Laugh up in bubbling whispers to his ear,
And listened to the rarer voice of sorrows,
Its fullness dreamed, from very need of grief
To balance joy and laughter. The girl's heart—
Albeit he was older-spake to his.

True things need no long knowledge, ere they speak
One to another. Even mirth and tears

May have communion.

She was not lovely.

So they spake together.

Neither painter's hand,

Nor poet's passion would have taken her
To bed in the rich labor of their love,
And make immortal. Yet for him she wore
A robe of dazzling loveliness-a girdle
More beauty-giving than the magic cestus
Of Aphrodite-a crown, such as those
Which star angelic brows with light divine-
The whiteness of the soul. One might not tell
Of goodness, but the crimson of her blood
Kindled on cheek and brow-a wail of woe
Brought alms from eye or hand-one gentle word
Lit all the dimpled smiles, whose laugh is love.
Yet words, which call up blushes that know more
Than she knew, were as if they were not spoken
When uttered near her. Like some weedless wave,
Her glass-clear face let see her innocence,
Unconscious of the shadow of the cloud.

Under the beauty of that gentle heart, His own more calm and silent seriousness Expanded into joy, as wind-harps find Song, in the kisses of the winds. He learnt, And loved. Her girlhood knew not what he knew;

Yet it believed in more than he believed.

Her ignorance tarried far behind his knowledge,
Yet was its innocent faith a higher wisdom.
And so they spake together. He found reasons
For that she felt, while she rejoiced to see
The meaning of her faith unrolled before her,
And looked up to his eyes. And still she told him
New feelings, which were questions to his thirst

For truth, and ever in the analysis

Of his own toil he found her, reasons still.

And sometimes was her soul, the stone, whose touch Tested the metal of a new-found truth,

Working conviction, or detecting lies,
Which rung like gold. She had a faith in him,
Because she saw that all he did believe
Had roots of iron; and he worshipped her,
Because he saw a more complete belief
In her, so full of blossom and of fruit.

They talked of Time, and of Eternity,
And Human Life. She could not see the whole
Of grief and woe, he saw upon an earth
Where Godhead's daily work is life and beauty.
She felt all labor should be joy, because
It ought to tend to joy. Then first he learnt,
Want of success and inward weariness,
And the disgust and anguish, are not children
Of circumstance they only seem to spring from;
But of the man, who makes the circumstance
An impulse and an action. Then he found

The meaning of the "porch" in which the Greek

Once stripped him to the soul of worldly care,
That its own nakedness might be a mail,

Which, like the slippery limbs of well-oiled wrestlers,

Offered no spot for gripe or planted blow

But found for better use. That soul must take

All which is human-want, and weariness,

And woe, and tears, and suffering, into it,

Which would be mailed against them—not divorcing
From earth to strengthen, but by wedded share
In all that laughs, or weeps, or lives, or loves,
Or perishes, or withers, gaining strength.
And so, they spake together-he, confirming
Her faith-she, widening and enlarging his,
Until their souls almost became as one,
Yet separate still. Perfected unity

Is an absorption, and absorption-death.

Not in themselves can things that love, absorb,
Although their instincts, by a strange compulsion,
Tend to identity-dimming the act

Which is the promise of more perfect bliss,
With a desire, like an imperfect shadow
Projected backwards from the tomb, on earth.
And then they spake of this, and saw that each
Must have a separate path, and separate task,
Although alike, or cheering each the other-
That love, and truth, and faith, are only lovely

To toil and knowledge-toil and knowledge only
To faith, and truth, and love. And so they loved,
Because each one was lovely to the other-
Separate, yet interlaced-inwoven hearts-
The blending threads, whose varying colors paint
The web of gladness, in which each has part.

Who say, the course of true love runs not smooth, Lie in their teeth. How, other, can it run? What strength has earth to change or trouble truth? There wanted not who told the girl the story Of what he had been. She had heard it first From his own lips, in all its guilt and sin, and she saw

Nor with one palliation;
Labor had done its need.

Of penitence and suffering.
And yet, not cancel error.

