With lazy old house-dog or loud-baying hound; And the cold, cheerless woods we delighted to tramp For the shy, whirring partridge, in snow to our knees, Where, with neck yoke and pails, in the old sugarcamp,

We gathered the sap from the tall maple-trees; And the fields where our plows danced a furious jig, While we wearily followed the furrow all day, Where we stumbled and bounded o'er boulders so big That it took twenty oxen to draw them away; Where we sowed, where we hoed, where we cradled and mowed,

Where we scattered the swaths that were heavy with dew,

The kings of the forest they plucked from their lands; They were stern in their virtues, they hated all wrong, And they fought for the right with their hearts and their hands.

Down, down from the hillsides they swept in their might,

And up from the valleys they went on their way, To fight and to fall upon Hubbardton's height, To struggle and conquer in Bennington's fray. Oh! fresh be their memory, cherished the sod That long has grown green o'er their sacred remains,

And grateful our hearts to a generous God

For the blood and the spirit that flows in their veins.

load

The broken old bull-rake reluctantly drew.

How we grasped the old "sheepskin" with feelings

of scorn

As we straddled the back of the old sorrel mare, And rode up and down through the green rows of

corn,

Like a pin on a clothes-line that sways in the air ; We can hear our stern fathers reproving us still, As the careless old creature "comes down on a hill." We are far from the home of our boyhood to-day, In the battle of life we are struggling alone; The weather-worn farmhouse has gone to decay, The chimney has fallen, the swallows have flown, But fancy yet brings, on her bright golden wings, Her beautiful pictures again from the past, And memory fondly and tenderly clings

To pleasures and pastimes too lovely to last.

We wander again by the river to-day ;

We sit in the school-room, o'erflowing with fun, We whisper, we play, and we scamper away

When our lessons are learned and the spelling is done.

We see the old cellar where apples were kept,

The garret where all the old rubbish was thrown, The little back chamber where snugly we slept,

The homely old kitchen, the broad hearth of stone, Where apples were roasted in many a row, Where our grandmothers nodded and knit long ago. Our grandmothers long have reposed in the tomb; With a strong, healthy race they have peopled the land;

They worked with the spindle, they toiled at the loom,

Nor lazily brought up their babies by hand.
The old flint-lock musket, whose awful recoil
Made many a Nimrod with agony cry,
Once hung on the chimney, a part of the spoil

Our gallant old grandfathers captured at "Ti."

But our mountains remain with their evergreen

crown.

The souls of our heroes are yet marching on,
The structure they founded shall never go down.
From the weather-worn house on the brow of the hill
We are dwelling afar, in our manhood to-day;
But we see the old gables and hollyhocks still,
As they looked when we left them to wander away.
But the dear ones we loved in the sweet long ago
In the old village churchyard sleep under the snow.
Farewell to the friends of our bright boyhood days,
To the beautiful vales once delightful to roam,
To the fathers, the mothers, now gone from our gaze,
From the weather-worn house to their heavenly

home,

Where they wait, where they watch, and will welcome us still,

As they waited and watched in the house on the hill. EUGENE J. HALL.

ON THE BANKS OF THE TENNESSEE.

SIT by the open window

And look to the hills away, Over beautiful undulations

That glow with the flowers of May-
And as the lights and the shadows
With the passing moments change,
Comes many a scene of beauty

Within my vision's range—
But there is not one among them
That is half so dear to me,
As an old log cabin I think of

On the banks of the Tennessee.

Now up from the rolling meadows,

And down from the hill-tops now, Fresh breezes steal in at my window,

And sweetly fan my brow

And the sounds that they gather and bring me, From rivulet, meadow and hill,

Come in with a touching cadence,
And my throbbing bosom fill-
But the dearest thoughts thus wakened,
And in tears brought back to me,
Cluster round that old log cabin
On the banks of the Tennessee.

To many a fond remembrance
My thoughts are backward cast,
As I sit by the open window

And recall the faded past-
For all along the windings

Of the ever-moving years, Lie wrecks of hope and of purpose That I now behold through tears— And of all of them, the saddest That is thus brought back to me, Makes holy that old log cabin

On the banks of the Tennessee.

