Thy ghastly countenance, and his slack hand Drops the drawn knife. But, oh, most fearfully Dost thou show forth Heaven's justice, when thy shafts

Drink up the ebbing spirit-then the hard

Of heart and violent of hand restores

The treasure to the friendless wretch he wronged.
Then from the writhing bosom thou dost pluck
The guilty secret; lips, for ages sealed,
Are faithless to the dreadful trust at length,
And give it up; the felon's latest breath
Absolves the innocent man who bears his crime;
The slanderer, horror-smitten, and in tears,
Recalls the deadly obloquy he forged

To work his brother's ruin. Thou dost make
Thy penitent victim utter to the air

The dark conspiracy that strikes at life,

And aims to whelm the laws; ere yet the hour Is come, and the dread sign of murder given.

Thus, from the first of time, hast thou been found

On virtue's side; the wicked, but for thee, Had been too strong for the good; the great of earth

Had crushed the weak for ever. Schooled in

guile

For ages, while each passing year had brought Its baneful lesson, they had filled the world With their abominations; while its tribes, Trodden to earth, imbruted, and despoiled, Had knelt to them in worship; sacrifice

Had smoked on many an altar, temple roofs
Had echoed with the blasphemous prayer and
hymn.

But thou, the great reformer of the world,
Tak'st off the sons of violence and fraud

In their green pupilage, their lore half learned—
Ere guilt had quite o'errun the simple heart
God gave them at their birth, and blotted out
His image. Thou dost mark them flushed with
hope,

As on the threshold of their vast designs,
Doubtful and loose they stand, and strik'st them

down.

Alas! I little thought that the stern power Whose fearful praise I sung, would try me thus Before the strain was ended. It must ceaseFor he is in his grave who taught my youth The art of verse, and in the bud of life Offered me to the Muses. Oh, cut off Untimely! when thy reason in its strength, Ripened by years of toil and studious search, And watch of Nature's silent lessons, taught Thy hand to practise best the lenient art To which thou gavest thy laborious days, And, last, thy life. And, therefore, when the earth Received thee, tears were in unyielding eyes And on hard cheeks, and they who deemed thy skill

Delayed their death-hour, shuddered and turned pale

When thou wert gone.

which thou

This faltering verse,

Shalt not, as wont, o'erlook, is all I have
To offer at thy grave-this-and the hope
To copy thy example, and to leave

A name of which the wretched shall not think
As of an enemy's, whom they forgive

As all forgive the dead. Rest, therefore, thou Whose early guidance trained my infant stepsRest, in the bosom of God, till the brief sleep Of death is over, and a happier life

Shall dawn to waken thine insensible dust.

Now thou art not-and yet the men whose guilt

Has wearied Heaven for vengeance he who bears
False witness-he who takes the orphan's bread,
And robs the widow-he who spreads abroad
Polluted hands of mockery of prayer,

Are left to cumber earth. Shuddering I look
On what is written, yet I blot not out
The desultory numbers-let them stand,
The record of an idle revery.

W. C. BRYANT.

"Room for the Leper! Room!”

"ROOM 00 for the leper! room!" And as he

came,

The cry passed on— "Room for the leper! room!" Sunrise was slanting on the city gates

Rosy and beautiful, and from the hills
The early-risen poor were coming in,
Duly and cheerfully, to their toil, and up
Rose the sharp hammer's clink, and the far hum
Of moving wheels and multitudes astir,
And all that in a city murmur swells,
Unheard but by the watcher's weary ear,
Aching with night's dull silence, or the sick
Hailing the welcome light, and sounds that chase
The death-like images of the dark away.

"Room for the leper!" And aside they stood,
Matron, and child, and pitiless manhood-all
Who met him on his way—and let him pass.
And onward through the open gate he came,
A leper, with the ashes on his brow,
Sackcloth about his loins, and on his lip
A covering, stepping painfully and slow,
And with a difficult utterance, like one
Whose heart is with an iron nerve put down,
Crying, "Unclean! Unclean!"

'Twas now the depth
Of the Judæan summer, and the leaves,
Whose shadow lay so still upon the path,
Had budded on the clear and flashing eye
Of Judah's loftiest noble. He was young,
And eminently beautiful, and life

Mantled in eloquent fulness on his lip,
And sparkled in his glance; and in his mien
There was a gracious pride that every eye
Followed with benisons-and this was he!
With the soft air of summer there had come

A torpor on his frame, which not the speed
Of his best barb, nor music, nor the blast
Of the bold huntsman's horn, nor aught that stirs
The spirit to its bent might drive away.

The blood beat not as wont within his veins ;
Dimness crept o'er his eye; a drowsy sloth
Fettered his limbs like palsy, and his port,
With all his loftiness, seemed struck with eld.
Even his voice was changed-a languid moan
Taking the place of the clear, silver key;
And brain and sense grew faint, as if the light,
And very air, were steeped in sluggishness.
He strove with it awhile, as manhood will,
Ever too proud for weakness, till the rein
Slackened within his grasp, and in its poise
The arrowy jereed like an aspen shook.
Day after day he lay as if in sleep;

His skin grew dry and bloodless, and white scales,
Circled with livid purple, covered him.

And then his nails grew black, and fell away From the dull flesh about them, and the hues Deepened beneath the hard unmoistened scales, And from their edges grew the rank white hair. -And Helon was a leper!

Day was breaking

When at the altar of the temple stood

The holy priest of God. The incense lamp
Burned with a struggling light, and a low chant
Swelled through the hollow arches of the roof
Like an articulate wail, and there alone,
Wasted to ghastly thinness, Helon knelt.