Awaiting his summons to go To the land, the bright land of his hopes— To the land, the sweet land of the happy. On the spot where he saw the brindled form of the stealthy panther Prowling like guilt through the tangles of the wood, He sees the quiet steed, born in the spacious Merrimac meadows, The old, faithful, honest steed, Whose feet seemed shod with wind, And whose snort was like the deep bass note of the ophicleide In the fiery days of his youth; Stamping the flies and whisking his stump of a tail As he sluggishly moves toward the sparkling spring Welling up to the rim of the mossy hogshead. Ah, the old father in Zion was blest! Blest in his household, his home and his goods! Ah, he was perfectly happy! As the full golden moon of his purified soul Wheeled down to the rim of the west, Where the angel of God stood with waiting pinions To waft him high upward to glory. My song is done. (And the blended tones of the axe sunk away Like the last water-like notes of the lute of the winds, Sunk away—away—swooned deliciously away, And I treasured it in the inner chamber of my ear, And sung it to myself in the deepest nook of my heart, And then gave it to the world.) * * * * * THE DARKENED CASEMENT. BY GRACE GREENWOOD. CHAPTER I. What lit your eyes with tearful power, Like moonlight on a falling shower? Who lent you, love, your mortal dower Of pensive thought and aspect pale, Your melancholy sweet and frail As perfume of the cuckoo-flower? TENNYSON. FREDERIC PRESTON was the eldest son of a respectable merchant, in one of the most important seaport towns of New England. He was a young man of fine personal appearance, a warm and honorable heart, and a spirit singularly brave and adventurous. From his boyhood his inclinations had led him to a seafaring life, and at the age of twenty-six, when he is presented to the reader, he had already made several voyages to the East Indies, as supercargo in the employ of the house in which his father was a partner. He was now at home for a year, awaiting the completion of a vessel, which was to trade with Canton, and which he was to command.