He strewed the vale with flowers of song;
    He filled the homes with lighter grace,
Which round those hearth-stones lingered long,
    And still makes beautiful the place.

The country, hamlet, and the town
    Grew wiser, better, for his songs;—­
The roaring city could not drown
    The voice that to the world belongs.

To beds of pain, to rooms of death,
    The soft and solemn music stole,
And soothed the dying with its breath,
    And passed into the mourner’s soul.

And yet what was the poet’s meed? 
    Such, Bard of Alloway, was thine! 
The soul that sings, the heart must bleed,
    Or tend the common herds and swine.

The nation heard his patriot lays,
    And rung them, like an anthem, round,
Till Freedom waved her branch of bays,
    Wherewith the world shall yet be crowned.

His war-songs fired the battle-host,
    His mottoes on their banners burned;
And when the foe had fled the coast,
    Wild with his songs the troops returned.

Then at the feast’s triumphal board,
    His thrilling music cheered the wine;—­
But when the singer asked reward,
    They pointed to the herds and swine.

“What! he a bard?  Then bid him go
    And beg,—­it is the poet’s trade! 
Dan Homer was the first to show
    The rank for which the bards were made!

“A living bard!  What’s he to us? 
    A bard, to live, must first be dead! 
And when he dies, we may discuss
    To whom belongs the poet’s head!”

’Neath suns that burn, through storms that drench,
    He went, an outcast from his birth,
Still singing,—­for they could not quench
    The fire that was not born of earth.

At last, behind cold prison-bars,
    By colder natures unforgiven,
His frail dust starved! but ’mid the stars
    His spirit found its native heaven.

Now, when a meteor-spark, forlorn,
    Descends upon its fiery wing,
I sigh to think a soul is born,
    Perchance, to suffer and to sing:—­

Its own heart a consuming pyre
    Of flame, to brighten and refine:—­
A singer, in the starry choir,
    That will not tend the herds and swine.

THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.

WHAT HE SAID, WHAT HE HEARD, AND WHAT HE SAW.

One of our boarders—­perhaps more than one was concerned in it—­sent in some questions to me, the other day, which, trivial as some of them are, I felt bound to answer.

1.—­Whether a lady was ever known to write a letter covering only a single page?

To this I answered, that there was a case on record where a lady had but half a sheet of paper and no envelope; and being obliged to send through the post-office, she covered only one side of the paper (crosswise, lengthwise, and diagonally).