A COMMON THOUGHT.

This little poem, written several years before the poet's death, was prophetic. He died at the very hour here predicted. The whisper, "He is gone," went forth as the day was purpling in the zenith, on that October morning of 1867.

OMEWHERE on this earthly planet

In the dust of flowers to be,
In the dew-drop in the sunshine,
Sleeps a solemn day for me.

At this wakeful hour of midnight
I behold it dawn in mist,
And I hear a sound of sobbing

Through the darkness-hist! O, hist!

In a dim and musky chamber,

I am breathing life away;
Some one draws a curtain softly
And I watch the broadening day.

As it purples in the zenith,

As it brightens on the lawn,
There's a hush of death about me,
And a whisper, "He is gone!"

HENRY TIMROD.

GOOD-BY, PROUD WORLD!

OOD-BY, proud world! I'm going home;
Thou art not my friend; I am not thine;
Too long through weary clouds I roam-
A river ark on the ocean brine,
Too long I am tossed like the driven foam;
But now, proud world, I'm going home.

Good-by to flattery's fawning face;
To grandeur with his wise grimace;
To upstart wealth's averted eye;
To supple office, low and high;

To crowded halls, to court and street,
To frozen hearts, and hasting feet,
To those who go, and those who come,
Good-by, proud world, I'm going home.
I go to seek my own hearth-stone,
Bosomed in yon green hills alone;
A secret lodge in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned,
Where arches green, the live!ong day,
Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
And evil men have never trod,

A spot that is sacred to thought and God.
O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I mock at the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the pines,
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugn at the lore and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools, and the learned clan ;
For what are they all in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

12

NATURE'S ARTISTIC POWER

ATURE has a thousand ways and means of rising above herself, but incomparably the mblest manifestations of her capability of color are in the sunsets among the high clouds. I speak especially of the moment before the sun sinks, when his light turns pure rose-color, and when this light falls upon a zenith covered with countless cloudforms of inconceivable delicacy, threads and flakes of vapor, which would in common daylignt be pure snow-white, and which give therefore fair field to the tone of light. There is then no limit to the multitude, and no check to the intensity, of the hues assumed. The whole sky from the zenith to the horizon becomes one molten, mantling sea of color and fire; every black bar turns into massy gold, every ripple and wave into unsullied, shadowless crimson, and purple, and scarlet, and colors for which there are no words in language and no ideas in the mind-things which can only be conceived while they are visible-the intense hollow blue of the upper sky melting through it all-showing here deep and pure and lightless, there modulated by the filmy, formless body of the transparent vapor, till it is lost imperceptibly in its crimson and gold.

JOHN RUSKIN.

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

WEET Auburn! loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheered the labe

ing swain,

Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed;
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, where every sport could please;
How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene;
How often have I paused on every charm—
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,

The decent church that topped the neighboring hill
The hawthorne bush, with seats beneath the shade
For talking age and whispering lovers made!
How often have I blest the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the village train, from labor free,
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree,
While many a pastime circled in the shade,
The young contending as the old surveyed;
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round
And still as each repeated pleasure tired,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired.
The dancing pair that simply sought renown,
By holding out, to tire each other down;
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,
While secret laughter tittered round the piace:

The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love,
The matron's glance that would those looks reprove-
These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like
these,

With sweet succession, taught even toil to please;
These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed,
These were thy charms.-But all these charms are fled.

Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn ;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green:
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain ;
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way;
Along thy glades, a solitary guest,

The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries.
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass o'ertops the moldering wall;
And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
Far, far away thy children leave the land.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;
Princes and lords may fiourish or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.

A time there was, ere England's griefs began,
When every rood of ground maintained its man;
For him light labor spread her wholesome store,
Just gave what life required, but gave no more;
His best companions, innocence and health,
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.

But times are altered; trade's unfeeling train
Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain ;
Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose,
Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose:
And every want to luxury allied,

And every pang that folly pays to pride.
Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloons,
Those calm desires that asked but little room,
Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene,
Lived in each look, and brightened all the green;
These, far departing, seek a kinder shore,
And rural mirth and manners are no more.

While mother charred for poor folk round about,

Or sold cheap odds and ends from street to street. Yet, Parson, there were pleasures fresh and fair, To make the time pass happily up thereA steamboat going past upon the tide, A pigeon lighting on the roof close by, The sparrows teaching little ones to fly, The small white moving clouds that we espied, And thought were living, in the bit of sky— With sights like these right glad were Ned and I And then we loved to hear the soft rain calling, Pattering, pattering upon the tiles,

And it was fine to see the still snow falling,

Making the house-tops white for miles on miles,
And catch it in our little hands in play,
And laugh to feel it melt and slip away!
But I was six, and Ned was only three,
And thinner, weaker, wearier than me;

And one cold day, in winter-time, when mother
Had gone away into the snow, and we

Sat close for warmth, and cuddled one another,

He put his little head upon my knee,

And went to sleep, and would not stir a limb,

But looked quite strange and old;

And when I shook him, kissed him, spoke to him,
He smiled, and grew so cold.

