delight, nor for present
use alone, let it be such work as our de-
scendants will thank us for, and let us
think, as we lay stone on stone, that a
time is to come when those stones will
be held sacred because our hands have
touched them, and that men will say as
they look upon the labor and wrought
substan.es of them, " See ! this our fath-
ers did for us." (Ruskin.
Taste the joy
That springs from labor. (Longfellow.
Blessed is he who has found his work ; let
him ask no other blessedness. He has a
work, a life-purpose ; he has found it
and will follow it. (Carlyle.
And many strokes, though with a litile axe.
Hew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak.
(Shakespeare.
I worked with patience' whicli is almost pow-
er. (E. B. Browning.
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight.
But they, while their companions slept.
Were toiling upward in the night.
(Longfellow.
Light 18 the task when many share the toil.
(Bryant.
All true Work is sacred ; in all true Work,
were it but true hand-labor, there is
something of divinenoss. (Carlyle.
Whatever is worth doing at all is worth do-
ing well. (Earl of Chesterfield.
It is no man's business whether he has genius
or not ; work he must, whatever he is,
but quietly and steadily ; and the nat-
ural and unforced results of .«uch work
will be always the thing God meant him
to do, and will be his best. (Ruskin.
How far that little candle throws his beams
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
(Shakespeare.
812
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
It is not work that kills men; it is worry.
Work IS healthy; you can hardly put
more upon a man than he can bear.
Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not
the revolution that destroys the machin-
ery, but the friction. {Beccher.
LIBERTY.
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be
purchased at the price of chains and
slavery ? Forbid it, Almighty God ! I
know not what course others may take ;
but, as for me, give me liberty, or give
me death ! {Patrick Henry.
Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
( Cowper.
Know ye why the Cypress tree as freedom's
tree is known ?
Know ye why the Lily fair as freedom's
flower is shown ?
Hundred arms the Cypress has, yet never
plunder seeks ;
With ten well-developed tongues, the Lily
never speaks, {Omar Khayyam.
Freedom is only in the land of Dreams ;
And only blooms the Beautiful in Song !
{Schiller.
The love of liberty with life is given,
And life itself the inferior gift of Heaven.
{Dryclen.
Slaves cannot breathe in England : if their
lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free ;
They touch our country, and their shackles
fall. {Coivper.
Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves.
( GarricJc.
liberty ! liberty ! how many crimes are
committed in thy name !
{Madame Roland.
The mountains look on Marathon —
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone.
1 dreamed that Greece might still be free.
{Byron.
Tlie human race is in the best condition,
when it has the greatest degree of liberty.
{Dante.
Millions for defence, but not one cent, for
tribute. {Pinhiey.
He is the freeman, whom the truth makes free.
And all are slaves besides. ( Cowper.
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake ; the faith and morals
hold
Which Milton held. ( Wordsworth.
This nation, under God, shall have a new
birth of freedom, and that government
of the people, by the people, for the
people shall not perish from the earth,
{Lincoln.
Hereditary bondsmen ! know ye not who
would be free themselves must strike the
blow ? {Byron.
My angel— his name is Freedom —
Choose to be your king ;
He shall cut pathways, east and west.
And find you with this wing. {Emerson.
What is life ? 'Tis a delicate shell
Thrown up by Eternity's flow,
On Time's bank of quicksand to dwell
And a moment its loveliness show.
Gone back to its element grand
Is the billow that brought it on shore.
See ! another is washing the strand
And the beautiful shell is no more. {Anon.
Life is a pure flame, and we live by an in-
visible sun within us.
{Sir TJiomas Broivne.
We sleep, but the loom of life never stops ;
and the pattern which was weaving when
the sun went down is weaving when it
comes up to-morrow.
{Henry Ward Beccher.
So that my life be brave, what though not
long? {Drummond.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
813
A sacred burden is this life ye bear,
Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly,
Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly,
Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin,
But onward, upward, till the goal ye win.
{Francis Anne Kenihle.
That man lives twice that lives the first life
well. {Herrick.
There are two worlds ; the world that we can
measure with line and rule, and the
world that we feel with our hearts and
imaginations. {Leigh Hunt.
Sooner or later that which is now life shall
be poetry, and every fair and manly
trait shall add a richer strain to the
song. [Emerson.
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool,
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan ;
At fifty, chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve.
In all the magnanimity of thought;
Resolves, and re-resolves, then dies the same.
And why ? because he thinks himself im-
mortal.
All men think all men mortal but them-
selves. ( Young.
That life is long which answers life's great
end. ( Young.
Life lives only in success. {Bayard Taylor.
Thank God for life: life is not sweet always.
Hands may be heavy-laden, hearts care full.
Unwelcome nights follow unwelcome days,
And dreams divine end in wakening dull.
Still it is life, and life is cause for jiraise.
{Susan Coolidge.
'Tis not the whole of life to live;
Nor all of death to die. {Montgomery.
Life is a waste of wearisome hours,
Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns,
And the heart that is soonest awake to the
flowers.
Is always the first to be touch'd by the
thorns. {Moore.
Life let us cherish. {Nagelis. \
We have lived without poetry, music and art;
We may live without conscience, and live
without heart;
We may live without friends ; we may live
without books;
But civilized man cannot live without cooks
He may live without books,— what is knowl-
edge but grieving ?
Pie may live without hope,— what is hope but
deceiving?
He may live without love, — what is passion
but pining ?
But where is the man that can live without
dining? {Owen Meredith.
Life is a comedy to him who thinks, and a
tragedy to him who feels.
[Horace Walpole.
My life is like a stroll upon the beach.
[ Thoreau.
Life is the gift of God, and is divine.
( Longfellow.
The shaping our own life is our own work.
It IS a thing of beauty, it is a thing of
shame, as we ourselves make it. We
lay the corner and add joint to joint, we
give the proportion, we set the finish.
It may be a thing of beauty and of joy
forever. God forgive us if we prevent
our life from putting on its appointed
g^ory. ( Ware.
I know I am — that simple.st bliss
The millions of my brothers miss.
I know the fortune to be born.
Even to the meanest wretch thev scorn.
(Bayard Taylor.
Our life contains a thousand springs, and dies
if one be gone ;
Strnnge that a harp of thousand strings
Should keep in tune so long. ( Watts.
I came at morn — 'twas spring, I smiled,
The fields with green were clad ;
I walked abroad at noon,— and lo!
'Twas summer, — I was glad ;
I sate me down ; 'was autumn eve.
And I with sadnesi? wept ;
I laid me down at night, and then
'Twaa winter,— and I slept.
[Mary Pyper
812
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
It is not work that kills men ; it is worry.
Work IS healthy; you can hardly put
more upon a man than he can bear.
Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not
the revolution that destroys the machin-
ery, but the friction. {Beccher.
LIBERTY.
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be
purchased at the price of chains and
slavery ? Forbid it, Almighty God ! I
know not what course others may take ;
but, as for me, give me liberty, or give
me death ! {Patrick Henry.
Freedom has a thousand charms to show.
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
( Cowper.
Know ye why the Cypress tree as freedom's
tree is known ?
Know ye why the Lily fair as freedom's
flower is shown ?
Hundred arms the Cypress has, yet never
plunder seeks ;
With ten well-developed tongues, the Lily
never speaks. [Omar Khayyam.
Freedom is only in the land of Dreams ;
And only blooms the Beautiful in Song !
[Schiller.
The love of liberty with life is given,
And life itself the inferior gift of Heaven.
{Dry den.
Slaves cannot breathe in England : if their
lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free ;
They touch our country, and their shackles
full. [Cowper.
Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves.
( Garrick.
liberty ! liberty ! how many crimes are
committed in thy name!
{Madame Roland.
The mountains look on Marathon —
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone.
1 dreamed that Greece might still be free.
[Byron.
Tlie human race is in the best condition,
when it has the greatest degree of liberty.
[Dante.
Millions for defence, but not one cent, for
tribute. [Pinhicy.
He is the freeman, whom the truth makes free.
And all are slaves besides. [Cowper.
We must be free or die, who sjteak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake ; the faith and morals
hold
Which Milton held. ( Wordsworth.
This nation, under God, shall have a new
birlh of freedom, and that government
of the people, by the people, for the
people shall not perish from the earth.
[Lincoln.
Hereditary bondsmen ! know ye not who
would be free themselves must strike the
blow? [Byron.
My angel— his name is Freedom-
Choose to be your king ;
He shall cut pathways, east and west.
And find you with this wing. [Emerson.
What is life ? 'Tis a delicate shell
Thrown up by Eternity's flow.
On Time's bank of quicksand to dwell
And a moment its loveliness show.
Gone back to its element grand
Is the billow that brought it on shore.
See! another is washing the strand
And the beautiful shell is no more. (Anon.
Life is a pure flame, and we live by an in-
visible sun within us.
[Sir Tlwmas Browne.
We sleep, but the loom of life never stops ;
and the pattern which was weaving when
the sun went down is weaving when it
comes up to-morrow.
[Henry Ward Beecher.
So that my life be brave, what though not
long? [Drummond.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
813
A sacred burden is this life ye bear,
Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly,
Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly.
Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin,
But onward, upward, till the goal ye win.
{Francis Anne Kemble.
That man lives twice that lives the first life
well. {Herrick.
There are two worlds ; the world that we can
measure with line and rule, and the
world that we feel with our hearts and
imaginations. {Leigh Hunt.
Sooner or later that which is now life shall
be poetry, and every fair and manly
trait shall add a richer strain to the
song. {Emerson.
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool.
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan ;
At fifty, chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve.
In all the magnanimity of thought;
Resolves, and re-resolves, then dies the same.
And why? because he thinks himself im-
mortal.
All men think all men mortal but them-
selves. ( Young.
That life ia long which
end.
life's great
( Young.
Life lives only in success. {Bayard Taylor.
Thank God for life-, life is not sweet always.
Hands may be heavy-laden, hearts care full.
Unwelcome nights follow unwelcome days,
And dreams divine end in wakening dull,
Still it is life, and life is cause for jiraise.
{Susan Coolidge.
'Tis not the whole of life to live;
Nor all of death to die. (Montgomery.
Life is a waste of wearisome hours.
Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns,
And the heart that is soonest awake to the
flowers,
Is always the first to be touch'd by the
thorns. {Afoore.
Life let us cherish . {Nagelis.
We have lived without poetry, music and art;
We may live without conscience, and live
without heart;
We may live without friends ; we may live
without books;
But civilized man cannot live without cooks
He may live without books,— what is knowl-
edge but grieving ?
He may live without hope,— what is hope but
deceiving?
He may live without love, — what is passion
but pining ?
But where is the man that can live without
dining ? ( Owen Meredith.
Life is a comedy to him who thinks, and a
tragedy to him who feels.
{Horace Walpole.
My life is like a stroll upon the beach.
( Thoreau.
Life is the gift of God, and is divine.
( Longfellow.
The shaping our own life is our own work.
It IS a thing of beauty, it is a thing of
shame, as we ourselves make it. We
lay the corner and add joint to joint, we
give the proportion, we set the finish.
It may be a thing of beauty and of joy
forever. God forgive us if we prevent
our life from putting on its appointed
glor}'. ( Ware.
I know I am— that simplest bliss
The millions of my brothers miss.
I know the fortune to be born.
Even to the meanest wretch thcv scorn.
{Bayard Taylor.
Our life contains a thousand springs, and dies
if one be gone ;
Strange that a harp of thousand strings
Should keep in tune so long. ( Watts.
I came at morn — 'twas spring. I smiled.
The fields with green were clad ;
I walked abroad at noon,— and lo !
'Twas summer, — I wa.i glad ;
I sate me down ; 'was autumn eve.
And I with Badness wept ;
I laid me down at night, and then
'Twas winter, — and I slept.
{Mary Pyper
814
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
A life in which nothing happens. [Auerbach.
We live in deeds, not years,
In thoughts, not breaths ;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs.
He most loves who thinks most,
Feels the noblest, acts the best. ( Bailey.
Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The
angel of life winds them up at once for
all, then closes the cases, and gives the I
key into the hand of the angel of resur-
rection. " Tic-tac, tic tac I '' go the wheels I
of thought ; our will cannot stop them ;
madness only makes them go faster.
Death alone can break into the case,
and, seizing the ever- swinging pen-
dulum which we call the heart, silence
at last the clicking of the terrible escape-
ment we have carried so long beneath
our aching foreheads. {Holmes.
LOVE.
The night has a thousand eyes ; —
The day but one ;
Yet the light of the whole world dies
With the setting sun.
The mind has a thousand eyes —
The day but one ;
Yet the light of the whole world dies
When love is done. {Anon.
I love thee, and I feel
That on the fountain of my heart a seal
Is set to keep its waters pure and bright
For thee. {Shelley.
There is none,
In all this cold and hollow world, no fount
Of deep, strong, deathless love, save that
within
A mothers heart. {Mrs. Hemans.
If he be not in love with some woman, there
is no believing old signs : He brushes his
hat o' mornings ; What should that bode ?
{Shakesj^eare.
He that climbs the tall tree has won right to
the fruit;
He that leaps the wide gulf should prevail in
his suit. (•'^^^'''■
A woman always feels herself complimented
by love , though it may be from a man
incapable of winning her heart, or per-
haps even her esteem. {Abel Stevens.
If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am
not worth the winning. (Longfellow.
Silence in love betrays more woe
Than words, though ne'er so witty ;
A beggar that is dumb you know,
May challenge double pity.
{Sir Waller Raleigh.
Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,
'Tis woman's whole existence. {Byron.
When a man loves a woman, it is of nature :
when a woman loves a woman, it is of
grace — of the grace that woman makes
by her loveliness. {Charles F. Deems.
They love least, that let men know their
love. {Shakespeare.
A woman cannot love a man she feels to be
her inferior; love without veneration
and enthusiasm is only friendship.
{Madame Dudevant.
The motto of chivalry is also the motto of
wisdom ; to serve all and love but one.
{Balzac.
Alas ! how light a cause may move
Dissension between hearts that love !
Hearts that the world in vain had tried,
And sorrow but more closely tied ; —
That stood the storm when waves were rough.
Yet in a sunny hour fall off, —
Like ships that have gone down at sea,
When heaven was all tranquillity. {Moore.
Ah, Fool ! faint heart fair lady ne'er could
win. [Spenser.
Pity is akin to love. {Southern
Soft is the breath of a maiden's Yes :
Not the light gossamer stirs with less ;
But never a cable that holds so fast
Through all the battles of wave and blast.
[Holmes.
All mankind love a lover. {Emerson.
The presence of those we love makes us com-
passionate and generous {Longfellow.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
816
A pressing lover seldom wants success,
Whilst the respectful, like the Greek, sits
down
And wastes a ten years' siege before one
town. {liowe.
Blessed through love are the gods — through
love
Their bliss to ourselves is given ;
Heavenlier through love is the heaven above
And love makes the earth a heaven.
(Schiller.
jealousy is said to be the offspring of Love.
Yet, unless the parent makes haste to
strangle the child, the child will not rest
till it has poisoned the parent.
[A. W. Hare.
She is coming my own. my sweet ;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed :
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet.
Ana blossom in purple and red.
{ Tennyson.
Life outweighs all things if Love lies within
it. [Goethe.
Love is the emblem of eternity : it confounds
all notion of time : effaces all memory of
a beginning, all fear of an end.
{Madame de Sta'el.
I do not love thee less for what is done.
And cannot be undone Thy very weakness
Hath brought thee nearer to me, and hence-
forth
My love will have a sense of pity in it.
Making it less a worship than before.
(Lonqfellow
The fruit that can fall without shaking.
Indeed is too mellow for me
{Lady Montague
But he who stems a stream with sand.
And fetters flame with flaxen band,
Has yet a harder task to prove —
By firm resolve to conquer love ! [Scott
Love is like fire. Wounds of fire are hard to
Ota. ; harder still are those of love. \
Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen. t
Love is master of all arts.
And puts it into human hearts
j The strangest things to say and do.
( Longfellow.
Of all the paths that lead to woman's love
Pity's the straightest. [Beaumont.
The strongest, love will instantly make weak ;
Strike the wise dumb ; and teach the fool to
speak. [Shakespeare.
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all. ( Tennyson.
We love only partially till we know thor-
oughl3^ Grant that a closer acquaint-
ance reveals weakness; — it will also dis-
close strength. ( Bovee.
Mysterious love, uncertain treasure.
Hast thou more of pain or pleasure !
* * * * -x- * *
Endless torments dwell about thee :
Yet who would live, and live without thee !
[Addison.
But to see her was to love her.
Love but her, and love for ever. ( Burns.
The heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close.
As the sunflower turns on her god, when he
sets.
The same look which she turn'd when be
rose. [Moore.
Your love in a cottage is hungry.
Your vine is a nest for flies—
Your milkmaid shocks the Graces,
And simplicity talks of pies !
You lie down to your shady slumber
And wake with a bug in your ear,
And your damsel that walks in the morning.
Is shod like a mountaineer. ( ^Fillis.
Talk not of wasted affection, affection never
was wasted ;
If it enrich not the heart of another, its wa-
ters, returning
Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill
them full of refreshment ;
That which the fountain sends forth returns
again to the fountain. [Longfellow.
816
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
Love is a boy by poets styl'd ;
Then spare the rod and spoil the child.
