She ceased to speak; and o'er the room
There fell a deep and cryptic gloom.
A silence reigned, so dead and still,
The rustling of a cambric frill

Jarred on the sense. The heart's quick throbs
Were blended with the smothered sobs,

And there was many a pallid face

Amid the throng of young and fair;

And many a cheek which showed the trace
Of recent tears still clinging there.

"Say, shall I taste the cup?" she cried; "No! no!" a score of tongues replied; And he who first for wine did call,

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Cried "No!" the loudest of them all.
"Then shun the cup," she cried again,
"Twill brand you with the mark of Cain ;
Forswear at once the tempting bowl,
That ruins body, mind and soul!
Think of my brother's lonely grave,
Far by the bland Pacific's wave;
Think of the hungry infant's wail;
Think of the mother's visage pale;
Think of the teeming prison's cell,
Where ruin-incited felons dwell;
Think of our lovely sisters' doom,

When wine has nipped them in their bloom;
Think of the draughts, seducers pour

To drag them to the brothel's door;
Ay! pause and think of every shame,
Of every crime too dark to name;

And let the wine-fiend's spell be riven,

And turn your thoughts to home, and Heaven!
Grave fathers all, whose foreheads show
The weight of many a winter's snow,
Abjure the wine-cup from to-night,
And with the Temperance Army fight:
Some sons may check their vain desires
By good examples of their sires.

Full many a noble youth is here,
Who scarce has felt a barber's shear;
I charge you flee the demon's spell,
As you would flee the curse of hell!
For in the sparkling vintage lies
A monster dressed in tempting guise,
Who'll lure you from the path of right,
By wizard wiles, and false delight:
A siren's song may charm your ear,
A siren's hand may offer cheer;
But, as you listen to the sound,

The glamour arts will close around;
And you will fall from your high state
To be a ragged pauper's mate;
Rum will destroy your forms divine
As Circe changed her guests to swine.

"Oh lovely maids! to whom are given,
The beauties that embellish Heaven!
None of you are too pure, or fair,
To dally with the dreadful snare.
Never for all Pactolus' wealth,
In wine let lover drink your hearth;
Beware the traitor who shall dare
For you the cursed draught prepare.
Who loves you truly never will
Consent the crime-fraught cup to fill.
'Tis he, who like a wily foe,

Watches to deal a stealthy blow:
For this he weaves his hellish snare,
To fall upon you unaware.
Oh! shun the tempter one and all—
Who offers wine, essays your fall !''

They feasted late, they feasted long,
The guests were loud in laugh and song,
The tables groaned beneath the weight
Of China, glass, and gorgeous plate;
And luscious nuts, and dainty fare,
Levantine fig, and orient date,
Were seen among the viands rare,
And pyramids of creamy ice,

With frosted cakes, ranged side by side;

While Syrian fruit and Indian spice

To grace the bridal banquet vied.

But no one touched a drop of wine,

Though rich Champagne, and limpid Rhine,
And Muscatel,-all sparkling bright
And purple Port, stood full in sight.

Among the crowd were those who'd quaff'd
For years the soul-destroying draught ;
They saw the black and Stygian brink,
And horrid gulf which yawned beneath,
Filled with a thousand forms of death,
All victims of the demon-Drink!
And then and there they soothly swore
To touch the tempting cup no more,
But ever drink what God had given,

And sent them, on the clouds, from heaven!

F. C. Long.

VERRES DENOUNCED.