Then I was frightened, and cried out, and none
Could hear me, while I sat and nursed his head,
Watching the whitened window, while the sun

Peeped in upon his face, and made it red.
And I began to sob-till mother came,
Knelt down, and screamed, and named the good God's
name,

No shame had these revelers wasted and grim-
So they shook off the cerements from body and limb,
And scattered them over the hillocks.

They crooked their thigh-bones, and they shook their long shanks,

And wild was their reeling, and limber;

And each bone, as it crosses, it clinks and it clanks, Like the clapping of timber on timber.

The warder he laughed, though his laugh was not loud;

And the fiend whispered to him: "Go steal me the shroud

Of one of those skeleton dancers."

He has done it! and backward, with terrified glance,
To the sheltering door ran the warder;

As calm as before looked the moon on the dance,
Which they footed in hideous order.

But one and another retiring at last,

Slipped on their white garments, and onward they passed,

And a hush settled over the greensward.

Still one or them stumbles and tumbles along,
And taps at each tomb that it seizes;

But 'tis none of its mates that has done it this wrong,
For it scents its grave-clothes in the breezes.

It shakes the tower gate, but that drives it away,
For 'twas nailed o'er with crosses-a goodly array-
And well it was so for the warder!

It must have its shroud-it must have it betimes—
The quaint Gothic carving it catches;
And upwards from story to story it climbs,

And scrambles with leaps and with snatches.
Now woe to the warder, poor sinner, betides!
Like a spindle-legged spider the skeleton strides
From buttress to buttress, still upward!

The warder he shook, and the warder grew pale,
And gladly the shroud would have yielded!
The ghost had its clutch on the last iron rail,
Which the top of the watch-tower shielded,
When the moon was obscured by the rush of a cloud,
ONE! thundered the bell, and unswathed by a shroud,
Down went the gaunt skeleton crashing.
Translation from Goethe. By THEODORE MARTIN.

SOMEBODY'S MOTHER.

'HE woman was old and ragged and gray, And bent with the chill of the winter's day; The street was wet with a recent snow, And the woman's feet were aged and slow. She stood at the crossing and waited long, Alone, uncared for, amid the throng

Of human beings who passed her by,
Nor heeded the glance of her anxious eye.

Down the street, with laughter and shout,
Glad in the freedom of "school let out,"
Came the boys, like a flock of sheep,
Hailing the snow piled white and deep.
Past the woman so old and gray
Hastened the children on their way,

Nor offered a helping hand to her,
So meek, so timid, afraid to stir,

Lest the carriage wheels or the horses' feet
Should crowd her down in the slippery stree

At last came one of the merry troop-
The gayest laddie of all the group;

He paused beside her, and whispered low, "I'll help you across, if you wish to go."

Her aged hand on his strong young arm
She placed, and so, without hurt or harm,

He guided the trembling feet along,
Proud that his own were firm and strong

Then back again to his friends he went,
His young heart happy and well content.
"She's somebody's mother, boys, you know,
For all she's aged and poor and slow;
And I hope some fellow will lend a hand
To help my mother, you understand,

If ever she's poor and old and gray,
When her own dear boy is far away."

And "somebody's mother" bowed low her head
In her home that night, and the prayer she said,
Was, "God, be kind to the noble boy,
Who is somebody's son and pride and joy !”

"Oh, to wander away and die !

God, let me die on my mother's grave, Tis the only boon I dare to crave!" And she struggled on,

With a weary moan,

In the noon-day heat,
From the dusty street;

And they turned to gaze on the fair young face,
And marveled much at her beauty and grace.
What cared they if her heart was aching?
How knew they that her heart was breaking?

Forth from the West the red light glowed,
And the weary feet still kept on their road,
Wand'ring on in the golden sheen,

Where the country lanes were fresh and green.
The red light gleamed on the village tower,
And lit up the clock at the sunset hour;
And still her cry

Was, "Oh, to die!

God, let me die on my mother's grave,
Tis the only boon I care to crave!"
The sun uprose, and the light of day
Brightly scattered the clouds of gray;
And the village was gay
For a holiday.

Merrily echoed the old church bells,
Peal on peal, o'er the hills and dells;
Borne away on the morning breeze
Over the moorland, over the leas;
Back again with a joyous clang!
Merrily, cheerily, on they rang!

But they woke her not, she slumbered on,
With her head laid down on the cold gray stone.

The village was bright

In the gladsome light,

And the village maidens were clad in white, As side by side

They merrily hied,

In gay procession, to meet the bride;
Strewing the path of the village street
With choicest flowers for her dainty feet.
A joyful chime of the bells again,

To proclaim the return of the bridal train;
A louder peal from the old church-tower
(As the bride passes on through the floral bower,
With the bridegroom happy, tender and gay),
And the echoes are carried away, away;
But they linger awhile o'er the tombstones gray;
And the sleeper awakes with a yearning cry-
"Oh, to die! oh, to die!

God let me die on my mother's grave,

'Tis all my broken heart can crave!"

And she lays her head again on the stone,
With a long-drawn breath and a sobbing moan;
While the bridal train (with many a thought
Unspoken of omens with evil fraught)

Sweeps down the path from the old church door,

And the bells' glad music is wafted once more Over the moorland, over the heath

But they wake her not, for her sleep is death!

