The master of the village school, sleek of hair and smooth of

tongue,

To the quaint tune of some old psalm a husking-ballad sung:

Heap high the farmer's wintry hoard!

Heap high the golden corn!
No richer gift has Autumn poured
From out her lavish horn!

Let other lands, exulting, glean
The apple from the pine,
The orange from its glossy green,
The cluster from the vine :

We better love the hardy gift
Our rugged vales bestow,

To cheer us when the storm shall drift
Our harvest-fields with snow.

When spring-time came with flower and bud,
And grasses green and young,

And merry bob'links, in the wood,

Like mad musicians sung:

We dropped the seed o'er hill and plain,
Beneath the sun of May,

And frightened from our sprouting grain
The robber-crows away.

All through the long, bright days of June
Its leaves grew thin and fair,
And waved in hot midsummer's noon
Its soft and yellow hair.

And now, with Autumn's moonlit eves,

Its harvest-time has come,

We pluck away the frosted leaves,

And bear the treasure home.

There, richer than the fabled gift
Of golden showers of old,

Fair hands the broken grain shall sift,
And knead its meal of gold.

Let vapid idlers loll in silk

Around their costly board,
Give us the bowl of samp and milk
By homespun beauty poured.

Where'er the wide old kitchen hearth
Sends up its smoky curls,
Who will not thank the kindly earth,
And bless our corn-fed girls!

Then shame on all the proud and vain,
Whose folly laughs to scorn
The blessing of the Yankee's grain,
His wealth of golden corn.

Let earth withhold her goodly root,
Let mildew blight the rye,
Give to the worm the orchard's fruit,
The wheat-field to the fly :

But, let the good old crop adorn
The hills our fathers trod;

Still let us for His golden corn
Send up our thanks to God!

SHRINK not, O Human Spirit,

The Everlasting arm is strong to save!
Look up. look up, frail Nature, put thy trust
In Him who went down mourning to the dust,

And overcame the grave!
Quickly goes down the sun;

Life's work is almost done;

Fruitless endeavor, hope deferred, and strife!
One little struggle more,

One pang, and then is o'er

All the long, mournful weariness of life.
Kind friends, 't is almost past;

Come now and look your last!
Sweet children gather near,

And his last blessing hear,

See how he loved you who departeth now!
And, with thy trembling step and pallid brow,
O, most beloved one,

Whose breast he leaned upon,

Come, faithful unto death,

Receive his parting breath,

The fluttering spirit panteth to be free,
Hold him not back who speeds to victory!

- The bonds are riven, the struggling soul is free. Hail, hail, enfranchised spirit!

Thou that the wine-press of the field hast trod!
On, blest Immortal, on, through boundless space,
And stand with thy Redeemer face to face:
And stand before thy God!

Life's weary work is o'er,

Thou art of earth no more:

No more art trammelled by the oppressive clay,
But tread'st with wingéd ease

The high acclivities

Of truth sublime, up Heaven's crystalline way.

Here is no bootless guest;

The city's name is Rest;
Here shall no fear appal;
Here Love is all in all;

Here shalt thou win thy ardent soul's desire;

Here clothe thee in thy beautiful attire.
Lift, lift thy wondering eyes!
Yonder is paradise,

And this fair, shining band

Are spirits of thy land!

And these that throng to meet thee are thy kin,
Who have awaited thee, redeemed from sin!

The city's gates unfold-enter, O! enter in!

LESSON CXXXIV.

The Voice of the Pestilence.*- ANONYMOUS.

[This splendid poem was written in 1831, on the approach of the cholera from the East toward the western parts of Europe, and is appropriate to its renewed apparition and westward progress, as mentioned in recent journals.]

BREATHLESS the course of the pale white horse,

Bearing the ghastly form

Rapid and dark the spectre bark,

When it sweeps before the storm!

Balefully bright through the torrid night

Ensanguined meteors glare

Fiercely the spires of volcanic fires

Stream on the sulphurous air!

Shades of the slain through the murderer's brain
Flit terrible and drear

Shadowy and swift the black storm-drift

Doth trample the atmosphere!

But swifter than all, with a darker pall
Of terror around my path,

I have arisen from my lampless prison —
Slave of the high God's wrath!

*The Asiatic cholera.

And it said, "Go forth from the south to the north

Over yon wandering ball

Sin is the king of that doomed thing,
And the sin-beguiled must fall! "

Forth from the gate of the Uncreate,

From the portals of the Abyss

From the caverns dim where vague forms swim,
And shapeless Chaos is!

From Hades' womb-from the joyless tomb

Of Erebus and old night —

From the unseen deep, where Death and Sleep
Brood in their mystic might-

I come I come - before me are dumb

The nations, aghast for dread

Lo! I have past, as the desert blast

And the millions of Earth lie dead!

A voice of fear from the hemisphere
Tracketh me where I fly -

Earth weeping aloud for her widowhood—
A wild and desolate cry!

Thrones and dominions beneath my pinions

Cower like the meanest things

Melt from my presence the pride and the pleasance Of pallor-stricken kings!

Sorrow and mourning supremely scorning,

My throne is the boundless air

My chosen shroud is the dark-plumed cloud
Which the whirling breezes bear!