my fatal dream. I offer to that country, as a proof of the love I bear her, and the sincerity with which I thought and spoke and struggled for her freedom, the life of a young heart, and with that life all the hopes, the honors, the endearments, of a happy and an honored some. Pronounce, then, my Lords, the sentence which the laws direct, and I will be prepared to hear it. I trust I shall be prepared to meet its execution. I hope to be able, with a pure heart and perfect composure, to appear before a higher tribunal, a tribunal where a judge of infinite goodness as well as of justice will preside, and where, my Lords, many, many of the judgments of this world will be reversed. T. F. Meagher. Ah! the world has many a Horner, Finds a Christmas pie provided for his thumb; When successful exploration Doth discover the predestinated plum. Little Jack outgrows his sire, And becometh John, Esquire, And he finds a monstrous pastry ready-made, And all the mixed ingredients of trade. And again it is his luck, To be just in time to pluck, By a "clever operation," from the pie So he glorifies his thumb, And says, proudly, "What a mighty man am I!" Or, perchance, to science turning, All the formulas and phrases that oppress her, For the fruit of others baking, So a fresh diploma taking, Comes he forth a full accredited professor. Or, he's not too nice to mix And the dignity of office he puts on; And feels as big again As a dozen nobler men, While he writes himself the "Honorable John." Not to hint at female Horners, Think the world is only made of upper crust, And in the funny pie That we call society, Their dainty fingers delicately thrust Till it sometimes comes to pass, One may compass (don't they call it so?) a catch; Seems as if the very heaven Had outdone itself in making such a match. O, the world keeps Christmas day In a queer perpetual way; Shouting always, "What a great big boy am I !" Thus vociferating loud, And all its accidental honors lifting high, Have really, more than Jack, With all their lucky knack, Had a finger in the making of the pie. Mother Goose for Groun People. THE FATE OF VIRGINIA. In order to render the commencement less abrupt, six lines of introduc tion have been added to this extract from the fine ballad by Macaulay. "Why is the Forum crowded? Rome ?" What means this stir in "Claimed as a slave, a free-born maid is dragged here from her home. On fair Virginia, Claudius has cast his eye of blight; Straightway Virginius led the maid a little space aside, Hard by, a butcher on a block had laid his whittle down,- And in a hoarse, changed voice he spake, "Farewell, sweet child, farewell! The house that was the happiest within the Roman walls,The house that envied not the wealth of Capua's marble halls, Now, for the brightness of thy smile, must have eternal gloom, And for the music of thy voice, the silence of the tomb. "The time is come. The tyrant points his eager hand this way; See how his eyes gloat on thy grief, like a kite's upon the prey; With all his wit he little deems that, spurned, betrayed, bereft, Thy father hath, in his despair, one fearful refuge left; He little deems that, in this hand, I clutch what still can save Thy gentle youth from taunts and blows, the portion of the slave; Yea, and from nameless evil, that passeth taunt and blow,— Foul outrage, which thou knowest not,-which thou shalt never know. Then clasp me round the neck once more, and give me one more kiss; And now, mine own dear little girl, there is no way but this !" With that, he lifted high the steel, and smote her in the side, And in her blood she sank to earth, and with one sob she died. Then, for a little moment, all people held their breath; Till, with white lips and bloodshot eyes, Virginius tottered nigh, And stood before the judgment seat, and held the knife on high: "O, dwellers in the nether gloom, avengers of the slain, way. Then up sprang Appius Claudius: "Stop him, alive or dead! Ten thousand pounds of copper to the man who brings his head!" He looked upon his clients,-but none would work his will; And there ta'en horse to tell the camp what deeds are done in THROUGH DEATH TO LIFE. Have you heard the tale of the Aloe plant, By humble growth of a hundred years And then a wondrous bud at its crown Have you further heard of this Aloe plant, Is an infant plant, that fastens its roots In the place where it falls on the ground; And, fast as they drop from the dying stem, By dying it liveth a thousand fold In the young that spring from the death of the old. Have you heard the tale of the Pelican,— The Arab's Gimel el Bahr, That lives in the African solitudes, Where the birds that live lonely are? Have you heard how it loves its tender young, It brings them water from fountains afar, And fishes the seas for their food. In famine it feeds them,-what love can devise!— Have you heard the tale they tell of the swan, For it saves its song till the end of life, And the blessed notes fall back from the skies; You have heard these tales; shall I tell you one, Have you heard of him whom the heavens adore; O prince of the noble! O sufferer divine! Have you heard this tale,-the best of them all,- He dies, but his life, in untold souls, His seed prevails, and is filling the earth, He taught us to yield up the love of life, His death is our life, his loss is our gain, Now hear these tales, ye weary and worn, Our Saviour hath told you the seed that would grow, Must pass from the view, and die away, And then will the fruit appear; The grain, that seems lost in the earth below, By death comes life, by loss comes gain; The joy for the tear, the peace for the pain. Henry Harbaugh. |