Meekly, with reverent steps, the sacred feet of her Saviour.
Thus many years she lived as a Sister of Mercy; frequenting
Lonely and wretched roofs in the crowded lanes of the city,
Where distress and want concealed themselves from the sunlight.
Then it came to pass that a pestilence fell on the city:
Wealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty to charm, the oppressor;
The poor crept to die in the alms-house, home for the homeless.
Thither, by night and by day, came the faithful Sister of Mercy.
Sweet on the summer air was the odor of flowers in the garden ;
And she paused on her way to gather the fairest among them,
That the dying once more might rejoice in their fragrance and beauty.
Many a languid head, upraised as Evangeline entered,
Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she passed; for her presence
Fell on their hearts like the ray of the sun on the walls of a prison ;
And, as she looked around, she saw how Death, the consoler,
Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it for ever.
Many familiar forms had disappeared in the night time;
Vacant their places were, or filled already by strangers.
Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of wonder,
Still she stood, with her colorless lips apart, while a shudder
Ran through her frame, and, forgotten, the flowers dropped from her fingers! Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such terrible anguish,
That the dying heard it, and started up from their pillows.
On the pallet before her was stretched the form of an old man ;
Long, and thin, and gray, were the locks that shaded his temples,
But, as he lay in the morning light, his face for a moment
Seemed to assume once more the form of its earlier manhood ;—
So are wont to be changed the faces of those who are dying,——
Hot and red on his lips still burned the flush of the fever,
As if life, like the Hebrew, with blood has besprinkled its portals,
That the Angel of Death might see the sign and pass over.
Then, through those realms of shade, in multiplied reverberations,
Heard he that cry of pain, and, through the hush that succeeded,
Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and saint-like,
"Gabriel! O my beloved !" and died away into silence.
Then he beheld, in a dream, once more, the home of his childhood;
Green, Acadian meadows, with sylvan rivers among them,
Village, and mountain, and woodlands; and, walking under their shadow,
As in the days of her youth, Evangeline arose in his vision.
Tears came into his eyes; and as slowly he lifted his eyelids,
Vanished the vision away--but Evangeline knelt by his bedside!
Vainly he strove to whisper her name; for the accents, unuttered,
Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his tongue would have spoken. Vainly he strove to rise; and Evangeline, kneeling beside him,
Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom.
Sweet was the light of his eyes; but it suddenly sank into darkness,
As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a casement.
All was ended now-the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow;
All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing;
All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience!
And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her bosom,
Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, "Father, I thank thee!”
Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow,
Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.
In the earth of the city, they lie unknown and unnoticed;
Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them,
Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and for ever ;
Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy;
Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their labors;
Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey.
ETTER than grandeur, better than gold, than rank and title a thousand fold, Is a healthy body, a mind at ease, and simple pleasures that always please; A heart that can feel for a neighbor's woe and share his joys with a genial glow, With sympathies large enough to enfold all men as brothers,--is better than gold. Better than gold is a conscience clear, though toiling for bread in a humble sphere: Doubly blest with content and health, untried by the lust of cares of wealth. Lowly living and lofty thought adorn and ennoble a poor man's cot; For man and morals, or nature's plan, are the genuine test of a gentleman.
Better than gold is the sweet repose of the sons of toil when there labors close; Better than gold is the poor man's sleep, and the balm that drops on his slumbers deep. Bring sleeping draughts to the downy bed, where luxury pillows his aching head; His simpler opiate labor deems a shorter road to the land of dreams.
Better than gold is a thinking mind that in the realm of books can find
A treasure surpassing Australian ore, and live with the great and good of yore.
The sage's lore and the poet's lay, the glories of empires pass'd away,
The world's great drama will thus enfold and yield a pleasure better than gold.
Better than gold is a peaceful home, where all the fireside charities come ;--
The shrine of love and the heaven of life, allowed by mother, or sister, or wife.
However humble the home may be, or tried by sorrow with Heaven's decree,
The blessings that never were bought or sold, and centre there, are better than gold.
Y! here the buzz of eager nations ran,
In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause,
As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man
And wherefore slaughtered? Wherefore? but because
Such were the bloody circus' genial laws,
And the imperial pleasure :—wherefore not?—
What matters where we fall, to fill the maws
-on battle-plain, or listed spot? Both are but theatres, where the chief actors rot.
He leans upon his hand; his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony !—
And his drooped head sinks gradually low;
And, from his side, the last drops, ebbing slow
Through the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower: and now
The arena swims around himn-he is gone !—
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He recked not of the life he lost or prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay;
There, were his young barbarians all at play-
There, was their Dacian mother!—he, their sire,
Butchered, to make a Roman holiday!—
All this rushed with his blood! Shall he expire,
And unavenged?-Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire!
'er Corinth shines the glowing sun,
As if the morn was a jocund one.
Brightly breaks the night away
To light the Moslems to the fray.
Hark! to the trump, and the drum,
And the neigh of the steed, and the multitude's hum,
And the clash, and the shout, "They come ! they come !'
