"So-let him writhe! How long Will he live thus? Quick, my good pencil, now! What a fine agony works upon his brow! Ha! gray-haired, and so strong! How fearfully he stifles that short moan! 'Pity' thee! So I do! I pity the dumb victim at the altar— A thousand lives were perishing in thine!— "Hereafter!' Ay-hereafter! A whip to keep a coward to his track! Come from the grave to-morrow with that story— "No, no, old man! we die Even as the flowers, and we shall breathe away For when that bloodshot quivering is o'er, "Yet there's a deathless name! A spirit that the smothering vault shall spurn, Consumed my brain to ashes as it shone, "Ay-though it bid me rifle My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst— The yearning in my throat for my sweet child, "All-I would do it all— Sooner than die, like a dull worm to rot- O heavens!—but I appal Your heart, old man! forgive-Ha! on your lives, Let him not faint!-rack him till he revives! "Vain-vain!-give o'er. His eye Glazes apace. He does not feel you now— Stand back! I'll paint the death-dew on his brow But for one moment-one-til! I eclipse "Shivering! Hark! he mutters Is his heart still? Aha! lift up his head! * How like a mounting devil in the heart Rules the unreined ambition! Let it once But play the monarch, and its haughty brow Glows with a beauty that bewilders thought And unthrones peace forever. Putting on The very pomp of LUCIFER, it turns The heart to ashes, and with not a spring We look upon our splendour and forget The thirst of which we perish! Yet hath life Promising well; and love-touched dreams for some; And from Love's very bosom, and from Gain, Oh, if there were not better hopes than these→ The grave there is no heaven in whose wide air The spirit may find room, and in the love Of whose bright habitants the lavish heart May spend itself,-what thrice-mocked fools are we! Anne C. Lynch (Madame Botta). THE BATTLE OF LIFE. THERE are countless fields the green earth o'er Where the verdant turf has been dyed with gore} Where hostile ranks, in their grim array, With the battle's sinoke have obscured the day; Where the groans of the wounded and dying rose, The hero that wars on the tented field, With an arm all nerve and a heart all fire. What though he fall?at the battle's close, He may not fly on that fatal field- He must win or lose, he must conquer or yield. Pause and gird all thine armour on; Thy shield of Faith hast thou tried and proved-- Unseen foes in thy pathway hide; |