Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood,
With dauntless words and high

That shook the sere leaves from the wood,
As if a storm passed by,

Saying, "We are twins in death, proud Sun! Thy face is cold, thy race is run,

"Tis Mercy bids thee go;

For thou ten thousand thousand years
Hast seen the tide of human tears,

That shall no longer flow.

"What though beneath thee man put forth His pomp, his pride, his skill;

And arts that made fire, flood, and earth
The vassals of his will?

Yet mourn I not thy parted sway,
Thou dim, discrowned king of day;
For all those trophied arts

And triumphs that beneath thee sprang
Healed not a passion or a pang
Entailed on human hearts.

"Go, let oblivion's curtain fall

Upon the stage of men,

Nor with thy rising beams recall

Life's tragedy again :

Its piteous pageants bring not back,
Nor waken flesh, upon the rack
Of pain anew to writhe;

Stretched in disease's shapes abhorred,
Or mown in battle by the sword,
Like grass beneath the scythe.

"Even I am weary in yon skies
To watch thy fading fire;
Test of all sumless agonies,
Behold not me expire.

My lips that speak thy dirge of death,
Their rounded gasp and gurgling breath

To see thou shalt not boast.

The eclipse of Nature spreads my pall,
The majesty of Darkness shall
Receive my parting ghost!

"This spirit shall return to Him

Who gave its heavenly spark:

Yet think not, Sun, it shall be dim
When thou thyself art dark!
No! it shall live again, and shine
In bliss unknown to beams of thine;
By Him recalled to breath,
Who captive led captivity,
Who robbed the grave of victory,
And took the sting from Death!

"Go, Sun, while Mercy holds me up,
On Nature's awful waste

To drink this last and bitter cup
Of grief that man shall taste,-
Go, tell the night that hides thy face,
Thou saw'st the last of Adam's race,
On Earth's sepulchral clod,
The darkening universe defy
To quench his immortality.

Or shake his trust in God!"

THE LITTLE GRAVE.

"It's only a little grave," they said, "Only just a child that's dead ;"

And so they carelessly turned away

From the mound the spade had made that day.
Ah! they did not know how deep a shade
That little grave in our home had made.

I know the coffin was narrow and small,

One yard would have served for an ample pall;
And one man in his arms could have borne away
The rosebud and its freight of clay.

But I know that darling hopes were hid
Beneath that little coffin lid.

I knew that a mother had stood that day
With folded hands by that form of clay;
I knew that burning tears were hid
"'Neath the drooping lash and aching lid;"
And I knew her lip, and cheek and brow,
Were almost as white as her baby's now.
I knew that some things were hid away,-
The crimson frock and wrappings gay,

The little sock and half-worn shoe,
The cap with its plumes and tassels blue;
An empty crib with its covers spread,
As white as the face of the sinless dead.

"Tis a little grave, but oh, beware!
For world-wide hopes are buried there;
And ye, perhaps, in coming years,
May see like her, through blinding tears,
How much of light, how much of joy,
Is buried with an only boy!

DUTY OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR.
GEO. W. CURTIS.

Do you ask me our duty as scholars? Gentlemen, thought, which the scholar represents, is life and liberty. There is no intellectual or moral life without liberty. Therefore, as a man must breathe and see before he can study, the scholar must have liberty, first of all; and as the American scholar is a man and has a voice in his own government, so his interest in political affairs must precede all others. He must build his house before he can live in it. He must be a perpetual inspiration of freedom in politics. He must recognize that the intelligent exercise of political rights, which is a privilege in a monarchy, is a duty in a republic. If it clash with his ease, his retirement, his taste, his study, let it clash, but let him do his duty. The course of events is incessant, but when the good deed is slighted, the bad deed is done.

Scholars, you would like to loiter in the pleasant paths of study. Every man loves his ease,-loves to please his taste. But into how many homes along this lovely valley came the news of Lexington and Bunker Hill, eighty-years ago; and young men like us, studious, fond of leisure, young lovers, young husbands, young brothers and sons, knew that they must forsake the wooded hillside, the river meadows, golden with harvest, the twilight walk along the river, the summer Sunday in the

war.

old church, parents, wife, child, and go away to uncertain Putnam heard the call at his plough, and turned to go, without waiting. Wooster heard it, and obeyed. Not less lovely in those days was this peaceful valley, not less soft this summer air. Life was dear, and love as beautiful to those young men as they are to us who stand upon their graves. But, because they were so dear and beautiful, those men went out, bravely to fight for them and fall. Through these very streets they marched, who never returned. They fell, and were buried; but they can never die. Not sweeter are the flowers that make your valley fair, not greener are the pines that give your river its name, than the memory of the brave men who died for freedom. And yet no victim of those days, sleeping under the green sod of Connecticut, is more truly a martyr of liberty than every murdered man whose bones lie bleaching in this summer sun upon the silent plains of Kansas.

Gentlemen, while we read history, we make history. Because our fathers fought in this great cause, we must not hope to escape fighting. Because, two thousand years ago, Leonidas stood against Xerxes, we must not suppose that Xerxes was slain, nor, thank God, that Leonidas is not immortal. Every great crisis of human history is a pass of Thermopyla, and there is always a Leonidas, and his three hundred to die in it, if they cannot conquer. And so long as liberty has one martyr, so long as one drop of blood is poured out for her, so long from that single drop of bloody sweat of the agony of humanity shall spring hosts as countless as the forestleaves, and mighty as the sea.

Brothers! the call has come to us. I bring it to you in these calm retreats. I summon you to the great fight of freedom. I call upon you to say, with your voices whenever the occasion offers, and with your votes when the day comes, that upon these fertile fields of Kansas, in the very heart of the continent, the upas-tree of slavery,

dripping death-dews upon national prosperity and upon free labor, shall never be planted. I call upon you to plant there the palm of peace, the vine and the olive of a Christian civilization. I call upon you to determine whether this great experiment of human freedom, which has been the scorn of despotism, shall, by its failure, be also our sin and shame. I call upon you to defend the hope of the world.

The voices of our brothers who are bleeding, no less than of our fathers who bled, summon us to this battle. Shall the children of unborn generations, clustering over that vast Western empire, rise up and call us blessed, or cursed? Here are our Marathon and Lexington; here are our heroic fields. The hearts of all good men beat with us. The fight is fierce-the issue is with God. But God is good.

THE NEW CHURCH ORGAN.--WILL CARLETON.
They've got a brand new organ, Sue,

For all their fuss an' search;

They've done just as they said they'd do,

And fetched it into church.

They're bound the critter shall be seen,

And on the preacher's right

They've hoisted up their new machine,
In everybody's sight.

They've got a chorister and choir,
Ag'in my voice an' vote;

For it was never my desire

To praise the Lord by note!

I've been a sister good an' true
For five an' thirty year;

I've done what seemed my part to do,

An' prayed my duty clear;

I've sung the hymns both slow and quick,
Just as the preacher read;

And twice, when Deacon Tubbs was sick,
I took the fork an' led!

And now, their bold, new-fangled ways
Is comin' all about;