The baron's heart was stern and sore as Elsie met his glance. So in the woman's tower she was kept both night and day. With hope and fear in surging mass within her bosom blent. She reached the hall: a knight stood there, his armour bright with gold, His face safe hid beneath the bars of his dark visor's hold; And when the baron took her hand, and led her where he stood, (259.) BECALMED. Samuel K. Cowan, M. A., barrister-at-law and poet. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, classical honorarian at Dublin University, author of "Murmur of the Shell," and other poems It was as calm as calm could be; a death-still night in June: a silver sail, on a silver sea, under a silver moon. No least low air the still sea stirred: but all on the dreaming deep the white ship lay, like a white sea-bird, with folded wings, asleep. For a long long month not a breath of air: for a month not a drop of rain: and the gaunt crew watched in wild despair, with a fever in throat and brain. And they saw the shore, like a dim cloud, stand on the far horizon-sea: it was only a day's short sail to the land, and the haven where they would be. Too faint to row-no signal brought an answer, far or nigh: Father, have mercy: leave them not alone, on the deep, to die. And the gaunt crew prayed on the decks above, and the women prayed below: "One drop of rain, for Heaven's great love! O Heaven, for a breeze to blow!" But never a shower from the skies would burst, and never a breeze would come: O God, to think that man can thirst, and starve, in sight of home! But out to sea with the drifting tide the vessel drifted away: till the far-off shore, like the dim cloud, died: and the wild crew ceased to pray! Like fiends they glared, with their eyes aglow; like beasts with hunger wild: but a mother prayed, in the cabin below, by the bed of her little child. It slept, and lo! in its sleep, it smiled: a babe of summers three: "O Father, save my little child, whatever comes to me!" Calm gleamed the sea: calm gleamed the sky, no cloud—no sail-in view: and they cast them lots, for who should die to feed the starving crew! Like beasts they glared, with hunger wild, and their red glazed eyes aglow, and the death-lot fell on the little child that slept in the cabin below! And the mother shrieked in wild despair: "O God, my child-my son. They will take his life: it is hard to bear: yet, Father, Thy will be done." And she waked the child from its happy sleep, and she kneeled by the cradle bed: "We thirst, my child, on the lonely deep: we are dying, my child, for bread. On the lone lone sea no sail-no breeze: not a drop of rain in the sky: we thirst—we starve—on the lonely seas; and thou, my child, must die!" She wept: what tears her wild soul shed not I, but Heaven knows best. And the child rose up from its cradle bed, and crossed its hands on its breast: "Father," he lisped, "so good—so kind, have pity on mother's pain: for mother's sake, a little wind: Father, a little rain!" And she heard them shout for the child from the deck, and she knelt on the cabin stairs: "The child!" they cry, "the child --stand back-and a curse on your idiot prayers!" And the mother rose in her wild despair, and she bared her throat to the knife: "Strike-strike, me-me: but spare, O spare my child, my dear son's life!" O God, it was a ghastly sight: red eyes, like flaming brands, and a hundred belt-knives flashing bright in the clutch of skeleton hands! "Me-me-strike-strike, ye fiends of Death!" But soft-thro' the ghastly air whose falling tear was that? whose breath waves thro' the mother's hair? A flutter of sail-a ripple of seas: a speck on the cabin-pane: O God, it is a breeze—a breeze— and a drop of blessèd rain! And the mother rushed to the cabin below, and she wept on the babe's bright hair: "The sweet rain falls: the sweet winds blow: Father has heard thy prayer!" But the child had fallen asleep again, and lo! in its sleep it smiled. And the gaunt crew fell on their bended knees, and they cried with rapture wild—“Thank God, thank God, for His rain and His breeze! Thank God, for her little child!" (260.) STATE OF THE WORLD AT THE COMING James Hamilton, D.D., minister of the Scotch Church, Regent Square, London: b. 1814, d. 1867. Author of The Mount of Olives, The Lamp and the Lantern, and many other religious works, and of various essays. Augustus was emperor. From the Atlantic to the Euphrates-from where the legions were arrested by the snows of Sarmatia northward, and the sands of Libya southward, the world was a Roman farm; and, with all its lovely islands and fruitful shores, the Mediterranean was a Roman lake. Mauritania and Numidia, Egypt, Palestine, Syria-the countries now known as Turkey, Germany, Spain, France, Belgium, Holland, Britain—all received their laws from the Italian capital, and all sent it their tribute. With its hundred and twenty millions of subjects, this region included the whole of the old world's intelligence, and nearly all its wealth; and though many of the conquered nations were fierce and strong, they had been effectually subdued, and were now overawed by an army of 300,000 men. With its beak of brass and its talons of steel, the great eagle had grappled and overcome the human race; and the whole earth trembled, when, from his seven-hilled eyrie, he flapped his wings of thunder. There was nearly universal peace. By the courage and consummate generalship of Julius Cæsar the most formidable nations had already been vanquished; and since the death of Pompey, and the conclusion of the civil war, the empire, undivided and undisputed, was swayed by a single autocrat. The pagan culture had culminated. The exquisite temples of Greece had begun to go to ruin, and in that land of sages there arose no new Pythagoras-no second Socrates. But the genius of Rome had scarcely passed the zenith. Seneca was born in the same year with John Baptist. Thousands still lived in whose ears the musical wisdom of Cicero lingered, and who had read, when newly published, the sublime speculations of Lucretius. It was but the other day that the sweet voice of Virgil had fallen mute, and only eight years since the tomb of Maecenas had opened to admit the urn of Horace. Under its sumptuous ruler Rome was rapidly becoming a mountain-pile of STATE OF THE WORLD AT THE COMING OF CHRIST. 