Not a tear in the eye of child, woman, or man; To the grave with his carcass as fast as you can: Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns!

What a jolting, and creaking, and splashing, and din!

The whip how it cracks! and the wheels, how they spin!

How the dirt, right and left, o'er the hedges is hurled!

The pauper at length makes a noise in the world! Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns!

Poor pauper defunct! he has made some approach

To gentility, now that he's stretched in a coach!
He's taking a drive in his carriage at last;
But it will not be long, if he goes on so fast.
Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns!

You bumpkins, who stare at your brother conveyed,

Behold what respect to a cloddy is paid!

And be joyful to think, when by death you're laid low,

You've a chance to the grave like a gemman to go!

Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns!

761

The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew, Between the mourners at his head and feet, Say, scurrile jester, is there room for you?

Yes: he had lived to shame me from my sneer,
To lame my pencil, and confute my pen;
To make me own this hind of princes peer,
This rail-splitter a true-born king of men.

My shallow judgment I had learned to rue,
Noting how to occasion's height he rose;
How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more
true;

How, iron-like, his temper grew by blows.

How humble, yet how hopeful he could be: How in good fortune and in ill, the same: Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he,

Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame.

He went about his work, such work as few
Ever had laid on head and heart and hand,
As one who knows, where there's a task to do,
Man's honest will must Heaven's good grace
command;

Who trusts the strength will with the burden grow,

That God makes instruments to work his will,
If but that will we can arrive to know,
Nor tamper with the weights of good and ill.

So he went forth to battle, on the side
That he felt clear was Liberty's and Right's,
As in his peasant boyhood he had plied
His warfare with rude Nature's thwarting
mights-

The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil,

The iron bark, that turns the lumberer's axe, The rapid, that o'erbears the boatman's toil, The prairie, hiding the mazed wanderer's tracks,

The words of mercy were upon his lips, Forgiveness in his heart and on his pen, When this vile murderer brought swift eclipse To thoughts of peace on earth, good-will to

men.

The Old World and the New, from sea to sea,
Utter one voice of sympathy and shame!
Sore heart, so stopped when it at last beat high;
Sad life, cut short just as its triumph came.

A deed accursed! Strokes have been struck before

By the assassin's hand, whereof men doubt If more of horror or disgrace they bore;

But thy foul crime, like Cain's, stands darkly

out.

Vile hand, that brandest murder on a strife, Whate'er its grounds, stoutly and nobly striven;

And with the martyr's crown crownest a life With much to praise, little to be forgiven. TOM TAYLOR (1817).

IS IT COME?

Is it come? they said, on the banks of the Nile, Who looked for the world's long-promised day,

And saw but the strife of Egypt's toil,

With the desert's sand and the granite gray. From the Pyramid, temple, and treasured dead, We vainly ask for her wisdom's plan; They tell us of the tyrant's dreadYet there was hope when that day began.

The Chaldee came, with his starry lore,

And built up Babylon's crown and creed; And bricks were stamped on the Tigris shore With signs which our sages scarce can read. From Ninus' temple, and Nimrod's tower,

The rule of the old East's empire spread
Unreasoning faith and unquestioned power-
But still, Is it come? the watcher said.

The light of the Persian's worshipped flame,
The ancient bondage its splendor threw ;
And once, on the West a sunrise came,

When Greece to her freedom's trust was true; With dreams to the utmost ages dear,

With human gods, and with god-like men, No marvel the far-off day seemed near,

To eyes that looked through her laurels then.

The Romans conquered, and revelled too,
Till honor, and faith, and power, were gone;
And deeper old Europe's darkness grew,

As, wave after wave, the Goth came on.
The gown was learning, the sword was law;
The people served in the oxen's stead;
But ever some gleam the watcher saw,
And evermore, Is it come? they said.

Poet and seer that question caught,

Above the din of life's fears and frets;

It marched with letters, it toiled with thought, Through schools and creeds which the earth forgets.

And statesmen trifle, and priests deceive,
And traders barter our world away-
Yet hearts to that golden promise cleave,
And still, at times, Is it come? they say.

The days of the nations bear no trace
Of all the sunshine so far foretold;
The cannon speaks in the teacher's place-
The age is weary with work and gold;
And high hopes wither, and memories wane;
On hearths and altars the fires are dead;
But that brave faith hath not lived in vain-
And this is all that our watcher said.
FRANCES BROWNE (1818).

LINES ON A SKELETON.

[THE manuscript of this poem was found near a human skeleton in the Royal College of Surgeons, London, and the verses were first published in the "Morning Chronicle." All attempts to discover the author, including an offer of a reward of fifty guineas, have proved unavailing.]

BEHOLD this ruin! 'Twas a skull
Once of ethereal spirit full.

This narrow cell was Life's retreat,

This space was Thought's mysterious seat.
What beauteous visions filled this spot,
What dreams of pleasure long forgot,
Nor hope, nor joy, nor love, nor fear,
Have left one trace of record here.

Beneath this mouldering canopy
Once shone the bright and busy eye,
But start not at the dismal void,-
If social love that eye employed,
If with no lawless fire it gleamed,

But through the dews of kindness beamed,
That eye shall be forever bright
When stars and sun are sunk in night.

