In a Bastile house in Paris he lives, shut up from the sun and the breeze,

By a great dead wall surrounded, and a warlike chevaux de

frise;

So that when the scaler touches a prong he touches a secret

spring,

And raises the larum loud and long as the bells of the Bastile ring.

Deep sunk in these dark defenses lies the bedroom of the duke,

Into which the honest light of heaven is scarcely permitted

A room with one chink of a window, and a door with won

derful guards,

Which opens to one alone who knows the secret of the

wards;

And into the strong thick wall of his room, in a doubleribbed iron chest,

Like cats' eyes gleaming in the gloom, the living diamonds rest.

Before them lies the happy duke, with a dozen loaded pistols, That he, without leaving his bed, may enjoy and defend the

precious crystals.

But grant that a burglar scales the wall, vaults over the chevaux de frise,

Breaks open the door, and slays the duke,-what then? Is the treasure his?

Not yet; for the duke had closed the safe ere the thief to his chamber got:

If he force the locks, four guns go off, and batter him on the spot!

Now, is not the duke the happiest man that lives this side of the grave?

Alas! he is chained by his diamonds; he is body and soul their slave!

He dares not leave his diamonds, he dares not go from

home;

O'er the cloud-capt hights, through the lowly vales, he has

no heart to roam.

Beside the diamond's costly light all other light is dim ;

Winter and summer, day and night, can take no hold on

him.

Methinks he would be a richer man were he as poor as I, Who have no gems but yon twinkling stars, the diamonds of the sky.

Could he the dewy daisies love, those diamonds of the sod,
Methinks he were a happier man, and a little nearer God.
I also think, could he sell all, and give it to the poor,
The famous Duke of Brunswick's name would gloriously

endure.

Robert Leighton.

THE LADY'S DREAM.

The lady lay in her bed,—

Her couch so warm and soft;

But her sleep was restless and broken still,
For, turning often and oft

From side to side, she muttered and moaned,

And tossed her arms aloft.

At last she started up,

And gazed on the vacant air

With a look of awe, as if she saw

Some dreadful phantom there;

And then in the pillow she buried her face

From visions ill to bear.

The very curtain shook,

Her terror was so extreme;

And the light that fell on the broidered quilt

Still kept a tremulous gleam;

And her voice was hollow, and shook as she cried,

"Oh me! that awful dream!

"That weary, weary walk

In the churchyard's dismal ground!

And those horrible things, with shady wings,

That came and flitted round!

Death, death, and nothing but death,

In every sight and sound!

"And, oh, those maidens young,

Who wrought in that dreary room,

With figures drooping, and specters thin,

And cheeks without a bloom!

And the voice that cried, 'For the pomp of pride We haste to an early tomb!

"For the pomp and pleasure of pride

We toil like the African slaves,

And only to earn a home at last

Where yonder cypress waves.'

"And still the coffins came

With their sorrowful trains and slow;

Coffin after coffin still,

A sad and sickening show:

From grief exempt, I never had dreamt

Of such a world of woe!

"For the blind and the cripple were there, And the babe that pined for bread,

And the houseless man, and the widow poor,
Who begged, to bury the dead!

The naked, alas! that I might have clad,
The famished I might have fed.

"The sorrow I might have soothed,
And the unregarded tears:

For many a thronging shape was there
From long-forgotten years;

Ay, even the poor rejected Moor

Who raised my childish fears!

"Each pleading look, that, long ago,
I scanned with a heedless eye;
Each face was gazing as plainly there
As when I passed it by.

Woe, woe for me, if the past should be
Thus present when I die!

"No need of sulphurous lake, No need of fiery coal,

But only that crowd of human kind

Who wanted pity and dole

In everlasting retrospect

Will wring my sinful soul!