How can she lay her glasses down,
And say she reads as well,
When, through a double convex lens,
She just makes out to spell?

Her father-grandpapa! forgive
This erring lip its smiles-

Vow'd she should make the finest girl
Within a hundred miles.

He sent her to a stylish school;
'Twas in her thirteenth June;
And with her, as the rules required,
"Two towels and a spoon."

They braced my aunt against a board,
To make her straight and tall;

They laced her up, they starved her down,
To make her light and small;

They pinch'd her feet, they singed her hair,
They screw'd it up with pins,-
Oh, never mortal suffer'd more

In penance for her sins.

So, when my precious aunt was done,
My grandsire brought her back;
(By daylight, lest some rabid youth
Might follow on the track;)

"Ah!" said my grandsire, as he shook
Some powder in his pan,

"What could this lovely creature do
Against a desperate man!"

Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche,
Nor bandit cavalcade

Tore from the trembling father's arms
His all-accomplish'd maid.

For her how happy had it been!
And Heaven had spared to me
To see one sad, ungather'd rose
On my ancestral tree.

THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS.

I wrote some lines once on a time

In wondrous merry mood,

And thought, as usual, men would say
They were exceeding good.

They were so queer, so very queer,

I laugh'd as I would die;

Albeit, in the general way,

A sober man am I.

I call'd my servant, and he came :
How kind it was of him,

To mind a slender man like me,
He of the mighty limb!

"These to the printer," I exclaim'd,

And, in my humorous way,
I added, (as a trifling jest,)
"There'll be the devil to pay."

He took the paper, and I watch'd,
And saw him peep within;
At the first line he read, his face
Was all upon the grin.

He read the next; the grin grew broad,
And shot from ear to ear;

He read the third; a chuckling noise
I now began to hear.

The fourth; he broke into a roar;
The fifth, his waistband split;.
The sixth, he burst five buttons off,
And tumbled in fit.

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
I watch'd that wretched man,

And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can.

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadow'd main,-

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;

Wreck'd is the ship of pearl!

And every chamber'd cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies reveal'd,-

Its iris'd ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unseal'd!

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretch'd in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

THE TWO ARMIES.

As life's unending column pours,
Two marshall'd hosts are seen,-
Two armies on the trampled shores
That Death flows black between.

One marches to the drum-beat's roll,
The wide-mouth'd clarion's bray,
And bears upon a crimson scroll,
"Our glory is to slay."

One moves in silence by the stream,
With sad, yet watchful eyes,
Calm as the patient planet's gleam
That walks the clouded skies.

Along its front no sabres shine,
No blood-red pennons wave:
Its banner bears the single line,
"Our duty is to save."

For those no death-bed's lingering shade;

At Honor's trumpet-call,

With knitted brow and lifted blade,

In Glory's arms they fall.

For these no clashing falchions bright,
No stirring battle-cry;

The bloodless stabber calls by night,-
Each answers, 66 "Here am I!"

For those the sculptor's laurell'd bust,
The builder's marble piles,

The anthems pealing o'er their dust
Through long cathedral aisles.

For these the blossom-sprinkled turf
That floods the lonely graves,
When Spring rolls in her sea-green surf
In flowery-foaming waves.

Two paths lead upward from below,
And angels wait above,

Who count each burning life-drop's flow,
Each falling tear of Love.

Though from the Hero's bleeding breast
Her pulses Freedom drew,

Though the white lilies in her crest
Sprang from that scarlet dew,—

While Valor's haughty champions wait
Till all their scars are shown,

Love walks unchallenged through the gate,
To sit beside the Throne!

THE FRONT AND SIDE DOORS.

but

Every person's feelings have a front-door and a side-door by which they may be entered. The front-door is on the street. Some keep it always open; some keep it latched; some, locked; some, bolted,-with a chain that will let you peep in, not get in; and some nail it up, so that nothing can pass its threshold. This front-door leads into a passage which opens into an ante-room, and this into the interior apartments. The sidedoor opens at once into the sacred chambers.

There is almost always at least one key to this side-door. This is carried for years hidden in a mother's bosom. Fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends, often, but by no means so universally, have duplicates of it. The wedding-ring conveys a right to one; alas, if none is given with it!

Be very careful to whom you trust one of these keys of the sidedoor. The fact of possessing one renders those even who are dear to you very terrible at times. You can keep the world out from your front-door, or receive visitors only when you are ready for them; but those of your own flesh and blood, or of certain grades of intimacy, can come in at the side-door, if they will, at any hour and in any mood. Some of them have a scale of your whole nervous system, and can play all the gamut of your sensibilities in semitones,-touching the naked nerve-pulps as a pianist strikes the keys of his instrument. I am satisfied that there are as great masters of this nerve-playing as Vieuxtemps or Thalberg in their lines of performance. Married life is the school in which the most accomplished artists in this department are found. A delicate woman is the best instrument; she has such a magnificent compass of sensibilities! From the deep inward moan which follows pressure on the great nerves of right, to the sharp cry as the filaments of taste are struck with a crashing sweep, is a range which no other instrument possesses. A few exercises on it daily at home fit a man wonderfully for his habitual labors, and refresh him immensely as he returns from them. No stranger can get a great many notes of torture out of a human soul: it takes one that knows it well,-parent, child, brother, sister, intimate. Be very

careful to whom you give a side-door key; too many have them already.

OLD AGE AND THE PROFESSOR.

Old Age, this is Mr. Professor; Mr. Professor, this is Old Age. Old Age.-Mr. Professor, I hope to see you well. I have known you for some time, though I think you did not know me. Shall we walk down the street together?

Professor, (drawing back a little.)-We can talk more quietly, perhaps, in my study. Will you tell me how it is you seem to be acquainted with everybody you are introduced to, though he evidently considers you an entire stranger?

Old Age.-I make it a rule never to force myself upon a person's recognition until I have known him at least five years. Professor.-Do you mean to say that you have known me so long as that?

Öld Age. I do. I left my card on you longer ago than that, but I am afraid you never read it; yet I see you have it with you. Professor.-Where?

Old Age. There, between your eyebrows,-three straight lines running up and down; all the probate courts know that token," Old Age, his mark." Put your forefinger on the inner end of one eyebrow, and your middle finger on the inner end of the other eyebrow; now separate the fingers, and you will smooth out my sign manual; that's the way you used to look before I left my card on you.

Professor.-What message do people generally send back when you first call on them?

Next

So for

Old Age.-Not at home. Then I leave a card and go. year I call; get the same answer; leave another card. five or six-sometimes ten-years or more. At last, if they don't let me in, I break in through the front door or the windows.

We talked together in this way some time. Then Old Age said again,-Come, let us walk down the street together,-and offered me a cane, an eye-glass, a tippet, and a pair of over-shoes. -No, much obliged to you, said I. I don't want those things, and I had a little rather talk with you here, privately, in my study. So I dressed myself up in a jaunty way and walked out alone ;got a fall, caught a cold, was laid up with a lumbago, and had time to think over this whole matter.

THE BRAIN.

Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the hands of the Angel of the Resurrection.