THE OLD SURGEON'S STORY.-ELEANOR C. Donnelly,

"Twas in a Southern hospital, a month ago or more,

(God save us! how the days drag on these weary times of war!)

They brought me, in the sultry noon, a youth whom they had found

Deserted by his regiment upon the battle-ground,

And bleeding his young life away through many a gaping wound.

Dark-haired and slender as a girl, a handsome lad was he, Despite the pallor of his wounds, each one an agony.

A ball had carried off his arm, and zigzag passage frayed Into his chest ; so wild a rent, that, when it was displayed, I, veteran surgeon that I was, turned white as any maid. "There is no hope?" he slowly said, noting my changing cheek;

I only shook my head; I dared not trust myself to speak. But in that wordless negative the boy had read his doom, And turned about, as best he could, and lay in silent gloom, Watching the summer sunlight make a glory of the room. "My little hero!" said a voice, and then a woman's hand Lay, like a lily, on his curls: "God grant you self-command!"

"Mother!"-how full that thrilling word of pity and alarm! "You here? my sweetest mother here?" And with his one poor arm

He got about her neck, and drew her down with kisses warm. "All the long sultry night, when out" (he shuddered as he said)

"On yonder field I lay among the festering heaps of dead, With awful faces close to mine, and clots of bloody hair, And dead eyes gleaming through the dusk with such a rigid

stare:

Through all my pain, O mother mine, I only prayed one prayer.

"Through all my pain (and ne'er I knew what suffering was before)

I only prayed to see your face, to hear your voice, once

more;

The cold moon shone into my eyes,-my prayer seemed all

in vain."

My poor deluded boy!" she sobbed; her mother-fount of pain

D'artowing down her darkening cheeks in drops like thun.

der-rain.

"Accursed be he whose cruel hand has wrought my son such ill!"

The boy sprang upright at the word, and shrieked aloud, "Be still!

You know not what you say. O God! how shall I tell the tale! How shall I smite her as she stands!" And with a moaning wail

He prone among the pillows dropped, his visage ashen pale. "It was a bloody field," he said, at last, like one who dozed; "I know not how the day began; I know not how it closed. I only know we fought like fiends, begrimed with blood and dust,

And did our duty to a man, as every soldier must;

And gave the rebels ball for ball, and paid them thrust for thrust.

"But when our gallant general rode up and down the line, The sunlight striking on his sword until it flashed like wine, And cried aloud (God rest his soul!) with such a cheery laugh:

Charge bayonets, boys! Pitch into them, and scatter them like chaff!'

One half our men were drunk with blood, and mad the other half.

My veins ran fire. O heaven! hide the horrors of that plain! We charged upon the rebel ranks and cut them down like grain.

One fair-haired man ran on my steel,-I pierced him through and through;

The blood up spirted from his wound and sprinkled me like dew.

Twas strange, but as I looked, I thought of Cain and him he slew.

"Some impulse moved me to kneel down and touch him where he fell;

I turned him o'er,-I saw his face,-the sight was worse than hell!

There lay my brother-curse me not!-pierced by my bayonet!"

-O Christ! the pathos of that cry I never shall forget,Men turned away to hide their tears, for every eye was wet. And the hard-featured woman-nurse, a sturdy wench was she,

Dropped down among us in a swoon, from very sympathy. "I saw his face, the same dear face which once (would we had died

In those old days of innocence!) was ever by my side,
At board or bed, at book or game, so fresh and merry-eyed.

"And now to see it white and set,-to know the deed was mine!

A madness seized me as I knelt, accursed in God's sunshine.

I did not heed the balls which fell around us thick as rain, I did not know my arm was gone; I felt nor wound nor pain:

I only stooped and kissed those lips which ne'er would speak again.

"Oh, Louis! (and the lad looked up and brushed a tear aside)

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Oh, Louis, brother of my soul! my boyhood's fearless

guide!

By the bright heaven where thou stand'st,-by thy bighearted faith,

By these the tears our mother sheds,-by this my failing breath,

Forgive me for that murderous thrust that wounded thee to death.

"Forgive me! I would yield my life, to give thee thine, my brother!

What's this?-Don't shut the sunlight out; I cannot see my

mother!

The air blows sweet from yonder field! Dear Lou, put up your sword.

Let's weave a little daisy-chain upon this pleasant sward—” And with a smile upon his mouth, the boy slept in the Lord.

