s if the echo linger'd long?
Even so she listens to the thrush
That thrills the air with eddying song.

'How sweet, on summer-scented morns,
To hear through all our lingering walk,
As soft as dew on fragrant lawns,
The wandering music of her talk!
Ah! dreaming heart, that asked no more
When dower'd with that o'erflowing smile:
Ah! foolish heart, to linger o'er
The memories that can still beguile.'

I paused. On distant breezes borne,
A silken stir floats slowly by,
And from the clouds a silver dawn
Breaks through the vapor-shrouded sky;
The cloister'd walk is paved with light,
And bathed in crystal beams she stands:
No jewels crown her presence bright,
A single rose is in her hands.

'Oh! fair white rose,' she softly said,
'Make peace between my love and me;
Lest from my life the colors fade,
And leave me faint and pale like thee:
Tell him that dearer is the flower
Once honored by his poet hand,
Than ermined rank, and princely power,
With any noble in the land.'

* * * * *

Then soft as rose-leaf on my brow
A sudden kiss comes floating down,
On wings as light as angels know,
And crowns me with a kingly crown.
And banish'd by a touch divine,
Fled all the memories of pain;
I clasped the pleading hands in mine,
And told her all my love again.

The pale mist like an incense cloud
From some great altar drifts away,
In silvery fullness o'er us flows
The glory of a pallid day.
Amid the opening buds of hope
I smile at half-forgotten fears;
For love, I said, grows holier still
And purer through baptismal tears.

'IS THERE ANYTHING IN IT?

'A true bill.'-SHAKSPEARE.

I used to be 'verdant' in the art of legislation. A short time since I
paid my initiation fee, and learned the mystery. It is true I had heard
much of legislative corruption, and had often seen paragraphs relating
thereto in the newspapers, but I looked upon them as political squibs,
put forth by the 'outs' in revenge for the defeat of their party
schemes. Here let me stoutly assert that I cannot testify of my own
knowledge to any instance of legislative corruption. _Mem:_ This
declaration is intended to save me from being called before any of the
numerous investigating committees, which, like the schoolmaster, are
abroad just now. At the same time I propose to relate in brief