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Still sweep with their embattled lines
An endless reach of sky.

And though the hills of Death
May hide the bright array,

The marshalled brotherhood of souls
Still keeps its upward way.

Upward, for ever upward,

I see their march sublime,
And hear the glorious music
Of the conquerors of Time.

And long let me remember,
That the palest, fainting one
May to diviner vision be

A bright and blazing sun.

NAPOLEON'S EXILE.

MRS. BROWNING.

NAPOLEON! 'twas a high name lifted high!
It met at last God's thunder sent to clear
Our compassing and covering atmosphere,
And open a clear sight, beyond the sky,
Of supreme empire: this of earth's was done-
And kings crept out again to feel the sun.

The kings crept out-the peoples sat at home,
And finding the long-invocated peace

A pall embroidered with worn images

Of rights divine, too scant to cover doom

Such as they suffered,-cursed the corn that grew
Rankly, to bitter bread, on Waterloo.

A deep gloom centered in the deep repose―
The nations stood up mute to count their dead-
And he who owned the NAME which vibrated
Through silence,-trusting to his noblest foes,
When earth was all too gray for chivalry-
Died of their mercies, 'mid the desert sea.

O wild St. Helen! very still she kept him,
With a green willow for all pyramid,—
Which stirred a little if the low wind did,

A little more, if pilgrims overwept him
Disparting the lithe boughs to see the clay
Which seemed to cover his for judgment-day.

Nay! not so long!-France kept her old affection,
As deeply as the sepulchre the corse,
Until dilated by such love's remorse
To a new angel of the resurrection,

She cried, "Behold, thou England! I would have
The dead whereof thou wottest, from that gravé."

And England answered in the courtesy

Which, ancient foes turned lovers, may befit,—
"Take back thy dead! and when thou buriest it,
Throw in all former strifes 'twixt thee and me."
Amen, mine England! 'tis a courteous claim—
But ask a little room too . . . for thy shame!

Because it was not well, it was not well,
Nor tuneful with thy lofty-chanted part
Among the Oceanides,-that heart

To bind and bare, and vex with vulture fell.

I would, my noble England, men might seek
All crimson stains upon thy breast-not cheek!

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SOUTHERN AUTUMN.

WM. H. TIMROD.

SLEEPS the soft South-nursing its delicate breath,
To fan the first buds of the early spring;
And summer sighing, mourns his faded wreath,
Its many-colored glories withering.
Beneath the kisses of the new-waked North,—
Who yet in storms approaches not, but smiles
On the departing season, and breathes forth
A fragrance as of summer,-till, at whiles,
All that is sweetest in the varying year,

Seems softly blent in one delicious hour,
Waking dim visions of some former sphere

Where sorrows, such as earth owns, had no power

To veil the changeless lustre of the skies,

And mind and matter formed one paradise.

Y

EVENING IN WINTER.

ROBED like an abbess the snowy earth lies,

While the red sundown fades out of the skies.

Up walks the evening veiled like a nun,

Telling her starry beads one by one.

Where like the billows the shadowy hills lie,

T. B. READ

Like a mast the great pine swings against the bright sky.

Down in the valley the distant lights quiver,
Gilding the hard-frozen face of the river.

When o'er the hilltops the moon pours her ray,
Like shadows the skaters skirr wildly away;

Whirling and gliding, like summer-clouds fleet,
They flash the white lightning from glittering feet

The icicles hang on the front of the falls,
Like mute horns of silver on shadowy walls;

Horns that the wild huntsman spring shall awake,
Down flinging the loud blast toward river and lake!

TO TIME, "THE OLD TRAVELLER."

THEY slander thee, old Traveller,

Who say that thy delight

Is to scatter ruin far and wide,
In thy wantonness of might;
For not a leaf that falleth
Before thy restless wings
But in thy flight thou changest,
To a thousand brighter things.

Thou passest o'er the battle-field

Where the dead lie stiff and stark,

WM. H. TIMROD

Where nought is heard save the vulture's scream,
And the gaunt wolf's famished bark;

But thou hast caused the grain to spring

From the blood-enrichèd clay,

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