Of a legendary virtue carved upon our father's graves, Worshippers of light ancestral, make the present light a crime;

Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their time?

Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make Plymouth Rock sublime?

They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts; Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the

Past's;

But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath made us free,

Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits flee

The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them across the sea.

They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires,

Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altarfires;

Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we in our haste to slay,

From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away

To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of

today?

New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth;

They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth;

Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be,

Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,

Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's bloodrusted key.

James Russell Lowell.

THE BABY'S KISS.

(A true incident of the Civil War.)

Rough and ready the troopers ride,
Pistol in hostler and sword by side;

They have ridden long, they have ridden hard,
They are travel-stained and battle-scarred;

The hard ground shakes with their martial tramp,
And coarse is the laugh of the men of the camp.

They reach the spot where a mother stands
With a baby shaking its little hands,

Laughing aloud at the gallant sight

Of the mounted soldiers, fresh from the fight.
The captain laughs out, "I will give you this,
A bright piece of gold, for your baby's kiss."

"My darling's kisses cannot be sold,
But gladly he'll kiss a soldier bold."
He lifts up the babe with a manly grace,
And covers with kisses its smiling face.
Its rosy cheeks and its dimpled charms,

And it crows with delight in the soldier's arms.

"Not all for the captain," the troopers call; The baby, we know, has a kiss for all."

To each soldier's breast the baby is pressed

By the strong, rough men, and kissed and caressed.
And louder it laughs, and the lady's face
Wears a mother's smile at each fond embrace.

"Just such a kiss," cried one warrior grim,
"When I left my boy I gave to him;"
"And just such a kiss on the parting day,
I gave to my girl as asleep she lay."

Such were the words of these soldiers brave,
And their eyes were moist when the kiss they gave.

IRREVOCABLE.

What thou hast done, thou hast done: for the heavenly horses are swift;

Think not their flight to o'ertake,-they stand at the throne even now.

Ere thou canst compass the thought, the immortals in just hands shall lift,

Poise and weigh surely thy deed, and its weight shall be laid on thy brow:

For what thou hast done, thou hast done.

What thou hast not done remains, and the heavenly horses are kind;

Till thou hast pondered thy choice, they will patiently wait at thy door.

Do a brave deed, and, behold! they are farther away than the wind,

Returning, they bring thee a crown, to shine on thy brow evermore;

For what thou hast done, thou hast done.

Mary Wright Plummer.

ROQUEFORT CHEESE.

I hasten to send you a little clipping that I am sure will win one of the first prizes, so you might as well send me the $$$$$$$ at once and not have an unnecessary delay. I am five feet four in my shoes. I do not know where I clipped this article, as it has lain in my scrap drawer for many years, but I value it very highly, and do not want to lose it.

If you love Roquefort cheese, as I do, you will at once see that this little sketch contains both "wholesome cheer, humor, comfort, hope" and will make "dark days endurable and sunny days enduring."

If you have never tried this delightful delicacy, and desire to prove that I have not over-rated my endorsation of the enclosed, you can easily determine that I have told the "truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," by sampling a bit of the article. Yours truly,

Wm. N. Grubb.

France from the milk

Roquefort cheese is made in of a certain breed of sheep, which are fed on wild thyme, and the cheese has a wild time trying to keep from stinking itself to death in its infancy. The wild thyme grows on the banks of the Lot, Tarn and other rivers in the department of Aveyron in France, and after it has first been besheeped and then becheesed it generates a lot

of the tarndese smells that ever perambulated down the pike.

Thyme is a kind of an aromatic plant with a pungent odor, and after it is converted into Roquefort cheese it is the pungentest thing known to man. After this cheese is made it is put in solitary confinement until its whiskers begin to turn gray and gangrene sets in, when it is taken out and chained to a post. Before it is served it is chloroformed or knocked in the head with an ax. It is then brought to the table in little square sections about the size of a domino. It is served at the close of meals together with black coffee. It usually has a running mate in the shape of a round cracker that has to be broken with a maul.

Roquefort cheese is of a dull white color, except in spots, where mortification has set in. Some claim it to be inhabited, but this is not true. Even the intrepid and mephitic microbe flees from it as we flee from a pestilence. We have seen Limburger cheese strong enough to shoulder a two-bushel sack of wheat, but a piece of Roquefort the size of a dice can carry an election. Limburger is a rose geranium when compared with Roquefort. There is as much difference between them as there is between the purr of a kitten and the roar of a lion. Some people who claim to be civilized say they like Roquefort cheese, but they only eat it because it is imported and expensive. A man who will eat it is an open sepulchre, and should be quarantined or driven into the wilderness and never again allowed to look into the face of a human being.