closed was every door,

For gentle Sleep had twined her arms around both rich and poor,

by the hymning (Vashistha) for you, O Indra | Each village home was dark and still, and and Agni, and falls thick as the showers of rain from heaven. O Indra and Agni, do ye two hear the invocation of the chanter and accept of his praises. O ye our rulers, give us the full reward of our religious services. O ye heroes, Indra and Agni, do not A childless mother sighing sat and combed give us over to disgrace, nor to be the song her locks of gray.

Save in one little cot, where by a candle's flickering ray

Her husband and her children all were in the last cold bed,

Where one by one she'd laid them down and left them with the dead,

Then toiling on toward her rest, a lonely pilgrim she,

For God and poverty were now her only

company.

The weary cotter's heavy lids had closed Upon the shadowed window-sill a well-worn with closing day,

Bible lay;

And on his silent hearth a tinge of dying Against the wall a coat had hung for many

firelight lay.

The ancient hamlet seemed asleep beneath the starry sky;

A little river sheathed in ice came gliding

gently by;

a weary day;

And on the scanty table-top with crumbs of supper strewn

There stood beside a porringer two little empty shoon.

The gray church in the graveyard where the The fire was waning in the grate, the spinrude forefathers lay ning-wheel at rest,

Stood like a mother waiting till her children The cricket's song rang loudly in that lonely came from play.

No footstep trod the tiny town; the drowsy street was still

Save where the wandering night-wind sang

its requiem wild and shrill;

woman's nest,

As with her napkin thin and worn, and wet with many a tear,

She wiped the little pair of shoon her darling used to wear.

The stainless snow lay thick upon those Her widowed heart had often leaped to hear

quaint old cottage-eaves,

his prattle small;

And wreaths of fairy frost-work hung where He was the last that she had left, the dear

grew last summer's leaves.

est of them all;

And as she rocked her to and fro, while tears Nipt, nipt i' th' bud, an' laid i' th' dust, my came drooping down, little Willy's dead,

She sighed and cried, "Oh, Willy love, these And o' that made me cling to life lies in his little empty shoon!"

With gentle hand she laid them by, she laid them by with care,

For Willy he was in his grave, and all her thoughts were there;

She paused before she dropped the sneck that closed her lambless fold:

frosty bed.

He's gone! He's gone! My poor bare neest! What's o' this world to me? My darlin' lad, aw'm lonely neaw; when mun aw come to thee?

'He's crept into his last dark nook an' left me pinin' here,

It grieved her heart to bar the door and An' nevermore his two blue e'en for me mun leave him in the cold.

A threadbare cloak she wrapped around her limbs so thin and chill;

She left her lonely cot behind whilst all the world was still,

twinkle clear;

And through the solitary night she took her The snow-clad yew tree stirred with pain to hear that plaintive cry;

silent way

With weeping eyes toward the spot where The old church listened, and the spire kept

little Willy lay.

The pale, cold moon had climbed aloft into the welkin blue;

A snow-clad tree across the grave its leafless shadow threw;

And as that mournful mother sat upon a mound thereby

The bitter wind of winter sighed to hear her One step she took, and then her tears fell

LAMENT OF MEGARA, THE WIFE OF Would that I too had with

HERCULES.

FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS.

HY dost thou vex thy spirit, mother

"W" mine?

my children died, The poisoned arrow sticking in my side! Then with fast tears my mother and my

sire

Had laid me with them on the funeral pyre,

Why fades thy cheek? at what dost thou And to my birth-land given, on their re

repine?

Because thy son must serve a popinjay

As though a lion did a fawn obey?

