But her words, like her lover, are lost beyond recover, 'Mid the beating of a drum, of a drum;

'Mid the clanging and the banging of a drum!

Of a drum, of a drum, of a drum! drum, drum, drum!

So the pageant passes by, and the woman's flashing eye
Quickly loses all its stare, and fills with a tear, with a tear,
As, sinking from her place, with her hands upon her face,
"Hear!" she weeps and sobs as mild as a disappointed child;
Sobbing, "He will never come, never come!"

Now nor ever, never, never, will he come

With his drum, with his drum, with his drum! drum, drum, drum!

Still the drummer, up the street, beats his distant, dying beat, And she shouts, within her cell," Ha! they're marching down

to hell,

And the devils dance and wait at the open iron gate:

Hark! it is the dying sound, as they march into the ground, To the sighing and the dying of the drum!

To the throbbing and the sobbing of the drum!

Of a drum, of a drum, of a drum! drum, drum, drum!”

A DYING HYMN.-ALICE CARY.

Mrs. Ames, in her touchingly beautiful Memorial of Alice and Phoebe Cary, tells us the last stanza Alice ever wrote was

"As the poor panting hart to the water-brook runs,—

As the water-brook runs to the sea,

So earth's fainting daughters and famishing sons,

O Fountain of Love, run to Thee!'

"The writing is trembling and uncertain, and the pen literally fell from her band; for the long shadows of eternity were stealing over her, and she was very near the place where it is too dark for mortal eye to see, and where there is ro work, nor device, nor knowledge. She had written carlier what she called, A Dying Hymn,' and it was a consolation to her to repeat it in her moments of agony:"

Earth with its dark and dreadful ills
Recedes, and fades away;

Lift up your heads, ye heavenly hills!
Ye gates of death, give way!

My soul is full of whispered song;
My blindness is my sight;
The shadows that I feared so long,
Are all alive with light.

The while my pulses faintly beat,
My faith doth so abound,

I feel grow firm beneath my feet
The green immortal ground.

That faith to me a courage gives
Low as the grave to go;

I know that my Redeemer lives:
That I shall live I know.

The palace walls I almost see,
Where dwells my Lord and King;
O grave, where is thy victory!
O death, where is thy sting!

STRONG DRINK.-J. A. SEISS.

The history of strong drink is the history of ruin, of tears, or blood. It is, perhaps, the greatest curse that ever scourged the earth. It is one of depravity's worst fruits, a giant demon of destruction. Men may talk of earthquakes, storms, conHagrations, famine, pestilence, despotism, and war, but intemperance in the use of intoxicating drinks has sent a volume of misery and woe into the stream of this world's history more fearful and terrific than any of them.

It is the Amazon and Mississippi among the rivers of wretchedness. It is the Alexander and Napoleon among the warriors upon the peace and good of man. which is limited to no age, no continent, no nation, no party, It is an evil no sex, no period of life. It has taken the poor man at his toil, and the rich man at his desk; the senator in the halls of state, and the drayman on the street; the young man in his festivities, and the old man in his repose,—and plunged them into a common ruin. of war and in times of peace, in periods of depression and It has raged equally in times in periods of prosperity, in republics and in monarchies, among the civilized and among the savages.

Since the time that Noah came out of the ark, and planted vineyards, and drank of their wines, we read in all histories of its terrible doings, and never once lose sight of its black and bloody tracks. States have recorded enactments against it, ecclesiastical penalties have been imposed upon it, societies have succeeded societies for its extermination, but, like him whose name was Legion, no man has been able to bind it.

It was strong drink that brought the original curse of servitude upon the descendants of Ham, that has eaten away the strength of empires, wasted the energies of states, blotted out the names of families, and crowded hell with tenants. Egypt, the source of science; Babylon, the wonder and glory of the world; Greece, the home of learning and of liberty; Rome, the mistress of the earth,-each in its turn had its heart lacerated by this dreadful canker-worm, and thus became an easy prey to the destroyer.

It has drained tears enough to make a sea, expended treasure enough to exhaust Golconda, shed blood enough to redden the waves of every ocean, and wrung out wailing enough to make a chorus to the lamentations of the underworld. Some of the mightiest intellects, some of the most generous natures, some of the happiest homes, some of the noblest specimens of man, it has blighted and crushed, and buried in squalid wretchedness.

It has supplied every jail and penitentiary and almshouse and charity hospital in the world with tenants. It has sent forth beggars on every street, and flooded every city with bestiality and crime. It has, perhaps, done more toward bringing earth and hell together than any other form of vice.

Could we but dry up this one moral ulcer, and sweep away forever all the results of this one form of sin, we would hardly need such things as prisons, asylums, charity-houses, or police. The children of haggard want would sit in the halls of plenty. The tears of orphanage and widowhood and disappointed hope would dwindle in a goodly measure. Disease would be robbed of much of its power. The clouds would vanish from ten thousand afflicted homes, and peace breathe its fragrance on the world, almost as if the day of its redemption had come.

THE SNEEZING MAN.-WARD M. FLORENCE.

Kind friends, your attention I ask,

Though I'm almost ashamed to be seen
By a crowd of such wise looking heads,
For fear of your calling me "green;"
As stern fate has so harshly ordained'
That whenever my wish is to please
All the ladies who gaze upon me,

I'm sure to burst out in a SNEEZE.

My cradle was rocked by a nurse

Whose sneezing was worse than my own, And had it not been as it was,

This curse I would never have known; I believe in my soul to this day

That she brought it from over the seas, Where people take pleasure, they say, In a loud-sounding, horrible sneeze.

When boyhood broke forth in its prime
With school-games, all happy and gay
I had to stand by and look on,

Without ever daring to play;

But all of the rest of the boys

Would kiss the bright girls at their ease,
And leave me a-standing just so,
To comfort myself with-a sneeze.

This trouble still followed me on
Till I grew up a good-looking man,
And had money and lands of my own,
And horses-a beautiful span;

But whenever a-courting I'd go,

My hopes would give way by degrees,

For all that I ever could do

Was to sit in the corner and-sneeze.

One eve I was taking a drive

With a lady whose beauty was rare,

And I managed to ask her at last,

What she thought of the cool evening (sneeze) air;

She said, ""Tis delightfully grand,

There is such a ponderous breeze,”

As I turned aside with my nose,

To indulge in a horrible sneeze.

I then became bold after this,

And thought of the life I had led; Its loneliness seemed so forlorn

That I asked this young damsel to wed;
And while my heart throbbed for reply,
Came on this infernal disease,

And ere she could answer my words,
The hills had re-echoed a sneeze.

She said, "I should like to be yours,
And live far away in the vale;
But the hair might be blown off my head,

As your sneezing doth make such a gale." I whispered no further of love,

But drove her straight home as you please, And just as I turned from the door,

I wished her "good night,"-with a sneeze.

Now friends, I would pray you be warned
At the fate of a poor fellow-man,
And leave off this taking of snuff
Just as soon as you possibly can.
And when, in this battle of life,

You're desirous of raising a breeze,
Don't blow on your nose like a horn,

And startle the world with a "SNEEZE."