Your horse was down-your hope was flown

I saw the falchion shine

That soon had drunk your royal blood

Had I not ventured mine;

But memory soon of service done

Deserteth the ingrate;

You've thanked the son for life and crown

By the father's bloody fate.

"Ye swore upon your kingly faith

To set Don Sancho free;

But, curse upon your paltering breath!
The light he ne'er did see;

He died in dungeon cold and dim,
By Alphonso's base decree;
And visage blind and stiffened limb,
Were all they gave to me.

"The king that swerveth from his word,
Hath stained his purple black;

No Spanish lord will draw his sword
Behind a liar's back;

But noble vengeance shall be mine,

And open hate I'll show

The king hath injured Carpio's line,

And Bernard is his foe !

Seize, seize him!" loud the King doth scream; "There are a thousand here!

Let his foul blood this instaut stream ;

What caitiffs, do ye fear?

Seize, seize the traitor !"-But not one
To move a finger dareth;
Bernardo standeth by the thone,

And calm his sword he bareth.

He drew the falchion from the sheath,
And hold it up on high;

And all the hall was still as death ;-
Cries Bernard, "Here am I-

And here's the sword that owns no lord,

Excepting Heaven and me ;

Fain would I know who dares it point

King, Condé, or Grandee.”

Then to his mouth his horn he drew-
It hung below his cloak-

His ten true men the signal knew,

And through the ring they broke;

With helm on head, and blade in hand,
The knights the circle break,
And back the lordlings 'gan to stand,
And the false king to quake.

"Ha! Bernard," quoth Alphonso,
"What means this warlike guise?
Ye know full well I jested—

Ye know your worth I prize !"
But Bernard turned upon his heel,
And, smiling, passed away :—
Long rued Alphonso and his realm
The jesting of that day!

SHALL WE GIVE UP THE UNION ?-D. S. Dickinson. Extract from a Speech Delivered at New York, May 20, 1861.

SHALL we then surrender to turbulence, and faction, and rebellion, and give up the Union with all its elements of good, all its holy memories, all its hallowed associations, all its blood-bought history?

No! let the eagle change his plume,

The leaf its hue, the flower its bloom

But do not give up the Union. Preserve it to "flourish in immortal youth," until it is dissolved amid "the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds." Let the patriot and statesman stand by it to the last, whether assailed by foreign or domestic foes, and if he perishes in the conflict, let him fall like Rienzi, the last of the Tribunes, upon the same stand where he has preached liberty and equality to his countrymen.

Preserve it in the name of the Fathers of the Revolution -preserve it for its great elements of good-preserve it in the sacred name of liberty-preserve it for the faithful and devoted lovers of the Constitution in the rebellious States— those who are persecuted for its support, and are dying in its defence. Rebellion can lay down its arms to Government-Government cannot surrender to rebellion.

Give up the Union !—"this fair and fertile plain, to batten on that moor!" Divide the Atlantic so that its tides shall beat in sections, that some spurious Neptune may rule in an ocean of his own-draw a line upon the sun's disc, that it may cast its beams upon earth in divisions—let the

inoon, like Bottom in the play, show but half its faceseparate the constellation of the Pleiades and sunder the bands of Orion-but retain the Union !

Give up the Union, with its glorious flag-its stars and stripes, full of proud and pleasing and honorable recollections, for the spurious invention with no antecedents but the history of a violated Constitution and of lawless ambition! No! let us stand by the emblem of our fathers:

66 Flag of the free heart's hope and home,
By angel hands to valor given,

Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in Heaven."