[Butler.
Rugged strength and radiant beauty —
These were one in nature's plan ;
Humble toil and heavenward duty—
These will form the perfect man.
{Sarah J. Hale.
Men, in general, are but great children.
{Napoleon.
He is a man who knows bow to die for his
God and his country ; his heart, his lips,
his arms, are faithful unto death.
{Ernest Arndt.
Lord, we know what we are, but know not
what we may be. {Shakespeare.
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is man. {Pope.
No sadder proof can be given by a man of
his own littleness than disbelief in great
men. {Carlyle.
Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man !
{Daniel.
Man is his own star, and that soul that can
Be honest is the only perfect man.
{John Fletcher.
It matters not what men assume to be ;
Or "ood, or bad, they are but what they are.
( Bailey.
heaven ! were man
But constant, he were perfect; that one error
Fills him with faults. {Shakespeare.
Before man made us citizens, great
Nature made us men. {Lowell.
A man will be what his most cherished feel-
ings are. If he encourage a noble gen-
erosity, every feeling will be enriched
by it; if he nurse bitter and envenomed
thoughts, his own spirit will absorb the
poison. {Anon.
He who hunts for flowers, will find flowers ;
and he who loves weeds, may find weeds.
{Beecher.
Men in great place are thrice servants:
servants of the sovereign or state; serv-
ants of fame ; and servants of business.
{Bacon.
Worth makes the man, and want of it the
fellow.
The rest is all but leather or prunella. (Pope.
The only competition worthy a wise man, is
with himself. {Mrs. Jameson.
God made him, and therefore let him pass for
a man. {Shakespeare.
Be a philosopher ; but amidst all your phil-
osophy — be still a man. {Hume.
I hold every man a debtor to his profession ;
from the which as men of course do seek
to receive countenance and profit, so
ought they of duty to endeavor them-
selves by way of amends to be a help
and ornament thereunto. {Bacon.
The scientific study of man is the most difficult
of all branches of knowledge. {Holmes.
An honest man's the noblest work of God.
(Pope.
Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature ;
but he is a reed which thinks. The uni-
verse need not rise in arms to crush him ;
a vapor, a drop of water, suffices to kill
him. But were the universe to crush
him, man would still be greater than the
power which killed him ; for he knows
that he dies, and of the advantage which
the universe has over him, the universe
knows nothing. {Pascal.
MATRIMONY.
As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman :
Though she bends him, she obeys him :
Though she draws him, yet she follows ;
Useless each without the other ! {Longjcllow.
God, tlie best maker of all marriages.
Combine your hearts in one. {Shakespeare.
How much the wife is dearer than the bride.
(Lord Lyttlcton.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
817
Their souls are enlarged forevermore by that
union, and they bear one another about
in their thoughts continually as it were
a new strength. {George Eliot.
What is there in the vale of life
Half so delightful as a wife ;
When friendship, love, and peace combine
To stamp the marriage-bond divine ?
( Cowper.
In the election of a wife, as in
A project of war, to err but once is
To be undone forever. {Middleton.
But, ye lords of ladies intellectual !
Inform us truly, have they not henpecked
you all ? {Byron.
Then come the wild weather, — come sleet or
come snow.
We will stand by each other, however it
blow ;
Oppression and sickness, and sorrow and pain.
Shall be to our true love as links in the chain.
{Longfellow.
She is mine own ;
And I as rich in having such a jewel
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.
{Shakespeare.
Cursed be the man, the poorest wretch in life.
The crouching vassal to the tyrant wife.
Who has no will but by her high permission ;
Who has not sixpence but in her possession ;
Who mu.st to her his dear friend's secret tell ;
Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell.
Were such the wife had fallen to my part,
I'd break her spirit, or I'd break her heart.
{Bums.
All other goods by Fortune's hand are given.
A wife is the peculiar gift of Heaven. {Pope.
A wife, domestic, good and pure.
Like snail should keep within her door :
But not, like snail, with silver track.
Place all her wealth upon her back.
( W. W. How.
As the husband is the wife is ; thou art mated
with a clown.
And the grossness of his nature will have
weight to drag thee down,
( Tennyson.
I chose my wife, as she did the wedding
gown, for qualities that wear well.
( Goldsmith-
Never marry but for love ; but see that thou
lovest what is lovely. ( William Penn.
She who ne'er answers till a Husband cools,
Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules ;'
Charms by accepting, by submitting sways,
Yet has her humor most, when she obeys.
(Pope.
With thee goes
Thy husband ; him to follow thou art bound ;
Where he abides, think there thy native soil.
{Milton.
The man at the head of the house can mar the
pleasure of the household ; but he cannot
make it. That must rest with the woman,
and it is her greatest privilege. ( Helps.
Sail forth into the sea of life,
gentle, loving, trusting wife,
And safe from all adversity
Upon the bosom of that sea
Thy comings and thy goings be !
For gentleness and love and trust
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust ;
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives.
{Longfellow.
MEMORY.
Hail, memory, hail ! in thy exhaustless mine,
From age to ageunnumber'd treasures shine!
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey,
And Place and Time are subject to thy sway!
{liogers.
Blest
Is he whose heart is the home of the great
dead.
And their great thoughts. {Bailey.
Recollection is the only paradise from which
we cannot be turned out. {JRichter.
Memory, like a purse, if it be over-full that
it cannot shut, all will drop out of it;
take heed of a gluttonous curiosity to
feed on many things, lest the greediness
of the appetite of thy memory spoil the
digestion thereof. {Fuller.
818
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustle in the dark. [Longfellow-
Tho' lost to sight to mem'ry dear
Thou ever wilt remain. {Oeo. Linlcy.
Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain,
Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden
chain.
Awake but one, and lo ! what myriads rise !
Each stamps its image as the other flies !
( Rogers.
To live in hearts we leave behind is not to
die. ( Thomas Campbell.
There is a voice from the tomb sweeter than
song ; there is a remembrance of the
dead, to which we tu"Vn even from the
charms of the living. These we would
not exchange for the song of pleasure or
the bursts of revelry.
[Irving.
I have a room whereinto no one enters
Save I myself alone ;
There sits a blessed memory on a throne,
There my life centres.
[Christina O. Rosetti.
The heart hath its own memory, like the
mind,
And in it are enshrined
The precious keepsakes into which is wrought
The giver's loving thought. [Longfellow.
Long, long be my heart with sweet memories
fiU'd !
Like the vase in which roses have once been
distill'd ;
You may break, you may shatter the vase if
you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it
still. [Moore.
MERCY.
The quality of mercy is not strained ;
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven.
Upon the place beneath ; it is twice bless'd ;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
[Shakespeare.
He that cannot forgive others, breaks the
bridge over which he must pass himself;
for every man has need to be forgiven.
{Lbrd Herbert. |
The greatest attribute of Heaven is mercy.
[Beaumont and Fletcher.
A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but
the reconciled one is truly vanquished.
[Schiller.
Forgiveness to the injured does belong.
But they ne'er pardon who have done the
wrong. [Dry den.
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
Draw near tliem then in being merciful
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.
[Shakespeare.
Good-nature and good-sense must ever join;
To err is human, to forgive, divine. [Pope.
For 'tis sweet to stammer one letter
Of the Eternal's language; — on earth it is
called Forgiveness! [Longfellow.
His heart was as great as the world, but there
was no room in it to hold the memory
of a wrong. [Emerson.
The more we know, the better we forgive.
Whoe'er feels deejilj-, feels for all who live.
[Madame de Stael.
God ! how beautiful the thought.
How merciful the blessed decree,
That grace can e'er be found, when sought.
And naught shut out the soul from Thee !
[Eliza Cook.
Then, everlasting Love, restrain thy will :
'Tis god-like to have power, but not to kill.
[Beaumont and Fletcher.
Being all fashioned of the self-same dust,
Let us be merciful as well as just !
[Longfellow.
Teach me to feel another's woe,
To hide the fault I see ;
That mercy I to others show.
That mercy show to me. [Pope.
MUSIC.
Music is the inarticulate speech of the heart,
which cannot be compressed into words,
because it is infinite. ( Wagner.
Of all the arts, great music is the art
To raise the soul above all earthly storms.
[Leland.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
819
Music sweeps by me as a messenger carrying
a message that is not for me.
(George Eliot.
God is its author, and not man ; he laid
The key-note of all harmonies ; he planned
All perfect combinations, and he made
Us so that we could hear and understand.
(i/. O. Brainard.
Music is the universal language of mankind.
(Longfellow.
Soft is the music that would charm forever.
( Wordiworth.
Music arose with its voluptuous swell.
Soft eyes look d love to eyes which spake
again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell.
(Byron.
The man that hath no music in his soul,
Nor is not moved by concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treason, stratagem and spoils.
Let no such man be trusted. (Shakespeare.
The song on its mighty pinions
Took every living soul, and lifted it gently
to heaven. (Longfellow.
See deep enough, and you see musically ; the
heart of Nature being everywhere music,
if you can only reach it. (Carlyle.
There is no feeling, perhaps, except the ex-
tremes of fear and grief, that does not
find relief in music — that does not make
a man sing or play the better.
( Oeorge Eliot.
The Father spake! In grand reverberations
Through space rolled on the mighty music
tide,
While to its low, majestic modulations.
The clouds of chaos slowly swept aside.
*****
And wheresoever, in his rich creation,
Sweet music breathes — in wave, or bird, or
soul —
'Tis but the faint and far reverberation
Of that great tune to which the planets roll!
(Frances S. Osgood.
What martial music is to marching men,
Should song be to humanity.
(Alexander Smith.
I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
(Shakespeare.
I have a passion for ballads They
are the gypsy-children of song, born
under green hedgerows, in the leafy lanes
and by-paths of literature — in the genial
Summer-time. (Longfellow.
The gift of song was chiefly lent.
To give consoling music for the joys
We lack, and not for those which we possess.
(Bayard Taylor.
Better to have the poet's heart than brain,
Feeling than song ; but better far than both,
To be a song, a music of God's making.
( George MacBonald.
God sent bis Singers upon earth
With songs of sadness and of mirth.
That they might touch the hearts of men,
And bring them back to Heaven again.
(Longfellow.
Let me die to the sounds of delicious mu.«ic.
(Last words of AEraheau.
Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast,
to soften rocks, and bend the knotted
oak. [Congreve
He is dead, the sweet musician!
*****
He has moved a little nearer
To the Master of all music.
(Longfellow.
Sentimentally, I am disposed to harmony,
But organically I am incapable of a tune.
(Lamh.
Such music (as, 'tis said,)
Before was never made.
But when of old tlie sons of morning sung.
While the Creator great
His constellations set,
And the well-balanc'd world on hingps
hung. (Milton.
Sweetest the strain when in the song
The singer has been lost.
(Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.
Dischord ofte in musick makes the sweeter
lay. (Spenser.
820
GEAIS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
'Tis God gives skill,
But not without men's hands : He could not
make
Antonio Stradivari's violins
Without Antonio. {George Eliot.
Heaven's thunders melt
In music ! {John Hookham Frere.
Music washes away from the soul the dust of
every-day life. {Auerbach.
Yea, music is the Prophet's art ;
Among the gifts that God hath sent,
One of the most magnificent !
{Longfellow.
Rich celestial music thrilled the air
From hosts on hosts of shining ones, who
thronged
Eastward and westward, making bright the
night. {Edwin Arnold.
Music tells no truths. {Bailey.
Music resembles Poetry ; in each
Are nameless graces which no methods teach.
And which a master-hand alone can reach.
{Pope.
Song forbids victorious deeds to die.
{Schiller.
Music is the art of the prophets, the only art
that can calm the agitations of the soul ;
it is one of the most magnificent and de-
lightful presents God has given us.
{Luther.
There is music in all things, if men had ears.
Byron.
The meaning of song goes deep. Who is
there that, in logical words, can express
the effect music has on us? A kind of
inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which
leads us to the edge of the infinite, and
lets us for moments gaze into that
{Carlyle.
Nature, the vicar of the almightie Lord.
( Chaucer.
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings. {Bryant.
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
( Coleridge.
Earth has built the great watch-towers of the
mountains, amd they lift their heads far
up into the sky, and gaze ever upward
and around to see if the Judge of the
World comes not ! .{Longfellow.
Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains ;
They crown'd him long ago
On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds.
With a diadem of snow. {Byron.
Nothing in nature is unbeautiful. {Tennyson.
Art may err, but nature cannot miss.
{Dry den.
One touch of nature makes the whole world
kin. {Shakespeare.
Two voices are there ; one is of the sea.
One of the mountains ; each a mighty Voice.
( Wordsworth.
Accuse not Nature, she hath done her part ;
Do thou but thine ! {Milton.
Nature's great law, and law of all men's
minds ? —
To its own impulse every creature stirs ;
Live by thy light, and earth will live by her's?
{Matthew Arnold.
The course of nature is the art of God.
( Young.
To him who in the love of nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she
A various language. {Bryant.
So nature deals with us, and takes away
Our playthings one by one, and by the
hand
Leads us to rest so gently, that we go,
Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,
Being too full of sleep to understand
How far the unknown transcends the
what we know. {Longfellow.
OCEAN.
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean— roll !
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ;
Man marks the earth with ruin— his control
Stops with the shore. {Byron.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
821
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more.
{Barry Cornwall.
Distinct as the billows, yet one as the sea
[Montgomery.
The sea ! the sea ! the open sea !
The blue, the fre?h, the ever free !
{Barry Cornwall.
The sea is flowing ever,
The land retains it never. {Goethe.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar.
{Byron.
Praise the sea, but keep on land. {Herbert.
The sea is silent, the sea is discreet,
Deep it lies at thy very feet. {Longfellow.
Mystery of waters, — never slumbering sea !
{Montgomery.
Why does the sea moan evermore ?
Shut out from heaven it makes its moan,
It frets against the boundary shore ;
All earth's full rivers cannot fill
The sea, that drinking thirsteth still.
{Christina O. Eosetti.
Love the sea? I dote upon it — from the
beach. {Douglas Jerrold.
The ocean's surfy, slow, deep, mellow voice,
full of mystery and awe, moaning over
the dead it holds in its bosom, or lulling
them to unbroken slumbers in the cham-
bers of its vasty depths {Halihurton.
PATRIOTISM.
Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said ,
This is my own, my native land !
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd.
From wandering on a foreign strand !
{Scott.
America ! half-brother of the world !
With something good and bad of every land !
{Bailey.
Where the coward that would not dare to
fight for such a land ! [Scott.
England, with all thy faults, I love thee still,
My country ! and, while yet a nook is left
Where English mind and manners may be
found.
Shall be constraint to love thee. {Cowper.
Our country ! In her intercourse with foreign
nations, may she always be in the right !
but our country, right or wrong.
{Stephen Decatur.
Fair Greece ! sad relic of departed worth !
Immortal, though no more; though fallen,
great ! {Byron.
We join ourselves to no party that does not
carry the flag and keep step to the music
of the Union. {Eufus Choate_
Wake in our breasts the living fires.
The holy faith that warmed our sires;
Thy hand hath made our Nation free ;
To die for her is serving Thee. {Holmes.
The patriot boasts, where'er he roam.
His first, best country, ever is at home.
{Goldsmith.
Sweet the memory is to me
Of a land beyond the sea,
Where the waves and mountains meet
( Longfellow.
Our countrj'— whether bounded by the St.
John's and the Sabine, or however other-
wise bounded or described, and be the
measurements more or less ; — still our
country, to be cherished in all our hearts,
to be defended by all our hands.
[Bobt. C. Winthrop.
National enthusiasm is the gi eat nursery of
genius. ( Tuckermnn.
Had I a dozen sons, — each in my love alike,
— I had rather have eleven die nobly for
their countr}', than one voluptuously
surfeit out of action. ( Shaln^pcare.
Be England what she will,
With all her faults she is my country still,
[Churchill.
I was born in America ; I live an American ;
I shall die an American.
{Daniel Webster.
822
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
My dear, my native soil !
For whom my warmest wish to lleav'n is
sent !
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet
content. {Burns.
America is a fortunate country. She grows
by the follies of our European nations.
( Napoleon.
Thus, too, sail on, ship of State !
Sail on, Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears.
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate !
(Longfellow.
Let our object be, our country, our whole
country, and nothing but our country.
(Daniel Webster.
My country, 'tis of thee.
Sweet land of liberty, —
Of thee I sing:
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrim's pride,
From every mountain's side
Let freedom ring. [Saml. F. Smith.
PEACE AND WAR.
Peace hath her victories
No less renowned than war. (Milton.
How calm, how beautiful comes on
The stilly hour, when storms are gone.
(Moore.
O for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade;
Where rumor of oppression and deceit
Of unsuccessful or successful war
Might never reach me more. (Cowper.
War! that mad game the world so loves to
play. (Swift.
Let the bugles sound the Truce of God to the
whole world forever. (Charles Sumner.
Peace the offspring is of Power.
(Bayard Taylor.
War, War is still the cry, " War to the knife."
(Byroji.
The combat deepens. On ye brave,
Who rush to glory or the grave !
Wave Munich ! all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy chivalry.
( Campbell.
What though the field be lost !
All is not lost — the unconquerable will.
And study of revenge, immortal hate.
And courage never to submitbr yield :
And what is else not to be overcome.
( Milton.
