The sentinel cock upon the hill-side crew-
Crew thrice-and all was stiller than before;
Silent till some replying warden blew

His alien horn, and then was heard no more.

Where erst the jay, within the elm's tall crest,
Made garrulous trouble round her unfledged young;
And where the oriole hung her swaying nest,

By every light wind, like a censer, swung.
Where sang the noisy martins of the eaves
The busy swallows circling ever near-
Foreboding, as the rustic mind believes,

An early harvest and a plenteous year;

Where every bird, that waked the vernal feast, Shook the sweet slumber from its wings at morn,

To warn the reaper of the rosy east;

All now was sunless, empty, and forlorn.

Alone, from out the stubble, piped the quail;

And croaked the crow through all the dreary gloom;

Alone the pheasant, drumming in the vale,
Made echo in the distance to the cottage loom.

There was no bud, no bloom upon the bowers;

The spiders wove their thin shrouds night by night, The thistle-down, the only ghost of flowers, Sailed slowly by-passed noiseless out of sight. Amid all this-in this most dreary air,

And where the woodbine shed upon the porch Its crimson leaves, as if the year stood there, Firing the floor with its inverted torch;

Amid all this, the center of the scene,

The white-haired matron, with monotonous tread, Plied the swift wheel, and, with her joyless mien, Sate like a fate, and watched the flying thread.

She had known sorrow. He had walked with her,
Oft supped, and broke with her the ashen crust,
And in the dead leaves still, she heard the stir
Of his thick mantle trailing in the dust.

While yet her cheek was bright with summer bloom,
Her country summoned and she gave her all;
And twice war bowed to her his sable plume-
Re-gave the sword to rust upon the wall.

Re-gave the sword but not the hand that drew,
And struck for liberty the dying blow;
Nor him who, to his sire and country true,
Fell 'mid the ranks of the invading foe.

Long, but not loud, the droning wheel went on,
Like the low murmur of a hive at noon;
Long, but not loud, the memory of the gone
Breathed through her lips a sad and tremulous tune.

At last the thread was snapped-her head was bowed;
Life dropped the distaff through her hands serene.
And loving neighbors smoothed her careful shroud,
While death and winter closed the autumn scene.

MIGNONETTE.

BY MARY BRADLEY.

PASSED before her garden gate:

She stood among her roses,
And stooped a little from the state
In which her pride reposes,
To make her flowers a graceful plea
For luring and delaying me.

"When summer blossoms fade so

soon,

She said with winning sweetness, "Who does not wear the badge of June Lacks something of completeness. My garden welcomes you to-day, Come in and gather, while you may."

I entered in: she led me through
A maze of leafy arches,
Where velvet-purple pansies grew
Beneath the sighing larches,-
A shadowy, still, and cool retreat
That gave excuse for lingering feet.

She paused; pulled down a trailing vine;
And twisted round her finger

Its starry sprays of jessamine,
As one who seeks to linger.
But I smiled lightly in her face,
And passed on to the open space.

Passed many a flower-bed fitly set
In trim and blooming order,
And plucked at last some mignonette
That strayed along the border;

A simple thing that had no bloom,

And but a faint and far perfume.

She wondered why I would not choose
That dreamy amaryllis,-
"And could I really, then, refuse
Those heavenly white lilies!
And leave ungathered on the slope
This passion-breathing heliotrope?"
She did not know-what need to tell
So fair and fine a creature?-
That there was one who loved me well
Of widely different nature;

A little maid whose tender youth,
And innocence, and simple truth,

Had won my heart with qualities That far surpassed her beauty, And held me with unconscious ease Enthralled of love and duty; Whose modest graces all were met And symboled in my mignonette.

I passed outside her garden gate,
And left her proudly smiling:
Her roses bloomed too late, too late
She saw, for my beguiling.

I wore instead-and wear it yet-
The single spray of mignonette.

Its fragrance greets me unaware,

A vision clear recalling

Of shy, sweet eyes, and drooping hair

In girlish tresses falling,

And little hands so white and fine

That timidly creep into mine;

As she all ignorant of the arts
That wiser maids are plying-
Has crept into my heart of hearts
Past doubting or denying;
Therein, while suns shall rise and set,
To bloom unchanged, my Mignonette!

BY THOMAS GRAY.

HE curfew tolls the knell of parting day: The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,

The plowman homeward plods his weary

way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,

And drowsy tinklings lull the distant
folds;

Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient, solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell forever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke: How jocund did they drive their team afield!

How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await, alike, the inevitable hour-

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where, through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn, or animated bust,

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust,

Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death?

Perhaps, in this neglected spot, is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fireHand, that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstacy the living lyre:

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul.
Full many a gem, of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast,
The little tyrant of his fields withstood-
Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.

The applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade; nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;-
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

The struggling pangs of conscious Truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous Shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the maddening crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learnt to stray;
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet even these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their names, their years, spelled by th' unlettered Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply;

And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing, anxions being e'er resigned,—— Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,

Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?

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