"Not a patriot?" Fie! Did I whimper when Robert stood up with

his gun,

And the hero-blood chafed in his forehead, the evening we heard of Bull Run?

Pointing his finger at Harry, but turning his eyes to the wall,

"There's a staff growing up for your age, mother," said Robert, "if I am to fall."

Eighteen?" Oh I know! And yet narrowly; just a wee babe on the day

When his father got up from a sick-bed and cast his last ballot for

Clay.

Proud of his boy and his ticket, said he, “A new morsel of fame We'll lay on the candidate's altar," and christened the child with his name.

Oh, what have I done, a weak woman, in what have I meddled with harm,

(Troubling only my God for the sunshine and rain on my rough

little farm)

That my ploughshares are beaten to swords, and whetted before my eyes,

That my tears must cleanse a foul nation, my lamb be a sacrifice?

Oh, 'tis true there's a country to save, man, and 'tis true there is no appeal,

But did God see my boy's name lying the uppermost one in the wheel?

Five stalwart sons has my neighbor, and never the lot upon one; Are these things Fortune's caprices, or is it God's will that is done?

Are the others too precious for resting where Robert is taking his rest,

With the pictured face of young Annie lying over the rent in his breast?

Too tender for parting with sweethearts? Too fair to be crippled or

scarred?

My boy! Thank God for these tears-I was growing so bitter and

Now read me a page in the Book, Harry, that goes in your knapsack

to-night,

Of the eye that sees when the sparrow grows weary and falters in

flight;

Talk of something that's nobler than living, of a Love that is higher

than mine,

And Faith which has planted its banner where the heavenly campfires shine.

Talk of something that watches us softly, as the shadows glide down in the yard;

That shall go with my soldier to battle, and stand with my picket on

guard.

Spirits of loving and lost ones-watch softly with Harry to-night, For to-morrow he goes forth to battle-to arm him for Freedom and Right!

MRS. H. L. BOSTWICK.

THANATOPSIS.

[Thanatopsis was written by Mr. Bryant when but 18 years of age. This is, as are the greater part of his poetic effusions, deeply imbued with the pathos of nature. A prominent critic has said that:-"Thanatopsis is the most beautiful among Mr. Bryant's productions; the imagery is concentrated and finished, chaste and smooth; the richness of its coloring and the grouping of its objects is very superior. The poet, while standing by the grave of humanity, illumines its darkness with the splendors of the universe, reconciles us to it by displaying its various inhabitants, and closes the solemn hymn by warning us, in the language of poetic and moral éloquence, to prepare for the final enemy

"As one who wraps the drapery of his couch

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."

The meaning of the word "Thanatopsis," is a view of death,-the grave. It should be read on rather a low key, with slow time, long quantity, and rhetorical pauses. After uttering the first word of the last line in the fourth verse, such a pause should be made. This poem does not, as some have supposed, inculcate the dark, the hopeless, and false doctrine, that "death is an eternal sleep."]

To him, who, in the love of nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware.

When thoughts

Of the last bitter hour, come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart;
Go forth into the open sky, and list

To nature's teaching, while from all around,
Comes a still voice :-

"Yet a few days, and thee

The all-beholding sun shall see no more

In all his course; nor yet, in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go

To mix forever with the elements,

To be a brother to th' insensible rock

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share and treads upon.

Shall send its roots abroad and pierce thy mold.
Yet not to thy eternal resting place

Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world, with kings,
The powerful of the earth, the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulcher.

"The hills,

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun: the vales,
Stretching in pensive quietness between:

The venerable woods: rivers that move

In majesty, and the complaining brooks

That make the meadows green; and poured round all,

Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,
Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages.

"All that tread

The globe, are but a handful, to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save its own dashings—yet—the dead are there;
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep: the dead reign there alone.

'So shalt thou rest; and what if thou shalt fall
Unnoticed by the living; and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone; the solemn brood of care
Plod on; and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their enjoyments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The bowed with age, the infant in the smiles
And beauty of its innocent age cut off,-
Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side,
By those, who, in their turn, shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan that moves

To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night,