Built o'er a box for the poor, or the blessed image of Mary. Farther down, on the slope of the hill, was the well with its moss-grown Bucket, fastened with iron, and near it a trough for the horses.

Shielding the house from storms, on the north, were the barns and the farmyard. There stood the broad-wheeled wains and the antique ploughs and the harrows; There were the folds for the sheep; and there, in his feathered seraglio, Strutted the lordly turkey, and crowed the cock, with the selfsame

Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent Peter.

Bursting with hay were the barns, themselves a village. In each one

Far o'er the gable projected a roof of thatch; and a staircase,

Under the sheltering eaves, led up to the odorous corn-loft.

There too the dove-cot stood, with its meek and innocent immates Murmuring ever of love; while above in the variant breezes

Numberless noisy weathercocks rattled and sang of mutation.

ON THE ATCHAFALAYA

Water-lilies in myriads rocked on the slight undulations

Made by the passing oars, and, resplendent in beauty, the lotus

Lifted her golden crown above the heads of the boatmen.

Faint was the air with the odorous breath

of magnolia blossoms,

And with the heat of noon; and numberless sylvan islands, Fragrant and thickly embowered with blossoming hedges of roses, Near to whose shores they glided along, invited to slumber.

Soon by the fairest of these their weary oars were suspended.

Under the boughs of Wachita willows, that grew by the margin, Safely their boat was moored; and scattered about on the greensward, Tired with their midnight toil, the weary travellers slumbered. Over them vast and high extended the cope of a cedar.

Like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the landscape;

Twinkling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest

Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together.

Hanging between two skies, a cloud with edges of silver,

Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the motionless water.

Filled was Evangeline's heart with inexpressible sweetness.

Touched by the magic spell, the sacred fountains of feeling

Glowed with the light of love, as the skies and waters around her.

Then from a neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, wildest of singers, Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the water,

Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music,

That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to listen. Plaintive at first were the tones and sad: then, soaring to madness, Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied Bacchantes. Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lamentation;

Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in derision,

As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the tree-tops

Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on the branches.

With such a prelude as this, and hearts that throbbed with emotion,

Slowly they entered the Têche, where it flows through the green Opelousas, And, through the amber air, above the crest of the woodland,

Saw the column of smoke that arose from a neighboring dwelling;Sounds of a horn they heard, and the distant lowing of cattle.

THE FINDING OF GABRIEL

Then it came to pass that a pestilence fell

on the city,

Presaged by wondrous signs, and mostly by flocks of wild pigeons, Darkening the sun in their flight, with

naught in their craws but an acorn. And, as the tides of the sea arise in the month of September,

Flooding some silver stream, till it spreads to a lake in the meadow, So death flooded life, and, o'erflowing its natural margin,

Spread to a brackish lake, the silver stream of existence.

Wealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty to charm, the oppressor;

But all perished alike beneath the scourge of his anger; —

Only, alas! the poor, who had neither friends nor attendants,

Crept away to die in the almshouse, home of the homeless.

Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of meadows and woodlands;Now the city surrounds it; but still, with its gateway and wicket

Meek, in the midst of splendor, its humble walls seem to echo

Softly the words of the Lord : — "The

poor ye always have with you." Thither, by night and by day, came the Sister of Merey. The dying Looked up into her face, and thought, indeed, to behold there

Gleams of celestial light encircle her fore

head with splendor,

Thus, on a Sabbath morn, through the streets, deserted and silent, Wending her quiet way, she entered the door of the almshouse.

Sweet on the summer air was the odor of flowers in the garden;

And she paused on her way to gather the fairest among them,

That the dying once more might rejoice in their fragrance and beauty. Then, as she mounted the stairs to the corridors, cooled by the east-wind, Distant and soft on her car fell the chimes

from the belfry of Christ Church, While intermingled with these, across the meadows were wafted

Sounds of psalms, that were sung by the Swedes in their church at Wieneo. Soft as descending wings fell the calm of the hour on her spirit;

Something within her said, "At length thy trials are ended;"

And, with light in her looks, she entered the chambers of sickness. Noiselessly moved about the assiduous, careful attendants,

Moistening the feverish lip, and the aching brow, and in silence

Closing the sightless eyes of the dead, and concealing their faces,

Where on their pallets they lay, like drifts of snow by the roadside. Many a languid head, upraised as Evangeline entered,

Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she passed, for her presence Fell on their hearts like a ray of the sun on the walls of a prison.

And, as she looked around, she saw how Death, the consoler,

Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it forever.

Many familiar forms had disappeared in the night-time;

Vacant their places were, or filled already by strangers.

Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feel

ing of wonder,

Still she stood, with her colorless lips apart, while a shudder

Ran through her frame, and, forgotten, the flowerets dropped from her fingers,

And from her eyes and cheeks the light

and bloom of the morning. Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such terrible anguish,

That the dying heard it, and started up from their pillows.

On the pallet before her was stretched the form of an old man.

