Loud shrieked the engle as he dashed
From out his mossy nest, which crashed
With its supporting bough,
And the first sunlight, leaping, flashed
On the wolf's haunt below.

Rude was the garb, and strong the frame

Of him who plied his ceaseless toil:
To form that garb, the wild-wood game
Contributed their spoil;

The soul that warmed that frame, disdained
The tinsel, gaud, and glare, that reigned
Where men their crowds collect;
The simple fur, untrimmed, unstained,
This forest tamer decked.

The paths which wound 'mid gorgeous trees, The streams whose bright lips kissed their flowers,

The winds that swelled their harmonies

Through those sun-hiding bowers,
The temple vast-the green arcade,
The nestling vale, the grassy glade,
Dark cave and swampy lair;
These scenes and sounds majestic, made
His world, his pleasures, there.

His roof adorned, a pleasant spot,

Mid the black logs green glowed the grain,

And herbs and plants the woods knew not,
Throve in the sun and rain.

The smoke-wreath curling o'er the dell,
The low-the bleat-the tinkling bell,
All made a landscape strange,
Which was the living chronicle

Of deeds that wrought the change.

The violet sprung at Spring's first tinge,

The rose of Summer spread its glow,
The maize hung on its Autumn fringe,
Rude Winter brought his snow:
And still the settler labored there,
His shout and whistle woke the air
As cheerily he plied

His garden spade, or drove his share
Along the hillock's side.

He marked the fire-storm's blazing flood
Roaring and crackling on its path,
And scorching earth, and melting wood
Beneath its greedy wrath;
He marked the rapid whirlwind shoot,
Trampling the pine tree with its foot,

And darkening thick the day
With streaming bough and severed roo
Hurled whizzing on its way.

His gaunt hound yelled, his rifle flashed,
The grim bear hushed its savage growl,
In blood and foam the panther gnashed

Its fangs with dying howl;
The fleet deer ceased its flying bound,
Its snarling wolf foe bit the ground,
And with its moaning cry,

The beaver sank beneath the wound
Its pond-built Venice by.

Humble the lot, yet his the race!
When liberty sent forth her cry.
Who thronged in Conflict's deadliest place
To fight-to bleed-to die.
Who cumbered Bunker's height of red,
By hope, through weary years were led,
And witnessed Yorktown's sua
Blaze on a Nation's banner spread,
A Nation's freedom won.

THE FIRE OF DRIFTWOOD.

H. W. LONGFELLOW,

We sat within the farm-house old,
Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.

Not far away we saw the port

The strange, old-fashioned, silent town, The light-house-the dismantled fort— The wooden houses, quaint and brown. We sat and talked until the night, Descending, filled the little room; Our faces faded from the sight,

Our voices only broke the gloom.

We spake of many a vanished scene,

Of what we had once thought and said, Of what had been, and might have been,

And who was changed, and who was dead;

And all that fills the hearts of friends,

When first they feel, with secret pain,
Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
And never can be one again;

The first slight swerving of the heart,
That words are powerless to express,
And leave it still unsaid in part,

Or say it in too great excess.

The very tones in which we spake

Had something strange, I could but mark; The leaves of memory seemed to make A mournful rustling in the dark.

Oft died the words upon our lips,

As suddenly, from out the fire Built of the wreck of stranded ships,

The flames would leap and then expire.

And, as their splendor flashed and failed,
We thought of wrecks upon the main,
Of ships dismantled, that were hailed
And sent no answer back again.

The windows, rattling in their frames-
The ocean roaring up the beach-
The gusty blast-the bickering flames→→
All mingled vaguely in our speech;

At midnight, in his guarded tent,

The Turk was dreaming of the hour When Greece. her knee in suppliance bent, Should tremble at his power:

In dreams, through camp and court, he bore The trophies of a conqueror;

In dreams his song of triumph heard: Then wore his monarch's signet ring: Then pressed that monarch's throne-aking; As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing, As Eden's garden bird.

At midnight, in the forest shades,

Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band. True as the steel of their tried blades, Heroes in heart and hand.

