The hands we lay

dark;

When God and man shall speak as one!

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.

THE TOUCHSTONE.

A MAN there came, whence none could tell,
Bearing a touchstone in his hand;
And tested all things in the land
By its unerring spell.

Quick birth of transmutation smote
The fair to foul, the foul to fair;
Purple nor ermine did he spare,
Nor scorn the dusty coat.

Of heirloom jewels, prized so much, Were many changed to chips and clods, And even statues of the gods Crumbled beneath its touch.

But

219

Ere the setting of the sun,
And Tubal Cain was filled with pain
For the evil he had done;

He saw that men, with rage and hate,
Made war upon their kind,
That the land was red with the blood
they shed

In their lust for carnage blind.
And he said, "Alas! that ever I made,
Or that skill of mine should plan,
The spear and the sword for men whose
joy

Is to slay their fellow-man."

And for many a day old Tubal Cain

Sat brooding o'er his woe; And his hand forbore to smite the ore,

And his furnace smouldered low. But he rose at last with a cheerful face,

And a bright, courageous eye, And bared his strong right arm for work, While the quick flames mounted high. And he sang, "Hurrah for my handicraft!'

And the red sparks lit the air; "Not alone for the blade was the bright steel made";

And he fashioned the first ploughshare.

Forever quivering o'er his task,
While far and wide a crimson jet
Leaps forth to fill the woven net
Which in unnumbered crossing tides
The flood of burning life divides,
Then, kindling each decaying part,
Creeps back to find the throbbing heart.

But warmed with that unchanging flame
Behold the outward moving frame,
Its living marbles jointed strong
With glistening band and silvery thong,
And linked to reason's guiding reins
By myriad rings in trembling chains,
Each graven with the threaded zone
Which claims it as the master's own.

See how yon beam of seeming white
Is braided out of seven-hued light,
Yet in those lucid globes no ray
By any chance shall break astray.
Hark how the rolling surge of sound,
Arches and spirals circling round,
Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear
With music it is heaven to hear.

Then mark the cloven sphere that holds
All thought in its mysterious folds,
That feels sensation's faintest thrill,
And flashes forth the sovereign will;
Think on the stormy world that dwells
Locked in its dim and clustering cells!
The lightning gleams of power it sheds
Along its hollow glassy threads!

O Father! grant thy love divine
To make these mystic temples thine!
When wasting age and wearying strife
Have sapped the leaning walls of life,
When darkness gathers over all,
And the last tottering pillars fall,
Take the poor dust thy mercy warms,
And mould it into heavenly forms!

DOROTHY Q.

A FAMILY PORTRAIT.

GRANDMOTHER's mother; her age, I guess,
Thirteen summers, or something less;
Girlish bust, but womanly air,
Smooth, square forehead, with uprolled
hair,

Lips that lover has never kissed,
Taper fingers and slender wrist,

Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade,
So they painted the little maid.

On her hand a parrot green
Sits unmoving and broods serene;
Hold up the canvas full in view,
Look! there's a rent the light shines
through,

Dark with a century's fringe of dust, —
That was a Redcoat's rapier-thrust!
Such is the tale the lady old,
Dorothy's daughter's daughter, told.

Who the painter was none may tell,-
One whose best was not over well;
Hard and dry, it must be confessed,
Flat as a rose that has long been pressed;
Yet in her cheek the hues are bright,
Dainty colors of red and white;
And in her slender shape are seen
Hint and promise of stately mien.

O damsel Dorothy! Dorothy Q. !
Strange is the gift that I owe to you;
Such a gift as never a king
Save to daughter or son might bring, -
All my tenure of heart and hand,
All my title to house and land;
Mother and sister, and child and wife,
And joy and sorrow, and death and life!

What if a hundred years ago

Those close-shut lips had answered, No,
When forth the tremulous question came
That cost the maiden her Norman name;
And under the folds that look so still
The bodice swelled with the bosom's thrill?
Should I be I, or would it be
One tenth another to nine tenths me?

Soft is the breath of a maiden's Yes: Not the light gossamer stirs with less; But never a cable that holds so fast Through all the battles of wave and blast, And never an echo of speech or song That lives in the babbling air so long! There were tones in the voice that whispered then

You may hear to-day in a hundred men!

O lady and lover, how faint and far
Your images hover, and here we are,
Solid and stirring in flesh and bone, -
Edward's and Dorothy's-all theirown-
A goodly record for time to show
Of a syllable spoken so long ago!—
Shall I bless you, Dorothy, or forgive,
For the tender whisper that bade me live?

It shall be a blessing, my little maid!
I will heal the stab of the, Redcoat's
blade,

And freshen the gold of the tarnished frame,

And gild with a rhyme your household