Our Yankee Girls. Let greener lands and bluer skies, If such a wide earth shows, With fairer cheeks and brighter eyes, The winds that lift the Georgian's veil, Waft to their shores the Sultan's sail,- The gay grisette, whose fingers touch 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, Who heeds the silken tassel's flaunt Beside the golden corn? They ask not for the courtly toil By every hill, whose stately pines The home where some fair being shines 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 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, May thy anxious desires for my good, Fond sister! in the quiet midnight hour, Ever the same may we still live through life, 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, "T is because thou hast withered, The violet blows. The lilies bend meekly But thou wilt not pluck them, Droop low o'er thy bed, I hear the bee humming But I listen for thy voice, How long! Oh, how long! How long, and how vainly, But never, oh, never, Comes comfort to me. I walk now in darkness, And pleasure died with thee, 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, The couch and the chamber, Why com'st thou not yet? |