THE ANGEL FERRY. Он, when shall the boatman ferry me o'er I have journeyed for many a weary day, And up misfortune's thorny slope, And my heart beats time to a ceaseless tune :--- To the friends who wait on the further shore? Through the wrecks of many a fairy dream And while I faintly call and pray, My wind-swept locks are turning gray. But I know he is true, and will come ere quite And I walk the sands till he bear me o'er To the friends who wait on the further shore. He is fair and beautiful, I know, The shadows deepen one by one, CIVIL WAR. "RIFLEMAN, shoot me a fancy shot Straight at the heart of yon prowling vedette; Ring me a ball in the glittering spot That shines on his breast like an amulet !" "Ah, captain! here goes for a fine-drawn bead, There's music around when my barrel's in tune!” Crack! went the rifle, the messenger sped, And dead from his horse fell the ringing dragoon. "Now, rifleman, steal through the bushes, and snatch From your victim some trinket to handsel first blood; A button, a loop, or that luminous patch That gleams in the moon like a diamond stud !" "Oh captain! I staggered, and sunk on my track, When I gazed on the face of that fallen vedette, For he looked so like you, as he lay on his back, That my heart rose upon me, and masters me yet. "But I snatched off the trinket,-this locket of gold; "Ha! rifleman, fling me the locket!-'tis she, My brother's young bride,-and the fallen dragoon Was her husband-Hush! soldier, 'twas Heaven's decree, We must bury him there, by the light of the moon! "But, hark! the far bugles their warnings unite; Anonymous. THE BATTLE. HEAVY and solemn, Through the green plain they marching came! "Halt!" And fettered they stand at the stark command, Proud in the blush of morning glowing, How they ring through the ranks, which they rouse to the strife! Thrilling they sound, with their glorious tone,- In the life to come that we meet once more! See the smoke, how the lightning is cleaving asunler! Hark! the guns, peal on peal, how they boom in their thunder! From host to host with kindling sound, The shouted signal circles round; The iron death-dice fall! Nearer they close-foes upon foes— They kneel as one man from flank to flank, Many a gap by the balls is rent; O'er the corpse before springs the hinder man, God's sunlight is quenched in the fiery fight The dead men are bathed in the weltering blood Ho! comrades! yon volley! look sharp to the rear! Hark to the hoofs that galloping go! The horsemen press hard on the panting foe, Victory! Tremor has seized on the dastards all, And their leaders fall! Victory! Closed is the brunt of the glorious fight; And the day, like a conqueror, bursts on the night! The triumph already sweeps marching in song. Farewell, fallen brothers; though this life be o'er, There's another, in which we shall meet you once more! BOMBASTIC APPEAL TO A JURY. GENTLEMEN of the Jury,-It is with feelings of no ordinary communion that I rise to defend my injured client from the attacks that have been made on his hithertofore unapproachable character. I feel, gentlemen, that though a good deal smarter than any of you, even the judge himself, yet I am utterly incompetent to present this case in the magnanimous and heart-rending light which its importance demands; and I trust, gentlemen, that whatever I may lack in presenting the subject will be immediately made up by your own natural good sense and discernment, if you have got any. The counsel for the prosecution, gentlemen, will undoubtedly attempt to heave dust in your eyes. He will tell you that his client is pre-eminently a man of function, that he is a man of undoubted and implicable veracity, -that he is a man who would scorn to fotch an action against another merely to gratify his own personal corporosity; but, gentlemen, let me cautionate you how to rely upon such specious reasoning like this. I myself apprehend that this suit has been wilfully and maliciously focht, gentlemen, for the sole and only purpose of browbeating my client here, and in an eminent manner grinding the face of the poor; and I apprehend, also, that if you could but look into that man's heart, and read there the motives that have impelled him to fotch this suit, such a picture of moral turpentine and heart-felt ingratitude would be brought to light as has never before been exhibited since the falls of Niagara. Now, gentlemen, I want to make a brilliant appeal to the kind symmetries of your nature, and see if I can't warp your judgments a little in favor of my unfortunate client here, and then I shall fotch my argument to a close. Here is a poor man, with a numerous wife and child, depending upon him for their daily bread and butter, wantonly fotcht up here, and arranged before an intellectual jury on the charge of ignominiously hooking-yes, hooking-six quarts of new cider. You, gentlemen, have all been placed in similar situations, and "know how it is yourself" and you can therefore feel for the misfortunes of my client; and I humbly calculate that you will not permit the gushing of your symperthizing hearts to be squenched in the bud by the surruptions and superogating arguments of my ignorant opponent on the other side. The law expressly declares, gentlemen, in the beautiful language of Shakespeare, that where no doubt exists of the guilt of the prisoner, it is your duty to lean upon the side of justice and fotch him in unblameworthy. If you keep this fact in view in the case of my client, gentlemen, |