So many years have come and passed.
SI



" And strong and beautiful He'll grow
Quiet in the valley of His birth,
Till forth into the world He'll go,
To save and conquer all the earth."

She raised her tearful eyes, and there
A figure clad in shimmering grey
Stood close before j in sudden fear
She cried, she fell, she swooned away.
HI.
When Marie woke the moon had set,
And coldly in the sea of night
The white stars shone, and cold and wet
The stony ground was. In affright

She rose and leaned with sudden cry
Against a twisted olive bough.
Pressing her hand where, hard and dry,
The blood had olotted on her brow.
Her pulses failed and leaped again ;
The white stars whirled and then stood still ;
Her hot brow throbbed with rhythmic pain ;
Strange sounds seemed gathering round the hill.
She wandered down the dark hillside
Beneath the olives black and still ;
She reached the roadway dim and wide ;
She gained the garden on the hill.
52



The roses shone but dimly now ;
To drink their perfume in she bent,-
And with their cool tears bathed her brow
Ere quietly to the door she went :

But shuddering feared to enter in ;
The darkness seemed an evil thing,
Stifling and close ; and dread as sin
Great fearful shapes were beckoning.
