LOVE AND WISDOM. "I'LL move the Earth!" cried a sage of old, With his puny powers grown boastful and bold; And I'll move the Earth with my own right hand!" Love heard the vaunt,-never wondrous deed Has been named whose wonders Love could not exceed, Folly lurked in the cession that Wisdom required, For she named not, she knew not, the spot she desired— And in Celia's heart was his vantage ground. Could Love gain only a footing there, This Earth up to Heaven right soon he would bear, Till he who rested on Celia's heart Blest Earth from high Heaven no longer might part. But the sage plods on, over Earth,-over Earth, And his dreams die in air, whence they drew their birth Yet though Wisdom craved for a spot unknown, And is Love then, so vain of his might, become weak, NIGHT AND MORNING. "Swiftly walk over the western wave, Out of the misty eastern cave, Where, all the long and lone daylight, IT is night; the time that God hath blest; that he hath sent man for his rest after the toils of the day. It is a holy time the night, there is no more of the turmoil and the trouble of the busy day; all is peace and stillness. And when the last "Good night" has been said, and the chamber door is shut, and the knees have bended and the hands folded in prayer to the God to whom the darkness is as the light; when the head is laid upon the pillow, and the holy angel of slumber hath waved its dark wings over it; then often doth the hushed spirit hold communings with beings from another world, which in that holy and silent hour visit the earth, and, as dreams, whisper to its habitants tales of their own land. In sleep too, when the wearied body is laid to rest, the spirit is often, as it were, set free to wander as it will; and then may the spirits of those who, though far parted, are one in heart, meet in that still hour, to tell each other their tale of faith and constancy. To such a night there cometh a morning of renewed strength and gladdened heart, and man ariseth and goeth forth to his task with a cheerful spirit. It is night, the night of watching; and untiring Love draweth near the couch of anguish, to smooth the pillow for the aching head that knoweth not the ministering hand, to watch the pains it cannot alleviate. How slowly and heavily pass the dark and lonely hours, marked only by suffering and sorrow! How doth the worn spirit long for the morning, as if with the sunlight some beam of hope also must break upon the fainting heart! The morning cometh, the fever hath abated, and for the first time, perhaps, for days, the sufferer knoweth and blesseth the hand that hath tended him in his necessities. How blessed is that morning, when renewed hope shineth again upon the long darkened spirit! It is night again; but in the lighted halls there is revelling and banqueting, and the sounds of boisterous mirth are heard, where there should be stillness and sleep. It is a merry night; but in the morning, where is the strengthened frame and lightened heart that should spring to welcome the returning light, and the blithe singing of birds, and the sweet smell of the flowers that sparkle in the morning dew? There is instead languor, and weakness, and pale melancholy. It is night. There is darkness over the earth, and the brightness of heaven is veiled. The peaceful, the good, the happy are at rest; and now crime cometh forth from its lurking places, and rapine and murder stalk over the earth, and dark deeds are done, that the holy light of heaven may not look upon. It is at night the youth first learns the power of the intoxicating fluid, the morning's misery sends him again to the fatal bowl. Night after night is he found at the drunkard's board. His money is all gone, He must have more, or he can get no more drink. It is night in the darkness he will be hid, and he commits his first theft. He grows bolder in crime. At last there is danger, an alarm will be given, he will be taken, and he already sees the gallows before him. There is but one resource; his victim lies dead at his feet. He is safe he will be at peace. In the morning he joins his companions; but the form of his victim rises before his eyes. He talks loudly, and joins in the rude laugh; but he breaks off suddenly in his merriment, for that form is before him. He will drown his senses in drink, but it is there still, pale, bleeding, immoveable. The darkness shall hide it from his sight, but in the night he is alonealone with that. * There is a morning and a night to the human heart. In the morning of the heart all is cold; upon its soil resteth the heavy dew, clothing all its flowers with a damp and chilling vesture. But the sun cometh; there