Grasshoppers, chirping so
Tender and sweet the whole day long!
Is it of joy or woe,
The music that breathes from each blade of grass
In undertone deep and low?

Vainly I list for a jarring tone,
All is so blest to me--
From the cricket that answers, beneath the stone,
The brown toad hid in the tree,
To the tiniest insect of them all
That helps with the harmony.

Never a pause in the serenade!
Like the glory of ripened corn,
It filleth the air through sunshine and shade;
And from twilight till peep of morn
Is a rhythmical pulse in the dreamful night,
That of satisfied life seems born.

As the gold of the summer about us floats,
Soft melody crowneth the haze
Of the yellow ether with choral notes
Through these tuneful autumn days.
Speak, sphinx of the hearthstone, cricket dear!
Is the song of sorrow or praise?

Of this I am sure, that you bring to me
Thoughts the sweetest of any I know:
Of this I am sure, that you sing to me,
In minor tones tenderly low,
Of things the dearest that life has brought,
And dearest that hopes bestow.

MARY B. DODGE.

SKETCHES OF EASTERN TRAVEL.

II. BATAVIA.

"Batavia, ho! and just ahead at that!" exclaimed the captain of our
gallant East Indiaman as the entire party of passengers sprang to the
quarter-deck on the first cry of "Land ahead!" It was scarcely five
o'clock in the morning--not dawn between the tropics--but our impatience
could brook no delay, and despite impromptu toilettes and yet unswabbed
decks, with sluices of sea-water threatening us at every turn, we
hastened forward to catch the earliest possible glimpse of the quaint
old city of which we had heard such varied accounts. "You'll think a
good part of it was built in Holland three centuries ago," said our
captain, "then boxed up, sent across the waters, and dropped down,
pell-mell, in the midst of the jungle." We all laughed incredulously at
the time, but remembered his words afterward.

Batavia, one of the strongholds of Dutch power in the East, occupies the
north-western extremity of the island of Java. It is composed of two
distinct settlements, known, respectively, as the "Old City" and the
"New City." The former, built directly on the seaboard, consists mainly
of warehouses; stores and government offices, with a pretty extensive
mingling of native dwellings