With odorous May-buds, sweet as youthful pleasures,
She made her beauty bright and debonair:
But now, the sad earth yields no floral treasures,
And twines no roses for the Matron's hair:
Still can she not all lovely things surrender;
Right regal is her drapery even now,-

Gold, purple, green, inwrought with every splendour,
And clustering grapes in garlands on her brow!

In June, she brought us tufts of fragrant clover
Rife with the wild bee's cheery monotone,
And, when the earliest bloom was past and over,
Offer'd us sweeter scents from fields new-mown:
Now, upland orchards yield, with pattering laughter,
Their red-cheek'd bounty to the groaning wain,
And heavy-laden racks go creeping after,

Piled high with sheaves of golden-bearded grain.

Erelong, when all to love and life are clinging,
And festal holly shines on every wall,
Her knell shall be the New-Year bells, outringing;
The drifted snow, her stainless burial-pall:
She fades and fails, but proudly and sedately,
This Matron Year, who has such largess given,
Her brow still tranquil, and her presence stately,
As one who, losing earth, holds fast to heaven!

A SENSIBLE SERENADE.

THE surf upon the distant shore is breaking;
Bright tears of dew the roses seem to weep;
But you are prejudiced against awaking,
So I'll sing small, and let you have your sleep!
Sleep, Lady, sleep!

You shall not chide me for this song, love, shall you?
I take great pains my voice subdued to keep,

For well I understand the lofty value
All sane folks set upon a wholesome sleep.
Sleep, Lady, sleep!

Some fellows-at their nonsense oft I wonder-
Sing out with voices strong and loud and deep,
Until their loved ones wish they'd go to thunder,
Or, like myself, sing small, and let them sleep.
Sleep, Lady, sleep!

The grass is wet; I find that I am sneezing;
This kind of thing is getting rather "steep;"
The thought of rheumatism isn't pleasing,
So, with your leave, I'll home to bed and sleep.
Sleep, Lady, sleep!

JOHN JAMES PIATT.

Born at Milton, Indiana, 1835

RIDING TO VOTE.

(The Old Democrat in the West.)

YONDER the bleak old Tavern stands-the faded sign before, That years ago a setting sun and banded harvest bore: The Tavern stands the same to-day-the sign you look

upon

Has glintings of the dazzled sheaves, but nothing of the sun.

In Jackson's days a gay young man, with spirit hale and blithe,

And form like the young hickory, so tough and tall and lithe,

I first remember coming up-we came a waggon-load,
A dozen for Old Hickory—this rough November road.

Ah! forty years-they help a man, you see, in getting gray;
They can not take the manly soul, that makes a man, away!
It's forty years, or near: to-day I go to vote once more;
Here, half a mile away, we see the crowd about the door.

My boys, in Eighteen-Sixty-what! my boys? my men, I

mean!

(No better men nor braver souls in flesh-and-blood are seen!) One twenty-six, one twenty-three, rode with their father

then :

The ballot-box remembers theirs, my vote I'll try again!

The ballot-box remember theirs, the country well might

know

Though in a million only two for little seem to go;

But, somehow, when my ticket slipp'd I dream'd of Jackson's day:

The land, I thought, has need of One whose will will find a way!

He did not waver when the need had call'd for steadfast thought

The word he spoke made plain the deed that lay behind it wrought;

And while I mused the Present fell, and, breathing back

the Past,

Again it seem'd the hale young man his vote for Jackson cast!

Thank God it was not lost!-my vote I did not cast in vain!

I go alone to drop my vote—the glorious vote again; Alone-where three together fell but one to-day shall fall; But though I go alone to-day, one voice shall speak for all!

For when our men, awaking quick, from hearth and threshold came,

Mine did not say " Another day!" but started like a flame;

I'll vote for them as well as me; they died as soldiers can, But in my vote their voices each shall claim the right of

man.

The elder left his wife and child-my vote for these shall tell;

The younger's sweetheart has a claim-I'll vote for her as well!

Yes! for the myriad speechless tongues, the myriad offer'd lives,

The desolation at the heart of orphans and of wives!

I go to give my vote alone-I curse your shameless shame Who fight for traitors here at home in Peace's holy name! to give my vote alone, but even while I do,

I

go

I vote for dead and living, all-the living dead and you!

See yonder tree beside the field, caught in the sudden sough, How conscious of its strength it leans, how straight and steadfast now!

If Lincoln bend (for all, through him, my vote I mean to cast)

What winds have blown! what storms he's known! the hickory's straight at last!

November, 1864.

THE OLD MAN AND THE SPRING-LEAVES.

UNDERNEATH the beechen tree

All things fall in love with me!
Birds, that sing so sweetly, sung
Ne'er more sweet when I was young;
Some sweet breeze, I will not see,
Steals to kiss me lovingly;
All the leaves, so blithe and bright,
Dancing sing in Maying light
Over me--" At last, at last,
He has stolen from the Past."

Wherefore, leaves! so gladly mad?
I am rather sad than glad.

"He is the merry child that play'd
Underneath our beechen shade,
Years ago; whom all things bright
Gladden'd, glad with his delight!"

I am not the child that play'd
Underneath your beechen shade;
I am not the boy ye sung
Songs to, in lost fairy-tongue.
He read fairy dreams below,

Legends leaves and flowers must know;
He dream'd fairy dreams, and ye
Changed to fairies, in your glee
Dancing, singing from the tree;
And awaken'd fairy-land
Circled childhood's magic wand!

Joy swell'd his heart, joy kiss'd his brow;
I am following funerals now.
Fairy shores from Time depart;
Lost horizons flush my heart.
I am not the child that play'd
Underneath your beechen shade.

""Tis the merry child that play'd
Underneath our beechen shade
Years ago; whom all things bright
Loved, made glad by his delight!"

Ah! the bright leaves will not know
That an old man dreams below!
No; they will not hear nor see,
Clapping their hands at finding me,
Singing, dancing from their tree!
Ah! their happy voices steal
Time away again I feel,
While they sing to me apart,
The lost child come in my heart:
In the enchantment of the Past,
The old man is the child at last!