And the Circassian rose, and all the crowd
Of silent and familiar things, stole up,
Like the recovered passages of dreams.
He strode on rapidly. A moment more,

And he had reached his home; when lo! there

sprang

One with a bounding footstep and a brow
Of light to meet him. Oh, how beautiful!
Her dark eye flashing like a sun-lit gem,
And her luxuriant hair-'twas like the sweep
Of a swift wing in visions. He stood still,
As if the sight had withered him. She threw
Her arms about his neck; he heeded not.
She called him "Father," but he answered not.
She stood and gazed upon him. Was he wroth?
There was no anger in that blood-shot eye.
Had sickness seized him? She unclasp'd his helm,
And laid her white hand gently on his brow,
And the large veins felt stiff and hard, like cords.
The touch aroused him. He raised up his hands,
And spoke the name of God, in agony.

She knew that he was stricken then, and rushed
Again into his arms, and with a flood

Of tears she could not stay, she sobbed a prayer
That he would breathe his agony in words.
He told her and a momentary flush

Shot o'er her countenance; and then the soul
Of Jephthah's daughter wakened; and she stood
Calmly and nobly up, and said 'twas well-
And she would die.

The sun had well nigh set;

The fire was on the altar, and the priest

Of the High God was there. A pallid man

Was stretching out his trembling hands to Heaven,
As if he would have prayed, but had no words.
And she who was to die, the calmest one
In Israel at that hour, stood up alone,
And waited for the sun to set. Her face
Was pale, but very beautiful-her lip
Had a more delicate outline, and the tint
Was deeper; but her countenance was like
The majesty of angels.

The sun set

And she was dead-but not by violence.

NATHANIEL P. WILLIS

40

THE HEBREW MOTHER

I Samuel i. 24

The rose was rich in bloom on Sharon's plain,
When a young mother, with her first-born, thence
Went up to Zion, for the boy was vowed
Unto the Temple service. By the hand
She led him, and her silent soul, the while,
Oft as the dewy laughter of his eye
Met her sweet, serious glance, rejoiced to think
That aught so pure, so beautiful, was hers
To bring before her God. So passed they on
O'er Judah's hills; and wheresoe'er the leaves

shaft or leathern shield-thong until the weariness of more than twenty combats fell upon cord and sinew; and silence, such a silence over all the vast array, that the very birds that had retired trembling before the human wave that surged through their domains, came forth warbling their even-songs,-and the host waited.

It was then that two captains strode out before the long lines, and the eyes of men, relieved, forsook for an instant the northern buttresses of the city to look upon Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh.

Taller by a head than his comrade, Joshua seemed a man who had completed a century of life-no life of ease, of pampered indulgence, of fondled luxury; but of action, of labor, of thought, of trouble, aye, and of suffering. Yet the eye that shot its piercing glances from under shaggy eyebrows showed no signs of the rheum of age. The hand, from which the flesh had shrunken away, showed no relaxing of cord or muscle as it rested on the hilt of the sword in its leathern scabbard. The frame, spare, but large-boned and sinewy, stood as erect as when its younger muscles had tugged and strained in the earlier struggles of a chequered and stormy life. The beard, long and ungrizzled with the hue of youth, flowed down over mail and belt. A coarse soldier's mantle thrown back from the shoulders disclosed a corselet skilfully wrought of quilted cloth strengthened with scales of brass overlapping each other and extending almost to the knees.

From under a plain brass helmet stray locks of white hair crept out to fall upon the sinewy neck or half hide the furrows that thought and suffering had ploughed in the lofty forehead. He bore neither shield nor spear, only the short Jewish sword girded at his side, and with his hand from time to time he shaded his eyes that anxiously sought to face the setting sun.

Caleb, although in age almost the equal of his companion, yet seemed as though twenty years might have elapsed between their births.

Evening was fast descending.

Suddenly Joshua stepped forward a pace with head bent forward and hand still shading his eyes. Far toward the north and west a small cloud of dust rose slowly, and then the faint glitter of steel shot out from here and there amid its sombre shadow. A low hum went up from the waiting army.

Swiftly the old warrior faced them and raised his hand in warning or in menace, and the halfarticulate murmur sunk away.

Again he turned toward the approaching cloud, now cloud no longer, but the thousand of Judah pressing forward in full view, with Ozias at the head; weary and footsore, yet eager and expectant. With a hurried word to his comrade, Joshua strode forward to meet the Ark and its escort, and, as Caleb passed back to the host and gave the longwished-for word, the troops awoke to action. In

Of the broad sycamore made sounds at noon,
Like lulling raindrops, or the olive-boughs
With their cool dimness crossed the sultry blue
Of Syria's heaven, she paused that he might rest;
Yet from her own meek eyelids chased the sleep
That weighed their dark fringe down, to sit and
watch

The crimson deepening o'er his cheek's repose,
As at a red flower's heart.

And where a fount

Lay like a twilight star 'mid palmy shades,

Making its banks green gems along the wilds,
There too she lingered, from the diamond wave
Drawing bright water for his rosy lips,

And softly parting clusters of jet curls

To bathe his brow. At last the Fane was reached,-
The earth's one sanctuary-and rapture hushed
Her bosom, as before her, through the day,

It rose, a mountain of white marble, steeped
In light, like floating gold.

But when that hour

Waned to the farewell moment, when the boy

Lifted, through rainbow-gleaming tears, his eye
Beseechingly to hers, and half in fear

Turned from the white-robed priest, and round her

arm

Clung as the ivy clings-the deep spring-tide
Of Nature then swelled high, and o'er her child
Bending, her soul broke forth in mingled sound
Of weeping and sad song.-" Alas," she cried,
"Alas, my boy, thy gentle grasp is on me;