In that deep grave, without a name,
Whence his uncoffined clay

Shall break again, - O wondrous thought! -
Before the judgment-day;

And stand, with glory wrapped around,

On the hills he never trod,

And speak of the strife that won our life,

With the incarnate Son of God.

O lonely tomb in Moab's land!
O dark Bethpeor's hill!
Speak to these curious hearts of ours,
And teach them to be still.
God hath his mysteries of grace,—
Ways that we cannot tell;

He hides them deep, like the secret sleep

Of him He loved so well.

C. F. ALEXander.

OPENING SOLILOQUY OF RICHARD THIRD.

Gloster. Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York; And all the clouds, that lower'd upon our house,

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front;
instead of mounting barbed steeds,

And now,

To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,·
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber,

To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,

Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;

I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty,
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;

I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable,
That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them;
Why I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time;
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days -
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate, the one against the other:
And if King Edward be as true and just
As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,

This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up;
About a prophecy, which says that G

Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.

Dive, thoughts, down to my soul! here Clarence comes.

SHAKESPEARE.

DRIVING HOME THE COWS.

OUT of the clover and blue-eyed grass,
He turned them into the river-lane;
One after another he let them pass,

Then fastened the meadow bars again.

Under the willows and over the hill,

He patiently followed their sober pace;
The merry whistle for once was still,
And something shadowed the sunny face.

Only a boy! and his father had said,
He never could let his youngest go;
Two already were lying dead

Under the feet of the trampling foe.

But after the evening work was done,

And the frogs were loud in the meadow-swamp, Over his shoulder he slung his gun,

And stealthily followed the footpath damp, –

Across the clover and through the wheat,

With resolute heart and purpose grim,
Though cold was the dew on his hurrying feet
And the blind bats flitting startled him.

Thrice since then had the lanes been white,
And the orchards sweet with apple-bloom;
And now, when the cows came back at night,
The feeble father drove them home.

For news had come to the lonely farm

That three were lying where two had lain; And the old man's tremulous, palsied arm Could never lean on a son's again.

The summer day grew cool and late;

He went for the cows when the work was done;

But down the lane, as he opened the gate,

He saw them coming one by one,

Brindle, Ebony, Speckle, and Bess,

Shaking their horns in the evening wind, Cropping the buttercups out of the grassBut who was it following close behind?

Loosely swang in the idle air

The empty sleeve of army blue;

And worn and pale, from the crisping hair,
Looked out a face that the father knew;

For Southern prisons will sometimes yawn,
And yield their dead unto life again;
And the day that comes with a cloudy dawn
In golden glory at last may wane.

The great tears sprang to their meeting eyes;
For the heart must speak when the lips are dumb,
And under the silent evening skies

Together they followed the cattle home.

KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD.

"BAY BILLY."

'Twas the last fight at Fredericksburg –
Perhaps the day you reck,

Our boys, the Twenty-second Maine,
Kept Early's men in check;

Just where Wade Hampton boomed away

The fight went neck and neck.

All day we held the weaker wing,
And held it with a will;

Five several stubborn times we charged

The battery on the hill,

And five times beaten back, re-formed,
And kept our columns still.

At last from out the centre fight
Spurred up a General's Aid.
"That battery must silenced be!"
He cried, as past he sped.

Our Colonel simply touched his cap,

And then, with measured tread,

To lead the crouching line once more

The grand old fellow came.

No wounded man but raised his head
And strove to gasp his name,

And those who could not speak nor stir,
"God blessed him" just the same.

For he was all the world to us,

That hero gray and grim;

Right well he knew that fearful slope
We'd climb with none but him.
Though while his white head led the way
We'd charge hell's portals in.

This time we were not half-way up,
When, 'midst the storm of shell,
Our leader, with his sword upraised,
Beneath our bay'nets fell.

And, as we bore him back, the foe

Set up a joyous yell.

Our hearts went with him. Back we swept,

And when the bugle said

"Up, charge again!" no man was there

But hung his dogged head. "We've no one left to lead us now ""

The sullen soldiers said.