Tot a word the Indian spoke,
But his wampum chain he broke,
And the beaded wonder hung
On that neck so fair and young.

Ailence-shod, as phantoms seem
In the marches of a dream,
ingle-filed, the grim array
Through the pine-trees wound away.

Doubting, trembling, sore amazed, Through her tears the young child gazed.

"God preserve her!" Waldron said; "Satan hath bewitched the maid!"

Years went and came. At close of day
Singing came a child from play,
Tossing from her loose-locked head
Gold in sunshine, brown in shade.

Pride was in the mother's look,
But her head she gravely shook,
And with lips that fondly smiled
Veigned to chide her truant child.

nabashed, the maid began :
Up and down the brook I ran,
Where, beneath the bank so steep,
Lie the spotted trout asleep.

"Chip!' went squirrel on the wall,
After me I heard him call,
And the cat-bird on the tree
Tried his best to mimic me.

"Where the hemlocks grew so dark
That I stopped to look and hark,
On a log, with feather-hat,
By the path, an Indian sat.

"Then I cried, and ran away;
But he called, and bade me stay;
And his voice was good and mild
As my mother's to her child.

"And he took my wampum chain,
Looked and looked it o'er again;
Gave me berries, and, beside,
On my neck a plaything tied."

Straight the mother stooped to see
What the Indian's gift might be.
On the braid of wampum hung,
Lo! a cross of silver swung.

Well she knew its graven sign, Squando's bird and totem pine; And, a mirage of the brain, Flowed her childhood back again.

283

For, more to me than birds or flowers,
My playmate left her home,
And took with her the laughing spring,
The music and the bloom.

She kissed the lips of kith and kin,

She laid her hand in mine: What more could ask the bashful boy Who fed her father's kine?

She left us in the bloom of May:
The constant years told o'er
Their seasons with as sweet May morns,
But she came back no more.

I walk, with noiseless feet, the round
Of uneventful years;

Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring

And reap the autumn ears.

She lives where all the golden year
Her summer roses blow;
The dusky children of the sun
Before her come and go.

There haply with her jewelled hands
She smooths her silken gown, —
No more the homespun lap wherein
I shook the walnuts down.

The wild grapes wait us by the brook, The brown nuts on the hill,

And still the May-day flowers make

sweet

The woods of Follymill.

The lilies blossom in the pond,
The bird builds in the tree,
The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill
The slow song of the sea.

I wonder if she thinks of them,
And how the old time seems. —
If ever the pines of Ramoth wood
Are sounding in her dreams.

I see her face, I hear her voice: Does she remember mine? And what to her is now the boy Who fed her father's kine?

What cares she that the orioles build
For other eyes than ours,-
That other hands with nuts are filled,
And other laps with flowers?

O playmate in the golden time!
Our mossy seat is green,
Its fringing violets blossom yet,
The old trees o'er it lean.

The winds so sweet with birch and fern
A sweeter memory blow;
And there in spring the veeries sing
The song of long ago.

And still the pines of Ramoth wood
Are moaning like the sea,-
The moaning of the sea of change
Between myself and thee!

THE SHADOW AND THE

LIGHT.

"And I sought, whence is Evil: I set before the eye of my spirit the whole creation; whatsoever we see therein, sea, earth, air, stars, trees, moral creatures, yea, whatsoever there is we do not see,- angels and spiritual powers. Where is evil, and whence comes it, since God the Good hath created all things? Why made He anything at all of evil, and not rather by His Allmightiness cause it not to be? These thoughts I turned in my miserable heart, overcharged with most gnawing cares." "And, admonished to return to myself, I entered even into my inmost soul, Thou being my guide, and beheld even beyond my soul and mind the Light unchangeable. He who knows the Truth knows what that Light is, and he that knows it knows Eternity! O Truth, who art Eternity! Love, who art Truth! Eternity, who art Love! And I beheld that Thou madest all things good, and to Thee is nothing whatsoever evil. From the angel to the worm, from the first motion to the last, Thou settest each in its place, and everything is good in its kind. Woe is me!-how high art Thou in the highest, how deep in the deepest! and Thou never departest from us and we scarcely return to Thee."- Augustine's Soliloquies, Book VII.

THE fourteen centuries fall away

Between us and the Afric saint, And at his side we urge, to-day, The immemorial quest and old complaint.

No outward sign to us is given,

From sea or earth comes no reply; Hushedas the warm Numidian heaven He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky.

No victory comes of all our strife,
From all we grasp the meaning slips;

The Sphinx sits at the gate of life, With the old question on her awful lips.

In paths unknown we hear the feet

Of fear before, and guilt behind; We pluck the wayside fruit, and eat Ashes and dust beneath its golden rind.

From age to age descends unchecked

The sad bequest of sire to son, The body's taint, the mind's defect, Through every web of life the dark threads run.

O, why and whither?- God know all;

I only know that he is good, And that whatever may befall Or here or there, must be the best that could.

Between the dreadful cherubim

A Father's face I still discern, As Moses looked of old on him, And saw his glory into goodness turn!

For he is merciful as just;

And so, by faith correcting sight, I bow before his will, and trust Howe'er they seem he doeth all things right.

And dare to hope that he will make The rugged smooth, the doubtful plain;

His mercy never quite forsake; His healing visit every realm of pain ;

That suffering is not his revenge

Upon his creatures weak and frail