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What Mr. Robinson Thinks.

Parson Wilbur sez he never heard in his life

That th' apostles rigged out in their swallow-tailed coats, An' marched round in tront of a drum an' a fife,

To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes;

But John P.
Robinson, he

Sez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee.

Invocation to Peace.

Where's Peace? I start. some clear-blown night,
When gaunt stone walls grow numb an' number,
An', creakin' 'cross the snow-crust white,
Walk the col' starlight into summer;
Up grows the moon, an' swell by swell
Thru the pale pastars silvers dimmer
Than the last smile thet strives to tell
O' love gone heavenward in its shimmer.

I hev been gladder o' sech things

Than cocks o' spring or bees o' clover,
They filled my heart with livin' springs,
But now they seem to freeze 'em over;
Sights innercent ez babes on knee,

Peaceful ez eyes o' pastur'd cattle,
Jes' coz they be so, seem to me

To rile me more with thoughts o' battle.

In-doors an' out by spells I try;

Ma'am Natur' keeps her spin-wheel goin',
But leaves my natur' stiff an' dry

Ez fiel's o' clover arter mowin';

An' her jes' keepin' on the same,

Calmer than clock-work, an' not carin',
An' findin' nary thing to blame,

Is was than ef she took to swearin'.

Snow-flakes come whisperin' on the pane
The charm makes blazin' logs so pleasant,
But I can't hark to what they're say'n',
With Grant or Sherman ollers present;

The chimbleys shudder in the gale.

Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flappin'

Like a shot hawk, but all 's ez stale

To me ez so much sperit-rappin'.

Under the yaller-pines I house.

When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented,'.
An' hear among their furry boughs

The baskin' west-wind purr contented

While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low

Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin',
The wedged wil' geese their bugles blow,
Further an' further South retreatin'.

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White feet ez snowdrops innercent,
Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan,
Whose comin' step ther' 's ears thet won't
No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin'.

Why, han't I held 'em on my knee?
Didn't I love to see 'em growin',
Three likely lads ez wal could be,

Handsome an' brave, an' not to knowin'?
I set an' look into the blaze

Whose natur', jest like theirn, keeps climbin', Ez long 'z it lives, in shinin' ways,

An' half despise myself for rhymin'.

Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth
On war's red techstone rang true metal,
Who ventured life an' love an' youth

For the gret prize o' death in battle?
To him who, deadly hurt. agen

Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, Tippin' with fire the bolt of men

Thet rived the rebel line asunder?

"Tan't right to hev the young go fast, All throbbin' full o' gifts an graces. Leavin' life's paupers dry ez dust

To try an' make b'lieve fill their places;
Nothin' but tells us wut we miss,

Ther' 's gaps our lives can't never fay in,
An' thet world seems so fur from this
Lef' for us loafers to grow gray in!

My eyes cloud up for rain; my mouth
Will take to twitchin' ronn' the corners;

I pity mothers, tu, down South,

For all they sot among the scorners: I'd sooner take my chance to stan'

At Jedgment where your meanest slave is, Than at God's bar hol' up a han'

Ez drippin' red ez yourn, Jeff Davis !

Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed.
For honor lost an' dear ones wasted,

But proud, to meet a people proud,
With eyes that tell o' triumph tasted!
Come, with han' grippin' on the hilt,

An' step that proves ye Victory's daughter!
Longin' for you, our sperits wilt

Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water!

Come, while our country feels the lift
Of a gret instinct shoutin' forwards,

An' knows thet freedom an't a gift

Thet tarries long in han's o' cowards ! Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when

They kissed their cross with lips thet quivered,

An' bring fair wages for brave men,

A nation saved, a race delivered!

Zekle crep up, quite unbeknown,
An' peeked in thru the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'ith no one nigh to hender.

The Courtin'.

Agin' the chimbly crooknecks hung,
An' in amongst 'em rusted

The ole queen's arm that gran'ther Young
Fetched back from Concord busted.

The walnut logs shot sparkles out
Towards the pootiest, bless her!
An' little fires danced all about
The chiney on the dresser.

The very room, coz she was in,
Looked warm from floor to ceilin',
An' she looked full ez rosy agin

Ez the apples she wuz peelin'.

She heerd a foot an' knowed it, tu,
Araspin' on the scraper-
All ways to once her feelins flew
Like sparks in burnt-up paper

He kin' o' l'itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o' the seekle⚫
His heart kep' goin' pitypat,
But hern went pity Zekle.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

The eldest son of the celebrated Dr. Arnold of Rugby has inheri ted no small share of his father's critical talent and independent judgment. MATTHEW ARNOLD was born at Laleham, near Staines, in Middlesex, December 24, 1822. He won the Newdigate Prize at Oxford in 1843, by a poem on Cromwell, and was elected a Fellow of Oriel College in 1845. In 1847 the Marquis of Lansdowne nominated him his private secretary, and he held the post till 1851, when he was appointed one of the government school inspectors. Previous to this, Mr. Arnold published anonymously The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems;' in 1853 appeared Empedocles on Etna, and other Poems;' and in 1854, Poems,' the first volume to which his name was attached, and which consisted of selections from the previous two volumes, with the addition of some new pieces. In 1857 Mr. Arnold was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford; and in the year following he published 'Merope,' a tragedy after the antique, with a preface, in which he explains and comments on the principles of the Greek tragedy. In 1861 he published Three Lectures On Translating Homer; and in 1867 a new volume of 'Poems.' In 1869 he issued a collected edition of his Poems' in two volumes, the first narrative and elegiac, the second dramatic and lyric. As a poet, Mr. Arnold may be ranked with Lord Lytton; he is a classic and elaborate versifier, often graceful, but without the energy and fire of the true poet. His prose works include 'Essays on Criticism,' 1865; On the Study of Celtic Literature' 1867; Culture and Anarchy,' 1869; ́ St. Paul and Protestantism,' 1870; &c. A somewhat haughty aristocratic spirit pervades these essays. Mr. Arnold has no patience with the middle-class Philistines the dullards and haters of light, who care only for what is material and practical. He is alsó a zealous Churchman, with little regard for Nonconformists or Puritans; yet in all these treatises are fine trains of thought and criticism, and original suggestive observations from which all sects may profit. Mr. Arnold has received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from both Edinburgh and Oxford universities.

