fair young daughter; the sturdy sons just springing into closest companionship, claiming every day and every day rewarding a father's love and care; and in his heart the eager, rejoicing power to meet all demand. Before him, desolation and great darkness! And his soul was not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled with instant, profound and universal sympathy. Masterful in his mortal weakness, he became the centre of a nation's love, cnshrined in the prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sympathy could not share with him his suffering. He trod the wine-press alone. With unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing tenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin's bullet he heard the voice of God. With simple resigna

tion he bowed to the divine decree.

As the end drew near, his early craving for the sea returned. The stately mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain; and he begged to be taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wistfully upon the ocean's changing wonders,-on its far sails, whitening in the morning light; on its restless. waves, rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon; on the serene and shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us believe that in the silence of the receding

world he heard the great waves breaking on a farther shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning

JAMES G. BLAINE.

THE PHANTOM SHIP.

HE children wandered and down

THE

up

Seeking for driftwood o'er the sand;

The elder tugged at granny's gown,
And pointed with his little hand.

"Look! look!" he cried, "at yonder ship
That sails so fast and looms so tall!"

She turned and let her basket slip,
And all her gathered treasure fall.

"Nay, granny, why are you so pale?

Where is the ship we saw but now?" "O child, it was no mortal sail!

It came and went, I know not how.

"But ill winds fill that canvas white
That blow no good to you and me—
Oh woe for us who saw the sight
That evil bodes to all who see!"

They pressed about her, all afraid—

Oh, tell us granny, what was she?"
"A ship's unhappy ghost," she said,
"The awful ship, the Mystery."

"But tell us, tell us!" "Quiet be!" She said, "sit close and listen well, For what befell the Mystery

It is a fearful thing to tell!

"She was a slave-ship long ago—
Year after year across the sea
She made a trade of human woe,
And carried freights of misery.

"One voyage, when from the tropic coast Laden with dusky forms she came,

A wretched and despairing host,

Beneath the fierce sun's breathless flame

"Sprang, like a wild beast from its lair,
The fury of the hurricane,
And sent the great ship reeling bare
Across the roaring ocean plain.

"Then terror seized the piteous crowd;
With many an oath and cruel blow
The captain drove them, shrieking loud,
Into the pitch-black hold below.

"Make fast the hatchways strong and tight!
He shouted, 'Let them live or die,
They'll trouble us no more to-night!'
The crew obeyed him sullenly.

"Has hell such torment as they knew?
Like herded cattle packed they lay,
Till morning showed a streak of blue
Breaking the sky's thick pall of gray.

“Off with the hatchways, men!' No sound!
What sound should rise from out a grave?
The silence shook with dread profound
The heart of every seaman brave.

"Quick! Drag them up,' the captain said, 'And pitch the dead into the sea!' The sea was peopled with the dead, With wide eyes staring fearfully.

"From weltering wave to wave they tossed— Two hundred corpses stiff and stark

At last were in the distance lost,

A banquet for the wandering shark.

"Oh sweetly the relenting day

Changed, till the storm had left no trace,

And the whole awful ocean lay

As tranquil as an infant's face.

"Abaft the wind hauled fair and fine,
Lightly the ship sped on her way,
Her sharp bows crushed the yielding brine
Into a diamond dust of spray.

"But

up and down the decks her crew Shook their rough heads and eyed askance, With doubt and hate that ever grew, The captain's brutal countenance,

"As slow he paced with frown as black
As night. At last with sudden shout
He turned. "Bout ship! We will go back
And fetch another cargo out!'

"They put the ship about again,

His will was law, they could not choose: They strove to change her course in vain, Down fell the wind, the sails hung loose,

"And from the far horizon dim
An oily calm crept silently
Over the sea from rim to rim-
Still as if anchored fast lay she.

"The sun set red, the moon shone white
On idle canvas drooping drear;
Through the vast, solemn hush of night
What is it that the sailors hear?

Now do they sleep-and do they dream? Was that the wind's foreboding moan? From stem to stern her every beam Quivered with one unearthy groan!

"Leaped to his feet then every man,
And shuddered, clinging to his mate,
And sun-burned cheeks grew pale and wan,
Blenched with that thrill of terror great.

"The captain waked, and angrily

Sprang to the deck and cursing spoke, 'What devil's trick is this?' cried he. No answer the scared silence broke.

"But quietly the moonlight clear

Sent o'er the waves its pallid glow: What stirred the water far and near,

With stealthy motion swimming slow?