H

THE DEAD EMPEROR.

E has gone to the land, through eternity's portals,

Where dukedoms and kings are remembered

no more,

But the wearers of crowns are the lowliest servants Of Him who for sinners the crown of thorns

wore;

Where the proud and the mighty are counted as nothing;

Where the court of the soul is in justice arrayed; Where the verdict of innocence cannot be pur

chased;

Where the wages of character promptly are paid.

He has gone where the feet of oppressors tread

never,

Nor the prayer of the prisoned for freedom is

heard;

Where the flatterer's music is silent forever,

And the snare 's never laid for the innocent bird;

Where the voice of a senate's applause cannot reach him,

Nor the wailing of conscripts by armies mowed

down;

Where the votes of a parliament cannot impeach.

him,

Nor the bribes of the universe offer a crown;

Where the calm of eternity gives him the leisure
To study the tempest of passion on earth,
To ponder the pathway of glory and pleasure,
And balance the world with the soul in its worth.

The strange silent man from the field of Magenta, The unsceptred monarch from bloody Sedan, The chess politician whose moves were a venture The subtlest inquisitor never could scan,

Where now is the spirit that grasped at dominion, That rode on the whirlwind of power to a

throne?

Does it soar with the angels on ecstasy's pinion?

Does it span like a rainbow the storm overblown?

Has it gone to inhabit in darkened seclusion

Some penal Helena far off on the wave; Or joined the proud Cæsars of Old World delusion, Or roused the Achilles of Gaul from his grave?

Have the sides of the pit ordered forth their

possessors

To hail the Usurper with desolate stir?

Do the aisles of the Hades of sceptred confessors Resound the grim satire of "Vive l'Empereur"?

Oh, tell us, ye forms of immortal forewarning,

That watch at the gateway of morning and night, Was the spirit withdrawn in the blackness of darkness,

Or lost in the splendors of infinite light?

FOR MRS. W

TO HER BABE SLEEPING IN THE CRADLE.

HOU lovely miniature of Nature's painting,

THOU

Thy beauty mingles care with my delight.

These colors are to grow,

not like the fainting, Soft, dying hues that mark the eve's twilight; But evermore renewed, as if the dawn,

With its deep, rosy tinge, instead of fading, Ran hand in hand with the bright, dewy morn, The sky by sunlight with all colors shading.

These colors are to grow,

from where, an infant,

Thou sleepest cradled by thy mother's side, On through thy childhood's beauty, every instant To maiden loveliness; thy mother's pride. And she will guide the pencil: hers the art To deepen Nature's lineaments, or alter; To image heaven or earth upon the heart;

What if her pen should err, her pencil falter?

Oh, 't is a sacred, sweet, and fearful duty

To train these earth-born spirits for the skies; To keep this household flower green in its beauty Till it in Paradise transplanted rise!

May He who took the nurslings in his arms

Keep thee and thine, his richest grace revealing; Hid, as His pilgrims, from the world's alarms, Where quiet brooks in pastures green are stealing.