Ah! whose footsteps hear I creeping?
That's my housekeeper who's peeping!
Staring in such stern amazement,

As wide open bursts the door ;
"Oh! what horful hours you're keeping!
Why, if you have not been sleeping!
From your harm-chair you was leaping-
And it's more than half-past four!
What has kept you from your pillow,
Half-a-dozen hours or more?"

Quoth I "Jones," but nothing more.

WHERE the horizon looms livid, the storm-clouds are crossing

the sky,

Like an army marching to battle, waving wild banners on

high;

Onward, swiftly and sternly, they pass in a weird grey line, Or glow with a lurid splendour where the sinking sunbeams shine :

Marching to roll of the thunder,

To the pipe of the winds so shrill,
They gather in order of battle,

To work their Great General's will.

Onward, incessantly onward, majestic, gigantic, grand, They gleam on the heaving ocean, they lour o'er the troubled land;

They come, from whence we know not, they are gone, we know not where,

But our souls are filled with wonder at the pageant strangely

fair:

Marching to roar of the waters,

To the wail of the woodlands grey,
Not recking of death and destruction,
They come, and they pass away.

THE apple-trees are all a-bloom,

Pale rose and lily-white;

And 'neath their shade, with baby Nell,

I play from morn till night.

Then fall the blooms, but leaves have sprung

Round tiny apples green;

And Nelly is the fairest flower,

That I have ever seen.

Again they change-the leaves are brown,

The fruit hangs ripe and red;

Yet still with joy I wander there,

For Nell and I are wed.

And now the boughs are black and bare,

And all the boon I crave

Is peaceful rest-life's labour o'er-
In Nelly's grass-grown grave.

L