Up! let us to the fields away,
And breathe the fresh and balmy air;
The bird is building in the tree,

The flower has opened to the bee,

And health, and love, and peace are there.

83.—THE STATUE.

ANONYMOUS.

In Athens, when all learning centred there,
Men reared a column of surpassing height
In honor of Minerva, wise and fair,

And on the top, that dwindled to the sight,
A statue of the goddess was to stand,
That wisdom might obtain in all the land.
And he who, with the beauty in his heart,
Seeking in faultless work immortal youth,
Would mould this statue with the finest art,

Making the wintry marble glow with truth,
Should gain the prize. Two sculptors sought the fame:
The prize they craved was an enduring name.
Alcamenes soon carved his little best;

But Phidias, beneath a dazzling thought That like a bright sun in a cloudless west

Lit up his wide, great soul, with pure love wrought A statue, and its face of changeless stone

With calm, far-sighted wisdom towered and shone.

Then to be judged the labors were unveiled;
But at the marble thought, that by degrees

Of hardship Phidias cut, the people railed.

"The lines are coarse; the form too large," said these "And he who sends this rough result of haste

Sends scorn, and offers insult to our taste."

Alcamenes' praised work was lifted high

Upon the capital where it might stand;

But there it seemed too small, and 'gainst the sky
Had no proportion from the uplooking land;

So it was lowered, and quickly put aside,

And the scorned thought was mounted to be tried.

Surprise swept o'er the faces of the crowd,

And changed them as a sudden breeze may change

A field of fickle grass, and long and loud

Their mingled shouts, to see a sight so strange.

The statue stood completed in its place,

Each coarse line melted to a line of grace.

So bold, great actions, that are seen too near,
Look rash and foolish to unthinking eyes;
They need the past for distance, to appear

In their true grandeur. Let us yet be wise,
And not too soon our neighbor's deed malign,
For what seems coarse is often good and fine.

84.-OLD TUBAL CAIN.

CHARLES MACKAY.

Old Tubal Cain was a man of might
In the days when the earth was young;
By the fierce red light of his furnace bright
The strokes of his hammer rung;

And he lifted high his brawny hand

On the iron glowing clear,

Till the sparks rushed out in scarlet showers
As he fashioned the sword and spear:
And he sang, “Hurrah for my handiwork!
Hurrah for the spear and sword!

Hurrah for the hand that wields them well,
For he shall be king and lord!"

To Tubal Cain came many a one,

As he wrought by his roaring fire:

And each one prayed for a strong steel blade, As the crown of his heart's desire.

And he made them weapons sharp and strong, Till they shouted aloud for glee,

And gave him gifts of pearl and gold,

And spoils of the forest tree;

And they sang, "Hurrah for Tubal Cain,

Who has given us strength anew!

Hurrah for the smith, and hurrah for the fire,

And hurrah for the metal true!"

But a sudden change came o'er his heart

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 fed with the blood they shed,
And their lust for carnage blind ;

And he said,

Alas! that ever I made,

Or that skill of mine should plan,
The spear and sword for man, whose joy
Is to slay his 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 he bared his strong arm for the work,
While the quick flames mounted high;
And he said, "Hurrah for my handiwork!"
And the fire sparks lit the air;

"Not alone for the blade was the bright steel made!" And he fashioned the first ploughshare!

And men, taught wisdom from the past,

In friendship joined their hands;

Hung the sword in the hall, and the spear on the wall, And ploughed the willing lands;

And sang,

Hurrah for Tubal Cain!

Our staunch good friend is he;

And for the ploughshare and the plow

To him our prize shall be!

But when oppression lifts its hand,

Or a tyrant would be lord,

Though we may thank him for the plough,

We'll not forget the sword!"

85.-AUX ITALIENS.

R. B. LYTTON.

At Paris it was, at the opera there;

And she looked like a queen in a book that night, With the wreath of pearl in her raven hair, And the brooch on her breast so bright.

Of all the operas that Verdi wrote,

The best, to my taste, is the Trovatore; And Mario can soothe, with a tenor note, The souls in purgatory.

The moon on the tower slept soft as snow;

And who was not thrilled in the strangest way, As we heard him sing, while the gas burned low, "Non ti scordar di me!"

("Remember me alway.")

The emperor there, in his box of state,

Looked grave; as if he had just then seen

The red flag wave from the city gate,

Where his eagles in bronze had been.

The empress, too, had a tear in her eye

You'd have said that her fancy had gone back again,
For one moment, under the old blue sky,
To the old glad life in Spain.

Well! there in our front-row box we sat
Together, my bride betrothed and I;
My gaze was fixed on my opera hat,
And hers on the stage hard by.

And both were silent, and both were sad;-
Like a queen she leaned on her full white arm,
With that regal, indolent air she had;

So confident of her charm!

I have not a doubt she was thinking then
Of her former lord, good soul that he was,
Who died the richest and roundest of men,
The Marquis of Carabas.

I hope that, to get to the kingdom of heaven,
Through a needle's eye he had not to pass;
I wish him well for the jointure given
To my lady of Carabas.

Meanwhile I was thinking of my first love
As I had not been thinking of aught for years;
Till over my eyes there began to move
Something that felt like tears.

I thought of the dress that she wore last time
When we stood 'neath the cypress-trees together,
In that lost land, in that soft clime,

In the crimson evening weather;

Of that muslin dress (for the eve was hot);
And her warm white neck in its golden chain;
And her full soft hair, just tied in a knot,
And falling loose again;

And the jasmine flower in her fair young breast;
(O the faint, sweet smell of that jasmine flower!)
And the one bird singing alone to his nest;

And the one star over the tower.

I thought of our little quarrels and strife,

And the letter that brought me back my ring;
And it all seemed then, in the waste of life,
Such a very little thing!

For I thought of her grave below the hill,
Which the sentinel cypress-tree stands over:
And I thought, "Were she only living still,
How I could forgive her, and love her!"

And I swear, as I thought of her thus, in that hour,
And of how, after all, old things are best,
That I smelt the smell of that jasmine flower
Which she used to wear in her breast.

It smelt so faint, and it smelt so sweet,

It made me creep, and it made me cold!
Like the scent that steals from the crumbling sheet
Where a mummy is half unrolled.

And I turned and looked; she was sitting there,
In a dim box over the stage; and drest
In that muslin dress with that full soft hair,
And that jasmine in her breast.

I was here, and she was there:

And the glittering horse-shoe curved between :— From my bride betrothed, with her raven hair And her sumptuous scornful mien,

To my early love with her eyes downcast,
And over her primrose face the shade,
(In short, from the future back to the past,)
There was but a step to be made.

To my early love from my future bride

One moment I looked. Then I stole to the door, I traversed the passage; and down at her side I was sitting, a moment more.

My thinking of her, or the music's strain,

Or something which never will be exprest, Had brought her back from the grave again, With the jasmine in her breast.

She is not dead, and she is not wed!

But she loves me now, and she loved me then! And the very first word that her sweet lips said, My heart grew youthful again.

The marchioness there, of Carabas,

She is wealthy, and young, and handsome still; And but for her . . . well, we'll let that pass; She may marry whomever she will.

But I will marry my own first love,

With the primrose face, for old things are best; And the flower in her bosom, I prize it above The brooch in my lady's breast.

The world is filled with folly and sin,

And love must cling where it can, I say:

For beauty is easy enough to win;

But one isn't lovea every day..