am doomed. Eternal mercy, let my crime be washed away; let my spirit ascend pure. Farewell mother, sister, father, husband." With the last word I heard a fall, as if the spirit had left the body. 10. I sprang towards the sound; I met but the solid wall. "Horrible illusion," I cried, "am I mad, or the victim of the powers of darkness ?" I tore away the hangings; a door was before me. I burst it through with a blow of the ax, and saw stretched on the floor, and insensible, Salome! I caught my child in my arm; I bathed her forehead with my tears; I besought her to look up, to give some sign of life, to hear the full forgiveness of my breaking heart. She looked not, answered not, breathed not. 11. To make a last effort for her life, I carried her into the banquet-room. But the fire had forced its way there; the wind, bursting in, had carried the flame through the long galleries; and flashes and spires of lurid light, already darting through the doors, gave fearful evidence that the last stone of the palace must soon go down. I bore my unhappy daughter towards the window; but the height was deadly; no gesture could be seen through the piles of smoke; the help of man was in vain. To my increased misery, the current of air revived Salome at the instant when I hoped that, by insensibility, she would escape the final pang. 12. She breathed, stood, and opening her eyes, fixed on me the vacant stare of one scarcely aroused from sleep. Still clasped in my arms, she gazed again; but my wild face covered with dust, my half-burnt hair, the ax gleaming in my hand terrified her; she uttered a scream, and darted away from me headlong into the center of the burning. I rushed after her, calling on her name. A column of fire shot up between us; I felt the floor sink; all was then suffocation; I struggled and fell. a Illu'sion; deception, fantasy. b Sa-lo-me. c Banquet-room; a room for entertainment or feasting. LESSON XIX. NIGHT IN EDEN. MRS. EVANS. 1. 'Twas moonlight in Eden! Such moonlight, I ween, As never again on this earth shall be seen; So soft fell the radiance, so wondrously blue Was the sky, with its star-enthroned angels in view! 2. How bright was the bower where the fair-fingered Eve, The blossoming garlands delighted to weave ; While the rose caught its blush from her cheek's living dye, And the violet its hue from her love-lighted eye. 3. There lulled by the murmurs of musical streams, 4. But other forms gazed on the grandeur of night, And beings celestial grew glad at the sight; All warm from the glow of their amber-hued skies, 5. There, azure-robed Beauty, with rapture-lit smile, 6. From mountain and forest an organ-like tone; a The garden of Eden in which Adam and Eve were placed, is supposed to have been on the river Euphrates, a little north of the Persian gulf. b Ween; think, fancy. 7. With blushes like Eden's own rose in its bloom, der censer slow wafting ambrosial perfume, With soft-veiling tresses of sunny-hued hair, The spirit of fragrance breathed sweet on the air. 8. Then first on the ears of the angels of light, Rose the singing of birds that enchanted the night; For the breezes are minstrels in Heaven, they say, And the leaves and the flowers have a musical play. 9. Each form of creation with joy was surveyed, 10. All night, as if stars were deserting their posts, The heavens were bright with the swift-coming hosts! While the sentinel mountains, in garments of green, With glory-decked foreheads, like monarchs were seen. 11. O Eden, fair Eden! where now is thy bloom? And where are the pure ones that wept o'er thy doom? Their plumes never lighten our shadowy skies, Their voices no more on earth's breezes arise. 12. But joy for the faith that is strong in its powers, A fairer and better land yet shall be ours; When Sin shall be vanquished, and Death yield his prey, 115 13. Then, nobler than Adam, more charming than Eve, The Son of the Highest his palace shall leave; While the saints who adored Him arise from the tomb, At the triumph-strain, telling "His Kingdom is come!" a Cen'-ser; a vessel in which incense is burned. b Am-bro'-si-al; fragrant. c Gazelle; a small species of antelope. LESSON XX. WESTMINSTER ABBEY.a LESTER. 1. ONE sees in Westminster Abbey almost as much as he would have seen had he lived in England for a thousand years. If a great person has died, or a great deed been done in this island for centuries, they have brought some memento and placed it within these walls. Here we read the story of the virtues and the crimes of England's great men; here we find their monuments, their escutcheons," and their ashes. 2. In different ages, and from different scenes of action, England's kings have come to these solemn cloisters at last, to forget in the deep slumber of the grave, the troubles, the follies and the guilt of the life just ended. No one of them, as he went to his sepulchre, stopped to listen to the clamors that swelled behind him; to the contentions of fierce and eager aspirants to his vacant throne. 3. Henry Seventh's chapel is called "the wonder of the world." It stands at the east end of the Abbey, and is so neatly joined to it that it seems to be part of the main edifice. It is adorned with sixteen Gothic towers beautifully ornamented, and jutting from the building in different angles. It is built on the plan of a cathedral, with a nave and side aisles. The entrance to this chapel is through curiously wrought, ponderous gates of brass. The lofty ceiling is worked into an astonishing variety of designs, and you may imagine my surprise when I was told that it was all wrought in solid stone. A celebrated French architect afterward told me that one man could not complete the work upon that ceiling in less time than a thousand years. 4. But they are not all of royal or noble blood that rest here. Greater Englishmen than English kings,have a name a West'-min-ster Abbey; a burial place in London for the illustrious dead. b Escutch'. eons; shields or coats of arms. c Henry Seventh; the first king of England of the race of Tudor. and a grave within these solemn chambers. Bucklers, hel mets, and broadswords are spread over the tomb of the bold baron; the cross and the crosier mark the sepulcher of some pious bishop; and over this tomb are banners, streamers and all the insignia of naval triumph, doing honor to some captain of the sea, who is here alike forgetful of the roar of the battle and the terrors of the wreck. 5. As you pass along those aisles whose silence is unbroken save by your own footfall, and read the quaint epitaph of heroes of olden time, insensibly will the impression steal over the imagination that it was but yesterday that all these dead were alive, and you, a stranger from the far future, have been carried back to the days of ancient chivalry to converse with walking shadows; to think of the present as though it. were a prophecy, a dream, or a hope, and of the past as though it were a reality. 6. And yet speak to that suit of armor which seems now to threaten as it once did in battle, it returns no answer; the voice is still, that once spoke through those iron jaws, and the cold moisture which gathers on its rusted face seems like tears shed over the hero who once wore it. 7. When the mind is full of thoughts suggested by these relics of antiquity, and the heart full of emotions; when the images of great men who have long flitted around the fancy appear, and we see before us the very sword they once used in battle, and the very banner that once floated over them, there is no room left for other thought; we can not contemplate modern times or our own existence. 8. While we are lingering in a place where England has preserved all that she could of the great and the virtuous, a place of which we have read and thought from childhood, and around which so many bright recollections cluster, what marvel if hours on hours steal away,ere we wake from the strong illusion. a Crosier; a bishop's staff with a cross on it. b Insignia; badges or marks of distinction. |