"You're an ally of mine, and I love you well;
In a very warm country, that men call hell,
I hold my court, and I'm proud to say,
That I've not a more faithful friend in pay
Than you, dear sir, for a work of evil:
Mayhap you don't know me, I'm called the Devil."

Like a galvanized corpse, so pale and wan,
Up started instanter that horror-struck man.
. And he turned up the whites of his goggle eyes,
With a look half terror and half surprise,

And his tongue was loosed, but his words were few,
"The Devil! you don't!" Yes, faith, I do,"
Interrupted old Nick, “ and here is the proof;
Just look at my tail, and my horns, and my hoof."

66

As Satan bade, so the grog-seller did,
Filling the vessel with gin to the lid,
And when it boiled and bubbled o'er,
The fiery draught to his guest he bore;
Nick in a jiffy the liquor did quaff,
And thanked his host with a guttural laugh;
But faint and few were the smiles I ween
That on the grog-seller's face were seen;

For a mortal fear had seized him then,
And he deemed that the ways of living men
He should tread no more, that his hour had come
And his master, too, to call him home;
Thought went back to the darkened past,
And shrieks were heard on the wintry blast,
And gliding before him, pale and dim,
Were gibbering fiends and spectres grim.

"Ho, ho!" says Nick, "'tis a welcome cold
You give to a friend so true and old,

Who has been for years in your own employ,
Running about like an errand boy;
But we'll not fall out, for I clearly see

That you're rather afraid, and 'tis strange, of me!
Do you think I've come for you? never fear,

You can't be spared for a long while here.

"There are hearts to break, there are souls to win
From the ways of peace to the paths of sin;
There are homes to be rendered desolate;
There is trusting love to be changed to hate;
There are hands that murder must crimson red;
There are hopes to crush, there is blight to be shed
Over the young and the pure and the fair,
Till their lives are crushed by the fiend, despair.

"This is the work you have done so well,
Cursing this earth and peopling hell;
Quenching the light on the inner shrine
Of the human soul, till you make it mine;
Want and sorrow, disease and shame,
And crimes that even I shudder to name,
Dance and howl in their hellish glee,
Around those spirits you've marked for me.
"Oh! selling of grog is a good device
To make a hell of a paradise;

Wherever may roll that fiery flood,

It is swollen with tears, it is stained with blood.
And the voice, that was heard just now in prayer,
With its muttered curses stirs the air.

And the hand that shielded the wife from ill,
In its drunken wrath is raised to kill.

"Hold on your course, you are filling up
With the wine of the wrath of God your cup,
And the fiends exult in their homes below,
As you deepen the pangs of human wo;
Long shall it be, if I have my way,
Ere the night of death shall close your day;
For to pamper your lust for the glittering pelf,
You rival, in mischief, the Devil himself."

No more said the fiend, for clear and high,
Rang out on the air the watchman's cry.
With a choking sob and a half-formed scream
The grog-seller woke-it was all a dream;
His grisly guest with the horns had flown,
The light was out and the fire was gone,
And sad and silent his bed he sought,
And long of that wondrous vision thought.

HOMEWARD.

The day dies slowly in the western sky;
The sunset splendor fades, and wan and cold
The far peaks wait the sunrise; cheerily

The goatherd calls his wanderers to their fold.
My weary soul, that fain would cease to roam,
Take comfort; evening bringeth all things homs
Homeward the swift-winged seagull takes its flight;
The ebbing tide breaks softly on the sand;
The sunlit boats draw shoreward for the night;
The shadows deepen over sea and land;

Be still, my soul, thine hour shall also come;
Behold, one evening God shall lead thee home.

ANTONIO ORIBONI.-MARGARET J. PRESTON.

In gray Spielburg's dreary fortress buried from the light of day,

From the bounteous, liberal sunshine, and the prodigal breeze's play,

Where no human sounds could reach him, save the mocking monotones

Of the sentinel whose footsteps trod the dismal court-yard stones

Lay the young and knightly victim of the Austrian despot's law,

Worn with slow, consuming sickness, on his meagre bed of

straw.

Oft he strove to press his forehead with his pallid hand in vain,

For the wrist so thin and pulseless could not lift the burdening chain:

Though his lips were parched to frenzy, while the quenchless fever raged,

They had halved the stint of water, lest his thirst might be assuaged:

And because his morbid hunger loathed the mouldy food they thrust

Through the gratings of his dungeon, they had even withheld the crust.

Snatched from country, home, and kindred, from his immemorial sky

Rich with summer's lavish leafage, they had flung him here to die;

Not because through perjured witness they had stained his

noble name,

Not because their jealous malice could adduce one deed of

shame :

But he learned to think that freedom was a guerdon cheaply bought

By the lives of slaughtered heroes and—he dared to speak the thought!

