the White House with his little sister. He was called into the President's private room, and a strap fastened upon the shoulder. Mr. Lincoln then said: "The soldier that could carry a sick comrade's baggage, and die for the act so uncomplainingly, deserves well of his country." Then Bennie and Blossom took their way to their Green Mountain home. A crowd gathered at the Mill Depot to welcome them back; and, as farmer Owen's hand grasped that of his boy, tears flowed down his cheeks, and he was heard to say fervently: The Lord be praised!"

THE COMET.--THOMAS HOOD.

Among professors of astronomy,
Adepts in the celestial economy,

The name of Herschel's very often cited;
And justly so, for he is hand in glove
With every bright intelligence above;
Indeed, it was his custom so to stop,
Watching the stars, upon the house's top,
That once upon a time he got benighted
In his observatory thus coquetting,

With Venus or with Juno gone astray,
All sublunary matters quite forgetting
In his flirtations with the winking stars,
Acting the spy, it might be, upon Mars,-
A new Andre;

Or, like a Tom of Coventry, sly peeping
At Dian sleeping;

Or ogling through his glass

Some heavenly lass,

Tripping with pails along the Milky way;

Or looking at that wain of Charles, the Martyr's.
Thus was he sitting, watchman of the sky,

When lo! a something with a tail of flame

Made him exclaim,

"My stars!"-he always put that stress on my,

"My stars and garters!

"A comet, sure as I'm alive!

A noble one as I should wish to view;

It can't be Halley's though, that is not due

Till eighteen thirty-five.

NUMBER THREE.

Magnificent! How fine his fiery trail!

Zounds! 'tis a pity, though, he comes unsought,
Unasked, unreckoned,-in no human thought;
He ought-he ought-he ought

To have been caught

With scientific salt upon his tail.

"I looked no more for it, I do declare,
Than the Great Bear!

As sure as Tycho Brahe is dead,
It really entered in my head
No more than Berenice's hair!"
Thus musing, heaven's grand inquisitor
Sat gazing on the uninvited visitor,

Till John, the serving man, came to the upper Regions, with Please your honor, come to supper."

'Supper! good John, to-night I shall not sup, Except on that phenomenon,-look up."

"Not sup!" cried John, thinking with consternation That supping on a star must be star-vation,

Or even to batten

On ignes fatui would never fatten.

His visage seemed to say, "That very odd is,"
But still his master the same tune ran on,
"I can't come down; go to the parlor, John,
And say I'm supping with the heavenly bodies."
"The heavenly bodies!" echoed John, "ahem!"
His mind still full of famishing alarms,
"Zounds! If your honor sups with them,

In helping, somebody must make long arms." He thought his master's stomach was in danger, But still in the same tone replied the knight, "Go down, John, go, I have no appetite; Say I'm engaged with a celestial stranger." Quoth John, not much au fait in such affairs, "Wouldn't the stranger take a bit down stairs?" "No," said the master, smiling, and no wonder, At such a blunder,

"The stranger is not quite the thing you think;
He wants no meat or drink;

And one may doubt quite reasonably whether
He has a mouth,

Seeing his head and tail are joined together.

Behold him! there he is, John, in the south.”

John looked up with his portentous eyes,
Each rolling like a marble in its socket;
At last the fiery tadpole spies,

And, full of Vauxhall reminiscence, cries,
"A rare good rocket!"

"A what? A rocket, John! Far from it!
What you behold, John, is a comet ;

One of those most eccentric things

That in all ages

Have puzzled sages

And frightened kings;

With fear of change, that flaming meteor, John,
Perplexes sovereigns throughout its range."
"Do he?" cried John;

"Well. let him flare on,

I haven't got no sovereigns to change!"

TWENTY YEARS AGO.

I've wandered to the village, Tom, I've sat beneath the tree, Upon the school-house play-ground, that sheltered you and

me;

But none were left to greet me, Tom; and few were left to know,

Who played with us upon the green, some twenty years ago.

The grass is just as green, Tom; bare footed boys at play Were sporting, just as we did then, with spirits just as gay. But the "master" sleeps upon the hill, which, coated o'er with snow,

Afforded us a sliding-place, some twenty years ago.

The old school-house is altered now; the benches are replaced

By new ones, very like the same our penknives once defaced; But the same old bricks are in the wall, the bell swings to

and fro;

Its music's just the same, dear Tom, 'twas twenty years ago. The boys were playing some old game, beneath that same

old tree;

I have forgot the name just now,-you've played the same

with me,

On that same spot; 'twas played with knives, by throwing

so and so;

The loser had a task to do,-there, twenty years ago.

The river's running just as still; the willows on its side Are larger than they were, Tom; the stream appears less wide;

But the grape-vine swing is ruined now, where once we played the beau,

And swung our sweethearts,-pretty girls,—just twenty years ago.

The spring that bubbled 'neath the hill, close by the spreading beech,

Is very low, 'twas then so high that we could scarcely reach; And, kneeling down to get a drink, dear Tom, I started so, To see how sadly I am changed, since twenty years ago.

Near by that spring, upon an elm, you know I cut your name, Your sweetheart's just beneath it, Tom, and you did mine the same;

Some heartless wretch has I veled the bark, 'twas dying sure but slow,

Just as she died, whose name you cut, some twenty years ago.

My lids have long been dry, Tom, but tears came to my eyes;
I thought of her I loved so vell, those early broken ties;
I visited the old church-yar, and took some flowers to strow
Upon the graves of those we loved, some twenty years ago.
Some are in the church-y d laid, some sleep beneath the

sea;

But few are left of our ol" class, excepting you and me: And when our time shal1ome, Tom, and we are called to go, i hope they'll lay us wre we played, just twenty years ago.

GOING OUT ANL COMING IN.-MOLLIE E. MOORE.

Going o' to fame and triumph,
Going out to love and light,
Coming in to pain and sorrow,

Coming in to gloom and night.

Going out with joy and gladness,

Coming in with woe and sin;
Ceaseless streams of restless pilgrims
Going out and coming in.

Through the portals of the homestead,
From beneath the blooming vine,
To the trumpet tones of glory,
Where the bays and laurels twine;
From the loving home caresses

To the chill voice of the world,
Going out with gallant canvas

To the summer breeze unfurled.
Coming back all worn and weary,

Weary with the world's cold breath;
Coming to the dear old homestead,
Coming in to age and death;
Weary of all empty flattery,
Weary of all ceaseless din,
Weary of its heartless sneering;

Coming from the bleak world in.

Going out with hopes of glory,
Coming in with sorrow dark;
Going out with sails all flying,

Coming in with mastless barque;
Restless stream of pilgrims, striving,
Wreaths of fame or love to win;
From the doorways of the homesteads
Going out and coming in.

THE LEPER.-N. P. WILLIS,

Day was breaking,

When at the altar of the temple stood

The holy priest of God. The incense lamp

Burned with a struggling light, and a low chant

Swelled through the hollow arches of the roof,
Like an articulate wail; and there, alone,
Wasted to ghastly thinness, Helon knelt.

The echoes of the melancholy strain

Died in the distant aisles, and he rose up,

Struggling with weakness, and bowed down his head

Unto the sprinkled ashes, and put off

His costly raiment for the leper's garb,

And with the sackcloth round him, and his lip
Hid in a loathsome covering, stood still,
Waiting to hear his doom: