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the ills and worried by the troubles of life is such a boon that we are all striving to gain it. Every man is more or less of an epicurean.

"A book of verses underneath the bough,

A jug of wine or a loaf of bread—and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness-

Oh, wilderness were Paradise enow."

What a picture! How we would all like to live thus -if we could-and had the money. In the light of such an existence as Omar paints, honor, love, fame, fade into mist. Then we could sing with him:

Some for the glories of this world; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's paradise to come;

Ah, take the cash and let the credit go,

Nor heed the rumble of the distant drum.

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the dust descend:

Dust into dust, and under dust to lie

Sans wine, san song, sans singer and sans end."

And then, when we have exhausted all the pleasures of the world; when the soul as well as the body is drunk to excess, and can drink no more of the wine of Desire, if we are tired of existence,

"Why, if the soul can fling the dust aside,

And naked on the air of Heaven ride,

Wer't not a shame-wer't not a shame for him

In this clay carcass to abide."

But even if there be a future life, and if there will be retribution for sin in it, why, who is to take the blame? If a pot is cracked and full of flaws, who deserves censure but the potter who made it? So He who made me is reponsible for the faults that I possess. Such is the conversation of the pots, one of the most beautiful

touches in the poem, contained in Quatrains LXXXIII. to XC. The whole philosophy of "The Rubaiyat" is summed up in the assurance of the little jug, with its shrill voice and its mild blasphemy,

Why, said another, some there are who tell
Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell

The luckless pots he marred in making-Pish!
He's a good fellow, and 'twill all be well."

If we live after this fashion, when we come to die we will not be afraid to go.

"So, when the angel of the darker drink

At last shall find you by the river brink,

And, offering his cup, invite your soul

Forth to your lips to quaff-you shall not shrink."

Nor need we fear that when we are dead the world, with its follies and troubles, will cease to exist. It will whirl along in space just the same as it does now; better, perhaps, for our absence.

"When you and I behind the veil are past,

Oh, but the long, long while the world shall last,
Which of our coming and departure heeds

As the sea's self should heed a pebble cast.

But after all this reflection, after all this useless endeavor to smother the desire and the yearning for something better in a future state, this poor old man, with his years heavy on him, seems to feel the consciousness that for all his thinking he has missed the secret of it all, and that the ideas he has fostered have brought him no peace and no consolation. He drones out in

the monotone of despair:

"Indeed, the idols I have loved so long

Have done my credit in this world much wrong;
Have drowned my glory in a shallow cup,
And sold my reputation for a song."

And now comes Remorse, with its dreadful scourge; remorse for a wasted life:

"Indeed, indeed, repentance oft before

I swore-but was I sober when I swore ?
And then came Spring, and, rose in hand,
My thread-bare penitence apieces tore."

How true, Omar, how true. In the light of the present how strong appear our good resolutions; but when temptation comes they fly apart like the petals of a withered rose before a strong wind. In the twilight of his life how bright appeared to him the bygone days of youth; the days that will never return.

"Yet, ah, that Spring should vanish with the rose! That youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close! The nightingale that in the branches sang

Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows?"

But the light is slowly fading, and the night is very near. Before he goes the poet's dedesire to know the truth, to hear the answer to his question, overshadows his senile, peevish -ailing at the order of things,

"Would but some wingèd angel, ere too late,

Arrest the yet unfolded roll of Fate,

And make the stern Recorder otherwise

Enregister or quite obliterate."

GUERIN.

A MAY LEGEND.

The Pyrenee mountains tower high
Into the deep, blue summer sky,
Proudly they tower and proudly frown
On pleasant valley and shadowed town-
And proudest of all and grandest to see
Is the lordly crest of Mont-Marie;
Mont-Marie with its holy shrine,
Dear to the tillers of the vine.

The May procession winds along
With simple prayer and holy song,
A hundred heads are uncovered at
The sound of the grand Magnificat,
A hundred voices take up the strain,
A hundred echoes answer amain.

And now they have reached the mountain's crest,
Where the chapel stands like an eagle's nest.

And each one prays his own dear prayer,

For our Lady's help and our Lady's care.

Slowly the evening sun sinks down

And the mountain shadow steals over the town.

The people have decked the holy shrine

With wreaths of flowers and mountain vine.

And now the notes of the parting hymn

Fade in the twilight soft and dim,

Fade as the pilgrims wander down

The mountain path to the silent town.

The twilight deepens into shade

And no one is left save a little maid,

Who prays to our Lady morn and night
For her robber father's woeful plight.
William the Thief is a name of fear

To village swain and mountaineer;
But Rose is the gentlest maid of all
Who come to our Lady's Festival.
She prays our Lady to move and win
Her father from bitter shame and sin.

A man has entered the chapel door,
Noiseless his step on the sacred floor,
Noiseless he seizes the gifts of gold
Which holy pilgrims left of old.
When lo! in the mingled light and shade
He sees the form of the little maid.
The lamp light plays on her sunny hair,
And her lips are moving in silent prayer.
He leaves the gifts of silver and gold
Which holy pilgrims offered of old,
He passes again through the chapel door,
And William the Thief is a thief no more.

J.

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