If Tam O'Shanter'd had a wheel, and other poems and sketches . look to her long sheltered eyes. They heard solittle in this place, even when nations shook with the 59 6o IF TAM OSHANTER *D HAD A WHEEL. toppling down of thrones. And it was well. She, mother of mercy! she had heard enough. She lifted her hand to shade her eyes and the red sunlight shimmered through its transparent flesh quite as it did that afternoon in May when at her wedding fete she had lifted the ruby wine and cried: Vive la patrie! Vive le roi! looking in eyes that spoke again to hers. But hark! She knew the mutterings long
If Tam O'Shanter'd had a wheel, and other poems and sketches . look to her long sheltered eyes. They heard solittle in this place, even when nations shook with the 59 6o IF TAM OSHANTER *D HAD A WHEEL. toppling down of thrones. And it was well. She, mother of mercy! she had heard enough. She lifted her hand to shade her eyes and the red sunlight shimmered through its transparent flesh quite as it did that afternoon in May when at her wedding fete she had lifted the ruby wine and cried: Vive la patrie! Vive le roi! looking in eyes that spoke again to hers. But hark! She knew the mutterings long heardaround the throne had swelledinto a savage cry, and thefaint, long echoing footstepsbecome a trampling, living sea,breaking in ever fiercer wavesof blood and devastation againstthe eight grim towers of theBastile, under whose shadows allthe day St. Guillotine countedher beads. It was her wedding day! Could they not hush for those tender hours the awful cries and the wild clamor of the blood-drunk mob? She saw again the gardens leafy shade, the fierce-. AT THE REFUGE OF SAINT SOPHIA. 6l eyed horde that came unbidden guests, the scowling,red-capped woman who tore off her bridal-wreath andraised a crimsoned knife to strike her down. Afterward,through the horror-filled days of hiding and of flight, shefelt that she had heard the harsh inswinging of the Bas-tile doors shutting the love-light on her young husbandsface forever from her sight. But the pitying friends whosaved her life that day told her that he had fallen there,and then she had gone mad! Hark! Was that a tum-brel rattling over the pavement? Ah, no; only a peasantscart moving along the quiet country road. The womanmade the sign across her breast, stilling the tempestof her soul. It was always shady in the afternoon where the rose-vines climbed to the mossy roof and laid their dewyblossoms against the gray columns of the wide piazza; andthe old man sat where the breeze stole over the jasmineat the side before it cam
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Keywords: ., bookauthorboylangraceduffie1861, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890
