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Went drearily singing the chore-girl small,
Draping each hive with a shred of black.
Trembling, I listen'd: the summer sun
Had the chill of snow;

For I knew she was telling the bees of one
Gone on the journey we all must go!
Then I said to myself "My Mary weeps
For the dead to-day:

Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps

The fret and the pain of his age away."

But her dog whined low; on the doorway sill,
With his cane to his chin,

The old man sat; and the chore-girl still
Sang to the bees stealing out and in.

And the song she was singing ever since
In my ear sounds on:-

66

Stay at home, pretty bees! fly not hence:
Mistress Mary is dead and gone!"

THE RIVER PATH.

No bird-song floated down the hill,
The tangled bank below was still;
No rustle from the birchen stem,
No ripple from the water's hem.
The dusk of twilight round us grew,
We felt the falling of the dew;

For from us, ere the day was done,
The wooded hills shut out the sun.

But on the river's farther side
We saw the hill-tops glorified,-

A tender glow, exceeding fair,
A dream of day without its glare.

With us the damp, the chill, the gloom:
With them the sunset's rosy bloom;

While dark, through willowy vistas seen,
The river roll'd in shade between.

From out the darkness where we trod,
We gazed upon those hills of God,

Whose light seem'd not of moon or sun.
We spake not, but our thought was one.

We paused, as if from that bright shore
Beckon'd our dear ones gone before;

And still'd our beating hearts to hear
The voices lost to mortal ear.

Sudden our pathway turn'd from night;
The hills swung open to the light;

Through their green gates the sunshine show'd,
A long slant splendour downward flow'd.

Down glade and glen and bank it roll'd;
It bridged the shaded stream with gold;
And, borne on piers of mist, allied

The shadowy with the sunlit side.

"So "-pray'd we- "when our feet draw near The river dark, with mortal fear,

"And the night cometh chill with dew,
O Father! let thy light break through!

"So let the hills of doubt divide,
So bridge with faith the sunless tide!

"So let the eyes that fail on earth
On thy eternal hills look forth;

"And in thy beckoning angels know The dear ones whom we loved below!"

IN SCHOOL-DAYS.

STILL sits the school-house by the road-
A ragged beggar sunning:
Around it still the sumachs grow,
And blackberry-vines are running.

Within, the master's desk is seen,
Deep scarr'd by raps official;
The warping floor, the batter'd seats,
The jack-knife's carved initial;

The charcoal frescoes on its wall;
Its door's worn sill, betraying
The feet that, creeping slow to school,
Went storming out to playing!

It touch'd the tangled golden curls,
And brown eyes full of grieving,
Of one who still her steps delay'd
When all the school were leaving.

For near her stood the little boy
Her childish favour singled;
His cap pull'd low upon a face

Where pride and shame were mingled.

Pushing with restless feet the snow
To right and left, he linger'd,
As restlessly her tiny hands

The blue-check'd apron finger'd.

He saw her lift her eyes; he felt
The soft hand's light caressing;
And heard the tremble of her voice,
As if a fault confessing.

"I'm sorry that I spelt the word:
I hate to go above you,

Because," the brown eyes lower fell,

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Long years ago a winter sun
Shone over it at setting;
Lit up its western window-panes,
And low eaves' icy fretting.

Still memory to a gray-hair'd man
That sweet child-face is showing,
Dear girl! the grasses on her grave
Have forty years been growing!
He lives to learn, in life's hard school,
How few who pass above him
Lament their triumph and his loss,
Like her, because they love him.

WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER.

Born at Philadelphia 1808.

AUGUST.

DUST on thy mantle! dust, Bright Summer! on thy livery of green. A tarnish, as of rust,

Dims thy late-brilliant sheen ;

And thy young glories,-leaf, and bud, and flower,-
Change cometh over them with every hour.

Thee hath the August sun
Look'd on with hot and fierce and brassy face;
And still and lazily run,

Scarce whispering in their pace,

The half-dried rivulets, that lately sent
A shout of gladness up as on they went.

Flame-like the long mid-day!
With not so much of sweet air as hath stirr'd
The down upon the spray
Where rests the panting bird,

Dozing away the hot and tedious noon,
With fitful twitter, sadly out of tune.

Seeds in the sultry air,

And gossamer web-work on the sleeping trees;
E'en the tall pines, that rear

Their plumes to catch the breeze

The slightest breeze from the unfreshening westPartake the general languor and deep rest.

Happy, as man may be,

Stretch'd on his back, in homely bean-vine bower, While the voluptuous bee

Robs each surrounding flower,

And prattling childhood clambers o'er his breast,— The husbandman enjoys his noonday rest.

Against the hazy sky

The thin and fleecy clouds, unmoving, rest;
Beneath them far, yet high

In the dim distant west,

The vulture, scenting thence its carrion-fare,
Sails, slowly circling in the sunny air.

Soberly, in the shade,

Repose the patient cow, and toil-worn ox,-
Or in the shoal stream wade,

Shelter'd by jutting rocks;

The fleecy flock, fly-scourged and restless, rush
Madly from fence to fence, from bush to bush.

Tediously pass the hours;

And vegetation wilts, with blister'd root,
And droop the thirsting flowers,

Where the slant sunbeams shoot:
But of each tall old tree the lengthening line,
Slow-creeping eastward, marks the day's decline.

Faster along the plain

Moves now the shade, and on the meadows' edge: The kine are forth again,

The bird flits in the hedge.

Now in the molten west sinks the hot sun.
Welcome, mild eve!—the sultry day is done.

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