These constitute a state;

And sovereign law, that state's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate

Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.
Smit by her sacred frown,

The fiend, dissension, like a vapor sinks;
And e'en the all-dazzling crown

Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks.

HENRY V. TO THE CONSPIRATORS.

SHAKESPEARE.

RICHARD, Earl of Cambridge, there is your commission ; There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham; and, sir knight, Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours:

Read them; and know, I know your worthiness.

My Lord of Westmoreland and uncle Exeter,

We will aboard to-night.-Why, how now, gentlemen ?
What see you in those papers, that you lose

So much complexion ? - Look ye, how they change!
Their cheeks are paper.-Why, what read you there,
That hath so cowarded and chased your blood

The mercy that was quick in us but late,
By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd:
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.

*

See you, my princes, and my noble peers,
These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge here,-

You know how apt our love was, to accord

To furnish him with all appertinents

Belonging to his honor; and this man
Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspired,
And sworn unto the practices of France,

To kill us here in Hampton: to the which
This knight, no less for bounty bound to us
Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. But O'
What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop: thou cruel,
Ingrateful savage, and inhuman creature !

Thou, that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
That almost mightst have coined me into gold,
Wouldst thou have practic'd on me for thy use?

If that same demon, that hath gull'd thee thus,
Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartar back,

And tell the legions, I can never win
A soul so easy as that Englishman's.

O, how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?

Why, so didst thou;

Why, so didst thou:

*

Seem they grave and learned ?

Why, so didst thou:

Come they of noble family?
Seem they religious?

Why, so didst thou.

I will weep for thee;

For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
Another fall of man. Their faults are open:

Arrest them to the answer of the law;

And God acquit them of their practices!

THE FUNNY STORY.

JOSEPHINE POLLARD.

IT was such a funny story! how I wish you could have

heard it;

For it set us all a-laughing from the little to the big;
I'd really like to tell it, but I don't know how to word it,
Though it travels to the music of a very lively jig.

If Sally just began it, then Amelia Jane would giggle,
And Mehetabel and Susan try their very broadest grin;
And the infant Zachariah on his mother's lap would wriggle,
And add a lusty chorus to the very merry din.

It was such a funny story, with its cheery snap and crackle,
And Sally always told it with such dramatic art,

That the chickens in the door-yard would begin to "cacklecackle,"

As if in such a frolic they were anxious to take part.

It was all about a-ha! ha!-and a-ho! ho! ho!-well really,

It is-he! he! he!-I could never begin to tell you half
Of the nonsense there was in it, for I just remember clearly
It began with ha! ha! ha! ha! and it ended with a laugh.

But Sally-she could tell it, looking at us so demurely,
With a woe-begone expression that no actress would despise;
And if you'd never heard it, why, you would imagine, surely,
That you'd need your pocket-handkerchief to wipe your

weeping eyes."

When age my hair has silvered, and my step has grown unsteady,

And the nearest to my vision are the scenes of long ago, I shall see the pretty picture, and the tears will come as ready

As the laugh did, when I used to ha! ha! ha! ha! andho! ho! ho!

THE SPINNING-WHEEL SONG.

JOHN F. WALLER.

MELLOW the moonlight to shine is beginning ;
Close by the window young Eileen is spinning;
Bent o'er the fire, her blind grandmother, sitting,
Is crooning, and moaning, and drowsily knitting,-

"Eileen, achora, I hear some one tapping."
"'Tis the ivy, dear mother, against the glass flapping."

"Eileen, I surely hear somebody sighing."

"'Tis the sound, mother dear, of the summer wind dying."

Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring,

Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot's stirring; Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing,

Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.

"What's that noise that I hear at the window, I wonder?"
"'Tis the little birds chirping the holly-bush under."
"What makes you be shoving and moving your stool on,
And singing all wrong that old song of 'The Coolun'?”
There's a form at the casement, -the form of her true-love,-
And he whispers, with face bent, "I'm waiting for you,
love.

Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly,
We'll rove in the grove while the moon's shining brightly."

Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring,

Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot's stirring;
Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing,
Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.

The maid shakes her head, on her lip lays her fingers,
Steals up from her seat, -longs to go, and yet lingers ;
A frightened glance turns to her drowsy grandmother,
Puts one foot on the stool, spins the wheel with the other.

Lazily, easily, swings now the wheel round;
Slowly and lowly is heard now the reel's sound;
Noiseless and light to the lattice above her

The maid steps, then leaps to the arms of her lover.
Slower-and slower-and slower the wheel swings;
Lower-and lower—and lower the reel rings;

Ere the reel and the wheel stop their ringing and movingThrough the grove the young lovers by moonlight are roving.

TROUBLE IN THE "AMEN CORNER."

T. C. HARBAUGH.

'TWAS a stylish congregation, that of Theophrastus Brown, And its organ was the finest and the biggest in the town, And the chorus, all the papers favorably commented on it, For 'twas said each female member had a forty-dollar bon

net.

Now in the " amen corner " of the church sat Brother Eyer, Who persisted every Sabbath-day in singing with the choir; He was poor, but genteel-looking, and his heart as snow was white,

And his old face beamed with sweetness when he sang with all his might.

His voice was cracked and broken, age had touched his vocal chords,

And nearly every Sunday he would mispronounce the words Of the hymns, and 'twas no wonder, he was old and nearly blind,

And the choir rattling onward always left him far behind.

The chorus stormed and blustered, Brother Eyer sang too slow,

And then he used the tunes in vogue a hundred years ago; At last the storm-cloud burst, and the church was told, in

fine,

That the brother must stop singing, or the choir would resign.

Then the pastor called together in the lecture-room one day Seven influential members who subscribe more than they

pay,

And having asked God's guidance in a printed prayer or two,

They put their heads together to determine what to do.