How dark are your fortunes, ye sons of the soil,
Whose heirloom is sorrow, whose birthright is toil!
Yet envy not those who have glory and gold,

By the sweat of the poor, and the blood of the bold;
For 't is coming, howe'er they may flaunt in their pride,
The day when they 'll moulder to dust by your side.
Death uniteth the children of toil and of sloth,
And the democrat reptiles carouse upon both;
For Time, as he speeds on his viewless wings,
Disenables and withers all earthly things;

And the knight's white plume, and the shepherd's crook,
And the minstrel's pipe, and the scholar's book,

And the emperor's crown, and the Cossack's spears,
Will be dust alike in a hundred years!

"Twill be all the same in a hundred years !—
O, most magical fountain of smiles and tears!
To think that our hopes, like the flowers of June,
Which we love so much, should be lost so soon!
Then what meaneth the chase after phantom joys,
Or the breaking of human hearts for toys,
Or the veteran's pride in his crafty schemes,
Or the passions of youth for its darling dreams,
Or the aiming at ends that we never can span,
Or the deadly aversion of man for man?
What availeth it all-O, ye sages, say!
Or the miser's joy in his brilliant clay,
Or the lover's zeal for his matchless prize-
The enchanting maid with the starry eyes.
Or the feverish conflict of hopes and fears,
If 'tis all the same in a hundred years?"

But it was long years after that he felt the truth of the closing stanzas of the poem.

"Ah! 'tis not the same in a hundred years,

How clear soever the case appears;

For know ye not, that beyond the grave,
Far, far beyond, where the cedars wave
On the Syrian mountains, or where the stars
Come glittering forth in their golden cars,
There bloometh a land of perennial bliss,
Where we smile to think of the tears in this?

And the pilgrim reaching that radiant shore
Has the thought of death in his heart no more,
But layeth his staff and sandals down,

For the victor's palm and the monarch's crown..
And the mother meets, in that tranquil sphere,
The delightful child she had wept for here ;
And we quaff of the same immortal cup,
While the orphan smiles, and the slave looks up.
So be glad, my heart, and forget thy tears,
For 't is NOT the same in a hundred years!"

4

CHAPTER III.

THIRD DECADE OF THE LONE ONE.

Boyhood changed to Manhood. - Education. Scepticism for Religion. Love and Separation. - Long Journey. - Sickness. - Marriage. — Poverty. -Struggles for Life in the West.

SECTION I.

MANHOOD.

THE kind-hearted Bracket, who graduated and smoked the orphan into manhood, fulfilled every agreement, and even more in kindness; and, some months before the expiration of the servicetime, the school-months enabled the boy to enter the academy at Gilmanton Corners, to obtain such educational aid as could not be furnished him in the district-school where, five years before, he commenced to learn in the lowest class, the object of ridicule for the school. The hill-foot home was to be his home no more. It was visited by him soon after, at the death and burial of the wife of Bracket, who had been kind to him, and ever attentive to his wants. Her suffering was great, and almost a double affliction to the family; for she left them at a period when more fortunate circumstances might have doubled the joys of life to her and Bracket. It was the beginning of Death's encroachments on the family circle, which only ceased when it had taken all, and the father of Bracket last. The new wife and two boys were introduced before the messenger took Bracket. In the spring of 1855 the Lone One halted an hour, to cast a hasty glance over the

farm, on which many a stone was resting where his hand had placed it, and trees were growing where he had planted them.

The lovely boys and lonely mother welcomed him as one of the family of the old homestead. Sadly and sorrowing, he turned away, and wished not to turn back the pages of his history nor theirs, but felt more inclined to say, "Fly swiftly on, ye wheels of time,' and carry me over to their present home." The LifeLine, which had now run through its boyhood, was about to enter manhood, and run in a broader and deeper channel. The substantial traits of character were already formed for life, and ever after bore him above the grosser vices of civilization, dissipation, profanity, vulgarity, and licentiousness. Even in riper years, when in the fascinating circles of social and political life, where others around him were led astray, he was ever firm to the first principles of character, and by them was enabled to become a guide and counsellor for others, and often, in public and private, to lecture for temperance and morality, purity and reform. New emotions, new impulses, new desires, new attractions, had arisen in the mind and heart of the Lone One; and he saw the world around him as he had never seen it before. Comparing his own sad fate with other young men, he wept bitter tears of sorrow for his existence, with powers and capacities for which he had no use, which could neither be used for his own or others' happiness. Then the wheel of fortune turned to him its historic page; and the record called his attention to the fact that nearly every son of noble lineage, placed by wealth, family, and ancestry, high up the ladder of life, to begin a self-sustaining career above its poverty base, fell to the bottom, and, if such ever arose again, did it by individual effort, and through trials and struggles; while most of those who were ever ascending, and nearest the summit, arose from the very foot of society, and by unwearying effort overcame obstacles which at times seemed insurmountable. Then the muses, ever his friends who could reach his sensitive heart with the spirit of song, let into his soul, in substance, the sentiment of the beautiful poem of Mackay:

"Were the lonely acorn never bound

In the rude, cold grasp of the rotting ground;

Did the rigid frost never harden up
The mould above its bursting cup;

Were it never soaked in the rain and hail,

Or chilled by the breath of the wintry gale, –

It would not sprout in the sunshine free,
Or give the promise of a tree;

It would not spread to the summer air
Its lengthening boughs and branches fair,
To form a bower, where, in starry nights,
Young love might dream unknown delights;
Or stand in the woods, among its peers,
Fed by the dews of a thousand years.

"Were never the dull, unseemly ore

Dragged from the depths where it slept of yore ;
Were it never cast into searching flame,
To be purged of impurity and shame ;
Were it never molten 'mid burning brands,
Or bruised and beaten by stalwart hands,

It would never be known as a thing of worth;

It would never emerge to a noble birth;

It would never be formed into mystic rings,

To fetter Love's erratic wings;

It would never shine amid priceless gems

On the girth of imperial diadems,

Nor become to the world a power and pride
Cherished, adored, and deified.

'So thou, O man of a noble soul,

Starting in view of a glorious goal,

Wert thou never exposed to the blasts forlorn,

The storms of sorrow, the sleet of scorn ;

Wert thou never refined, in pitiless fire,

From the dross of thy sloth and mean desire;

Wert thou never taught to feel and know

That the truest love has its roots in woe,

Thou wouldst never unriddle the complex plan,

Or reach half way to the perfect man;
Thou wouldst never attain the tranquil height
Where wisdom purifies the sight,

And God unfolds to the humblest gaze
The bliss and beauty of his ways."