Between the icy flash of stars, Above me sprinkled and beneath, The silence of the listening air Was counterfeit of death. No cloud upon the naked sky, No ripple on the lake below; But o'er the sluggish waters hung A phosphorescent glow, That suddenly, all quivering wan, As smitten with the throes of birth, Upheaving, vanished, to reveal A phantom not of earth-- A lily wonderful as light, Unfolded on the balmy deep, And, cradled in its bosom, lay A presence lost in sleep. And tenderly a star remote Shed holy lustre o'er the place Where innocence and peace displayed Such unimagined grace That e'en the calm celestial orb, Enamored of the dream below, With tremulous emotion pale Diffused a milder glow. And I beheld, in mystery, The secret of my vision fair-- That of a relic sprung the flower That bore its image there. And from the watchful star above-- The dwelling of a spirit fled-- That faithful sentinel of love Its vacant shrine surveyed, And knew, through all transition seen, Its place and habitation dear, Still waiting, in the throb of hope, Its resurrection here. Long had I gazed; but, lo! a cloud, Down-sweeping as a bird of night, O'erwhelmed me, and the phantasy Was blotted from my sight. JOHN B. TABB. THROUGH WINDING WAYS. CHAPTER VII. It was the tenth of November when my accident happened: it was late in February before I again sat up and began to feel once more that I belonged to the world of flesh and blood, and to take in slowly, with unaccustomed mind and ear, sights and sounds outside the monotonous world of pain where I had lived so long that I felt bitterly I had earned the right to die. Few glimpses of light had enlivened the terrible blackness of my cruel experience: they had all come from my mother's smile. Occasionally, for a few moments when I lay with my head upon her breast, I was reinspired with a desire to live; but at most times a settled sense of suffering and gloom cut me off from every sweet source of comfort in life. But after I had sat up once--once parted with the dreary prospect of the chintz and lace which curtained my bed--I was a little stronger. Deep was the silence of the icebound shore that day, sparkling the blue waters across which the sun marked a glittering track. My mother sat beside me, and Helen knelt by my reclining-chair watching my face with eager, earnest eyes, divining every wish and foreseeing all my needs. She served me with such an enthusiasm of devotion that in my morbid state, with every nerve strained to its highest tension, I suffered merely in looking at her. But Dr. Sharpe himself had begged me to let her stay with me, because she fretted so when away from me. I had but one wish in life, it seemed to me--to get back to Belfield.