The prayer of Ajax was for light! Through all the dark and desperate fight, The blackness of that noon-day night, He asked but the return of sight To know his foeman’s face. Let our unceasing, earnest prayer Be, too, for light:—and strength to bear Our portion of the weight of care, That crushes into dumb despair One half the human race. O suffering, sad humanity! O ye afflicted ones, who lie Steeped to the lips in misery, Longing, and yet afraid to die, Ye have been sorely tried! I pledge you in your cup of grief Where floats the fennel’s bitter leaf! The battle of our life is brief,— The alarm,—the struggle,—the relief,— Then sleep we side by side. * * * * * [Illustration: E. T. Parris. Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Smillie. _Highland Beauty._ _Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine_] HIGHLAND BEAUTY. A STORY IN CAMP. BY OLIVER OLDFELLOW. “The fact is, Jeremy, I never liked the idea of writing love stories in the presence of a pretty girl, as there is always something contagious in love,—and do what I might—I have been a hard student that way—some how or other I was always apt to leave off writing, and go to the business of love-making in downright earnest,—studying from nature, you see. It somehow puts a fellow’s hand out for writing, and inclines him more to the use of his tongue, except when, by way of variation, he cooly slips his arm around the dear, blushing, unwilling creature, and drawing her gently to his bosom, as a mother would her child, smothers the ‘bliss of talking,’ as Miss Landon called it, by a cousinly introduction of lips. But,—by the prettiest houri that ever made Mussulman’s heaven!—how do you think the thing is to be managed with _two_ of the prettiest Scotch lassies that ever inspired the song of a Burns, or the valor of a Wallace, looking you right in the eye, and one of them with the most inviting lips, too, that ever set lover’s heart on fire, and each with a pair of eyes that would send the blood tingling through the veins of the veriest woman hater that ever breathed.” “None of your nonsense, Oliver, but for once give over the lore of talking of yourself, and let us have the story within three pages, if you expect to be out before Christmas with the Magazine! There are a host of better looking fellows than yourself have had their eyes upon the girls, and—to tell you the honest truth,—the game is above your reach.” “By my faith in woman! Jeremy, you are as sharp this morning as a nor’-wester—I expect you have had your _comb cut_ with one of them. Talking of cutting combs, reminds me of a story. When I was in the army!—”