BETTER THAN GOLD.

Better than grandeur, better than gold,
Than rank and title a thousand fold,
Is a healthy body, a mind at ease,
And simple pleasures that always please;
A heart that can feel for a neighbor's woe
And share his joys with a genial glow,-
With sympathies large enough to enfold
All men as brothers,-is better than gold.

Better than gold is a conscience clear,

Though toiling for bread in an humble sphere:
Doubly blest with content and health,
Untried by the lust of eares or wealth.
Lowly living and lofty thought
Adorn and ennoble a poor man's cot;
For man and morals, or nature's plan,
Are the genuine test of a gentleman.

Better than gold is the sweet repose
Of the sons of toil when their labors close;
Better than gold is the poor man's sleep,

And the balm that drops on his slumbers deep.
Bring sleeping draughts to the downy bed,
Where luxury pillows his aching head ;
His simpler opiate labor deems

A shorter road to the land of dreams.

Better than gold is a thinking mind
That in the realm of books can find
A treasure surpassing Australian ore,
And live with the great and good of yore.
The sage's lore and the poet's lay,
The glories of empires pass'd away,
The world's great drama will thus enfold
And yield a pleasure better than gold.

Better than gold is a peaceful home,
Where all the fireside charities come;--
The shrine of love and the heaven of life,
Hallowed by mother, or sister, or wife.
However humble the home may be,
Or tried by sorrow with Heaven's decree,
The blessings that never were bought or sold,
And centre there, are better than gold.

REGULUS.-T. DALE.

Urge me no more-your prayers are vain,
And even the tears ye shed;
When Regulus can lead again

The bands that once he led;
When he can raise your legions slain
On swarthy Lybia's fatal plain

To vengeance from the dead;
Then will he seek once more a home,
And lift a freeman's voice in Rome!
Accursed moment! when I woke
From faintness all but death,
And felt the coward conqueror's yoke
Like venomed serpents wreathe
Round every limb!-If lip and eye
Betrayed no sign of agony,

Inly I cursed my breath!-
Wherefore, of all that fought, was I
The only wretch who could not die?
To darkness and to chains consigned,
The captive's blighting doom,

I recked not;-could they chain the mind,
Or plunge the soul in gloom?

And there they left me, dark and lone,
Till darkness had familiar grown;
Then from that living tomb

They led me forth,-I thought to die,

Oh! in that thought was ecstasy.

But no-kind Heaven had yet in store
For me, a conquered slave,

A joy I thought to feel no more,—

Or feel but in the grave.

They deemed perchance my haughtier mood
Was quelled by chains and solitude;

That he who once was brave-
Was I not brave?-had now become
Estranged from honor as from Rome!

They bade me to my country bear
The offers these have borne;-
They would have trained my lips to swear,
Which never yet have sworn!

Silent their base commands I heard;
At length, I pledged a Roman's word
Unshrinking to return.

I go, prepared to meet the worst,
But I shall gall proud Carthage first!

They sue for peace,-I bid you spurn
The gilded bait they bear!

I bid you still, with aspect stern,
War, ceaseless war, declare!

Fools that they were, could not mine eye,
Through their dissembled calmness, spy
The struggles of despair?

Else had they sent this wasted frame,
To bribe you to your country's shame?
Your land-I must not call it mine;
No country has the slave;
His father's name he must resign,
And even his father's grave;
But this not now-beneath her lies
Proud Carthage and her destinies :
Her empire o'er the wave

Is yours; she knows it well-and you
Shall know, and make her feel it, too!
Ay, bend your brows, ye ministers
Of coward hearts, on me!
Ye know no longer it is hers,
The empire of the sea;-
Ye know her fleets are far and few,
Her bands, a mercenary crew;

And Rome, the bold and free,

Shall trample on her prostrate towers,
Despite your weak and wasted powers.

One path alone remains for me;-
My vows were heard on high.

Thy triumphs, Rome, I shall not see,
For I return to die.

Then tell not me of hope or life;

I have in Rome no chaste, fond wife;

No smiling progeny.

One word concenters for the slave

Wife, children, country, all—THE GRAVE!

REGULUS TO THE CARTHAGINIANS.-E. KELLOGG.

