To glide with thee, O soul, o'er all, in all, às a ship o'er the waters;

Gathering these hints, the preludes, the blue sky, the grass, the
morning drops of dew,

The lilac-scent, the bushes with dark green heart-shaped leaves,
Wood violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocent
Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their
atmosphere

To grace the bush I love-to sing with the birds,

A warble for joy of lilac-time.

PORTIA'S SPEECH ON MERCY.
BY WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest : it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.

NOCTURNE.

BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.
Up to her chamber window,
A slight wire trellis goes,
And up this Romeo ladder
Clambers a bold white rose.
I lounge in the ilex shadows,
I see the lady lean,
Unclasping her silken girdle,

The curtain's folds between.

She smiles on her white-rose lover,
She reaches out her hand

And helps him in at the window

I see it where I stand!

To her scarlet lip she holds him,

And kisses him many a time-
Ah me! It was he that won her
Because he dared to climb.

THE SOCIETY UPON THE STANISLAUS. BY BRET HARTE.

I reside at Table Mountain and my name is Truthful James; I am not up to small deceit or any sinful games;

And I'll tell in simple language what I know about the row That broke up our society upon the Stanislow.

But first I would remark that it is not a proper plan

For any scientific gent to whale his fellow man,
And if a member don't agree with his peculiar whim
To lay for that same member for to "put a head" on him.

Now nothing could be finer or more beautiful to see
Than the first six months' proceedings of that same society,
Till Brown of Calaveras brought a lot of fossil bones
That he found within a tunnel near the tenement of Jones.

Then Brown he read a paper, and he reconstructed there,
From those same bones an animal that was extremely rare;
And Jones then asked the chair for a suspension of the rules
Till he could prove that those same bones was one of his lost
mules.

Then Brown he smiled a bitter smile, and said he was at fault,
It seems he had been trespassing on Jones' family vault;
He was a most sarcastic man, this quiet Mr. Brown,
And on several occasions he had cleaned out the town.

Now I hold it is not decent for a scientific gent
To say another is an ass-at least, to all intent;
Nor should the individual who happens to be meant
Reply by heaving rocks at him to any great extent.

Then Abner Dean of Angel's raised a point of order, when--
A chunk of old red sandstone took him in the abdomen,
And he smiled a kind of sickly smile and curled up on the floor,
And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.

For, in less time than I write it, every member did engage
In a warfare with the remnants of a paleozoic age;
And the way they heaved those fossils in their anger was a sin,
Till the skull of an old mammoth caved the head of Thompson

in.

And this is all I have to say of these