And moving up from high to higher,
Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope
The pillar of a people's hope,
The centre of a world's desire;

Yet feels, as in a pensive dream,
When all his active powers are still,
A distant dearness in the hill,
A secret sweetness in the stream.

The limit of his narrower fate,

While yet beside its vocal springs,
He played at counsellors and kings
With one who was his earliest mate.

Who ploughs with pain his native lea
And reaps the labor of his hands,
Or in the furrow musing stands,
"Does my old friend remember me?"

HOW GOOD ARE THE POOR.

VICTOR HUGO. TRANSLATION OF H. W. ALEXANDER. ABRIDGED.

'Tis night within the close-shut cabin door

The room is wrapped in shade, save where there fall
Some twilight rays that creep along the floor,
And show the fisher's nets upon the wall.

In the dim corner, from the oaken chest,
A few white dishes glimmer; in the shade

Stands a tall bed with dusky curtains dressed,
And a rough mattress at its side is laid.

Five children on the long, low mattress lie-
A nest of little souls, it heaves with dreams.
In the high chimney the last embers die,

And redden the dark room with crimson gleams.
The mother kneels and thinks, and pale with fear,
She prays alone, hearing the billows shout;
While to wild winds, to rocks, to midnight drear,
The ominous old ocean sobs without.

Poor wives of fishers! Ah! 'tis sad to say

"Our sons, our husbands, all that we love best, Our hearts, our souls, are on those waves away, Those ravening wolves that know not ruth, nor rest.

"Terrible fear! we seek the pebbly shore,

6

Cry to the rising billows, Bring them home.'

Alas! what answer gives their troubled roar

To the dark thoughts that haunt us as we roam?

*

The dawn was whitening over the sea's verge
As she sat pensive, touching broken chords
Of half remorseful thought, while the hoarse surge
Howled a sad concert to her broken words.

"Ah! my poor husband! We had five before.

Already so much care, so For he must work for all.

What was that noise?

much to find,

I give him more.
His step? Ah no! the wind.

afraid of him I love!
If he should beat me now

"That I should be
I have done ill.
I would not blame him. Does not the door move?
Not yet, poor man!" She sits, with careful brow,
Wrapped in her inward grief; nor hears the roar
Of wind and waves that dash against his prow
Or the black cormorant shrieking on the shore.

Sudden the door flies open wide, and lets
Noisily in the dawn-light scarcely clear,
And the good fisher, dragging his damp nets,
Stands on the threshold, with a joyful cheer.

""Tis thou!" she cries, and eager as a lover, Leaps up and holds her husband to her breast; Her greeting kisses all his vesture cover;

"'Tis I, good wife!" and his broad face expressed

How gay his heart that Janet's love made light. "What weather was it?" "Hard." "Your fishing?"

"Bad.

The sea was like a nest of thieves to-night,
But I embrace thee and my heart is light.

"There was a devil in the wind that blew ;

I tore my net, caught nothing, broke my line. And once I thought the bark was broken too; What did you all the night long, Janet mine?"

She, trembling in the darkness, answered, "I!

Oh, naught—I sewed, I watched, I was afraid.

The waves were loud as thunder from the sky,
But it is over." Shyly then she said:—

"Our neighbor died last night; it must have been
When you were gone. She left two little ones,
So small, so frail
so frail-William and Madeleine;

The one just lisps, the other scarcely runs."

The man looked grave, and in the corner cast
His old fur bonnet, wet with rain and sea,
Muttered awhile and scratched his head-at last:
"We have five children, this makes seven," said he.

"Already in bad weather we must sleep

Sometimes without our supper. Now! Ah well 'Tis not my fault. These accidents are deep; It was the good God's will. I cannot tell.

66

Why did He take the mother from those scraps
No bigger than my fist? 'Tis hard to read.

A learned man might understand perhaps

So little, they can neither work nor need.

"Go fetch them, wife; they will be frightened sore,
If with the dead alone they waken thus.
That was the mother knocking at our door,
And we must take the children home to us.

"Brother and sister shall they be to ours,

And they will learn to climb my knee at even. When He shall see these strangers in our bowers, More fish, more food will give the God of Heaven.

"I will work harder; I will drink no wine —

Go fetch them. Wherefore dost thou linger, dear? Not thus are wont to move those feet of thine." She drew the curtain, saying, " They are here!"

RUTH.

THOMAS HOOD.

SHE stood breast high amid the corn,
Clasped by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.

On her cheek an autumn flush
Deeply ripened;- such a blush
In the midst of brown was born,
Like red poppies grown with corn.

Round her eyes her tresses fell—
Which were blackest none could tell;
But long lashes veiled a light
That had else been all too bright.

And her hat, with shady brim,
Made her tressy forehead dim;—
Thus she stood amid the stooks,
Praising God with sweetest looks.

Sure, I said, Heaven did not mean
Where I reap thou shouldst but glean;
Lay thy sheaf adown and come,
Share my harvest and my home.