A COMMON THOUGHT.

This little poem, written several years before the poet's death, was prophetic. He died at the very hour here predicted. The whisper, "He is gone," went forth as the day was purpling in the zenith, on that October morning of 1867.

OMEWHERE on this earthly planet
In the dust of flowers to be,
In the dew-drop in the sunshine,
Sleeps a solemn day for me.

At this wakeful hour of midnight
I behold it dawn in mist,
And I hear a sound of sobbing

Through the darkness-hist! O, hist!

In a dim and musky chamber,

I am breathing life away;

Some one draws a curtain softly
And I watch the broadening day.

As it purples in the zenith,

As it brightens on the lawn,
There's a hush of death about me,
And a whisper, "He is gone!"'

HENRY TIMROD.

GOOD-BY, PROUD WORLD!

OOD-BY, proud world! I'm going home;
Thou art not my friend; I am not thine;
Too long through weary clouds I roam-
A river ark on the ocean brine,

Too long I am tossed like the driven foam;
But now, proud world, I'm going home.

Good-by to flattery's fawning face;
To grandeur with his wise grimace;
To upstart wealth's averted eye;
To supple office, low and high;

To crowded halls, to court and street,
To frozen hearts, and hasting feet,
To those who go, and those who come,
Good-by, proud world, I'm going home.
I go to seek my own hearth-stone,
Bosomed in yon green hills alone;
A secret lodge in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned,
Where arches green, the livelong day,
Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
And evil men have never trod,

A spot that is sacred to thought and God.
O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I mock at the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the pines,
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools, and the learned clan ;
For what are they all in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

NATURE'S ARTISTIC POWER.

ATURE has a thousand ways and means o rising above herself, but incomparably the noblest manifestations of her capability of color are in the sunsets among the high clouds. I speak especially of the moment before the sun sinks, when his light turns pure rose-color, and when this light falls upon a zenith covered with countless cloudforms of inconceivable delicacy, threads and flakes of vapor, which would in common daylight be pure snow-white, and which give therefore fair field to the tone of light. There is then no limit to the multitude, and no check to the intensity, of the hues assumed. The whole sky from the zenith to the horizon becomes one molten, mantling sea of color and fire; every black bar turns into massy gold, every ripple and wave into unsullied, shadowless crimson, and purple, and scarlet, and colors for which there are no words in language and no ideas in the mind-things which can only be conceived while they are visible-the intense hollow blue of the upper sky melting through it all-showing here deep and pure and lightless, there modulated by the filmy, formless body of the transparent vapor, till it is lost imperceptibly in its crimson and gold.

$

JOHN RUSKIN.

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

WEET Auburn! loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheered the labor

ing swain,

Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed;
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, where every sport could please;
How often have I loitered o'er thy green,

Where humble happiness endeared each scene;
How often have I paused on every charm—
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,

The decent church that topped the neighboring hik
The hawthorne bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made!
How often have I blest the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the village train, from labor free,
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree,
While many a pastime circled in the shade,
The young contending as the old surveyed;
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round;
And still as each repeated pleasure tired,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired.
The dancing pair that simply sought renown,
By holding out, to tire each other down;
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,
While secret laughter tittered round the piace;

The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love,
The matron's glance that would those looks reprove-
These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like
these,

With sweet succession, taught even toil to please;
These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed,
These were thy charms.—But all these charms are fled.

Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn ;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green :
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain;
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way;
Along thy glades, a solitary guest,

The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries.
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass o'ertops the moldering wall;
And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
Far, far away thy children leave the land.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade;

A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.

A time there was, ere England's griefs began,
When every rood of ground maintained its man;
For him light labor spread her wholesome store,
Just gave what life required, but gave no more;
His best companions, innocence and health,
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.

But times are altered; trade's unfeeling train
Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain ;
Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose,
Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose:
And every want to luxury allied,

And every pang that folly pays to pride.
Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom,
Those calm desires that asked but little room,
Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene,
Lived in each look, and brightened all the green;
These, far departing, seek a kinder shore,
And rural mirth and manners are no more.

