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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78406 ***</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<h1><span class="fs_80">THE POETICAL WORKS<br>OF</span><br>HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.</h1>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illo_1.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="131" >
+ <p>&nbsp;</p>
+ <img src="images/longfellow.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="652" >
+ <p class="f110"><i>Portrait of</i> HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center"><i>THE “IMPERIAL” POETS.</i></p>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p class="f120 spa2"><b>THE POETICAL WORKS OF</b></p>
+<p class="f150"><b>HENRY WADSWORTH<br>LONGFELLOW.</b></p>
+
+ <p class="center spa2 spb2">REPRINTED FROM THE REVISED AMERICAN EDITION,<br>
+<b><i>Including Recent Poems and Illustrated Memoir.</i></b></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illo_2.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="129" >
+</div>
+
+<p class="center spa2">LONDON:<br>FREDERICK WARNE AND CO.<br>
+BEDFORD STREET, STRAND.<br>1889.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Morrison and Gibb, Edinburgh,<br>
+Printers to Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter blockquot">
+<p class="f130"><b>PUBLISHERS’ PREFACE.</b></p>
+
+<p class="spb2">The Publishers have the pleasure of presenting to the Public
+in this volume an edition of <span class="smcap">Longfellow’s Poems</span>,
+revised and corrected by comparison with his last American Edition, in
+which he made many emendations; and including his earliest and latest
+Poems, among which are several that have not appeared in any other
+edition of this popular <span class="smcap">Author’s</span> works.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illo_3.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="145" >
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</span></p>
+<p class="f150"><b>CONTENTS.</b></p>
+<hr class="r10">
+</div>
+
+<table class="spb1">
+ <tbody><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_110" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>EARLY POEMS.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+ <td class="tdr smcap">page</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">An April Day</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#APRIL">&nbsp;1</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Autumn</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#AUTUMN">&nbsp;2</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Sunrise on the Hills</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SUNRISE">&nbsp;3</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Woods in Winter</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_4">&nbsp;4</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem,</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp">&nbsp;</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">at the Consecration of Pulaski’s Banner</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#PULANSKI">&nbsp;4</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Burial of the Minnisink</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_5">&nbsp;5</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Spirit of Poetry</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SPIRIT">&nbsp;5</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_110" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>VOICES OF THE NIGHT.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Prelude</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#PRELUDE">&nbsp;7</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Hymn to the Night</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#NIGHT">&nbsp;8</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">A Psalm of Life</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#PSALM">&nbsp;9</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Footsteps of Angels</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#FOOTSTEPS">&nbsp;9</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Reaper and the Flowers</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#REAPER">10</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Light of Stars</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Flowers</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#FLOWERS">11</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Beleaguered City</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">L’Envoi</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#ENVOI_1">13</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Midnight Mass for the Dying Year</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#MIDNIGHT_1">14</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_110" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>BALLADS.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Skeleton in Armour</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SKELETON">15</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Wreck of the <i>Hesperus</i></td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#HESPERUS">17</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_110" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>POEMS ON SLAVERY.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">To William E. Channing</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CHANNING">20</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Slave’s Dream</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#DREAM">20</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Slave in the Dismal Swamp</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#DISMAL">21</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Good Part that shall not be taken away</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#GOOD_PART">21</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Quadroon Girl</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#QUADROON">22</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Witnesses</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Warning</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#WARNING">23</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Slave singing at Midnight</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_110" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">It is not always May</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#MAY">25</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Rainy Day</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#RAINY">25</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Village Blacksmith</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Endymion</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#ENDYMION">26</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">God’s-Acre</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#GODS_ACRE">27</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">To the River Charles</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CHARLES">27</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Blind Bartimeus</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#BARTIMEUS">28</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Goblet of Life</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#GOBLET">28</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Sea-Diver</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SEA_DIVER">29</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Belfry of Bruges</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Maidenhood</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#MAIDEN">32</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Arsenal at Springfield</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">A Gleam of Sunshine</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SUNSHINE">34</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Nuremberg</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Indian Hunter</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Norman Baron</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">To a Child</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Occultation of Orion</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#ORION">43</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Rain in Summer</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Bridge</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#BRIDGE">45</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Excelsior</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">To the Driving Cloud</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Curfew</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_48">48</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_110" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>SONGS.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">To an old Danish Song-book</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Arrow and the Song</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Walter Von der Vogelweid</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#VOGELWEID">50</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Day is Done</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Sea-weed</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SEAWEED">51</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Drinking Song</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#DRINKING">52</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Old Clock on the Stairs</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Afternoon in February</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">&nbsp;<br>THE SPANISH STUDENT</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">&nbsp;<br>EVANGELINE</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_110" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>THE SEASIDE AND THE FIRESIDE.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Dedication</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_80" colspan="2">BY THE SEASIDE.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Building of the Ship</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#BUILDING">140</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Twilight</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#TWILIGHT">145</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Fire of Drift-wood
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</span></td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#DRIFT_WOOD">145</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Lighthouse</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#LIGHTHOUSE">146</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Sir Humphrey Gilbert</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#GILBERT">147</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Secret of the Sea</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SECRET">148</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Evening Star</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_149">149</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_80" colspan="2">BY THE FIRESIDE.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Resignation</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#RESIGNATION">149</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Builders</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#BUILDERS">150</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Sand of the Desert in an Hour-glass</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#DESERT">151</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Pegasus in Pound</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#PEGASUS">152</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">King Witlaf’s Drinking-horn</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#WITLAF">153</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Tegner’s Drapa</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#TEGNER">153</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Singers</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SINGERS">154</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Suspiria</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Open Window</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#WINDOW">155</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Hymn</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#HYMN">155</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Gasper Becerra</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_110" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>THE GOLDEN LEGEND.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Prologue</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Nativity: A Miracle-Play</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_197">197</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Epilogue</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#EPILOGUE">249</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc" colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Martin Luther</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_251">251</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">St. John</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#ST_JOHN">253</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc" colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">THE SONG OF HIAWATHA</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_255">255</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc" colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_314">314</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_110" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_80" colspan="2">DAY THE FIRST.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Prelude—The Wayside Inn</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_338">338</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Landlord’s Tale—Paul Revere’s Ride</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#REVERE">341</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">Interlude</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#INTERLUDE1">344</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Student’s Tale—The Falcon of Ser Federigo</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#FALCON">345</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">Interlude</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#INTERLUDE2">351</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Spanish Jew’s Tale—The Legend of Rabbi Ben Levi &nbsp;</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#RABBI_BEN">352</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">Interlude</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#INTERLUDE3">353</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Sicilian’s Tale—King Robert of Sicily</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_354">354</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">Interlude</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#INTERLUDE4">358</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Musician’s Tale—The Saga of King Olaf</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_359">359</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws2">&emsp;I. The Challenge of Thor</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_359">359</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&emsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;II. King Olaf’s Return</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#RETURN">359</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&emsp;&nbsp; III. Thora of Rimol</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#THORA">360</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&emsp;&nbsp;IV. Queen Sigrid the Haughty</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SIGRID">361</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&emsp;&nbsp; V. The Skerry of Shrieks</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SHRIEKS">363</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&emsp;VI. The Wraith of Odin</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#ODIN">364</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&nbsp; &nbsp;VII. Iron-Beard</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#IRON">366</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&nbsp; VIII. Gudrun</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_368">368</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&emsp;&nbsp;IX. Thangbrand the Priest</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#THANGBRAND">368</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&emsp;&nbsp; X. Raud the Strong</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#RAUD">369</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&emsp;&nbsp;XI. Bishop Sigurd at Salten Fiord</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SIGURD">370</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&nbsp; &nbsp; XII. King Olaf’s Christmas</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#OLAF_XMAS">371</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&nbsp; XIII. The Building of the Long Serpent</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SERPENT">372</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&nbsp; &nbsp;XIV. The Crew of the Long Serpent</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CREW">373</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&emsp;XV. A Little Bird in the Air</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_374">374</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&nbsp; &nbsp;XVI. Queen Thyri and the Angelica-stalks</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#THYRI">374</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&nbsp;XVII. King Svend of the Forkèd Beard</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SVEND">375</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">XVIII. King Olaf and Earl Sigvald</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SIGVALD">376</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&nbsp; XIX. King Olaf’s War-horns</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#WAR_HORNS">377</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&nbsp; &nbsp;XX. Einar Tamberskelver</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_378">378</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&nbsp; XXI. King Olaf’s Death-drink</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#DEATH_DRINK">378</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&nbsp;XXII. The Nun of Nidaros</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#NIDAROS">379</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws2">Interlude</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#INTERLUDE5">380</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Theologian’s Tale—Torquemada</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#TORQUEMADA">381</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">Interlude</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_386">386</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Poet’s Tale—The Birds of Killingworth</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#KILLINGWORTH">386</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Close of First Day</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_392">392</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_80" colspan="2">THE SECOND DAY.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Prelude</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_392">392</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Sicilian’s Tale—The Bell of Atri</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_394">394</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">Interlude</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#INTERLUDE6">396</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Spanish Jew’s Tale—Kambalu</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#KAMBALU">397</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">Interlude</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#INTERLUDE7">399</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Student’s Tale—The Cobbler of Hagenau</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#HAGENAU">399</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">Interlude</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#INTERLUDE8">402</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Musician’s Tale—The Ballad of Carmilhan</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_403">403</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">Interlude</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_406">406</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Poet’s Tale—Lady Wentworth</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#WENTWORTH">406</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">Interlude</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#INTERLUDE9">410</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Theologian’s Tale—The Legend Beautiful</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#BEAUTIFUL">410</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">Interlude</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_412">412</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Student’s Second Tale—The Baron of St. Castine</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CASTINE">412</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">Finale</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_419">419</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc" colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Scanderbeg</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SCANDERBEG">419</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Rhyme of Sir Christopher</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CHRISTOPHER">421</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Charlemagne</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CHARLEMAGNE">423</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_110" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>FLOWER-DE-LUCE.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Beautiful Lily</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_425">425</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Palingenesis</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_426">426</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Hawthorne</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#HAWTHORNE">427</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Bells of Lynn</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#LYNN">428</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Bridge of Cloud</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CLOUD">429</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Wind over the Chimney
