BEFORE SEDAN.

"The dead hand clasped a letter."

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE.

What was the white you touched,

There, at his side? Paper his hand had clutched

Tight ere he died ;Message or wish, may be ;

Smooth the folds out and see.

Hardly the worst of us

Here could have smiled !

Only the tremulous

Words of a child ;Prattle, that has for stops

Just a few ruddy drops.

THE FORGOTTEN GRAVE.

O

A SKETCH IN A CEMETERY.

UT from the City's dust and roar,

You wandered through the open door:

Paused at a plaything pail and spade

Across a tiny hillock laid;

Then noted on your dexter side

Some moneyed mourner's "love or pride";

And so,-beyond a hawthorn-tree,

Showering its rain of rosy bloom

Alike on low and lofty tomb,-
You came upon it-suddenly.

How strange! The very grasses' growth
Around it seemed forlorn and loath;
The very ivy seemed to turn

Askance that wreathed the neighbour urn.
The slab had sunk; the head declined,
And left the rails a wreck behind.
No name; you traced a "6,"—a “7,”—
Part of "affliction" and of "Heaven";

And then, in letters sharp and clear, You read-O Irony austere !— "Tho' lost to Sight, to Mem'ry dear."

A

MY LANDLADY.

SMALL brisk woman, capped with many a bow;
"Yes," so she says, "and younger, too, than
some,"

Who bids me, bustling, "God speed," when I go,
And gives me, rustling, "Welcome," when I come.

“Ay, sir, 'tis cold,—and freezing hard,—they say;
I'd like to give that hulking brute a hit-
Beating his horse in such a shameful way !—
Step here, sir, till your fire's blazed up a bit."

A musky haunt of lavender and shells,

Quaint-figured Chinese monsters, toys, and traysA life's collection-where each object tells

Of fashions gone and half-forgotten ways:—

A glossy screen, where wide-mouth dragons ramp;
A vexed inscription in a sampler-frame;
A shade of beads upon a red-capped lamp;
A child's mug graven with a golden name;