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Our Yankee Girls.

Let greener lands and bluer skies,

If such a wide earth shows,

With fairer cheeks and brighter eyes,
Match us the star and rose;

The winds that lift the Georgian's veil,
Or wave Circassia's curls,

Waft to their shores the Sultan's sail,-
Who buys our Yankee girls?

The gay grisette, whose fingers touch
Love's thousand chords so well;

The dark Italian loving much,

But more than one can tell;

And England's fair-haired blue-eyed dame Who binds her brow with pearls,—

Ye, who have seen them, can they shame Our own sweet Yankee girls?

And what if court or castle vaunt

Its children loftier born,

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Who heeds the silken tassel's flaunt

Beside the golden corn?

They ask not for the courtly toil
Of jewelled knights and earls,
The daughters of the virgin soil,
Our free-born Yankee girls.

By every hill, whose stately pines
Wave their dark arms above,

The home where some fair being shines
To warm the wilds with love;
From barest rock to bleakest shore,

Where furthest sail unfurls,

That stars and stripes are floating o'er, —

God bless our Yankee girls!

O. W. HOLMES.

To a Friend.

'T is o'er! but never from my heart
Shall time thine image blot;
The dreams of other days depart, ·
Thou shalt not be forgot.

And never in the suppliant's sigh

Poured forth to him who swayed the sky,

Shall mine own name be breathed on high,

And thine remembered not.

ANON.

Acrostic. Lines to a Sister.

Long have thy sweet smiles, beloved sister,
Answering mine so oft, bespoke thy love!
Unchanging as the ceaseless course of time;
Remaining true, in illness and in health,
A fountain, rich, of fond, undying love.

May thy anxious desires for my good,
And acts of kindness, prompted by thy love,
Receive a just reward in heaven. 'T is now
I see, and value them; now thou 'rt absent,
And I am left with none who love like thee.

Fond sister! in the quiet midnight hour,
Lonely and silent, I think of thee. Thou
Enterest my thoughts, like some pure spirit,
'Till my heart is full to overflowing.
Comes fortune to us, sister, good or ill,
Hours of sorrow, or of happiness;

Ever the same may we still live through life,
Remaining true to love, and to each other.

J. M. F.

A Mother at the Grave of her Child.

Yon spot in the churchyard,

How sad is the bloom

That summer flings round it

In flowers and perfume!

It is thy dust, my darling,
Gives life to each rose,

"T is because thou hast withered,

The violet blows.

The lilies bend meekly
Thy bosom above,

But thou wilt not pluck them,
Sweet child of my love;
I see the green willow

Droop low o'er thy bed,
But I see not the ringlets
That decked thy fair head.

I hear the bee humming
Around thy bright grave:
Can he deem death is hidden
Where lovely flowers wave?
From the white cloud above thee
The lark scatters song,

But I listen for thy voice,

How long! Oh, how long!

How long, and how vainly,
The night and the morn,
But leave, as they find me,
A mourner forlorn;
Light comes to the summer,
And rain to the tree,

But never, oh, never,

Comes comfort to me.

I walk now in darkness,
With thee went the day,

And pleasure died with thee,
And love paled its ray;

I see but the shadow

Of things as they were, And the world hath no dwellers But Grief, Death and Care.

O come back, my darling,
And come back to-day!
For the soul of thy mother
Grows faint with delay;
The home of thy childhood
In order is set,

The couch and the chamber,

Why com'st thou not yet?

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