The dull satiety which all destroysAnd root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys?

TWILIGHT.

AVE MARIA ! blessèd be the hour,

The time, the clime, the spot where I so oft Have felt that moment in its fullest power Sink o'er the earth, so beautiful and soft; While swung the deep bell in the distant tower,

Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft,
And not a breath crept through the rosy air,
And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred
with prayer.

Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of prayer!
Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of love!
Ave Maria! may our spirits dare
Look up to thine and to thy Son's above!
Ave Maria! oh, that face so fair!
Those downcast eyes beneath the Al-
mighty dove,-
[strike-
What though 'tis but a pictured image
That painting is no idol-'tis too like.

Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone

[dear,

clings, Whate'er our household gods protect of Are gathered round us by thy look of rest; Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast.

[the heart Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts Of those who sail the seas, on the first day [torn apart; When they from their sweet friends are Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way, As the far bell of vesper makes him start,

Seeming to weep the dying day's decay; Is this a fancy which our reason scorns? Ah! surely nothing dies but something

Leaf after leaf he turned it o'er,

Nor ever glanced aside,

For the peace of his soul he read that book
In the golden eventide.
Much study had made him very lean,
And pale, and leaden-eyed.

At last he shut the ponderous tome,-
With a fast and fervent grasp
He strained the dusky covers close,

And fixed the brazen hasp:
"O God! could I so close my mind,
And clasp it with a clasp!"

Then leaping on his feet upright,

Some moody turns he took,

Now up the mead, then down the mead,

And past a shady nook,And lo! he saw a little boy

That pored upon a book.

"My gentle lad, what is 't you read— Romance or fairy fable?

Or is it some historic page

Of kings and crowns unstable?" The young boy gave an upward glance: "It is The Death of Abel.'

The Usher took six hasty strides,

As smit with sudden pain,Six hasty strides beyond the place, Then slowly back again; And down he sat beside the lad, And talked with him of Cain;

And, long since then, of bloody men, Whose deeds tradition saves;

Of lonely folk cut off unseen,

And hid in sudden graves; Of horrid stabs, in groves forlorn, And murders done in caves;

And how the sprites of injured men
Shriek upward from the sod,-
Ay, how the ghostly hand will point
To show the burial clod;
And unknown facts of guilty acts

Are seen in dreams from God!

He told how murderers walk the earth
Beneath the curse of Cain,-
With crimson clouds before their eyes,
And flames about their brain;
For blood has left upon their souls
Its everlasting stain!

"And well," quoth he, "I know for truth Their pangs must be extreme,

Woe, woe, unutterable woe,

Who spill life's sacred stream.

For why? Methought last night I wrought A murder-in a dream.

"One that had never done me wrongA feeble man and old;

I led him a lonely field,

The moon shone clear and cold; Now here, said I, this man shall die, And I will have his gold.

"Two sudden blows with a ragged stick, And one with a heavy stone,

One hurried gash with a hasty knife,
And then the deed was done:
There was nothing lying at my foot
But lifeless flesh and bone!

"Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone,
That could not do me ill;
And yet I feared him all the more,
For lying there so still;
There was a manhood in his look

That murder could not kill!