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</span></td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CHIMNEY">429</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Killed at the Ford</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#FORD">430</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Noël</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#NOEL">431</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Christmas Bells</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#XMAS_BELLS">432</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_110" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>SONNETS</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Autumn</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_434">434</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Giotto’s Tower</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#GIOTTO">434</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Dante</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_435">435</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">To-morrow</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#TOMORROW">435</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Evening Star</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#EVENING">435</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Divina Commedia</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#DIVINA">436</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">On Mrs. Kemble’s Readings from Shakespeare</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#KEMBLE">437</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Nature</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#NATURE">438</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">In the Churchyard at Tarrytown</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#TARRYTOWN">438</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Eliot’s Oak</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#ELIOT">438</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Descent of the Muses</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#MUSES">439</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Venice</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#VENICE">439</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Two Rivers</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#RIVERS">439</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Chaucer</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_441">441</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Woodstock Park</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#WOODSTOCK">441</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">St. John’s, Cambridge</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CAMBRIDGE">441</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Boston</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_442">442</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Burial of the Poet</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#BURIAL_POET">442</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Three Silences of Molinos</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#MOLINOS">442</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">My Cathedral</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_443">443</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">To the River Rhone</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#RHONE">443</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Wapentake</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#WAPENTAKE">443</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Broken Oar</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_444">444</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Agassiz</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#AGASSIZ">444</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc" colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">THE HANGING OF THE CRANE</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_445">445</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">MORITURI SALUTAMUS</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SALUTAMUS">447</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc" colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">KÉRAMOS</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_454">454</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_110" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>BIRDS OF PASSAGE.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_80" colspan="2">FLIGHT THE FIRST.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Prometheus; or, The Poet’s Forethought</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_459">459</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Ladder of St. Augustine</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#LADDER">460</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Birds of Passage</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#PASSAGE">460</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Phantom Ship</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#PHANTOM">461</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Warden of the Cinque Ports</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CINQUE">462</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Haunted Houses</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#HAUNTED">463</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Emperor’s Bird’s-nest</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#BIRDS_NEST">464</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">In the Churchyard at Cambridge</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CAMBRIDGE2">465</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Two Angels</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#ANGELS">465</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Oliver Basselin</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#BASSELIN">466</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Jewish Cemetery at Newport</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#NEWPORT">467</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Victor Galbraith</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#GALBRAITH">469</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Daylight and Moonlight</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#MOONLIGHT">470</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">My Lost Youth</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#YOUTH">470</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Ropewalk</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#ROPEWALK">472</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Golden Milestone</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#MILESTONE">473</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Catawba Wine</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CATAWBA">474</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Daybreak</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#DAYBREAK">475</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Santa Filomena</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_476">476</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#AGASSIZ2">476</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Discoverer of the North Cape</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#NORTH_CAPE">477</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Children</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CHILDREN">478</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Sandalphon</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SANDALPHON">479</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Epimetheus; or, The Poet’s Afterthought</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#EPIMETHEUS">479</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_80" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>FLIGHT THE SECOND.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">A Day of Sunshine</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SUNSHINE2">480</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Children’s Hour</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#HOUR">481</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Enceladus</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#ENCELADUS">481</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Cumberland</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CUMBERLAND">482</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Something Left Undone</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#UNDONE">483</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Weariness</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#WEARINESS">483</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Snow-flakes</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#FLAKES">484</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_80" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>FLIGHT THE THIRD.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Cadenabbia</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CADENABBIA">484</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Charles Sumner</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SUMNER">485</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Monte Cassino</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CASSINO">485</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Amalfi</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#AMALFI">487</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">A Dutch Picture</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#DUTCH">488</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Sermon of St. Francis</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#ST_FRANCIS">489</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Travels by the Fireside</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#FIRESIDE">490</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_80" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>FLIGHT THE FOURTH.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Herons of Elmwood</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_491">491</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Vittoria Colonna</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#COLONNA">491</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Song</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SONG1">492</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">A Ballad of the French Fleet</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#FLEET">492</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Castles in Spain</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CASTLES">493</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The White Czar</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CZAR">494</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Leap of Roushan Beg</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_495">495</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Haroun Al Raschid</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_496">496</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Three Kings</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#THREE_KINGS">496</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">King Trisanku</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_498">498</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Vox Populi</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#POPULI">498</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#REVENGE">498</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">To the River Yvette</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_499">499</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Emperor’s Glove</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#GLOVE">499</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">A Wraith in the Mist</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#WRAITH">499</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_110" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Golden Sunset</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_500">500</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">From my Arm-chair</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#ARM_CHAIR">500</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Chamber over the Gate</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#CHAMBER">501</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Four Lakes of Madison</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#MADISON">502</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Sifting of Peter</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#PETER">503</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Helen of Tyre</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#HELEN">503</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Iron Pen</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#IRON_PEN">504</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Poet and his Songs</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#POET_SONGS">504</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Robert Burns</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#BURNS">505</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Bayard Taylor</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_506">506</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Old St. David’s at Radnor</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_507">507</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Jugurtha
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</span></td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_508">508</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Maiden and Weathercock</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#WEATHERCOCK">508</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Windmill</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#WINDMILL">509</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Via Solitaria</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_510">510</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Auf Wiedersehen</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_511">511</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Ultima Thule</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#THULE">511</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Hermes Trismegistus</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#HERMES">512</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Decoration Day</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#DECORATION">513</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Mad River</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_514">514</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Inscription on the Shanklin Fountain, Isle of Wight</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#WIGHT">515</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Bells of San Blas</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_516">516</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">President Garfield</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#GARFIELD">517</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_110" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>EARLIEST POEMS.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Thanksgiving</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_518">518</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Autumnal Nightfall</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#NIGHTFALL">519</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Italian Scenery</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SCENERY">520</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Lunatic Girl</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#LUNATIC">522</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Venetian Gondolier</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#VENETIAN">524</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Dirge over a Nameless Grave</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_525">525</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">A Song of Savoy</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SAVOY">525</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Jeckoyva</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#JECKOYVA">525</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Musings</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#MUSINGS">527</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Song</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SONG2">528</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_110" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>TRANSLATIONS.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_80" colspan="2">TRANSLATIONS FROM THE SPANISH<br> AND PORTUGUESE.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Coplas de Manrique</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_529">529</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Good Shepherd</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_535">535</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Brook</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#BROOK">535</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Santa Teresa’s Book-mark</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#BOOK_MARK">535</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">To-morrow</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#MORROW">536</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Native Land</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#NATIVE">536</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Image of God</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#IMAGE">536</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Two Sonnets from Francisco de Medrano</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#TWO_SONNETS">537</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_80" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Celestial Pilot</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_538">538</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Terrestrial Paradise</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#PARADISE">539</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Beatrice</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_540">540</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Three Cantos of Dante’s Paradiso</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#PARADISIO">541</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Old Bridge at Florence</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#OLD_BRIDGE">551</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Nature of Love</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#NATURE_LOVE">552</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">To Italy</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#ITALY">552</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_80" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>TRANSLATIONS FROM THE FRENCH.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Spring</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SPRING">553</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Child Asleep</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#ASLEEP">553</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Rondel—From Froissard</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#FROISSARD">554</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Rondel—From the Duke of Orleans</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#ORLEANS">554</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Renouveau</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#RENOUVEAU">555</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Friar Lubin</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#LUBIN">555</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Death of Archbishop Turpin</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#TURPIN">556</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">To Cardinal Richelieu</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#RICHELIEU">557</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Consolation</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_558">558</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Angel and the Child</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_559">559</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">A Christmas Carol</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_560">560</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Blind Girl of Castèl-Cuillè</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#BLIND_GIRL">560</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">My Secret</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#MY_SECRET">569</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Barréges</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_570">570</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">On the Terrace of the Aigalades</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#AIGALADES">570</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_80" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ANGLO-SAXON.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Grave</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_571">571</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Beowulf’s Expedition to Heort</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#BEOWULF">571</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Soul’s Complaint against the Body</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_573">573</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_80" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>TRANSLATIONS FROM THE SWEDISH.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Frithiof’s Homestead</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SWEDISH">573</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Frithiof’s Temptation</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#TEMPTATION">574</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Children of the Lord’s Supper</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_576">576</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_80" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>TRANSLATIONS FROM THE GERMAN.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Statue over the Cathedral Door</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#GERMAN">585</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Hemlock-tree</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#HEMLOCK">586</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Annie of Tharaw</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#THARAW">586</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Legend of the Crossbill</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_588">588</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Poetic Aphorisms</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#APHORISMS">588</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Sea hath its Pearls</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_590">590</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Song of the Silent Land</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SILENT_LAND">590</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Blessed are the Dead</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_591">591</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Wave</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#THE_WAVE">591</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Bird and the Ship</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_592">592</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Happiest Land</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_593">593</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Whither?</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#WHITHER">593</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Beware!</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_594">594</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Song of the Bell</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SONG_BELL">594</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Dead</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#THE_DEAD">594</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Castle by the Sea</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_595">595</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Wanderer’s Night-Songs</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#WANDERERS">595</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Black Knight</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#KNIGHT">595</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Silent Love</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#SILENT_LOVE">596</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Luck of Edenhall</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_597">597</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Two Locks of Hair</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#TWO_LOCKS">598</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Remorse</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_599">599</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_80" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>TRANSLATIONS FROM THE DANISH.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">King Christian</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#DANISH">599</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Elected Knight</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#ELECTED">600</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Childhood</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_602">602</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc fs_80" colspan="2">&nbsp;<br>MISCELLANEOUS TRANSLATIONS.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Fugitive</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#MISC_TRANS">603</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">To the Stork</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#STORK">604</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Boy and the Brook</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_605">605</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">The Siege of Kazan</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#KAZAN">605</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Columbus</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#COLUMBUS">606</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">&nbsp;<br>NOTES</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_607">607</a></td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl">&nbsp;<br>INDEX OF FIRST LINES</td>
+ <td class="tdr_wsp"><a href="#Page_627">627</a></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</span></p>
+
+
+ <h2 class="nobreak" id="MEMOIR">
+ MEMOIR.
+ </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born at Portland, Maine, on the 27th of
+February, 1807. His father, Mr. Stephen Longfellow, a native of Gorham,
+Maine, then a District of Massachusetts, was a descendant of William
+Longfellow, of Newbury, in the same state, who was born in Yorkshire,
+England, in 1651, and emigrated to America in early youth. He married
+Miss Anne Sewell, and after a married life of fourteen years was
+drowned at Anticosti, a large desert island in the estuary of the St.
