smoke. There is a rush and roar, as of a river through the air, and muddy streams bubble majestically along the pavement, whirl their dusky foam into the kennel, and disappear beneath iron grates. Thus did Arethusa sink. I love not my station here aloft, in the midst of the tumult which I am powerless to direct or quell, with the blue lightning wrinkling on my brow, and the thunder muttering its first awful syllables in my ear. I will descend. Yet let me give another glance to the sea, where the foam breaks in long white lines upon a broad expanse of blackness, or boils up in far distant points, like snowy-mountain-tops in the eddies of a flood; and let me look once more at the green plain, and little hills of the country, over which the giant of the storm is riding in robes of mist, and at the town, whose obscured and desolate streets might beseem a city of the dead; and turning a single moment to the sky, now gloomy as an author's prospects, I prepare to resume my station on lower earth. But stay! A little speck of azure has widened in the western heavens; the sunbeams find a passage, and go rejoicing through the tempest; and on yonder darkest cloud, born, like hallowed hopes, of the glory of another world, and the trouble and tears of this, brightens forth the Rainbow! WHEN SPARROWS BUILD. JEAN INGELOW. HEN sparrows build, and the leaves My old sorrow wakes and cries. For I know there is dawn in the far, far north, And a scarlet sun doth rise; Like a scarlet fleece the snow-field spreads, And the bergs begin to bow their heads, O, my lost love, and my own, own love, Is there never a chink in the world above Where they listen for words from below? And now thou wilt hear me no more-no more Thou didst set thy foot on the ship, and sail Driven far by the flame, driving fast on us three We lay low in the grass on the broad plain As a hurricane comes, crushing palms in his levels, ire." We drew in the lassos, seized saddle and rein, Threw them on, sinched them on, sinched them over again, And again drew the girth, cast aside the macheer, Cut away tapidaros, loosed the sash from its fold, Cast aside the catenas red, and spangled with gold, And gold-mounted Colt's, true companions for years, Cast the red silk serapes to the wind in a breath And so bared to the skin sprang all haste to the horse. Not a word, not a wail from a lip was let fall, Not a kiss from my bride, not a look or low call Of love-note or courage, but on o'er the plain So steady and still, leaning low to the mane, With the heel to the flank and the hand to the rein, Rode we on, rode we three, rode we gray Came the flash of his eyes like a half-hidden Reaching long, breathing loud, like a creviced While his keen crooked horns through the I stood in my stirrup and looked to my right, Did subside and recede, and the nerves fell as But Revels was gone; I glanced by my shoulder And saw his horse stagger; I saw his head drooping Hard on his breast, and his naked breast stooping Low down to the mane as so swifter and bolder dead. Then she saw that my own steed still lorded his head With a look of delight, for this Paché, you see, Had won a whole herd, sweeping everything In a race where the world came to run for the crown; Ran reaching out for us the red-footed fire. in the air. As a terrible surf on a red sea of flame ing higher, And he rode neck to neck to a buffalo bull, Of smoke and of dust, and it shook with desire cloud bride, |