'Tis a principle of war that when you can use
the lightning, 'tis better than cannon.
(Napoleon.
Peace is the happy, natural state of man ; war
his corruption, his disgrace. { Thomson.
I am a man of peace. God knows how I love
peace. But I hope I shall never be such
a coward as to mistake oppression for
peace. (Kossuth-
All delays are dangerous in war. (Dry den.
To be prepared for war is one of the most
effectual ways of preserving peace.
(George Washington.
Nothing except a battle lost can be half so
melancholy as a battle won.
(Duke of Wellington,
One to destroy, is murder hy the law ;
And gibbets keep the lifted hand in awe ;
To murder thousands, takes a specious name,
War's glorious art, and gives immortal fame.
( Young.
As on the sea of Galilee,
The Christ is whispering "Peace."
( Whittier.
A song for our banner ? The watchword re-
call
Which gave the Republic her station ;
" United we stand — divided we fall !''
It made and preserves us a nation ! '
(George P. Morris.
We love peace as we abhor pusillanimity ;
but not peace at any price. There is a
peace more destructive of the manhood
of living man than war is destructive of
his material body. Chains are worse
than bayonets. (Douglas Jerrold.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
823
Buried was the bloody hatchet ;
Buried was the dreadful war-club ;
Buried were all warlike weapons,
And the war-cry was forgotten ;
Then was peace among the nations.
{Longfellow.
For voices pursue hira by day
And haunt him by night, —
And he listens, and needs must obey,
When the angel says — " Write ! "
( Longfellow.
And, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet ; whence he
blew
Soul-animating strains, — alas ! too few.
( Wordsworth.
Poesy is of so,subtle a spirit, that in the pour-
ing out of one language into another it
will evaporate. {Denham.
Poetry is something to make us wiser and
better, by continually revealing those
types of beauty and truth which God
has set in all men's souls. (Lowell.
It does not need that a poem should be long.
Every word was once a poem. {Emerson.
A poet not in love is out at sea ;
He must have a lay-figure. {Bailey.
Like the river, swift and clear.
Flows his song through many a heart,
{Longfellow.
Poetry is itself a thing of God ;
He made His prophets poets ; and the more
We feel of poesie do we become
Like God in love and power, — under-makers.
{Bailey.
Superstition is the poesy of life, so that it does
not injure a poet to be superstitious.
( Ooethe.
Poetry is music in words, and music is poetry j
in sound ; both excellent sauce, but they '
have lived and died poor that made ihem
their moat. {FulUr.
Poetrv is the music of the soul, and above
all of groat and feeling souls. ( Voltaire.
5n
" Give me a theme," a little poet cried,
" And I will do my pari,"
" 'Tis not a theme you need," the world re-
plied ;
" You need a heart." {Gilder.
There is no such thing as a dumb poet or a
handless painter. The ei<sence of an
artist is that he should be articulate.
{Swinburne.
Three poets in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpass'd,
The next, in majesty, in borh, the last.
The force of nature could no further go :
To make a third, she join'd the former two.
{Dry den.
Next to being a great poet is the power of
understanding one! {Longfellow.
Never did Poesy appear
So full of heaven to me, as when
I saw how it would pierce through pride and
fear
To the lives of coarsest men. {Lowell.
I do loves poetry, sir, 'specially the sacred.
For there be summut in it
. which smooths a man's heart
like a clothes brush, wipes away the dust
and dirt, and sets all the nap right.
{Bulwer-Lytton.
All that is best in the great poets of all coun-
tries is not what is national in them, but
what is universal. {Longfellow.
Why did I write? what sin to me unknown
Dipt' me in ink, my parents' or my own?
As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.
{Pope.
. PRAYER.
Father of life and light ! Thou Good Supreme !
Save me from folly, vanity and vice.
From every low pursuit! and feed my soul
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue
pure:
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss !
( Thomson.
824
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
The greatest prayer is patience. {Buddha.
Let prayer be the key of the morning, and
the bolt of the eyemng.{ Matthew Henry.
Every wish
Is like a prayer— with God. {E. B. Browning.
Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed,
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast. {Montgomery.
The saints will aid if men will call :
For the blue sky bends over all. {Coleridge.
And Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees. {Cowper.
Ah ! a seraph may pray for a sinner,
But a sinner must pray for himself.
{Charles M. Dickinson.
More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let
thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain.
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them
friend ?
For so the whole round world is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
( Tennyson.
Be not afraid to pray — to pray is right.
Pray, if thou canst, with hope; but ever
pray,
Though hope be weak or sick with long delay ;
Pray in the darkness, if there be no light.
{Hartley Coleridge.
They never sought in vain that sought the
Lord aright! {Bums.
So have I dreamed !— Oh, may the dream be
true ! —
That praying souls are purged from mortal
hue.
And grow as pure as He to whom they pray,
{Hartley Coleridge.
He prayeth best who loveth best
All creatures great and small,
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all. {Coleridge.
Prayer moves the hand which moves the
world. {John Aikman Wallace.
READING.
'Tis the good reader that makes the good
book ; a good head cannot read amiss ; in
every book he finds passages which seem
confidences or asides hidden from all else,
and unmistakably meant for his ear.
{Emerson.
The man who is fond of books is usually a
man of lofty thought and of elevated
opinions. {Dawson.
We should accustom the mind to keep the
best company by introducing it only to
the best books. {Sydney Smith.
Resolve to edge in a little reading every day,
if it is but a single sentence. If you gain
fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself
felt at the end of the year.
{Horace Mann.
Read not to contradict and confute, nor to
believe and take for granted, nor to find
talk and discourse, but to weigh and con-
sider. {Bacon.
The first time I read an excellent book, it is
to me just as if I had gained a new
friend: when I read over a book I have
perused before, it resembles the meeting
with an old one. {Goldsmith.
Learn to read slow ; all other graces
Will follow in their proper places.
{Wm. Walker.
If we encountered a man of rare intellect, we
should ask him what books he read.
{Emerson.
If I were to pray for a taste which would
stand by me under every variety of
circumstances, and be a source of hap-
piness and cheerfulness to me through
life it would be a taste for reading.
{Hcrschcl.
RELIGION.
They serve God well
Who serve his creatures.
{Xorton.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GIIEAT THINKERS.
825
All the glory and beauty of Christ are mani-
fested within, and there he delights to
dwell ; his visits there are frequent, his
condescension amazing, his conversations
sweet, his comforts refreshing ; and the
peace that he brings passelh all under-
standing. ( Thomas d Kempis.
The consciousness of faith, of sins forgiven,
Of wrath appeased, of heavy guilt thrown off,
Sheds on my breast its long forgotten peace,
And shining steadfast as the noonday sun,
Lights me along the path that duty marks.
(L. J. Hall.
Who falls for love of God, shall rise a star.
{Ben Jonson.
A religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.
{Madame de Sta'el.
Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal
I serv'd my king, he would not in my age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.
{Shakespeare.
Man always worships something ; always he
sees the Infinite shadowed forth in some-
thing finite; and indeed can and must so
see it in any finite thing, once tempt him
well to keep his eyes thereon. {Carlyle.
What greater calamity can fall upon a nation
than the loss of worship. {Emerson.
Persecution is a bad and indirect Way to plant
religion. {Sir TJiomas Browne.
Eeligious contention is the devil's harvest.
{La Fontaine.
If men are so wicked with religion, what
would they be without it ? {Franklin.
Keligion rests on its own majesty. {Goethe.
Christians have burned each other, quite per-
suaded
That all the Apostles would have done as
they did. {Byron.
The higher a man is in grace, the lower he
will be in his own esteem. {Spurgeon.
Religion is the best armor in the world, but
the worst cloak. {Bunyan.
Men will wrangle for religion ; write for it ;
fight for it ; die for it ; anything but —
live for it. (C. C. Colton.
The body of all true religion consists, to be
sure, in obedience to the will of the
Sovereign of the world, in a confidence
in His declarations, and in imitation of
His perfections. {Burke.
Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best.
His state
Is kingly ; thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest.
They also serve who only stand and wait.
{Mlton.
Who builds a church to God, and not to
Fame
Will never mark the marble with his Name.
{Pope.
She (the Roman Catholic Church) may still
exist in undiminished vigor, when some
traveler from New Zealand shall, in the
midst of a vast solitude, take his stand
on a broken arch of London Bridge to
sketch the ruins of St. Paul's.
{ilacaulay.
Wherever God erects a house of prayer.
The devil always builds a chapel there.
{De/oe.
G— knows I'm no the thing I should be,
Nor am I even the thing I could be
But twenty times I rather would be
An atheist clean.
Than under gospel colors hid be
Just for a screen. {Bums.
God never gave man a Ihing to do concern-
ing which it were irreverent to ponder
how the Son of God would have done it.
( George MacDonald.
A little philosopliy inclineth a man's mind
to atheism, but depth in philosophy
bringeth men's minds about to religion.
( Bacon.
Morality without religion is only a kind of
dead reckoning,— an endeavor to find
our place on a cloudy sea by measuring
the distance we have run, but without
any observation of the heavenly bodies.
{Longfellow.
826
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
Rather let my head stoop to the block than
these knees bow to any save the God of
heaven. {Shakespeare.
Then come, O fresh spring airs, once more
Create the old delightful things,
And woo the frozen world again
With hints of heaven upon your wings !
{Harriett Prescott Spofford.
I come, I come ! ye have call'd me long,
I come o'er the mountain with light and song :
Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening
earth,
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose stars in the shadowy gra.'^s,
By the green leaves, opening as I pass.
[Mrs. Hemans.
Spring is a beautiful piece of work, and not
to be in the country to see it done is the
not realizing what glorious masters we
are, and how cheerfully, minutely, and
uuflaggingly the fair fingers of the sea-
son broider the world for us. ( Willis.
In the wood, the verdure'.s shooting,
Joy-oppress'd, like some fair maiden ;
Yet the sun laughs sweetly downward :
"Welcome, young spring, rapture-laden!"
{Heine.
Came the spring with all its splendor.
All its birds and all its blossoms.
All its flowers and leaves and grasses.
[Longfellow.
Youth of the year ! celestial spring !
Again descend thy silent showers ;
New loves, new pleasures dost thou bring.
And earth again looks gay with flowers.
( Thomas Love Peacock.
Spring unlocks the flowers to paint the
laughing soil. (Heber.
Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees,
Bock'd in the cradle of the western breeze.
( Cowper.
Thus came the lovely spring with a rush of
blossoms and music ;
Flooding the earth with flowers, and the air
with melodies vernal. [Longfellow.
Starred forget-me-nots smile sweetly.
Ring, blue-bells, ring !
Winning eye and heart completely,
Sing, robin, sing !
All among the reeds and rushes,
Where the brook its music hushes,
Bright the calopogon blushes, —
Laugh, murmuring Spring.
[Sara'h F. Davis.
Every tear is answered by a blossom.
Every sigh with songs and laughter blent
Apple-blooms upon the breezes toss them.
April knows her own, and is content.
[Susan Coolidge.
They'll come again to the apple tree —
Robin and all the rest —
When the orchard branches are fair to see
In the snow of the blossoms dressed,
And the prettiest thing in the world will be
The building of the nest.
[Margaret E. Sangster.
In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon
the robin's breast ;
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets him-
self another crest ;
In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the
burnish'd dove ;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly
turns to thoughts of love. ( Tennyson.
Sweet is the air with the budrling haws.
And the valley stretching for miles below
Is white with blossoming cherry-trees.
As if covered with the lightest snow.
[Longfellow.
All green and fair the Summer lies,
Just budded from the bud of Spring,
With tender blue of wistful skies,
And winds which softly sing.
( Susan Coolidge.
From brightening fields of ether, fair dis-
closed,
Child of the Sun, refulgent Summer comes ;
In pride of youth, and felt through nature's
depth,
He comes, attended by the sultry Hours,
And ever-fanning breezes, on his way.
[ Thomson.
LlVINPr THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
827
And what is so rare as a day in June ?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays.
{Lowell.
summer day beside the joyous sea !
summer day so wonderful and white,
So full of gladness and so full of pain !
Forever and forever shalt thou be
To some the gravestone of a dead delight,
To some the landmark of a new domain.
(Lonf/Jellou:.
The full ripe corn is bending
In waves of golden light;
The new-mown hay is sending
Its sweets upon the night;
The breeze is softly sighing,
Too cool the parched flowers ;
The rain, to see them dying,
Weeps forth its gentle showers;
The merry fish are playing,
Adown yon crystal stream ;
And night from day is straying,
As twilight gives its gleam.
{Thovias J. Ouseley.
It's surely summer, for there's a swallow :
Come one swallow, his mate will follow,
The bird race quicken and wheel and thicken.
[Christina G- Rosetti.
The sky
Is overcast, and musters muttering thunder.
In clouds that seem approaching fast, and
show
In forked flashes a commanding tempest.
{Byron.
Heat, ma'am ! it was so dreadful here that I
found there was nothing left for it but
to take oflf my flesh and sit in my bones.
{Sydney Smith.
How beautiful is the rain !
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
How beautiful is the rain !
{Longfellow.
The lands are lit
With all the autumn blaze of Golden Rod ;
And everywhere the Purple Asters nod
And bend and wave and flit. {Helen Hunt.
From all the misty morning air, there comes
a summer sound,
A murmur as of waters from skies, and trees
and ground.
The birds they sing upon the wing, the
pigeons bill and coo. (E. W. G%lder.
Grieve, ye autumn winds!
Summer lies low ;
The rose's trembling leaves will soon be shed,
For she that loved her so, alas ! is dead,
And one by one her loving children go.
{Adelaide A. Procter.
I love to wander through the woodlands
hoary
In the soft light of an autumnal day,
When Summer gathers up her robes of glory,
And like a dream of beauty glides away.
{Sarah Helen Whitman.
The brown autumn came. Out of doors, it
brought to the fields the prodigality of
the golden harvest,— to the forest, reve-
lations of light, and to the sky, the sharp
air, the morning mist, the red clouds of
evening. {Longfellow.
Now Autumn's fire burns slow along the
woods,
And day by day the dead leaves fall and
melt,
And night by night the monitory blast
Wails in the key-hole, telling how it pass'd
O'er empty fields, or upland solitudes,
Or grim wide wave ; and now the power is
felt
Of melancholy, tenderer in its moods
Than any joy indulgent summer dealt.
( William Allingham.
The melancholy days are come, the saddest
of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and
meadows brown and sear. {Bryant.
There is a beautiful spirit breathing now
Its mellow richness on the clustered trees,
And, from a beaker full of richest dyes.
Pouring new glory on the autumn woods.
And dripping in warm light the pillared
clouds. (Longfellow.
The trees in the autnmn wind rustle.
The night is humid and cold. {Heine.
828
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
The morrow was a bright September morn;
The earth was beautiful as if new-born ;
There was that nameless splendor everywhere,
That wild exhilaration in the air,
Which makes the passers in the city street
Congratulate each other as they meet.
( Longfellow-
The wind moans like a long wail from some
despairing soul shut out in the awful
storm ! ( W. Hamilton Oibson.
I love that moaning music which I hear
In the bleak gusts of Autumn, for the soul
Seems gathering tidmgs from another sphere.
[Barry Cornwall.
"When shrieked
The bleak November winds, and smote the
woods,
And the brown fields were herbless, and the
shades
That met above the merry rivulet.
Were spoiled, I sought, I loved them still ;
they seemed
Like old companions in adversity. [Bryant.
Dry leaves upon the wall,
Which flap like rustling wings and seek
escape,
A single frosted cluster on the grape
Still hangs — and that is all. [Susan Coolidge.
Lastly came Winter, cloathed all in frize.
Chattering his teeth for cold that did him
chill ;
Whils't on his hoary beard his breath did
And the dull drops, that from his purpled bill
As from a limebeck did adown distill :
In his right hand a tipped staffe he held.
With which his feeble steps he stayed still :
For he was faint with cold, and weak with
eld;
That scarce his loosed limbes he hable was to
weld. [Spenser.
Where, twisted round the barren oak.
The summer vine in beauty clung,
And summer winds the stillness broke,
The crystal icicle is hung. (Longfellow.
The frost looked forth one still clear night.
(Hannah F. Gould.
His breath like silver arrows pierced the air,
The naked earth crouched shuddering at his
feet.
His finger on all flowing waters sweet
Forbidding lay— motion nor sound was
there : —
Nature was frozen dead, -and still and slow,
A winding sheet fell o'er her body fair.
Flaky and soft, from his wide wings oi snow.
[Frances Anne Kemhle.
Winter! ruler of th' inverted year,
1 crown thee king of intimate delights;
Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness.
And all the comforts that the lowly roof
C>f undisturb'd Retirement, and the hours
Of long uninterrupted ev'ning, know.
( Cowpcr.
Oh poverty is disconsolate! —
Its pains are many, its foes are strong;
The rich man in his jovial cheer,
Wishes 'twas winter through the year;
The poor man 'mid his wants profound,
With all his little children round.
Prays God that winter be not long !
[Mary Howitt.
Shout now ! The months with loud acclaim.
Take up the cry and send it forth ;
May, breathing sweet her Spring perfumes,
November thundering from the North,
With hands upraised, as with one voice,
They join their notes in grand accord;
Hail to December! say they all. [Hoyt.
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play.
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men !
