That forever remind her
Of something behind her
Long vanished.

Through the listening night,
With mysterious flight,
Pass those winged intimations:
Like stars shot from heaven, their still voices fall to me;
Far and departing, they signal and call to me,
Strangely beseeching me,
Chiding, yet teaching me
Patience.

Then at times, oh! at times,
To their luminous climes
I pursue as a swallow!
To the river of Peace, and its solacing shades,
To the haunts of my lost ones, in heavenly glades,
With strong aspirations
Their pinions' vibrations
I follow.

O heart, be thou patient!
Though here I am stationed
A season in durance,
The chain of the world I will cheerfully wear;
For, spanning my soul like a rainbow, I bear,
With the yoke of my lowly
Condition, a holy
Assurance,--

That never in vain
Does the spirit maintain
Her eternal allegiance:
Through suffering and yearning, like Infancy learning
Its lesson, we linger; then skyward returning,
On plumes fully grown
We depart to our own
Native regions!

CLEMENCY AND COMMON SENSE.

A CURIOSITY OF LITERATURE; WITH A MORAL.

_Instabile est regnum quod non elementia firmat.
Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim._

Here are two famous verses, both often quoted, and one a commonplace of
literature. That they have passed into proverbs attests their merit both
in substance and in form. Something more than truth is needed for a
proverb. And so also something more than form is needed. Both must
concur. The truth must be expressed in such a form as to satisfy the
requirements of art.

Most persons whose attention has not been turned especially to such
things, if asked where these verses are to be found, would say at once
that it was in one of the familiar poets of school-boy days. Both have a
sound as of something that has been heard in childhood. The latter is
very Virgilian in its tone and movement. More than once I have heard it
insisted that it was by Virgil. But nobody has been able to find it
there, although the opposite dangers are well represented in the voyage
of AEneas:[3]--

"Dextrum Scylla latus, laevum implacata Charybdis Obsidet."

Thinking of th