OBERON'S VISION. Or 'mid fierce crags and bursting rills, 121 MY OBERON'S VISION.-SHAKESPEARE. Y gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest, And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back, That very time I saw (but thou couldst not), And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow, In maiden meditation, fancy free; Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell: It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, And maidens call it love-in-idleness. Fetch me that flower; the herb I showed thee once: The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid, Will make or man or woman madly doat Upon the next live creature that it sees. 122 DEATH OF LITTLE JO. Jo DEATH OF LITTLE JO.-CHARLES DICKENS. O is very glad to see his old friend; and says, when they are left alone, that he takes it uncommon kind as Mr. Sangsby should come so far out of his way on accounts of sich as him. Mr. Sangsby, touched by the spectacle before him, immediately lays upon the table half-a-crown; that magic balsam of his for all kinds of wounds. "And how do you find yourself, my poor lad ?" inquires the stationer, with his cough of sympathy. "I'm in luck, Mr. Sangsby, I am," returns Jo, "and don't want for nothink. I'm more cumfbler nor you can't think, Mr. Sangsby. I'm werry sorry that I done it, but I didn't go fur to do it, sir." The stationer softly lays down another half-crown, and asks him what it is that he is sorry for having done. "Mr. Sangsby," says Jo, "I went and giv a illness to the lady as wos and yet as warn't the t'other lady, and none of em never says nothink to me for having done it, on accounts of their being so good and my having been s'unfortnet. The lady come herself and see me yes'day, and she ses, 'Ah Jo!' she ses. 'We thought we'd lost you, Jo!' she ses. And she sits down a smilin so quiet, and don't pass a word nor yit a look upon me for having done it, she don't, and I turns agin the wall, I doos, Mr. Sangsby. And Mr. Jarnders, I see him a forced to turn away his own self. And Mr. Woodcot, he come fur to give me somethink for to ease me, wot he's allus a doin on day and night, and wen he come a bendin over me and a speakin up so bold, I see his tears a fallin, Mr. Sangsby." The softened stationer deposits another half-crown on the table. Nothing less than a répetition of that infallible remedy will relieve his feelings. "Wot I wos thinkin on, Mr. Sangsby," proceeds Jo, "wos, as you wos able to write wery large, p'raps ?" "Yes, Jo, please God," returns the stationer. "Uncommon precious large, p'raps ?" says Jo, with eagerness. "Yes, my poor boy." Jo laughs with pleasure. "Wot I wos thinkin on then, Mr. DEATH OF LITTLE JO. 123 Sangsby, wos, that wen I wos moved on as fur as ever I could go, and couldn't be moved no furder, whether you might be so good, p'raps, as to write out, wery large, so that any one could see it anywheres, as that I wos wery truly hearty sorry that I done it, and that I never went fur to do it; and that though I didn't know nothink at all, I knowd as Mr. Woodcot once cried over it, and wos allus grieved over it, and that I hoped as he'd be able to forgive me in his mind. If the writin could be made to say it wery large he might." "It shall say it, Jo; very large." Jo laughs again. "Thankee, Mr. Sangsby. Its wery kind of you, sir, and it makes me more cumfbler nor I wos afore." The meek little stationer, with a broken and unfinished cough, slips down his fourth half-crown, he has never been so close to a case requiring so many, and is fain to depart. And Jo and he, upon this little earth, shall meet no more. No more. (Another Scene-Enter Mr. Woodcourt.) 66 'Well, Jo, what is the matter? Don't be frightened." "I thought," says Jo, who had started, and is looking round, "I thought I was in Tom-all-Alone's agin. An't there nobody here but you, Mr. Woodcot ?" "Nobody." "And I an't took back to Tom-all-Alone's, am I, sir?” "No." Jo closes his eyes, muttering, "I am wery thankful.” After watching him closely a little while, Allan puts his mouth very near his ear, and says to him in a low, distinct voice: “Jo, did you ever know a prayer ?" "Never knowd nothink, sir.” "Not so much as one short prayer ?" "No, sir. Nothink at all. Mr. Chadbands he wos a prayin wunst at Mr. Sangsby's and I heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a speakin to hisself, and not to me. He prayed a lot, but I couldn't make out nothink on it. Different times there wos other genlmen come down Tom-all-Alone's a prayin, but they all mostly sed as the t'other wuus prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a talkin to theirselves, or a passin blame on the t'others, and not a talkin to us. We never knowd nothink. 1 never knowd what it wos all about." 124 DEATH OF LITTLE JO. It takes him a long time to say this; and few but an experienced and attentive listener could hear, or, hearing, understand him. After a short relapse into sleep or stupor, he makes, of a sudden, a strong effort to get out of bed. "Stay, Jo, stay! What now ?" "It's time for me to go to that there berryin-ground, sir," he returns, with a wild look. "Lie down, and tell me. "Where they laid him as me indeed, he wos. It's time for me to go down to that there berryin-ground, sir, and ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there and be berried. He used fur to say to me, I am as poor as you to-day, Jo,' he ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now, and have come there to be laid along with him." What burying-ground, Jo ?" "Ah! P'raps they wouldn't do it if I wos to go myself. But will you promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him ?" "I will indeed." 66 "Thankee, sir! Thankee, sir! the gate afore they can take me They'll have to get the key of in, for it's allus locked. And there's a step there, as I used fur to clean with my broom.-It's turned wery dark, sir. Is there any light a comin ?" "It is coming fast, Jo." Fast. The cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is very near its end. 66 Jo, my poor fellow!" "I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I'm a gropin-a gropin-let me catch hold of your hand." "Jo, can you say what I say?" "I'll say anything as you say, sir, for I knows it's good." "OUR FATHER." "Our Father!—yes, that's wery good, sir." "WHICH ART IN HEAVEN." “Art in Heaven!-Is the light a comin, sir ?" "It is close at hand. HALLOWED BE THY NAME." "Hallowed be-thy-name !" The light is come upon the dark, benighted way. Dead. Dead, Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. men and women, born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day! OUTCASTS. HEY haunt the streets of the town by night, TH But are banished from day forever; They come and go like the shadows cast By clouds on a flowing river. The ghosts of a sweetness long since lost, They wander lonely and tempest-tost, They live their lives, forgotten and dead, For the angel of childhood seems to smile The old, old tale with the doleful end, A name that never is spoken. The end?-a shriek from the moonlit bridge, And a bubble of light 'round a fluttering dress, What curse lies yonder without the town, |