Why this is indeed a show! It has called the dead out of the earth!

The old grave-yards of the hills have hurried to see!
Phantoms! phantoms countless by flank and rear!
Cocked hats of mothy mould! crutches made of mist!

Arms in slings! old men leaning on young men's shoulders!

What troubles you, Yankee phantoms? What is all this chattering of bare gums?

Does the ague convulse your limbs? Do you mistake your crutches for fire-locks, and level them?

If you blind your eyes with tears, you will not see the President's marshal;

If you groan such groans, you might balk the government cannon.

For shame, old maniacs! Bring down those tossed arms, and let your white hair be;

Here gape your great grand-sons-their wives gaze at them from the windows,

See how well dressed-see how orderly they conduct themselves.

Worse and worse! Can't you stand it? Are you retreating?
Is this hour with the living too dead for you?

Retreat then! Pell-mell !

To your graves! Back! back to the hills, old limpers!
I do not think vou belong here, anyhow.

But there is one thing that belongs here—shall I tell you what it is, gentlemen of Boston?

I will whisper it to the Mayor-he shall send a committee to England;

They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to the royal vault-haste!

Dig out King George's coffin, unwrap him quick from the graveclothes, box up his bones for a journey;

Find a swift Yankee clipper-here is freight for you, black-bellied clipper,

Up with your anchor! shake out your sails! steer straight toward Boston bay.

Now call for the President's marshal again, bring out the govern

ment cannon,

Fetch home the roarers from Congress, make another procession, guard it with foot and dragoons.

This centre-piece for them:

Look! all orderly citizens-look from the windows, women!

The committee open the box, set up the regal ribs, glue those that

will not stay,

Clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of the

skull.

You have got your revenge, old buster! The crown is come to its own, and more than its own.

Stick your hands in your pockets, Jonathan-you are a made man from this day;

You are mighty cute-and here is one of your bargains.

CHARLES G. LELAND.

[Born in 1824, of a family which has been settled in America since about 1570, and to which the antiquary John Leland belonged. Our author studied chiefly in Europe, and was a writer of position long before his Breitmann Ballads (the semi-German patois of which is well known in his native Philadelphia) set all sorts of people laughing. Meister Karl's Sketch-book, and The Poetry and Mystery of Dreams, are two of his principal works.]

MANES.

THERE'S a time to be jolly, a time to repent,
A season for folly, a season for Lent.

The first as the worst we too often regard;
The rest as the best, but our judgment is hard.

There are snows in December and roses in June,
There's darkness at midnight and sunshine at noon :
But, were there no sorrow, no storm-cloud or rain,
Who'd care for the morrow with beauty again?

The world is a picture both gloomy and bright,
And grief is the shadow, and pleasure the light,
And neither should smother the general tone:
For where were the other if either were gone?

The valley is lovely; the mountain is drear,
Its summit is hidden in mist all the year;
But gaze from the heaven, high over all weather,
And mountain and valley are lovely together.

I have learned to love Lucy, though faded she be ;
If my next love be lovely, the better for me.
By the end of next summer, I'll give you my oath,
It was best, after all, to have flirted with both.

In London or Munich, Vienna, or Rome,
The sage is contented, and finds him a home;
He learns all that is bad, and does all that is good,
And will bite at the apple, by field or by flood.

JOHN HAY.

[Colonel Hay, born towards 1830, is author of Little Breeches, and other Pieces, Humorous, Descriptive, and Pathetic, published a year or two ago. They comprise some noteable specimens of that peculiar American knack of saying things with a twinge (as it were)-vigorously, unexpectedly, and with a pungency not exactly unpleasant, yet not quite pleasant assuredly].

JIM BLUDSO.

WAL, no! I can't tell whar he lives,
Because he don't live, you see:
Leastways, he's got out of the habit
Of livin' like you and me.

Whar have you been for the last three years,
That you haven't heard folks tell

How Jemmy Bludso passed-in his checks,
The night of the Prairie Belle?

He weren't no saint-them engineers
Is all pretty much alike-
One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill,
And another one here in Pike.
A keerless man in his talk was Jim,
And an awkward man in a row-
But he never flunked, and he never lied;
I reckon he never knowed how.

And this was all the religion he had-
To treat his engine well;

Never be passed on the river;

To mind the pilot's bell;

And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire

A thousand times he swore,

He'd hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last soul got ashore.

All boats has their day on the Mississip,
And her day come at last.

The Movastar was a better boat,

But the Belle she wouldn't be passed;
And so come tearin' along that night-
The oldest craft on the line,

With a nigger squat on her safety valve,

And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine.

The fire bust out as she clared the bar,
And burnt a hole in the night,

And quick as a flash she turned, and made
For that willer-bank on the right.

There was runnin' and cursin', but Jim yelled out

Over all the infernal roar,

"I'll hold her nozzle agin the bank

Till the last galoot's ashore."

Through the hot black breath of the burnin' boat
Jim Bludso's voice was heard,

And they all had trust in his cussedness,
And knowed he would keep his word.
And, sure's you're born, they all got off
Afore the smokestacks fell,-

And Bludso's ghost went up alone

In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.

He weren't no saint-but at jedgment
I'd run my chance with Jim,
'Longside of some pious gentlemen

That wouldn't shook hands with him.
He'd seen his duty, a dead sure thing-
And went for it thar and then ;
And Christ aint a going to be too hard
On a man that died for men.

THE MYSTERY OF GILGAL.

THE darkest, strangest mystery
I ever read, or heern, or see,
Is 'long of a drink at Taggart's Hall-
Tom Taggart's, of Gilgal.

I've heern the tale a thousand ways,
But never could git through the maze
That hangs around that queer day's doin's:
But I'll tell the yarn to youuns.

Tom Taggart stood behind his bar;
The time was fall, the skies was far;
The neighbours round the counter drawed,
And ca'mly drinked and jawed.

At last come Colonel Blood, of Pike,
And old Jedge Phinn, permiscus-like;
And each, as he meandered in,
Remarked "A whisky-skin."

Tom mixed the beverage full and far,
And slammed it, smoking, on the bar.
Some says three fingers, some says two,-
I'll leave the choice to you.

Phinn to the drink put forth his hand;
Blood drawed his knife, with accent bland,
"I ax yer parding, Mister Phinn—
Jest drap that whisky-skin."

No man high-toneder could be found
Than old Jedge Phinn the country round.
Says he, "Young man, the tribe of Phinns
Knows their own whisky-skins!"

He went for his 'leven-inch bowie knife :-
"I tries to foller a Christian life;

But I'll drap a slice of liver or two,

My bloomin' shrub, with you.'

They carved in a way that all admired,—
Tell Blood drawed iron at last, and fired.
It took Seth Bludso 'twixt the eyes,

Which caused him great surprise.

Then coats went off, and all went in ;
Shots and bad language swelled the din;
The short sharp bark of Derringers,

Like bull-pups, cheered the furse.

They piled the stiffs outside the door;
They made, I reckon, a cord or more.
Girls went that winter, as a rule,
Alone to spellin'-school.

I've sarched in vain, from Dan to Beer-
Sheba, to make this mystery clear;
But I end with hit as I did begin,-
WHO GOT THE WHISKY-SKIN?

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.

[Born about 1835. Author of The Blameless Prince, and other Poems, pub lished in 1869, and of at least two other volumes of poetry, previously issued].

PAN IN WALL STREET.
A.D. 1867.

JUST where the Treasury's marble front

Looks over Wall Street's mingled nations,

Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont

To throng for trade and last quotations,-
Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold
Outrival, in the ears of people,
The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled

From Trinity's undaunted steeple ;—