springeth up in the heart a warming, a burning passion, and the damp dews are changed to glistening gems upon the flower-buds. All things are beautiful and bright in that pure light of early morning. The sun goeth on his course of splendour, and at noon all is brilliant and dazzling; but the dew-gem of the morning is gone; where is the pure, bright, crystal tear-drop that glistened in the eye of childhood? it perished in that burning heat. The still, gentle, evening cometh. But when the western clouds are brightest in their golden radiance, seeming like fairy isles in the blue sea of heaven; when the sun hath laid aside his more dazzling splendour, and arrayed himself in a softer and more holy brightness; when the flowers of earth have turned their fair heads towards him, and all seemeth more beautiful than it ever did before-then tremble! for, ere long, that sun whose brightness hath lighted thee on thy life's way will set, and there will fall upon the heart a night, dark, desolate, and void. But the morning of life may have been cloudy, and the day stormy, and to such an one there will come a night of rest and peace. And when the tempests are hushed, and the deep waters still, through the clouds of night will break in a—not brilliant, but soft, gentle, holy moonbeam, that shall pour its silver ray of peace upon the wearied spirit, that shall lull it to rest in the sleep of the grave. To the night there comes a morning. On the desolate and forsaken heart a sun of brightness shall again arise; and the wearied tempest-tossed spirit shall awaken from its night of rest to a new day. But not in this world. There shall be an awakening from the night of the grave to another sun and another world. But there too will be a morning and a night, a morning whose brightness shall know neither clouds nor changing—a night whose blackness of darkness shall see no morning. PUCK. THE HIDDEN LIGHT. THE sun was high in the blue vault of heaven, and poured his glad, warming beams upon the earth, so that the flowers blossomed brightly, and the sparkling waters reflected his golden radiance. All nature rejoiced in that brilliant and heavenly light. But after a time the sun veiled his brightness in a mantle of dark clouds; and then the flowers all drooped their fair heads in sadness, the waters were no longer sparkling, but all seemed dark and heavy. There may be love in the heart; but if all its brightness and warmth be shrouded by the cold clouds of form and reserve, there will be no blooming flowers, no bright reflection of its golden light to tell of its presence. PUCK. ELLERTON CASTLE; A Romance. BY "FITZROY PIKE." CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIRST. ANDREW WESTRILL-KATE. ANDREW WESTRILL's terrible death struck with awe all those who stood around him; it was a fearful sight to see a man expire with all the blackest passions in his heart,-to see, in the first minutes after soul and body parted, the features stamped with earth's fierce passions-and death, to stand beside and mock their imbecility. But the vile soul was fled, and the form that it perverted returned once more to the shape in which God formed it, ere it mouldered to its native dust,-the expression of peace, that for weary years a restless spirit banished, resumed now its sway, and the face, as of an innocent and smiling child, changed suddenly to manhood, rested upon Westrill's pillow. By the hands of him he had held his bitterest foe were the last kind offices performed; Edward Heringford closed Andrew's eyes; he alone dropped a tear upon the corpse, for he looked upon Kate Westrill's brother. During the night the body of Andrew Westrill remained within Joe Bensal's cottage, for a storm was rising, and when night came it broke forth in all its fury. All watched in turn beside the dead, a task to Mat Maybird particularly distasteful. Mat was no coward, but he was not free from the superstition of the age. The rain plashed against the window, which was shaken impatiently by the furious wind, as it came moaning across the country. Mat verily believed that the storm was caused by the escape of Westrill's wicked soul, and the rushing of howling demons from all quarters to lead it to their home in triumph. Then, he thought, came some and gazed in at the window, to see the body whence their brother soul had come, and, striving to enter, furiously shook the fastened casement, until his Ave Marias scared them thence, then they flew moaning away, and their sounds died faintly in the distance. In the morning came those who were to bear to Ellerton the corpse; the storm had ceased, but the sky was overcast, and thin |