For five-and-twenty years, my dear,
The billows lightly skimming,-
One day the skies grew murk and drear,
Our eyes and spirits dimming.
How dark that night frowned overhead,
When hope foresaw no morrow,
And we beside our firstling dead
Drank our first cup of sorrow.

"Tis five-and-twenty years, my dear,
Yet music's in our dwelling,
The children's prattle that we hear
About our hearthstone swelling,
God bless them all, the loving band
So glad to call you mother;

With heart to heart, and hand to hand,
Clinging to one another.

Through five-and-twenty years, my dear,
Whene'er my arm was weary,
And scarce I knew the way to steer,
Your words were ever cheery.
When mid the tempest and the night,
With courage sorely shrinking,
Then on our way God gave us light
That kept our faith from sinking.

Tis five-and-twenty years, my dear,
Slight change in you revealing;
But o'er my brow-you see them here-
The silver hairs are stealing.

Yet let them come, while still thy breast

Retains the fond emotion

That nerved my arm when first we pressed
Our way out on life's ocean.

THE PALMETTO AND THE PINE.-VIRGINIA L. FRENCH.

They planted them together-our gallant sires of oldThough one was crowned with crystal snow, and one with solar gold.

hey planted them together,-on the world's majestic height; At Saratoga's deathless charge; at Eutaw's stubborn fight; At midnight on the dark redoubt, 'mid plunging shot and shell; At noontide, gasping in the crush of battle's bloody swell. With gory hands and reeking brows, amid the mighty fray Which surged and swelled around them on that memorable day

When they planted Independence as a symbol and a sign, They struck deep soil, and planted the palmetto and the pine

They planted them together,-by the river of the years,Watered with our fathers' hearts' blood, watered with our mothers' tears;

In the strong, rich soil of freedom, with a bounteous benison From their prophet, priest, and pioneer-our father, Washington!

Above them floated echoes of the ruin and the wreck,

Like" drums that beat at Louisburg and thundered at Quebec;"

But the old lights sank in darkness as the new stars rose to shine

O'er those emblems of the sections, the palmetto and the pine.

And we'll plant them still together-for 'tis yet the selfsame soil

Our fathers' valor won for us by victory and toil;

On Florida's fair everglades, by bold Ontario's flood,

And through them send electric life, as leaps the kindred blood!

For thus it is they taught us who for freedom lived and died,

The Eternal's law of justice must and shall be justified,
That God has joined together, by a fiat all divine,

The destinies of dwellers 'neath the palm-tree and the pine.

God plant them still together! Let them flourish side by side In the halls of our Centennial, mailed in more than marble

pride!

With kindly deeds and noble names we'll grave them o'er

and o'er

With brave historic legends of the glorious days of yore; While the clear, exultant chorus, rising from united bands, The echo of our triumph peals to earth's remotest lands; While “faith, fraternity, and love" shall joyfully entwine Around our chosen emblems, the palmetto and the pine.

Together!" shouts Niagara, his thunder-toned decree;
Together!" echo back the waves upon the Mexic Sea;
Together!" sing the sylvan hills where old Atlantic roars;
Together!" boom the breakers on the wild Pacific shores;
"Together!" cry the people. And "together," it shall be,
An everlasting charter-bond forever for the free!

Of liberty the signet-seal, the one eternal sign,
Be those united emblems-the palmetto and the pine.

AUNTY DOLEFUL'S VISIT.-MARY KYLE DALLAS.

How do you do, Cornelia? I heard you were sick, and I stepped in to cheer you up a little. My friends often say, "It's such a comfort to see you, Aunty Doleful. You have such a flow of conversation, and are so lively." Besides, I said to myself, as I came up the stairs," Perhaps it's the last time I'll ever see Cornelia Jane alive."

But you must be
Keep quite calm,

You don't mean to die yet, eh? Well, now, how do you know? You can't tell. You think you are getting better; but there was poor Mrs. Jones sitting up, and every one saying how smart she was, and all of a sudden she was taken with spasms in the heart, and went off like a flash. careful, and not get anxious or excited. and don't fret about anything. Of course, things can't go on just as if you were down stairs; and I wondered whether you knew your little Billy was sailing about in a tub on the millpond, and that your little Sammy was letting your little Jimmy down from the veranda roof in a clothes-basket.

