nvas that had touched men's souls,
And drawn them from the baser things of earth,
Toward the light and purity of heaven.
One day, in tossing o'er his folio's leaves,
He chanced upon the picture of the child,
Which he had sketched that bright morn long before,
And then forgotten. Now, as he paused to gaze,
A ray of inspiration seemed to dart
Straight from those eyes to his. He took the sketch,
Placed it before his easel, and with care
That seemed but pleasure, painted a fair theme,
Touching and still re-touching each bright lineament,
Until all seemed to glow with life divine--
'Twas innocence personified. But still
The artist could not pause. He needs must have
A meet companion for his fairest theme;
And so he sought the wretched haunts of sin,
Through miry courts of misery and guilt,
Seeking a face which at the last was found.
Within a prison cell there crouched a man--
Nay, rather say a fiend--with countenance seamed
And marred by all the horrid lines of sin;
Each mark of degradation might be traced,
And every scene of horror he had known,
And every wicked deed that he had done,
Were visibly written on his lineaments;
Even the last, worst deed of all, that left him here,
A parricide within a murderer's cell.

Here then the artist found him; and with hand
Made skillful by its oft-repeated toil,
Transferred unto his canvas that vile face,
And also wrote beneath it just one word,
A word of darkest import--it was Vice.
Then with some inspiration not his own,
Thinking, perchance, to touch that guilty heart,
And wake it to repentance e'er too late,
The artist told the tale of that bright morn,
Placed the two pictured faces side by side,
And brought the wretch before them. With a shriek
That echoed through those vaulted corridors,
Like to the cries that issue from the lips
Of souls forever doomed to woe,
Prostrate upon the stony floor he fell,
And hid his face and groaned aloud in anguish.
"I was that child once--I, yes, even I--
In the gracious years forever fled,
That innocent and happy little child!
These very hands were raised to God in prayer,
That now are reddened with a mother's blood.
Great Heaven! can such things be? Almighty power,
Send forth Thy dart and strike me where I lie!"

He rose, laid hold upon the artist's arm
And grasped it with demoniac power,
The while he cried: "Go forth, I say, go forth
And tell my history to the tempted youth.
I looked upon the wine when it was red,
I heeded not