But now should my guests be merry, the house is in holiday

guise,

Looking out through its burnished windows like a score of

welcoming eyes.

Come hither, my brothers who wander in saintliness and in sin! Come hither, ye pilgrims of Nature ! my heart doth invite you in.

My wine is not of the choicest, yet bears it an honest brand; And the bread that I bid you lighten I break with no sparing

hand;

But pause, ere you pass to taste it, one act must accomplished

be:

Salute the flag in its virtue, before ye sit down with me.

The flag of our stately battles, not struggles of wrath and greed:

Its stripes were a holy lesson, its spangles a deathless creed; 'Twas red with the blood of freemen, and white with the fear of

the foe,

And the stars that fight in their courses 'gainst tyrants its symbols show.

Come hither, thou son of my mother! we were reared in the self-same arms;

Thou hast many a pleasant gesture, thy mind hath its gifts and charms;

But my heart is as stern to question as mine eyes are of sorrows full:

Salute the flag in its virtue, or pass on where others rule.

Thou lord of a thousand acres, with heaps of uncounted gold. The steeds of thy stall are haughty, thy lackeys cunning and

bold:

I envy no jot of thy splendor, I rail at thy follies none;
Salute the flag in its virtue, or leave my poor house alone.

Fair lady with silken trappings, high waving thy stainless plume, We welcome thee to our numbers, a flower of costliest bloom: Let a hundred maids live widowed to furnish thy bridal bed; But pause where the flag doth question, and bend thy triumphant head.

Take down now yon flaunting banner, for a scout comes breathless and pale,

With the terror of death upon him; of failure is all his tale: "They have fled while the flag waved o'er them! they've turned

to the foe their back!

They are scattered, pursued, and slaughtered! the fields are all rout and wrack!"

Pass hence, then, the friends I gathered, a goodly company!
All ye that have manhood in you, go, perish for Liberty!
But I and the babes God gave me will wait with uplifted hearts,
With the firm smile ready to kindle, and the will to perform our
parts.

When the last true heart lies bloodless, when the fierce and the

false have won,

I'll press in turn to my bosom each daughter and either son; Bid them loose the flag from its bearings, and we'll lay us down

to rest

With the glory of home about us, and its freedom locked in our breast.

A NEW SCULPTOR.

Once to my Fancy's hall a stranger came,
Of mien unwonted,

And its pale shapes of glory without shame
Or speech confronted.

Fair was my hall,-a gallery of Gods

Smoothly appointed;

With Nymphs and Satyrs from the dewy sods
Freshly anointed.

Great Jove sat throned in state, with Hermes near,
And fiery Bacchus ;

Pallas and Pluto, and those powers of Fear
Whose visions rack us.

Artemis wore her crescent free of stars,
The hunt just scented;

Glad Aphrodite met the warrior Mars,
The myriad-tented.

Rude was my visitant, of sturdy form,
Draped in such clothing

As the world's great, whom luxury makes warm,
Look on with loathing.

And yet, methought, his service-badge of soil
With honor wearing;

And in his dexter hand, embossed with toil,
A hammer bearing.

But while I waited till his eye should sink,
O'ercome of beauty,

With heart-impatience brimming to the brink
Of courteous duty,-

He smote my marbles many a murderous blow,
His weapon poising;

I, in my wrath and wonderment of woe,

No comment voicing.

"Come, sweep this rubbish from the workman's way,

Wreck of past ages,—

Afford me here a lump of harmless clay,

Ye grooms and pages!"

Then, from that voidness of our mother Earth,
A frame he builded

Of a new feature,-with the power of birth
Fashioned and welded.

It had a might mine eyes had never seen,
A mien, a stature,

As if the centuries that rolled between
Had greatened Nature.

It breathed, it moved; above Jove's classic sway
A place was won it:

The rustic sculptor motioned; then "To-day"

He wrote upon it.

What man art thou?" I cried, "and what this wrong That thou hast wrought me?

My marbles lived on symmetry and song;

Why hast thou brought me

A form of all necessities, that asks

Nurture and feeding?

Not this the burthen of my maidhood's tasks,
Nor my high breeding."

"Behold," he said, "Life's great impersonate, Nourished by Labor!

Thy Gods are gone with old-time Faith and Fate; Here is thy Neighbor."

A DREAM.

A woman came, wearing a veil;

Her features were burning and pale;

At the door of the shrine doth she kneel, And waileth out, bowing her head, "Ye men of remembrance and dread, "Exorcise the pangs that I feel.

A boat that is torn with the tide, "A mountain with flame in its side

'That rends its devouring way,

"A feather the whirlwind lifts high, "Are not wilder or weaker than I,

"Since Love makes my bosom his prey.

"Ye Saints, I fall down at your feet;

"Thou Virgin, so piteous to greet,

"Reach hither the calm of your hands;

"Ye statues of power and of art,

"Let your marble weight lie on my heart,

The priest takes his candle and book

With the pity of scorn in his look,

And chants the dull Mass through his teeth;

But the penitent, clasping his knees,

Cries, "Vain as the sough of the breeze

"Are thy words to the anguish of death."

The priest, with reproval and frown, Bids the listless attendant reach down The water that sprinkles from sin. "Your water is water," she cries: "The further its foolishness flies,

"The fiercer the flames burn within."