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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by the Publishers of Betugs anv Bxavx, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington,

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Vor. L--No. 4. NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 21, 1874.

 

 

 

TERRIBLE SNOW.

BY RICHARD GERNER.

 

 

H! the snow, the terrible snow.

Laying the plants and flowers low;
Dealing destruction now here, now there,
Driving the hungry wolf from his lair,

Howling,
Baying,
Eyes all aflame,
Through snow-covered forests in quest of game.
A curse to the needy, the poor and low,
And to those that ride and those that go,
Obstructing each path and each thoroughfare,
Making beasts’ burdens much harder to bear.

Oh! the snow, the terrible snow,
The poor man’s torment and the poor man’s foe;
Only hailed with glee by a thoughtless child,
To whose wrappings warm it feels soft and mild.
Driving,
Tearing,
Through broken panes,
And filling up poverty’s courts and lanes,
For a quivering foot, frost-bitten and cold,
To cross it with shoes neither heeled nor soled,
While bloodless lips utter, and not too low,
A curse for the coming of terrible snow.

No fire to cheer the empty grate,
No bread to eat from the old broken plate,
While the snow flocks in through the open door,
And with fiendish glee it covers the floor.
Smiling,
Chuckling,
In cruel sport,
Deaf to entreaty, and caring for naught,
Neither for moans from the suffering and sick,
Nor for faint flares from the cheap lamp-wick,
Struggling to live to cheer up with its light
Those who are freezing in darkness and night.

A small, childish countenance, wan and pale,
Cold, clammy and moist with the driving gale,
Extended with pleading and tearful eye:
““A penny, please!” What a mournful cry!
Falling,
Reaching

No friendly ear,
Met by the snow with a withering sneer,
As it shrouds in white the youthful form,
Benumbed by the cold and the fearful storm.
Until it is covered and hid from view,
Bemoaned by nobody, pitied by few.

A wearied-out traveler pursues his way,
With the terrible snow falling all day,
And dark night sets in, yet it ceases not,
Blinding from sight some hospitable cot.
Plodding,
Dragging

His limbs along,

{Till stopping for fear he was going wrong,

 

Pricz 10 Cans, (geri, ¥0%,

 

 

     

Sinking upon the terrible snow,
Wishing his strength, like his hope, would grow;
But his couch had already marked its prey,

And his hair was white before it was gray.

In a valley stands a romantic cot,
On a charming, delightful, healthy spot;
One winter snow threatened the peaceful dell,
And gathered in strength and size as it fell,
Roaring,
Crashing,

An avalanche
Crushed into the roof of the little ranche,
Striking its inmates all torn to the floor,
Their dread winding sheet all crimsoned with gore;
Their last mutter was, in their fearful woe,
A dying curse for the terrible snow.

 

FRED S VALENTINE.

 

BY MRS. MARY D. BRINE,

 

[PERHAPS if Fred Graham had dreamed of
the consequences, he never would have
stepped out of his pew so courteously one Sun-
day morning, to offer his seat next his mother
to the young stranger who had followed the
sexton up the crowded aisle, The church was
overfilled with people who came to hear the
celebrated Dr, So-and-so, who that morning
for the first time commenced his duties as
rector of ‘St. Paul’s,” and Fred, noticing the
puzzled face of the old sexton, who really knew
not where to find the stranger a seat, had
speedily ushered the lady into his own pew, and
received her sweet smile of thanks, with a new
and very peculiar feeling about his heart.
Fred Graham was really a splendid fellow; no-
body ever denied that fact, and he was a great-
er favorite among the ladies than his masculine
friends cared to confess, seeing that he fre-
quently cut them out, tho’ not intending to do
So.

It certainly was not his fault that nature
had made him so handsome a fellow, and if he
could boast of courteous manners and had be-
side the gift of rare conversational powers—it
was surely not his fault that nature and a very
superior mother had made him what he was.
So if his masculine friends grew sometimes
envious of him, he could not hold himself to
blame in the matter—of course not!

But Fred had reached his twenty-third year
undisturbed by the distressing hopes and fears,
hours of pensive thought, and other sickly
symptoms which generally attack youths some-
where between their eighteenth and twenty-
eighth years—and betray the presence of a
troublesome little god in the region of the
heart.

He gave his friends a sincere, warm friend-
ship, and kept his love only for the dear widow+