Republican News Item

The Portrait.
By Fanny Kemble Johnson.

Such a careless, gay, young face There above you on the wall-- She was married, do you know, Near a hundred years ago, Here, within this very hall. They made wives of children, then-- She was not as old as you-- Just fifteen, said they that knew, And her eyes, you see, were blue As that morning-glory, dear, That the wind has tossed in here.

There came days, my little one, When the menace of a shame, And a levelled foreign gun Lighted all the land to flame. And there came an hour when, After sob, and kiss, and prayer, In the little porch out there, She was left alone, alone, Just to make her useless moan, Just to wait, and wait, and wait, For the hand upon the gate, For the step that never came.

Ah, the pity of it, dear! They made wives of children, then. And of boys they molded men-- Men to put the love-dream by, Men to do, and men to die. As he died, my little one, Here, within this very hall. Where she gave her childhood's all. Where she played at wifely state, Where she sobbed all desolate,

Dear, at last an hour came When they brought him home to her, And the gladnesses that were Vanished as a sunken flame, For they laid him at her feet With a sword-thrust in the breast That her youthful head had pressed In the old days, and the sweet.

Such a careless, gay, young face, There above you on the wall,-- Near a century of death. Sob, and prayer, and laughing breath How the face smiles over all! - Youth's Companion.