Give him my blessing, morning, noon and night;
Tell him my prayers are offered for his good,
That he may keep his Maker still in sight,

And firmly stand as his brave father stood
True to his name, his country, and his God;
Faithful at home, and steadfast still abroad.

THE DUBLIN FREEMAN.

THE BANKER AND THE COBBLER.

THERE WAS a cobbler who sang all day;
'Twas wonderful to see the man, and then
To hear him quavering away,

Happier than any of the Seven Wise Men!
His neighbor, on the contrary, who rolled
In heaps of gold,

Sung little and slept less; he had a bank:
And if, at times, near dawn, he ever sank
Into a doze, the cobbler, like a lark at
His singing, would not let him sleep a wink!
The banker grieved that Heaven did not decree
Sleep to be bought and sold, at market,
Like meat and drink.

He had the singer brought to him; says he:

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Pray, Master Crispin, what's your yearly income?" "Income!" the jolly cobbler cries, quite gay,

"I do not make my reckoning in that way.

With one day heaped on the other, but I think 'em All right enough if so it comes about,

I make both ends meet when the twelvemonth's out, The day just brings its daily bread always."

"Well, what do you make a day?" the rich man says, Why, more or less; the worst (and but for this

66

Our gains would not be very much amiss),
The worst is, we've so many holydays;
These saints' days almost ruin us outright,
Each festival impoverishes its brother;
And then our curate does take such delight
In finding for us some new saint or other."

The banker laughed at his free, simple way:

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Crispin! I'll make a king of you to-day;

Look at these hundred crowns! I give you these;
Go, use them as you please."

The cobbler thought he handled all the ore
That had been dug a hundred years or more.
For the whole world - he thought he had it all;
Then he went home to his own stall,

And there he buried in a hole

His cash-and with it all his mirth of soul.
No more gay songs; he lost his voice in getting
What causes all our pains, sleep left his bed,
And the cares came instead.

Endless alarms, suspicions all besetting

By day his eyes glanced both ways, and by night
If any cat but mewed upon her rounds,

The cat was at the cash! At last the wight

Ran to the man whom he had ceased to wake;

"Give me," he cries, "my songs and sleep, and take Take back these hundred crowns."

LAFONTAINE.

RATHER EMBARRASSING.

SHE was a very little girl,

And as I bent and kissed her.
"There, that is for yourself," I said,
And this is for your sister."

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Last night I called in friendly way;
Some gay girl friends were there,
And laugh and jest went gayly round,
To banish weary care.

The little girl came romping in,

And unto me said she,

"I dive that tiss to sizzer Bell,
'Ou left for her wiz me.

"She tissed me lots o' times, an' said,
When folkses 'ouldn't see,

I might dive 'em to 'ou-dust wait
"Till 'ou's alone wiz me!"

I blushed, and so did sister Bell,
The gay girl friends, ah me!
I wished the horrid, horrid things
A thousand miles at sea!

SAVING MOTHER.

THE farmer sat in his easy chair
Between the fire and the lamplight's glare;
His face was ruddy and full and fair.
His three small boys in the chimney nook
Conned the lines of a picture book;

His wife, the pride of his home and heart,
Baked the biscuit and made the tart,
Laid the table and steeped the tea,
Deftly, swiftly, silently;

Tired and weary and weak and faint,
She bore her trials without complaint,
Like many another household saint-
Content, all selfish bliss above
In the patient ministry of love.

At last, between the clouds of smoke
That wreathed his lips, the husband spoke:
"There's taxes to raise, an' int'rest to pay,
And ef there should come a rainy day,
"Twould be mighty handy, I'm boun' to say,
T' have sumpthin' put by. For folks must die,
An' there's funeral bills, and gravestuns to buy -
Enough to swamp a man, purty nigh.

Besides, there's Edward and Dick and Joe

To be provided for when we go.

So'f I was you, I'll tell what I'd du:

I'd be savin' of wood as ever I could-
Extry fire don't du any good

I'd be savin' of soap, an' savin' of ile,
And run up some candles once in a while;
I'd be rather sparin' of coffee an' tea,
For sugar is high,

And all to buy,

And cider is good enough for me.

I'd be kind o' careful about my clo'es
And look out sharp how the money goes-
Gewgaws is useless, nater knows;
Extry trimmin'

'S the bane of women.

"I'd sell off the best of the cheese and honey,
And eggs is as good, nigh about, 's the money;
And as to the carpet you wanted new

I guess we can make the old one du.

And as for the washer, an' sewin' machine,
Them smooth-tongued agents' so pesky mean,
You'd better get rid of 'em, slick and clean.
What do they know about women's work?
Du they calkilate women was born to shirk?"

Dick and Edward and little Joe,
Sat in the corner in a row.

They saw the patient mother go,
On ceaseless errands to and fro;

They saw that her form was bent and thin,
Her temples gray, her cheeks sunk in,

They saw the quiver of lip and chin

And then, with a warmth he could not smother,
Outspoke the youngest, frailest brother—

"You talk of savin' wood and ile

An' tea an' sugar, all the while,
But you never talk of savin' mother!"

THE SHARPSHOOTER'S MISS.

YES, that old rifle hanging there its pension, too, has

won;

And every notch upon its stock shows what its aim has

done.

Its name, "Old Neverfail," it earned from more than one

brigade;

And through the war, from end to end, but one clear miss it

made,

That one? Well, this was how it came: 'Twas down in

Tennessee,

Just after Richmond fell, and Grant had got the sword of

Lee,

Our regiment, the Fourth Vermont, for ten long months had fought,

And watched, and chased a raider-chief who still could not be caught.

We called him "

well);

Fly-by-Night" (a name that suited us as

The moon ne'er went behind a cloud but rose his charging yell!

He'd fight and run, and run and fight, but ever slipped away, And which side got the most hard knocks 'twould puzzle me

to say.

So, when the order to disband was passed along from

Lee,

We felt like some big dog who'd nipped at last a plaguing

flea;

And as, to give parole, rode in those men in dusty grayThough all our boys stood on parade, and all the bands did play

We felt as though a funeral, somehow, was going on,
To see those gallant foemen drop, all hopeless and forlorn.
So worn and wan their leader rode before his silent host,
It seemed as though both cause and man had faded to a ghost!
And while their arms were being stacked, the parole being
read,

He stood apart with shaded eyes and low averted head;
But when the color-guard advanced to turn his standard in,
He lifted to the short, torn rag his haggard face and thin;

With husky voice, to gruff old Kent, our colonel, prim and stern,

He said: "With victory crowned to-day to happy homes you turn,

While we to waste and ravaged farms our weary footsteps

bend;

Yours all the glory - ours the loss, the shame, the bitter end