"Not as we hoped !—but what are we! God lays, with wiser hand than man's, The Anglo-Saxon race, even in its ruder years, always possessed an inherent power of independence and self-government. Tell me not that now, when this stubborn vitality and surplus energy, expended so long in overrunning the world, are guided by intelligence and refined by Christianity, this same race is to be stricken with the palsy, because of a two years' war. The two millions of boys now in the public schools, constitute a great "Union League," electrified by intelligence, cemented by the ties of one blood, one language, one course of instructionstrong in its power to perpetuate the Union as the great "Union Leagues" which the citizens of the nation are now organizing for its defense. Long before the completion of the Pacific Railroad, these new recruits, drilled in the public schools, will push their way across the continent, as the Saxons swarmed out from their northern hives, a vast army of occupation, cultivating the "National Homestead," and fortifying the whole line of communication by a cordon of school-houses that shall hold it forever as the heritage of free labor, free men, and a free nation. So shall the Northern pioneer go joyful on his way, To wed Penobscot's waters to San Francisco's bay; To make the rugged places smooth, to sow the vales with grain, The mighty West shall bless the East, and sea shall answer sea, THE BELLS.-EDGAR A. POE. HEAR the sledges with the bells, silver bells What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, in the icy air of night! While the stars that oversprinkle all the heavens, seem to twinkle 127 THE BELLS. Keeping time, time, time, in a sort of Runic rhyme, Hear the mellow wedding-bells, golden bells, What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! Through the balmy air of night how they ring out their delight! What a liquid ditty floats To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats on the moon! What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it swells, how it dwells On the Future! how it tells of the rapture that impels To the swinging and the ringing of the bells, bells, bells— Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells— To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells. Hear the loud alarum-bells, brazen bells! What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! In the startled ear of night how they scream out their affright! Out of tune, In the clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, O, the bells, bells, bells, what a tale their terror tells of Despair! Yet the ear it fully knows, By the twanging and the clanging, how the danger ebbs and flows; Yet the ear distinctly tells, In the jangling, and the wrangling, how the danger sinks and swells, By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells, of the bells, Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells— In the clamor and the clangor of the bells! Hear the tolling of the bells, iron bells! What a world of solemn thought their monody compels ! In the silence of the night, how we shiver with affright At the melancholy menace of their tone! For every sound that floats from the rust within their throats Is a groan. And the people-ah, the people; they that dwell up in the steeple All alone, And who tolling, tolling, tolling, in that muffled monotone, Feel a glory in so rolling on the human heart a stone They are neither man nor woman; they are neither brute nor human, They are ghouls: And their king it is who tolls; and he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls, A pæan from the bells! and his merry bosom swells With the pean of the bells! and he dances and he yells; Keeping time, time, time, in a sort of Runic rhyme, Keeping time, time, time, as he knells, knells, knells, THE DAY IS DONE.-H. W. LONGFEllow. THE day is done, and the darkness As a feather is wafted downward I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist, A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, As the mist resembles rain. CHILDREN.-LONGFELLOW. COME to me, O ye children! And the questions that perplexed me Ye open the eastern windows, Where thoughts are singing swallows And the brooks of morning run. In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine, In your thoughts the brooklet's flow, But in mine is the wind of autumn And the first fall of the snow. Come to me, O ye children! And whisper in my ear What the birds and the winds are singing In your sunny atmosphere. For what are all our contrivings, And the wisdom of our books, |