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"Pray for rescue, wives and mothers,
Pray to-day!" the soldier said;
"To-morrow death's between us

And the wrong and shame we dread."

Oh, they listened, looked, and waited,
Till their hopes became despair,
And the sobs of low bewailing
Filled the pauses of their prayer.
Then up spake a Scottish maiden,
With her ear upon the ground,
"Dinna ye hear it? dinna ye hear it?
The pipes o' Havelock sound!"

Hushed the wounded man his groaning,
Hushed the wife her little ones;

Alone they heard the drum roll
And the roar of Sepoy guns.

But to sounds of home and childhood,
The highland ear was true;
"Dinna ye hear it? 'tis the slogan!
Will ye no believe it noo?"

Like the march of soundless music
Through the vision of the seer,
More of feeling than of hearing,
Of the heart than of the ear,
She knew the droning pibroch;
She knew the Campbell's call.
"Hark! hear ye no MacGregor's,
The grandest o' them all?"

Oh, they listened, dumb and breathless, And they caught the sound at last,

Faint and far beyond the Goomtee,
Rose and fell the piper's blast!
Then a burst of wild thanksgiving,
Mingled woman's voice and man's:
"God be praised! The march of Havelock
And the piping of the clans!"

Louder, nearer, fierce as vengeance,
Sharp and shrill as swords at strife,
Came the wild MacGregor's clan call,
Stirring all the air to life.

But when the far-off dust cloud
To plaided legions grew,
Full blithesomely and tenderly
The pipes of rescue blew.

Round the silver domes of Lucknow,
Round red Dowla's golden shrine,
Breathed the air to Briton's dearest,
The air of "Auld Lang Syne."

O'er the cruel roll of war-drums

Rose that sweet and home-like strain,

And the tartan clove the turban

As the Goomtee cleaves the plain.

Dear to the lowland reaper

And plaided mountaineer,
To the cottage and the castle,
The piper's song is dear.
Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch
O'er mountain glen and glade;
But the sweetest of all music
The pipes at Lucknow played.

J. G. Whittier.

APOSTROPHE TO WATER.

PAUL DENTON, a Methodist preacher in Texas,

advertised a barbecue, with better liquor than is usually furnished. When the people were assembled, a desperado in the crowd walked up to him, and cried out: "Mr. Denton, your reverence has lied. You promised not only a good barbecue, but better liquor. Where's the liquor?”

"There!" answered the preacher, in tones of thunder, and pointing his motionless finger at a spring gushing up in two strong columns, with a sound like a shout of joy, from the bosom of the earth. "There!" he repeated, with a look terrible as lightning, while his enemy actually trembled at his feet; "there is the liquor which God the Eternal brews for all his children. Not in the simmering still, over smoky fires, choked with poisonous gases, surrounded with the stench of sickening odors and rank corruptions, doth your Father in heaven prepare the precious essence of life pure, cold water; but in the green glade and glassy dell, where the red deer wanders and the child loves to play there God brews it; and down, down in the deepest valleys, where the fountains murmur and the rills sing; and high upon the mountain tops, where the naked granite glitters like gold in the sunlight, where the storm-clouds brood and the thunder-storms crash; and far out on the wide, wide sea, where the hurricanes howl music, and the mighty waves roar the chorus, sweeping the march of Godthere He brews it, that beverage of life-health-giving water.

"And everywhere it is a thing of life and beauty

whether gleaming in the dew-drop, pattering in the summer rain, shining in the ice-gem till the trees all seem turned into living jewels, spreading a golden veil over the setting sun, or a bright halo around the midnight moon, roaring in the cataract, sleeping in the glaciers, dancing in the hail-storm, folding its pearly white mantle gently about the wintry world, or weaving the many-colored iris, that seraph's zone of the sky, whose woof is the sunbeam of heaven, all checkered over with celestial flowers by the mystic hand of radiation-still always it is beautiful, that blessed life-water!

"There are no poison-bubbles on its brink! Its foam brings no sadness or sorrow! There are no blood-stains in its limpid glass! Broken-hearted wives, pale widows, and starving orphans shed no tears in its depths! No drunkard's shrieking ghost from the grave curses it in words of eternal despair! But it is beautiful, pure, blest, and glorious! Give me forever the sparkling, pure, heavenly water!"

Paul Denton.

THE GRENADIERS.

TWO grenadiers travell'd towards France, one day,

On leaving their prison in Russia,

And sadly they hung their heads in dismay
When they reach'd the frontiers of Prussia.

For there they first heard the story of woe,
That France had utterly perish'd,

The grand army had met with an overthrow,

They had captured their Emperor cherish'd.

Then both of the grenadiers wept full sore
At hearing the terrible story;

And one of them said: "Alas! once more
My wounds are bleeding and gory."

The other one said: "The game's at an end,
With thee I would die right gladly,

But I've wife and child, whom at home I should tend,
For without me they 'll fare but badly.

"What matters my child, what matters my wife;
A heavier care has arisen ;

Let them beg, if they're hungry, all their lives —
My Emperor sighs in a prison!

"Dear brother, pray grant me this one last prayer;
If my hours I now must number,

O take my corpse to my country fair,
That there it may peacefully slumber.

"The legion of honor, with ribbon red,
Upon my bosom place thou,

And put in my hand my musket dread,
And my sword around me brace thou.

"And so in my grave will I silently lie, And watch like a guard o'er the forces, Until the roaring of cannon hear I,

And the trampling of neighing horses.

"My Emperor then will ride over my grave,

While the swords glitter brightly and rattle; Then armed to the teeth will I rise from the grave, For my Emperor hasting to battle."-Heine.

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