Look! oh, look! what see'st thou there?

Owl! what's this,

That snort and hiss,

And why do thy feathers shiver and stare?— ""Tis he! 'tis he!

He sits 'mid the three,

And a breathless woman is on the stair!"

Owl! that lovest the cloudy sky!

Where clank the chains

Through the prison panes,

What there thou hearest tell to me?"In her midnight dream,

"Tis a woman's scream,

And she calls on one-on one of Three!"
Look in once more,

Through the grated door :

""Tis a Soul that prays, in agony!"

Owl! that hatest the morning sky!
On thy pinions gray,

Away,-away!—

THE LAUGHING HORSEMAN.

What a strange creature is a laughing fool!

As if man were created to no use,

But only to shew his teeth.

WEBSTER.

"WHERE was the body found?" said the parish clerk.

"In the Deadman's Clough," replied the landlord' "close under the roots of the big black elm."

"It is the strangest thing of the kind," said the clerk,

"That has happened in England, in my time,” added the landlord.

There was a dead pause. No one else thought fit to join in the conversation of the two worthies, who were, in a manner, the secondary oracles of the parish. But the bystanders filled the yard of the Crow and Teapot, and peeped over each other's shoulders, and under their arms, with a shuddering curiosity, to catch a glimpse of the corse. At times, a half-suppressed whisper would rise among the crowd; and, occasionally, a scuffle took place, as those behind pushed forward those in the front ranks,

who, as vehemently, resisted the suggestion. For, anxious as all were to see the mangled and hideous spectacle, none were willing to approach beyond a certain degree of appropinquity, seemingly marked out, by common consent, as the extremity of their advances.

"Lost for three weeks!" ejaculated the landlord, "and found in such a state!"

"Most unfit," said the clerk, "for a Christian body, under an old tree; and might have lain time unknown, without bell or book;-what of his immortal soul!"

"True, true! and such a life as he led, drinking at home-never spent a penny at a public; and gambling abroad, and getting money, the Lord knows how, and, yet, never a farthing to a starving body."

"Nor a penny in the poor's box; but, as to that, he never came within ten graves' length of a church door," said the clerk.

"Never, since the day that we first heard of his winning three hundred guineas from Will Codicil, the rich lawyer's son; and that was the first winning Gripe Gibbons ever made, one way or other," added the host.

66 Aye, but he made many a one after; never rattled a dice-box, or chucked a guinea, or dealt a card, but sure it was, great or small, the sweepings always came to one pocket," said the landlord's plump wife, who began to feel impatient at the long silence under which she had remained.