Like a crash there came to the drunkard's side
His angel child, who that night had died;
With a look so gentle and sweet and fond,
She touched his glass with her little wand;
And oft as he raised it up to drink,
She silently tapped on its trembling brink,
Till the drunkard shook from foot to crown,
And set the untasted goblet down.
"Hey, man!" cried the host, "what meaneth this? Is the covey sick? or the dram amiss?
Cheer up, my lad-quick, the bumper quaff!"
And he glared around with a fiendish laugh.
The drunkard raised his glass once more,
And looked at its depths as so oft before;
But started to see on its pictured foam,
The face of his dead little child at home;
Then again the landlord at him sneered,
And the swaggering crowd of drunkards jeered;
But still, as he tried that glass to drink,
The wand of his dead one tapped the brink!
The landlord gasped, "I swear, my man,
Thou shalt take every drop of this flowing can!"
The drunkard bowed to the quivering brim,
Though his heart beat fast and his eye grew dim.
But the wand struck harder than before;
The glass was flung on the bar-room floor.
All around the ring the fragments lay,
And the poisonous current rolled away.
The drunkard woke. His dream was gone;
His bed was bathed in the light of morn;
But he saw, as he shook with pale, cold fear,
A beautiful angel hovering near.
He rose, and that seraph was nigh him still;
It checked his passions, it swayed his will;
It dashed from his lips the maddening bowl,
And victory gave to his ransomed soul.
Since ever that midnight hour he dreamed,
Our hero has been a man redeemed.
And this is the prayer that he prays alway,
And this is the prayer let us help him pray:
That angels may come in every land,
To dash the cup from the drunkard's hand
THE BATTLE OF IVRY.
BY LORD MACAULAY.
Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are!
And glory to our sovereign liege, King Henry of Navarre!
Now, let there be the merry sound of music and of dance,
Through thy corn-fields green, and sunny vines, oh, pleasant land of France!
And thou, Rochelle, our own Rochelle, proud city of the waters,
Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourning daughters.
As thou wert constant in our ills, be joyous in our joy,
For cold and stiff and still are they who wrought thy walls annoy.
Hurrah! hurrah! a single field hath turned the chance of war,
Hurrah! hurrah! for Ivry, and King Henry of Navarre!
Oh, how our hearts were beating, when, at the dawn of day,
We saw the army of the League drawn out in long array;
With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers,
And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish spears.
There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land!
And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his hand;
And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's unpurpled flood,
And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood;
And we cried unto the living Power who rules the fate of war,
To fight for His own holy name, and Henry of Navarre!
The king is come to marshal us, all in his armor dressed;
And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest.
He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye;
He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high.
Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing,
Down all our line, a deafening shout, "Long live our lord the King!"
"And if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he may-
For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray—
Press where you see my white plume shine, amidst the ranks of war--
And be your oriflamme, to-day, the helmet of Navarre."
Hurrah! the foes are moving! Hark to the mingled din
Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring culverin!
The fiery Duke is speeding fast across Saint André's plain,
With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almayne.
"Now, by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France,
Charge-for the golden lilies now-upon them with the lance!"
A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest,
A thousand knights are pressing close behind the snow-white crest;
And in they burst, and on they rushed, while, like a guiding star.
Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre.
Now, Heaven be praised, the day is ours! Mayenne has turned his rein.
D'Aumale hath cried for quarter. The Flemish Count is slain.
Their ranks are breaking like thin clouds before a Biscay gale;
The field is heaped with bleeding steeds and flags and cloven mail,
And then we thought of vengeance; and all along our van
"Remember St. Bartholomew!" was passed from man to man;
But out spoke gentle Henry, "No Frenchman is my foe;
Down, down with every foreigner, but let your brethren go."
Oh, was there ever such a knight, in friendship or in war,
As our sovereign lord, King Henry, the soldier of Navarre?
Ho! maidens of Vienna ! Ho! matrons of Lucerne !
Weep, weep, and rend your hair for those who never shall return.
Ho! Philip, send for charity thy Mexican pistoles,
That Antwerp monks may sing a mass for thy poor spearmen's souls!
Ho! gallant nobles of the League, look that your arms be bright!
Ho! burghers of St. Genevieve, keep watch and ward to-night!
For our God hath crushed the tyrant, our God hath raised the slave,
And mocked the counsel of the wise, and the valor of the brave.
Then glory to His holy name, from whom all glories are;
And glory to our sovereign lord, King Henry of Navarre.
FARMER GRAY'S PHOTOGRAPH.
I WANT you to take a picter o' me and my old woman here,
Jest as we be, if you please, sir-wrinkles, gray hairs and all;
We never was vain at our best, and we're going on eighty year,
But we've got some boys to be proud of, straight an' handsome and tall. They are coming home this summer, the nineteenth day of July,
Tom wrote me (Tom's a lawyer in Boston since forty-eight);
So we're going to try and surprise 'em, my old wife and I—
Tom, Harry, Zay and Elisha, and the two girls, Jennie and Kate.
