At length, the bridal song again

It is no sin, for God is on my side!"

pain.

"Hark! the joyous airs are ringing! Sister, dost thou hear them singing? How merrily they laugh and jest! Would we were bidden with the rest! I would don my hose of homespun gray,

And my doublet of linen striped and gay;

Perhaps they will come; for they do not wed

Till to-morrow at seven o'clock, it is said!"

"I know it!" answered Margaret ; Whom the vision, with aspect black as jet, Mastered again; and its hand of ice Held her heart crushed, as in a vice!

"Paul, be not sad! 'Tis a holiday;
To-morrow put on thy doublet gay !
But leave me now for awhile alone."
Away, with a hop and a jump, went
Paul,

And, as he whistled along the hall,
Entered Jane, the crippled crone.

Holy Virgin! what dreadful heat! I am faint, and weary, and out of breath!

But thou art cold, -art chill as death;

My little friend! what ails thee, sweet?"

"Nothing! I heard them singing home the bride;

And, as I listened to the song,

I thought my turn would come erelong,
Thou knowest it is at Whitsuntide.
Thy cards forsooth can never lie,
To me such joy they prophesy,
Thy skill shall be vaunted far and
wide

When they behold him at my side. And poor Baptiste, what sayest thou? It must seem long to him ;- methinks I see him now!"

Jane, shuddering, her hand doth press : "Thy love I cannot all approve; We must not trust too much to happi

The other, with cold drops upon her brow, Joins her two hands, and kneels upon the

floor,

And whispers, as her brother opes the door, "O God! forgive me now!"

And then the orphan, young and blind, Conducted by her brother's hand, Towards the church, through paths un

scanned,

With tranquil air, her way doth wind. Odors of laurel, making her faint and pale, Round her at times exhale,

And in the sky as yet no sunny ray,
But brumal vapors gray.

Near that castle, fair to see, Crowded with sculptures old, in every part,

Marvels of nature and of art,

And proud of its name of high degree,
A little chapel, almost bare

At the base of the rock, is builded
there;

All glorious that it lifts aloof, Above each jealous cottage roof, Its sacred summit, swept by autumn gales, And its blackened steeple high in air, Round which the osprey screams and sails.

"Paul, lay thy noisy rattle by!" Thus Margaret said. "Where are we? we

ascend!"

"Yes; seest thou not our journey's end? Hearest not the osprey from the belfry cry?

The hideous bird, that brings ill luck, we know!

Dost thou remember when our father said, The night we watched beside his bed, 'O daughter, I am weak and low;

Take care of Paul; I feel that I am dying!'

And thou, and he, and I, all fell to crying? Then on the roof the osprey screamed aloud;

And here they brought our father in his shroud.

There is his grave; there stands the cross

It is broad day, with sunshine and with rain;

And yet the guests delay not long,
For soon arrives the bridal train,
And with it brings the village throng.

In sooth, deceit maketh no mortal gay,
For lo! Baptiste on this triumphant day,
Mute as an idiot, sad as yester-morning,
Thinks only of the beldame's words of
warning.

And Angela thinks of her cross, I wis;
To be a bride is all! the pretty lisper
Feels her heart swell to hear all round her

I know the charms that made her youth a benediction:

Nor should I be content,

As a censorious friend, to solace thine affliction

By her disparagement.

But she was of the world, which fairest things exposes

To fates the most forlorn ;

A rose, she too hath lived as long as live the roses,

The space of one brief morn.

The Wisdom, infinitely wise,
That gives to human destinies
Their foreordained necessity,

Has made no law more fixed below,
Than the alternate ebb and flow
Of Fortune and Adversity.

THE ANGEL AND THE CHILD

(L'ANGE ET L'ENFANT; ELÉGIE A UNE MÈRE)

unfeeling;

All prayers to him are vain ;

Cruel, he stops his ears, and, deaf to our appealing,

He leaves us to complain.

The poor man in his hut, with only thatch for cover,

Unto these laws must bend;

The sentinel that guards the barriers of the Louvre

Cannot our kings defend.

AN angel with a radiant face,
Above a cradle bent to look,
Seemed his own image there to trace,

As in the waters of a brook.

"Dear child! who me resemblest so," It whispered, "come, oh come with me! Happy together let us go,

The earth unworthy is of thee!

"Here none to perfect bliss attain; The soul in pleasure suffering lies

These red-tiled roofs, this fruitful soil,
Bathed with an azure all divine,
Where springs the tree that gives us oil,
The

grape that giveth us the wine;

Beneath these mountains stripped of trees,
Whose tops with flowers are covered o'er,
Where springtime of the Hesperides
Begins, but endeth nevermore ;

Under these leafy vaults and walls,
That unto gentle sleep persuade;
This rainbow of the waterfalls,
Of mingled mist and sunshine made;

Upon these shores, where all invites,
We live our languid life apart;
This air is that of life's delights,
The festival of sense and heart;

This limpid space of time prolong,
Forget to-morrow in to-day,
And leave unto the passing throng
The Sea, the Town, and the Highway.

TO MY BROOKLET
(À MON RUISSEAU)

BY JEAN FRANÇOIS DUCIS
THOU brooklet, all unknown to song,
Hid in the covert of the wood!
Ah, yes, like thee I fear the throng,
Like thee I love the solitude.

O brooklet, let my sorrows past

Lie all forgotten in their graves, Till in my thoughts remain at last Only thy peace, thy flowers, thy waves.

The lily by thy margin waits ;

The nightingale, the marguerite; In shadow here he meditates

His nest, his love, his music sweet.

Near thee the self-collected soul

Knows naught of error or of crime; Thy waters, murmuring as they roll, Transform his musings into rhyme.

Ah, when, on bright autumnal eves,
Pursuing still thy course, shall I
List the soft shudder of the leaves,
And hear the lapwing's plaintive cry?

BARRÉGES

BY LEFRANC DE POMPIGNAN

I LEAVE you, ye cold mountain chains, Dwelling of warriors stark and frore! You, may these eyes behold no more, Save on the horizon of our plains.

Vanish, ye frightful, gloomy views!

Ye rocks that mount up to the clouds ! Of skies, enwrapped in misty shrouds, Impracticable avenues!

Ye torrents, that with might and main
Break pathways through the rocky walls,
With your terrific waterfalls
Fatigue no more my weary brain!