Listen closer: When you have done

With woods and cornfields and grazing herds,
A lady, the lovliest ever the Sun

Look'd down upon, you must paint for me;
O, if I only could make you see

The clear blue eyes, the tender smile,
The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace,
The woman's soul, and the angel's face,
That are beaming on me all the while,
I need not speak these foolish words:
Yet one word tells you all I would say,
She is my mother: you will agree

That all the rest may be thrown away.

Two little urchins at her knee
You must paint, sir; one like me,

The other with a clearer brow,
And the light of his adventurous eyes
Flashing with boldest enterprise :
At ten years old he went to sea, -

God knoweth if he be living now;

He sail'd in the good ship Commodore ;
Nobody ever cross'd her track

To bring us news, and she never came back.
Ah, 'tis twenty long years and more
Since that old ship went out of the bay

With my great-hearted brother on her deck:
I watch'd him till he shrank to a speck,
And his face was toward me all the way.
Bright his hair was, a golden brown,

The time we stood at our mother's knee:
That beauteous head, if it did go down,
Carried sunshine into the sea!

Out in the fields one summer night
We were together, half afraid

Of the corn-leaves' rustling, and of the shade
Of the high hills, stretching so still and far,

Loitering till after the low little light

Of the candle shone through the open door; And over the haystack's pointed top,

All of a tremble, and ready to drop,

The first half-hour, the great yellow star,
That we, with staring, ignorant eyes,
Had often and often watch'd to see,

Propp'd and held in its place in the skies
By the fork of a tall red mulberry tree,

Which close in the edge of our flax-field grew,
Dead at the top,
- just one branch full
Of leaves, notch'd round, and lined with wool,
From which it tenderly shook the dew
Over our heads, when we came to play
In its handbreadth of shadow, day after day.
Afraid to go home, sir; for one of us bore
A nest full of speckled and thin-shell'd eggs;
The other, a bird, held fast by the legs,
Not so big as a straw of wheat:

The berries we gave her she wouldn't eat,
But cried and cried, till we held her bill,
So slim and shining, to keep her still.

At last we stood at our mother's knee.
Do you think, sir, if you try,
You can paint the look of a lie?
If you can, pray have the grace
To put it solely in the face

Of the urchin that is likest me:

I think 'twas solely mine, indeed: But that's no matter, — paint it so;

The eyes of our mother, (take good heed,)
Looking not on the nestful of eggs,

Nor the fluttering bird, held so fast by the legs,
But straight through our faces down to our lies,
And, O, with such injured, reproachful surprise!

I felt my heart bleed where that glance went, as though
A sharp blade struck through it.

You, sir, know

That you on the canvas are to repeat
Things that are fairest, things most sweet,
Woods and cornfields and mulberry tree,

The mother,

the lads, with their bird, at her knee:

But, O, that look of reproachful woe!

High as the heavens your name I'll shout,
If you paint me the picture, and leave that out.

THE PAINTER OF SEVILLE.

SUSAN WILSON.

Sebastian Gomez, better known by the name of the Mulatto of Murillo, was one of the most celebrated painters of Spain. There may yet be seen in the churches of Seville the celebrated picture which he was found painting, by his master, a St. Anne, and a holy Joseph, which are extremely beautiful, and others of the highest merit. The incident related occurred about the year 1630.

'Twas morning in Seville; and brightly beam'd
The early sunlight in one chamber there;
Showing where'er its glowing radiance gleam'd,
Rich, varied beauty. 'Twas the study where
Murillo, the famed painter, came to share

With young aspirants his long-cherish'd art,
To prove how vain must be the teacher's care,

Who strives his unbought knowledge to impart,
The language of the soul, the feeling of the heart.

The pupils came; and, glancing round,
Mendez upon his canvas found,
Not his own work of yesterday,

But, glowing in the morning ray,
A sketch so rich, so pure, so bright,

It almost seem'd that there were given,

To glow before his dazzled sight,

Tints and expression warm from Heaven.

'Twas but a sketch, the Virgin's head;

Yet was unearthly beauty shed
Upon the mildly beaming face:
The lip, the eye, the flowing hair,
Had separate, yet blended grace,—
A poet's brightest dream was there!

Murillo enter'd, and, amazed,

On the mysterious painting gazed:

"Whose work is this? - speak, tell me! - he Who to his aid such power can call,” Exclaim'd the teacher eagerly,

"Will yet be master of us all :
Would I had done it! — Ferdinand!
Isturitz! Mendez ! say, whose hand
Among ye all?"— with half-breathed sigh,
Each pupil answer'd, ""Twas not I!"

"How came it, then?" impatiently
Murillo cried: "but we shall see,
Ere long, into this mystery.-

Sebastian!"

At the summons came

A bright-eyed slave,

Who trembled at the stern rebuke

His master gave.

For, order'd in that room to sleep,
And faithful guard o'er all to keep,
Murillo bade him now declare

What rash intruder had been there;
And threaten'd if he did not tell

The truth at once

-the dungeon-cell.

"Thou answer'st not," Murillo said;

(The boy had stood in speechless fear.) 66 Speak on!" - At last he raised his head And murmur'd, "No one has been here."

"""Tis false !

Sebastian bent his knee,

And clasp'd his hands imploringly,

And said, "I swear it, none but me!"

was midnight in Seville; and faintly shone, From one small lamp, a dim uncertain ray ithin Murillo's study; all were gone

Who there, in pleasant tasks or converse gay, ass'd cheerfully the morning hours away.

'Twas shadowy gloom, and breathless silence, save hat, to sad thoughts and torturing fear a prey,