THE POLISH BOY. Whence 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 The lim funereal tapers throw What hand is that, whose icy press Clings to the dead with death's own grasp, But meets no answering caress? With pallid lip and stony brow The mother sprang with gesture wild, Then, with pale cheek and flashing eye, "Back, ruffians, back! nor dare to tread And drag me to Siberia's wild To perish, if 'twill save my child!” "Peace, woman, peace!" the leader cried, 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 But the brave child is roused at length, Of his young spirit, fierce and bold. Seems kindled from the eternal sky, His curling lips and crimson checks I wept upon his marble brow, Yes, wept! I was a child; but now He drew aside his broidered vest, And there, like slumbering serpent's crest, "Ha! start ye back? Fool! coward! knave! A moment, and the funeral light -Great God, I thank thee! Mother, I Ann S. Stephens. متوقف IDEAS THE LIFE OF A PEOPLE. The leaders of our Revolution were men of whom the simple truth is the highest praise. Of every condition in life, they were singularly sagacious, sober, and thoughtful. Lord Chatham spoke only the truth when he said to Franklin, of the men who composed the first colonial Congress: "The Congress is the most honorable assembly of statesmen since those of the ancient Greeks and Romans in the most virtuous times." Given to grave reflection, they were neither dreamers nor visionaries, and they were much too earnest to be rhetoricians. It is a curious fact, that they were generally men of so calm a temper that they lived to extreme age. With the exception of Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams, they were most of them profound scholars, and studied the history of mankind that they might know men. They were so familiar with the lives and thoughts of the wisest and best minds of the past that a classic aroma hangs about their writings and their speech; and they were profoundly convinced of what statesmen always know, and the adroitest mere politicians never perceive, that ideas ure the life of a people; that the conscience, not the pocket, is the real citadel of a nation, and that when you have debauched and demoralized that conscience by teaching that there are no natural rights, and that therefore there is no moral right or wrong in political action, you have poisoned the wells and rotted the crops in the ground. The three greatest living statesmen of England knew this also. Edmund Burke knew it, and Charles James Fox, and William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. But they did not speak for the King, or Parliament, or the English nation. Lord Gower spoke for them when he said in Parliament: "Let the Americans talk about their natural and divine rights; their rights as men and citizens; their rights from God and nature! I am for enforcing these measures." My lord was contemptuous, and the King hired the Hessians, but the truth remained true. The Fathers saw the scarlet soldiers swarming over the sea, but more steadily they saw that national progress had been secure only in the degree that the political system had conformed to natural justice. They knew the coming wreck of property and trade, but they knew more surely that Rome was never so rich as when she was dying, and, on the other hand, the Netherlands, never so powerful as when they were poorest. Farther away, they read the names of Assyria, Greece, Egypt. They had art, opulence, splendor. Corn enough grew in the valley of the Nile. The Syrian sword was as sharp as any. They were merchant princes, and the clouds in the sky were rivalled by their sails upon the sea. They were soldiers, and their frown frightened the world. "Soul, take thine ease," those empires said, languid with excess of luxury and life. Yes: but you remember the king who had built his grandest palace, and was to occupy it upon the morrow; but when the morrow came the palace was a pile of ruins. "Woe is me!" cried the King, "who is guilty of this crime?" "There is no crime," replied the sage at his side; "but the mortar was made of sand and water only, and the builders forgot to put in the lime." So fell the old empires, because the governors forgot to put justice into their governments. George W. Curtis. THE ROMANCE OF NICK VAN STANN. I cannot vouch my tale is true, |