.
And at night a fire was lighted,
On her grave four times was kindled,
For her soul upon its journey
To the Islands of the Blessed.
From his doorway Hiawatha
Saw it burning in the forest,
Lighting up the gloomy hemlocks;
From his sleepless bed uprising,
From the bed of Minnehaha,
Stood and watched it at the doorway,
That it might not be extinguished,
Might not leave her in the darkness.
"Farewell!" said he, "Minnehaha!
Farewell, O my Laughing Water!
All my heart is buried with you,
All my thoughts go onward with you,
Come not back again to labor,
Come not back again to suffer,
Where the Famine and the Fever
Wear the heart and waste the body.
Soon my task will be completed,
Soon your footsteps I shall follow
To the Islands of the Blessed,
To the Kingdom of Ponemah,
To the Land of the Hereafter!"

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

MOTHER AND POET.

TURIN,--AFTER NEWS FROM GAETA, 1861.

Laura Savio of Turin, a poetess and patriot, whose sons were
killed at Ancona and Gaeta.

Dead! one of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead! both my boys! When you sit at the feast,
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me!

Yet I was a poetess only last year,
And good at my art, for a woman, men said.
But this woman, this, who is agonized here,
The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head
Forever instead.

What art can a woman be good at? O, vain!
What art is she good at, but hurting her breast
With the milk teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain?
Ah, boys, how you hurt! you were strong as you pressed,
And I proud by that test.

What art's for a woman! To hold on her knees
Both darlings! to feel all their arms round her throat
Cling, struggle a little! to sew by degrees
And 'broider the long-clothes and neat little coat!
To dream and to dote.

To teach them ... It stings there. I made them indeed
Speak plain the word "country," I taught them, no doubt,
That a country's a thing men should die for at need.
I prated of liberty, rights, and about
The tyrant turned out.

And when their eyes flashed ... O my beautiful eyes! ...
I exulted! nay, let them go forth at the wheels
Of the guns, and denied not.--But then the surprise,
When one sits quite alone!--Then one weeps, then one kneels!
--God! how the house feels!

At first happy news came, in gay letters moile