There had the Persian's thousands stood,
There had the glad earth drunk their blood,
On old Platan's day:

And now there breathed that haunted air
The sons of sires who conquered there,
With arm to strike, and soul to dare,

As quick, as far as they.

An hour passed on-the Turk awoke;
That bright dream was his last;
He awoke to hear his sentries shriek,
"To arms! they come! the Greek!
Greek!"

He woke to die midst flame. and smoke,
And shout, and groan, and saber stroke,

And death shots falling thick and fast
As lightnings from the mountain cloud.
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud,

Bozzaris cheer his band; "Strike-till the last armed foe expires; Strike for your altars and your fires; Strike-for the green graves of your sires; God-and your native land!"

the

They fought-like brave men, long and well;
They piled that ground with Moslem slain;
They conquer'd-but Bozzaris fell,

Bleeding at every vein.
His few surviving comrades saw
His smile when rang their proud hurrah,

And the red field was won:
Then saw in death his eyelids close
Calmly, as to a night's repose,

Like flowers at set of sun.
Come to the bridal chamber, Death!

Come to the mother's, when she feels,
For the first time, her firstborn's breath;
Come when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke;
Come in consumption's ghastly form,
The earthquake shock, the ocean-storm,
Come when the heart beats high and warm,

With banquet-song, and dance, and wine; And thou art terrible-the tear, The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier; And all we know, or dream, or fear Of agony, are thine.

But to the hero, when his sword

Has won the battle for the free,
Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word;
And in its hollow tones are heard

The thanks of millions yet to be.
Come, when his task of fame is wrought-
Come, with the laurel-leaf, blood-bought-
Come in her crowning hour-and then
Thy sunken eye's unearthly light
To him is welcome as the sight

Of sky and stars to prison'd men:
Thy grasp is welcome as the hand
Of brother in a foreign land;
Thy summons welcome as the cry
That told the Indian isles were nigh

To the world-seeking Genoese,
When the land-wind, from woods of palm,
And orange-groves, and fields of balm,
Blew o'er the Haytian seas.

Bozzaris! with the storied brave

Greece nurtured in her glory's time, Rest thee-there is no pronder grave, Even in her own proud clime.

She wore no funeral weeds for thee,

Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume, Like torn branch from death's leafless tree, In sorrow's pomp and pageantry,

The heartless luxury of the tomb: But she remembers thee as one Long loved, and for a season gone; For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed, Her marble wrought, her music breathed; For thee she rings the birthday bells; Of thee her babes' first lisping tells: For thine her evening prayer is said At palace conch, and cottage bed; Her soldier, closing with the foe, Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow; His plighted maiden, when she fears For him, the joy of her young years, Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears

And she, the mother of thy boys, Though in her eye and faded cheek Is read the grief she will not speak, The memory of her buried joys,

And even he who gave thee birth,
Will, by their pilgrim-circled hearth,

Talk of thy doom without a sigh;
For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's,
One of the few, the immortal names,
That were not born to die.

SONG OF MARION'S MEN.

W. C. BRYANT.

Our band is few, but true and tried, Our leader frank and bold;

The British soldier trembles

When Marion's name is told.

Our fortress is the good green wood,
Our tent the cypress tree;
We know the forest round us,

As seamen know the sea.

We know its walls of thorny vines,

Its glades of reedy grass,

Its safe and silent islands

Within the dark morass.

Wo to the English soldiery

That little dread us near!
On them shall light at midnight
A strange and sudden fear:
When, waking to their tents on fire,
They grasp their arms in vain,
And they who stand to face us
Are beat to earth again;
And they who fly in terror deem
A mighty host behind,

And hear the tramp of thousands
Upon the hollow wind.

Then sweet the hour that brings release
From danger and from toil:

We talk the battle over,

And share the battle's spoil.

The woodland rings with laugh and shout,
As if a hunt were up,
And woodland flowers are gather'd

To crown the soldier's cup.

With merry songs we mock the wind
That in the pine-top grieves,
And slumber long and sweetly,
On beds of oaken leaves.