While mother charred for poor folk round about,
Or sold cheap odds and ends from street to street.
Yet, Parson, there were pleasures fresh and fair,
To make the time pass happily up there-
A steamboat going past upon the tide,

A pigeon lighting on the roof close by,
The sparrows teaching little ones to fly,
The small white moving clouds that we espied,
And thought were living, in the bit of sky-
With sights like these right glad were Ned and I
And then we loved to hear the soft rain calling,
Pattering, pattering upon the tiles,

And it was fine to see the still snow falling,

Making the house-tops white for miles on miles,
And catch it in our little hands in play,
And laugh to feel it melt and slip away!
But I was six, and Ned was only three,
And thinner, weaker, wearier than me ;

And one cold day, in winter-time, when mother
Had gone away into the snow, and we

Sat close for warmth, and cuddled one another,

He put his little head upon my knee,

And went to sleep, and would not stir a limb,

But looked quite strange and old;

And when I shook him, kissed him, spoke to him,
He smiled, and grew so cold.

Then I was frightened, and cried out, and none
Could hear me, while I sat and nursed his head,
Watching the whitened window, while the sun

Peeped in upon his face, and made it red.
And I began to sob-till mother came,

Knelt down, and screamed, and named the good God's name,

And told me he was dead.

And when she put his night-gown on, and, weeping,
Placed him among the rags upon his bed,

I thought that brother Ned was only sleeping,
And took his little hand, and felt no fear.

But when the place grew gray and cold and drear, And the round moon over the roofs came creeping, And put a silver shade

All round the chilly bed where he was laid,
I cried, and was afraid.

ROBERT BUCHANAN.

THE DANCE OF DEATH.

'HE warder looked down at the dead of night On the graves where the dead were s.eeping,

And clearly as day was the pale moonlight O'er the quiet churchyard creeping. One after another the gravestones began To heave and to open, and woman and man Rose up in their ghastly apparel!

Ho, ho, for the dance !—and the phantoms outsprung, In skeleton roundel advancing,

The rich and the poor, and the old and the young,

But the winding sheets hindered their dancing~

No shame had these revelers wasted and grim-
So they shook off the cerements from body and limb,
And scattered them over the hillocks.

They crooked their thigh-bones, and they shook their long shanks,

And wild was their reeling, and limber;

And each bone, as it crosses, it clinks and it clanks, Like the clapping of timber on timber.

The warder he laughed, though his laugh was not loud;

And the fiend whispered to him: "Go steal me the shroud

Of one of those skeleton dancers."

He has done it! and backward, with terrified glance,
To the sheltering door ran the warder;

As calm as before looked the moon on the dance,
Which they footed in hideous order.

But one and another retiring at last,

Slipped on their white garments, and onward they passed,

And a hush settled over the greensward.

Still one or them stumbles and tumbles along,
And taps at each tomb that it seizes;

But 'tis none of its mates that has done it this wrong,
For it scents its grave-clothes in the breezes.
It shakes the tower gate, but that drives it away,
For 'twas nailed o'er with crosses-a goodly array-
And well it was so for the warder!

It must have its shroud-it must have it betimes-
The quaint Gothic carving it catches;
And upwards from story to story it climbs,

And scrambles with leaps and with snatches.
Now woe to the warder, poor sinner, betides !
Like a spindle-legged spider the skeleton strides
From buttress to buttress, still upward!

The warder he shook, and the warder grew pale,
And gladly the shroud would have yielded!
The ghost had its clutch on the last iron rail,
Which the top of the watch-tower shielded,
When the moon was obscured by the rush of a cloud,
ONE! thundered the bell, and unswathed by a shroud,
Down went the gaunt skeleton crashing.
Translation from Goethe. By THEODORE MARTIN.

SOMEBODY'S MOTHER.

'HE woman was old and ragged and gray,
And bent with the chill of the winter's day;
The street was wet with a recent snow,
And the woman's feet were aged and slow.

She stood at the crossing and waited long,
Alone, uncared for, amid the throng

Of human beings who passed her by,
Nor heeded the glance of her anxious eye.

Down the street, with laughter and shout,
Glad in the freedom of "school let out,"
Came the boys, like a flock of sheep,
Hailing the snow piled white and deep.
Past the woman so old and gray
Hastened the children on their way,

Nor offered a helping hand to her,
So meek, so timid, afraid to stir,

Lest the carriage wheels or the horses' feet
Should crowd her down in the slippery street.

At last came one of the merry troop-
The gayest laddie of all the group;

He paused beside her, and whispered low, "I'll help you across, if you wish to go."

