WHAT THE SKULL SPAKE. FROM THE PERSIAN OF SADI (1175–1291). AY not sultans are mighty; think not largely of thrones; SAY largely ANCIENT LIFE UNFOLDED. HE discovery of the remains of the buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum first revealed to the moderns the The realm of the beggar is safer than the familiar side of ancient Roman life, and king of diadem'd ones. since then the archæologist, the romance The woe of a darweesh is measured by his writer, and the artist have so diligently want of an oaten crust: labored to interpret these and other remains On the heart of the king sit always his to us that we are on easier terms of acquaintempire's toil and trust. ance with the leaders of the world's civilization of two thousand years ago—with their strange, and often startling, similarities and When the darweesh has munched at sunset his hunk of yesterday's bread, He sleeps in his rags more sweetly than the equally strange dissimilarities to ourselves God's will and the glory of battle brought I was king of the two great rivers: I was During the past forty years artists have devoted themselves with great assiduity to the production of pictures which have for their object the representation of antique life-not according to some more or less fanciful ideas, but, referring always to undoubted authorities, putting the men and women and children of the dead-and-gone civilizations of the past before us much as they must have been amid their proper surroundings. These pictures, there can be no doubt, have accomplished far more than any writings on the subject to make the people of our time understand rightly and appreciate keenly the I had in my heart the purpose to seize Kara- conditions under which the subjects of the mania's plain, When, lo! in the wink of an eyelid the worms were eating my brain.' From the ear of wisdom, darweesh, the cot ton of carelessness pluck, That counsel of dead men, darweesh, may bring thee, by lowliness, luck. Translation of SIR EDWARD ARNOLD. Cæsars lived and moved and had their being, and to entertain a hearty human sympathy for them instead of regarding them, as we must needs in a great measure regard people whom we know only through the instrumentality of books, as very much in the nature of abstractions. LOUIS EDWARD LEVY. Anon the boom of the minute-gun Rang low through the breezes' roar, And the lifeboat plunged through the plunging foam, And a lantern from the shore Showed Jack at the stern with his rough brave hand Clutching the strong stroke-oar. 'Steady!" he cried. "Head her, my lads, Where the thundering billows break; Out where the red lamps blaze, my boys: Let the broken sea boil in our wake; And save him, save him, save him, lads, For Gertrude Marmion's sake!" Saved, saved!" she cried; "thank God ye | She dropped it down into his grave So passed the spring; and when the fields She and the noble lord were wed; And the husband stooped and laid his arms About his pale wife's neck. 'We'll call our son," he said, " to bring My father's dead name back, Eustace Fitzharding."- -"Nay," she said, "We'll call his name plain JACK." And night by night (the old folks say) Moaning and beautiful, Above the wreck and the body of Jack, On the reef of Innishtrahull. SAMUEL K. COWAN. UNDER THE WILLOWS. NDER the willows that grow by the UNDI river Our little bark glides on its musical way; The wavelets are flecked with the tremulous quiver Of sunshine and shadow at riotous play. We float past a tangle of whispering rushes Asway 'neath each zephyr that steals through the glade, And noiselessly glide through the dim, silent hushes That brood in the cool, dewy coverts of shade. White lilies stand, graceful and still, in the Ah! life seems shadow, Like pure contemplatives in rapturous trance; dreaming a tender and rapturous Here under the willows this sweet summer day, Pale sunbeams are gliding about through the And I'd be content, with my love for comhollow panion, And in his old, decrepit, withered hand, Still on glides our boat o'er the shimmering To make it sure. Of all God made upright river; Each heart with the other in unison beats, While through the green willows the cool zephyrs shiver And in their nostrils breathed a living soul, Most fallen, most prone, most earthy, most debased; Of all that sold eternity for time, And bear to us burdens of odorous sweets. None bargained on so easy terms with death. |