12. But not yours alone. As years go by, and only the large outlines of lofty American characters and careers remain, the wide republic will confess the benediction of a life like this, and gladly own that if with perfect faith, and hope assured, America would still stand and "bid the distant generations hail," the inspiration of her national life must be the sublime moral courage, the all-embracing humanity, the spotless integrity, the absolutely unselfish devotion of great powers to great public ends, which were the glory of Wendell Phillips. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. THE BROOK. I. I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally, And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley. II. By thirty hills I hurry down, Or slip between the ridges; By twenty thorps, a little town, And half a hundred bridges. III. I chatter over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles, I bubble into eddying bays, I babble on the pebbles. IV. With many a curve my banks I fret By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set With willow-weed and mallow. V. I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come, and men may go, But I go on for ever. VI. I wind about, and in and out, With here a blossom sailing, And here and there a lusty trout, And here and there a grayling. VII. And here and there a foamy flake Upon me as I travel, With many a silvery water-break Above the golden gravel. VIII. I steal by lawns and grassy plots, I slide by hazel covers, I move the sweet forget-me-nots That grow for happy lovers. IX. I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, Among my skimming swallows; I make the netted sunbeam dance Against my sandy shallows. X. I murmur, under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses, I linger by my shingly bars, I loiter round my cresses. XI. And out again I curve and flow To join the brimming river; For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever. ALFRED TENNYSON. OLD AUNT MARY'S. Wasn't it pleasant, O, brother mine, In those old days of the lost sunshine Of youth--when the Saturday's chores were through, And the "Sunday's wood" in the kitchen, too, And we went visiting, "me and you," Out to Old Aunt Mary's? It all comes back so clear to-day! Though I am as bald as you are gray-- Out by the barn-lot, and down the lane, We patter along in the dust again, As light as the tips of the drops of the rain, Out to Old Aunt Mary's! We cross the pasture, and through the wood Where the old gray snag of the poplar stood, Where the hammering "red-heads" hopped awry, And the buzzard "raised" in the "clearing" sky, And lolled and circled, as we went by Out to Old Aunt Mary's. And then in the dust of the road again; And the teams we met, and the countrymen; And the long highway, with sunshine spread As thick as butter on country bread, Our cares behind, and our hearts ahead Out to Old Aunt Mary's.