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O, to the living few,
Soldiers, be just and true!
Hail them as comrades tried;
Fight with them side by side;
Never in field or tent,

Scorn the black regiment.

THE PAUPER'S DEATH-BED.-By C. B. Southey.

TREAD Softly--bow the head;

In reverent silence bow;

No passing bell doth toll,
Yet an immortal soul

Is passing now.

Stranger! however great,
With lowly reverence bow;
There's one in that poor shed,
One by that paltry bed,
Greater than thou.

Beneath that beggar's roof,
Lo! Death doth keep his state;
Enter-no crowds attend;

Enter-no guards defend
This palace gate.

That pavement, damp and cold,
No smiling courtiers tread;
One silent woman stands,
Lifting with meagre hands
A dying head.

No mingling voices sound

An infant wail alone;

A sob suppressed—again

That short, deep gasp, and then

The parting groan.

Oh! change!-Oh! wondrous change!—

Burst are the prison bars

This moment there, so low,

So agonized, and now

Beyond the stars!

Oh! change-stupendous change!

There lies the soulless clod!

The sun eternal breaks

The new immortal wakes

Wakes with his God!

BOMBASTIC DESCRIPTION OF A MIDNIGHT MURDER.

"TWAS night! the stars were shrouded in a vail of mist; a clouded canopy o'erhung the world; the vivid lightnings flashed and shook their fiery darts upon the earth; the deeptoned thunder rolled along the vaulted sky; the elements were in wild commotion; the storm-spirit howled in the air; the winds whistled; the hail-stones fell like leaden balls; the huge undulations of the ocean dashed upon the rock-bound shore; and torrents leaped from mountain-tops; when the murderer sprang from his sleepless couch with vengeance on his brow,-murder in his heart,-and the fell instrument of destruction in his hand.

The storm increased; the lightnings flashed with brighter glare; the thunder growled with deeper energy; the winds whistled with a wilder fury; the confusion of the hour was congenial to his soul, and the stormy passions which raged in his bosom. He clenched his weapon with a sterner grasp. A demoniac smile gathered on his lip; he grated his teeth; raised his arm; sprang with a yell of triumph upon his victim; and relentlessly killed-a MUSQUITO!

SHORT POETICAL EXTRACTS.

Он, man, boast not thy "lion heart!"
Tell not of proud heroic deed!
Have we not seen thy vaunted art

Fail in the deepest hour of need?

But, woman's courage! 'tis more deep,
More strong, than heart of man can feel,—

To save her little ones that sleep,

She bares her bosom to the steel!

S. F. STREETER.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin; his control

Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

BYRON.

O, hark! what mean those yells and cries?
His chain some furious madman breaks!
He comes! I see his glaring eyes!

Now, now, my dungeon grate he shakes!
Help! help!-he's gone! O, fearful woe,
Such screams to hear, such sights to see!
My brain, my brain! I know, I know,

I am not mad-but soon shall be!

M. G. LEWIS.

Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again!
I hold to you the hands you first beheld,
To show they still are free. Methinks I hear
A spirit in your echoes answer me,

And bid your tenant welcome to his home.

J. S. KNOWLES.

Hush! 'tis a holy hour! the quiet room

Seems like a temple, while yon soft lamp sheds A faint and starry radiance through the gloom,

And the sweet stillness, down on bright young heads, With all their clustering locks untouched by care, And bowed as flowers are bowed with night in prayer.

B. BARTON.

The auctioneer, then, in his labor began ;
And called out aloud, as he held up a man,
"How much for a bachelor? Who wants to buy?"
In a twink, every maiden responded, “I—I!"
In short, at a hugely extravagant price,
The bachelors all were sold off in a trice,

And forty old maidens-some younger, some older-
Each lugged an old bachelor home on her shoulder.

"Oh Men, with Sisters dear!

Oh! Men with Mothers and Wives
It is not linen you're wearing out,
But human creatures' lives!

Stitch-stitch-stitch,

In poverty, hunger and dirt,

Sewing at once, with a double thread,
A shroud as well as a shirt!

HOOD.

And O, when Death comes in terrors, to cast
His fears on the future, his pall on the past,-
In that moment of darkness, with hope in thy heart,
And a smile in thine eye, “look aloft," and depart.
J. LAWRENCE.

“But I defy him!—let him come !"
Down rang the massy cup,

While from its sheath the ready blade
Came flashing half-way up;

And with the black and heavy plumes
Scarce trembling on his head,

There, in his dark, carved, oaken chair,

Old Rudiger sat-dead!

A. G. GREENE.

And this, O Spain! is thy return
For the new world I gave !
Chains!-this the recompense I earn!
The fetters of the slave!

Yon sun that sinketh 'neath the sea,
Rises on realms I found for thee.

MISS JEWSBURY.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, we raised not a stone-
But we left him alone with his glory!

WOLFE.

What's hallowed ground?-"Tis what gives birth
To sacred thoughts in souls of worth!-
Peace! Independence! Truth! Go forth,
Earth's compass round;

And your high priesthood shall make earth
All hallowed ground!

CAMPBELL.

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.

GRAY.

Small service is true service while it lasts;
Of friends, however humble, scorn not one:
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,

Protects the lingering dew-drop from the sun.

WORDSWORTH.

The gloomiest day hath gleams of light;

The darkest wave hath white foam near it;
And twinkles through the cloudiest night
Some solitary star to cheer it.

The gloomiest soul is not all gloom;
The saddest heart is not all sadness;
And sweetly o'er the darkest doom

There shines some lingering beam of gladness.

So stately her bearing, so proud her array,

The main she will traverse, forever and aye.

Many ports will exult at the gleam of her mast!

-Hush! hush! thou vain dreamer! this hour is her last!

THE LETTERS.-By Alfred Tennyson.

STILL on the tower stood the vane;

A black yew gloomed the stagnant air;
I peered athwart the chancel pane,
And saw the altar cold and bare.
A clog of lead was 'round my feet,
A band of pain across my brow;
"Cold altar, Heaven and earth shall meet
Before you hear my marriage vow."

I turned and hummed a bitter song

That mocked the wholesome human heart;
And then we met in wrath and wrong,
We met, but only meant to part.
Full cold my greeting was, and dry;

She faintly smiled, she hardly moved;

I saw with half-unconscious eye

She wore the colors I approved.

She took the little ivory chest

With half a sigh she turned the key;
Then raised her head with lips comprest,
And gave my letters back to me.
And gave the trinkets and the rings,

My gifts when gifts of mine could please;

As looks a father on the things

Of his dead son, I looked on these.

She told me all her friends had said;
I raged against the public liar.
She talked as if her love were dead;
But in my words were seeds of fire.

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