SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE.-JOHN G. WHITTIER. Of all the rides since the birth of Time, On Apuleius's Golden Ass, Or one-eyed Calender's horse of brass, Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart Body of turkey, head of owl, Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl, Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips, With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang, Over and over the Mænads sang: "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the women o' Morble'ead!" Small pity for him! He sailed away With his own towns-people on her deck! Brag of your catch of fish again!" And off he sailed through the fog and rain! Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur Looked for the coming that might not be! Through the street, on either side, Sweetly along the Salem road Bloom of orchard and lilac showed. Little the wicked skipper knew Of the fields so green and the sky so blue. Riding there in his sorry trim, Like an Indian idol, glum and grim, Of voices shouting far and near: "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd heart, "Hear me, neighbors!" at last he cried,- What is the shame that clothes the skin And hear a cry from a reeling deck! The hand of God and the face of the dead!" Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea Said an old wife, mourning her only son, THE DRUMMER'S BRIDE. Hollow-eyed and pale, at the window of a jail, Through her soft, disheveled hair a maniac did stare, stare, stare! At a distance, down the street, making music with their feet, Came the soldiers from the wars, all embellished with their scars, To the tapping of a drum, of a drum; To the pounding and the sounding of a drum! Of a drum, of a drum, of a drum! drum, drum, drum! The woman heaves a sigh, and a fire fills her eye. When she hears the distant drum, she cries, "Here they come! here they come!" Then, clutching fast the grating, with eager, nervous waiting, See, she looks into the air, through her long and silky hair, For the echo of a drum, of a drum; For the cheering and the hearing of a drum! Of a drum, of a drum, of a drum! drum, drum, drum! And nearer, nearer, nearer, comes, more distinct and clearer, The rattle of the drumming: shrieks the woman, He is coming, He is coming now to me: quick, drummer, quick, till I see!" And her eye is glassy bright, while she beats in mad delight To the echo of a drum, of a drum; To the rapping, tapping, tapping, of a drum! Of a drum, of a drum, of a drum! drum, drum, drum! Now she sees them, in the street, march along with dusty feet, As she looks through the spaces, gazing madly in their faces; And she reaches out her hand, screaming wildly to the band; But her words, like her lover, are lost beyond recover, 'Mid the beating of a drum, of a drum; 'Mid the clanging and the banging of a drun! Of a drum, of a drum, of a drum! drum, drum, drum! So the pageant passes by, and the woman's flashing eye Now nor ever, never, never, will he come With his drum, with his drum, with his drum! drum, drum, drum! Still the drummer, up the street, beats his distant, dying beat, And she shouts, within her cell," Ha! they're marching down to hell, And the devils dance and wait at the open iron gate: Hark! it is the dying sound, as they march into the ground, To the sighing and the dying of the drum! To the throbbing and the sobbing of the drum! Of a drum, of a drum, of a drum! drum, drum, drum!” A DYING HYMN.-ALICE CARY. Mrs. Ames, in her touchingly beautiful Memorial of Alice and Phoebe Cary, tells us the last stanza Alice ever wrote was- "As the poor panting hart to the water-brook runs, As the water-brook runs to the sea, So earth's fainting daughters and famishing sons, O Fountain of Love, run to Thee!' "The writing is trembling and uncertain, and the pen literally fell from her hand; for the long shadows of eternity were stealing over her, and she was very near the place where it is too dark for mortal eye to see, and where there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge. She had written earlier what she called, A Dying Hymn,' and it was a consolation to her to repeat it in her moments of agony:" Earth with its dark and dreadful ills Lift up your heads, ye heavenly hills! My soul is full of whispered song; The shadows that I feared so long, The while my pulses faintly beat, That faith to me a courage gives I know that my Redeemer lives: The palace walls I almost see, STRONG DRINK.-J. A. SEISS. The history of strong drink is the history of ruin, of tears, or blood. It is, perhaps, the greatest curse that ever scourged the earth. It is one of depravity's worst fruits, a giant demon of destruction. Men may talk of earthquakes, storms, conflagrations, famine, pestilence, despotism, and war, but intemperance in the use of intoxicating drinks has sent a volume of misery and woe into the stream of this world's history more fearful and terrific than any of them. It is the Amazon and Mississippi among the rivers of wretchedness. It is the Alexander and Napoleon among the warriors upon the peace and good of man. It is an evil which is limited to no age, no continent, no nation, no party, no sex, no period of life. It has taken the poor man at his toil, and the rich man at his desk; the senator in the halls of state, and the drayman on the street; the young man in his festivities, and the old man in his repose,—and plunged them into a common ruin. It has raged equally in times of war and in times of peace, in periods of depression and in periods of prosperity, in republics and in monarchies, among the civilized and among the savages. |