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HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farm-yard
wall,

Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry

of alarm

To every Middlesex village and farm,
A cry of defiance and not of fear,

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209

Q, thou child of many prayers!
Life hath quicksands, Life hath snares!
Care and age come unawares!

Like the swell of some sweet tune,
Morning rises into noon,
May glides onward into June.

Childhood is the bough, where slumbered
Birds and blossoms many-numbered ; —
Age, that bough with snows encumbered.
Gather, then, each flower that grows,

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the When the young heart overflows,

door,

And a word that shall echo forevermore !
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and
need,

The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed
And the midnight message of Paul Re-

vere.

MAIDENHOOD.

MAIDEN! with the meek, brown eyes,

In whose orbs a shadow lies
Like the dusk in evening skies!

Thon whose locks outshine the sun,
Golden tresses, wreathed in one,
As the braided streamlets run!

Standing, with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!

Gazing, with a timid glance,
On the brooklet's swift advance,
On the river's broad expanse!
Deep and still, that gliding stream
Beautiful to thee must seem,
As the river of a dream.

Then why pause with indecision,
When bright angels in thy vision
Beckon thee to fields Elysian?

Seest thou shadows sailing by,
As the dove, with startled eye,
Sees the falcon's shadow fly?

Hearest thou voices on the shore,
That our ears perceive no more,
Deafened by the cataract's roar?

To embalm that tent of snows.

Bear a lily in thy hand;

Gates of brass cannot withstand
One touch of that magic wand.

Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth,
In thy heart the dew of youth,
On thy lips the smile of truth.

O, that dew, like balm, shall steal
Into wounds that cannot heal,
Even as sleep our eyes doth seal;
And that smile, like sunshine, dart

Into many a sunless heart,
For a smile of God thou art.

A PSALM OF LIFE.

WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO
THE PSALMIST.

TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust retuinest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.

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And though at times impetuous with emotion

And anguish long suppressed,

We see but dimly through the mists and The swelling heart heaves moaning like

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the ocean,

That cannot be at rest,

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"THE HEART OF RACHEL, FOR HER CHILDREN CRYING."- Page

210.

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