Give up the Union? Never! The Union shall endure, and its praises shall be heard, when its friends and its foes, those who support and those who assail, those who bared their bosoms in its defence, and those who aim their daggers at its heart, shall all sleep in the dust together. Its name shall be heard with veneration amid the roar of Pacific's waves, away upon the rivers of the North and East, where liberty is divided from monarchy, and be wafted in gentle breezes upon the Rio Grande. It shall rustle in the harvest and wave in the standing corn, on the extended prairies of the West, and be heard in the bleating folds and lowing herds upon a thousand hills. It shall be with those who delve in mines, and shall hum in the manufactories of New England, and in the cotton-gins of the South. It shall be proclaimed by the stars and stripes in every sea of the earth, as the American Union, one and indivisible; upon the great thoroughfares, wherever steam drives and engines throb and shriek, its greatness and perpetuity shall be hailed with gladness. It shall be lisped in the earliest words, and ring in the merry voices of childhood, and swell to heaven upon the song of maidens. It shall live in the stern resolve of manhood, and rise to the mercy-seat upon woman's gentle, availing prayer. Hoiy men shall invoke its perpetuity at the altars of religion, and it shall be whispered in the last accents of expiring age. Thus shall survive and be perpetuated the American Union, and when it shall be proclaimed that time shall be no more, and the curtain shall fall, and the good shall be gathered to a more perfect union, still may the destiny of our dear land recognize the conception, that

"Perfumes, as of Eden, flowed sweetly along,

And a voice, as of angels, awoke the glad song,
Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise,

The queen of the world, and the child of the skies!"

L

THERE ONCE WAS A TOPER.

THERE once was a toper-I'll not tell his name---
Who had for his comfort a scolding old dame;
And often and often he wished himself dead,

For if drunk he came home, she would beat him to bed.
He spent all his evenings away from his home,
And when he returned, he would sneakingly come
And try to walk straightly, and say not a word-
Just to keep his dear wife from abusing her lord ;
For, if he dared say his tongue was his own,
'Twould set her tongue going, in no gentle tone,

And she'd huff him, and cuff him, and call him hard names,
And he'd sigh to be rid of all scolding old dames.

It happened, one night, on a frolic he went,
He staid till his very last penny was spent,
But how to go home, and get safely to bed,

Was the thing on his heart that most heavily weighed.
But home he must go: so he caught up his hat,
And off he went singing, by this and by that,
"I'll pluck up my courage, I guess she's in bed,

If she aint, 'tis no matter, I'm sure: Who's afraid ?"
He came to his door: he lingered until

He peeped and he listened, and all seemed quite still;
In he went, and his wife sure enough was in bed!

"Oh !" says he, "it's just as I thought: Who's afraid?"

He crept about softly, and spoke not a word,

His wife seemed to sleep, for she never e'en stirred ! Thought he, "for this night, then, my fortune is made! For my dear scolding wife is asleep! Who's afraid ?” But soon, he felt thirsty; and slyly he rose,

And groping around, to the table he goes,

The pitcher found empty, and so was the bowl,

The pail and the tumblers-she'd emptied the whole !
At length in a corner, a vessel he found!

Says he, "here's something to drink, I'll be bound !"
And eagerly seizing, he lifted it up-

And drank it all off, in one long hearty sup!

It tasted so queerly: and, what it could be,

He wondered :-it neither was water, nor tea!

Just then a thought struck him and filled him with fear, "Oh! it must be the poison for rats, I declare!"

And loudly he called on his dear sleeping wife,

And begged her to rise: "for," said he,

on my life

I fear it was poison, the bowl did contain

Oh! dear! yes-it was poison, I now feel the pain!" "And what made you dry, sir ?” the wife sharply cried : "Twould serve you just right if from poison you died: And you've done a fine job, and you'd now better march, For just see, you brute, you have drank all my starch !”

THE CUMBERLAND.-H. W. Longfellow.

AT anchor in Hampton Roads we lay,
On board of the Cumberland sloop-of-war;
And at times from the fortress across the bay
The alarum of drums swept past,

Or a bugle-blast

From the camp on the shore.

Then, far away to the South, uprose

A little feather of snow-white smoke,
And we knew that the iron ship of our foes
Was steadily steering its course

To try the force

Of our ribs of oak.

Down upon us heavily runs,

Silent and sullen, the floating fort;

Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns,

And leaps the terrible death,

With fiery breath,

From each open port.

We are not idle, but send her straight
Defiance back in a full broadside !
As hail rebounds from a roof of slate,
Rebounds our heavier hail
From each iron scale

Of the monster's hide.

"Strike your flag!"the Rebel cries,
In his arrogant old plantation strain.
Never!" our gallant Morris replies;
"It is better to sink than to yield !"
And the whole air pealed
With the cheers of our men.