Then he went to the violet’s lonely bowers, And gathered their breath, though he left the flowers, And hastened on with the rich perfume And a gladsome song, to the invalid’s room. He hushed his voice as he entered there, For holy and sad rose the sound of prayer, With his wealth from the woods he wafted on, And rushing memories of bright things gone To the dying bore, while a low-breathed sigh, Told of the Zephyr’s sympathy. One tender act that he did that day, Was a moment to pause where a stranger lay, In an unknown land, with no loved one near To breathe a sigh o’er his lowly bier, Or moisten his grave with the tear-drops shed From the mourning heart, o’er the loved and the dead. Then mounting upward, on breezy wing, To the white haw tree richly blossoming, And, gathering its sweets with a gentle wave, He spread them like snow o’er the stranger’s grave. Green leaf, and bud, and starry flower, Filled the rich air, like a lovely shower Of bright things, sent from a fairy land, And lay on the grave as though some kind hand Had scattered, that silent heart above, The sweets that in life it had learned to love. But ’twere _vain_ to tell of his wanderings free O’er leafy land, and o’er foaming sea— How he swept round the palace, and played through the cot— Passed “the highest, the lowest, the loneliest spot;” How he wafted the purple of lordly pride, And fluttered the rags of the beggar aside, How he made of a spray-capped wave his steed, And rode o’er the ocean with Jehu speed, (’Till his charger tossed its snowy mane, And sank to its native depths again,) How he hastened the ship on her homeward way, And scattered her track with the ocean’s spray. ’Twere vain to number the acts like these, That were done that day, by the joyous Breeze— While I could but mark that, what first seemed rude, Was gentle, and tender, and kind, and good. I followed him far on his wayward track, And when, from wandering, I turned me back, He whispered at parting, these words, methought, To my hasty heart,—“_Judge not!_ judge not!” * * * * * SHAKSPEARE. BY THEODORE S. FAY, AUTHOR OF “NORMAN LESLIE,” “THE COUNTESS IDA,” ETC.