Regulus was a Roman general, who, in the first Punic war, was taken pris oner by the Carthaginians, and after a captivity of several years, was sent by them to Rome, with an embassy to solicit peace, or, at least, an exchange of prisoners. But Regulus earnestly dissuaded his countrymen from both, and, resisting all the persuasions of his friends to remain in Rome, he returned to Carthage, where he is said to have been put to death, with the most cruel tortures.

The beams of the rising sun had gilded the lofty domes of Carthage, and given, with its rich and mellow light, a

tinge of beauty even to the frowning ramparts of the outer harbor. Sheltered by the verdant shores, an hundred triremes were riding proudly at their anchors, their brazen beaks glittering in the sun, their streamers dancing in the morning breeze, while many a shattered plank and timber gave evidence of desperate conflict with the fleets of Rome. No murmur of business or of revelry arose from the city. The artisan had forsaken his shop, the judge his tribunal, the priest the sanctuary, and even the stern stoic had come forth from his retirement to mingle with the crowd that, anxious and agitated, were rushing toward the senatehouse, startled by the report that Regulus had returned to Carthage.

Onward, still onward, trampling each other under foot, they rushed, furious with anger and eager for revenge. Fathers were there, whose sons were groaning in fetters; maidens, whose lovers, weak and wounded, were dying in the dungeons of Rome, and gray-haired men and matrons, whom the Roman sword had left childless.

But when the stern features of Regulus were seen, and his colossal form towering above the ambassadors who had returned with him from Rome; when the news passed from lip to lip that the dreaded warrior, so far from advising the Roman senate to consent to an exchange of prisoners, had urged them to pursue, with exterminating vengeance, Carthage and Carthaginians,—the multitude swayed to and fro like a forest beneath a tempest, and the rage and hate of that tumultuous throng vented itself in groans, and curses, and yells of vengeance. But calm, cold, and immovable as the marble walls around him, stood the Roman; and he stretched out his hand over that frenzied crowd, with gesture as proudly commanding as though he still stood at the head of the gleaming cohorts of Rome.

The tumult ceased; the curse, half muttered, died upon the lip; and so intense was the silence, that the clanking of the brazen manacles upon the wrists of the captive fell sharp and full upon every ear in that vast assembly, as he thus

addressed them :

"Ye doubtless thought-for ye judge of Roman virtue by your own-that I would break my plighted oath, rather than,

returning, brook your vengeance. I might give reasons for this, in Punic comprehension, most foolish act of mine. I might speak of those eternal principles which make death for one's country a pleasure, not a pain. But, by great Jupi ter! methinks I should debase myself to talk of such high things to you; to you, expert in womanly inventions; to you, well-skilled to drive a treacherous trade with simple Africans for ivory and gold! If the bright blood that fills my veins, transmitted free from godlike ancestry, were like that slimy ooze which stagnates in your arteries, I had remained at home, and broke my plighted oath to save my life.

"I am a Roman citizen; therefore have I returned, that ye might work your will upon this mass of flesh and bones, that I esteem no higher than the rags that cover them. Here, in your capital, do I defy you. Have I not conquered your armies, fired your towns, and dragged your generals at my chariot wheels, since first my youthful arms could wield a spear? And do you think to see me crouch and cower before a tamed and shattered senate? The tearing of flesh and rending of sinews is but pastime compared with the mental agony that heaves my frame.

"The moon has scarce yet waned since the proudest of Rome's proud matrons, the mother upon whose breast I slept, and whose fair brow so oft had bent over me before the noise of battle had stirred my blood, or the fierce toil of war nerved my sinews, did with fondest memory of bygone hours entreat me to remain. I have seen her, who, when my country called me to the field, did buckle on my harness with trembling hands, while the tears fell thick and fast down the hard corselet scales,-I have seen her tear her gray locks and beat her aged breast, as on her knees she begged me not to return to Carthage; and all the assembled senate of Rome, grave and reverend men, proffered the same request. The puny torments which ye have in store to welcome me withal, shall be, to what I have endured, even as the murmur of a summer's brook to the fierce roar of angry surges on a rocky beach.

"Last night, as I lay fettered in my dungeon, I heard a strange ominous sound: it seemed like the distant march of some vast army, their harness clanging as they marched,