My Mary sleeps beside them—happy that
She stayed not long enough on earth to know
How like a desert this green earth may be,
Without one living thing o'er all its breadth
The heart may cling to, or that clings to us.
Of all my house I only have been left,
A wretch so leagued with want and misery
That I have nought to do but suffer on
In silence through my earthly pilgrimage,
All hopeless that my lot shall e'er be mended.
But soon my steps must end; some day, perhaps,
I'll lay me down a-weary by the wayside,
My arm beneath my head, and no one near,
And die:-some passing traveler, perchance,
Will find the beggar's corse; and strangers' pence
Collected from this neighborhood, will hire
Some other wretch to give it burial.

-Robert M. Bard.

CXLIX. THE MOOR'S REVENGE.

BEFORE Grenada's fated walls, encamped in proud array,
And flushed with many a victory, the Spanish army lay.
Of all Grenada's fortresses but one defies their might:
On Alphuāra's minarets the crescent still is bright.
Almanzor! King Almanzor! all vainly you resist:
Your little band is fading fast away like morning mist,
A direr foe than ever yet they met on battle-plain
Assaults life's inmost citadel, and heaps the ground with slain.

One onset more of Spanish ranks,—and soon it will be made,— And Alphuāra's towers must reel, and in the dust be laid. "And shall the haughty infidel pollute this sacred land?" Almanzor said, as mournfully he marked his dwindling band. "Upon our glorious crescent shall the Spaniard set his heel? And is there not one lingering hope? Can heaven no aid reveal? Ay, by our holy prophet, now, one ally still remains!

And I will bind him close to me,-far better death than chains!"

The victors at the banquet sat, and music lent its cheer,
When suddenly a sentry's voice announced a stranger near.
From Alphuāra had he come, with fierce, unwonted speed,
And much it would import to Spain the news he bore to heed.
"Admit him!" cry the revelers; and in the pilgrim strode,
And, throwing off his mantle loose, a Moorish habit showed!
Almanzor! King Almanzor!" they cried, with one acclaim:
"Almanzor!" said the Moslem chief; "Almanzor is my name.

“To serve your prophet and your king, O Spaniards, I am here: Believe, reject me, if you will,—this breast has outlived fear! No longer in his creed or cause Almanzor can confide;

For all the Powers above, 't is clear, are fighting on your side." "Now welcome, welcome, gallant Moor!" the Spanish chieftain

said:

'Grenada's last intrenchment now we speedily shall tread.

Approach, embrace; our waning feast thy coming shall renew; And in this cup of foaming wine we'll drink to yours and you."

Right eagerly, to grasp the hands outstretched on every side, Almanzor rushed, and greeted each as bridegroom might his bride;

He glued his fevered lips to theirs,—he kissed them on the cheek,
And breathed on all as if his heart would all its passion wreak.
But suddenly his limbs relax, a flush comes o'er his face,
He reels, as with a pressure faint, he gives a last embrace;
And livid, purple grows his skin, and wild his eyeballs roll,
And some great torture seems to heave the life-roots of his soul.

"Look, Giaours! miscreants in race and infidels in creed! Look on this pale, distorted face, and tell me what ye read! These limbs convulsed, these fiery pangs, these eyeballs hot and blear!

Ha! know ye not what they portend? The plague, the plague,

is here!

And it hath sealed you for its own; ay, every Judas kiss

I

gave shall bring anon to you an agony like this!

All art is vain: your poisoned blood all leechcraft will defy, Like me ye shall in anguish writhe-like me in torture die!"

Once more he stepped their chief to reach, and blast him with

his breath;

But sank, as if Revenge itself were striving hard with Death. And through the group a horrid thrill his words and aspect woke, When, with a proud, undaunted mien, their chief Alphonzo spoke: "And deem'st thou, treacherous renegade, whatever may befall, These warriors true, these hearts of proof, Death ever can appall? Ay, writhe and toss, no taint of fear the sight to them can bring; Their souls are shrived, and Death himself for them has lost his sting.

