H

CHALKLEY HALL.

OW bland and sweet the greeting of this breeze
To him who flies

From crowded street and red wall's weary gleam,
Till far behind him like a hideous dream

The close dark city lies!

Here, while the market murmurs, while men throng The marble floor

Of Mammon's altar, from the crush and din

Of the world's madness let me gather in

My better thoughts once more.

O, once again revive, while on my ear
The cry of Gain

And low hoarse hum of Traffic die away,
Ye blessed memories of my early day

Like sere grass wet with rain!

Once more let God's green earth and sunset air
Old feelings waken;
Through weary years of toil and strife and ill,
Oh, let me feel that my good angel still
Hath not his trust forsaken.

And well do time and place befit my mood:
Beneath the arms

Of this embracing wood, a good man made
His home, like Abraham resting in the shade
Of Mamre's lonely palms.

Here, rich with autumn gifts of countless years,
The virgin soil

Turned from the share he guided, and in rain
And summer sunshine throve the fruits and grain

Which blessed his honest toil.

Here, from his voyages on the stormy seas,
Weary and worn,

He came to meet his children and to bless
The Giver of all good in thankfulness

And praise for his return.

And here his neighbors gathered in to greet
Their friend again,

Safe from the wave and the destroying gales,
Which reap untimely green Bermuda's vales,

And vex the Carib main.

*

*

*

Oh, far away beneath New England's sky,

Even when a boy,

Following my plough by Merrimac's green shore,
His simple record I have pondered o'er

With deep and quiet joy.

And hence this scene, in sunset glory warm,
Its woods around,

Its still stream winding on in light and shade,
Its soft green meadows and its upland glade,

To me is holy ground.

*

*

*

John Greenleaf Whittier.

H

THE CENTENNIAL, JULY 4, 1876.

ERE stands the Nation's mighty Thought, With look and attitude sublime; Both her colossal arms stretched out, Seeking two equal bounds of time.

One hand rests on the very day

When Freedom struggled from the womb; The other, groping on its way,

Finds all this multitude a tomb!

The eyes of Thought, first backward cast,
Send fiery pæans from their deep;
But, searching all her country's past,
Some great, immortal tears they weep.

The eyes of Thought now onward tend,
Peopling the far, white mystery
With life that shall from ours descend,
And treasure all our history.

Here stands the Nation's mighty Thought!
A hundred years behind, before,
Her arm and eye have reached, and brought
What make us one forevermore.

This centre of the Keystone State
Locks many nations in its hold,
And all the clashing notes of fate
To harmony has Peace controlled.

Great City of Fraternal Love,

How well the worlds have met in thee;

So, whither all the nations move,

God's Peace-built City let it be!

Charlotte Fiske Bates.

Pittsburg, Pa.

PITTSBURG.

ERE lay dark Pittsburg, from whose site there
broke

The manufacturer's black and sparkling smoke,
Where Industry and useful Science reigned,
And man, by labor, all his wants sustained;
There, mid the howling forest dark and drear,
Roved the wild Indian, wilder than the deer,
King of the woods, who other blessings prized,
And arts and industry alike despised:
Hunting the trade, and war the sport he loved,
Free as the winds, the dauntless chieftain roved,
Taunting, with bitter ire, the pale-faced slave,
Who toils for gold from cradle to the grave.
Extremes of habits, manners, time and space,
Brought close together, here stood face to face,
And gave at once a contrast to the view
That other lands and ages never knew.

James Kibble Paulding.

Pocantico, the River, N. Y.

THE POCANTICO.

ILD waters of Pocantico!

WILD

Stray rivulet of wood and glen! Thy murmuring laughters, soft and low, Elude the alien ears of men.

O'er broader bosoms than thy own

The fleeting wings of commerce glide;

Hid in thy sylvan haunts alone

The nymphs of fairy-land abide.

The azure blue of summer's sky
Scarce mirrors in thy crystal sheen;
The lover draws his tenderest sigh
Far in thy shadowy dells unseen.

Along thy gently coursing stream
The huntsman, heedless, loves to roam;
The poet dreams his fondest dream
Within thy solitary home.

Thou art well guarded by a host,
For on thy sloping 'bankments stand
Such gnarléd sentinels as boast
A lineage aged as the land.

No hardy woodman dare intrude

To rob thee of thy ancient shade,