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

From the dull flesh about them, and the hues
Deepened beneath the hard unmoistened scales,
And from their edges grew the rank white hair,
-And Helon was a leper!

Day was breaking

When at the altar of the temple stood

The holy priest of God. The incense lamp

Burned with a struggling light, and a low chaunt

Swelled through the hollow arches of the roof

Like an articulate wail, and there, alone,

Wasted to ghastly thinness, Helon knelt.

The echoes of the melancholy strain

Died in the distant aisles, and he rose up,
Struggling with weakness, and bowed down his head

Unto the sprinkled ashes, and put off

His costly raiment for the leper's garb,

And with the sackcloth round him, and his lip

Hid in a loathsome covering, stood still

Waiting to hear his doom :