"Tartar and Spahi, and Turcoman,
Strike your tents, and throng the van;
Mount ye, spur ye, skirr the plain,
That the fugitive may flee in vain.
When the culverin's signal is fired, then on;
Leave not in Corinth a living one;
A priest at her altars, a chief in her halls,
A hearth in her mansions, a stone on her walls.
God and the prophet !—Alla Hu!
Up to the skies with that wild halloo !
There the breach lies for passage, the ladder to scale,
And your hands on your sabres, and how should ye fail?
He who first downs with the red cross may crave,
His heart's dearest wish, let him ask it and have!"
Thus utter'd Coumourgi, the dauntless vizier,
The reply was the brandish of sabre and spear,
And the shout of fierce thousands in joyous ire,
Silence! hark to the signal-fire!
Full against the wall they went,
And their force was backward bent;
Many a bosom sheathed in brass,
Strew'd the earth like broken glass;
But nought could stand the oft-renew'd
Charge of the Moslem multitude;
In firmness the Christians stood-and fell
Heap'd by the host of the infidel,
Hand to hand, and foot to foot;
Nothing there, save death, was mute.
Stroke and thrust, and flash, and cry
For quarter and for victory;
Till, at length, outbreath'd and worn,
Corinth's sons were downward borne.
But the rampart is won, and the spoil begun,
And all but the after-carnage done.
Shriller shrieks now mingling come,
From within the plunder'd dome;
Hark, to the haste of the flying feet,
That splash in the blood of the slippery street!
But here and there, where 'vantage ground
Against the foe may still be found,
Desperate groups of twelve or ten
Make a pause, and turn again,
With banded backs against the wall,
Fiercely stand, or fighting fall.
There, throughout the siege, had been
The Christian's chiefest magazine,
And there lay a train-the last resource
Against the foe's o'erwhelming force.
So near'd the foe, the nearest stretch'd
To grasp the spoil he almost reach'd,
When old Minotti's hand,
Touch'd, with the torch, the train—
'Tis fired!
Spire, vaults, the shrine, the spoil, the slain, The turban'd victors, the Christian band,
All that living or dead remain,
Hurled on high, with the shiver'd fane,
In one wild roar expired!
The shatter'd town, the walls thrown down,
The waves a moment backward bent,
The hills that shake, altho' unrent,
As if an earthquake pass'd.
The thousand shapeless things, all driven
In cloud and flame athwart the heaven,
By that tremendous blast,
Up to the sky like rockets go,
All that mingled here below,
Many a tall and goodly man,
Scorch'd and shrivell'd to a span.
When he fell to earth again,
Like a cinder strew'd the plain;
Some fell on the shore, but far away,
Scatter'd o'er the isthmus lay,
Christian or Moslem, which be they?
Let their mothers see and say,
When in cradled rest they lay.
And each nursing mother smiled
On the sweet sleep of her child:
Little deem'd she such a day
Would rend those tender limbs away.
All the living things that heard
That deadly earth shock, disappear'd ;
The wild birds flew, the wild dogs fled,
And howling left the unburied dead.
The camels from their keepers broke,
The distant steer forsook the yoke ;
The nearest steed plunged o'er the plain,
And burst his girth, and broke his rein.
The wolves yell'd on the cavern'd hill,
'Where echo roll'd in thunder still;
The jackall's troop in gather'd cry,
Bay'd from afar complainingly;
With sudden wing and ruffled breast,
The eagle left his rocky nest,
And mounted nearer to the sun,
The clouds beneath him seem'd so dun :-
Thus was Corinth lost and won.
LIII. SCENE AFTER THE SIEGE OF CORINTH.
LP wandered on, along the beach,
Till within the range of a carbine's reach
Of the leaguered wall; but they saw him not,
Or how could he 'scape from the hostile shot?
Did traitors lurk in the Christians' hold?
Were their hands grown stiff, or their hearts waxed cold?
I know not, in sooth; but from yonder wall
There flashed no fire, and there hissed no ball,
Though he stood beneath the bastion's frown,
That flanked the sea-ward gate of the town;
Though he heard the sound, and could almost tell
The sullen words of the sentinel,
As his measured step on the stone below
Clanked, as he paced it to and fro:
And he saw the lean dogs beneath the wall
Hold o'er the dead their carnival,
Gorging and growling o'er the carcass and limb;
They were to busy to bark at him!
From a Tartar's skull they had stripped the flesh,
As ye peel the fig when its fruit is fresh ;
And their white tusks crunched o'er the whiter skull,
As it slipped through their jaws when their edge grew dull,
As they lazily mumbled the bones of the dead,
When they scarce could rise from the spot where they fed; So well had they broken a lingering fast
With those who had fallen for that night's repast.
And Alp knew, by the turbans that rolled on the sand,
The foremost of these were the best of his band.
The scalps were in the wild dog's maw,
The hair was tangled round his jaw.
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