“Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally justice
    Triumphs; and well I remember a story, that often consoled me,
    When as a captive I lay in the old French fort at Port Royal.” 
    This was the old man’s favorite tale, and he loved to repeat it
    When his neighbors complained that any injustice was done them. 
    “Once in an ancient city, whose name I no longer remember,
    Raised aloft on a column, a brazen statue of Justice
    Stood in the public square, upholding the scales in his left hand,
    And in its right a sword, as an emblem that justice presided
    Over the laws of the land, and the hearts and homes of the people. 
    Even the birds had built their nests in the scales of the balance,
    Having no fear of the sword that flashed in the sunshine above them. 
    But in course of time the laws of the land were corrupted;
    Might took the place of right, and the weak were oppressed, and the
              mighty
    Ruled with an iron rod.  Then it chanced in a nobleman’s palace
    That a necklace of pearls was lost, and erelong a suspicion
    Fell on an orphan girl who lived as maid in the household. 
    She, after form of trial condemned to die on the scaffold,
    Patiently met her doom at the foot of the statue of Justice. 
    As to her Father in heaven her innocent spirit ascended,
    Lo! o’er the city a tempest rose; and the bolts of the thunder
    Smote the statue of bronze, and hurled in wrath from its left hand
    Down on the pavement below the clattering scales of the balance,
    And in the hollow thereof was found the nest of a magpie,
    Into whose clay-built walls the necklace of pearls was inwoven.”

H. W. LONGFELLOW, in Evangeline.

* * * * *

THE MOCKING-BIRD.

    Then from a neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, wildest of singers,
    Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o’er the water,
    Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music,
    That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to listen. 
    Plaintive at first were the tones and sad; then soaring to madness
    Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied Bacchantes. 
    Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lamentation;
    Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in derision,
    As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the tree-tops
    Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on the branches.

H. W. LONGFELLOW, in Evangeline.

* * * * *

EARLY SONGS AND SOUNDS.

    To hear the lark begin his flight,
    And singing startle the dull night
    From his watch-tower in the skies
    Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
    Then to come, in spite of sorrow,