Our banners on those towers wave,

And there our evening bugles play;
Where orange boughs above their grave,
Keep green the memory of the brave
Who fought and fell at Monterey.

We were not many-we who pressed
Beside the brave who fell that day;
But who of us has not confessed
He'd rather share their warrior rest
Than not have been at Monterey?

THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS.-LONGFELLOW.

Along the ceiling, along the floor,
And seems to say, at each chamber-door,-
"For ever-never!

Never-for ever!"

Through days of sorrow and of mirth,
Through days of death and days of birth,
Through every swift vicissitude

Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,
And as if, like God, it all things saw,
It calmly repeats those words of awe,—
"For ever-never!

Never-for ever!"

In that mansion used to be
Free-hearted Hospitality;

His great fires up the chimney soared;
The stranger feasted at his board;

But, like the skeleton at the feast,

That warning timepiece never ceased,"For ever-never!

Never-for ever!"

There groups of merry children played
There youths and maidens dreaming strayed;
O precious hours! O golden prime,
And affluence of love and time!

Even as a miser counts his gold,

Those hours the ancient timepiece told,

"For ever-never!

Never-for ever!"

From that chamber, clothed in white,

The bride came forth on her wedding night;

There, in that silent room below,

The dead lay in his shroud of snow;

And in the hush that followed the prayer, Was heard the old clock on the stair,—

"For ever-never!

Never for ever!"

All are scattered now and fled, Some are married, some are dead; And when I ask, with throbs of pain, "Ah! when shall they all meet again!" As in the days long since gone by, The ancient timepiece makes reply,— "For ever-never!

Never-for ever!"

Never here, for ever there,

Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death and time shall disappear,-
For ever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity

Sayeth this incessantly,―

"For ever-never!

Never for ever!"

THE NEW YEAR.-TENNYSON.

RING out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and
poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold, Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be.

BARBARA FRIETCHIE.-WHITTIER.

Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.

Round about them orchards sweep,

Apple and peach tree fruited deep,
Fair as a garden of the Lord

To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,

On that pleasant morn of the early fall
When Lee marched over the mountain-wall,

Over the mountains, winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.

Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with their crimson bars,

Flapped in the morning wind: the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;

Bravest of all in Frederick town,

She took up the flag the men hauled down:

In her attic window the staff she set,
To show that one heart was loyal yet.

Up the street came the rebel tread,
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.

Under his slouched hat left and right
He glanced; the old flag met his sight.
"Halt!"—the dust-brown ranks stood fast,
"Fire!"-out blazed the rifleblast.

It shivered the window, pane and sash;
It rent the banner with seam and gash.
Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf;

She leaned far out on the window-sill,
And shook it forth with a royal will.