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As much as little field-mice stir the sheaves.
Not upon chain-bolts! though the slave's despair
Has dulled his helpless, miserable brain,
And left him blank beneath the freeman's whip,
To sing and laugh out idiocies of pain.
Nor yet on starving homes! where many a lip
Has sobbed itself asleep through curses vain!
I love no peace which is not fellowship,

And which includes not mercy. I would have
Rather the raking of the guns across

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The world, and shrieks against Heaven's architrave. Rather the struggle in the slippery fosse,

Of dying men and horses, and the wave
Blood-bubbling... Enough said! By Christ's own cross,
And by the faint heart of my womanhood,
Such things are better than a peace which sits
Beside the hearth in self-commended mood,
And takes no thought how wind and rain by fits
Are howling out of doors against the good
Of the poor wanderer. What! your peace admits
Of outside anguish while it sits at home?
I loathe to take its name upon my tongue-
It is no peace. "Tis treason, stiff with doom.-
"Tis gagged despair, and inarticulate wrong,
Annihilated Poland, stifled Rome,

Dazed Naples, Hungary fainting 'neath the thong,
And Austria wearing a smooth olive leaf
On her brute forehead, while her hoofs outpress
The life from these Italian souls in brief.

O Lord of Peace! who art Lord of Righteousness,
Constrain the anguished worlds from sin and grief,
Pierce them with conscience, purge them with redress,
And give us peace which is no counterfeit !

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

THE TASK OF THE CULPRIT FAY.

Wrapped in musing stands the sprite;
"Tis the middle wane of night;

His task is hard, his way is far,
But he must do his errand right

Ere dawning mounts her beamy car,
And rolls her chariot wheels of light;
And vain are the spells of fairy land-
He must work with a human hand.

He cast a saddened look around;

But he felt new joy in his bosom swell When, glittering on the shadowed ground, He saw a purple muscle shell;

Thither he ran, and he bent him low,

He heaved at the stern, and he heaved at the bow, And he pushed her over the yielding sand,

Till he came to the verge of the haunted land.

She was as lovely a pleasure boat
As ever fairy had paddled in,

For she glowed with purple paint without,
And shone with silvery pearl within;
A sculler's notch in the stern he made,
An oar he shaped of the bootle-blade;
Then sprung to his seat with a lightsome leap,
And launched afar on the calm, blue deep.

The imps of the river yell and rave;
They had no power above the wave;
But they heaved the billow before the prow,
And they dashed the surge against her side,
And they struck her keel with jerk and blow,
Till the gunwale bent to the rocking tide.
She whimpled about in the pale moonbeam,
Like a feather afloat on a wind-tossed stream;
And momently athwart her track
The quail upreared his island back,

And the fluttering scallop behind would float,
And patter the water about the boat;
But he bailed her out with his colen-bell,
And he kept her trimmed with a wary tread,
While on every side like lightning fell
The heavy strokes of his bootle-blade.

Onward still he held his way,

Till he came where the column of moonshine lay,
And saw beneath the surface dim

The brown-backed sturgeon slowly swim;
Around him were the goblin train—
But he sculled with all his might and main,
And followed wherever the sturgeon led,
Till he saw him upward point his head;
Then he dropped his paddle-blade,

And held his colen goblet up
To catch the drop in its crimson cup.

With sweeping tail and quivering fin,
Through the wave the sturgeon flew,
And, like the heaven-shot javelin,
He sprung above the waters blue.
Instant as the star-fall light,

He plunged him in the deep again,
But left an arch of silver bright,
The rainbow of the moony main.
It was a strange and lovely sight
To see the puny goblin there;
He seemed an angel form of light,
With azure wing and sunny hair,
Throned on a cloud of purple fair,
Circled with blue and edged with white,
And sitting at the fall of even
Beneath the bow of summer heaven.

A moment and its lustre fell;
But ere it met the billow blue,
He caught within his crimson bell
A droplet of its sparkling dew!—
Joy to thee, fay! thy task is done,
Thy wings are pure, for the gem is won-
Cheerly ply thy dripping oar,

And haste away to the elfin shore.

He turns, and, lo! on either side

The ripples on his path divide;

And the track o'er which his boat must pass Is smooth as a sheet of polished glass. Around, their limbs the sea-nymphs lave, With snowy arms half swelling out, While on the glossed and gleamy wave Their sea-green ringlets loosely float; They swim around with smile and song; They press the bark with pearly hand, And gently urge her course along,

Toward the beach of speckled sand; And, as he lightly leaped to land, They bade adieu with nod and bow; Then gayly kissed each little hand, And dropped in the crystal deep below.

A moment stayed the fairy there;

He kissed the beach and breathed a prayer;
Then spread his wings of gilded blue,
And on to the elfin court he flew;
As ever ye saw a bubble rise,

And shine with a thousand changing dyes,
Till, lessening far through ether driven,
It mingles with the hues of heaven;
As, at the glimpse of morning pale,
The lance-fly spreads his silken sail,
And gleams with blendings soft and bright,
Till lost in the shades of falling night;
So rose from earth the lovely fay-

So vanished, far in heaven away!

J. R. Drake.

THE WARDER'S REVENGE.

THE matins are said in Lochbuy's halls;
Maclean, the doughty chief,

With haughty mien his henchman calls,
And gives command in language brief.

"Go, let the pibroch of the clan,

The 'gathering' both loud and clear, Be sounded from the bartizan; Maclean to-day will hunt the deer.

"My child, Lochbuy's dear son and heir, My wife, the Lady Isabel,

Will, with myself, be present there;

Hence! quickly go-thy message tell.”

The henchman sped ;-the stag-hounds bay,
The fiery steeds impatient rear;
The vassals, in their tartans gay,
With gladsome faces soon appear.

The chief, with bow and bugle-horn,
Rides foremost with his island queen;
The nurse and child aloft are borne
Within their wicker palanquin.

Each gorge and pass
is fenced with care,
And strictest vigilance enjoined,
In order that the quarry there
No outlet for escape might find.—

The bugles sound; the startled deer
Fly fleetly as the viewless wind;
The shaggy hounds in full career
Pursue, and leave the woods behind.

But quicker still the red-deer fly,
Bounding before the clamorous train;
While from the pass the warder's cry
Rings wild to turn them!—but in vain!
On, on they dash!-the gorge they've won!
The hunting of the day is done.

The baffled chief the warder eyed
With savage wild ferocity;—

"Seize, bind the slave!" he madly cried,
"A cur-dog's death his doom shall be.

"But no! a refuge in the grave

From sneering scorn all cowards find; Then let him live his meed to brave; But for the lash the craven bind!"

With lips compressed, and dauntless breast
Brave Callam-Dhu the whip-lash bore;
No change of countenance confessed
The pain that thrilled through every pore.

"Enough!" the chieftain cried aloud;
The galling cords were quick untied;
And slowly, followed by the crowd,
Maclean to meet his lady hied.

Like sunbeams, peering o'er the fells,
Through murky clouds which sullen roll,
She sweetly smiles, and soon dispels
The moody umbrage of his soul.

With kindly glow his bosom warms;
And stooping low upon the plain,

He raised his infant in his arms,

And kissed him o'er and o'er again.

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