ROBINSON OF LEYDEN.

HE sleeps not here; in hope and prayer His wandering flock had gone before, But he, the shepherd, might not share Their sorrows on the wintry shore.

221

Still cry them, and the world shall hear, Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea! Ye have not built by Haerlem Meer, Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee!

:

"Men, brethren, sisters, children dear! God calls you hence from over sea; Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer, Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee.

"Ye go to bear the saving word

To tribes unnamed and shores untrod: Heed well the lessons ye have heard From those old teachers taught of God.

"Yet think not unto them was lent

All light for all the coming days, And Heaven's eternal wisdom spent In making straight the ancient ways:

"The living fountain overflows

For every flock, for every lamb, Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose, With Luther's dike or Calvin's dam.'

He spake with lingering, long embrace, With tears of love and partings fond, They floated down the creeping Maas, Along the isle of Ysselmond.

They passed the frowning towers of Briel, The "Hook of Holland's" shelf of sand,

And grated soon with lifting keel

The sullen shores of Fatherland.

No home for these!- too well they knew The mitred king behind the throne;The sails were set, the pennons flew,

And westward ho! for worlds unknown.

-And these were they who gave us birth, The Pilgrims of the sunset wave, Who won for us this virgin earth,

And freedom with the soil they gave.

The pastor slumbers by the Rhine, —
In alien earth the exiles lie,
Their nameless graves our holiest shrine,
His words our noblest battle-cry!

66 ONE-HOSS SHAY."

A LOGICAL STORY.

HAVE you heard of the wonderful onehoss shay,

-

That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it ali, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits, -
Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus was then alive,-
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss
shay.

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,

There is always somewhere a weakest spot,

In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,—lurking
still,

Find it somewhere you must and will,
Above or below, or within or without,
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise breaks down, but does n't wear
out.

But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do, With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou")

He would build one shay to beat the taown 'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun'; It should be so built that it could n' break

daown:

"Fur," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain

Never an axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their
lips,

Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and
wide;

Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through.".
"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll
dew!"

Do! I tell you, I rather guess

She was a wonder, and nothing less! Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, Deacon and deaconess dropped away, Children and grandchildren,-where were they?

But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay

As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day! EIGHTEEN HUNDRED;-it came and found

The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.

Eighteen hundred increased by ten;-
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came;-
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.

Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year Without both feeling and looking queer. In fact, there's nothing that keeps its

youth,

And the panels just as strong as the floor, And the floor was just as strong as the sills, And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore, And the whippletree neither less nor more, And spring and axle and hub encore. And yet, as a whole, it is. past a doubt In another hour it will be worn out!

The parson was working his Sunday's text,

Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the Moses- - was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.

- First a shiver, and then a thrill, Then something decidedly like a spill, And the parson was sitting upon a rock, At half past nine by the meet'n'-house clock,

Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!

What do you think the parson found, When he got up and stared around? The poor old chaise in a heap or mound, As if it had been to the mill and ground! You see, of course, if you 're not a dunce, How it went to pieces all at once, –

Built up its idle door,

UNDER THE VIOLETS.

HER hands are cold; her face is white;
No more her pulses come and go;
Her eyes are shut to life and light;-
Fold the white vesture, snow on snow,
And lay her where the violets blow.

But not beneath a graven stone,

;--

To plead for tears with alien eyes;
A slender cross of wood alone

Shall say, that here a maiden lies
In peace beneath the peaceful skies.

And gray old trees of hugest limb
Shall wheel their circling shadows
round

To make the scorching sunlight dim That drinks the greenness from the ground,

And drop their dead leaves on her mound.

When o'er their boughs the squirrels run, And through their leaves the robins call,

And, ripening in the autumn sun,
The acorns and the chestnuts fall,
Doubt not that she will heed them all.

knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathéd horn!

While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

Its matins from the branches high,
And every minstrel-voice of Spring,
That trills beneath the April sky,
Shall greet her with its earliest cry.

