Darling, piece out with love the strength I lack,
And have kind words for me when I get back."

Scarce did I give this letter sight and tongue,
Some swift-blown rain-drops to the window clung,
And from the clouds a rough, deep growl proceeded :
My thunder-storm had come, now 'twasn't needed.
I rush'd out-door. The air was stain'd with black:
Night had come early, on the storm-cloud's back:
And every thing kept dimming to the sight,
Save when the clouds threw their electric light;
When, for a flash, so clean-cut was the view,
I'd think I saw her, knowing 'twas not true.
Through my small clearing dash'd wide sheets of spray,
As if the ocean waves had lost their

way;

Scarcely a pause the thunder-battle made,

In the bold clamour of its cannonade.

And she, while I was shelter'd, dry, and warm,
Was somewhere in the clutches of this storm!
She who, when storm-frights found her at her best,
Had always hid her white face on my breast!

My dog, who'd skirmish'd round me all the day,
Now crouch'd and whimpering, in a corner lay ;
I dragg'd him by the collar to the wall,

I press'd his quivering muzzle to a shawl,-
"Track her, old boy!" I shouted; and he whined,
Match'd eyes with me, as if to read my mind,
Then with a yell went tearing through the wood.
I follow'd him, as faithful as I could.

No pleasure-trip was that, through flood and flame;
We raced with death; we hunted noble game.

All night we dragg'd the woods without avail;

The ground got drench'd, we could not keep the trail.

Three times again my cabin home I found,

Half hoping she might be there, safe and sound;

But each time 'twas an unavailing care :

My house had lost its soul; she was not there!

THE FIRST SETTLER'S STORY.

When, climbing the wet trees, next morning-sun
Laugh'd at the ruin that the night had done,
Bleeding and drench'd, by toil and sorrow bent,
Back to what used to be my home I went.
But, as I near'd our little clearing-ground,
Listen! I heard the cow-bell's tinkling sound.
The cabin door was just a bit ajar;

It gleam'd upon my glad eyes like a star.
"Brave heart," I said, "for such a fragile form!

25

She made them guide her homeward through the storm!"
Such pangs of joy I never felt before.

"You've come!" I shouted, and rush'd through the door.

Yes, she had come,

and gone again. She lay

With all her young life crush'd and wrench'd away,

Lay, the heart-ruins of our home among,

Not far from where I kill'd her with my tongue.

The rain-drops glitter'd 'mid her hair's long strands,
The forest thorns had torn her feet and hands,

And 'midst the tears-brave tears - that one could trace
Upon the pale but sweetly resolute face,

I once again the mournful words could read,

"I've tried to do my best,

I have, indeed."

And now I'm mostly done; my story's o'er;
Part of it never breathed the air before.
'Tisn't over-usual, it must be allow'd,
To volunteer heart-story to a crowd,

And scatter 'mongst them confidential tears,
But you'll protect an old man with his years;
And wheresoe'er this story's voice can reach,
This is the sermon I would have it preach:

Boys flying kites haul in their white-wing'd birds: You can't do that way when you're flying words. "Careful with fire," is good advice we know: "Careful with words," is ten times doubly so.

Thoughts unexpress'd may sometimes fall back dead,
But God himself can't kill them when they're said!
You have my life-grief: do not think a minute
'Twas told to take up time. There's business in it.
It sheds advice: whoe'er will take and live it,
Is welcome to the pain it costs to give it.

THE BLIND FIDDLER.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

AN Orpheus! an Orpheus! Yes, Faith may grow bold, And take to herself all the wonders of old ;

Near the stately Panthéon you'll meet with the same, In the street that from Oxford hath borrow'd its name.

His station is there; and he works on the crowd,
He sways them with harmony merry and loud;
He fills with his power all their hearts to the brim,
Was aught ever heard like his fiddle and him?

What an eager assembly! what an empire is this!
The weary have life, and the hungry have bliss;
The mourner is cheer'd, and the anxious have rest;
And the guilt-burthen'd soul is no longer opprest.

As the Moon brightens round her the clouds of the night.
So he, where he stands, is a centre of light;

It gleams on the face, there, of dusky-brow'd Jack,
And the pale-visaged Baker's, with basket on back.

That errand-bound 'Prentice was passing in haste,
What matter! he's caught, and his time runs to waste;
The Newsman is stopp'd, though he stops on the fret;
And the half-breathless Lamplighter, he's in the net!

The Porter sits down on the weight which he bore;
The Lass with her barrow wheels hither her store;·

If a thief could be here he might pilfer at ease;
She sees the Musician, 'tis all that she sees !

He stands, back'd by the wall; he abates not his din;
His hat gives him vigour, with boons dropping in,
From the old and the young, from the poorest; and there!
The one-pennied Boy has his penny to spare.

O, blest are the hearers, and proud be the hand

Of the pleasure it spreads through so thankful a band;
I am glad for him, blind as he is! all the while

If they speak, 'tis to praise, and they praise with a smile.
That tall Man, a giant in bulk and in height,
Not an inch of his body is free from delight;
Can he keep himself still, if he would? O, not he!
The music stirs in him like wind through a tree.

Mark that Cripple who leans on his crutch; like a tower
That long has lean'd forward, leans hour after hour!
That Mother, whose spirit in fetters is bound,
While she dandles the Babe in her arms to the sound.

Now, coaches and chariots! roar on like a stream;
Here are twenty souls happy as souls in a dream:
They are deaf to your murmurs, they care not for you,
Nor what ye are flying, nor what ye pursue!

HISTORY.

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE.

Ar the dawn of civilization, when men began to observe and think, they found themselves in possession of various faculties, first their five senses, and then imagination, fancy, reason, and memory. They did not distinguish one from the other. They did not know why one idea of which they were conscious should be more true than another. They looked round them in continual surprise, conjecturing fantastic explanations

of all they saw and heard. Their traditions and their theories blended one into another, and their cosmogonies, their philosophies, and their histories are all alike imaginative and poetical. It was never perhaps seriously believed as a scientific reality that the Sun was the chariot of Apollo, or that Saturn had devoured his children, or that Siegfred had been bathed in the dragon's blood, or that earthquakes and volcanoes were caused by buried giants, who were snorting and tossing in their sleep; but also it was not disbelieved.

The original historian and the original man of science was alike the poet. Before the art of writing was invented, exact knowledge was impossible. The poet's business was to throw into beautiful shapes the current opinions, traditions, and beliefs; and the gifts required of him were simply memory, imagination, and music. Each celebrated minstrel sang his stories in his own way, adding to them, shaping them, colouring them, as suited his peculiar genius. The Iliad of Homer, the most splendid composition of this kind which exists in the world, is simply a collection of ballads. The tale of Troy was the heroic story of Greece, which every tribe modified or re-arranged.

The chronicler is not a poet like his predecessor. He does not shape out consistent pictures with a beginning, a middle, and an end. He is a narrator of events and he connects them on a chronological string. He professes to be relating facts. He is not idealizing; he is not singing the praises of heroes; he means to be true in the literal and commonplace sense of that ambiguous word.

Neither history nor any other knowledge can be obtained except by scientific methods. A constructive philosophy of it, however, is as yet impossible, and for the present, and for a long time to come, we shall be