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. Where is my voice? My breath is gone! Ah-look! his clear eyes turn to me; His firm, sweet, smiling lips I see. Dear Lord, how long I prayed for him For baby kisses on it pressed! Thou heardest me: this is the rest! Symphorien! Symphorien ! My child, my boy, it is not much, The lictors will be merciful; The headsman's axe will not be dull! My baby! O, my baby boy! A rosy, careless, dimpled thing. Through my heart, too, the sword hath gone. Symphorien, Symphorien ! One last, long look: O saint! my child, And now behind the crowd of spears, Martyr and Saint! You think I care? Who talks to me of heaven's bliss? Symphorien! Symphorien! Come back! Come back! Deny the Lord! SAINT BRANDAN. MATTHEW ARNOLD. SAINT BRANDAN sails the northern main; 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, 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: "Ah, whence this mercy, Lord?' I said. "Then I remembered how I went "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, "Well fed, well clothed, well friended, I |