Of the fire-balls of death, crashing souls out of men,
When the guns of Cavalli with final retort,
Have cut the game short.

When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee,

When your flag takes all heaven for its green white and red, When you have a country from mountain to sea,

When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head,

And I have my dead.

What then? Do not mock me.

Ah! ring your bells low,

My country is there,

And burn your lights faintly.

Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow;
My Italy's there, with my brave civic pair,
To disfranchise despair.

Dead! one of them shot by the sea in the west,
And one of them shot in the east by the sea.
Both both my boys! If in keeping the feast
You want a great song for your Italy free,
Let none look at me.

Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:

Into the Valley of Death
Rode the Six Hundred

III

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them,

Volleyed and thundered. Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well;

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of hell,

Rode the Six Hundred.

IV.

Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while

All the world wondered.

Plunged in the battery smoke, Right through the line they broke:

Cossack and Russian

Reeled from the sabre-stroke,

Shattered and sundered.

Then they rode back, but not,

Not the Six Hundred.

V.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them,

Volleyed and thundered.

Stormed at with shot and shell.
While horse and hero fell,

They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of Six Hundred.

VI.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,

Noble Six Hundred.

Tennysm.

May Days.

In sweet May time, so long ago,

I stood by the big wheel spinning tow,
Buzz, buzz, so very slow;

Dark, rough logs from the ancient trees,
Fire-place wide for the children's glees.

Above the smoky boards and beams,

Down through the crevice poured golden gleams,
Till the wheel dust glimmered like diamond dreams;
Mother busy with household care,

Baby playing with upturned chairs,
Old clock telling how fast time wears.

These within. Out under the sky
Flecked mists were sailing, birds flitting by.
Joyous children playing "I spy."

Up from the earth curled leaves were coming,
Bees in the morning sunshine humming,
Away in the woods the partridge drumming.

O, how I longed to burst away
From my dull task to the outer day;
But we were poor and I must stay.
So buzz! buzz! — 'twas very slow,
Drawing threads from the shining tow,
When the heart was dancing so.

Then hope went spinning a brighter thread,
On, on, through life's long lane it led,
A path my feet should one day tread.
So pleasant thoughts would time beguile,
Till my mother said, with beaming smile,
"My child may rest, I will reel awhile."

Rest! 'twas the rest that childhood takes,
Off over fences and fragrant brakes,

To the wilds, where the earliest woodland flings
Spring of the year, and life's sweet spring,
Words are poor for the thoughts ye bring.

But ye come together to me no more,
Your twin steps rest on the field of yore,
Ye are mine on yonder immortal shore.
'Twas hard to leave those bright May days,
The mossy path, and leafy maze

For common work, and humdrum ways.

But my steps were turned, I was up the lane,
Back to the buzzing wheel again,

My yarn had finished the ten knot skein;
And my gentle mother stroked my head,
"Your yarn is very nice," she said,
"It will make a beautiful tablespread."

"You are my good girl to work so well,"
Great thoughts my childish heart would swell,
"Till the happy tears like rain drops fell.
I would toil for her, I would gather lore,
From many books a mighty store,
And pay her kindness o'er and o'er.

She should work no more at wheel or loom,
My earnings should give her a cozy room,
Bright and warm for the winter's gloom,
A soft warm chair for her weary hours,
Books and music, pictures, flowers.

So the sweet dream ran, as the wheel buzzed on,
'Till the golden gleams of light were gone,
And the chilling rain came dripping down,
Ah! my heart has it e'er been so,

Cold clouds shading life's sunniest glow,
Warm hopes drowned in the cold wave's flow.

In the same low room my mother pressed,
Each child to her softly heaving breast,
And closed her eyes and went to rest.
The old walls crumbled long ago,
Hushed the big wheel's buzzing slow,
Worn to shreds is the shining tow.

Yet with the bursting leaves and flowers,
The gushing songs and pearly showers,
Life brightens as in childhood's hours,
And hope this golden morn in May
Spins golden threads that float away
To a heavenly home that is bright for aye.

Scrooge and Marley.

MARLEY was dead to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is