But know, if you haven't got riches,

And are poor, dearest Joe, and all that, That my heart's somewhere there in the ditches, And you've struck it,-on Poverty Flat.

DICKENS IN CAMP.

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 humour, 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 drop 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!

Dickens in Camp.

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!

JULY, 1870,

23

WHAT THE ENGINES SAID.

OPENING OF THE PACIFIC RAILROAD.

WHAT was it the Engines said,

Pilots touching,-head to head

Facing on the single track,

Half a world behind each back?
This is what the Engines said.
Unreported and unread.

With a prefatory screech,

In a florid Western speech,

Said the Engine from the WEST,

"I am from Sierra's crest;

And, if altitude's a test,