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The following is a specimen of Mr. Arnold's blank verse:

Mycerinus.

[Mycerinus, son of Cheops, reigned over Egypt. He was a just king, according to Herodotus, but an oracle proclaimed that he was to live but six years longer, on which he abdicated his throne, and, accompanied by a band of revellers, retired to "the silence of the groves and woods.']

There by the river banks he wandered on

From palm-grove on to palm-grove, happy trees,
Their smooth tops shining sunwards, and beneath
Burying their unsunned stems in grass and flowers;
Where in one dream the feverish time of youth
Might fade in slumber, and the feet of joy
Might wander all day long and never tire.
Here came the king, holding high feast, at morn,
Rose-crowned, and ever, when the sun went down,
A hundred lamps beamed in the tranquil gloom,
From tree to tree, all through the twinkling grove,
Revealing all the tumult of the feast,

Flushed guests, and golden goblets, foamed with wine;
While the deep-burnished foliage overhead
Splintered the silver arrows of the moon.

It may be that sometimes his wondering soul
From the loud joyful laughter of his lips
Might shrink half-startled, like a guilty man
Who wrestles with his dream; as some pale Shape,
Gliding half-bidden through the dusky stems,
Would thrust a hand before the lifted bowl,
Whispering: A little space, and thou art mine.'
It may be on that joyless feast his eye
Dwelt with mere outward seeming; he, within,
Took measure of his soul, and knew its strength,
And by that silent knowledge, day by day,
Was calmed, ennobled, comforted, sustained.
It may be; but not less his brow was smooth,
And his clear langh fled ringing through the gloom,
And his mirth quailed not at the mild reproof

Sighed out by winter's sad tranquillity:

Nor, palled with its own fullness, ebbed and died
In the rich languor of long summer days;

Nor withered, when the palm-tree plumes, that roofed

With their mild dark his grassy banquet hall,
Bent to the cold winds of the showerless spring;
No, nor grew dark when autumn brought the clouds.
So six long years he revelled. night and day;
And when the mirth waxed loudest, with dull sound
Sometimes from the grove's centre echoes came,
To tell his wondering people of their king;
In the still night, across the steaming flats,
Mixed with the marmar of the moving Nile.

• Children Asleep-From 'Tristram and Isrult.”

They sleep in sheltered rest,
Like helpless birds in the warm nest,
On the castle's southern side:
Where feebly comes the mournful roar
Of buffeting wind and surging tide
Through many a room and corridor.

Full on their window the moon's ray
Makes their chamber as bright as day;
It shines upon the blank white walls,
And on the snowy pillow falls,
And on two angel-heads doth play

Turned to each other-the eyes closed,
The lashes on the cheeks reposed
Round each sweet brow the cap close-set
Ilardly lets peep the golden hair;
Through the soft-opened ips the air
Scarcely moves the coverlet.

One little wandering arm is thrown
At random on the counterpane,
And of en the fingers close in haste,
As if their baby owners chased
The butterflies again.

Lines written in Kensington Gardens.

In this lone open glade I lie,

Screened by deep boughs on either hand,
And, at its head, to stay the eye,

Those dark-crowned, red boled pine-trees stand.

Birds here make song; each bird has his

Across the girdling city's hum;

How green under the boughs it is!

How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come!

Sometimes a child will cross the glade
To take his nurse his broken toy;
Sometimes a thrush flit overhead,
Deep in her unknown day's employ.

Here at my feet what wonders pass!
What endless, active life is here!
What blowing daisies, fragrant grass!
An air-stirred forest fresh and clear.

Scarce fresher is the mountain sod

Where the tired angler lies, stretched out,

And, eased of basket and of rod,

Counts his day's spoil, his spotted trout.

In the huge world which roars hard by
Be others happy if they can;

But, in my helpless cradle. I

Was breathed on by the rural Pan.

I on men's impious uproar hurled
Think often, as I hear them rave
That peace has left the upper world,
And now keeps only in the grave.

Yet here is peace forever new!

When I, who watch them, am away,
Still all things in this glade go through
The changes of their quiet day.

Then to their happy rest they pass,

The flowers close, the birds are fed
The night comes down upon the grass,
The child sleeps warmly in his bed.
Calm soul of all things! make it mine
To feel, amid the city's jar,
That there abides a peice of thine,

Man did not make, and cannot mar!

The will to neither strive nor cry.
The power to feel with others. give!
Calm, calm me more, nor let me die
Before I have begun to live.

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