Within this hollow cavern hung
The ready, swift, and tuneful tongue;
If Falsehood's honey it disdained,
And when it could not praise was chained;
If bold in Virtue's cause it spoke,
Yet gentle concord never broke,-
This silent tongue shall plead for thee
When Time unveils Eternity!

Say, did these fingers delve the mine?
Or with the envied rubies shine?
To hew the rock or wear a gem
Can little now avail to them.
But if the page of Truth they sought,
Or comfort to the mourner brought,
These hands a richer meed shall claim
Than all that wait on Wealth and Fame.

Avails it whether bare or shod
These feet the paths of duty trod?
If from the bowers of Ease they fled,
To seek Affliction's humble shed;

Then, though the sun go up

His beaten azure way,
God may fulfil his thought,
And bless his world to-day;
Beside the law of things

The law of mind enthrone,
And, for the hope of all,

Reveal himself in one;

Himself the way that leads us thither,
The All-in-all, the Whence and Whither.

FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE (1824).

THE PLACE WHERE MAN SHOULD DIE.
How little recks it where men lie,
When once the moment 's past
In which the dim and glazing eye

Has looked on earth its last-
Whether beneath the sculptured urn
The coffined form shall rest,
Or in its nakedness return

Back to its Mother's breast.
Death is a common friend or foe,

As different men may hold;
And at his summons each must go,
The timid and the bold!
But when the spirit, free and warm,
Deserts it, as it must,

What matter where the lifeless form
Dissolves again to dust?

The soldier falls 'mid corses piled
Upon the battle-plain,
Where reinless war-steeds gallop wild
Above the mangled slain;
But, though his corse be grim to see,
Hoof-trampled on the sod,
What recks it, when the spirit free

Has soared aloft to God?

The coward's dying eyes may close
Upon his downy bed,
And softest hands his limbs compose,
Or garments o'er them spread!
But ye, who shun the bloody fray,
When fall the mangled brave,
Go-strip his coffin-lid away,

And see him in his grave!
"Twere sweet, indeed, to close our eyes,
With those we cherish near,
And, wafted upward by their sighs,
Soar to some calmer sphere.

But whether on the scaffold high,
Or in the battle's van,

The fittest place where man can die
Is where he dies for man!

MICHAEL JOSEPH BARRY (Dublin Nation, 1844).

DORIS.

I SAT with Doris, the shepherd maiden:

Her crook was laden with wreathed flowers; I sat and wooed her through sunlight wheeling, And shadows stealing, for hours and hours. And she, my Doris, whose lap encloses Wild summer roses of rare perfume, The while I sued her, kept hushed, and hearkened Till shades had darkened from gloss to gloom. She touched my shoulder with fearful finger;

She said: "We linger; we must not stay;

765

My flock's in danger, my sheep will wander;
Behold them yonder-how far they stray!

I answered bolder: "Nay, let me hear you,
And still be near you, and still adore;
No wolf nor stranger will touch one yearling;
Ah! stay, my darling, a moment more."
She whispered, sighing: "There will be sorrow
Beyond to-morrow, if I lose to-day;
My fold unguarded, my flock unfolded,
I shall be scolded, and sent away."
Said I, replying: "If they do miss you,

They ought to kiss you when you get home; And well rewarded by friends and neighbor Should be the labor from which you come." "They might remember," she answered meekly, "That lambs are weakly and sheep are wild; But if they love me 't is none so fervent; I am a servant, and not a child." Then each hot ember glowed quick within me, And love did win me to swift reply: "Ah! do but prove me, and none shall blind you Nor fray, nor find you, until I die."

She blushed and started, and stood awaiting,
As if debating in dreams divine;

But I did brave them-I told her plainly
She doubted vainly; she must be mine.
So we, twin-hearted, from all the valley

Did rouse and rally the nibbling ewes,
And homeward drave them, we two together,
Through blooming heather and gleaming dews.
That simple duty fresh grace did lend her-
My Doris tender, my Doris true:
That I, her warder, did always bless her,
And often press her to take her due.
And now in beauty she fills my dwelling-
With love excelling, and undefiled;
And love doth guard her, both fast and fervent,
No more a servant, nor yet a child.

ARTHUR MUNBY (born about 1830).

ARTEMUS WARD.

Is he gone to a land of no laughter,
The man that made mirth for us all?
Proves death but a silent hereafter
From the sounds that delight or appal?
Once closed, have the eyes no more duty,
No more pleasure the exquisite ears?
Has the heart done o'erflowing with beauty,
As the eyes have with tears?

Nay, if aught can be sure, what is surer
Than that earth's good decays not with earth?
And of all the heart-springs none are purer
Than the springs of the fountains of mirth.
He that sounds them has pierced the heart's
The places where tears chose to sleep, [hollows,
For the foam-flakes that dance in life's shallows
Are wrung from life's deep.

He came with a heart full of gladness,
From the glad-hearted world of the West,
Won our laughter, but not with mere madness,
Spake and joked with us, not in mere jest ;
When the merriment died from our ears,
For the man in our hearts lingered after,
And those who were loudest in laughter
Are silent in tears. ANONYMOUS (1867).