And he pointed to the laden board and to the Christmas tree,

Then up to the cold sky, and said, "Will Gretchen come with me?"

The

poor child felt her pulses fail, she felt her eyeballs swim,

And a ringing sound was in her ears, like her dead mother's hymn :

And she folded both her thin white hands and turned from that bright board,

And from the golden gifts, and said, "With thee, with thee, O Lord!"

The chilly winter morning breaks up in the dull skies

On the city wrapt in vapor, on the spot where Gretchen lies.

In her scant and tattered garments, with her back against the wall,

She sitteth cold and rigid, she answers to no call. They have lifted her up fearfully, they shuddered

THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.

"Drowned! drowned!"- HAMLET.

ONE more unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death!

Take her up tenderly,
'Lift her with care!
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!

Look at her garments
Clinging like cerements,
Whilst the wave constantly
Drips from her clothing;
Take her up instantly,
Loving, not loathing!
Touch her not scornfully!
Think of her mournfully,
Gently and humanly,
Not of the stains of her;
All that remains of her
Now is pure womanly.

Loop up her tresses
Escaped from the comb,
Her fair auburn tresses, -
Whilst wonderment guesses
Where was her home?

Who was her father?
Who was her mother?
Had she a sister?
Had she a brother?
Or was there a dearer one
Still, and a nearer one
Yet, than all other?
Alas! for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun!
O, it was pitiful!
Near a whole city full,
Home she had none.

Sisterly, brotherly,

Fatherly, motherly

Feelings had changed,

Love, by harsh evidence,

Thrown from its eminence ;

Even God's providence

Seeming estranged.

Where the lamps quiver

So far in the river,
With many a light

From window and casement,
From garret to basement,
She stood, with amazement,
Houseless by night.

The bleak wind of March
Made her tremble and shiver;
But not the dark arch,
Or the black flowing river;
Mad from life's history,
Glad to death's mystery,
Swift to be hurled -
Anywhere, anywhere
Out of the world!

In she plunged boldly,—
No matter how coldly

Dissolute man!

Lave in it, drink of it,

Then, if you can!

Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care!
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!

Ere her limbs, frigidly,
Stiffen too rigidly,
Decently, kindly,
Smooth and compose them;
And her eyes, close them,
Staring so blindly!
Dreadfully staring
Through muddy impurity,
As when with the daring
Last look of despairing
Fixed on futurity.
Perishing gloomily,
Spurred by contumely,
Cold inhumanity,
Burning insanity,
Into her rest!

Cross her hands humbly,
As if praying dumbly,
Over her breast!

Owning her weakness,

Her evil behavior,

And leaving, with meekness,

Her sins to her Saviour!

THOMAS HOOD.

BEAUTIFUL SNOW.

O THE snow, the beautiful snow,
Filling the sky and the earth below!
Over the house-tops, over the street,
Over the heads of the people you meet,
Dancing,
Flirting,

Skimming along.
Beautiful snow! it can do nothing wrong.
Flying to kiss a fair lady's cheek;
Clinging to lips in a frolicsome freak.
Beautiful snow, from the heavens above,
Pure as an angel and fickle as love!

O the snow, the beautiful snow!
How the flakes gather and laugh as they go !
Whirling about in its maddening fun,

It plays in its glee with every one.

Chasing,
Laughing,
Hurrying by,

God, and myself I have lost by my

fali.

The veriest wretch that goes shivering by
Will take a wide sweep, lest I wander too nigh;
For of all that is on or about me, I know
There is nothing that's pure but the beautiful snow.

How strange it should be that this beautiful snow
Should fall on a sinner with nowhere to go!
How strange it would be, when the night comes
again,

If the snow and the ice struck my desperate brain!
Fainting,
Freezing,
Dying alone,

Too wicked for prayer, too weak for my moan
To be heard in the crash of the crazy town,
Gone mad in its joy at the snow's coming down ;
To lie and to die in my terrible woe,
With a bed and a shroud of the beautiful snow!
JAMES W. WATSON.

Not a tear in the eye of child, woman, or man; To the grave with his carcass as fast as you can:

Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!

What a jolting, and creaking, and splashing, and din!

The whip, how it cracks! and the wheels, how they spin!

How the dirt, right and left, o'er the hedges is hurled!

The pauper at length makes a noise in the world! Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!

Poor pauper defunct! he has made some approach
To gentility, now that he's stretched in a coach!
He's taking a drive in his carriage at last;
But it will not be long, if he goes on so fast:
Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!

You bumpkins! who stare at your brother conveyed,

Behold what respect to a cloddy is paid! And be joyful to think, when by death you're laid low,

You've a chance to the grave like a gemman to go! Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper whom nobody oins!

But a truce to this strain; for my soul it is sad, To think that a heart in humanity clad Should make, like the brutes, such a desolate end, And depart from the light without leaving a friend! Bear soft his bones over the stones!

Though a pauper, he's one whom his Maker yet

FOR A' THAT AND A' THAT.

Is there for honest poverty

Wha hangs his head, and a' that? The coward slave, we pass him by;

We dare be poor for a' that.

For a' that and a' that,

Our toils obscure, and a' that;
The rank is but the guinea's stamp, -
The man's the gowd for a' that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,

Wear hoddin gray, and a' that ; Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, A man's a man for a' that.

For a' that, and a' that,

Their tinsel show, and a' that;
The honest man, though e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that.

A GOOD that never satisfies the mind,
A beauty fading like the April flowers,
A sweet with floods of gall that runs combined,
A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours,
An honor that more fickle is than wind,
A glory at opinion's frown that lowers,
A treasury which bankrupt time devours,
A knowledge than grave ignorance more blind,
A vain delight our equals to command,
A style of greatness, in effect a dream,

A swelling thought of holding sea and land,
A servile lot, decked with a pompous name,
Are the strange ends we toil for here below,
Till wisest death make us our errors know.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND.

THE DIRGE.

WHAT is the existence of man's life
But open war, or slumbered strife?
Where sickness to his sense presents
The combat of the elements;
And never feels a perfect peace,
Till death's cold hand signs his release.

It is a storm where the hot blood
Outvies in rage the boiling flood;

And each loud passion of the mind
Is like a furious gust of wind,
Which bears his bark with many a wave,
Till he casts anchor in the grave.

It is a flower which buds and grows
And withers as the leaves disclose;
Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep,
Like fits of waking before sleep;
Then shrinks into that fatal mould
Where its first being was enrolled.

It is a dream whose seeming truth
Is moralized in age and youth;
Where all the comforts he can share
As wandering as his fancies are;
Till in the mist of dark decay
The dreamer vanish quite away.

It is a dial which points out
The sunset as it moves about;
And shadows out in lines of night
The subtle stages of time's flight,
Till all-obscuring earth hath laid
The body in perpetual shade.