Her aged hand on his strong young arm
She placed, and so, without hurt or harm,

He guided the trembling feet along,
Proud that his own were firm and strong

Then back again to his friends he went,
His young heart happy and well content.
"She's somebody's mother, boys, you know,
For all she's aged and poor and slow;
And I hope some fellow will lend a hand
To help my mother, you understand,

If ever she's poor and old and gray,
When her own dear boy is far away."

And "somebody's mother" bowed low her head
In her home that night, and the prayer she said,
Was, "God, be kind to the noble boy,
Who is somebody's son and pride and joy!"

WEDDING BELLS.

ANDERING away on tired feet,

Away from the close and crowded street, Faded shawl and faded gown, Unsmoothed hair of a golden brown, Eyes once bright

With joyous light,

Away from the city's smoke and din, Trying to flee from it and sin.

In shame cast down,

'Neath the scorn and frown Of those who had known her in days that were flown. The same blue eyes-the abode of tears, The once light heart-the abode of fears, While dark despair came creeping in, As she fled from the city's smoke and din. With a yearning sigh, And a heart-sick cry—

God, let me die on my mother's grave,
'Tis the only boon I care to crave!"
The sun uprose, and the light of day
Brightly scattered the clouds of gray;
And the village was gay
For a holiday.
Merrily echoed the old church bells,
Peal on peal, o'er the hills and dells;
Borne away on the morning breeze
Over the moorland, over the leas;
Back again with a joyous clang!
Merrily, cheerily, on they rang!

But they woke her not, she slumbered on,

With her head laid down on the cold gray stone.

The village was bright

In the gladsome light,

And the village maidens were clad in white, As side by side

They merrily hied,

In gay procession, to meet the bride;
Strewing the path of the village street
With choicest flowers for her dainty feet.
A joyful chime of the bells again,

To proclaim the return of the bridal train;
A louder peal from the old church-tower

(As the bride passes on through the floral bower,
With the bridegroom happy, tender and gay),
And the echoes are carried away, away;
But they linger awhile o'er the tombstones gray;
And the sleeper awakes with a yearning cry—
"Oh, to die! oh, to die!

God let me die on my mother's grave,

'Tis all my broken heart can crave!"

And she lays her head again on the stone,
With a long-drawn breath and a sobbing moan;
While the bridal train (with many a thought
Unspoken of omens with evil fraught)
Sweeps down the path from the old church door,

And the bells' glad music is wafted once more Over the moorland, over the heath

But they wake her not, for her sleep is death!

Why does the bridegroom's cheek turn pale?
Why in his eye such a look of bale?
Why does he totter, then quicken his pace
As he catches a glimpse of the poor dead face?
Oh, woe betide,

That so fair a bride

As she who steps with such grace by his side,
Should have faced grim death on her wedding-day!
Did this thought trouble the bridegroom gay,
And dash from his eye the glad light away?

I wist not; for never a word he spoke,
And soon from his face the troubled look
Was gone, and he turned to his beautiful bride
With a radiant smile and a glance of pride:
And his eye was bright,

And his step was light,

As would beseem with her by his side.
Oh, his smile is glad, and his heart is brave!
What cares he for the dead on the grave?
The faded shawl, and faded gown,
And unsmoothed hair of golden brown?
Why should the face on the tombstone gray
Trouble him so on his wedding-day?
Forgotten words that were long since spoken,
Thoughts of vows that were made to be broken?
Fling them away!

Be joyous and gay!

Death will never a secret betray.

Quaff the red wine, the glasses ring;

Drink! till the gloomy thoughts take wing;
Drink and be merry, merry and glad!
With a bride so lovely, who would be sad?

Hark! the wedding bells are ringing,
Over the hills their echoes flinging;
Carried away on the morning breeze
Over the moorland, over the leas,
Riding back on the zephyr's wing,
Joyously, merrily, on they ring!

But she will not wake, her sleep is deep,
And death can ever a secret keep.

Ah! thy smile may be glad and thy heart may be brave,

And the secret be kept betwixt thee and the grave;
But shouldst thou forget it for one short day,
In the gloom of night, from the tombstone gray,
Will come the sound of a wailing cry—
"Oh, to die! oh, to die!"

And the bride at thy bosom will raise her head
In affright, as she hears thee call on the dead
In a ghastly dream, on whose wings are borne
The memories of thy wedding morn!

Oh, the woeful sight of the pale, dead face, With the cold, dank stone for its resting-place!