[Longfellow.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad ;
The nights are wholesome ; then no planets
strike.
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to
charm,
j So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
(Shakespeare.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
829
England was merry England, when
Old Christmas brought his sports again.
'Twas Christmas broach'd the mightiest ale ;
'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale ;
A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
The poor man's heart through half the year.
{Scott.
We ring the bells and we raise the strain,
We hang up garlands everywhere
And bid the tapers twinkle fair,
' And feast and frolic — and then we go
Back to the same old lives again.
{Susan Coolidge.
Out of the bosom of the air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments
shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft and slow
Descends the snow. {Longfellow.
Through the hushed air the whitening shower
descends,
At first thin wavering ; till at last the flakes
Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the
day
With a continual flow. The cherished fields
Put on their winter robe of purest white.
'Tis brightness all ; save where the new snow
melts
Along the mazy current. ( Thomson.
Silently, like thoughts that come and go, the
snow flakes fall, each one a gem.
( W. Hamilton Gibson.
How beautiful it was, falling so silently, all
day long, all night long, on the moun-
tains, on the meadows, on the roofs of
the living, on the graves of the dead.
( Longfellow.
Stand here by ray side ami tnrn, I pray,
On the lake below thy gentle eyes ;
The clouds hang over it, heavy and gray,
And dark and silent the water lies ;
And out ol that frozen mist the snow
In wavering flakes begins to flow.
Flake after flake
They sink in the dark and silent lake.
{Bryant.
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the
heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end^
{Emerson.
The silent falling of the snow is to me one
of the most solemn things in nature.
{Longfellow.
Up rose the wild old winter-king,
And shook his beard of snow ;
" I hear the first young hare-bell ring,
'Tis time for nie to go !
Northward o'er the icy rocks,
Northward o'er the sea.
My daughter comes with sunny locks:
This land's too warm for me !'' {Leland.
SIN.
I could not live in peace if I put the shadow
of a wilful sin between myself and God.
{George Eliot.
Man-like is it to fall into sin.
Fiend-like is it to dwell therein,
Christ-like is it for sin to grieve,
God-like is it all sin to leave. {Longfellow.
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind ;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
{Shakespeare.
He who does evil that good may come, pays
a toll to the devil to let him into heaven.
(.1. W. Hare.
Duly advis'd, the coming evil shun :
Better not do the deed, than weep it done.
{Prior.
Vice is a monster of .<;o frightful mien.
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen ;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face.
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
{Pope.
We do not despise all those who have Vices,
but we despise all those who have not a
single Virtue. ( Rochefoucauld.
Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of
light {Shakespeare.
iO
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
That is the bitterest of all, — to wear the yoke
of our own wrong-doing. [George Eliot.
Where lives the man that has not tried,
How mirth can into folly glide,
And folly into sin ? {Scott.
■ How guilt once harbor'd in the conscious
breast.
Intimidates the brave, degrades the great.
{Sam I Johnson.
Some temptations come to the industrious, but
all temptations attack the idle.
{Spur g eon _
Sometimes we are devils to ourselves,
When we will tempt the frailty of our powers.
Presuming on their changeful potency.
{Shakespeare.
Many a man's vices have at first been nothing
worse than good qualities run wild.
{Hare.
The devil tempts us not — 'tis we tempt iim.
Beckoning his skill with opportunity.
{George Eliot.
" He shall not die, by God," cried he.
The Accusing Spirit which flew up to heaven's
chancery with the oath blushed as he
gave it in : and the Recording Angel as
he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon
the word and blotted it out forever.
{ Sterne.
SLEEP.
Sleep, thou repose of all things ; Sleep, thou
gentlest of the deities ; thou peace of the
mind, from which care flies ; who dost
soothe the hearts of men wearied with
the toils of the day, and refittest them
for labor. {Ovid.
Of all the thoughts of God that are
Borne inward unto souls afar.
Along the Psalmist's music deep,
Now tell me if that any is,
For gift or grace, suryiassing this —
" He giveth His beloved sleep."
{E. B. Browning.
Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep !
He, like the world, his ready visit pays
Where fortune smiles ; the wretched he for-
sakes. ( Young.
Our life is two-fold ; Sleep hath its own
world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence : Sleep hath its own
world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,
And dreams in their development have
breath.
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy.
( Byron.
Blessings light on him who first invented
sleep ! it covers a man all over, thoughts
and all, like a cloak ; it is meat for the
hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for
the cold, and cold for the hot ; in short,
money that buys everything, balance and
weight that makes the shepherd equal to
the monarch, and the fool to the wise ;
there is only one evil in sleep, as I have
heard, and it is that it resembles death,
since between a dead and a sleeping man
there is but little difference. {Cervantes.
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath.
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second
course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast. {Shakespeare.
I am weary, and am overwrought
With too much toil, with too much care dis-
traught.
And with the iron crown of anguish crowned.
Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and cheek,
peaceful Sleep ! {Longfellow.
She sleeps, her breathings are not heard
In palace chambers far apart.
The fragrant tresses are not stirr'd
That lie upon her charmed heart.
She sleeps : on either hand up swells
The gold fringed pillow lightly prest :
She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells
A perfect form in perfect rest. ( Tennyson.
Dreams of the summer night!
Tell her, her lover keeps
Watch ! while in slumbers light
She sleeps !
My lady sleeps !
Sleeps! {Longfellow.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
831
Thou driftest gently down the tides of sleep.
[Longfellow.
SOLITUDE.
Little do men perceive what solitude is, and
how far it extendeth ; for a crowd is not
company, and faces are but a gallery of
pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal,
where there is no love. [Bacon.
He enter'd in his house— his home no more.
For without hearts there is no home ; —
and felt
The solitude of passing his own door
Without a welcome. [Byron.
For solitude sometimes is best society.
And short retirement urges sweet return.
[Mdton.
Nature has presented us with a large faculty
of entertaining ourselves alone, and often
calls us to it, to teach us that we owe
ourselves in part to society, but chiefly
and mostly to ourselves. [Montaigne.
Eagles we see fly alone ; and they are but
sheep which always herd together.
[Sir P. Sidney.
Among them, but not of them. [Byron.
Where should the scholar live ? In solitude,
or in society? in the green stillness of
the country, where he can hear the heart
of Nature beat, or in the dark gray town ?
0, they do greatly err who think that
the stars are all the poetry which cities
have ; and therefore that the poet's only
dwelling should be in sylvan solitudes,
under the green roof of trees.
[Longfellow.
So lonely 'twas that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be. Coleridge.
He makes a solitude, and calls it peace.
[Byron.
No doubt solitude is wholesome, but so is
abstinence after a surfeit. The true life
of man is in society. [Simms.
They are never alone who are accompanied
with noble thoughts. [Sir P. Sidney.
Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide, wide sea,
And not a saint took pity
On my soul in agony. [Coleridge.
I was never less alone than when with myself.
( Gibbon.
blest retirement, friend to life's decline.
Retreat from care, that never must be mine,
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like
these,
A youth of labor with an age of ease ;
Who quits a world where strong temptations
try.
And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly !
( Goldsmith.
SORROW.
This life of ours is a wild aeolian harp of many
a joyous strain,
But under them all there runs a loud per-
petual wail, as of souls in pain.
[Longfellow.
A Saviour's crown of sorrow is remembering
happier things. [Tennyson.
He who hath most of heart knows most of
sorrow. [Bailey.
To live beneath sorrow one mast yield to it.
[Madame de Stael.
On rolls the stream with a perpetual sigh ;
The rocks moan wildly as it passes by :
Hyssop and wormwood border all the strand.
And not a flower adorns the dreary land.
[Bryant.
Thou speakest truly, poet! and methinks
More hearts are breaking in this world of
ours
Than one would say. [Longfellow.
There are a good many real miseries in life
that we cannot help smiling at, but they
are the smiles that make wrinkhs and
not dimples. [Holmes.
Over all things brooding slept
The quiet sense of something lost.
( Tennyson.
No greater grief than to remember day?
Of joy wheu misery is at hand. [Dante.
832
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
Night brings out stars as sorrow shows us
truths. {Bailey.
weary hearts ! slumbering eyes !
drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again. (Longfellow.
In this world, full often our joys are only the
tender shadows which our sorrows cast.
{Beecher.
Each time we love,
We turn a nearer, and a broader mark
To that keen archer, Sorrow, and he strikes.
{Alexander Smith.
The first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd knoUing a departed friend.
{Shakespeare.
Small griefs find tongues; full casques are
ever found
To give, if any, very little sound.
Deep waters noyselesse are ; and this we know,
That chiding streams betray small depth
below. {Herrick.
lost days of delight, that are wasted in
doubting and waiting!
O lost hours and days in which we might
have been happy ! {Longfellow.
Sorrows remembered sweeten present joy.
{Pollok.
Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a
life has been breathed into no human ear.
{Oeorge Eliot.
That loss is common would not make
My own less bitter, rather more :
Too common ! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.
( Tennyson.
Thank God, bless God, all ye who suffer not
More gnef than ye can weep for. That is
well —
That is light grieving ! {K B. Browning.
With silence only as their benediction,
God's angels come
Where in ihe shadow of a great affliction.
The soul sits dumb ! ( Whittier.
What deep wounds ever closed without a scar ?
The heart's bleed longest, and but heal to wear
That which disfigures it. {Byron.
0, well has it been said, that there is no grief
like the grief which does not speak !
{Lotigfellow.
The day drags through, though storms keep
out the sun;
And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly
live on. {Byron.
THOUGHT.
Oh the fetterless mind ! how it wandereth free
Through the wildering maze of Eternity !
{Henry Smith.
Thought is the property of him who can
entertain it ; and of him who can ade-
quately place it. A certain awkwardness
marks the use of borrowed thoughts ; but
as soon as we have learned what to do
with them, they become our own.
{Emerson.
Learning without thought is labor lost,
thought without learning is perilous.
( Confucius.
Thought once awakened does not again
slumber. ( Carlyle.
What Exile from himself can flee ?
To zones though more and more remote.
Still, still pursues, where'er I be,
The blight of life — the demon Thought.
{Byron.
The thoughts that come often unsought, and,
as it were, drop into the mind, are com-
monly the most valuable of any we have,
and therefore should be secured, because
they seldom return again {Locke.
Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.
{Euripides.
A good thought is indeed a great boon for
which God is to be first thanked ; next
he who is the first to utter it, and then,
in the lesser, but still in a considerable
degree, the friend who is the first to quote
it to us. (Bovee.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
833
Great thoughts, like great deeds, need no
trumpet. {Bailey.
Men's thoughts are much according to their
inclination. [Bacon.
Let our thoughts meet in heaven ?
(Madame de Stael.
As you grow ready for it, somewhere or other
you will find what is needful for you in
a book or a friend, or, best of all, in your
own thoughts — the eternal thought
speaking in your thought.
(George MacDonald.
It is not always the depth or the novelty of
a thought which constitutes its value to
ourselves, but the fitness of its applica-
tion to our circumstances. (Sewell.
A thought is often original, though you have
uttered it a hundred times. It has come
to you over a new route, by a new and
express train of association. (Holmes.
Thought discovered is the more possessed.
( Young.
God delights in true, earnest thinkers.
(Dwight.
In the end thought rules the world. There
are times when impulses and passions
are more powerful, but they soon ex-
pend themselves ; while mind, acting
constantly, is ever ready to drive them
back and work when their energy is ex-
hausted. (McCosh.
Thinking is the talking of the soul with it-
self. (Plato.
TIME AND ETERNITY.
A wonderful stream is the River Time,
As it runs through the realms of Tears,
With a faultless rhythm, and a musical
rhyme,
And a broader sweep, and a surge sublime
As it blends with the ocean of Years.
(Benjamin F. Tui/lor.
Therefore well does Agathon say, " Of this
alone is even God deprived, the power of
making that which is past never to have
been." (Aristotle.
That great mystery of Time, were there no
other ; the illimitable, silent, never-
resting thing called Time, rolling, rush-
ing on, swift, silent, like an all-embrac-
ing ocean-tide, on which we and all the
Universe swim like exhalations, like ap-
paritions which are, and then are not:
this is forever very literally a miracle ;
a thing to strike us dumb — for we have
no word to speak about it. (Carlyle.
" I've lost a day " — the prince who nobly
cried,
Had been an emperor without his crown.
( Young.
All is created and goes after order ; yet o'er
the mankind's Life time, the precious
gift, rules an uncertain fate. '(Goethe.
Know the true value of time ; snatch, seize,
and enjoy every moment of it. No idle-
ness, no laziness, no procrastination :
never put off till to-morrow what you
can do to-day. (Earl of Chesterfield.
I hear the mufiled tramp of years
Come stealing up the slope of Time,
They bear a train of smiles and tears.
Of burning hopes and dreams .sublime.
(James G. Clarke.
Write it on your heart that every day is the
best day in the year. No man has learned
anything rightly, until he knows that
every day is Doomsday. (Emerson.
Time conquers all, and we must Time obey.
(Pope.
Day and night,
Seed-time and harvest, heat and hoary frost
Shall hold their course, till fire purge all
things- (Mhon.
What is Time? The shadow on the dial,—
the striking of the clock,— the running
of the sand, — day and night, — summer
and winter, — months, years, centuries;
— these are but arbitrary and outward
signs, the measure of Time, not Time it-
self. Time is the Life of the Soul.
(Longfellow.
He who knows most, grieves most for wasted
time. (BanU.
834
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
This day was j^esterday to-morrow nam'd:
To-morrow shall be yesterday proclaimed :
To-morrow not yet come, not far away,
What shall to-morrow then be call'd? To-
day. {Owen.
For the next win he spurs amain.
In haste alights, and scuds away, —
But time and tide for no man stay.
( Wm. Somerville.
Defer not till to-morrow to be wise.
To-morrow's sun to thee may never rise;
Or should to-morrow chance to cheer thy
sight
With her enlivening and unlook'd for light,
How grateful will appear her dawning rays.
As favors unexpected doubly please.
( Congreve.
The idol of to-day pushes the hero of yester-
day out of our recollection ; and will in
turn be supplanted by his successor of
to-morrow. ( Washington Irving.
God has commanded time to console the un-
happy. (Joubert.
Too late I stayed, — forgive the crime;
Unheeded flew the hours,
How noiseless falls the foot of time
That only treads on flowers ! {Spencer.
I see that time divided is never long, and
that regularity abridges all things.
{Madame de StaH.
Some say " to-morrow " never comes,
A saying oft thought right ;
But if " to-morrow " never came,
No end were of to-night.
The fact is this, time flies so fast,
That e'er we've time to say
" To-morrow's come," presto ! behold !
" To-morrow " proves " To-day."
{Author Unknoiun.
The end crowns all ;
And that old common arbitrator. Time,
Will one day end it. {Shakespeare.
However we pass Time, he passes still,
Passing away whatever the pastime.
And, whether we use him well or ill.
Some day he gives us the slip for the last
time. {Owen Meredith.
Time flies on restless pinions— constant never.
Be constant — and thou chainest time forever.
{Schiller.
Nought treads so silent as the foot of time ;
Hence we mistake our Autumn for our prime.
( Young
Nothing that is can pause or stay ;
The moon will wax, the moon will wane.
The mist and cloud will turn to rain.
The rain to mist and cloud again,
To-morrow be to-day. [Longfellow.
Expect, but fear not Death : Death cannot
kill,
Till Time (that first must seal his patent)
will,
Wouldst thou live long? keep Time in high
esteem ;
Whom gone, if thou canst not recall, redeem.
( Quarles.
Whence is the stream of Time ? What source
supplies
Its everlasting flow ? What gifted hand
Shall raise the veil by dark Oblivion spread.
And trace it to its spring ? What searching
eye
Shall pierce the mists that veil its onward
course.
And read the future destiny of man ?
( Tfiomas Love Peacock.
How short our happy days appear !
How long the sorrovvful ! {Jean Ingelow.
Time wasted is existence ; used, is life.
( Young.
The present hour alone is man's.
{Saml Johnson.
Beneath me flows the Rhine, and, like the
stream of Time, it flows amid the ruins
of the past. {Longfellow.
Forever haltless hurries Time, the Durable to
gain.
Be true, and thou shalt fetter Time with ever-
lasting chain. {Schiller.
Come, gone, — gone forever, —
Gone as an unreturning river, —
Gone as to death the merriest liver, —
Gone as the year at the dying fall,—
To-morrow, to-day, yesterday, never, —
Gone once for all. {Christina O. liosetti.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
835
No hand can make the clock strike for me
the hours that are passed. {Byron.
Who shall contend with time, — unvanquished
time, the conqueror of conquerors and
lord of desolation. [H. K. White.
One always has time enough, if one will
apply it well. ( Goethe.
When all else is lost, the future still remains.
(Bovee.
By the street of " By-and-by " one arrives
at the house of " Never." {Cervantes.
The every-day cares and duties, which men
call drudgery, are the weights and
counterpoises of the clock of time, giv-
ing its pendulum a true vibration, and
its hands a regular motion ; and when
they cease to hang upon the wheels, the
pendulum no longer swings, the hands
no longer move, the clock stands still.
{Longfellow.
Threefold the stride of Time, from first to
last!
Loitering slow, the Future creepeth—
Arrow-swift, the Present sweepeth —
And motionless for ever stands the Past.
