"The fellow owns, as far as I can larn,

A few old houses only, and a barn;

As that's the case, zounds! what are showers to him?
Not Noah's flood could make his trumpery swim.
Besides, why could you not for drizzle pray?
Why force it down in buckets on the hay?

Would I have played with your hay such a freak?
No! I'd have stopped the weather for a week."
"Dear Mister Jay, I do protest

I acted solely for the best;

I do affirm it, Mister Jay, indeed. Your anger for this once restrain,

I'll never bring a drop again

Till you and all the parish are agreed.”

RING THE BELL SOFTLY.-DEXTER SMITH.

Some one has gone from this strange world of ours,
No more to gather its thorns with its flowers;
No more to linger where sunbeams must fade,
Where on all beauty death's fingers are laid;
Weary with mingling life's bitter and sweet,
Weary with parting and never to meet,
Some one has gone to the bright golden shore;
Ring the bell softly, there's crape on the door!
Ring the bell softly, there's crape on the door!

Some one is resting from sorrow and sin,
Happy where earth's conflicts enter not in,
Joyous as birds when the morning is bright,

When the sweet sunbeams have brought us their light.
Weary with sowing and never to reap,

Weary with labor, and welcoming sleep,

'Some one's departed to heaven's bright shore;

Ring the bell softly, there's crape on the door!
Ring the bell softly, there's crape on the door!

Angels were anxiously longing to meet

One who walks with them in heaven's bright street;
Loved ones have whispered that some one is blest,-
Free from earth's trials and taking sweet rest.
Yes! there is one more in angelic bliss,—
One less to cherish and one less to kiss;
One more departed to heaven's bright shore;
Ring the bell softly, there's crape on the door!
Ring the bell softly, there's crape on the door!

THE POLISH BOY.-ANN S. STEPHENS.

Whence come those shrieks so wild and shrill, That cut, like blades of steel, the air,

Causing the creeping blood to chill

With the sharp cadence of despair?

Again they come, as if a heart

Were cleft in twain by one quick blow, And every string had voice apart

To utter its peculiar woe.

Whence came they? from yon temple, where

An altar, raised for private prayer,

Now forms the warrior's marble bed
Who Warsaw's gallant armies led.
The dim funereal tapers throw
A holy lustre o'er his brow,
And burnish with their rays of light
The mass of curls that gather bright
Above the haughty brow and eye
Of a young boy that's kneeling by.
What hand is that, whose icy press

Clings to the dead with death's own grasp,

But meets no answering caress?

No thrilling fingers seek its clasp.

It is the hand of her whose cry
Rang wildly, late, upon the air,
When the dead warrior met her eye
Outstretched upon the altar there.
With pallid lip and stony brow
She murmurs forth her anguish now.
But hark! the tramp of heavy feet
Is heard along the bloody street;
Nearer and nearer yet they come,
With clanking arms and noiseless drum.
Now whispered curses, low and deep,
Around the holy temple creep;
The gate is burst; a ruffian band
Rush in, and savagely demand,
With brutal voice and oath profane,
The startled boy for exile's chain.
The mother sprang with gesture wild,
And to her bosom clasped her child;

Then, with pale cheek and flashing eye,
Shouted with fearful energy,

"Back, ruffians, back! nor dare to tread
Too near the body of my dead;

Nor touch the living boy; I stand
Between him and your lawless band.
Take me, and bind these arms, these hands,
With Russia's heaviest iron bands,

And drag me to Siberia's wild

To perish, if 'twill save my child!"

"Peace, woman, peace!" the leader cried,
Tearing the pale boy from her side,
And in his ruffian grasp he bore
His victim to the temple door.

"One moment!" shrieked the mother; "one! Will land or gold redeem my son?

Take heritage, take name, take all,

But leave him free from Russian thrall:

Take these!" and her white arms and hands
She stripped of rings and diamond bands,

And tore from braids of long black hair
The gems that gleamed like starlight there;
Her cross of blazing rubies, last,

Down at the Russian's feet she cast.

