The widowed mothers and their brood.
Oft, in despair, for drink and food
We vainly cried: they heeded not,
But with sharp lash the captive smo e.

"Three days we tracked that dreary wild, Where thirst and anguish pressed us sore; And many a mother and her child

Lay down to rise no more.

Behind us, on the desert brown,
We saw the vultures swooping down:
And heard, as the grim night was falling,
The wolf to his gorged comrade calling.

"At length was heard a river sounding
'Midst that dry and dismal land,
And, like a troop of wild deer bounding,
We hurried to its strand-

Among the maddened cattle rushing;
The crowd behind still forward pushing,
Till in the floods our limbs were drenched,
And the fierce rage of thirst was quenched.

"Hoarse-roaring, dark, the broad Gareep In turpid streams was sweeping fast, Huge sea-cows in its eddies deep

Loud snorting as we passed;

But that relentless robber-clan

Right through those waters wild and wan

Drove on like sheep our wearied band:
-Some never reached the farther strand.

"All shivering from the foaming flood,
We stood upon the stranger's ground,
When, with proud looks and gestures rude,
The White Men gathered round:

And there, like cattle from the fold,
By Christians we were bought and sold,
'Midst laughter loud and looks of scorn-
And roughly from each other torn.

"My Mother's scream, so long and shrill,
My little Sister's wailing cry,
(In dreams I often hear them still!)
Rose wildly to the sky.

A tiger's heart came to me then,
And fiercely on those ruthless men
I sprang.-Alas! dashed on the sand,
Bleeding, they bound me foot and hand.

"Away-away on prancing steeds

The stout man-stealers blithely go, Through long low valleys fringed with reeds, O'er mountains capped with snow,

Each with his captive, far and fast;
Until yon rock-bound ridge we passed,
And distant stripes of cultured soil
Bespoke the land of tears and toil.

"And tears and toil have been my lot Since I the White Man's thrall became, And sorer griefs I wish forgot

Harsh blows, and scorn, and shame! Oh, Englishman! thou ne'er canst know The injured bondman's bitter woe,

When round his breast, like scorpions, cling Black thoughts that madden while they sting!

"Yet this hard fate I might have borne, And taught in time my soul to bend, Had my sad yearning heart forlorn

But found a single friend:

My race extinct or far removed,

The Boor's rough brood I could have loved;
But each to whom my bosom turned
Even like a hound the black boy spurned.

"While, friendless thus, my master's flocks I tended on the upland waste,

It chanced this fawn leapt from the rocks,
By wolfish wild-dogs chased:

I rescued it, though wounded sore
And dabbled in its mother's gore:
And nursed it in a cavern wild,

Until it loved me like a child.

"Gently I nursed it; for I thought (Its hapless fate so like to mine)

By good UTíкo it was brought

To bid me not repine,

Since in this world of wrong and ill
One creature lived that loved me still,
Although its dark and dazzling eye
Beamed not with human sympathy.

"Thus lived I, a lone orphan lad,

My task the proud Boor's flocks to tend; And this poor fawn was all I had

To love or call my friend;

When suddenly, with haughty look
And taunting words, that tyrant took

My playmate for his pampered boy,
Who envied me my only joy.

"High swelled my heart!-But when the star

Of midnight gleamed, I softly led

My bounding favorite forth, and far

Into the Desert fled.

And here, from human kind exiled,
Three moons on roots and berries wild
I've fared; and braved the beasts of prey,
To 'scape from spoilers worse than they.

"But yester morn a Bushman brought

The tidings that thy tents were near; And now with hasty foot I've sought Thy presence, void of fear;

Because they say, O English Chief,

Thou scornest not the Captive's grief:

Then let me serve thee, as thine own-
For I am in the world alone!"

Such was Marossi's touching tale.

Our breasts they were not made of stone;
His words, his winning looks prevail-
We took him for "our own."

And One, with woman's gentle art
Unlocked the fountains of his heart;
And love gushed forth-till he became
Her Child in everything but name.

AFAR IN THE DESERI.

AFAR in the Desert I love to ride,

With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:
When the sorrows of life the soul o'ercast,
And, sick of the Present, I cling to the Past;
When the eye is suffused with regretful tears,
From the fond recollections of former years;
And shadows of things that have long since fled
Flit over the brain, like the ghosts of the dead:
Bright visions of glory-that vanished too soon;
Day-dreams-that departed ere manhood's noon;