Does cleansing come.

He did not tell her

These may be,
Not by tears

There is one pool alone

Of healing-one Bethesda for the soul.

She loved him all the more, because she knew

The past was as a mighty fire, whose ash

Manured the soil, which, but for that dead past,
Might have been ever barren. There were those
Who had claims of kindred on her, bade her shun him,
As if he were a pestilence. But ever,

She bade him wait, and in her gentleness

He learnt the strength of patience. Soon or late
Patience must gather. So, it came to pass

As she had said; and their still-growing love,
Undarkened by that jealousy and doubt

Which never spring from truth, won silent favor,
Until none chid it; and the man became
In his ripe age the husband of the girl.

Such loves endure and strengthen, until Death
Perfect and merge them in the greater love
To which they ever tend. The end of toil
Is that perfecting and absorbing love.
Only reward of labor, this-the joy
Of its own working and progressing will,
Which is a fullness and delight, embracing
All that it looks on-even as the stream
Which belts the beauty of the earth with tides
That never tire of kissing—a delight

Which is all love, and only, unlike God,

In that it can not all contain the life

It fain would drink into its own large heart.

No hindrance, varying intensity—

What is more like, is nearer God himself.
So love itself, loves that it is most like.

Strength clings to truth, and truth to faith, and faith
To that which it believes, and have more love
For these, though they love all things-none the less
In love for all, that they love these the more.

And so the Pilgrim travelled ever on,
To the mute gates which open outward, ever.
And ever with him, with an equal step,
Went the companion of his pilgrimage,
The wedded wife of his body and his soul—
Younger in life, and yet as old in faith,
Sharing and cheering every step he took.
Sometime they slackened-sometime hurried pace,
As if their love sufficed them; yet, as if
Their conscience chid the very love which seemed
As if it could suffice them. So they went,
And ever as they went, they found new reasons
To feel that earth is good, and God is good,
And life is meant for labor and for growth.
Nor did she feel that he knew more than her-
Nor he, that she was feebler. His wanderings
Had been in the circle only, and led him back
To the very starting-point where she stood ready,
Bathed in the blushes of her innocence,
All wonder and belief, to take his hand-
A marvellous gazer, waiting for a guide,
More sure of foot, on the threshold of a life
Which seems to ignorance as it is to wisdom,
All joy and beauty. He, in cancelling
His past, had grown again a child in heart,
Although a man in years and strength. He placed
His palm in hers, and hand in hand, and limb
To limb, and heart with heart, alike in hope,

In faith, and love, they went upon their way.

THE FALL OF SEBASTOPOL.

"If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly."

THE English and French reports of the present European war, while affording infinite amusement to the American reader, can not have failed to enlighten an observing public as to the reliability of any statements made by a monarchical press, in matters where the interests of their masters are in any wise concerned. At one time an English mail teems with details of an expedition, by which, if their statements are to be believed, Cronstadt is to be demolished within a few hours after the arrival of Sir Charles Napier's "splendid armada"that "glorious and powerful fleet of 44 vessels, 22,000 guns, 160,000 horse-power, and 22,000 seamen and marines !"-and that the world may not hesitate to accept, as gospel truth, such gasconading assurances, we are furnished, in addition to these startling statistical statements, with long lists of terrible battleships with more terrible names-with minute accounts of an "asphyxiating bomb," intended to suffocate, smother, and utterly deprive of breath such unfortunate Russians as may escape the unerring aim of those "dreadful Minié rifles."

We have scarce time to recover from the unpleasant contemplation of such devastating implements, and to become, to a degree, reconciled to their recitals of wholesale slaughter, when our feelings are again shocked by more recent reports of the "annihilation of Sebastopol." All our preconceived notions of fortifications-all our early opinions in regard to military defenses are upset by the intelligence that, "The colors of the allied army are now floating over Sebastopol." With a slight change, only to be accounted for by a difference of idiom, the same information is promulged to the world by the declaration of the French press, that "The capture of Sebastopol in 1854 avenges France for the defeat of Moscow in 1812."