O days of my boyhood! I bless you;
While looking from life's busy prime,
The treasures are lingering with me
I gathered in life's early time.

O still to that bleak country corner

Turns my heart in its weariness yet,
Where leading my gentle young sisters
With youthful companions I met.
I cast a fond glance o'er the meadow;
The hills just behind it I see
Away in the charm of the distance,
Old schoolhouse! a blessing on thee!

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die: to sleep:
No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Shakespeare.

BLACK SHEEP

From their folded tents they wander far,
Their ways seem harsh and wild;
They follow the beck of a baleful star,
Their paths are dream-beguiled.

Yet haply they sought but a wider range,
Some loftier mountain slope,

And little recked of the country strange
Beyond the gates of hope.

And haply a bell with a luring call

Summoned their feet to tread

Midst the cruel rocks where the deep pitfall
And the lurking snare are spread.
Maybe in spite of their tameless days
Of outcast liberty,

They're sick at heart for the homely ways
Where their gathered brothers be.

And oft at night when the plains fall dark,
And the hills loom large and dim;

For the Shepherd's voice they mutely hark,
And their souls go out to him.

Meanwhile, Black Sheep! Black Sheep! we cry.
Safe in the inner fold;

And maybe they hear and wonder why,

And marvel, out in the cold.

Richard Burton, in April Atlantic, 1899.

THE SONGS MY MOTHER SANG

I hear them in the whispering winds,
The forest's rhythmic strain,

The chime of bells, that sinks and swells,
The patter of the rain.

I hear them in the vesper call

Of birds from copse and tree;

Each note prolongs the dear old songs
That mother sang to me.

I hear them in the ocean's voice,
The prattle of the child,

The dashing rill, the fountain's trill,
The tempests fierce and wild.

I hear them through the silent night,
In dreams they echo free,

Since memory throngs with tender songs
That mother sang to me.

I heard them when a babe I lay
Upon her loving breast,

And when a child their charms beguiled
My eager brain to rest.

I hear them now, and some last hour
Across death's swelling sea

My soul shall wing, while angels sing
The songs she sang to me.

Lalia Mitchell, in Farm Journal.

THE SONGS THAT MOTHER SUNG

Go, sing the songs you cherish well,
Each ode and simple lay;

Go, chord the notes till bosoms swell,
With strains that deftly play.
All, all are yours to sacred keep,

Your choicest treasures 'mong:
But give to me till memory sleeps,
The songs that mother sung.

When life's dark pæan's plaintive round'
Falls 'cross the weary way.

To drown, in sighing, mournful sound,
The dirge of dismal day.

Then softly back lost strains will steal,
From cradle anthems rung,

To drown the woes that sorrows feel,
In songs that mother sung.

And when the ebb of eventide,
Afar across the strand,

Sets out to where the billows ride,
Beyond life's shifting sand,
Then softly back above the roar,
Of mad, mad waters flung,

Oh! back, bring back to me once more
The songs my mother sung.

HANNA'S COURTSHIP

Nearly thirty-eight years ago Mark Hanna was just starting on his business career as a grocer in Cleveland. He was poor, plodding, and, to the casual observer, a very every-day sort of young man. Daniel Rhodes was one of the rich coal owners of the state. He had one daughter, Gussie, the very idol of his soul. Gussie Rhodes met and loved the obscure, poor young man, Mark Hanna. Mr. Rhodes was astounded when the daring young grocer called upon him and asked for the hand of his daughter. He refused absolutely to grant the young suitor even time enough to beg. He said "No!" curtly and sharply, and when he saw his daughter he tried to scold her, but instead he took her in his honest arms and begged her not to think of "this unknown man, Hanna." He said he never, never could consent to such a choice for his child.