{Schiller.
Time is the chrysalis of eternity. {Richter.
Eternity ! thou pleasing, dreadful thought.
{Addison.
TREES AND FLOWERS.
A large, branching, aged oak is perhaps the
most venerable of all inanimate objects.
{Shenstone.
The highest and most lofty trees have the
most reason to dread the thunder.
( Rollin..
Trees, that like the poplar, lift upward all
their boughs, give no shade and no
shelter, whatever their height. Trees
the most lovingly shelter and shade us,
when, like the willow, the higher soar
their summits, the lower droop their
boughs. {Bulwer- Lytton.
Ivy clings to wood or stone.
And hides the ruin that it feeds upon.
( Cowper.
Flowers have an expression of countenance
as much as men or animals. Some seem
to smile ; some have a sad expression ;
some are pensive and diffident; others
again are plain, honest and upright, like
the broad-faced sunflower and the holly-
hock. {Henry Ward Beccher.
Loveliest of lovely things are they,
On earth that soonest pass away.
The rose that lives its little hour
Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.
( Bryant.
Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and gold-
en,
Stars, that in the earth's firmament do
shine. {Longfellow.
Hope smiled when your nativity was cast.
Children of Summer ! ( Wordsworth.
Daisies infinite
Uplift in praise their little glowing hands
O'er every hill that under heaven expands.
{Ebenezer Elliott.
Daisies quaint, with savor none.
But golden eyes of great delight,
That all men love, they be so bright.
{Owen Meredith.
Sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.
{Shakespeare,
We bring daisies, little starry daisies,
The angels have planted to remind us of
the sky.
When the stars have vanished they twinkle
their mute praises,
Telling, in the dewy grass, of brighter
fields on high. {Read.
All flowers will droop in absence of the sun
that waked their sweets. {Dryden.
And lilies are still lilies, pulled
By smutty hands, though spotted from their
white. {E. B. Browning.
" Thou wert not, Solomon ! in all thv glory,
Array'd," the lilies cry, "in robes like
ours ;
How vain your grandeur ! Ah, how transi-
tory
Are human flowers I '' {Horace Smith.
836
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
Is there not a soul beyond utterance, half
nymph, half child, in those delicate
petals which glow and breathe about the
centres of deep color ? ( George Eliot.
Art thou a type of beauty, or of power,
Of sweet enjoyment, or disastrous sin ?
For each thy name denoteth. Passion-flower!
no ! thy pure corolla's depth within
"We trace a holier symbol ; yea, a sign
'Twixt God and man ; a record of that hour
When the expiatory act divine
Cancelled that curse which was our mortal
dower.
It is the Cross ! (Sir Aubrey de Vere.
It never rains roses ; when we want
To have more roses we must plant more trees.
( George Eliot.
Aromatic plants bestow
No spicy fragrance while they grow.
But crush'd or trodden to the ground,
Difluse their balmy sweets around.
( Goldsmith.
Woo on, with odor wooing me,
Faint rose, with fading core ;
For God's rose-thought, that blooms in thee,
Will bloom for evermore.
( George MacDonald.
TRUST.
■ To be trusted is a greater compliment than to
be loved. {George MacDonald.
Confidence is a plant of slow growth.
[Earl of Chatham.
Better trust all and be deceived,
And weep that trust and that deceiving.
Than doubt one heart which, if believed
Had blessed one's life with true believing.
(Frances Anne Kemhle.
He who betrays the secret of his friend be-
cause he has quarreled with him, was
never worthy the name of friend. No
breach of friendship can ever justify a
breach of trust. (Anon.
No soul is desolate as long as there is a hu-
man being for whom it can feel trust and
reverence. {George Eliot.
Trust not him that hath once broken faith.
{Shakespeare.
I have play'd the fool, the gro.ss fool, to be-
lieve
The bo.som of a friend will hold a secret,
Mine own could not contain. {Massinger.
TRUTH.
O, while you live, tell truth ; and shame the
devil. (Shakespeare.
Get but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like
A star new-born that drops into its place.
And which, once circling in its placid round,
Not all the tumult of the earth can shake.
(Lowell.
'Tis strange — but true; for truth is always
strange.
Stranger than fiction. (Byron.
But what is truth ? 'Twas Pilate's question
put
To Truth itself, that deign'd him no reply.
( Cowper.
Truth is truth, though from an enemy, and
spoken in malice. (G. Lille.
Truth is easy, and the light shines clear
In hearts kept open, honest and sincere!
(Abraham Coles.
The deepest truths are best read between the
lines, and, for the most part, refuse to be
written. (Alcott.
True as the dial to the sun.
Although it be not shined upon. (Butler.
To God, thy country, and thy friend be true.
( Vaughan.
The dignity of truth is lost
With much protesting. (Ben Jonson.
Who never doubted, never half believed.
Where doubt, there truth is — 'tis her shadow.
(Bailey.
Truth comes to us from the past, as gold is
washed down from the mountains of Si-
erra Nevada, in minute but precious par-
ticles, and intermixed with infinite alloy,
the debris of centuries. (Bovce.
Once to every man and nation, comes the mo-
ment to decide.
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the
good or evil side. {Lowell.
LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.
837
He is the free-man whom the truth makes
free,
And all are slaves besides. {Cowper.
Truth crushed to earth shall rise again :
The eternal years of God are hers ;
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies among his worshippers. {Bryant.
VIRTUE.
There have been men who could play delight-
ful music on one string of the violin, but
there never was a man who could produce
the harmonies of heaven in his soul by a
one-stringed virtue. [Chapin.
Recommend to your children virtue ; that
alone can make happy ; not gold.
{Beethoven.
Virtue maketh men on the earth famous, in
their graves illustrious, in the heavens
immortal. {Child.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
( Tennyson.
A little learning is a dangerous thing ;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring ;
Their shallow draughts intoxicate the brain.
And drinking largely sobers us again. {Pope.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a
subject ourselves, or we know where we
can find information upon it.
{Sam'l Johnson.
When you know a thing, to hold that you
know it ; and when you do not know a
thing, to allow that you do not know it ;
this is knowledge. {Confucius.
Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one,
Have oft-times no connexion. Knowledge
dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men ;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
{Cowper.
Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to
virtue, truly and essentially raises one
man above another. {Addison.
Learning passes for wisdom among those who
want both. {Sir W. Temple.
The fool is happy that he knows no more.
{Pope.
He might be a very clever man by nature,
for all I know, but he laid so many books
upon his head that his brains could not
move. {Robert Hall.
The maxim ' Know thyself does not suffice ;
Know others ! — know them well — that's my
advice. ^{Menander.
If a man empties his purse into his head, uq
one can take it from him. {Franklin.
Where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise. {Oray.
A life of knowledge is not often a life of in-
jury and crime. {Sydney Smith.
Tell (if you can) what is it to be wise?
'Tis but to know how little can be known,
To see all other's faults, and feel our own.
{Pope.
To know thyself — in others self discern;
Would'st thou know others? read thyself—
and learn ! {Schiller.
Sense is our helmet, wit is but the plume ;
The plume exposes, 'tis our helmet saves.
Sense is the diamond weighty, solid, sound ;
When cut by wit, it casts a brighter beam ;
Yet, wit apart, it is a diamond still. ( Young.
Nothing is more terrible than active igno-
rance. ( Goethe.
Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.
{Pope.
WOMAN.
0, woman ! in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made:
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou ! {Scott.
Not she with trait' rous kiss her Saviour stung,
Not she denied him with unholy tongue;
She, while apostles shrank, could danger
brave,
Last at his cross, and earliest at his grave.
{Barrett.
838
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
But one upon Earth is more beautiful and
better than the wife — that is the mother.
[L. Schefer.
The foundation of domestic happiness is faith
in the virtue of woman. {Landor.
The future destiny of the child is always the
work of the mother. {Napoleon.
And whether coldness, pride, or virtue, dig-
nify,
A woman, so she's good, what does it signify?
(Byron.
Her voice was ever soft, gentle and low ; an
excellent thing in woman. {Shakespeare.
Like a lovely tree
She grew to womanhood, and between whiles
Rejected several suitors, just to learn
How to accept a better in his turn. {Byron.
Earth's noblest thing, a woman perfected.
{Lowell.
Happy he
With such a mother ! faith in womankind
Beats with his blood, and trust in all things
hi^h
Comes easy to him, and though he trip and
fall,
He shall not blind his soul with clay.
( Tennyson.
And nature swears, the lovely dears
Her noblest work she classes, ;
Her 'prentice han' she tried on man,
An' then she made the lasses, 0. {Burns.
YOUTH AND AGE.
child ! new-born denizen
Of life's great city ! on thy head
The glory of the morn is shed
Like a celestial benison ?
Here at the portal thou dost stand,
And with thy little hand
Thou openest the mysterious gate
Into the future's undiscovered land.
{Longfellow
How beautiful is youth ! how bright it gleams
With its illusions, aspirations, dreams !
Book of Beginnings, Story without End,
Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend !
{Lonrjfdlow.
A babe in a house is a well-spring of plea-
sure. ( Tapper.
Heaven lies about us in our infancy !
( Wordsworth.
Pointing to such, well might Cornelia say.
When the rich casket shone in bright array,
" These are my jewels ! " Well of such as he,
When Jesus spake, well might the language
be,
" Suffer these little ones to come to me ' ''
{Rogers.
Standing with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet !
( Longfellow.
Be wise with speed,
A fool at forty is a fool indeed. ( Young.
Years follow'ng years, steal something ev'ry
day ;
At last they steal us from ourselves away,
( Pope.
Dark and despairing, my sight I may seal,
But man cannot cover what God would re-
veal :
'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.
( Campbell.
It is difficult to grow old gracefully.
{Madame de Stael.
The youth of the soul is everlasting and
eternity is youth. {Richter.
Old age is courteous — no one more :
For time after time he knocks at the door,
But nobody says, " Walk in, sir, pray ! ''
Yet turns he not from the door away.
But lifts the latch, and enters with speed.
And then they cry, " A cool one, indeed."
( Goethe.
Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the
swelling of the fresh life within, that
withers and bursts the brusk.
( Oeorge McDonald.
Life's shadows are meeting Eternity's day.
{James O. Clarke.
Time has laid his hand upon my heart gently,
I not smiting it, but as a harper lays his
open palm upon his harp, to deaden us
vibrations. {Longfellow.
SENTIMENTS
AUTOGRAPH ALBUMS.
"When sunny memories round thy path
Their magic fancies gaily bind,
When retrospection bears its part
And brings the forms of friends to mind,
The hand that traced these lines would clair
A thought adorned in Friendship's name.
Count that day lost, whose low descending sun
Views from thy hand no worthy action done.
Gladly I give thee my token —
'Tis a prayer that thy future may be
A pathway of peace all unbroken,
Naught bringing sadness to thee.
Accompany your own flag through the
world under the protection of your own
cannon.
Attempt the end and never stand in doubt,
Nothing's so hard but search will find it out.
Be what your friends think you are ;
Avoid what your enemies say you are.
To those who know thee not, no words can
paint !
And those who know thee, know all words
are faint !
Finish all thy work, then rest —
Till then, rest never ;
The rest, prepared for thee by God,
Is rest forever.
Work for some good, be it ever so slowly ;
Cherib^h some flower, be it ever so lowly ;
Labor,— all labor is noble and holv.
Whene'er the clouds of sorrow roll, and
trials whelm the mind.
When faint with grief thy wearied soul no
joys on earth can find,
Then lift thy voice to God on high, dry up
the trembling tear.
And hush the low complaining sigh. Fear
not, thy God is near.
Act well at the moment, and you have per-
formed a good action to all eternity.
Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows
of heaven.
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-
nots of the angels.
May your joys be as deep as the ocean.
Your sorrows as light as its foam.
These little souvenirs po.ssess not their
greatest value when first written; but
as time, with scythe in hand, passes
along, and we are left standing, we are
not the same, but these lines remain.
Some, to cheer the saddened by awak-
ening slumbering memories of better
things; and others serving as guide-
boards on the road to eternity.
Death cannot sever
The ties that bind our souls through mortal
years —
They last forever I
May the Angels twine for thee
A wreath oi immortality.
839
840
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
To thine own self be true ;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
The man who seeks one thing in life, and but
one
May hope to achieve it before life is done ;
But he who seeks all things wherever he goes,
Only reaps from the hopes which around him
he sows
A harvest of barren regrets.
The proudest motto for the young —
Write it in lines of gold
Upon thy heart, and in thy mind
The stirring words enfold ;
And in misfortune's dreary hour,
Or fortune's prosperous gale,
'Twill have a holy, cheering power—
" There's no such word a,sfail."
Our lives are songs ; God writes the words,
And we set them to music at pleasure,
And the song grows glad, or sweet, or sad
As we choose to fashion the measure.
We must write the music, whatever the song,
Whatever its rhyme or metre.
And if it is glad we may make it sad,
Or if sweet we may make it sweeter.
As gold more splendid from fire appears.
So friendship strengthens with the lapse
years.
Heaven is not gained by a single bound,
But we climb the ladder by which we rise ;
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies.
And we mount to the summit, round and
round.
May all that is brightest and fairest
In life, be thy portion and share ;
Be happy, God's blessing attend thee.
Is ever my wish and my prayer.
The heights by great men reached and kept.
Were not attained by sudden flight ;
But they, while their companions slept.
Were toiling upwards in the night.
For every ill beneath the sun
There is a remedy, or none ;
If there be one, resolve to find it.
If none, submit and never mind it.
Nothing great was ever achieved without
enthusiasm.
Use what talents you possess ; the woods
would be very silent if no birds sang
there but those which sang the best.
Hope for the best, get ready for the worst,
and then take what God sends.
Though the day be ever so long,
It bringeth at last to even song,"
When the roses of life are faded.
And our steps are sad and slow.
May we think with tender longing
Of the days of long ago ;
When our girlish aspirations
Were so innocent and bright,
Ere on our lives had fallen
The shadow of the night.
So should we live that every hour,
May die as dies the natural flower ;
That every word and every deed
May bear within itself the seed
Of future good, for future need.
Look forward, not backward.
Not inward but outward,
Not downward but upward.
When memory with her jeweled hand,
Counts o'er her gems by life's bright sea,
Drop not my pearl upon the strand.
But keep it and remember me.
Blest be thy passage o'er the changing sea
Oi life; the clouds be few that intercept
Thy light of joy ; the waves roll gently on
Beneath thy bark of hope and bear thee safe
To meet in peace, thy Father— God.
Humble we must be, if to Heaven we go,
High is the roof there, but the gate is lew.
SENTIMENTS FOR ALBUMS.
841
May ev'ry page of this fair book
On its smooth surface bear
Some kindly wish, some generous thought,
Or wit-gem sparkling fair.
Each autograph the signet be
Of some true-hearted friend ;
The memory of whose genial soul
Will ever sunshine lend.
Oh, let my friendship in the wreath,
Though but a bud among the flowers.
Its sweetest fragrance round thee breathe,-
'Twill serve to soothe thy weary hours.
These few lines which here I trace
Tears may not change nor age efface.
They may be read, though valued not
When he who penned them is forgot.
A life without a purpose is like a ship at sea
without a destination ; the course of eacli
will be uncertain, but the sad end sure.
Were it not for the clouds that darken upon
us, there would be no rainbows in our
lives.
If vou would be loved, be lovable.
We shape, ourselves, the joy or fear
Of which the coming life is made,
And fill our future's atmosphere
With sunshine or with shade.
Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets.
And simple faith than Norman blood.
Every man's life is
God's fingers.
fairy-tale written by
ships meet at sea, a moment together,
when words of greeting must be spoken,
and then away into the deep, so men
meet in this world; and I think we
should cross no man's path without hail-
ing him, and, if he needs, giving him
supplies.
The tissue of the life to be
We weave with colors all our own
And in the field of Destiny
We reap as we have sown.
He doeth well who doth his best —
lie doeth well who strives.
Noblest efforts sometimes fail
But never noble lives.
Friendship is no plant of hasty growth,
Though planted in esteem's deep fixed soil
The gradual culture of kind intercourse
Must bring it to perfection.
Run if you like, but try to keep your breath,
Work earnustly, but don't be worked to death.
My friend, if ever fondest prayer
For other's weal availed on high,
Mine will not all be lost in air
But waft thy name beyond the sky.
Our actions are like the terminations of verses
which we rhyme as we please.
Be true to your word and your work and
your friend.
Trust men, and they will be true to you : treat
them greatly, and they will show them-
selves great.
Here's a lesson that he who runs may read.
Though I fear but few iiave won it.
The be.«t reward of a kindly deed
Is the knowledge of having done it.
What you can do or dream you can begin it;
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it;
Only engage and then the mind grows heated ;
Begin, and the work will be completed.
Look not at life by that dim light
Which through thy curtained window creeps.
What can a soul discern that weeps ?
Go, share the fight, leave self behind;
Give others joy, and thou .ehalt find,
Even in affliction, peace of mind ;
In weakness, heavenly might.
842
GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.
I will not wish thee grandeur,
Nor do I wish thee wealth ;
But only a contented mind,
Peace, happiness and health ;
Fond friends to love thee dearly
And honest friends to chide,
And faithful ones to cleave to thee.
Whatever may betide.
Wouldst thou be a happy liver,
Let the past be past forever !
