346 THE DRUNKARD'S DAUGHTER. Go, catch his withering glance, and see Go to thy mother's side, And her crushed bosom cheer- Wipe from her cheek the bitter tear; And led her down, through love and light, And chained her there, mid want and strife,-- Go, hear, and feel, and see, and know, All that my soul hath felt and known; Think if its flavor you will try! Tell me I hate the bowl Hate is a feeble word: I loathe-abhor-my very soul THE PUBLIC INFORMER. 347 I THE PUBLIC INFORMER.--CURRAN. SPEAK of the well-known fact that the mild and wholesome councils of the British government are holden over these catacombs of living death, where the wretch that is buried a man, lies till his heart has time to fester and dissolve, and is then dug up, a witness. Is this fancy, or is it fact? Have you not seen him, after his resurrection from that tomb, after having been dug out of the region of death and corruption, make his appearance upon the table, the living image of life and of death, and the supreme arbiter of both? Have you not marked, when he entered, how the stormy wave of the multitude retired at his approach? Have you not marked how the human heart bowed to the supremacy of his power, in the undissembled homage of deferential horror? How his glance, like the lightning of heaven, seemed to rive the body of the accused, and marked it for the grave, while his voice warned the devoted wretch of woe and deatha death which no innocence can escape, no art elude, no force resist, no antidote prevent? There was an antidote-a juror's oath-but even that adamantine chain, that bound the integrity of man to the throne of eternal justice, is solved and melted in the breath that issues from the informer's mouth. Conscience swings from her mooring, and the appalled and affrighted juror consults his own safety in the surrender of the victim. GOODY BLAKE AND HARRY GILL.—WORDSWORTH. OH! what's the matter? what's the matter? What is't that ails young Harry Gill, That evermore his teeth they chatter, Chatter, chatter, chatter still? 348 GOODY BLAKE AND HARRY GILL. In March, December, and July, Young Harry was a lusty drover, Now, when the frost was past enduring, Now Harry he had long suspected And oft from his warm fire he'd go, And once, behind a rack of barley, GOODY BLAKE AND HARRY GILL. —He hears a noise-he's all awake— Right glad was he when he beheld her; Till she had filled her apron full; When with her load she turned about, And sprang upon poor Goody Blake. And fiercely by the arm he took her, Her bundle from her lap let fall; And kneeling on the sticks, she prayed She prayed, her withered hand uprearing, may he never more be warm!" The cold, cold moon above her head, He went complaining all the morrow, His face was gloom, his heart was sorrow,― 349 350 JOHN BURNS OF GETTYSBURG. "Twas all in vain, a useless matter, No word to any man he utters, H JOHN BURNS OF GETTYSBURG. AVE you heard the story the gossips tell Of John Burns of Gettysburg ?—No? Ah, well! Brief is the glory that hero earns, Briefer the story of poor John Burns; He was the fellow who won renown The only man who didn't back down When the rebels rode through his native town; But held his own in the fight next day, The very day that General Lee, The flower of Southern chivalry, Baffied and beaten, backward reeled From a stubborn Meade and a barren field. I might tell how, but the day before, |