That its light is all reflected;
That the tapet's hues are given
By a sun that shines in heaven!
'Tis believed, by all believing,
That great God himself is weaving, -
Bringing out the world's dark mystery,
In the light of truth and history;
And as web and woof diminish,

Comes the grand and glorious finish,
When begin the golden ages,

Long foretold by seers and sages.

ORPHEUS WITH HIS LUTE

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ORPHEUS with his lute made trees,

And the mountain tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung, as sun and showers

There had made a lasting spring.

Everything that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,

Hung their heads, and then lay by.

In sweet music such is art;

Killing care and grief of heart

Fall asleep, or hearing, die.

OLD CHUMS

ALICE CARY

Alice Cary was born in Cincinnati in 1820. She began writing sketches and poems for the press when very young. In 1852 she and her sister Phoebe removed to New York city, where they lived the rest of their lives. She wrote several novels, which are not now much read. She died in 1871.

S

Is it you, Jack? Old boy, is it really you?

I shouldn't have known you, but that I was told
You might be expected; pray, how do you do?
But what under heaven has made you so old?

Your hair! Why, you've only a little gray fuzz!

And your beard's white! But that can be beautifully dyed;

And your legs aren't but just half as long as they was; stars and garters! Your vest is so wide!

And then

Is this your hand? Lord, how I envied you that
In the time of our courting, so soft and so small,
And now it is callous inside, and so fat, -

Well, you beat the very old deuce, that is all.

Turn round! Let me look at you! Isn't it odd,

How strange in a few years a fellow's chum grows! Your eye is shrunk up like a bean in a pod,

And what are these lines branching out from your nose?

Your back has gone up and your shoulders gone down,
And all the old roses are under the plow;

Why, Jack, if we'd happened to meet about town,
I wouldn't have known you from Adam, I vow!

You've had trouble, have you? I'm sorry; but, John,
All trouble sits lightly at your time of life.
How's Billy, my namesake? You don't say he's gone
To the war, John, and that you have buried your wife?

Poor Katherine! So she has left you,—ah me!
I thought she would live to be fifty or more.
What is it you tell me? She was fifty-three!
Oh, no, Jack! She wasn't so much by a score !

Well, there's little Katy, was that her name, John?

She'll rule your house one of these days like a queen. That baby! Good Lord! Is she married and gone? With a Jack ten years old! And a Katy fourteen!

Then I give it up!

Why, you're younger than I By ten or twelve years, and to think you've come back

A sober old graybeard, just ready to die!

I don't understand how it is, do you, Jack?

I've got all my faculties yet, sound and bright;
Slight failure my eyes are beginning to hint;
But still, with my spectacles on, and a light
"Twixt them and the page, I can read any print.

My hearing is dull and my leg is more spare,
Perhaps, than it was when I beat you at ball;
My breath gives out, too, if I go up a stair,—
But nothing worth mentioning, nothing at all!

My hair is just turning a little, you see,

And lately I've put on a broader-brimmed hat Than I wore at your wedding, but you will agree, Old fellow, I look all the better for that.

I'm sometimes a little rheumatic, 'tis true,

And my nose isn't quite on a straight line, they say; For all that, I don't think I have changed much, do you? And I don't feel a day older, Jack, not a day.

amartine was born in France in 1790. He is best known in this try as the author of the "History of the Girondists."

ERSONAL glory will be always spoken of as characterizing the age of Napoleon, but it will never merit praise bestowed upon that of Augustus, of Charlene,1 and of Louis XIV. There is no age; there is only a name, and this name signifies nothing to humanity but himself. False in institutions, for he retrograded; false in policy, for he debased; false in morals, for he corrupted; false in civilization, for he oppressed; false in diplomacy, for he isolated,

he was only true in war, for he shed torrents of human blood.

But what can we then allow him? His individual genius was great, but it was the genius of materialism. His intelligence was vast clear, but it was the intelligence of calculation. He nted, he weighed, he measured; but he felt not, he ed not, he sympathized with none; he was a statue, er than a man.

NAPOLEON

1 Charlemagne : King of the Franks.