For a thousand years the Anglo-Saxon race has been sending its contributions to the nation of the Men of the Sea.  Ever since the Welshman paddled his coracle across Caernarvon Bay, and Saxon Alfred mused over the Danish galley wrecked upon his shore, each century has been adding new names of fame to the Vikings’ bead-roll.  Is the list full? has Valhalla no niche more for them? and must the men of the sea pass away forever?  If it must be so,—­it must. Che sara sara.  But if there is no overruling Fate in this, but only the working of casual causes, it is somebody’s care that they be removed.  In almost all handicrafts and callings the last thirty years have wrought a vast and rapid deterioration of the men who fill them.  Machinery, the boasted civilizer, is the true barbarizer.  The sea has not escaped.  Its men are not what the men of old were.  The question is, Can we let them go?—­can they be dispensed with among the elements of national greatness?

Passing fair is Venice, but she sits in lonely widowhood in the deserted Adriatic.  Amalfi crouches under her cliffs in the shame of her poverty.  The harbors of Tyre and Carthage are lonesome pools.  They tell their own story.  When the men of the sea no longer find a home or a welcome on the shore,—­when they are driven to become the mere hirelings who fight the battles of commerce, like other hirelings they will serve beneath the flag where the pay and the provant are most abundant.  The vicissitudes of traffic are passing swift in these latter days; and it does not lie beyond the reach of a possible future that the great commercial capitals of the Atlantic coast may be called to pause in their giddy race, even before they have rebuilded the Quarantine Hospital, or laid the capstone of the pharos of Minot’s Ledge.

* * * * *

CHICADEE.

  The song-sparrow has a joyous note,
    The brown thrush whistles bold and free;
  But my little singing-bird at home
      Sings a sweeter song to me.

  The cat-bird, at morn or evening, sings
    With liquid tones like gurgling water;
  But sweeter by far, to my fond ear,
      Is the voice of my little daughter.

  Four years and a half since she was born,
    The blackcaps piping cheerily,—­
  And so, as she came in winter with them,
      She is called our Chicadee.

  She sings to her dolls, she sings alone,
    And singing round the house she goes,—­
  Out-doors or within, her happy heart
      With a childlike song o’erflows.

  Her mother and I, though busy, hear,—­
    With mingled pride and pleasure listening,—­
  And thank the inspiring Giver of song,
      While a tear in our eye is glistening.

  Oh! many a bird of sweetest song
    I hear, when in woods or meads I roam;
  But sweeter by far than all, to me,
      Is my Chicadee at home.