Pushing through the elm-tree copse,
Winding up the stream, light-hearted,
Where the osier pathway leads,
Past the boughs she stoops, and stops.
Lo, the wild swan had deserted,
And a rat had gnawed the reeds!

Ellie went home sad and slow.
If she found the lover ever,

With his red-roan steed of steeds,
Sooth I know not; but I know
She could never show him—never,
That swan's nest among the reeds.

Mrs. Browning.

A MESSAGE.

It was Spring in the great city-every gaunt and withered tree

Felt the shaping and the stir at heart of leafy prophecy;

All the wide-spread umber branches took a tender tint of green,

And the chattering brown-backed sparrow lost his pert, pugnacious mien

In a dream of mate and nestlings shaded by a verdant screen.

It was Spring-the grim ailanthus, with its snaky

arms awry,

Held out meagre tufts and bunches to the sun's persistency :

Every little square of greensward, railed in from the dusty way,

Sent its straggling forces upward, blade and spear in bright array,

While the migratory organs Offenbach and Handel play.

Through the heart of the vast Babel, where the tides of being pour,

From his labor in the evening came the sturdy stevedore,

Towering like a son of Anak, of a coarse, ungainly mould;

Yet the hands begrimed and blackened in the hardened fingers hold

A dandelion blossom, shining like a disk of gold.

Wayside flower! with thy plucking did remembrance gently lay

Her hand upon the tomb of youth and roll the stone away?

Did he see a barefoot urchin wander singing up the lane,

Carving from the pliant willow whistles to prolong the strain,

While the browsing cows, slow driven, chime their bells in low refrain ?

Did his home rise up before him, and his child, all loving glee,

Hands and arms in eager motion for the golden mystery?

Or the fragile, pallid mother, seeing in that starry

eye

God's eternal, fadeless garden, God's wide sunshine and His sky,

Hers through painless, endless ages, bright'ning through immensity?

None may know-the busy workings of the brain remain untold,

But the loving deed-the outgrowth-brings us lessons manifold.

Smiles and frowns-a look-a flower growing by the common way,

Trifles born with every hour make the sum of life's poor day,

And the jewels that we garner are the tears we wipe away.

Scribner's Monthly.

WASHINGTON.

Ir matters very little what spot may have been the birthplace of Washington. No people can claim, no country can appropriate him. The boon of Providence to the human race, his fame is eternity, and his residence creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin. If the heavens thundered, and the earth rocked, yet, when the storm had passed, how pure was the atmosphere that it cleared! How bright, on the brow of the firmament, was the planet which it revealed to us!

In the production of Washington, it seems as if Nature was endeavoring to improve upon herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient world were but so many studies preparatory to the patriot of the new. Individual instances, no doubt, there were, splendid exemplifications of some singular qualification. Cæsar was merciful, Scipio was temperate, Hannibal was patient; but it was reserved for Washington to blend them all in one, and like the lovely masterpiece of the Grecian artist, to exhibit, in one glow of associated beauty, the pride of every model, and the perfection of every master.

As a general he marshalled the farmer into a veteran, and supplied by discipline the absence of experience. As a statesman he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of general advantage; and such was the wisdom of his views, and the philosophy of his counsels, that to the soldier and statesman he almost added the character of the sage! A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood; a revolutionist, he was free from any stain of treason, for aggression commenced the contest, and his country called him to command. Liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, victory returned it.

If he had paused here, history might have doubted what station to assign him; whether at the head of her citizens or her soldiers, her heroes or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career, and banishes all hesitation. Who like

Washington, after having emancipated a hemisphere, resigned its crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might almost be said to have created? Happy, proud America! The lightnings of heaven yielded to her philosophy. The temptations of earth could not seduce her patriotism. Charles Phillips.

"PERSEVERE."

ROBERT, the Bruce, in the dungeon stood

Waiting the hour of doom;

Behind him the Palace of Holyrood,

Before him, a nameless tomb.

And the foam on his lip was flecked with red,
As away to the past his memory sped,
Upcalling the day of his great renown

When he won and he wore the Scottish crown;
Yet come there shadow, or come there shine,
The spider is spinning his thread so fine.

"I have sat on the royal seat of Scone," He muttered, below his breath;

"It's a luckless change, from a kingly throne

To a felon's shameful death."

And he clinched his hand in his despair,

And he struck at the shapes that were gathering

there

Pacing his cell in impatient rage,

As a new-caught lion paces his cage.