line of some dozen different pieces. They didn't sut her. Well, she would not imitate any one else's style. It should be said of her production that it was entirely originai.

But what should she have for the first line? How hard it was to think! How brightly the sun shone in that window! She lowered the curtain. She wondered if it came as hard for all authors to get under literary inspiration? She wondered-what-magazine—she had better send her manuscript to? She wondered if the editor wouldn't happen to be a young man and good looking? She wondered if she had better spend her first money-for-a-pink sash—or— a-blue one? She wondered-oh, dear! how late it was! Twelve o'clock already! She must make haste. She inked her fingers. That made her seem more like a poetess. Then she ran her fingers through her hair again, and-wrote: "I would not ask that round your path

The loveliest flowers might bloom,
For oh the fairest fade at last,

And share earth's common doom."

(Ting-a-ling-a-ling!)

Peggy, there's some one at the door."

"Yes mum. If you plaze mum, here's a bookay the boy left, an' he sez as how Mr. Harry will be afther callin' on yez this afthernoon."

"Oh, why couldn't Mr. Harry wait until he's invited? Let me see the bouquet. You say I'm out, Peggy, when the gentleman calls this afternoon."

Yes, they are very sweet flowers-very sweet

"But oh! the fairest fade at last,

And share earth's common doom.

"I would not ask that beauty rare
Might be your treasured gift-"

"Miss Hepsy! Miss Hepsy! there's a gintleman in the parlor as would be afther seein' yerself.”

"Oh, the bother! I wonder if my rats and mice sit straight? Tell him I'll be down soon, Peggy. Dear me, how provoking to have callers just at this time! I don't see why I didn't put my hair up in crimping-pins last night. It never was becoming, done plain. Well, I must be thinking all the while I am gone what will rhyme with gift. Let me

see

'I would not ask that beauty rare
Might be your treasured gift-gift-'

Dear me! there's no use twisting that curl any more. I never can make my hair curl like other peoples', and I cer. tainly cannot go down in this plight. Peggy! Peggy! Teli the gentleman I am engaged, and cannot possibly see him to-day. And mind, Peggy, that you ask him to call again.” Now to my poem:

"I would not ask that beauty rare
Might be your treasured gift,
For time's effacing fingers dare
The transient veil to lift.

"Go clothe the orphan'd, soothe their vo

Go heal the wounded heart-"

Isn't that beautiful? Won't people be affected? (Rap, rap, rap!) "Come in!"

"If you please, ma'am, can you give me something to help my poor family? We're so cold and hungry! We're very poor indeed, ma'am, and if you will be so kind-"

66

Peggy, show this beggar to the door! I really cannot have my literary labors interrupted in this way." Those beggars are always such a nuisance!

Now where was it I left off

Oh, yes, yes!

"Go clothe the orphan'd, soothe-"

"Go clothe the orphan'd, soothe their woes,

Go heal the wounded heart

And wipe the tears of grief away
When sorrow bids them start.

"To shine in fashion's gilded hall,
And be the brightest star

Is not the boon for which I'd call,
There is a better far."

"Miss Hepsy, here's a note from Miss Butterworth.”

"Well, let me read it. Oh! it's an invitation to attend the military ball this evening. But how can I go? My new silk isn't finished yet, and I've worn all my other dresses two or three times, and I could not think of going in any of them. Peggy, you may go and ask Miss Stitchem if she cannot possibly let me have my new silk this evening. But no-stop! I'll have to go and see about it myself."

Dear, dear! I don't see how other people write poetry. I amn sure I cannot, and I may as well give it up first as last, although I do think mine would have been pretty good if I could only have finished it.

THE OLD WAYS AND THE NEW.-JOHN H. YATES.

I've just come in from the meadow, wife, where the grass is tall and green;

I hobbled out upon my cane to see John's new machine;
It made my old eyes snap again to see that mower mow,
And I heaved a sigh for the scythe I swung some twenty
years ago.

Many and many's the day I've mowed 'neath the rays of a scorching sun,

Till I thought my poor old back would break ere my task for the day was done:

I often think of the days of toil in the fields all over the farm,

Till I feel the sweat on my wrinkled brow, and the old pain come in my arm.

It was hard work, it was slow work, a-swingin' the old scythe then;

Unlike the mower that went through the grass like death through the ranks of men :

I stood and looked till my old eyes ached, amazed at its speed and power;

The work that it took me a day to do, it done in one short hour.

