Upon the tear that, warm and meek,
Dewed that repentant sinner's cheek:
To mortal eye this light might seem
A northern flash or meteor beam;
But well th' enraptured Peri knew
'Twas a bright smile the angel threw
From heaven's gate, to hail that tear
Her harbinger of glory near!

"Joy! joy!" she cried; "my task is done—
The gates are passed, and heaven is won!"

THOMAS Moore.

PATRIOTISM.

BEREFT of patriotism, the heart of a nation will be cold and cramped and sordid; the arts will have no enduring impulse, and commerce no invigorating soul; society will degenerate, and the mean and vicious triumph. Patriotism is not a wild and glittering passion, but a glorious reality. The virtue that gave to Paganism its dazzling lustre, to Barbarism its redeeming trait, to Christianity its heroic form, is not dead. It still lives to console, to sanctify humanity. It has its altar in every clime; its worship and festivities.

On the heathered hills of Scotland the sword of Wallace is yet a bright tradition. The genius of France, in the brilliant literature of the day, pays its high homage to the piety and heroism of the young Maid of Orleans. In her new Senate-Hall, England bids her sculptor place, among the effigies of her greatest sons, the images of Hampden and of Russell. In the gay and graceful capital of Belgium, the daring hand of Geefs has reared a monument full of glorious meaning to the three hundred martyrs of the revolution.

By the soft blue waters of Lake Lucerne stands the chapel of William Tell. On the anniversary of his revolt and victory, across those waters, as they glitter in the July sun, skim

the light boats of the allied Cantons, from the prows hang the banners of the Republic, and as they near the sacred spot, the daughters of Lucerne chant the hymns of their old poetic land. Then bursts forth the glad Te Deum, and Heaven again hears the voice of that wild chivalry of the mountains, which five centuries since pierced the white eagle of Vienna, and flung it bleeding on the rocks of Uri.

At Innspruck, in the black aisle of the old Cathedral, the peasant of the Tyrol kneels before the statue of Andreas Hofer. In the defiles and valleys of the Tyrol who forgets the day on which he fell within the walls of Mantua? It is a festive day all through his quiet, noble land.

In that old Cathedral his inspiring memory is recalled. amid the pageantries of the altar: his image appears in every house: his victories and virtues are proclaimed in the songs of the people: and when the sun goes down, a chain of fires, in the deep red light of which the eagle spreads his wings and holds his giddy revelry, proclaims the glory of the chief whose blood has made his native land a sainted spot in Europe.

T. F. MEAGHER.

Becalmed along the azure sky,
The argosies of Cloudland lie,

Whose shores, with many a shining rift,
Far off their pearl-white peaks uplift.

Through all the long midsummer day
The meadow-sides are sweet with hay.
I seek the coolest sheltered seat,
Just where the field and forest meet, —

Where grow the pine-trees tall and bland,
The ancient oaks austere and grand,
And fringy roots and pebbles fret
The ripples of the rivulet.

I watch the mowers, as they go

Through the tall grass, a white-sleeved row.
With even stroke their scythes they swing,
In tune their merry whetstones ring.
Behind, the nimble youngsters run,
And toss the thick swaths in the sun.
The cattle graze, while, warm and still,
Slopes the broad pasture, basks the hill,
And bright, where summer breezes break,
The
green wheat crinkles like a lake.

The butterfly and humble-bee
Come to the pleasant woods with me;
Quickly before me runs the quail,
Her chickens skulk behind the rail;
High up the lone wood-pigeon sits,
And the woodpecker pecks and flits,
Sweet woodland music sinks and swells,
The brooklet rings its tinkling bells,
The swarming insects drone and hum,
The partridge beats his throbbing drum.
The squirrel leaps among the boughs,
And chatters in his leafy house,
The oriole flashes by; and, look!

Into the mirror of the brook,

Where the vain bluebird trims his coat,

Two tiny feathers fall and float.

As silently, as tenderly,

The down of peace descends on me.
Oh, this is peace! I have no need
Of friend to talk, of book to read:

A dear Companion here abides;
Close to my thrilling heart He hides:
The holy silence is his voice:

I lie and listen, and rejoice.

J. T. TROWBridge.

THE MINUTE MEN OF '76.

TWO HUNDRED years ago, Mary Shepherd, a girl of fifteen, was watching the savages on the hills of Concord, while her brothers threshed in the barn. Suddenly the Indians appeared, slew the brothers, and carried her away. In the night, while the savages slept, she untied a stolen horse, slipped a saddle from under the head of one of her captors, mounted, fled, swam the Nashua River, and rode through the forest, home. Mary Shepherd was the true ancestor of the Minute Man of the Revolution. The Minute Man of the Revolution! And who was he? He was the husband and father, who left the plough in the furrow, the hammer on the bench, and, kissing wife and children, marched to die or to be free! The Minute Man of the Revolution! He was the old, the middle-aged, the young. He was Captain Miles, of Acton, who reproved his men for jesting on the march! He was Deacon Josiah Haines, of Sudbury, eighty years old, who marched with his company to South Bridge, at Concord, then joined in that hot pursuit to Lexington, and fell as gloriously as Warren at Bunker Hill. He was James Hayward, of Acton, twentytwo years old, foremost in that deadly race from Charlestown to Concord, who raised his piece at the same moment with a British soldier, each exclaiming, "You are a dead man.” The Briton dropped, shot through the heart. Hayward fell. mortally wounded. "Father," said he, "I started with forty balls; I have three left. I never did such a day's work before. Tell mother not to mourn too much; and tell her whom I love more than my mother that I am not sorry [ turned out." This was the Minute Man of the Revolution!

The rural citizen, trained in the common school, the townmeeting, who carried a bayonet that thought, and whose gun loaded with a principle, brought down, not a man, but a system. With brain and heart and conscience all alive, he opposed every hostile order of British counsel. The cold Grenville, the brilliant Townsend, the reckless Hillsborough, derided, declaimed, denounced, laid unjust taxes, and sent troops to collect them; and the plain Boston Puritan laid his finger on the vital point of the tremendous controversy, and held to it inexorably. Intrenched in his own honesty, the king's gold could not buy him; enthroned in the love of his fellow-citizens, the king's writ could not take him; and when, on the morning at Lexington, the king's troops marched to seize him, his sublime faith saw, beyond the clouds of the moment, the rising sun of the America we behold, and careless of himself, mindful only of his country, he exultingly exclaimed, “Oh, what a glorious morning! He felt that a blow would soon be struck that would break the heart of British tyranny. His judgment, his conscience, told him the hour had come. Unconsciously, his heart beat time to the music of the slave's epitaph:

"God wills us free,

Man wills us slaves.

I will as God wills,
God's will be done."

Do you remember, in that disastrous siege in India, when the little Scotch girl raised her head from her pallet in the hospital, and said to the sickening hearts of the English, "I hear the bagpipes; the Campbells are coming"? And they said, "No, Jessie; it is delirium." "No, I know it; I heard it far off." And in an hour the pibroch burst upon their glad ears, and the banner of St. George floated in triumph over their heads.

And so, at Lexington Square, the Minute Man of the Revolution heard the first notes of the jubilee which, today, rises from the hearts and fills the minds of a free people. G. W. Curtis.