Eating the vitals of a noble fallen nation!

This creature, as they pass, a moment glaring
Voracious-eyed, with vasty vans that cover-
A little further on obscene doth hover
A grey hyena, and he laughs a peal

Of beastly laughter, scraping up a meal

Loathsome from forth the sand: there is a howl
Dolefully borne from where the lean wolves prowl!
Then silence falls upon the deepening gloom,
And sultry air forebodes the smothering Simoom.
Looking toward the child with deep dismay,
I noted his fair ringlets grown to grey,
And sparse like withered bents upon his head :
His pale, worn countenance was drawn with dread;
Yet in his eyes there burned a grand resolve,
No sights of terror lightly might dissolve.
And now I heard him murmur, "Mighty Father!
I trust thee; yea, to thee I cling the rather,
Albeit I may not see thine awful face!"
Then I was sure he felt the strong embrace
Tighten around him, though a Skeleton

Came stalking from the night to lead them on :
A far-off murmur swelled into a wildering roar;
A hurricane of flame and sand whirled like a conqueror!
And when the o'erwhelming terrible death-tempest

on them broke,

The shrinking child crept nestling close under the Father's cloak.

Then darkness swallowed the portentous plain.
When faint it dawned upon mine eyes again,
Lo! there was moonlight in a sky serene :
All lay at peace beneath the melancholy sheen.
No voice was heard, no living thing was seen.

Yet ere I was aware, that awful Apparition
Once more emerged upon my mortal vision-
The shrouded, dim, unutterable Form,

With eyes that flame as through the rifts of storm,
Mounted on that colossal Living Thing,

Bearing the child now, softly slumbering —
While all confused immeasurable shadow fling.
Peacefully lay the boy's pale, silent head :
And, looking long, I knew that he was dead.
Then all my wildered anguish forced a way
Through my wild lips: "Reveal, O Lord, I pray,
Whither Thou carriest him!" I cried aloud :
No sound responded from the shadowy shroud;
Only methought that something like a hand
Was raised to point athwart the shadowy land;
And while afar the dwindling twain were borne,
I, gazing all around with eyes forlorn,
Divined the bloom of some unearthly morn!

Where was he carried? to an isle of calm, Lulled with sweet water and the pensile palm ? Vanishing havens on the pilgrimage

Surely some more abiding home presage !

Or must the Sire attain always alone
The happy land, with never a living son?
O! awful, silent, everlasting One!

If thou must roam those islands of the west,
Ever with some dead child upon thy breast,
Who would have hailed the glory, being blest,
Eternity were one long moan for rest!
For do we not behold thee morn by morn,
Issuing from the East with one newborn,
Carrying him silently, none knoweth whither,
Knowing only all we travel swiftly thither?

THE WATERNYMPH AND THE BOY.

I

HON. RODEN NOEL.

LIVE in the heart of a limpid pool,

In the living limpid heart of a pool: I lie in a flow of crystalline,

Where silvery fish with jewelled eyne
Float silent, and the ripple-gleam
With many a delicate water-dream
Moves the face of flowers to quaver,
Hanging where the wavelets waver;
Daffodil, hyacinth, spring flowers,
Who slumber veiled from sunny showers,
That only trickle feebly through
Forest foliage from the blue.

My streamlet sparkles in the pines,
And here in lambent flame declines;
For the sun has burst his leafy thrall,
Kissing it passionate in the fall.
I love to feel the water plash
Merrily into my pool,

With a swift reverberating flash
Of soft foam beautiful.

One brilliant surface shrines the sky,
Another young lit leaves on high,
While yet another shadowed o'er,
Below deep emerald, my floor
Reveals, all wavering below
My water's everlasting flow.
O the beautiful butterflies

That flutter where the runnel flies!

Silverly glistening over stones
Where yonder nightingale intones,
Where he flutes the livelong day,
Learning the water's liquid lay;
A lovelier rendering is heard
Fresh from the genius of a bird;
While emulous water vainly tries
To glisten like the glistening eyes
Of nightingales in vernal leaves,
Where yon rosebower softly heaves:
Soon will their mellifluent strain
Woo the rose to life again!

But surely there are lovelier things

Than these are with their cinnamon wings! Whose grace hath more compelling spells Than all mine azure damozels!

For as I lay in my pool one day,

A cloud released a gleam,

And the jewel heart of my home grew gay With a glorifying beam.

There came a rustle in the trees:

I deemed a silver doe

Would sip the ripple of the breeze,

Wandering to and fro;

Listless I watched until he should
Arrive here from the shadowy wood.

It was no deer; it was a boy
Assailed and took my heart with joy!
Stealthily, daintily, he came,

Flooding all my sense with flame.
He was clad in a ruby dress,

That clung to his breathing loveliness,

While hose of opalescent silk

Revealed his delicate limbs of milk.

Shyly, timid as a doe,

He glanced if aught were near or no,
Then sought him out a pleasant spot
With clustering forget-me-not,
And leisurely upon the brink,
His jewelled raiment to unlink
Began; that yielding made a way
For hungering eyes of mine to stray
In his fair bosom, velvet fine
Flushing it warmly as with wine,
Velvet and cambric lingering loth
To leave him, yet to faintness both
With warm white satiate, from whence
Stole overpowering my sense

Smooth boy-bosom, whose are twin
Rosebuds in a silky skin.

By slender fingers, where the pale
Moon rises in a rosy nail,

Cleared from all the lordly dress,

He shone with native loveliness!

Then pressed the grass with shrinking foot, Strawberry blooms that promise fruit,

Windflower, violet and moss,

And taller flowers that love the loss

Of all their living gold upon

Those limbs unheeding any one:

And yet anon,

As he long blades of grassy gloss
Perplexed daintily disjoins,

A locust leaps upon his loins!

Now finding near a shelving rock,

Behold! he cowers before the shock;