He hath no other life above; He gave me a friend, and a true, true love, Old year, you must not go; So long as you have been with us, Old year, you shall not die; He was full of joke and jest ; But all his merry quips are o'er. To see him die, across the waste His son and heir doth ride post haste, Every one for his own; The night is starry and cold, my friend, How hard he breathes! over the snow I heard just now the crowing cock; The shadows flicker to and fro, The cricket chirps, the light burns low,'Tis nearly twelve o'clock. Shake hands before you die; His face is growing sharp and thin;- Close up his eyes, tie up his chin, Step from the corpse, and let him in Who standeth there alone, And waiteth at the door. There's a new foot on the floor, my friend, And a new face at the door, my friend, JUDICIAL TRIBUNALS.-CHARLES SUMNER. Let me here say that I hold judges, and especially the Supreme Court of the country, in much respect; but I am too familiar with the history of judicial proceedings to regard them with any superstitious reverence. Judges are but men, and in all ages have shown.a full share of frailty. Alas! alas! the worst crimes of history have been perpetrated under their sanction. The blood of martyrs and of patriots, crying from the ground, summons them to judgment. It was a judicial tribunal which condemned Socrates to drink the fatal hemlock, and which pushed the Saviour barefoot over the pavements of Jerusalem, bending beneath his cross. It was a judicial tribunal which, against the testimony and entreaties of her father, surrendered the fair Virginia as a slave; which arrested the teachings of the great apostle to the Gentiles, and sent him in bonds from Judea to Rome; which, in the name of the old religion, adjudged the saints and fathers of the Christian Church to death, in all its most dreadful forms; and which afterwards, in the name of the new religion, enforced the tortures of the Inquisition, amidst the shrieks and agonies of its victims, while it compelled Galileo to declare, in solemn denial of the great truth he had disclosed, that the earth did not move round the sun. It was a judicial tribunal which, in France, during the long reign of her monarchs, lent itself to be the instrument of every tyranny, as during the brief reign of terror it did not hesitate to stand forth the unpitying accessory of the unpitying guillotine. Ay, sir, it was a judicial tribunal in England, surrounded by all the forms of law, which sanctioned every despotic caprice of Henry the Eighth, from the unjust divorce of his queen to the beheading of Sir Thomas More; which lighted the fires of persecution, that glowed at Oxford and Smithfield, over the cinders of Latimer, Ridley, and John Rogers; which, after elaborate argument, upheld the fatal tyranny of ship money against the patriotic resistance of Hampden; which, in defiance of justice and humanity, sent Sydney and Russell to the block; which persistently enforced the laws of conformity that our Pu ritan Fathers persistently refused to obey; and which afterwards, with Jeffries on the bench, crimsoned the pages of English history with massacre and murder,-even with the blood of innocent woman. Ay, sir, and it was a judicial tribunal in our country, surrounded by all the forms of law, which hung witches at Salem, which affirmed the constitutionality of the Stamp Act, while it admonished “jurors and the people" to obey; and which now, in our day, has lent its sanction to the unutterable atrocity of the Fugitive Slave Bill. BETTY AND THE BEAR. In a pioneer's cabin out West, so they say, Of milk and potatoes,-an excellent meal,- "A what?" "Why a bar!" Well, murder him, then!" "Yes, Betty, I will, if you'll first venture in." So Betty leaped up, and the poker she seized, While her man shut the door, and against it he squeezed As Betty then laid on the grizzly her blows, Now on his forehead, and now on his nose, Her man through the keyhole kept shouting within, Now when the old man saw the bear was no more, Then off to the neighbors he hastened, to tell THE DRAW-BRIDGE KEEPER.-HENRY ABBEY. History and poetry celebrate no sublimer act of devotion than that of Albert G. Drecker, the watchman of the Passaic River draw-bridge, on the New York and Newark Railroad. The train was due, and he was closing the draw when his little child fell into the deep water. It would have been easy enough to rescue him, if the father could have taken the time, but already the thundering train was at hand. It was a cruel agony. His child could be saved only at the cost of other lives committed to his care. The brave man did his duty, but the child was drowned. The pass at Thermopyla was not more heroically kept. Sir Philip Sydney, giving the cup of cold water to the dying soldier, is not a nobler figure than that of Albert G. Drecker, keeping the Passaic bridge. Drecker, the draw-bridge keeper, opened wide Above Passaic river, deep and blue; While in the distance, like a moan of pain, At once brave Drecker worked to swing it back,— Came the swift engine, puffing its white breath. Either at once down in the stream to spring And leave his boy unhelped to meet his fate; And yet the child to him was full as dear As yours may be to you,—the light of eyes, A presence like a brighter atmosphere, The household star that shone in love's mild skies,Yet side by side with duty, stern and grim, Even his child became as nought to him. For Drecker, being great of soul, and true, Then from the father's life went forth all joy; To win from men just honor and reward; Is least corrupted. To be just and good THE GRAVE OF CHARLES DICKENS. At the funeral, a crown of green leaves and white roses rested upon the coffin, and many who came to look into the grave, while it remained open, threw flow. ers into it. The closing stanza of the poem alludes to this beautiful incident. He sleeps as he should sleep,-among the great In the old Abbey; sleeps amidst the few Of England's famous thousands whose high state Monarchs, who men's minds 'neath their sway could bring Of Art that lives when artists are no more. His grave is in this heart of England's heart, Sounds as the names of the immortal sound. Of some, the ashes lie beside his dust; Of some, but marble forms and names are here; But grave or cenotaph,-remains or bust, They will find place for thee, their latest peer. |