Of light, to meet him. Oh, how beautiful!

Her proud eye flashing like a sunlit

gem

And her luxuriant hair!-'twas like the sweep

Of a dark wing in visions. He stood still

As if the sight had withered him. She threw

Her arms about his neck-he heeded

not.

She called him "Father"-but he answered not.

She stood and gazed upon him. Was he wroth?

There was no anger in that bloodshot eye.

Had sickness seized him? She un

clasp'd his helm

And laid her white hand gently on his brow,

And the large veins felt stiff and hard, like cords.

The touch aroused him. He raised up his hands

And spoke the name of God in agony. She knew that he was stricken, then; and rushed

Again into his arms; and, with a flood Of tears she could not bridle, sobbed a prayer

That he would breathe his agony inwords.

He told her and a momentary flush Shot o'er her countenance; and then the soul

Of Jephthah's daughter waken'd; and she stood

Calmly and nobly up, and said 'twas well

And she would die.

Had a more delicate outline, and the tint

Was deeper; but her countenance was like

The majesty of angels.

The sun setAnd she was dead-but not by violence. NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS (1806-1867).

JEPHTHAH'S RASH VOW.

From the 11th Chapter of Judges.

THE battle had ceased and the victory was won,

The wild cry of horror was o'er; Now arose in his glory the bright-beaming sun,

And with him his journey the war-chief begun,

With a soul breathing vengeance no

more.

The foes of his country lay strewed on the plain,

A tear stole its course from his eye; The warrior disdained every semblance of pain;

He thought of his child-of his country, again,

And suppressed, while 'twas forming, a sigh.

"O Father of light!" said the conquering chief,

"The vow that I made, I renew; 'Twas thy powerful arm gave the welcome relief,

When I called on thy name in the fulness of grief,

When my hopes were but cheerless and few.

"An offering of love will I pay to thy

name,

An offering thou wilt not despise: The first being I meet, when I welcome

again

The land of my fathers I left not in vain,

With the flames on thine altar shall

rise."

The maiden arose-and can I portray The devotion that glowed in her eye? Religion's sweet self in its light seemed to stray

With the mildness of night, with the glory of day,

But 'twas pity that prompted her sigh.

"My father!" the chief raised his dim, weeping eye,

With a look of unspeakable woe: "My father!" her voice seemed convulsed with a sigh,

But the tears, as they gushed from her grief-swollen eye,

Told more than her words could bestow.