But from the dying flowers a voice seem'd breathing
Of higher hopes; it whisper'd sweet and low-
"When spring again her sunny smile is wreathing,
We will return to thee-but thou must go
To seek life's blighted blossoms on that shore
Where flowers can fade no more!"

THE LAST OF THE JAGELLONS.

BY FRANCES BROWN.

"Oh, minstrel, wake thy harp once more, For winter's twilight falls,

And coldly dim it darkens o'er

My lonely heart and halls :

But memories of my early home
Around me gather fast→→→

For still with twilight shadows come

The shadows of the past.

"Then wake thy lyre, my faithful bard,
And breathe again for me

The songs that in my land was heard,
While yet that land was free

The lays of old romantic times,

When hearts and swords were true

They will recall the dazzling dreams
That youth and childhood knew."

Twas thus the noble matron spake
To one whose tuneful strains
Could win her exiled spirit back
To Poland's pleasant plains;
But how did memory's wizard-wand
Far distant scenes portray,
As thus the minstrel of the land

Awoke her lyre and lay:

"The shout hath ceased in Volla's field, But still its echoes ring

With the last thunder-burst that hail'd
Sarmatia's chosen king.

For young Jagellon now ascends
His father's ancient throne;
Yet still the chosen monarch stands
Uncrown'd-but not alone!

"A lovely form is by his side, A hand is clasp'd in his,

That well might be a monarch's bride,
Even in an hour like this;

For never fairer form was seen
In saint's or poet's dreams,

Nor ever shone a nobler mein

In Poland's princely dames.

"Oh, many a princely dame is there, And many a noble knight—

The flower of Poland's famed and fair

The glory of her might.

But there is pride in every face,

And wrath in every tone,

As on that fair young brow, their gaze Of gather'd scorn is thrown.

"There came an ancient senator,
With firm and stately tread,
And to the silent monarch there
In courtly phrase he said:

"The love that cannot grace a throne

A king should cast aside-

Then let Jagellon reign alone,
Or choose a royal bride.'

"The monarch yet more closely clasp'd That small and snowy hand;

Then like a knightly warrior grasp'd

His own unrivall'd brand;

And from his dark eye flash'd the pride

Of all his martial line,

As By my father's sword,' he cried,

'Such choice shall ne'er be mine:

"My land hath seen her ancient crown Bestow'd for many an age,

While other nations have bow'd down

To kingly heritage;

And now the crown she freely gave,

I render back as free;

For, if unshared by her I love,
It shines no more for me.'

"He said-but from the throng arose,
Ere yet his speech was done,
A wilder, louder cheer than those
That told of conquests won-
When far in many a famous field,
Through long, victorious years,
O'er Tartar bow and Paynim shield,

He led the Polish spears.

"And thus they said, 'The flower whose worth

Inspired a soul so great

With love like this, whate'er her birth,

Should be a monarch's mate;

And as thy tameless heart was found

To love and honor true

Oh, early tried and far renowned,

Be true to Poland, too!""

THE SPECTRE OF THE HEARTH.

BY FRANCES BROWN.

Old Europe boasts of the broad low lands

She won from the western main;

But the wasting wave and the whelming sands
Are winning them back again :
Long and fierce is the war they wage
And the conquest groweth from age to age.

The song of the billows' sounding march,
Is heard where the anthem rose;
O'er sculptured column and stately arch
The dreary sand-hill grows,

And fills the waste of the sterile shore,
Where corn was bent by the breeze of yore.

No trace doth the bare, gray summit keep
Of buried spire or dome;

But still, 'tis said, where the drifted heap
Lies high o'er a peasant's home,

The place of the hearth may yet be known
To wanderers forth in the twilight lone.

For there, when stars through the deep'ning gray, Shine far over wave and height,

Or their crests give back the ruddy ray

Of the hamlet-fires of night,

A spectre-woman pours her woe

O'er the cold and the quench'd of long ago.

Old is the tale--aye, old and strange

As the peasant's lore of dreams;

Yet how hath it kept through fear and change
That changeless truth, which seems,

In the power of its undecaying proof,
A golden thread in the rustic woof!

Are there not hearts-the worn, the wise-
That ever in vain return

To some spot where their old love-memory lies,
Though they only come to mourn

The dust and the debris piled between

Their souls and the rest they might have seen!

The sands! oh, the severing sands upflung
By the world's wide sea of fears!
And the heart, in its toiling silence stung
By the solitude of years!

And the lights that shine on its lonely ways,
At times, through the twilight-fall of days!

The winters wane, and the ruins grow
With the wrecks of wave and mind;
But, oh were the dust less deep below,
And the stars above more kind,

How many a dream by the hearth might rest,
That now returns but a spectre guest.

THE LONELY MOTHER.

BY FRANCES BROWN.

My home is not what it hath been,

When the leaves of other years were green,

Though its hearth is bright and its chambers fair,

And the summer beams fall lightly there;

But they fall no more on the clear, young eye,

And the lip of pleasant song,

And the gleaming night that wont to lie
On the curls so dark and long.