ld birds, echoed from the cliffs around,
Blended with the voice of waters, flowing past with silvery sound;

Where in Springtime wild flowers blooming shed their incense day and night,
And the rugged cliff-sides wearing robes of dogwood, snowy white;

Where in Summer old trees spreading overhead a leafy roof
Flung their shadows, deep and cooling, 'gainst the burning sunbeams proof;

Where in Winter wild winds raving whistled 'round his lonely home,
And the swollen torrent rushing struck the rocks with sullen tone--

He a sunnier clime forsaking for the "dark and bloody ground,"
Where the forest stretched unbroken--there the wanderer rest had found.

All of human-kind deserting, where no din of toil and strife
Ever came to break the stillness--there he spent a hermit's life.

All his frugal wants supplying from the storehouse Nature gave,
Nevermore his footsteps bending toward where Hope had found its grave.

Striving to forget the false one, dwelling 'neath her sunny skies,
Who had left the arrow rankling in his heart with honied lies.

Long ago she was forgotten, and at last surcease had come--
For his heart was stilled forever, and his lips were sealed and dumb.

Long he lay beside the river, flowing sweetly there to-day,
Where was found a bleaching skeleton, and a rude hut in decay.

There where briars in tangled network sway above a little mound,
Rest the bones of Southern stranger, in the "dark and bloody ground!"

THE "MEDICAL SPRING."

I.

Let tipplers all boast of the pleasure divine
That is found in old whisky, in beer and in wine--
But what are all those to a feller who knows
Where the "Medical Spring" in its purity flows,
And has knelt at its brink and just drank his fill
Of the clear, sparkling fluid, from Nature's own still?

II.

How often I've strayed on a hot Summer's day
Where it gurgles and gushes, then flows on its way
With a ripple as sweet as the music that died
When the tones of loved voices are to us denied,
And mirrored my face in the "Medical Spring,"
Where the beetling old cliffs their cool shadows fling!

III.

Not riches, nor honors, nor place do I crave,
Ere they lay me at last to rest in the grave,
But oh, let me hear its music once more,
And drink from its depths while I kneel on its shore--
Then bear me away on the Death Angel's wing
While my lips are yet moist from the "Medical Spring!"

AN "IDYL" OF THE BALL.

I.

In reel, in waltz, in la