Alas! that so much kindness

On thankless ground should fall,
And so much love be spent on one
Unworthy of it all.

The young man's wicked heart, and hard,
Loved not his patron dear,

And thought but on the time when he
The crown himself should wear.

And darker grew his evil thoughts,
More fierce his sullen mood,

Till nought could quench his foul desire
To take his monarch's blood.
And one dark moonless night he crept
To the old king's bedside,

And, pitying not that hoary head,
Turned him a regicide.

The thunders of that fearful night
Were dread beyond compare,
Hosts of triumphant demons seemed
Careering through the air.

And morning showed a blighted scene

Of black and ruined walls;

All lightning-scorched and seamed were now The gilded palace halls.

K

Some courtiers of the monarch were Changed into hungry cats,

And others sought the distant caves, In form of owls and bats.

But one, who seemed the prince of all,
In hateful vulture-guise,

Stood gazing from a rocky peak,
With hot and gleaming eyes.

That mountain-top is barren yet
Amid the desert sand,

No trace of water or of tree

In all that weary land.

And, deathless 'mid his living tomb,

With eye that cannot sleep,

Until earth's final day of doom

The vulture watch must keep.

Alone, alone he stands, the sky
All glowing overhead,
No raindrop falling from on high
On his dark pinions shed.
And in the wandering Arab's tent
His direful tale is heard,
When from afar men look upon

The Mountain of the Bird.

The Lotus.

THE lotus from the wave looks up
In vest of snowy hue,
And bears within its silver cup
A fairy draught of dew.

No angry wind nor heaving tides
O'erthrow that buoyant form,
In queenly beauty still it rides
Amid the rolling storm.

Oh thus, upon Life's billowy stream The flower of Hope is spread, Constant amid that changeful dream, Rearing its gentle head.

It fears no storm nor darkening sky, Kind boon to mortals given: Through clouds it lifts a cheerful eye, With upward smile to heaven.

The Raindrops.

"They part, like raindrops in mid-air."-KEBLE.

A TRANSIENT cloud obscured the ray Of Ethiopia's sun,

But wept itself in dews away

Ere light his course had run.

And from the bosom of that shade
Two drops at morn were cast;-
The fairy rainbow's colours played
On each, as on they passed.

One sank on Adel's burning plain,
But 'neath the noontide glare;
How might a little drop of rain
Hope for existence there?

His brother's course afar was laid

By mount and falling stream;

He murmured through the forest glade, And sparkled in the beam.

And, mingling with the mighty Nile

Where wild acacias wept,

He glittered by a lonely isle
Where stately palm-trees slept.

A long, long track of flowery lands
That raindrop wandered o'er ;
He traversed many golden sands,
And scenes renowned of yore.

He washed the feet of crumbling walls Where pride and power held sway, But they who raised those ruined halls Were sunk in mute decay.

He flowed by many a giant tomb ;-
The dust o'er which he rolled
Was radiant once with beauty's bloom

In those far times of old.

And on that little raindrop passed,
He wandered far and wide,
And found a peaceful home at last

In ocean's crystal tide.