Sonnet On "Le Recit D'une Soeur,"
By Mrs. Augustus Craven.
Whence is the music? Minstrel see we none;
Yet, soft as waves that, surge succeeding surge,
Roll forward—now subside—anon emerge—
Upheaved in glory o'er a setting sun,
Those beatific harmonies sweep on:
O'er earth they sweep from utmost verge to verge,
Triumphant Hymeneal, Hymn, and Dirge,
Blending in everlasting unison.
Whence is the music? Stranger! These were they
That, great in love, by love unvanquished proved:
These were true lovers, for in God they loved:
With God these spirits rest in endless day.
Yet still, for love's behoof, on wings outspread
Float on o'er earth betwixt the angels and the dead.
Aubrey de Vere.
Nellie Netterville;
or, One Of The Transplanted.
Chapter VI.
The party from the tower came on meantime at a rapid rate; and, peeping cautiously from behind her hiding-place, Nellie saw that they had already reached the foot of the hill where she and her grandfather stood awaiting their approach. The lady—even at that distance Nellie fancied she could see that she was young and pretty, and, though clad in the saddest and strictest of Puritanic attire, anything but a Puritan in her looks and bearing—rode in front, with the military-looking personage, described already, upon one side, and a younger cavalier, with the air likewise of a soldier, on the other, while a couple of followers brought up the rear. At first the three foremost of the party rode abreast, but, as the up-hill path began to narrow, the lady pushed her horse ahead so as to lead the way, and Nellie could hear one of her companions shouting to her to ride cautiously until she had turned the sharp corner of rock behind which Nellie herself was at that moment standing. The warning came, as warnings often do come, too late by a single second. It could have scarcely reached the lady's ears ere she had dashed round the corner, and her horse, wild and unmanageable enough already, plunged violently at the unexpected apparition of Nellie and her grandfather on the other side. If the path had not widened considerably at that spot, the struggle must have ended fatally, and even as it was, Nellie expected every moment to see both horse and rider roll over the edge of the precipice to which the heels of the former were in such fearful proximity.
The lady, however, sat him to perfection, and after a short, sharp struggle for the mastery, she succeeded in forcing him to rush at a wild gallop straight down the path leading to the valley, the only safe course of action she could possibly have adopted.
Her companions had by this time reached the spot where Nellie had watched the contest, and the younger of the two was about to spur his horse on to the rescue, when his older and wiser companion shouted to him to forbear.
"Let her be, Ormiston! Let her be!" he cried. "She knows well enough what she is about, my Ruth. And you will but infuriate her horse by following at his heels."