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 loveu every day.

And I think, in the lives of most women and men, There's a moment when all would go smooth and even If only the dead could find out when

To come back and be forgiven.

But O the smell of that jasmine flower!
And O that music; and O the way

That voice rang out from the donjon tower,,
Non ti scordar di me,

Non ti scordar di me !

86. THE PETRIFIED FERN.

M. B. BRANCH.

In a valley, centuries ago,

Grew a little fern-leaf, green and slender,
Veining delicate and fibres tender;

Waving when the wind crept down so low;
Rushes tall, and moss, and grass grew round it,
Playful sunbeams darted in and found it,
Drops of dew stole in by night, and crowned it,
But no foot of man e'er trod that way;
Earth was young and keeping holiday.

Monster fishes swam the silent main,

Stately forests waved their giant branches,
Mountains .urled their snowy avalanches,
Mammoth creatures stalked across the plain;
Nature revelled in grand mysteries;

But the little fern was not of these,
Did not number with the hills and trees,
Only grew and waved its wild sweet way,
No one came to note it day by day.

Earth, one time, put on a frolic mood,

Heaved the rocks and changed the mighty motion
Of the deep, strong currents of the ocean;
Moved the plain and shook the haughty wood,
Crushed the little fern in soft moist clay,
Covered it, and hid it safe away.

Oh, the long, long centuries since that day!
Oh, the agony, oh, life's bitter cost,

Since that useless little fern was lost!

Useless! Lost! there came a thoughtful man
Searching nature's secrets far and deep;
From a fissure in a rocky steep

He withdrew a stone, o'er which there ran,
Fairy pencillings, a quaint design,

Veinings, leafage, fibres clear and fine,
And the fern's life lay in every line.
So, I think, God hides some souls away,
Sweetly to surprise us the last day.

87.-ABOU BEN ADHEM.

LEIGH HUNT.

Abou Ben Adhem-(may his tribe increase !)-
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold.

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,

And to the presence in the room he said,

"What writest thou?" The vision raised its head,

And with a voice made all of sweet accord,

Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one who loves his fellow-men."
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,

And showed the names whom love of God had blest,
And, lo, Ben Adhem's name led all the rest!

88. THE DRUNKARD.

J. O. ROCKWELL.

"Pray, Mr. Dram-drinker, how do you do?
What in perdition's the matter with you?
How did you come by that bruise on the head;
And why are your eyes so infernally red?
Why do you mutter that infidel hymn ?
And why do you tremble in every limb?

Who has done this ?-let the reason be shown,

And let the offender be pelted with stone."

And the Dram-drinker said: "If you listen to me,

You shall hear what you hear, and shall see what you see

I had a father;-the grave is his bed:

I had a mother; she sleeps with the dead.

Freely I wept when they left me alone;

But I shed all my tears on their grave and their stone.
I planted a willow, I planted a yew.

And left them to sleep till the last trumpet blew.
Fortune was mine; and I mounted her car --
Pleasure from virtue had beckoned me far.
Onward I went, like an avalanche, down,
And the sunshine of fortune was changed to a frown.
Fortune was gone, and I took to my side
A young, and a lovely, and beautiful bride!
Her I entreated with coldness and scorn-
Tarrying back till the dawn of the morn;
Slighting her kindness, and mocking her fears—
Casting a blight on her tenderest years!
Sad, and neglected, and weary I left her:
Sorrow and care of her reason bereft her;
Till, like a star, when it falls from its pride,
She sank on the bosom of misery, and died.
I had a child; and it grew like the vine;
Fair as the rose of Damascus was mine:
Fair and I watched o'er her innocent youth,
As an angel from heaven would watch over truth.
She grew like her mother in feature and form;
Her blue eye was languid, her cheek was too warm.
Seventeen summers had shone on her brow-
The seventeenth winter beheld her laid low!
Yonder they sleep in their graves, side by side-
A father, a mother, a daughter, a bride.
Go to your children, and tell them the tale:
Tell them his cheek, too, was lividly pale;
Tell them his eye was all bloodshot and cold;
Tell them his purse was a stranger to gold;
Tell them he passed through the world they are in
The victim of sorrow, and misery, and sin;

Tell them, when life's shameful conflicts were passed,
In horror and anguish he perished at last.”