th, which she brought to my youth,
In that sweet April day of her charms.

"HALT! _Who comes there?_" The cold midnight air
And the challenging word chill me through.
The ghost of a fear whispers, close to my ear,
"Is peril, love, coming to you?"

The hoarse answer, "RELIEF," makes the shade of a grief
Die away, with the step on the sod.
A kiss melts in air, while a tear and a prayer
Confide my beloved to God.

Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!
With a solemn, pendulum-swing!
Though _I_ slumber all night, the fire burns bright,
And my sentinels' scabbards ring.

* * * * *

"Boot and saddle!" is sounding. Our pulses are bounding.
"To horse!" And I touch with my heel
Black Gray in the flanks, and ride down the ranks,
With my heart, like my sabre, of steel.

THE HUMAN WHEEL, ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES.

[Illustration]

The starting-point of this paper was a desire to call attention to
certain remarkable AMERICAN INVENTIONS, especially to one class of
mechanical contrivances, which, at the present time, assumes a vast
importance and interests great multitudes. The limbs of our friends and
countrymen are a part of the melancholy harvest which War is sweeping
down with Dahlgren's mowing-machine and the patent reapers of
Springfield and Hartford. The admirable contrivances of an American
inventor, prized as they were in ordinary times, have risen into the
character of great national blessings since the necessity for them has
become so widely felt. While the weapons that have gone from Mr. Colt's
armories have been carrying death to friend and foe, the beneficent
and ingenious inventions of MR. PALMER have been repairing the losses
inflicted by the implements of war.

The study of the artificial limbs which owe their perfection to his
skill and long-continued labor has led us a little beyond its first
object, and finds its natural prelude in some remarks on the natural
limbs and their movements. Accident directed our attention, while
engaged with this subject, to the efforts of another ingenious American
to render the use of our lower extremities easier by shaping their
artificial coverings more in accordance with their true form than is
done by the empirical cordwainer, and thus _Dr. Plumer_ must submit to
the coupling of some mention of his praiseworthy efforts in the same
pages with the striking achievements of his more aspiring compatriot.

We