+Lawrence. Mr. Stephen Longfellow, a descendant in the fourth generation
+of this gentleman, was born in the year in which the colonies declared
+their independence of the mother country. He graduated at Harvard
+College in his twenty-second year, and devoted himself to the law,
+removing to Portland at the beginning of the present century. He was a
+good jurist, as the Massachusetts and Maine Reports testify, and was a
+member of the national Congress when it was an honour to belong to that
+body. He was also the president of the Maine Historical Society. He was
+the father of our poet, whose mother was a descendant of John Alden:
+who must have been a prolific old Puritan, for his descendants have produced
+two American poets, William Cullen Bryant and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/ill_005.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="509" >
+ <p class="f110">LONGFELLOW’S DRAWING-ROOM.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The first school the young poet attended was kept by a Mrs. Fellows, in
+a small house in Spring Street. Later he went to the town school, and
+soon after to the private school of Nathaniel H. Carter. Afterwards he
+attended the Portland Academy under the same master, and also under the
+mastership of Bezaleel Cushman. He entered Bowdoin College at the age
+of fourteen. It was a remarkable class in which he found himself for it
+contained, among other men who have arrived at eminence in literature,
+Nathaniel Hawthorne, George B. Cheever, and J. S. C. Abbott: and he
+must have distinguished himself, or he would not have received—as he
+did—the appointment of professor of modern languages and literatures,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</span>
+shortly after he graduated, in 1825. He accepted this appointment, with
+the privilege of going abroad for three years, in order to qualify
+himself fully for his duties, and the following year saw him travelling
+on the Continent.</p>
+
+<p>During his last years at college, the future professor of modern
+literature contributed in a modest way to the poetry of his native
+land. There was no American poet at the time worth speaking of, except
+Bryant; and there were no periodicals in the states, to which young
+aspirants could send their contributions. Attempts had been made to
+establish them, but without success, for they either died after a few
+months’ struggle, or were merged in others, which were threatened with
+dissolution. There was in New York a “Literary Gazette” (for which
+Griswold says Sands wrote); then an “Atlantic Monthly”; and then the
+“New York Review and Athenæum Magazine,” of which Bryant was the first
+editor. This became, by the process of merging, the “New York Literary
+Gazette and American Athenæum,” which culminated in the “United States
+Literary Gazette.” It was in the pages of this last publication, which
+was issued simultaneously in New York and Boston, that the early poems
+of the young Bowdoin student were given to the world.</p>
+
+<p>With rare exceptions, early poems are imitative, either of one or
+more poets whom their writers have read and admired, or of what is
+most marked in the poetry of the period. A careful reading of the
+“United States Literary Gazette” would show, I have no doubt, that
+Mr. Longfellow was not the only American singer, young and old, whose
+work bore the impress of the Author of “Thanatopsis.” It is legible
+in “Autumn,” “Sunrise on the Hills,” and “The Spirit of Poetry” (I
+am writing of Mr. Longfellow’s early poems), and it is present, in
+suggestion, in “An April Day,” “Woods in Winter,” and “The Burial of
+the Minnesink.” Description of nature is the motive of these pieces,
+which are written from books rather than from observation. They show
+an apt ear for versification, and a sensitive temperament, which makes
+its own individuality felt in the midst of alien poetic influences.
+Clearly, a new poet had appeared in the “United States Literary Gazette.”</p>
+
+<p>European travel was not common among Americans fifty years ago; nor
+were the places to be visited always determined beforehand. A certain
+amount of originality was allowed to the tourist, and if he wrote a book
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</span>
+about what he saw it was not expected that he should cram it with
+information. He could be desultory, scholarly, whimsical,—he might
+even be a little dull: what was wanted were his impressions. The time
+allotted to Mr. Longfellow by his <i>alma mater</i> was passed in
+France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland, and England. We have glimpses
+of what he saw in the first three of these countries, and, in a
+measure, of his studies and meditations therein. He has not enabled us
+to follow his itinerary with any certainty.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Longfellow returned to America, and to his duties at Brunswick, and
+took to himself a wife in his twenty-fourth year.</p>
+
+<p>His first volume, which was published in Boston, in his twenty-sixth
+year (1833), is a translation of the “Coplas de Don Jorge Manrique,”
+a thin little twelvemo of eighty-nine pages, which opens with an
+“Introductory Essay on the Moral and Devotional Poetry of Spain.” This
+scholarly paper contains all that the average reader of forty-five
+years ago would care to read in regard to the comprehensive subject
+which it discussed. The preface briefly dismissed the original writer
+by saying that he followed the profession of arms, as did most Spanish
+poets of any eminence; that he fought beneath the banner of his father
+Roderigo Manrique, Conde de Parades, and Maestre de Santiago, and that
+he died on the field of battle near Cañavete, in the year 1479. This
+young soldier has rendered imperishable the memory of his father, in
+an ode which is a model of its kind, and which ranks among the world’s
+great funeral hymns. It is admirably translated by Mr. Longfellow,
+other of whose Spanish studies follow it in the little volume of which
+I have spoken in the shape of seven moral and devotional sonnets;
+two of which are by Lope de Vega, two by Francisco de Aldana, two by
+Francisco de Medrano, the last, “The Brook,” being by an anonymous
+poet. The sonnets of Medrano, “Art and Nature,” and “The Two Harvests,”
+were omitted in the later editions of Mr. Longfellow’s works, but have
+been restored to their proper place in this volume.</p>
+
+<p>The fruits of Mr. Longfellow’s three years’ residence in Europe were
+given to the world two years later. If Bryant had been unconsciously
+his model in his early poems he cannot be said to have had a model in
+“Outre-Mer.” It has reminded certain English critics of Washington
+Irving; I fail to see in what respect. It is more scholarly than “The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</span>
+Sketch Book,” and the style is sweeter and mellower than obtains
+in that famous collection of papers,—the writer warbling, like
+Sidney, in poetic prose. France receives the largest share of his
+attention, and is most lovingly observed, partly for its old-fashioned
+picturesqueness, but more, perhaps, because it happened to hit
+his fancy. In the ninth chapter or section, which glances at “The
+Trouvères,” we have the first French translations by Mr. Longfellow.
+One is a song in praise of “Spring” by Charles d’Orleans, the other is
+a copy of verses upon a sleeping child by Clotilde de Surville. They
+are elegantly translated, but we feel in reading them that the subtle
+aroma of their originals has somehow escaped. They do not suggest the
+fifteenth but the nineteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>“Outre-Mer” is interesting to the student of American literature
+as an excellent example of a kind of prose—half essay and half
+narrative—which ranks among the things that were. It could not
+flourish now, nor can it flourish hereafter, but it delighted a
+literary and sympathetic class of readers forty years ago, to whom it
+was a pleasant revealment of Old World places, customs, stories, and
+literatures. It was quietly humorous, it was prettily pathetic, and it
+was pensive and poetical. Sentimental readers were attracted to the
+little sketch of “Jacqueline,” humorous readers to “Martin Franc and
+the Monk of Saint Anthony,” and “The Notary of Périgueux,” and literary
+readers to “The Trouvères,” “Ancient Spanish Ballads,” and “The
+Devotional Poetry of Spain.” (The last paper, by the way, was a reprint
+of the introduction to the “Coplas de Don Jorge Manrique”)</p>
+
+<p>The publication of “Outre-Mer,” and his growing reputation as a poet,
+pointed out Mr. Longfellow as the successor of Mr. George Ticknor, who
+in 1835 resigned his professorship of modern languages and literature
+in Harvard College. He was elected to fill the place of the erudite
+historian of Spanish Literature, and resigning his chair at Brunswick,
+he went abroad a second time in order to complete his studies in the
+literature of Northern Europe. He remained abroad a little over a year,
+passing the summer in Denmark and Sweden and the autumn and winter in
+Germany. The sudden death of his wife at Rotterdam arrested his travel
+and his studies until the following spring and summer, which were
+spent in the Tyrol and Switzerland. He returned to the United States
+in November, 1836, and entered upon his duties at Cambridge which he
+discharged for eighteen years.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/ill_006.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="440" >
+ <p class="center">THE REAR LAWN LOOKING TOWARD LONGFELLOW’s HOUSE.</p>
+ <p class="f80 spb2">(ALL THIS PART OF THE LAWN IS COVERED WITH GIGANTIC ELM-TREES.<br>
+THE HOUSE IS NEARLY HIDDEN BY THE TREES AND LILAC BUSHES.)</p>
+
+ <img src="images/ill_007.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="529" >
+ <p class="center">THE AVENUE NORTH OF THE HOUSE.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Longfellow’s house at Cambridge is one of the few American houses
+to which pilgrimages will be made in the future. It was surrounded with
+historic associations before he entered it, and it is now surrounded
+with poetic ones,—a double halo encircling its time-honoured walls. It
+is supposed to have been built in the first half of the last century
+by Colonel John Vassal, who died in 1747, and whose ashes repose in
+the churchyard at Cambridge under a freestone tablet, on which are
+sculptured the words <i>Vas-sol</i>, and the emblems a goblet and sun.
+He left a son John, who lived into Revolutionary times, and was a
+royalist, as many of the rich colonists were. The house passed from his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</span>
+hands, and came into the hands of the provincial government, who
+allotted it to General Washington as his head-quarters after the battle
+of Bunker’s Hill. Its next occupant was a certain Mr. Thomas Tracy, of
+whom tradition says that he was very rich, and that his servants drank
+his costly wines from carved pitchers. He appears to have sent out
+privateers to scour the seas in the East and West Indies, and to worry
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</span>
+the commerce of England and Spain; though why he should include the
+galleons of Spain in his free-booting voyages is not clear. He failed
+one day, and the hundred guests who had been accustomed to sit down
+at the banquets of Vassal house, were compelled to find other hosts.
