IDENTITY.' SOMEWHERE-in desolate wind-swept space- "And who are you?" cried one, agape, PRESCIENCE.1 THE new moon hung in the sky, the sun was low in the west, And my betrothed and I in the churchyard paused to rest: Happy maid and lover, dreaming the old dream over: The light winds wandered by, and robins chirped from the nest. And lo! in the meadow sweet was the grave of a little child, With a crumbling stone at the feet, and the ivy running wild: Tangled ivy and clover folding it over and over: Close to my sweetheart's feet was the little mound uppiled. Stricken with nameless fears, she shrank and clung to me, 1 Used by permission of Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 242 COUNT ALEARDO ALEARDI. ALEARDI, ALEARDO, COUNT. A distinguished Italian poet and patriot; born near Verona, Nov. 4, 1812; died there, July 17, 1878. He studied first philosophy and natural science, and then jurisprudence. His political principles, as revealed in his poem "Arnaldo" (1842), brought him under suspicion, and public office under the (Austrian) government was denied him. Others of his works are: "Primal Histories" (1857), a poem on the intellectual, ethical, and social evolution of man; "An Hour in My Youth," a piece inspired at once with tenderest love of nature and intense devotion to Italian independence; "Letters to Mary"; "Raffaele and the Fornarina"; "The Maritime Cities of Italy"; and "A Political Ode," directed against Pope Pius IX. (1862). (The selections are from Howells's "Modern Italian Poets," copyright 1887, by Harper and Brothers.) COWARDS. (From "The Primal Histories.") In the deep circle of Siddim hast thou seen, Under the shining skies of Palestine, The sinister glitter of the Lake of Asphalt? Those coasts, strewn thick with ashes of damnation, Forever foe to every living thing, Where rings the cry of the lost wandering bird Athirsting dies, that watery sepulchre Of the five cities of iniquity, Where even the tempest, when its clouds hang low, If thou hast seen them, bitterly hath been Yet there is on earth A woe more desperate and miserable, A vain, weak people of faint-heart old men, That, for three hundred years of dull repose, The ragged purple of its ancestors, Stretching its limbs wide in its country's sun, THE HARVESTERS. (From "Monte Circello.") WHAT time in summer, sad with so much light, And dying, Go quivering through the swaths of falling grain, He weeps and thinks — haply these heavy stalks Ripened on his unburied father's bones. 244 MRS. ALEXANDER. Alexander, Mrs. Cecil Frances [Humphrey]; born in County Wicklow, Ireland, in 1818; died at Londonderry, Ireland, October 12, 1895. She was widely known as a hymn writer. "The Burial of Moses" is her best known poem. She was the author of "Verses for Holy Seasons" (1846); "Narrative Hymns" (1853); "Legend of the Golden Prayer" (1859); "Verses from Holy Scripture;" "Hymns Descriptive and Devotional;" "Hymns for Little Children;" "Poems on Old Testament Subjects; "Moral Songs;" "The Baron's Little Daughter;" "The Lord of the Forest:" and edited "The Sunday Book of Poetry." THE BURIAL OF MOSES. By Nebo's lonely mountain, In a vale in the land of Moab For the angels of God upturned the sod, That was the grandest funeral Comes back when the night is done, Noiselessly as the springtime And all the trees on all the hills So without sound of music, Or voice of them that wept, Silently down from the mountain's crown, The great procession swept. Perchance the bald old eagle, Looked on the wondrous sight; Still shuns that hallowed spot, For beast and bird have seen and heard But when the warrior dieth, His comrades in the war, With arms reversed and muffled drum, They show the banners taken, They tell his battles won, And after him lead his masterless steed, Amid the noblest of the land And give the bard an honored place, With costly marble drest, In the great minster transept Where lights like glories fall, And the organ rings, and the sweet choir sings Along the emblazoned wall. This was the truest warrior That ever buckled sword, This the most gifted poet That ever breathed a word; And never earth's philosopher Traced with his golden pen, On the deathless page, truths half so sage And had he not high honor, To lie in state while angels wait With stars for tapers tall, And the dark rock pines, like tossing plumes, Over his bier to wave, And God's own hand, in that lonely land, To lay him in the grave? |