THE TEAR.

SHE weeping dropped a tear, and when it fell
A poet caught the little pearly sphere
And questioned it; and his enraptured ear
Caught up the things which it began to tell.
He heard the tone of solemn sounding knell
O'er a departed Hope; the cry of Fear;
The wail of Anguish; and soft sighings dear
Which make the lover's lonely bosom swell.
And there he saw ensphered a mother's heart,
Bleeding for her lost child; and open grave,-
And Love amid the trophies of his dart,

With every throb of passion that it gave.

All heights of joy, and depths of woe, were here Encompassed in the ocean of a tear.

LIFE.

A POET wandered on some shore of time,
And there in numbers wrote in mimic hand
The story of a life upon the sand;

But soon the tide washed out the poet's rhyme.
A fair sweet flower within its proper clime,

Alone, unseen, touched by some magic wand, Drooped its fresh face and wept upon the land. Poet and flower alike is life sublime.

But whence, O Life! come these fair things, the flower

That blooms, the bard who sings, the sea, the sky, The scenes of love with their enraptured hour, When everything of earth is born to die? There is no Edipus with godlike power, To guess the riddle of Life's mystery.

THE LAST ROLL.

DURING the closing hours of the Senate, in 1883, it had been suggested that the next roll call would be the last of the expiring session. The thought occurred to the author that a poem would be proper at this juncture. A hastily written one was submitted privately to Senator H. C. Sluss, who pronounced it worthy of the occasion, and moved that the Assistant Secretary be heard immediately after the call of the last roll. After it was read Senator A. R. Greene offered the following resolution, which was unanimously adopted: "Resolved, That the poem, with the roll of the Senate attached, be spread upon the journal, and that five hundred copies be printed for the use of the Senate."

THE gavel came down, and a look of sadness
Came over the President's face;

And the noisy rattle of mirth and gladness

Was hushed, while each one in his place, Felt around his heart creeping a sorrow past his control,

As the President said: "Secretary, call the last roll!"

Here are now gathered from out this fair land,
A senate of forty strong men:

Farmer, doctor, lawyer, merchant, now stand

With work done- a work that no pen

Can undo, until Time writes on his old battlescarred scroll,

The work of a world all done, and his call of the

last roll.

Now is the time when all differences cease,

All faiths and religions are one;

And each high Senator gives a release

Of all past claims under the sun

That he had on his brother, in pledge of word, deed or dole,

And shakes hands freely all round at the call of the last roll.

Each hobby goes out, lean, lank, and unsaddled; Each man is the peer of his brother;

All issues now end, e'en those that were straddled, While souls now embrace one another;

And the fierce face of politics the old flag doth enroll,

And heart beats to heart kindly, at the call of the last roll.

No more to all meet on this rounded ball,

No more in this Senate all stand

To be counted,-you have heard the last "call"; And now comes the time to disband,

And I think many hot tears are welling up in the

soul,

As you now hear, and respond to the call of the last roll.

But I ask: Down in the dim future years,

On the shore of some fair Eden-land, May you not all meet, a senate of seers,

And clasp the affectionate hand?

Ah! in that dim depth of the future, that fate of the soul,

Who knows but I may call to you all the old Senate roll?