+Bankrupt Tracy was succeeded by Andrew Craigie, apothecary-general of
+the northern provincial army, who amassed a fortune in that office,
+which fortune took to itself wings, though not before it had enlarged
+Vassal house, and built a bridge over the Charles River connecting
+Cambridge with Boston and still bearing his name.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/ill_008.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="445" >
+ <p class="center">THE WESTERN ENTRANCE.</p>
+ <p class="f80 spb2">(FROM THE PIAZZA THERE IS A VIEW OF THE RIVER CHARLES,<br>
+ BRIGHTON, AND THE DISTANT HILLS.)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the summer of 1837, a studious young gentleman of thirty might have
+been seen wending his way down the elm-shaded path which led to the
+Craigie house. He lifted the huge knocker, which fell with a brazen
+clang, and inquired for Mrs. Craigie. The parlour door was thrown open,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</span>
+and a tall, erect figure, crowned with a turban, stood before him. It
+was the relict of Andrew Craigie, whilome apothecary-general of the
+dead and gone northern provincial army. The young gentleman inquired if
+there was a room vacant in her house.</p>
+
+<p>“I lodge students no longer,” she answered gravely.</p>
+
+<p>“But I am not a student,” he remarked. “I am a professor in the
+University.”</p>
+
+<p>“A professor?” she inquired, as if she associated learning with age.</p>
+
+<p>“Professor Longfellow,” said the would-be lodger.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! that is different. I will show you what there is.”</p>
+
+<p>She then proceeded to show him several rooms, saying, as she closed
+the door of each, “You cannot have that.” At last she opened the door
+of the south-east corner room of the second story, and said that he
+could have it. “This was General Washington’s chamber.” So Professor
+Longfellow became a resident of this old historic house, which had been
+occupied before him by Edward Everett and Jared Sparks, and which was
+occupied with him by Joseph E. Worcester, the lexicographer. Truly, his
+lines had fallen in pleasant places.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Longfellow’s collegiate duties left him leisure for
+literary pursuits, and he turned it to advantage by writing a paper
+on “Frithiof’s Saga,” and another on the “Twice-told Tales” of his
+fellow-collegian, Hawthorne, whose rare excellence he was among the
+first to perceive. These papers were published in the “North American
+Review,” in 1837. They were followed during the next year by other
+papers: among them one on “Anglo-Saxon Literature,” and another on
+“Paris in the Seventeenth Century,” which were contributions to the
+same periodical.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/ill_009.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="564" >
+ <p class="center">THE STUDY.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The papers mentioned, or some of them, were written in the chamber
+which Washington had occupied, as well as a series of papers of which
+European travel in Germany and Switzerland, and European experience
+and legend, were the chief themes. Through these, like a silken string
+through a rosary of beads, ran a slight personal narrative which may
+have been real, and may have been imaginary, but which was probably
+both. This narrative concerned itself with the life-history of Paul
+Flemming, a tender-hearted and rather shadowy young gentleman who had
+lost the friend of his youth, and who had gone abroad that the sea
+might be between him and the grave. “Alas, between him and his sorrow
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</span>
+there could be no sea, but that of time!” He wandered from place to
+place,—noting what struck his sensitive fancy and discoursing of
+men and books,—student at once and pilgrim. The hand that penned
+“Outre-Mer” was visible on every page of “Hyperion,” but the hand had
+grown firmer in the Craigie house than it was at Brunswick; and the
+scholarly sympathies of the writer had embraced a richer literature
+than that of old Spain and old France. Dismissing the romantic element
+of “Hyperion” for what it is worth (and there must have been genuine
+worth in it, for it was the cause of its immediate popularity), the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xix">[Pg xix]</span>
+chief and permanent value of the book lay in the new element which it
+introduced into American literature—the element of German fantasy
+and romanticism. It would have come in time, no doubt, but to Mr.
+Longfellow belongs the honour of having hastened the time, and ushered
+in the dawn. He was the herald of German poetry in the New World. The
+second book of “Hyperion” contains Mr. Longfellow’s first published
+translation from the German poets—the “Whither?” of Müller (“I heard
+a brooklet gushing”); the third book contains the “Song of the Bell”
+(“Bell, thou soundest merrily!”); “The Black Knight” (“’Twas Pentecost,
+the Feast of Gladness”); “The Castle by the Sea” (“Hast thou seen that
+lordly castle?”); “The Song of the Silent Land” (“Into the Silent
+Land”), and “Beware!” (“I know a maiden fair to see”). Besides these
+translations in verse, there is, in the first book, a dissertation or
+chapter on “Jean Paul, the Only One,” and in the second book a chapter
+on “Goethe,” whom Mr. Paul Flemming, by the way, does not greatly
+admire. His friend the Baron defends the old heathen by saying that he
+is an artist and copies nature. “So did the artists who made the bronze
+lamps of Pompeii. Would you hang one of those in your hall? To say that
+a man is an artist and copies nature is not enough. There are two great
+schools of art, the imitative and the imaginative. The latter is the
+more noble and the more enduring.”</p>
+
+<p>The dignity of the literary profession was earnestly maintained by
+Mr. Longfellow. “I do not see,” remarked the Baron in one of his
+conversations with Paul Flemming, “I do not see why a successful book
+is not as great an event as a successful campaign, only different
+in kind, and not easily compared.” The lives of literary men are
+melancholy pictures of man’s strength and weakness, and, on that very
+account, he thought were profitable for encouragement, consolation,
+and warning. “The lesson of such lives,” continued Flemming, “is told
+in a single word—wait! Therefore should every man wait—should bide
+his time. Not in listless idleness, not in useless pastime, not in
+querulous dejection; but in constant, steady, cheerful endeavours,
+always willing, and fulfilling and accomplishing his task, that, when
+the occasion comes, he may be equal to the occasion. And if it never
+comes, what matters it? What matters it to the world whether I or you
+or another man did such a deed, or wrote such a bock, so that the deed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xx">[Pg xx]</span>
+and book were well done? It is the part of an indiscreet and
+troublesome ambition to care too much about fame—about what the world
+says of us; to be always looking in the faces of others for approval;
+to be always anxious for the effect of what we do and say; to be
+always shouting, to hear the echo of our own voices.” “Believe me,” he
+concluded, “the talent of success is nothing more than doing what you
+can do well, and doing well whatever you do, without a thought of fame.
+If it come at all, it will come because it is deserved, and not because
+it is sought after. And, moreover, there will be no misgivings, no
+disappointment, no hasty, feverish, exhausting excitement.”</p>
+
+<p>If fame comes because it is deserved, it certainly comes to some men
+much sooner than to others; why, their contemporaries and rivals do not
+perceive as clearly as those who come after them. Mr. Edgar Allan Poe,
+for example, could never understand why Mr. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
+was a more successful writer than himself.</p>
+
+<p>We hardly know how to characterize the seed which Mr. Longfellow began
+to sow in “The Voices of the Night.” Romanticism does not describe
+it, for there is nothing romantic in “The Hymn to the Night,” nor
+does morality describe it, except, perhaps, as it bourgeoned in “A
+Psalm of Life.” The lesson of the poem last named and of “The Light
+of Stars,” was the lesson of endurance and patience and cheerfulness.
+It had been taught by other poets, but not as this one taught it, not
+inverse that set itself to music in the memory of thousands, and in
+words that were pictures. The young man who wrote “A Psalm of Life”
+possessed the art of saying rememberable things, and a very rare art
+it is. Shakespeare possessed it in a supreme degree, and Pope and
+Gray in a greater measure than greater poets. Merciless critics have
+pointed out flaws in the literary workmanship of “A Psalm of Life,”
+but its readers never saw them, or, seeing them, never cared for them.
+They found it a hopeful, helpful poem. “Footsteps of Angels” is to us
+the most satisfactory of all these “Voices of the Night.” There is an
+indescribable tenderness in it, and the vision of the poet’s dead wife
+gliding into his chamber with noiseless footsteps, taking a vacant
+chair beside him, and laying her hand in his, is very pathetic. “The
+Beleaguered City” is a product of poetic artifice of which there are
+but few examples in English poetry. It appears to have been compounded
+after a recipe which called for equal parts of outward fact and inward
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxi">[Pg xxi]</span>
+meaning. Given a material city, a river, a fog, and so on, the poet
+sets his wits to work to discover what corresponds, or can be made to
+correspond, with them spiritually. If he is skilful, he constructs an
+ingenious poem, of doubtful intellectual value. “Midnight Mass for
+the Dying Year” is a medley of mediæval suggestion and Shakespearean
+remembrance, which demands a large and imaginative appreciation. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxii">[Pg xxii]</span>
+Shakespearean element appears somewhat out of place, though it adds
+to the impressiveness and effectiveness as a whole. It is a medley,
+however, and it must be judged by its own fantastic laws. Whatever
+faults disfigured “The Voices of the Night” were lost sight of or
+forgiven for the sake of their beauties and the admirable poetic spirit
+which they displayed. A healthful poet was singing, and his song had
+many tones.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/ill_010.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="509" >
+ <p class="center">VIEW FROM THE REAR PIAZZA.</p>
+ <p class="f80 spb2">(THE OPEN GATE-WAY LEADS TO THE LAWN, A BROAD<br>
+ AND SPLENDID STRETCH RUNNING TOWARD THE NORTH.)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>“Hyperion” and “The Voices of the Night,” which were published in the
+same year (1839), established the reputation of Mr. Longfellow as a
+graceful prose writer, and a poet who resembled no poet of the time,
+either in America or England. His scholarship was evident in both, and
+was not among the least of the charms which they exercised over their
+readers.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bryant was the only American poet of any note who had enriched
+the literature of his native land with translations. They showed his
+familiarity with other languages, and were well thought of by scholars,
+but they added nothing to his fame, for famous he was from the day he
+published “Thanatopsis.” It was otherwise with the translations of
+Mr. Longfellow, which brought him many laurels, and were in as great
+demand as his original poems. There were twenty-three of them in the
+little volume which contained “The Voices of the Night,” culled from
+“Hyperion,” “Outre-Mer,” his review articles, not forgetting the
+great ode of Don Jorge Manrique, and they represented six different
+languages. They were well chosen, with the exception of the two
+versions from the French; the subjects being in themselves poetical,
+and the words in which they were clothed, characteristic of the
+originals. The highest compliment that can be paid to Mr. Longfellow is
+to say that they read like original poems. The most felicitous among
+them are “The Castle by the Sea,” “Whither?” “The Bird and the Ship,”
+and the exquisite fragment entitled “The Happiest Land.” Nearly forty
+years have passed since they were collected in “The Voices of the
+Night,” and these years have seen no translator equal to Mr. Longfellow.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Longfellow’s second poetical venture, “Ballads and Other Poems,”
+determined his character as a poet. It was more mature, not to say more
+robust, than “The Voices of the Night,” and its readers felt sure of
+its author hereafter, for he felt sure of himself. The opening ballad,
+“The Skeleton in Armour,” was the most vigorous poem that he had yet
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxiii">[Pg xxiii]</span>
+written,—a striking conception embodied in picturesque language,
+and in a measure which had fallen into disuse for more than two
+centuries—the measure of Drayton’s “Ballad of Agincourt.” I do not see
+that a line or a word could be spared. There were two elements in this
+collection not previously seen in Mr. Longfellow’s poetry, one being
+the power of beautifying common things, the other, the often renewed
+experiment of hexameter verse. What I mean by beautifying common things
+is the making a village blacksmith a theme, and a legitimate theme,
+too, for poetry. Mr. Longfellow has certainly done this. More purely
+poetical than “The Village Blacksmith” is “Endymion” and “Maidenhood.”
+The sentiment of the last is very refined and spirited. “It is not
+always May,” “The Rainy Day,” and “God’s Acre,” are each perfect of its
+kind, and the kinds are very different. “The Rainy Day,” for instance,
+is in the manner of “The Beleaguered City,” which for once has produced
+a good poem,—I suspect, because it is a short one. “To the River
+Charles” is a pleasant glimpse of Mr. Longfellow’s early Cambridge
+life, and the art of it is perfect.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/ill_011.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="375" >
+ <p class="center">CHARLES RIVER.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The most popular poem in Mr. Longfellow’s second
+collection—“Excelsior”—has more moral than poetical value. The
+conception of a young man carrying a banner up a mountain, suggests a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxiv">[Pg xxiv]</span>
+set scene in a drama, and the end of this imaginary person does not
+affect us as it should, his attempt to excel being so fool-hardy.
