right, when he said, 'much'sever you'll know me, when we bof git ober Jordan?'

Surely it is not strange, either, that we should people the stars with those who have gone on before; that we should fancy their gentle eyes bending upon us at twilight, 'cos,' as the old man expressed it, 'Heaven right in sight.'

But there blazes the star still, over the woods. 'Tis

The Flag-star of Even.

SHE lieth just there in the offing of Heaven,
Awaiting the flag at the window of Even;
Lo! the signal of crimson and gold is unfurled,
And it flingeth a glory that flusheth the world!

No sound of artillery smiteth the ear—

So calm you can catch e'en the fall of a tear!—
That foot-print of grief, on the cheek that is wet
At thoughts of the past, we would never forget.
A moment, that banner is burning the sky-
A moment, its beauty is lighting the eye-
A moment its glory and beauty depart,
Transferred to the sky in the west of the heart.

Behold now, far out in the harbor of Heaven,
A light like a star, from the Flag-ship of Even!
Her silver-fluked anchor, so steady and true,
As lightly is swinging and dripping with blue,
As swung o'er the sleeper the Bethel-bent beam
That trembled to earth in the Patriarch's dream!

Her cable of crystal, and spars of the day,-
Beneath her dance doubles, and spangle her way!
Her sails of weft glory, her cordage of light!—
Oh! bravely she rides on the billows of night!—
Those billows that break on the shores of our earth-
The pulse of an infant awaking to birth.

As glimmers the moon through the rack of the storm,
So, hard by her helm, I can fancy a form;
The form of an Angel, with tremulous wings,
A look deep and tender-a vision that brings
A pang to the heart and a tear to the eye,

For loved ones and lost ones that never can die!
Whose better and brighter e'en death cannot sever-
Enshrined in the soul, and enshrined there for ever!

Oh! child of my dreams-indweller of Heaven!
I see thee conducting the Flag-Star of Even!
Oh! Flag-Star of Even! I would it were mine,
To leave this dull port and become one of thine!

Not a breath moves a streamer, or rattles a shroud;
On she comes like the morn, and still as a cloud!
On she comes through the clear azure sea of the ether,
From God's throne co-etern', to earth's cradle beneath her.
No crashing of wave, no thunder of billow-
Calm as a maiden's cheek pressed to her pillow!
As forms of bright clouds in the waters beneath,
As dim o'er the mirror just touched by a breath,
So silently on through the motionless Heaven,
To the gates of the west sweeps the Flag-Ship of Even-
O'er the heaven-bathed hills on the verge of the world,
O'er the tremulous woods, her sails but half furled,
She rides on the billows that break from the shore,
She comes-ah! she wavers, and nears us no more!

Hark! soft to mine ear from the Flag-Star of Even,

The sweet and unwritten IONIC of Heaven!

Like the foot-fall of thought in the halls of the soul?

Like the coming of twilight, around me it stole

Like the music of wings it filled all the air,
And I knew in my soul, a spirit was there!

The words that were said, I can never impart,
They smote not the ear, but they fell on the heart.
As glitters the dew in the heart of the flower,
So deep in my heart lies the thought of that hour;
When the breath of life's fever shall wither the will,
That thought in my heart will be lingering still!
When the fingers of Care weave thorns in my pillow,
Like lilies, there still on the breast of the billow,
'T will heave with my bosom, safely moored in the deep,
Where the waters of feeling e'er sparkle and sleep;
When life's shadow grows long, it will linger there yet,
Like stars in mid-heaven that never can set.

Oh! vision celestial! wherever thou art,

Magnetic to thee turns the thought of my heart;
I have watched thee slow-threading the glittering flood
That pours round the throne-the EGEAN of God!
I have traced thee again, my beautiful one,
'Mid the splendors of day o'er the disk of the sun!
When the billows of morn break bright on the air,
On the breast of the brightest, my angel is there!
When the wings of my spirit are pluming for Heaven,
I'll wander with thee, gallant Flag-Ship of Even!

The Last Rose of Summer.

ONE of the boys brought me a rose, a red rose, today, or rather a red rose to be, for it is nothing but a bud yet; and there was wisdom in that, unusual in this queer world.

A full-blown blessing is pretty near ready to fade, and so the urchin brought me a rose before it was a

rose.

Frosts stay late, and come early, in the great latitude of earth, and nearly all our hopes and happiness are in the bud—always in the bud. They seldom blossom-they seldom ripen-they keep us waiting for summer; the early rains' of the human heart fall, but somehow a winter intervenes between April and July-'the latter rains' are shed upon our graves, and the buds ne'er come to blooming.

Well, were there no better land,' no brighter skies, no fairer flowers, Death's door would be a

darker portal than it is.

But there is more about this bud, that the Chemist might find out. It is dust-nothing but tinted and fragrant dust; and into what forms, may it not have

entered, in the transmigrations of time! Perhaps the very iron that lends the blush to the half-folded leaves, that the gentle winds would have unravelled, had it not been among the last roses of summer,” has given color to some cheek that grew pale when the King of Shadows came-some cheek that had glowed beneath the lips of beauty, or at the first soft whisper of love-some cheek whose elements were strown to the winds; but kind Nature cared for them all, and shaped them out anew, in the bud of beauty that now lies withering before me.

So, if it ever be your lot-God grant it never may!—to stand by the grave of one who died in beauty-one whom you loved, living, and mourned, dead, and the little billow of green turf above her has subsided, and a rose-tree waves there, in the soft summer air, leave a tear on it, if you will, but pluck not a bud!

In what disguisings does the past still linger around us! "The Dead Past!" It is not dead; it lives in the flower, the fountain, and the bow.

Nay, the very tears shed by Humanity yesterday, are in the pearly and golden clouds of to-day.

In the grand cycle of being, Death is nothing but change