I look and the quick tears are in my eyes,
For I behold, in every one of these,
A blighted hope, a separate history
Of human sorrow, telling of dear ties
Suddenly broken, dreams of happiness
Dissolved in air, and happy days, too brief,
That sorrowfully ended; and I think
How painfully the poor heart must have beat
In bosoms without number, as the blow
Was struck that slew their hope or broke their peace.
Sadly I turn, and look before, where yet
The tiood must pass, and I behold a mist
Wuere swarm dissolving forms, the brood of Hope,
Divinely fair, that rest on banks of flowers
Or wander among rainbows, fading soon
And reappearing, haply giving place
To shapes of grisly aspect, such as Fear
Molds from the idle air; where serpents lift
The head to strike, and skeletons stretch forth
The bony arm in menace.

Further on
A belt of darkness seems to bar the way,
Long, low, and distant, where the life that Is
Touches the Life to Cone. The Flood of Years
Rolls toward it, near and nearer. It must pass
That dismal barrier. What is there beyond ?
Hear what the wise and good have said.

Beyond
That belt of darkness still the years roll on
More gently, but with not less mighty sweep.
They gather up again and softly bear
All ihe sweet lives that late were overwhelmed
And lost to sight-all that in them was good,
Noble and truly great and worthy of love-
The lives of infants and ingenuous youths,
Sages and saintly women who have made
Their households happy--all are raised and borne
By that great current in its onward sweep,
Wandering and rippling with caressing waves
Around green islands, fragrant with the breath
Of flowers that never wither. So they pass,
From stage to stage, along the shining course
Of that fair river broadening like a sea.
As its smooth eddies curl along their way,
They bring old friends together; hands are clasped
In joy unspeakable; the mother's arms
Again are folded round the child she loved
And lost. Old sorrows are forgotten now,
Or but remembered to make sweet the hour
That overpays them; wounded hearts that bled

Or broke are healed forever. In the room
Of this grief-shadowed Present there shall be
A Present in whose reign uo grief shall gnaw
The heart, and never shall a tender tie
Be broken-in whose reign the eternal change
That waits on growth and action shall proceed
With everlasting Concord hand in hand.

FOURTH OF JULY, 1876.-W. F. Fox.
Written for a Centennial Celebration at Davenport, Iowa
Fling out our banner to the breeze,

Our glorious stripes and stars ;
Unfurl our lag o'er land and seas-

Our nation's stars and bars!
The emblem of our birthright wave,

O'er hill, and vale, and plain,
Till over every patriot grave

Our flag shall Hoat again.
All hail the day that gave us birth,

An hundred years ago,
When Freedom's sword of matchless worth

Was drawn to strike the foe.
Awake! awake! in Freedom's cause

Let loudest anthems ring;
Let every freeman shout applause-

Our nation's glories sing.
O'er every sea, to every clime,

Columbia's welcome send,
To join our country's song sublime

And loud hosannas blend.
Let every freeman swell the strain,

The chorus bold prolong,
Till echoing hearts repeat again

Our nation's festal song.
We sing to-day a nation's pride,

Sung through an hundred years,
Yet pause to bless the brave who died,

And mingle smiles with tears;
For 'neath the hill and on the plain

The fallen heroes sleep,
And while we sing our glad refrain

Their mem'ry still we keep.
Wide o'er this broad and favored land

Blooms Freedom in its spring,

And for rich gifts, on every hand,

Our grateful thanks we bring.
Yet, dearer than the wealth of earth,

To every freeman's heart,
Are freeman's rights-a freeman's birth-

Unbound by tyrants' art.
Thanks be to Him who rules on high,

For this, our festal day-
Who holds the sparrows as they fly

And guides a nation's way!
May Freedom e'er maintain her cause,

Unstained by passion's wars,
And freemen e'er proclaim her laws

Beneath the stripes and stars.

HIDE AND SEEK.-JULIA GODDARD.

