HOME, SWEET HOME

FROM THE OPERA OF CLARI, THE MAID OF MILAN."

BY JOHN HOWARD PAYNE

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble there's no place like home!
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with else-
where.

Home! home! sweet, sweet home!

There's no place like home!

An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain:
O, give me my lowly thatched cottage again!
The birds singing gayly that came at my call; —
Give me them, and the peace of mind dearer than

all!

Home! home! sweet, sweet home!

There's no place like home!

WARREN'S ADDRESS

BY JOHN PIERPONT

Stand! the ground's your own, my braves!

Will ye give it up to slaves?

Will ye look for greener graves?

Hope ye mercy still?

What's the mercy despots feel?

Hear it in that battle-peal!

Read it on yon bristling steel!

Fear

ye foes who kill for hire?
Will ye to your homes retire?
Look behind you !-they're afire!
And, before you, see

Who have done it! From the vale
On they come! - and will ye quail?
Leaden rain and iron hail

Let their welcome be!

In the God of battles trust!

Die we may,

and die we must:

But, O, where can dust to dust

Be consigned so well,

As where heaven its dews shall shed

On the martyred patriot's bed,

And the rocks shall raise their head,
Of his deeds to tell?

THE BELLS

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

Hear the sledges with the bells
Silver bells!

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight, -
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells,

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

Hear the mellow wedding bells

Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,

What a liquid ditty floats

To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!

O, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!

How it dwells

On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells bells,

Bells, bells, bells,

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells.

What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,

They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,

In the clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire
Leaping higher, higher, higher,

With a desperate desire,

And a resolute endeavor,
Now now to sit, or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
O the bells, bells, bells,

What a tale their terror tells

Hear the tolling of the bells

Iron bells!

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels! In the silence of the night,

How we shiver with affright

At the melancholy menace of their tone!

For every sound that floats

From the rust within their throats

And who tolling, tolling, tolling,

In that muffled monotone,

Feel a glory in so rolling

On the human heart a stone,
They are neither man nor woman,
They are neither brute nor human, -

They are ghouls:

And their king it is who tolls;

And he rolls, rolls, rolls,

Rolls,

A pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells

With the pean of the bells!
And he dances and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pean of the bells,
Of the bells:

Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the throbbing of the bells, -
Of the bells, bells, bells,

To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.