mother had died soon after his father’s execution; and that himself and his brother, left without the control of guardians, and without support, had taken to bad courses.
On hearing this report, Schroll rapidly worsened; and he unfolded to a young clergyman his whole unfortunate history. About midnight, he sent again in great haste for the clergyman. He came. But at sight of him Schroll stretched out his hands in extremity of horror, and waved him away from his presence; but before his signals were complied with, the wretched man had expired in convulsions.
From his horror at the sight of the young clergyman, and from the astonishment of the clergyman himself, on arriving and hearing that he had already been seen in the sick-room, it was inferred that his figure had been assumed for fiendish purposes. The dice and the strange cavalier disappeared at the same time with their wretched victim; and were seen no more.
THE FLOWER-SPIRIT.
A FAËRY TALE.
I’ve heard it said that flowers have music in them,
With which they lull the truant bee to sleep,
And so preserve their sweets. Anon.
And Evening sent her lucid star
To herald through the silent skies
The coming of her roseate car.
The winds were resting in their caves,
The birds reposed on every tree;
And sea-fowl on the glassy waves
Were slumbering in security:
And golden hues o’erspread the rills,
And tinged the valley’s robe of green;
While, far above the giant hills,
The moon sat gazing o’er the scene.
And Night, that ever-changeful maid,
Seem’d lingering in her own dark bower,
With all her storms, as if afraid
To mar the beauty of that hour;—
When Florestine roam’d sadly on,
And thought of one, with speechless pain,
Who to the distant wars had gone,
And never might return again.
Where Nature in her beauty smiled,
The maid reclined—serene, but pale
As Sorrow’s gentlest, saddest child.
She turn’d her eyes, with mourning dim,
Towards the moon that shone above,
As if her light could tell of him
For whom she felt both grief and love.
Then bending to the earth her gaze,
And weeping o’er her hapless lot,
She saw, illumed by Evening’s rays,
A simple, sweet “Forget-me-not.”
At other times—in other mood—
The little flower perhaps were slighted,
But in the dreary solitude
Of parted love, and pleasures blighted,
Her mind on that alone could muse—
Her eye on that alone could rest.—
