While some sweet plaint he breathed;

The streams he wandered near;

The maidens whom he loved; the songs he sungAll, all are dear!

The arch blue eyes

Arch but for love's disguise

Of Scotland's daughters, soften at his strain;
Her hardy sons, sent forth across the main

To drive the plowshare through earth's virgin soils,
Lighten with it their toils:

And sister-lands have learned to love the tongue

In which such songs are sung.

For doth not song

To the whole world belong?

Is it not given wherever tears can fall,
Wherever hearts can melt, or blushes glow,
Or mirth and sadness mingle as they flow,
A heritage to all?

ISA CRAIG KNOX.

Over the River.

OVER the river they beckon to me

Loved ones who 've passed to the further side; The gleam of their snowy robes I see,

But their voices are lost in the dashing tide. There's one with ringlets of sunny gold,

And eyes the reflection of heaven's own blue;
He crossed in the twilight gray and cold,

And the pale mist hid him from mortal view;
We saw not the angels who met him there,
The gates of the city we could not see—
Over the river, over the river,

My brother stands waiting to welcome me!

Over the river the boatman pale

Carried another, the household pet;

Her brown curls waved in the gentle gale—
Darling Minnie! I see her yet.

She crossed on her bosom her dimpled hands,
And fearlessly entered the phantom bark,
We felt it glide from the silver sands,

And all our sunshine grew strangely dark;
We know she is safe on the further side,
Where all the ransomed and angels be-
Over the river, the mystic river,

My childhood's idol is waiting for me.

For none return from those quiet shores,
Who cross with the boatman cold and pale;
We hear the dip of the golden oars,

And catch a gleam of the snowy sail;

And lo! they have passed from our yearning heart,
They cross the stream and are gone for aye,
We may not sunder the vail apart

That hides from our vision the gates of day;
We only know that their barks no more

May sail with us o'er life's stormy sea

Yet, somewhere, I know, on the unseen shore,
They watch, and beckon, and wait for me.

And I sit and think, when the sunset's gold
Is flushing river and hill and shore,

I shall one day stand by the water cold

And list for the sound of the boatman's oar;
I shall watch for a gleam of the flapping sail,
I shall hear the boat as it gains the strand;
I shall pass from sight with the boatman pale,
To the better shore of the spirit land.
I shall know the loved who have gone before,
And joyfully sweet will the meeting be,
When over the river, the peaceful river,

The Angel of Death shall carry me.

NANCY PRIEST WAKEFIELD.

The Old Sergeant.

"COME a little nearer, Doctor,-thank you!-let me take the cup:

Draw your chair up,-draw it closer,-just another little

sup!

May be you may think I 'm better; but I'm pretty well used up,

Doctor, you 've done all you could do, but I 'm just a going up!

"Feel my pulse, sir, if you want to, but it ain't much use to

try"

"Never say that," said the Surgeon, as he smothered down

a sigh;

"It will never do, old comrade, for a soldier to say die!" "What you say will make no difference, Doctor, when you come to die.

"Doctor, what has been the matter?"

faint, they say;

You must try to get to sleep now."

"You were very

"Doctor, have I been

"Not that anybody knows of!"

"Doctor-Doctor, please

away?"

to stay!

There is something I must tell you, and you won't have long to stay!

"I have got my marching orders, and I'm ready now to go; Doctor, did you say I fainted?-but it could n't ha' been

So,

For as sure as I'm a Sergeant, and was wounded at Shi

loh,

I've this very night been back there, on the old field of Shi

loh!

"This is all that I remember: The last time the Lighter

came,

And the lights had all been lowered, and the noises much

the same,

He had not been gone five minutes before something called my name:

'ORDERLY SERGEANT-Robert BURTON!'-just that way it called my name.

"And I wondered who could call me so distinctly and so

slow,

Knew it could n't be the Lighter, he could not have

spoken so;

And I tried to answer, 'Here, sir!' but I could n't make

it go;

For I could n't move a muscle, and I could n't make it go!

"Then I thought: It's all a nightmare, all a humbug and a bore;

Just another foolish grape-vine*-and it won't come any

more;

But it came, sir, notwithstanding, just the same way as be

fore:

'ORDERLY SERGEANT-Robert BURTON!' even plainer than

before.

"That is all that I remember, till a sudden burst of light, And I stood beside the River, where we stood that Sunday

night,

Waiting to be ferried over to the dark bluffs opposite, When the river was perdition and all hell was opposite!

"And the same old palpitation came again in all its power, And I heard a Bugle sounding, as from some celestial Tower;

*Canard.

And the same mysterious voice said: 'IT IS THE ELEVENTH

HOUR!

ORDERLY SERGEANT ROBERT BURTON-IT IS THE ELEVENTH

HOUR!'

"Doctor Austin !-what day is this?" "It is Wednesday night, you know."

"Yes,—to-morrow will be New Year's, and a right good time below!

แ

What time is it, Doctor Austin?" "Nearly Twelve." Then do n't you go!

Can it be that all this happened-all this—not an hour ago!

"There was where the gun-boats opened on the dark, rebellious host;

And where Webster semicircled his last guns upon the

coast;

There were still the two log-houses, just the same, or else their ghost,—

And the same old transport came and took me over-or its

ghost!

"And the old field lay before me all deserted far and wide; There was where they fell on Prentiss,—there McClernand

met the tide;

There was where stern Sherman rallied, and where Hurlbut's heroes died,

Lower down, where Wallace charged them, and kept charging till he died.

"There was where Lew Wallace showed them he was of the canny kin,

There was where old Nelson thundered, and where Rousseau waded in;

There McCook sent 'em to breakfast, and we all began to

win

There was where the grape-shot took me, just as we be

gan to win.