The rough iron-bound hilt? With this long hissing

sweep

I have smitten full many a foeman with sleep-
That forlorn, final sleep! God! what memories cling
To those gallant old times when we fought 'gainst the
King.

90

THE MOCKING BIRD

[AT NIGHT]

A golden pallor of voluptuous light
Filled the warm southern night:

The moon, clear orbed, above the sylvan scene
Moved like a stately queen,

So rife with conscious beauty all the while,
What could she do but smile

At her own perfect loveliness below,
Glassed in the tranquil flow

Of crystal fountains and unruffled streams?
Half lost in waking dreams,

As down the loneliest forest dell I strayed,

Lo! from a neighboring glade,

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Flashed through the drifts of moonshine, swiftly came A fairy shape of flame.

It rose in odazzling spirals overhead,

Whence to wild sweetness wed,

Poured marvellous melodies, silvery trill on trill;
The very leaves grew still

On the charmed trees to hearken; while for me,
Heart-trilled to ecstasy,

I followed-followed the bright shape that flew,
Still circling up the blue,

Till as a fountain that has reached its height,
Falls back in sprays of light

Slowly dissolved, so that enrapturing lay,

Divinely melts away

Through tremulous spaces to a music-mist,
Soon by the fitful breeze

How gently kissed

Into remote and tender silences.

THE PINE'S MYSTERY

I

Listen! the sombre foliage of the Pine,
A swart Gitana of the woodland trees,
Is answering what we may but half divine,

To those soft whispers of the twilight breeze!

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II

Passion and mystery murmur through the leaves,
Passion and mystery, touched by deathless pain.
Whose monotone of long, low anguish grieves
For something lost that shall not live again!

MY STUDY

This is my world! within these narrow walls,
I own a princely service; the hot care
And tumult of our frenzied life are here
But as a ghost, and echo; what befalls
In the far mart to me is less than naught;
I walk the fields of quiet Arcadies,
And wander by the brink of hoary seas,
Calmed to the tendance of untroubled thought:
Or if a livelier humor should enhance

The slow-timed pulse, 'tis not for present strife,
The sordid zeal with which our age is rife,
Its mammon conflicts crowned by fraud or chance,
But gleamings of the lost, heroic life,

Flashed through the gorgeous vistas of romance.

ΙΟ

IRWIN RUSSELL

CHRISTMAS-NIGHT IN THE QUARTERS

When merry Christmas-day is done,
And Christmas-night is just begun;
While clouds in slow procession drift,
To wish the moon-man "Christmas gift,"
Yet linger overhead, to know
What causes all the stir below;
At Uncle Johnny Booker's ball
The darkies hold high carnival.

From all the country-side they throng,
With laughter, shouts, and scraps of song,-
Their whole deportment plainly showing
That to the Frolic they are going.
Some take the path with shoes in hand,
To traverse muddy bottom-land;
Aristocrats their steeds bestride.
Four on a mule, behold them ride!
And ten great oxen draw apace
The wagon from "de oder place,"
With forty guests, whose conversation
Betokens glad anticipation.

F

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Not so with him who drives: old Jim
Is sagely solemn, hard, and grim,
And frolics have no joys for him.
He seldom speaks but to condemn -
Or utter some wise apothegm -

Or else, some crabbed thought pursuing,
Talk to his team, as now he's doing:

Come up heah, Star! Yee-bawee!

You alluz is a-laggin'

Mus' be you think I's dead,

An' dis de huss you's draggin'You's 'mos' too lazy to draw yo' bref, Let 'lone drawin' de waggin.

You heah me tell you quit 'at? Dis team's des like de 'Nited States; Dat's what I's tryin' to git at!

De people rides behin',

De pollytishners haulin'

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