Fret not, when prigs and pedants bore you ;
Enjoy the good that's set before you ;
But chiefly hate no man : the rest
Leave thou to God, who knows what's best.
Either never attempt, or persevere to the
end.
Each gift that God bestows on thee
With others freely share ;
And let each act of sacrifice
Be hallowed by a prayer.
Of all earthly music, that which reaches the
farthest into heaven is the beating of a
loving heart.
From tempests rough, and storm winds wild,
Would thy parent shield her child.
And. upon her bosom bear
All thy coming load of care.
But the Father says, " Tis best
Thou shouldst find thro' toil thy rest,
And the blooming of thy life
Yield its perfume to the strife."
Hours are golden links, God's token
Reaching heaven ; but, one by one,
Take them, lest the chain be broken,
Ere thy pilgrimage be done.
The skylark and the nightingale
Though small and light of wing,
Yet warbles blither than all birds
That in the wildwoods sing.
And so a little maiden fair.
Though but a bird- like thing,
Is sweater than all other sweets,
E'en flowers that blow in spring
Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be
clever ;
Do noble things, not dream them, all day
long;
And so make life, death, and the vast forever
One grand, sweet song.
To bear is to conquer our fate.
I slept and" dreamed that life was Beauty ;
I woke and found that life was Duty ; —
Was my dream then a shadowy lie?
Toil on, faint heart, courageously
Follow the one, and thou shalt see
The other still will follow thee.
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
Prosperity attend thee, my loved and gentle
friend.
May fortune still befriend thee, and all its
pleasures lend ;
Through life as thou dost wend thee, may
Heaven its blessing send,
Like seraphs to attend thee, forever more my
friend.
We see not a steji before us
As we tread on another year,
But the past is in God's keeping
The future His mercy shall clear.
We must know that in this theatre of life,
It remaineth only to God and the angels to be
lookers on.
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but
in rising every time we fall.
Who does the best his circumstance allows.
Does well, acts nobly ; angels could no more.
Be noble ! and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping, but never dead.
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.
May your ways be ways of pleasantness,
And all your paths be peace.
SENTIMENTS FOR ALBUMS.
843
Be noble in every thought
And in every deed !
May the cliains of friendship formed by the
linki^ which are dropped here, serve to
unite you more closely in spirit with the
friends who have worked it. May each ,
link be brought to a white heat in i
the fires of Love ; and, forged on the
anvils of Truth, may they be strong as
iron, yet light as air ; keeping you
bravely to the duties of Life. And when
the chain of human bondage shall be
broken, may they become flowers of
eternal brightness in the gardens from
whence cometh exceeding yieace.
He who is false to present duty breaks a
thread in the loom, and will find tlie
flaw when he may have forgotten its
cause.
Guard well thy thoughts ; our thoughts are
heard in heaven.
The mould of a man's fortune is in his own
hands.
Our lives are albums, written through
With good or ill — with false or true —
And, as the blessed angels turn
The pages of our years,
God grant they read the good with smiles,
And blot the bad with tears.
May there be just clouds enough o'er your life
to cause a glorious sunset.
I pray the prayer of Plato old ;
God make thee beautiful within ;
And let thine eye the good behold
In everything, save sin.
Methinks long years have flown,
And, sitting in her old arm-chair,
has older grown.
With silver sprinkled in her hair.
Her album thus she holds,
And turns its many pages o'er.
And wonders if it still contains
The memories of yore.
As o'er these pages thus she runs,
With many a sigh and kis^,
Then suddenly she stops and says,
" Who could have written this ? "
Get thy spindle and thy di
God will send thee flax.
=taff rcadv, and
We may write our names in Albums,
We may trace them in the sand ;
We may chisel them in marble,
With a firm and skillful liand :
But the pages soon are sullied.
Soon each name will fade away ;
Every monument will crumble,
Like all earthly hopes, decay.
But, dear friend, 'there is an Album,
Full of leaves of snowy white,
Where no name is ever tarnished,
But forever pure and bright.
In that Book of life, God's Album,
May your name be penned with care :
And may all who here have written,
Have their names forever there.
Every person is responsible for all the good
within the scope of his abilities, and for
no more, and none can tell whose sphere
is the largest.
Honor is the hill wliich few may hopo to
climb ;
Duty is the path that all may tread.
Greatly begin ! though ihou have time
But for a line, bi- that sublime —
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
I ask not a life for the dear one
All sunshine, as others have done.
But that life may liave just enough shadr
To temper the glare of the sun.
Every one is the son of his own works.
I everywhere am thinking
Of thy blue eyes' sweet smile ;
A sea of blue thoughts spreading
Over mv heart the wliile
8U
GEM? FOR THE FTRESIDft.
Be what nature intended you for and you will
succeed, be anything else and you will
be ten thousand times worse than nothing.
Our ac-ts make or mar us, — we are the children
of our own deeds.
Victory belongs to the most persevering.
Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what
we think, and in all things
Keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sacred
professions of friendship.
Earth, then heaven,
But friendship through all.
All may do what has by man been done.
No sun ever rose and set but had influence
somewhere.
No stream ever flowed seaward but some land
was gladdened.
No life can be pure in its purpose and strong
in its strife, and all life not be purer
and stronger thereby.
As we sail through life towards death.
Bound unto the same port — Heaven,—
Friend, what years could us divide ?
I wish you all the joy that you can wish.
Yes, we must ever be friends ; and of all who
offer you friendship
Let me be ever the first, the truest, the near-
est and dearest !
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the
soul.
Moderation is the silken string running
through the pearl-chain of all virtues.
The only amaranthine flower on earth
Is virtue ; the only lasting treasure, truth.
Truth in the end shall shine divinely clear.
But sad the darkness till those times appear.
Honor and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honor lies.
Don't be " consistent," but be simply true.
Let your life be like a snowflake, which
leaves a mark, but not a stain.
May the hinges of our Friendship never rust.
Devote each day to the object then in time,
and every evening will find something
done.
great in act, as you have been in tbought.
Look not mournfully into the past, — it comes
not back again ; wisely improve the
present, — it is thine ; go forth to meet
the shadowy future without fear, and
with a manly heart.
How often is our path
Crossed by some being whose bright spirit
sheds
A passing gladness o'er it; but whose course
Leads down another current, never more
To blend with ours ! yet far within our soul
Amidst the rushing of the busy world,
Dwells many a secret thought, which lingers
still
Around that image.
Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any
outward touch as the sunbeam.
When to the flowers so beautiful
The Father gave a name,
Back came a little blue-eyed one
(All timidly it came) ,
And standing at its Father's feet
And gazing in His face
It said, in low and trembling tones :
" Dear God, the name thou gavest me,
Alas ! I have forgot,"
Kindly the Father looked him down
And said : Forget-me-not.
He who is firm in will moulds the world to
himself.
INDEX OF PROSE.
SUBJECT.
A Child's Dream of a Star Charles Dickens 34.i
Advice to Young Men . Noah Porter 598
African Hospitality ,...,. Mungo Park 66
A Glass of Cold Water John B. Gough 332
A Husband's Experience IN Cooking . . . .Anonymous 519
A Mariner's Description OF a Piano . . . . Anonymom 495
A Patriot's Last Appeal Robert Emmet 646
Arctic Life Elisha Kent Kane 652
Artemus Ward at Shakspeare's Tomb .... Charles F. Brown 152
Artemus Ward Visits the Shakers Charles F. Brown 420
A Time of Unexampled Prosperity Washington Irving • . 448
Baltus Van Tassel's Farm Washington Irving 49
'BiAH Cathcart's Proposal Henry Ward Beecher 293
Book-Buyers John Ruskin 660
Buck Fanshaw's Funeral S. C. Clemens
Burke on the Death of his Son Edmund Burke ....
Buying Gape-Seed John B. Oough ....
Catching the Morning Train Max Adelcr
Caught in the Maelstrom Charles A. Wiley . . .
Caught in the Quicksand Victor Hugo . .
Charity Dinner, The Litchfield Mosely . . .
Children of the Desert Arthur Penrhyn Stanley
Clock Work of the Skies Edward Everett ....
Coming of Thanksgiving Charles Dudley Warner
671
231
57
61
412
223
326
385
630
14^
815
846 TITLE&.OF PROSE.
CoNSTANTius AND THE LiON Oeorge Croly 239
Coronation of Anne Boletn J. A. Froude • 194
Crime Self-Revealed Daniel Webster 632
David, King of Israel Edward Irving ........... 486
Death of Little Joe Charles Dickens 134
Death of Little Nell Charles Dickens 256
Death of President Lincoln Henry Ward Beecher 598
Dedication of Gettysburg Cemetery .... Abraham Lincoln . 141
Defence of Pra Del Tor ......... J. A. Wylie 690
De Pint wid Ole Pete ........... Anonymous 143
Diamond Dust Selections 521
Domain of Aenheim ., Edgar A. Poe 433
Dress Reform T. De Witt Talmage 550
Drunkard's Death, The Charles Dickens . . . . 189
Dumb-Waiter, The Frederick Cozzens . 279
European Guides Mark Twain 211
Execution of Joan of Arc ......... Thomas De Quincey ......... 145
Fingal's Cave Anonymous 648
Formation of Icebergs Elisha Kent Kane ... 627
Franklin's Arrival in Philadelphia . . . Benjamin Franklin 657
Freedom of the Press John Milton 172
From Washington's Inaugural George Washington 603
Gamin, The Victor Hugo 275
Gathered Gold Dust Selections 48
Genius of Milton, The Walter Savage Landor 487
Ghosts of Long Ago Mrs. J. H. Riddell 99
Golden Grains James A. Oarfield 640
Good-Night, Papa Anonymous 118
Grandmother's Spectacles J". DeWitt Talmage. 675
Grotto of Antiparos . . , . Anonymous . 636
Habits of Trout William 0. Prime 643
Hebrew Race, The . . • Benjamin Disraeli 67
Hypochondriac, The Anonymous 403
Ideas the Life of a People George W. Curtis 440
Images T. B. Macaulay 264
Immortality • J. B. Massillon 207
Improving on Nature John Ruskin 503
Industry the only Source of Wealth . . . Dr. George Berkeley , . . . 180
Jenkins Goes to A Picnic Anonymous . 163
Jerusalem by Moonlight Benjamin P. Disraeli . 568
Jimmy Butler and the Owl Anonymous 101
Jim Smiley's Frog S. C. Clemens 510
Last Hours of Webster Edward Everett 153
Life of a Child Fairy Anonymous ............. 529
Light Brigade at Balaklava, The William H. Russell 58
Little Evangelist, The Harriet Beecher Stowe 359
Little Rid Hin Mrs. Whitney 482
Lord Dundreary at Brighton Anonymous . . 363
TITLES OF PROSE. 847
SUBJECT. AUTHOR. PAGE.
Loss OF THE Arctic Henry Ward Beecher 683
Making Love in a Balloon Litchfield Mosdey 590
Manifest Destiny Ju&h Billings 457
Meditation at an Infant's Tomb James Hervey 321
Milton T. B. Macaulay 232
Morality of Angling William C. Prime 39
Morning Edward Everett 355
Mother's Vacant Chair T. De Witt Talmage 555
Mountains Alary Howitt 427
Mouse-Hunting B. P. Shillaber 217
Mr. Pickwick in a Dilemma Charles Dickens 71
Mr. Pickwick in the Wrong Room Charles Dickens 375
Mrs. Caudle Needs Spring Clothing .... Douglas Jerrold 478
Mrs. Caudle's Lecture on Shirt Buttons . . Douglas Jerrold 499
Mr. Stiver's Horse /. M.Bailey 112
My Mother's Bible Anonymous 611
New England S. S- Prentiss 105
Nicholas Nickleby Leaves Dotheboy's Hall Charles Dickens 399
Notch of the White Mountains, The .... Timothy Dwight 423
Old Coaching Days John Poole 579
Organ of Westminster Abbey Waiihington Irving 474
Our Debt to Irving Charles Dudley Warner 563
Pauper's Funeral, The Charles Dickens 365
Pilgrim Fathers, The Edward Everett 524
Pip's Fight Charles Dickens 287
Pledge with Wine Anonymous 166
Poetry and Mystery of the Sea Dr. Greenwood 175
Political Agitation Wendell Phillips 506
Praise of the Sea Samuel Purchas 75
Progress of Humanity Charles Sumner 453
Pulpit Oratory Daniel Dougherty 81
Puritans, The T. B. Macaulay 182
Rebecca Describes the Siege to Ivanhoe . . Sir Walter Scott 539
Recollections of my Christmas Tree . • . . Charles Dickens 307
Regulus to the Roman Senate Anonymous 370
Rest of the Just, The Richard Baxter 545
Retribution Abraham Lincoln 162
Rome and Carthage Victor Hugo 350
Ruined Cottage, The Mrs. Letitia E. Maclean 96
Rural Life in England Washington Irving 284
Sam Welleb's Valentine ■ Charles Dickens 532
Scene at Niagara Falls Charles Tarson .... • 234
Schooling a Husband Anonymous 313
Sea-Shore AND Mountains Oliver Wendell Holmes 415
Self-Reliance Ralph Waldo Emerson 607
Selling a Coat Anonymous 535
Sewing on a Button J. M. Bailey 169
Shooting Porpoises I. De Witt Talmage 704
848 TITLES OF PROSE.
SiGHiB FROM A Steeple Nathaniel Hawthorne 470
Sights on the Sea Washington Irving 574
Soft Sawder and Human Natur Thomas C. Haliburton 646
Sorrow for the Dead Washington Irving. . , 88
Sunrise at Sea William V. Kelly 337
Tacitus T. Babington Macaulay 390
The Ballot-Box , . . . E. H. Chapin 617
The Beauty of Youth Theodore Parker 697
The Blind Preacher ........... William Wirt 185
The Divinity OF Poetry Percy Bysshe Shelley ......... 394
The Execution of Madame Roland Lamariine , 686
The Front and Side Doors Oliver Wendell Holmes 43
The Generous Soldier Saved ........ Anonymous 91
The Golden City John Bunyan 303
The Indian to the Settler Edward Everett 463
The Last Station Anonymous 271
The Little Match Girl Hans Christian Andersen 156
The Noble Revenge Anonymous 624
The Old Wife's Kiss Anonymous 244
The Order of Nobility Edmund Burke 227
The Power of Words Edwin P. Whipple 665
The Responsive Chord /. Williain Jones . 614
The Two Roads Jean Paul Eichter 109
Tombs of Westminster Washington Irving 621
Too Late for the Train Anonymous 125
Tramp, Tramp, Tramp . . . J. G. Holland . . • • • 201
Truth John Milton 198
Uncle Dan'l's Apparition AND Prayer . . . Clemens and Warner 121
United in Death Anonymous 137
Useful Studies Jeremy Taylor 292
Voices of the Dead John Cumming 298
Voltaire and Wilberporce William B. Sprague 661
Washington, The Birthday of Pufus Choate 444
Washington, Character of Thomas Jefferson 559
Washington's Address to His Troops .... George Washington 408
What is a Minority ? John B. Gough 270
Widow Bedott's Poetry F. M. Whitcher 82
Winter Douglas Jerrold 55
Winter Sports • Anonymous 667
Worse THAN Civil War Senator Baker 516
Yankee and the Dutchman's Dog, The . . . Anonymous 131
Zeph Kiqgins' Confession Harriet Beecher Stowe 24?'
INDEX OF POEMS
(TITLES )
SUBJECT.
Abou Be:s Adhem Leigh Hunt
A First Sorrow Adelaide Anne Proctor . . .
A Hundred Years from Now Mary A. Ford
Airy Nothings Shakespeare
A Kiss at the Door Anonymous
"A Lion's Head" O. Weatherly
American Aristocracy John O. Saxe
American Flag Joseph Rodman Drake . . .
A Mother's Love Anonymous
Annabel Lee Edijar Allan Poe
Annie Laurie Anonymous
Annie and Willie's Prayer Sophia P. Snow
Answer to THE " Hour of Death " Mrs. Cornwall Baron Wilson
A Portrait Elizabeth Barrett Browning .
A Prayer for my Little One Edgar Fawcett
Arsenal at Springfield H. W. Longfellow
A Snow-Storm Charles O. Eastman . . . .
As Ships Becalmed Arthur H. Clough
A Sufi Saint Translated from the Persian .
