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2. The noble race is gone-the suns

Of sixty years have risen and set; But the bright links, those chosen ones, So strongly forged, are brighter yet. Wide as our own free race increaseWide shall extend the elastic chain, And bind in everlasting peace,

State after State,-a mighty train.

3. THE AVENGER OF SLANDER.

FROM VICTOR HUGO.

"Sire, at your hands

I had the right to claim all meet respect
That majesty to majesty accords :
You are the king!-I am-a father!
The eminence of years o'ertops a throne.
Upon your brows and mine, as well,
There rests a crown!-a crown

To which no eye of insult dare be raised.
The golden fleur-de-lis your diadem,
And mine, the silvery locks of age.

King, when the sacrilegious hand
On yours is laid, from you the quick,
Terrible redress!

But when dishonor smites the coronet

That Time has hallowed on a father's head,
GOD is the avenger!"

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3. Then was the skylark born;
Then rose the embattled corn;
Then floods of praise

Flowed o'er the sunny hills of noon;
And then, in stillest night, the moon
Poured forth her pensive rays.

4. Lo, Heaven's bright bow is glad!
Lo, trees and flowers, all clad
In glory, bloom!

And shall the immortal sons of God

Be senseless as the trodden clod,
And darker than the tomb ?

5. No, by the mind of man!
By the swart artisan!

We will aspire !

Our souls have holy light within,
And every form of grief and sin
Shall see and feel its fire.

6. By all we hope of Heaven,
The shroud of souls is riven!

Mind, mind alone

Is light, and hope, and life, and power!
Earth's deepest night, from this blessed hour,-
The night of mind,-is gone!

7. "The Press!" all lands shall sing:

The Press, the Press we bring,

All lands to bless.

O, pallid Want! O, Labor stark !
Behold! we bring the second ark!
The Press, the Press, the Press !

5.-THOUGHTS OF A SCHOOLMATE-ONCE LOVED.

1. I THOUGHT of thee when the spring sent forth
Fresh grass and sweet wild flowers,

And the green leaves gave their shelter out
To form the young year's bowers.
And my thoughts of thee resembled then
The breath of the fragrant breeze,
That wafted o'er meadows cool and green,

And soft through the new-clad trees.

2. I thought of thee in the summer time, When the sun sent forth its heat, To ripen the orchard's rosy fruit,

And the golden ears of wheat.

And my thought of thee was like the glow
Of the warmth that parched the land:
It beamed as the eastern sunshine beams
On desert plains of sand.

3. I thought of thee when the autumn wind
Swept wildly o'er hill and vale,

And russet leaves were carried away
On the breath of the drifting gale.
And my thought of thee grew wilder then,
As wild as the moaning blast,
That seemed to tell with every sob

Of dead hopes rushing past.

4. And now I think in the dim nights lone,
When the stars shed out no glow,

And o'er rock and hill, and deep dark sea,
The winter fog hangs low.

And sad, oh, sad! is my thought of thee,

As I ponder o'er and o'er,

On the many seasons lost in the shade

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Of a past that returns no more!

6. THE LOVE OF COUNTRY.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

1. BREATHES there a man with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said,
"This is my own, my native land"?
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well
For him no minstrel raptures swell!
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim:
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

7.-ENVY.

1. EVERY thing contains within itself

The seeds and sources of its own corruption:

The cankering rust corrodes the brightest steel:
The moth frets out your garment, and the worm
Eats its slow way into the solid oak;

But envy, of all evil things the worst,

The same to-day, to-morrow, and forever,
Saps and consumes the heart in which it works.

LXXVII.-SOLILOQUY OF THE DYING ALCHEMIST.
N. P. WILLIS.
1. THE night wind with a desolate moan swept by;
And the old shutters.of the turret swung,
Creaking upon their hinges; and the moon,
As the torn edges of the clouds flew past,
Struggled aslant the stained and broken panes
So dimly, that the watchful eye of death
Scarcely was conscious when it went and came.
The silent room,
From its dim corners, mockingly gave back
His rattling breath; the humming in the fire
Had the distinctness of a knell; and when
Duly the antique horologe beat one,
He drew a phial from beneath his head,
And drank. And instantly his lips compressed,
And, with a shudder in his skeleton frame,
He rose with supernatural strength, and sat
Upright, and communed with himself:-

2.

3.

4.

"I did not think to die

Till I had finished what I had to do:

I thought to pierce th' eternal secret through
With this my mortal eye:

I felt, O God! it seemeth even now

This can not be the death-dew on my brow!

"And yet it is,—I feel,

Of this dull sickness at my heart, afraid;

And in my eyes the death-sparks flash and fade;
And something seems to steal

Over my bosom like a frozen hand,—
Binding its pulses with an icy band.

5.

6.

7.

8.

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10.

11.

"And this is death! But why
Feel I this wild recoil? It can not be
Th' immortal spirit shuddereth to be free!
Would it not leap to fly

Like a chain'd eaglet at its parent's call?
I fear, I fear, that this poor life is all!

"Yet thus to pass away!—

To live but for a hope that mocks at last,—
To agonize, to strive, to watch, to fast,

To waste the light of day,

Night's better beauty, feeling, fancy, thought,
All that we have and are,—for this,—for naught!

"Grant me another year,

God of my spirit !—but a day,—to win
Something to satisfy this thirst within!

I would know something here!

Break for me but one seal that is unbroken!
Speak for me but one word that is unspoken!

"Vain,-vain !—my brain is turning

With a swift dizziness, and my heart grows sick,
And these hot temple-throbs come fast and thick,
And I am freezing,—burning,—

Dying! O God! if I might only live!

My phial—————————Ha! it thrills me,—I revive.

"Aye,-were not man to die

He were too mighty for this narrow sphere!
Had he but time to brood on knowledge here,-
Could he but train his eye,-

Might he but wait the mystic word and hour,-
Only his Maker would transcend his power!

"Earth has no mineral strange,

Th' illimitable air no hidden wings,-
Water no quality in covert springs,

And fire no power to change,

Seasons no mystery, and stars no spell,

Which the unwasting soul might not compel.

"Oh, but for time to track

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The upper stars into the pathless sky:
To see th' invisible spirits, eye to eye:

To hurl the lightning back :

To tread unhurt the sea's dim-lighted halls:
To chase Day's chariot to the horizon-walls;

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