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, 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, 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, The naked, alas! that I might have clad, "The sorrow I might have soothed, For many a thronging shape was there Ay, even the poor rejected Moor Who raised my childish fears! "Each pleading look, that, long ago, Woe, woe for me, if the past should be "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! |