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Trusting remoter days would be more blessed,
He set his will to wear the verdict out,
And knew most men are prisoners at best

Who some strong habit ever drag about,
Like chain and ball; then meekly prayed that he
Rather the prisoner he was should be.

But best resolves are of such feeble thread,
They may be broken in Temptation's hands.
After long toil the guiltless prisoner said:

"Why should I thus, and feel life's precious sands The narrow of my glass, the present, run, For a poor crime that I have never done?"

Such questions are like cups, and hold reply;
For when the chance swung wide the prisoner fled,
And gained the country road, and hastened by

Brown furrowed fields and skipping brooklets fed By shepherd clouds, and felt 'neath sapful trees, The soft hand of the mesmerizing breeze.

Then, all that long day having eaten naught,
He at a cottage stopped, and of the wife
A brimming bowl of fragrant milk besought.
She gave it him; but as he quaffed the life,
Down her kind face he saw a single tear
Pursue its wet and sorrowful career.

Within the cot he now beheld a man

And maiden also weeping. "Speak," said he, And tell me of your grief; for if I can,

I will disroot the sad tear-fruited tree." The cotter answered: "In default of rent We shall to-morrow from this roof be sent."

Then said the galley-slave: "Whoso returns
A prisoner escaped may feel the spur
To a right action, and deserves and earns
Proffered reward. I am a prisoner!

Bind these my arms, and drive me back my way,
That your reward the price of home may pay."

Against his wish the cotter gave consent,
And at the prison-gate received his fee,
Though some made it a thing for wonderment
That one so sickly and infirm as he,

When stronger would have dared not to attack,
Could capture this bold youth and bring him back,

Straightway the cotter to the mayor hied
And told him all the story, and that lord
Was much affected, dropping gold beside

The pursed sufficient silver of reward;.
Then wrote his letter in authority,
Asking to set the noble prisoner free.

There is no nobler, better life on earth
Than that of conscious, meek self-sacrifice.
Such life our Saviour, in his lowly birth

And holy work, made his sublime disguise,
Teaching this truth, still rarely understood:
"Tis sweet to suffer for another's good.

SPEECH BY OBADIAH PARTINGTON SWIPES.

FELLOW CITIZENS:-We have met here to investigate the ethereal contaminations of this terraqueous government of the firmament below. We may elucidate the praises of the invisible Scott, who has fought with wise and deleterious conflagration over the plains of Mexico, through Behring's straits to Hudson's bay. And let me tell you, that the names of the invincible Modoc, and the oleaginous Chinaman, shall travel down to receding generations, gloriously enrolled on the records of perpetuity and glory. Yes, they shall live on, and shine on, when the Columbian principles of Hale and Julien shall be disembogued into the unforgotten regions of ambiguous fame.

But I have been accused of going for the sub-treasury and the "back pay "bill. Now, that's a whopper! and I am prepared to come down upon that base calumniator of inno cence and beauty, like a thousand of brick! I'll hurl at him the gauntlet of egotism and pomposity, through the innumerable regions of Mozambique and Santa Fé de Bogota; and rush down on him like an avalanche on the plains of De Laplata, before I'll stand the charge! The sub-treasury means to watch the money. Now I say one man is enough to watch our money. I had rather have one man to watch my money, my life, and my country, too, than to have a

thousand, because Homer, the greatest poet that ever flourished in umbrageous England, says, in beautiful ambidexter, Latin verse—

"He that steals my purse, steals trash."

But about our eternal improvements. What, in the name of the invisible Jackson, do we want to make so many railroads and canals for? What do we want any more water for in these United States? We have got water enough. The water in canals ain't good for nothing but to float boats in, the best way you can fix it. They want to go on making railroads and canals, until our country shall equal in magnanimity the great and philosophic Pacific ocean.

And now, to conclude, fellow-citizens, let me tell you that the memory of the whig and democratic democracy of our great republican constitution, shall be hung upon a star and shine forever in odoriferous amalgamation in the terraqueous firmament on high, in one eternal bustification!

OLD CHUMS.-ALICE CARY.

Is it you, Jack? Old boy, is it really you?
I shouldn't have known you but that I was told
You might be expected;-pray, how do you do?
But what, under heaven, has made you so old?

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;
And then-stars and garters! your vest is so wide!

Is this your hand? Lord, how I envied you that
In the time of our courting,-so soft, and so small,
And now it is callous inside, and so fat,-

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,
And all the old roses are under the plough;
Why, Jack, if we'd happened to meet about town,
I wouldn't have known you from Adam, I vow!

You've had trouble, have you? I'm sorry; but, John,
All trouble sits lightly at your time of life.
How's Billy, my namesake? You don't say he's gone
To the war, John, and that you have buried your wife?

Poor Katherine! so she has left you,―ah me!

I thought she would live to be fifty, or more. What is it you tell me? She was fifty-three! Oh no, Jack! she wasn't so much by a score!

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;
Slight failure my eyes are beginning to hint;
But still, with my spectacles on, and a light
"Twixt them and the page, I can read any print.

My hearing is dull, and my leg is more spare,
Perhaps, than it was when I beat you at ball;
My breath gives out, too, if I go up a stair,-
But nothing worth mentioning, nothing at all!

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've changed much, do you? And I don't feel a day older, Jack, not a day.

SOWING AND HARVESTING.

There is nothing more true than that "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap;" and we have abundant proof, in the every-day experience of life, that "he that Soweth iniquity shall reap iniquity;" that "they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, shall reap the same;" and that those who have "sown the wind shall reap the whirlwind." And then, again, we have the comforting assurance that if we "be not weary in well-doing, in due season we shall reap, if we faint not;" and that "to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward." These are metaphors in which all men are described as husbandmen, sowing the seeds for the harvest, and reaping the fruits thereof.

They are sowing their seed in the daylight fair,
They are sowing their seed in the noonday glare,
They are sowing their seed in the soft twilight,
They are sowing their seed in the solemn night;
What shall their harvest be?

Some are sowing their seed of pleasant thought;
In the spring's green light they have blithely wrought:
They have brought their fancies from wood and dell,
Where the mosses creep, and the flower-buds swell;
Rare shall the harvest be!

Some are sowing the seeds of word and deed,
Which the cold know not, nor the careless heed,-
Of the gentle word and the kindest deed
That have blessed the heart in its sorest need:
Sweet shall the harvest be!

And some are sowing the seeds of pain,
Of late remorse, and in maddened brain;
And the stars shall fall, and the sun shall wane,
Ere they root the weeds from the soil again:
Dark will the harvest be!

And some are standing with idle hand,

Yet they scatter seeds on their native land;
And some are sowing the seeds of care,

Which their soil has borne, and still must bear:
Sad will the harvest be!

And each, in his way, is sowing the seed
Of good or of evil, in word or deed:

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