Through days of sorrow and of mirth,
Through days of death and days of birth,
Through every swift vicissitude
Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,
And as if, like God, it all things saw,
It calmly repeats those words of awe,-

“Forever - never!

Never - forever!”

In that mansion used to be
Free-hearted Hospitality;
His great fires up the chimney roared ;
The stranger feasted at his board ;
But, like the skeleton at the feast,
That warning timepiece never ceased, -

“Forever - never !

Never - forever!”
There groups of merry children played,
There youths and maidens dreaming strayed;
O precious hours! O golden prime,
And affluence of love and time!
Even as a miser counts his gold,
Those hours the ancient timepiece told,-

“Forever - never!
• Never-forever!”
From that chamber, clothed in white,
The bride came forth on her wedding night.
There, in that silent room below,
The dead lay in his shroud of snow;
And in the hush that followed the prayer,
Was heard the old clock on the stair,-

“Forever-never!

Never—forever!”
All are scattered now and fled,
Some are married, some are dead;

And when I ask, with throbs of pain,
« Ah! when shall they all meet again ?”
As in the days long-since gone by,
The ancient timepiece makes reply,–

“Forever-never !

Never-forevei !"

Never here, forever there,
Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death, and time shall disappear,-
Forever there, but never here !
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly,-

“ Forever - never !

Never — forever!”

BUGLE SONG. From “ The Princess," - Tennyson. The splendor falls on castle walls

And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,

And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes iying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,

And thinner, clearer, further going;
O sweet and far, from cliff and scar,

The horns of Elfand faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,

They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

And grow forever and forever.
B!ow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. Thomas Hod. 'T was in the prime of summer time,

An evening calm and cool,
And four-and-twenty happy boys

Came bounding out of school:
There were some that ran and some that leapt,

Like troutlets in a pool.

Away they sped with gamesome minds,

And souls untou ch'd by sin;

To a level mead they came, and there

They drave the wickets in : Pleasantly shown the setting sun

Over the town of Lynn.

Like sportive deer they coursed about,

And shouted as they ran,-
Turning to mirth all things of earth,

As only boyhood can;
But the Usher sat remote from all,

A melancholy man!
His hat was off, his vest apart,

To catch heaven's blessed breeze;
For a burning thought was in his brow,

And his bosom ill at ease :
So he lean’d his head on his hands, and read

The book between his knees !

Leaf after leaf he turn'd it o'er,

Nor ever glanced aside, For the peace of his soul he read that book

In the golden eventide : Much study had made him very lean, - And pale, and leaden-eyed.

At last he shut the ponderous tome,

With a fast and fervent grasp
He strain'd the dusky covers close,

And fix'd the brazen hasp:
“Oh, God! could I so close my mind,

And clasp it with a clasp!”

Then leaping on his feet upright,

Some moody turns he took,-
Now up the mead, then down the mead,

And past a shady nook,-
And, lo! he saw a little boy

That pored upon a book!

“My gentle lad, what is 't you read —

Romance or fairy fable ? Or is it some historic page,

Of kings and crowns unstable?”

He told how murderers walked the earth

Beneath the curse of Cain,
With crimson clouds before their eyes,

And flames about their brain:
For blood has left upon their souls

Its everlasting stain ! “And well,” quoth he, “I know, for truth,

Their pangs must be extreme, Woe, woe, unutterable woe,

Who spill life's sacred stream! For why? Methought, last night, I wrought

A murder, in a dream!

“One that had never done me wrong

A feeble man and old ;
I led him to a lonely field,

The moon shown clear and cold :
• Now here,' said I, this man shall die,

And I will have his gold!'

“Two sudden blows with ragged stick,

And one with a heavy stone,
One hurried gash with a hasty knife,

And then the deed was done :
There was nothing lying at my foot

But lifeless flesh and bone!

“Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone,

That could not do me ill;
And yet I fear'd him all the more,

For lying there so still:
There was a manhood in his look,

That murder could not kill!

« And, lo! the universal air

Seem'd lit with ghastly flame; -
Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes

Were looking down in blame:
I took the dead man by his hand,

And call’d upon his name!

“0, God ! it made me quake to see

Such sense within the slain !
But when I touch'd the lifeless clay,

The blood gush'd out amain !
For every clot, a burning spot

Was scorching in my brain ! “My head was like an ardent coal,

My heart as solid ice;
My wretched, wretched soul, I knew,

Was at the Devil's price: .
A dozen times I groan'd; the dead

Had never groan'd but twice!

“ And now, from forth the frowning sky,

From the Heaven's topmost height, I heard a voice — the awful voice

Of the blood-avenging sprite:"Thou guilty man! take up thy dead

And hide it from my sight!'

“I took the dreary body up,

And cast it in a stream,