His mission was not o'er !
Proudly the flag he bore

Ever the foremost in the bloody fight!
Not even Death's strong clasp

Can wrest it from his grasp.

Waving o'er trackless snows by day by night!

Still the pale moonbeams trace

Upon the upturned face

The spirit's last bequest, its legacy:

White as the spotless snows,

Upon its last repose

There rests the seal of deathless constancy!

“STRIKE HIM, JIM! HE HASN'T ANY FRIENDS!"

Strike him, Jim! he's poor and friendless,

Dirty and ragged, and all that;

The holes in his clothes are almost endless,
His boots are leaky, and torn his hat.
Never heed his pitiful crying,

Slap him, pound him, and pull his hair;
Strike him, Jim! he's poor and friendless,
None for his weeping will look or care.

Harsh indeed the world-wide maxim,
When from children's lips it falls!
Children but in form and feature,

Still the quick-learned truth appals:

Strike him, for he's poor and friendless!
Through the world the maxim goes;
He who has but God to help him,

Full well the bitter lesson knows.

For God often leaves his children
To the mercy of their kind;
Seemingly lone, poor and friendless-
But his hand unseen behind,

Holds the hope that calm endurance
Shall earn peace and heavenly joy;
The true soul could not stay earth-bound
Were it not for earth's alloy.

NOBODY'S CHILD.

A little bundle on a door step,

Through the long night by unseen angels kept,
While the strong wind swept fierce and wild,
And sobbing rain alone there wept nobody's child.

A tottling in the almshouse precincts,

Upon whose prattlings none e'er smiled,

And gave the praise love never stints;

But oft they spoke in scornful hints of nobody's child.

Still living on,- for none were grieving

If spring's green sods o'er a small corse were piled,
Or the frost's fingers cold were weaving,

There half benumbed, a wreath and shroud for nobody's

child.

Still doing battle with grim faces,

Health was his playmate and his woes beguiled;
E'en toil unbent to teach the graces;

And the great Master set the tasks of nobody's child.

Till polished by the world's rough knocking,
Forth from its earth case, in Heaven's beauty smiled,
A spotless gem, the angel Death unlocking;

And the great father owned and blessed poor nobody's child!

DICKENS.

[The close of George W. Curtis's eloquent lecture on Dickens had, if I remember rightly, this expression, "Living or dead, bless him!" I cannot think of him as dead; in the language of Rev. John Pierpont, on the death of his son, "I cannot make him dead."]

Call him not dead! no death is theirs

Who shed through hearts such sunny gleams, Who breathe through common life such prayers, Send o'er earth's wastes such living streams. Call him not dead !

Dead! yes, if Love can ever die—

Such as he painted, true and warm

The same beneath a summer sky,

And buried deep 'neath snow and storm!
If Love can die!

Dead! yes, if Love can ever die

The Love that sees the latent good,
Lifts rags and sin e'er passing by

And owns man's wide-spread brotherhood!
If Love can die!

Dead! yes, if faith can e'er expire

That Faith that 'mid earth's din and care E'er reaches forth towards something higher, And breathes in every thought a prayer!. If Faith can die !

Brave soul! that stood like Albion's rocks, Firm 'gainst the storms of pride and power; Bold, undismayed by scoffs and shocks

Of fools that raved their little hour!

Thou couldst not die !

Warm heart! whose love in every land,
Like ivy twined round heart and home,
Death could not chill thy loving hand

The grave, to thee, could not say "Come!"
Thou couldst not die!

Another world doth claim thee now,
Thy warm, true heart is beating on;
Death could not quench the earnest glow
Of eyes 'twas ours to look upon.

Still dost thou live!

Live while old Christmas rings his chime
And earth's poor children struggle round;
Live where there is no night, no rime,
But where Heaven's songs rejoicing sound!
Still dost thou live!

THE LICENSE LAW.

Ay, license them all! let them sell the vile drink
That makes man a fiend and earth but a hell!
Then call yourselves men who reason and think,
And pray that God's kingdom among us may dwell!
Ay, license them all!

Ay, license them all! that the husband may strike Dead, the wife whom he swore to love, aid and defend !

That he of his children brutes, idiots, may make !
Look well to your work from beginning to end-
From beginning to end!

Ay, license them all! that woman may go

Bowed down by her sorrows to drink at the stream, So degraded and fallen, no mother would know The face of her child with its innocent beam; With its innocent beam.

Ay, license them all! let them wreck each fair home That Love made a heaven with happiness sweet;

Let Cruelty, Want and Misery come,

And Death and Despair for the lost ones compete. For the lost ones compete.