Chapter VI: Part VI (5)

Sobbing wild in lonely sorrow,
On his numb cheek froze the tear;
And his footstep, faint and weary,
Heeded not the gathering fear!

Through the desolate northern twilight,
To his home-sick pining, rose
Visions of the flashing glaciers,
Lifted in sublime repose.

Horns of Alp-herds rang in welcome,
And his mother kissed her boy!—
Back his bounding heart was hurried
From the vales of dear Savoy!

For, amid the sinking darkness,
Colder, chillier, blew the snows,
Till but faint and moaning whispers
From his stiffening lips arose.

Then beside the pathway kneeling,
Folded he his freezing hands,
While the blinding snows were drifted
Like the desert’s lifted sands.

As in many an old cathedral,
Curtained round with solemn gloom,
One may see a marble cherub
Kneeling on a marble tomb!

With his face to heaven upturning,
For the dead he seems to pray,
While the organ o’er him thunders,
And the incense curls away!

Thus he knelt, all pale and icy,
When the storm at midnight passed,
And the silver lamps of heaven
Burned above the pausing blast.

In that starry-roofed cathedral
Knelt the cherub form in prayer,
While the smoke from snowy censers
Drifted upward through the air.

Though no organ’s grand vibration
Shook the winds that lingered near,
Think ye not the hymns of angels
Trembled on his dying ear?

* * * * *

A COQUETTE CONQUERED.

OR THE TRIALS OF A HEART OF PRIDE.

BY JAMES S. WALLACE.