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THE FUTURE.

From the void abyss's brink.
Thou mayst laugh, in broad sunshine;
Scoff, when sparkles the red wine;
Thou must tremble, when deep night
Shuts the pageants from thy sight.
Morning comes, and thou blasphemest;
Yet another day thou deemest
Thine; but soon its light will wane;
Then thy warning comes again.
There's a morrow with no night-
Broad and blazing, endless light!
Should its dawn thy dreams o'ertake,
Better thou didst never wake!

THE FUTURE.

BY ANNA M. WELLS.

THE flowers, the many flowers That all along the smiling valley grew, While the sun lay for hours,

Kissing from off their drooping lids the dew; They, to the summer air

No longer prodigal, their sweet breath yield; Vainly, to bind her hair,

The village maiden seeks them in the field.

The breeze, the gentle breeze

That wandered like a frolic child at play,

THE FUTURE

Loitering mid blossomed trees,
Trailing their stolen sweets along its way,
No more adventuresome,

Its whispered love is to the violet given;
The boisterous North has come,

And scared the sportive trifler back to heaven.

The brook, the limpid brook
That prattled of its coolness, as it went
Forth from its rocky nook,

Leaping with joy to be no longer pent,-
Its pleasant song is hushed;--

The sun no more looks down upon its play;—
Freely, where once it gushed,

The mountain torrent drives its noisy way.

The hours, the youthful hours,
When in the cool shade we were wont to lie,
Idling with fresh culled flowers,

In dreams that ne'er could know reality;-
Fond hours, but half enjoyed,

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Like the sweet summer breeze they passed away And dear hopes were destroyed

Like buds that die before the noon of day.

Young life, young turbulent life,

If, like the stream, it take a wayward course, "T is lost mid folly's strife,

O'erwhelmed, at length, by passion's curbless force. Nor deem youth's buoyant hours

84

THE BEGGAR.

For idle hopes, or useless musings given:

Who dreams away his powers,

The reckless slumberer shall not wake to heaven!

THE BEGGAR.

A few weeks since a mendicant appeared in our village, pale and emaciated and convulsed with spasmodic affection, brought on to all appearance, by an irritation of wounds received in the battles of our independence. The many and deep scars with which his scull and breast and arms were disfigured, evinced that the tragedy of our revolution had been to him no bloodless drama. He asked not for the means to pamper appetite. His face bespoke him an honest and a temperate man. He begged only, for humanity's sake, a pittance to support nature till he could reach his few surviving friends further north. It was an affecting sight to see an old man-a veteran of that sacred war, (in which he had lost three sons) begging an alms to aid him on to the spot, where, in the wretched hovel which he could call his own, he might put up his last prayer for his ungrateful country, cover his face with his tattered mantle and die.--Vermont American.

AND thou hast seen, thou sayst, old man,

The Lion in his ire,

When from his strained and blood shot eye,
Flashed out vindictive fire.

And thou hast heard, old man, thou sayst,

The terror of his roar,

That echoed 'mid our mountain rocks,

And rang along our shore.

THE BEGGAR

And thou hast stood unblenchingly
His grisly front before—

When carnage waved her dripping wing,
And drenched the earth with gore.

God help thee, father, for the world,
Is pitiless and cold—

It sheltereth not the shelterless,
Revereth not the old.

Ay, it can gaze upon the front
That battle's stamp hath sealed;
And leave unfilled the withered hand,
Too weak its blade to wield.

Why left they not thy weltering corse
On Bunker's smoking steep—

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When through thy brow the death-shot ploughed That furrow broad and deep?

Or why on Yorktown's crimson plain

Didst thou not yield thy breath?

Far better had that bloody sleep
Been the long sleep of death!

Then hadst thou bled as Warren bled,
And like Montgomery died-

Thy name were chronicled among
The heroes of our pride.

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GENIUS SLUMBERING.

God give thee, father, words to beg-
Choking with shame-thy food:
Those scars proclaim thy country's weal-
Those rags, her gratitude!

GENIUS SLUMBERING.

BY J. G. PERCIVAL.

He sleeps, forgetful of his once bright fame;
He has no feeling of the glory gone;
He has no eye to catch the mounting flame,

That once in transport drew his spirit on;
He lies in dull, oblivious dreams, nor cares
Who the wreathed laurel bears.

And yet not all forgotten sleeps he there;
There are who still remember how he bore

Upward his daring pinions, till the air

Seemed living with the crown of light he wore; There are who, now his early sun has set, Nor can, nor will forget.

He sleeps,—and yet, around the sightless eye
And the pressed lip, a darkened glory plays;
Though the high powers in dull oblivion lie,

There hovers still the light of other days;
Deep in that soul a spirit, not of earth,
Still struggles for its birth.