s is it the last day of life? Oh! could I die as
gently, as beautifully as dies this budding season of the year, and
could I know my budding hopes, like these buds of spring, would, in
their summer, grow to fruit as these are growing, how welcome eternity!
But I, as well, have my law, and must wait its fulfilment. It is the
Sabbath wisely ordained to rest, and in its quiet and beauty obviating
care and sorrow. Would it were to the restless mind as to the weary
limbs, and as to these, to this give ease and repose!

I have been dreaming, and my boyhood days revive with busy memories. My
gentle mother, ever tender and kind, seems busy before me; the old
home, the old servants, as they were; the old school-house in the woods
by the branch, and many a merry face laughing and beaming around; and
my own old classmate, my solitary classmate, so loved, ah! so loved
even unto this day. It was only yesterday I saw him, old and care-worn,
yet in all the nobility of his soul, bearing with stern philosophy the
miseries of misfortune inflicted by the red hand of merciless war,
yielding with dignity and graceful resignation to the necessities
imposed by unscrupulous power, conscious of no wrong, and sustained by
that self-respect the result of constant and undeviating rectitude
which has marked his long life. From childhood our hearts have been
intertwined, and death only has the power to tear them apart. We sat
together long hours, and talked of the past--alternately, as their
memories floated up, asking each other, "Where is this one? and this?"
and to each inquiry the sad monosyllable, "Dead!" was the reply, of all
who were with us at school when we were boys. We alone are left!

In my strife with the world, I can never forget
The scenes of my childhood, and those who were there
When I was a child. I remember them yet;
Their features, their persons, to memory so dear,
Are present forever, and cling round my heart--
On the plains of the West, in the forest's deep wild,
On the blue, briny sea, in commerce's mart,
'Mid the throngs of gay cities with palaces piled.

The bottle of milk, and the basket of food,
Prepared by my mother, at dawning of day,
For my dinner at school; and path through the wood:
How well I remember that wood and that way,
The brook which ran through it, the bridge o'er the brook,
The dewberry-briers which grew by its side,
My slate, and my satchel, and blue spelling-book,
And