Let us gather up the sunbeams,
Lying all around our path;
Let us keep the wheat and roses,
Casting out the thorns and chaff;
Let us find our sweetest comfort.
In the blessings of to-day;
With the patient hand removing
All the briars from our way.

THE BALLOT BOX.

I am aware that the ballot box is not everywhere a consistent symbol; but to a large degree it is so. I know what miserable associations cluster around this instrument of popular power. I know that the arena in which it stands is trodden into mire by the feet of reckless ambition and selfish greed. The wire-pulling and the bribing, the pitiful truckling and the grotesque compromises, the exaggeration and the detraction, the melo-dramatic issues and the sham patriotism, the party watchwords and the party nicknames, the schemes of the few paraded as the will of the many, the elevation of men whose only worth is in the votes they command,-vile men, whose hands you would not grasp in friendship, whose presence you would not tolerate by your fireside,-incompetent men, whose fitness is not in their capacity as functionaries, or legislators, but as organ pipes;-the snatching at the slices and offal of office, the intemperance and the violence, the finesse and the falsehood, the gin and the glory; these are indeed but too closely identified with that political agitation which circles around the ballot box.

But, after all, they are not essential to it. They are only the masks of a genuine grandeur and importance. For it is a grand thing,-something which involves profound doctrines of right,-something which has cost ages of effort and sacrifice,—it is a grand thing that here, at last, each voter has just the weight of one man; no more, no less; and the weakest, by virtue of his recognized

And consider, It is the token

manhood, is as strong as the mightiest. for a moment, what it is to cast a vote. of inestimable privileges, and involves the responsibilities of an hereditary trust. It has passed into your hands as a right, reaped from fields of suffering and blood. The grandeur of history is represented in your act. Men have wrought with pen and tongue, and pined in dungeons, and died on scaffolds, that you might obtain this symbol of freedom, and enjoy this consciousness of a sacred individuality. To the ballot have been transmitted, as it were, the dignity of the sceptre and the potency of the sword.

And that which is so potent as a right, is also pregnant as a duty; a duty for the present and for the future. If you will, that folded leaf becomes a tongue of justice, a voice of order, a force of imperial law; securing rights, abolishing abuses, erecting new institutions of truth and love. And, however you will, it is the expression of a solemn responsibility, the exercise of an immeasurable power for good or for evil, now and hereafter. It is the medium through which you act upon your country,-the organic nerve which incorporates you with its life and welfare. There is no agent with which the possibilities of the republic are more intimately involved, none upon which we can fall back with more confidence than the ballot box. E. H. Chapin.

THE RAZOR SELLER.

A fellow in a market town,

Most musical, cried razors up and down,
And offered twelve for eighteenpence;
Which certainly seemed wondrous cheap,
And for the money quite a heap,

As every man would buy, with cash and sense.

A country bumpkin the great offer heard:
Poor Hodge, who suffered by a broad black beard,

That seemed a shoe-brush stuck beneath his nose.

With cheerfulness the eighteenpence he paid,
And proudly to himself, in whispers, said,
"This rascal stole the razors, I suppose.

"No matter if the fellow be a knave,
Provided that the razors shave;

It certainly will be a monstrous prize."
So home the clown, with his good fortune, went,
Smiling, in heart and soul content,

And quickly soaped himself to ears and eyes.

Being well lathered from a dish or tub,
Hodge now began with grinning pain to grub,
Just like a hedger cutting furze:

'Twas a vile razor,-then the rest he tried,-
All were impostors: "Ah!" Hodge sighed,

"I wish my eighteenpence were in my purse."

In vain to chase his beard, and bring the graces,

He cut, and dug, and winced, and stamped, and swore,

Brought blood, and danced, blasphemed, and made wry faces, And cursed each razor's body o'er and o'er:

His muzzle, formed of opposition stuff,

Firm as a Foxite, would not loose its ruff;

So kept it,-laughing at the steel and suds:
Hodge, in a passion, stretched his angry jaws,
Vowing the direst vengeance, with clenched claws,
On the vile cheat that sold the goods:
"Razors! a mean, confounded dog,
Not fit to scrape a hog!"

