The Arizona sentinel., 1880-10-02
seleet noetrn.
Hills of Asham.


drought's long-wasting brown,
And, shorn of The grace Of twilight,
10 one step plunged the night
y Into the purple vapor that had drunk Il
days last light.
Dread fell with the dark on Asham, whe
= teachings, Knocked at first,
5 The slow and cruel Summer into ripe b
: lief had nursed;
The trump of judgment tomorrow was
thrill with the solemn sound
The living amid their labors, the dead
: their graves profound!
And so as the night rushed downward,
his door sat Jasper Lee,
And, borne or its Iurid bosom, behel
, etetnIty.
"'Tis thus" to himself he muttered, "tha
the earth her judge should meet,
With the clouds of heaven upgathered, t
make path for his feet"
But the calm on his musing forehea
broke into an angry flame,
When his fair-h haired daughter Alice o'e
the threshold faltering came.
Was it Reuben Moore beside her-he
lover of long age,
At his stern command relinquished-th
son of his bitter foe?
From his chair old Jasper started. "Wha
brings you here?" he cried.
| "Be off ere my patience fails me! And you
girl, there at his side
Do you stand in the great doom's shadow
forgetful and undismayed?
There's curse pronounced upon children
who have schemed and disobeyed!"
30 father, be kind!" said Alice. "If it be
indeed as You say,
And this night so black and awful presage
/ the last dread day,
Shall we carry our pride and passions
alive to the judges bar?
Is there anything unforgiven where the
saints and angels are?
20 father, dear father, tell ME that to-
night the old grudge dies!"
She clung to his arm and pleaded with
her sweet dead mothers eyes.
But the heart of Jasper was hardened; he
put her roughly by.
"There's just and right resentment that
never was meant to die!
"His father cheated me basely-I swear
it! Moreover know
He slandered me basely to hide it. What
if it were years ago?
A wrong is wrong forever" Then qui-
city Reuben said,
l come from him with message for you,
strand he is dead
Does penitent God has pardoned remain
the same in your eyes?
Untouched can you hear him speaking
from the far-off grave where he lies?
He bade me entreat you to measure by
your hope of final grace,
LIS oiu. do youl COueClCuC0 sHOulu answer,
what you would have done in his place.
The face of Jasper was troubled, and
thrice his hard lips stirred
To thrust back the dead mans challenge;
but ere he could choose word
The wrath of the brooding tempest a
reader voice had found,
And the heart of the mighty darkness
was cloven with flame and sound
Muttering and menacing harshly, the
thunder Jared to rest
In deep, dead hollow of silence, low
down in the shrouded west;
The night seemed listening breathless,
and Jasper his gray head bent,
As if he feared to be dazzled by the light
of the Lords descent.
At last, like one awakened from the spell
of dreamful sleep,
He faced his daughter and Reuben with
utterance broken and deep:
"Be ye two witnesses for me; take back
the words l said!
The warning of God is between me and
the sin of him who is dead.
"Out of the cloud he has spoken; IN yon
brief moments space,
AS plain as the lighted hill-sides I looked
my soul in the face;
And the dead years rose to judge it as it
stood in its stains alone.
l have done with the deeds of others, go
to plead for my own"
Inc hand of Reuben q moment he held il
pressure strong
How Alice had prayed to behold it, that
clasp deferred so long!
He turned from the porch in silence: and
under gray old oak,
They saw him stand as q shadow ss the
wind with wall out-broke.
And the crash of the thunder BURSTING in
a wide, blue, binding track!
Father, o father!" cried Alice, "conee ont
oil the storn-come back"