Though never lovelier brow was given There are no looks like those which dwell On long-remembered things which soon Must take our first and last farewell. Day fades apace: another day, A wanderer o'er the dark-blue sea, Her mother's land. Hence, on her breast, She touched her lute: never again Then spread its glad wings to the air. She drank the breath as it were health That sighed from every scented blossom, And, taking from each one a leaf, Hid them like spells upon her bosom, Then sought the sacred path again She once before had traced when lay A Christian in her father's chain. And gave him gold and taught the way To fly. She thought upon the night When, like an angel of the light, She stood before the prisoner's sight, And led him to the cypress grove, And showed the bark and hidden cove, And bade the wandering captive flee In words he knew from infancy, And when she thought how for her love He had braved slavery and death, That he might only breathe the air Made sweet and sacred by her breath. She reached the grove of cypresses: Another step is by her side; Another moment, and the bark Bears the fair Moor across the tide. 'Twas beautiful by the pale moonlight To mark her eyes, now dark, now bright, As now they met, now shrank away, From the gaze that watched and worshipped their day. They stood on the deck, and the midnight gale Just waved the maiden's silver veil Just lifted a curl, as if to show The cheek of rose that was burning below; And never spread a sky of blue More clear for the stars to wander through, For every wave was a diamond gleam, Another evening came, but dark; The storm-clouds hovered round the bark As the dim moon through vapors shone: The waves swept on; he felt her heart Beat close and closer yet to his; They burst upon the ship the sea Has closed upon their dream of bliss. Surely theirs is a pleasant sleep Whose solitary stem has stood For years alone beside the sea, The last of a most noble race That once had there their dwelling-place, Long past away. Beneath its shade A soft green couch the turf has made, And glad the morning sun is shining On those beneath the boughs reclining. Nearer the fisher drew. He saw The dark hair of the Moorish maid Like a veil floating o'er the breast Where tenderly her head was laid, Were heavy with the briny flood. That make the loveliest of love, And called the place "The Maiden's Cove," If she be not so to me, Shall a woman's virtues move 'Cause her fortune seems too high, And unless that mind I see, Great or good, or kind or fair, go; For if she be not for me, What care I for whom she be? GEORGE WITHER. DEER-SHOOTING. TWAS the flash of the rifle, the bullet is sped, And the pride of the forest, the roebuck, is dead: How he crashed through the thicket! how fleetly he passed! That rustle betrayed him, that bound was his And his fawns have departed, his widow has There is none but the hunter to follow his | High over the lesser steeples, tipped with a hearse, And no poet but me for his elegy's verse. Ah, yes! for another had fashioned the lay Which was raised by the peasants who bore him away; From a hundred sad voices, as homeward we sped, golden ball, That hung like a radiant planet caught in its earthward fall First glimpse of home to the sailor who made the harbor-round, And last slow-fading vision dear to the outward-bound. The chorus re-echoed, "The roebuck is The gently-gathering shadows shut out the the North as one Long ere the wondrous pillar of battle-cloud By the glare of her blazing roof-tree the And, bathed in the living glory, as the peo- For the death that raged behind them, and ple lifted their eyes, the crash of ruin loud, They saw the pride of the city, the spire of To the great square of the city were driven St. Michael's, rise the surging crowd, Where, yet firm in all the tumult, unscathed | But see! he has stepped on the railing; he by the fiery flood, climbs with his feet and his hands, With its heavenward-pointing finger the And firm on a narrow projection, with the church of St. Michael stood. But e'en as they gazed upon it there rose a sudden wail A cry of horror blended with the roaring of the gale, belfry beneath him, he stands; Now once, and once only, they cheer hima single tempestuous breath And there falls on the multitude gazing a hush like the stillness of death. On whose scorching wings updriven a single Slow, steadily mounting, unheeding aught flaming brand save the goal of the fire, Aloft on the towering steeple clung like a Still higher and higher, an atom he moves on bloody hand. "Will it fade?" The whisper trembled from a thousand whitening lips; Far out on the lurid harbor they watched it from the ships the face of the spire. He stops. Will he fall? Lo! for answer, a gleam like a meteor's track, And, hurled on the stones of the pavement, the red brand lies shattered and black. A baleful gleam that brighter and ever Once more the shouts of the people have rent brighter shone, Like a flickering, trembling will-o'-wisp to a steady beacon grown. "Uncounted gold shall be given to the man whose brave right hand, For the love of the perilled city, plucks down yon burning brand!" the quivering air; At the church-door mayor and council wait with their feet on the stair, And the eager throng behind them press for a touch of his hand The unknown saviour whose daring could compass a deed so grand. while they gaze? So cried the mayor of Charleston, that all But why does a sudden tremor seize on them the people heard, But they looked each one at his fellow, and And what meaneth that stifled murmur of no man spoke a word. Who is it leans from the belfry with face upturned to the sky, Clings to a column and measures the dizzy spire with his eye? wonder and amaze? He stood in the gate of the temple he had perilled his life to save, And the face of the hero, my children, was the sable face of a slave. Will he dare it, the hero undaunted, that With folded arms he was speaking in tones. terrible sickening height? that were clear, not loud, Or will the hot blood of his courage freeze in And his eyes, ablaze in their sockets, burnt his veins at the sight? into the eyes of the crowd: |