Page images
PDF
EPUB

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.

THE BELL OF THE "ATLANTIC.”—Mrs. Sigourney

Toll, toll, toll!

Thou bell by billows swung,

And, night and day, thy warning words
Repeat with mournful tongue!

Toll for the queenly boat,

Wrecked on yon rocky-shore!
Sea-weed 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 th' 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 tideThe 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!

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 HYPOCHONDRIAC.

GOOD morning, Doctor; how do you do? I haint quite so well as I 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 time with the ear-ache last night; my wife got up and drapt a few draps 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 head-ache 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; its 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 my wife has to wash and tend to every thing 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 any how. 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 aint all, Doctor, I've got fifteen corns on my toes-and I'm afeard I'm a going to have the "yallar janders." (Coughs.)

THE NATION'S DEAD.

FOUR hundred thousand men
The brave-the good-the true,

In tangled wood, in mountain glen,
On battle plain, in prison pen,

Lie dead for me and you!

Four hundred thousand of the brave
Have made our ransomed soil their grave,
For me and you!

Good friend, for me and you!

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

Arc stretched the graves of those who died
For me and you!

Good friend, for me and you!

M

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!

Good friend, for me and you!

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 due,

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!

THE SONG OF THE SHIRT.-Thomas Hood.

WITH fingers weary and worn,

With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread-

« PreviousContinue »