Old wood to burn!

Ay, bring the hill-side beech

From where the owlets meet and screech,
And ravens croak;

The crackling pine, and cedar sweet;
Bring to a clump of fragrant peat,
Dug 'neath the fern;

The knotted oak,

A fagot too, perhaps,

Whose bright flame, dancing, winking,
Shall light us at our drinking;

While the oozing sap

Shall make sweet music to our thinking.

Old books to read !-

Ay, bring those nodes of wit,
The brazen-clasped, the vellum writ,
Time honored tomes!

The same my sire scanned before,
The same my grandsire thumbed o'er,
The same his sire from college bore,
The well-earned meed

Of Oxford's domes

Old Homer blind,

Old Horace, rake Anacreon, by
Old Tully, Plautus, Terence lie;
Mort Arthur's olden minstrelsie,
Quaint Burton, quainter Spenser, ay!
And Gervase Markham's venerie-

Nor leave behind

The Holye Book by which we live and die.

Old friends to talk!

Ay, bring those chosen few,

The wise, the courtly, and the true,
So rarely found;

Him for my wine, him for my stud,
Him for my easel, distich, bud

In mountain walk!

Bring Walter good:

With soulful Fred; and learned Will,
And thee, my alter ego, (dearer still
For every mood).

ROBERT HINCKLEY MESSinger.

HOME, SWEET HOME.

'MID pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home! A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there, Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.

Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home!

An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain ;
Oh! give me my lowly thatch'd cottage again!
The birds, singing gayly, that came at my call—
Give me them!-and the peace of mind dearer
than all.

Home, sweet, sweet, sweet home!

There's no place like home!

JOHN HOWARd Payne.

SPEAK GENTLY.

SPEAK gently it is better far

To rule by love than fearSpeak gently let not harsh words mar The good we might do here.

Speak gently: Love doth whisper low
The vows that true hearts bind;
And gently Friendship's accents flow;
Affection's voice is kind.

Speak gently to the little child:
Its love be sure to gain;

Teach it in accents soft and mild-
It may not long remain.

Speak gently to the young for they
Will have enough to bear;
Pass through life as best they may,
"Tis full of anxious care.

Speak gently to the aged one :

Grieve not the careworn heart;
The sands of life are nearly run-
Let such in peace depart.

Speak gently, kindly, to the poor:
Let no harsh tone be heard;
They have enough they must endure,
Without an unkind word.

Speak gently to the erring: know,

They may have toil'd in vain ;

Perchance unkindness made them so;
Oh, win them back again !

Speak gently: He who gave his life
To bend man's stubborn will,
When elements were fierce with strife,

66

Said to them, Peace! be still!"

Gentleness is a little thing

Dropp'd in the heart's deep well: The good, the joy which it may bring, Eternity shall tell.

NEVER AGAIN.

DAVID BATES.

THERE are gains for all our losses,
There are balms for all our pain:
But when youth, the dream, departs,
It takes something from our hearts,
And it never comes again.

We are stronger, and are better,

Under manhood's sterner reign:
Still we feel that something sweet
Followed youth, with flying feet,
And will never come again.

Something beautiful is vanished,
And we sigh for it in vain :
We behold it everywhere,
On the earth and in the air,
But it never comes again!

RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.

GOING HOME.

DRAWN by horses with decorous feet,

A carriage for one went through the street,
Polished as anthracite out of the mine,
Tossing its plumes so stately and fine,
As nods to the night a Norway pine.

The passenger lay in Parian rest,
As if, by the sculptor's hand caressed,
A mortal life through the marble stole,
And then till an angel calls the roll
It waits awhile for a human soul.

He rode in state, but his carriage-fare
Was left unpaid to his only heir;
Hardly a man, from hovel to throne,
"Takes to this route in coach of his own,
But borrows at last and travels alone,

'The driver sat in his silent seat; 'The world, as still as a field of wheat, Gave all the road to the speechless twain, And thought the passenger never again Should travel that way with living men.

Not a robin held its little breath,

But sang right on in the face of death.; You never would dream, to see the sky Give glance for glance to the violet's eye, That aught between them could ever die,