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Ah, no! the poor and wretched
Were close beside my door,
And I had passed them heedless
A thousand times before;
Alas! for the cold and hungry
That met me every day,
While all my tears were given
To the suffering far away.

There's work enough for Christians
In distant lands, we know;
Our Lord commands his servants
Through all the world to go.
Not only to the heathen;

This was his charge to them,"Go, preach the word, beginning Here,-at Jerusalem."

O Christian! God has promised,
Whoe'er to such has given

A cup of pure cold water,

Shall find reward in heaven.
Would you secure the blessing,
You need not seek it far;
Go, seek in yonder hovel
A "Borrioboola-Gha."

PATRIOTISM.

PATRIOTISM.-T. F. MEAGHER.

317

BEREFT of patriotism, the heart of a nation will be cold and

cramped and sordid; the arts will have no enduring impulse, and commerce no invigorating soul; society will degenerate, and the mean and vicious triumph. Patriotism is not a wild and glittering passion, but a glorious reality. The virtue that gave to Paganism its dazzling lustre—to Barbarism its redeeming traitto Christianity its heroic form, is not dead. It still lives to console, to sanctify humanity. It has its altar in every clime-its worship and festivities.

On the heathered hills of Scotland the sword of Wallace is yet a bright tradition. The genius of France, in the brilliant literature of the day, pays its high homage to the piety and heroism of the young Maid of Orleans. In her new Senate-Hall, England bids her sculptor place, among the effigies of her greatest sons, the images of Hampden and of Russell. In the gay and graceful capital of Belgium, the daring hand of Geefs has reared a monument full of glorious meaning to the three hundred martyrs of the revolution.

By the soft, blue waters of Lake Lucerne stands the chapel of William Tell. On the anniversary of his revolt and victory, across those waters, as they glitter in the July sun, skim the light boats of the allied cantons. From the prows hang the banners of the republic, and, as they near the sacred spot, the daughters of Lucerne chant the hymns of their old poetic land. Then bursts forth the glad Te Deum, and Heaven again hears the voice of that wild chivalry of the mountains which, five centuries since, pierced the white eagle of Vienna, and flung it bleeding on the rocks of Uri.

At Innspruck, in the black aisle of the old cathedral, the peasant of the Tyrol kneels before the statue of Andreas Hofer. In the defiles and valleys of the Tyrol, who forgets the day on which he fell within the walls of Mantua? It is a festive day all through his quiet, noble land. In that old cathedral his inspiring memory is recalled amid the pageantries of the altar-his image appears in every house-his victories and virtues are proclaimed in the songs of the people-and when the sun goes down, a chain of fires, in the deep red light of which the eagle spreads his wings and

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holds his giddy revelry, proclaims the glory of the chief, whose blood has made his native land a sainted spot in Europe. Shall not all join in this glorious worship? shall not all have the faith, the duties, the festivities of patriotism?

TOO LATE.-FITZHUGH LUDLOW.

HERE sat an old man on a rock,

THERE

And unceasing bewailed him of fate,
That concern where we all must take stock,
Though our vote has no bearing or weight;
And the old man sang him an old, old song—
Never sang voice so clear and strong

That it could drown the old man's song

For he sang the song, "Too late! too late!"

"When we want, we have for our pains
The promise that if we but wait
Till the want has burned out our brains,
Every means shall be present to sate;

While we send for the napkin the soup gets cold,
While the bonnet is trimming the face grows old,
When we've matched our buttons the pattern is sold,
And everything comes too late-too late!

"When strawberries seemed like red heavens,
Terrapin stew a wild dream-

When my brain was at sixes and sevens,
If my mother had 'folks' and ice cream;
Then I gazed with a lickerish hunger,
At the restaurant-man and fruit-monger-
But oh! how I wished I were younger,

When the goodies all came in a stream-in a stream!

"I've a splendid blood-horse-and a liver

That it jars into torture to trot;

My rowboat's the gem of the river—
Gout makes every muscle a knot.

LOVE AND AGE.

I can buy boundless credit on Paris and Rome,
But no palate for menus-no eyes for a dome;

Those belonged to the youth who must tarry at home,
When no home but an attic he'd got-he'd got!

"How I longed, in that lonest of garrets

Where the tiles baked my brains all July,
For the ground to grow two pecks of carrots--
Two pigs of my own in a sty-

A rose-bush-a little thatched cottage-
Two spoons-love-a basin of pottage;
Now in freestone I sit-and my dotage-

With a woman's empty chair close by-close by!

"Ah! now, though I sit on a rock,

I have shared one seat with the great;

I have sat, knowing naught of the clock,
On love's high throne of state:

But the lips that kissed and the arms that caressed,
To a mouth grown stern with delay were pressed,
And circled a breast that their clasp had blessed,
Had they not come too late--too late!"

I

LOVE AND AGE.

PLAYED with you 'mid cowslips growing,
When I was six and you were four;

When garlands weaving, flower-balls throwing,
Were pleasures soon to please no more;
Thro' groves and meads, o'er grass and heather,
With little playmates, to and fro,

We wandered hand in hand together;
But that was sixty years ago.

You grew a lovely, roseate maiden,

And still our early love was strong;
Still with no cares our days were laden,
They glided joyously along;

319

320

LOVE AND AGE.

And I did love you very dearly

How dearly, words want power to show;
I thought your heart was touched as nearly;
But that was fifty years ago.

Then other lovers came around you;
Your beauty grew from year to year,
And many a splendid circle found you
The centre of its glittering sphere.
I saw you then, first vows forsaking,

On rank and wealth your hand bestow;
Oh then I thought my heart was breaking;
But that was forty years ago:

And I lived on to wed another;
No cause she gave me to repine;
And when I heard you were a mother,
I did not wish the children mine.
My own young flock, in fair progression,
Made up a pleasant Christmas row;
My joy in them was past expression;
But that was thirty years ago.

You grew a matron, plump and comely,
You dwelt in fashion's blaze;
My earthly lot was far more homely,
But I, too, had my festal days.

No merrier eyes have ever glistened

Around the hearthstone's wintry glow,
Than when my youngest child was christened;
But that was twenty years ago.

Time passed. My oldest girl was married,
And now I am a grandsire gray;
One pet of four years old I carried

Among the wild-flowered meads to play.

In our fields of childish pleasure,

Where now, as then, the cowslips blow,
She fills her casket's ample measure,

And that is not ten years ago.

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