He met a maiden in girlhood’s bloom, And the rose on her cheek was bright, And she shuddered, as tho’ a ghost from the tomb Had risen before her sight. She stood by the brink of a fountain clear— In its waters her beauty view’d, When Death, with his haggard face, drew near, And before the maiden stood. “Fair damsel,” he said, with a courtly pride, “To thee I this goblet quaff,” But she turned with a buoyant step aside, And fled with a ringing laugh. He journey’d on, where an old man sat On the trunk of a worn-out tree— A poor old man—for his held-out hat Was a symbol of beggary. Death drew quite near, till the old man’s eyes Were raised to his wrinkled face; With a frighten’d look of wild surprise, He rose from his resting-place. “I come to succor,” Death mildly said, But the old man would depart— Again he look’d, and shook his head, For he knew full well his mart. “They all of them, shuddering, turn away— The boy in his childish glee, The maiden young, and the old man gray: Yet they all shall come to me.” And he gather’d them all, for the boy was weak— The old man yielded his breath— And the rose grew pale on the maiden’s cheek, As she sank in the arms of Death. * * * * * THE SAXON’S BRIDAL. BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE BROTHERS,” “CROMWELL,” “RINGWOOD THE ROVER,” ETC.