THE MARTYR OF SCIO.

BRIGHT summer reign'd in Scio. Gay she hung Her coronal upon the olive groves,

Flushed the rich clusters on the ripening vines,

And shook fresh fragrance from the citron boughs, Till

every breeze was satiate. But the sons

Of that fair isle bore winter in their soul.

'Mid the proud temples of their ancestors,
And through the weeping mastic bowers, their step
Was like the man who hears the oppressor's voice
In Nature's softest echo; for the Turk
In sullen domination sternly roamed

Where mighty Homer awed the listening world.

Once to the proud divan, with stately step,
A youth drew near. Surpassing beauty sate
Upon his princely brow, and from his eye
A glance like lightning parted as he spake.

"I had a jewel. From my sires it came In long transmission; and upon my soul

There was a bond to keep it for my sons.

"Tis gone-and in its place a false one shines,— I ask for justice."

Brandishing aloft

His naked scimitar, the Cadi cried,

"By Allah and his Prophet! guilt like this

Shall feel the avenger's stroke. Show me the wretch Who robbed thy casket."

Then the appellant tore

The turban from his head, and cast it down;

"Lo! the false jewel see. And would'st thou know
Whose fraud exchanged it for my precious gem?
Thou art the man. My birth-right was the faith
Of Jesus Christ, which thou hast stolen away
With hollow words. Take back thy tinselled bait
And let me, sorrowing, seek my Saviour's fold.
Tempted I was, and madly have I fallen-

Oh, give me back my faith."

And there he stood,

The stately-born of Scio, in whose veins

Stirred the high blood of Greece. There was a pause, A haughty lifting up of Turkish brows,

In wonder and in scorn; a hissing tone

Of wrath precursive, and a stern reply

"The faith of Moslem, or the sabre-stroke :

Choose thee, young Greek!"

Then rose his lofty form

In all its majesty, and his deep voice

Rang out sonorous as a triumph-song,

"Give back my faith!"

A pale torch faintly gleamed

Throuch niche and window of a lonely church,
And thence the wailing of a stifled dirge

Rose sad o'er midnight's ear. A corpse was there-
And a young beauteous creature, kneeling low
In speechless grief. Her wealth of raven locks
Swept o'er the dead man's brow, as there she laid
The withered bridal crown, while every hope
That at its twining woke, and every joy

Young love in fond idolatry had nursed,
Perished that hour.

Feebly she raised her child,
And bade him kiss his father. But the boy
Shrank back in horror from the clotted blood,
And wildly clasped his hands with such a cry
Of piercing anguish that each heart recoiled
From his impassioned woe. Yet there was one
Unmoved,-one white-haired, melancholy man,
Who stood in utter desolation forth,

Silent and solemn, like some lonely tower.
Though from his tearless eye there flash'd a flame
Of Helle's ancient glory unsubdued :-
That Sciote martyr was his only son.

THE CORAL INSECT.

TOIL on! toil on! ye ephemeral train,

Who build on the tossing and treacherous main
Toil on! for the wisdom of man ye mock,

With your sand-based structures, and domes of rock; Your columns the fathomless fountains lave,

And your arches spring up through the crested wave; Ye're a puny race, thus to boldly rear

A fabric so vast, in a realm so drear.

Ye bind the deep with your secret zone,
The ocean is sealed, and the surge a stone;
Fresh wreaths from the coral pavement spring,
Like the terraced pride of Assyria's king;
The turf looks green where the breakers rolled,
O'er the whirlpool ripens the rind of gold,
The sea-snatched isle is the home of men,
And mountains exult where the wave hath been.

But why do ye plant 'neath the billows dark
The wrecking reef for the gallant bark?

There are snares enough on the tented field;

'Mid the blossomed sweets that the valleys yield;
There are serpents to coil ere the flowers are up;
There's a poison drop in man's purest cup;
There are foes that watch for his cradle-breath,
And why need ye sow the floods with death?

With mouldering bones the deeps are white,
From the ice-clad pole to the tropics bright;
The mermaid hath twisted her fingers cold,
With the mesh of the sea-boy's curls of gold;
And the gods of ocean have frowned to see
The mariner's bed 'mid their halls of glee:
Hath earth no graves? that ye thus must spread
The boundless sea with the thronging dead?

Ye build! ye build! but ye enter not in;

Like the tribes whom the desert devoured in their sin,
From the land of promise, ye fade and die,

Ere its verdure gleams forth on your wearied eye.
As the cloud-crowned pyramids' founders sleep
Noteless and lost in oblivion deep,

Ye slumber unmarked 'mid the desolate main,

While the wonder and pride of your works remain.