Hodge sought the fellow,-found him,—and begun;
"P'rhaps, Master Razor rogue, to you 'tis fun,
That people flay themselves out of their lives:
You rascal for an hour have I been grubbing,
Giving my crying whiskers here a scrubbing,
With razors just like oyster knives.

Sirrah! I tell you, you're a knave,

To cry up razors that can't shave."

"Friend," quoth the razor man, "I'm not a knave:

As for the razors you have bought,

Upon my soul I never thought

That they would shave."

"Not think they'd shave!" quoth Hodge, with wondering eyes, And voice not much unlike an Indian yell;

"What were they made for, then, you dog?" he cries;

“Made!” quoth the fellow, with a smile-“to sell.”

Peter Pindar.

GINEVRA.

If ever you should come to Modena,
(Where among other relics you may see
Tassoni's bucket,-but 'tis not the true one,)
Stop at a palace near the Reggio-gate,
Dwelt in of old by one of the Donati.
Its noble gardens, terrace above terrace,
And rich in fountains, statues, cypresses,
Will long detain you; but, before you go,
Enter the house,-forget it not, I pray you,—
And look awhile upon a picture there.

'Tis of a lady in her earliest youth,
The last of that illustrious family;
Done by Zampieri,-but by whom I care not.
He who observes it, ere he passes on
Gazes his fill, and comes and comes again,
That he may call it up when far away.

She sits, inclining forward as to speak,

Her lips half open, and her finger up,

As though she said, "Beware!" her vest of gold Broidered with flowers, and clasped from head to foot; An emerald stone in every golden clasp;

And on her brow, fairer than alabaster,

A coronet of pearls.

But then her face,

So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth,

The overflowings of an innocent heart,

It haunts me still, though many a year has fled,
Like some wild melody.

Alone it hangs,

Over a mouldering heirloom, its companion,
An oaken chest, half eaten by the worm,
But richly carved by Antony of Trent
With Scripture stories from the life of Christ;
A chest that came from Venice, and had held
The ducal robes of some old ancestors,-
That by the way,-it may be true or false,—
But don't forget the picture; and you will not,
When you have heard the tale they told me there.

She was an only child,-her name Ginevra,-
The joy, the pride of an indulgent father,
And in her fifteenth year became a bride,
Marrying an only son, Francesco Doria,
Her playmate from her birth, and her first love.

Just as she looks there in her bridal dress,
She was all gentleness, all gayety,

Her pranks the favorite theme of every tongue.
But now the day was come,-the day, the hour;-
Now, frowning, smiling for the hundredth time,
The nurse, that ancient lady, preached decorum;—
And, in the lustre of her youth, she gave

Her hand, with her heart in it, to Francesco.

Great was the joy; but at the nuptial feast,
When all sat down, the bride herself was wanting,
Nor was shę to be found. Her father cried,
"Tis but to make a trial of our love!"

And filled his glass to all; but his hand shook,
And soon from guest to guest the panic spread.
'Twas but that instant she had left Francesco,
Laughing and looking back, and flying still,
Her ivory tooth imprinted on his finger.
But now, alas! she was not to be found;
Nor from that hour could anything be guessed
But that she was not.

Weary of his life,
Francesco flew to Venice, and, embarking,
Flung it away in battle with the Turk.

Donati lived, and long might you have seen
An old man wandering as in quest of something,-
Something he could not find, he knew not what.
When he was gone, the house remained awhile
Silent and tenantless,—then went to strangers.

Full fifty years were passed, and all forgotten, When, on an idle day, a day of search 'Mid the old lumber in the gallery,

That mouldering chest was noticed; and 'twas said
By one as young, as thoughtless as Ginevra,
"Why not remove it from its lurking place ?"
'Twas done as soon as said; but on the way
It burst,-it fell,-and lo! a skeleton,

With here and there a pearl, an emerald-stone,
A golden clasp, clasping a shred of gold.
All else had perished, save a wedding ring,
And a small seal, her mother's legacy,
Engraven with a name,-the name of both,-
66 Ginevra."

There, then, had she found a grave!
Within that chest had she concealed herself,
Fluttering with joy, the happiest of the happy,
When a spring lock, that lay in ambush there,
Fastened her down forever.

Samuel Rogers.