BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
Hour by hour, with skillful pencil, wrought the artist, sad and lone,
Day by day, he labored nobly, though to all the world unknown;
He was brave, the youthful artist, but his soul grew weak and faint,
As he strove to place before him, the fair features of a saint;
Worn and weary, he strove vainly, for the touch of Heavenly grace,
Till, one day, a radiant sunbeam fell upon the up-turned face,
And the very air was flooded with a presence strangely sweet,
For the soul, within the sunbeam, seemed to make the work complete;
Swift as thought the artist's pencil deftly touched the features fair,
Night came down, but one bright sunbeam left its soul imprisoned there;
And around his dingy garret gazed the artist, wondering,
For the work sublime illumed it like the palace of a king;
And within the artist nature flamed his first fond love divine,
Which bewildered all his senses, as with rare, old, ruby wine.
Yearningly, he cried: "I love thee," to the radiant saintly face,
But the never-ceasing answer was a look of Heavenly grace.
Out into the world he wandered, questioning, searching everywhere,
And the stars above, full often, heard his soul burst forth in prayer:
"God in Heaven, in mercy, hear me! Hear thy suppliant's pleading cry,
Lead, oh lead! my footsteps to her. Grant but this, or let me die."
Friends forsook and want pursued him, still he struggled on alone,
Till, at last, outworn and trembling, reason tottered on its throne,
And he seemed the helpless plaything of some mad, relentless fate,
Till the Sisterhood of Mercy found him lying at their gate;
Made him welcome, gave him shelter and with ever-patient care
Bathed his brow and brushed the tangled, matted tresses of his hair.
Long he lingered on the borders of the holy-land of death,
One fair Sister, by his bedside, counting low each fluttering breath.
Softly fell the evening shadows, shutting out the golden glow,
Of a gorgeous, lingering sunset, gilding all the earth below,
When, upon his pillow turning, swift came to him hope's bright gleams,
For the anxious face above him was the loved one of his dreams.
But her life was one of mercy, and the band across her brow,
Gave the spotless testimony of a maiden's holy vow.
"Is this Heaven? Are you an angel?" swift he questioned her, the while
She smoothed back his wavy tresses, only answering with a smile;
"Tell me truly, couldst thou love me, since thou wouldst not let me die?"
But she pointed to the band about her brow and breathed a sigh.
In her hours of patient watching, she had learned the bitter truth,
That the Sisterhood of Mercy has its anguish and its ruth;
Nevermore she came, well-knowing, from temptation se must fly,
For his eager, tender questions in her heart had found reply.
Every morning he would question: "Will she come to me to-day?"
And the tender, truthful Sisters shook their heads and turned away,
For adown his classic features passed the shadow of his pain,
As he closed his eyes and murmured: "She will never come again."
In his dreams, one night, he fancied she had bent above his bed,
And his loving arms reached upward, but the vision sweet had fled.
Hopeless, in his great heart-hunger, through a storm of wind and rain,
To his picture turned the artist, bowing low with grief and pain;
Open wide he threw the shutters of his garret casement high,
Heeding not the vivid lightning, as it flashed athwart the sky.
On his lowly couch reclining, soon in weariness he slept,
While the storm clouds o'er him thundering, long and loud their vigils kept.
Wilder grew the night and fiercer blew the winds, until at last,
Like a bird of prey or demon, through the shattered casement, passed
The old shutter, rending, tearing every wondrous touch and trace
Of the artist's patient labor, from the radiant, saintly face;
And the jagged bands of lightning, as they flashed along the floor,
Lit the crushed and crumpled canvas, worthless now forevermore.
And the artist, slowly rising, groped his way across the room,
Feeling, knowing he had lost her, though enshrouded in the gloom.
Then besought his couch and murmured: "It is well, God knoweth best."
And the sunbeams of the morning found a weary soul—at rest.
A FRIEND OF THE FLY.
With a fly-screen under one arm and a bundle of sticky fly-paper under the other, an honest agent entered a grocery store one day in the summer and said: "Why don't you keep 'em out?"
"Who vash dot?" asked the grocery-man.
"Why, the pesky flies. You've got 'em by the thousand in here, and the fly season has only begun. Shall I put fly-screens in the doors?"
"What for?"
"To keep the flies out."
"Why should I keep der flies oudt? Flies like some shance to go aroundt und see der city de same ash agents. If a fly ish kept out on der street all der time he might ash vhell be a horse."