By A. E. A.
_Before the Wedding._
We stood upon the mountain top at eve—
Only we two; no other soul was nigh,
And watched the purple hills afar receive
Their last soft tinting from the evening sky.
The fading splendor shed a parting glow
On the faint mountains vanishing from sight,
And lit with one last gleam the lake below,
Ere it was shrouded in the gloom of night.
Through the hushed woods the silent darkness stole,
No living thing the sleeping echoes woke,
Save one late bird, unseen, whose wakeful soul
With ringing song the silence sweetly broke.
In that still hour so close our spirits drew;
We seemed alone in all the wide, dim earth;
I felt your strong arm clasp me, and I knew
The tender thought wherein the act had birth.
’Twas then I felt there was in that wide scene
Nothing so beautiful or so divine,
Nothing so sweet, the earth and heaven between,
As was the love that stirred my heart and thine.
* * * * *
The ancients were acquainted with the loadstone, but they only knew
that it possessed the power of attracting iron, whether it was that
they attached little value to a mere object of curiosity which led to
nothing, or whether they had never examined this stone with sufficient
care. A single experiment more would have taught them that it turns of
itself toward the poles of the earth, and would have put into their
hands the invaluable treasure of the mariner’s compass. They were
on the very verge of this important discovery, but it escaped their
notice; and if they had given a little more time to what appeared
a useless curiosity, its hidden application would have been found
out.—_Fontenelle.