We'll have some music, if you 're willing, And Roger (hem! what a plague a cough is, sir!) Shall march a little. - Start, you villain! Stand straight! 'Bout face! Salute your officer ! Put up that paw! Dress! Take your rifle ! (Some dogs have arms, you see!) Now hold your Cap while the gentleman gives a trifle, To aid a poor, old, patriot soldier! March! Halt! Now show how the rebel shakes, When he stands up to hear his sentence. At your age, sir, home, fortune, friends, If you had seen HER, so fair and young, When the wine went round, you would n't have guessed That ever I, sir, should be straying, From door to door, with fiddle and dog, Ragged and penniless, and playing To you to-night for a glass of grog! She's married since ;- - a parson's wife : 'T was better for her that we should part, Better the soberest, prosiest life Than a blasted home and a broken heart. Have I seen her? Once: I was weak and spent On a dusty road: a carriage stopped: But little she dreamed as on she went, Who kissed the coin that her fingers dropped! You've set me talking, sir, I'm sorry; It makes me wild to think of the change! What do you care for a beggar's story? Is it amusing? You find it strange? I had a mother so proud of me! 'T was well she died before - Do you know If the happy spirits in heaven can see This pain; then Roger and I will start, I wonder, has he such a lumpish, leaden, He is sad sometimes, and would weep if he could, A virtuous kennel, with plenty of food, And himself a respectable cur. They walk about the new ploughed ground Where mud in plenty lies; They roll it up in marbles round, They bake it into pies, And then, at night upon the floor. To-day I was disposed to scold, But when I look to-night, At those little boots before the fire, I think how sad my heart would be For in a trunk up-stairs I've laid I mourn that there are not to-night I mourn because I thought how nice Yet well I know she'd smile to own We mothers weary get, and worn, But how we speak to these little ones For what would our firesides be to-night, WHICH SHALL IT BE? HICH shall it be? which shall it be?" I looked at John-John looked at me (Dear patient John, who loves me yet As well as though my locks were jet,) And when I found that I must speak, My voice seemed strangely low and weak. "Tell me again what Robert said;" And then I listening bent my head. "This is his letter:" "I will give A house and land while you shall live, I looked at John's old garments worn, I thought of all that John had borne Of poverty and work and care, "Come, John," said I, We stooped beside the trundle bed, And one long ray of lamp-light shed Across the boyish faces, three, In sleep so pitiful and fair; I saw, on Jamie's rough, red cheek, not her. A tear undried. Ere John could speak, "He's but a baby, too," said I, And kissed him as we hurried by. Patient enough for such as he; And so," said John, "I would not dare To send him from her bedside prayer." THERE'S BUT ONE PAIR OF STOCKINGS TO MEND TO-NIGHT. N old wife sat by her bright fireside, Swaying thoughtfully to and fro, In an ancient chair whose creaky frame While down by her side, on the kitchen floor, The good man dozed o'er the latest news, Yet still sat the wife in the ancient chair, But anon a misty tear-drop came In her eye of faded blue, Then trickled down in a furrow deep, Like a single drop of dew; So deep was the channel - so silent the stream. The good man saw naught but the dimmed eye-beam. Yet he marvelled much that the cheerful light Of her eye had weary grown, And marvelled he more at the tangled balls; "I have shared thy joys since our marriage vow, Then she spoke of the time when the basket there And how there remained of the goodly pile Then wonder not at the dimmed eye-light, There's but one pair of stockings to mend to-night. 66 For each empty nook in the basket old, By the hearth there's a vacant seat; And I miss the shadows from off the wall, And the patter of many feet; 'Tis for this that a tear gathered over my sight At the one pair of stockings to mend to-night. "T was said that far through the forest wild, And over the mountains bold, Was a land whose rivers and dark'ning caves HAT shall I do with all the days and hours That must be counted, ere I see thy face? Weary with longing? Shall I flee away O, how, or by what means may I contrive To bring the hour that brings thee back, more near? How may I teach my drooping hope to live Until that blessed time, and thou art here? I'll tell thee; for thy sake, I will lay hold All heavenward flights, all high and holy strains ; I will this dreary blank of absence make A noble task-time; and will therein strive To follow excellence, and to o'ertake More good than I have won, since yet I live. So may this doomed time build up in me ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. BY THOMAS GRAY. HE curfew tolls the knell of parting day; The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way. And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds; Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient, solitary reign. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the subborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, The short and simple annals of the poor. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await, alike, the inevitable hour The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, Can storied urn, or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Perhaps, in this neglected spot, is laid Some heart, once pregnant with celestial fireHand, that the rod of empire might have swayed. Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre: |