CASSELL'S

ILLUSTRATED READINGS

THE BALLAD OF CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK.

[JOHN G. WHITTIER. See Page 322, Vol. I.]

morrow

The ruler and the cruel priest would mock me in my sorrow;

Dragged to their place of market, and bargained

for and sold,

O the God of all sure All night I sat unsleeping, for I knew that on the
mercies let thy bless-
ing rise to-day;
From the scoffer and the
cruel He hath plucked
the spoil away-
Yea, He who cooled the
furnace around the
faithful three,
And tamed the Chal-
dean lions, hath set
His handmaid free!

Last night I saw the
sunset melt through
my prison bars,

Last night, across my

damp earth floor fell
the pale gleam of
stars;

In the coldness and the
darkness, all through
the long night-time,
My grated casement
whitened with Au-
tumn's early rime.

Alone, in that dark
sorrow, hour after
hour crept by;
Star after star looked
palely in and sank
adown the sky;

No sound amid night's stillness, save that which

seemed to be

Like a lamb before the shambles, like a heifer from the fold!

Oh, the weakness of the flesh was there, the shrinking and the shame;

And the low voice of the Tempter like whispers to

me came:

"Why sit'st thou thus forlornly ?" the wicked

murmur said,

"Damp wall thy power of beauty, cold earth thy maiden bed?

"Where be the smiling faces, and voices soft and sweet,

Seen in thy father's dwelling, heard in the
pleasant street?

Where be the youths whose glances, the summer
Sabbath through,

Turned tenderly and timidly unto thy father's
pew?

"Why sit'st thou here, Cassandra? Bethink thee with what mirth

Thy happy schoolmates gather around the warm bright hearth;

How the crimson shadows tremble on foreheads

white and fair,

On eyes of merry girlhood, half hid in golden hair.

The dull and heavy beating of the pulses of the "Not for thee the hearth fire brightens, not for

thee kind words are spoken,

sea;