Behold the chosen room he sought

Alone, to fast and pray,

Each year, as chill November brought The dismal earthquake day.

There hung the rapier blade he wore,
Bent in its flattened sheath;

The coat the shrieking woman tore
Caught in her clenching teeth; -

The coat with tarnished silver lace
She snapped at as she slid,

And down upon her death-white face
Crashed the huge coffin's lid.

A graded terrace yet remains ;
If on its turf you stand

And look along the wooded plains
That stretch on either hand,

The broken forest walls define
A dim, receding view,
Where, on the far horizon's line

He cut his vista through.

If further story you shall crave,
Or ask for living proof,

Go see old Julia, born a slave

Beneath Sir Harry's roof.

She told me half that I have told,
And she remembers well

The mansion as it looked of old

Before its glories fell;

The box, when round the terraced square Its glossy wall was drawn ;

The climbing vines, the snow-balls fair,

The roses on the lawn.

And Julia says, with truthful look
Stamped on her wrinkled face,

That in her own black hands she took
The coat with silver lace.

And you may hold the story light,

Or, if you like, believe;

But there it was, the woman's bite,

A mouthful from the sleeve.

Now go your ways:

I need not tell

The moral of my rhyme;

But, youths and maidens, ponder well,

This tale of olden time!

THE PLOUGHMAN.

(ANNIVERSARY OF THE BERKSHIRE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OCT. 4, 1849.)

CLEAR the brown path, to meet his coulter's gleam!

Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking team,
With toil's bright dew-drops on his sunburnt brow,
The lord of earth, the hero of the plough!

First in the field before the reddening sun,
Last in the shadows when the day is done,
Line after line, along the bursting sod,

Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod·
Still, where he treads, the stubborn clods divide,
The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep and wide;
Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves,
Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield cleaves;
Up the steep hill-side, where the laboring train
Slants the long track that scores the level plain;

Through the moist valley, clogged with oozing clay,
The patient convoy breaks its destined way;
At every turn the loosening chains resound,
The swinging ploughshare circles glistening round,
Till the wide field one billowy waste appears,
And wearied hands unbind the panting steers.

These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings
The peasant's food, the golden pomp of kings:
This is the page, whose letters shall be seen
Changed by the sun to words of living green;
This is the scholar, whose immortal pen

Spells the first lesson hunger taught to men;
These are the lines that heaven-commanded Toil
Shows on his deed, the charter of the soil!

O gracious Mother, whose benignant breast
Wakes us to life, and lulls us all to rest,

How thy sweet features, kind to every clime,

Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of time!

We stain thy flowers, they blossom o'er the dead;

We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread;

O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn,

Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled corn;