And for this, for this they thrust him where no arm might

reach to save,

And with youth's hot pulses throbbing, sunk him in a living

grave:

Strove to stifle in a dungeon, under piled centurial stone, Titan-thoughts whose heaving shoulders might upturn the tyrant's throne;

-Motherland! thou heard'st his groaning, and for every tear he poured,

Thou hast summoned forth a hero, armed with Freedom's vengeful sword!

Through the dragging years he wasted,-for the flesh will still succumb,

Though the inexorable spirit hold the lips sublimely dumbAnd he yearned to clasp his brothers,-enter the old trellised door,

Fall upon his mother's bosom,-kiss his father's hand once more,

Till he murmured, as the vision swam before his feverish eye,

"Oh, to hear their pitying voices break in blessings ere I die! "Thou who shrank'st with human shrinking, even as I, and thrice didst pray,

If 'twere possible, the anguish from Thy lips might pass away

Lift this maddening, torturing pressure, seal this struggling, panting breath,

Let Thy mercy cheat man's vengeance,-lead me out to peace through death:

Rend aside this fleshy fastness, shiver this soul-cankering strife,

Turn the key, Thou Blessed Warder, -break the cruel bolt of life!"

In the deep and ghostly midnight, as the lonely captive lay Gasping in the silent darkness, longing for the dusk of day, Burst a flood of light celestial through the rayless prison cell,

And an angel hovering o'er him, touched his shackles-and they fell;

And the wondering, tranced spirit, every thrall of bondage past,

Dropt the shattered chains that held it, and sprang upward,-freed at last.

“SOCKERY” SETTING A HEN.

MEESTER VERRIS: I see dot mosd efferpoty wrides something for de shicken pabers nowtays, and I tought praps meppe I can do dot, too, so I wride all apout vot dook blace mit me lasht summer; you know-oder uf you dond know, den I dells you-dot Katrina (dot is mine vrow) und me, ve keep some shickens for a long dime ago, und von tay she sait to me, "Sockery" (dot is mein name), "vy dond you put some uf de aigs under dot olt plue hen shickens. I dinks she vants to sate." "Vell," I sait, "meppe, I guess I

LLLLL

vill." So I bicked oud some uf de best aigs, und dook um oud do de parn fere de olt hen make her nesht in de side of de haymow, poud fife six veet up. Now you see I nefer was ferry pig up and down, but I vas pooty pig all de vay around in de mittle, so I koodn't reach up till I vent und got a parrel do stant on., Vell, I klimet me on de parrel, und ven my hed rise up py de nesht, de olt hen she gif me such a bick dot my nose runs all ofer my face mit plood, und ven Itodge pack dot plasted olt parrel het preak, und I vent town kershlam.

Py cholly, I didn't tink I kood go insite a parrel pefore, but dere I vas, und I fit so dite dot I koodn't git me oud efferway-my fest vas bushed vay up unter my armholes. Ven I fount I vos dite shtuck, I holler "Katrina ! Katrina!" Und ven she koom and see me shtuck in de parrel up to my arm-holes, mit my face all plood und aigs, by cholly, she chust lait town on de hay und laft, und laft till I got so mat I sait, "Vot you lay dere und laf like a olt vool, eh? Vy dond you koom bull me oud?" Und she set up und sait, "Oh, vipe off your chin, und bull your fest down;" den she lait back und laft like she vood shplit herself more as

ever.

Mat as I vas I tought to myself, Katrina, she sbeak English pooty good; but I only sait, mit my greatest dignitude, "Katrina, vill you bull me oud dis parrel?" Und she see dot I look pooty red, so she sait, "Of course I vill, Sockery." Den she lait me und de parrel town on our site, und I dook holt de door sill, und Katrina she bull on de parrel, but de first bull she mate I yellet, " Donner und blitzen, shtop dat, py golly; dere is nails in de parrel!" You see de nails bent town ven I vent in, but ven I koom oud dey schticks in me all de vay rount. Vell, to make a short shtory long, I told Katrina to go und dell naypor Hansman to pring a saw und saw me dis parrel off. Vell, he koom und he like to split himself mit laf, too, but he roll me ofer und saw de parret all de vay around off, und I git up mit half a parrel around my vaist. Den Katrina she say, "Sockery, vait a leetle till I get a battern of dot new oferskirt you haf on." But I didn't sait a vort, I shust got a nife oud und vittle de hoops off und shling dot confounted olt parrel in de voot pile.