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Why should he leave me thus?—He once was kind: And I believed 'twould last!-How mad!-How blind!

Rest thee, babe !-Rest on !-'Tis hunger's cry!
Sleep!-For there is no food!-The font is dry!
Famine and cold their wearying work have done.
My heart must break !—And thou !-The clock strikes
one!

The wave will roll with sparkling, foamy play To-morrow on the shining, sun-bright shore: But to the homes so happy yesterday

Will come no tidings of their loved ones more.

We sometimes feel a storm that hovers near,
Yet fails to touch our dearest hope or thought:
A storm that is to others sorrow-fraught.
We feel the ripple that their sorrow brought

Hush! 'tis the dice-box! Yes? he's there! he's there! And turn to pray-"Thy vengeance be not here." For this for this he leaves me to despair!

Leaves love! leaves truth! his wife! his child! For

what?

The wanton's smile-the villain-and the sot!

Yet I'll not curse him. No! 'tis all in vain!

'Tis long to wait, but sure he'll come again!

And I could starve and bless him but for you, My child!-His child! Oh, fiend!-The clock strikes two.

Hark! How the sign-board creaks! The blasts howl by.

Moan! moan! A dirge swells through the cloudy sky!

Ha! 'tis his knock!-he comes!-he comes once more !

'Tis but the lattice flaps! Thy hope is o'er.

Can he desert me thus! He knows I stay
Night after night, in loneliness to pray
For his return-and yet he sees no tear !
No! no! It cannot be! He will be here!

Nestle more closely, dear one, to my heart!
Thou'rt cold! Thou'rt freezing! But we will not
part!

Husband! I die!-Father! it is not he!

Oh, God! protect my child!-The clock strikes three.

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ONLY A YEAR.

NE year ago a ringing voice,
A clear blue eye,

And clustering curls of sunny hair,
Too fair to die.

Only a year no voice, no smile,
No glance of eye,

No clustering curls of golden hair,
Fair but to die!

One year ago-what loves, what schemes

Far into life!

What joyous hopes, what high resolves,
What generous strife!

The silent picture on the wall,
The burial stone

Of all that beauty, life and joy,
Remain alone!

One year-one year, one little year, And so much gone!

And yet the even flow of life

Moves calmly on.

The grave grows green, the flowers bloom fair
Above that head;

No sorrowing tint of leaf or spray
Says he is dead.

No pause or lush of merry birds
That sing above,

Tell us how coldly sleeps below

The form we love.

Where hast thou been this year, beloved?
What hast thou seen—

What visions fair, what glorious life,
Where thou hast been?

The veil the veil! so thin, so strong
'Twixt us and thee;
The mystic veil, when shall it fail,
That we may see?

Not dead, not sleeping, not even gone,
But present still,

And waiting for the coming hour
Of God's sweet will.

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RETROSPECTION

EARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the under world; Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the vergeSo sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. Dear as remembered kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret— O death in life, the days that are no more. ALFRED TENNYSON.

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She still was young, and she had been fair ;
But weather-stains, hunger, toil and care,
That frost and fever that wear the heart,
Had made the colors of youth depart
From the sallow cheek, save over it came
The burning flush of the spirit's shame.

They were sailing over the salt sea-foam,
Far from her country, far from her home;
And all she had left for her friends to keep
Was a name to hide and a memory to weep!
And her future held forth but the felon's lot-
To live forsaken, to die forgot!

She could not weep, and she could not pray,
But she wasted and withered from day to day,
Till you might have counted each sunken vein,
When her wrist was prest by the iron chain;
And sometimes I thought her large dark eye
Had the glisten of red insanity.

