Make sweet love in a shelter sweet,
Or trundle their dead in a winding-sheet;
But he, through rapture, and pain, and wrong,
Kept singing his one monotonous song,

VI.

Ave Maria!

When thunder growled from the ravelled wrack,
And ocean to welkin bellowed back,

And the lightning sprang from its cloudy sheath,
And tore through the forest with jagged teeth,
Then leaped and laughed o'er the havoc wreaked,
The idiot clapped with his hands, and shrieked,
Ave Maria!

VII.

Children mocked and mimicked his feet,
As he slouched or sidled along the street;
Maidens shrank as he passed them by,
And mothers with child eschewed his eye;
And half in pity, half in scorn, the folk
Christened him, from the words he spoke,

VIII.

"Ave Maria!"

One year when the harvest feasts were done,
And the mending of tattered nets begun,
And the kirtiwake's scream took a weirder key
From the wailing wind and the moaning sea,
Ile was found, at morn, on the fresh-strewn snow,
Frozen, and faint, and crooning low,

IX.

Ave Maria!

They stirred up the ashes between the dogs,
And warmed his limbs by the blazing logs,
Chafed his puckered and bloodless skin,
And strove to quiet his chattering chin ;
But, ebbing with unreturning tiae,
He kept on murmuring, till he died,

X.

Idiot, soulless, brute from birth,

He could not be buried in sacred earth;

Ave Maria!

So they laid him afar, apart, alone,
Without a cross, or turf, or stone,
Senseless clay unto senseless clay,
To which none ever came nigh to say,

XI.

Ave Maria!

When the meads grew saffron, the hawthorn white,
And the lark bore his music out of sight,
And the swallow out-raced the racing wave,-
Up from the lonely outcast's grave
Sprouted a lily, straight and high,
Such as she bears to whom men cry,

XII.

Ave Maria!

None had planted it, no one knew
How it had come there, why it grew;
Grew up strong, till its stately stem
Was crowned with a snow-white diadem -
One pure lily, round which, behold!
Was written by God in veins of gold,

XIII.

Over the lily they built a shrine,

"Ave Maria!"

Where are mingled the mystic bread and wine;
Shrine you may see in the little town

That is snugly nestled 'twixt deep and down.
Through the Breton land it hath wondrous fame,
And it bears the unshriven idiot's name,

XIV.

Hunchbacked, gibbering, blear-eyed, halt,
From forehead to footstep one foul fault,
Crazy, contorted, mindless-born,
The gentle's pity, the cruel's scorn,
Who shall bar you the gates of Day,
So you have simple faith to say,

Ave Maria.

Ave Maria? CORNHILL MAGAZINE

THE SINGER'S ALMS.

IN Lyons, in the mart of that French town,
Years since, a woman, leading a fair child,
Craved a small alms of one, who, walking down
The thoroughfare, caught the child's glance, and smiled
To see behind its eyes a noble soul;

He paused, but found he had no coin to dole.

His guardian angel warned him not to lose
This chance of pearl to do another good;
So, as he waited, sorry to refuse

The asked-for penny, there aside he stood,
And, with his hat held as by limb the nest,
He covered his kind face and sang his best.

The sky was blue above, and all the lane

Of commerce where the singer stood was filled; And many paused, and, listening, paused again

To hear the voice that through and through them thrilled

The singer stood between the beggars there

Before the church; and over head and spire,

A slim, perpetual finger in the air,

Held toward heaven, land of the heart's desire,
As though an angel, pointing up, had said,
"Yonder a crown awaits the singer's head."

The hat of its stamped brood was emptied soon
Into the woman's lap, who drenched with tears
Her kiss upon the hand of help. 'Twas noon,

And noon in her glad heart drove forth her tears. The singer, pleased, passed on, and softly thought, "Men will not know by whom this deed was wrought."

