Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/902

894 —"Avis!"—With Saxon eye and cheek, At once a woman and a child, The saint uncrowned I came to seek Drew near to greet us,—spoke and smiled.

God gave that sweet sad smile she wore All wrong to shame, all souls to win,— A heavenly sunbeam sent before Her footsteps through a world of sin.

—"And who is Avis?"—Hear the tale The calm-voiced matrons gravely tell,— The story known through all the vale Where Avis and her sisters dwell.

With the lost children running wild, Strayed from the hand of human care, They find one little refuse child Left helpless in its poisoned lair.

The primal mark is on her face,— The chattel-stamp,—the pariah-stain That follows still her hunted race,— The curse without the crime of Cain.

How shall our smooth-turned phrase relate The little suffering outcast's ail? Not Lazarus at the rich man's gate So turned the rose-wreathed revellers pale.

Ah, veil the living death from sight That wounds our beauty-loving eye! The children turn in selfish fright, The white-lipped nurses hurry by.

Take her, dread Angel! Break in love This bruised reed and make it thine!— No voice descended from above, But Avis answered, "She is mine."

The task that dainty menials spurn The fair young girl has made her own; Her heart shall teach, her hand shall learn The toils, the duties yet unknown.

So Love and Death in lingering strife Stand face to face from day to day, Still battling for the spoil of Life While the slow seasons creep away.

Love conquers Death; the prize is won; See to her joyous bosom pressed The dusky daughter of the sun,— The bronze against the marble breast!

Her task is done; no voice divine Has crowned her deed with saintly fame; No eye can see the aureole shine That rings her brow with heavenly flame.

Yet what has holy page more sweet, Or what had woman's love more fair When Mary clasped her Saviour's feet With flowing eyes and streaming hair?

Meek child of sorrow, walk unknown. The Angel of that earthly throng, And let thine image live alone To hallow this unstudied song!

collection of Mr. Kingsley's miscellaneous writings is marked by the same qualities of mind and temper which have given celebrity and influence to his novels. An earnest man, with strong convictions springing from a fervid philanthropy, fertile in thought, confident in statement, resolute in spirit, with many valuable ideas and not a few curious crotchets, and master of a style singularly bold, vivid, passionate, and fluent, he always stimulates the mind, if he does not always satisfy it. The defects of his intellect, especially in the treatment of historical questions, proceed from the warmth of his temperament. His impulses irritate his reason. Intellectually impatient with all facts and arguments which obstruct the full sweep of his theory, he has an offensive habit of escaping from objections he will not pause to answer, by the calling of names and the introduction of Providence. He is most petulantly disdainful of others when he has nothing but paradoxes with which to oppose their truisms. He has a trick of adopting the manner and expressions of Carlyle, in speaking of incidents and characters to which they are ludicrously inapplicable, and becomes flurried and flippant