Who hush the wailing infant with a glance.-
Bleak nature's desolation wraps them round,
Eternal forests and unyielding earth,

And savage men, who through the thickets peer
With vengeful arrow.-What could lure their steps
To this dreary desert?—Ask of him who left
His father's home to roam through Haran's wilds,
Distrusting not the Guide who called him forth,
Nor doubting, though a stranger, that his seed
Should be as ocean's sands.—

And can ye deem it strange
That from their planting such a branch should bloom
As nations envy.—Would a germ, embalmed
With prayer's pure tear-drops, strike no deeper root
Than that which mad ambition's hand doth strew
Upon the winds, to reap the winds again?
Hid by its veil of waters from the hand
Of greedy Europe, their bold vine spread forth
In giant strength.-

Its early clusters crushed In England's wine-press, gave the tyrant host A draught of deadly wine. O, ye who boast In your free veins the blood of sires like these, Lose not their lineaments! Should Mammon cling Too close around your heart—or wealth beget That bloated luxury which eats the core From manly virtue-or the tempting world Make faint the Christian purpose in your soul, Turn ye to Plymouth's beach-and on that rock Kneel in their foot prints, and renew the vow They breathed to God.

His musket falls slack; his face, dark and grim,
Grows gentle with memories tender,

As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep,
For their mother-may Heaven defend her!
The moon seems to shine just as brightly as then,
That night when the love yet unspoken
Leaped up to his lips-when low, murmured vows
Were pledged to be ever unbroken;
Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes,
He dashes off tears that are welling,
And gathers his gun closer up to its place,
As if to keep down the heart-swelling.
He passes the fountain, the blasted pine-tree-
The footstep is lagging and weary;

Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light,
Toward the shades of the forest so dreary.
Hark! was it the night-wind that rustled the leaves?
Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing?
It looked like a rifle: "Ha! Mary, good-by!"
And the life-blood is ebbing and plashing.

All quiet along the Potomac to-night—
No sound save the rush of the river;
While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead-
The picket's off duty forever.

ETHELIN ELIOT BEERS.

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD.

HE muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo;
No more on life's parade shall meet
The brave and fallen few.
On fame's eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And glory guards with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead.

No rumor of the foe's advance
Now swells upon the wind,

No troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;

No vision of the morrow's strife

The warrior's dream alarms,
No braying horn or screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shivered swords are red with rust,
Their plumed heads are bowed,
Their haughty banner trailed in dust
Is now their martial shroud-
And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,
And the proud forms by battle gashed

Are free from anguish now.

The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout are passed—

She claims from war its richest spoilThe ashes of her brave.

Thus 'neath their parent turf they rest,
Far from the gory field,

Borne to a Spartan mother's breast

On many a bloody shield.
The sunshine of their native sky

Shines sadly on them here,

And kindred eyes and hearts watch by
The heroes' sepulchre.

Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead!
Dear as the blood ye gave;
No impious footstep here shall tread
The herbage of your grave!
Nor shall your glory be forgot

While fame her record keeps,
Or honor points the hallowed spot
Where valor proudly sleeps.

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone
In deathless song shall tell,

When many a vanished year hath flown,
The story how ye fell;

Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,
Nor time's remorseless doom,

Can dim one ray of holy light
That gilds your glorious tomb.

THEODORE O'HARA.

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

But knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill penury repressed their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest;
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.
The applause of listening senates to command,
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 madding 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 e'en 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 unlettered 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 eir artless tale relate;
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 of 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, woeful, 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 ΕΡΙΤΑΡΗ.

Here rests his 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.
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 ('t was 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.

EXPECTATION,

H, never sit we down, and say

There's nothing left but sorrow! We walk the wilderness to-day, The promised land to-morrow. And though age wearies by the way, And hearts break in the furrow, We'll sow the golden grain to-day,

And harvest comes to-morrow.

Build up heroic lives, and all

Be like a sheathen sabre,
Ready to flash out at God's call,
O chivalry of labor !

Triumph and toil are twins; and aye
Joy suns the cloud of sorrow;
And 't is the martyrdom to-day
Brings victory to-morrow.

GERALD MASSEY.

A PSALM OF LIFE.

ELL me not, in mournful numbers,

'Life is but an empty dream!

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem."

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.

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.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead past bury its dead!
Act-act in the living present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead.
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time :
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
THOSE EVENING BELLS.

HOSE evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells
Of youth, and home, and that sweet time
When last I heard their soothing chime!
Those joyous hours are passed away;
And many a heart that then was gay,
Within the tomb now darkly dwells,
And hears no more those evening bells.

And so 'twill be when I am gone—
That tunefeul peal will still ring on;
While other bards shall walk these dells,
And sing your praise, sweet evening bells.
THOMAS MOORE.

THE MAGICAL ISLE.

HERE'S a magical isle in the River of Time, Where softest of echoes are straying ; And the air is as soft as a musical chime, Or the exquisite breath of a tropical clime When June with its roses is swaying.

'Tis where memory dwells with her pure golden hue, And music forever is flowing:

While the low-murmured tones that come trembling through

Sadly trouble the heart, yet sweeten, it too,
As the south wind o'er water when blowing.

There are shadowy halls in that fairy-like isle,
Where pictures of beauty are gleaming ;

Yet the light of their eyes, and their sweet, sunny

smile,

Only flash round the heart with a wildering wile, And leave us to know.'tis but dreaming.

And the name of this isle is the Beautiful Past,
And we bury our treasures all there :
There are beings of beauty too lovely to last;
There are blossoms of snow, with the dust o'er them

cast;

There are tresses and ringlets of hair.

There are fragments of song only memory sings,
And the words of a dear mother's prayer ;
There's a harp long unsought, and a lute without
strings-

Hallowed tokens that love used to wear.

E'en the dead-the bright, beautiful dead-there arise, With their soft, flowing ringlets of gold:

Though their voices are hushed, and o'er their sweet

eyes,

The unbroken signet of silence now lies,

They are with us again, as of old.

In the stillness of night, hands are beckoning there, And, with joy that is almost a pain,

We delight to turn back, and in wandering there, Through the shadowy halls of the island so fair, We behold our lost treasures again.

Oh! this beautiful isle, with its phantom-like show.
Is a vista exceedingly bright:

And the River of Time, in its turbulent flow,
Is oft soothed by the voices we heard long ago,
When the years were a dream of delight.

TRUE NOBILITY.

"OWE'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.
ALFRED TENNYSON.