Gracious goodness! what's the matter? I guess Providence 'll take care of 'em. Don't look so. You thought Bridget was watching them? Well, no, she isn't. I saw her talking to a man at the gate. He looked to me like a burglar. No doubt she let him take the impression of the door-key in wax, and then he'll get in and murder you all. There was a family at Kobble Hill all killed last week for fifty dollars. Now, don't fidget so; it will be bad for the baby.

Poor little dear! How singular it is, to be sure, that you can't tell whether a child is blind, or deaf and dumb, or a cripple at that age. It might be all, and you'd never know it. Most of them that have their senses make bad use of them though that ought to be your comfort, if it does turn out to And more don't

:

have anything dreadful the matter with it.

live a year.

along.

I saw a baby's funeral down the street as I came

Well, but finds it warm in town, eh?

How is Mr. Kobble? Well, I should think he would. They are dropping down by hundreds there with sun-stroke. mind to have him brought home any day. Anyhow, a trip

You must prepare your

on these railroad trains is just risking your life every time you take one. Back and forth every day as he is, it's just trifling with danger.

Dear! dear! now to think what dreadful things hang over us all the time! Dear! dear!

Scarlet fever has broken out in the village, Cornelia. Little Isaac Potter has it, and I saw your Jimmy playing with him last Saturday.

Well, I must be going now. I've got another sick friend, and I shan't think my duty done unless I cheer her up a little before I sleep. Good-by. How pale you look, Cornelia. I don't believe you have a good doctor. Do send him away and try some one else. You don't look so well as you did when I came in. But if anything happens, send for me at once. If I can't do anything else, I can cheer you up a little.

CUSTER'S LAST CHARGE.-FREDERICK WHITTAKER.

Dead! Is it possible? He, the bold rider,
Custer, our hero, the first in the fight,

Charming the bullets of yore to fly wider,
Shunning our battle-king's ringlets of light!
Dead! our young chieftain, and dead all forsaken!
No one to tell us the way of his fall!
Slain in the desert, and never to waken,
Never, not even to victory's call!

Comrades, he's gone; but ye need not be grieving;
No, may my death be like his when I die!

No regrets wasted on words I am leaving,

Falling with brave men, and face to the sky.
Death's but a journey, the greatest must take it:
Fame is eternal, and better than all; .

Gold though the bowl be, 'tis fate that must break it,
Glory can hallow the fragments that fall.

Proud for his fame that last day that he met them!
All the night long he had been on their track,
Scorning their traps and the men that had set them,
Wild for a charge that should never give back.
There on the hill-top he halted and saw them,--
Lodges all loosened and ready to fly;

Hurrying scouts with the tidings to awe them,
Told of his coming before he was nigh.

All the wide valley was full of their forces,
Gathered to cover the lodges' retreat,-
Warriors running in haste to their horses,
Thousands of enemies close to his feet!
Down in the valleys the ages had hollowed,
There lay the Sitting Bull's camp for a prey!

Numbers! What recked he? What reckeď those who followed?

Men who had fought ten to one ere that day?

Out swept the squadrons, the fated three hundred,
Into the battle-line steady and full;

Then down the hill-side exultingly thundered
Into the hordes of the Old Sitting Bull!
Wild Ogalallah, Arapahoe, Cheyenne,

Wild Horse's braves, and the rest of their crew,
Shrank from that charge like a herd from a lion,
Then closed around the great hell of wild Sioux.
Right to their centre he charged, and then, facing—
Hark to those yells? and around them, oh, see!
Over the hill-tops the devils come racing,
Coming as fast as the waves of the sea!

Red was the circle of fire about them:
No hope of victory, no ray of light,

Shot through that terrible black cloud without them,
Brooding in death over Custer's last fight.

THEN, DID HE BLENCH? Did he die like a craven,
Begging those torturing fiends for his life?
Was there a soldier who carried the Seven
Flinched like a coward or fled from the strife?
No, by the blood of our Custer, no quailing!
There in the midst of the devils they close,
Hemmed in by thousands, but ever assailing,
Fighting like tigers, all bayed amid foes!
Thicker and thicker the bullets came singing;
Down go the horses and riders and all;
Swiftly the warriors round them were ringing,
Circling like buzzards awaiting their fall.
See the wild steeds of the mountain and prairie,
Savage eyes gleaming from forests of mane;
Quivering lances with pennons so airy;
War-painted warriors charging amain.

Backward again and again they were driven,
Shrinking to close with the lost little band;
Never a cap that had worn the bright Seven
Bowed till its wearer was dead on the strand.
Closer and closer the death-circle growing,

Even the leader's voice, clarion clear,