AN opinion has long prevailed, Fathers, that, in public prosecutions, men of wealth, however clearly convicted, are always safe. This opinion, so injurious to your order, so detrimental to the State, it is now in your power to refute. A man is on trial before you who is rich, and who hopes his riches will compass his acquittal; but whose life and actions are his sufficient condemnation in the eyes of all candid men. I speak of Caius Verres, who, if he now receive not the sentence his crimes deserve, it shall not be through the lack of a criminal, or a prosecutor; but through the failure of the ministers of justice to do their duty. Passing over the shameful irregularities of his youth, what does the prætorship of Verres exhibit but one continued scene of villainies? The public treasure squandered, a Consul stripped and betrayed, an army deserted and reduced to want, a province robbed, the civil and religious rights of a People trampled on! But his prætorship in Sicily has crowned his career of wickedness, and completed the lasting monument of his infamy. His decisions have violated all law, all precedent, all right. His extortions from the industrious poor have been beyond computation. Our most faithful allies have been treated as enemies. Roman citiizens have, like slaves, been put to death with tortures. Men the most worthy have been condemned and banished without a hearing, while the most atrocious criminals have, with money, purchased exemption from the punishment due to their guilt.

I ask now, Verres, what have you to advance against these charges?. Art thou not the tyrant prætor, who, at no greater distance than Sicily, within sight of the Italian coast, dared to put to an infamous death, on the cross, that ill-fated and innocent citizen, Publius Gavius Cosanus! And what was his offence? He had declared his intention of appealing to the justice of his country against your brutal persecutions! For this, when about to embark for home, he was seized, brought before you, charged with being a spy, scourged and tortured. In vain did he

exclaim: "I am a Roman citizen! I have served under Lucius Pretius, who is now at Panormus, and who will attest my innocence !" Deaf to all remonstrance, remorseless, thirsting for innocent blood, you ordered the savage punishment to be inflicted! While the sacred words, "I am a Roman citizen," were on his lips,-words which, in the remotest regions, are a passport to protection,-you ordered him to death, to a death upon the cross!

O liberty! O sound once delightful to every Roman ear! O sacred privilege of Roman citizenship! once sacred,-now.trampled on! Is it come to this? Shall an inferior magistrate, a governor, who holds his whole power of the Roman People, in a Roman province, within sight of Italy, bind, scourge, torture, and put to an infamous death, a Roman citizen? Shall neither the cries of innocence expiring in agony, the tears of pitying spectators, the majesty of the Roman Commonwealth, nor the fear of the justice of his country, restrain the merciless monster, who, in the confidence of his riches, strikes at the very root of liberty, and sets mankind at defiance? And shall this man escape? Fathers, it must not be! It must not be, unless you would undermine the very foundations of social safety, strangle justice, and call down anarchy, massacre and ruin on the Commonwealth!

Cicero.

THE BOYS.

This selection is a poem addressed to the class of 1829, in Harvard College, some thirty years after their graduation. The author, who retains, in a high degree, the freshness and joyousness of youth addresses his classmates as "boys."

HAs there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has, take him out, without making a noise.
Hang the almanac's cheat and the catalogue's spite!
Old Time is a liar! we're twenty to-night!

We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more?
He's tipsy,-young jackanapes !-show him the door!

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Gray temples at twenty ?"-Yes! white if we please;

Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze!

Ꮓ

Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake!
Look close, you will see not a sign of a flake!
We want some new garlands for those we have shed,
And these are white roses in place of the red.

We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told,
Of talking (in public) as if we were old;

That boy we call "Doctor," and this we call "Judge ;"
It's a neat little fiction,-of course it's all fudge.

That fellow's the "Speaker," the one on the right;

"Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you to-night?

That's our "Member of Congress," we say when we chaff; There's the "Reverend"-what's his name?-don't make me laugh.

That boy with the grave mathematical look

Made believe he had written a wonderful book,

And the Royal Society thought it was true!

So they choose him right in,—a good joke it was too!

There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain,
That could harness a team with a logical chain;
When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire,
We called him "The Justice," but now he's the "Squire."

And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith;
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith;
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,-
Just read on his medal, "My country," "of thee!"

You hear that boy laughing? You think he's all fun;
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done;
The children laugh loud as they troop to his call,
And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all !

Yes, we're boys,-always playing with tongue or with per;
And I sometimes have asked, Shall we ever be men?
Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay,
Till the last dear companion drops smiling away?

Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray!
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May!
And when we have done with our life-lasting toys,
Dear Father, take care of thy children, THE BOYS!
O. W. Holmes.