"Twenty pounds, I am certain, will buy me a cow,

Thirty geese, and two turkeys, — eight pigs and a sow;
Now if these turn out well, at the end of the year,
I shall fill both my pockets with guineas, 't is clear."

Forgetting her burden, when this she had said,
The maid superciliously tossed up her head;
When, alas for her prospects! her milk-pail descended,
And so all her schemes for the future were ended.

This moral, I think, may be safely attached,

"Reckon not on your chickens before they are hatched.”

JEFFREYS TAYLOR.

In the Half-way House.

AT twenty we fancied the blest middle ages

A spirited cross of romantic and grand;

All templars and minstrels and ladies and pages,

And love and adventure in Outre-Mer-land. But, ah! where the youth dreamed of building a minster, The man takes a pew and sits reckoning his pelf, And the graces wear fronts, the muse thins to a spinster, When Middle-Age stares from one's glass to himself!

Do you twit me with days when I had an ideal,

And saw the sear future through spectacles green ? Then find me some charm, while I look round and see all, These fat friends of forty shall keep me nineteen;

Should we go on pining for chaplets of laurel

Who 've paid a perruquier for mending our thatch,

Or, our feet swathed in baize, with our fate pick a quarrel, If, instead of cheap bay-leaves, she sent a dear scratch?

We called it our Eden, that small patent baker,

When life was half moonshine and half Mary Jane ;

IN THE HALF-WAY HOUSE.

But the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker;
Did Adam have duns and slip down a back-lane ?
Nay, after the fall did the modiste keep coming

With last styles of fig-leaf to Madam Eve's bower:
Did Jubal, or whoever taught the girls thrumming,
Make the patriarchs deaf at a dollar the hour?

As I think what I was, I sigh, Desunt nonulla!
Years are creditors Sheridan's self could not bilk;
But then, as my boy says, "What right has a fellah
To ask for the cream when himself spilt the milk?"
Perhaps when you 're older, my lad, you 'll discover
The secret with which Auld Lang Syne there is gilt,
Superstition of old man, maid, poet, and lover,
That cream rises thicker on milk that was spilt.

We sailed for the moon, but, in sad disillusion,
Snug under Point Comfort are glad to make fast,
And strive (sans our glasses) to make a confusion

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'Twixt our rind of green cheese and the moon of the past: Ah, Might-have-been, Could have been, Would have been! rascals,

He's a genius or fool whom ye cheat at twoscore,

And the man whose boy-promise was likened to Pascal's
Is thankful at forty they don't call him bore!

With what fumes of fame was each confident pate full!
How rates of insurance should rise on the Charles!
And which of us now would not feel wisely grateful,

If his rhymes sold as fast as the Emblems of Quarles?
E'en if won, what's the good of life's medals and prizes?
The rapture's in what never was or is gone;

That we miss them makes Helens of plain Ann Elizas,
For the goose of to-day still is memory's swan.

And yet who would change the old dream for new treasure? Make not youth's sourest grapes the best wine of our life?

Need he reckon his date by the Almanac's measure
Who is twenty life-long in the eyes of his wife?
Ah, Fate, should I live to be nonagenarian,

Let me still take Hope's frail I. O. U.'s upon trust,
Still talk of a trip to the Island Macarian,

And still climb the dream-tree for- ashes and dust!
JAMES RUSSELL Lowell.

THER

There is a Green Wood.

HERE is a green wood where the river runs darkly
Under the branches that shadow its tide,

And the unsunned wave 's rolling above a fair maiden,
Around whom are clinging the robes of a bride.

Deep in its bosom her white form is lying,

And round it is drifting the soft yellow sand, While her golden hair loose to the current is flying, Waved by the water-sprite's tremulous hand.

Through the pulses of Nature a death-beat is throbbing,
Each tree, like a pall, o'er the wave flings its shade,
And from the far meadow the wind comes in sobbing
Aimlessly down through the sorrowing glade.

Yet the gloom has not spread where yon castle is shining

So bright in the sunlight that whitens its wall;

There guests are assembling, feasts spreading, wreaths twin

ing;

But soon must it come like a blight over all.

'T will sadden the music the joy-bells are ringing,

'T will wither the garlands the peasant maids twine, 'T will hush the glad songs that the minstrels are singing, 'T will dim those bright eyes that the jewels outshine.

ATHEISM.

Now all are assembled, and gay plumes are dancing,
Music and laughter float over the throng,

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White necks gleam with diamonds, and dark eyes are glancing

Why lingers the bride in her chamber so long?

Proud bridegroom, stern sire, blithe guests, she lies sleeping
In yonder green wood, 'neath the cold wave, to-day!
Be your pride and your anger and mirth turned to weeping ;
For well is her vow kept with one far away.

MICHAEL O'CONNOR.

Atheism.

HERE is no God," the wicked saith,
"And truly it's a blessing,

For what he might have done with us
It's better only guessing."

"There is no God," a youngster thinks,

"Or really if there may be,

He surely did n't mean a man
Always to be a baby."

"Whether there be," the rich man thinks,

"It matters very little,

For I and mine, thank somebody,

Are not in want of victual."

Some others also to themselves,

Who scarce so much as doubt it,
Think there is none, when they are well,
And do not think about it.

But country-folks who live beneath

The shadow of the steeple ;

The parson, and the parson's wife,
And mostly married people;

Youths green and happy in first love,
So thankful for illusion;

And men caught out in what the world
Calls guilt and first confusion;

And almost every one when age,
Disease, and sorrow strike him, –
Inclines to think there is a God,
Or something very like him.

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.

The Traveller's Return.

W

HEN silent time, wi' lightly foot,
Had trod on thirty years,

I sought again my native land
Wi' mony hopes and fears.
Wha kens gin the dear friends I left
May still continue mine?

Or gin I e'er again shall taste
The joys I left lang syne!

As I drew near my ancient pile,
My heart beat a' the way;

Ilk place I passed seemed yet to speak

O' some dear former day;

Those days that followed me afar,

Those happy days o' mine,
Whilk make me think the present joys
A' naething to lang syne:

The ivied tower now met my eye,
Where minstrel used to blaw,

Nae friend stepped forth wi' open hand,
Nae weel-kenned face I saw ;