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Dodge's Literary AMaseum.
{Written for Dodge's Literary Museum.]
ON A POOR MAN’S GRAVE.
BY W. 0. EATON.
Dowx, lowly stone!’ Sink into noteless earth!
Claim’st thou a tear for one of humble fate?
Around thee marbles tell of wealth and “ birth ”—
Who shall read’ thee, thou frail, presumptuous
slate? | f
O, fortune, 0, our God! how human pride
Pursues its follies to the door of Doom;
Strives for a straw on death’s remorseless tide,
Forgetting Heaven to decorate the tomb.
Who of the crowd that saunter o’er this spot,
Where care-trimmed boughs oer classic marbles
wave,
Idolatry of wealth and self forgot,
Will pause with pity at the poor man’s grave?
Disdainful world! Corrupt and weak and vain,
To the cold pressure of a common clay
Ye all must come, with humblest dust remain,
And wait the dawning of an equal Day.
Here, where the rude stone o’er the poor man lies,
‘The selfsame wing th? Archangel shall unfold
As where yon mausoleums tall arise,
With roses decked, and characters of gold.
CWritten for Dodge's Literary Museum.]
THE FEARFUL VENTURE:
A Tale of the Days of “Chivalry.”
BY EDITH CASTLEMAINE.
CUAPTER FIRST.
oe OTHER, dear mother, be com-
i forted; my father shall not die.
I will go to this-victorious king, and plead
for the life of my father. I have heard
that he can be touched by a woman’s tears,
and he may listen to me with favor.”
Thus spoke Agnes, a fair Saxon maid-
en, of the ruthless Conqueror who had
overrun her country with his rude armies,
and put her countrymen to the sword, or
made prisoners or slaves of them.
Her father, the high-spirited and unbend-
ing Udolph de Brent, had, for a rude and
insulting speech made to a young female
relative, struck the fiery Richard in the
face, with his heavy mailed hand.
~ The vengeful monarch swore that he
would, in three days’ time, hang: Udolph,
like a dog, before his own castle door. He
would give him three days to meditate upon
the fate before him, but in all that time he
should not look upon the face of a single
friend.
The voice of frantic lamentation echoed
through the lofty chambers of De Brent’s
ancestral home when the dread decree of
Richard was made known therein.
His gentle and’ beautiful wife, and his
young, only daughter, rent their garments,
and unbound their. hair, and wept and
wailed in the most despairing sorrow.
Suddenly Agnes started up, her wealth
of waving raven hair (a wild, strange veil
“for a Saxon maiden,) rolling adown her
shoulders like a jetty flood, and her large
eyes gleaming with their new-born hope,
“ Mother, be comforted ; I go to save my
father.” * *. * *
The pale maiden with her raven hair and
gleaming eyes was kneeling before the
king.
Richard was amazed at her rare beauty,
and with the tender’ graciousness that
mighty lion knew so well how to assume, he
extended his hand and raised her to her
feet.
“By the holy mother, glorious damsel,
thou shalt not kneel to me! More fitting
were it that I should bow before thee. What
wouldst thou say? Yet ’tis not here that I
will have thy request. Hol Granville,
show this fair lady a more retired spot, and
I will listen to her there anon.”
A meaning smile passed round the circle
of assembled lords, but neither Richard
nor the maiden saw it.
“And if I grant thee thy father’s life,
fair lady of the raven hair, what wilt thou
grant to me?”
“JT have nought but the gratitude of a
true heart to give, my liege, and my pray-
ers, that, as thou showest mercy, so mayst
thou find it when thou shalt seek it from on
high.”
“Gratitude from tee were sweet, beau-
ful one, but love were sweeter. Say, wilt
thou bless thy monarch with thy love ?
Wilt give that treasure for thy father’s
life?”
Agnes trembled beneath the gaze of the
iron-hearted king.
He opened his arms to clasp her ‘to his
breast, but she sank upon her knees ‘at his
feet.
“May it please my lord, O' king, to
take my life in exchange for the life of my
father; but make me not that thing which
all pure minds must hate. My father
would loathe his life, purchased at such a
cost.”
