"Ah, I know," said I with a smile, "you are poetical as the winds which sigh amid your olive-groves, or the dews which drip from your fig trees." "No, Monsieur, I am only a mantua-maker--a poor seamstress in ... street, in Aix, the name of which I am almost ashamed to tell you. I am no finer lady than was my mother. Once I was servant and nurse in the house of M.... Ah! they were good people and treated me always as if I belonged to the family. I too thought I did. My health however, obliged me to leave them and establish myself as a mantua-maker, in one room, with no companion but a goldfinch. That, however, is not the question you asked me,--why I have come hither? I will tell you." * * * * * Truth is altogether ineffably, holily beautiful. Beauty has always truth in it, but seldom unadulterated. * * * * * The poet's soul should be like the ocean, able to carry navies, yet yielding to the touch of a finger. * * * * * ORIGINAL POETRY AZELA. BY MISS ALICE CAREY. From the pale, broken ruins of the heart, The soul's bright wing, uplifted silently, Sweeps thro' the steadfast depths of the mind's heaven, Like the fixed splendor of the morning star-- Nearer and nearer to the wasteless flame That in the centres of the universe Burns through the o'erlapping centuries of time. And shall it stagger midway on its path, And sink its radiance low as the dull dust, For the death-flutter of a fledgling hope? Or, with the headlong phrensy of a fiend, Front the keen arrows of Love's sunken sun, For that, with nearer vision it discerns What in the distance like ripe roses seemed Crimsoning with odorous beauty the gray rocks Are the red lights of wreckers! Just as well The obstinate traveler might in pride oppose His puny shoulder to the icy slip Of the blind avalanche, and hope for life; Or Beauty press her forehead in the grave, And think to rise as from the bridal bed. But let the soul resolve its course shall be Onward and upward, and the walls of pain May build themselves about it as they will, Yet leave it all-sufficient to itself. How like the very truth a lie may seem!-- Led by that bright curse, Genius, some have gone On the broad wake of visions wonderful And seemed, to the dull mortals far below, Unraveling the web of fate, at will. And leaning on their own creative power, As on the confident arm of buoyant Love. But from the climbing of their wildering way Many have faltered, fallen,--some have died, Still wooing from across the lapse of years The faded splendour of a morning dream, And feeding sorrow with remembered smiles. Love, that pale passion-flower of the heart, Nursed into bloom and beauty by a breath, With the resplendence of its broken light, Even on the outposts of mortality, Dims the still watchfires of the waiting soul.