Page 284 - The model orator, or, Young folks' speaker : containing the choicest recitations and readings from the best authors for schools, public entertainments, social gatherings, Sunday schools, etc. : including recitals in prose and verse ...

And the gloom is gathering you cannot lessen,
While youth is closing his golden door;
And yon know the darkness is coining;, coming,—
The past a failure, the future dead,
And the present blank as a page unwritten,
With memory filling the lines instead.

Do you know what it is, this great reaction,
The Death of Ilope which must come to all?
The stage may be bright and the actors merry,
"Rut sooner or later the curtains fall.
M a ry E v e r e d .

THE OLD H0ME5TEAD.

[Tliis selection, written for this volume, fllioutd Its tend with subdued, deep feel­
ing. The; Ttiluni to Lbe Old Homestead, after years of absence, naturally produce}
profound emotion by reason of old >±nd iiseirtories. The charactei
deso.tihed is that of an uneducated countryman, yet of tender heart ;tu(l ayrnpr
thetic nature, ]

W H A T did you say? Does the ole place look kind o’ nat'ral like?
Seem as it used ter forty years ago ail' even more?
How can it ■when i do not hear grandfather’s ole clock strike,
A n ’ don't see any youngsters playin' routi1 the kitchen door?

The ole-time fireplace we had— no five now bums there,
The peg where father hung liis hat is broken from the wall,
The shaky doors an' stairways are a-waitin' fur repair.
An’ the ceilhi’ff overhead are jest ready fur to fall.

A h me 1 There is the mantel "where my mother kcp' her switch,
She didn't mean ter save the rod an’ let us youngsters spoil.
There’s the comer where she sat an1 did her mendin’ stitch by stitch.
A n 1 her face grew ole an’ handsome like with daily care an’ toil*

hull forty years have passed an’ gone— -long time ter be away J
Out there in Californy’s mines I dug ail’ strove fur gold,