+That he would be frozen to death was a foregone conclusion. The most
+important of the translations here (all of which are excellent) was
+“The Children of the Lord’s Supper,” from the Swedish of Tegnér. It
+renewed, as I have said, the often baffled attempt to naturalize
+hexameters in English poetry,—an attempt which Mr. Longfellow had
+made four years before, in his paper on “Frithiof’s Saga,” when he
+translated the description of Frithiof’s ancestral estate at Framnäs
+into this measure. The poets and poetasters of the Elizabethan era
+tried in vain to revive it. Gabriel Harvey, the friend of Spenser,
+projected a reform of English poetry,—a reform which, if it had
+succeeded, would have caused “a general surceasing of rhyme” and a
+return to certain, or uncertain, rules of quantity. “Spenser suffered
+himself to be drawn into this foolish scheme,” says Professor Child,
+“and for a year worked away at hexameters and iambic trimeters quite
+seriously.” (The year in question, I take it, was 1580.) Harvey’s
+project was taken up with zeal by a coterie over which Sidney and Dyer
+presided; but the wits, notably Nash, ridiculed it, the latter saying
+(in substance) that the hexameter was a gentleman of an ancient house,
+but that the English language was too craggy for him to run his long
+plough in it. And Ascham wrote of it, about fifteen years before,
+that it rather trotted and hobbled than ran smoothly “in our English
+tong.” So thought not Master Abraham Fraunce, who, in 1587, published
+a translation of the “Aminta” of Tasso, in hexameters, and in the
+following year a work entitled “Lawier’s Logicke,” wherein he stowed
+away a version of Virgil’s Eclogue of Alexis, in the same measure.
+Less than a century from this date, Edward Phillips, the nephew of
+Milton, paid his respects and disrespects to the ancient and modern
+poets in his “Theatrum Poetarum” (1675),—a curious little book, which
+is thought to reflect the opinions of his illustrious uncle. He sums
+up the unlucky translator of Tasso in a few lines: “Abraham Fraunce,
+a versifier of Queen Elizabeth’s time, who, imitating Latin measure
+in English verse, wrote his ‘Ivy Church’ and some other things in
+hexameter, some also in hexameter and pentameter; nor was he altogether
+singular in this way of writing for Sir Philip Sidney, in the pastoral
+interludes of his ‘Arcadia,’ uses not only those, but all other sorts
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxv">[Pg xxv]</span>
+of Latin measure, in which no wonder he is followed by so few, since
+they neither become the English nor any other modern language.”
+Winstanley expressed the same unfavourable opinion of Fraunce’s
+hexameters twelve years later (1687), stealing the very words of
+Phillips for that purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Langbaine, in his “Account of the English Dramatick Poets” (1691),
+adds four separate works, not mentioned by Winstanley and Phillips,
+to the list of Fraunce’s productions (all in hexameters), and records
+the disuse of quantitive experiments in English versification.
+“Notwithstanding Mr. Chapman in his translation of Homer, and Sir
+Philip Sydney in his Eclogues, have practised this way of writing, yet
+this way of imitating the Latin measures of verses, particularly the
+hexameter, is now laid aside, and the verse of ten syllables, which
+we style heroic verse, is most in use.” The next attempt to revive
+hexameters on any scale was made by that metrical experimentalist,
+Southey, in his “Vision of Judgment,” in 1821,—a piece of obsequious
+profanity which richly deserved the ridicule that Byron cast upon it.
+Such, so far as I know, is the history of this alien measure in English
+poetry. Mr. Longfellow thought well of it, as we have seen, and was
+justified in so thinking by the excellence of his own practice therein.
+“The Children of the Lord’s Supper” is a charming poem, to which its
+antique setting is very becoming.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Longfellow made a third voyage to Europe after publishing his
+“Ballads and other Poems,” and passed the summer on the Rhine. He
+returned after a few months, bringing with him a number of poems which
+were written at sea, and in which he expressed his detestation of
+slavery. “Poems on Slavery” were published in 1843, and dedicated to
+W. E. Channing, who did not live to read the poet’s admiration of his
+character and his work. This dedication, which is spirited, contains a
+noble stanza:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Well done! Thy words are great and bold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">At times they seem to me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like Luther’s, in the days of old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Half battles for the free.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>“The Slave’s Dream” is one of the few rememberable poems of which
+the “peculiar institution” was the inspiration. It is exceedingly
+picturesque, and its versification is masterly. The harmony of sound
+and sense,—the movement of the fourth stanza is very fine:
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxvi">[Pg xxvi]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“And then at furious speed he rode</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Along the Niger’s bank,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His bridle-reins were golden chains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And, with a martial clank,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At each leap he could feel his scabbard of steel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Smiting his stallion’s flank.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The fertility of Mr. Longfellow’s mind, and the variety of his powers,
+were manifested in his thirty-sixth year, when he published the “Poems
+on Slavery,” of which I have just spoken, and “The Spanish Student,”—a
+dramatic poem, the actors in which were the antipodes of the dusky
+figures which preceded them. Judged by the laws of its construction,
+and by the intention of its creator, “The Spanish Student” is a
+beautiful production. It should be read for what it is,—a poem, and
+without the slightest thought of the stage, which was not in the mind
+of the author when he wrote it. So read, it will be found radiant with
+poetry, not of a passionate or profound kind, which would be out of
+place; for the plot is in no sense a tragic one, but of a kind that
+suggests the higher walks of serious poetic comedy. The characters
+of the different actors in this little closet play are sketched with
+sufficient distinctness, and the conversation, which is lively and
+bustling, is suited to the speakers and their station in life. The
+gipsy dancing girl, Preciosa, is a lovely creation of the poet’s fancy.</p>
+
+<p>In 1843, Mr. Longfellow was married for the second time, and became
+the possessor of the Craigie house. Three years later he published
+“The Belfry of Bruges and other Poems.” Traces of his early manner,
+as unsuccessfully manifested in “The Beleaguered City,” appear in
+“Carillon,” the prologue to the volume, and in “The Arrow and the
+Song,” which is perhaps the most perfect of all his smaller pieces.
+“The Belfry of Bruges” is a picturesque description of that quaint
+old city, as seen from the belfry-tower in the market-place one
+summer morning, and an imaginative remembrance of its past history,
+which passes like a pageant before the eyes of the poet. Everything
+is clearly conceived and in orderly succession, and in no poem that
+he had previously written had the hand of the artist been so firm.
+“Nuremberg,” a companion-piece in the same measure, is distinguished
+by the same precision of touch and the same broad excellence. There is
+an indescribable charm, a grace allied to melancholy, in “A Gleam of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxvii">[Pg xxvii]</span>
+Sunshine,” which is one of the few poems that refuse to be forgotten.
+“The Arsenal at Springfield” is in a certain sense didactic, I suppose,
+but I do not quite see how it could be otherwise, and be a poem at all.
+A poet should be a poet first, but he should also be a man, and a man
+who concerns himself with the joys and sorrows of his fellow-creatures.
+There was a great lesson in the burnished arms at Springfield, and a
+lesser poet than Mr. Longfellow would not have guessed it.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Were half the power that fills the world with terror,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Given to redeem the human mind from error,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">There were no need of arsenals and forts:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The warrior’s name would be a name abhorred,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And every nation that should lift again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Its hand against a brother, on its forehead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Should wear for evermore the curse of Cain!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>“The Norman Baron” is a study of the mediæval age, and “Rain in
+Summer,” a fresh and offhand description of a country shower.</p>
+
+<p>Not many English-writing poets, good fathers as most of them were,
+have addressed poems to their children. Ben Jonson wrote some lines
+about his first daughter, who died in infancy. Coleridge sang a
+serious cradle-song over his son Hartley, in “Frost at Midnight.”
+Shelley bewailed the early death of his son William; and Leigh Hunt
+celebrated two of his children in two characteristic poems, the most
+natural of which he inscribed to his son John, “A Nursery Song for a
+Four-Year-Old Romp.” These are some of the best-known English poets, to
+whom childhood was a source of inspiration. Mr. Longfellow distanced
+all of them, and apparently without an effort, in the volume under
+consideration. His poem “To my Child,” has no superior of its kind in
+the language. We have a glimpse of the poet’s house for the first time
+in verse, and of the chamber in which he wrote so many of his poems,
+which had now become the child’s nursery. Its chimney was adorned with
+painted tiles, among which he enumerates:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The lady with the gay macaw,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The dancing girl, the grave bashaw</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With bearded lip and chin;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, leaning idly o’er his gate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beneath the imperial fan of state,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The Chinese mandarin.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxviii">[Pg xxviii]</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/ill_012.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="425" >
+ <p class="center">VIEW ACROSS THE LAWN, NORTH-WEST OF THE HOUSE.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The child shakes his coral rattle with its silver bells, and is content
+for the moment with its merry tune. The poet listens to other bells
+than these, and they tell him that the coral was growing thousands
+of years in the Indian seas, and that the bells once reposed as
+shapeless ore in darksome mines, beneath the base of Chimborazo or the
+overhanging pines of Potosi.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“And thus for thee, O little child.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through many a danger and escape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The tall ships passed the stormy cape;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For thee, in foreign lands remote,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beneath a burning, tropic clime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Indian peasant, chasing the wild goat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Himself as swift and wild,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In falling, clutched the frail arbute,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The fibres of whose shallow root,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Uplifted from the soil, betrayed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The silver veins beneath it laid</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The buried treasures of the miser Time.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>He turns from the child to the memory of one who formerly dwelt within
+the walls of his historic mansion:
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxix">[Pg xxix]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Up and down these echoing stairs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heavy with the weight of cares,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Sounded his majestic tread:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yes, within this very room</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat he, in those hours of gloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Weary both in heart and head.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>These grave thoughts are succeeded by pictures of the child at play,
+now in the orchard and now in the garden-walks, where his little
+carriage-wheels efface whole villages of sand-roofed tents that rise
+above the secret homes of nomadic tribes of ants. But, tired already,
+he comes back to parley with repose, and, seated with his father on a
+rustic seat in an old apple-tree, they see the waters of the river, and
+a sailless vessel dropping down the stream:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“And like it, to a sea as wide and deep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou driftest gently down the tides of sleep.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/ill_013.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="269" >
+ <p class="center">THE OLD WILLOW.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The poet speculates gravely on the future of his child, and bids him
+remember that if his fate is an untoward one, even in the perilous hour</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“When most afflicted and oppressed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From labour there shall come forth rest.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>In this poem, and in “The Occultation of Orion,” Mr. Longfellow has
+reached a table-land of imagination not hitherto attained by his Muse.
