leon, he did not utter a word, but put into the hands of Berthier a paper directing a monument to be raised on the spot where Duroc fell, with this inscription, "Here General Duroc, Duke of Friuli,1 Grand Marshal of the palace of the Emperor Napoleon, gloriously fell, and died in the arms of the Emperor, his friend." J. T. Headley.

LXIX.-IN THE BARN.

THE SWALLOWS.

A GREAT, dim barn with the fragrant bay

Up to the beam with the winter's hay,

And its shrunken siding, wasp-nest gray,
Where the cracks, between, run up and down,
Like the narrow lines in a striped gown,
And let in light of a golden brown.

2. They are bars of bronze, they are silver snow,
As the sunshine falls, or, sifting slow,
The white flakes drift on the wealth below
Of the clover blossoms, faint with June,
That had heard, all day, his small bassoon,
As the ground-bee played his hum-drum tune.

3. Ah, what would you give to have again

Your pulse keep time with the dancing rain,
When, flashing through at the diamond pane,
You saw the swallows' rapier wings,

As they cut the air in ripples and rings,

And laughed and talked like human things,—

4. When they drank each other's health, you thought, -
For the creak of the corks you surely caught,-
And all day long at their cabins wrought,

1 Free-oo-lee. An old province of Northern Italy.

Till the mud-walled homes, with a foreign look,
A pictured street in an Aztec book,

Began to show in each raftered nook?

`5. Never again! Alack and alas!

Like a breath of life on the looking-glass,
Like a censer smoke, the pictures pass.

THE FLAILS.

6. "Well, Jack and Jim," said the farmer gray,
"The flour is out, and we'll thrash to-day!"
A hand is on the granary door,

And a step is on the threshing floor,-
It is not his, and it is not theirs,

He went above by the Golden Stairs ;
The boys are men, and the nicknames grown,
"Tis James, Esquire, and Reverend John.

7. How they waltzed the portly sheaves about,
As they loosed their belts, and shook them out
In double rows on the threshing-floor,

Clean as the deck of a Seventy-four!
And, down the midst, in a tawny braid,

The sculptured heads of the straw were laid.
It looked a poor man's family bed!

Ah, more than that, 'twas a carpet fair,
Whereon the flails, with their measured tread,
Should time the step of the answered prayer, -
"Give us this day our daily bread!”

8. Then, the light half-whirl and the hickory clash, With the full, free swing of a buckskin lash,

And the trump tramp

- trump, when the bed is new,

In regular, dull, monotonous stroke,

And the click- clack-click, on the floor of oak,

When straw grows thin and the blows strike through;

And the French-clock ticks to the dancing feet,
With the small tattoo of the driven sleet,
When the bouncing kernels, bright and brown,
Leap lightly up, as the flails come down.

THE FANNING MILL.

9. Hang up the flails by the big barn door!
Bring out the mill of the one-boy power!
Nothing at all but a breeze in a box,
Clumsy and red, it rattles and rocks,
Sieves to be shaken and hopper to feed,
A Chinaman's hat turned upside down,
The grain slips through at a hole in the crown
Out with the chaff and in with the speed!

10. The crank clanks round with a boy's quick will,
The fan flies fast, till it fills the mill

With its breezy vanes, as the whirled leaves fly
In an open book, when the gust goes by,
And the jerky jar and the zigzag jolt
Of the shaken sieves, and the jingling bolt,
And the grate of cogs, and the axle's clank,
And the rowlock jog of the crazy crank,
And the dusty rush of the gusty chaff,
The worthless wreck of the harvest's raff,
And never a lull, the brisk breeze blows
From the troubled grain its tattered clothes,
Till, tumbled and tossed, it downward goes,
The rickety route by the rackety stair,
Clean as the sand that the simoon snows,
And drifts, at last, in a bank so fair,

You know you have found the Answered Prayer.

BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR.

LXX. DIONYSIUS AND DAMOCLES.

DIONYSIUS, the tyrant of Sicily, was far from being

happy, though he possessed great riches, and all the pleasures which wealth and power could procure. Damocles, one of his flatterers, deceived by these appearances of happiness, took occasion to compliment him on his royal magnificence; and declared that no monarch had ever been greater or happier than Dionysius.

2. "Hast thou a mind, Damocles," said the king, "to taste this happiness; and to know, by experience, what the enjoyments are, of which thou hast so high an idea?” Damocles, with joy, accepted the offer. The king ordered that a royal banquet should be prepared, and that a gilded sofa, covered with rich embroidery, should be placed for his favorite. Sideboards, loaded with gold and silver plate, were arranged in the apartment.

3. Pages of extraordinary beauty were ordered to attend his table, and to obey his commands with the utmost readiness and the most profound submission. Fragrant ointments, chaplets of flowers, and rich perfumes, were added to the entertainment. The table was loaded with the most exquisite delicacies of every kind. Damocles, intoxicated with pleasure, fancied himself among superior beings.

4. But, in the midst of all this happiness, as he lay indulging himself in state, he saw, let down from the ceiling, exactly over his head, a glittering sword, hung by a single hair. The sight of impending destruction put a speedy end to his joy and reveling. The pomp of his attendance, the glitter of the carved plate, and the delicacy of the viands, ceased to afford him any pleasure.

5. He dreaded to stretch forth his hand to the table. He threw off the garland of roses. He hastened to