Down ran the wine into the road, most piteous to be seen, Which made his horse's flanks to smoke, as they had basted been.

But still he seemed to carry weight, with leather girdle braced; For all might see the bottle-necks still dangling at his waist. Thus all through merry Islington these gambols he did play, And till he came unto the Wash of Edmonton so gay.

And there he threw the Wash about on both sides of the way,

Just like unto a trundling-mop, or a wild goose at play.
At Edmonton his loving wife, from the balcony, spied
Her tender husband, wondering much to see how he did
ride.

"Stop, stop, John Gilpin! here's the house!" they all aloud

did cry;

"The dinner waits, and we are tired!"

am I!"

Said Gilpin, "So

But yet his horse was not a whit inclined to tarry there; For why? his owner had a house, full ten miles off, at Ware.

So like an arrow swift he flew, shot by an archer strong,
So did he fly-which brings me to the middle of my song.
Away went Gilpin, out of breath, and sore against his will,
Till at his friend the calender's his horse at last stood
still.

The calender, amazed to see his friend in such a trim,

Laid down his pipe, flew to the gate, and thus accosted him: "What news? What news? Your tidings tell! Tell me you must and shall!

Say, why bare-headed you are come? or why you come at all?"

Now Gilpin had a pleasant wit, and loved a timely joke; And thus unto the calender, in merry guise, he spoke; "I came because your horse would come; and, if I well forebode,

My hat and wig will soon be here; they are upon the road!”

The calender, right glad to find his friend in merry pin Returned him not a single word, but to the house went in; Whence straight he came with hat and wig, a wig that flowed behind,

A hat not much the worse for wear,- each comely in its kind.

He held them up, and in his turn, thus showed his ready wit,

"My head is twice as big as yours: they, therefore, needs

must fit.

But let me scrape the dirt away that hangs upon your face; And stop and eat, for well you may be in a hungry case."

Said John, "It is my wedding-day, and all the world would stare

If wife should dine at Edmonton and I should dine at Ware." So, turning to his horse, he said, "I am in haste to dine: 'Twas for your pleasure you came here; you shall go back for mine."

Ah, luckless speech and bootless boast! for which he paid full dear;

For while he spake a braying ass did sing most loud and clear;

Whereat his horse did snort as he had heard a lion roar, And galloped off with all his might, as he had done before.

Away went Gilpin, and away went Gilpin's hat and wig: He lost them sooner than at first;-for why?—they were too big.

Now Mistress Gilpin, when she saw her husband posting down

Into the country far away, she pulled out half a crown;

And thus unto the youth she said, that drove them to the Bell,

"This shall be yours when you bring back my husband safe and well."

The youth did ride, and soon did meet John coming back

amain,

Whom in a trice he tried to stop, by catching at his rein;

But not performing what he meant, and gladly would have done,

The frighted steed he frighted more, and made him faster

run.

Away went Gilpin, and away went postboy at his heels; The postboy's horse right glad to miss the lumbering of the wheels.

Six gentlemen upon the road, thus seeing Gilpin fly,
With postboy scampering in the rear, they raised the hue

and cry:

"Stop thief! Stop thief!-a highwayman-not one of them was mute,

And all and each that passed that way did join in the pursuit.

And now the turnpike gates again flew open in short space,
The tollmen thinking, as before, that Gilpin rode a race.
And so he did, and won it too, for he got first to town,
Nor stopped till where he had got up he did again get down.

Now let us sing "long live the king," and Gilpin, long live he,

And when he next doth ride abroad may I be there to see.

THE GRAVES OF THE PATRIOTS.-J. G. PERCIVAL

Here rest the great and good. Here they repose
After their generous toil. A sacred band,
They take their sleep together, while the year
Comes with its early flowers to deck their graves,

And gathers them again, as Winter frowns.
Theirs is no vulgar sepulchre-green sods

Are all their monument, and yet it tells
A nobler history than pillared piles,
Or the eternal pyramids.

They need

No statue nor inscription to reveal

Their greatness. It is round them; and the joy
With which their children tread the hallowed ground

That holds their venerated bones, the peace

That smiles on all they fought for, and the wealth

That clothes the land they rescued-these, though mute

As feeling ever is when deepest-these

Are monuments more lasting than the fanes

Reared to the kings and demigods of old.

Touch not the ancient elms, that bend their shade
Over their lowly graves; beneath their boughs
There is a solemn darkness even at noon,

Suited to such as visit at the shrine
Of serious Liberty. No factious voice
Called them unto the field of generous fame,
But the pure consecrated love of home.
No deeper feeling sways us, when it wakes

In all its greatness. It has told itself
To the astonished gaze of awe-struck kings,
At Marathon, at Bannockburn, and here,
Where first our patriots sent the invader back
Broken and cowed. Let these green elms be all
To tell us where they fought, and where they lie.

Their feelings were all nature, and they need
No art to make them known. They live in us,
While we are like them, simple, hardy, bold,
Worshiping nothing but our own pure hearts,
And the one universal Lord. They need
No column pointing to the heaven they sought
To tell us of their home. The heart itself,
Left to its own free purpose, hastens there,
And there alone reposes.

Let these elms
Bend their protecting shadow o'er their graves,
And build with their green roof the only fane,
Where we may gather on the hallowed day
That rose to them in blood, and set in glory.
Here let us meet, and while our motionless lips
Give not a sound, and all around is mute
In the deep Sabbath of a heart too full

For words or tears-here let us strew the sod
With the first flowers of spring, and make to them
An offering of the plenty Nature gives,

And they have rendered ours-perpetually.

DICKENS IN CAMP.-BRET HARTE.

Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting,
The river sang below;

The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting

Their minarets of snow.

The roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted
The ruddy tints of health

On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted
In the fierce race for wealth;

Till one arose, and from his pack's scant treasure

A hoarded volume drew,

And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure, To hear the tale anew;

And then, while round them shadows gathered faster, And as the firelight fell,

He read aloud the book wherein the Master

Had writ of "Little Nell."

Perhaps 'twas boyish fancy,-for the reader
Was youngest of them all,-

But, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar
A silence seemed to fall;

The fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows,
Listened in every spray,

While the whole camp, with "Nell,” on English meadows
Wandered and lost their way.

And so in mountain solitudes-o'ertaken

As by some spell divine

Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken
From out the gusty pine.

Lost is that camp, and wasted all its fire:
And he who wrought that spell?-

Ah, towering pine and stately Kentish spire,
Ye have one tale to tell!

Lost is that camp! but let its fragrant story
Blend with the breath that thrills

With hop-vines' incense all the pensive glory
That fills the Kentish hills.

And on that grave where English oak and holly
And laurel wreaths intwine,

Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,-
This spray of Western pine.

THE GALLEY-SLAVE.-HENRY ABBEY.

There lived in France, in days not long now dead,
A farmer's sons, twin brothers, like in face;

And one was taken in the other's stead

For a small theft, and sentenced in disgrace To serve for years a hated galley-slave,

Yet said no word his prized good name to save.