In all its greatness. It has told itself Their feelings were all nature, and they need Let these elms Bend their protecting shadow o'er their graves, And they have rendered ours-perpetually. DICKENS IN CAMP.-BRET HARTE. Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting, The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting Their minarets of snow. The roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted Till one arose, and from his pack's scant treasure A hoarded volume drew, And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure, To hear the tale anew; And then, while round them shadows gathered faster, And as the firelight fell, He read aloud the book wherein the Master Had writ of "Little Nell." Perhaps 'twas boyish fancy,-for the reader But, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar The fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows, While the whole camp, with "Nell," on English meadows And so in mountain solitudes-o'ertaken As by some spell divine Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken Lost is that camp, and wasted all its fire: Ah, towering pine and stately Kentish spire, Lost is that camp! but let its fragrant story With hop-vines' incense all the pensive glory And on that grave where English oak and holly Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,- THE GALLEY-SLAVE.-HENRY ABBEY. There lived in France, in days not long now dead, And one was taken in the other's stead For a small theft, and sentenced in disgrace To serve for years a hated galley-slave, Yet said no word his prized good name to save. 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 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 innocence 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 philosophie 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? |