"There is no time to get one, now," the other answered. "My horse is stronger than yours. I'll go into the creek just below, where it's broader and not so deep, and work my way up to him."

"But one horse can't carry both."

"His will follow, be sure, when it sees me." As the last speaker moved away, Gilbert saw a led horse plunging through the water, beside the other. It was a difficult and dangerous undertaking. The horseman and the loose horse entered the main stream below, where its divided channel met and broadened, but it was still above the saddle-girths, and very swift. Sometimes the animals plunged, losing their foothold; nevertheless, they gallantly breasted the current, and inch by inch worked their way to a point about six feet below Gilbert. It seemed impossible to approach

nearer.

"Can you swim?" asked the man.

Gilbert shook his head. ( Throw me the end of Roger's bridle!" he then cried.

The man unbuckled the bridle and threw it, keeping the end of the rein in his hand. Gilbert tried to grasp it, but his hands were too numb. He managed, however, to get one arm and his head through the opening, and relaxed his hold on the log.

A plunge, and the man had him by the collar. He felt himself lifted by a strong arm and laid across Roger's saddle. With his failing strength and stiff limbs, it was no slight task to get into place, and the return, though less laborious to the horses, was equally dangerous, because Gilbert was scarcely able to support himself without help. "You're safe now," said the man, when they reached the bank, but it's a downright mercy of God that you're alive!"

He

The other horseman joined them, and they rode slowly across the flooded meadow. They had both thrown their cloaks around Gilbert, and carefully steadied him in the saddle, one on each side. was too much exhausted to ask how they had found him, or whither they were taking him, too numb for curiosity, almost for gratitude. "Here's your savior!" said one of the men, patting Roger's shoulder. It was all along of him that we found you. Want to know how? Well-about three o'clock it was, maybe a little earlier, maybe a little later, my wife woke me up. Do you hear that?' she says. I listened and heard a horse in the lane before the door, neighing, I can't tell you exactly how it was, - like as if he'd call up the house. 'T was rather queer, I thought, so I got up and looked out of the window, and it seemed to me he had a saddle on. stamped, and pawed, and then he gave another yell, and stamped again. Says I to my wife, There's something wrong here,' and I dressed and went out. When he saw me, he acted the strangest you ever saw; thinks I, if ever an animal wanted to speak, that animal does. that animal does. When I tried to catch him, he shot off, run down the lane a bit, and then came back as strangely acting as ever. I went into the house and woke up my brother, here, and we saddled our horses and started. Away went yours ahead, stopping every minute to look round and see if we followed. came to the water, I kind o' hesitated, but 't was no use; the horse would have us go on, and on, till we found you. I never heard tell of the like of it, in my born days!

He

When we

Gilbert did not speak, but two large tears slowly

gathered in his eyes, and rolled down his cheeks. The men saw his emotion, and respected it.

In the light of the cold, keen dawn, they reached a snug farm-house, a mile from the Brandywine. The men lifted Gilbert from the saddle, and would have carried him immediately into the house, but he first leaned upon Roger's neck, took the faithful creature's head in his arms, and kissed it.

The good housewife was already up, and anxiously awaiting the return of her husband and his brother. A cheery fire crackled on the hearth, and the coffee-pot was simmering beside it. When Gilbert had been partially revived by the warmth, the men conducted him into an adjoining bedroom, undressed him, and rubbed his limbs with whiskey. Then, a large bowl of coffee having been administered, he was placed in bed, covered with half a dozen blankets, and the curtains were drawn over the windows. In a few moments he was plunged in a slumber almost as profound as that of the death from which he had been so miraculously delivered.

Thy sad sighs gather,

And bear aloft Thy sorrow and His pain!
Ah, past guessing,
Beyond expressing,

The pangs that wring my flesh and bone!
Why this anxious heart so burneth,
Why it trembleth, why it yearneth,
Knowest Thou, and Thou alone!
Where'er I go, what sorrow,
What woe, what woe and sorrow
Within my bosom aches!
Alone, and ah! unsleeping,
I'm weeping, weeping, weeping,
The heart within me breaks.

The pots before my window,
Alas! my tears did wet,
As in the early morning

For thee these flowers I set.

Within my lonely chamber

The morning sun shone red:
I sat, in utter sorrow,
Already on my bed.

Help! rescue me from death and stain !
O Maiden!

Thou sorrow-laden,

Incline thy countenance upon my pain!

IN MARGARET'S DUNGEON FROM THE FIRST PART,

FAUST.

