WARREN'S ADDRESS

STAND!

JOHN PIERPONT

The ground's your own, my braves! Will ye give it up to slaves?

Will ye look for greener graves?

Hope ye mercy still?

What's the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in that battle peal!

Read it on yon bristling steel!

Ask it, ye who will.

Fear ye foes who kill for hire?
Will ye to your homes retire?
Look behind you! They're afire !
And before you see

Who have done it! From the vale

On they come ! And will ye quail?
Leaden rain and iron hail

Let their welcome be !

In the God of battles trust!
Die we may, and die we must;
But, oh, where can dust to dust

Be consigned so well,

As where Heaven its dews shall shed

On the martyred patriot's bed,

And the rocks shall raise their head,

Of his deeds to tell?

THE

THE TREE

BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON

HE Tree's early leafy buds were bursting their brown; "Shall I take them away?" said the Frost sweeping down.

"No, leave them alone

Till the blossoms have grown,"

Prayed the Tree, while he trembled from rootlet to crown.

The Tree bore his blossoms, and all the birds sung; "Shall I take them away?" said the Wind as he swung. "No, leave them alone

Till the berries are grown,"

Said the Tree, while his leaflets quivering hung.

The Tree bore his fruit in the midsummer glow;

Said the girl, "May I gather thy berries now?"

Take them all are for thee."

Said the Tree, while he bent down his laden boughs low.

THE BLUE JAY

SUSAN HARTLEY SWETT

By permission of Dana Estes and Company.

BLUE Jay up in the maple tree,

Shaking your throat with such bursts of glee, How did it happen to be so blue?

Did you steal a bit of the lake for your crest,
And fasten blue violets into your vest?

Tell me, I pray you, tell me true!

Did you dip your wings in azure dye,
When April began to paint the sky,

That was pale with the winter's stay?

Or were you hatched from a bluebell bright,
'Neath the warm, gold breast of a sunbeam light,
By the river one blue spring day?

O Blue Jay up in the maple tree,
A-tossing your saucy head at me,

With ne'er a word for my questioning,
Pray, cease for a moment your "ting-a-link,"
And hear when I tell you what I think,-
You bonniest bit of spring.

I think when the fairies made the flowers,
To grow in these mossy fields of ours,
Periwinkles and violets rare,

There was left of the spring's own color, blue,
Plenty to fashion a flower whose hue

Would be richer than all and as fair.

So, putting their wits together, they

Made one great blossom so bright and gay,

The lily beside it seemed blurred:

And then they said, "We will toss it in the air;
So many blue blossoms grow everywhere,
Let this pretty one be a bird."

OCTOBER'S BRIGHT BLUE WEATHER

HELEN HUNT JACKSON

Copyright 1892 by Roberts Brothers.

SUNS and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,

Ye cannot rival for one hour

October's bright blue weather.

When loud the bumblebee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless, vagrant,

And goldenrod is dying fast,

And lanes with grapes are fragrant;

When gentians roll their fringes tight
To save themselves for morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burs
Without a sound of warning;

When on the ground red apples lie
In piles, like jewels shining,
And redder still, on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining;

When all the lovely wayside things
Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields, still green and fair,
Late aftermaths are growing;

When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,

Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting;

When comrades seek sweet country haunts,

By twos and twos together,

And count like misers, hour by hour,
October's bright blue weather.

O sun and skies and flowers of June,
Count all your boasts together,
Love loveth best of all the year
October's bright blue weather.

SLAVERY

ROBERT MACKENZIE

THE negro slave trade was an early result of the discovery of America. To utilize the vast possessions which Columbus had bestowed upon her, Spain deemed that compulsory labor was indispensable. The natives of the country naturally fell the first victims to this necessity. Terrible desolations were wrought among the poor Indians. Proud, and melancholy, they could not be reconciled to their bondage. They perished by thousands under the merciless hand of their new taskmasters.