Francis A. Durivage was born at Boston in 1814 and engaged early in journalistic work, writing for the magazines as well. He won considerable reputation with a series of humorous articles signed “Old Un.” He wrote a great many poems of serious as well as of light character, and several plays. He published “Cyclopedia of Biography,” “The Fatal Casket,” “Life Scenes from the World Around Us,” was part translator of Lamartine’s “History of the Revolution of 1848,” and co-author of “Stray Subjects.” He died in New York city in 1881.

[“I know of no finer poem of its length.”—Bayard Taylor.]

There hangs a saber, and there a rein,
With a rusty buckle and green curb chain;
A pair of spurs on the old gray wall,
And a mouldy saddle—well, that is all.

Come out to the stable—it is not far;
The moss grown door is hanging ajar.
Look within! There’s an empty stall,
Where once stood a charger, and that is all.

The good black horse came riderless home,
Flecked with blood drops as well as foam;
See yonder hillock where dead leaves fall;
The good black horse pined to death—that’s all.

All? O, God! it is all I can speak.
Question me not—I am old and weak;
His saber and his saddle hang on the wall,
And his horse pined to death—I have told you all.