But, as the summer fruit decays,
So died he in those naked days.

A dark cloak of the roebuck's skin
Covered the warrior, and within
Its heavy folds the weapons, made
For the hard toils of war, were laid;
The cuirass, woven of plaited reeds,
And the broad belt of shells and beads.

Before, a dark-haired virgin train
Chanted the death-dirge of the slain;
Behind, the long procession came
Of hoary men and chiefs of fame,
With heavy hearts, and eyes of grief,
Leading the war-horse of their chief.

Stripped of his proud and martial dress,
Uncurbed, unreined, and riderless,
With darting eye, and nostril spread,
And heavy and impatient tread,
He came; and oft that eye so proud
Asked for his rider in the crowd.

They buried the dark chief; they freed
Beside the grave his battle steed;
And swift an arrow cleaved its way
To his stern heart! One piercing neigh
Arose, and, on the dead man's plain,
The rider grasps his steed again.

ONLY A STABLE BOY.

GEORGE CROUCH.

I'm only a stable boy, Sir. Never knew nothin' but horse.

I but rub 'em and grub 'em and bed 'em, and have nothin' to do on the course.

But say, there are horses and horses; they differ like human kind,

And you know, without any one telling,
When the right kind of critter you find.

My horse knew his owner and trainer, he'd give them his whinny and nose

When they patted and stroked him. They loved him. He knew it. That goes.

But when they had trained him and timed him, they brought him back to me,

And I rubbed him and grubbed him and bed him, and slept in his stall. Don't yer see?

He knew little of Jock, with his jacket, who suddenly jumped on his back,

Let him loose at the post and with whip and spur had a two-minute spin on the track.

When the race was off, and the mount was off, it was back to the stable yard.

And he left his swell friends in the paddock; he was glad to see me, his old pard.

And he'd tell me just what he wanted,
What, can horses talk?

Of course. You might just as well ask me can horses run or walk..

They can talk wth their hoofs when they want to, talk with their eyes when they're kind.

And, I hope you won't think I am joking, they can talk with their ears when they're blind. Well, owner and trainer and jockey, maybe he liked them all.

Think he did. But they were not in it with the boy who slept in the stall.

My horse was the gamest and bravest the turf has

ever seen.

And whatever was good in man or horse, he was something in between.

No wonder, then, that full-grown men, like owner and trainer, and I,

Turned wet eyes to the wall as we stood in the stall, and saw the great Sysonby die.

PAUL REVERE'S RIDE.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,-
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;

And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm

Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said, "Good-night," and with muffled

oar

Silently row'd to the Charlestown shore,

Just as the moon rose over the bay,

Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The muster of men at the barrack-door,

A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,

And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile his friend, through alley and street,
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack-door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climb'd the tower of the Old North
Church,

By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the highest window in the wall,

And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,-
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.