With scenes so adverse, what mysterious bond
Links our fair fortunes to the shores beyond?
Why come we here-last of a scattered fold-
To pour new metal in the broken mould?
To yield our tribute, stamped with Cæsar's face,
To Cæsar, stricken in the market-place ?

Ah! love of country is the secret tie

That joins these contrasts 'neath one arching sky;
Though brighter paths our peaceful steps explore-
We meet together at the Nation's door.
War winds her horn, and giant cliffs go down
Like the high walls that girt the sacred town,
And bares the pathway to her throbbing heart,
From clustered village and from crowded mart.

Part of God's providence it was to found
A Nation's bulwark on this chosen ground-
Not Jesuit's zeal nor pioneer's unrest
Planted these pickets in the distant West;
But He who first the Nation's fate forecast
Placed here His fountains sealed for ages past,
Rock-ribbed and guarded till the coming time
Should fit the people for their work sublime;
When a new Moses with his rod of steel
Smote the tall cliffs with one wide-ringing peal,
And the old miracle in record told
To the new Nation was revealed in gold.

Judge not too idly that our toils are mean,
Though no new levies marshal on our green;
Nor deem too rashly that our gains are small,
Weighed with the prizes for which heroes fall.

See, where thick vapour wreathes the battle-line;
There Mercy follows with her oil and wine;
Or when brown Labour with its peaceful charm
Stiffens the sinews of the Nation's arm.

What nerves its hands to strike a deadlier blow
And hurl its legions on the rebel foe?
Lo! for each town new rising o'er our State
See the foe's hamlet waste and desolate,
While each new factory lifts its chimney tall,
Like a fresh mortar trained on Richmond's wall.

For this, oh brothers, swings the fruitful vine,
Spread our broad pastures with their countless kine;
For this o'erhead the arching vault springs clear,
Sunlit and cloudless for one half the year;
For this no snowflake, e'er so lightly pressed,
Chills the warm impulse of our mother's breast.

Quick to reply, from meadows brown and sere,
She thrills responsive to Spring's earliest tear;
Breaks into blossom, flings her loveliest rose
Ere the white crocus mounts Atlantic snows;
And the example of her liberal creed
Teaches the lesson that to-day we need.

Thus ours the lot with peaceful, generous hand
To spread our bounty o'er the suffering land;
As the deep cleft in Mariposa's wall
Hurls a vast river splintering in its fall-
Though the rapt soul who stands in awe below
Sees but the arching of the promised bow-
Lo! the far streamlet drinks its dews unseen,
And the whole valley makes a brighter grecn.

Miss Blanche Says.

AND you are the poet, and so you want
Something what is it?-a theme, a fancy?
Something or other the Muse won't grant
In your old poetical necromancy;
Why one half your poets-you can't deny-

Don't know the Muse when you chance to meet her, But sit in your attics and mope and sigh

For a faineant goddess to drop from the sky,

When flesh and blood may be standing by

Quite at your service, should you but greet her.

What if I told you my own romance ?
Women are poets, if you so take them,
One-third poet-the rest what chance

Of man and marriage may choose to make them.
Give me ten minutes before you go,—

Here at the window we'll sit together,
Watching the currents that ebb and flow;
Watching the world as it drifts below
Up to the hot Avenue's dusty glow:

Isn't it pleasant-this bright June weather?

Well, it was after the war broke out,

And I was a school-girl fresh from Paris; Papa had contracts, and roamed about,

And I did nothing-for I was an heiress.

Picked some lint, now I think; perhaps
Knitted some stocking-a dozen nearly;
Havelocks made for the soldiers' caps;
Stood at fair tables and peddled traps
Quite at a profit. The "shoulder-straps"
Thought I was pretty. Ah, thank you! really?

Still it was stupid. Rata-tat-tat!

Those were the sounds of that battle summer,
Till the earth seemed a parchment round and flat,
And every footfall the tap of a drummer;
And day by day down the Avenue went
Cavalry, infantry, all together,

Till my pitying angel one day sent
My fate in the shape of a regiment,

That halted, just as the day was spent,

Here at our door in the bright June weather.

None of your dandy warriors they,

Men from the West, but where I know not; Haggard and travel-stained, worn and grey, With never a ribbon or lace or bow-knot: And I opened the window, and leaning there,

I felt in their presence the free winds blowing; My neck and shoulders and arms were bareI did not dream that they might think me fair, But I had some flowers that night in my hair,

And here, on my bosom, a red rose glowing.

And I looked from the window along the line,
Dusty and dirty and grim and solemn,
Till an eye like a bayonet flash met mine,

And a dark face grew from the darkening column,

VOL. I.

D

And a quick flame leaped to my eyes and hair,
Till cheeks and shoulders burned all together,
And the next I found myself standing there
With my eyelids wet and my cheeks less fair,
And the rose from my bosom tossed high in air,
Like a blood-drop falling on plume and feather.

Then I drew back quickly : there came a cheer,
A rush of figures, a noise and tussle,

And then it was over, and high and clear

My red rose bloomed on his gun's black muzzle.
Then far in the darkness a sharp voice cried,

And slowly and steadily, all together,
Shoulder to shoulder and side to side,
Rising and falling, and swaying wide,
But bearing above them the rose, my pride,
They marched away in the twilight weather.

And I leaned from my window and watched my rose
Tossed on the waves of the surging column,
Warmed from above in the sunset glows,

Borne from below by an impulse solemn.
Then I shut the window. I heard no more
Of my soldier friend, my flower neither,
But lived my life as I did before.
I did not go as a nurse to the war—
Sick folks to me are a dreadful bore-

So I didn't go to the hospital either.

You smile, O poet, and what do you?

You lean from your window, and watch life's column Trampling and struggling through dust and dew,

Filled with its purposes grave and solemn ;