226
179
187
325
401
ISl
71
467
703
553
385
395
675
388
682
424
409
422
284
840
850 TITLES OF POEMS.
A. Tailor's Poem of Evening Oliver Wendell Holmes 445
AuLD Robin Gray Amie Barnard 173
A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea Allan Cunningham 587
A Woman's Love Anonymous 702
A Woman's Question Adelaide A. Proctor 356
Baby Oeorge Macdonald 82
Baggage-Fiend Anonymous 300
Barbara Frietchie John G. Whittier 317
Barefoot Boy John G. Whittier 416
Battle of Lookout Mountain George H. Boker 570
Battle Song of Gustavus Adolphus Michael Alternburg 430
Beautiful Snow James W. Watson 443
Belfry Pigeon Nathaniel Parker Willis 61,^
Bell of " The Atlantic " . .' Mrs. Lydia Sigourney 184
Bells of Shandon Father Prout 573
Bells Edgar A. Poe 593
Benedicite , . John Greenleaf Whittier 350
Betsy and I are out Will M. Carleton 381
Betsy Destroys the Paper Will M. Carleton 383
Betty and the Bear Anonymous 171
Beyond the Smiling and the Weeping .... Horatius Bonar ■ . 268
Bill and Joe Oliver Wendell Holmes 458
Bill Mason's Bride F. Bret Harte 518
Bingen on the Rhine Caroline E. Norton 86
"Blessed are They THAT Mourn" William Oullen Bryant 242
Blind Boy, The Colley Gibber 365
Blind Men and the Elephant . .• John G. Saxe 398
Borrioboola Gha Orrin Goodrich 525
Bread on THE Waters George L. Catlin 612
Break, break, break Alfred Tennyson 348
Bridge OF Sighs Thomas Hood 354
Bugle, The Alfred Tennyson 436
Burial of Moses Mrs. C. F. Alexander 289
Buried Flower W. Edmonstone Aytoune 272
Buried To-Day Dinah Maria Mulock 243
Byron's Latest Verses Lord Byron 485
By the Shore of the River Christopher Pearse Cranch 517
Call me not Dead T-anslated from the Persian 269
Cataract of Lodore Robert Southey 248
Cato on Immortality Joseph Addison 391
Cave of Silver Fitz James O'Brien 362
Charge of the Light Brigade Alfred Tennyson 59
Charley's Opinion of the Baby Anonymous 120
Charcoal Man John Townsend Trawbridge 425
Chemist to His Love Anonymous 469
Chinese Excelsior From the " Boy Travelers " 324
Church Window Johann Wolfgang Goethe 358
Civil War Anonymous 318
TITLES OF POEMS. 85]
Clear the Way Charles Mackay 623
Cleon and I Charles Mackay 597
Clerical Wit Anonymous 401
Closing Scene T. Buchanan Read 556
Cloud, The Percy Bysshe Shelley 437
Cobbler Keezar's Vision John G. Whittier 44
Cockney, The ^ John G. Saxe 193
Comet, The Thomas Hood 2G0
Coral Insect Mrs. Sigoumey 146
Cradle Song Josiah Gilbert Holland 277
Creed of the Bells George W. Bungay 309
Day Dawn Henry W. Longfellow 661
Day-Dream Alfred Tennyson 480
David's Lament for Absalom Nathaniel Parker Willis 305
Deacon's Prayer William 0. Stoddart 320
Death-Bed Thomas Hood 199
Death of the Flowers William Cullcn Bryant 349
Death OF THE Old Year Alfred Tennyson 316
Der Drummer Charles F. Adams 297
Destruction of Sennacherib Lord Byron 296
Dies Irve Thomas of Celano 456
Djinns Victor Hugo 468
Doing Good True Happiness Carlos Wilcox 219
Door-Step, The Edmund Clarence Stedman 368
Dorothy Sullivan Anonymous 685
Dot Lambs what Maby haf got Anonymous 567
Dove-Cote Aunt Efjie 232
Dow's Flat F. Bret Harte 426
Dreams and Realities Phcebe Gary 485
Drifting T. Buchanan Bead 210
Drummer Boy Anonymous 616
Duncan Gray cam' here to Woo Robert Bums 336
Dust on Her Bible Robert Lowry 666
Dying Alchemist Nathaniel Parker Wdlis 497
Eagle, The Alfred Tennyson 364
Early Rising John G. Saxe 341
Ebb Tide Robert Southcy 418
Echoes Thomas Moore 645
Embarkation of the Exiles Henry Wadsworlh Longfellow .... 90
Engineer's Story Anonymous 295
Enoch Arden at the Window Alfred Tennyson 252
Evangeline on the Prairie H. W. Longfellow 505
Evening Brings vs Home Anonymous 502
Excelsior Henry W. Longfellow 322
Extract from Gray's Elegy Thomas Gray 203
Fairies William Arlington 515
Fate ^- Bret Harte 258
" Father, take MY Hand" Henry N. Cobb 333
852 TITLES OF POEMS.
SUBJECT. AUTHOR. PAGE.
Faithless Nelly Geay .......... c Thomas Hood . 405
Farm-Yard Song John Townsend Trowbridge 352
Farmer and the Counsellor Anonymous 100
Father Time's Changeling Anonymous 324
Fire-Bell's Story, The George L. Catlin 554
Fire-Fiend CD. Oardette 160
First Party Jose^ine Pollard 414
First Snow-Fall James R. Lowell . 137
Fisher's Cottage Henry Heine . 253
Florence Vane , Philip P., Cooke 281
Foe Charlie's Sake John W. Palmer 641
Forest Hymn William Oullen Bryant 37
Frenchman and the Rats Anonymous 335
Friend of Humanity and the Knife Grinder . Oeorge Canning 228
Funeral of Lincoln Richard Henry Stoddard 600
Gems from Shakespeare Shakespeare 634
German Trust Song Lampertius 589
Gladiator J. A. Jones 565
God From the Russian of Derzhaven . . . 537
God in the Seas Wilham Oullen Bryant . 694
God's Acre Henry Wadsworth Longfellow .... 498
Go, Feel what 1 have Felt Anonymous 319
Goin' Home To-Day Will. M. Carleton 265
GoNW with a Handsomer Man . Will. M. Carlton 139
Gracious Answer, The. Henry N. Cobb 334
Gradatim John O. Holland 558
Gouty Merchant and the Stranger Horace Smith 216
Hans and Fritz Charles F. Adams 311
Hark ! hark ! the lark Shakespeare 319
He Knows Mary O. Brainard 577
Hermit James Beattie 595
Hero of the Commune Margaret J. Preston 278
Hiawatha's Journey Henry Wadsworth Longfellow .... 342
Hiawatha's Return Henry Wadsworth Longfellow .... 345
Hiawatha's Wooing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow .... 344
Hide and Seek Julia Goddard 454
Highland Mary • Robert Burns 262
Homes of England Felicia D. Hemans 64
Home, Sweet Home John Howard Payne 628
Hour of Death Mrs. F. Hemans 674
Housekeeper's Soliloquy Mrs. F. D. Gage 78
How's my Boy ? . . Sydney Dobell 353
Hymn to the Flowers Horace Smith 255
I Love the Morning Sunshine Robert Lowry 276
I'm Growing Old John O. Saxe 438
Indian Death-Song Philip Freneau 518
Intimations of Immortality William Wordsworth 206
I Would not Live Alway William A. Muhlenberg 353
TITLES OF POEMS. 85.-
I Remember, I Remember Thomas Hood 273
I See Thee Still Charles Sprague 114
Jewish Hymn in Jerusalem Henry Hart Mlman 502
Jim F. Bret Harte 339
Joe Alice Rabbins 514
John Anderson, My Jo Robert Burns 466
John and Tibbie Davison's Dispute Robert Ldghton 572
John Jankin's Sermon Anonymous 543
John Maynard H. Alger, Jr 406
Jolly Old Pedagogue George Arnold 258
Kate Ketchem Phoebe Cary 461
King of Denmark's Ride Caroline E. Norton 379
Kissing her Hair Algernon Charles Swinburne .... 52
Kit Carson's Ride Joaquin Miller 472
Korner's Sword Song Charles Theodore Earner 312
Labor is Worship Frances S. Osgood 619
Lady Clare Alfred Tennyson 631
Lament of the Irish Emigraitt Lady JDufferin 62
Landing of the Pilgrims Felicia Hemans 205
Land o' the Leal Lady Carolina Nairne 421
Last Leaf Oliver Wendell Holmes 542
Laugh of a Child Anonymous 549
Launching of the Ship Henry W. Longfellow 389
Law James Bcattie 649
Law of Death John Hay 547
Learning to Pray Mary M. Dodge 331
Left alone at Eighty Alice Rabbins 372
Legend of Bregenz Adelaide Anne Proctor 52
Life Lines selected from thirty-eight authors 496
Life Henry King . 642
Life From Death Horatius Bonar 170
Light-House Thomas Moore 513
Lines on a Skeleton Anonymous 417
Lion's Ride Ferdinand Freiligrath 455
Little and Great Charles Mackay 441
Little Conqueror Charles F. Adavis 165
Little Margery -Afrs Sallie J. White 330
London Churches Richard Moncktan Milnes 237
Lord Ullin's Daughter Thomas Campbell 551
Lost Doll C- Emgsley 341
Love Lightens Labor Anonymous 182
Love me Little, Love me Long Anonymous 191
Mabel Martin John G. Whittier 488
Maidenhood Henry Wadsworth Longfellow .... 246
Mary Garvin John G. Whittier 560
Maud Muller John O. Whittier 459
Measuring the Baby Emma Alice Brown 520
Meeting of the Ships Felicia Hemans 230
854 TITLES OF POEMS.
SUBJECT. AUTHOR. PAGE.
Meeting of the Waters Thomas Moore 484
Mercy Shakespeare 379
Merry Lark Charles Kingsley 463
Milkmaid Jeffreys Taylor 199
Minuet, The Mrs. Mary M. Dodge 340
Miser, The Oeorge W. Gutter 226
Miss Edith Helps Things Along F. Bret Harte 254
Model Church John H. Yates 544
Moravian Requiem Harriet B. MKeever 225
Mother in the Snow-Storm Seha Smith 513
Motherhood Anonymous 229
Mountain and Squirrel . Ralph Waldo Emerson 590
Mrs. Lofty and I Anonymous 596
Murdered Traveler William Cullen Bryant ....... 402
My Childhood Home B. P. Shillaber 196
My Country James Montgomery 179
My Creed Alice Cary 266
My Mother's Bible Geo. P. Morris 523
My Playmate John Q. Whittier 582
Mystery of Life in Christ Mrs E. Prentiss 233
Mystic Weaver Anonymous 587
Nation's Dead, The Anonymous 266
Nell • Robert Buchanan 393
New Church Organ Will. M. Carleton 588
New Year's Eve Alfred Tennyson 387
Niagara Lydia Huntley Sigoumey 647
Night James Montgomery 301
No Thomas Hood 506
Nobody's Child Phila H Case 302
Nocturnal Sketch Tfiomas Hood 609
" No more Sea " William H. Henderson 644
No Sects in Heaven Ano?iymous 500
Not on the Battle-Field John Pierpont 531
" Now I Lay ME Down to Sleep '' Anonymous 332
Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd Sir Walter Raleigh . 381
Old Ralph Hoyt 431
Old Arm-Chair Eliza Cook 285
Old Oaken Bucket Samuel Woodworth 549
Old School Punishment Anonymous 209
Old Times and New A. C. Spooner 429
Old Ways and the New John H Yates 104
Orient, The Lord Byron 224
Out of the Old House, Nancy Will. M. Carleton 697
Our Lambs Anonymous 629
Our Skater Belle Anonymous 597
Over the Hill to the Poor-House Will. M. Carleton 679
Over the Hills from the Poor-House .... May Mignonette 681
Over the River Nancy A. W. Priest 142
TITLES OF POEMS. 355
Owl, The Barry Cornwall .... 422
Paddy's Excelsior Anonymous 323
Palace 0', the King William Mitchell 286
Papa's Letter Anonymous 168
Parting Lovers Translated from the Chinese So'j
Patient Stork Lord Thurlow 450
Patriotism Sir Walter Scott 233
Pat's Criticism Charles F. Adams 154
Pauper's Death-Bed C. B. Southey 216
Paying her Way Anonymous 452
Pelican, The James Montgomery 446
" Penny YE Meant TO GiE " Anonymous 581
Per Pacem ad Lucem Adelaide Anne Proctor 553
Pleasure Boat, The Richard Henry Dana 60
Poet's Reward John G. Whittier 402
Poet's Song to his Wife Barry Cornwall 63
Poor Indian, The Anonymous 227
Poor Little Joe P. Arkwright 358
Prayers of Children Anonymous 329
Psalm of Life Henry Wadsworth Longj'cUow .... 241
Potting up o' the Stove Anonymous 290
Puzzled Dutchman Charles F. Adams 151
Quaker Widow Bayard Taylor 110
Quarrel of Brutus and Cassios Shahpcare 476
Quilting, The Anne Baclie 56
Rainy Day Henry Wadsworth Longfellow .... 88
Ramblings in Greece Rossiter W. Raymond 696
Ranger, The John G. Whittier 507
Raven, The Edgar A. Poe 158
Reaper, The William Wordsworth 368
Resignation Henry Wadsworth Longfellow .... 251
.Reveille T. B. Hart 618
Ring the Bell Softly Dexter Smith 282
River Path John G. Wiitticr 5('.6
River Time, The Benjamin F. Taylor 64
Robert of Lincoln Wm. Cullen Bryant 387
Rock me to Sleep Elizabeth Akers 274
Roll on. Thou Sun Anonymous 234
Ruined Merchant Cora M. Eager 197
Ruth '. Thomas Hood 367
Sabbath, The .• James Grahame 610
Sands 0' Dee Charles Kingsley 392
Scatter the Gems of the Beautiful Anonymous 195
Searching for the Slain Anonymous 602
Sea, The Lord Byron 262
Sea, The Barry Cornwall 362
Servant of God, well done James Montgomery 254
57
850 TITLES OF POEMS.
Seven Times Two Jean Imjduw 619
Shall we know each other there / . . . . Anonymous -. 69
Shibboleth E. A. J. Cleveland 583
Sheridan's Ride Thomas Buchanan Read 536
Skipper Ieeson's Ride John G. WJiittier 79
Sleep of the Brave William Collins 605
"Sleighing Song G. W. Fettee 338
Snow-Flakes Harriet B. M'Keever 243
Show-Storm, The Ealph Waldo Emerson 63
Socrates Snooks Anonymous 124
Soldier's Dream Thomas Campbell 578
Soldier's Pardon James Smith 236
Sometime Mary Riley Smith 373
Song for Hearth and Home William R. Duryea 548
Song op Birds Thomas Heywood 374
Song of Marion's Men Wm. Cullen Bryayit 133
Song of Saratoga • • . . John G. Saxe 95
Song of Spring • Edward Youl 98
Song of the Brook Alfred Tennyson 222
Song of the Decanter Anomjmous 87
Song of the Forge Anonymous 304
Song of the Shirt Thomas Hood 282
Song of the Stormy Petrel Anonymous 440
Sonnet from the Portuguese Elizabeth B. Browning 370
Soul of Eloquence Johann W. Goethe 97
Stabat Mater Translation of Dr. Abraham Coles . . 504
Star of Bethlehem Henry Kirk White 469
^ Stae-Spangled Banner Francis Scott Key 466
'St. John the Aged Anonymous 575
Stormy Petrel, The Barry Cornwall 439
Sunrise in the Valley of Chamounix .... Samuel Taylor Coleridge 663
Thanatopsis William Cullen Bryant 214
The American Boy Caroline Gilman 268
The Angel's Story Adelaide A. Froctor 637
The Angel's Whisper Samuel Lover 277
The Angler • ■ John Chalkhill 205
The Bald-Headed Tyrant May E. VanDyhe 687
The Bride Sir John Suckling 642
The Bridge . . Henry Wadsworth Longfellow .... 51
The Blood Horse Barry Cornwall 42
The Brook Side Richard Monckton Milnes 247
The Celestial Country Bernard De Morlaix 650
The Chamber over the Gate H W. Longfellow 693
The Changeling John G. Whittier 654
The Children's Church From the German of Faul Gerot ... 692
The Children's Hour H. W. Longfellow 656
The Coral Grove James G. Fercival 678
TITLES OF POEMS. 357
The Countess John G. Wiitticr GOo
The Crowded Streets WUUatn Cullen Bryant o07
The Cry of the Children Elizabeth Barrett Browning GU9
The Day is Done H. W. LomjfeWm 706
The Eggs and the Horses Anonymous fj04
The Gambler's Wife Reynell Coates 688
The Grasshopper King From the Greek of Anacreon 42
The Home of Peace Thomas Moore 337
The Lost Church Johann Ludwig Wiland 622
The Lost Love William Wordsworth 670
The Lull of Eternity Francis Ridley Havergal 626
The Maple Tree Anonymous 099
The Ministry of Angels Edmund Spenser 702
The Ministry of Jesus Edward Bickersteth 703
The Old Clock on the Stairs Henry Wadsworth Longfellow .... 40
The Old Village Choir Benjamin F. Taylor 677
The One-hoss Shay Oliver Wendell Holmes 69
There is no Death Lord Lytton 451
The Rose James R. Lowell 6G9
The Sun is Warm, the Sky is Clear Percy Bysshc Shelley 601
The Tempest James T. Fields . . -X 20S
The Three Sons John Moultrie 528
The Tiger Wdliam Blake 357
The True Temple Anonymous 615
The Unbolted Door Edward Garrett 129
The Vagabonds J. T. Trowbridge 130
The Water-Mill D. C.M'Callum 200
The Whistle Robert Story 283
Through Trials Roscngarten 658
Tim Twinkleton's Twins Charles A. Bell 106
To a Friend in Affliction Wdliam Munford 689
To a Water Fowl W. C. Bryant 526
To Night ■> Percy Bysshe Shdlcy 242
To THE Silent PiIVEH Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 220
Trust John G. Whittier 230
Twenty Years Ago Anonymous 261
Two Little Kittens Anonymous 229
Two Views Anonymous t>25
Under the Violet? Oliver Wendell Holmes 267
Union and Liberty Oliver Wendell Holmes 273
Vaudois Teacher John G. Whittier 405
Vision of Monk Gabriel Eleanor C. Donnelly 659
Voices at the Throne T Westwood 527
Waiting by the Gate . William Cidlen Bryant 77
What Constitutes a State ? • Sir William Jones 367
When Susan Coolidge 450
When Sparrows Build Jean Ligclow 471
858
TITLES OF rOEMS.
