Knickerbocker | Page 9

the responsibility from one to
the other, as is the wont of such bodies when the members act
separately.
When the poor woman had so far recovered from the first shock as to
be enabled to articulate, she pleaded her ability to maintain herself
without assistance, and her choice rather to starve than be removed. She
appealed to him as the father of a daughter, and painted the ruin which
would fall upon her own, exposed to the corruption and example of the
place to which he was taking her. She appealed to him as a Christian,
and reminded him that they had sat together before the sacred desk, and
partaken of the symbols of the body and blood of the Son of Him who
was in a peculiar manner the father of the widow and orphan. But her

auditor was destitute of the imagination which enables the possessor to
enter into the feelings of another; and these affecting appeals fell dead
upon his worldly and unsympathizing nature. The man even extended
his hand to urge her forward to the conveyance provided! At that
moment, when all hope was dead within her, and the worst that could
happen in her opinion had arrived, a change came over the unhappy
woman. She suffered herself unresistingly to be led forward to her
doom. The fine chords of the mind and heart, lately so intensely strung,
had parted; her countenance relaxed, and her features settled down into
a dead, unmeaning apathy; never again, during the short remainder of
her life, to be animated by one gleam of the feelings which had so
lately illumined but to destroy.
My kind, my indulgent mother! Her generous heart needed not the
eloquence of my youthful feelings to induce her to rescue the poor
orphan, and to cherish her as her own child. And never was kindness
more richly----
I had proceeded thus far in writing this narrative, when I discovered
that I was overlooked; and a gentle voice over my shoulder said: 'You
should not praise your own wife; it is the same as if you should praise
yourself!'
E. B.

APOSTROPHE TO HEALTH.
HYGEIA! most blest of the powers That tenant the mansions divine,
May I pass in thy presence the hours That remain, ere in death I recline!
Dwell with me, benevolent charm! Without the attendance of health
Not the smiles of affection can warm, And dull are the splendors of
wealth.
The pageant of empire is stale That lifts men like gods o'er their race,
And the heart's thrilling impulses fail When Love beckons on to the
chase.

Whate'er in itself joy can give, Or that springs from sweet respite of
pain, That mortals or gods can receive, Blest HYGEIA! is found in thy
train!
Thy smile kindles up the fresh spring, The glad, verdant bloom of the
soul; Thee absent, our pleasures take wing, And Sorrow usurps her
control.

ISABEL.
Hush! her face is chill, And the summer blossom. Motionless and still,
Lieth on her bosom. On her shroud so white, Like snow in winter
weather, Her marble hands unite, Quietly together.
How like sleep the spell On her lids that falleth! Wake, sweet Isabel!
Lo! the morning calleth. How like Sleep!--'tis Death! Sleep's own
gentle brother; Heaven holds her breath-- She is with her mother!

ONE READING FROM TWO POETS.
----My imagination Carries no favor in it but Bertram's. I am undone;
there is no living, none, If Bertram be away. SHAKSPEARE.
Should GOD create another Eve and I Another rib afford, yet loss of
thee Would never from my heart. MILTON.
I have this evening, while seated in my lonely chamber, ventured--not,
I hope, with profane hands--to draw one inappreciable gem from out of
the carcanet of each of the two unrivalled masters of the poetry of our
language. I was curious to see the effect to be produced by a close
juxtaposition of these two exquisite specimens of the soul's light; of the
revealment of its original genius; of the intense brilliancy of its Truth,
falling as it does in one ray upon two objects so diverse in their
character as the virgin love of the retired and comparatively humble but
devoted Helena, and the married constancy of the Father of our race.

The effect reminds me of an échappée de lumière that I once beheld in
the gallery of the Vatican, when a sudden emergence of light
brightened with the same gleam the calm face of the Virgin of the
clouds, (called di Foligno,) and at the same instant illuminated the
whole principal figure in the Transfiguration of Raffaelle; floating as it
does, and tending almost with a movement upward, in the air of 'the
high mountain' where the miracle took place----as these two grand
paintings then stood,