University of Virginia Library

THE MAGIC MIRROR.

It was a traveller in Southern climes
That to an old man famed for mystic lore
Came, and desired to know if he could tell
How fared his true love he had left at home;
And what would happen in his after days.
Gravely the wizard gave into his hand
A globe of crystal, clear as dew new-fallen,
And he might look if he must know the future;
But warned him that 'twere better not to know.
Then for an instant came a cloud-like  film
Across the stone's transparency, but changed
Quickly to iris  colours, and a form
That rose surrounded by a rainbow zone.
His breath came fast, and bounded fierce his heart.
He saw her lovely eyes were wet with tears,
Which dimmed those lustrous orbs, as when a cloud
Hides the bright radiance of a frosty star.
And thinner too had grown that perfect form,—
Gone was its youthful roundness, and it seemed
That care's dark shadow had gone o'er her heart,—
That sorrow's breath had paled her ivory brow.
And who is he that rises through the mist,
And clasps in his most lovingly her hand?
And wherefore on her finger is that ring
To which he points? She looks as if she sighed.
Then was the crystal darkness and a void—
The youth would rush away: but now the seer
Bade him imperiously to look once more.
This time a battle-field rose to his sight;
By moonlight and the glare of frequent fires,
In miniature most exquisite designed
Were all the horrors of that new-done fight.
The placid upturned features of the dead,
Half-smiling that their fight of life was over;
While they whose wounds still let them linger on,
Bore on their faces speechless agony.
Crushed lay the war-steed 'neath a broken gun;
The cuirassier who ever grasped in death
The throat of his grim foeman, half alive,
Who tried to shake away that dead man's clutch.
Strange groups, and many figures—scenes of war.
The features, too, of some of them he knew,
That bent them low above a prostrate form,
Whose head was turned away—a fearful gash
Was throbbing in the fallen soldier's side.
And now they raise him, and the face was turned
Towards him, and as the moonbeams seemed to light
Upon those death-pale features fitfully,
But for an instant, ere the crystal darkened,—
A fearful thrill ran through him—with a cry
Of sharpest agony the youth sank down,
And dropped the crystal in a swoon of pain.