THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH.

Under a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith-a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long;
His face is like the tan,

His brow is wet with honest sweat

He earns whate'er he can;

And looks the whole world in the face,

For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow-

Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.

And children, coming home from school,
Look in at the open door;

They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar,

And catch the burning sparks, that fly
Like chaff from a threshing floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;

He hears the parson pray and preach-
He hears his daughter's voice

Singing in the village choir,

And it makes his heart rejoice.

THOMAS MOORE.

HE inexorable laws of space render it impossible for us to give more than the briefest notice of "the sweetest singer of the sweetest songs." Thomas GA Moore was Ireland's bountiful legacy to the minstrelsy of the early part of the nineteenth century, and though the century is growing old, no singer has sung a more pathetic song than the "Last Rose of Summer," or touched the heart of patriotism with a finer strain than "The Minstrel Boy!"

Thomas Moore was born in Dublin on the 28th of March, 1779. His early education was prosecuted alongside that brilliant Irishman, Sheridan. In 1793 Moore was sent to Dublin University, where he took the degree of B. A. with honors. Before this time he had proven himself a poet in his "Odes of Anacreon." While quite young he mastered the Italian and French languages. He had a fine ear for music, and a keen sense of harmony, which, linked with his fine poetic genius, will go far toward accounting for the wonderful rhythm of his poems. In 1798 he went to London to study law. In 1800 he published his translations, and dedicated them to George IV., then Prince of Wales. In 1803 he was appointed to a government post in Bermuda. He traveled through America and Canada, and immortalized many of the scenes of travel in his deathless songs. He once fought a duel, of which Byron made the most uproarious fun. Moore, and Jeffreys his combatant, afterward becoming the best of friends. In 1807 he gave "Irish Melodies" to the world. In 1817 that grandest of oriental poems, "Lalla Rookh," appeared. In 1819 he went to Paris with Lord John Russell, and thence to Italy to see Byron. It was during this visit that Byron consigned to

Moore the materials for his biography, which were to remain untouched till after his death. These materials were destroyed after Byron's death at the urgent entreaty of Byron's rela tives. Moore, however, gave the world its best "Life of Byron," in 1830. The end of Moore was sad though peaceful. He was cared for in his later years. The over-wrought brain gave way, and the singer ceased his singing. He died on the 25th of February, 1852.

The first poem we quote is a remembrance of his tour through America. Other brief specimens follow:

THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP.

A BALLAD OF VIRGINIA.

"They tell of a young man who lost his mind upon the death of a girl he loved, and who, suddenly disappearing from his friends, was never afterward heard of. As he had frequently said in his ravings that the girl was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp, it is supposed he had wandered into that dreary wilderness, and had died of hunger, or been lost in some of its dreadful morasses."

They made her a grave too cold and damp.

For a soul so warm and true;

And she's gone to the lake of the Dismal Swamp,
Where all night long by the firefly lamp

She paddles her white canoe.

And her firefly lamp I soon shall see,
And her paddle I soon shall hear;
Long and loving our life shall be,
And I'll hide the maid in a cypress tree,
When the footstep of death is near!

Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds,-
His path was rugged and sore,
Through tangled juniper, heds of reeds,
Through many a fen where the serpent feeds,
And man never trod before!

And when on earth he sunk to sleep,

If slumber his eyelids knew,

He lay where the deadly vine doth weep
Its venomous tear, and nightly steep
The flesh with blistering dew!

And near him the she-wolf stirred the brake,
And the copper-snake breathed in his ear,
Till he starting cried, from his dream awake,
"Oh! when shall I see the dusky lake,

And the white canoe of my dear?"

He saw the lake, and a meteor bright
Quick over its surface played,—
"Welcome," he said, "my dear one's light!"
And the dim shore echoed for many a night
The name of the death-cold maid!

Till he hollowed a boat of the birchen bark,
Which carried him off from the shore;
For he followed with joythe meteor spark,
The wind was high, and the clouds were dark,
And the boat returned no more.

But oft from the Indian hunter's camp

This lover and maid so true

Are seen at the hour of midnight damp
To cross the lake by a firefly lamp,

And paddle their white canoe.

GOD THE LIFE AND LIGHT OF ALL.

Thou art, O Lord! the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see;

Its glow by day, its smile by night,
Are but reflections caught from Thee: