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The storm was raging still. The shutters swung
Screaming as harshly in the fitful wind,

And all without went on-as aye it will,
Sunshine or tempest, reckless that a heart
Is breaking, or has broken in its change.

The fire beneath the crucible was out;
The vessels of his mystic art lay round,
Useless and cold as the ambitious hand
That fashioned them, and the small silver rod,
Familiar to his touch for threescore years,
Lay on th' alembic's rim, as if it still
Might vex the elements at its master's will.

And thus had passed from its unequal frame
A soul of fire-a sun-bent eagle stricken
From his high soaring down-an instrument
Broken with its own compass. Oh how poor
Seems the rich gift of genius, when it lies,

G

Like the adventurous bird that hath out-flown

His strength upon the sea, ambition-wrecked—

A thing the thrush might pity, as she sits
Brooding in quiet on her lowly nest.

THE LEPER.

"ROOM for the leper! Room!" And, as he came,
The cry passed on-" Room for the leper! Room!"
Sunrise was slanting on the city gates
Rosy and beautiful, and from the hills

The early risen poor were coming in

Duly and cheerfully to their toil, and up

Rose the sharp hammer's clink, and the far hum
Of moving wheels and multitudes astir,
And all that in a city murmur swells,

Unheard but by the watcher's weary ear,

Aching with night's dull silence, or the sick Hailing the welcome light, and sounds that chase

The death-like images of the dark away.

"Room for the leper!" And aside they stood-
Matron, and child, and pitiless manhood—all
Who met him on his way-and let him pass.
And onward through the open gate he came,
A leper with the ashes on his brow,
Sackcloth about his loins, and on his lip
A covering, stepping painfully and slow,
And with a difficult utterance, like one
Whose heart is with an iron nerve put down,
Crying "Unclean! Unclean!"

'Twas now the first

Of the Judean Autumn, and the leaves
Whose shadows lay so still upon his path,
Had put their beauty forth beneath the eye
Of Judah's loftiest noble. He was young,
And eminently beautiful, and life

Mantled in eloquent fulness on his lip,
And sparkled in his glance, and in his mien
There was a gracious pride that every eye
Followed with benisons-and this was he!

With the soft airs of Summer there had come
A torpor on his frame, which not the speed

Of his best barb, nor music, nor the blast
Of the bold huntsman's horn, nor aught that stirs
The spirit to its bent, might drive away.

The blood beat not as wont within his veins ;
Dimness crept o'er his eye; a drowsy sloth
Fetter'd his limbs like palsy, and his mien
With all its loftiness, seemed struck with eld.
Even his voice was changed-a languid moan
Taking the place of the clear, silver key;
And brain and sense grew faint, as if the light,
And very air, were steeped in sluggishness.
He strove with it awhile, as manhood will,
Ever too proud for weakness, till the rein
Slackened within his grasp, and in its poise
The arrowy jereed like an aspen shook.
Day after day, he lay, as if in sleep.

His skin grew dry and bloodless, and white scales

Circled with livid purple, cover'd him.

And then his nails grew black, and fell away

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