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Has well-nigh broken our own. Alas! regret could not restore

To lonely hearths the presences that gladdened them before.

As with the grain our fathers sowed sprang up Old England's weeds,

So to their lofty piety clung superstition's seeds. Though tares grow with it, wheat is wheat: by food from heaven we live: Yet whoso asks for daily bread must add, "Our sins forgive!"

Truth made transparent in a life, tried gold of character,

Were Mistress Hale's, and this is all that history says of her;

Their simple force, like sunlight, broke the hideous midnight spell,

And sight restored again to eyes obscured by films of hell.

The minister's long fields are still with dews of summer wet;

The roof that sheltered Mistress Hale tradition points to yet.

Green be her memory ever kept all over Cape-Ann-Side,

Whose unobtrusive excellence awed back delusion's tide!

LUCY LARCOM.

Stern De Rouville then their error, born of

terror, soon dispersing,

Loudly cursing them for folly, roused their pride with words of scorn; Peering cautiously they knew me, then by numbers overthrew me;

Fettered surely, bound securely, there again I lay forlorn.

Well I knew their purpose horrid, on each forehead it was written

Pride was smitten that their bravest had retreated at my ire;

For the rest the captive's durance, but for me there was assurance

Of the tortures known to martyrs — of the terrible death by fire.

Then I felt, though horror-stricken, pulses quicken as the swarthy

Savage, or the savage Frenchman, fiercest of the cruel band,

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Darted in and out the shadows, through the shivered palisadoes,

Death-blows dealing with unfeeling heart and never-sparing hand.

Soon the sense of horror left me, and bereft me of all feeling;

Soon, revealing all my early golden moments, memory came;

Showing how, when young and sprightly, with a footstep falling lightly,

I had pondered as I wandered on the maid I loved to name.

Her, so young, so pure, so dove-like, that the love-like angels whom a

Sweet aroma circles ever wheresoe'er they move their wings,

Felt with her the air grow sweeter, felt with her their joy completer,

Felt their gladness swell to madness, silent grow their silver strings.

Then I heard her voice's murmur breathing summer, while my spirit

Leaned to hear it and to drink it like a draught of pleasant wine;

Felt her head upon my shoulder drooping as my love I told her;

Felt the utterly pleased flutter of her heart respond to mine.

Then I saw our darlings clearly that more nearly linked our gladness;

Saw our sadness as a lost one sank from pain to happy rest;

Mingled tears with hers and chid her, bade her by our love consider

How our dearest now was nearest to the blessed Master's breast.

I had lost that wife so cherished, who had perished, passed from being,

In my seeing-I, unable to protect her or defend;

At that thought dispersed those fancies, born of woe-begotten trances,

While unto me came the gloomy present hour my heart to rend.

For I heard the firelocks ringing fiercely flinging forth the whirring, Blood-preferring leaden bullets from a garrisoned abode;