their expanded membrane, raise the wings from the surface and seemed for the first time to endow them with vitality. They flapped harshly once or twice upon the billows, and the head rose slowly and heavily from the lake. An agony of fear seized upon the gazing parricides, but the supernatural creation made no movement to injure them. It only remained balancing itself over the lake and casting a shadow from its wings that wrapped the valley in gloom. But dreadful was it beneath their withering shade to watch that terrific monster hovering like a falcon for the swoop and know not upon what victim it might descend. It was then that they who had sown the gory seed from which it sprung to life with one impulse sought to escape its presence by flight. Herding together like a troop of deer when the panther is prowling by, they rushed in a body from the scene. But the flapping of the demon-pinions was soon heard behind them, and the winged head was henceforth on their track, wheresoever it led. In vain did they cross one mountainbarrier after another, plunge into the rocky gorge or thread the mazy swamp to escape their fiendish watcher. The Flying Head would rise on tireless wings over the loftiest summit or dart in arrowy flight through the narrowest passages without furling its pinions, while their sullen threshing would be heard even in those vine-webbed thickets where the little ground-bird can scarcely make its way. The very caverns of the earth were no protection to the parricides from its presence, for scarcely would they think they had found a refuge in some sparry cell when, poised midway between the ceiling and the floor, they would be hold the Flying Head glaring upon them. Sleeping or waking, the monster was ever near; they paused to rest, but the rushing of its wings as it swept around their restingplace in never-ending circles prevented them from finding forgetfulness in repose; or if, in spite of those blighting pinions that ever fanned them, fatigue did at moments plunge them in uneasy slumbers, the glances of the Flying Head would pierce their very eyelids and steep their dreams in horror. What was the ultimate fate of that band of parricides no one has ever known. Some say that the Master of Life kept them always young, in order that their capability of suffering might never wear out, and these insist that the Flying Head is still pursuing them over the great prairies of the Far West. Others aver that the glances of the Flying Head turned each of them gradually into stone, and these say that their forms, though altered by the wearing of the rains in the lapse of long years, may still be recognized in those upright rocks which stand like human figures along the shores of some of the neighboring lakes. CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN. EGYPTIAN SERENADE. ING again the song you sung When we were together young― When there were but you and I Underneath the summer sky. Sing the song, and o'er and o'er, GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. THE SABBATH. OW still the morning of the Less fearful on this day, the limping hare hallowed day! Mute is the voice of rural labor, hushed The ploughboy's whistle and the milkmaid's song; The scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath Of tedded grass, mingled with fading flowers, That yester-morn bloomed waving in the breeze; Sounds the most faint attract the ear-the hum Of early bee, the trickling of the dew, To him who wanders o'er the upland leas The blackbird's note comes mellower from the dale, And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark Warbles his heaven-tuned song, the lulling brook Murmurs more gently down the deep-sunk glen, on man, Her deadliest foe; the toil-worn horse, set free, Unheedful of the pasture, roams at large, And as his stiff, unwieldy bulk he rolls. His iron-armed hoofs gleam in the morning ray. But chiefly man the day of rest enjoys. Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail-the poor man's day. On other days the man of toil is doomed To eat his joyless bread lonely, the ground Both seat and board, screened from the winter's cold And summer's heat by neighboring hedge or tree, But on this day, embosomed in his home, loves; With those he loves he shares the heartfelt joy Of giving thanks to God-not thanks of form, While from yon lowly roof, whose curling A word and a grimace, but reverently, smoke O'ermounts the mist, is heard at intervals The voice of psalms, the simple song of praise. With covered face and upward, earnest eye. Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day. The pale mechanic now has leave to breathe With dove-like wings Peace o'er yon village The morning air pure from the city's smoke; broods: The dizzy mill-wheel rests; the anvil's din Hath ceased; all, all around is quietness. While wandering slowly up the river-side marks In each green tree that proudly spreads the | Recall the soul from adoration's trance bough As in the tiny dew-bent flowers that bloom Around the roots, and while he thus surveys With elevated joy each rural charm And fill the eye with pity's gentle tears. He hopes-yet fears presumption in the As if the whole were one, suspended high ends. But now his steps a welcome sound recalls : The aged man, the bowèd down, the blind, Led by the thoughtless boy, and he who breathes With pain and eyes the new-made grave well pleased, These, mingled with the young, the gay, approach Raised on his arm, he lists the cadence close, Yet thinks he hears it still; his heart is cheered; He smiles on death; but, ah! a wish will rise: "Would I were now beneath that echoing roof! No lukewarm accents from my lips should flow; My heart would sing, and many a Sabbathday My steps should thither turn, or, wandering far In solitary paths where wild flowers blow, The house of God; these, spite of all their There would I bless His name who led me ills, A glow of gladness feel; with silent praise They enter in. A placid stillness reigns Until the man of God-worthy the nameOpens the book and reverentially The stated portion reads. A pause ensues; The organ breathes its distant thunder-notes, Then swells into a diapason full; forth From death's dark vale to walk amid those sweets Who gives the bloom of health once more to glow Upon this cheek, and lights this languid eye." The people, rising, sing, "with harp, with It is not only in the sacred fane harp, And voice of psalms:" harmoniously attuned The various voices blend; the long-drawn aisles At That homage should be paid to the Most High: There is a temple, one not made with hands The vaulted firmament. Far in the woods, While liquid whispers from yon orphan band When not the limberest leaf is seen to move Save where the linnet lights upon the spray, | What though the sceptic's scorn hath dared Where not a flow'ret bends its little stalk Save when the bee alights upon the bloom- Beyond the empyreal. Nor yet less pleasing at the heavenly throne To slumber save the tinkling of the rill, son, Or sheds a tear o'er him to Egypt sold, And wonders why he weeps. The volume closed, With thyme-sprig laid between the leaves, he sings The sacred lays, his weekly lesson conned Pines unrewarded by a thankless state. Returning homeward from the house of prayer: to soil The record of their fame? the men What though Of worldly minds have dared to stigmatize The sister-cause, Religion and the Law, With Superstition's name? Yet, yet their deeds, Their constancy in torture and in death,— These on tradition's tongue still live; these shall On history's honest page be pictured bright To latest times. Perhaps some bard whose Muse Disdains the servile strain of Fashion's choir May celebrate their unambitious names. With them each day was holy, every hour They stood prepared to die-a people doomed To death, old men and youths and simple maids. With them each day was holy, but that morn On which the angel said, "See where the Lord Was laid," joyous arose-to die that day Was bliss. Long ere the dawn, by devious ways, O'er hills, through woods, o'er dreary wastes, they sought The upland moors where rivers, there but brooks, Dispart to different seas. Fast by such brooks gers seem A little glen is sometimes scooped, a plat In peace they home resort. Oh, blissful With greensward gay and flowers that strandays, When all men worship God as conscience Amid the heathery wild that all around wills! Fatigues the eye: in solitudes like these Far other times our fathers' grandsires knew. Thy persecuted children, Scotia, foiled A virtuous race to godliness devote, A tyrant's and a bigot's bloody laws; |