Where Shall the Baby's Dimple be ? . . . . J. Q. Holland 689
Whistling IN Heaven W.S.Ralph 116
Why? Ethel Lynn , 655
Why should THE Spirit OF Mortal BE Proud ? . William Knox 411
Widow Bedott to Elder Sniffles F. M. Whitcher 548
Widow M alone Charles James Lever 375
Wind and Rain Richard H. Stoddard 414
Winter Song Ludwig Holty 596
Wounded William E. Miller 188
Yawcob Strauss Charles F. Adams 418
You Put no Flowebs on my Papa's Grave . . C. E. L. Holmes 192
INDEX OF POEMS
(FIRST LINES)
PAGE.
A BABY was sleeping 277
Abou Ben Adhem — may his tribe . . 225
A care-worn widow sat alone 129
A chieftain to the highlands bound . . 551
A cottage home with sloping lawn . . , 197
A counsel in the "Common Pleas " . . 100
Across the level table-land 488
A Frenchman once 335
A good wife rose from her bed one morn 182
A little child 527
All is finished and at length 389
Alone, in the dreary, pitiless street . . 302
Along the frozen lake she comes . . . 597
A milkmaid who poised a full pail . . 199
Among professors of astronomy .... 260
A mother's love ! Oh, soft and low . . 703
And is there care in heaven '! 702
Announced by all the trumpets ... 63
An old farm home with meadows wide 625 [
An ol<i man sat by a fireless hearth . . 226 I
A parson who a missionary had been . 401
PAOE.
A picture memory brings to me . . . . 230
Arise ! this day shall shine 179
A soldier of the Legion lay dying . . 86
As ships becalmed at eve, that lay . . . 422
A stranger preached last Sunday . . . 525
As unto the bow the cord is 342
At early dawn I marked them in the sky 446
At heaven approached a Sufi Saint . . 284
A thousand miles from land are we . . 439
A traveler through a dusty road . . . 441
At the close of the day when the . . , 595
At the feet of Laughing Water .... 344
At twilight hour, when memory's power 225
Awake my soul ! >'ot only paseive . . 663
A wet sheet and a flowing sea .... 587
A wind came up out of the sea .... 661
Backward, turn backward, Time . 274
Beautiful snow ! beautiful snow ! . . 243
Beautiful was the night 505
Before I trust my fate to thee 356
8o9
860
FIRST LINES OF POEMS.
PAGE.
Behold her single in the field 368
Behold this ruin ! 'tis a skull 417
Ben Battle was a soldier bold 405
Beside the massive gateway built up . 77
Between the dark and the daylight . . G56
Beyond the smiling and the weeping.. . 268
Blessings on thee, little man 416
Break, break, break 348
Breathes there a man with soul so dead 233
Buried to-day 243
But Enoch yearned to see her face again 252
By Nebo's lonely mountain . . . • . 289
By the wayside on a mossy stone ... 431
Captain Graham, the men were sayin' 616
Calmly see the mystic weaver 587
Clang, clang ! the massive anvils rang . 304
Cleon hath a million acres — not a one 597
Come, dear old comrade, you and I . . 458
Come hoist the sail, the fast let go . , . 60
Dark is the night, and fitful 548
Dark is the night ! How dark ! .... 688
Day hath put on his jacket, and around 445
Day of wrath ! that day of burning . . 456
Day-stars ! that ope your eyes ait morn. 255
Deep in the wave is a coral grove- . .. . 678
Did you hear of the Widow Malon« . . 375
Dong, dong ! — the bells rang out . . . 554
Down on the stream they flying go . . 583
Dow's Flat, That's its name 426
Do ye hear the children weeping . . . 699
Draw up the papers, lawyer 381
Duncan Gray cam' here to woo .... 336
Even is come ; and from the dark Park, 609
Fear not, little flock ! the foe . . . 430
First time he kissed me 370
-J'lag of the heroes who left us their gloiy 273
Flow on forever, in thy glorious robe . 647
For thee, dear, dear country .... 650
For the fairest maid in Hampton . . . 654
Four hundred thousand men 266
From the heart of Waumbek Methna . 560
From his lips . 703
Full knee-deep lies the winter snow . . 316
Full many a gem of purest ray serene . 203
Gamarra is a dainty steed 42
Garcon ! — you, you 278
Girt round with rugged mountains . . 52
" Give me but two brigades !" . . . . 570
God bless my little one. How fair . . 682
God bless the man who first invented 341
God of the thunder 502
God's love and peace be with thee . . . 350
Go, feel what I have felt 319
Golden head so lowly bending .... 332
Grandma told me all about it 340
Half a league, half a league 59
Half an hour till train-time, sir ... . 518
Hans and Fritz were two Deutschers 311
Hark, hark! the lark 319
Hark ! I hear the tramp of thousands . 618
Happy insect, what can be 42
Have you heard of the . . . one-boss shay ? 69
Hear the sledges with the bells .... 593
Heaven is not reached at a single bound 558
He clasps the crag with hooked hands . 364
Here's a big washing to be done ... 78
' Her hands are cold ; her face is white . . 267
I He who dies at Azim sends 269
j Hide and seek ! Two children at play . 454
! Hold the lantern aside, and shudder 602
Ho, sailor of the sea ! 353
How dear to this heart are the scenes . 549
How does the water come down .... 248
How kind Reuben Esmond is growing. 655
How many summers, love ? 68
How shall we learn to sway the minds » 97
How sleep the brave who 605
How still the morning of the hallowed 610
How sweet the chime of the Sabbath 309
How sweet the answer Echo makes . . 645
I BRING fresh showers 437
I come from haunts of coot and hern . 222
I do not ask, Lord ! that life may be 553
I haf von funny leedle poy 418
I have a son, a little son 528
I have fancied sometimes the Bethel . 677
I hold that Christian grace abounds . . 266
I knew by the smoke 337
I know not what will befall me ! . . . 577
If 1 were told that I must die ... . 450
FIRST LINES OF POEMS.
861
PAGE.
If that the world and love were young . 381
I know in grief like yours 689
I know him by his falcon eye 227
I like that ancient Saxon phrase . . . 498
I love it, I love it, the laugh of a child . 549
I love it, I love it, and who shall dare . 285
I love thee, Mary, and thou lovest me . 469
I love the morning sunshine 276
I loved thee long and dearly 281
I loved them so 629
I'm a proken-hearted Deutscher .... 151
I met her where • folly was queen of the 666
I'm growing very old. This weary head 575
I'm sitting on the stile, Mary 62
I'm wearin' awa', Jean 421
In a pioneer's cabin out West .... 171
In Broad Street buildings . . • . - . 216
In his tower sat the poet 669
In PLBStum's ancient fanes I stood . . . 696
In the deepest dearth of midnight . . . 160
In the hollow tree, in the old gray tower 422
In the quiet nursery chambers .... 329
In the regular evening meeting .... 320
In the silence of my chamber 272
In yon dense wood full oft a boll . . . 622
I once had a sweet little doll, dear . . 341
I remember, I remember 273
I rock'd her in the cradle 144
I saw him once before 542
Is it so far from thee 693
I stood one Sunday morning 237
I stood on the bridge at midnight ... 51
It must be so— Plato 391
It's a bonnie, bonnie warl' ..... 286
It was the time when lilies blow . . . 631
It was many and many a year ago . . 553
It was in my foreign travel 193
It was six men of Indostan 398
I've brought back the paper, lawyer 383
I've just come in from the meadow, wife 104
I've wandered to the village, Tom . . . 261
I've worked in the field all day .... 139
I walk along the crowded streets . . 233
I wandered by the brook side 247
I was sitting in my study 168
I will paint her as I see her : . . . . 388
I would not live alway ; I ask not to stay 353
Jingle, jingle, clear the way 338
John Anderson, ray jo, John 466
John Davison and Tibbie, his wife . . 572
John Dobbins was so captivated .... 694
Just as God leads me I would go . . . 589
Kate Ketchem, on a winter's night . . 461
Kissing her hair, I sat against her feet . 52
Kneeling fair in the twilight gray . . 331
Kneeling, white-robed, sleepy eyes . . 330
Know ye the land where the cypress . . 224
Laud the first spring daisies 98
Laws, as we read in ancient sages . . . 679
Leaves have their time to fall 674
Let me lie down 188
Let me move slowly through the street 567
Like the falling of a star 642
Look up, ray young Araerican .... 268
Love me little, love me long ! 191
Maiden! witn the meek, brown eyes . .
Man knows not love — such love as . .
Many a voice has echoed the cry . . .
Mary haf got a leetle lambs already . .
Maud MuUer, on a summer's day . . .
Maxwelton braes are bonnie
Men of thought be up and stirring . .
Merrily swinging on brier and weed . .
Mid pleasures and palaces though we .
Miss Annabel McCarty
Mister Socrates Snooks
" Mister," the little fellow said ....
Mrs. Lofty keeps a carriage
Muzzer's bought a baby
My business on the jury's done . . .
My days pass pleasantly away ....
My neighbor's house is not so high . .
My sister '11 be down in a minute . . .
My soul to-day
I Needt knife-grinder !
' Night is the time for rest ....
No bird-song floated down the hill
No, children, my trips arc over . .
No sun — no moon !
Not where high towers rear . . .
246
702
626
567
459
385
623
387
628
414
124
012
596
120
265
438
229
254
210
301
566
506
615
O deem not they are blest alone
Of all the noUble things on earth
242
71
862
FIRST LINES OF POEMS.
PAGE.
Of all the rides since the birth of time . 79
Oh ! a wedding ring's pretty to wear . . 685
Oh ! a wonderful stream is the river . 64
Oh, lady fair, these silks of mine . . . 405
Oh ! listen to the water-mill 200
Oh ! say, can you see 466
Oh ! the quietest home on earth had I . 687
Oh ! why should the spirit of mortal . . 411
Old master Brown brought his ferule . 209
0, lonely, exiled one 644
Mary go and call the cattle home . . 392
melancholy bird, the long, long day . 450
Once upon a midnight dreary 158
One day in summer's glow 324
One more unfortunate 354
no, no — let me lie 531
On the cross-beam under the old South 613
reverend sir, I do declare 548
Rosamond, thou fair and good . . . 485
say, what is that thing called light . 365
the gallant fisher's life 205
the snow, the beautiful snow .... 443
Thou Eternal One ! whose presence 537
Our band is few, but true and tried . . . 133
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting 209
Our bugles sang truce 578
Our revels now are ended 325
but of the old house, Nancy 697
Over the cradle the mother hung . . . 689
Over the hill the farm-boy goes .... 352
Over the hill to the poor-house .... 679
Over the hills to the poor-house .... 681
Over the river they beckon to me . . . 142
Over the wooded northern ridge. . . . 605
Pack clouds, away! and welcome, day! 374
Pause not to dream of the future before us 619
Peace! let the long procession come . 600
Pleasant was the journey homeward . 345
Pray what do they do at the Springs ? . 95
Prop yer eyes wide open, Joey .... 358
Rattle tlie window, winds 414
Rifleman, shoot me a fancy shot . . . 318
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky . . 387
River that in silence windest 220
Robert Rawlin ! Frosts were falling . 507
Roll on, thou Sun, forever roll .... 234
Run? Now you bet you 472
page.
Say, there ! P'r'aps 339
Scatter the gems of the beautiful . . . 195
Seek me the cave of silver 362
Servant of God, well done 254
She dwelt among the untrodden ways . 670
She says, " the cock crows, — hark !" . . 356
She stood breast high amid the corn . . 367
Slowly thy flowing tide 418
Some one has gone 282
Sometime, when all life's lessons . . . 373
Somewhat back from the village street. 40
Stood the afflicted mother weeping . . 504
Summer joys are over 596
Swiftly walk over the western wave . . 242
Sword at my left side gleaming .... 312
Talking of sects till late one eve . . . 500
Tell me not, in mournful numbers . . 241
Thanks untraced to lips unknown . . . 402
That nightee teem he come chop-chop . 324
That you have wronged me 476
The Assyrian came down like a wolf 296
The beaver cut his timber 44
The bells of the church are ringing . . 692
The breaking waves dashed high . . . 205
The cold wind swept 513
The conference meeting through at last 368
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary . 88
The day is done 706
The day is set, the ladies met 56
Thee finds me in the garden, Hannah . 110
The groves were God's first temples . . 37
The lark sings for joy 440
The lion is the desert's king . . . . • 455
The maid, and thereby hangs a tale! . . 642
The melancholy days have com© . . . 290
The melancholy days are come .... 349
The merry, merry lark was up . . . . 463
The minster window, richly glowing . 358
The minister says last night, says he . 543
The mountain and the squirrel .... 590
Then disorder prevailed, and the tumult 90
The night wind with a desolate moan 497
The night is Tate, the house is still . . 641
The pines were dark on Ramoth Hill . 582
The quality of mercy is not strained . . 379
There is a land, of every land the pride 179
There is a j^leasure in the pathless woods 262
There is no death I The stars go down . 451
FIRST LINES OF POiiMS
868^
PAGE.
There is no flock, however watched . . 251
There is not in this wide world . . . 484
There's a little low hut by the river side 196
There's a story that's old 154
There's a funny tale of a stingy man . 581
There was an old decanter 87
The scene was more beautiful 513
The sea! the sea ! the open sea! . . . 362
These restless surges eat away .... 694
The shades of night were falling fast . . 322
The sky is clouded, the rocks are bare . 258
The snow had begun in the gloaming . 137
The song of Kilvany. Fairest she . . 547
The splendor falls on castle walls . . • 436
The star is not extinguished when it sets 170
The stately homes of England 64
The sun is warm, the sky is clear . . . 601
The sun sets at night, and the stars shun 518
The surging sea of human life .... 187
The varying year with 480
The waters slept. Night's silvery veil 305
The way is dark, my child 334
The way is dark, my Father 333
They led a lion from his den 565
They've got a bran new organ, Sue . . 588
They well deserve to have 634
This book is all that's left me now . . 523
This is the arsenal 424
Though rudely blows the wintry blast . 425
Through night to light. And though . 658
Through the blue and frosty heavens . 637
Through the gray willows 517
Tiger ! tiger ! burning bright 357
Tim Twinkleton was 106
'Tis a fearful night in the winter time . 409
'Tis the soft twilight. Round the . . . 659
'Tis time this heart should be unmoved 484
To him who in the love of nature holds 214
Toil on ! toil on ! ye ephemeral train . . 146
Toll, toll, toll, toll . . . 184
Town, tower 468
Tread softly, bow the head
True, all we know must die
'Twas a ferocious baggage-man ....
'Twas growing dark so terrible fasht .
'Twas a jolly old pedagogue, long ago .
'Twas in my easy chair at home ....
'Twas midnight, not a sound was heard
216
675 :
300 '
323
258
429
165 I
See Summary on
PAGE.
'Twas on Lake Erie's broad expanse . . 40ti
'Twas the eve before Christma* 395
Two barks met on the deep mid-sea . . 230
Two little kittens, one stormy night . . 229
Up from the south at break of day . . 536
Up from the meadows rich with corn . 317
Up the airy mountains 515
Upon the hills the wind is sharp . . 502
Upon the wall it hung 181
Very high in the dove-cote 232
We are two travelers, Roger and I . . 130
We don't take vagrants in, sir ... . 514
Well, wife, I've found the model church 544
We measured the riotous baby .... 520
We sat by the fisher's cottage 253
We watched her breathing 199
We were crowded in the cabin .... 208
We were standing in the doorway . . . 401
What constitutes a state 367
What did you say, dear — breakfast ? . . 372
What has my darling been doing . . . 452
What is the little one thinking about ? . 277
When Freedom from her mountain . . 467
When, marshalled on the nightly plain . 469
When on the world's first harvest day . 699
When sparrows build 471
When spring, to woods and wastes 402
When the sheep are in the fauld ... 173
When we hear the music ringing ... 69
Where did you come from, baby dear . 82
Whither midst falling dew 526
Who puts oup at der pest hotel .... 297
Why all this toil for triumphs .... 496
Wild blew the gale in Gibraltar . . 236
With deep affection 573
With fingers weary and worn ..... 282
With sable-draped banners 192
Within this sober realm of leafless trees 556
Word was brought to the Danish king . 379
Wouldst thou from sorrow find .... 219
Ye banks and braes and streams around 262
You bells in the steeple ring, ring out . 619
" You havo heard," said a youth . . • 283
You're a kind woman. Nan ! . . . . 393
You're surprised that I ever 116
following page.
912
SUMMARY OF CONTENTS.
SUMMARY OF CONTENTS.
Indexes of Authors, First Lines, Etc 54 Pages.
Gems fi74
Biographical Sketches 72
Living Thoughts 58
Sentiments for Autograph Albums 6
Full Page Plates 4.S
Total Number of Pag
912
Note. — The full page plates are not enumerated in the printed paging of the hook, lience
tlie actual number of pages is 'J12, not Slil as would seem from the consecutive paging.
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