She called me once to her sleeping-place,
A strange, wild look was upon her face,
Her eye flashed over her cheek so white,
Like a gravestone seen in the pale moonlight,
And she spoke in a low, unearthly tone—
The sound from mine ear hath never gone!—
"I had last night the loveliest dream :
My own land shone in the summer beam,

I saw the fields of the golden grain,

I heard the reaper's harvest strain;

There stood on the hills the green pine-tree,
And the thrush and the lark sang merrily.
A long and a weary way I had come;

But I stopped, methought, by mine own sweet home.
I stood by the hearth, and my father sat there,
With pale, thin face, and snow-white hair!

The Bible lay open upon his knee,

But he closed the book to welcome me.
He led me next where my mother lay,
And together we knelt by her grave to pray,
And heard a hymn it was heaven to hear,
For it echoed one of my young days dear.
This dream has waked feelings long, long since fled,
And hopes which I deemed in my heart were dead!
-We have not spoken, but still I have hung
On the northern accents that dwell on thy tongue.
To me they are music, to me they recall
The things long hidden by memory's pall!
Take this long curl of yellow hair,

And give it my father, and tell him my prayer,
My dying prayer, was for him.”

Upon the deck a coffin lay;

Next day

They raised it up, and like a dirge

The heavy gale swept over the surge;
The corpse was cast to the wind and wave-
The convict has found in the green sea a grave.
LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON.

THE DREAMER.

From "Poems by a Seamstress.'

OT in the laughing bowers,

Where by green swinging elms a pleasant shade

At summer's noon is made,

And where swift-footed hours

Steal the rich breath of enamored flowers,
Dream I. Nor where the golden glories be,
At sunset, laving o'er the flowing sea;
And to pure eyes the faculty is given
To trace a smooth ascent from earth to heaven!

Not on a couch of ease,

With all the appliances of joy at hand-
Soft light, sweet fragrance, beauty at command;
Viands that might a godlike palate please,
And music's soul-creative ecstasies,
Dream I. Nor gloating o'er a wide estate,
Till the full, self-complacent heart elate,
Well satisfied with bliss of mortal birth,
Sighs for an immortality on earth!

But where the incessant din
Of iron hands, and roar of brazen throats,
Join their unmingled notes,

While the long summer day is pouring in,
Till day is gone, and darkness doth begin,
Dream I-as in the corner where I lie,
On wintry nights, just covered from the sky!-
Such is my fate-and, barren though it seem,
Yet, thou blind, soulless scorner, yet I dream!

And yet I dream—

Dream what, were men more just, I might have been ;
How strong, how fair, how kindly and serene,
Glowing of heart, and glorious of mien ;
The conscious crown to nature's blissful scene,
In just and equal brotherhood to glean,
With all mankind, exhaustless pleasure keen-
Such is my dream!

And yet I dream—

I, the despised of fortnne, lift mine eyes,
Bright with the lustre of integrity,
In unappealing wretchedness, on high,
And the last rage of destiny defy;
Resolved alone to live--alone to die,

Nor swell the tide of human misery!

And yet I dream

Dream of a sleep where dreams no more shall come,
My last, my first, my only welcome home!
Rest, unbeheld since life's beginning stage,
Sole remnant of my glorious heritage,
Unalienable, I shall find thee yet,
And in thy soft embrace the past forget!
Thus do I dream!

LOSSES.

PON the white sea-sand

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There sat a pilgrim band,

What a jolting and creaking and splashing and din! The whip, how it cracks; and the wheels, how they

spin!

How the dirt, right and left, o'er the hedges is hurled! Telling the losses that their lives had known; The pauper at length makes a noise in the world! While evening waned away

From breezy cliff and bay,

And the strong tides went out with weary moan.

One spake, with quivering lip,
Of a fair freighted ship,

With all his household to the deep gone down ;
But one had wilder woe-

For a fair face, long ago

Lost in the darker depths of a great town.

There were who mourned their youth
With a most loving ruth,

For its brave hopes and memories ever green;
And one upon the West

Turned an eye that would not rest,

For far-off hills whereon its joy had been.

Some talked of vanished gold,

Some of proud honors told,

"Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!"

