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LEEDLE YAWCOB STRAUSS.

CHARLES F. ADAMS.

I haf von funny leedle poy

Vot gomes schust to my knee,—
Der queerest schap, der createst rogue
As efer you dit see.

He runs, und schumps, and schmashes dings
In all barts off der house.

But vot off dot? He vas mine son,

Mine leedle Yawcob Strauss.

He get der measels und der mumbs,
Und eferyding dot's oudt;

He sbills mine glass off lager bier,
Poots schnuff indo mine kraut;

He fills mine pipe mit Limburg cheese-
Dot vas der roughest chouse;

I'd dake dot vrom no oder poy

But leedle Yawcob Strauss.

He dakes der milk-ban for a dhrum,
Und cuts mine cane in dwo

To make der schticks to beat it mit-
Mine cracious, dot vas drue!

I dinks mine hed vas schplit abart
He kicks oup sooch a touse;
But nefer mind, der poys vas few
Like dot young Yawcob Strauss.

He asks me questions sooch as dese:
Who baints mine nose so red?

Who vos it cuts dot schmoodth blace oudt
Vrom der hair ubon mine hed?

Und vhere der plaze goes vrom der lamp

Vene'er der glim I douse?

How gan I all dese dings eggsblain

To dot schmall Yawcob Strauss.

I somedimes dink I schall go vild

Mit sooch a grazy poy,

Und vish vonce more I gould haf rest

Und beaceful dimes enshoy.

But ven he vas ashleep in ped,

So quiet as a mouse,

I prays der Lord, "Dake anydings,
But leaf dot Yawcob Strauss."

INTRA, MINTRA, CUTRA, CORN.
Ten small hands upon the spread,
Five forms kneeling beside the bed,
Blue-eyes, Black-eyes, Curly-head;
Blonde, Brunette-in a glee and glow,
Waiting the magic word. Such a row!
Seven years, six years, five, four, two!

Fifty fingers, all in a line,

Yours are thirty, and twenty are mine;
Ten sweet eyes that sparkle and shine.

Motherly Mary, age of ten,
Even the finger-tips again,
Glance along the line, and then-

"Intra, mintra, cutra, corn,
Apple seed and briar-thorn,
Wire, brier, limber lock,
Three geese in a flock,
Ruble, roble, rabble and rout,
Y. O. U. T.
Out!"

Sentence falls on Curly-head;
One wee digit is "gone and dead,"
Nine and forty left on the spread.

"Intra, mintra," the fiat goes,
Who'll be taken nobody knows;
Only God may the lot dispose.

Is it more than a childish play?
Still you sigh and turn away.

Why? What pain in the sight, I pray?

Ah, too true! As the fingers fall,

One by one at the magic call,

Till, at the last, chance reaches all,

So in the fateful days to come,

The lot shall fall in many a home

That breaks a heart and fills a tomb;

Shall fall, and fall, and fall again,

Like a law that counts our love all vain;-)
Like a fate, unheeding our woe and pain.

One by one-and who shall say
Whether the lot may fall this day,

That calleth of these dear babes away?

True, too true. Yet hold, dear friend;
Evermore doth the lot depend

On Him who loved, and loved to the end:

Blind to our eyes, the fiat goes,-
Who'll be taken, no mortal knows,
But only love will the lot dispose.
Only love, with his wiser sight;
Love alone, in his infinite might;
Love, who dwells in eternal light.

Now are the fifty fingers gone

To play some new play under the sun-
The childish fancy is past and gone.

So let our boding prophecies go

As childish, for do we not surely know
The dear God holdeth our lot below?

GODIVA.-ALFRED TENNYSON.

Not only we the latest seed of time,
New men, that in the flying of a wheel

Cry down the past; not only we, that prate
Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well,
And loathed to see them overtaxed; but she
Did more, and underwent, and overcame,
The woman of a thousand summers back,
Godiva, wife to that grim Earl who ruled
In Coventry: for when he laid a tax

Upon his town, and all the mothers brought

Their children, clamoring, "If we pay, we starve!" She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode About the hall, among his dogs, alone,

His beard a foot before him, and his hair

A yard behind. She told him of their tears,

And prayed him, "If they pay this tax, they starve." Whereat he stared, replying, half amazed,

"You would not let your little finger ache

For such as these?"-" But I would die," said she.
He laughed, and swore by Peter and by Paul:
Then filliped at the diamond in her ear;

"O, ay, ay, ay, you talk!"-"Alas!" she said,

66

But prove me what it is I would not do."

And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand,

He answered, “Ride you naked through the town,
And I repeal it;" and nodding as in scorn,
He parted, with great strides among his dogs.

So left alone, the passions of her mind,
As winds from all the compass shift and blow,
Made war upon each other for an hour,
Till pity won. She sent a herald forth,
And bade him cry, with sound of trumpet, all
The hard condition; but that she would loose
The people: therefore, as they loved her well,
From then till noon no foot should pace the street,
No eye look down, she passing; but that all
Should keep within, door shut and window barred.
Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there
Unclasped the wedded eagles of her belt,
The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath
She lingered, looking like a summer moon
Half dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head,
And showered the rippled ringlets to her knee;
Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair
Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid
From pillar unto pillar, until she reached
The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt
In purple blazoned with armorial gold.

Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity:
The deep air listened round her as she rode,
And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear.
The little wide-mouthed heads upon the spout
Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur
Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall shot
Light horrors through her pulses: the blind walls
Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead
Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she
Not less through all bore up, till, last, she saw
The white-flowered elder-thicket from the field
Gleam through the Gothic archways in the wall.

Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity:
And one low churl, compact of thankless earth,
The fatal by-word of all years to come,
Boring a little auger-hole in fear,

Peeped-but his eyes, before they had their will,
Were shriveled into darkness in his head,
And dropt before him. So the powers, who wait
On noble deeds, canceled a sense misused;

And she, that knew not, passed: and all at once,
With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon
Was clashed and hammered from a hundred towers,
One after one: but even then she gained

Her bower; whence re-issuing, robed and crowned,
To meet her lord, she took the tax away,
And built herself an everlasting name.

DADDY WORTHLESS.-LIZZIE W. CHAMPNEY.

"Dar's bressing in baptizing drops:
Dey dribes de debble out.
De rain dat falls upon de fields,
It makes de taters sprout.

Den sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle,
While de bells go tinkle, tinkle.
Swing low, ole chariot,

We'll dribe ole Satan out!"

The long, steep streets of Nashville glowed
With white dust, parched and dry;
The wind, as a sirocco scorched,

Like copper glared the sky.

A ghastly form strode through the town,
And at each fireside stood;

It paused at door of rich and poor,
To trace its sign of blood.
Nashville held many heroes brave,
And ladies fair and gay;

But each man's lip was blanched with fear,
And mirth all fled away.

Grim cholera reaped her harvest down,

And faster toiled each day;

While none could turn her sickle back

And none her march could stay.

Young Doctor Starr worked day and night-
Martyr of science he―

To trace the sources of the blight
And what its cause might be.
One night he started from his desk,
Pushed back his microscope,
And from his laboratory strode
All fresh inspired with hope.
"The seeds of death are in the air,
And we must beat them down.
Oh, for refreshing showers of rain!
E'en now they'd save the town.
I'll lay my plans before the Board
Of Health at break of day."

The morrow came, and Doctor Starr
The choleras victim lav.
Only a negro, gray and old,
Bent o'er his master's bed,
And listened carefully to all'
He in delirium said.

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