The bitter cold, the driving wind and rain,
Were borne too many hours;

My pity came too late, and all in vain,—
Sunshine on frozen flowers.

Thus many a heart which dwells in grief and tears,
Braving and suffering much,

Bears patiently the wrong and pain of years,

But breaks at love's first touch.

ELIZABETH A. ALLEN.

KILLED AT THE FORD.

He is dead, the beautiful youth,

The heart of honour, the tongue of truth,-
He, the life and light of us all,

Whose voice was as blithe as a bugle call,

Whom all eyes followed with one consent,

The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word,
Hushed all murmurs of discontent.

Only last night, as we rode along,
Down the dark of the mountain gap,

To visit the picquet-guard at the ford,
Little dreaming of any mishap,

He was humming the words of some old song:

"Two red roses he had on his cap,

And another he bore at the point of his sword."

Sudden and swift a whistling ball

Came out of the wood, and the voice was still;
Something I heard in the darkness fall,
And for a moment my blood grew chill:
I spake in a whisper, as he who speaks
In a room when some one is lying dead;
But he made no answer to what I said.

We lifted him on his saddle again,

And through the mire, and the mist, and the rain
Carried him back to the silent camp,

And laid him as if asleep on his bed;

And I saw, by the light of the surgeon's lamp,

Two white roses upon his cheeks,

And one just over his heart blood-red!

And I saw in a vision how far and fleet
That fatal bullet went speeding forth,
Till it reached a town in the distant North,
Till it reached a house in a sunny street,
Till it reached a heart that ceased to beat
Without a murmur, without a cry;

And a bell was tolled in that far-off town,

For one who had passed from cross to crown,—
And the neighbours wondered that she should die.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.

BECALMED.

It was as calm, as calm could be;

A death-still night, in June :

A silver sail, on a silver sea,

Under a silver moon.

No least low air the still sea stirred:
But all on the dreaming deep

The white ship lay, like a white sea-bird,
With folded wings, asleep.

For a long long month not a breath of air :
For a month not a drop of rain:

And the gaunt crew watched in wild despair,
With a fever in throat and brain.

And they saw the shore, like a dim cloud, stand
On the far horizon-sea:

It was only a day's short sail to the land,
And the haven where they would be.

Too faint to row-no signal brought
An answer, far or nigh:

Father, have mercy: leave them not
Alone, on the deep, to die.

And the gaunt crew prayed on the decks above, And the women prayed below :

"One drop of rain, for Heaven's great love! O Heaven, for a breeze to blow!"

But never a shower from the skies would burst,

And never a breeze would come:

O God, to think that man can thirst,
And starve, in sight of home!

But out to sea with the drifting tide
The vessel drifted away:

Till the far-off shore, like the dim cloud, died:
And the wild crew ceased to pray!

Like fiends they glared, with their eyes aglow;
Like beasts with hunger wild :

But a mother prayed, in the cabin below,
By the bed of her little child.

It slept, and lo! in its sleep, it smiled:
A babe of summers three :

"O Father, save my little child,
Whatever comes to me!"

Calm gleamed the sea: calm gleamed the sky, No cloud-no sail-in view:

And they cast them lots, for who should die To feed the starving crew!

Like beasts they glared, with hunger wild,
And their red glazed eyes aglow,
And the death-lot fell on the little child
That slept in the cabin below!

And the mother shrieked in wild despair:
"O God, my child-my son.

They will take his life: it is hard to bear:
Yet, Father, Thy will be done."

And she waked the child from its happy sleep,
And she kneeled by the cradle bed:
"We thirst, my child, on the lonely deep:
We are dying, my child, for bread."

On the lone lone sea no sail--no breeze:
Not a drop of rain in the sky:
We thirst-we starve-on the lonely seas;
And thou, my child, must die!"

She wept: what tears her wild soul shed
Not I, but Heaven knows best.

And the child rose up from its cradle bed,
And crossed its hands on its breast:

"Father," he lisped, "so good-so kind,
Have pity on mother's pain:

For mother's sake, a little wind:
Father, a little rain!"

And she heard them shout for the child from the deck, And she knelt on the cabin stairs:

"The child!" they cry, "the child-stand backAnd a curse on your idiot prayers!"

And the mother rose in her wild despair,
And she bared her throat to the knife:
"Strike-strike, me--me: but spare, O spare
My child, my dear son's life!"

O God, it was a ghastly sight:
Red eyes, like flaming brands,
And a hundred belt-knives flashing bright
In the clutch of skeleton hands!

"Me-me-strike-strike, ye fiends of Death!"
But soft--thro' the ghastly air
Whose falling tear was that? whose breath
Waves thro' the mother's hair?

A flutter of sail--a ripple of seas:
A speck on the cabin-pane :
O God, it is a breeze-a breeze-
And a drop of blessed rain!

And the mother rushed to the cabin below,
And she wept on the babe's bright hair:
"The sweet rain falls: the sweet winds blow:
Father has heard thy prayer!"

But the child had fallen asleep again,

And lo! in its sleep it smiled.

"Thank God," she cried, " for His wind and His rain :

Thank God, for my little child!"

SAMUEL K. COWAN.

[By kind permission of the Author.1