She turns away; her eyes are dim with tears; | The naked shape of man there saw I plain, Her mother's blessing lingers in her ears: All save the flesh, the sinew and the vein. And songs of star-browed seraphim in- Famine and fire he held, and there sphered, That ebbed unto that sea without a shore, withal He razèd towns, and threw down towers and all. "The crooked straight, and the rough places Cities he sacked, and realms that whilom plain !" FREDERICK TENNYSON. flowered In honor, glory and rule above the rest voured, Consumed, destroyed, wasted, and never ceased Till he their wealth, their name and all oppressed; His face forehewed with wounds, and by his side Against whose force in vain it is to fight: There hung his targe with gashes deep and From morn till evening's sweeter pastime Nor far some Andalusian saraband Would echo flageolet from some romantic Thy ships at anchor on the quiet shore, town. Thy pellochs rolling from the mountainbay, Then, where of Indian hills the daylight Thy lone sepulchral cairn upon the moor, And distant isles that hear the loud Corbrechtan roar? takes His leave, how might you the flamingo That fired his Highland blood with mickle | Familiar in thy bosom-scenes of life? glee; And England sent her men, of men the chief, Who taught those sires of empire yet to be To plant the tree of life, to plant fair Freedom's tree. Here was not mingled in the city's pomp Judgment awoke not here her dismal tromp, Nor mourned the captive in a living tomb. One venerable man, beloved of all, Sufficed, where innocence was yet in Το How reverend was the look, serenely aged, Undimmed by weakness' shade or turbid ire! And though, amidst the calm of thought entire, And dwells in daylight truth's salubrious skies No form with which the soul may sym Some high and haughty features might MY spirit, be thou me, impetuous one! betray A soul impetuous once, 'twas earthly fire I boast no song in magic wonders rife, Drive my dead thoughts over the uni verse Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth, Be through my lips to unawakened earth. But yet, O Nature, is there naught to The trumpet of a prophecy. prize PERCY B. SELLEY. SELECTIONS FROM "SHIRLEY." CAROLINE'S REFLECTIONS ON BECOMING AN OLD MAID. HE said to herself: "I have to live, perhaps, till seventy years. As far as I know, I have good health; half a century of existence may lie before me. How am I to occuPy it? What am I to do to fill the interval of time which spreads between me and the grave?" She reflected. "I shall not be married, it appears," she continued. "I suppose, as Robert does not care for me, I shall never have a husband to love, nor little children to take care of. Till lately I had reckoned securely on the duties and affections of wife and mother to occupy my existence. I considered, somehow, as a matter of course, that I was growing up to the ordinary destiny, and never troubled my self to seek any other, but now I perceive plainly I may have been mistaken. Probably I shall be an old maid. I shall live to see Robert married to some one else some rich lady. I shall never marry. What was I created for, I wonder? Where is my place in the world?" "Ah! I see," she pursued, presently; that is the question which most old maids are puzzled to solve: other people solve it for them by saying, 'Your place is to do good to others, to be helpful whenever help is wanted.' That is right in some measure, and a very convenient doctrine for the people who hold it; but I perceive that certain sets of human beings are very apt to maintain that other sets should give up their lives to them and their service, and then they requite them by praise: they call them devoted and virtuous. Is this enough? Is it to live? Is there not a terrible hollowness, mockery, want, craving, in that existence which is given away to others for want of something of your own to bestow it on? I suspect there is. Does virtue lie in abnegation of self? I do not believe it. Undue humility makes tyranny; weak concession creates selfishness. Each human being has his share of rights. I suspect it would conduce to the happiness and welfare of all if each knew his allotment and held to it as tenaciously as the martyr to his creed. Queer thoughts these that surge in my mind; are they right thoughts? I am not certain. Well, life is short, at the best: seventy years, they say, pass like a vapor, like a dream when one awaketh; and every path trod by human feet terminates in one bourne-the grave, the little chink in the surface of this great globe, the furrow where the mighty husbandman with the scythe deposits the seed he has shaken from the ripe stem; and there it falls, decays, and thence it springs again when the world has rolled round a few times more." |