THE GRAY SWAN.

"OH! tell me, sailor, tell me true, Is my little lad, my Elihu,

A-sailing with your ship?"

The sailor's eyes were dim with dew, "Your little lad, your Elihu ?"

He said with trembling lip,

"What little lad? What ship?"

"What little lad? as if there could be Another such a one as he !

What little lad, do you say?

Why, Elihu, that took to the sea
The moment I put him off my knee!
It was just the other day

The Gray Swan sailed away!"

"The other day?" The sailor's eyes Stood open with a great surprise :

"The other day? - the Swan?" His heart began in his throat to rise. "Ay, ay, sir! here in the cupboard lies The jacket he had on!".

"And so your lad is gone?

"Gone with the Swan ?".

"And did she stand

With her anchor clutching hold of the sand,

For a month, and never stir?"

“Why, to be sure! I've seen from the land,

Like a lover kissing his lady's hand,

The wild sea kissing her,

A sight to remember, sir!"

"But, my good mother, do you know All this was twenty years ago?

I stood on the Gray Swan's deck,
And to that lad I saw you throw,
Taking it off, as it might be, so !

The kerchief from your neck.".
"Ay, and he'll bring it back !"

"And did the little lawless lad,

That has made you sick and made you sad,
Sail with the Gray Swan's crew?"
"Lawless! The man is going mad!
The best boy ever mother had :—
Be sure he sailed with the crew!
What would you have him do ?"

"And he has never written line,
Nor sent you word nor made you sign,
To say he was alive?"

"Hold! if 't was wrong, the wrong is mine; Besides, he may be in the brine;

And could he write from the grave?

Tut, man! What would you have?

"Gone, twenty years, -a long, long cruise, 'Twas wicked thus your love to abuse ! But if the lad still live,

And come back home, think you, you can
Forgive him?” "Miserable man !

You're mad as the sea, you rave
What have I to forgive?"

The sailor twitched his shirt so blue,
And from within his bosom drew

The kerchief. She was wild.

"O God, my Father! is it true? My little lad, my Elihu !

My blessed boy, my child!

My dead, my living child !"

- Alice Cary.

THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM.

Ir was a summer's evening,

Old Kaspar's work was done,
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun;

And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

She saw her brother Peterkin
Roll something large and round,
Which he beside the rivulet,

In playing there, had found.

He came to ask what he had found,

That was so large, and smooth, and round.

Old Kaspar took it from the boy,

Who stood expectant by ;

And then the old man shook his head,

And, with a natural sigh,

""Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he,
"Who fell in the great victory!"

"I find them in the garden,
For there's many here about;
And often when I go to plough,
The ploughshare turns them out;
For many thousand men," said he,
"Were slain in that great victory !"

"Now, tell us what 't was all about,"
Young Peterkin he cries;

And little Wilhelmine looks up
With wonder-waiting eyes;

"Now tell us all about the war,

And what they killed each other for?"

"It was the English," Kaspar cried,
"Who put the French to rout;
But what they killed each other for
I could not well make out.
But everybody said," quoth he,
"That 't was a famous victory!

$6

'My father lived at Blenheim then,

Yon little stream hard by:

They burned his dwelling to the ground,

And he was forced to fly ;

So with his wife and child he fled,

Nor had he where to rest his head.

"With fire and sword the country round

Was wasted far and wide;

And many a childing mother then

And new-born baby died.

But things, like that, you know, must be

At every famous victory.

"They say it was a shocking sight

After the field was won;

For many thousand bodies here

Lay rotting in the sun.

But things like that, you know, must be

After a famous victory.

"Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won,

And our good Prince Eugene."

'Why, 't was a very wicked thing!"

Said little Wilhelmine.

'Nay, nay, my little girl," quoth he,

"It was a famous victory!

"And everybody praised the Duke Who this great fight did win."

"But what good came of it at last?" Quoth little Peterkin.

Why, that I cannot tell," said he,

"But 't was a famous victory!"

- Robert Southey.

JOHN GILPIN.

JOHN GILPIN was a citizen

Of credit and renown,
A train-band captain eke was he
Of famous London Town.

John Gilpin's spouse said to her deer,
"Though wedded we have been
These twice ten tedious years, yet we
No holiday have seen.

"To-morrow is our wedding-day,
And we will then repair
Unto the Bell at Edmonton,

All in a chaise and pair.