"Now, a shroud of snow and silence over everything was

spread;

And but for this old blue mantle and the old hat on my

head,

I should not have even doubted, to this moment, I was dead,

For my footsteps were as silent as the snow upon the dead!

"Death and silence!-Death and silence! all around me as I sped!

And behold, a mighty TOWER, as if builded to the dead,— To the Heaven of the heavens, lifted up its mighty head, Till the Stars and Stripes of Heaven all seemed waving from its head!

“Round and mighty-based it towered-up into the infiniteAnd I knew no mortal mason could have built a shaft so

bright;

For it shone like solid sunshine; and a winding stair of

light,

Wound around it and around it till it wound clear out of sight!

"And, behold, as I approached it-with a rapt and dazzled

stare,

Thinking that I saw old comrades just ascending the great Stair,

Suddenly the solemn challenge broke of—'Halt, and who goes there!'

'I 'm a friend,' I said, 'if you are.'-'Then advance, sir, to the Stair!'

"I advanced! That sentry, Doctor, was Elijah Ballan

tyne!

First of all to fall on Monday, after we had formed the

line:

'Welcome, my old Sergeant, welcome! Welcome by that countersign!'

And he pointed to the scar there, under this old cloak of mine!

"As he grasped my hand, I shuddered, thinking only of the

grave;

But he smiled and pointed upward with a bright and bloodless glaive:

'That's the way, sir, to Head-quarters.'-'What Headquarters?'-' Of the Brave.'

'But the great Tower?'-'That,' he answered, ‘Is the way, sir, of the Brave!'

"Then a sudden shame came o'er me at his uniform of light; At my own so old and tattered, and at his so new and

bright;

'Ah!' said he, 'you have forgotten the New Uniform tonight,

Hurry back, for you must be here at just twelve o'clock

to-night!'

"And the next thing I remember, you were sitting there, and I

Doctor-did you hear a footstep? Hark!-God bless you all! Good-by!

Doctor, please to give my musket and my knapsack, when I die,

To my Son-my Son that 's coming,—he won't get here till I die!

"Tell him his old father blessed him as he never did before,And to carry that old musket"-Hark! a knock is at the door!

"Till the Union "-See! it opens!-"Father! Father! speak once more!

"Bless you!"--gasped the old gray Sergeant, and he lay and said no more.

FORCEYTHE WILLSON.

Too Late.

"Ah! si la jeunesse savait,-si la vieillesse pouvait!"

THERE sat an old man on a rock,

And unceasing bewailed him of Fate,—
That concern where we all must take stock,
Though our vote has no hearing or weight;
And the old man sang him an old, old song,-
Never sang voice so clear and strong

That it could drown the old man's for long,
For he sang the song "Too late! too late!"

'When we want, we have for our pains

The promise that if we but wait

Till the want has burned out of our brains,

Every means shall be present to state;

While we send for the napkin the soup gets cold,
While the bonnet is trimming the face grows old,
When we've matched our buttons the pattern is sold,
And everything comes too late,—too late!

"When strawberries seemed like red heavens,—
Terrapin stew a wild dream,-

When my brain was at sixes and sevens,
If my mother had 'folks' and ice cream,
Then I gazed with a lickerish hunger
At the restaurant man and fruit-monger,-
But oh! how I wished I were younger

When the goodies all came in a stream! in a stream!

"I've a splendid blood horse, and—a liver

That it jars into torture to trot;

My row-boat 's the gem of the river,—
Gout makes every knuckle a knot!

I can buy boundless credits on Paris and Rome,
But no palate for ménus,-
-no eyes for a dome,-
Those belonged to the youth who must tarry at home,
When no home but an attic he'd got,- he'd got!

"How I longed, in that lonest of garrets,
Where the tiles baked my brains all July,
For ground to grow two pecks of carrots,
Two pigs of my own in a sty,

A rosebush,—a little thatched cottage,—
Two spoons-love-a basin of pottage!—
Now in freestone I sit,—and my dotage,—

With a woman's chair empty close by, close by!

“Ah! now, though I sit on a rock,

I have shared one seat with the great;

I have sat-knowing naught of the clock-
On love's high throne of state;

But the lips that kissed, and the arms that caressed,
To a mouth grown stern with delay were pressed,
And circled a breast that their clasp had blessed,
Had they only not come too late,--too late!"
FITZ HUGH LUDLOW.

What the End shall be.

WHEN another life is added

To the heaving, turbid mass;
When another breath of being

Stains creation's tarnished glass;
When the first cry, weak and piteous,
Heralds long-enduring pain,

And a soul from non-existence

Springs, that ne'er can die again;
When the mother's passionate welcome,
Sorrow-like, bursts forth in tears,
And a sire's self-gratulation

Prophesies of future years,

It is well we cannot see

What the end shall be.

When across the infant features

Trembles the faint dawn of mind,

And the heart looks from the windows
Of the eyes that were so blind;
When the inarticulate murmurs
Syllable each swaddled thought,
To the fond ear of affection

With a boundless promise fraught;
Kindling great hopes for to-morrow
From that dull, uncertain ray,
As by glimmering of the twilight
Is foreshown the perfect day,--

It is well we cannot see
What the end shall be.

When the boy, upon the threshold
Of his all-comprising home,
Puts aside the arm maternal

That enlocks him ere he roam;
When the canvas of his vessel
Flutters to the favoring gale,
Years of solitary exile

Hid behind the sunny sail:
When his pulses beat with ardor,
And his sinews stretch for toil,
And a hundred bold emprises
Lure him to that eastern soil,—

It is well we cannot see
What the end shall be.

When the youth beside the maiden
Looks into her credulous eyes,
And the heart upon the surface
Shines too happy to be wise;
He by speeches less than gestures

Hinteth what her hopes expound,
Laying out the waste hereafter

Like enchanted garden-ground; He may falter--so do many; may suffer-so must all:

She