Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, He gained from heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend. No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode (There they alike in trembling hope repose), The bosom of his Father and his God. BEAUTIFUL DREAMS. She lay unconscious, in dreamy sleep, "Beautiful dreams! beautiful dreams!" Again we listened; she slumbered on; "Such beautiful, beautiful dreams!" No more-on the wings of those beautiful dreams As we folded her hands to their last repose, And the stars came out and wrote on high, "Beautiful dreams! beautiful dreams!" Ah! no mere vision of other days, Iad lit her fair and fading face With so rapturous a glory. Shining across death's pallid night, From the land that was breaking on her sight, Came those beautiful, beautiful dreams. ONE HUNDRED CHOICE SELECTIONS. White hands beckoned across the flood; Lingering, listening, passing away, 66 Beautiful dreams! beautiful dreams!" THE OLD CANOE.-ALBERT PIKE Where the rocks are gray and the shore is steep, Where the reeds and rushes are long and rank, The useless paddles are idly dropped, Like a sea-bird's wings that the storms had lopped, Like the folded hands when the work is done; The spider stretches his silvery screen, And the solemn owl, with his dull "too-hoo," The stern, half sunk in the slimy wave, And the green moss creeps o'er its dull decay, Hiding its mouldering dust away, Like the hand that plants o'er the tomb a flower, Or the ivy that mantles the falling tower; While many a blossom of loveliest hue The currentless waters are dead and still, It floats the length of the rusty chain, Oh, many a time, with a careless hand, I have pushed it away from the pebbly strand, To see that the faces and boats were two, But now, as I lean o'er the crumbling side, The face that I see there is graver grown, As I rocked where the whirls their white spray shed, BILL ARP ON THE RACK.-HE PLEADS ALDERMAN'S DUTIES AT TWO IN THE MORNING. It's a E-v-e-r-y night! Here it is half-past one o'clock. wonder you come home at all! What-do-you-think-a woman-is made for? I do believe if a robber was to come and carry me off, you wouldn't care a--What is it you say? City Council business must be attended to! How do I know you go to the city council? Does the city council meet e-v-e-r-y night? Twelve o'clock-one o'clock-two o'clock. Here I stay with the children all alone-lying awake half the night waiting for you. Couldn't come home any sooner! Of course you couldn't if you didn't want to. But I know something; you think I don't, but I do, that I do; I wish I didn't. Where were you last Monday night? Tell me that. The marshal told me the city council didn't meet that night. Now what have you got to say? Couldn't get a quorum! Well, if you couldn't why didn't you come home? Out e-v-e-r-y night-hunting for-a quorum. But you wouldn't hunt for me this late if I was missing. Where were you on Thursday night and Friday night? There was a show in town, wasn't there? What did you buy that bottle of hair oil for, and hide it? Oil for your hone, indeed! Who ever heard of hair oil for a whetstone? So you think I didn't see you in the other room brushing and greasing your hair, and looking in the glass at your pretty self! A man ought to be decent! He ought, ought he? Yes, indeed, a man ought to, and a decent man will stay at home with his wife sometimes, and not be out e-v-e-r-y night. How comes it that the city council didn't meet but twice a month last year? Trying to work out of debt! Yes, that's probable-very; laughing and joking and smoking and swapping lies will work a debt off, won't it? Now-I--want-to-know-how-much-longer-you -are-going-to keep-up-this-night-business. Yes, I want to know. Out e-v-e-r-y night. City council, Free Masons, shows, hair oil-and brush, and brush, and brush until you've nearly worn out the brush and your head too. What is it you say? It helps your business to keep up your social relations! Ah, indeed! You've got relations here at home, sir. They need keeping up some, I should think. What did you say about catching it the other night at a whist party? "Fellows, it's eleven o'clock, but let's play a while longer — we won't catch it any worse when we get home." 'A pretty speech for a d-e-c-e-n-t man to make! Catch it! Catch it! Well, I intend you shall catch it a little. What's that you say? If I wouldn't fret you so you would stay at home more! Well, sir, do you stay at home first a few nights and try it; perhaps the fretting would stop. Out e-v-e-r-y night because I fret you so. What's that, sir? You know ladies who ain't always a-scolding their husbands! You do, do you? come you to know them? What business have you to know them? What right have you to know whether other women fret or not? That's always the way. You men think all other women are saints but your wives; oh, yes, saintss-a-i-n-t-s! I'll have you to know, sir, that there isn't a woman in this town that's more of a saint than I am. I know them all, sir-a h-e-a-p better than you do. You only sec the sugar and honey side of them, and they-only-see How the-sugar-side-of-you. Now, sir, I just want you to know that if you can't stay at home more than you do, I'll leave these children here to get burnt up, and I'll go out e-v-e-r-y night. When a poor woman gets desperate, why, sir, she is -SHE IS DESPERATE, that's all. THE MAGICAL ISLE. There's a magical isle in the River of Time, 'Tis where Memory dwells with her pure golden hue, While the low-murmured tones that come trembling through Sadly trouble the heart, yet sweeten it too, As the south wind o'er water when blowing. There are shadowy halls in that fairy-like isle, Yet the light of their eyes, and their sweet, sunny smile, And leave us to know 'tis but dreaming. And the name of this isle is the Beautiful Past, There are beings of beauty too lovely to last; There are blossoms of snow, with the dust o'er them cast; There are fragments of song only memory sings, There's a harp long unsought, and a lute without strings- E'en the dead,- the bright, beautiful dead-there arise, Though their voices are hushed, and o'er their sweet eyes, They are with us again, as of old. In the stillness of night, hands are beckoning us there, We delight to turn back, and in wandering there, |