And while we drank those toasts once more,

Which such sweet hours revive,
We closed the door on 'Sixty-Four
And welcomed 'Sixty-Five.

We did not shout when we hurried out
The Old Year, gaunt and hoary:
For we honored him for what had been,
And loved him for his glory.

And we thought of pleasures at an end,

And joys that come no more,

And we cried, "God rest our honest friend, Departed 'Sixty-Four!"

And then we heard the sweet bells ring,

The wedding-bells Elysian,

And saw the fair brides of the year
Sweep past us like a vision;
And then a troop of rosy elves

Skipped lightly o'er the floor,
The babes of benediction born
In happy 'Sixty-Four.

But, then, alas! alas! alas!

We heard the roar of battle,

And saw, as in a burnished glass,

Brave men, like slaughtered cattle,Wounded and maimed with shot and shell,

And weltering in their gore,

Our true, our gallant boys who fell
In hapless 'Sixty-Four!

Oh! we pillow our dying darlings well,
And we damp their shrouds with tears,
From the child in its spotless innocence
To the grandsire full of years;

But down on the Southern battle-plain,
Who pillows the sick and sore?
And who weeps over the nameless slain

That fell in 'Sixty-Four?

Though the door is closed on that old, old year,

And its face shut out forever,

With its babes and its brides and its slaughtered dead

Shut out-shut out forever!

Yet the hopes and joys which died in the Old,

In the New Year may revive,

And the hearts that were wounded in 'Sixty-Four,
May be healed in 'Sixty-Five.

Though we can not call up from the churchyard snows
The treasures they hold securely;

Though our hearts are sick for the smile of those
Who sleep in the Lord,—yet surely,

As out of the cactus, rough with thorns,

A rich bright flower may thrive,
The griefs which were briers in 'Sixty-Four
May be blossoms in 'Sixty-Five.

If fathers, brothers, husbands, sons,

'Neath the flag they loved enlisted,

Have dropped in the blaze of the roaring guns,
And perished, unassisted;

Though homes be drear, and hearts be sore,

To do God's will we strive;

And the dear ones slaughtered in 'Sixty-Four

Are the martyrs of 'Sixty-Five!

Then, brothers, a health to the year that's gone,
And a health to the year to be;

The young King mounts the vacant throne
With a smile of victory.

War at his feet, expiring, lies

While the clouds melt in the South: And the dove sails up the sunny skies

With the olive in her mouth.

And the dumb have speech, and eyes, once dim,
Now clearly, brightly see;

And the fetters fall from many a limb,

That ne'er before was free.

And voices arise from swamp and shore,
Like the hum of bees in the hive,
From those who were slaves in 'Sixty-Four,
The freemen of 'Sixty-Five!

Then come to the crowning of the King,
The monarch of grace and glory,
Whose golden fame with bards shall sing,
Whose name shall be writ in story.
And bless the Lord we all adore,

Through whom we live and thrive,
And pray that the awful scourge of war,'
The vices and wrongs of 'Sixty-Four,
May die with its dead, and rise no more,
To haunt us in 'Sixty-Five!

WH

THE POLISH BOY.

HENCE come those shrieks so wild and shrill,
That cut, like blades of steel, the air,

Causing the creeping blood to chill

With the sharp cadence of despair?

Again they come, as if a heart

Were cleft in twain by one quick blow, And every string had voice apart

To utter its peculiar woe.

Whence came they? from yon temple, where
An altar, raised for private prayer,

Now forms the warrior's marble bed
Who Warsaw's gallant armies led.
The dim funereal tapers throw
A holy luster o'er his brow,
And burnish with their rays of light
The mass of curls that gather bright
Above the haughty brow and eye
Of a young boy that's kneeling by.

What hand is that, whose icy press

Clings to the dead with death's own grasp, But meets no answering caress?

No thrilling fingers seek its clasp.
It is the hand of her whose cry
Rang wildly, late, upon the air,
When the dead warrior met her eye
Outstretched upon the altar there.

With pallid lip and stony brow
She murmurs forth her anguish now.
But hark! the tramp of heavy feet
Is heard along the bloody street;
Nearer and nearer yet they come,
With clanking arms and noiseless drum.
Now whispered curses, low and deep,
Around the holy temple creep;
The gate is burst; a ruffian band
Rush in, and savagely demand,

With brutal voice and oath profane,
The startled boy for exile's chain.

The mother sprang with gesture wild,
And to her bosom clasped her child;
Then, with pale cheek and flashing eye,
Shouted with fearful energy,

"Back, ruffians, back! nor dare to tread
Too near the body of my dead;

Nor touch the living boy; I stand
Between him and your lawless band.

Take me, and bind these arms, these hands,
With Russia's heaviest iron bands,

And drag me to Siberia's wild

To perish, if 't will save my child!"

"Peace, woman, peace!" the leader cried,
Tearing the pale boy from her side,
And in his ruffian grasp he bore
His victim to the temple door.

"One moment!" shrieked the mother; "one ! Will land or gold redeem my son?

Take heritage, take name, take all,

But leave him free from Russian thrall!

Take these!" and her white arms and hands She stripped of rings and diamond bands,

And tore from braids of long black hair The gems that gleamed like starlight there; Her cross of blazing rubies, last,

Down at the Russian's feet she cast.

He stooped to seize the glittering store ;-
Up springing from the marble floor,
The mother, with a cry of joy,
Snatched to her leaping heart the boy.
But no! the Russian's iron grasp
Again undid the mother's clasp.