And Alleghany graves its tone Your mountains build their monument, Ye call these red-browed brethren Crushed like the noteless worm amid Ye drive them from their fathers' land, But can ye from the court of Heaven Ye see their unresisting tribes, Think ye the Eternal Ear is deaf? His sleepless vision dim? Think ye the soul's blood may not cry 129. THE BOYS. O. W. HOLMES. Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys? We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more? " Gray temples at twenty?"-Yes! white if we please; Where snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze! We want some new garlands for those we have shed, We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told, That boy we call "Doctor," and this we call "Judge;" It's a neat little fiction,-of course it's 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 So they chose him right in,- —a good joke it was too! 130.-EVENING BRINGS US HOME. ANONYMOUS. Upon the hills the wind is sharp and cold, Among the mists we stumbled, and the rocks The sharp thorns prick us, and our tender feet We have been wounded by the hunter's darts; The darkness gathers. Through the gloom no star The clouds are round us, and the snow-drifts thicken. 131.-CHARLES LAMB. RECOLLECTIONS OF CHIldhood. Since my father's death our family have resided in London. I am in practice as a surgeon there. My mother died two years after we left Widford. I set out one morning to walk; Í reached Widford about eleven in the forenoon; after a slight breakfast at my inn-where I was mortified to perceive the old landlord did not know me again-I rambled over all my accustomed haunts. Our old house was vacant, and to be sold. I entered, unmolested, into the room that had been my bedchamber. I kneeled down on the spot where my little bed had stood; I felt like a child, I prayed like one; it seemed as though old times were to return again: I looked round involuntarily, expecting to see some face I knew; but all was naked and mute. The bed was gone. My little pane of painted window, through which I loved to look at the sun when I awoke on a fine summer's morning, was taken out, and had been replaced by one of common glass. I visited, by turns, every chamber; they were all desolate and unfurnished, one excepted, in which the owner had left a harpsichord, probably to be sold: I touched the keys-I played old Scottish tunes which had delighted me when a child. Past associations revived with the music, blended with a sense of unreality, which at last became too powerful: I rushed out of the room to give vent to my feelings. I wandered, scarce knowing where, into an old wood that stands at the back of the house; we called it the Wilderness. A well-known form was missing, that used to meet me in this place it was thine, Ben Moxam-the kindest, gentlest, politest of human beings, yet was he nothing higher than a gardener in the family. Honest creature! thou didst never pass me in my childish rambles without a soft speech and a smile. I remember thy good-natured face. But there is one thing for which I can never forgive thee, Ben Moxam-that thou didst join with an old maiden aunt of mine in a cruel plot to lop away the hanging branches of the old fir-trees: I remember them sweeping the ground. In this Wilderness I found myself, after a ten years' absence. Its stately fir trees were yet standing, with all their luxuriant company of underwood: the squirrel was there, and the melancholy cooings of the wood pigeon; all was as I had left it. My heart softened at the sight; it seemed as though my character had been suffering a change since I forsook these shades. My parents were both dead; I had no counsellor left, no experience of age to direct me, no sweet voice of reproof. The Lord had taken away my friends, and I knew not where He had laid them. I paced round the Wilderness, seeking a comforter. I prayed that I might be restored to that state of innocence in which I had wandered in those shades. Methought my request was heard, for it seemed as though the stains of manhood were passing from me, and I were relapsing into the purity and simplicity of childhood. I was content to be molded into a perfect child. I stood still, as in a trance. I dreamed that I was enjoying a personal intercourse with my heavenly Father, and, extravagantly, put off the shoes from my feet, for the place where I stood, I thought, was holy ground. IN THE CHURCHYARD. I continued in the churchyard, reading the various inscriptions, and moralizing on them with that kind of levity which will not unfrequently spring up in the mind, in the midst of deep melancholy. I read of nothing but careful parents, loving husbands, and dutiful children. I said jestingly, Where be all the bad people buried? Bad parents, bad husbands, bad children, what cemeteries are appointed for these? do they not sleep in consecrated ground? or is it but a pious fiction, a generous oversight, in the survivors, which thus tricks out men's epitaphs when dead, who, in their lifetime, discharged the offices of life, perhaps, but lamely? Their failings, with their reproaches, now sleep with them in the grave. Man wars not with the dead. It is a trait of human nature, for which I love it. I had not observed, till now, a little group assembled at the other end of the churchyard: it was a company of children, who were gathered round a young man, dressed in black, sitting on a grave-stone. He seemed to be asking them ques tions, probably about their learning; and one little dirty ragged-headed fellow was clambering up his knees to kiss him. : As I drew near them, I thought I discerned in the stranger a mild benignity of countenance which I had somewhere seen before I gazed at him more attentively. It was Allan Clare! sitting on the grave of his sister. I threw my arms about his neck. I exclaimed, "Allan !" He turned his eyes upon me; he knew me : we both wept aloud. It seemed as though the interval since we parted had been as nothing; I cried out, "Come, and tell me all about these things." I drew him away from his little friends, took him to my inn, secured a room where we might be private, ordered some fresh wine; scarce knowing what I did, I danced for joy. Allan was quite overcome, and, taking me by the hand, he said, "This repays me for all." It was a proud day for me: I had found the friend whom I had thought dead : Earth seemed to me no longer valuable than as it contained him, and existence a blessing no longer than while I should live to be his comforter. I began, at leisure, to survey him with more attention. Time and grief had left few traces of that fine enthusiasm which once burned in his countenance: his eyes had lost their original fire, but they retained an uncommon sweetness, and, whenever they were turned upon me, their smile pierced to my heart. Allan, I fear you have been a sufferer?" He replied not, and I could not press him further. I could not recall the dead to life again. So we told old stories, and repeated old poetry, and sang old songs, as if nothing had happened. We sat till very late. I forgot that I had purposed returning to town that evening: to Allan all places were alike: I grew noisy, he grew cheerful : Allan's old manners, old enthusiasm, were returning upon him: we laughed, we wept, we mingled our tears, and talked extravagantly. Allan was my chamber fellow that night; and we lay awake planning schemes of living together under the same roof, entering upon similar pursuits,—praising God that we had met. ON RISING WITH THE LARK. At what precise minute that little airy musician doffs his night-gear, and prepares to tune up his unseasonable matins, we are not naturalist enough to determine. But, for a mere human gentleman—that has no orchestra business to call him from his warm bed to such preposterous exercises-we take ten or half after ten (eleven, of course, during this Christmas solstice) to be the earliest hour at which he can begin to think |