Of my sky's happiness. I dared not glance
Into the eyes so fondly seeking mine,
Nor answer to the pressure of your hand.
—Might not a word compel me to resign
The world of bliss I had at my command?
But yet I felt that one word must be spoken;
I could not, dared not cheat you; I must tell
How once this heart had deemed itself nigh broken,
How once these lips had breathed a last farewell
Of agony on lips now cold and dead.
How would you bear it?—for my heart misgave me
Despite of all you looked, and did, and said,
That half your love was pity, that to save me,
—For, oh! I knew you must, you must have seen
How all of me was yours!—you taught your heart
To fancy it was mine, that I might lean
In fond reliance on it,—that small part
Of your best love was giv'n. How would it be
Then, when you knew another once had claimed
Such place in my affections, and o'er me
Had owned a lover's rights? Oh, had I aimed
To win this priceless treasure—had it been
An instant mine—then snatch'd away again?
Must I resign the heaven I just had seen?
Had it been offered then and won in vain?

No matter. I would tell you all the truth,
And I did tell it. How in years gone by,
Ere childhood well had mergèd into youth,
I had been loved with all the fervency
Of a most noble nature and true soul,
And how I loved again, and how one year,
One space 'twixt spring and spring, had seen the whole
Of my young life's romance; and still the tear
Of sorrow for the past, of memory
And pity for the still remembered dead,
Trembled adown my droop'd cheek mournfully,
Mingling with those the very present dread
Of losing you called forth.

                                          My tale was told,
And then came silence, and my heart stood still,
And then, O Heaven! within your dear arms' fold
I stood enclasp'd, and there you held me till
My heart seem'd grown to yours.

                                                    That's years ago.
How many? Four? You have been very kind
And very gentle with me, but I know—
—O Philip! would I could have been more blind!—
I know by past experience what is love,
And what it is to sit upon the throne
Of a man's heart, there lifted up above
All things on earth, and singly and alone
There to hold regal sway!—Having known this,
How was it possible not to perceive
The difference? to deem your quiet kiss
And calm regard proved real love? believe
I was your all in all?

                                No matter now!
All's over; I am going to my rest;
There, lay your warm hand on my icy brow,—
—'Twas you I loved a thousand times the best!

BEHIND THE POPE'S SCENES.

THE ultramontane ravings of the Comte de
Montalembert have brought about one good
result; they have induced a learned and modest
ecclesiastic, Monsignor LIVERANI, to give to the
world his personal experience of the working of
the papal oligarchy. He himself, born of humble
parentage, disclaims the honour attributed to
him of being either the godson or the ward of
Pius the Ninth, although public opinion in Italy
gives him a much closer relationship to the reigning
Pontiff.

In spite of which claim, notwithstanding a
studious, pure, and simple life—perhaps in
consequence of that simplicity and purity—he has
failed to enjoy the favours of the papal court.
It is his own fault; he should have done as
others did, and not have attempted to be better
than his neighbours. On one occasion, when
Liverani had the honour of an audience,
Monsignor Pacca, the chamberlain, could not help
telling him, "The Holy Father, when I
announced you, replied, 'I am informed that he is
mad!'" It is a common practice for the
members of the court of Rome to speak of each
other as tainted with insanity. Farini quotes a
letter of Cardinal Gizzi, in which he (the cardinal,
minister, and secretary of state) flings the
epithet of madman even at the head of the
Vicar of Christ, his master and his benefactor.

Liverani, on the contrary, is much too sane,
much too clear-sighted, to please the Pope. If
he remonstrates against any flagrant abuse, he
is politely and confidentially reminded that zeal
is the offspring of charity; and that charity is
kind, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself
unseemly, thinketh no evil; that he has clearly
been misled; and so on. Under this rebuke from
home, he could still keep silence; but when a
Bourbonist Frenchman ventured to print that
all the charges against the temporal power of
the Papacy are imaginary, and that its only real
fault, in the eyes of impious men, is its existence,
he could hold his peace no longer, and he has
proved that Cardinal Antonelli's government is
the masterpiece of modern swindling. Of
Liverani's religious and political views we take no
account, neither of his solution of the Roman
question, because such things are matters of
opinion; they may be differed from, discussed,
perhaps refuted: whereas facts are facts, and
so remain. To deprive the witness of his
preferment and drive him into exile is but a feeble
refutation of his allegations.

"It is beyond all doubt," said Napoleon the
First to Cardinal Pacca, the chamberlain's uncle,
"that for some time past the court of Rome is
reduced to a small number of families; that the
affairs of the Church are treated and investigated
there by a small number of prelates and theologians
born in the humblest villages in the
environs of Rome, and who have no means of
comprehending the great interests of the Universal
Church, or of pronouncing upon them an equitable
judgment." If the Emperor's assertion
were not true then, Liverani declares that it is
so now; that Rome at present is the prey of a
few intriguers; that Napoleon's criticism is
verified by the ascendancy of a coterie completely
recruited in the Campagna and the Abruzzi,
which has transformed the government of the
Church into a mercantile and stock exchange
company, and which, holding the Pope in leading-
strings, is preparing for the Roman principality
a sure and not far distant catastrophe. The
Eternal City, which the Legitimists represent