One instant a ghastly terror
Shot sudden her features o'er;
The next, and she rose unblenching,
And opened the fast-barred door.
"Who be ye that seek admission ?
Who cometh for food and rest?
This night is a night above others
To shelter a straying guest."
Deep out of the snowy silence

A guttural answer broke:

"I come from the great Three Rivers, I am chief of the Roanoke."

Straight in through the frightened children,
Unshrinking, the red man strode,

And loosed on the blazing hearthstone,
From his shoulder, a light-borne load;
And out of the pile of deer-skins,

With a look as serene and mild

As if it had been his cradle,

Stepped softly a four-year child.

As he chafed at the fire his fingers,
Close pressed to the brawny knee,
The gaze that the silent savage

Bent on him was strange to see;
And then, with a voice whose yearning
The father could scarcely stem,
He said, to the children pointing,
"I want him to be like them!

"They weep for the boy in the wigwam:
I bring him, a moon of days,
To learn of the speaking paper;
To hear of the wiser ways
Of the people beyond the water;

To break with the plough the sod;
To be kind to papoose and woman;
To pray to the white man's God."

"I give thee my hand!" And the lady
Pressed forward with sudden cheer;
"Thou shalt eat of my English pudding,
And drink of my Christmas beer.-
My darlings, this night, remember
All strangers are kith and kin,—

This night when the dear Lord's Mother
Could find no room at the inn!"

Next morn from the colony belfry
Pealed gayly the Sunday chime,

And merrily forth the people

Flocked, keeping the Christmas time;
And the lady, with bright-eyed children
Behind her, their lips a-smile,

And the chief in his skins and wampum,
Came walking the narrow aisle.

Forthwith from the congregation
Broke fiercely a sullen cry,

"Out! out! with the crafty red-skin!
Have at him! A spy! A spy!"

And quickly from belts leaped daggers,

And swords from their sheaths flashed bare,

And men from their seats defiant

Sprang, ready to slay him there.

But facing the crowd with courage
As calm as a knight of yore,

Stepped bravely the fair-browed woman
The thrust of the steel before;

And spake with a queenly gesture,

Her hand on the chief's brown breast;
"Ye dare not impeach my honor!
Ye dare not insult my guest!"

They dropped, at her word, their weapons,
Half-shamed as the lady smiled,

And told them the red man's story,

And showed them the red man's child;
And pledged them her broad plantations,
That never would such betray

The trust that a Christian woman

Had shown on a Christmas Day!

There'll come a day when human love, the sweetest
Gift that includes the whole

Of God's grand giving-sovereignest, completest-
Shall fail to fill my soul.

There'll come a day-I shall not care how passes
The cloud across my sight,

If only, lark-like, from earth's nested grasses,
I spring to meet its light.

William Allen Butler.

BORN in Albany, N. Y., 1825.

UHLAND.

[Poems. 1871.]

T is the poet Uhland, from whose wreathings

IT

Of rarest harmony I here repeat,

In lower tones and less melodious breathings,

Some simple strains where truth and passion meet.

His is the poetry of sweet expression,

Of clear, unfaltering tune, serene and strong;

Where gentlest thoughts and words, in soft procession, Move to the even measures of his song.

Delighting ever in his own calm fancies,

He sees much beauty where most men see naught, Looking at Nature with familiar glances,

And weaving garlands in the groves of Thought.

He sings of Youth, and Hope, and high Endeavor,
He sings of Love (O crown of Poesy)!
Of Fate, and Sorrow, and the Grave, forever
The end of strife, the goal of Destiny.

He sings of Fatherland, the minstrel's glory,
High theme of memory and hope divine,
Twining its fame with gems of antique story,
In Suabian songs and legends of the Rhine;

In ballads breathing many a dim tradition,

Nourished in long belief, or minstrel rhymes, Fruit of the old Romance, whose gentle mission Passed from the earth before our wiser times.

Well do they know his name amongst the mountains,
And plains, and valleys of his native land;
Part of their nature are the sparkling fountains

Of his clear thought, with rainbow fancies spanned.

His simple lays oft sings the mother cheerful,

Beside the cradle, in the dim twilight;
His plaintive notes low breathes the maiden tearful
With tender murmurs in the ear of Night.

The hillside swain, the reaper in the meadows,
Carol his ditties through the toilsome day;
And the lone hunter in the Alpine shadows
Recalls his ballads by some ruin gray.

O precious gift! O wondrous inspiration!
Of all high deeds, of all harmonious things,
To be the oracle, while a whole nation

Catches the echo from the sounding strings.

Out of the depths of feeling and emotion
Rises the orb of song, serenely bright,
As who beholds, across the tracts of ocean,
The golden sunrise bursting into light.

Wide is its magic world,-divided neither
By continent, nor sea, nor narrow zone;
Who would not wish sometimes to travel thither,
In fancied fortunes to forget his own!

mm

John Williamson Palmer.

BORN in Baltimore, Md., 1825.

STONEWALL JACKSON'S WAY.

[Written at Oakland, Md., 17 September, 1862, within hearing of the Guns of Antietam. -From the Author's revised Manuscript.]