"Then let him come as gory War, with life-wounds deep and red, Or let him strike as fell Disease, with racking pains instead, Still in these spirits he shall find a power that shall defy All woe and pain that can but make the mortal body die. So, brethren, leave this carrion here,-nay, choke not with thy gall!—

And through our camps a note of cheer let every bugle call.
We'll tear yon crescent from its tower ere stars are out to-night:
And let Death come,-we'll heed him not!-so, forward! to the
fight!"

A groan of rage upon his lips, Almanzor hid his head
Beneath his mantle's ample fold, and soon was with the dead.
But, roused by those intrepid words to death-defying zeal,
The chieftains armed as if they longed to hear the clash of steel.
The trumpets sounded merrily, while, dazzlingly arrayed,
On Alphuara's walls they rushed, and low the crescent laid.
And of the gallant, gallant hearts who thus grim Death defied,
'Mid pestilence and carnage, none of plague or battle died.
-Polish of Mickiewicz.

CL.-SHORT SELECTIONS.

DEATH.

WHY start at death? Where is he? death arriv'd,
Is past; not come or gone, he's never here.
Ere hope, sensation fails; black-boding man
Receives, not suffers, death's tremendous blow.

The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave;
The deep, damp vault, the darkness and the worm;-
These are the bugbears of a winter's eve,
The terrors of the living, not the dead.
Imagination's fool and error's wretch,

Man makes a death which nature never made;
Then on the point of his own fancy falls,
And feels a thousand deaths in fearing one.

THREATENING.

-Young.

Ir thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot,
Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame,
I'll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime,
Or I'll so maul you and your toasting-iron,

That you shall think the devil has come from hell!

THE BRAVE MAN.

-Shakespeare.

THE brave man is not he who feels no fear,

For that were stupid and irrational;

But he whose noble soul its fear subdues,

And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from.
As for your youth, whom blood and blows delight,
There is not in their crew

Away with them!

One valiant spirit.

-Joanna Baillie.

RAILLERY.

ABOVE all things, raillery decline;
Nature but few does for that task design.
'Tis in the ablest hands a dangerous tool,
But never fails to wound the meddling fool;
For all must grant it needs no common art
To keep men patient when we make them smart.
No wit alone, nor humor's self, will do,

Without good nature, and much prudence, too,
To judge aright of persons, place and time;
For taste decrees what's low and what's sublime;
And what might charm to-day, or o'er a glass,
Perhaps at court, or next day, would not pass.

-Stillingfleet.

CLI. THE CURSE OF REGULUS.

THE palaces and domes of Carthage were burning with the splendors of noon, and the blue waves of her harbor were rolling and gleaming in the gorgeous sunlight. An attentive ear could catch a low murmur, sounding from the center of the city, which seemed like the moaning of the wind before a tempest. And well it might. The whole people of Carthage, startled, astounded by the report that Regulus had returned, were pouring, a mighty tide, into the great square before the senate-house. There were mothers in that throng whose captive sons were groaning in Roman fetters; maidens, whose lovers were dying in the distant dungeons of Rome; gray-haired men and matrons, whom Roman steel had made childless; men, who were seeing their country's life crushed out by Roman power; and with wild voices, cursing and groaning, the vast throng gave vent to the rage, the hate, the anguish of long years.

Calm and unmoved as the marble walls around him, stood Regulus, the Roman. He stretched his arm over the surging crowd with a gesture as proudly imperious as though he stood at the head of his own gleaming cohorts. Before that silent command the tumult ceased, the halfuttered imprecation died upon the lip; so intense was the silence that the clank of the captive's brazen manacles smote sharp on every ear as he thus addressed them:

"Ye doubtless thought, judging of Roman virtue by your own, that I would break my plighted faith, rather than by returning, and leaving your sons and brothers to rot in Roman dungeons, to meet your vengeance. Well, I could give reasons for this return, foolish and inexplicable as it seems to you; I could speak of yearnings after immortality, of those eternal principles in whose pure light a patriot's death is glorious, a thing to be desired; but, by great Jove! I should debase myself to dwell on such high themes to you! If the bright blood which feeds my heart