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"Try not the pass!" the old man said;
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead;
The roaring torrent is deep and wide !"-
And loud that clarion voice replied,

Excelsior!

"Oh! stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye;
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!

"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche !"

This was the peasant's last good-night;—
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior!

At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of St. Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,

A voice cried, through the startled air,
Excelsior!

A traveler, by the faithful hound,
Half buried in the snow, was found,
Still grasping, in his hand of ice,
The banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

There, in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay ;
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,-.
Excelsior!

THE SONG OF SHERMAN'S ARMY.-By C. G. Halpine.

A PILLAR of fire by night,
A pillar of smoke by day,

Some hours of march-then a halt to fight,
And so we hold our way;

Some hours of march-then a halt to fight,
As on we hold our way.

Over mountain and plain and stream,
To some bright Atlantic bay,

With our arms aflash in the morning beam,
We hold our festal way;

With our arms aflash in the morning beam,
We hold our checkless way!

There is terror wherever we come,

There is terror and wild dismay

When they see the Old Flag and hear the drum
Announce us on the way;

When they see the Old Flag, and hear the drum
Beating time to our onward way.

Never unlimber a gun

For those villanous lines in grey,

Draw sabres! and at 'em upon the run!
'Tis thus we clear our way,

Draw sabres and soon you will see them run,
As we hold our conquering way.

The loyal, who long have been dumb,
Are loud in their cheers to-day;

And the old men out on their crutches come,
To see us hold our way;

And the old men out on their crutches come,
To bless us on our way.

Around us in rear and flanks,
Their futile squadrons play,

With a sixty-mile front of steady ranks,
We hold our checkless way;

With a sixty-mile front of serried ranks,
Our banner clears the way.

Hear the spattering fire that starts
From the woods and copses grey,

There is just enough fighting to quicken our hearts,
As we frolic along the way!

There is just enough fighting to warm our hearts, As we rattle along the way.

Upon different roads abreast

The heads of our columns gay,
With fluttering flags, all forward pressed,
Hold on their conquering way.

With fluttering flags to victory pressed,
We hold our glorious way.

Ah, traitors! who bragged so bold
In the sad war's early day,
Did nothing predict you should ever behold
The Old Flag come this way?

Did nothing predict you should yet behold
Our banner come back this way?

By heaven! 'tis a gala march,
'Tis a pic-nic or a play;

Of all our long war 'tis the crowning arch,
Hip, hip! for Sherman's way!

Of all our long war this crowns the arch-
For Sherman and Grant, hurrah!

MR. PICKWICK'S ROMANTIC ADVENTURE WITH A MIDDLE-AGED LADY IN YELLOW CURL PAPERS. Pickwick Papers.

"DEAR me, it's time to go to bed. It will never do, sitting here. I shall be pale to-morrow, Mr. Pickwick !"

At the bare notion of such a calamity, Mr. Peter Magnus rang the bell for the chamber-maid; and the striped bag, the red bag, the leather hat-box, and the brown-paper parcel, having been conveyed to his bed-room, he retired in company with a japanned candlestick to one side of the house, while Mr. Pickwick, and another japanned candlestick, were conducted through a multitude of tortuous windings, to another.

"This is your room, Sir," said the chamber-maid.

Very well," replied Mr. Pickwick, looking round him. It was a tolerably large double-bedded room, with a fire; upon the whole, a more comfortable-looking apartment than Mr. Pickwick's short experience of the accommodations of the Great White Horse had led him to expect.

"Nobody sleeps in the other bed, of course," said Mr. Pick

wick.

"Oh, no, Sir."

"Very good. Tell my servant to bring me up some hot water at half-past eight in the morning, and that I shall not want him any more to-night."

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Yes, Sir." And bidding Mr. Pickwick good-night, the chamber-maid retired, and left him alone.

Mr. Pickwick sat himself down in a chair before the fire, and fell into a train of rambling meditations. First he thought of his friends, and wondered when they would join him; then his mind reverted to Mrs. Martha Bardell; and from that lady it wandered by a natural process, to the dingy counting-house of Dodson and Fogg. From Dodson and Fogg's it flew off at a tangent, to the very centre of the history of the queer client: and then it came back to the Great White Horse at Ipswich, with sufficient clearness to convince Mr. Pickwick that he was falling asleep; so he roused himself, and began to undress, when he recollected he had left his watch on the table down stairs.

Now this watch was a special favorite with Mr. Pickwick, having been carried about, beneath the shadow of his waistcoat, for a greater number of years than we feel called upon to state, at present. The possibility of going to sleep, unless it were ticking gently beneath his pillow, or in his watch-pocket over his head, had never entered Mr. Pickwick's brain. So as it was pretty late now, and he was unwilling to ring his bell at that hour of the night, he slipped on his coat, of which he had just divested himself, and taking the japanned candlestick in his hand, walked quietly down stairs.

