'Honor thy father," saith the Lord,-" thy mother honor too: Then shalt thou live long in the land that God hath given you."

Our latest day will dawn ere long-our journey's end is nigh We 're goin' West to Mary's home, we 're goin' West to die; Then He who sees the sparrow fall, who counts the oceans sands,

Will take us to the better home-the house not built with hands.

It will interest readers to know that among those who perused the above, on the day it came out, were a family in this city, one of whose number, an aged lady, was about to remove to take up a home with other relatives in the West. The preparations were all made, and she was to start next day; but on reading the poem the entire family were so affected by it that the journey was at once given up, and the old lady will remain and die in Rochester.

One of the "Old Man's Ballads" is entitled "To the Grave through the Poor-House Gate," and the Old Man speaks thus forcibly of the pauper's unfeeling son:

This heartless boy of his hadn't even a garret-room

To offer to the poor old folks 'till earth should offer the tomb ;
Not a crust of bread gave he irom his acres of bursting sod;
If there is n't a hell for such a man, why, then there is n't a
God.

When the sowers go forth to sow, this miser sows his grain,

And the windows of heaven open to give the refreshing rain ;

When the reapers go forth to reap, his heavy wheat bows down,
And his poor old father bowed to the charity of the town.

The mercy of God is great; the justice of God is sure:
Man may, but He will never, forsake the feeble and poor.
Whatsoever we sow we reap. If we make others harvest tears,
We may look for a weeping time when we bow with the burden
of years.

Mr. Yates wrote first for the Batavia papers-mainly for The Batavian, upon which he for a year or more rendered editorial assistance. Since then he has contributed often to Rochester journals, and has been honored with place and illustration in Harper's Weekly and Harper's Bazar. A political ballad which appeared in the former "The Old Man goes for Grant;' -was copied by all the Republican papers, as was a companion "The Boys in Blue go for Grant;" and "The Old Man in the Palace Car," which appeared in the Bazar, has been widely printed throughout the West. Several later ballads, in spirit similar to the last named, have been extensively reproduced.

Mr. Yates is not less effective when he assumes the woman's place, in age, than when he holds to his more frequent personification of the Old Man, as witness the lines entitled

JOHN 'S GONE OFF TO-DAY.

It has come about' I feared it would! yes, John 's gone off to-day,

And left me alone on a mortgaged farm without any means to

Gone off with the very woman who has hated me for yearsWho has planted my path with thorns, while I watered them with my tears.

Perhaps 't is foolish to mourn; perhaps 't is better so;

When love goes out of the dwelling the loveless man should go. But the heart can't let go quickly from the one it has loved so long,

Though suddenly comes the tempest, though terrible be the

wrong.

I gave him my youthful love in the far home over the sea; Through all the years of our wedded life his heart had been

true to me.

Till this woman came to our table, with her fine sheep's cloth

ing on,

To prove but a wolf, as she has to-day, by running away with

John.

It is hard to work, as I have worked for love and a home when

old;

Then find I have garnered nothing but fond hopes dead and

cold.

It is hard to love as I have loved, then hear the old neighbors

say,

John would n't have done this wrong but I scolded him night

and day.

There is n't the proof in Scripture that Adam was drove to sin ; There is n't a wife around here more patient than I have been : A woman's tongue may drive a man out of the house for awhile, But to lead him astray from wisdom's way there's nothing like her smile.

'T was the smile of this evil woman, 't was the honeyed words of her tongue,

That shattered love's golden bowl, and love's tuneful harp un

strung,

When the serpent's charm is broken, and John comes back to his mind,

He will sigh again for the true love of the heart he has left

behind.

Will I run to the door to meet him? Will I welcome him with a kiss?

Supposing I do, neighbor, will that be doing amiss?

It's dangerous sailing without the man who has been at the helm so long!

And they who are prone to evil should learn to forgive a wrong.

I often take my Bible, the well-worn one on the stand,

And read of that prodigal son coming home from that famine

land;

Did n't the father run to meet him? Did n't he kiss his re

penting boy?

And order the fatted calf killed to make him a feast of joy?

So will I welcome John, when his wayward race is run;

Is not a prodigal husband as good as a prodigal son?
If I forgive his trespasses, obeying the law divine,

The Lord who pities the erring will surely pardon mine.

It will come about, it will; yes, John will come home soon: Together we'll mend love's broken bowl, love's golden harp

we 'll tune;

Then the fatted calf I 'll kill, and the news I'll spread around, My John, though dead, is alive again; though lost, he now is found.

In quite a different vein from either ballad we have given, but embodying memories common to us all, and

recalling the vanished days of youth in happy though half pathetic way, is the following, for which, of many ballads Mr. Yates has written, he has the fondest regard :

IN THE OLD FORSAKEN SCHOOL-HOUSE.

They 've left the school-house, Charley, where years ago we sat
And shot our paper bullets at the master's time-worn hat.
The hook is gone on which it hung, and master sleepeth now
Where school-boy tricks can never cast a shadow o'er his brow.
They 've built a new imposing one-the pride of all the town,
And laughing lads and lasses go its broad steps up and down.
A tower crowns its summit with a new, a monster bell,
That youthful ears, in distant homes, may hear its music swell.

I'm sitting in the old one, with its battered, hingeless door;
The windows are all broken, and the stones lie on the floor;
I alone, of all the merry boys who romped and studied here,
Remain to see it battered up and left so lone and drear.

I'm sitting on the same old bench where we sat side by side And carved our names upon the desk, when not by master

eyed;

Since then a dozen boys have sought their great skill to display, And, like the foot-prints on the sand, our names have passed

away.

'T was here we learned to conjugate “Amo, amas, amat, While glances from the lasses made our hearts go pit-a-pat; "T was here we fell in love, you know, with girls who looked us

through

Your's with her piercing eyes of black, and mine with eyes of

blue.