Through corridors, or down the lawn, Which bloomed in beauty like a dawn. Where countless fountains leaptalway, Veiling their silver heights in spray, The choral people held their way.

There, 'midst the brightest, brightly shone

Dear forms he loved in years agone,-
The earliest loved, the earliest flown.
He heard a mother's sainted tongue;
A sister's voice, who vanished young,
While one still dearer sweetly sung!
No further might the scene unfold,
The gazer's voice could not withhold,
The very rapture made him bold:
He cried aloud, with claspéd hands,
"O, happy fields! O, happy bands!
Who reap the never-failing lands.

"O, master of these broad estates,
Behold, before your very gates
A worn and wanting laborer waits!
Let me but toil amid your grain,
Or be a gleaner on the plain,
So I may leave these fields of pain!

"A gleaner, I will follow far,
With never look or word to mar,
Behind the Harvest's yellow car;
All day my hand shall constant be,
And every happy eve shall see

The precious burden borne to Thee!"

At morn, some reapers neared the place,

Strong men, whose feet recoiled apace, Then, gathering round the upturned face,

They saw the lines of pain and care,
Yet read in the expression there
The look as of an answered prayer.

DOWN TO THE DUST.

A CERTAIN rich man, stern and proud,
Yet, like a winter hemlock, bowed
With the accumulated weight
Of many snows, o'er his estate
Led his fair grandchild by the hand,
Showing her miles and miles of land,
Meadows and forests, and fields of
grain,

Far as her wondering eye could strain;
And all to be hers some future day;
All hers! The realms which round
them lay

Descended were from a lofty line, Whose precious blood was wine, old wine,

While others' was but water! Now Their noble tree, from root to bough, Stood hopeless of all future fruit, Save from the little orphan shoot, Lovely as ever in spring was seen Flattering a dying tree with green.

"All these broad lands are mine," he said,

Laying his hand on the grandchild's head,

"And shall be yours, all yours, one day;

One day, but that is far away.
In heavy coffers, iron-bound,
I have treasured many a golden
pound,

Gold, gold, all gold,-a thousandfold More than you'll dream till they are told.

All yours, love, when my sun has set, But that, my child, is a long time yet.

"This mighty forest must come down, And bring more gold from yonder town;

They want the wood wherewith to build,

I want the gold for a plan unfilled,

For I must rear a mansion grand,
Grander than any in the land,
At which the envious world will stare,
As if a prince were quartered there;
And you the mistress of it all,
The princess of that noble hall;
And then, at last, the queen, my dear;
The queen! but not this many a year.

"These cabins of my tenants old Must fall. They mar my dream of gold:

They pay no rent; the men, infirm, Have all outlived their useful term; Their homes must all come down, and yield

Their space to the golden harvestfieid:

Down, down!" And he rubbed his hands with glee,

Gloating over his prophecy!
The child gazed up with a look of pain,
That could not make the justice plain,
And sighed, "But would not that be
wrong,

Since they have worked for you so long?

What will become of the frail and old, If they have neither strength nor gold?"

That is naught to me," he said, "my

child;

"The best they can,-the best they

can!"

Was the jeering answer of the man. "Let them go beg their cup and crust; The old mill shall come down to dust! The spot be cleared, the dam be filled, To help the landscape when I build!"

He rubbed his hands with new delight, Then, taking one more circling sight, And with his own heart reconciled, Led home the little wondering child.

That night the old man ate and drank, Thinking only of wealth and rank, And the mansion, which was all to him.

He drank till his filmy eyes grew dim, Then, in his great deep-cushioned chair,

Slept, and forgot his golden care.
He slept; the chin upon his breast
Sunk deep and deeper into rest,
Till, with a sudden, noiseless sway,
The dam of life was borne away.
And now the stream lay dead and
still;

The breast was cheerless as the mill;
The heart hung like a sultry wheel,
Where ne'er again the wave shall
reel,

And never yet was one so skilled,
That dusty ruin to rebuild.

Then laughed that shadowy miser, who

Hath countless coffers, old and new, All buried full, and more to fill. "The dam is broke, the cumbrous mill Is useless now: the fate is just; Come down it must; ay, down to dust!"

And, rubbing his ghostly hands in glee,

Gloated over his prophecy.

Then spake an angel, on whose tongue
The tremulous voice of pity hung,
"What will become of the houseless
soul-

He who sat there taking toll?
An outcast into nameless ways,
Where foot of charity never strays;
Too old to toil; too late to sue;
What will the friendless wanderer

do ?"

Oh, tell us not, ye over-wise,
That God his choicest fruit has
banned;

Those clusters from the Promised
Land

Were welcome to the prophet's eyes.
Let him who would dilute his blood

With water at the festive board, Remember how the crystal flood

Was turned to purple by our Lord. Then bless the wine, the mellow wine, That flows from the Catawba vine.

And yet, beneath these glorious skies,

A nobler Vine o'erreaches all; In its support, or in its fall, A mighty nation lives or dies; Its boughs are weighed with Freedom's fruit,

Beyond the hungry fox's reach. With sturdy shoulders, each to each, Come, let us guard it branch and root! And bless the wine, the sacred wine, That flows from our great Union vine.