I Written for Moore’* Rural New-Yorker.) 
MOBE ABOUT FLIRTING. 
[Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker.) 
BRIGHT, MERRY MAY. 
apprentices in b 
cumstances which 
“forge ’ at which Me bids us labor, 
faculties with which He has endowed 
instruments to be diligently and 
ployed, if wo would attain the 
existence. 
according to the task 
Our every-day chances for observuti 
tigation, are the materials out of which 
to “swedge” our foture destiny, 
are idle or industrious, the 
result. / * 
Universe calls for 
nothing to “ bring forth’’ lmt a set o 
and a mass of unwrought material? 
subject all onr opportunities for hei 
the “forge’’ of our real, not fancied, 
ces; and when In a coudiiion to set 
purpose of doing good, however sms 
may seem to us, we must “ Strike,’' f< 
*» ho,: ' Ned i 
(fates. N. Y 1860. 
is great work-shop? The cir- 
surronnd ns constitute the 
-The mental 
us, are 
rightfully etn- 
trtie object of our 
They vary in strength and diversity, 
we are required to perform. 
— ....ion and inves- 
we are 
Whether we 
re will be a positive 
And when the Muster-Mechanic of the 
—.- our “ work,' 1 nh.all w,. 
'h /> MEN are {, n unreasonable set of creatures ! 
Sj? A morig their many nonsensical ideas, they have a 
jji-th' 1 * *’ l,n belief that we women would perish if they 
didn't give us a lecture, as long as the moral law, 
upon every imaginable subject under the heavens’ 
as often as they can get a chance. Pride and 
prejudice, extravagance and economy, staying at 
borne and going abroad,—but, really, it would be 
easier to tell what these same edifying lectures 
haven t treated of, than what they have. But the 
favorite theme,—the deatly beloved of every man 
wbo uses a quill,— norms to be Fllrtluir. 
A. HAMILTON 
Month of beauty, clad In green, 
fairer than an <*arthiy queen,— 
Merrily the brooklet flown, 
Bright the tend»r clover glows; 
Guttering it, golden light— 
Merry M^y t 
Chancing May, 
Clad in garments pure and bright. 
Everywhere, with gladsome ringing. 
Merry, merry birds arc sluging,— 
Singing now their sweetest lays, 
With a jubilee of praise; 
Pouring out glad Bongs to thee, 
Merry May, 
Vocal May, . 
Full of gladnes*, full of glee. 
Bright and gilded leaf-dad bowers, 
Cay, sweet-scented lovely (lowers, 
Blossoms glowing on the trees, 
Swallows twittering at the eaves- 
Nature rings with joyful songs, 
Merry May, 
Blooming May, 
Beauty now to thee belongs. 
Orioles and Sparrows, hark! 
Robins and the Meadow Lurk,— 
Linnets, finches,—all have come, 
Singing sweetly round each home; 
0, the world in vocal now, 
Merry May, 
Lovely May, 
Crowns of glory on thy brow. 
Leaves, and (lowers, and birds, how gay! 
In bright pastures lambs at play! 
All the beauties of tho year, 
Starting now a bright career; 
Favorite of the mouths to me, 
Merry May, 
Cheerful May, 
Joyful!/1 sing of thee. 
South Butler, N. Y,, i860. 
[Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker.] 
TO ONE WHO SUNG TO ME. 
[Written for Moore’i 
's Rural New-Yorker.] 
THE BREAD OF LIFE. 
A SEQUEL TO "THE LTVTNY? roenmo 
JIV A MAM) A T. JONES 
Travklsr, fainting by the waymde, 
Overcome by hunger’s power, 
For you there are words of promise 
In your being’s darkest hour. 
One there Is who has compassion, 
He, the Tender and the True, 
Sends a messenger to whisper 
That there still is hope for you 
Food of earth you oft have eaten, 
And it mocked your soul’s desire; 
Is not all of earth but shadow? 
You, in agony, inquire 
Hope ye! though your soul is fainting, 
And death darkness dims your eye,- 
Love has made a rich provision,_ 
Destitute you need not die. 
Rise and eat! Now all is ready, 
Bread of Life is Dee for all, 
Kind the invitation given, 
Listen to tho gentle call. 
He, the Giver, tells you plainly 
Night will come,and darkness reign; 
If, at last, your soul shall famish, 
You alone must bear the blame. 
Pilgrim! seek the Living Water, 
Hunger for the Bread of Life, 
They will strengthen famished nature 
To eDdure the toil and strife. 
Saved, you may look in triumph 
Backward o’er the dreary sod, 
Where your weary footsteps tended 
To the Paradise of Gon. 
Strong to toil, and strong to suffer,— 
Nourished by the bread divine,—’ 
On and upward you will journey’ 
Toward the far-off, better clime; 
Light will Bhioe upon your pathway; 
When, at last, you reach the end, 
Angel hands reach through Death’s porta 
Lift you to the Cmockn Friend. 
Wadhams’ Mills, N. Y., I860. 
