, square forehead, with uprolled hair;
Lips that lover has never kissed;
Taper fingers and slender wrist;
Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade;
So they painted the little maid.

And the poet goes on:--

What if a hundred years ago
Those close-shut lips had answered no,
When forth the tremulous question came
That cost the maiden her Norman name,
And under the folds that look so still,
The bodice swelled with the bosom's thrill!
Should I be I, or would it be
One tenth another, to nine tenths me?

Soft is the breath of a maiden's yes,
Not the light gossamer stirs with less;
But never a cable that holds so fast
Through all the battles of wave and blast,
And never an echo of speech or song
That lives in the babbling air so long!
There were tones in the voice that whispered then,
You may hear to-day in a hundred men.

O lady and lover, how faint and far
Your images hover, and here we are,
Solid and stirring in flesh and bone,
Edward's and Dorothy's--all their own,
A goodly record for time to show
Of a syllable spoken so long ago!
Shall I bless you, Dorothy, or forgive
For the tender whisper that bade me live?

It shall be a blessing, my little maid!
I will heal the stab of the red-coat's blade,
And freshen the gold of the tarnished frame,
And gild with a rhyme your household name;
So you shall smile on us brave and bright,
As first you greeted the morning's light,
And live untroubled by woes and fears
Through a second youth of a hundred years.

Dr. Holmes' coloring is invariably artistic. Nothing in his verse
offends the eye or grates unpleasantly on the ear. He is a true
musician, and his story, joke, or passing fancy is always joined to a
measure which never halts. "The Voiceless," perhaps, as well as "Under
the Violets," ought to be mentioned among the more tender verses which
we have from his pen, in his higher mood.

His novels are object lessons, each one having been written with a
well-defined purpose in view. But unlike most novels with a purpose,
the three which he has written are nowise dull. The first of the set
is "The Professor's Story; or, Elsie Venner," the second is "The
Guardian Angel," written when the author was in his prime, and the
third is "A Mortal Antipathy," written only a few years ago. In no
sense are these works commonplace. Their art is ver