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I

NIGHTFALL: A PICTURE.

OW burns the summer afternoon;

A mellow lustre lights the scene; And from its smiling beauty soon

The purpling shade will chase the sheen.

The old, quaint homestead's windows blaze;
The cedars long black pictures show;
And broadly slopes one path of rays
Within the barn, and makes it glow.

The loft stares out-the cat intent,

Like carving, on some gnawing rat— With sun-bathed hay and rafters bent, Nooked, cobwebbed homes of wasp and bat.

The harness, bridle, saddle dart

Gleams from the lower, rough expanse;
At either side the stooping cart,
Pitchfork, and plow cast looks askance.
White Dobbin through the stable doors
Shows his round shape; faint color coats
The manger, where the farmer pours,

With rustling rush, the glancing oats.

A sun haze streaks the dusky shed;
Makes spears of seams and gems of chinks;
In mottled gloss the straw is spread;
And the grey grindstone dully blinks.

The sun salutes the lowest west

With gorgeous tints around it drawn;
A beacon on the mountain's breast,
A crescent, shred, a star-and gone.
The landscape now prepares for night;
A gauzy mist slow settles round;
Eve shows her hues in every sight,

And blends her voice with every sound.

The sheep stream rippling down the dell, Their smooth, sharp faces pointed straight; The pacing kine, with tinkling bell,

Come grazing through the pasture gate. The ducks are grouped, and talk in fits; One yawns with stretch of leg and wing;

One rears and fans, then, settling, sits; One at a moth makes awkward spring. The geese march grave in Indian file, The ragged patriarch at the head; Then, screaming, flutter off awhile,

Fold up, and once more stately tread. Brave chanticleer shows haughtiest air; Hurls his shrill vaunt with lofty bend; Lifts foot, glares round, then follows where His scratching, picking partlets wend. Staid Towser scents the glittering ground; Then, yawning, draws a crescent deep, Wheels his head-drooping frame around And sinks with forepaws stretched for sleep.

The oxen, loosened from the plow,

Rest by the pear-tree's crooked trunk; Tim, standing with yoke-burdened brow, Trim, in a mound beside him sunk.

One of the kine upon the bank,

Heaves her face-lifting, wheezy roar;
One smooths, with lapping tongue, her flank;
With ponderous droop one finds the floor.

Freed Dobbin through the soft, clear dark
Glimmers across the pillared scene,
With the grouped geese - a pallid mark-

And scattered bushes black between.
The fire-flies freckle every spot

With fickle light that gleams and dies;
The bat, a wavering, soundless blot,
The cat, a pair of prowling eyes.

Still the sweet, fragrant dark o'erflows
The deepening air and darkening ground,
By its rich scent I trace the rose,

The viewless beetle by its sound.
The cricket scrapes its rib-like bars;

The tree-toad purrs in whirring tone; And now the heavens are set with stars, And night and quiet reign alone.

ALFRED B. STREET.

B

UT now the scene is changed, and all Is fancifully new;

The trees, last eve, so straight and tall,
Are bending on the view,

And streams of living daylight fall
The silvery arches through.

The boughs are strong with glittering pearls,
As dewdrops bright and bland,

And there they gleam in silvery curls,
Like gems of Samarcand,
Seeming in wild fantastic whirls

The works of fairyland.

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But Fancy yet brings, on her bright golden wings,
Her beautiful pictures again from the past,
And Memory fondly and tenderly clings
To pleasures and pastimes too lovely to last.

We wander again by the river to-day;

We sit in the school-room, o'erflowing with fun, We whisper, we play, and we scamper away

When our lessons are learned and the spelling is done.

We see the old cellar where apples were kept,

The garret where all the old rubbish was thrown, The little back chamber where snugly we slept,

The homely old kitchen, the broad hearth of stone, Where apples were roasted in many a row, Where our grandmothers nodded and knit long ago.

Our grandmothers long have reposed in the tomb; With a strong, healthy race they have peopled the land;

They worked with the spindle, they toiled at the loom,

Nor lazily brought up their babies by hand.

The old flint-lock musket, whose awful recoil
Made many a Nimrod with agony cry,
Once hung on the chimney, a part of the spoil
Our gallant old grandfathers captured at "Ti."
Brave men were our grandfathers, sturdy and strong;
The kings of the forest they plucked from their
lands;

They were stern in their virtues. they hated all wrong, And they fought for the right with their hearts and their hands.

Down, down from the hillsides they swept in their might,

And up from the valleys they went on their way,
To fight and to fall upon Hubbardton's height,
To struggle and conquer in Bennington's fray.

Oh! fresh be their memory, cherished the sod
That long has grown green o'er their sacred
remains,

And grateful our hearts to a generous God

For the blood and the spirit that flows in our veins.

Our Allens, our Starks, and our Warners are gone, But our mountains remain with their evergreen

crown.

The souls of our heroes are yet marching on,
The structure they founded shall never go down.
From the weather-worn house on the brow of the hill
We are dwelling afar, in our manhood to-day;
But we see the old gables and hollyhocks still,

As they looked when we left them to wander away.
But the dear ones we loved in the sweet long ago
In the old village churchyard sleep under the snow.
Farewell to the friends of our bright boyhood days,
To the beautiful vales once delightful to roam,
To the fathers, the mothers, now gone from our
gaze,

From the weather-worn house to their heavenly

home,

Where they wait, where they watch, and will welcome us still,

As they waited and watched in the house on the hill.

EUGENE J. HALL.

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IN the month of September, 1814, the city of Baltimore was threatened by the approach of a British fleet. The chief defense of the city was Fort McHenry, which on the 13th became the object of a powerful attack. This attack was witnessed, under most remarkable circumstances, by Francis Scott Key, the author of the following song. A friend was held prisoner in the hands of the British. To effect his release, Mr. Key visited the squadron in a cartel, or vessel sent for the exchange of prisoners, and was detained by the Admiral till the termination of the attack. Placed on board a small vessel, he remained for a whole day a spectator of the tremendous cannonading to which the fort was subjected. On its successful resistance depended the fate of his home and friends. All day his eyes watched that low fortification. Night came, and in spite of all the efforts of the enemy the flag of his country was still flying defiantly in the rays of the setting sun. The bombardment continued through the night, and all the while the sleepless watcher paced the deck, straining his eyes to discern, through the smoke and darkness, if the flag was still there. By the fitful and lurid gleams of exploding shells, the Stars and Stripes were from time to time revealed to his eager gaze, and gave cheer to the anxious hours. Morning came. It found him with eyes still fastened on the fort. The star-spangled banner floated proudly in the morning breeze, and the echoes of defiant cheers were borne from the fort to his ears. At the same moment the outburst of cannon and the thunder of mortars proclaimed that the spirits and courage of its defenders were buoyant as ever. The attack had been foiled; his home, his friends were saved. It was a proud moment; and his emotions found utterance in the picturesque and impassioned ode, which has become forever associated with the national banner:

O

SAY, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed in the twilight's
last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through
the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly
streaming;

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

O, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering

steep,

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines on the stream.

'Tis the star-spangled banner! O, long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps'

pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of death and the gloom of the

grave.

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

O, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desola-
tion;

Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued
land

Praise the power that has made and preserved us a
nation.

Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just,
And this be our motto, "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

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