BY WILLIAM LEGGETT.
As playful boys by ocean's side Upon its margin trace, Some frail memorial which the tide Returning must efface; Thus I upon this brittle glass These tuneless verses scrawl, That they, when I away shall pass, May thought of me recall.
The waves that beat upon the strand Wash out the schoolboy's line, As soon some rude or careless hand May shiver those of mine. But though what I have written here In thousand fragments part, I trust my name will still be dear, And treasured in the heart.
THE SEPULCHRE OF DAVID.
BY WILLIAM L. STONE.
"As for Herod, he had spent vast sums about the cities, both without and within his own kingdom: and as he had before heard that Hyrcanus, who had been king before him, had opened David's sepulchre, and taken out of it three thousand talents of silver, and that there was a greater number left behind, and indeed enough to suffice all his wants, he had a great while an intention to make the attempt; and at this time he opened that sepulchre by night and went into it, and endeavoured that it should not be at all known in the city, but he took only his most faithful friends with him. As for any money, he found none, as Hyrcanus had done, but that furniture of gold, and those precious goods that were laid up there, all which he took away. However, he had a great desire to make diligent search, and to go farther in, even as far as the very bodies of David and Solomon; where two of his guards were slain by a flame that burst out upon those that went in, as the report was. So he was severely affrighted, and went out and built a propitiatory monument of that fright he had been in, and this of white stone, at the mouth of the sepulchre, and that at a great expense also. —Josephus.—
High on his throne of state, A form of noblest mould, The Hebrew monarch sate, All glorious to behold.
With purest gold inwrought, Full many a sparkling gem, From distant India brought, Enriched his diadem.
A crystal mirror bright, Beneath the canopy, Shot back in silvery light The monarch's panoply!