Watch the swallers skootin' past
'Bout as peert as you could ast;

Er the Bobwhite raise and whiz
Where some other's whistle is.

Ketch a shadder down below,
And look up to find the crow;
Er a hawk away up there,
'Pearantly froze in the air!

Hear the old hen squawk, and squat
Over every chick she's got,
Suddent-like!-And she knows where
That-air hawk is, well as you!

You jes' bet yer life she do!
Eyes a-glitterin' like glass,
Waitin' till he makes a pass!

Pee-wees' singin', to express
My opinion's second class,
Yit you'll hear 'em more er less;
Sapsucks gittin' down to biz,
Weedin' out the lonesomeness;
Mr. Bluejay, full o' sass,

In them base-ball clothes o' his,
Sportin' 'round the orchard jes'
Like he owned the premises!

Sun out in the fields kin sizz,
But flat on yer back, I guess,
In the shade's where glory is!
That's jes' what I'd like to do
Stiddy fer a year er two!

Plague! ef they aint sompin' in
Work 'at kindo' goes ag'in

My convictions !-'long about

Here in June especially!-
Under some old apple-tree,

Jes' a-restin' through and through, I could git along without

Nothin' else at all to do

Only jes' a-wishin' you Was a-gittin' there like me, And June was eternity!

Lay out there and try to see
Jes' how lazy you kin be!-
Tumble round and souse yer head

In the clover-bloom, er pull

Yer straw hat acrost yer eyes,
And peek through it at the skies,
Thinkin' of old chums 'ats dead,
Maybe, smilin' back at you

In betwixt the beautiful

Clouds o' gold and white and blue!

Month a man kin railly love—
June, you know, I'm talkin' of!

March aint never nothin' new!
April's altogether too

Brash fer me! and May-I jes'
'Bominate its promises,

Little hints o' sunshine and
Green around the timber-land-
A few blossoms, and a few
Chip-birds, and a sprout er two—
Drap asleep, and it turns in

'Fore daylight and snows agin!
But when June comes-Clear my throat
With wild honey! Rench my hair
In the dew! and hold my coat!

Whoop out loud! and throw my hat!
June wants me, and I'm to spare!
Spread them shadders anywhere,
I'll git down and waller there,

And obleeged to you at that!

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.

WHO

DANGERS TO OUR REPUBLIC.

HO are this host of voters crowding to use the freeman's right at the ballot-box? In all the dread catalogue of mortal sins there is not one but, in that host of voters, there are hearts that have willed and hands that have perpetrated it.

The gallows has spared its victims, the prison has released its tenants; from dark cells, where malice had brooded, where revenge and robbery had held their nightly rehearsals, the leprous multitude is disgorged and comes up to the ballot-box to foredoom the destinies of this nation.

But look again, at that deep and dense array of ignorance, whose limits the eye cannot discover. Its van leans against us here, its rear is beyond the distant hills. They, too, in this hour of their country's peril, have come up to turn the folly of which they are not conscious into measures which they cannot understand by votes which they cannot read. Nay, more, and worse! for, from the ranks of crime emissaries are sallying forth toward the ranks of ignorance, shouting the war-cries of faction, and flaunting banners with lying symbols, such as cheat the eye of a mindless brain; and thus the hosts of crime are to lead on the hosts of ignorance in their assault upon Liberty and Law!

What now shall be done to save the citadel of freedom,

where are treasured all the hopes of posterity? Or, if we can survive the peril of such a day, what shall be done to prevent the next generation from sending forth still more numerous hordes, afflicted with deeper blindness and incited by darker depravity?

Are there any here who would counsel us to save the people from themselves by wresting from their hands this formidable right of ballot? Better for the man who

would propose this remedy to an infuriated multitude that he should stand in the lightning's path as it descends from heaven to earth.

And answer me this question, you who would re-conquer for the few the power which has been won by the many— you who would disfranchise the common mass of mankind, and re-condemn them to become helots and bondmen and feudal serfs-tell me, were they again in the power of your castes, would you not again neglect them, again oppress them, again make them slaves?

Better that these blind Samsons, in the wantonness of their gigantic strength, should tear down the pillars of the Republic, than that the great lesson which Heaven, for six thousand years, has been teaching to the world should be lost upon it-the lesson that the intellectual and moral nature of man is the one thing precious in the sight of God, and therefore that, until this nature is cultivated and enlightened and purified, neither opulence nor power nor learning nor genius nor domestic sanctity nor the holiness of God's altars can ever be safe.

Until the immortal and godlike capacities of every being that comes into the world are deemed more worthy, are watched more tenderly than any other things, no dynasty of men nor form of government can stand or shall stand upon the face of the earth; and the force or the fraud which would seek to uphold them shall be but " as fetters of flax to bind the flame." HORACE Mann.

A TRIBUTE TO WOMAN.

(From "Drama of Exile.")

HENCEFORWARD, woman, rise

To thy peculiar and best attitudes

Of doing good and of enduring ill;
Of comforting for ill, and teaching good,
And reconciling all that ill and good
Unto the patience of a constant hope.

And by sin, death, the ransom, righteousness,
The heavenly life and compensative rest
Shall come by means of thee. If woe by thee
Had issue to the world, thou shalt go forth
An angel of the woe thou didst achieve;
Found acceptable to the world instead

Of others of that name, of whose bright steps
Thy deed stripped bare the hills. Be satisfied;
Something thou hast to bear through womanhood-
Peculiar suffering answering to the sin;

Some pang paid down for each new human life,

Some weariness in guarding such a life;

Some coldness from the guarded; some mistrust

From those thou hast too well served; from those beloved

Too loyally, some treason; feebleness

Within thy heart and cruelty without;

And pressure of an alien tyranny,
With its dynastic reasons of larger bones
And stronger sinews. But go to! thy love
Shall chant itself its own beatitudes,
After its own life-working. A child's kiss
Set on thy sighing lips, shall make thee glad.

A poor man served by thee, shall make thee rich;

An old man helped by thee shall make thee strong;
Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense

Of service which thou renderest."

22

MRS. BROWNING.