Well knows the fair and friendly moon The band that Marion leads

The glitter of their rifles,

The scampering of their steeds.
'Tis life to guide the fiery barb
Across the moonlight plain;
Tis life to feel the night-wind

That lifts his tossing mane.
A moment in the British camp-
A moment-and away
Back to the pathless forest,
Before the peep of day.

Grave men there are by broad Santee,
Grave men with hoary hairs,
Their hearts are all with Marion,
For Marion are their prayers.
And lovely ladies greet our band
With kindliest welcoming,
With smiles like those of summer,
And tears like those of spring.
For them we wear these trusty arms,
And lay them down no more,
Till we have driven the Briton
Forever from our shore.

THE SONG OF STEAM.

GEORGE W. CUTTER.

Late of Covington, Ky.

Harness me down with your iron bands;
Be sure of your curb and rein:

For I scorn the power of your puny hands,
As the tempest scorns a chain!

How I laugh'd as I lay conceal'd from sight
For many a countless hour,

At the childish boast of human might,
And the pride of human power!

When I saw an army upon the land,
A navy upon the seas,
Creeping along, a snail-like band,

Or waiting the wayward breeze;
When I mark'd the peasant fairly reel
With the toil which he faintly bore.
As he feebly turn'd the tardy wheel,
Or tugg'd at the weary oar:

When I measured the panting courser's speed,

The flight of the courier-dove,
As they bore the law a king decreed,

Or the lines of impatient love

I could not but think how the world would

feel,

As these were outstripp'd afar When I should be bound to the rushing keel, Or chain'd to the flying car!

Ha, ha, ha! they found me at last;

They invited me forth at length, And I rushed to my throne with a thunder blast.

And laugh'd in my iron strength! O! then ye saw a wondrous change On the earth and ocean wide, Where now my fiery armies range, Nor wait for wind and tile.

Hurrah! hurrah! the water's o'er,
The mountains steep decline;
Time-space-have yielded to my power;
The world-the world is mine!

The rivers the san hath earliest blest,

Or those where his beams decline; The giant streams of the queenly West, And the Orient floods divine.

The ocean pales where'er I sweep,

To hear my strength rejoice,
And the monsters of the briny deep
Cower, trembling at my voice.

I carry the wealth and the lord of earth,
The thoughts of his godlike mind;
The wind lags after my flying forth,
The lightning is left behind.

In the darksome depths of the fathomless mine

My tireless arm doth play,

Where the rocks never saw the sun's decline,
Or the dawn of the glorious day.
I bring earth's glittering jewels up
From the hidden cave below,
And I make the fountain's granite cup
With a crystal gush o'erflow.

I blow the bellows, I forge the steel,
In all the shops of trade;

I hammer the ore and turn the wheel

Where my arms of strength are made.

I manage the furnace, the mill, the mint-
I carry, I spin, I weave;

And all my doings I put into print
On every Saturday eve.

I've no muscles to weary, no breast to decay,
No bones to be "laid on the shelf,"
And soon I intend you may "go and play,"
While I manage this world myself.
Bat harness me down with your iron bands,
Be sure of your curb and rein:
For I scorn the strength of your puny hands,
As the tempest scorns a chain!

RHYME OF THE RAIL.

JOHN G. SAXE.

Born in Highgate, Vermont, in 1816-Educated for the bar-Many years editor of "The Sentinel," at Burlington, Vt.

Singing through the forests,
Rattling over ridges,

Shooting under arches,
Rumbling over bridges,
Whizzing through the mountai:
Buzzing o'er the vale-
Bless me! this is pleasant,
Riding on the rail!

Men of different "stations"
In the eye of Fame,
Here are very quickly
Coming to the same.
High and lowly people,
Birds of every feather,
On a common level
Traveling together!

Gentleman in shorts,

Looming very tall; Gentleman at large; Talking very sma.. ; Gentleman in tights,

With a loose-ish mien ; Gentleman in gray,

Looking rather green.
Gentleman quite old,

Asking for the news;
Gentleman in black,
In a fit of blues;
Gentleman in claret,
Sober as a vicar;
Gentleman in tweed,
Dreadfully in liquor!

