athian hill
The sun shall fall again.

1843

CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK.

In 1658 two young persons, son and daughter of Lawrence Smithwick of
Salem, who had himself been imprisoned and deprived of nearly all his
property for having entertained Quakers at his house, were fined for
non-attendance at church. They being unable to pay the fine, the General
Court issued an order empowering "the Treasurer of the County to sell
the said persons to any of the English nation of Virginia or Barbadoes,
to answer said fines." An attempt was made to carry this order into
execution, but no shipmaster was found willing to convey them to the
West Indies.

To the God of all sure mercies let my blessing rise
to-day,
From the scoffer and the cruel He hath plucked
the spoil away;
Yea, He who cooled the furnace around the faithful
three,
And tamed the Chaldean lions, hath set His hand-
maid free!
Last night I saw the sunset melt through my prison
bars,
Last night across my damp earth-floor fell the pale
gleam of stars;
In the coldness and the darkness all through the
long night-time,
My grated casement whitened with autumn's early
rime.
Alone, in that dark sorrow, hour after hour crept
by;
Star after star looked palely in and sank adown
the sky;
No sound amid night's stillness, save that which
seemed to be
The dull and heavy beating of the pulses of the sea;

All night I sat unsleeping, for I knew that on the
morrow
The ruler and the cruel priest would mock me in
my sorrow,
Dragged to their place of market, and bargained
for and sold,
Like a lamb before the shambles, like a heifer
from the fold!

Oh, the weakness of the flesh was there, the
shrinking and the shame;
And the low voice of the Tempter like whispers to
me came:
"Why sit'st thou thus forlornly," the wicked
murmur said,
"Damp walls thy bower of beauty, cold earth thy
maiden bed?

"Where be the smiling faces, and voices soft and
sweet,
Seen in thy father's dwelling, heard in the pleasant
street?
Where be the youths whose glances, the summer
Sabbath through,
Turned tenderly and timidly unto thy father's pew?

"Why sit'st thou here, Cassandra?-Bethink
thee with what mirth
Thy happy schoolmates gather