Who dread to hear the warwhoop sound,

Not one who fears to die !"

XIII.

They cast the prisoner to the ground,
With gyves from neighboring vines they bound,

His brow upon the ancient rock

They laid with wild and bitter mock,
That joy'd to mark the deep despair

That moment in the prisoner's eye,

As sudden, swung aloft in air,

He sees the bloody mace on high!
But not for him to plead in fear-
No sign of pity comes to cheer,
And, with one short, unwhisper'd prayer,
He yields him up to die.

Keen are the eyes that watch the blow,
Impatient till the blood shall flow,

A thousand eyes that gloating glow,
In eager silence hush'd :

The arm that wings the mace is bending,
The instrument of death descending,-
A moment, and the mortal sinks,
A moment, and the spirit soars,
The earth his parting life-blood drinks,
The spirit lands on foreign shores :
A moment!-and the maiden rush'd
From the low stone, where still affrighted,
Scarce dreaming what she sees is true,

With vision dim, with thoughts benighted,
She sate, as doom'd for slaughter too;-
And stay'd the stroke in its descent,
While on her fairy knee she bent,
Pass'd one arm o'er the prisoner's brow,
Above his forehead lifts her own,
Then turns-with eye grown tearless now,
But full of speech, as eye alone
Can speak to eye and heart in prayer-
For mercy to her father's throne!
Ah! can she hope for mercy there?

XIV.

And what of him, that savage sire?
Oh! surely not in vain she turns
To where his glance of mortal ire
In lurid light of anger burns.

A moment leapt he to his feet,

When first her sudden form is seen,

Across the circle darting fleet,

The captive from the stroke to screen. Above his head, with furious whirl, The hatchet gleams in act to fly ; But, as he sees the kneeling girl, The glances of her pleading eye,— The angel spirit of mercy waves The evil spirit of wrath away, And all accords, ere yet she craves

Of that her eye alone can pray.

Strange is the weakness, born of love,
That melts the iron of his soul,
And lifts him, momently, above ·
His passions and their dark control;
And he who pity ne'er had shown

To captive of his bow and spear,
By one strong sudden pulse has grown
To feel that pity may be dear
As vengeance to the heart,-when still
Love keeps one lurking-place and grows,
Thus prompted by a woman's will,
Triumphant over a thousand foes

'Twas, as if sudden, touch'd by Heaven,
The seal that kept the rock was riven;
As if the waters, slumbering deep,
Even from the very birth of light,
Smote by its smile, had learn'd to leap,
Rejoicing, to their Maker's sight:
How could that stern old king deny
The angel pleading in her eye,—
How mock the sweet imploring grace,
That breathed in beauty from her face,
And to her kneeling action gave

A power to sooth, and still subdue,
Until, though humble as the slave,

To more than queenly sway she grew? Oh! brief the doubt;-Oh! short the strife, She wins the captive's forfeit life ;

She breaks his bands, she bids him go,

Her idol, but her country's foe,
And dreams not, in that parting hour,
The gyves that from his limbs she tears,
Are light in weight, and frail in power,

To those that round her heart she wears.

Mary's Charm.

BY ANNA CORA MOWATT.

'Twas not the features-not the formThe eyes' celestial blue—

"Twas not the blushes soft and warm-
The lips' vermilion hue—

The waving of her golden hair-
The beauty of her face,—
Though hers, in sooth, was very fair,—
Nor e'en her matchless grace!

He gazed upon her speaking eye,

But 'twas the soul to see;

He mark'd the glance, the smile, the sigh,

That spake of Purity:

He sought the charms that long endure,

That beauteous make the mind;

He only loved the jewel pure

That this fair casket shrined.

Selfishness.

BY MISS E. JANE CATE.

"YES, mother, but one cannot endure having the house torn down about one's ears! Who could eat or study, I wonder! One might I suppose with Miss Harriet; for I fancy she is given to solitude, poetrywriting, revery, and long rambles; and I could manage to live a month under the same roof with a young lady, if she would sometimes keep out of my way. But that Susan! Ah, from such as her, 'ye ministers of defend us grace

There was the look of supplication in his—I mean Harry Porter's-eye, and its feeling was evidently in his heart as he spoke. His sister sat near him with her finger-point resting on the page she had been reading, conjecturing, all the while, what faculty in its extraordinary development, or what in its want of growth or activity, induced such unreasonableness, when woman was in the question, in her otherwise reasonable brother. It came in fact from his selfishHe chose to sit and fold his hands in his luxurious idleness, to wait for his mother, his sister, his

ness.