With his chair tipped back to a neighbor's wall,
Making an unceremonious call,

Over a pipe and a friendly glass;—
"This was the sweetest pleasure,” he said,
"Of the many I share in here below;
Who has no cronies, had better be dead,"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

The jolly old pedagogue's wrinkled face
Melted all over in sunshiny smiles;—
He stirred his glass with an old-school grace,
Chuckled, and sipped, and prattled apace,

Till the house grew merry from cellar to tiles;"I'm a pretty old man," he gently said,

"I've lingered a long while here below,
But my heart is fresh, if my youth be fled!"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He smoked his pipe in the balmy air,

Every night when the sun went down,
While the soft wind played in his silvery hair,
Leaving its tenderest kisses there

On the jolly old pedagogue's jolly old crown;
And feeling the kisses, he smiled and said,
"'T is a glorious world down here below;
Why wait for happiness till we are dead?"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He sat at his door one midsummer night,
After the sun had sunk in the west,

And the lingering beams of golden light
Made his kindly old face look warm and bright,
While the odorous night-wind whispered

Gently, gently he bowed his head,—

"Rest!

There were angels waiting for him, I know; He was sure of happiness, living or dead,

This jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

GEORGE ARNOLD.

Ode on the Centenary of Burns.

WE hail this morn

A century's noblest birth;

A Poet peasant-born,

Who more of Fame's immortal dower

Unto his country brings

Than all her kings!

As lamps high set

Upon some earthly eminence;

And to the gazer brighter thence
Than the sphere lights they flout-
Dwindle in distance and die out,
While no star waneth yet;

So through the past's far-reaching night
Only the star-souls keep their light.

A gentle boy,

With moods of sadness and of mirth,
Quick tears and sudden joy,
Grew up beside the peasant's hearth.
His father's toil he shares;

But half his mother's cares

From his dark, searching eyes,

Too swift to sympathize,

Hid in her heart she bears.

At early morn

His father calls him to the field;

Through the stiff soil that clogs his feet,

Chill rain, and harvest heat,

He plods all day; returns at eve outworn,

To the rude fare a peasant's lot doth yield—

To what else was he born?

The God-made king

Of every living thing;

(For his great heart in love could hold them all); The dumb eyes meeting his by hearth and stallGifted to understand!—

Knew it and sought his hand;

And the most timorous cretaure had not fled
Could she his heart have read,

Which fain all feeble things had blessed and sheltered

To Nature's feast,

Who knew her noblest guest

And entertained him best,

Kingly he came. Her chambers of the east
She draped with crimson and with gold,
And poured her pure joy wines
For him the poet-souled;

For him her anthem rolled

From the storm-wind among the winter pines,
Down to the slenderest note

Of a love-warble from the linnet's throat.

But when begins

The array for battle, and the trumpet blows,
A king must leave the feast and lead the fight;
And with its mortal foes,

Grim gathering hosts of sorrows and of sins,
Each human soul must close;

And Fame her trumpet blew

Before him, wrapped him in her purple state,
And made him mark for all the shafts of Fate
That henceforth round him flew.

Though he may yield,
Hard-pressed, and wounded fall

Forsaken on the field;

His regal vestments soiled;

His crown of half its jewels spoiled;

He is a king for all.

Had he but stood aloof!

Had he arrayed himself in armor proof

Against temptation's darts!

So yearn the good-so those the world calls wise,
With vain, presumptuous hearts,
Triumphant moralize.

Of martyr-woe

A sacred shadow on his memory rests—
Tears have not ceased to flow-

Indignant grief yet stirs impetuous breasts,

To think-above that noble soul brought low, That wise and soaring spirit fooled, enslavedThus, thus he had been saved!

It might not be!

That heart of harmony

Had been too rudely rent;

Its silver chords, which any hand could wound,

By no hand could be tuned,

Save by the Maker of the instrument,

Its every string who knew,

And from profaning touch his heavenly gift withdrew.

Regretful love

His country fain would prove,

By grateful honors lavished on his grave;

Would fain redeem her blame

That he so little at her hands can claim,

Who unrewarded gave

To her his life-bought gift of song and fame.

The land he trod

Hath now become a place of pilgrimage;

Where dearer are the daisies of the sod

That could his song engage.

The hoary hawthorn, wreathed

Above the bank on which his limbs he flung

While some sweet plaint he breathed;

The streams he wandered near;

The maidens whom he loved; the songs he sung

All, all are dear!

The arch blue eyes

Arch but for love's disguise

Of Scotland's daughters, soften at his strain;
Her hardy sons, sent forth across the main

To drive the plowshare through earth's virgin soils,
Lighten with it their toils:

And sister-lands have learned to love the tongue

In which such songs are sung.

For doth not song

To the whole world belong?

Is it not given wherever tears can fall,
Wherever hearts can melt, or blushes glow,
Or mirth and sadness mingle as they flow,
A heritage to all?

ISA CRAIG KNOX.

Over the River.

OVER the river they beckon to me

Loved ones who 've passed to the further side; The gleam of their snowy robes I see,

But their voices are lost in the dashing tide. There's one with ringlets of sunny gold,

And eyes the reflection of heaven's own blue;
He crossed in the twilight gray and cold,

And the pale mist hid him from mortal view;
We saw not the angels who met him there,
The gates of the city we could not see-
Over the river, over the river,

My brother stands waiting to welcome me!