What pierceth the king like the point of a dart? heart? "Chaldeans! Magicians! the letters expound !" They are read-and Belshazzar is dead on the ground! Hark! The Persian is come on a conqueror's wing; And a Mede's on the throne of Belshazzar the king! GAMBLER'S WIFE. Dark is the night! How dark! No light: No fire! For him, who pledged her love-last year a bride! "Hark! "Tis his footstep! No!-'tis past!-'tis gone!" Tick!-Tick!" How wearily the time crawls on! Why should he leave me thus ?-He once was kind! And I believed 'twould last!-How mad!-How blind! "Rest thee, my babe!-Rest on !-'Tis hunger's cry! one. "Hush! 'tis the dice-box! Yes! he's there! he's there! For this for this he leaves me to despair! Leaves love! leaves truth! his wife! his child! for what? The wanton's smile-the villain—and the sot! "Yet I'll not curse him. No! 'tis all in vain! 'Tis long to wait, but sure he'll come again! And I could starve, and bless him, but for you, My child-his child! Oh, fiend!" The clock strikes two. "Hark! How the sign-board creaks! The blast howls by. Moan! moan! A dirge swells through the cloudy sky! Ha! 'tis his knock! he comes!-he comes once more!" "Tis but the lattice flaps! Thy hope is o'er! "Can he desert us thus? He knows I stay, "Nestle more closely, dear one, to my heart! Thou'rt cold! Thou'rt freezing! But we will not part! Husband!-I die-Father!-It is not he! Oh, God! protect my child!" The clock strikes three. They're gone, they're gone! the glimmering spark hath fled!- The wife, and child, are number'd with the dead. THE PAUPER'S DEATH-BED (CAROLINE BOWLES SOUTHEY.) Tread softly,-bow the head,— Is passing now. Stranger, however great, With holy reverence bow;- Greater than thou. Oh, change-oh, wondrous change!Burst are the prison bars, This moment, there, so low, So agonized, and now Beyond the stars! Oh, change!-stupendous change! The sun eternal breaks,— The new immortal wakes, Wakes with his God! CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. (ALFRED TENNYSON.) Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "FORWARD THE LIGHT BRIGADE! "FORWARD, THE LIGHT BRIGADE!” Cannon to right of them, Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well; Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Flashed all their sabres bare, Flashed as they turned in air, Charging an army, while All the world wondered: Plunged in the battery-smoke, Right through the line they broke; Cossack and Russian Reeled from the sabre-stroke, Shattered and sundered : Then they rode back-but not, Not the six hundred. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them Stormed at with shot and shell, When can their glory fade? Noble Six Hundred! MILTON ON HIS LOSS OF SIGHT. I am old and blind! Men point at me as smitten by God's frown; Yet I am not cast down. I am weak, yet strong; O merciful One! When men are farthest, then Thou are most near, When friends pass by, my weaknesses to shun, Thy chariot I hear. Thy glorious face Is leaning toward me, and its holy light |