PROGRESS.

All victory is struggle, using chance

And genius well; all bloom is fruit of death;
All being, effort for a future germ;

All good, just sacrifice; and life's success

Is rounded-up of integers of thrift

From toil and self-denial. Man must strive
If he would freely breathe or conquer: slaves
Are amorous of ease and dalliance soft;
Who rules himself calls no man master, and
Commands success even in the throat of fate.
Creation's soul is thrivance from decay;
And nature feeds on ruin; the big earth
Summers in rot, and harvests through the frost,
To fructify the world; the mortal Now

Is pregnant with the spring-flowers of To-come;
And death is seed-time of eternity.

THE HARVEST OF RUM.-PAUL DENTON.

Streaming down the ages, blighting the rose-buds, shriveling the grasses, scorching the heart, and blistering the soul, has come a lurid tongue of flame which, heated by the madness of hell, has hissed out the terrors of death and dropped over the earth a sea of unutterable woe. In the darkness of midnight it has gathered intensity of brightness, and glared about the hearth-stones, wet with the weeping of wives, mothers, and children, and bronzed the beauty of earth with the horrid cast of hell. Twisting around the altar of the church, it has wreathed the sweetest flowers that ever attempted to bloom for the adornment of heaven, and has fed death from the very waters of life; at the very door of heaven itself, it has glowed with appalling madness and been almost an impassable wall of flame between misery and bliss. Dripping burning drops of agony into the tenderest depths of writhing souls, they have wailed and wept and hissed unutterable despair, and pleaded with God to blot them from existence forever. This blighting, glowing, burning, damning curse of the world is the demon Intemperance. Language has never been made that can depict it in all its hideousness. Look on that stack of skeletons that rears its ghastly form-an insult to God-high in the clouds, and shapes the whistling winds into an utterance of withering denunciation of the fiery monster that gnawed and scalded and burned and tore the mangled, bleeding flesh from those bones and tossed them into that revolting pile!

Come, ye writhing, pleading, suffering souls that were robbed of heaven by this sparkling tempter, and cast the black shadow of your wretchedness upon the faces of the living. O graves, give up your bloated, festering millions, and stretch them, in all their rum-scorched ghastliness, over the plains and mountain-tops! Come forth, ye torn, haggard, and bleeding souls from the time of Noah, until to-night. Hold up your bony, withered, skeleton hands, ye countless millions of starved and starving women and children! Come, all the floods of agonizing tears that scorched as the lurid fires of hell where'er they touched, and boil, and blubber,

and foam, and hiss in one vast steaming, seething ocean, Come, death, and hell, and agony, with your harvest, garnered from the still and the brewery, and let us mass them in one black, horrifying portraiture of the damned. And let it tell to the shuddering, trembling souls what language

never can.

THE HOLE IN THE PATCH.

As Richard and I sat together one day,
A gloomy despondency clouding my brow,
I said unto Richard: "The mischief's to pay;
It seems that the jig is all up with me now."

Then Richard looked up with a quizzical smile,

And answered: "Dear fellow, what makes you so glum ?
Have you met with misfortune, or used up your pile?
I'll wager I'm worse off than you are! Now come!

"Just acknowledge the truth, and none of your flams,
For whatever the evil, I'll prove mine is worse;
Sure, the frowns of Dame Fortune are nothing but shams,
And oft a reversion is born of reverse."

"Away with your stoical dictums," said I;
"I hate philosophical salving of ills,
And sooner of chronic despair would I die
Than swallow a dose of dogmatical pills."

Said Dick: "Of your ills give a sample or two;
If sorrow from contrast can borrow a hope
Then soon you will bid the blue-devils adieu;
Come! cheer up, my boy! it is foolish to mope!"

I replied: "Now you press me, dear Richard, I'll say,
I am poor, I am hungry, and weary beside;
In short, about all things the mischief's to pay-
Not even a ticket to pay for a ride!

"But the worst of it is that the seat of my woes,
Too deep for exposure, harassingly haunts;

I cannot! I must not! I dare not disclose!

Let me whisper it, Dick; I've a hole in my pants!"

"So have I," replied Dick. "Then, you're no worse than 1.' "Yes, I am!" No, you ain't! it is only a match."

But 'tis more!" "You must prove it!" "I will, and not try, The hole in my breeches is worn through a patch!"