Why does the bridegroom's cheek turn pale?
Why in his eye such a look of bale?

Why does he totter, then quicken his pace
As he catches a glimpse of the poor dead face?
Oh, woe betide,

That so fair a bride

As she who steps with such grace by his side,
Should have faced grim death on her wedding-day i

Did this thought trouble the bridegroom gay,
And dash from his eye the glad light away?

I wist not; for never a word he spoke,
And soon from his face the troubled look
Was gone, and he turned to his beautiful bride
With a radiant smile and a glance of pride:
And his eye was bright.

And his step was light,

As would beseem with her by his side.
Oh, his smile is glad, and his heart is brave!
What cares he for the dead on the grave?
The faded shawl, and faded gown,
And unsmoothed hair of golden brown?
Why should the face on the tombstone gray
Trouble him so on his wedding-day?
Forgotten words that were long since spoken,
Thoughts of vows that were made to be broken?
Fling them away!

Be joyous and gay!

Death will never a secret betray.

Quaff the red wine, the glasses ring;
Drink! till the gloomy thoughts take wing;
Drink and be merry, merry and glad!
With a bride so lovely, who would be sad?

Hark! the wedding bells are ringing,
Over the hills their echoes flinging;
Carried away on the morning breeze
Over the moorland, over the leas,
Riding back on the zephyr's wing,
Joyously, merrily, on they ring!

But she will not wake, her sleep is deep,
And death can ever a secret keep.

Ah! thy smile may be glad and thy heart may be brave,

And the secret be kept betwixt thee and the grave;
But shouldst thou forget it for one short day,

In the gloom of night, from the tombstone gray,
Will come the sound of a wailing cry--
Oh, to die! oh, to die!"

་་

And the bride at thy bosom will raise her head In affright, as she hears thee call on the dead In a ghastly dream, on whose wings are borne The memories of thy wedding morn!

Oh, the woeful sight of the pale, dead face, With the old dank stone for its resting-place!

Oh, the mocking chime of the old church bell!
It shall seem to peal from the mouth of hell;
Into thy dreams its echoes bringing,
Merrily, madly, ceaselessly ringing!

The white face shall haunt thee!

The bells they shall taunt thee!

Echoed and tossed on the withering breath

Of a curse that shall cling round thy soul till death. CHARLOTTE M. GRIFFITHS.

a

THE WEAVER.

WEAVER sat by the side of his loom

A-flinging the shuttle fast,

He upward turned his eye to heaven,
And still wove on-on-on!

Till the last, last cord from his heart was riven,
And the tissue strange was done.

Then he threw it about his shoulders bowed,

And about his grizzled head,

And gathering close the folds of his shroud,
Laid him down among the dead.

And after, I saw, in a robe of light,

The weaver in the sky;

The angels' wings were not more bright,
And the stars grew pale, it nigh.

Was added at every cast.

His warp had been by the angels spun,

And his weft was bright and new,

Like threads which the morning upraids from the sun,
All jeweled over with dew.

And fresh-lipped, bright-eyed, beautiful flowers
In the rich soft web were bedded;

And blithe to the weaver sped onward the hours,
Not yet were Time's feet leaded.

But something there came slow stealing by,
And a shade on the fabric fell;

And I saw that the shuttle less blithely did fly;
For thought has a wearisome spell.

And the thread that next o'er the warp was lain
Was of a melancholy gray.

And anon I marked there a tear-drop's stain

Where the flowers had fallen away.

But still the weaver kept weaving on,

Though the fabric all was gray;

And the flowers, and the buds, and the leaves were

gone,

And the gold threads cankered lay.

And dark, and still darker, and darker grew
Each newly woven thread,

And some were of a death mocking hue,
And some of a bloody red.

And things all strange were woven in,

Sighs, down-crushed hopes and fears,

And the web was broken, and poor and thin, And it dripped with living tears.

And the weaver fain would have flung it aside, But he knew it would be a sin;

So in light and in gloom the shuttle he plied, A-weaving those life-cords in.

And as he wove, and weeping still wove,

A tempter stole him nigh;

And with glowing words he to win him strove, But the weaver turned his eye

That beneath his touch had sprung,

More beautiful far than these stray ones of ours,

Which the angels have to us flung.

And wherever a tear had fallen down
Gleamed out a diamond rare,

And jewels befitting a monarch's crown
Were foot-prints left by care.

And wherever had swept the breath of a sigh
Was left a rich perfume,

And with light from the fountain of bliss in the sky
Shone the labor of sorrow and gloom.

And then I prayed: "When my last work is done,
And the silver cord is riven,

Be the stain of sorrow the deepest one
That I bear with me to heaven."

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF MAN VIN. DICATED.

EAVEN from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state; From brutes what men, from men what spirits

know,

Or who could suffer being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. O blindness to the future! kindly given, That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven; Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish or a sparrow fall; Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly, then, with trembling pinions soar Wait the great teacher, death; and God adore. What future bliss, he gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never is, but always TO BE blest; The soul, uneasy and confined from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.