HAIL! TO THE VETERANS.-By N. K. Richardson.

'Written on the reception of General Meade and his brave soldiers of Lae Army of the Potomac, in Philadelphia, June, 1865.

WELCOME them, cheer them, crown them with flowers!
Flags flutter out from your lofty towers!

Maidens throw smiles to them, skies look bright,
They are tramping home from a gory fight!
Be frantic O earth with tumultuous glee.
Till your joyous notes strike the distant sea,
Then ocean will tremble, his billows arise,
In crystal and foam to the glad blue skies,
And from martyr-spirits enshrined above
Waft to heroes below, consolation and love!

Trumpets of brass with a constant bray,
And ringing bells, shall be merry to-day,

As they peal and roar,-welcome home from the fray!

Fragrant breath of the leafy June,
Carol of birds in their sweetest tune;
Branches swaying and bending low,
Glistening waters in jubilant flow,
Heaven and earth, ocean and air,
All things beautiful, all things fair,
Join us to-day in happy accord,

At the homeward march of the hosts of the Lord!
Trumpets of brass with a constant bray,

And ringing bells, shall be merry to-day,

As they peal and roar,-welcome home from the fray 1

Thundering cannon with heated throats,

Shall greet their companions in swelling notes!

Belching and booming o'er land and sea,

Proclaiming to Tyrants the home of the Free!
Oh! Glory to God for this blissful hour!
For the steady rise of the nation's power!
Having met the foe, it was not well

They should come, until slavery writhed in hell!
Trumpets of brass with a constant bray,

And ringing bells, shall be merry to-day,

As they peal and roar,—welcome home from the fray

Beautiful children, your dimpled hands,

Must throw kisses to those at whose commands

Your country, cemented in blood, shall be

The temple of ALL who delight to be free!

Spring arches triumphal o'er every street;

Place the rose-leaf and laurel 'neath weary feet!

Oh be kind to them, cherish them, nurse them with care,
With din of a welcome blend music of prayer;

1

That souls ripe for heaven in glad review,
May pass us to-day in the Union Blue!

Trumpets of brass with a constant bray,
And ringing bells, shall be merry to-day,

As they peal and roar,-welcome home from the fray!

HAMLET'S INSTRUCTION TO THE PLAYERS.

Shakspeare.

SPEAK the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spake my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. Oh! it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags,-to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb show and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant: it out-herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it.

Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word; the word to the action; with this special observance-that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing; whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature;--to show virtue her own feature; scorn her own image; and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. Now this, overdone or come tardy off, though it make the unskillful laugh, can not but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one, must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theater of others. Oh! there be players, that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, or man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men. and not made them well,-they imitated humanity so aboui nably!

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY.-Shakspeare.

To be or not to be-that is the question!
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And, by opposing, end them. To die-to sleep ;-
No more? and, by a sleep, to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd! To die-to sleep :

To sleep! perchance to dream! Ay; there's the rub;
For, in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause!

There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?

Who would fardels bear,
To groan and sweat under a weary life;
But that the dread of something after death,-
That undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveler returns,-puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

"ALL WE ASK IS TO BE LET ALONE."-By II. H. Brownell

As vonce I valked by a dismal swamp,
There sot an old cove in the dark and damp,
And at everybody as passed that road
A stick or a stone this old cove throwed.
And venever he flung his stick or his stone,
He'd set up a song of "Let me alone."

"Let me alone, for I loves to shy
These bits of things at the passers-by;
Let me alone, for I've got your tin,
And lots of other traps snugly in;
Let me alone-I am rigging a boat
To grab votever you've got afloat;
In a veek or so I expects to come,
And turn you out of your ouse and ome;
I'm a quiet old cove," says he, with a groan;
"All I axes, is Let me alone."

Just then came along, on the self-same vay,
Another old cove, and began for to say:
"Let you alone! That's comin' it strong!
You've ben let alone-a blamed sight too long!
Of all the sarce that ever I heerd!

Put down that stick! (You may well look skeered.)
Let go that stone! If you once show fight,
I'll knock you higher than

ary kite."

"You must have a lesson to stop your tricks,
And cure you of shying them stones and sticks;
And I'll have my hardware back, and my cash,
And knock your scow into tarnal smash;
And if ever I catches you round my ranch,
I'll string you up to the nearest branch.
The best you can do is to go to bed,
And keep a decent tongue in your head;
For I reckon, before you and I are done,
You'll wish you had let honest folks alone."

The old cove stopped, and the other old cove,
He sot quite still in his cypress grove,
And he looked at his stick, revolvin' slow,
Vether 'twere safe to shy it or no;

And he grumbled on, in an injured tone, "All that I axed vos, Let me alone."

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.—By Myra Townsend.

WHAT! Would ye swing your brother's form

High up in Heaven's free air,

And place the image of your God

A dangling victim there?

Who gave you pow'r to read his heart,

Or know how deep his guilt,

Or judge what provocation came

Ere blood by him was spilt?

Can ye retrace the length of years
Since he commenced this life,
And mark the coursing of events,
His wrongs, his woes, his strife
His battles with untoward fate,
His blasted hopes and schemes,
His longings for the pure and right,
His visionary dreams?

Perhaps, from life's first early dawn
ILL nestled by his side,

His teachings may have been in wrong,
And sin his childhood's guide;
No mother's voice, perhaps, for him
Sent up an earnest pray'r,

No father at the mercy seat
Asked his acceptance there;

No sister twined around his heart
A soft, and gentle spell,

Which made an atmosphere of love
Wherever he might dwell;
Virtue, perhaps, to him was known
But as an empty name,

And truth, and justice, but the guise
Of cowardice and shame;
Religion's winning, earnest tones
May ne'er within his soul

Have spread their influence divine,

To purify the whole

Then, would ye swing your Brother's form High up in Heaven's free air,

And place the image of your God

A dying victim there?

With all his sins upon his head
Before his destined hour;

Is your's the fiat of his days,

Your's the avenging pow'r?

Did not THAT EYE that saw his deed
Take note when it was done,

And read the thought that caused the act
Ere yet it was begun?

And could He not with vengeance swift,
Have laid the culprit low,

If, in His wisdom, he had seen

It meet to deal the blow?

Think you His hand less strong than youre? Are you more just, more wise,

That

ye with daring hands unrobe

The soul that never dies?

He whom your God in mercy spared
No mercy meets in you,

And yet we pray-"Forgive us, Lord
As we all others do."

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