281 marble palaces-baths, temples, theatres-the proudest on which sunbeams ever sparkled; and, with his enormous wealth and allcommanding absolutism, the Roman citizen was the lordliest mortal whom luxury ever pampered-the most supercilious demi-god who ever exacted the adulation of his fellows. Yet, amidst all this civilization, it was a time of fearful depravity. In regions so remote as Britain and Germany, it was scarcely surprising that dark superstitions should prevail, and that hecatombs of little children should be immolated by the fiends of the forest. But in Rome itself, under all the outward refinement, coarse tastes and fierce passions reigned; and the same patrician who, at a false note in music, would writhe with graceful agony, could preside imperturbable over the tortures of a slave or a prisoner; and, to see him overnight shedding tears at one of Ovid's epistles, you would not guess that he had all the morning been gloating on the convulsions of dying gladiators. Busts of Cato adorned the vestibule, but brutality and excess ran riot through the halls; and it was hard to say which was the most abandoned-the multitude who still adored divinities the patrons of every crime, or the scholars who laughed at superstition and perpetrated crimes worthy of a Mars or Jupiter. This was the time which the Most High selected for the greatest event of human history. On the one hand, it was a time of tranquillity. The wars of long centuries had ceased. Men's minds were not absorbed in the contests of dynasties, nor agitated by the burning of their capitals and the desolation of their homes. And a lull like this was favourable for the commencement of a moral movement which concerned the whole of Adam's family. On the other hand, the world was old enough. For four thousand years the great experiment had been going on, and man had been permitted to do his best to retrieve the ruin of the Fall. It seemed, however, as if every struggle were only a deeper plunge; and betwixt the exploded nostrums of philosophy, and the corruption of the times, the world had grown weary of itself. A dry-rot had got into the ancient faith, and idolatry and hero-worship tottered on their crumbling pillars. Satiety or disgust was the prevailing mood of the wealthy; revenge and despair gnawed the heart of the down-trampled millions. For tribes which had lost their nationality, and for citizens who had sold their hereditary freedom, there was no spell in the past; and amongst a people who had lost faith in one another, there remained nothing which could inspire the fervour of patriotism. It was felt, that if extrication ever came, it must come from above; and even in heathen lands, hints gathered from the Hebrew Scriptures, or prophetic particles floated down on the muddy tide of pagan mythology, began to be carefully collected and exhibited in settings of the richest poetry, till the Bard of Mantua sang of a virgin, and an unprecedented offspring descended from high Heaven, who should efface the traces of our crimes, and free from its perpetual fears the world—in whose days the lion would be no terror to the ox, and the deadly serpent should die. Betwixt the general peace which prevailed, the hopeless wickedness, and the general wearying for a change, "the road was ready, and the path made straight." "The fulness of time was come, and GOD SENT FORTH HIS SON." (261.) THE CASKETS. [Portia, a rich heiress, is in love with Bassanio: but her choice of a husband is restricted by her father's will to the following condition. Her suitors (by this condition) are to select from three caskets, one of gold, one of silver, and one of lead, and he who selects the casket which contains Portia's picture is to claim the rich heiress as his wife. Bassanio chooses the lead, and being successful becomes her espoused husband. The story from which Shakspere took this charming episode in his play of the Merchant of Venice is in the Gesta Romanorum.] SCENE-A Room in Portia's House. Enter PORTIA and NERISSA. Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world. Is it not hard that I cannot choose one nor refuse none? Ner. Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men, at their death, have good inspirations; therefore, the lottery, that he hath devised in these three chests, of gold, silver, and lead (whereof who chooses his meaning, chooses you), will no doubt never be chosen by any rightly, but one who you shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already come? Por. I pray thee, over-name them; and as thou namest them, I will describe them; and according to my description, level at my affection. Ner. First, there is the Neapolitan prince. Por. Ay, that's a colt, indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts, that he can shoe him himself. Ner. Then, there is the county Palatine. Por. He doth nothing but frown; as who should say, An if you will not have me, choose: he hears merry tales, and smiles not: I fear, he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old. Ner. Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a Venetian, a scholar, and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis of Montferrat? |