Spring-tide flowers, or winter's blight,
Pleasure's smile, or sorrow's tear?
Time! what care I for thy flight,
Joy! I spurn thee with disdain;
Nothing love I but this clanking chain;
Once I broke from its iron hold,
Nothing I said, but silent and bold,

Like the shepherd that watches his gentle fold,
Like the tiger that crouches in mountain lair,
Hours upon hours so watched I there;

Till one of the fiends that had come to bring
Herbs from the valley and drink from the spring,
Stalked through my dungeon entrance in!
Ha! how he shrieked to see me free-
Ho! how he trembled, and knelt to me,
He, who had mocked me many a day,
And barred me out from its cheerful ray-
Gods! how I shouted to see him pray!
I wreathed my hands in the demon's hair,
And choked his breath in its muttered prayer,
And danced I then, in wild delight,

To see the trembling wretch's fright!

Gods! how I crushed his hated bones!

'Gainst the jagged wall and the dungeon-stones;
And plunged my arm adown his throat,
And dragged to life his beating heart,

And held it up that I might gloat,
To see its quivering fibers start!
Ho! how I drank of the purple flood,
Quaffed, and quaffed again, of blood,

Till my brain grew dark, and I knew no more,
Till I found myself on this dungeon floor,
Fettered and held by this iron chain;-
Ho! when I break its links again,
Ha! when I break its links again,
Woe to the daughters and sons of men!

MACLAINE'S CHILD.-CHARLES MACKAY.

"Maclaine! you've scourged me like a hound;-
You should have struck me to the ground;
You should have played a chieftain's part;
You should have stabbed me to the heart."

"You should have crushed me unto death;-
But here I swear with living breath,
That for this wrong which you have done,
I'll wreak my vengeance on your son,—

"On him, and you, and all your race!"
He said, and bounding from his place,
He seized the child with sudden hold-
A smiling infant, three years old-

And starting like a hunted stag,
He scaled the rock, he clomb the crag,
And reached, o'er many a wide abyss,
The beetling seaward precipice;

And leaning o'er its topmost ledge,
He held the infant o'er the edge:-
"In vain the wrath, thy sorrow vain;
No hand shall save it, proud Maclaine!"
With flashing eye and burning brow,
The mother followed, heedless how,
C'er crags with mosses overgrown,
And stair-like juts of slippery stone.
But midway up the rugged steep,
She found a chasm she could not leap,
And kneeling on its brink, she raised
Her supplicating hands, and gazed.

"O, spare my child, my joy, my pride!
O, give me back my child!" she cried:

66

My child! my child!" with sobs and tears, She shrieked upon his callous ears.

"Come, Evan," said the trembling chief,-
His bosom wrung with pride and grief,—
"Restore the boy, give back my son,
And I'll forgive the wrong you've done.”
"I scorn forgiveness, haughty man!
You've injured me before the clan;
And nought but blood shall wipe away
The shame I have endured to-day.”

And as he spoke, he raised the child,
To dash it 'mid the breakers wild,
But, at the mother's piercing cry,
Drew back a step, and made reply:-

"Fair lady, if your lord will strip,
And let a clansman wield the whip,
Till skin shall flay, and blood shall run,
I'll give you back your little son."

The lady's cheek grew pale with ire,
The chieftain's eyes flashed sudden fire;
He drew a pistol from his breast,

Took aim, then dropped it, sore distressed.

"I might have slain my babe instead. Come, Evan, come," the father said, And through his heart a tremor ran; "We'll fight our quarrel man to man."

"Wrong unavenged I've never borne,"
Said Evan, speaking loud in scorn;
"You've heard my answer, proud Maclaine:
I will not fight you,-think again."

The lady stood in mute despair,
With freezing blood and stiffening hair;
She moved no limb, she spoke no word;-
She could but look upon her lord.

He saw the quivering of her eye,
Pale lips and speechless agony,
And, doing battle with his pride,

Give back the boy,-I yield." he cried.
A storm of passions shook his mind-
Anger and shame and love combined;
But love prevailed, and bending low,
He bared his shoulders to the blow.

