But you're good children-steady as old folk,
I'd trust ye anywhere." Then Lizzie's cloak
(A good gray duffle) lovingly she tied,
And amply little Jenny's lack supplied
With her own warmest shawl.

"Be sure," said she,

"To wrap it round, and knot it carefully,

(Like this) when you come home—just leaving free
One hand to hold by. Now, make haste away—

Good will to school, and then good right to play."

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The mother watches them with foreboding, though she knows not why. In a little while the threatened storm sets in. Night comes, and with it tomes the father from his daily toil. There's a treasure hidden in his hat

A plaything for his young ones, he has found
A dormouse nest; the living ball coil'd round
For its long winter sleep; all his thought,
As he trudged stoutly homeward, was of naught
But the glad wonderment in Jenny's eyes,
And graver Lizzie's quieter surprise,
When he should yield, by guess, and kiss, and
Hard won, the frozen captive to their care.

prayer,

No little faces greet him as wont at the threshold; and to his hurried question

A neighbor goes with him, and the faithful dog follows the children's tracks.

I know that whine; the old dog's found them, Mark !"

So speaking, breathlessly he hurried on

Toward the old crazy foot-bridge. It was gone!

And all his dull, contracted light could show

Was the black void, and dark, swollen stream below;

"Yet there's life somewhere-more than Tinker's whine

That's sure," said Mark. "So, let the lantern shine

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Down yonder. There's the dog—and hark!"

"O dear!"

And a low sob come faintly on the ear,

Mocked by the sobbing gust. Down, quick as thought,
Into the stream leaped Ambrose, where he caught
Fast hold of something,—a dark, huddled heap,—
Half in the water, where 'twas scarce knee deep
For a tall man, and half above it, propped
By some old ragged side-piles that had stop't
Endways the broken plank when it gave way

With the two little ones, that luckless day!

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'My babes! my lambkins!" was the father's cry.
One little voice made answer,
"Here am I."

'Twas Lizzy's. There she crouched, with face as white,
More ghastly, by the flickering lantern light,

Than sheeted corpse. The pale, blue lips drawn tight,
Wide parted, showing all the pearly teeth,

And eyes on some dark object underneath,
Washed by the turbid waters, fix'd like stone—

One arm and hand stretched out and rigid grown,
Grasping, as in the death-gripe, Jenny's frock.

There she lay, drown'd.

They lifted her from out her watery bed;

Its covering gone, the lovely little head

Hung like a broken snowdrop, all aside,

And one small hand. The mother's shawl was tied,
Leaving that free, about the child's small form,
As was her last injunction-" fast and warm."
Too well obeyed-too fast! A fatal hold
Affording to the scrag, by a thick fold

That caught and pinned her to the river's bed;
While, through the reckless water overhead,
Her life breath bubbled up.

"She might have lived,

Struggling like Lizzy," was the thought that rived

The wretched mother's heart when she heard all,

"But for my foolishness about that shawl."

"Who says I forgot?

Mother! indeed, indeed I kept fast hold,

And tied the shawl quite close-she

Can't be cold

But she won't move-we slept-I don't know how

But I held on, and I'm so weary now-

And its so dark and cold! Oh dear! oh dear!

And lo! when morning, as in mockery bright

Shone on that pillow-passing strange the sight,

The young head's raven hair was streaked with white !

LXXXV I.

THE BOYS.

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OLIVER W. HOLMES.

This selection is a poem addressed to the class of 1829, in Harvard College, some thirty years after their graduation.

Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has, take him out, without making a noise.
Hang the almanac's cheat and the catalogue's spite!
Old Time is a liar; we're twenty to-night.

We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more?
He's tipsy,-young jackanapes !-show him the door!
"Gray temples at twenty ?"-Yes! white if we please;

Where the snow flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze!

Was it snowing I spoke of?

Excuse the mistake!

Look close, you will see not a sign of a flake!

We want some new garlands for those we have shed,
And these are white roses in place of the red.

