14 
£ 
SEED-TIME AI^D HARVEST. 
THE CLOSING SCENE. 
On the liquor vender stern Death had called, 
He, his last day on earth had passed; 
The sins of the flesh and the love of gain, 
Found a fitting rebuke at last. 
His cold corpse lay in its damp bed of clay, 
And his salesrooms with crape were hung, 
While he, himself, the spiritual man. 
To the cold river Styx had come. 
O ! The waves of that cruel stream flowed fast, 
He fain would have staid on the land, 
For the loose sails shook in the cutting blast, 
As he felt the force of Death’s hand. 
He entered the time-worn and dismal craft 
And trembled so in affright, 
That the weird and hideous boatman laughed 
Till the echoes darkened the night. 
“° where are we going?” the dealer cried; 
In a mocking, sepulchral tone, 
The ferryman Charon grimly replied: 
”To the gates of your future home.” 
A fearful voyage was that, in all truth, 
To the wretched and abject man; 
His thoughts returned to the days of his youth. 
And he wished he was young again. 
The boat touched the strand of a dreary land. 
“We separate here,•» Charon said; 
On the shore stood Nemesis, pointing where 
A path through a dark tunnel led. 
Impelled by a power he could not see, 
He followed his merciless guide 
Until they arrived at a loathsome den. 
By the foot of a mountain side. 
“Spirit.” the regal custodian said, 
“Behold here the home you have won, 
Here you must live till your victims forgive 
The numerous wrongs you have done. 
The growth of seeds sown in your earthly home 
You are called upon here to reap, 
And here you must learn what you should have 
known 
Ere you planted those seeds so deep.” 
Grim dragons leered at the unhappy wretch, 
Noisome serpents hissed in the gloom, 
As the ghastly guide turned the grating key 
And left him alone to his doom. 
Ah! who could find words for the thoughts that 
flowed 
Through the mind of the guilty man: 
He cursed his fate through his chattering teeth, 
And he wished he was young again. 
“Who are my accusers? Come, bring them to 
me, 
My business was sanctioned by law, 
I paid for a license, he hoarsely cried; 
O! a terrible sight he saw, 
For the first to come was a tiny child. 
With a face that was pale and thin, 
She slowly lifted a skeleton hand 
And pointed it straight toward him. 
“I have sobbed with hunger mam- a night, 
As I lay on my bed of straw, 
While my father paid you the price of bread: 
Is starvation sanctioned by law ?” 
Before the bars of the damp prison doors 
A poor drunkard’s wife next appeared, 
He remembered well, how many a time, 
At her prayers and sobs he had sneered. 
I begged of you through my fast-falling tears. 
As I knelt on your bar-room floor. 
Not to give to my half-crazed husband, rum, 
And at my petitions you swore. 
husband was killed in a drunken brawl, 
Brought on by the liquor you sold, 
May you now driuk of the bitterest draught 
That the depths of Hades can hold.” 
A fair, blue-eyed boy, with a crimson gash 
Cut deep in the broad youthful brow. 
And his murderer passed, with fearful oaths, 
By the door of the culprit now. 
Full many a drunkard, with bloodshot eyes. 
And delirious, woeful form, 
Lingered near, to mock him, with jeering cries 
Ere the sad procession moved on. 
There were little children, crying for bread. 
And mothers who wept for ttieir sons, 
And maidens, whose lovers to crime were led, 
Slowly greeted him, one by one. 
Blind babes, deaf mutes, and children deformed 
In many a horrible way, 
Their sentence passed on the penitent wretch 
During that, his settlement day. 
Vainly he prayed in those hours for relief. 
For the past he could efface, 
And he tore his hair in remorsful grief, 
As the fruits of his sins he faced. 
No license could help him under the weight 
Of the punishment he had won; 
No arguments fair were efficient there, 
For his work could not be imdone. 
O. tis sad to think how many to-day, 
Sow seeds for a harvest of tears. 
And that they must reap at some future date 
The results of their wasted years. 
They, too, must pass over the river Styx, 
V ith Charon, the ferryman old. 
And Nemesis follow to find their home, 
But a cell in a mountain cold. 
A mountain whose walls are rocks of remorse 
That form round the spirit a cell, 
Where serpents of pain and dragons of grief # 
Are symbolized inmates of hell. 
O. pause, ere too late, beware of your fate, 
Beware how you traffic with blood, 
The curse of the lost, is the certain cost 
To those who embark on its flood. 
• —The Lever. 
.oSm? talk illof ourselveg than 
T° live without envy j s a certa 
tion of great qualities. 
indica- 