Stranger on the right,
Looking very sunny,
Obviously reading

Something rather funny. Now the smiles are thicker, Wonder what they mean 9 Faith, he's got the KNICKERBOCKER Magazine!

Stranger on the left,

Closing up his peepers, Now he snores amain, Like the Seven Sleepers; At his feet a volume

Gives the explanation, How the man grew stupid From "Association !"

Ancient maiden lady

Anxiously remarks, That there must be peril 'Mong so many sparks; Roguish looking fellow, Turning to the stranger, Says it's his opinion She is out of danger! Woman with her baby, Sitting vis-a-vis ; Baby keeps a squalling, Woman looks at me; Asks about the distance, Says it's tiresome talking, Noises of the cars

Are so very shocking!

Market woman careful
Of the precious casket,
Knowing eggs are eggs,
Tightly holds her basket;
Feeling that a smash,

If it came, would surely
Send her eggs to pot
Rather prematurely!

Singing through the forests, Rattling over ridges, Shooting under arches,

Rumbling over bridges,

Whizzing through the mountains,

Buzzing o'er the vale;

Bless me! this is pleasant,

Riding on the rail!

GONE.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

Born in 1808 in Haverhill, Mass., of Quaker parentage-The most noted of the poets of the anti-slavery party.

Another hand is beckoning us,
Another call is given;

And glows once more with Angel-steps
The path which reaches Heaven.

Our young and gentle friend whose smile

Made brighter summer hours,

Amid the frosts of autumn time
Has left us, with the flowers.

No paling of the cheek of bloom
Forewarned us of decay;

No shadow from the Silent Land
Fell around our sister's way.

The light of her young life went down,
As sinks behind the hill

The glory of a setting star-
Clear, suddenly, and still.

As

pure and sweet, her fair brow seemedEternal as the sky;

And like the brook's low song, her voice-
A sound which could not die.

And half we deemed she needed not
The changing of her sphere,
To give to Heaven a Shining One,
Who walked an Angel here.

The blessing of her quiet life

Fell on us like the dew;

And good thoughts, where her footsteps pressed,

Like fairy blossoms grew.

Sweet promptings unto kindest deeds
Were in her very look;
We read her face, as one who reads
A true and holy book:

The measure of a blessed hymn,

To which our hearts could move;
The breathing of an inward psalm;
A canticle of love.

We miss her in the place of prayer,
And by the hearth-fire's light;
We pause beside her door to hear

Once more her sweet "Good night!"
There seems a shadow on the day,
Her smile no longer cheers;
A dimness on the stars of night,
Like eyes that look through tears.

Alone unto our Father's will

One thought hath reconciled; That He whose love exceedeth ours Hath taken home His child.

Fold her, oh Father! in thine arms,
And let her henceforth be
A messenger of love between

Our human hearts and Thee.

Still let her mild rebuking stand
Between us and the wrong,
And her dear memory serve to make
Our faith in Goodness strong.

And grant that she who, trembling, here
Distrusted all her powers,

May welcome to her holier home
The well beloved of ours.

SNOW.

REV. RALPH HOYT.

Born in New York about 1810-Clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

The blessed morn is come again;
The early gray

Taps at the slumberer's window-pane,
And seems to say

"Break, break from the enchanter's chain,
Away-away!"

'Tis winter, yet there is no sound
Along the air,

Of winds upon their battle-ground;
But gently there,

The snow is falling-all around
How fair-how fair!

The jocnnd fields would masquerade
Fantastic scene!

Tree, shrub, and lawn, and lonely glade
Have cast their green,

And join'd the revel, all array'd
So white and clean.

E'en the old posts, that hold the bars
And the old gate,

Forgetful of their wintry wars
And age sedate,

[sars,

High-capp'd. and plumed, like white hus.
Stand there in state.

The drifts are hanging by the sill,
The eaves, the door;
The hay-stack has become a hill;
All cover'd o'er
The wagon, loaded for the mill
The eve before. .

Maria brings the water-pail-
But where's the well!
Like magic of a fairy tale,