"

"I smite you," said the clansman true;
Forgive me, chief, the deed I do!

For by yon Heaven that hears me speak,
My dirk in Evan's heart shall reek!"

But Evan's face beamed hate and joy;
Close to his breast he hugged the boy:
"Revenge is just, revenge is sweet,
And mine, Lochbuy, shall be complete."
Ere hand could stir, with sudden shock,
He threw the infant o'er the rock,
Then followed with a desperate leap,
Down fifty fathoms to the deep.

They found their bodies in the tide;
And never till the day she died
Was that sad mother known to smile-
The Niobe of Mulla's isle.

They dragged false Evan from the sea,
And hanged him on a gallows tree;
And ravens fattened on his brain,
To sate the vengeance of Maclaine.

MR. BLIFKIN'S FIRST BABY.

That first baby was a great institution. As soon as he came into this "breathing world," as the late W. Shakespeare has it, he took command in our house. Everything was subservient to him. He regulated the temperature, he regulated the servants, he regulated me.

For the first six months of that precious baby's existence he had me up, on an average, six times a night.

"Mr. Blifkins," said my wife, "bring a light, do; the baby looks strangely; I'm afraid it will have a fit."

Of course the lamp was brought, and of course the baby lay sucking his fist, like a little white bear as he was.

"Mr. Blifkins," says my wife, "I think I feel a draft of air; I wish you would get up and see if the window is not open a little, because baby might get sick."

Nothing was the matter with the window, as I knew very well.

"Mr. Blifkins," said my wife, just as I was going to sleep again," that lamp, as you have placed it, shines directly in baby's eyes-strange that you have no more consideration."

I arranged the light and went to bed again. Just as I was dropping to sleep

"Mr. Blifkins," said my wife, "did you think to buy that broma, to-day, for the baby?"

“My dear,” said I, will you do me the injustice to believe that I could overlook a matter so essential to the comfort of that inestimable child?"

She apologized very handsomely, but made her anxiety the scapegoat. I forgave her, and without saying a word to her I addressed myself to sleep.

"Mr. Blifkins," said my wife, shaking me, "you must not snore so you will wake the baby."

-jest so," said I, half asleep, thinking I was Solon

"Jest so

Shingle.

"Mr. Blifkins," said my wife, will you get up and hand me that warm gruel from the nurse-lamp for baby?-the dear child! if it wasn't for his mother I don't know what he would do. How can you sleep so, Mr. Blifkins?"

"I suspect my dear," said I, "that it is because I'm tired." "Oh, it's very well for you men to talk about being tired," said my wife, "I don't know what you would say if you had to toil and drudge like a poor woman with a baby."

I tried to soothe her by telling her she had no patience and got up for the posset. Having aided in answering to the baby's requirements, I stepped into bed again, with the hope of sleeping.

"Oh, dear!" said that inestimable woman, in great apparent anguish, "how can a man, who has arrived at the honor of a live baby of his own, sleep when he don't know that the dear creature will live till morning?"

I remained silent, and after awhile, deeming that Mrs. Blifkins had gone to sleep, I stretched my limbs for repose. How long I slept I don't know, but I was awakened by a furious jab in the forehead from some sharp instrument. I started up, and Mrs. Blifkins was sitting up in bed, adjusting some portions of the baby's dress. She had, in a state of semi-somnolence, mistaken my head for the pillow, which she customarily used for a nocturnal pincushion. I protested against such treatment in somewhat round terms, pointing to several perforations in my forehead. She told me I should willingly bear such trifling ills for the sake of the baby. I insisted upon it that I didn't think my duty as a parent to the immortal required the surrender of my forehead as a pincushion.

This was one of the many nights passed in this way. The truth was that baby was what every man's first baby is-an autocrat, absolute and unlimited.

Such was the story of Blifkins, as he related it to us the other day. It is a little exaggerated picture of almost every man's experience. Gleason's Monthly.

SLANDER.

"Twas but a breath

And yet a woman's fair fame wilted,

And friends once fond grew cold and stilted;
And life was worse than death.