of tongue or L

"IT MIGHT EAT! 22.

ne sweet hopi

in eyes: els may

Ive ǎwar.

N GREENLL. Vam

And I'd feed the hungry and v.

And all should bless me who jes

The Judge looked back as he
And saw Maud Muller stan
A form more fair, a face mire -
Ne'er hath it been my lot to me
And her modest answer and gra
Show her wise and good as she
Would she were mine, and I to
Like her, a harvester of håy!
No doubtful balance of rights an
Nor weary lawyers with endless
But low of cattle and song of br
And health, and quiet, and boring

AUNTLET

But he thought of his sister, prond na a
And his mother, vain of her rank te
So, closing his heart, the Judge m
And Maud was left in the field ge
But the lawyers smiled that afternoon
When he hummed in court an old
And the young girl mased beside the
Till the rain on the unraked elever l

He wedded a wife of richest dove,
Who lived for fashion, as he for y
Yet oft, in his marble hearth's
He watched a picture come

je token.

and bruge

Inces fol

said, Fares

rize:

eyes."

us heel:

Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead ;
And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover blooms;
And the proud man sighed with a secret pain,
"Ah, that I were free again!

Free as when I rode that day

Where the barefoot maiden raked the hay."

She wedded a man unlearnèd and poor,
And many children played round her dōor.
But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,
And she heard the little spring-brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,
In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein,
And, gazing down with a timid grace,
She felt his pleased eye read her face

Sometimes her narrow kitchen-walls
Stretched away into stately halls;
The weary wheel to a spinet' turned,
The tallow candle an astral' burned ;
And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,
A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty, and love was law.
Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "It might have been."

Alas for maiden! alas for Judge!
For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;

'Spinet, a musical instrument resembling a harpsichord, but smaller. * Astral (ås'tral-låmp, an argand

lamp having the oil in a flattened ring surmounted by a hemisphere of ground glass.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these: "IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN!"

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;

And in the hereafter, angels may

Roll the stone from its grave ǎway.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

Lo

THE ROSE AND THE GAUNTLET.

OW spake the Knight to the peasant-girl:
"I tell thee sooth, I am belted Earl;

Fly with me from this garden small,

And thou shalt sit in my castle's hall;

"Thou shalt have pomp, and wealth, and pleasure, Joys beyond thy fancy's measure;

Here with my sword and horse I stand,

To bear thee ǎway to my distant land.

"Take, thou fairèst, this full-blown rose,
A token of love that as ripely blows."

With his glove of steel he plucked the token,
But it fell from his gauntlet, crushed and broken.

The maiden exclaimed-" Thou seest, Sir Knight,
Thy fingers of iron can only smite;

And, like the rose thou hast tōrn and scattered,
I in thy grasp should be wrecked and shattered.”

She trembled and blushed, and her glances fell;
But she turned from the Knight, and said, "Farewell!"
"Not so," he cried, "will I lose my prize;

I heed not thy words, but I read thine eyes."

He lifted her up in his grasp of steel,

And he mounted and spurred with furious heel ;

But her cry drew fōrth her hōary sire,

Who snatched his bow from above the fire.

Swift from the valley the warrior fled,

Swifter the bōlt of the cross-bow sped;

And the weight that pressed on the fleet-foot horse Was the living man, and the woman's corse.

That morning the rose was bright of hue;
That morning the maiden was fair to view;
But the evening sun its beauty shed

On the withered leaves, and the maiden dead.

THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.