Then all was silent, till there smote my ear

A movement in the stream that checked my breath:

Was it the slow plash of a wading deer?

But something said, "This water is of Death!

The Sisters wash a Shroud, -ill thing to hear!"

I, looking then, beheld the ancient Three,

Known to the Greek's and to the Norseman's creed,

That sit in shadow of the mystic Tree,

Still crooning, as they weave their endless brede,

One song: "Time was, Time is, and Time shall be."

No wrinkled crones were they, as I had deemed,

But fair as yesterday, to-day, to-mor

row,

To mourner, lover, poet, ever

seemed:

Something too high for joy, too deep for sorrow,

Thrilled in their tones, and from their faces gleamed.

"Still men and nations reap as they have strawn;"

So sang they, working at their task the while;

"The fatal raiment must be cleansed ere dawn;

For Austria? Italy? the Sea-Queen's Isle?

O'er what quenched grandeur must our shroud be drawn?

"Or is it for a younger, fairer corse,

That gathered States for children round his knees,

That tamed the wave to be his posting-horse,

Feller of forests, linker of the seas, Bridge-builder, hammerer, youngest son of Thor's?

"What make we, murmur'st thou, and what are we?

When empires must be wound, we bring the shroud,

The time-old web of the implacable Three:

Is it too coarse for him, the young and proud?

Earth's mightiest deigned to wear it; why not he?"

"Is there no hope?" I moaned. "So strong, so fair!

Our Fowler, whose proud bird would brook erewhile

No rival's swoop in all our western air!

Gather the ravens, then, in funeral file For him, life's morn-gold bright yet in his hair!

The alarum of drums swept past,
Or a bugle blast

From the camp on the shore.

Then far away to the south uprose A little feather of snow-white smoke,

And we knew that the iron ship of our foes

Was steadily steering its course
To try the force

Of our ribs of oak.

Down upon us heavily runs,

Silent and sullen, the floating fort; Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns,

And leaps the terrible death,
With fiery breath,

From each open port.

We are not idle, but send her straight

Defiance back in a full broadside! As hail rebounds from a roof of slate,

Rebounds our heavier hail
From each iron scale
Of the monster's hide.

"Strike your flag!" the rebel cries, In his arrogant old plantation

strain.

"Never!" our gallant Morris replies:

"It is better to sink than to yield!"

And the whole air pealed With the cheers of our men.

Then, like a kraken huge and black, She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp!

Down went the Cumberland all a wrack,

With a sudden shudder of death,
And the cannon's breath
For her dying gasp.

Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay,

Still floated our flag at the mainmast-head.

Lord, how beautiful was thy day!
Every waft of the air
Was a whisper of prayer,
Or a dirge for the dead.

Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seas!

Ye are at peace in the troubled

stream.

Ho! brave land! with hearts like these,

Thy flag, that is rent in twain,
Shall be one again,

And without a seam!

LONGFELLOW.

SUNTHIN IN A PASTORAL LINE.

ONCE git a smell o' musk into a draw,

An' it clings hold like precerdents in law:

Your gra'ma'am put it there,when, goodness knows,To jes' this-worldify her Sundayclo'es;

But the old chist wun't sarve her gran'son's wife,

(For, 'thout new funnitoor, wut good in life?)

An' so ole clawfoot, from the precinks dread

O' the spare chamber, slinks into the shed,

Where, dim with dust, it fust or last subsides

To holdin' seeds, an' fifty things besides;

But better days stick fast in heart an' husk,

An' all you keep in't gits a scent o' musk.

Than a square mile o' larks in printer's ink,)

This makes 'em think our fust 'o May is May,

Which't ain't, for all the almanicks can say.

O little city-gals! don't never go it Blind on the word o' noospaper or poet!

They're apt to puff, an' May-day seldom looks

Up in the country ez it doos in books;

They're no more like than hornets'

nests an' hives,

Or printed sarmons be to holy lives. I, with my trouses perched on cowhide boots,

Tuggin' my foundered feet out by the roots,

Hev seen ye come to fling on April's hearse

Your muslin nosegays from the milliner's,

Puzzlin' to find dry ground your queen to choose,

An' dance your throats sore in morocker shoes:

I've seen ye, an' felt proud, thet, come wut would,

Our Pilgrim stock wuz pithed with hardihood.

Pleasure doos make us Yankees kind o' winch,

Ez though 'twuz sunthin' paid for by the inch;

But yit we du contrive to worry

thru,

Ef Dooty tells us thet the thing's to du,

An' kerry a hollerday, ef we set

out,

Ez stiddily ez though 'twuz a redoubt.

I, country-born an' bred, know where to find

Some blooms thet make the season suit the mind,

An' seem to metch the doubtin' bluebird's notes,

Half-vent'rin' liverworts in furry coats,

Bloodroots, whose rolled-up leaves ef you oncurl,

Each on 'em's cradle to a babypearl,

But these are jes' Spring's pickets; sure ez sin,

The rebble frosts'll try to drive 'em in;

For half our May's so awfully like Mayn't,

'Twould rile a Shaker or an evrige saint;

Though I own up I like our back'ard springs

Thet kind o'

haggle with their greens an' things,

An' when you 'most give up, 'ithout more words

Toss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves, an' birds:

Thet's Northun natur', slow, an' apt to doubt,

But when it doos git stirred, ther's no gin-out!

Fust come the blackbirds clatt'rin' in tall trees,

An' settlin' things in windy Congresses,

Queer politicians, though, for I'll be skinned

Ef all on 'em don't head against the wind.

'Fore long the trees begin to show belief, —

The maple crimsons to a coral-reef, Then saffern swarms swing off from all the willers

So plump they look like yaller caterpillars, Then gray

hoss-ches'nuts leetle

hands unfold Softer'n a baby's be at three days old:

Thet's robin-redbreast's almanick; he knows

Thet arter this ther's only blossom

Grows stronger, fercer, tears out right an' left,

Then all the waters bow themselves an' come,

Suddin, in one great slope o' shedderin' foam,

Jes' so our Spring gits every thin' in tune,

An' gives one leap from April into

June:

Then all comes crowdin' in; afore you think,

Young oak-leaves mist the side-hill woods with pink;

The cat-bird in the laylock-bush is loud:

The orchards turn to heaps o' rosy cloud;

Red-cedars blossom tu, though few folks know it,

An' look all dipt in sunshine like a poet;

The lime-trees pile their solid stacks o' shade,

An' drows'ly simmer with the bees' sweet trade;

In ellum-shrouds the flashin' hangbird clings

An' for the summer vy'ge his hammock slings:

All down the loose-walled lanes in archin' bowers

The barb'ry droops its strings o'

golden flowers,

Thet drive me, when I git a chance, to walk

Off by myself to hev a privit talk With a queer critter thet can't seem to 'gree

Along o' me like most folks,- Mister Me.

Ther' is times when I'm unsoshle ez a stone,

An' sort o' suffocate to be alone.I'm crowded jes' to think thet folks are nigh,

An' can't bear nothin' closer than the sky;

Now the wind's full ez shifty in the mind

Ez wut it is ou'-doors, ef I ain't blind,

An, sometimes, in the fairest souwest weather,

My inward vane pints east for weeks together,

My natur gits all goose-flesh, an' my sins Come drizzlin' on

my conscience sharp ez pins: Wal, et sech times I jes' slip out o' sight,

An' take it out in a fair stan' up fight With the one cuss I can't lay on the shelf,

The crook'dest stick in all the heap, -myself.

'Twuz so las' Sabbath arter meetin'time:

Findin' my feelin's wouldn't noways rhyme

With nobody's, but off the hendle

flew