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In all its greatness. It has told itself
To the astonished gaze of awe-struck kings,
At Marathon, at Bannockburn, and here,
Where first our patriots sent the invader back
Broken and cowed. Let these green elms be all
To tell us where they fought, and where they lie.

Their feelings were all nature, and they need
No art to make them known. They live in us,
While we are like them, simple, hardy, bold,
Worshiping nothing but our own pure hearts,
And the one universal Lord. They need
No column pointing to the heaven they sought
To tell us of their home. The heart itself,
Left to its own free purpose, hastens there,
And there alone reposes.

Let these elms

Bend their protecting shadow o'er their graves,
And build with their green roof the only fane,
Where we may gather on the hallowed day
That rose to them in blood, and set in glory.
Here let us meet, and while our motionless lips
Give not a sound, and all around is mute
In the deep Sabbath of a heart too full
For words or tears-here let us strew the sod
With the first flowers of spring, and make to them
An offering of the plenty Nature gives,

And they have rendered ours-perpetually.

DICKENS IN CAMP.-BRET HARTE.

Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting,
The river sang below;

The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting

Their minarets of snow.

The roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted
The ruddy tints of health

On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted
In the fierce race for wealth;

Till one arose, and from his pack's scant treasure

A hoarded volume drew,

And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure, To hear the tale anew;

And then, while round them shadows gathered faster,

And as the firelight fell,

He read aloud the book wherein the Master

Had writ of "Little Nell."

Perhaps 'twas boyish fancy,-for the reader
Was youngest of them all,-

But, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar
A silence seemed to fall;

The fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows,
Listened in every spray,

While the whole camp, with "Nell," on English meadows
Wandered and lost their way.

And so in mountain solitudes-o'ertaken

As by some spell divine

Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken
From out the gusty pine.

Lost is that camp, and wasted all its fire:
And he who wrought that spell?-

Ah, towering pine and stately Kentish spire,
Ye have one tale to tell!

Lost is that camp! but let its fragrant story
Blend with the breath that thrills

With hop-vines' incense all the pensive glory
That fills the Kentish hills.

And on that grave where English oak and holly
And laurel wreaths intwine,

Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,-
This spray of Western pine.

THE GALLEY-SLAVE.-HENRY ABBEY.

There lived in France, in days not long now dead,
A farmer's sons, twin brothers, like in face;

And one was taken in the other's stead

For a small theft, and sentenced in disgrace To serve for years a hated galley-slave,

Yet said no word his prized good name to save.

Trusting remoter days would be more blessed,
He set his will to wear the verdict out,
And knew most men are prisoners at best

Who some strong habit ever drag about,
Like chain and ball; then meekly prayed that he
Rather the prisoner he was should be.

But best resolves are of such feeble thread,
They may be broken in Temptation's hands.
After long toil the guiltless prisoner said:

"Why should I thus, and feel life's precious sands The narrow of my glass, the present, run, For a poor crime that I have never done?"

Such questions are like cups, and hold reply;
For when the chance swung wide the prisoner fled,
And gained the country road, and hastened by

Brown furrowed fields and skipping brooklets fed By shepherd clouds, and felt 'neath sapful trees, The soft hand of the mesmerizing breeze.

Then, all that long day having eaten naught,
He at a cottage stopped, and of the wife
A brimming bowl of fragrant milk besought.
She gave it him; but as he quaffed the life,
Down her kind face he saw a single tear
Pursue its wet and sorrowful career.

Within the cot he now beheld a man

And maiden also weeping. "Speak," said he, And tell me of your grief; for if I can,

I will disroot the sad tear-fruited tree." The cotter answered: "In default of rent We shall to-morrow from this roof be sent."

Then said the galley-slave: "Whoso returns
A prisoner escaped may feel the spur
To a right action, and deserves and earns
Proffered reward. I am a prisoner!

Bind these my arms, and drive me back my way,
That your reward the price of home may pay."

Against his wish the cotter gave consent,
And at the prison-gate received his fee,
Though some made it a thing for wonderment
That one so sickly and infirm as he,

When stronger would have dared not to attack,
Could capture this bold youth and bring him back.

Straightway the cotter to the mayor hied
And told him all the story, and that lord
Was much affected, dropping gold beside
The pursed sufficient silver of reward;
Then wrote his letter in authority,
Asking to set the noble prisoner free.

There is no nobler, better life on earth
Than that of conscious, meek self-sacrifice.
Such life our Saviour, in his lowly birth

And holy work, made his sublime disguise,
Teaching this truth, still rarely understood:
'Tis sweet to suffer for another's good.

SPEECH BY OBADIAH PARTINGTON SWIPES.

FELLOW CITIZENS:-We have met here to investigate the ethereal contaminations of this terraqueous government of the firmament below. We may elucidate the praises of the invisible Scott, who has fought with wise and deleterious conflagration over the plains of Mexico, through Behring's straits to Hudson's bay. And let me tell you, that the names of the invincible Modoc, and the oleaginous Chinaman, shall travel down to receding generations, gloriously enrolled on the records of perpetuity and glory. Yes, they shall live on, and shine on, when the Columbian principles of Hale and Julien shall be disembogued into the unforgotten regions of ambiguous fame.

But I have been accused of going for the sub-treasury and the "back pay "bill. Now, that's a whopper! and I am prepared to come down upon that base calumniator of innocence and beauty, like a thousand of brick! I'll hurl at him the gauntlet of egotism and pomposity, through the innumerable regions of Mozambique and Santa Fé de Bogota; and rush down on him like an avalanche on the plains of De Laplata, before I'll stand the charge! The sub-treasury means to watch the money. Now I say one man is enough to watch our money. I had rather have one man to watch my money, my life, and my country, too, than to have a

thousand, because Homer, the greatest poet that ever flourished in umbrageous England, says, in beautiful ambidexter, Latin verse

"He that steals my purse, steals trash."

But about our eternal improvements. What, in the name of the invisible Jackson, do we want to make so many railroads and canals for? What do we want any more water for in these United States? We have got water enough. The water in canals ain't good for nothing but to float boats in, the best way you can fix it. They want to go on making railroads and canals, until our country shall equal in magnanimity the great and philosophie Pacific ocean.

And now, to conclude, fellow-citizens, let me tell you that the memory of the whig and democratic democracy of our great republican constitution, shall be hung upon a star and shine forever in odoriferous amalgamation in the terraqueous firmament on high, in one eternal bustification!

OLD CHUMS.-ALICE CARY.

Is it you, Jack? Old boy, is it really you?
I shouldn't have known you but that I was told
You might be expected;-pray, how do you do?
But what, under heaven, has made you so old?

Your hair! why, you've only a little gray fuzz!
And your beard's white! but that can be beautifully dyed;
And your legs aren't but just half as long as they was;
And then-stars and garters! your vest is so wide!

Is this your hand? Lord, how I envied you that
In the time of our courting,- -so soft, and so small,
And now it is callous inside, and so fat,-

Well, you beat the very old deuce, that is all.

Turn round! let me look at you! isn't it odd,

How strange in a few years a fellow's chum grows!

Your eye is shrunk up like a bean in a pod,

And what are these lines branching out from your nose?

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