"Unaffrighted by the silence round them, Undistracted by the sights they see,

These demand not that the things without them Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.

"And with joy the stars perform their shining,
And the sea its long moon silver'd roll;
For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting
All the fever of some differing soul.

"Bounded by themselves, and unregardful
In what state God's other works may be,
In their own tasks all their powers pouring,
These attain the mighty life you see."

O, air born voice! long since, severely clear,
A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear-
"Resolve to be thyself; and know that he
Who finds himself loses his misery!"

THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD.

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

Mr. Longfellow and his second wife, during their honeymoon, visited the United States arsenal at Springfield, Mass., about half a century ago. The figure of speech in which the poet speaks of the burnished arms rising like a huge organ was suggested by Mrs. Longfellow. The poem was inspired by Charles Sumner's oration, "The True Grandeur of Nations," which was an argument for peace and against war.

This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling,
Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;
But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing
Startles the villages with strange alarms.

Ah, what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary,
When the death angel touches those swift keys!
What loud lament and dismal Miserere

Will mingle with their awful symphonies!

I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus,
The cries of agony, the endless groan,
Which, through the ages that have gone before us,
In long reverberations reach our own.

On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer,
Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman's song,
And loud, amid the universal clamor,

O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.

I hear the Florentine, who from his palace
Wheels out his battle bell with dreadful din,

And Aztec priests upon their teocallis

Beat the wild war drums made of serpent's skin.

The tumult of each sacked and burning village;
The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns;
The soldiers' revels in the midst of pillage;

The wail of famine in beleaguered towns;

The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder,
The rattling musketry, the clashing blade;
And ever and anon, in tones of thunder,
The diapason of the cannonade.

Is it, O man, with such discordant noises,
With such accursed instruments as these,

Thou drownest nature's sweet and kindly voices,
And jarrest the celestial harmonies?

Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error,

There were no need of arsenals or forts.

The warrior's name would be a name abhorred
And every nation, that should lift again
Its hand against a brother, on its forehead

Would wear for evermore the curse of Cain!

Down the dark future, through long generations, The echoing sounds grow fainter, and then cease; And, like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations,

I hear once more the voice of Christ say "Peace!"

Peace! And no longer from its brazen portals

The blast of war's great organ shakes the skies! But beautiful as songs of the immortals

The holy melodies of love arise.

6

ALL.

BY FRANCIS A. DURIVAGE.

Francis A. Durivage was born at Boston in 1814 and engaged early in journalistic work, writing for the magazines as well. He won considerable reputation with a series of humorous articles signed "Old Un." He wrote a great many poems of serious as well as of light character, and several plays. He published "Cyclopedia of Biography," "The Fatal Casket," "Life Scenes from the World Around Us," was part translator of Lamartine's "History of the Revolution of 1848," and co-author of "Stray Subjects." He died in New York city in 1881.

["I know of no finer poem of its length."-Bayard Taylor.]

There hangs a saber, and there a rein,
With a rusty buckle and green curb chain;
A pair of spurs on the old gray wall,
And a mouldy saddle-well, that is all.

Come out to the stable-it is not far;
The moss grown door is hanging ajar.
Look within! There's an empty stall,
Where once stood a charger, and that is all.

The good black horse came riderless home,
Flecked with blood drops as well as foam;
See yonder hillock where dead leaves fall;
The good black horse pined to death-
that's all.

All? O, God! it is all I can speak.
Question me not-I am old and weak;
His saber and his saddle hang on the wall,
And his horse pined to death-I have told

you all.

BY MRS. A. L. BARBAULD.

Anna Letitia Barbauld, the daughter of the Rev. John Aiken, was born at Kilworth-Harcourt, in Leicestershire, 1743. She married the Rev. Rochemond Barbauld. A poet as well as an essayist, she wrote "Poems," "Hymns in Prose for Children," "The Female Spectator," and "Eighteen Hundred and Eleven." She died at Stoke-Newington in 1825.