I guess you've hearn of Elisha-he preaches in Middletown,
I'm a Methody myself, but he's 'Piscopal, he says;
Don't s'pose it makes much difference, only he wears a gown;
An' I couldn't abide (bein' old and set) what I call them Popish ways. But he's good, for I brought him up, and the others-Harry 'n' Zay, They're merchants down to the city, an' don't forget mother 'n' ̧me; They'd give us the fat of the land if we'd only come that way.
And Jennie and Kate are hearty off, for they married rich, you see. Well, lud, that's a cur'us fix, sir. Do you screw it into the head? I've hearn of this photography, an' I reckon it's scary work.
Do you take the picters by lightnin'? La, yes; so the neighbors said; It's the sun that does it, old woman; 'n' he never was known to shirk
Wall, yes, I'll be readin' the Bible; old woman, what'll you do?'
Jest sit on the other side o' me, 'n' I'll take hold o' your hand.
That's the way we courted, mister, if it's all the same to you;
And that's the way we're a-goin', please God, to the light o' the better land. I never could look that thing in the face, if my eyes was as good as gold. 'Tain't over? Do say! What, the work is done! Old woman, that beats the Dutch.
Jest think we've got our picters took, and we nigh eighty year old;
There ain't many couples in our town of our age that can say as much. You see on the nineteenth of next July our golden wedding comes on— For fifty year in the sun and rain we've pulled at the same old cart; We've never had any trouble to speak of, only our poor son John
Went wrong, an' I drove him off, 'n' it about broke the old woman's heartThere's a drop of bitter in every sweet. And my old woman and me Will think of John when the rest come home. Would I forgive him, young sir? He was only a boy, and I was a fool for bein' so hard, you see;
If I could jist git him atween these arms, I'd stick to him like a burr. And what's to pay for the sunshine that's painted my gray old phiz?
Nothin'? That's cur'us! You don't work for the pleasure of working, hey? Old woman, look here! there's Tom in that face-I'm blest if the chin isn't his! Good God! she knows him-It's our son John, the boy that we drove away!
THE COURTIN'.
BY JAMES RUSSEL LOWELL.
GOD makes sech nights, all white an' still, fur'z you can look or listen,
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, all silence an' all glisten.
Zekel crep' up, quite unbeknown, an' peeked in through the winder,
An' there sot Huldy, all alone, with no one nigh to hinder.
The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out toward the pootiest, bless her!
An' leetle flames danced all about the chiny on the dresser.
The very room, coz she was in, seemed warm from floor to ceilin',
An' she looked full ez rosy ag'in as the apple she was peelin'.
'Twas kin' o' "kingdom come" to look on such a blessed cretur',
A dog-rose blushin' to a brook ain't modester nor sweeter.
He was six foot o' man, A 1, clean grit an' human natur,
None couldn't quicker pitch a ton, nor dror a furrer straighter.
He'd sparked it with full twenty gals, he'd squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em,
Fust this one, and then thet, by spells-all is, he couldn't love 'em.
But long o' her, his veins 'ould run all crinkly, like curled maple,
The side she breshed felt full o' sun ez a south slope in Ap'il.
She thought no v'ice had sech a swing as his'n in the choir;
My! when he made "Ole Hundred" ring, she knowed the Lord was nigher.
An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer, when her new meetin' bunnet
Felt, somehow, thru its crown, a pair o' blue eyes sot upon it.
That night, I tell ye, she looked some! she seemed to've gut a new scul
For she felt sartin-sure he'd come, down to her very shoe-sole.
She heerd a foot, an' knowed it, tu, a-raspin' on the scraper-
All ways to once her feelin's flew, like sparks in burnt-up paper.
He kin' o' loitered on the mat, some doubtfle o' the sekle,
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, but hern went "pity-Zekel."
An' yit, she gin her cheer a jerk, as though she wished him furder,
An' on her apples kep' to work, parin' away like murder.
"You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?" "Wall-no-I come designin'
"To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es, agin to-morrer's i'nin."
To say why gals acts so or so, or don't, would be presumin';
Mebby to mean yes, and say no, comes nateral to woman.
He stood a spell on one foot fust, and then stood a spell on t'other,
An' on which one he felt the wust, he couldn't ha' told ye, nuther.
Says he, "I'd better call ag'in." Says she, "Think likely, Mister."
That last word pricked him like a pin, an'-wal, he up an' kissed her.
When Ma, bimeby, upon 'em slips, Huldy sot, pale as ashes,
All kin' o' smily roun' the lips an' teary roun' the lashes.
For she was jest the quiet kind, whose natur's never vary,
Like streams thet keep a summer mind snow-hid in Jenooary.
The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued too tight for all expressin',
Till mother see how matters stood, an' gin 'em both her blessin'.
Then her red come back, like the tide down to the Bay o' Fundy,
An' all I know is, they were cried in meetin', come nex' Sunday.
OVER his forge bent David Gray,
And thought of the rich man 'cross the way.
"Hammer and anvil for me," he said,
"And weary toil for the children's bread;
"For him, soft carpets and pictured walls,
A life of ease in his spacious halls.”
The clang of bells on his dreaming broke;
A flicker of flame, a whirl of smoke.
Ox in travis, forge grown white hot,
Coat and hat were alike forgot,
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