LESSON CXXXV. The Soul's Defiance.*- -ANONYMOUS. I SAID to Sorrow's awful storm, But still the spirit, that now brooks I said to Penury's meagre train, I said to cold Neglect and Scorn, Yet still the spirit, which you see Its high-born smiles." I said to Friendship's menaced blow, To those already there; *This poem was written many years ago, by a lady, and written from experience and feeling. There is a very remarkable grandeur and power in the sentiments, sustained, as they are, by an energy of expression well suited to the spirit's undaunted defiance of misfortune.-Ed. Common-place Book of Poetry. Yet still the spirit, that sustains This last severe distress, Shall smile upon its keenest pains, I said to Death's uplifted dart, Shall smiling pass away." LESSON CXXXVI. Sonnet to the South Wind.-BRYANT. Ar, thou art welcome-heaven's delicious breath- In the gay woods and in the golden air,- In such a bright, late quiet, would that I Might wear out life, like thee, mid bowers and brocks, And music of kind voices ever nigh; And, when my last sand twinkled in the glass, LESSON CXXXVII. Lilias Grieve.-WILSON. THERE were fear and melancholy in all the glens and valleys that lay stretching around, or down upon St. Mary's Loch; for it was the time of religious persecution. Many a sweet cottage stood untenanted on the hill-side and in the hollow some had felt the fire, and been consumed; and violent hands had torn off the turf roof from the green shealing of the shepherd. In the wide and deep silence and solitariness of the mountains, it seemed as if human life were nearly extinct. Caverns and clefts, in which the fox had kennelled, were now the shelter of Christian souls; and when a lonely figure crept stealingly from one hiding-place to another, on a visit of love to some hunted brother in faith, the crows would hover over him, and the hawk shriek at human steps, now rare in the desert. When the babe was born, there might be none near to baptize it; or the minister, driven from his kirk, perhaps, poured the sacramental water upon its face, from some pool in the glen, whose rocks guarded the persecuted family from the oppressor. Bridals now were unfrequent, and in the solemn sadness of love. Many died before their time, of minds sunken, and of broken hearts. White hair was on heads long before they were old; and the silver locks of ancient men were often ruefully soiled in the dust, and stained with their martyred blood. But this is the dark side of the picture; for, even in their caves, were these people happy. Their children were with them, even like the wild flowers that blossomed all about the entrances of their dens. And when the voice of psalms rose up from the profound silence of the solitary place of rocks, the ear of God was open, and they knew that their prayers and praises were heard in heaven. If a child was born, it belonged unto the faithful; if an old man died, it was in the religion of his forefathers. The hidden powers of their souls were brought forth into the light, and they knew the strength that was in them for these days of trial. The thoughtless became sedate; the wild were tamed; the unfeeling made compassionate; hard hearts were softened, and the wicked saw the error of their ways. All deep passion purifies and strengthens the soul; and so was it now. Now was shown and put to the proof, the stern, austere, impenetrable strength of men, that would neither bend nor break; the calm, serene determination of matrons, who, with meek eyes and unblanched cheeks, met the scowl of the murderer, the silent beauty of maidens, who with smiles received their death,—and the mysterious courage of children, who, in the inspiration of innocent and spotless nature, kneeled down among the dew drops on the green sward, and died fearlessly by their parents' sides. Arrested were they at their work, or in their play; and, with no other bandage over their eyes, but haply some clustering ringlet of their sunny hair, did many a sweet creature of twelve summers, ask just to be allowed to say her prayers, and then go, unappalled, from her cottage door to the breast of her Redeemer. In those days had old Samuel Grieve and his spouse suffered sorely for their faith. But they left not their own house-willing to die there, or to be slaughtered, whenever God should so appoint. They were now childless; but a little granddaughter, about ten years old, lived with them, and she was an orphan. The thought of death was so familiar to her, that, although sometimes it gave a slight quaking throb to her heart in its glee, yet it scarcely impaired the natural joyfulness of her girlhood; and often, unconsciously, after the gravest or the saddest talk with her old parents, would she glide off, with a lightsome step, a blithe face, and a voice humming sweetly some cheerful tune. The old people looked often upon her in her happiness, till their dim eyes filled with tears; while the grandmother said, "If this nest were to be destroyed, at last, and our heads in the mould, who would feed this young bird in the wild, and where would she find shelter in which to fauld her bonnie wings?" Lilias Grieve was the shepherdess of a small flock, among the green pasturage at the head of St. Mary's Loch, and up the hill-side, and over into some of the little neighboring glens. Sometimes she sat in that beautiful church-yard, with her sheep lying scattered around her upon the quiet graves, where, on still, sunny days, she could see their shadows in the water in the loch, and herself sitting close to the lor walls of the house of God. She had no one to speak to, but her Bible to read; and, day after day, the rising sun beheld her in growing beauty, and innocence that could not fade, happy and silent as a fairy upon the knowe, with the blue heavens over her head, and the blue lake smiling at her feet. My fairy" was the name she bore by the cottage fire, where the old people were gladdened by her glee, and turned away from all melancholy thoughts. And it was a name that suited sweet Lilias well; for she was clothed in a garb of green, and often, in her joy, the green, graceful plants that grow among the hills, were wreathed round her hair. So was she dressed one Sabbath day, watching her flock at a considerable distance from home, and singing to herself a psalm in the solitary moor; when, in a moment, a party of soldiers were upon a mount on the opposite side of a narrow dell. Lilias was invisible as a green linnet upon the grass; but her sweet voice had betrayed her, and then one of the soldiers caught the wild gleam of her eyes; and, as she sprung frightened to her feet, he called out, "A roe! a roe! See how she bounds along the bent!" and the ruffian took aim at the child with his musket, half in sport, half in ferocity. Lilias kept appearing and disappearing, while she flew, as on wings, across a piece of black heathery moss, full of pits and hollows; -and still the soldier kept his musket at its aim. His comrades called to him to hold his hand, and not shoot a poor little innocent child; but he at length fired, and the bullet was heard to whiz past her fern-crowned head, and to strike a bank which she was about to ascend. The child paused for a moment, and looked back, and then bounded away over the smooth turf; till, like a cushat, she dropped into a little birchen glen, and disappeared. Not a sound of her feet was heard; she seemed to have sunk into the ground; and the soldier stood, without any effort to follow her, gazing through the smoke towards the spot where she had vanished. A sudden superstition assailed the hearts of the party, as they sat down together upon a hedge of stone. "Saw you her face, Riddle, as my ball went whizzing past her ear? If she be not one of those hill fairies, she had been dead as a herring; but I believe the bullet glorced off her yellow hair as against a buckler." "It was the act of a gallowsrogue to fire upon the creature, fairy or not fairy; and you deserve the weight of this hand-the hand of an Englishman -you brute, for your cruelty." And up rose the speaker to put his threat into execution, when the other retreated some |