NUMBER TWO.

A PSALM OF LIFE.-H. W. LONGfellow.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant;
Let the dead past bury its dead!
Act,-act in the living present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead.
Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

THE BELL OF THE "ATLANTIC."-LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.

The steamboat Atlantic, plying between Norwich, Conn. Nov. 26, 1846, and New York, was wrecked on an island near New London. Many of the passengers were on their way to join in the celebration of the annual Thanksgiving in New England. The bell of this boat, supported by a portion of the wreck, continued for many days and nights to toll as if in mournful requiem of the lost.

Toll, toll, toll!

Thou bell by billows swung,

And, night and day, thy warning words
Repeat with mournful tongue!

Toll for the queenly boat,

Wrecked on yon rocky shore!
Sea-weed is in her palace halls,
She rides the surge no more.

Toll for the master bold,

The high-souled and the brave,
Who ruled her like a thing of life
Amid the crested wave!

Toll for the hardy crew,

Sons of the storm and blast,
Who long the tyrant ocean dared;
But it vanquished them at last.

Toll for the man of God,

Whose hallowed voice of prayer
Rose calm above the stifled groan
Of that intense despair!

How precious were those tones,
On that sad verge of life,

Amid the fierce and freezing storm,

And the mountain billow's strife!

Toll for the lover, lost

To the summoned bridal train;
Bright glows a picture on his breast,
Beneath th' unfathomed main.
One from her casement gazeth
Long o'er the misty sea;
He cometh not, pale maiden,
His heart is cold to thee!

Toll for the absent sire,

Who to his home drew near
To bless a glad expecting group,-
Fond wife, and children dear!

They heap the blazing hearth,
The festal board is spread,

But a fearful guest is at the gate;-
Room for the sheeted dead!

Toll for the loved and fair,

The whelmed beneath the tide,-
The broken harps around whose strings
The dull sea-monsters glide!
Mother and nursling sweet,

Reft from the household throng;
There's bitter weeping in the nest
Where breathed their soul of song.

Toll for the hearts that bleed

'Neath misery's furrowing trace;
Toll for the hapless orphan left,
The last of all his race!
Yea, with thy heaviest knell,
From surge to rocky shore,
Toll for the living--not the dead,
Whose mortal woes are o'er.

Toll, toll, toll!

O'er breeze and billow free;

And with thy startling lore instruct

Each rover of the sea.

Tell how o'er proudest joys

May swift destruction sweep,

And bid him build his hopes on high-
Lone teacher of the deep!

THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.

Good morning, doctor; how do you do? I haint quite so well as I have been; but I think I'm some better than I was. I don't think that last medicine you gin me did me much good. I had a terrible time with the earache last night; my wife got up and drapt a few draps of walnut sap into it, and that relieved it some; but I didn't get a wink of sleep till nearly daylight. For nearly a week, doctor, I've had the worst kind of a narvous headache; it has been so bad sometimes that I thought my head would bust open. Oh, dear! I sometimes think that I'm the most afflictedest human that ever lived.

Since this cold weather sot in, that troublesome cough,

that I have had every winter for the last fifteen year, has began to pester me agin. (Coughs.) Doctor, do you think you can give me anything that will relieve this desprit pain I have in my side?

Then I have a crick, at times, in the back of my neck, so that I can't turn my head without turning the hull of my body. (Coughs.)

Oh, dear! What shall I do! I have consulted almost every doctor in the country, but they don't any of them seem to understand my case. I have tried everything that I could think of; but I can't find anything that does me the leastest good. (Coughs.)

Oh this cough,-it will be the death of me yet! You know I had my right hip put out last fall at the rising of deacon Jones' saw mill; it's getting to be very troublesome just before we have a change of weather. Then I've got the sciatica in my right knee, and sometimes I'm so crippled up that I can hardly crawl round in any fashion.

What do you think that old white mare of ours did while I was out ploughing last week? Why, the weacked old critter, she kept a-backing and backing on till she backed me right up agin the colter, and knocked a piece of skin off my shin nearly so big. (Coughs.)

But I had a worse misfortune than that the other day, doctor. You see it was washing-day, and my wife wanted me to go out and bring in a little stove-wood; you know we lost our help lately, and my wife has to wash and tend to everything about the house herself.

I knew it wouldn't be safe for me to go out-as it was araining at the time--but I thought I'd risk it anyhow. So I went out, picked up a few chunks of stove-wood and was acoming up the steps into the house, when my feet slipped from under me, and I fell down as sudden as if I'd been shot. Some of the wood lit upon my face, broke down the bridge of my nose, cut my upper lip, and knocked out three of my front teeth. I suffered dreadfully on account of it, as you may suppose, and my face aint well enough yet to make me fit to be seen, specially by the women folks. (Coughs.) Oh, dear! but that aint all, doctor, I've got fifteen corns on my toes-and I'm afeard I'm a-going to have the "yallar janders." (Coughs.)

THE NEW-BORN BABE.-Mrs. MORRIS.

Into our home one blessed day

A wee sweet babe had found its way,
While through the mist of tears and pain
Sunlight fell on our hearts again!
There it lay in its tender grace,—
The wee babe in its resting place.
The father's eye with pride and joy
Beamed as it rested on his boy!
He saw, as the years roll swift away,
And time had blanched his locks to gray,
A strong young figure guide his feet
On until life and death should meet,
And when his days on earth should close,
The loved one lay him to repose!
But what the voice within her ear,
The mother, in whose eye a tear
Glistens and falls upon the brow
Of the babe resting by her now?
She lifts her heart and simply says,
"O God! I thank thee, give thee praise!"
She hears a voice within her ear
That breathes this lesson, low, but clear:
"Mother, to thee this day is given
A soul to keep and fit for heaven.
Oh, watch and lead the little feet
Through the day's toil and pain and heat,
Lest from the path they go astray,
And wander from God's fold away!
And guide the hands that they may know
No other will than His below.

And train the heart so pure, so mild,

Into the likeness of the child

Who came into a world of sin

And gave his life our souls to win!

Heed well the charge! nor hope to plead

Thou couldst not know, thou didst not heed!"

The mother bowed her head in thought,
And then for guidance meekly sought.
Then from her lips arose this prayer:
"Do Thou, O Lord, my soul prepare
To do Thy will, and yield to Thee
This child, at last, all stainlessly!"

M