Glad voices now greet me daily,
Sweet faces I oft behold,
Yet I sit by the open window

And dream of the times of old-
Of a voice that on earth is silent,
Of a face that is seen no more,
Of a spirit that faltered not ever
In the struggle of days now o'er—
And a beautiful grave comes pictured
For ever and ever to me,

From a knoll near that old log cabin On the banks of the Tennessee.

WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER.

THE HAPPINESS OF ANIMALS.

ERE unmolested, through whatever sign. The sun proceeds, I wander. Neither mist, Nor freezing sky nor sultry, checking me, Nor stranger, intermeddling with my joy, Even in the spring and playtime of the year, That calls the unwonted villager abroad With all her little ones, a sportive train, To gather kingcups in the yellow mead, And prink their hair with daisies, or to pick

A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook,
These shades are all my own. The timorous hare,
Grown so familiar with her frequent guest,
Scarce shuns me; and the stockdove unalarmed
Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor suspends
His long love-ditty for my near approach.
Drawn from his refuge in some lonely elm,
That age or injury has hollowed decp,'
Where on his bed of wool and matted leaves,
He has outslept the winter, ventures forth
To frisk a while, and bask in the warm sun.
The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play ;
He sees me, and at once, swift as a bird,
Ascends the neighboring beech; there whisks his brush,
And perks his ears, and stamps, and cries aloud,
With all the prettiness of feigned alarm,
And anger, insignificantly fierce.

The heart is hard in nature, and unfit
For human fellowship, as being void
Of sympathy, and therefore dead alike
To love and friendship both, that is not pleased
With sight of animals enjoying life,

Nor feels their happiness augment his own.
The bounding fawn that darts along the glade

When none pursues, through mere delight of heart,
And spirits buoyant with excess of glee;

The horse as wonton, and almost as fleet

That skims the spacious meadow at full speed,

Then stops, and snorts, and throwing high his heels,
Starts to the voluntary race again;

The very kine, that gambol at high noon,
The total herd receiving first from one,
That leads the dance, a summons to be gay,
Though wild their strange vagaries and uncouth
Their efforts, yet resolved with one consent
To give such act and utterance as they may
To ecstasy too big to be suppressed—
These and a thousand images of bliss,
With which kind nature graces every scene,
Where cruel man defeats not her design,
Impart to the benevolent, who wish
All that are capable of pleasure pleased,
A far superior happiness to theirs,
The comfort of a reasonable joy.

WILLIAM Cowper.

BIJAH'S STORY.

'E was little more than a baby,
And played on the streets all day;
And holding in his tiny fingers
The string of a broken sleigh.

He was ragged, and cold, and hungry,
Yet his face was a sight to see,
And he lisped to a passing lady-
"Pleathe, mithus, will you yide me?"
But she drew close her fur-lined mantle
And her train of silk and lace,
While she stared with haughty wonder
In the eager, piteons face.
And the eyes that shone so brightly,
Brimmed o'er with gushing rain,
And the poor little head dropped lowes
While his heart beat a sad refrain.

When night came, cold and darkly,
And the lamps were all alight,

The pallid lips grew whiter

With childish grief and fright.

As I was passing the entrance
Of a church across the way,

I found a poor dead baby,

With his head on a broken sleigh.

Soon young and eager footsteps
Were heard on the frozen street,
And a boy dashed into the station,
Covered with snow and sleet.

On his coat was a newsboy's number,
On his arm a "bran new sled;"
Have you seen my brother Bijah?
He ought to be home in bed.

"You see, I leave him at Smithers'
While I go round with the 'Press :'
They must have forgot about him,
And he's strayed away, I guess.

"Last night when he said 'Our Father,'
And about the daily bread,

He just threw in an extra
Concerning a nice new sled.

"I was tellin' the boys at the office,

As how he was only three;

And they stuck in for this here stunner
And sent it home with me.