The Saviour, bowed beneath His Cross, climbed up the dreary hill, And from the agonizing wreath ran many a crimson rill; The cruel Roman thrust Him on with unrelenting hand, Till, staggering slowly ’mid the crowd, He fell upon the sand. A little bird that warbled near, that memorable day, Flitted around and strove to wrench one single thorn away; The cruel spike impaled his breast,--and thus ’tis sweetly said, The robin has his silver vest incarnadined with red. Ah, Jesu! Jesu! Son of man! my dolor and my sighs Reveal the lesson taught by this winged Ishmael of the skies. I, in the palace of delight or cavern of despair, Have plucked no thorns from Thy dear brow, but planted thousands there! LE REPOS IN EGYPTE: THE SPHINX BY AGNES REPPLIER All day I watch the stretch of burning sand; All night I brood beneath the golden stars; Amid the silence of a desolate land, No touch of bitterness my reverie mars. Built by the proudest of a kingly line, Over my head the centuries fly fast; The secrets of the mighty dead are mine; I hold the key of a forgotten past. Yet, ever hushed into a rapturous dream, I see again that night. A halo mild Shone from the liquid moon. Beneath her beam Traveled a tired young Mother and the Child. Within mine arms she slumbered, and alone I watched the Infant. At my feet her guide Lay stretched o’er-wearied. On my breast of stone Rested the Crucified. ANDROMEDA BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE They chained her fair young body to the cold and cruel stone; The beast begot of sea and slime had marked her for his own; The callous world beheld the wrong, and left her there alone. Base caitiffs who belied her, false kinsmen who denied her, Ye left her there alone! My Beautiful, they left thee in thy peril and thy pain; The night that hath no morrow was brooding on the main: But, lo! a light is breaking of hope for thee again; ’T is Perseus’s sword a-flaming, thy dawn of day proclaiming Across the western main. O Ireland! O my country! he comes to break thy chain! NATURE THE FALSE GODDESS BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE The vilest work of vilest man, The cup that drugs, the sword that slays, The purchased kiss of courtesan, The lying tongue of blame of praise, The cobra’s fang, the tiger’s tongue, The python’s murderous embrace-- The wrath of any living thing A man may fear but bravely face. But thou, cold Mother, knowest naught Of love, of hate, or joy, or woe; Thy bounties come to man unsought, Thy curses fall on friend and foe. Thou bearest balm upon thy breath, Or sowest poison in the air; And if man reapeth life or death, Thou dost not know, thou dost not care.