vigils keep, While night's fair lamps burn bright on high.

We'll wander in the realms of thought, That boundless space, who may define? From which more dazzling gems are brought Than sparkle in Golconda's mine.

Then, sister, let us linger not, The conscious moon her lamp holds high, And with her smiling, placid face, Beams from the chambers of the sky.

Touched by fancy's magic spell, We'll conjure up the things of yore; From their cold chambers bring the dead, And friends of former years restore.

But oh, the shadows will not stay,-- The dreamy shadows of the past; Before the sun they'll fade away-- Their mystic visions cannot last.

Then let us leave the world of dreams Where shapes and shadows melt away; Bathe in salvation's cooling streams, And soar to realms of endless day.

Reminiscences.

Chapter I.

The Old Homestead.

Come gentle reader, let us entwine arms with Memory, and wander back through the avenues of life to childhood's sunny dell, and as we return more leisurely pluck the wild flowers that grow beside the pathway, and entwine them for Memory's garland, and inhale the fragrance of by-gone years. O, there are rich treasures garnered up in Memory's secret chambers, enclosed in the recesses of the soul, to spring into life at the touch of her magic wand. Here let us sit on this mossy stone, beneath this wide spread elm, and as its waving branches fan our feverish cheeks, fold back the dim, misty curtains of the past, the silent past, and hold communings with the years that are gone. Listen to the murmur of yonder rippling stream, that breaks like far off music upon the ear, and although half a century of years have passed since I first stood upon its margin, and listened to its dirge-like hum, no trace of age is left upon it. The silent years that have swept over its surface, bearing away the generations of men, have left this stream sporting and dancing on in all the freshness of youth and beauty.

Here is the grassy knoll where we have stood tiptoe and reached our tiny hands a little higher to catch the gorgeous butterfly that floated through summer air on silken wings, and then clapped them with joyous glee at our own disappointment, 

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