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However, he turned from south to west,
And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed,
And after him the children pressed;
Great was the joy in every breast.
"He never can cross that mighty top!
He's forced to let the piping drop,

And we shall see our children stop!"

When lo! as they reached the mountain's side,
A wondrous portal opened wide,

As if a cavern were suddenly hollowed,
And the Piper advanced and the children

. followed,

And when all were in to the very last,
The door in the mountain side shut fast.
Did I say all? No! one was lame,

And could not dance the whole of the way.
And in after years, if you would blame
His sadness, he was used to say,

"It's dull in our town since my playmates left! I can't forget that I'm bereft

Of all the pleasant sights they see,
Which the Piper also promised me;

For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,

Joining the town and just at hand,
Where waters gushed and fruit trees grew,
And flowers put forth a fairer hue,

And everything was strange and new;

The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,

And the dogs outran our fallow deer,

And honey bees had lost their stings,

And horses were born with eagles' wings;

And just as I became assured

My lame foot would be speedily cured,

The music stopped, and I stood still,

And found myself outside the Hill,

Left alone against my will,

To go now limping as before,

And never hear of that country more!"

Alas, alas for Hamelin!

There came into many a burgher s pate
A text which says that heaven's gate
Opes to the rich at as easy rate

As the needle's eye takes the camel in!
The Mayor sent east, west, north and south

To offer the Piper by word of mouth,

Wherever it was men's lot to find him, Silver and gold to his heart's content, If he'd only return the way he went,

And bring the children behind him. But when they saw 'twas a lost endeavor, And Piper and dancers were gone forever, They made a decree that lawyers never

Should think their records dated duly If, after the day of the month and year, These words did not as well appear: "And so long afterward happened here On the twenty-second of July, Thirteen hundred and seventy-six;" And the better in memory to fix The place of the children's last retreat, They called it the Pied Piper's street, Where any one playing on pipe or tabor Was sure for the future to lose his labor, Nor suffered their hostelry or tavern To shock with mi-th a street so solemn, But opposite the place of the cavern

They wrote the story on a column, And on the great church window painted The same, to make the world acquainted How their children were stolen away, And there it stands to this very day.

And I must not omit to say

That in Transylvania there's a tribe
Of alien people that ascribe

The outlandish ways and dress

On which their neighbors lay such stress

To their fathers and mothers having risen

Out of some subterranean prison
Into which they were trepanned,

Long time ago, in a mighty band

Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land But how or why, they don't understand.

So, Willy, let you and me be wipers

Of scores out with all men-especially pipers; And, whether they pipe us free, from rats or from mice,

If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise.

-Robert Browning.

I

SLEPT and dreamed that life was. Beauty:

I woke and found that life was Duty:

Was then thy dream a shadowy lie?

Toil on, sad heart, courageously, And thou shalt find thy dream to be A noonday light and truth to thee.

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Not a Mistake.

OU

UR neighbor over the way passes for a woman who has failed in her career, because she is an old maid. People wag solemn heads of pity, and say that she made so great a mistake in not marrying the brilliant and famous man who was for long years her suitor. It is clear that no orange flower will ever bloom for her. The young people think of her solitary hours of bitter regret, and please their imaginations with fancying her hard struggle with the conviction that she has lost all that makes life beautiful. But this old maid who is thus pitied for a secret sorrow, is a woman whose nature is a tropic, in which the sun shines, the birds sing, the flowers bloom forever. There are no regrets, no doubts and half wishes, but -G. W. Curtis.

a calm sweetness, a transparent peace.

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Niagara.

The morning stars,
When first they sang o'er young creation's birth;
Heard thy deep anthem—and those wrecking fires
That wait the archangel's signal to dissolve
The solid earth, shall find Jehovah's name
Graven, as with a thousand diamond spears,
On thine unfathomed page.-Each leafy bough
That lifts itself within thy proud domain,
Doth gather greenness from thy living spray,
And tremble at the baptism.-Lo! yon birds
Do venture boldly near, bathing their wings

Amid thy foam and mist,-'Tis meet for them
To touch thy garment's hem-or lightly stir
The snowy leafiets of thy vapor wreath-
Who sport unharmed upon the fleecy cloud,
And listen at the echoing gate of heaven,
Without reproof.--But as for us--it seems
Scarce lawful with our broken tones to speak
Familiarly of thee.—Methinks, to tint
Thy glorious features with our pencil's point,
Or woo thee to a tablet of a song,
Were profanation.

Thou dost make the soul

A wondering witness of thy majesty;
And while it rushes with delirious joy
To tread thy vestibule, dost chain its step,
And check its rapture with the humbling view
Of its own nothingness, bidding it stand
In the dread presence of the Invisible,
As if to answer to its God through thee.

-Lady H. Sigourney.

I'M SITTING alone by the fire,
Dress'd just as I came from the dance

In a robe even you would admire-
It cost a cool thousand in France;

Her Letter.

I'm be-diamonded out of all reason,

My hair is done up in a cue :
In short, sir, "the belle of the season"
Is wasting an hour on you.

A dozen engagements I've broken;
I left in the midst of a set;

Likewise a proposal, half spoken,

That waits-on the stairs-for me yet. They say he'll be rich-when he grows upAnd then he adores me indeed; And you, sir, are turning your nose up, Three thousand miles off, as you read.

"And how do I like my position?"

"And what do I think of New York ?" "And now, in my higher ambition,

With whom do I waltz, flirt, or talk?" "And isn't it nice to have riches,

And diamonds and silks, and all that?" "And isn't it a change to the ditches And tunnels of Poverty Flat?"

Well yes-if you saw us out driving

Each day in the park, four-in-hand-
If you saw poor dear mamma contriving
To look supernaturally grand-

If you saw papa's picture, as taken
By Brady, and tinted at that,-
You'd never suspect he sold bacon

And flour at Poverty Flat.

And yet just this moment, when sitting
In the glare of the grand chandelier-
In the bustle and glitter befitting

The "finest soiree of the year,"
In the midst of a gaze de Chambery,

And the hum of the smallest of talkSomehow Joe, I thought of the "Ferry," And the dance we had on "The Fork;"

Of Harrison's barn, with its muster

Of flags festoon'd over the wall;

Of the candles that shed their soft luster And tallow on head-dress and shawl;

Of the steps that we took to one fiddle;
Of the dress of my queer vis-a-vis,
And how I once went down the middle
With the man that shot Sandy McGee;

Of the moon that was quietly sleeping

On the hill, when the time came to go;
Of the few baby peaks that were peeping
From under their bedclothes of snow;
Of that ride that to me was the rarest ;
Of the something you said at the gate;
Ah, Joe, then I wasn't an heiress

To "the best paying lead in the State."
Well, well, it's all past; yet it's funny
To think, as I stood in the glare
Of fashion and beauty and money,

That I should be thinking right there,
Of some one who breasted high water,

And swam the North Fork and all that, Just to dance with old Follansbee's daughter, The Lily of Poverty Flat.

But goodness! what nonsense I'm writing! (Mamma says my taste still is low), Instead of my triumphs reciting,

I'm spooning on Joseph-heigh-ho!
And I'm to be finished by travel-

Whatever's the meaning of that-
Oh, why did papa strike pay gravel
In drifting on Poverty Flat?
Good-night-here's the end of my paper;
Good-night-if the longitude please-
For maybe, while wasting my taper,

Your sun's climbing over the trees.
But know, if you haven't got riches,

And are poor, dearest Joe, and all that, That my heart's somewhere there in the ditches, And you've struck it-on Poverty Flat.

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