Page:A tribute to W. W. Corcoran, of Washington City (IA tributetowwcorco00boul).pdf/76

eyes have moistened, and we have felt some of the woe that wrung their little hearts and brought them to an untimely end. But how vastly different is the real sorrow itself, borne amid darkness and solitude, the abandonment of hope and the murmurings of despair! In this representation the distress of that unfortunate state is dolorously marked. One of the dogs lifts his head towards the sky as though invoking the pity of Him who noteth even the fall of the sparrow, and the other leans wearied, sore and feeble against his companion, with no more wild cry across the snow. No. 49. Norma, by Louis Lang. It is before such subjects as this that the heart is stirred to compassion. In this woman's breast the emotions of anger and revenge are contending, as o'er her troubled mind comes the memory of her faithless spouse, Pollio. Strange indeed, that her innocent children are to be made victims of her wounded pride; that with eyes aflame with the spirit of murder, her breast heaving with the cruel purpose her arm nerved with the treacherous dagger, and her feet lighted through the darkest of crime, she goes thus to relieve her stricken heart. And listen to her words a moment after when she gains their couch: "Now, while they slumber; so the hand that strikes them they will not see. Courage! now! Ah! my limbs refuse their office—my brain is dizzy—and horror shakes my very soul. Murder my children—slay my own sweet darlings—they who have been all my delight, all my consolation amidst the deep remorse and anguish that assail me; and shall I shed their blood? How are they guilty? They are his children! That condemns them! Yes! I will tear their image from out my bosom, and be there
^ grief never to equal his! Now then! [About to strike.] Ah! no—they are my children! Ho! there, Clotida!" And a mother's love spaces them, after