d call,
Or show me bane from food, with tedious art,
When love--the perfect instinct, flower of all
Divinest potencies of choice, whose part
Was set 'mid stars and flame
To keep the inner place of God--became
A blind and ravening fever of the heart?

I laugh with scorn that men should think them praised
In women's love,--chance-flung in weary hours,
By sickly fire to bloated worship raised!--
O long-lost dream, so sweet of vernal flowers!
Wherein I stood, it seemed,
And gave a gift of queenly mark!--I _dreamed_
Of Passion's joy aglow in rounded powers.

I dreamed! The roar, the tramp, the burdened air
Pour round their sharp and subtle mockery.
Here go the eager-footed men; and there
The costly beggars of the world float by;--
Lilies, that toil nor spin,
How should they know so well the weft of sin,
And hide me from them with such sudden eye?

But all the roaming crowd begins to make
A whirl of humming shade;--for, since the day
Is done, and there's no lower step to take,
Life drops me here. Some rough, kind hand, I pray,
Thrust the sad wreck aside,
And shut the door on it!--a little pride,
That I may not offend who pass this way.

And this is all!--Oh, thou wilt yet give heed!
No soul but trusts some late redeeming care,--
But walks the narrow plank with bitter speed,
And, straining through the sweeping mist of air,
In the great tempest-call,
And greater silence deepening through it all,
Refuses still, refuses to despair!

Some further end, whence thou refitt'st with aim
Bewildered souls, perhaps?--Some breath in me,
By thee, the purest, found devoid of blame,
Fit for large teaching?--Look!--I cannot see,--
I can but feel!--Far off,
Life seethes and frets,--and from its shame and scoff
I take my broken crystal up to thee.

* * * * *

THE HUNDRED DAYS.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

[Concluded.]

The most remarkable event of the "Hundred Days" was the celebrated
"Champ de Mai," where Napoleon met deputies from the Departments, and
distributed eagles to representatives of his forces. He intended it as
an assembly of the French people, which should sanction and legalize his
second accession to the throne, and pledge itself, by solemn adjuration,
to preserve the sove