A BACHELOR'S LOVE SONG.

J. H. RYAN.

Y bachelor's den is a queer old pen,

MY

In the midst of a city's din,

O'erlooking the tide that goes ebbing out

And the flow that comes rushing in.

"Tis cheerful and bright, 'tis a home to me

A quiet and peaceful place

Tho' it ne'er knew the warmth of a woman's heart,

Nor the light of a woman's face.

I sit in the dusk as the sun goes down,

And smoke in a dreamful way,

And gaze at the paintings that hang on the wall,
The faces and friends far away.

One is the face of a fair young girl,
As bright as the morning skies,

Who smiles at me ever with angel's love
From the depths of her dark-blue eyes.

She was my first, my only love;

Forget her I never can;

Her love has followed me all through life,
And made me a better man.

Hers are the lips I first tenderly kissed,

With love as deep as the sea;

And the last lips I kissed, as I bade home farewell,
Were the lips that are smiling at me.

Ah, mother, my love for you never grew dim
Through the long years of toil and unrest,
And I love you to-day as I did long ago,
When you lulled me to sleep at your breast.

THEN AND NOW.

NOW that the pain is gone, I, too, can smile
At such a foolish picture: You and me
Together in that moonlit summer night,
Within the shadow of an aspen-tree.

My hand was on your shoulder; I was wild.

How furious the blood seethed through my heart! But you-oh, you were saintly calm and cold;

You moved my hand and said, ""Tis best we part!"

My face fell on the bands of your fair hair,
A moonbeam struck across my hungry eye,
And struck across your balmy crimson mouth;
I longed to kiss you, and I longed to die!
Die in the shadow of the trembling tree,

Trembling my soul away upon your breast.
You smiled, and drifted both your snowy hands
Against my forehead, and your fingers pressed
Faintly and slow adown my burning face.

A keen sense of the woman touched you then,
The nice dramatic sense you women have,
Playing upon the feelings of us men!

Long years have passed since that midsummer night,
But still I feel the creeping of your hand
Along my face. If I returned once more,

And in the shadow of that tree should stand

With you there, answer! would you kiss me back?
Would you reject me if I sued again?

How strange this is! I think my madness lasts,
Although I'm sure I have forgot the pain!

IN TERROR OF DEATH.

PEDRO DE ALARÇON.

Translated by Mary J. Serrano.

YOU know what a sorrowful day for Tarragona was the 28th of June, 1811. But you cannot imagine the horrors attending the taking of the city. You did not see 5,000 Spaniards perish in ten hours; you did not see houses and churches in flames; you did not see unarmed old men and helpless women slaughtered in cold blood; you did not see pillage and drunkenness mingling with murder. You did not see, in short, one of the greatest exploits of the conqueror of the world, the hero of our age, the demi-god Napoleon!

I saw it all! I saw the sick rise from the bed of suffering, dragging after them their sheets, like shrouds, to perish at the hands of foreign soldiers on the threshold. I saw lying in the street the body of a woman they had slaughtered, and at her side her infant, still nursing at its dead mother's breast; children weeping with terror at the horrors that surrounded them; despair and innocence taking refuge in suicide; impiety insulting the dead. Dangerously wounded, and unable to take further part in the conflict, I fled for refuge to the house of my betrothed. Full of anguish and terror, she stood at the window, fearing for my life and risking her own to see me in case I should chance to pass through the street. I entered and fastened the door, but my pursuers had already caught sight of Clara-and she was so beautiful!

They saluted her with a roar of savage joy and a burst of brutal laughter. A moment more and the door would yield to the axe and the flames. We were lost!

Clara's mother, carrying in her arms her year-old babe, led us to the cistern of the house, which was very deep and which was

now dry, as no rain had fallen for several months. There we concealed ourselves. This cistern, the floor of which might measure some eight yards square, and which was entered by a steep underground flight of steps, narrowed toward the top, like the mouth of a well, and opened into the centre of the court-yard, where a breastwork was built around it, above which two buckets were suspended from hooks attached to an iron bar for drawing water.

In the cistern we four might find safety. Seen from the yard, it seemed a simple well. The French would think we had made our escape by the roof. They soon declared that such was the case, uttering horrible oaths while they rested themselves in the shady yard, in the centre of which was the cistern.

Yes, we were saved! Clara bound up my bleeding hand, her mother caressed the babe, and I, although I was shivering from the chill which had followed the fever caused by my wound, smiled with happiness.

At this moment we noticed that the soldiers, wishing to slake their thirst, were trying to draw water from the cistern in which we were concealed. Picture to yourselves our anguish at that instant! We drew aside to make way for the bucket, which descended until it touched the floor. We scarcely dared to breathe. The bucket was drawn up again.

"The well is dry !" cried the soldiers.

"There must be water upstairs !" exclaimed one.

"They are going away!" we all said to ourselves.

"What if they should be concealed in this well ?" cried a voice.

"What nonsense!" responded the Frenchman; "they could not have got down there so suddenly."

"That is true," responded the other.

Imagine the cruel fluctuations between hope and fear with which we had listened to the dialogue carried on at the very brink of the well. From the corners in which we were crouching we could see the shadow of their heads moving within the circle of light on the floor of the cistern. Every second seemed a century. At this moment the babe began to cry. At his first whimper his

mother silenced the sounds that threatened to betray our hidingplace, pressing the infant's tender face into her bosom.

"Did you hear that?" cried some one in the yard above.

"I heard nothing," responded another.

"Let us listen," said another.

Three horrible minutes passed. The babe struggled to get his voice, and the more closely his mother pressed his face into her bosom, the more violent were his struggles, but not the slightest sound was audible.

"It must have been an echo!" exclaimed a soldier.

"Yes, that was it," assented the rest, and they all took their departure.

We could hear the noise of their steps and the clanking of their sabres slowly dying away in the direction of the gate. The danger was past! But, alas! our deliverance had come too late. The babe neither cried nor struggled now. He was dead.

JENNY'S WHITE ROSE.

MRS. H. E. M. ALLEN.

IT

T was in the sweet June afternoon the busy housewife sat All alone, save on the hearth-rug dozed the sleek, gray household cat;

For the small feet, wont to patter on the spotless kitchen floor, In the sunny summer weather chased the daisied meadows o'er.

Out of doors the noisy swallows twittered underneath the eaves, And a breezy joy had set a-quiver all the ancient poplar's leaves, While the shining ripples chased each other through the tender wheat;

And the breath of clover blossoms from the mowing fields came sweet.