But when at night he came upon the stage,

Cheer after cheer went up from that wild throng,
And flowers rained on him. Naught could assuage
The tumult of the welcome, save the song
That for the beggars he had sung that day
While standing in the city's busy way.

Oh! cramped and narrow is the man who lives
Only for self, and pawns his years away
For gold, nor knows the joy a good deed gives,
But feels his heart shrink slowly, day by day,
And dies at last, his band of fate outrun:
No high aim sought, no worldly action done.

But brimmed with molten brightness like a star,
And broad and open as the sea or sky,
The generous heart. Its kind deeds shine afar,
And glow in gold in God's great book on high;
And he who does what good he can each day
Makes smooth and green, and strews with flowers his way.

Picture Room at CHARLES's. - Family Pedigree hanging on the Wall. Enter CHARLES SURFACE, SIR OLIVER SURFACE, MOSES, and CARELESS.

Charles S. Walk in, gentlemen; pray walk in here they are, the family of the Surfaces, up to the Conquest. Sir O. And, in my opinion, a goodly collection.

-

Charles S. Ay, ay, these are done in the true spirit of portrait-painting; no volontier grace or expression. Not like the works of your modern Raphaels, who give you the strongest resemblance, yet contrive to make your portrait independent of you; so that you may sink the original and not hurt the picture. No, no; the merit of these is the inveterate likeness all stiff and awkward as the originals, and like nothing in human nature besides.

Sir O. Ah! we shall never see such figures of men again. Charles S. I hope not. Well, you see, Master Premium, what a domestic character I am here I sit of an evening, surrounded by my family. But, come, get to your pulpit, Mr. Auctioneer; here's an old gouty chair of my grandfather's will answer the purpose. [Brings chair forward. Care. Ay, ay, this will do. But, Charles, I haven't a ham mer; and what's an auctioneer without his hammer?

Charles S. Egad, that's true; (taking pedigree down.) What parchment have we here? Oh, our genealogy in full. Here, Careless, you shall have no common bit of mahogany; here's the family tree for you, you rogue; this shall be your hammer, and now you may knock down my ancestors with their ow pedigree.

Sir O. What an unnatural rogue! - an ex post facto parricide! (Aside.)

Care. Yes, yes; here's a list of your generation indeed! Faith, Charles, this is the most convenient thing you could have found for the business, for 'twill not only serve as a hammer, but a catalogue into the bargain. Come, begin. — A-going, a-going, a-going!

Charles S. Bravo! Careless. Well, here's my great-uncle, Sir Richard Raveline, a marvellous good general in his day. I assure you. He served in all the Duke of Marlborough's wars, and got that cut over his eye at the battle of Malplaquet. What say you, Mr. Premium? -look at him; there's a hero, not cut cut of his feathers, as your modern clipt captains are, but enveloped in wig and regimentals, as a general should be. What do you bid?

Sir O. (Aside to MOSES.) Bid him speak.

Moses. Mr. Premium would have you speak.

Charles S. Why, then, he shall have him for ten pounds, and I'm sure that's not dear for a staff-officer.

Sir O. Heaven deliver me! his famous uncle Richard for ten pounds! (Aside.) -Very well, sir, I take him at that.

Charles S. Careless, knock down my uncle Richard. Here, now, is a maiden sister of his, my great-aunt Deborah, done by Kneller in his best manner, and esteemed a very formidable likeness. There she is, you see, a shepherdess feeding her flock. You shall have her for five pounds ten the sheep

are worth the money.

Sir O. Ah! poor Deborah! a woman who set such a value on herself! (Aside.) — Five pounds ten-she's mine.

Charles S. Knock down my aunt Deborah, Careless. - - This, now, is a grandfather of my mother's, a learned judge, well known on the western circuit. What do you rate him at, Moses ?

Moses. Four guineas.

Charles S. Four guineas! Gad's life! you don't bid me the price of his wig. Mr. Premium, you have more respect for the woolsack; do let us knock his lordship down at fifteen.