DE PINT WID OLD PETE.

143

And I sit and think when the sunset's gold
Is flashing on river, and hill, and shore,
I shall one day stand by the waters cold

And list to the sound of the boatman's oar.
I shall watch for a gleam of the flapping sail;
I shall hear the boat as it gains the strand.

I shall pass from sight with the boatman pale
To the better shore of the spirit-land.

I shall know the loved who have gone before,
And joyfully sweet will the meeting be,
When over the river, the peaceful river,
The angel of death shall carry me.

DE PINT WID OLD PETE

PON the hurricane deck of one of our gunboats, an elderly darkey, with a very philosophical and retrospective cast of countenance, squatted on his bundle, toast

ing his shins against the chimney and apparently plunged into a state of profound meditation. Finding upon inquiry, that he belonged to the Ninth Illinois, one of the most gallantly behaved and heavy losing regiments at the Fort Donaldson battle, I began to interrogate him upon the subject. "Were you in the fight?" "Had a little taste of it, sa."

"Stood your ground, did you?" "No, sa, I runs."

"Run at the first fire, did you?"

"Yes, sa, and would hab run soona,

had I know'd it war comin'."

TOASTING HIS SHINS.

"Why, that wasn't very creditable to your courage."

"Massa, dat isn't my line, sa; cookin's my profeshun.'

"Well, but have you no regard for your re

putation?"

"Yah, yah! reputation's nuffin to me by de side ob life."

"Do you consider your life worth more than other people's?"

"It is worth more to me, sa."

"Then you must value it very highly."

"Yes, sa, I does; more dan all dis world, more dan a million ob dollars, sa; for what would dat be worth to a man wid de bref out of him? Self-preservation am de first law wid me."

But why should you act upon a different rule from other men?" "Because different men set different values upon their lives; mine is not in de market."

"But if you lost it, you would have the satisfaction of knowing that you died for your country."

"What satisfaction would dat be to me when de power ob feelin' was

gone?"

'Then patriotism and honor are nothing to you?"

"Nuffin whatever, sa; I regard them as among the vanities."

"If our soldiers were like you, traitors might have broken up the government without resistance."

"Yes, sa; dar would hab been no help for it."

you think any of your company would have missed you if you

had been killed?"

Maybe not, sa; a dead white man ain't much to dese sogers, let alone a dead nigga; but I'd miss myself, and dat was de pint wid me."

Thou'rt with me through the gloomy night; I sat and watch'd thy sad decay:

In dreams I meet thee as of old;
Then thy soft arms my neck enfold
And thy sweet voice is in my ear:
In every scene to memory dear,
I see thee still.

Here, on this bed, thou last didst lie;
Here, on this pillow,-thou didst die.
Dark hour! once more its woes unfold.
As then I saw thee, pale and cold,
I see thee still.

I see thee still.

EXECUTION OF JOAN OF ARC.

Thou art not in the grave confined—
Death cannot claim the immortal Mind:
Let Earth close o'er its sacred trust,
But Goodness dies not in the dust;

Thee, O my SISTER! 'tis not thee
Beneath the coffin's lid I see;
Thou to a fairer land art gone;
There, let me hope, my journey done,
To see thee still!

145

H

EXECUTION OF JOAN OF ARC.

THOMAS DE QUINCEY.

AVING placed the king on his throne, it was her fortune thenceforward to be thwarted. More than one military plan was entered upon which she did not approve. Too well she felt that the end was now at hand. Still, she continued to expose her person in battle as before; severe wounds had not taught her caution; and at length she was made prisoner by the Burgundians, and finally given up to the English. The object now was to vitiate the coronation of Charles VII, as the work of a witch; and, for this end, Joan was tried for sorcery. She resolutely defended herself from the absurd ac

cusation.

Never, from the foundation of the earth, was there such a trial as this, if it were laid open in all its beauty of defence, and all its malignity of attack. O, child of France, shepherdess, peasant girl! trodden under foot by all around thee, how I honor thy flashing intellect,-quick as the lightning, and as true to its mark,—that ran before France and laggard Europe by many a century, confounding the malice of the ensnarer, and making dumb the oracles of falsehood! "Would you examine me as a witness against myself?" was the question by which many times she defied their arts. The result of this trial was the condemnation of Joan to be burnt alive. Never did grim inquisitors doom to death a fairer victim by baser means.

Woman, sister! there are some things which you do not execute as well as your brother, man; no, nor ever will. Yet, sister, woman! cheerfully, and with the love that burns in depths of admiration, I acknowledge that you can do one thing as well as the best of men,-you can die grandly! On the twentieth of May, 1431, being then about nineteen years of age, Joan of Arc underwent her martyrdom. She was conducted before mid-day, guarded by eight spearmen, to a platform of prodigious height, constructed of wooden billets, supported by occasional walls of lath

and plaster, and traversed by hollow spaces in every direction, for the creation of air-currents.

With an undaunted soul, but a meek and saintly demeanor, the maiden encountered her terrible fate. Upon her head was placed a mitre, bearing the inscription, "Relapsed heretic, apostate, idolatress." Her piety displayed itself in the most touching manner to the last, and her angelic forgetfulness of self was manifest in a most remarkable degree. The executioner had been directed to apply his torch from below. He did so. The fiery smoke rose upwards in billowing volumes. A monk was then standing at Joan's side. Wrapt up in his sublime office, he saw not the danger, but still persisted in his prayers. Even then, when the last enemy was racing up the fiery stairs to seize her, even at that moment, did this noblest of girls think only for him,-the one friend that would not forsake her, and not for herself; bidding him with her last breath to care for his own preservation, but to leave her to God. "Go down," she said; "lift up the cross before me, that I may see it in dying, and speak to me pious words to the end.” Then protesting her innocence, and recommending her soul to Heaven, she continued to pray as the flames leaped up and walled her in. Her last audible word was the name of Jesus. Sustained by faith in Him, in her last fight upon the scaffold, she had triumphed gloriously; victoriously she had tasted death.

Few spectators of this martyrdom were so hardened as to contain their tears. All the English, with the exception of a few soldiers who made a jest of the affair, were deeply moved. The French murmured that the death was cruel and unjust. "She dies a martyr!" "Ah, we are lost, we have burned a saint!" "Would to God that my soul were with hers!" Such were the exclamations on every side. A fanatic English soldier, who had sworn to throw a fagot on the funeral-pile, hearing Joan's last prayer to her Saviour, suddenly turned away, a penitent for life, say ing everywhere that he had seen a dove, rising upon white wings to heaven from the ashes where she stood.

T

THE CORAL INSECT.

MRS. SIGOURNEY.

OIL on! toil on! ye ephemeral train, | With your sand-based structures and domes
Who build in the tossing and treach-

erous main;

Toil on-for the wisdom of man ye

mock,

of rock;

Your columns the fathomless fountains lave,
And your arches spring up to the crested

wave;