Thin and disordered, hung about his eyes;
And as a thought of wilder bitterness
Rose in his memory, his lips grew white,
And the fast workings of his bloodless face
Told what a tooth of fire was at his heart.

The golden light into the painter's room
Streamed richly, and the hidden colors stole
From the dark pictures radiantly forth,
And in the soft and dewy atmosphere
Like forms and landscapes magical they lay.
The walls were hung with armor, and about
In the dim corners stood the sculptured forms
Of Cytheris, and Dian, and stern Jove,
And from the casement soberly away

Fell the grotesque long shadows, full and true,
And, like a vail of filmy mellowness,
The lint-specks floated in the twilight air.

Parrhasius stood, gazing forgetfully
Upon his canvas. There Prometheus lay,
Chained to the cold rocks of Mount Caucasus-
The vulture at his vitals, and the links

Of the lame Lemnian festering in his flesh;
And as the painter's mind felt through the dim,
Rapt mystery, and plucked the shadows forth
With its far-reaching fancy, and with form
And color clad them, his fine, earnest eye,

Flashed with a passionate fire, and the quick curl
Of his thin nostril, and his quivering lip,

Were like the winged god's breathing from his flight.

"Bring me the captive now!

My hand feels skillful, and the shadows lift
From my waked spirit airily and swift,

And I could paint the bow

Upon the bended heavens,-around me play
Colors of such divinity to-day.

"Ha! bind him on his back!

Look!-as Prometheus in my picture here!
Quick-or he faints! stand with the cordial near!
Now-bend him to the rack!

Press down the poisoned links into his flesh!
And tear agape that healing wound afresh!

"So-let him writhe! How long

Will he live thus? Quick, my good pencil, now!
What a fine agony works upon his brow!
Ha! gray-haired, and so strong!

How fearfully he stifles that short moan!
Gods! if I could but paint a dying groan!

"Pity' thee! So I do!

I pity the dumb victim at the altar,

But does the robed priest for his pity falter?
I'd rack thee, though I knew

A thousand lives were perishing in thine-
What were ten thousand to a fame like mine?

"Hereafter!' Ay-hereafter!

A whip to keep a coward to his track!
What gave death ever from his kingdom back
To check the skeptic's laughter?

Come from the grave to-morrow with that story
And I may take some softer path to glory.

"No, no, old man! we die

Even as the flowers, and we shall breathe away
Our life upon the chance wind, even as they!
Strain well thy fainting eye-

For when that bloodshot quivering is o'er,
The light of heaven will never reach thee more.
"Yet there's a deathless name!

A spirit that the smothering vault shall spurn,
And like a steadfast planet mount and burn;
And though its crown of flame

Consumed my brain to ashes as it shone,
By all the fiery stars, I'd bind it on!

"Ay-though it bid me rifle

My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst;
Though every life-strung nerve be maddened first;
Though it should bid me stifle

The yearning in my throat for my sweet child,
And taunt its mother till my brain went wild,-

"All-I would do it all

Sooner than die, like a dull worm, to rot,
Thrust foully into earth to be forgot!

Oh heavens!--but I appall

Your heart, old man! forgive-ha! on your lives Let him not faint!-rack him till he revives!

"Vain-vain-give o'er! His eye

Glazes apace.

He does not feel you now-

Stand back! I'll paint the death-dew on his brow!
Gods! if he do not die

But for one moment-one-till I eclipse
Conception with the scorn of those calm lips!

"Shivering! Hark! he mutters
Brokenly now that was a difficult breath.
Another? Wilt thou never come, O Death!
Look, how his temple flutters!

Is his heart still? Aha! lift up his head!
He shudders-gasps-Jove help him!-so-he's dead."
How like a mounting devil in the heart
Rules the unreined ambition! Let it once
But play the monarch, and its haughty brow
Glows with a beauty that bewilders thought
And unthrones peace forever. Putting on
The very pomp of Lucifer, it turns

The heart to ashes, and with not a spring
Left in the bosom for the spirit's lip,

We look upon our splendor and forget

The thirst of which we perish! Yet hath life

Many a falser idol. There are hopes

Promising well; and love-touched dreams for some,
And passions, many a wild one; and fair schemes
For gold and pleasure-yet will only this
Balk not the soul; ambition only gives,
Even of bitterness, a beaker full!