* Published in the Rural of January 7th. 
iuuuix'ucc wnicn these censors assume,— it is di¬ 
verting in tho highest degree. Of course it is 
only crinoline and gaiters that are found in the 
walks of flirtation; broadcloth and boots are quite 
immaculate. Clkoi* ate a flirted desperately. I n 
the language of a modern gossip,-good woman, 
"her goings on were orful;” but probably Mark 
Antony didn’t leave a poor, lonely little wife 
among tbe olive groves of Italy, to dwell alone in 
sorrow, while he was quailing the red wine with I 
the Egyptian syren. C.bsak’s wife wasn’t above 
suspician, but of course the gentleman himself 
was. Astasia was a dangerous coquette, break¬ 
ing hearts with us much ease as a modern prize 
fighter breaks heads, but it would be heresy to 
| suggest that Socrates ever left Mrs. Sooeates to 
scold herself into convulsions, while be was 
spending the hours that aught to have been em¬ 
ployed in honest labor, chatting socially with 
a pretty flirt. Ac gustos Fjtznoodlk, Esq., is 
perfectly “charmed” to leave his adored Julia 
for one evening to escort Miss Jones to the 
theatre, but his ire is beyond description to find 
the deceitful Julia alread 
ful Snipkins. 
In real, sober earnest, 
anguish is caused by m 
THE CRICKET IN THE WALL. 
Hark! ’Tis the , 
tbe crevices of the wall, 
tie song. What is 1’ 
chanting melody In tbe 
he pouring out his soul 
he singing the praise of 
rior, or lauding the nar 
gathered wisdom bevor 
email voice of the cricket in 
.~1. How cheerful is his lit- 
the subject of bis lay? is he 
ear of his lady love, or is 
in an eveuinghymn? Is 
some mighty insect war- 
me of some one who has 
ad that of bis fellows?— 
'oes, their tyrants, their 
Who can tell? 
And why i 8 it that all living things have glad 
voices given them ? Why is it, that when the sun 
ia gone down, and the hum of business is still— 
when man has withdrawn from the cares and busi- 
ness of the day, and tbe winds have retired to 
their caves, that the voice of the insect tribes 
low and solemn, comes abroad upon the air?— 
U by does not silence come down with the curtain 
if night, and brood with the darkness over us? 
[Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker.] 
A MARRIED MAN’S REVERIE. 
Oh, Time, Time, what a wretched life this is! 
What a consummate fool a man is, anyway! 
1 here I was, a dozen years ago, a decent old 
bach,—as independent as a Prince,—uobody to 
bother me, and making money like the wind! 
And there I should have been now, if it hadn’t 
been for that meddling Snooks. Always pre¬ 
tending to be a great friend of mine. Precious 
frindship his is! Says he, "Smith, you’re get¬ 
ting to be over forty, and it’s time you settled in 
life respectably. It’s the best way,—in fact, it is 
tbe only true way to live. It’s a shame yon I 
haven’t a nice family around you now.” 
And then Matilda, everybody said, was a 
good girl, and, besides, somehow, as the boy said 
when the school-master scolded him for kissing a 
girl, “1 thought she kinder wished me to.” So 
here I am, scolded and hnrrassed for life, and no 
help for it. A wire and two children dogging 
me around, and no peace of my life! 1 wish 
Snooks had the whole lot and kit to bother him, 
and to provide for,—he’d Bing a different song! 
What in the deuce is he single for, I’d like to 
know? Wants Mrs. Smith, very likely.” Now I 
8 heart-breaking 
inconstancy and 
ting propensities, 
angry vehemence. In 
an episode: if his heart is 
s up the pieces and gives 
but with woman the case 
e love of one true heart is 
I lwritten for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker.) 
" STRIKE WHILE THE IRON IS HOT.” 
“I’ll serve Vulcan no longer,” exclaimed 
youthiul apprentice, as he swept from the anvil 
piece of iron, which had become too brittle ft 
use by over-heating. 
Little “JInglesmut,” as Harry was called b 
some of tho wicked village boys, seemed wel 
mgh out of patience, and evidently so much s 
th*t he had almost resolved to desert his faithfi 
guardian, and appeal to the sympathies of strain 
ers, who, I venture to say, would have been les 
regardful of bia preset s,M future wolf**, t L a , 
kind “Old JOSEPH Johnson,” who, ever-earim 
for the wantB of the needy, had "wedged" man- 
generous thoughts out of every-day observations 
Our aged friend, though now “well-to-do in tin 
world,” still went by the name of “Uncle Joe,’ 
and being engaged in another part of his shop 
had, for the last three-quarters of an hour, watch 
ed the unsuccessful efforts *f Harry to finish his 
contemplated piece of mechanism. 
“ What, Harry!” said he, “ will you now leave 
me alter being my daily companion for so long? 
Alethiuks I would be lonesome without you.” 
“It is not that I really wish to leave you, Uncle 
Joseph, hut here I have toiled for nearly an hour, 
to find out, after all, that the metal which I have 
[Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker.] 
OVERCOMING. 
GROWING OLD. 
