Points to the sunset like a morning ray,

And o'er the waves, and through the sweeping storms,
Through day and darkness, rushes ever on,
Westward and westward still! What joy can send
The spirit thrilling onward with the wind,

In untamed exultation, like the thought

That fills the Homeward Bound?

Country and home!

Ah! not the charm of silver-tongued romance,
Born of the feudal time, nor whatsoe'er
Of dying glory fills the golden realms
Of perished song, where heaven descended Art
Still boasts her later triumphs, can compare
With that one thought of liberty inherited -
Of free life giv'n by fathers who were free,
And to be left to children freer still!
That pride and consciousness of manhood, caught
From boyish musings on the holy graves
Of hero-martyrs, and from every form
Which virgin Nature, mighty and unchained,
Takes in an empire not less proudly so
Inspired in mountain airs, untainted yet
By thousand generations' breathing - felt
Like a near presence in the awful depths
Of unhewn forests, and upon the steep

Where giant rivers take their maddening plunge-
Has grown impatient of the stifling damps
Which hover close on Europe's shackled soil.
Content to tread awhile the holy steps

Of Art and Genius, sacred through all time,

The spirit breathed that dull, oppressive air-
Which, freighted with its tyrant-clouds, o'erweighs
The upward throb of many a nation's soul-
Amid those olden memories, felt the thrall,
But kept the birth-right of its freer home.

Here, on the world's blue highway, comes again
The voice of Freedom, heard amid the roar
Of sundered billows, while above the wave
Rise visions of the forest and the stream.

Like trailing robes the morning mists uproll,
Torn by the mountain pines; the flashing rills
Shout downward through the hollows of the vales;
Down the great river's bosom shining sails
Glide with a gradual motion, while from all -

Hamlet, and bowered homestead, and proud townVoices of joy ring far up into heaven!

Yet louder, winds! Urge on our keel, ye waves,
Swift as the spirit's yearnings! We would ride
With a loud stormy motion o'er your crests,
With tempests shouting like a sudden joy-
Interpreting our triumph! "T is your voice,
Ye unchained elements, alone can speak
The sympathetic feeling of the free

The arrowy impulse of the Homeward Bound!

THE "EVE" OF POWERS.

A FAULTLESS being from the marble sprung,
She stands in beauty there!

As when the grace of Eden 'round her clung -
Fairest where all was fair!

Pure, as when first from God's creating hand
She came, on man to shine;

So seems she now, in living stone to stand-
A mortal, yet divine!

The spark the Grecian from Olympus caught
Left not a loftier trace;

The daring of the sculptor's hand has wrought
A soul in that sweet face!

He won as well the sacred fire from heaven,
God-sent, not stolen down,

And no Promethean doom for him is given,
But ages of renown!

The soul of beauty breathes around that form

A more enchanting spell;

There blooms each virgin grace, ere yet the storm

On blighted Eden fell;

The first desire upon her lovely brow,

Raised by an evil power;

Doubt, longing, dread, are in her features now

It is the trial-hour.

SIR HENRY TAYLOR.

TAYLOR, SIR HENRY, an English dramatic poet and essayist; born at Bishop-Middleham, October 18, 1800; died at Bournemouth, March 27, 1886. He was, during the greater part of his life (182472), connected with the British Colonial Office. His principal dramatic poems are: "Isaac Comnenus " (1827); “Philip Van Artevelde," by which he is best known (1834); "Edwin the Fair” (1842); "A Sicilian Summer" (1850); "St. Clement's Eve" (1862). Among his volumes of prose essays are: "The Statesman" (1836); "Notes from Life" (1847); "Notes from Books" (1849).

(From "Philip Van Artevelde.")

ARTEVELDE. Now render me account of what befell

Where thou hast been to-day.

CLARA.

I paid a visit first to Ukenheim,

It is but little.

The man who whilome saved our father's life
When certain Clementists and ribald folk
Assailed him at Malines. He came last night,
And said he knew not if we owed him aught;
But if we did, a peck of oatmeal now

Would pay the debt and save more lives than one.
I went. It seemed a wealthy man's abode:
The costly drapery and good house-gear
Had, in an ordinary time, made known
That with the occupant the world went well.
By a low couch, curtained with cloth of frieze,
Sat Ukenheim, a famine-stricken man,

With either bony fist upon his knees

And his long back upright. His eyes were fixed And moved not, though some gentle words I spake: Until a little urchin of a child,

That called him father, crept to where he sat

And plucked him by the sleeve, and with its small And skinny finger pointed; then he rose

And with a low obeisance, and a smile

That looked like watery moonlight on his face,
So pale and weak a smile, he bade me welcome.
I told him that a lading of wheat-flour
Was on its way; whereat, to my surprise,
His countenance fell, and he had almost wept.
ARTEVELDE. Poor soul! and wherefore?
CLARA.

That I saw too soon.

age,

He plucked aside the curtain of the couch,
And there two children's bodies lay composed.
They seemed like twins of some ten years of
And they had died so nearly both at once
He scarce could say which first; and being dead,
He put them, for some fanciful affection,
Each with its arm about the other's neck,

So that a fairer sight I had not seen

Than those two children with their little faces

So thin and wan, so calm and sad and sweet.
I looked upon them long, and for a while
I wished myself their sister, and to lie
With them in death as with each other they;
I thought that there was nothing in the world
I could have loved so much; and then I wept:
And when he saw I wept, his own tears fell,

And he was sorely shaken and convulsed
Through weakness of his frame and his great grief.
ARTEVELDE. Much pity was it he so long deferred
To come to us for aid.

But whatsoe'er had been his former pride,
He seemed a humble and heart-broken man.
He thanked me much for what I said was sent,
But I knew well his thanks were for my tears.
He looked again upon the children's couch,
And said, low down, they wanted nothing now.
So, to turn off his eyes and change his mood,
I drew the small survivor of the three

Before him, and he snatched it up, and soon
Seemed lost and quite forgetful; and with that
I stole away.

VENGEANCE ON THE TRAITORS.

(From "Philip Van Artevelde.”)

ARTEVELDE. I thank you, sirs; I knew it could not be But men like you must listen to the truth.

Sirs, ye have heard these knights discourse to you

Of your ill fortunes, numbering in their glee

The worthy leaders ye have lately lost.

True, they were worthy men, most gallant chiefs,

And ill would it become us to make light

Of the great loss we suffer by their fall:
They died like heroes: for no recreant step
Had e'er dishonored them,

no stain of fear,

No base despair, no cowardly recoil;

They had the hearts of freemen to the last,

And the free blood that bounded in their veins

Was shed for freedom with a liberal joy.

But had they guessed, or could they but have dreamed,

The great examples which they died to show

Should fall so flat, should shine so fruitless here,

That men should say, "For liberty these died,

Wherefore let us be slaves," - had they thought this, Oh, then with what an agony of shame,

Their blushing faces buried in the dust,

Had their great spirits parted hence for heaven!
What! shall we teach our chroniclers henceforth

To write that in five bodies were contained