Слике страница
PDF
ePub

Oft shall death and sorrow reign,
Ere we three shall meet again.

Though in distant lands we sigh,
Parched beneath a burning sky;
Though the deep between us rolls,
Friendship shall unite our souls;
Oft in fancy's rich domain;
Oft shall we three meet again.

When our burnished locks are gray,
Thinned by many a toil-spent day;
When around this youthful pine
Moss shall creep and ivy twine,--
Long may this loved bower remain-
Here may we three meet again.

When the dreams of life are fled;
When its wasted lamps are dead;
When in cold oblivion's shade
Beauty, wealth, and fame are laid,—
Where immortal spirits reign,
There may we three meet again.

THE BEWITCHED CLOCK.

About half past eleven o'clock on Sunday night a human leg, enveloped in blue broadcloth, might have been seen entering Cephas Barberry's kitchen window. The leg was followed finally by the entire person of a lively Yankee, attired in his Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes. It was, in short, Joe Mayweed, who thus burglariously, in the dead of night, won his way into the deacon's kitchen.

[ocr errors]

"Wonder how much the old deacon made by orderin' me not to darken his door again?" soliloquized the young man. Promised him I wouldn't but didn't say nothin' about winders. Winders is just as good as doors, if there ain't no nails to tear your trousers onto. Wonder if Sal'll come down? The critter promised me. I'm afraid to move here, 'cause I might break my shins over somethin' or 'nother, and wake the old folks. Cold enough to freeze a polar-bear here. Oh, here comes Sally!"

The beautiful maiden descended with a pleasant smile, a tallow candle, and a box of matches.

After receiving a rapturous greeting, she made up a roaring fire in the cooking-stove, and the happy couple sat down to enjoy the sweet interchange of views and hopes. But the course of true love ran no smoother in old Barberry's kitchen than it did elsewhere, and Joe, who was making up his mind to treat himself to a kiss, was startled by the voice of the deacon, her father, shouting from her chamber door:

"Sally, what are you getting up in the middle of the night for?"

"Tell him it's most morning," whispered Joe.

"I can't tell a fib," said Sally.

"I'll make it a truth, then," said Joe, and running to the huge old-fashioned clock that siced in

at five.

he set it

"Look at the clock and tell me what time it is," cried the old gentleman up stairs.

"It's five by the clock," answered Sally, and, corroborating the words, the clock struck five.

The lovers sat down again, and resumed the conversation. Suddenly the staircase began to creak.

"Good gracious! it's father."

“The deacon, by jingo!” cried Joe; "hide me, Sal!" "Where can I hide you?" cried the distracted girl. “Oh, I know,” said he; “I'll squeeze into the clock-case.” And without another word he concealed himself in the case, and drew to the door behind him.

The deacon was dressed, and sitting himself down by the cooking-stove, pulled out his pipe, lighted it, and commenced smoking very deliberately and calmly.

"Five o'clock, eh?" said he. "Well, I shall have time to smoke three or four pipes; then I'll go and feed the critters." "Hadn't you better go and feed the critters first, sir, and smoke afterward?" suggested the dutiful Sally.

"No; smokin' clears my head and wakes me up," answered the deacon, who seemed not a whit disposed to hurry his enjoyment.

Bur-r-r-r-whiz-z-ding-ding! went the clock.

"Tormented lightning!" cried the deacon, starting up, and dropping his pipe on the stove. "What in creation is that?" Whiz! ding! ding! ding! went the old clock, furiously. "It's only the clock striking five," said Sally, tremulously.

"Powers of mercy!" cried the deacon, "striking five' It's struck a hundred already."

"Deacon Barberry!" cried the deacon's better half, who had hastily robed herself, and now came plunging down the staircase in the wildest state of alarm, "what is the matter of the clock ?"

"Goodness only knows,” replied the old man.

"It's been in the family these hundred years, and never did I know it to carry on so before."

Whiz! bang! bang! bang! went the clock.

"It'll burst itself!" cried the old lady, shedding a flood of tears, "and there won't be nothing left of it."

"It's bewitched," said the deacon, who retained a leaven of New England superstition in his nature. "Anyhow," he said, after a pause, advancing resolutely toward the clock, "I'll see what's got into it."

"Oh, don't!" cried the daughter, affectionately seizing one of his coat-tails, while his faithful wife hung to the other. "Don't," chorused both the women together.