The more stairs Mr. Pickwick went down, the more stairs there seemed to be to descend, and again and again, when Mr. Pickwick got into some narrow passage, and began to congratulate himself

on having gained the ground-floor, did another flight of stairs appear before his astonished eyes. At last he reached a stone hall, which he remembered to have seen when he entered the house.

Passage after passage did he explore; room after room did he peep into; at length, just as he was on the point of giving up the search in despair, he opened the door of the identical room in which he had spent the evening, and beheld his missing property on the table.

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Mr. Pickwick seized the watch in triumph, and proceeded to retrace his steps to his bed-chamber. If his progress downwards had been attended with difficulties and uncertainty, his journey back was infinitely more perplexing, Rows of doors garnished with boots of every shape, make, and size, branched off in every possible direction. A dozen times did he softly turn the handle of some bed-room door, which resembled his own, when a gruff cry from within, of "Who the devil's that?" or What do you want here?” caused him to steal away, on tiptoe, with a marvelous celerity. He was reduced to the verge of despair, when an open door attracted his attention. He peeped in-right at last. There were the two beds, whose situation he perfectly remembered, and the fire still burning. His candle, not a long one when he first received it, had flickered away in the drafts of air through which he had passed, and sunk into the socket, just as he closed the door after him. "No matter," said Mr. Pickwick, “I can undress myself just as well, by the light of the fire.”

The bedsteads stood, one on each side of the door: and on the inner side of each was a little path, terminating in a rush-bottomed chair, just wide enough to admit of a person's getting into or out of bed, on that side, if he or she thought proper. Having carefully drawn the curtains of his bed on the outside, Mr. Pickwick sat down on the rush-bottomed chair, and leisurely divested himself of his shoes and gaiters. He then took off and folded up his coat, waistcoat, and neck-cloth, and slowly drawing on his tasseled night-cap, secured it firmly on his head, by tying beneath his chin, the strings which he had always attached to that article of dress. It was at this moment that the absurdity of his recent bewilderment struck upon his mind; and throwing himself back in the rush-bottomed chair, Mr. Pickwick laughed to himself so heartily, that it would have been quite delightful to any man of well-constituted mind to have watched the smiles which expanded his amiable features as they shone forth, from beneath the nightсар.

"It is the best idea," said Mr. Pickwick to himself, smiling till he almost cracked the night-cap strings-" It is the best idea, my losing myself in this place, and wandering about those staircases, that I ever heard of. Droll, droll, very droll." Here Mr. Pickwick smiled again, a broader smile than before, and was about to continue the process of undressing, in the best possible humor, when he was suddenly stopped by a most unexpected interruption; to wit, the entrance into the room of some person with a candle, who, after locking the door, advanced to the dressing-table, and set down the light upon it.

The smile that played on Mr. Pickwick's features, was instantaneously lost in a look of the most unbounded and wonderstricken surprise. The person, whoever it was, had come in so suddenly and with so little noise, that Mr. Pickwick had no time to call out, or oppose their entrance. Who could it be? A robber! Some evil-minded person who had seen him come up stairs with a handsome watch in his hand, perhaps. What was he to do!

The only way in which Mr. Pickwick could catch a glimpse of his mysterious visitor with the least danger of being seen himself, was by creeping on to the bed, and peeping out from between the curtains on the opposite side. To this manœuvre he accordingly resorted. Keeping the curtains carefully closed with his hand, so that nothing more of him could be seen than his face and nightcap, and putting on his spectacles, he mustered up courage, and looked out.

Mr. Pickwick almost fainted with horror and dismay. Standing before the dressing glass was a middle-aged lady in yellow curl-papers, busily engaged in brushing what ladies call their "back hair." However the unconscious middle-aged lady came into that room, it was quite clear that she contemplated remaining there for the night; for she had brought a rushlight and shade with her, which, with praiseworthy precaution against fire, she had stationed in a basin on the floor, where it was glimmering away like a gigantic lighthouse, in a particularly small piece of

water.

"Bless my soul," thought Mr. Pickwick, "what a dreadful thing!"

"Hem!" said the lady; and in went Mr. Pickwick's head with automaton-like rapidity.

"I never met with anything so awful as this,"-thought poor Mr. Pickwick, the cold perspiration starting in drops upon his nightcap. "Never. This is fearful."

It was quite impossible to resist the urgent desire to see what was going forward. So out went Mr. Pickwick's head again. The prospect was worse than before. The middle-aged lady had finished arranging her hair; and carefully enveloped it, in a muslin night-cap with a small plaited border, and was gazing pensively on the fire.

"This matter is growing alarming"-reasoned Mr. Pickwick with himself. "I can't allow things to go on in this way. By the self-possession of that lady, it's clear to me that I must have come into the wrong room. If I call out, she'll alarm the house, but if I remain here, the consequence will be still more frightful!"

Mr. Pickwick, it is quite necessary to say, was one of the most modest and delicate-minded of mortals. The very idea of exhibiting his night-cap to a lady, overpowered him, but he had tied these confounded strings in a knot, and do what he would, he couldn't get it off. The disclosure must be made. There was only one other way of doing it. He shrunk behind the curtains, and called out very loudly:

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