Friendship is but a slow-awaking dream,
Troubled at best; love is a lamp unseen,
Burning to waste, or, if its light is found,
Nursed for an idle hour, then idly broken;
Gain is a groveling care, and folly tires,
And quiet is a hunger never fed;

And from love's very bosom, and from gain,
Or folly, or a friend, or from repose-
From all but keen ambition-will the soul
Snatch the first moment of forgetfulness
To wander like a restless child away.

Oh, if there were not better hopes than these;
Were there no palm beyond a feverish fame;
If the proud wealth flung back upon the heart
Must canker in its coffers; if the links

Falsehood hath broken will unite no more;

If the deep-yearning love, that hath not found
Its like in the cold world, must waste in tears;
If truth, and fervor, and devotedness,
Finding no worthy altar, must return

And die of their own fullness; if beyond

The grave there is no heaven in whose wide air
The spirit may find room, and in the love

Of whose bright habitants the lavish heart

May spend itself—WHAT THRICE-MOCKED FOOLS are we!

DEATH-BED OF BENEDICT ARNOLD.
GEORGE LIPPARD.

Fifty years ago, in a rude garret, near the loneliest suburbs of the city of London, lay a dying man. He was but half dressed, though his legs were concealed in long military boots. An aged minister stood beside the rough couch. The form was that of a strong man grown old through care more than age. There was a face that you might look upon but once, and yet wear it in your memory forever.

Let us bend over the bed, and look upon that face. A bold forehead seamed by one deep wrinkle visible between the brows; long locks of dark hair, sprinkled with gray; lips firmly set, yet quivering, as though they had a life separate from the life of the man; and then, two large eyes, vivid, burning, unnatural in their steady glare. Ay, there was something terrible in that face, something so full of unnatural loneliness, unspeakable despair, that the aged minister started back in horror. But look! those strong arms are clutching at the vacant air; the death-sweat stands in drops on that bold brow-the man is dying. Throb--throbthrob-beats the death-watch in the shattered wall. "Would you die in the faith of the Christian?" faltered the preacher, as he knelt there on the damp floor.

The white lips of the death-stricken man trembled, but made no sound. Then, with the strong agony of death upon him, he rose into a sitting posture. For the first time he spoke. "Christian!" he echoed in that deep tone which thrilled the preacher to the heart, "Will that faith give me

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back my honor? Come with me, old man, come with me, far over the waters. Ha! we are there! This is my native town. Yonder is the church in which I knelt in childhood; yonder the green on which I sported when a boy. But another flag waves yonder, in place of the flag that waved when I was a child.

And listen, old man, were I to pass along the streets, as I passed when but a child, the very babes in their cradles would raise their tiny hands, and curse me! The graves in yonder churchyard would shrink from my footsteps; and yonder flag would rain a baptism of blood upon my head!" That was an awful death-bed. The minister had watched "the last night" with a hundred convicts in their cells, but had never beheld a scene so terrible as this. Suddenly the dying man arose; he tottered along the floor. With those white fingers, whose nails were blue with the death-chill, he threw open a valise. He drew from thence a faded coat of blue, faced with silver, and the wreck of a battle-flag.

"Look ye, priest! This faded coat is spotted with my blood!" he cried, as old memories seemed stirring at his heart. "This coat I wore, when I first heard the news of Lexington; this coat I wore, when I planted the banner of the stars on Ticonderoga; that bullet-hole was pierced in the fight of Quebec; and now, I am a-let me whisper it in your ear!" He hissed that single burning word into the minister's ear. "Now help me, priest! help me to put on this coat of blue; for you see"-and a ghastly smile came over his face-"there is no one here to wipe the cold drops from my brow: no wife, no child. I must meet death alone; but I will meet him, as I have met him in battle, without a fear!"

While he stood arraying his limbs in that worm-eaten coat of blue and silver, the good minister spoke to him of faith in Jesus. Yes, of that great faith, which pierces the clouds of human guilt, and rolls them back from the face of God. "Faith!" echoed that strange man, who stood there, erect, with the death-chill on his brow, "Faith! Can it give me back my honor? Look ye, priest! there, over the waves, sits George Washington, telling to his comrades the pleasant story of the eight years' war; there, in his royal halls, sits