"Let go my raiment !" shouted the deacon; "I ain't afraid of the powers of darkness."

But the women would not let go; so the deacon slipped off his coat, and while, from the sudden cessation of resistance, they fell heavily on the floor, he darted forward and laid his hand on the door of the clock-case. But no human power could open it. Joe was holding it inside with a deathgrasp. The deacon began to be dreadfully frightened. He gave one more tug. An unearthly vell, as of a fiend in distress, came from the inside, and then the clock-case pitched head foremost on the floor, smashed its face, and wrecked its proportions.

The current of air extinguished the light; the deacon, the old lady, and Sally, fled up stairs, and Joe Mayweed, extricating himself from the clock, effected his retreat in the same way that he had entered. The next day all Appleton was alive with the story of how Deacon Barberry's clock ha been bewitched; and though many believed its version, some, and especially Joe Mayweed, affected to discredit the whole affair, hinting that the deacon had been trying the experiment of tasting frozen cider, and that the vagaries of the clock-case existed only in a distempered imagination.

THE OLD SERGEANT.-FORCEYTHE WILLSON.

JANUARY 1, 1863.

The carrier cannot sing to-day the ballads

With which he used to go

Rhyming the glad rounds of the happy New Years
That are now beneath the snow.

For the same awful and portentous shadow

That overcast the earth,

And smote the land last year with desolation,

Still darkens every hearth.

And the carrier hears Beethoven's mighty death-march Come up from every mart;

And he hears and feels it breathing in his bosom,

And beating in his heart.

And to-day, a scarred and weather-beaten veteran,
Again he comes along,

To tell the story of the Old Year's struggles

In another New Year's song.

And the song is his, but not so with the story,

For the story, you must know,

Was told in prose to Assistant Surgeon Austin,
By a soldier of Shiloh,-

By Robert Burton, who was brought up on the Adams,
With his death-wound in his side;

And who told the story to the assistant surgeon

On the same night that he died.

But the singer feels it will better suit the ballad,
If all should deem it right,

To tell the story as if what it speaks of

Had happened but last night.

"Come a little nearer, doctor,-thank you,-let me take the cup;

Draw your chair up,-draw it closer,-just another little sup! Maybe you may think I'm better; but I'm pretty well used

up,

Doctor, you ve done all you could do, but I'm just a-going up!

"Feel my pulse, sir, if you want to, but it ain't much use to try--"

"Never say Chat," said the surgeon, as he smothered down a sigh;

"It will never do, old comrade, for a soldier to say die!" "What you say will make no difference, doctor, when you come to die."

[ocr errors][merged small]

they say;

"You were very faint,

You must try to get some sleep now." "Doctor, have I been

away?"

“Not that anybody knows of!"

to stay!

"Doctor,-doctor, please

There is something I must tell you, and you won't have long to stay!

"I have got my marching orders, and I'm ready now to go; Doctor, did you say I fainted?-but it couldn't ha' been so,For as sure as I'm a sergeant, and was wounded at Shiloh, I've this very night been back there, on the old field of Shiloh!

"This is all that I remember! The last time the lighter came,

And the lights had all been lowered, and the noises much

the same,

He had not been gone five minutes before something called my name:

'ORDERLY SERGEANT-ROBERT BURTON !' just that way it called my name.

"And I wondered who could call me so distinctly and so slow, Knew it couldn't be the lighter, he could not have spoken so, And I tried to answer. 'Here, sir!' but I couldn't make it go! For I couldn't move a muscle, and I couldn't make it go!

"Then I thought: 'It's all a nightmare, all a humbug and a bore;

Just another foolish grape-vine,-and it won't come any more'; But it came, sir, notwithstanding, just the same way as before: ORDERLY SERGEANT-ROBERT BURTON! even plainer than before.

"That is all that I remember, till a sudden burst of light, And I stood beside the river, where we stood that Sunday night,

Waiting to be ferried over to the dark bluffs opposite, When the river was perdition and all hell was opposite!

"And the same old palpitation came again in all its power, And I heard a bugle sounding, as from some celestial tower; And the same mysterious voice said: 'IT IS THE ELEVENTH HOUR!

ORDERLY SERGEANT-ROBERT BURTON,--IT IS THE ELEVENTH HOUR!'

"Doctor Austin! what day is this?" "It is Wednesday night, you know."

"Yes,-to-morrow will be New Year's, and a right good time below!

« ПретходнаНастави »