Then, from the shore I heard a shout,
And saw some boats were putting out.
A fair young girl came on before,
Who pulled a swift and practiced oar;
The others followed in the wake
Of her, this lady of the lake.

"Fall in," she cried, " and you will see
We'll find the echo; follow me!"

It seems that somewhere up the shore,
From camp, perhaps a mile or more,
An echo in some cove or dell
By residents is known to dwell,-
A woman, for she has the knack
Of almost always answering back.

Well, on we went, with laughter loud,
And songs, and shoutings, such a crowd
Of parsons, speakers, poets, wits,
Enough to frighten into fits

A common echo; but this maid
We found at least was not afraid.
For very soon from shore we heard
Miss Echo mocking every word.

One asked: "Is drinking whisky wrong?"
“Wrong, wrong," came answer, clear and strong
"Water's the drink when you are dry!"

"When you are dry-dry," the quick reply.
"And when not dry, you need no drink!"
"No drink," cried echo; and I think
The answer this time from the shore

Came quicker than the one before.

"Shall temperance sometime win the day?" "Win the day-day," we heard her say.

'And prohibition by and by?"

"By and by," the quick reply.

"Then our duty? tell us, pray!"

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Pray-pray," was all we heard her say, "But there is also work to do!"

"Work to do-do," so clear, that you
Had thought a human being spoke.
It seemed more than a passing joke,
For we, to stem this tide of sin,
Must work as if we meant to win.

And pray-believing firm and sure
That God is righteous, just, and pure,
And that he'll help us in the fight,
If we but use the means aright.
For e'en an echo, when we pause,
If rightly used, can aid our cause.

HEART VENTURES.

I stood and watched my ships go out,→
Each one by one unmooring free;
What time the quiet harbor filled
With flood-tide from the sea.

The first that sailed, her name was Joy;
She spread a smooth, white, ample sail
And eastward drove with bending spars
Before the singing gale.

Another sailed, her name was Hope;
No cargo in her hold she bore,
Thinking to find in western lands
Of merchandise a store.

The next that sailed, her name was Love;
She showed a red flag at the mast,

A flag as red as blood she showed
And she sped south right fast.

The last that sailed, her name was Faith;
She slowly took her passage forth;
Tacked and lay to; at last she steered
A straight course for the north.

My gallant ships they sailed away

Over the shimmering summer sea,
I stood and watched for many a day-
But one came back to me.

For Joy was caught by Pirate Pain,
Hope ran upon a hidden reef;
And Love took fire, and foundered fast
In whelming seas of grief.

Faith came at last, stormbeat and torn,
She recompensed me all my loss;

For as a cargo, safe she bore

A crown linked with a cross,

NOLA KOZMO.-BAINE.

There stood a young form in the mild
Dim twilight of the morning hour,
When dawn just opes her lips of light
To pour on earth its honeyed shower.
Day's beautiful harbinger as yet

Was lingering in the eastern sky,

Looking its last ere it should set,

Like some love-fraught but earth-dim eye:

The trees waved stilly in the wind,

And wild birds sang in their green homes enshrined

Calmly that youthful form stood there,

A mantle o'er his shoulders flung,
His dark plumes, stirred by the soft air,
O'er his bent forehead drooping hung.
Calmly he stood, alone, alone,

Wrapped in his thoughts of grief or crime;
His long dark tresses, gently blown,

Waved round his face their lustrous prime.
In front, with muskets glancing keen,
Wild men stood waiting in the twilight sheen.
"Prisoner, commend thy soul to heaven!"

A stern voice cried from out the band;
And, at the word, like lightning riven,
The muskets glanced in each broad hand.

An upward trembling of his gaze,

A motion of those small round lips,

A flutter of those dark eyes' rays,

Like stars beneath a cloud's eclipse,

That pale sad brow one moment bared,

The prisoner bowed his head and stood prepared.

There was a pause,-a deathly pause;

The still soft wind crept murmuring past, Each heart a fuller breathing draws,

The mantle's folds aside are cast,

And, as the bosom gleams to view,
Thunders the red throat of the gun.
Ah! too well aimed the missile flew,

He sank like flowers at set of sun.

They raised him, life's streams gushing warm,
And saw-O faith and love!-a woman's form.

1

"I thank thee, Heaven," her faint lips spake,
The life blood o'er them bubbling clear,
"He, he is safe!-for him will wake

No father's sigh, no mother's tear."
That soft, large eye grew fixed and dull,
That soft white forehead cold and dim,
Those locks, so rich and beautiful,

Dabbled in gore, around her swim.
A long, deep sigh-back sank her head;
The faithful and the beautiful was dead.
"Away!" a wild voice cried behind,

And, backward dashed, the crowd retired,
A form reeled on with hurry blind,
His eyes like fagots newly fired.

"Nola," he cried, "how, how is this?

Ah, me! earth drinks her heart's dear rain !"
Down dropped he that cold clay to kiss,

And question those white lips in vain.
"Dumb!-cold!-no fire in those orbs be,
Pale-pale, my love! and thus-O wretch, for me!
Then yelled he to the wild train round,
"What! stand ye idly loitering still?
Behold your true prey, free, unbound,
Stands mocking at your murderous will,
You know me not? On battle day

This arm you knew, and feared it wellCowards"-a bullet winged its way

He reeled and by the maiden fell: They laid them both in one red grave,

And summer flowers o'er their slumbers wave.

ELOQUENCE THAT PERSUADES.-GOETHE.

Persuasion, friend, comes not by wit or art,
Hard study never made the matter clearer,

'Tis the live fountain in the speaker's heart

Sends forth the streams that melt the ravished hearer Then work away for life, heap book on book,

Line upon line, and precept on example

The stupid multitude may gape and look,

And fools may think your stock of wisdom ample, But would you touch the heart, the only method known My worthy friend, is first to have one of your own.

A PIKE COUNTY WEDDING.

An amusing incident related by "Uncle Ira Chrisman" of Blooming Grove,

I used to marry a good many folks when I was Justice of the peace. They generally wanted to get spliced on the Fourth of July or Christmas. They'd come in from the woods, the fellow and his girl both riding on a load of hoop-poles or tan bark, and sometimes holding themselves on to a three-foot log that a yoke of oxen was snaking in from a bark peeling. One Fourth of July I took for wedding fees a coonskin, two railroad ties, three dozen hoop-poles, twenty-five cents in pennies, two quarts of low-bush huckleberries, and a promise to vote for me when I was a candidate. But that was an unusually good Fourth for fees. The couples that I'd hitch, taking the average run of 'em, would most likely say:

"Well, now, 'squire, we'em much obleeged. When ye come 'long our way, 'squire, drop in and we'll flop an extry slapjack."

But I never hankered after slapjacks with salt pork gravy and molasses, so those fees are yet to come in.

One day I was sitting in my office, when in walked a big, strapping hoop-pole cutter and bark forager from 'way back 'o the Knob. He had his daughter with him. The girl's name was Mag. Mag was about nineteen, but, stars alive! she was near six feet high, and I'll bet she could lift a barrel of flour over a seven-rail fence. She was pretty good looking for all that.

"Busy, 'squire?" asked the old man.

"Not particular," I said.

"Wall, 'squire, I s'pose you know that Jerry Elwine's got the best groun'-hog dog they is in the hull Knob kentry, don't you?"

"I never heard of Jerry Elwine or his ground-hog dog," said I, plaguey mad because Mag had sot down on a straw hat of mine that I wouldn't have taken a dollar note for.