shaft in Wales:

A chink in my brain, while

other tales

Have been swept away, as, when pearls are spilled, One pearl rolls into a chink in the floor. Somewhere, then, where God's light is killed

And men tear in the dark at the earth's heart

core,

These men were at work, when their axes knocked

A hole in a passage closed years before.

A slip in the earth, I suppose, had blocked
This gallery suddenly up with a heap
Of rubble as safe as a chest is locked,

Till these men picked it, and 'gan to creep
In on all-fours. Then a loud shout ran
Round the black roof: "Here's a man asleep!"

They all pushed forward, and scarce a span From the mouth of the passage, in sooth, the lamp

Fell on the upturned face of a man.

No taint of death, no decaying damp,
Had touched that fair young brow, whereon
Courage had set its glorious stamp.

He must have been there for many a year: The spirit had fled, but there was its shrine, In clothes of a century old, or near.

The dry and embalming air of the mine Had arrested the natural hand of decay, Nor faded the flesh nor dimmed a line.

Who was he, then? No man could say When the passage had suddenly fallen in: Its memory, even, was passed away.

In their great rough arms begrimed with coal

They took him up, as a tender lass
Will carry a babe, from that darksome hole

To the outer world of the short warm grass. Then up spoke one: "Let's send for Bess. She is seventy-nine come Martinmas

Older than any one here, I guess:

Belike she may mind when the wall fell there,

And remember the chap by his comeliness."

So they brought old Bess, with her silver

hair,

To the side of the hill, where the dead man

lay,

Ere the flesh had crumbled in outer air.

THE

May cheer, not change, its doomMay stay its fate for one brief hour,

But ne'er restore its bloom:
So, when the withered heart receives
The light of love too late,
Its charm a while the wreck relieves,
But cannot change its fate.

That heart, if yesterday caressed,
Perchance had 'scaped decay;
That smile which yesterday had blest
Comes all in vain to-day:

Then, oh, love's vow of honor keep,

Nor let affection wait;

For vain repentance-vain to weep—
When kindness comes too late.

CHARLES SWAIN.