When, turning round their dial-track,
Eastward the lengthening shadows pass,
Her little mourners, clad in black,
The crickets, sliding through the grass,
Shall pipe for her an evening mass.

At last the rootlets of the trees
Shall find the prison where she lies,

soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

In leaves and blossoms to the skies. So may the soul that warmed it rise!

If any, born of kindlier blood,
Should ask, What maiden lies below?
Say only this: A tender bud,

That tried to blossom in the snow,
Lies withered where the violets blow.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

[U. S. A.]

THE HERITAGE.

THE rich man's son inherits lands,
And piles of brick, and stone, and gold,
And he inherits soft, white hands,

And tender flesh that fears the cold,
Nor dares to wear a garment old;
A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.

The rich man's son inherits cares;

The bank may break, the factory burn, A breath may burst his bubble shares, And soft, white hands could hardly earn A living that would serve his turn; A heritage, it seems to me,

One scarce would wish to hold in fee.

The rich man's son inherits wants,

His stomach craves for dainty fare; With sated heart, he hears the pants

Of toiling hinds with brown arms bare, And wearies in his easy chair;

A heritage, it seems to me,

One scarce would wish to hold in fee.

What doth the poor man's son inherit? Stout muscles and a sinewy heart,

A hardy frame, a hardier spirit;

King of two hands, he does his part
In every useful toil and art;

A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.

What doth the poor man's son inherit?
Wishes o'erjoyed with humble things,
A rank adjudged by toil-won merit,
Content that from employment springs,
A heart that in his labor sings;
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.

What doth the poor man's son inherit?

A patience learned by being poor, Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it,

A fellow-feeling that is sure

To make the outcast bless his door; A heritage, it seems to me,

A king might wish to hold in fee.

O rich man's son! there is a toil,
That with all others level stands;
Large charity doth never soil,

But only whiten, soft, white hands,-
This is the best crop from thy lands;
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being rich to hold in fee.

O poor man's son! scorn not thy state; There is worse weariness than thine, In merely being rich and great;

Toil only gives the soul to shine, And makes rest fragrant and benign; A heritage, it seems to me, Worth being poor to hold in fee.

225

doubt,

But when it does git stirred, there's no gin-out!

Fust come the blackbirds clatt'rin' in tall trees,

An' settlin' things in windy Congresses, — Queer politicians, though, for I'll be skinned

Ef all on 'em don't head against the wind. 'Fore long the trees begin to show belief, The maple crimsons to a coral-reef, Then saffron swarms swing off from all the willers,

So plump they look like faller caterpillars, Then gray hosschesnuts leetle hands unfold

Softer 'n a baby's be a' three days old: Thet 's robin-red breast's almanick; he knows

Thet arter this ther' 's only blossom

come,

Suddin, in one gret slope o' shedderin foam,

Jes' so our Spring gits everythin' in tune An' gives one leap from April into June; Then all comes crowdin' in; afore you think,

Young oak-leaves mist the side-hill woods with pink;

The cat-bird in the laylock-bush is loud; The orchards turn to heaps o' rosy cloud; Red-cedars blossom tu, though few folks know it,

An' look all dipt in sunshine like a poet: The lime-trees pile their solid stacks o' shade

clings,

Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here; Half hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings,

Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiv erin' wings,

Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair, Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air.

THE COURTIN'.

GOD makes sech nights, all white an' still
Fur 'z you can look or listen,
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,
All silence an' all glisten.

Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown

An' peeked in thru the winder, An' there sot Huldy all alone,

'Ith no one nigh to hender.

A fireplace filled the room's one side
With half a cord o' wood in-

There warnt no stoves (tell comfort died)
To bake ye to a puddin'.

The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out

Towards the pootiest, bless her,
An' leetle flames danced all about
The chiny on the dresser.

Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,
An' in amongst 'em rusted
The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young

Fetched back from Concord busted.

trade;

Seemed warm from floor to ceilin',