eam,
Could mingle Faith with Love and Charity,
And give them utterance in one pure face,
I know the face would be a face like hers.

Her eyes were diamond doors of her true soul,
And with their silken latches softly closed,
When, couched beneath his poppy parachute,
Inactive Sleep came by. Her glances seemed
Like gold-winged angels sent from heavenly doors.
Yet she was often sad when I was near.
Once, tarrying late, I told her of my life,
And of the monster I had come to find;
But now, lo! she around my heart had wound
The close web of her love, and held me fast
As any fly caught in a spider's toils.

Clothed in the sackcloth of regret, she said,
She long had wept the past; but for my sake
She now would cast it off, and live for me.

I said that few could exculpate the past
From stormy doing with the ships of hope.

She said it made her sad to think upon
Their present dwindled fortune, and the yoke
Her people chafed their necks in, on the hills.
Her father was a brave Circassian chief;
But here he dwelt disguised, till once again
He could lead on his race, and wound the heel
That ground them to the dust.

Our hearts made new,
We kissed good-night, and parted. As I went,
A distant hill, all shadow, took new shape,
And seemed a sprawling spider, while two trees
That grew upon it, were his upraised arms
Clutching at two red fire-flies, that were stars.

II.

THE SPIDER.

With day-break came a knuckle at my door;
I rose, and opened, and upon the porch,
His face like strange death's, and his dark eyes wide
With some vague horror, stood the fisherman.
"Come, hasten with me," were his only words.
We ran our best along the barren shore,
And gained his silent cottage. Entering,
He led me to his daughter's vacant couch.
The room had but one window, and the sash
Was raised. I looked out to the ground beneath.
A vine crept up, and with long fingers made
Abode secure upon the cottage side,
And o'er the window threw a leafy scarf.
But what was this, that fastened to the ledge
Trailed to the ground? A glutinous rope
Twisted with five strands. This the fisherman
Saw with new horror, while between white lips
He gasped, "The Spider!"

What was best to do?
We saw strange foot-prints on the moistened beach,
But these were lost soon in a wooded dell
Where all trace had an end. The long day through
We sou