Long, and thin, and gray were the locks that shaded his temples;

But, as he lay in the morning light, his face

for a moment

Seemed to assume once more the forins of its earlier manhood;

So are wont to be changed the faces of

those who are dying.

Hot and red on his lips still burned the flush of the fever,

As if life, like the Hebrew, with blood had

besprinkled its portals,

That the Angel of Death might see the sign, and pass over.

Motionless, senseless, dying, he lay, and his spirit exhausted"

Seemed to be sinking down through infinite depths in the darkness

Darkness of slumber and death, forever sinking and sinking.

Then through those realms of shade, in multiplied reverberations, Heard he that cry of pain, and through the hush that succeeded Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and saintlike,

“Gabriel! O my beloved !”and died away into silence.

Then he beheld, in a dream, once more the home of his childhood;

Green Acadian meadows, with sylvan rivers among them,

Village, and mountain, and woodlands; and walking under their shadow,

As in the days of her youth, Evangeline rose in his vision.

Tears came into his eyes; and as slowly he lifted his eyelids,

Vanished the vision away, but Evangeline knelt by his bedside.

Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for

the accents unuttered

Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his tongue would have spoken.

Vainly he 'strove to rise; and Evangeline, | kneeling beside him,

Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom.

Sweet was the light of his eyes; but it suddenly sank into darkness,

As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a casement.

All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow,

All the aching of heart, the restless, unsat isfied longing,

All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience!

And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her bosom,

Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, Father, I thank thee!"

66

FROM "THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP"

THE REPUBLIC

THOU, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O UNION, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
"T is of the wave and not the rock;
"Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our

In the pleasant days of Summer,
Of that ne'er forgotten Summer,
He had brought his young wife homeward
From the land of the Dacotalis;
When the birds sang in the thickets,
And the streamlets laughed and glistened,
And the air was full of fragrance,
And the lovely Laughing Water
Said with voice that did not tremble,
"I will follow you, my husband !"

In the wigwam with Nokomis,.

With those gloomy guests that watched her,
With the Famine and the Fever,
She was lying, the Beloved,
She, the dying Minnehaha.

"ilark !" she said; "I hear a rushing, Hear a roaring and a rushing, Hear the Falls of Minnehaha Calling to me from a distance!" "No, my child!" said old Nokomis, "Tis the night-wind in the pine-trees!" “Look!" she said; "I see my father Standing lonely at his doorway, Beckoning to me from his wigwam In the land of the Dacotahs!" "No, my child!" said old Nokomis,

""T is the smoke, that waves and beckons !"
"Ah!" said she," the eyes of Pauguk
Glare upon me in the darkness,
I can feel his icy fingers

Clasping mine amid the darkness!
Hiawatha! Hiawatha!"

And the desolate Hiawatha,
Far away amid the forest,
Miles away among the mountains,
Heard that sudden ery of anguish,
Heard the voice of Minnehaha
Calling to him in the darkness,
"Hiawatha! Hiawatha!"

Over snow-fields waste and pathless,
Under snow-encumbered branches,
Homeward hurried Hiawatha,
Empty-handed, heavy-hearted,
Heard Nokomis moaning, wailing:
"Wahonowin! Wahonowin!
Would that I had perished for you,
Would that I were dead as you are!
Wahoñowin! Wahonowin!"

And he rushed into the wigwam,
Saw the old Nokomis slowly
Rocking to and fro and moaning,
Saw his lovely Minnehaha
Lying dead and cold before him,
And his bursting heart within him
Uttered such a cry of anguish,

That the forest moaned and shuddered,
That the very stars in heaven
Shook and trembled with his anguish.
Then he sat down, still and speechless,
On the bed of Minnehaha,

At the feet of Laughing Water,
At those willing feet, that never
More would lightly run to meet him,
Never more would lightly follow.

With both hands his face he covered,
Seven long days and nights he sat there,
As if in a swoon he sat there,
Speechless, motionless, unconscious
Of the daylight or the darkness.
Then they buried Minnehaha;
In the snow a grave they made her,
In the forest deep and darksome,
Underneath the moaning hemlocks;
Clothed her in her richest garments,
Wrapped her in her robes of ermine,
Covered her with snow, like ermine;
Thus they buried Minnehaha.

And at night a fire was lighted,
On her grave four times was kindled,
For her soul upon its journey
To the Islands of the Blessed.
From his doorway Hiawatha
Saw it burning in the forest,
Lighting up the gloomy hemlocks;
From his sleepless bed uprising,
From the bed of Minnehaha,
Stood and watched it at the doorway,
That it might not be extinguished,
Might not leave her in the darkness.

“Farewell !” said he, “Minnehaha !
Farewell, O my Laughing Water!
All my heart is buried with you,
All my thoughts go onward with you!
Come not back again to labor,
Come not back again to suffer,
Where the Famine and the Fever
Wear the heart and waste the body.
Soon my task will be completed,
Soon your footsteps I shall follow
To the Islands of the Blessed,
To the Kingdom of Ponemah,
To the Land of the Hereafter!"

THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE
PORTS

A MIST was driving down the British
Channel,
The day was just begun,