Tell, oh, tell me, Grizzled-Face !

'Ah," the wise old lips reply,

"Youth may pass and strength may die;

But of Love I can't foretoken,

Ask some older sage than I!"

WILLIAM TELL AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.

J. S. KNOWLES.

Ye crags and peaks I'm with you once again!
I hold to you the hands you first beheld,
To show they still are free. Methinks I hear
A spirit in your echoes answer me,

And bid your tenant welcome to his home
Again! O sacred forms, how proud you look!
How high you lift your heads into the sky!
How huge you are! how mighty and how free!
Ye are the things that tower, that shine-whose smile
Makes glad, whose frown is terrible; whose forms,
Robed or unrobed, do all the impress wear

Of awe divine. Ye gods of liberty

I'm with you once again! I call to you

With all my voice! I hold my hands to you,
To show they still are free. I rush to you
As though I could embrace you!

Scaling yonder peak,

I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow
O'er the abyss; his broad expanded wings
Lay calm and motionless upon the air,
As if he floated there without their aid,
By the sole act of his unlorded will,
That buoyed him proudly up. Instinctively
I bent my bow; yet kept he rounding still
His airy circle, as in the delight

Of measuring the ample range beneath

And round about; absorbed, he heeded not

The death that threatened him. I could not shoot! 'Twas Liberty! I turned my bow aside

And let him soar away!

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY ON DEATH.

SHAKESPEARE,

To be, or not to be—that is the question! Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them. To die-to sleepNo more; and, by a sleep, to say we end The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to; 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished! To die—to sleep;

To sleep? perchance to dream; ay, there's the rub;
For, in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause! There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?

Who would fardels bear,

To groan and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death-
The undiscovered country from whose bourne
No traveller returns-puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.

THE VOICELESS.

O. W. HOLMES.

We count the broken lyres that rest
Where the sweet-wailing singers slumber,
But o'er their silent sister's breast

The wild-flowers who will stoop to number? A few can touch the magic string,

And noisy Fame is proud to win them;

Alas for those who never sing,

But die with all their music in them!

Nay, grieve not for the dead alone,

Whose voice has told their heart's sad story; Weep for the voiceless who have known The cross without the crown of glory! Not where Leucadian breezes sweep

O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, But where the glistening night-dews weep O'er nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow.

O hearts that break and give no sign,
Save whitening lips and f ding tresses,
Till Death pours out his cordial wine,
Slow dropped from misery's crushing presses!
If singing breath or echoing chord

To every hidden pang were given,
What endless melodies were poured,
As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven!

ROME AND CARTHAGE.

VICTOR HUGO.

She

Rome and Carthage! Behold them drawing near for the struggle that is to shake the world! Carthage, the metropolis of Africa, is the mistress of oceans, of kingdoms, and of nations; a magnificent city, burthened with opulence, radiant with the strange arts and trophies of the East. She is at the acme of her civilization. can mount no higher. Any change now must be a decline. Rome is comparatively poor. She has seized all within her grasp, but rather from the lust of conquest than to fill her own coffers. She is demi-barbarous, and has her education and her future both to make. All is before her-nothing behind. For a time these two nations exist in view of each other. The one reposes in the noontide of her splendor, the other waxes strong in the shade. But, little by little, air and space are wanting to each for her development. Rome begins to perplex Carthage, and Carthage is an eyesore to Rome. Seated on opposite banks of the Mediterranean, the two cities look each other in the face. The sea no longer keeps them apart. Europe and Africa weigh upon each other. Like two clouds surcharged with electricity they impend. With their contact must come the thunder shock.

The catastrophe of this stupendous drama is at hand. What actors are met! Two races-that of merchants and mariners, that of laborers and soldiers; two nations-the one dominant by gold, the other by steel; two republics-the one theocratic, the other aristocratic. Rome and Carthage! Rome with her army, Carthage with her fleet; Carthage, old, rich and crafty-Rome, young, poor and robust; the past and the future; the spirit of discovery, and the spirit of conquest; the genius of commerce, the demon of war; the East and the South on one side, the West and the North on the other; in short, two worlds-the civilization of Africa, and the civilization of Europe. They measure each other from head to foot. They gather all their forces. Gradually the war kindles. The world takes fire. These colossal powers are locked in deadly strife. Carthage has crossed the Alps; Rome, the seas. The two nations, personified in two men, Hannibal and Scipio, close with each other,

wrestle and grow infuriate.

for life. Rome wavers.

The duel is desperate. It is a struggle She utters that ery of anguish-Hannibal

at the gates! But she rallies-collects all her strength for one last, appalling effort-throws herself upon Carthage, and sweeps her from the face of the earth!

KATYDID.

O. W. HOLMES.

I love to hear thine earnest voice,

Wherever thou art hid,
Thou testy little dogmatist,

Thou pretty Katydid!

Thou mindest me of gentlefolks—
Old gentlefolks are they―
Thou sayest an undisputed thing
In such a solemn way.

Thou art a female, Katydid!

I know it by the trill

That quivers through thy piercing notes

So pertinent and shrill.

I think there is a knot of you
Beneath the hollow tree-

A knot of spinster Katydids-
Do Katydids drink tea?

Oh, tell me where did Katy live,
And what did Katy do?
And was she very fair and young,
And yet so wicked too?
Did Katy love a naughty man,

Or kiss more cheeks than one?

I warrant Katy did no more
Than many a Kate has done!