midst, which will bring foreign diseases and habits among
us, and turn our peaceful Arcadia into a miniature New York. I see, in
imagination, a busy and prosperous future in store for me; I see my
handsome and hitherto unused sets of surgical instruments often taken
from their case, for 'disasters,' 'collisions,' 'smashes,' and 'shocking
accidents.' I see fashion reigning in our humble streets, with her
neuralgic little bonnets, her consumptive thin shoes, her
lung-compressing corsets, and fever-tempting bodices, her unseasonable
hours, and unreasonable excitements and unnatural quantities and
qualities of food and drink; I see my little stock of drugs increased to
a mighty establishment; my Phil, of some use at last, dispensing them
rapidly, and Rover, hoarse with barking at the ringing of the night
bell. I see Dr. Coachey retiring in despair to his whist and his
sangaree, and myself sole autocrat of the village health; and brightest
of all these bright visions, I see my pretty Dora, the beautiful spirit
of all light and love in my household, infinitely lovelier and more
charming than even in her girlish days, but without the faintest symptom
of the coquetry that marked her then--blind to all fascinations but
mine, and such a tender wife, that she upholds my whiskers (which are
inclined to be reddish) to be of the finest auburn, and does not envy
Mrs. Tom Hayes the sable splendors which adorn her husband's face; in
short, I see daily more occasion to thank heaven for all the happy
consequences of Dora's cold.

THE TIDE.

The rising tide sighs mournfully
Under the midnight moon;
The restless ocean scornfully
Dashes its surging billows down
On a jewelled beach, at the dead of night,
That in the soft and silvery light
That flits and fades, is sparkling bright,
Laved by the changing sea!

LA VIE POETIQUE.

He is not blind who seeth nought;
Or dumb, who nothing can express;
And sight and sound are something less
Than what is inwardly inwrought.

So seems it foremost of my joys,--
Not ranking those that from above
Assume on earth the name of Love,
The feast which never ends or cloys.

Nor is it less a feast to me
If he, my neighbor, cannot break
The bread with me, or with me take
The wine of all my mystery.

Not less a feast, if so well off
He deems himself in worldly goods,
That at unseen beatitudes