Gloom was on hall and hearth--
A deep voice in thy soul, by sorrow over-shaded.

Joy had gone forth with _him_;
The green Earth lost its spell, and the blue Heaven
Unto thine eye grew dim;
And thou didst pray for Death, as for a rich boon given!

_It came_!--and joy to know,
That from _his_ resting-place _thine_ none would sever,
And blessing God didst go,
Where in his presence thou shouldst dwell forever.

Thou didst but stay to trace
The imaged likeness of the dear departed;
To sketch his burial-place--
Then die, O, sister! fond and faithful hearted.

THE MAN WHO WAS NEVER HUMBUGGED.

BY A. LIMNER.

It was a standing boast with Mr. Wiseacre that he had never been
humbugged in his life. He took the newspapers and read them regularly,
and thus got an inkling of the new and strange things that were ever
transpiring, or said to be transpiring, in the world. But to all he
cried "humbug!" "imposture!" "delusion!" If any one were so bold as to
affirm in his presence a belief in the phenomena of Animal Magnetism,
for instance, he would laugh outright; then expend upon it all sorts
of ridicule, or say that the whole thing was a scandalous trick; and
by way of a finale, wind off thus--

"You never humbug me with these new things. Never catch me in
gull-traps. I've seen the rise and fall of too many wonders in my
time--am too old a bird to be caught with this kind of chaff."

As for Homeopathy, it was treated in a like summary manner. All was
humbug and imposture from beginning to end. If you said--

"But, my dear sir, let me relate what I have myself seen--"

He would interrupt you with--

"Oh! as to seeing, you may see any thing, and yet see nothing after
all. I've seen the wonders of this new medical science over and over
again. There are many extraordinary cures made _in imagination_. Put a
grain of calomel in the Delaware Bay, and salivate a man with a drop
of the water! Is not it ridiculous? Doesn't it bear upon the face of
it the stamp of absurdity. It's all humbug, sir! All humbug from
beginning to end. I know! I've looked into it. I've measured the new
wonder, and know its full dimensions--it's name is 'humbug.'"

You reply.

"Men of great force of mind, and large medical knowledge and
experience, see differently. In the law, _similia similiabus
curanter_, they perceive more than a mere figment of the imagination,
a