THE RETORT.

The death song of her people. High it rose
Above the tumult of the tide that bore
The victims to their doom. The boy beheld
The strange, stern beauty in his mother's eye,
And held his breath for awe.

Her song grew faint;

And as the rapids raised their whitening heads,
Casting her light oar to the infuriate tide,

She raised him in her arms, and clasped him close.
Then as the boat with arrowy swiftness drove

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Down toward the unfathomed gulf, while chilling spray Rose up in blinding showers, he hid his head

Deep in the bosom that had nurtured him,

With a low, stifled sob.

And thus they took

Their awful pathway to eternity.

One ripple on the mighty river's brink,

Just where it, shuddering, makes its own dread plunge,
And at the foot of that most dire abyss
One gleam of flitting robe and raven tress,
And feathery coronet-and all was o'er,
Save the deep thunder of the eternal surge
Sounding their epitaph.

Mrs. Sigourney.

THE RETORT.

A SUPERCILIOUS nabob of the east,

Haughty and grave, and purse-proud, being rich, A governor or general at least,

I have forgotten which,

Had in his family a humble youth,

Who went to India in his patron's suite;

An unassuming body, and in truth

A lad of decent parts and good repute.

This youth had sense and spirit,
Yet with all his sense,

Excessive diffidence

Obscured his merit.

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ETERNAL JUSTICE.

One day at table, flush'd with pride and wine,
His Honour, proudly free, severely merry,
Conceived it would be vastly fine

To crack a joke upon his Secretary.

"Young man," said he, "by what art, craft, or trade,
Did your good father earn his livelihood?"
“He was a saddler, sir," Modestus said,
"And in his line was reckon'd good."
"A saddler, eh! and taught you Greek,
Instead of teaching you to sew;

And pray, sir, why didn't your father make
A saddler, sir, of you?"

Each parasite, as in duty bound,

The joke applauded, and the laugh went round.

At length, Modestus, bowing low,

Said, craving pardon if too free he made,
Sir, by your leave, I fain would know

Your father's trade."

"My father's trade? Why, sir, that's too bad;
My father's trade! Why, blockhead, art thou mad?
My father, sir, did never stoop so low-
He was a gentleman I'd have you know."
"Excuse the liberty," Modestus said, "I take:
Pray, sir, why did not then your father make
A gentleman of you?"

Anon.

ETERNAL JUSTICE.

(By permission of the Author.)

THE man is thought a knave or fool,
Or bigot plotting crime,

Who, for the advancement of his kind,
Is wiser than his time.

For him the hemlock shall distil

For him the axe be bared

For him the gibbet shall be built,
For him the stake prepared !

Him shall the scorn and wrath of man
Pursue with deadly aim,

ETERNAL JUSTICE.

And malice, envy, spite, and lies
Shall desecrate his name:

But truth shall conquer at the last,
As round and round we run-
The right shall yet come uppermost,
And justice shall be done.

Pace through thy cell, old Socrates,
Cheerily to and fro,

Trust to the impulse of thy soul,
And let the poison flow;

They may shatter to earth the lamp of clay
That holds the light divine,

But they cannot quench the fire of thought
By any such deadly wine;
They cannot blot thy spoken words
From the memory of man,
By all the poison ever poured
Since time its course began;
To-day abhorred, to-morrow adored,
So round and round we run-
The right shall yet come uppermost,
And justice shall be done."

Plod in thy cave, grey anchorite,
Be wiser than thy peers;
Augment the range of human powers,

And trust to coming years.

They may call thee wizard and monk accurs'd,
And load thee with dispraise;
Thou wert born five hundred years too soon
For the comfort of thy days;

But not too soon for human kind-
Time hath reward in store,

And the demons of our sires become
The saints that we adore.

The blind can see-the slave is lord:
So round and round we run—
The right shall yet come uppermost,
And justice shall be done.

Keep, Galileo, to thy thought,

And nerve thy soul to bear;

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THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD.

They may gloat o'er the senseless words they wring
From the pangs of thy despair;

They may veil their eyes, but they cannot hide
The sun's meridian glow ;

The heel of a priest may tread thee down,
And a tyrant may work thee woe,
But never a truth has been destroyed-
Let them curse and call it crime,
Pervert and betray, and slander and slay
Its teachers for a time;

But the sunshine aye shall light the sky,
As round and round we run;

And ever the wrong is proved to be wrong,
And ever is justice done.

And live there now such men as these,
With thoughts like the great of old?
Many have died in their misery,
And left their thought untold;
And many live, and are rank'd as mad,
And placed in the cold world's ban,
For sending their bright, far-seeing souls
Three centuries in the van.

They toil in penury and grief,

Unknown, if not maligned,

Forlorn, forlorn, bearing the scorn
Of the meanest of mankind;

But yet the world goes round and round,

And the genial seasons run,

And ever the truth comes uppermost,

And ever is justice done.

Charles Mackay.

THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD.

THEY grew in beauty, side by side,
They fill'd one house with glee :
Their graves are severed far and wide,
By mount, and stream, and sea.

The same fond mother bent at night
O'er each fair sleeping brow,

She had each folded flower in sight:
Where are those dreamers now ?

THE PILGRIM AND THE PEAS.

One 'midst the forests of the west
By a dark stream is laid;
The Indian knows his place of rest,
Far in the cedar's shade.

The sea, the blue lone sea hath one,
He lies where pearls lie deep!
He was the loved of all, yet none
O'er his low bed may weep.

One sleeps where southern vines are dress'd
Above the noble slain ;

He wrapt his colours round his breast
On a blood-red field of Spain.

And one-o'er her the myrtle showers
Its leaves, by soft winds fann'd,
She faded 'midst Italian flowers,
The last of that bright band.

And parted thus, they rest who play'd
Beneath the same green tree.
Whose voices mingled as they pray'd
Around one parent knee!

They that with smiles lit up the hall,
And cheer'd with song the hearth-

Alas for love! if thou wert all,
And nought beyond, on earth.

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Mrs. Hemans.

THE PILGRIM AND THE PEAS.

A BRACE of sinners, for no good,

Were ordered to the Virgin Mary's shrine, Who at Loretto dwelt, in wax, stone, wood,

And in a fair white wig looked wondrous fine. Fifty long miles had these sad rogues to travel, With something in their shoes much worse than gravel; In short, their toes, so gentle, to amuse,

The priest had ordered peas into their shoes;