It is not because of his toils that I lament for the poor We must all toil, or steal, (howsoever we name our stealing,) which is worse; no faithful workman finds his task a pastime. The poor is hungry and athirst, but for him also there is food and drink; he is heavy laden and weary, but for him also the heavens send sleep, and of the deepest. In his smoky cribs, a clear, dewy heaven of rest envelops him, and fitful glitterings of cloud-skirted dreams. But what I do mourn over is, that the lamp of his soul should go out; that no ray of heavenly, or even of earthly knowledge should visit him; but only in the haggard darkness, like two spectres, Fear and Indignation. Alas! while the body stands so broad and brawny, must the soul lie blinded, dwarfed, stupefied, almost annihilated? Alas! was this, too, a breath of God, bestowed in heaven, but on earth never to be unfolded? That there should one man die ignorant, who had capacity for knowledge, this I call a tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty times in the minute, as by some computations it does. CXXVI.-A SHIPWRECK STORY. HOUSEHOLD WORDS. THE Grosvenor, East Indiaman, homeward bound, goes ashore on the coast of Caffraria. It is resolved that the officers, passengers, and crew, in number one hundred and thirtyfive souls, shall endeavor to penetrate on foot, across trackless deserts, infested by wild beasts and cruel savages, to the Dutch settlements at the Cape of Good Hope. With this forlorn object before them, they finally separated into two parties, never more to meet on earth. There is a solitary child among the passengers a little boy of seven years old, who has no relation there; and when the first party is moving away, he cries after some member of it who has been kind to him. The crying of a child might be supposed to be a little thing to men in such great extremity; but it touches them, and he is immediately taken into that detachment. From which time forth, this child is sublimely made a sacred charge. He is pushed, on a little raft, across broad rivers, by the swimming sailors; they carry him by turns through the deep sands and long grass, he patiently walking at all other times; they share with him such putrid fish as they find to eat; they lie down and wait for him when the rough carpenter, who becomes his especial friend, lags behind. Beset by lions and tigers, by savages, by thirst, by hunger, by death in a crowd of ghastly shapes, they never O Father of all mankind, thy name be blessed for it! The captain stops exhausted, and his faithful cockswain goes back, and is seen to sit down by his side; and neither of the two shall be any more beheld until the great last day; but, as the rest go on for their lives, they take the child with them. The carpenter dies of poisonous berries eaten in starvation; and the steward, succeeding to the command of the party, succeeds to the sacred guardianship of the child. forget this child. God knows all he does for the poor baby; how he cheerfully carries him in his arms when he himself is weak and ill; how he feeds him when he himself is griped with want; how he folds his ragged jacket round him, lays his little worn face with a woman's tenderness upon his sunburnt breast, soothes him in his sufferings, sings to him as he limps along, unmindful of his own parched and bleeding feet. Divided for a few days from the rest, they dig a grave in the sand, and bury their good friend the cooper - these two companions alone in the wilderness; and then the time comes when they both are ill, and beg their wretched partners in despair, reduced and few in number now, to wait by them one day. They wait by them one day-they wait by them two days. ing of the third, they move very softly about in making their preparations for the resumption of their journey; for the child is sleeping by the fire, and it is agreed with one consent that On the morn he shall not be disturbed until the last moment. The moment comes, the fire is dying, — and the child is dead. His faithful friend the steward lingers but a little while behind him. His grief is great; he staggers on for a few days, lies down in the desert, and dies. But he shall be reunited in his immortal spirit—who can doubt it! — with the child, where he and the poor carpenter shall be raised up with the words, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me." CXXVII. THE FALLING LEAF. MONTGOMERY. [JAMES MONTGOMERY was born at Irvine, in Scotland, November 4, 1771, and died in 1854. For the greater part of his life he resided at Sheffield, England, and was editor of a newspaper there published. He wrote a number of poems; some of considerable length. Among them are The Wanderer in Switzerland, The World before the Flood, The West Indies, The Pelican Island, and Greenland, besides many miscellaneous pieces. His poetry is distinguished for its religious tone, its purity of feeling, and its gentle, sympathetic spirit. His longer poems contain many noble descriptive passages, but he has not strength of wing for a protracted flight. His genius is essentially lyric, and many of his fugitive pieces are beautiful alike in sentiment and style.] [This passage, explaining the process by which the beings of Grecian mythology were formed, is from The Excursion, Wordsworth's longest and most elaborate poem, It is as remarkable for philosophical truth as for poetical beauty.] THE lively Grecian, in a land of hills, * A collection of dried plants; literally, a dry garden Under a cope of sky more variable, And yet triumphant o'er this pompous show Amid the wrangling schools a spirit hung, In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman, stretched On the soft grass through half a summer's day, With music lulled his indolent repose; And in some fit of weariness, if he, When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched Even from the blazing chariot of the sun A beardless youth, who touched a golden lute, Up towards the crescent moon, with grateful heart |