THE LOST LEADER.

A mightier monument command,—
The mountains of their native land!
There points the Muse to stranger's eye

The names of those that cannot die!

LORD BYRON.

97

J

The Lost Leader.

UST for a handful of silver he left us;

Just for a ribbon to stick in his coat,—

Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,

Lost all the others she lets us devote.

They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:

How all our copper had gone for his service!

Rags, -were they purple, his heart had been proud! We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him, Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,

Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!

Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,

Burns, Shelley, were with us, -they watch from their graves!

He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,

He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

We shall march prospering,-not through his presence;
Songs may inspirit us,—not from his lyre:
Deeds will be done,-while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire.
Blot out his name then,-record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,
One more triumph for devils, and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!

Life's night begins; let him never come back to us! There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain; Forced praise on our part-the glimmer of twilight, Never glad, confident morning again!

Best fight on well, for we taught him,-strike gallantly, Aim at our heart, ere we pierce through his own; Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, Pardoned in Heaven, the first by the throne!

ROBERT BROWNING.

A

Love.

LL thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay
Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine stealing o'er the scene,
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!

She leaned against the armèd man,
The statue of the armèd night;
She stood and listened to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve !
She loves me best whene'er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

LOVE.

I played a soft and doleful air;
I sang an old and moving story-

An old, rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined—and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love,
Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
And she forgave me that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn

That crazed that bold and lovely knight,
And that he crossed the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,

And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once

In green and sunny glade,—

There came and looked him in the face

An angel beautiful and bright;

And that he knew it was a fiend,

This miserable knight!

99

And that, unknowing what he did,
He leaped amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death,
The Lady of the Land.

And how she wept, and clasped his knees;
And how she tended him in vain-
And ever strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain;

And that she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves
A dying man he lay :-

His dying words-but when I reached
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturbed her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long!

She wept with pity and delight-
She blushed with love, and virgin shame;
And like the murmur of a dream,

I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved; she stepped asideAs conscious of my look she steptThen suddenly, with timorous eye,

She fled to me and wept.

A HEALTH.

She half inclosed me with her arms;

She pressed me with a meek embrace ;
And bending back her head, looked up,
And gazed upon my face.

'T was partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 't was a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,
The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous bride.

SAMUEL T. COLERIDGge.

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