most happy? Do you suppose it is merely to deceive them into the hope that happiness is always to fall thus in showers at their feet?- that wherever they pass they will tread on herbs of sweet scent, and that the rough ground will be made smooth for them by depth of roses? So surely as they believe that, they will have instead to walk on bitter herbs and thorns, and the only softness to their feet will be of snow. not thus intended that they should believe: there is a better meaning in that old custom. The path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers; but they rise behind her steps, not before them!

But it is

SAINT SYMPHORIEN.

[Led out to Martyrdom: his mother speaking from the wall.]

ROSE TERRY COOKE.

SYMPHORIEN! Symphorien

Look up the heavens are parting wide.
He waits for thee the Crucified.
The pain is short, the palm is near,
Look up! O God! he cannot hear.
Symphorien, Symphorien!

Where is my voice? My breath is gone!
Symphorien! My son, my son!

Ah-look! his clear eyes turn to me;

His firm, sweet, smiling lips I see.
God will be good to thee and me,
Symphorien !

Dear Lord, how long I prayed for him
With trembling tongue, and vision dim:
For baby hands about my breast;

For baby kisses on it pressed!

Thou heardest me:

this is the rest!

Symphorien! Symphorien !

My child, my boy, it is not much,
Only a sharp and sudden touch.
Think on the Master - not on me:
Remember His long agony.

The lictors will be merciful;

The headsman's axe will not be dull!
Only one moment—then for thee
The raptures of eternity,
Symphorien !

My baby! O, my baby boy!
A miracle of life and joy;

A rosy, careless, dimpled thing.
And now dear Lord, be comforting!-
Martyr and Saint. Let be, let be!
He must not know this agony.

Through my heart, too, the sword hath gone.
Be silent, lest he hear me groan !

Symphorien, Symphorien !

One last, long look: O saint! my child,
My boy, my own! - he turned and smiled.

And now behind the crowd of spears,
The whirling dust, -he disappears.
Symphorien !

Martyr and Saint! You think I care?
Oh, fools and blind, I am his mother!
What, bless the Lord and turn to prayer?
He is my child-I have no other.
No hands to clasp, no lips to kiss.

Who talks to me of heaven's bliss?

Symphorien! Symphorien!

Come back! Come back! Deny the Lord!
Traitor? Who hissed that burning word?
I did not say it. God, be just!
I did not keep him; I am dust.
The flesh rebels. I am his mother.
Thou didst not give me any other.
Thine only Son?-but I am human.
Art Thou not God? I am a woman.
Symphorien! Symphorien!
Come back!

SAINT BRANDAN.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

SAINT BRANDAN sails the northern main;
The brotherhood of saints are glad.

He greets them once, he sails again;

So late! such storms!-the Saint is mad!

He heard, across the howling seas,

Chime convent-bells on wintry nights;

He saw, on spray-swept Hebrides,

Twinkle the monastery lights:

But north, still north, Saint Brandan steered

And now no bells, no convents more!

The hurtling Polar lights are neared

The sea without a human shore.

Stars shone after a day of storm)

He sees float past an iceberg white,

And on it Christ! - a living form!

That furtive mien, that scowling eye,
Of hair that red and tufted fell
It is oh, where shall Brandan fly?—
The traitor Judas, out of hell.

Palsied with terror, Brandan sate;

The moon was bright, the iceberg near. He hears a voice sigh humbly: "Wait! By high permission I am here.

"One moment wait, thou holy man!

On earth my crime, my death they knew:

My name is under all men's ban

Ah, tell them of my respite too!

"Tell them, one blessed Christmas night(It was the first after I came Breathing self-murder, frenzy, spite,

To rue my guilt in endless flame)

"I felt, as I in torment lay

'Mid the souls plagued by heavenly power,

An angel touch mine arm and say:
'Go hence and cool thyself an hour!'

"Ah, whence this mercy, Lord?' I said.
'The leper recollect,' said he,
"Who asked the passers-by for aid
In Joppa, and thy charity.'

"Then I remembered how I went
In Joppa through the public street,
One morn when the sirocco spent
Its storms of dust with burning heat;

"And in the street a leper sate

Shivering with fever, naked, old: Sand raked his sores from heel to pate, The hot wind fevered him five fold.

"He gazed upon me as I passed,

6

And murmured: Help me or I die!' To the poor wretch my cloak I cast, Saw him look eased, and hurried by.

"Oh, Brandan, think what grace divine,
What blessing must full goodness shower
When fragment of it, small, like mine,
Hath such inestimable power!

"Well fed, well clothed, well friended, I
Did that chance act of good, that one!
Then went my way to kill and lie
Forgot my good as soon as done.