'Twas well she died before--Do you know
If the happy spirits in heaven can see
The ruin and wretchedness here below?

Another glass, and strong, to deaden
This pain; then Roger and I will start.
I wonder, has he such a lumpish, leaden,
Aching thing, in place of a heart?
He is sad sometimes, and would weep, if he could,
No doubt, remembering things that were,--
A virtuous kennel, with plenty of food,
And himself a sober, respectable cur.

I'm better now; that glass was warming--
You rascal! limber your lazy feet!
We must be fiddling and performing
For supper and bed, or starve in the street.--
Not a very gay life to lead, you think.
But soon we shall go where lodgings are free,
And the sleepers need neither victuals nor drink;--
The sooner, the better for Roger and me.

_J.T. Trowbridge._

The Isle of Long Ago

Oh, a wonderful stream is the river of Time,
As it runs through the realm of tears,
With a faultless rhythm and a musical rhyme,
And a boundless sweep and a surge sublime,
As it blends with the ocean of Years.

How the winters are drifting, like flakes of snow,
And the summers, like buds between;
And the year in the sheaf--so they come and they go,
On the river's breast, with its ebb and flow,
As it glides in the shadow and sheen.

There's a magical isle up the river of Time,
Where the softest of airs are playing;
There's a cloudless sky and a tropical clime,
And a song as sweet as a vesper chime,
And the Junes with the roses are staying.

And the name of that isle is the Long Ago,
And we bury our treasures there;
There are brows of beauty and bosoms of snow--
There are heaps of dust--but we love them so!--
There are trinkets and tresses of hair;

There are fragments of song that nobody sings,
And a part of an infant's prayer,
There's a lute unswept, and a harp without strings;
There are broken vows and pieces of rings,
And the garments that she used to wear.

There are hands that are waved, when the fairy shore
By the mirage is lifted in air;
And we sometimes hear, through the turbulent roar,
Sweet voices we heard in the days gone before,
When the wind down the river is fair.

Oh, remembered for aye be the blessed Isle,
All the day of our life till night--
When the evening comes with its beautiful smile.
And our eyes are closing to slumber awhile,
May that "Greenwood" of Soul be in sight!

_Benjamin Franklin Taylor_.