That its light is all reflected; Comes the grand and glorious finish, Long foretold by seers and sages. ORPHEUS WITH HIS LUTE WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ORPHEUS with his lute made trees, And the mountain tops that freeze, There had made a lasting spring. Everything that heard him play, Hung their heads, and then lay by. In sweet music such is art; Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing, die. OLD CHUMS ALICE CARY Alice Cary was born in Cincinnati in 1820. She began writing sketches and poems for the press when very young. In 1852 she and her sister Phoebe removed to New York city, where they lived the rest of their lives. She wrote several novels, which are not now much read. She died in 1871. S Is it you, Jack? Old boy, is it really you? I shouldn't have known you, but that I was told Your hair! Why, you've only a little gray fuzz! And your beard's white! But that can be beautifully dyed; And your legs aren't but just half as long as they was; stars and garters! Your vest is so wide! And then Is this your hand? Lord, how I envied you that Well, you beat the very old deuce, that is all. Turn round! Let me look at you! Isn't it odd, How strange in a few years a fellow's chum grows! Your eye is shrunk up like a bean in a pod, And what are these lines branching out from your nose? Your back has gone up and your shoulders gone down, Why, Jack, if we'd happened to meet about town, You've had trouble, have you? I'm sorry; but, John, Poor Katherine! So she has left you,—ah me! Well, there's little Katy, was that her name, John? She'll rule your house one of these days like a queen. That baby! Good Lord! Is she married and gone? With a Jack ten years old! And a Katy fourteen! Then I give it up! Why, you're younger than I By ten or twelve years, and to think you've come back A sober old graybeard, just ready to die! I don't understand how it is, do you, Jack? I've got all my faculties yet, sound and bright; My hearing is dull and my leg is more spare, My hair is just turning a little, you see, And lately I've put on a broader-brimmed hat Than I wore at your wedding, but you will agree, Old fellow, I look all the better for that. I'm sometimes a little rheumatic, 'tis true, And my nose isn't quite on a straight line, they say; For all that, I don't think I have changed much, do you? And I don't feel a day older, Jack, not a day. amartine was born in France in 1790. He is best known in this try as the author of the "History of the Girondists." ERSONAL glory will be always spoken of as characterizing the age of Napoleon, but it will never merit praise bestowed upon that of Augustus, of Charlene,1 and of Louis XIV. There is no age; there is only a name, and this name signifies nothing to humanity but himself. False in institutions, for he retrograded; false in policy, for he debased; false in morals, for he corrupted; false in civilization, for he oppressed; false in diplomacy, for he isolated, he was only true in war, for he shed torrents of human blood. But what can we then allow him? His individual genius was great, but it was the genius of materialism. His intelligence was vast clear, but it was the intelligence of calculation. He nted, he weighed, he measured; but he felt not, he ed not, he sympathized with none; he was a statue, er than a man. NAPOLEON 1 Charlemagne : King of the Franks. |