THE TELEGRAMS.

BRING the hearse to the station,

When one shall demand it, late; For that dark consummation The traveller must not wait. Men say not by what connivance He slid from his weight of woe, Whether sickness or weak contrivance, But we know him glad to go. On and on and ever on! What next?

Nor let the priest be wanting
With his hollow eyes of prayer,
While the sexton wrenches, panting,
The stone from the dismal stair.
But call not the friends who left him
When fortune and pleasure fled:
Mortality hath not bereft him,

That they should confront him, dead.
On and on and ever on!
What next?

Bid my mother be ready:

We are coming home to-night:
Let my chamber be still and shady
With the softened nuptial light.
We have travelled so gayly, madly,
No shadow hath crossed our way;
Yet we come back like children, gladly,
Joy-spent with our holiday.

On and on and ever on !
What next?

Stop the train at the landing,

And search every carriage through;

Let no one escape your handing,
None shiver, or shrink from view.
Three blood-stained guests expect him;
Three murders oppress his soul;
Be strained every nerve to detect him
Who feasted, and killed, and stole.
On and on and ever on!
What next?

Be rid of the notes they scattered;
The great house is down at last;
The image of gold is shattered,
And never can be recast.

The bankrupts show leaden features,
And weary, distracted looks,
While harpy-eyed, wolf-souled creatures
Pry through their dishonored books.
On and on and ever on!
What next?

Let him hasten, lest worse befall him,

To look on me, ere I die:

I will whisper one curse to appall him,
Ere the black flood carry me by.
His bridal? The friends forbid it;

I have shown them his proofs of guilt;
Let him hear, with my laugh, who did it;
Then hurry, Death, as thou wilt!
On and on and ever on!
What next?

Thus the living and dying daily

Flash forward their wants and words,
While still on Thought's slender railway
Sit scathless the little birds:

They heed not the sentence dire
By magical hands exprest,

And only the sun's warm fire

Stirs softly their happy breast.
On and on and ever on!
God next!

AMANDA'S INVENTORY.

THIS

HIS is my hat: behold its upstart plume,

Soaring like pride, that even in heaven asks room!

This is my cloak of scarlet splendor rare,

A saucy challenge to the sunset glare.

Behold my coach of state and pony-chaise,

A fairy pleasure for the summer days;

The steeds that fly, like lightnings in a leash,
With their rude Jove, subservient to my wish.

Here are my jewels; each a fortune holds;

A starving artist planned the graceful moulds:
Here hang my dresses in composed array,
A rainbow with a hue for every day.

These are my lovers, registered in date,
Who, with my dowry, seek myself to mate,

George W. Dewey.

BORN in Baltimore, Md., 1818.

BLIND LOUISE.

[Griswold's "Poets and Poetry of America." 1842.]

SHE knew that she was growing blind-
Foresaw the dreary night

That soon would fall, without a star,
Upon her fading sight;

Yet never did she make complaint,

But prayed each day might bring

A beauty to her waning eyes,
The loveliness of Spring!

She dreaded that eclipse which might
Perpetually enclose

Sad memories of a leafless world,

A spectral realm of snows.

She'd rather that the verdure left

An evergreen to shine

Within her heart, as summer leaves
Its memory on the pine.

She had her wish: for when the sun
O'erbung his eastern towers,
And shed his benediction on

A world of May-time flowers,

We found her seated, as of old,
In her accustomed place,
A midnight in her sightless eyes,
And morn upon her face!