Crime skulks on

With a cat-like tread.

Youth and beauty, age and pain,
Vice and virtue, form the train;
Misery, happiness, side by side;
Those who had best in childhood died,
Close to the good;-on they go,
Some to joy, and some to woe,

Under the lamplight, watch them glide,—
On, like the waves of a swelling sea,
On, on, on to Eternity.

Annie R. Blount.

THE SAILOR'S FUNERAL.

The ship's bell tolled, and slowly o'er the deck
Came forth the summoned crew. Bold, hardy men,
Far from their native skies, stood silent there,
With melancholy brow. From a low cloud
That o'er the horizon hovered, came the threat
Of distant muttered thunder. Broken waves

Heaved up their sharp white helmets o'er the expanse
Of ocean, which in brooding stillness lay,
Like some vindictive king, who meditates

On hoarded wrongs, or wakes the wrathful war.

The ship's bell tolled, and lo! a youthful form,
Which oft had boldly dared the slippery shrouds
At midnight's watchi, was as a burden laid
Down at his comrades' feet. Mournful they gazed
Upon his sunken check, and some there were
Who in that bitter hour remembered well
The parting blessing of his hoary sire,
And the big tears that o'er his mother's cheek
Went coursing down, when his beloved voice
Breathed its farewell. But one who nearest stood
To that pale shrouded corse, remembered more:
Of a white cottage, with its shaven lawn
And blossomed hedge, and of a fair-haired girl
Who, at her lattice veiled with woodbine, watched
His last, far step, and then turned back to weep.
And close that comrade, in his faithful breast
Hid a bright chestnut lock, which the dead youth
Had severed with a cold and trembling hand,
In life's extremity, and bade him bear,
With broken words of love's last eloquence,
To his blest Mary. Now that chosen friend
Bowed low his sun-bronzed face, and like a child,
Sobbed in deep sorrow.

But there came a tone,
Clear as the breaking morn o'er stormy seas,
"I am the resurrection." Every heart
Suppressed its grief, and every eye was raised.
There stood the chaplain, his uncovered brow
Unmarked by earthly passion, while his voice,
Rich as the balm from plants of Paradise,
Poured the Eternal's message o'er the souls
It was a holy hour;
Of dying men.
There lay the wreck of youthful beauty, here
Bent mourning manhood, while supporting Faith
Cast her strong anchor 'neath the troubled wave.

There was a plunge! The riven sea complained,—
Death from her briny bosom took his own.
The awful fountains of the deep did lift
Their subterranean portals, and he went
Down to the floor of ocean, 'mid the beds
Yet to my soul,
Of brave and beautiful ones.
In all the funeral pomp, the guise of woe,
The monumental grandeur, with which earth
Indulgeth her dead sons, was nought so sad,
Sublime, or sorrowful, as the mute sea

Opening her mouth to whelm that sailor youth.

Lydia H. Sigourney.

FOES UNITED IN DEATH.

There was no fierceness in the eyes of those men now, as they sat face to face on the bank of the stream; the strife and the anger had all gone now, and they sat still, -dying men, who but a few hours before had been deadly foes, sat still and looked at each other. At last one of them spoke: "We haven't either of us a chance to hold out much longer, I judge.”

"No," said the other, with a little mixture of sadness and recklessness, "you did that last job of yours well, us that bears witness," and he pointed to a wound a little above the heart, from which the life blood was slowly 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 inexorable 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 aniong the New Hampshire mountains, that it will well nigh kill to hear of this;" and the man groaned out in bitter anguish, “O 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, "O 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 like 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 making 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 old plum tree by the well, for her father, again. I shall never hear the cry of joy as she catches a glimpse of me at the gate. I shall never see her little feet running over the grass to spring into my arms again!"

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"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 murmur from his white lips; but he took the band of his fallen foe, and his stiffening fingers closed over it, and his last look was a smile of forgiveness 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 with bright brown hair, that waited by the roses among the green fields of Georgia, were fatherless.

THE JESTER CONDEMNED.

One of the kings of Scanderoon,
A royal jester

Had in his train, a gross buffoon,

Who used to pester

The court with tricks inopportune,
Venting on the highest folks his
Scurvy pleasantries and hoaxes.

It needs some sense to play the fool,
Which wholesome rule

Occurred not to our jackanapes,

Who consequently found his freaks

Lead to innumerable scrapes,

And quite as many kicks and tweaks,
Which only seemed to make him faster
Try the patience of his master.

Some sin, at last, beyond all measure,
Incurred the desperate displeasure

Of his serene and raging Highness;
Whether he twitched his most revered
And sacred beard,

Or had intruded on the shyness
Of the seraglio, or let fly

An epigram at royalty,

None knows:-his sin was an occult one;
But record tells us that the Sultan,

Meaning to terrify the knave,

Exclaimed, "Tis time to stop that breath;
Thy doom is sealed;-presumptuous slave!
Thou stand'st condemned to certain death.
Silence, base rebel!-no replying;

But such is my indulgence still,
That, of my own free grace and will,
I leave to thee the mode of dying."
"Thy royal will be done,-'tis just,"
Replied the wretch, and kissed the dust;
"Since, my last moments to assuage,
Your Majesty's humane decree
Has deigned to leave the choice to me,
I'll die, so please you, of old age!"

II Smith.

HEAVEN.

Is it where the spiral stairway,
Set with gems, leads up the blue?
Are the gleams that pierce the ether
Eyes of angels looking through?
Is that great white road that stretches,
Paved with stars, across the skies,
The way,-beyond, poor mortal reaches,-
That the ransomed spirit flies?

Is that land of wondrous glory
Undivined by human sight?
Like Creation's mystic story
Hieroglyphed on scroll of Night?
Ah! not so; faint heart, despair not,
Heaven is very near to you;

Though thy burden weighs, yet fear not,
With the Father's house in view.

For without the prophet's vision,
The mysterious lines to read,

That God, for man's blest intuition,
Writes in every guileless deed,