The Irish Emigrant's Lament, by Mrs. Blackwood, 128 A Dirge, by James Russell Lowell, Prison Discipline, by Lydia Maria Child, The French Revolution, by William H. Burleigh, Books for the People, by Anne C. Lynch, The Pauper's Drive, by Baptist Noel, The Chimney-Sweeper, by William Blake, The Poor Man's Day, by Ebenezer Elliott, The Temple of Nature, by Dr. Chatfield, Sonnets on the Lord's Prayer, by Robt. T. Conrad, 143 Epitome of War, by The "Ettrick Shepherd," The Free Mind, by William Lloyd Garrison, The Revellers, by William D. Gallagher, To a Waterfowl, by William Cullen Bryant, The Farewell of a Virginia Slave Mother to her Prometheus, by James Russell Lowell, 225 A Requiem, by James Russell Lowell, 237 Song of the Free, by John G. Whittier, Clerical Oppressors, by John G. Whittier, To the Memory of Thomas Shipley, by John Lines written on the adoption of Pinckney's Resolutions, in the House of Representa- tives, and the passage of Calhoun's " of Abominations" to a second reading, in Elijah P. Lovejoy, by William H. Burleigh, 277 Wendell Phillips, by James Russell Lowell, Birds, 246 It is Little, by Thomas N. Talford, 248 Our Father, by F. A. Krummacher, 249 POEMS BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. EXCELSIOR. The shades of night were falling fast, His brow was sad; his eye beneath The accents of that unknown tongue, In happy homes he saw the light Of household fires gleam warm and bright; "Try not the pass!" the old man said; "Dark lowers the tempest overhead; The roaring torrent is deep and wide!" And loud that clarion voice replied, Excelsior! "Oh stay," the maiden said, "and rest "Beware the pine-tree's withered branchBeware the awful avalanche!" This was the peasant's last good night: At break of day, as heavenward A voice cried through the startled air, A traveller, by the faithful hound, There in the twilight cold and gray, A PSALM OF LIFE. Life is real-life is earnest And the grave is not its goal; Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Art is long, and time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. In the world's broad field of battle, Heart within, and God o'erhead! Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footsteps on the sands of time. Footsteps, that perhaps another Sailing o'er life's solemn main, A forlorn and ship-wrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. Let us then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait. THE ARROW AND THE SONG. I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; I breathed a song into the air, Is it the tender star of love? The star of love and dreams? O, no! from that blue tent above, A hero's armor gleams. And earnest thoughts within me rise, Suspended in the evening skies, O star of strength! I see thee stand Within my breast there is no light, But the cold light of stars; I give the first watch of the night To the red planet Mars. The star of the unconquered will, And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art, O, fear not in a world like this, And thou shalt know ere long, Know how sublime a thing it is To suffer and be strong. REFORM. A new year of labor has begun in the stillness of winter. In the moral world, however, the fields are ever white for the harvest, and the reaper has only to put in the sickle, and do his part towards the great in-gathering. There are no seasons of repose to the reformer. It is ever, with him, seed-time and harvest. Though the seed he scatters broadcast over the world, is invisible to the unanointed eye, it is still a reality-the only reality-for that seed is truth. It becomes him ever to be ready, with his loins girded, and his seed in his hand, to go abroad, scattering the unseen, but almighty germs of happiness. Much discouragement and disheartening will he meet with from a froward and perverse generation-because they look still for an outward redemption, for an earthly Messiah. The evils of outward condition absorb their sight. They scoff at, and belie, and, it may be, crucify him who would draw them from their physical bondage, by the mighty |