My wants are many, and, if told,
Would muster many a score;
And were each wish a mint of gold,
I still should long for more.

What first I want is daily bread
And canvas-backs and wine —
And all the realms of nature spread
Before me, when I dine.

Four courses scarcely can provide
My appetite to quell;

With four choice cooks from France beside

To dress my dinner well.

What next I want at princely cost,
Is elegant attire:

Black sable furs for winter's frost,
And silks for summer's fire.
And Cashmere shawls, and Brussels
lace

My bosom's front to deck,

And diamond rings my hands to grace, And rubies for my neck.

I want (who does not want) a wife-
Affectionate and fair;

To solace all the woes of life,
And all its joys to share.
Of temper sweet, of yielding will,
Of firm yet placid mind, -
With all my faults to love me still
With sentiment refined.

And as Time's car incessant runs,
And fortune fills my store,
I want of daughters and of sons
From eight to half a score.
I want (alas! can mortal dare
Such bliss on earth to crave?)
That all the girls be chaste and fair,
The boys all wise and brave.

I want a warm and faithful friend,
To cheer the adverse hour;
Who ne'er to flattery will descend,
Nor bend the knee to power, —
A friend to chide me when I'm wrong,
My inmost soul to see;

And that my friendship prove as strong

For him as his for me.

I want the seals of power and place,
The ensigns of command;
Charged by the People's unbought
grace

To rule my native land.

TO GEORGE PEABODY. BANKRUPT - our pockets inside out!

Empty of words to speak his praises!

Worcester and Webster up the spout! Dead broke of laudatory phrases! But why with flowery speeches tease, With vain superlatives distress him?

Has language better words than these?

The friend of all his race, God bless him!

A simple prayer - but words more

sweet

By human lips were never uttered, Since Adam left the country seat Where angel wings around him fluttered.

The old look on with tear-dimmed

eyes,

The children cluster to caress him, And every voice unbidden cries, The friend of all his race, God bless him!

O. W. HOLMES.

A KING.

A KING lived long ago,

In the morning of the world, When Earth was nigher Heaven than now:

And the King's locks curled Disparting o'er a forehead full

As the milk-white space 'twixt horn and horn

Of some sacrificial bull.

Only calm as a babe new-born: For he was got to a sleepy mood,

So safe from all decrepitude, Age with its bane so sure gone by, (The gods so loved him while he dreamed,}

That, having lived thus long, there seemed

No need the King should ever die.

Among the rocks his city was; Before his palace, in the sun, He sat to see his people pass,

And judge them every one From its threshold of smooth stone.

ROBERT BROWNING.

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.

THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,

That host with their banners at sunset were seen:

Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,

That host on the morrow lay withered and strewn.

For the Angel of Death spread his wing on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;

And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,

And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still.

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,

But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride; And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,

And cold as the spray of the rockbeating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,

With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;

And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,

The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,

And the idols are broke in the tempie of Baal;

And the might of the Gentue, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

BYRON.

CLEOPATRA.

THE barge she sat in, like a burnished

throne,

Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold,

Purple the sails, and so perfumèd, that

The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver;

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made

The water, which they beat, to follow faster,

As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,

It beggared all description: she did lie

In her pavilion, (cloth-of-gold, of tissue,)

O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see,

The fancy out-work nature: on each side her,

Stood pretty boys, like smiling Cupids,

With diverse-colored fans, whose wind did seem

To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool

And what they undid, did. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,

So many mermaids, tended her i'

the eyes,

And made their bends adornings: at

the helm

A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackles

Swell with the touches of those

flower-soft hands,

That yarely frame the office. From the barge

A strange invisible perfume hits the

sense

Of the adjacent wharfs. The city

cast

Her people out upon her; and Antony,

Enthroned in the market-place, did sit alone,

Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,

Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,

And made a gap in nature.

SHAKSPEARE.

THE GLADIATOR.

I SEE before me the gladiator lie: He leans upon his hand; - his manly brow

Consents to death, but conquers agony,

And his drooped head sinks gradually low

And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow

From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,

Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now

The arena swims around him- he is gone,

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.

He heard it, but he heeded not, his eyes

Were with his heart, and that was far away;

He recked not of the life he lost, nor prize,

But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,

There were his young barbarians all at play,

There was their Dacian mother, he, their sire,

Butchered to make a Roman holiday;

All this rushed with his blood;Shall he expire, And unavenged?- Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!

BYRON.

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON.

I MADE a footing in the wall,
It was not therefrom to escape,
For I had buried one and all,

Who loved me in a human shape; And the whole earth would henceforth be

A wider prison unto me:

But I was curious to ascend
To my barred windows, and to bend
Once more upon the mountains high,
The quiet of a loving eye.

I saw them and they were the same; They were not changed like me in frame;

THE Convent-bells are ringing,
But mournfully and slow;
In the gray square turret swinging,
With a deep sound, to and fro.
Heavily to the heart they go!
Hark! the hymn is singing-
The song for the dead below,

Or the living, who shortly shall be
so!

For a departing being's soul
The death-hymn peals, and the hol-
low bells knoll:

He is near his mortal goal;
Kneeling at the friar's knee;
Sad to hear, and piteous to see,
Kneeling on the bare cold ground,
With the bleck before and the guards
around; -

And the headsman with his bare arm ready,

That the blow may be both swift and steady,

Feels if the axe be sharp and trueSince he set its edge anew:

While the crowd in a speechless circle gather,

To see the son fall by the doom of the father.

It is a lovely hour as yet
Before the summer sun shall set,
And his evening beams are shed
Full on Hugo's fated head,
As, his last confession pouring,
To the monk his doom deploring,
In penitential holiness,

He bends to hear his accents bless
With absolution such as may
Wipe our mortal stains away.

He died, as erring man should die,
Without display, without parade;
Meekly had he bowed and prayed,
As not disdaining priestly aid,
Nor desperate of all hope on high.
BYRON.

Tartar, and Spahi, and Turcoman, Strike your tents, and throng to the

van;

Mount ye, spur ye, skirr the plain, That the fugitive may flee in vain, When he breaks from the town; and none escape,

Aged or young, in the Christian shape;

While your fellows on foot, in fiery

mass,

Bloodstain the breach through which they pass.

The steeds are all bridled, and snort to the rein;

Curved is each neck, and flowing each mane;

White is the foam of their champ on the bit:

The spears are uplifted; the matches are lit;

The cannon are pointed and ready to roar,

And crush the wall they have crum

bled before:

Forms in his phalanx each Janizar; Alp at their head; his right arm is bare,

So is the blade of his scimitar; The Khan and his pachas are all at their post:

The vizier himself at the head of the host.

When the culverin's signal is fired, then On!

Leave not in Corinth a living oneA priest at her altars, a chief in her halls,

A hearth in her mansions, a stone on her walls.

God and the prophet - Alla Hu! Up to the skies with that wild halloo! "There the breach lies for passage, the ladder to scale;

And your hands on your sabres, and how should ye fail?

He who first downs with the red cross may crave

His heart's dearest wish; let him ask it, and have!"

Thus uttered Coumourgi, the dauntless vizier;

The reply was the brandish of sabre

After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,

Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious: Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes

Did scowl on Richard; no man cried, God save him!

No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home: