Arkansas State Gazette

From the Broadway Journal.

SLANDER.

BY FRANCIS S. OSGOOD.

A whisper woke the air—
A soft light tone and low.
Yet barbed with shame and woe:

Now, might it only perish there!
Nor further go.

Ah me! a quick and eager ear
Caught up the little meaning sound!
Another voice has breathed it clear.
And so it wanders round
From ear to lip—from lip to ear—
Until it reached a gentle heart,
And there it broke.
It was the only bosom it found.
The only heart 'twas meant to find.
When first its accents woke
It reached that tender heart at last,
And there—it broke.

Low as it seemed to others' ears
It came—a thunder crash to hers.
That fragile girl so fair and gay.
That guileless girl so pure and true!

'Tis said a lovely humming bird
That in a fragrant lily lay,
And dreamed the summer morn away,
Was killed but by the gun's report,
Some idle boy had fired in sport!
The very sound—a death-blow came!
And thus her happy heart, that beat
With love and hope, so fast and sweet.
(Shrined in its Lily too,
For who the maid that knew
But owned the delicate, flower-like grace
Of her young form and face?)
When first that word
Her light heart heard,
It fluttered like the frightened bird.
Then shut its wings and sighed,
And, with a silent shudder,—died!