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THE NEW YO. K PUBLIC LIBRARY

AIOP. LENOX

STORM AT TWILIGHT.

Is charity's spirit, that prompts us to find Rather virtue than vice in the lives of our kind.

"Therefore good deeds we record on these
stones;

The evil men do let it die with their bones:
I have labored as sexton this many a year,
But I never have buried a bad man here."
THOMAS A. JAMES.

STORM AT TWILIGHT.

HE roar of a chafed lion in his lair
TH
Begirt by levelled spears. A sudden
flash,

Intense yet wavering, like a beast's fierce eye
Searching the darkness. The wild bay of

winds

Sweeps the burnt plains of heaven, and from

afar

Linked clouds are riding up like eager horse

men

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Like a bold mariner. There is no bough
But lifteth its appealing arm to heaven.
The scudding grass is shivering as it flies,
And herbs and flowers crouch to their mother
Earth

Like frightened children. 'Tis more terri-
ble

When the hoarse thunder speaks, and the fleet wind

Stops like a steed that knows his rider's
voice,

For oh, the rush that follows is the calm
Of a despairing heart; and, as a maniac
Loses his grief in raving, the mad storm,
Weeping hot tears, awakens with a sob
From its blank desolation and shrieks on.

ANNA DRINKER (Edith May).

A DROPPED TRINKET.

AT Reigate, underneath the trees,

The autumn ferns were crisped with brown,

Javelin in hand. From the north wings of And, fluttering on a fitful breeze, twilight The autumn leaves came softly down. There falls unwonted shadow, and strange As underneath a tree we stopped gloom An ornament of gold I droppedCloisters the unwilling stars. The sky is Searched for in vain by wistful roofed

With tempest, and the moon's scant rays fall through

For there until this hour it lies.

Beneath some curving fern.
Winter will bury it with leaves;

eyes,

Like light let dimly through the fissured And if some future spring upheaves

rock

Vaulting a cavern. To the horizon
The green sea of the forest hath rolled back
Its levelled billows, and where mastlike trees
Sway to its bosom here and there a vine,
Braced to some pine's bare shaft, clings,
rocked aloft

A golden blossom on the sprout
A fallen acorn then puts out,
My little gem, obscured so long,
May wake a wandering poet's song,
Who, heedless of his steps, may pass,
And there, amidst the tangled grass,
Its shining may discern.

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Accompanied, with damps and dreadful And wandering vanity, when least was safe,

gloom,

Which to his evil conscience represented

All things with double terror. On the ground

Rejected my forewarning, and disdained
Not to be trusted, longing to be seen,
Though by the devil himself, him everween-
ing

Outstretched he lay on the cold ground- To overreach, but, with the serpent meeting,

and oft

Cursed his creation, death as oft accused Of tardy execution, since denounced

Fooled and beguiled, by him thou, I by thee,
To trust thee from my side, imagined wise,
Constant, mature, proof against all assaults,

The day of his offence. "Why comes not And understood that all was but a show

death,"

Said he, "with one thrice-acceptable stroke To end me? Shall truth fail to keep her word,

Justice divine not hasten to be just?
But death comes not at all, justice divine
Mends not her slowest pace for prayers or

cries.

Rather than solid virtue, all but a rib
Crooked by nature, bent, as now appears,
More to the part sinister, from me drawn,
Well if thrown out as supernumerary
To my just number found. Oh, why did
God,

Creator wise, that peopled highest heaven
With spirits masculine, create at last

F

ADAM'S ANGER AND EVE'S SUPPLICATION FOR PARDON.

This novelty on earth, this fair defect

Of nature, and not fill the world at once
With men as angels without feminine,
'Or find some other way to generate
Mankind?

This mischief had not then be

fallen, And more that shall befall, innumerable Disturbances on earth through female snares, And strait conjunction with this sex; for

either

He never shall find out fit mate but such
As some misfortune brings him, or mistake,
Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain
Through her perverseness, but shall see her
gained

By a far worse, or, if she love, withheld
By parents, or his happiest choice too late
Shall meet, already linked and wedlock
bound

To a fell adversary, his hate or shame;
Which infinite calamity shall cause

To human life and household peace confound."

Thy counsel in this uttermost distress,

27

My only strength and stay. Forlorn of thee, Whither shall I betake me, where subsist? While yet we live, scarce one short hour, perhaps,

Between us two let there be peace, both joining,

As joined in injuries, one enmity
Against a foe by doom express assigned us,
That cruel serpent. On me exercise not
Thy hatred for this misery befallen,
On me already lost-me than thyself
More miserable; both have sinned, but thou
Against God only, I against God and thee,
And to the place of judgment will return,
There with my cries importune Heaven, that
all

The sentence from my head removed may light

On me, sole cause to thee of all this woeMe, me only, just object of his ire."

She ended weeping, and her lowly plight, Immovable till peace obtained from fault

He added not, and from her turned; but Acknowledged and deplored, in Adam Eve,

wrought

Not so repulsed, with tears that ceased not Commiseration; soon his heart relented

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His full wrath whose thou feelst as yet least | No sound was heard of clashing wars,

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Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain; Apollo, Pallas, Jove and Mars

Held undisturbed their ancient reign
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago.

'Twas in the calm and silent night;

The senator of haughty Rome, Impatient, urged his chariot's flight, From lordly revel rolling home; Triumphal arches, gleaming, swell

His breast with thoughts of boundless

sway:

What recked the Roman what befell
A paltry province far away
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago?

Within that province far away

Went plodding home a weary boor; A streak of light before him lay,

Fallen through a half-shut stable-door Across his path. He passed, for naught

Told what was going on within; How keen the stars, his only thought, The air how calm and cold and thin! In the solemn midnight, Centuries ago.

Oh, strange indifference! low and high
Drowsed over common joys and cares;
The earth was still, but knew not why
The world was listening, unawares.
How calm a moment may precede

One that shall thrill the world for ever!
To that still moment none would heed
Man's doom was linked, no more to sever,
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago.

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