+“The Bridge” is a revealment of his personality, and a phase of his
+genius which has never ceased to charm the majority of his readers. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxx">[Pg xxx]</span>
+train of thought which it suggests is not new, but what thought that
+embraces mankind is new? Enough that it is natural, and sympathetic,
+and tender. The lines to “The Driving Cloud” are an admirable specimen
+of hexameters, and a valuable addition to America’s scanty store of
+aboriginal poetry—the forerunner of an immortal contribution not yet
+transmuted into verse.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/ill_014.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="623" >
+ <p class="center">“THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Under the head of “Songs” we have eight poems, two of which are
+modelled after a fashion that Mr. Longfellow had succeeded in making his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxi">[Pg xxxi]</span>
+own. I refer to “Sea-weed” and “The Arrow and the Song,” two charming
+fantasies in which the doctrine of poetic correspondence (if I may
+be allowed the phrase) works out a triumphant excuse for its being.
+“The Day is Done” belongs to a class of poems which depend for their
+success upon the human element they contain, or suggest, and to which
+they appeal. “The Old Clock on the Stairs” is an illustration of what I
+mean, and as good a one as can be found in the writings of any modern
+poet. The humanities (to adapt a phrase) were never long absent from
+Mr. Longfellow’s thoughts. We feel their presence in “The Old Clock on
+the Stairs,” in “The Bridge,” and in the unrhymed stanzas “To an Old
+Danish Song-book.” This volume introduced Mr. Longfellow in a species
+of composition in which we have not hitherto seen him—the sonnet, of
+which there are three specimens here, neither of the strictest Italian
+form; the best, perhaps, being the one on “Dante,” of whom, by the way,
+we had three translations, all from the “Purgatorio,” in the “Voices of
+the Night.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Longfellow’s next volume was, in a certain sense, the gift of
+Hawthorne, to whom he was indebted for its theme. It is stated briefly
+in the first volume of his “American Note-books,” in a cluster of
+memoranda written between October 24th, 1838, and January 4th, 1839.
+<i>Voilá</i>: “H. L. C—— heard from a French Canadian a story
+of a young couple in Acadie. On their marriage day, all the men
+of the province were summoned to assemble in the church to hear a
+proclamation. When assembled, they were all seized and shipped off to
+be distributed through New England, among them the new bridegroom. His
+bride set off in search of him, wandered about New England all her
+lifetime, and at last, when she was old, she found her bridegroom on
+his death-bed. The shock was so great that it killed her likewise.”
+This forcible deportation of a whole people occurred in 1755, when the
+French, to the extent of eighteen thousand souls, were seized by the
+English, in the manner stated. History, which excuses so much, has
+perhaps excused the act; but humanity never can. It is as indefensible
+as the Inquisition.</p>
+
+<p>“Evangeline,” which was published in 1847, disputed the palm with “The
+Princess,” which was published in the same year. The two volumes are so
+unlike that no comparison can, or should, be made between them. Each
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxii">[Pg xxxii]</span>
+shows its writer at his best, as a story-teller, and if the mediæval
+medley surpasses the modern pastoral in richness of colouring, it
+is surpassed, in turn, by the tender human interest of the latter.
+Evangeline, loving, patient, sorrowful wanderer, has taken a permanent
+place, I think, among the heroines of English song; but, whether
+the picturesque hexameters in which her pathetic story is told will
+hereafter rank among the standard measures of the language, can only be
+conjectured. That the poets have fancied them is certain, for the year
+after the publication of “Evangeline” saw Clough writing them in “The
+Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich,” and ten years later saw Kingsley writing
+them in his “Andromeda.” Matthew Arnold maintains that the hexameter is
+the only proper measure in which to translate Homer; and already two
+versions of the Iliad in this measure have been made, one by Herschel
+(1866) and another by Cochrane (1867).</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/ill_015.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="515" >
+ <p class="center">A CORNER OF THE STUDY</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxiii">[Pg xxxiii]</span>
+Two years before the publication of “Evangeline” (1845), Mr. Longfellow
+conferred a scholarly obligation upon the admirers of foreign poetry
+by editing “The Poets of Europe,” a closely printed octavo of nearly
+eight hundred pages, containing specimens of European poets in ten
+different languages, representing the labours of upward of one hundred
+translators, including himself. Four years later (1849) he published a
+tale, entitled “Kavanagh.” It has no plot to speak of, but its sketches
+of character are bright and amusing, and its glimpses of New England
+village life are pleasantly authentic.</p>
+
+<p>The five years which included the publication of the next three volumes
+of his poetical writings—“The Seaside and the Fireside” (1850), “The
+Golden Legend” (1851), and “The Song of Hiawatha” (1855),—added
+largely to his reputation as a man of varied attainments, to whom
+poetry was an art in which he was perpetually discovering new
+possibilities. There are twenty-three poems in “The Seaside and the
+Fireside” (including the dedication and the translations), no two of
+which are alike, though they all disclose the skilful hand by which
+they were wrought. The most important of them, as a work of art, is the
+best poem, of which Schiller’s “Song of the Bell” was the model—“The
+Building of the Ship.”</p>
+
+<p>“The Golden Legend” transports us back to the Middle Ages, of which we
+have had transitory gleams in the earlier writings of Mr. Longfellow.
+The poetic atmosphere of that remote period envelops a lovely story,
+which turns, like that of “Evangeline,” upon the love and devotion of
+woman, that in this instance is happily rewarded.</p>
+
+<p>The figure of Elsie, the peasant girl, who determines to sacrifice
+her life to restore her prince to happiness, is worthy of an exalted
+place in any poet’s dream of fair women. The charm of the poem, apart
+from its poetry, is the thorough and easy scholarship of the writer,
+who contrives to conceal the evidences of his reading,—an art which
+few poets have possessed in an equal degree, and which Moore did not
+possess at all. Mr. Ruskin reflected, I think, the judgment of most
+scholarly readers of this poem, when he wrote in his “Modern Painters”
+that its author had entered more closely into the temper of the monk,
+for good and for evil, than ever yet theological writer or historian,
+though they may have given their life’s labour to the analysis.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxiv">[Pg xxxiv]</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/ill_016.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="476" >
+ <p class="center">WEST SIDE OF LONGFELLOW’S HOUSE.</p>
+ <p class="f80 spb2">(TAKEN FROM A POINT NEAR THE OLD WILLOW.)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>That there was a poetic element in the North American Indian several
+American poets had believed, and, so believing, had striven to quicken
+their verse with its creative energies. Sands and Eastburn wrote
+together the ponderous poem of “Yamoyden.” Hoffmann wrote a “Vigil
+of Faith;” Seba Smith a “Powhattan;” Street a “Frontenac.” They were
+unanimous in one thing,—they all failed to interest their readers. The
+cause of this was not far to seek, we can see, since success has been
+achieved, but it demanded a vision which was not theirs, and which, it
+seemed, only one American poet had. He saw that the Indian himself,
+as he figures in our history, was not capable of being made a poetic
+hero, but he saw that there might be a poetic side to him, and that it
+existed in his legends, if he had any. That he had many, and that they
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxv">[Pg xxxv]</span>
+were remarkable for a certain primitive imagination, was well known.
+They were brought to light by the late Henry R. Schoolcraft who heard
+of their existence among the Odjibwa Nation, inhabiting the region
+about Lake Superior in 1822.</p>
+
+<p>Specimens of these aboriginal fictions were published by Mr Schoolcraft
+in his “Travels in the Central Portions of the Mississippi Valley”
+(1825), and his “Narrative of the Expedition to Itaska Lake” (1834),
+but they were not given to the world in their entirety until 1839 in
+his “Algic Researches.” They were as good as manuscript for the next
+sixteen years, though one American poet had mastered them thoroughly.
+This was Mr. Longfellow, who, in 1855, turned this Indian Edda, as
+he happily called it, into “The Song of Hiawatha.” The great and
+immediate success of this poem, and the increase of reputation which
+it brought its author, recalled the early years of the present century
+when Scott and Byron were sure of thousands of readers whenever it
+pleased them to write a metrical romance. It was eagerly read by all
+classes, who suddenly found themselves interested in the era of flint
+arrow-heads, earthen pots, and skin clothes, and in its elemental
+inhabitants, who, dead centuries ago, if they ever existed, were now
+living the everlasting life of poetry. Everybody read “The Song of
+Hiawatha,” which passed through many editions. Its intellectual value
+was universally admitted, but its form was questioned, as all new forms
+are sure to be. For the form was new to most readers, though not to
+scholars in the literatures of Northern Europe. It is original with
+Mr. Longfellow, his friends declared. No, his enemies answered, he
+has borrowed it from the Finnish epic, “The Kalewala.” The temporary
+novelty of its form led to innumerable parodies, but to nothing
+serious, that I remember; which I take to be a silent verdict against
+its permanency in English versification.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Longfellow added, three years later, to the laurels he had won
+by “Evangeline,” by a second narrative poem in hexameters,—“The
+Courtship of Miles Standish.” It lacks the pathetic interest which
+is the charm of the earlier poem, but it possesses the same merit of
+picturesqueness, and a firmer power of delineating character. Priscilla
+is a very vital little Puritan maiden, who sees no impropriety in
+asking the man she loves why he does not speak for himself, and not for
+Miles Standish, who might find time to attend to his own wooing. The
+Puritan atmosphere here is as perfect of its kind as the Catholic
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxvi">[Pg xxxvi]</span>
+atmosphere of “Evangeline,” and is thoroughly in keeping with the grim
+old days in which the story is laid. The versification of the poem is
+more vigorous than that of the sister poem, the hexameters having a
+sort of martial movement about them.</p>
+
+<p>We do not see that the poetry of Mr. Longfellow has changed much in
+the last twenty years, except that it has become graver in its tone
+and more serious in its purpose. Its technical excellence has steadily
+increased. He has more than held his own against all English-writing
+poets, and in no walk of poetry so positively as that of telling a
+story. In an age of story-tellers he stands at their head, not only
+in the narrative poems I have mentioned, but in the lesser stories
+included in his “Tales of a Wayside Inn,” for which he has laid all the
+literatures of the world under contribution.</p>
+
+<p>The most distinctive of Mr. Longfellow’s poems are probably those which
+he entitles “Birds of Passage,” and which he has from time to time
+published as portions of separate volumes. They were inspired by many
+literatures, and are in many measures, among which, however, that of
+“The Song of Hiawatha” does not reappear, though the hexameter does.
