And from the crowd beneath, in accents wild,
A mother screams, “O God! my child! my child!”
Up goes a ladder. Through the startled throng
A hardy fireman swiftly moves along;
Mounts sure and fast along the slender way,
Fearing no danger, dreading but delay.

The stifling smoke-clouds lower in his path,
Sharp tongues of flame assail him in their wrath;
But up, still up he goes! the goal is won!
His strong arm beats the sash, and he is gone!
Gone to his death. The wily flames surround
And burn and beat his ladder to the ground,
In flaming columns move with quickened beat
To rear a massive wall 'gainst his retreat.
Courageous heart, thy mission was so pure,
Suffering humanity must thy loss deplore;
Henceforth with martyred heroes thou shalt live,
Crowned with all honors nobleness can give.

Nay, not so fast; subdue these gloomy fears;
Behold! he quickly on the roof appears,
Bearing the tender child, his jacket warm

Flung round her shrinking form to guard from harm.
Up with your ladders! Quick! 'tis but a chance!
Behold, how fast the roaring flames advance!
Quick! quick! brave spirits, to his rescue fly;
Up! up! by heavens, this hero must not die!
Silence! he comes along the burning road,
Bearing, with tender care, his living load;
Aha! he totters! Heaven in mercy save
The good, true heart that can so nobly brave!
He's up again! and now he's coming fast-
One moment, and the fiery ordeal's passed-
And now he's safe! Bold flames, ye fought in vain.
A happy mother clasps her child again.

THE FISHERMAN'S SUMMONS.

The sea is calling, calling!

Wife, is there a log to spare?

Fling it down on the hearth and call them in,
The boys and girls with their merry din,

I am loth to leave you all just yet;

In the light and the noise I might forget
The voice in the evening air.

The sea is calling, calling,
Along the hollow shore;

I know each nook in the rocky strand,

And the crimson weeds on the golden sand,
And the worn old cliff where the sea-pinks cling,
And the winding caves where the echoes ring-
I shall wake them nevermore.

How it keeps calling, calling!

It is never a night to sail;

I saw the "sea-dog" over the height,

As I strained through the haze my failing sight,
And the cottage creaks and rocks, well nigh
As the old "Fox" did in the days gone by,
In the moan of the rising gale.

Yet it is calling, calling!

It is hard on a soul, I say,

To go fluttering out in the cold and the dark,
Like the bird they tell us of, from the ark,
While the foam flies thick on the bitter blast,
And the angry waves roll fierce and fast,
Where the black buoy marks the bay.

Do you hear it calling, calling?
And yet I am not so old.

At the herring fishery, but last year,
No boat beat mine for tackle and gear,
And I steered the cobble past the reef,

When the broad sail shook like a withered leaf,
And the rudder chafed my hold.

Will it never stop calling, calling?

Can't you sing a song by the hearth

A heartsome stave of a merry glass,

Or a gallant fight, or a bonny lass?

Don't you care for your grand-dad just so much?
Come near, then, give me a hand to touch,
Still warm with the warmth of earth.

You hear it calling, calling?
Ask her why she sits and cries.

She always did when the sea was up,
She would fret, and never take bit or sup,
When I and the lads were out at night,
And she saw the breakers cresting white
Beneath the low black skies.

But then, in its calling, calling,
No summons to soul was sent.
Now-well, fetch the parson, find the book,
It is up on the shelf there, if you look ;
The sea has been friend, and fire, and bread;
Put me where it will tell of me, lying dead,
How it called, and I rose and went.

PASSING BY.-MISS MULOCK.

"And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth passed by."

Oh rich man! from your happy door
Seeing the old, the sick, the poor,
Who ask for nothing, scarcely weep,

To whom even heaven means only sleep,
While you, given good things without measure,
Sometimes can hardly sleep for pleasure,
Let not the blessed moment fly:
Jesus of Nazareth passes by.

Is there a sinner, tired of sin,
Longing a new life to begin?

But all the gates of help are shut,
And all the words of love are mute,
Earth's best joys sere, like burnt-up grass,
And even the very heavens as brass;
Turn not away so pitilessly:
Jesus of Nazareth passes by.

