He drew his bridle in the shade Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid, And ask a draught from the spring that flowed She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up, And blushed as she gave it, looking down He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown, And listened, while a pleased surprise At last, like one who for delay Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah, me! "He would dress me up in silks so fine, "My father should wear a broadcloth coat; My brother should sail a painted boat. "I'd dress my mother so grand and gay; And the baby should have a new toy each day. "And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor, And all should bless me who left our door." The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, "A form more fair, a face more sweet, "And her modest answer and graceful air Show her wise and good as she is fair. "Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her, a harvester of hay: "No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, But he thought of his sisters proud and cold, So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, And the young girl mused beside the well, He wedded a wife of richest dower, Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, Oft, when the wine in his glass was red, And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms, And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain; "Ah, that I were free again! "Free as when I rode that day, Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay." She wedded a man unlearned and poor, But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain, And oft, when the summer sun shone hot In the shade of the apple-tree again And, gazing down with timid grace, Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls The weary wheel to a spinnet turned, And for him who sat by the chimney lug, Then she took up her burden of life again, Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, God pity them both! and pity us all, For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: "It might have been l' Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies And, in the hereafter, angels may THANATOPSIS.-W. C. Bryant. To him who, in the love of Nature, holds Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, To Nature's teachings, while from all around- In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim To mix forever with the elements; To be a brother to the insensible rock, And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Shalt thou retire alone-nor couldst thou wish That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun, The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes And beauty of its innocent age cut off- So live, that when thy summons comes, to join To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, OPPOSITE EXAMPLES.-By H. Mann. I ASK the young man who is just forming his habits of life, or just beginning to indulge those habitual trains of thought out of which habits grow, to look around him, and mark the examples, whose fortune he would covet, or whose fate he would abhor. Even as we walk the streets, we meet with exhibitions of each extreme. Here, behold a patriarch, whose stock of vigor three-score years and ten seem hardly to have impaired. His erect form, his firm step, his elastic limbs, and undimmed senses, are so many certificates of good conduct; or, rather, so many jewels and orders of nobility with which nature has honored him for his fidelity to her laws. His fair complexion shows that his blood has never been corrupted; his pure breath, that he has never yielded his digestive apparatus to abuse; his exact language and keen apprehension, that his brain has never been drugged or stupefied by the poisons of distiller or tobacconist. Enjoying his appetites to the highest, he has preserved the power of enjoying them. As he drains the cup of life, there are no lees at the bottom. His organs will reach the goal of existence together. Painlessly as a candle burns down in its socket, so will he expire; and a little imagination would convert him into another Enoch, translated from earth to a better world without the sting of death. But look at an opposite extreme, where an opposite history is recorded. What wreck so shocking to behold as the wreck of a dissolute man;-the vigor of life exhausted, and yet the first steps in an honorable career not taken; in himself a lazar-house of diseases; dead, but, by a heathenish. custom of society, not buried! Rogues have had the initial letter of their title burnt into the palms of their hands; even |