We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told,

Of talking (in public) as if we were old;

That boy we call "Doctor" and this we call "Judge" !

It's a neat little fiction,-of course its all fudge.

That fellow's the "Speaker," the one on the right; "Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you to-night? That's our "Member of Congress,” we say when we chaff; There's the "Reverend "-what's his name?-don't make me laugh.

That boy with the grave mathematical look
Made believe he had written a wonderful book,
And the Royal Society thought it was true!
So they chose him right in,-

-a good joke it was too!

There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain,
That could harness a team with a logical chain;
When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire,
We called him "The Justice," but now he's the "Squire."

And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith;
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith;
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,—
Just read on his medal, "My country," "of thee "!

You hear that boy laughing? You think he's all fun?
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done;
The children laugh loud as they troop to his call,
And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all.

Yes, we're boys,—always playing with tongue or with pen
And I sometimes have asked, Shall we ever be men?
Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay,
Till the last dear companion drops smiling away?

Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray!
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May!
And when we have done with our life-lasting toys,
Dear Father, take care of thy children, THE BOYS!

LXXXVII.

A LEGEND OF BREGENZ.

ADELAIDE PROCTER.

Girt round with rugged mountains, the fair Lake Constance lies; in her blue heart reflected shine back the starry skies; and, watching each white cloudlet float silently and slow, you think a piece of heaven lies on our earth

below!

Midnight is there; and silence, enthroned in heaven, looks down upon her own calm mirror, upon a sleeping town: for Bregenz, that quaint city

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more.

upon the Tyrol shore, has stood above Lake Constance a thousand years and Her battlements and towers, from off their rocky steep, have cast their trembling shadow for ages on the deep. Mountain, and lake, and valley, a sacred legend know, of how the town was saved, one night, three hun

dred years ago.

Far from her home and kindred a Tyrol maid had fled, to serve in the Swiss valleys, and toil for daily bread; and every year that fleeted so silently and fast, seemed to bear farther from her the memory of the past. She served kind, gentle masters, nor asked for rest or change; her friends seemed no more new ones, their speech seemed no more strange; and when she led her cattle to pasture every day, she ceased to look and wonder on which side Bregenz lay. She spoke no more of Bregenz, with longing and with tears; her Tyrol home seemed faded in a deep mist of years. She heeded not the rumors of Austrian war and strife; each day she rose contented to the calm toils of life. Yet, when her master's children would clustering round her stand, she sang them ancient ballads of her own native land; and when at morn and evening she knelt before God's throne, the accents of her childhood rose to her lips alone.

And so she dwelt: the valley more peaceful year by year; when suddenly strange portents of some great deed seemed near. The golden corn was bending upon its fragile stalk, while farmers, heedless of their fields, paced up and down in talk. The men seemed stern and altered, with looks cast on the ground; with anxious faces, one by one, the women gathered round; all talk of flax, or spinning, or work was put away; the very children seemed afraid to go alone to play.

One day, out in the meadow with strangers from the town, some secret plan discussing, the men walked up and down; yet now and then seemed watching a strange, uncertain gleam, that looked like lances 'mid the trees that stood below the stream.

At eve they all assembled, then care and doubt were fled; with jovial laugh they feasted; the board was nobly spread. The elder of the village rose up, his glass in hand, and cried, "We drink the downfall of an accursed land! The night is growing darker, ere one more day is flown, Bregenz, our foemen's stronghold, Bregenz shall be our own!"

The women shrank in terror (yet pride, too, had her part), but one poor Tyrol maiden felt death within her heart. Before her stood fair Bregenz; once more her towers arose; what were the friends beside her? Only her country's foes! The faces of her kinsfolk, the days of childhood flown, the echoes of her mountains, reclaimed her as their own. Nothing she heard around her (though shouts rang forth again), gone were the green Swiss valleys, the pasture, and the plain; before her eyes one vision, and in her heart one cry, that said, "Go forth, save Bregenz, and then, if need be, die !"

With trembling haste and breathless, with noiseless step, she sped; horses