Richard Henry Stoddard （b. 1825,-） was born at Hingham,Mass.but removed tNew York City while quite young. His first volume of poems,"Foot- prints," appeared in 1849,and has been followed by many others. Of these may be mentioned "Songs of Summer," "Town and Country," "The King’s Bell," "Abraham Lincoln" （an ode）,and the "Book of the East," from the last of which the following selection is abridged. Mr. Stoddard‘s verses are full of genuine feeling,and some of them show great poetic power.
1.Not what we would,but what we must,Makes up the sum of living:Heaven is both more and less than just,In taking and in giving.Swords cleave thands that sought the plow,And laurels miss the soldier’s brow.
2.Me,whom the city holds,whose feet Have worn its stony highways,Familiar with its loneliest street,- Its ways were never my ways.My cradle was beside the sea,And there,I hope,my grave will be.
3.Old homestead! in that old gray town Thy vane is seaward blowing;Thy slip of garden stretches down Twhere the tide is flowing;Below they lie,their sails all furled,The ships that gabout the world.
4.Dearer that little country house,Inland with pines beside it;Some peach trees,with unfruitful boughs,A well,with weeds thide it:Nflowers,or only such as rise.Self-sown-poor things!-which all despise.
5.Dear country home! can I forget The least of thy sweet trifles?
The window vines that clamber yet,Whose blooms the bee still rifles?
The roadside blackberries,growing ripe,And in the woods the Indian pipe?
6.Happy the man whtills his field,Content with rustic labor;Earth does thim her fullness yield,Hap what may this neighbor.Well days,sound nights-oh,can there be A life more rational and free?