'Welcome, my old Sergeant, welcome!

countersign!!

Welcome by that

And he pointed to the scar there, under this old cloak of mine !

"As he grasped my hand, I shuddered, thinking only of the

grave;

But he smiled and pointed upward with a bright and bloodless glaive:

'That's the way, sir, to Head-quarters.'-'What Head''Of the Brave.'

quarters?'

'But the great Tower?''That,' he answered, 'Is the way, sir, of the Brave!'

"Then a sudden shame came o'er me at his uniform of light; At my own so old and tattered, and at his so new and

bright;

'Ah!' said he, 'you have forgotten the New Uniform tonight,

Hurry back, for you must be here at just twelve o'clock to-night!'

'And the next thing I remember, you were sitting there, and I

Doctor-did you hear a footstep? Hark!-God bless you all! Good-by!

Doctor, please to give my musket and my knapsack, when I die,

To my Son-my Son that 's coming,-he won't get here till I die!

"Tell him his old father blessed him as he never did before,And to carry that old musket"-Hark! a knock is at the door!

"Till the Union "-See! it opens!-"Father! Father! speak once more!"

Bless you!"-gasped the old gray Sergeant, and he lay and said no more.

FORCEYTHE WILLSON.

Too Late.

“Ah! si la jeunesse savait,—si la vieillesse pouvait!"

THERE sat an old man on a rock,

And unceasing bewailed him of Fate,—
That concern where we all must take stock,
Though our vote has no hearing or weight;
And the old man sang him an old, old song,—
Never sang voice so clear and strong
That it could drown the old man's for long,
For he sang the song "Too late! too late!"

· When we want, we have for our pains

The promise that if we but wait

Till the want has burned out of our brains,

Every means shall be present to state;

While we send for the napkin the soup gets cold,
While the bonnet is trimming the face grows old,
When we've matched our buttons the pattern is sold
And everything comes too late,—too late!

"When strawberries seemed like red heavens,—
Terrapin stew a wild dream,—

When my brain was at sixes and sevens,
If my mother had 'folks' and ice cream,
Then I gazed with a lickerish hunger
At the restaurant man and fruit-monger,-
But oh! how I wished I were younger

When the goodies all came in a stream! in a stream i

"I've a splendid blood horse, and—a liver

That it jars into torture to trot;

My row-boat's the gem of the river,—
Gout makes every knuckle a knot!

I can buy boundless credits on Paris and Rome,
But no palate for ménus,-no eyes for a dome,-
Those belonged to the youth who must tarry at home,
When no home but an attic he 'd got,- he'd got!

"How I longed, in that lonest of garrets,

Where the tiles baked my brains all July, For ground to grow two pecks of carrots, Two pigs of my own in a sty,

A rosebush, a little thatched cottage,—

Two spoons-love-a basin of pottage!—
Now in freestone I sit,—and my dotage,—

With a woman's chair empty close by, close by!

"Ah! now, though I sit on a rock,

I have shared one seat with the great;

I have sat-knowing naught of the clock-
On love's high throne of state;

But the lips that kissed, and the arms that caressed,
To a mouth grown stern with delay were pressed,
And circled a breast that their clasp had blessed,
Had they only not come too late,--too late!"
FITZ HUGH LUDLOW.

What the End shall be.

WHEN another life is added

To the heaving, turbid mass;
When another breath of being
Stains creation's tarnished glass;
When the first cry, weak and piteous,
Heralds long-enduring pain,

And a soul from non-existence

Springs, that ne'er can die again;
When the mother's passionate welcome,
Sorrow-like, bursts forth in tears,
And a sire's self-gratulation

Prophesies of future years.—

It is well we cannot see
What the end shall be.

When across the infant features

Trembles the faint dawn of mind,

And the heart looks from the windows
Of the eyes that were so blind;
When the inarticulate murmurs
Syllable each swaddled thought,
To the fond ear of affection

With a boundless promise fraught;
Kindling great hopes for to-morrow
From that dull, uncertain ray,
As by glimmering of the twilight
Is foreshown the perfect day,-

It is well we cannot see
What the end shall be.

When the boy, upon the threshold
Of his all-comprising home,
Puts aside the arm maternal

That enlocks him ere he roam;
When the canvas of his vessel
Flutters to the favoring gale,
Years of solitary exile

Hid behind the sunny sail:
When his pulses beat with ardor,
And his sinews stretch for toil,
And a hundred bold emprises
Lure him to that eastern soil,-

It is well we cannot see
What the end shall be.

When the youth beside the maiden
Looks into her credulous eyes,
And the heart upon the surface
Shines too happy to be wise;
He by speeches less than gestures
Hinteth what her hopes expound,
Laying out the waste hereafter

Like enchanted garden-ground;

He may falter-so do many;
She may suffer so must all:

Both may yet, world-disappointed,
This lost hour of love recall,-

It is well we cannot see

What the end shall be.

When the altar of religion

Greets the expectant bridal pair, And the vow that lasts till dying Vibrates on the sacred air; When man's lavish protestations Doubts of after-change defy, Comforting the frailer spirit

Bound his servitor for aye;

When beneath love's silver moonbeams
Many rocks in shadow sleep,
Undiscovered, till possession

Shows the danger of the deep,—

It is well we cannot see
What the end shall be.

Whatsoever is beginning,

That is wrought by human skill; Every daring emanation

Of the mind's ambitious will; Every first impulse of passion, Gush of love or twinge of hate; Every launch upon the waters Wide-horizoned by our fate; Every venture in the chances

Of life's sad, oft desperate game,
Whatsoever be our motive,
Whatsoever be our aim,-

It is well we cannot see
What the end shall be.

FRANCES BROWNE. (?)