A WOMAN'S LOVE,

A SENTINEL angel, sitting high in glory,
Heard this shrill wail ring out from Purgatory:
"Have mercy, mighty angel, hear my story!

But soon adown the dying sunset sailing,
And like a wounded bird her pinions trailing,
She fluttered back, with broken-hearted wailing.

She sobbed, "I found him by the summer sea
Reclined, his head upon a maiden's knee,

“I loved, — and, blind with passionate love, I She curled his hair and kissed him. Woe is me!" Love brought me down to death, and death to I have been fond and foolish. Let me in She wept, "Now let my punishment begin!

fell.

Hell;

For God is just, and death for sin is well.

“I do not rage against his high decree,
Nor for myself do ask that grace shall be ;
But for my love on earth who mourns for me.

"Great Spirit! Let me see my love again And comfort him one hour, and I were fain To pay a thousand years of fire and pain."

Then said the pitying angel, "Nay, repent
That wild vow! Look, the dial-finger 's bent
Down to the last hour of thy punishment!"

But still she wailed, "I pray thee, let me go!
I cannot rise to peace and leave him so.
O, let me soothe him in his bitter woe!"

The brazen gates ground sullenly ajar,
And upward, joyous, like a rising star,
She rose and vanished in the ether far.

Hark! to the tolling bells
In echoes deeps and slow.

While on the breeze our bannur floats
Draped in the weeds

of wee.

L. Huntley Siquuney.