rth, upon her battle-field
To discipline for Heaven.

Soft music thrilled the quiet room,--
An unseen host were nigh,
Who left the infant pilgrim at
The threshold of our sky.

A new, strange love woke in my heart,
Defying all control,
As on the soft air rose and fell
That birth-hymn for a soul!

And now again the Autumn skies,
As on that evening, shine,
When, from a trance of agony,
I woke to joy divine.

That boundless love is in my heart,
That birth-hymn on the air;
I clasp in mine, with grateful faith,
A tiny hand in prayer.

And bless the God who guides my way,
That, mid this world so wide,
I day by day am walking with
An angel by my side.

THE JUDGMENT OF THE DEAD.

Diodorus has recorded an impressive Egyptian ceremonial, the
judgment of the dead by the living. When the corpse, duly embalmed,
had been placed by the margin of the Acherusian Lake, and before
consigning it to the bark that was to bear it across the waters to
its final resting-place, it was permitted to the appointed judges
to hear all accusations against the past life of the deceased, and
if proved, to deprive the corpse of the rites of sepulture. From
this singular law not even kings were exempt.

With sable plume and nodding crest,
They bore him to his dreamless rest,
A cold and abject thing;
Before the whisper of whose name
Strong hearts had quailed in fear and shame,
While nations knelt to fling
The victor's laurel at his feet;
Now gorgeous pall and winding-sheet,
Were all that royalty could bring
To mark the despot and the king:
In solemn state they swept the glowing strand,
To meet the conclave of the judgment band.

And soon, with bright, exultant eye,
Where fierce revenge flashed wild and high,
Accusers gathered fast;
From prison-keep and living grave
Came forth the mutilated slave,
With faltering step aghast;
And sightless men with silver hair,
The record of their dungeon air,
Who for long years had sought to die,
And wrestled with their agony
Till thought grew wild and intellect grew dim,
The clanking fetters' mark on every lim