Why have the gods so much dishonored me?
Why was I born to such a destiny?
Spouse of a man I cherished as mine eyes,
For whom heart-deep my vowed affection lies,
Yet must I see him crossed by adverse fate,
Of mortal men the most misfortunate,
Who with the arrows which Apollo-no!
Some Fate or Fury-did on him bestow,
In his own house his own sons raging slew:
Where in the house was not the purple
dew?

turn,

Our mingled ashes in one golden urn;

But they in Thebes, renowned for steeds,
remain,

And still they farm their old Aonian plain;
But in steep Tiryns I must dwell apart,
With many sorrows gnawing at my heart.
Mine eyes are fountains which I cannot
close;

I seldom see him, and but brief repose
My hapless husband is allowed at home:
By sea or land he must for ever roam;
None but a heart of iron or of stone
Could bear the labors he has undergone.

I saw them slain by him; I-I, their Thou, too, like water meltest still away, motherFor ever weeping every night and day. Did see their father slaughter them. None None of my kin is here to comfort me, other For they beyond the piny isthmus be;

Had e'er a dream like this. To me they There's none to whom I may pour out my

Mother, save us!" What could I do? And like a woman all my heart disclose, They died.

As when a bird bewails her callow young, O'er whom, unfeathered yet, she fondly hung,

Which now a fierce snake in the bush devours,

But sister Pyrrha; but she too forlorn
For her Iphicles, thine and hers, doth mourn.
Unhappiest mother thou, in either son,
Twin stamps of Zeus and of Amphitryon."

And while she spoke from either tearful well

Flies round and round, shrieks, cannot help The large drops faster on her bosom fell,

them, cowers,

Nor nearer dares approach her cruel foe,

Thus I, most wretched mother, to and fro
Rushed madly through the house, my chil-

dren dear,

While she her slaughtered children called to mind,

And parents in her country left behind. With tear-stained cheek and many a groan and sigh

My dead, dead children, 'wailing everywhere. Alemena to her son's wife made reply:

LAMENT OF MEGARA, THE WIFE OF HERCULES.

"Why, hapless mother, with this train of Methought, aside his cloak and tunic laid,

I mourn that Fate with ours thy fortune Nor could he raise himself from where he

THE BRIDES OF VENICE.

T was St. Mary's Eve, and Each in her veil and by two bridesmaids

all poured forth
As to some grand solem-

nity. The fisher
Came from his islet, bring-

ing o'er the waves

His wife and little one;

the husbandman
From the Firm Land, along

the Po, the Brenta,
Crowding the common ferry,
all arrived,

followed,

Only less lovely, who behind her bore
The precious caskets that within contained
The dowry and the presents. On she
moved,

Her eyes cast down and holding in her
hand

gossamer,

A fan that gently waved, of ostrich-feathers.
Her veil, transparent as the
Fell from beneath a starry diadem,
And on her dazzling neck a jewel shone,

And in his straw the prisoner turned and Ruby or diamond or dark amethyst,

listened,

So great the stir in Venice. Old and young
Thronged her three hundred bridges; the

grave Turk,

Turbaned, long vested, and the cozening Jew
In yellow hat and threadbare gaberdine,
Hurrying along. For, as the custom was,
The noblest sons and daughters of the state,
They of patrician birth, the flower of Venice,
Whose names are written in the Book of
Gold,

A jewelled chain, in many a winding wreath,
Wreathing her gold brocade.

Before the church-
That venerable structure now no more-
On the sea-brink another train they met,
No strangers, nor unlooked for ere they

came,

Brothers to some, still dearer to the rest, Each in his hand bearing his cap and plume, And, as he walked, with modest dignity Were on that day to solemnize their nuptials. Folding his scarlet mantle. At the gate They join, and, slowly up the bannered aisle

At noon a distant murmur through the Led by the choir, with due solemnity

crowd,

Rising and rolling on, announced their coming,

And never, from the first, was to be seen
Such splendor or such beauty. Two and
two,

The richest tapestry unrolled before them,
First came the brides in all their loveliness,

Range round the altar. In his vestments

there

The patriarch stands, and while the anthem. flows

Who can look on unmoved, the dream of
years

Just now fulfilling? Here a mother weeps,
Rejoicing in her daughter. There a son