Come, follow me! My darling, be more bold:
I'll clasp thee, soon, with warmth a thousand-fold;
But follow now! 'Tis all I beg of thees

No, no! Thou must outlive us.

Now I'll tell thee the graves to give us:

Thou must begin to-morrow

The work of sorrow!

The best place give to my mother,

Then close at her side my brother

And me a little away,

But not too very far, I pray!

And here, on my right breast, my baby lay!
Nobody else will lie beside me!

Ah, within thine arms to hide me,
That was a sweet and a gracious bliss,
But no more, no more can I attain it!

I would force myself on thee and constrain it,
And it seems thou repellest my kiss:
And yet 'tis thou, so good, so kind to see!

My wedding-day it was to be!

Tell no one thou has been with Margaret!
Woe for my garland! The chances

Are over -'tis all in vain!
We shall meet once again,

But not at the dances!

The crowd is thronging, no word is spoken: The square below

And the streets overflow:

The death-bell tolls, the wand is broken.

I am seized, and bound, and delivered
Shoved to the block-they give the sign!

Now over each neck has quivered
The blade that is quivering over mine.
Dumb lies the world like the grave!

O had I ne'er been born!

MEPHISTOPHELES (appears outside).

Off! or you're lost ere morn.
Useless talking, delaying and praying!
My horses are neighing:

The morning twilight is near.

MARGARET.

What rises up from the threshold here? He! he suffer him not!

What does he want in this holy spot? He seeks me!

FAUST.

Thou shalt live.

Ere in the Obscure I sought, such was I,
Ere I had cursed the world so wickedly.
Now fills the air so many a haunting shape,
That no one knows how best he may escape.
What though One Day with rational brightness
beams,

The Night entangles us in webs of dreams.
From our young fields of life we come, elate:
There croaks a bird: what croaks he? Evil fate!

By Superstition constantly insnared,

It grows to us, and warns, and is declared.
Intimidated thus, we stand alone.

The portals jar, yet entrance is there none.
Agitated.

VOICE (from above).

She is saved!

MEPHISTOPHELES (to FAUST).

Hither to me! VOICE (from within, dying away).

Henry! Henry!

Is any one here?

care.

Yes! must be my reply.

FAUST.

And thou, who art thou, then?

collection of poems, entitled Foot Prints. In 1852 a collection of the author's maturer Poems appeared from the press of Ticknor and Co. The verses of Mr. Stoddard are composed with skill in a poetic school of which Keats may be placed at the head. He has a fondness for poetic luxuries, and his reader frequently participates in his enjoyment. He has achieved some success in the difficult province of the Ode, and has an equally rare accomplishment-touched several delicate themes in song with graceful simplicity.

AUTUMN.

Divinest Autumn! who may sketch thee best,
For ever changeful o'er the changeful globe!
Who guess thy certain crown, thy favorite crest,
The fashion of thy many-colored robe?
Sometimes we see thee stretched upon the ground,
In fading woods where acorns patter fast.
Dropping to feed thy tusky boars around,

Crunching among the leaves the ripened mast;
Sometimes at work where ancient granary-floors
Are open wide, a thresher stout and hale,
Whitened with chaff upwafted from thy flail,
While south winds sweep along the dusty floors;
And sometimes fast asleep at noontide hours,
Pillowed on sheaves, and shaded from the heat,
With Plenty at thy feet,

Braiding a coronet of oaten straw and flowers!
What time, emerging from a low hung cloud,
The shining chariot of the Sun was driven
Slope to its goal, and Day in reverence bowed

His burning forehead at the gate of Heaven;-
Then I beheld thy presence full revealed,
Slow trudging homeward o'er a stubble-field;
Around thy brow, to shade it from the west,
A wisp of straw entwisted in a crown;
A golden wheat-sheaf, slipping slowly down,
Hugged tight against thy waist, and on thy breast,
Linked to a belt, an earthen flagon swung;
And o'er thy shoulder flung,

Tied by their stems, a bundle of great pears,
Bell shaped and streaky, some rich orchard's pride;
A heavy bunch of grapes on either side,

Across each arm, tugged downward by the load,
Their glossy leaves blown off by wandering airs;
A yellow-rinded lemon in thy right,

In thy left hand a sickle caught the light,
Keen as the moon which glowed

Along the fields of night:

One moment seen, the shadowy masque was flown,
And I was left, as now, to meditate alone.
Hark! hark!--I hear the reapers in a row,

Shouting their harvest carols blithe and loud, Cutting the rustled maize whose crests are bowed With ears o'ertasselled, soon to be laid low; Crooked earthward now, the orchards droop their boughs

With red-cheek fruits, while far along the wall, Full in the south, ripe plums and peaches fall In tufted grass where laughing lads carouse; And down the pastures, where the horse goes round His ring of tan, beneath the mossy shed,

Old cider-presses work with creaky din,
Oozing in vats, and apples heap the ground;
And hour by hour, a basket on his head,
Up-clambering to the spout, the ploughman pours
them in!

