d not require a heavy discounting of the future to
write Hiram Meeker a MILLIONAIRE.

END OF PART II.

DEAD!

Dead--dead--no matter, the skies are blue,
In their fathomless depths above,
And the glad Earth's robes are as bright in hue,
And worn with as regal a grace, and true,
As they were on the day they were woven new
By the hand of Infinite Love.

Hush! hush!--there is music out in the street,
A popular martial strain;
While the constant patter of countless feet
Keeps time to the strokes of the drum's quick beat,
And the echoing voices that mix and meet
Swell out in a glad refrain.

Lost--lost! Oh, why, when the earth is bright,
And soft is the zephyr's breath,
Oh! why, when the world is so full of light,
Should the wild heart, robed in a cloak of night,
Send up from frozen lips and white
A desolate cry of death?

Dead--dead! How wearily drag the days;
And wearily life runs on!
The skies look cold, through a misty haze,
That curdles the gold of the bright sun's rays,
And the dead leaves cover the banks and braes,
A shroud of the summer gone.

Last year--nay! nay! I do not complain;
There are graves in the heart of all;
So I do not murmur; 'twere weak and vain;
I accept in silence my share of pain,
And the clouds, with their fringes of crimson stain,
That over my young life fall.

There were beautiful days last year, I mind,
When the maple trees turned red,
They flew away like the sportive wind,
But I gathered the joys they left behind,
As I gather the leaves, but to-day I find
That the joys, like the leaves, _are dead_.

One year! It is past, and I stand _alone_,
Where I stood with another then;
'Tis well--I had scorned to have held _my own_
From the bloody strife, though my soul had known
That _his_ life would ebb ere the day was gone,
Amid thousands of nameless men.

_Nameless_, yet never a one less dear
Than the _dearest_ of all the dead;
I weep--but, Father, my bitter tear
Falleth not down o'er a _single_ bier--
I mourn not the joys of the lost last year,
But the rivers of bright blood shed.

RECONSTRUCTION.

Reconstruction sounds the key note of American politics to-day. It is as
true now as when Webster first said it, that 'the people of this
country, by a vast and countless majority, are attached to the Union.'
Reconstruction is the hop