And all above was in a howl,

And all below a clatter,—
The earth was like a frying-pan,
Or some such hissing matter.

It chanced to be our washing-day,
And all our things were drying:
'The storm came roaring through the lines,
And set them all a-flying;

1 saw the shirts and petticoats
Go riding off like witches;
I lost, ah! bitterly I wept,-

I lost my Sunday breeches!

I saw them straddling through the air,
Alas! too late to win them;

I saw them chase the clouds as if

A demon had been in them; They were my darlings and my pride, My boyhood's only riches,"Farewell, farewell," I faintly cried,"My breeches! O my breeches !"

That night I saw them in my dreams,

How changed from what I knew them! The dews had steeped their faded threads, The winds had whistled through them; I saw the wide and ghastly rents,

Where demon claws had torn them;
A hole was in their amplest part,
As if an imp had worn them.

I have had many happy years,
And tailors kind and clever,

But those young pantaloons have gone
For ever and for ever!

And not till fate has cut the last

Of all my earthly stitches,

This aching heart shall cease to mourn
My loved, my long-lost breeches!

7*

Ex. LXXI.-A PSALM OF LIFE.

WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST.
H. W. LONGFELLOW

TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
“Life is but an empty dream !”
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us further than to-day.

Art is long, and time is fleeting;

And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead past bury its dead!
Act, act in the living present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footsteps on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Ex. LXXII.-THE GRAVE OF THE BELOVED.

WASHINGTON IRVING.

SORROW for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal : every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider our duty to keep open; this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. Where is the mother that would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms, though every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament? who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? who, even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved, and he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portal, would accept consolation that was to be bought by forgetfulness? No, the love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection, when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved, is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness, who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud even over the bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of gloom, yet who would exchange it even for the song of pleasure, or the burst of revelry? No; there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song; there is a recollection of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living. Oh, the grave!-the grave! It buries every error; covers every defect; extinguishes every resentment. From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down upon the grave even of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb, that even he should have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies moldering before him!

The grave of those we loved-what a place for meditation! There it is that we call up in long review the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us almost unheeded in the daily intercourse of intimacy; there it is that we dwell upon the tenderness, the solemn, awful tenderness of the parting scene; the bed of death with all its stifled griefs; its noiseless attendants; its mute,

watchful assiduities; the last testimonics of expiring love; the feeble, faltering, thrilling (oh! how thrilling!) pressure of the hand; the last fond look of the glazing eye, turning upon us even from the threshold of existence; the faint, faltering accents struggling in death to give one more assurance of affection! Aye, go to the grave of buried love, and meditate! There settle the account with thy conscience for every past benefit unrequited, every past endearment unregarded, of that being who can never, never, never return to be soothed by thy contrition!

If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul, or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent; if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth; if thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged in thought, word or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee; if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited pang to that true heart that now lies cold and still beneath thy feet; then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle action, will come thronging back upon thy memory, and knocking dolefully at thy soul; then be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrowing and repentant on the grave, and utter the unheard groan, and pour the unavailing tear; more deep, more bitter, because unheard and unavailing.

Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and strew the beauties of nature about the grave; console thy broken spirit, if thou canst, with these tender, yet futile tributes of regret; but take warning by the bitterness of this thy contrite affliction over the dead, and be more faithful and affectionate in the discharge of thy duties to the living.

Ex. LXXIII.—THE GLADIATOR.

THEY led a lion from his den,

The lord of Afric's sun-scorched plain;
And there he stood, stern foe of men,
And shook his flowing mane.
There's not of all Rome's heroes, ten
That dare abide this game.

His bright eye nought of lightning lacked;
Ilis voice was like the cataract.

JONES.

They brought a dark-haired man along,

Whose limbs with gyves of brass were bound; Youthful he seemed, and bold, and strong,

And yet unscathed of wound.
Blithely he stepped among the throng,
And careless threw around

A dark eye, such as courts the path
Of him, who braves a Dacian's wrath.

Then shouted the plebeian crowd,-
Rung the glad galleries with the sound;
And from the throne there spake aloud
A voice,-"Be the bold man unbound!
And, by Rome's scepter, yet unbowed,
By Rome, earth's monarch crowned,
Who dares the bold, the unequal strife,
Though doomed to death, shall save his life."

Joy was upon that dark man's face;
And thus, with laughing eye, spake he;
"Loose ye the lord of Zaara's waste,
And let my arms be free:

'He has a martial heart,' thou sayest;—
But oh! who will not be
A hero, when he fights for life,

For home, and country, babes, and wife!"

And thus I for the strife prepare:

The Thracian falchion to me bring;
But ask th' imperial leave to spare
The shield, a useless thing.
Were I a Samnite's rage to dare,
Then o'er me would I fling
The broad orb; but to lion's wrath
The shield were but a sword of lath."

And he has bared his shining blade,
And springs he on the shaggy foe;
Dreadful the strife, but briefly played ;-
The desert-king lies low:

His long and loud death-howl is made;
And there must end the show.
And when the multitude were calm,
The favorite freed man took the palm.