“Beware, maiden—the power is in my
hands; displease me not. Come hither, and
look yonder. Scest that dark gulf? I will
give thee thy choice: to cross that gulf
upon a narrow plank, and try to lead thy
father, who shall be blindfolded, back in
safety from the other side, or to yield thee
now to my advice, and save him thus. If
thou wilt choose the latter, he shall not
know, none shall dare to know, that thou
art other than the pure young virgin thou
now art, and to-morrow thou shalt go to
thy father’s prison and set him free, and
lead him home with thine own soft hands.
If thou choose the former, thou shalt save
him if thou lead him safely over the plank.
If ye fall from the plank, he will go down,
down the dark abyss, and upon the rocks of]
the foaming stream below, be dashed into
atoms}; while thou, about whose hands silver
chains are fastened by a loose ring upon the
plank, shalt be saved, for my pleasure, and
thou canst not then escape. . Consider, now,
which will be the wiser course for thee to
take.”
“T choose to cross the gulf, and may the
God of the helpless and the oppressed have
mercy upon me.”
“Foolish one! but Iam pleased as well
thus as otherwise ; it will bring thee to my
arms at last, and there will then be no fa-
ther’s anger to fear.”
“O, my liege, allow me to depart; my]
mother will be troubled at my long stay
from her side.”
“ As you will, fair maiden. . Nay, but art
thou gone so suddenly? I must taste the
swects that cluster on thy cheeks and lips
ere I bid thee farewell. « I would have some-
what to cause me to feel that this interview
is real, and not a vision; that thou art a
creature of flesh and blood, and nota bright
spirit, come to mock me, and haunt me
with vain longings. Nay, maiden, shrink
not thus; I mean not to harm thee. Thou
need’st not fear thy king, though he does
fold thee thus and thus in his embrace.”
And with his strong arms did Richard the
Conqueror clasp the tender maiden to his
heart, while his kisses burned upon her
cheek and brow, ay, and upon her white
neck and shoulders, and his lips clung in a
long, impassioned pressure to hers.
The avalanche of black, black hair broke
from its fastenings, and swept over the
monarch’s arm. Ilis quick eye noted its
magnificence, and seating himself upon a
crimson couch, he wound the rich masses in
his hands, exclaiming, in tones of surprise
and admiration,
“ Thou art surely designed by nature for
the mate of a king, for such a crown of
glory as this graces the head of no other
woman on earth.”
CHAPTER SECOND.
ILE captive stood silently upon the fur-
ther side of the gulf. Armed men
were on his either hand, but he heeded, he
saw them not.
His eyes were intently fixed upon the
white-robed figure of his child, standing
amid the mailed company of knights and
nobles crowding the opposite summit. High
over the heads of all waved the colors of
the Lion, and beneath it, on his favorite
horse, sat Richard, the king.
They led Agnes to the side of the yawn-
ing chasm, and clasped about her fair arms
the silver chains that were to prevent her
from falling far. The long plank, which
was arranged after the manner of a draw-
bridge, was then lowered to its place, and
the devoted maiden was commanded to
commence her desperate adventure,
With a prayer at every breath, she step-
ped upon the plank and walked swiftly on
until she gained the center. Then she
paused and wavered. Treathlessly she
looked on the multitude. Many a sympa-
thizing heart stopped its beating, but the
suspense was short; she recovered herself
and went on.
And she reached her father’s sidé in
safety. Deafening was the shout which
rent the air as she sprang to her father’s
arms. Ie bowed his noble head upon the
bosom of his child, and wept such tears as
fall from the eyes of man but seldom. Ilis
heart was wrung with agony the most in-
tense and hopeless, yet one pang was spared
him—Agnes did not tell him the fate that
awaited her if she failed to lead him safely
back. He had no hope of gaining the oth-
er side, and yet, for his child’s sake, he was
glad to try. Yet before they started he
told her many things to say to her mother,
if he saw her no more; and with a fervent
blessing, and an embrace he felt to be the
last he should bestow upon his daughter in
this world, he bowed his head to receive the
bandage with which a soldier stood ready
to cover his eyes.
Fearful was the silence all around as the
father and the daughter stepped upon the
fatal plank.