It seems hut a summer since we looked forward 
with eager hopes to the coming years. And now 
we are looking sadly hack. Not that the dream 
lias passed, but that it has been of no more worth 
to those around us. As the glowing hopes and 
ambitions of early life pass away; as friend after 
lrienu departs, and the stronger ties which bold 
us here arc broken, our life seems but a bubble, 
glancing for a moment in light, and then broken! 
and not a ripple left on the stream. 
Forty years once seemed a long, weary pilgrim 
age to tread. It now seems but a step. And yet 
along the way, are broken shrines where a thousand 
hopes have wasted into ashes; loot-prints sacred 
under their dritting ol dust; green mounds whose 
grass is fresh with the watering of tears; shadows 
even, which we would not forget. We will garner 
the sunshine of those years, and with chastened 
step and hopes, push on toward the evening 
whose signal lights will soon be seen swinging 
where the waters are still, and the storms never 
beat.— 71 W. Brown. 
Snooks,— heard me speak up to her 
didn't know any one was about, and t 
do for it Says he, 
“Smith, your worse than a cannibal, 
your faithful wife like that! J ‘ ‘ 
you never need give her a cross word, 
here a good deal, and, besides, her face ; 
Von can read it like a book. T 
ol the kindliest, noblest impulses, 
worship jon, if yc 
savage, and ever took . ’ - - 
or had any regard for her wishes!’ 
The old hypocrite! I’ll kick him c 
he ever comes here again. Si.ys, “ 
she looks pale and broken hearted, 
shut up here, and never take her m 
■speak to was not 
I’ll bet my fortune spired b; 
I've been 
is enough. 
Her heart is full 
!, and she would S ui) a young lady, who was fashionably cdu 
ou were not such a perfect old catei1 !lt boarding-schools, and indulged in idle- 
any kind of notice of her, ucss at so (hat there was neither strength 
nor elasticity in her frame:—“I used to he so 
feeble that I could not even lift a broom, and the 
least physical exertion would make mo ill for a 
week. Looking one day at tho Irish girls, and 
noticing their healthy, robust appearance, I deter¬ 
mined to make a new trial, and sec if I could not 
.ring the roses to my cheeks, and rid myself of 
the dreadful lassitude that oppressed me. One 
sweeping day 1 went bravely to work, cleanup 
thoroughly the parlors, three chambers, the frmu 
A SENSIBLE YOUNG LADY. 
THE TRUE GENTLEMAN, 
The following sketch is called the portrait of 
a true gentleman, found in an old Manor House, 
in Gloucestershire, written and framed, and hung 
over the mantle-piece of a taoestried sitt.ino.r™,,, - 
r ’ A “ J u — As at the resurrection man 
I will emerge from the grave glorious and immor¬ 
tal, and fit for a higher sphere; so out of the heav- 
tngs and convulsions and burnings of that day, 
shall the earth come purified and ready as a 
“habitation of holiness.” Yet, it is a Christian 
instinct, a leeling of the Christian human heart, 
—not only to desire to be with Christ in glory, 
but also to see that familiar home, earth, grow 
pure and glorious; to know that this old home¬ 
stead which we are compelled to leave, as yet 
rude and incomplete, shall be cared for and beau¬ 
tified by our children, who shall fall heirs to the 
wealth and glory of the millennium. And as we 
with it. \ ou should have 
continued to “strike while the iron was hot"- 
then you could have wrought it sufficiently with¬ 
out over-heating, which has ruined the metal 
delayed the completion of your proposed work,’ 
and tempted you to desert cue who would he as 
a lather to you, who was left an orphan when you 
had only just learned to lisp the name of mother!” 
Harry, who by this time had caught sight of 
his error, seemed really gorry for his hasty 
“vexation of spiritand as the little pearly 
proofs of his penitence trickled down his cheeks, 
he realized more than ever before that Uncle 
Joe was indeed wise as he was kind-hearted, and 
that, during the remainder of his life, 
just taught him, and contained in tho. 
words, was full of meaning, and ougli 
inembered and daily practiced. 
But shall we think that Uncle Joe's 
only a smith-shop rule of discipline? 
never delayed an opportunity for doinj 
allowing our plans for usefulness to be ii 
by some gratification of a (aste render 
inferior by devotion to fashion, or en 
to false notions of gentility? Have we 
sidered that our Creator has placed 
Keeper, I rovidence his steward, charity his treas¬ 
urer, piety his mistress of the house, and discre¬ 
tion his portor, to let in or out, as most fit. This 
is his whole family, made up of virtues, and he is 
the true master of the house. He is necessitated 
to take the world on his way to heaven; hut be 
walks through it as fast as he can, and all his busi¬ 
ness by the way is to make himself and others 
happy. Take him in two words —a Man and a 
Christian.” 
The Strength of Silence,—I t is a great art in 
the Christian life to learn to be silent. Under op¬ 
position, rebukes, injuries, still be silent. It is 
better to say nothing, than to say it in an excited 
or angry manner, even if the occasion should 
seem to justify a degree of anger. By remaining 
silent, the mind is euubied to collect itself, and to 
call upon God in secret aspirations of prayer._ 
And thus yon will speak to the honor of your 
holy profession, as well as to the good of those 
who have injured yon, when you speak from. God. 
