The Work of a Sunbeam.

Nathan G. Shepherd.

I have read in old tales of the buried past,

Of two armies which met on the battle-plain;

Roman and Cymbric, in numbers vast,

How they fought till the field was heaped with slain;

And how through all day the crimson tide

Of battle favored the Cymbric side,

Though their dead bestrewed the plain,

Till at length, from out of the clouded skies,

A sunbeam darted across the world,

Blinding the Cymbrian warrior’s eyes;

And backward their conquering hosts were hurled.

And thus in the record of years is told

How a sunbeam, back in the days of old,

Decided the fate of the world.