I

THE HUMMING-BIRD

CANNOT heal thy green-gold breast,

Where deep those cruel teeth have prest;
Nor bid thee raise thy ruffled crest,

And seek thy mate,

Who sits alone within thy nest,

Nor sees thy fate.

No more with him in summer hours
Thou'lt hum amid the leafy bowers,
Nor hover round the dewy flowers,
To feed thy young;

Nor seek, when evening darkly lowers,
Thy nest high hung.

No more thou'lt know a mother's care
Thy honeyed spoils at eve to share;
Nor teach thy tender brood to dare,
With upward spring,

Their path through fields of sunny air,
On new-fledged wing.

For thy return in vain shall wait

Thy tender young, thy fond, fond mate,
Till night's last stars beam forth full late
On their sad eyes:

Unknown, alas! thy cruel fate,

Unheard thy cries!

THE BUILDERS

HERE are who wish to build their houses strong,

TH Yet of the earth material they will take;

And hope the brick within the fire burnt long
A lasting home for them and theirs will make.

And one, who thought him wiser than the rest,
Of the rough granite hewed his dwelling proud;
And all who passed this eagle's lofty nest

Praised his secure retreat from tempest loud.

But one I knew who sought him out no wood,

No brick, no stone, though as the others born;

And those who passed where waiting still he stood, Made light of him and laughed his hopes to scorn.

And time went by, and he was waiting still;

No house had he, and seemed to need one less: He felt that waiting yet his Master's will

Was the best shelter in this wilderness.

And I beheld the rich man and the wise,

When lapsing years fell heavy on each shed,

As one by one they fled in lowly guise
To his poor hut for refuge and for bread.

BEAUTY

GAZED upon thy face,- and beating life

Once stilled its sleepless pulses in my breast,
And every thought whose being was a strife

Each in its silent chamber sank to rest.

I was not, save it were a thought of thee;

The world was but a spot where thou hadst trod;
From every star thy glance seemed fixed on me:
Almost I loved thee better than my God.
And still I gaze,- but 'tis a holier thought

Than that in which my spirit lived before.
Each star a purer ray of love has caught,

Earth wears a lovelier robe than then it wore;
And every lamp that burns around thy shrine
Is fed with fire whose fountain is divine.

THE PRAYER

ILT Thou not visit me?

WILT

The plant beside me feels thy gentle dew,

And every blade of grass I see

From thy deep earth its quickening moisture drew.

Wilt Thou not visit me?

Thy morning calls on me with cheering tone;
And every hill and tree

Lend but one voice,-the voice of Thee alone.

Come, for I need thy love

More than the flower the dew, or grass the rain;
Come, gently as thy holy dove;

And let me in thy sight rejoice to live again.

I will not hide from them

When thy storms come, though fierce may be their wrath,
But bow with leafy stem,

And strengthened follow on thy chosen path.

Yes, Thou wilt visit me:

Nor plant nor tree thine eye delights so well,
As, when from sin set free,
My spirit loves with thine in peace to dwell.

XXVI-959

LOUIS VEUILLOT

(1813-1883)

BY FRÉDÉRIC LOLIÉE

OUIS VEUILLOT, the celebrated Catholic journalist, was born at Boynes in the Department of Loiret, in 1813. He was a son of the people. The accident of his humble birth and popular education aided rather than hampered the free development of his innate literary talent. He entered upon journalism almost without preparation, still very uncertain of his own tendencies, and

seeking a personal conviction while battling against others. His early début dates from 1831, when he was eighteen years old. In 1838 he went to Rome. A witness of the pomps of Holy Week in the metropolis of Catholicism, he was profoundly impressed by it. He was touched, he believed; and vowed to himself to have henceforth but one aim in life, that of unmasking and stigmatizing the enemies of religion. Soon after, he became editor-in-chief of L'Univers, the official sheet of "ultramontanism." With inequalities of talent, sometimes doubtful taste, and excesses of language, inherent in his profession as a polemist as in his natural disposition, he possessed a vigorous, fruitful fancy, and originality of touch. Both friends and enemies were soon forced to recognize in Louis Veuillot an exceptional journalist, powerful in his treatment of important subjects, sparkling with wit and malice in articles written for special occasions.

LOUIS VEUILLOT

The whole life of the great polemist was one struggle in defense of religious interests, as he understood them; that is, in a way not always conformed to Christian charity, or even to the spirit of purely human justice. For thirty years, always armed, always ready to roll in the dust whoever tried to bar his way, he used Catholicism as a flag under the folds of which he led to combat not only the ardors of a sincere faith, but also his own passions, his personal enthusiasms, and his intellectual hatreds. (I say intellectual hatreds because he knew no others; and it is said, showed himself in his private relations the most conciliating of men.)

Virulent continuer of the ideas of his compatriot Joseph de Maistre, like him a fiery apostle of clerical immutability, less a philosopher than a soldier more directly concerned with the events of battle, he belonged primarily to the same authoritative school. He too wished to lead a fierce crusade against the modern spirit. Of the wrath and hatred roused by the publicist, nothing now remains but the remembrance of a skilled writer, who knew how to set an ineffaceable stamp upon the flying leaves of journalism. The power of renewing and varying was the gift par excellence of Louis Veuillot. He had those infinitely varied turns which continually stimulate and renew the attention. According to the subject undertaken, or the impression felt, he could combine in the most unexpected fashion, qualities apparently most irreconcilable: sensibility of heart and language rising to emotion and enthusiasm, with a biting criticism, a sharp satire, a pitilessly vigorous censure; the most beautiful impulses of faith and charity, the best-inspired Christian sentiment, with an irony full of bitterness; a light tone and a meditative spirit; a rare individuality of view and an imperturbable good sense; in fine, an exquisite delicacy of thought and speech with crudities of expression often very curious.

With the exception of two simple and charming novels, 'Corbin d'Aubecourt' and 'L'Honnête Femme,' a few stories or scattered impressions of pure art,-'Çà et Là,'—and a volume of 'Satires' in verse, the twenty volumes of Louis Veuillot-'Mélanges,' 'Les Libres Penseurs,' 'Les Odeurs de Paris,' etc.- are collections of articles which have survived through the striking saliency of their style, the abundance of strong and unexpected images, and the number and variety of the portraits, for which he has been compared to La Bruyère. Properly speaking, he was not "a maker of books," but the most original writer who has emerged from the ranks of the French press in the nineteenth century. That title is enough for his glory.

Frederic Police

THE

A REMEMBRANCE

From 'Çà et Là'

HE Angelus was ringing. It rang softly, slowly, for a long time. We fell on our knees, praying silently. There was something broken and plaintive in the tone of the bell. I do not know why my heart was suddenly inclined to distrust life and happiness. A serene and profound silence veiled all the joy, all the splendor, of that beautiful day.