gonizing throes were depicted on his pallid countenance; his
expansive chest heaved laboriously; his shortening breath came up
convulsively, and his eyes seemed starting from their sockets. He had
been called suddenly--unexpectedly to meet thee. A tearful wife and
children gathered around the bed, formed an interesting group, and
strove in vain to allay the agony of the husband and father. But a
sterner blow, and that wife was a widow, those children fatherless.
Thou hadst taken that father to "that undiscovered country from whose
bourne no traveler e'er returns." That weeping wife and those children
"were cast abandoned on the world's wide stage, doomed in scanty
poverty to roam." But still I followed thee, thou fell destroyer of the
human race, determined to portray thy doings.

A gentle mother next received thy visitation, falling a prey to thy
relentless hand. Five darling children shared her maternal love, as
day by day she ministered to their necessities. The rose had long
since faded from her cheek; an unwonted lustre lit up her eye, and her
step became more and more feeble, 'till thou didst summon her away,
leaving a void in the hearts of those children that can never be
filled. Sad, sickening was the sight as I followed in thy train, and
saw father, mother, sister, brother, and all the endearing relations
of life, fall before thy sway. But thou art coeval with the race;
there lives not a man who will not bow before thy sceptre; all must
drink from thy cup. The crowned monarch and the beggar sleep side by
side, and their mingled dust is the sport of the winds of the heavens.
Then may we

"So live, that when our summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chambers in the silent halls of death,
We go not like the quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon; but sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach our graves
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."

The Home of Childhood.

Home of my childhood, once again,
With fond delight, I turn to thee;
Here, in this green and silent glen,
I'll sit beneath the o'ershadowing tree;
While memory, with its magic power,
Summons to my enraptured mind,
Scenes, which, till this mysterious hour,
Had been to Lethean waves consign'd.

Sweet visions rise before my gaze,
All dim and me