Trusting remoter days would be more blessed, Who some strong habit ever drag about, But best resolves are of such feeble thread, "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; 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, 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 Bind these my arms, and drive me back my way, Against his wish the cotter gave consent, When stronger would have dared not to attack, Straightway the cotter to the mayor hied The pursed sufficient silver of reward;. There is no nobler, better life on earth And holy work, made his sublime disguise, 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? Your hair! why, you've only a little gray fuzz! 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, You've had trouble, have you? I'm sorry; but, John, 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? 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'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, Some are sowing their seed of pleasant thought; Some are sowing the seeds of word and deed, And some are sowing the seeds of pain, And some are standing with idle hand, Yet they scatter seeds on their native land; Which their soil has borne, and still must bear: And each, in his way, is sowing the seed |