Slowly and surely they moved along.
ere scemed no tremor of muscle or
nerve, though the face of a corpse could
have been no paler than was that of Agnes.
King Richard moved uneasily upon his
horse. Did he fear they would cross the
chasm safely ?
Not a word was spoken by the fated pair
from the time they touched the plank until
—ah! we shall see. Twenty feet were yet
between. the bank and them. O! could
they but reach it!
‘The blindfolded man becomes confused ;
all to him is utter darkness. He is scized
with sudden terror, and stops short. His
hands ate so confined that he cannot lift
them to his head. Ie sways to and fro,
and his child with him. . Ile starts on
again, but his steps are unequal. There!
one foot has gone over the side of the
plank. Agnes struggled to aid him to re-
cover himself, but the bandage on his eyes
was what bewildered him.
One step more, and then a struggle, and
a fearful ery of “ Lost! lost!” swelled up
from the crowded hill, drowning, for all
ears but those of Agnes, the despairing
“Farewell, my child,” that rang from her
father’s lips, as his hand broke from. the
clasp of hers, and he plunged down, to
mect his death far, far below.
It was over—the trial was finished, the
tragedy complete.
With furious speed galloped Richard
down to the brink of the chasm, and the
insensible ‘victim of his inhuman cruelty
was placed by armed men in hisarms. The
chains were stricken from her arms—those
slender arms, which were almost broken by
the force with which she had fallen. The
palms of her hands were all cut and bleed-
ing from the desperate grasp with which
she had held to her father and his chains.
But Richard cared not so much for those
things; wounds and bruises could be heal-
ed, but who could restore: the raven hue to
that heavy mass of hair, floating backward
from the brow of the lifeless one, whose
graceful limbs laid so resistless, so fearfully
still in his embrace ?
Whiter than the coat of Richard’s milk-
white steed was every spear of Agnes’s
waving hair. Black as the midnight, abroad
on the air had it streamed, as with a wild
shrick she had followed her father’s fall ;
but when they drew her up, and laid her
in their monarch’s arms, that “crown of
glory ” was a snowy crown.
Much joy had Richard, doubtless, of his
longed-for prize. (?) The broken heart,
the shattered intellect, the silver hair grac-
ed his proud triumph well.
He bore her home, and his proud heart,
softened beneath the touch of pity, remorse
and love, tried with all his art, and with un-
heard-of gentleness, to restore her to some
degree of hope and happiness. I know not
if his efforts met with success; but in after
years, (long after, at her earnest entreatics,
he had parted from the lady Agnes,) when
weary and worn by many wars and heavy
cares, he sought, one night, for rest and re-
freshment in a convent, almost hidden in
the ‘seclusion of a thick wood, he found a
beautiful and saint-like lady, who, as Lady
Abbess, made him welcome there, he knew
her for the unhappy Agnes of his early and
cruel love.
y@> A YANKEE and an Englishman were
arguing together, when the latter, in reply
to some severe remark of Jonathan’s, said,
“You are arguing against your ances-
ors.”
“No, Iam not,” was the reply.
“Who was your father ?”
“A Yankee.”
“Who were your forefathers ?”
“Yankees.”
“Who were Adam and Eve?”
“Yankees, by thunder!”
a> A GENTLEMAN and his lady, while
riding in a chaise and turning the corner
of Tremont and Canton streets, one after-
noon, accidentally ran the horse against two
Irishmen, knocking down one, who rolled
over in the mud like a barrel, until he be-
came all of one color.
The lady screamed, and exclaimed, * He’s
dead.” - .
“Not a bit of it!” said Pat, jumping up;
“but ‘I'd like to know if that’s the way ye
always do it!”
y> Sentivents join man to man,
opinions divide them. The former are ele-
mentary and concentrate, the latter are
composite and scatter. The friendships of
youth are founded on sentiment; the dis-
sensions of age result from opinion. If we
could know this at an early age, if, in form-
ing our own mode of thought, we could ac-
quire a liberal view of that of others, and
even of those that are opposed to ours ; we
should then be more tolerant, and endeayor
to reiinite by sentiment, what opinion di-
vided and dispersed, — *