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. "Bless thee, my child!" The music is un heard; Her heart grows strong on that remembered word. Again in dreams I heard the marriage-bells wells, And alleluias from the deep I heard, Lastly stood War, in glittering arms yclad, With visage grim, stern look and blackly hued; In his right hand a naked sword he had That to the hilts was all with blood imbrued; And in his left that kings and kingdoms rued And songs of star-browed seraphim in- Famine and fire he held, and there Against whose force in vain it is to fight: There hung his targe with gashes deep and Ne peers, ne princes, nor no mortal wight, No towns, ne realms, cities, ne strongest tower, But all, perforce, must yield unto his power. His dart anon out of the corpse he took, see With great triumph eftsoons the same he shook : That most of all my fears affrayèd me; His body dight with naught but bones, pardy, 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, Thy pellochst rolling from the mountainbay, town. 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 And dwells in daylight truth's salubrious skies No form with which the soul may sym pathize? To plant the tree of life, to plant fair Free-Young, innocent, on whose sweet forehead And though, amidst the calm of thought entire, Some high and haughty features might MY spirit, be thou me, impetuous one! betray A soul impetuous once, 'twas earthly fire That fled composure's intellectual ray, As Etna's fires grow dim before the rising day. 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 is to do good to others, to be helpful when 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 myself 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, "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 ever 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." |