When wounded sore on fever's rack, She call'd their fluttering spirits back, When words of wrath profaning rung, And holy made the place. They knew that they were cared for then, In dreamy sleep they lost their pain, Of early years when all was fair, Of faces sweet and pale; They woke the angel bending there Was-FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE ! Bennoch. About sunset, however, as I was preparing to pass the night in this manner, and had turned my horse loose that he might graze at liberty, a woman, returning from the labours of the field, stopped to observe me, and perceiving that I was weary and dejected, inquired into my situation, which I briefly explained to her; whereupon, with looks of great compassion, she took up my saddle and bridle, and told me to follow her. Having conducted me into her hut, she lighted up a lamp, spread a mat on the floor, and told me I might remain there for the night. Finding that I was very hungry, she said she would procure me something to eat. She accordingly went out, and returned in a short time with a very fine fish, which, having caused to be half broiled upon some embers, she gave me for supper. The rites of hospitality being thus performed towards a stranger in distress, my worthy benefactress-pointing to the mat, and telling me I might sleep there without apprehension-called to the female part of her family, who had stood gazing on me all the while in fixed astonishment, to resume their task of spinning cotton, in which they continued to employ themselves great part of the night. They lightened their labour by songs, one of which was composed extempore, for I was myself the subject of it. It was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a sort of chorus. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, literally translated, were these : "The winds roared, and the rains fell. The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree. He has no mother to bring him milk- no wife to grind his corn. Chorus.-Let us pity the white man-no mother has he," &c. Trifling as this recital may appear to the reader, to a person in my situation the circumstance was affecting in the highest degree. I was oppressed by such unexpected kindness, and sleep fled from my eyes. Mungo Park. The very first Of human life must spring from woman's breast: Byron. Fair ladies! you drop manna in the way of starved people. Shakespeare. Her Angelic Beauty. Die when you will, you need not wear, Lord Herbert of Cherbury. With sweetest airs Entice her forth to lend her angel form Thy radiant locks, disclosing, as it bends, Where winning smiles, and pleasure sweet as love, Their soft allurement. Akenside. Her Angelic Nature. A creature as fair and innocent of guile, as one of God's own angels, fluttered between life and death! Oh! who could hope, when the distant world to which she was akin, half opened to her view, that she would return to the sorrow and calamity of this? Rose, Rose, to know that you were passing away like some soft shadow, which a light from above casts upon the earth; to have no hope that you would be spared to those who linger here; hardly to know a reason why you should be; to feel that you belonged to that bright sphere whither so many of the fairest and the best have winged their early flight; and yet to pray, amid all these consolations, that you might be restored to those who loved you-these were distractions almost too great to bear. They were mine by day and night, and with them came such a rushing torrent of fears, and apprehensions, and selfish regrets, lest you should die, and never know how devotedly I loved you, as almost bore down sense and reason in its course. You recovered. Day by day, and almost hour by hour, some drop of health came back, and mingling with the speech and feeble stream of life which circulated languidly within you, swelled it again to a high and rushing tide. I have watched you change almost from death to life, with eyes that turned blind with their eagerness and deep affection. Dickens. O Woman! in ordinary cases so mere a mortal, how, in the great and rare events of life, dost thou swell into the angel! Bulwer. There is a bud in life's dark wilderness, Whose beauties charm, whose fragrance soothes distress: That gilds the starting tear it cannot dry: That flower, that lonely beam, on Eden's grove To his low mind thy worth is all unknown, Who deems thee pleasure's transient toy alone: But oh! how most deceived, whose creed hath given Thine earthly charms a rival band in heaven! Yet thou hast charms that time may not dispel, Whose deathless bloom shall glow where angels dwell: Like morn's bright dew beneath the solar ray: |