These have given place to the steam-liners that began
and closed their brief career at Sebastopol and Bomarsund; and the
prize-belt is now borne, among the bruisers of the main, by the mob of
iron-clads, infinitely diverse of aspect and some of them shapeless,
like the geologic monsters that weltered in the primal deep. Which of
these is to triumph ultimately and devour its misshapen kindred, or
whether they are not all to go down before the torpedo, that carries
no gun and fires no shot, is a "survival-of-the-fittest" question to
be solved by Darwins yet to come. But it is tolerably safe to say that
where the best shooting is to be done it will continue to be done with
the conico-cylindrical missile, spirally revolving around the line of
flight; that is, with the arrow-rifle.
EDWARD C. BRUCE.
TWO MIRRORS.
My love but breathed upon the glass,
And, lo! upon the crystal sheen
A tender mist did straightway pass,
And raised its jealous veil between.
But quick, as when Aurora's face
Is hid behind some transient shroud,
The sun strikes through with golden grace,
And she emerges from the cloud;
So from her eyes celestial light
Shines on the mirror's cloudy plain,
And swift the envious mist takes flight,
And shows her lovely face again.
When o'er the mirror of my heart,
Wherein her image true endures,
Some misty doubt doth sudden start,
And all the sweet reflex obscures,
There beams such glow from her clear eyes
That swift the rising mists are laid;
And, fixed again, her image lies,
All lovelier for the passing shade.
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