Poor pauper defunct! he has made some approach
To gentility, now that he's stretched in a coach!
He's taking a drive in his carriage at last;
But it will not be long, if he goes on so fast :
"Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!"

You bumpkins! who stare at your brother conveyed, Behold what respect to a cloddy is paid!

And be joyful to think, when by death you're laid low You've a chance to the grave like a "gemman" to go! "Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!"

But a truce to this strain; for my soul it is sad, To think that a heart in humanity, clad

Some spake of friends that were their trust no more; Should make, like the brute, such a desolate end,

And one of a green grave

Beside a foreign wave,

That made him sit so lonely on the shore.

But when their tales were done,

There spake among them one,

A stranger, seeming from all sorrow free: "Sad losses have ye met,

But mine is heavier yet;

For a believing heart hath gone from me."

"Alas!" these pilgrims said,

"For the living and the dead

For fortune's cruelty, for love's sure cross,
For the wrecks of land and sea!

But, however it came to thee,

Thine, stranger, is life's last and heaviest loss."'

And depart from the light without leaving a friend! "Bear soft his bones over the stones!

Though a pauper, he's one whom his Maker yet owns !"

THOMAS NOEL.

FRANCES BROWN.

THE PAUPER'S DRIVE.

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'HERE'S a grim one-horse hearse in a jolly Here on the plains and mountains, far to the open

round trot

To the churchyard a pauper is going, I wot; The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs;

And hark to the dirge which the mad driver sings : "Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!"

O, where are the mourners? Alas! there are none;
He has left not a gap in the world, now he's gone—
Not a tear in the eye of child, woman, or man;
To the grave with his carcass as fast as you can:
"Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!"

west:

Look at those snow-capped summits-waves of an endless sea;

Look at yon billowed prairie, boundless as grand and free.

Ah! we have found our quarry! yonder within the bush!

Empty your carbines at them, then follow me with a rush!

Down with the desperadoes! Ours is the cause of right!

Though they should slash like demons, still we must gain the fight!

Pretty hot work, McGregor, but we have gained the day. What? Have we lost their leader? Can he have sneaked away?

There he goes in the chaparral! He'll reach it now in a bound!

Give me that rifle, Parker! I'll bring him down to the ground.

There, I knew I could drop him; that little piece of lead Sped straight on to its duty. The last of the gang is dead.

He was a handsome fellow, plucky and fearless, too; Pity such men are devils, preying on those more true. What have found in his pockets? Papers? Let's take a look.

"Ceorge Walgrave" stamped on the cover? Why, that is my brother's book;

The deeds and the papers also, and letters received from me;

He must have met these demons. Been murdered and robbed, you see.

And I have been his avenger! It is years since last we met.

We loved each other dearly, and Walgraves never forget.

If my voice is broken, excuse me. fines my breath

Somehow it con

Let me look on the face of that demon who dogged poor George to his death!

Good God! It is he; my brother! killed by my own strong hand!

He is no bandit leader! This is no robber band! What a mad, murderous blunder! Friends, who thought they were foes.

Seven men dead on the prairie, and seven homes flooded with woes.

And to think that I should have done it! When ere many suns should set,

I hoped to embrace my brother-and this is the way we've met!

He with his dead eyes gazing up to the distant sky, And I his murderer, standing, living and unharmed, by!

Well, his fate is the best one! Mine, to behold his

corse

Haunting my life forever; doomed to a vain remorse. How shall I bear its shadows? How could this strange thing be?

O my brother and playmate! Would I had died for thee!

Pardon my weak emotion. Bury them here my friends; Here, where the green plumed willow over the prairie bends.

One more tragedy finished in the romance of strife, Passing like sombre shadows over this frontier life. J. EDGAR JONES.

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Some one spoke as I reached the gate,

(He was Charlie's grown-up brother), "Wait!" he said in a whisper, "wait! We must break it to his mother!"

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