Eleven months his soul he steeled

To toil and wait in silent pain,

But in the twelfth his wounds were healed, -
He burst his bonds, and fled again.

A weary winding stream he sought,
And crossed its waters to and fro, -

An Indian wile, to set at nought
The bloody instinct of his foe.

316

THE BOAT OF GRASS.

The waters widen to a fen,

And,-while he hid him, breathless, there,— With brutal cries of dogs and men,

The hunt went round and round his lair.

The baffled hounds had lost the track:
With many a curse and many a cry
The angry owners called them back;
And so the wild pursuit went by.

The deadly peril seemed to pass;
And then he dared to raise his head
Above the waving swampy grass,

That mantled o'er the river-bed.

Those long broad leaves that round him grew
He had been wont to bind and plait;
And well, with simple skill, he knew
To shape the basket and the mat.

Now, in their tresses sad and dull
He saw the hope of his escape,

And patiently began to cull,

And weave them in canoe-like shape.

To give the reedy fabric slight

An armor 'gainst the soaking brine,
With painful care he sought by night

The amber weepings of the pine.

And, since on the Egyptian wave

The Hebrew launched her little ark,
Faith never to God's keeping gave
So great a hope, so frail a bark.

O silent river of the South,

Whose lonely stream ne'er felt the oar In all its course, from rise to mouth, What precious freight was that you bore!

But still the boat, from dawn to dark, 'Neath overhanging shrubs was drawn. And, loosed at eve, the little bark

Safe floated on from dark to dawn.

At length, in that mysterious hour

That comes before the break of day,
The current gained a swifter power,
The boat began to rock and sway.

He felt the wave beneath him swell,
His nostrils drank a fresh salt breath,
The boat of rushes rose and fell ; -
“Lord! is it life, or is it death?”

He saw the eastern heaven spanned
With a slow-spreading belt of gray;
Tents glimmered, ghost-like, on the sand;
And phantom ships before him lay.

318

THE BOAT OF GRASS.

The sky grew bright, the day awoke,
The sun flashed up above the sea,
From countless drum and bugle broke
The joyous Northern reveillé.

O white-winged warriors of the deep!
No heart e'er hailed you so before:
No castaway on desert steep,

Nor banished man, his exile o’er,

Nor drowning wretch lashed to a spar,
So blessed your rescuing sails as he
Who on them first beheld from far
The morning-light of Liberty!

MRS. WISTER.

HE PRAYETH WELL WHO LOVETH WELL.

Oh, sweeter than the marriage-feast,

'Tis sweeter far to me

To walk together to the kirk,

With a goodly company!

To walk together to the kirk,

And all together pray,

While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay.

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou wedding-guest!
He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man, and bird, and beast.

He prayeth best who loveth best

All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

COLERIDGE.