Hide and seek! Two children at play
On a sunshiny holiday--
* Where is the treasure hidden, I pray?
Say-am I near it or far away?
Hot or cold?" asks little Nell,
With her flaxen hair all tangled and wild,
And her voice as clear as a fairy bell
That the fairies ring at eventide-
Scrambling under table and chair,
Peeping into tho cupboards wide,
Till a joyous shout rings through the air-
“Oho! a very good place to hide!”
And little Nell, creeping along the ground,
Murmurs in triumph, “ I've found, I've found!”
Hide and seek! Not children now-
Life's noontide sun hath kissed each brow,
Nell's turn to hide the treasure to-day;
So safely she thinks it hidden away,
That she fears her lover cannot find it.
Say, shall she help him? Her eyes, so shy,
Half tell the secret, and half deny;
And the green leaves rustle with laughter sweet,
And the little birds twitter, “Oh, foolish lover,
Has love bewitched and blinded thine eyes-
So that the truth thou canst not discover?”
Then the sun gleams out, all golden and bright,
And sends through the wood-path a clearer light;
And the lover raises his eyes from the ground,
And reads in Nell's face that the treasure is found.
What are the angels seeking for
Through the world in the darksome night:
A treasure that earth has stolen away,
And hidden 'midst flowers for many a day,
Hidden through sunshine, through storm, through blight,
Till it wasted and grew to a form so slight
And worn, that scarce in the features white
Could one trace likeness to gladsome Nell.
But the angels knew her, as there she lay,
All quietly sleeping, and bore her away,
Up to the city, jasper-walled-

Up to the city with golden street,
Up to the city, like crystal clear,

Where the pure and sinless meet;
And through costly pearl-gates that opened wido,
They bore the treasure earth tried to hide.
And weeping mortals listened with awe
To the silver echo that smote the skies,
As “Found!” rang forth from Paradise.

MARK TWAIN ON THE WEATHER.-S. L. CLEMENS.

At a New England dinner in New York, Mark Twain delivered the following speech, amidst frequent interruptions--of laughter and applause.

THE OLDEST INHABITANT-THE WEATHER.

Who hath lost and doth forget it?
Who hath it still and doth regret it?
“Interpose betwixt us Tvain.”

-- Merchant of Venice. I reverently believe that the Maker who made us all makes everything in New England but the weather. I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be raw apprentices in the Weather Clerk's factory, who experiment and learn how in New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for countries that require a good article and will take their custom elsewhere if they don't get it.

There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that com pels the stranger's admiration-and regret. The weather is always doing something there, always attending strictly to business, always getting up new designs and trying them on the people to see how they will go. But it

UHAL

season.

gets through more business in the spring than in any other

In the spring I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours. It was I that made the fame and fortune of that man that had that marvellous collection of weather on exhibition at the Centennial that so astounded the foreigners. He was going to travel all over the world and get specimens from all climes. I said, “Don't you do it; you come to New England on a favorable spring day.” I told him what we could do in the way of style, variety, and quantity. Well, he came, and he made his collection in four days. As to variety; why, he confessed he got hundreds of kinds of weather that he had never heard of before. And as to quantity; well, after he? had picked out and discarded all that were blemished in any way, he not only had weather enough, but weather to spare; weather to hire out; weather to sell; weather to deposit; weather to invest; weather to give to the poor.

The people of New England are by nature patient and forbearing; but there are some things that they will not stand. Every year they kill a lot of poets for writing about “ Beautiful Spring.” These are generally casual visitors, who bring their notions of spring from somewhere else, and cannot, of course, know how the natives feel about spring. And so, the first thing they know, the opportunity to inquire how they feel has permanently gone by.

Old Probabilities has a mighty reputation for accurate prophecy, and thoroughly well deserves it. You take up the papers and observe how crisply and confidently he checks off what to-day's weather is going to be on the Pacific, down South, in the Middle States, in the Wisconsin region, see him sail along in the joy and pride of his power till he gets to New England, and then see his tail drop. He doesn't know what the weather is to be in New England. Ile can't any more tell than he can tell how many Presidents of the United States there are going to be. Well, he mulls overit,and by and by he gets out something about like this: “Probable northeast to southwest winds, varying to the southward and westward and eastward and points between ; high and low barometer, sweeping around from place to place; probable areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded