His heart, that was pure as a man's could be-
All that pride could ask, or that love could claim.

But Allie said "No," and Harold went out
With a look of pain in his fierce, dark eye,
Like that of an eagle wounded that soars
Away to its eyrie on the cliff to die;
And he fell on a foreign field one day

When legions grew white at the battle-cry.

John asked her next, and she answered the same,

And he blessed her, and kissed her, and turned away;
But we saw him no more till he stood on the deck
Of a boat that lay rocked like a bird on the bay.
Now, tropical vines tangle over his grave,

And ocean-waves moan round his clay.

I would not speak. What was I that should dare
To rush where the angels had feared to tread?

I only looked down on iny palsied limbs,

And bitterly wished in my heart I was dead. I almost cursed God that he gave me a form No woman living could love, or wed.

Then Allie came in her quiet way,

And knelt with her arms crossed over my knee,
While I smoothed the mass of her golden hair,
And said, "She can never be aught to me."
So we sat there in silence, and both looked out
At the troubled waves of the storm-tossed sea.

Then, I do not know how, but she caught my hand,
And 'twas covered with kisses again and again,
Passionate kisses, while broken words

Burst from her lips as from one in pain,
And tears rolled over her crimsoned cheeks,
Like the short-lived torrents of April rain.

I could scarcely believe when I understood
What it really was that the action meant;
Then I tenderly gathered her up in my arms,

Where she sobbed like the storm when its strength is

spent ;

While I said, with a reverent awe in the words,

'What have I done that this blessing is sent?"

That was years ago.

Now Allie is dead;

She lies on the hill where that white cross stands;

And Harold and John rest far away,

With an ocean between them, in foreign lands;

And I'm waiting, impatient, the welcome day,

When over the River we'll all join hands.

A NAME IN THE SAND.-H. F. Gould.

Alone I walked the ocean strand;
A pearly shell was in my hand;
I stooped and wrote upon the sand
My name-the year-the day.
As onward from the spot I passed,
One lingering look behind I cast—
A wave came rolling, high and fast,
And washed my lines away.

And so, methought, 'twill shortly be
With every mark on earth from me;
A wave of dark oblivion's sea

Will sweep across the place

Where I have trod the sandy shore
Of time, and been, to be no more ;-
Of me, my name, the name I bore,
To leave no track nor trace.

And yet, with Him who counts the sands,
And holds the waters in His hands,

I know a lasting record stands

Inscribed against my name,

Of all this mortal part has wrought,

Of all this thinking soul has thought.And from these fleeting moments caught,For glory or for shame.

THE TEACHER'S DREAM.-W. H. VENABLE.

The weary teacher sat alone

While twilight gathered on:

And not a sound was heard around,—

The boys and girls were gone.

The weary teacher sat alone,
Unnerved and pale was he;

Bowed 'neath a yoke of care, he spoke
In sad soliloquy :

"Another round, another round

Of labor thrown away,

Another chain of toil and pain

Dragged through a tedious day.

"Of no avail is constant zeal,

Love's sacrifice is lost,

The hopes of morn, so golden, turn,
Each evening, into dross.

"I squander on a barren field
My strength, my life, my all:
The seeds I sow will never grow,
They perish where they fall."

He sighed, and low upon his hands
His aching brow he pressed;
And o'er his frame ere long there came
A soothing sense of rest.

And then he lifted up his face,

But started back aghast,

The room, by strange and sudden change,
Assumed proportions vast.

It seemed a Senate-hall, and one
Addressed a listening throng;
Each burning word all bosoms stirred,
Applause rose loud and long.

The 'wildered teacher thought he knew
The speaker's voice and look,
"And for his name," said he, "the same
Is in my record book."

The stately Senate-hall dissolved,

A church rose in its place,

Wherein there stood a man of God,

Dispensing words of grace.

And though he spoke in solemn tone,
And though his hair was gray,

The teacher's thought was strangely wrought:

"I whipped that boy to-day."

The church, a phantasm, vanished soon;
What saw the teacher then?

In classic gloom of alcoved room

An author plied his pen.

"My idlest lad!" the teacher said,
Filled with a new surprise-
"Shall I behold his name enrolled
Among the great and wise?”

The vision of a cottage home
The teacher now descried;
A mother's face illumed the place
Her influence sanctified.

"A miracle! a miracle!

This matron, well I know,

Was but a wild and careless child,
Not half an hour ago.

"And when she to her children speaks
Of duty's golden rule,

Her lips repeat in accents sweet,
My words to her at school."

The scene was changed again, and lo,
The school-house rude and old;
Upon the wall did darkness fall,
The evening air was cold.

"A dream!" the sleeper, waking, said,
Then paced along the floor,

And, whistling slow and soft and low,
He locked the school-house door,

And, walking home, his heart was full
Of peace and trust and praise;
And singing slow and soft and low,
Said, “After many days."

ADDRESS OF SPOTTYCUS.

It had been a circus day in East Kittery Centre. James Myers, the grand and awful tumbler, had amused the populace with the sports of the ring, to an extent hitherto unknown even in that luxurious city. The sounds of cavalry had died away; the roar of the ragged-tailed ourang-outang had ceased; the lanterns had been extinguished. The moon, piercing the impenetrable tissue of woolly clouds, showed her benevolent nature by silvering the brass buttons of a man going across the street, and casting its irradiant beams through an extensive aperture in the canvas, tipped the foam-capped waves in a bucket of dirty water with a wavy, mellowy light. No sound was heard, save the gentle breathings of the elephant, only answered at intervals by the pitiless moanings of the nine-legged calf in the side tent, which had been cruelly deprived of its supper. Under a cart, in one corner, a little band of acrobats were seated, their coun

tenances still dirty from the agony of conflict, tobacco-juice running down their under lips, the daubs of paint still lingering on their brows, when Spottycus, the head clown, limping forth from amid the company, thus addressed them: "Ye call me chief, and ye do well to call him chief, who, for three long weeks, has stumped every man, woman, child, and beast that has entered our show, to fight, and who never yet has run. If there be one among you who can say that ever, in Irish row or private fight, my actions did not confirm my tongue, let him step up and say it. If there be nine in all your company dare face me, let them come on! And yet I was not always thus,-a hired buffoon, a scaly chief of still more scaly men. My ancestors came from old Searborough, and settled among the loose rocks and leafless groves of East Moluncus. My early life ran quiet as the puddle in which I played; and when, at noon, I gathered the hogs beneath the sunshine, and played upon a borrowed tuning-fork, there was a friend, the son of the man that lived in the next house, to join me in the pastime. We let our hogs into the same man's turnip-field, and partook together our rusty meal. One evening, after the hogs and hens were foddered, and we were all seated beneath the currant-bush which shaded our cottage, my great-grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon Crossing, and Thermopylæ Court-house, and Lucknow Corner, and the Aroostook war, in which he had been riddled with bullets; and how, on previous occasions, a little band of Choctaws had run before a big army. I knew not, till then, what war was; but then my undimpled cheeks did burn, and to show my newborn fire, I pulled the hair of that venerable man, until my mother, taking me by the nape of the neck, slapped my throbbing chops, and packed me off to bed, bidding me exercise no more my warlike spirit. That night a burglar entered our house. I saw my mother trampled on by the hoof of a big dog, the sleeping form of my father flung amid the blazing rafters of our hog-pen. These insults were too much. I left the vicinity and joined a circus.

"To-day, you know, I killed a hydrophobious dog in the arena; and when I gazed intently on him, behold! it was 'old dog Tray,' my old friend's dog. He made one pass at