Oh, he works with a rollicking stave at lip, And loud is the chorus skirled; With the burly note of his rumbling throat He batters it down the world. He learned it once in his father's house Where the ballads of eld were sung; And merry enough is the burden rough, But no man knows the tongue. Oh, fair, they say, was his bride to see, And wilful she must have been, That she could bide at his gruesome side When the first red dawn came in. And sweet, they say, is her kiss to those She greets to his border home; And softer than sleep her hand's first sweep That beckons, and they come. Oh, crooked is he, but strong enough To handle the tallest mast; From the royal barque to the slaver dark, He buries them all at last. Then hoy and rip, with a rolling hip, He makes for the nearest shore; And God, who sent him a thousand ship, Will send him a thousand more; But some he'll save for a bleaching grave, And shoulder them in to shore,-- Shoulder them in, shoulder them in, Shoulder them in to shore. B. CARMAN. The Absence of Little Wesley. HOOSIER DIALECT. Sence little Wesley went, the place seems all so strange and still-- W'y, I miss his yell o' "Gran'pap!" as I'd miss the whipperwill! And to think I ust to _scold_ him fer his everlastin' noise, When I on'y rickollect him as the best o' little boys! I wisht a hunderd times a day 'at he'd come trompin' in, And all the noise he ever made was twic't as loud ag'in!-- It 'u'd seem like some soft music played on some fine insturment, 'Longside o' this loud lonesomeness, sence little Wesley went! Of course the clock don't tick no louder than it ust to do-- Yit now they's times it 'pears like it 'u'd bu'st itse'f in two! And let a rooster, suddent-like, crow som'er's clos't around, And seems's ef, mighty nigh it, it 'u'd lift me off the ground! And same with all the cattle when they bawl around the bars, In the red o' airly mornin', er the dusk and dew and stars, When the neighbers' boys 'at passes never stop, but jes' go on, A-whistlin' kind o' to theirse'v's--sence little Wesley's gone! And then, o' nights, when Mother's settin' up oncommon late, A-bilin' pears er somepin', and I set and smoke and wait, Tel the moon out through the winder don't look bigger'n a dime, And things keeps gittin' stiller--stiller--stiller all the time,-- I've ketched myse'f a-wishin' like--as I dumb on the cheer To wind the clock, as I hev done fer mor'n fifty year,-- A-wishin' 'at the time bed come fer us to go to bed, With our last prayers, and our last tears, sence little Wesley's dead! J.W. RILEY. Be Thou a Bird, My Soul. Be thou a bird, my soul, and mount and soar Out of thy wilderness, Till earth grows less and less, Heaven, more and more.