+He has the art of finding unwritten poems in the most out-of-the-way
+books, and in every-day occurrences. A great man dies,—the Duke of
+Wellington, for example,—and he hymns his departure in “The Warden
+of the Cinque Ports,” which many prefer to the Laureate’s scholarly
+ode. His good friend Hawthorne dies, and he embalms his memory and his
+unfinished romance in imperishable verse.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the lost clew regain?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The unfinished window in Aladdin’s tower</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Unfinished must remain!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="no-indent">Sumner dies, and he drops a melodious tear upon his grave.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Were a star quenched on high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">For ages would its light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still travelling downward from the sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Shine on our mortal sight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“So when a great man dies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">For years beyond our ken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The light he leaves behind him lies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Upon the paths of men.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxvii">[Pg xxxvii]</span>
+And again he bids him farewell in a touching sonnet, with a pathetic
+and unexpected ending:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Good-night! good-night! as we so oft have said</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That are no more, and shall no more return.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast but taken thy lamp and gone to bed:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I stay a little longer, as one stays</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To cover up the embers that still burn.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>A child is born to him, and his friend Lowell’s wife dies on the same
+night, and he commemorates both in “The Two Angels,” one of his perfect
+poems.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Longfellow published few translations while he was writing his
+more important works, such as the “Tales of a Wayside Inn” and “The
+Story of Hiawatha.” That he had not forgotten his cunning, however, was
+evident in his “Three Books of Song” (1872), where he printed several
+translations of Eastern Songs, and in “Keramos, and other Poems,” which
+contains two hexameter translations from Virgil and Ovid, and twelve
+translations from French, German, and Italian poets. The volume last
+mentioned is remarkable in many ways. It not only shows no diminution
+of mental vigour, which one might naturally expect in a poet whose
+years have exceeded the allotted age of man, but it recalls the young
+poet who wrote “The Skeleton in Armour,” and “The Slave’s Dream.”
+I know not where to look for more fire than I find in “The Leap of
+Roushan Beg,” nor more delicious picturesqueness than in “Castles in
+Spain.” “Keramos” belongs to the same class of poems as “The Building
+of the Ship,” and is as perfect a piece of poetic art as that exquisite
+poem. That the making of pottery could be so effectively handled in
+verse reminds us of what Stella said of Swift, viz. that he could write
+beautifully about a broom-stick.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Longfellow’s friendliness, not to say generosity, to his brother
+authors, is not the least among his poetic virtues. He sends a greeting
+to Lowell in “The Herons of Elmwood,” and honours the memory of Irving
+in a tender sonnet, “In the Churchyard at Tarrytown.” In “The Three
+Silences of Molinos” (which are those of Speech, Desire, and Thought),
+he recognizes the excellence of the poet whom New England delights to
+honour next to himself:
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxviii">[Pg xxxviii]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O thou, whose daily life anticipates</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The world to come, and in whose thought and word</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The spiritual world preponderates,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hermit of Amesbury! thou too hast heard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Voices and melodies from beyond the gates,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And speakest only when thy soul is stirred.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>If there was any doubt before that Mr. Longfellow was the first
+of living sonneteers it is settled by “A Book of Sonnets” in this
+collection, the workmanship of which is simply perfect.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Longfellow’s translation of Dante’s “Divina Commedia” is highly
+thought of by scholarly readers. I state, however, as a fact, that he
+was not engaged upon it over twenty-five years, as we are told in the
+“Life and Letters of George Ticknor”; nor more than thirty years, as
+we are told in Richardson’s “Primer of American Literature.” It was
+executed in less than two years.</p>
+
+<p>It has not been given to many poets to carry out the ideal of a poetic
+life as he has done, and to win a great reputation at an early age,—a
+reputation which has not lessened or suffered from any fluctuation of
+public taste. The singer of “Keramos” addresses a different public
+from the one that welcomed “The Voices of the Night,” but he holds it
+nevertheless. In looking back upon his long literary career, one can
+see that he has been true to himself as he was manifested to us in his
+early prose and verse; that he has fulfilled his scholarly intentions;
+and that he has created and satisfied a taste for a literature which
+did not exist in America until he began to write,—a literature drawn
+from the different languages of Europe, now in the shape of direct
+translation, and now in the shape of suggestions, alien to the mass
+of English and American readers, but gladly received by both as
+new intellectual possessions. He has broadened American culture in
+completing his own, and has enlarged American sympathies until they
+embrace all other peoples,—the sturdy Norseman, the simple Swede, the
+patient Acadien, and the marvel-believing red man of prehistoric times.</p>
+
+<p>Cardinal Wiseman delivered a lecture some years ago on the “Home
+Education of the Poor.” In the course of this lecture he commented upon
+the fact that England has no poet who is to its labouring classes what
+Goethe is to the peasant of Germany, and said: “There is one writer who
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxix">[Pg xxxix]</span>
+approaches nearer than any other to this standard, and he has already
+gained such a hold on our hearts that it is almost unnecessary for me
+to mention his name. Our hemisphere cannot claim the honour of having
+brought him forth, but he still belongs to us, for his works have
+become as household words wherever the English language is spoken. And
+whether we are charmed by his imagery, or soothed by his melodious
+versification, or elevated by the high moral teachings of his pure
+muse, or follow with sympathetic hearts the wanderings of Evangeline, I
+am sure that all who hear my voice will join with me in the tribute I
+desire to pay to the genius of Longfellow.”</p>
+
+<p>The Rev. Lyman Abbott, also recently in the “Christian Union,” remarks
+that “There are many persons who regard Christianity as a new form
+or a new philosophy, and one might read Longfellow’s songs ‘from
+beginning to end,’ and not guess with what form he worshipped or of
+what philosophy he is a disciple. But if the Master knew aright His own
+mission, He came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly;
+and if Paul comprehended the tenour of that life aright, its fruits
+are ‘love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
+meekness, temperance.’ This life pulsates through all Longfellow’s
+words; of these fruits the orchard of his song is full indeed. I do
+not recall a single hymn of his which has become a favourite voice
+of worship in our churches; but worship has gone up from thousands
+of hearts, lowlier and holier for his singing. He does not swing the
+censer, but he fills it with his aromatic incense.” ... “Submission
+never sang a sweeter song in the night than ‘Resignation;’ devout love
+to God never breathed a more Christly petition than in Elsie‘s prayer;
+never more unaffected reverence bowed its head than in ’Christus.’”</p>
+
+<p>The Christianity of Longfellow is as simple as that of the New Testament,
+and as catholic; his creed, his worship, and his life are love.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“My work is finished; I am strong</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In faith and hope and charity;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For I have written the things I see,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The things that have been and shall be.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Conscious of right, nor fearing wrong</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Because I am in love with Love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the sole thing I hate is Hate;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For Hate is death; and Love is life.
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_xl">[Pg xl]</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A peace, a splendour from above;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Hate a never-ending strife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A smoke, a blackness from the abyss</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where unclean serpents coil and hiss!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Love is the Holy Ghost within;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hate the unpardonable sin!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who preaches otherwise than this</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Betrays his Master with a kiss.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The poet died on the 24th March 1882, at Cambridge, Massachusetts and
+was buried in the Mount Auburn Cemetery, amidst public and private
+evidences of the grief of many thousands of the American people; and in
+the United Kingdom his death has been felt as the loss of a familiar
+friend, almost irreparable.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p>
+<p class="f150"><b><span class="fs_80">THE POETICAL WORKS OF</span><br>&nbsp;<br>
+HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.</b></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<h2 class="nobreak"><i>Early Poems.</i></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="neg-indent fs_80">[WRITTEN FOR THE MOST PART DURING MY COLLEGE LIFE, AND ALL OF THEM
+BEFORE THE AGE OF NINETEEN.]</p>
+
+<h3 id="APRIL">AN APRIL DAY.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">When the warm sun, that brings</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seed-time and harvest, has returned again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Tis sweet to visit the still wood, where springs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The first flower of the plain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">I love the season well,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When forest glades are teeming with bright forms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The coming-on of storms.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">From the earth’s loosened mould</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though stricken to the heart with Winter’s cold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The drooping tree revives.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">The softly-warbled song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Comes from the pleasant woods, and coloured wings</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Glance quick in the bright sun, that moves along</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The forest openings.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">When the bright sunset fills</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The silver woods with light, the green slope throws</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its shadows in the hollows of the hills,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And wide the upland glows.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">And, when the eve is born,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the blue lake the sky, o’er-reaching far,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is hollowed out, and the moon dips her horn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And twinkles many a star.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Inverted in the tide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stand the grey rocks, and trembling shadows throw;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the fair trees look over, side by side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And see themselves below.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Sweet April!—many a thought</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Life’s golden fruit is shed.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="AUTUMN">AUTUMN.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">With what a glory comes and goes the year!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The buds of spring, those beautiful harbingers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of sunny skies and cloudless times, enjoy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Life’s newness, and earth’s garniture spread out.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when the silvery habit of the clouds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Comes down upon the autumn sun, and with</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A sober gladness the old year takes up</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His bright inheritance of golden fruits,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A pomp and pageant fill the splendid scene.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">There is a beautiful spirit breathing now</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its mellow richness on the clustered trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, from a beaker full of richest dyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pouring new glory on the autumn woods,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And dipping in warm light the pillared clouds.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Morn on the mountain, like a summer bird,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lifts up her purple wing, and in the vales</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Kisses the blushing leaf, and stirs up life</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Within the solemn woods of ash deep-crimsoned;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And silver beech, and maple yellow-leaved,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where autumn, like a faint old man, sits down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the wayside a-weary. Through the trees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The golden robin moves. The purple finch,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That on wild cherry and red cedar feeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A winter bird, comes with its plaintive whistle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And pecks by the witch-hazel, whilst aloud</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From cottage roofs the warbling blue-bird sings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And merrily, with oft-repeated stroke,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sounds from the threshing-floor the busy flail.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span> </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">O what a glory doth this world put on</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For him who, with a fervent heart, goes forth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On duties well performed, and days well spent!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For him the wind, ay, and the yellow leaves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall have a voice, and give him eloquent teachings.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He shall so hear the solemn hymn, that Death</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has lifted up for all, that he shall go</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To his long resting-place without a tear.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="SUNRISE">SUNRISE ON THE HILLS.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I stood upon the hills, when heaven’s wide arch</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was glorious with the sun’s returning march,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And woods were brightened, and soft gales</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Went forth to kiss the sun-clad vales.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The clouds were far beneath me;—bathed in light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They gathered midway round the wooded height,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, in their fading glory, shone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like hosts in battle overthrown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As many a pinnacle, with shifting glance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the grey mist thrust up its shattered lance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And rocking on the cliff was left</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The dark pine blasted, bare, and cleft.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The veil of cloud was lifted, and below</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Glowed the rich valley, and the river’s flow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was darkened by the forest’s shade,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or glistened in the white cascade;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where upward, in the mellow blush of day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">I heard the distant waters dash,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I saw the current whirl and flash,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And richly, by the blue lake’s silver beach,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The woods were bending with a silent reach.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then o’er the vale, with gentle swell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The music of the village bell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Came sweetly to the echo-giving hills;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the wild horn, whose voice the woodland fills,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was ringing to the merry shout,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That faint and far the glen sent out,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where, answering to the sudden shot, thin smoke,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through thick-leaved branches, from the dingle broke.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">If thou art worn and hard beset</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Go to the woods and hills!—No tears</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span></p>
+
+<h3>WOODS IN WINTER.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">When Winter winds are piercing chill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And through the hawthorn blows the gale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With solemn feet I tread the hill</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That overbrows the lonely vale.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er the bare upland, and away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through the long reach of desert woods,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The embracing sunbeams chastely play,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And gladden these deep solitudes.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where, twisted round the barren oak,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The summer vine in beauty clung,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And summer winds the stillness broke,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The crystal icicle is hung.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Pour out the river’s gradual tide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shrilly the skaters’ iron rings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And voices fill the woodland side.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alas! how changed from the fair scene,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When birds sang out their mellow lay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And winds were soft, and woods were green,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the song ceased not with the day.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But still wild music is abroad,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Pale, desert woods! within your crowd;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And gathering winds, in hoarse accord,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Has grown familiar with your song;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I hear it in the opening year,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I listen, and it cheers me long.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="PULANSKI">HYMN OF THE MORAVIAN NUNS<br> OF BETHLEHEM.</h3>
+
