snuff; it surprises me not to see Don Squixet here, any way; he's always the first into mischief, and the last to lave it.'

66 Dad, thinks I to meself, if he means the ould rousther, he's the fust to lave it this time, any way. But,' says I, ‘and who's Don Squixet?' I axes, wid me heart into me mouth.

“Ha! that's what I call the ould cock,' says he;‘but the rascal is up to some mischief now, I go bail, or he'd be here,' says Father Doyle.

"Well, whether to down on me two knees (savin' yer prisence) and confess all, or lave him to find it out, I didn't know; when all to once the peaytees right furnenst us begun to move, and roll the one over the other.

"Oah! what's that, Kitty?' cries Father Doyle. 'Be the powers, there's something coming up through the yearth!' "Faix, 'twas meself thought I'd sink down through it; for just then up comes the head of the ould rousther himself, bad scran to him, lookin' round to make out where he was. Awe! I couldn't tell yees how I felt. I fell down on me knees, and axed his riv'rince to forgive a poor crayter the sin av it. But, by and by, when the ould scamp got up and shuck himself, and clapped his wings, and crowed, be dad, I thought his riv'rince would split laughing, as well as Biddy. And when Father Doyle could spake, says he, wiping his eyes wid his kurcher, Kitty,' says he,' always be sure a body's dead,' says he, 'before you inters it,' he says. 'But see now, if you kill any av 'em outright, another time,' says he, 'just bring the remains to me,' he says, ' and we'll have a dish of broth out of it, anyway,' says he. And wid that, he set up a-laughin' again, and walked off, shakin' his sides; and I s'pose, if he told that story once, he did the Lord knows how many times. But he niver seed me, to this day, but he allus axed when I seen Don Squixet's Ghost last." HARRY BOLINGBROKE.

THE KING'S BELL.

"No perfect day has ever come to me,”
An old man said;

"A perfect day for us can never be,
Till we are dead."

The young king heard him, and he turned away
In earnest thought.

Did man ne'er find, on earth, the happy day

For which they sought?.

A day so free from care, so running o'er
With life's delight

That there seemed room or wish for nothing more
From dawn to night?

"It must be that such days have come to man,"
The young king said.

"Go search, find one who found them, if you can." Ah, wise gray head!

“I trust that some time such a day will come

To even me,'

The king said; but the old man's lips were dumb.
"Ah, you shall see!

That you, and those about you, all may know
My perfect day,

A bell shall ring out when the sun is low,
And men shall say,

"Behold, this day has been unto the king
A day replete

With happiness! It lacked not anything;
A day most sweet!""

In a high tower, ere night, the passers saw
A mighty bell,

The tidings of a day without a flaw
Sometime to tell.

The bell hung silent in its lofty tower;
Days came and went;

Each summer brought its sunshine and its flower,
Its old content,

But not the perfect day he hoped to see.
"But soon or late

The day of days," he said, "will come to me,
I trust, and wait."

The years, like leaves upon

Were swept away,

restless stream,

And in the king's dark hair began to gleam
Bright threads of gray.

Men, passing by, looked upward to the bell,
And, smiling, said,

"Delay not of the happy time to tell
Till we are dead."

But they grew old, and died.

The great bell hung.

And silent still

At last the king, oowed down with age, fell ill

His cares among.

At dusk, one day, with dazed brain, from his room
He slowly crept

Up rotting tower-steps, in the dust and gloom,
While watchers slept.

Above the city broke the bell's great voice,
Silent so long.

"Behold the king's most happy day! Rejoice!"
It told the throng.

Filled with strange awe the long night passed away.
At morn, men said,

"At last the king has found his happy day,

The king is dead!

EBEN E. REXFORD.

THE TRAMP OF SHILOH.

YES, bread! I want bread!

You heard what I said;

Yet ye stand and ye stare,

As if never before came a Tramp at your door

With such insolent air.

Would I work? Never learned. My home it was burned;
And I haven't yet found

Any heart to plough lands and build homes for red hands
That burned mine to the ground.

No bread! you have said?

Then my curse on your head

And, what shall sting worse,

On that wife at your side, on those babes in their pride,

Fall my sevenfold curse!

Good-by! I must learn to creep

Suck your eggs; hide away;

into your barn;

Sneak around like a hound, leave a match in your hay,

Limp away through the gray!

Yes, I limp,

---

curse these stones! And then my old bones Were riddled with ball

At your Shiloh. What, you? You battled there, too?
Well, you beat us, that's all.

Bread! money! and wine! sir? Madam, I dine
At your feet, and please, sir, I pray

You'll pardon me, sir, that fight trenched me here,
Deep, deeper than sword-cut that day.

Yet even my heart with a stout pride will start
As I tramp. For, you see,

No matter who won, it was royally done,
And a royal American victory.

But I go. Sir, adieu! Tu Tityre. You

Have Augustus to friend,

While I, yes, read and speak both Latin and Greek,
And talk slang without end.

Hey? Oxford. But, then, when the wild cry of men
Rang out through the gathering night.

As a mother that cries for her children, and dies,

I dropped all, and came for the fight.

What! sit? Sit, and tell ye how we fought? - how we fell? Tell to you, who did kill?

'Neath your cursed Northern vine set me down and drink wine ?

That wine warms, and

We flew home, — fool, that I brought him home here to die,
When she, with her last fevered breath,

Had implored this right arm keep him sacred from harm,
And then followed our father in death.

Yet I know he had pined had I left him behind
Safe bound by gray Oxford's bars,

And his proud soul had cried, in his valor and died,

To ride at my side in the wars.

How young, and how fair, and how noble,

The wine, or the sudden sunrise,

- but, there!

Sir, when we last stood in the place, and he last raised his face,

I saw there my dead mother's eyes.

"Twas Shiloh!

We stood 'neath that hill by the wood,

It's a graveyard to-day, sir, you know,

And he smiled like a child, even laughed, as the wild
Dogs of war at our throats were let go.

That laugh was his last! When that bloody wave passed
I knelt down in blood by his side.

On his brow, on his breast, what need tell the rest?
I but knew that my brother had died;

Then I sprang to my horse. I sought death in my course,
Dashing on till I fell 'mid the brave;

But disdained still my death, I came back with my breath,
But the place where he fell was a grave!

When a storm wracks the sea great wrecks there must be,
And waif, wood, and stray drift ashore;

And so pardon me, please, for I am of these,

But, good-by, I will bother no more.

What! wounds on your breast? Your brow tells the rest,
You fought at my side, and you fell?

You the brave boy that stood at my side in that wood,
On that blazing red border of hell?

My brother! My own! Never king on his throne
Knew a joy like to this brought to me..

God bless you, my life; bless your brave Northern wife,
And your beautiful babes, two and three.

JOAQUIN MILLER.

JOHNNY ON SNAKES.

SNAKES is mostly pisen, but some don't. My father says they used to walk on their tails, the same as us, but now they has to walk on their belly, for foolin' Eve; but they seem to like it that way best. Snakes is said to be the same as serpence, but I always thought a serpence was the biggest. The rattlesnake's skin is too short for him, and don't cover all his bones, and when he wiggles they make a noise. My sister's young man he says it's the fault of the rattlesnake's tailor, in a measure.

There is one which is got stripes, and it is called the garter