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in youth and manhood is along a wider and deeper flood, amid objects more striking and magnificent. We are animated by the moving pictures of enjoyment and industry passing before us; we are excited by some short-lived success, or depressed and made miserable by some equally short-lived disappointment. But our energy and our depression are both in vain. The stream bears us on, and our joys and griefs are alike left behind us.

We may be shipwrecked- -we cannot be delayed; whether rough or smooth, the river hastens to its home, till the roar of the ocean is in our ears, and the tossing of the waves is beneath our feet, and the land lessens from our eyes, and the floods are lifted up around us, and we take our leave of earth and its inhabitants, until of our further voyage there is no witness save the Infinite and Eternal.

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THE SNOW-STORM.

IS a fearful night in the winter-time,

As cold as it ever can be;

The roar of the blast is heard like the chime Of the waves on an angry sea;

Such a night as this to be found abroad
In the drifts and the freezing air!
Sits a shivering dog in a field by the road,
With the snow in his shaggy hair;
He shuts his eyes to the wind, and growls;
He lifts his head, and moans and howls;
Then, crouching low from the cutting sleet,
His nose is pressed on his quivering feet;
Pray, what does the dog do there?

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A farmer came from the village plain,
But he lost the traveled way;

And for hours he trod with might and main

A path for his horse and sleigh;

But colder still the cold winds blew,

And deeper still the deep drifts grew;

And his mare, a beautiful Morgan brown,

At last in her struggles floundered down,
Where a log in a hollow lay.

In vain, with a neigh and a frenzied snort,
She plunged in the drifting snow,

While her master urged, till his breath grew short,

With a word and a gentle blow;

But the snow was deep, and the tugs were tight; His hands were numb, and had lost their might;

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The windows blocked, and the wellcurbs gone."

The moon is full, but her silver light

The storm dashes out with its wings to-night;

And over the sky, from south to north,

Not a star is seen, as the wind comes forth

In the strength of a mighty glee.

All day had the snow come down-all day,
As it never came down before,

And over the hills at sunset lay

Some two or three feet or more:

The fence was lost, and the wall of stone;

The windows blocked, and the well-curbs gone; The hay-stack had grown to a mountain-lift; And the wood-pile looked like a monster drift, As it lay by the farmer's door.

The night sets in on a world of snow,

While the air grows sharp and chill, And the warning roar of a fearful blow

Is heard on the distant hill:

And the Norther! See, on the mountain-peak,

In his breath how the old trees writhe and shriek!

He shouts on the plain, Ho-ho! ho-ho!

He drives from his nostrils the blinding snow,
And growls with a savage will.

"The man in his sleigh, and his faithful dog, And the beautiful Morgan brown."

So he wallowed back to his half-filled sleigh,
And strove to shelter himself till day,
With his coat and the buffalo.

He has given the last faint jerk of the rein,
To rouse up his dying steed;

And the poor dog howls to the blast in vain
For help in his master's need;
For awhile he strives with a wistful cry,
To catch a glance from his drowsy eye,
And wags his tail if the rude winds flap
The skirt of the buffalo over his lap,

And whines when he takes no heed.

The wind goes down and the storm is o'er,"Tis the hour of midnight, past;

The old trees writhe and bend no more
In the whirl of the rushing blast;
The silent moon, with her peaceful light,
Looks down on the hills with snow all white;

And the giant shadow of Camel's Hump, Of the blasted pine and the ghostly stump, Afar on the plain are cast.

But, cold and dead, by the hidden log
Are they who came from the town,-
The man in his sleigh, and his faithful dog,
And his beautiful Morgan brown,—

In the wide snow desert, far and grand,
With his cap on his head, and the reins in his hand:
The dog with his nose on his master's feet,
And the mare half seen through the crusted sleet,
Where she lay when she floundered down.

CASABIANCA.

CHARLES GAMAGE EASTMAN..

[Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son of the Admiral of the Orient, remained at his post (in the Battle of the Nile) after the ship had taken fire and all the guns had been abandoned, and perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder.]

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Said a hard-faced skipper, "God help us all!
She will not float till the turning tide!"
Said his wife, "My darling will hear my call,
Whether in sea or heaven she bide."

And she lifted a quavering voice and high,
Wild and strange as a sea-bird's cry,

Till they shuddered and wondered at her side.

The fog drove down on each laboring crew, Veiled each from each and the sky and shore: There was not a sound but the breath they drew, And the lap of water and creak of oar;

And they felt the breath of the downs, fresh blown O'er leagues of clover and cold gray stone,

But not from the lips that had gone before.

They come no more. But they tell the tale,
That, when fogs are thick on the harbor reef,
The mackerel fishers shorten sail;

For the signal they know will bring relief:
For the voices of children, still at play
In a phantom hulk that drifts alway
Through channels whose waters never fail.

It is but a foolish shipman's tale,
A theme for a poet's idle page;

But still, when the mists of doubt prevail,
And we lie becalmed by the shores of Age,
We hear from the misty troubled shore
The voice of the children gone before,
Drawing the soul to its anchorage.

BRET HARTE.

THE GRAPE-VINE SWING.

ITHE and long as the serpent train,

Springing and clinging from tree to tree, Now darting upward, now down again,

With a twist and a twirl that are strange to see;

Never took serpent a deadlier hold,

Never the cougar a wilder spring, Strangling the oak with the boa's fold,

Spanning the beech with the condor's wing.

Yet no foe that we fear to seek,

The boy leaps wild to thy rude embrace; Thy bulging arms bear as soft a cheek As ever on lover's breast found place;

On thy waving train is a playful hold
Thou shalt never to lighter grasp persuade;
While a maiden sits in thy drooping fold,

And swings and sings in the noonday shade!

O giant strange of our Southern woods!

I dream of thee still in the well-known spot, Though our vessel strains o'er the ocean floods, And the Northern forest beholds thee not; I think of thee still with a sweet regret,

As the cordage yields to my playful grasp,Dost thou spring and cling in our woodlands yet? Does the maiden still swing in thy giant clasp? WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS.

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