These constitute a state; And sovereign law, that state's collected will, Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill. The fiend, dissension, like a vapor sinks; Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks. HENRY V. TO THE CONSPIRATORS. SHAKESPEARE. RICHARD, Earl of Cambridge, there is your commission ; There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham; and, sir knight, Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours: Read them; and know, I know your worthiness. My Lord of Westmoreland and uncle Exeter, We will aboard to-night.-Why, how now, gentlemen ? So much complexion ?— Look ye, how they change! The mercy that was quick in us but late, By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd: For your own reasons turn into your bosoms, As dogs upon their masters, worrying you. See you, my princes, and my noble peers, These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge here,You know how apt our love was, to accord To furnish him with all appertinents But O' Belonging to his honor; and this man If that same demon, that hath gull'd thee thus, A soul so easy as that Englishman's. O, how hast thou with jealousy infected The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful? Why, so didst thou; Why, so didst thou: * Seem they grave and learned? Why, so didst thou. I will weep for thee; THE FUNNY STORY. JOSEPHINE POLLARD. IT was such a funny story! how I wish you could have heard it; For it set us all a-laughing from the little to the big; I'd really like to tell it, but I don't know how to word it, Though it travels to the music of a very lively jig. If Sally just began it, then Amelia Jane would giggle, It was such a funny story, with its cheery snap and crackle, That the chickens in the door-yard would begin to "cacklecackle," As if in such a frolic they were anxious to take part. It was all about a-ha! ha!-and a-ho! ho! ho!-well really, It is he he! he!-I could never begin to tell you half But Sally-she could tell it, looking at us so demurely, When age my hair has silvered, and my step has grown unsteady, And the nearest to my vision are the scenes of long ago, ready As the laugh did, when I used to ha! ha! ha! ha! andho! ho! ho! THE SPINNING-WHEEL SONG. JOHN F. WALLER. MELLOW the moonlight to shine is beginning; Eileen, achora, I hear some one tapping.” "'Tis the ivy, dear mother, against the glass flapping.” "Eileen, I surely hear somebody sighing." "Tis the sound, mother dear, of the summer wind dying." Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring, Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot's stirring; Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing, Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing. "What's that noise that I hear at the window, I wonder?" Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly, Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring, Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot's stirring; Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing, Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing. The maid shakes her head, on her lip lays her fingers, Lazily, easily, swings now the wheel round; Slowly and lowly is heard now the reel's sound; Noiseless and light to the lattice above her The maid steps,-then leaps to the arms of her lover. Ere the reel and the wheel stop their ringing and moving— Through the grove the young lovers by moonlight are roving. TROUBLE IN THE "AMEN CORNER." T. C. HARBAUGH. 'TWAS a stylish congregation, that of Theophrastus Brown, And its organ was the finest and the biggest in the town, And the chorus,—all the papers favorably commented on it, For 'twas said each female member had a forty-dollar bon net. Now in the " amen corner " of the church sat Brother Eyer, Who persisted every Sabbath-day in singing with the choir; He was poor, but genteel-looking, and his heart as snow was white, And his old face beamed with sweetness when he sang with all his might. His voice was cracked and broken, age had touched his vocal chords, And nearly every Sunday he would mispronounce the words Of the hymns, and 'twas no wonder, he was old and nearly blind, And the choir rattling onward always left him far behind. The chorus stormed and blustered, Brother Eyer sang too slow, And then he used the tunes in vogue a hundred years ago; At last the storm-cloud burst, and the church was told, in fine, That the brother must stop singing, or the choir would resign. Then the pastor called together in the lecture-room one day Seven influential members who subscribe more than they pay, And having asked God's guidance in a printed prayer or two, They put their heads together to determine what to do. |