Sweet-scented winds from meadows newly mown
Blow eastward now; and now for many a day
The fields will be alive with wains of hay
And stacks not all unmeet for Autumn's throne!
The granges will be crowded, and the men

Half-smothered, as they tread it from the top;

And then the wains will go, and come again,
And go and come until they end the crop.
And where the melons stud the garden vine,
Crook-necked or globy, smaller carts will wait,
Soon to be urged o'erloaded to the gate
Where apples drying on the stages shine;
And children soon will go at eve and morn
And set their snares for quails with baits of corn;
And when the house-dog snuffs a distant hare,
O'errun the gorgeous woods with noisy glee;
And when the walnuts ripen, climb a tree,
And shake the branches bare!

And by and by, when northern winds are out,
Great fires will roar in chimneys huge at night,
While chairs draw round, and pleasant tales are
told:

And nuts and apples will be passed about,

Until the household, drowsy with delight,
Creep off to bed a-cold!

Sovereign of Seasons! Monarch of the Earth!
Steward of bounteous Nature, whose rich alms
Are showered upon us from thy liberal palms,
Until our spirits overflow with mirth!
Divinest Autuma! while our garners burst

With plenteous harvesting, and heaped increase, We lift our eyes to thee through grateful tears. World-wide in boons, vouchsafe to visit first,

And linger last log o'er our realm of Peace, Where freedom calmly sits, and beckons on the Years!

THE TWO BRIDES.

I saw two maidens at the kirk,
And both were fair and sweet:
One in her wedding robe,

And one in her winding sheet.
The choristers sang the hymn,

The sacred rites were read, And one for life to Life,

And one to Death was wed.

They were borne to their bridal beds,
In loveliness and bloom;
One in a merry castle,

The other a solemn tomb.

One on the morrow woke

In a world of sin and pain; But the other was happier far, And never woke again?

Mr. Stoddard has published, since the previous notice, Songs of Summer (Ticknor & Fields, 1857); Town and Country, and the Voices in the Shells (Dix & Edwards, 1857); The King's Bell (New York, 1863). The last is a narrative poem in rhyme, exhibiting with much felicity, in a series of picturesque illustrations, the search after happiness of a monarch of the Middle Ages, in whose palace a bell was raised, to be rung only when he was perfectly happy. The usual pursuits of a sovereign are depicted in love, and war, and affairs of state; but the bell, pointing the moral of the insufficiency of life, is rung only at the last, or the hour of death. hour of death. "Thus," in the words of one of the poet's critics, "the pursuit of pleasurethe inward history of almost every mortal-is allegorically expressed in this poem; and not only does the author depict in this guise the aspirations and hopes of the future, but also the memory of past joys. To our mind, there is nothing in the work more touching than the

king's fond remembrance of his young queen, whom, while living, he endured, but whom, when dead, he loved. Mr. Stoddard has given to the public, in the King's Bell, a series of most delicate suggestive pictures, which will cause the reader to often pause and wonder whether, after all, he, like King Felix, is not also awaiting the blissful moment when he can bid his 'happy bell' to sound, and whether he too will only hear its tones upon his death-bed.” Mr. Stoddard has also published The Life, Travels, and Books of Alexander Von Humboldt (New York, Rudd & Carleton, 1859), published anonymously, with an introduction by Bayard Taylor; The Loves and Heroines of the Poets (New York, Derby & Jackson, royal 8vo, 1861), an illustrated holiday book, biographical, critical, and descriptive, written with a poet's appreciation of the subject; and Adventures in Fairy Land, a Book for Young People. Mr. Stoddard's next publication was a felicitous poem in memory of President Lincoln.