Self-hardened man, of smooth, bland smile;
Woman, with heart like desert isle
Set in the sea of household love,

Whom nothing save "the world" can move;
At your white lie, your sneering speech,
Your backward thrust no sword can reach,
Look, your child lifts a wondering eye!
Jesus of Nazareth passes by.

Oh, all ye foolish ones! who feel
A sudden doubt, like piercing steel,
When your dead hearts within you burn,
And conscience sighs, "Return, return!"
Why let ye the sweet impulse fleet,

Love's wave wash back from your tired feet,
Knowing not Him who came so nigh,—
Jesus of Nazareth passing by?

He must not pass. Hold Him secure-
In likeness of His humble poor;

Of many a sick soul, sin-beguiled;
In innocent face of little child:

Clasp Him-quite certain it is He

In every form of misery:

And when thou meet'st Him up on high,
Be sure, He will not pass thee by.

SORROWFUL TALE OF A HIRED GIRL.-JOHN QUILL.

Mary Ann was a hired girl.

She was called "hired," chiefly because she always objected to having her wages lowered.

Mary Ann was of foreign extraction, and she said she was descended from a line of kings. But nobody ever saw her descend, although they admitted that there must have been a great descent from a king to Mary Ann.

And Mary Ann never had any father and mother. As far as it could be ascertained, she was spontaneously born in an intelligence office.

It was called an intelligence office because there was no intelligence about it, excepting an intelligent way they had of chiseling you out of two-dollar bills.

The early youth of Mary Ann was passed in advertising for a place, and in sitting on a hard bench, dressed in a bonnet and speckled shawl and three-ply carpeting, sucking the end of her parasol.

Her nose began well, and had evidently been conceived in an artistic spirit, but there seemed not to have been stuff enough, as it was left half-finished, and knocked upwards at the end.

She said she would never live anywhere where they didn't have Brussels carpet in the kitchen, and a family that would take her to the sea-shore in summer. And as she knew absolutely nothing, she said she must have five dollars a week as a slight compensation for having to take the trouble to learn. Mary Ann was eccentric, and she would often boil her stockings in the tea-kettle, and wipe the dishes with her calico frock.

Her brother was a bricklayer, and he used to send her letters sealed up with a dab of mortar, and it was thus, perhaps, she conceived the idea that hair was a good thing to mix in to hold things together, and so she always introduced some of her own into the biscuit.

But Mary Ann was fond-yes, passionately fond of work. So much did she love it that she dilly-dallied with it, and seemed to hate to get it done. She was often very much absorbed in her work. In fact, she was an absorbing per

son, and many other things were absorbed besides Mary Ann. Butter, beef, and eggs, were all absorbed, and nobody ever knew where they went to.

And whenever Mary Ann had to make boned turkey, she used to bone the turkey so effectually that nobody could tell what had become of it.

And if she so much as laid her little finger on a saucer, that identical saucer would immediately fall on the floor and be shattered to atoms.

But Mary Ann would merely say that if the attraction of gravitation was very powerful in that spot she was not to blame for it, for she had no control over the laws of nature.

Uncles seem to have been one of Mary Ann's weaknesses; for she had some twenty or thirty cousins, all males, who came to see her every night, and there was a mysterious and inexplicable connection between their visits and the condition of the pantry, which nobody could explain. There was something shadowy and obscure about it, for whenever Mary Ann's cousins came, there was always a fading away in the sugar-box, and low tide in the flour-barrel. It was strange-but true.

Mary Ann was troubled with absence of mind, but this was not as strong a suit with her as absence of body, for her Sunday out used to come twice a week, and sometimes three times a week.

But she always went to church, she said, and she thought it was right to neglect her work for her faith, for she believed that faith was better than works.

But if the beginning of Mary Ann was strange, how extraordinary was her ending! She never died-Mary Ann was not one of your perishable kind. But she suddenly disappeared. One day she was there full of life and spirits and hope, and cooking wine, and the next day she wasn't, and the place that once knew her knew her no more.

Where she went to, how she went, by what means she went, no one could tell; but it was regarded as a singular coincidence that eight napkins, a soup-ladle, five silver spoons, a bonnet, two dresses, two ear-rings, and a lot of valuable green-backs melted away at the same time, and it is supposed that the person who stole Mary Ann away must have captured these also.