He stooped to seize the glittering store;-
Up springing from the marble floor,

The mother, with a cry of joy,

Snatched to her leaping heart the boy.
But no! the Russian's iron grasp
Again undid the mother's clasp.
Forward she fell, with one long cry
Of more than mortal agony.

But the brave child is roused at length,
And, breaking from the Russian's hold,
He stands, a giant in the strength

Of his young spirit, fierce and bold.
Proudly he towers; his flashing eye,
So blue, and yet so bright,
Seems kindled from the eternal sky,
So brilliant is its light.

His curling lips and crimson cheeks
Foretell the thought before he speaks;
With a full voice of proud command
He turned upon the wondering band:

"Ye hold me not! no! no, nor car. ›
This hour has made the boy a man;
I knelt before my slaughtered sire,
Nor felt one throb of vengeful ire.
I wept upon his marble brow,
Yes, wept! I was a child; but now
My noble mother, on her knee,
Hath done the work of years for me!"

He drew aside his broidered vest,

And there, like slumbering serpent's crest,
The jeweled haft of poniard bright
Glittered a moment on the sight.

"Ha! start ye back? Fool! coward! knave!
Think ye my noble father's glaive
Would drink the life-blood of a slave?
The pearls that on the handle flame
Would blush to rubies in their shame;
The blade would quiver in thy breast
Ashamed of such ignoble rest.
No! thus I rend the tyrant's chain.
And fling him back a boy's disdain!"

A moment, and the funeral light
Flashed on the jeweled weapon bright;
Another, and his young heart's blood
Leaped to the floor, a crimson flood.
Quick to his mother's side he sprang,
And on the air his clear voice rang:
"Up, mother, up! I'm free! I'm free!
The choice was death or slavery.
Up, mother, up! Look on thy son!
His freedom is forever won;
And now he waits one holy kiss
To bear his father home in bliss,
One last embrace, one blessing,-one!
To prove thou knowest, approvest thy son.
What! silent yet? Canst thou not feel
My warm blood o'er thy heart congeal?
Speak, mother, speak! lift up thy head!
What! silent still? Then art thou dead!

-Great God, I thank thee! Mother, I Rejoice with thee,-and thus-to die."

One long, deep breath, and his pale head
Lay on his mother's bosom,-dead.

IDEAS THE LIFE OF A PEOPLE.-GEORGE W. CURTIS.

The leaders of our Revolution were men of whom the simple truth is the highest praise. Of every condition in life, they were singularly sagacious, sober, and thoughtful. Lord Chatham spoke only the truth when he said to Franklin, of the men who composed the first colonial Congress: "The Congress is the most honorable assembly of statesmen since those of the ancient Greeks and Romans in the most virtuous times." Given to grave reflection, they were neither dreamers nor visionaries, and they were much too earnest to be rhetoricians. It is a curious fact, that they were generally men of so calm a temper that they lived to extreme age. With the exception of Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams, they were most of them profound scholars, and studied the history of mankind that they might know men. They were so familiar with the lives and thoughts of the wisest and best minds of the past that a classic aroma hangs about their writings and their speech; and they were profoundly convinced of what statesmen always know, and the adroitest mere politicians never perceive, that ideas are the life of a people; that the conscience, not the pocket, is the real citadel of a nation, and that when you have debauched and demoralized that conscience by teaching that there are no natural rights, and that therefore there is no moral right or wrong in political action, you have poisoned the wells and rotted the crops in the ground.

The three greatest living statesmen of England knew this also. Edmund Burke knew it, and Charles James Fox, and William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. But they did not speak for the King, or Parliament, or the English nation. Lord Gower spoke for them when he said in Parliament: "Let the Americans talk about their natural and divine rights; their rights as men and citizens; their rights from God and nature! I am for enforcing these measures." My lord was contemptuous, and the King hired the Hessians, but the truth remained true. The Fathers saw the scarlet soldiers swarming over the sea, but more steadily they saw that national progress had been secure only in the degree