** In later years Mr. Stoddard has edited four volumes of poetic selections: Melodies and Madrigals, Mostly from the Old English Poets, 1865; The Late English Poets, 1865, a collection of the minor British poets from Matthew Arnold and Alexander Smith to Jean Ingelow and Algernon Charles Swinburne; a new edition of Griswold's Poets and Poetry of America, 1872, which inserts poems from twenty-three additional authors, but does not attempt to represent, or even mention, the many works of the older poets issued since the former edition; and Griswold's Female Poets of America, 1873. His minor writings comprise, in two quarto volumes, The Story of Little Red Riding Hood, and The Children in the Wood, both told in verse, 1865; and the story of Putnam the Bold, 1870. In the following year appeared The Book of the East, and Other Poems, containing the riper fruits of his poetic genius, as The Children of Isis; Adsum, a poem to the memory of Thackeray; The Country Life, etc. He edited The Aldine for several years. The King's Bell has been acceptably translated into German by Adolph Strodtmann.

Mrs. Elizabeth Stoddard is the author of numerous contributions to the magazines, and of several novels: The Morgesons, 1862; Two Men, 1865; and Temple House, 1867. She also assisted her husband in the preparation of an annual for 1869, The Keepsake; and has contributed some pleasing poems to the leading magazines.

THE KING'S BELL.

Prince Felix at his father's death was king. So he commanded all the bells to ring A jubilant peal, and bade his heralds say, From that time forward every happy day Should so be honored. "Not an hour will pass, Nay, scarce the turning of the smallest glass, Without the merry clamour of my bells, In sooth I fear they'll banish funeral knells, And set the mourners dancing! I shall be So happy the whole world will envy me."

Thus spake the new-made monarch, and indeed He had some grounds to justify his creed. Imprimis, he was young; and youth, we know, Cannot be wretched, if it would be so,

For grant it sometimes weeps, and seems to pine, It feels through all its royal self, like wine.

Then he was rich as Croesus; bags of gold
Heaped up his treasury, and wealth untold
Smouldered in guarded chests of precious stones,
And blazed like stars in sceptres, crowns, and
thrones.

Powerful, and rich, and young-in short a King,
O happy man! why should the bells not ring?
He built himself a palace, like his state,
Magnificent, with many a marble gate;
A great dome in the centre, and thereon
A gilded belfry, shining like the sun,
And in it hung a bell of wondrous tone,
From which a silken cord ran to his throne:
Nor only there, but o'er his royal bed.
(0 how unlike the sword above the head
Of that unhappy king of olden time!)
My people will be deafened by its chime,"
Quoth he, when all was done.
And now began
That perfect life, not yet vouchsafed to man.
He chose his ministers as monarchs should,
Among the oldest men, the great and good,
And, placing in their hands the reins of State,
Charged them to make his people good and great.
For me,' he thought, an idle life is best;
They love to bustle-let them, I shall rest,'
He lolled upon his couch with dreamy eyes,
Watching he cared not what the summer skies,
The nest of swans, the fountain's rise and fall,
Or even the sunlight shifting on the wall.
Perchance he ordered music; at the word
His fancy, flattered from its trance, was stirred
And quickened with sweet sounds, from harp and
lure,

:

Or some sweet voice that chid the music mute.
Ten times a day he stretched his hand to ring
The bell, he felt so glad, but some slight thing-
A buzzing gnat the wind too cold or hot-
Deterred him till the impulse was forgot.
Have you been happy?' something seemed to say
At night I see you have not rung to-day.'
"I must have been too idle," he replied;
And then, at dawn: "I will arise and ride
A league or two in the dew and morning wind,
"Twill freshen and revive my drowsy mind."
He called a sleeping groom, who cursed his fate,
And bade him take his courser to the gate,
That he might mount unseen, and ride away,
Before the court was stirring for the day.
The courser soon was saddled, and the groom
Returned, still yawning, to the monarch's room,
But found him fast asleep, so back he crept,
And late that day both groom and monarch slept.

'Twas known next morning that the king was ill.

But caring little for the affairs of kings,
The people caught the whisper, as they will,
Soon went their ways, and thought of other
things.

In his still chamber, darkened from the day,
Low in his bed of state the sick man lay;

A grave physician stood beside his bed,
(He who first told him that the queen was dead,
The prince was born,) the prince, too, pale, dis-
tressed,

But hoping, as youth always does, the best.

You took the prize, I hear." His father spoke. Ay, sir, but rather by a lucky stroke, Than any skill or prowess of my own. You'll have another soon — I mean the throne." May Heaven preserve you long! He quickly

chid

The foolish, loving prayer: "May Heaven forbid !" Next day "The king is worse," the rumour ran; And now it touched the people, who began