John said that I hadn't seen the half: when he puts it into

his wheat,

I shall see it reap and rake it, and put it in bundles neat ; Then soon a Yankee will come along, and set to work and larn To reap it, and thresh it, and bag it up, and send it into the barn.

John kinder laughed when he said it; but I said to the hired men,

“I have seen so much on my pilgrimage through my threescore years and ten,

That I wouldn't be surprised to see a railroad in the air,
Or a Yankee in a flyin' ship a-goin' most anywhere."

There's a difference in the work I done, and the work my boys now do;

Steady and slow in the good old way, worry and fret in the

new;

But somehow I think there was happiness crowded into

those toiling days,

That the fast young men of the present will not see till they change their ways.

To think that I ever should live to see work done in this wonderful way!

Old tools are of little service now, and farmin' is almost play; The women have got their sewin'-machines, their wringers, and every sich thing,

And now play croquet in the dooryard, or sit in the parlor and sing.

'Twasn't you that had it so easy, wife, in the days so long gone by;

You riz up early, and sat up late, a-toilin' for you and I: There were cows to milk; there was butter to make; and many a day did you stand

A-washin' my toil-stained garments, and wringin' 'em out by hand.

Ah! wife, our children will never see the hard work we have seen,

For the heavy task and the long task is now done with a machine;

No longer the noise of the scythe I hear, the mower--there! hear it afar?

A-rattlin' along through the tall, stout grass with the noise of a railroad car.

Well! the old tools now are shoved away; they stand agatherin' rust,

Like many an old man I have seen put aside with only a crust;

When the eyes grow dim, when the step is weak, when the strength goes out of his arm,

The best thing a poor old man can do is to hold the deed of the farm.

There is one old way that they can't improve, although it has been tried

By men who have studied and studied, and worried till they

died;

It has shone undimmed for ages, like gold refined from its

dross;

It's the way to the kingdom of heaven, by the simple way

of the cross.

GOUGAUNE BARRA.-J. J. CALLANAN.

There is a green island in lone Gougaune Barra,
Where Allua of songs rushes forth as an arrow;

In deep-vallied Desmond-a thousand wild fountains
Come down to that lake, from their home in the mountains.

There grows the wild ash, and a time-stricken willow
Looks chidingly down on the mirth of the billow;
As, like some gay child that sad monitor scorning,
It lightly laughs back to the laugh of the morning.

And its zone of dark hills-oh! to see them all bright'ning
When the tempest flings out its red banner of lightning,
And the waters rush down, 'mid the thunder's deep rattle,
Like clans from the hills at the voice of the battle;
And brightly the fire-crested billows are gleaming,
And wildly from Mullagh the eagles are screaming,
Oh! where is the dwelling in valley, or highland,
So meet for a bard as this lone little island?

How oft when the summer sun rested on Clara,
And lit the dark heath on the hills of Ivera,

Have I sought thee, sweet spot, from my home by the ocean,
And trod all thy wilds with a minstrel's devotion,
And thought of thy bards,-when assembling together,
In the cleft of thy rocks, or the depth of thy heather,
They fled from the Saxon's dark bondage and slaughter,
And waked their last song by the rush of thy water.

High sons of the lyre, oh! how proud was the feeling,
To think while alone through that solitude stealing,
Though loftier minstrels green Erin can number,
I only awoke your wild harp from its slumber,

And mingled once more with the voice of those fountains
The songs even echo forgot on her mountains;

And gleaned each gray legend, that darkly was sleeping
Where the mist and the rain o'er their beauty were creeping.

Least bard of the hills! were it mine to inherit
The fire of thy harp, and the wing of thy spirit,

With the wrongs which like thee to our country has bound me
Did your mantle of song fling its radiance around me,
Still, still in those wilds might young liberty rally,
And send her strong shout over mountain and valley,
The star of the west might yet rise in its glory,
And the land that was darkest be brightest in story.

I, too, shall be gone:-but my name shall be spoken
When Erin awakes, and her fetters are broken;
Some minstrel will come, in the summer eve's gleaming,
When freedom's young light on his spirit is beaming,
And bend o'er my grave with a tear of emotion,
Where calm Avon-Buee seeks the kisses of ocean,
Or plant a wild wreath, from the banks of that river,
O'er the heart, and the harp, that are sleeping forever.