I read-I learned-I thought-I loved!
(For love was all the motive then ;)
And one who was a friend, gave help,
And I went forth and mixed with men:
I talked with him they called her lord;
I talked with her-who was a bride
Through fraud and force and rapine; God!
She spoke :-I think I could have died!

I heard her words; I saw her eyes,
Where patient mingled with the sad:
I felt her breath upon my cheek;
Its perfume did not drive me mad.
I listened dumbly to her wrongs-
Imprisoned, struck, despised, deceived;
And, in my heart, I heard a voice

Cry out "Revenge!"-and I believed!

Still time wore on; and efforts vain

Were made to bend the demon's will;
To wean him from the wrong to right:
But he was base and cruel still.
Such deeds he did! Romance hath bared
The truth of many a hellish crime;

But never yet did fiction dream

Of half that I could tell in rhyme.

Suffice it; all things have an end.
There is an end where mortal pain
Must stop, and can endure no more:
This limit did we now attain;
For hope-sweet patience-virtue fled!
I did what she could never dare:
I cut the canker from her side;

And bore her off-to healthier air!

Far far away! She never knew
That I had blood upon my breast:
And yet (although she loved me much,)
I know not why she could not rest.
I strove to cheer her love,-to stir

Her pride-but, ah, she had no pride!
We loved each other;-yet she pined:
We loved each other;-yet she died!

She died, as fading roses die,

Although the warm and healing air Comes breathing forth, and wraps them round: She died, despite my love and care.

I placed her gently in the lead;

I soothed her hair, as it should be;
And drew a promise-what she vowed
Is secret, 'tween my soul and me!

She died; and yet I have her still,-
Carved, softly, in Carrara stone;
And in my chamber she abides,
Sitting in silence,-all alone;'
Alone, save when the midnight moon
Her calm and spotless bosom seeks;
Then, she unclasps her marble hands,
And moves her marble lips-and speaks!

And this is why I restless seem;
And this is why I always rise

At midnight still throughout the year,
And look for comfort in the skies,
For then the angel of my heart

Awakens from her sleep of stone;
And we exchange sweet hopes and thoughts,
In words unto the earth unknown.

Now, tell me, am I mad?-Who's he
That stares, and gibbers at me there?
I know him: there's his crooked claw;
His glittering eye; his snaky hair;
Begone!-he's gone! Excuse me, sir;
These fellows often pinch my brain;
(I know full well who spurs them on ;)
But as you see-they tease in vain.

LITTLE GRETCHEN.

Through a window, old and broken,
Came the moonlight like a token,—
Like a token pure and holy,
From the happy world above;--
Just within the shadow lying,
There a little child lay dying,
All alone lay moaning, crying,
With no one to help or love.

True, the streets were full of people,
And the shadow of a steeple,
Of a steeple, grand and stately,
Almost fell upon the floor.

Yet within was want and sorrow,

No glad thoughts for hope's to-morrow,
Only fearing lest a footfall,

Should come through the open door;

Lest a footstep, drunken, reeling,

Should come through the darkness stealing,
And with brutal hand uplifted,

Drive her out into the town;

Where all day with voice that trembled,
She had sung, where crowds assembled,
Asking only for a penny,

As she wandered up and down.

But when night came, weak and weary,
To the attic, dark and dreary,

To a cruel master's chiding,
Came the little faltering feet;
And the tired child lay sobbing,

Mingled with her heart's wild throbbing,
As she listened to the coming,
For his coming from the street;

Till the moonlight growing brighter,
Made the dark room clearer, lighter,
And a gentle voice seemed calling,
Till she followed where it led.

Through the window, old and broken,
Came the moonlight, like a token,
Like a peaceful benediction,
On the pale face of the dead.

THE LITTLE EVANGELIST.-HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

It was Sunday afternoon. St. Clare was stretched on a bamboo lounge in the verandah, solacing himself with a cigar. Marie lay reclining on a sofa, opposite the window opening on the verandah, closely secluded, under an awning of transparent gauze, from the outrages of mosquitoes, and languidly holding in her hand an elegantly bound prayerbook. She was holding it because it was Sunday, and sho

imagined she had been reading it, though, in fact, she had been only taking a succession of short naps, with it open in her hand.

Miss Ophelia, who, after some rummaging, had hunted up a small Methodist meeting within riding distance, had gone out, with Tom as driver, to attend it; and Eva had accompanied them.

"I say, Augustine," said Marie after dozing a while, "I must send to the city after my old Doctor Posey; I'm sure I've got the complaint of the heart."

"Well; why need you send for him? This doctor that attends Eva seems skillful."

"I would not trust him in a critical case," said Marie; "and I think I may say mine is becoming so! I've been thinking of it, these two or three nights past; I have such distressing pains, and such strange feelings"

"Oh, Marie, you are blue; I don't believe it's heart complaint."

"I dare say you don't," said Marie; "I was prepared to expect that. You can be alarmed enough if Eva coughs, or has the least thing the matter with her; but you never think of me."

"If it's particularly agreeable to you to have heart disease, why, I'll try and maintain you have it," said St. Clare; "I didn't know it was."

"Well, I only hope you won't be sorry for this, when it's too late," said Marie; “but, believe it or not, my distress about Eva, and the exertions I have made with that dear child, have developed what I have long suspected."

What the exertions were which Marie referred to, it would have been difficult to state. St. Clare quietly made this commentary to himself, and went on smoking, like a hard-hearted wretch of a man that he was, till a carriage drove up before the verandah, and Eva and Miss Ophelia alighted.

Miss Ophelia marched straight to her own chamber, to put away her bonnet and shawl, as was always her manner, before she spoke a word on any subject; while Eva came, at St. Clare's call, and was sitting on his knee, and giving him an account of the services they had heard.

They soon heard loud exclamations from Miss Ophelia's room, (which, like the one in which they were sitting, opened on to the verandah,) and violent reproof addressed to somebody.

"What new witchcraft has Tops been brewing?" asked St. Clare. "That commotion is of her raising, I'll be bound!" And, in a moment after, Miss Ophelia, in high indignation, came dragging the culprit along.

"Come out here, now," she said. “I will tell your master!" "What's the case now?" asked Augustine.

"The case is that I can't be plagued with this child any longer! It's past all bearing; flesh and blood cannot endure it! Here, I locked her up and gave her a hymn to study; and what does she do, but spy out where I put my key, and has gone to my bureau and got a bonnet-trimming, and cut it all to pieces to make dolls' jackets! I never saw anything like it in my life!"

"I told you, cousin," said Marie, " that you'd find out that these creatures can't be brought up without severity. If I had my way now," she said, looking reproachfully at St. Clare, "I'd send that child out and have her thoroughly whipped; I'd have her whipped till she couldn't stand !”

"I don't doubt it," said St. Clare. "Tell me of the lovely rule of woman! I never saw above a dozen women that wouldn't half kill a horse, or a servant, either, if they had their own way with them; let alone a man!"

"There is no use in this shilly-shally way of yours, St. Clare!" said Marie. "Cousin is a woman of sense, and she sees it now as plain as I do."

Miss Ophelia had just the capability of indignation that belongs to the thorough-paced housekeeper, and this had been pretty actively aroused by the artifice and wastefulness of the child; in fact, many of my lady readers must own that they should have felt just so in her circumstances; but Marie's words went beyond her, and she felt less heat.

"I wouldn't have the child treated so for the world,” she said; "but I am sure, Augustine, I don't know what to do. I've taught and taught; I've talked till I'm tired; I've whipped her, I've punished her in every way I can think of, and still she's just what she was at first."