+<p class="f80">AT THE CONSECRATION OF PULASKI’S BANNER.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">When the dying flame of day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through the chancel shot its ray,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Far the glimmering tapers shed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Faint light on the cowled head;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the censer burning swung,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where, before the altar, hung</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The blood-red banner, that with prayer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Had been consecrated there.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the nun’s sweet hymn was heard the while,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sung low in the dim, mysterious aisle.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Take thy banner! May it wave</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Proudly o’er the good and brave;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When the battle’s distant wail</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Breaks the sabbath of our vale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When the clarion’s music thrills</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To the hearts of these lone hills,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When the spear in conflict shakes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the strong lance shivering breaks.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Take thy banner! and, beneath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The battle-cloud’s encircling wreath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Guard it!—till our homes are free!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Guard it!—God will prosper thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the dark and trying hour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the breaking forth of power,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the rush of steeds and men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">His right hand will shield thee then.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Take thy banner! But, when night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Closes round the ghastly fight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">If the vanquished warrior bow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Spare him!—By our holy vow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By our prayers and many tears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By the mercy that endears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Spare him!—he our love hath shared!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Spare him!—as thou wouldst be spared!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Take thy banner!—and if e’er</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thou shouldst press the soldier’s bier,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the muffled drums should beat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To the tread of mournful feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Then this crimson flag shall be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Martial cloak and shroud for thee.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The warrior took that banner proud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And it was his martial cloak and shroud!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span></p>
+
+<h3>BURIAL OF THE MINNISINK.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On sunny slope and beechen swell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The shadowed light of evening fell;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, where the maple’s leaf was brown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With soft and silent lapse came down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The glory, that the wood receives,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At sunset, in its brazen leaves.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">Far upward in the mellow light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rose the blue hills. One cloud of white,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Around a far uplifted cone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the warm blush of evening shone;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">An image of the silver lakes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By which the Indian’s soul awakes.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">But soon a funeral hymn was heard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the soft breath of evening stirred</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The tall, grey forest; and a band</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of stern in heart, and strong in hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Came winding down beside the wave,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To lay the red chief in his grave.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">They sang, that by his native bowers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He stood in the last moon of flowers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thirty snows had not yet shed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their glory on the warrior’s head;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But, as the summer fruit decays,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So died he in those naked days.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">A dark cloak of the roebuck’s skin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Covered the warrior, and within</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its heavy folds the weapons, made</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For the hard toils of war were laid;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The cuirass, woven of plaited reeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the broad belt of shells and beads.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">Before, a dark-haired virgin train</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Chanted the death-dirge of the slain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Behind, the long procession came</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of hoary men and chiefs of fame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With heavy hearts, and eyes of grief,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Leading the war-horse of their chief.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">Stripped of his proud and martial dress,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Uncurbed, unreined, and riderless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With darting eye, and nostril spread,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And heavy and impatient tread,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He came; and oft that eye so proud</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Asked for his rider in the crowd.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">They buried the dark chief—they freed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beside the grave his battle steed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And swift an arrow cleaved its way</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To his stern heart! One piercing neigh</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Arose,—and, on the dead man’s plain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rider grasps his steed again.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="SPIRIT">THE SPIRIT OF POETRY.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is a quiet spirit in these woods,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That dwells where’er the gentle south wind blows;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where, underneath the white-thorn, in the glade,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wild-flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The leaves above their sunny palms outspread.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With what a tender and impassioned voice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When the fast-ushering star of Morning comes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er-riding the grey hills with golden scarf;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or when the cowled and dusky-sandaled Eve,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In mourning weeds, from out the western gate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Departs with silent pace! That spirit moves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the green valley, where the silver brook,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From its full laver, pours the white cascade;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And frequent, on the everlasting hills,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In all the dark embroidery of the storm,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And shouts the stern, strong wind. And here, amid</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The silent majesty of these deep woods,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As to the sunshine and the pure, bright air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have ever loved the calm and quiet shades.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For them there was an eloquent voice in all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The flowers, the leaves, the river on its way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The swelling upland, where the sidelong sun</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The distant lake, fountains, and mighty trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In many a lazy syllable, repeating</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their old poetic legends to the wind.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The world; and, in these wayward days of youth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My busy fancy oft embodies it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a bright image of the light and beauty</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That dwell in nature,—of the heavenly forms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That stain the wild bird’s wing, and flush the clouds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When the sun sets. Within her eye</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The heaven of April, with its changing light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when it wears the blue of May, is hung,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And on her lip the rich, red rose. Her hair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is like the summer tresses of the trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blushes the richness of an autumn sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With ever-shifting beauty. Then her breath,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is so like the gentle air of Spring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As, from the morning’s dewy flowers, it comes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Full of their fragrance, that it is a joy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To have it round us,—and her silver voice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is the rich music of a summer bird,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Heard in the still night, with its passionate cadence.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illo_4.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="74" >
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><i>Voices of the Night.</i></h2>
+
+<p class="center">1839.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Πότνια, πότνια νὺξ,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">ὑπνοδότειρα τῶν πολυπόνων βροτῶν,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ἐρεβόθεν ἴθι· μόλε μόλε κατάπτερος</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ἀγαμεμνόνιον ἐπὶ δόμον·</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">ὑπὸ γὰρ ἀλγέων, ὑπό τε συμφορᾶς</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">διοιχόμεθ’, οἰχόμεθα.—<span class="smcap">Euripides.</span></div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="PRELUDE">PRELUDE.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pleasant it was, when woods were green,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And winds were soft and low,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To lie amid some sylvan scene,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where, the long drooping boughs between,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shadows dark and sunlight sheen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Alternate come and go;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or, where the denser grove receives</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">No sunlight from above,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the dark foliage interweaves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In one unbroken roof of leaves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Underneath whose sloping eaves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The shadows hardly move.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beneath some patriarchal tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">I lay upon the ground;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His hoary arms uplifted he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And all the broad leaves over me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clapped their little hands in glee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With one continuous sound;—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">A slumberous sound,—a sound that brings</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The feelings of a dream,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As of innumerable wings;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As, when a bell no longer swings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Faint the hollow murmur rings</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">O’er meadow, lake, and stream.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And dreams of that which cannot die,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Bright visions, came to me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As lapped in thought I used to lie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And gaze into the summer sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the sailing clouds went by,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Like ships upon the sea;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dreams that the soul of youth engage</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Ere fancy has been quelled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Old legends of the monkish page,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Traditions of the saint and sage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tales that have the rime of age,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And chronicles of eld.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, loving still these quaint old themes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Even in the city’s throng</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I feel the freshness of the streams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That, crossed by shades and sunny gleams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Water the green land of dreams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The holy land of song.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore, at Pentecost, which brings</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The Spring, clothed like a bride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When nestling buds unfold their wings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And bishop’s-caps have golden rings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Musing upon many things,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">I sought the woodlands wide.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The green trees whispered low and mild;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">It was a sound of joy!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They were my playmates when a child,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And rocked me in their arms so wild!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still they looked at me and smiled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As if I were a boy;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And ever whispered, mild and low,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Come, be a child once more!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And waved their long arms to and fro,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And beckoned solemnly and slow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Oh, I could not choose but go</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Into the woodlands hoar;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the blithe and breathing air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Into the solemn wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Solemn and silent everywhere!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nature with folded hands seemed there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kneeling at her evening prayer!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Like one in prayer I stood.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Before me rose an avenue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of tall and sombrous pines;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Abroad their fan-like branches grew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, where the sunshine darted through,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spread a vapour soft and blue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In long and sloping lines.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, falling on my weary brain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Like a fast-falling shower,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The dreams of youth came back again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Low lispings of the summer rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dropping on the ripened grain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As once upon the flower.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Visions of childhood! Stay, oh stay!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Ye were so sweet and wild!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And distant voices seemed to say,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“It cannot be! They pass away!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Other themes demand thy lay;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thou art no more a child!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The land of song within thee lies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Watered by living springs;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The lids of Fancy’s sleepless eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Are gates unto that Paradise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Holy thoughts, like stars, arise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Its clouds are angels’ wings.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Learn, that henceforth thy song shall be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Not mountains capped with snow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor forests sounding like the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor rivers flowing ceaselessly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the woodlands bend to see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The bending heavens below.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“There is a forest where the din</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of iron branches sounds!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A mighty river roars between,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And whosoever looks therein,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sees the heavens all black with sin,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Sees not its depths nor bounds.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Athwart the swinging branches cast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Soft rays of sunshine pour;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then comes the fearful wintry blast;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Our hopes, like withered leaves, fall fast;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pallid lips say, ‘It is past!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">We can return no more!’</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Look, then, into thine heart, and write!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Yes, into Life’s deep stream!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All forms of sorrow and delight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All solemn Voices of the Night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That can soothe thee, or affright—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Be these henceforth thy theme.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="NIGHT">HYMN TO THE NIGHT.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">Ἀσπασίη, τρίλλιστος.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I heard the trailing garments of the Night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sweep through her marble halls!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From the celestial walls,</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I felt her presence, by its spell of might,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Stoop o’er me from above;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The calm, majestic presence of the Night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As of the one I love.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The manifold, soft chimes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like some old poet’s rhymes.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the cool cisterns of the midnight air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">My spirit drank repose;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From those deep cisterns flows.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">What man has borne before:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And they complain no more.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Descend with broad-winged flight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The best belovèd Night!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="PSALM">A PSALM OF LIFE.</h3>
+
+<p class="f80">WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN<br> SAID TO THE PSALMIST.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tell me not, in mournful numbers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“Life is but an empty dream!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For the soul is dead that slumbers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And things are not what they seem.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Life is real! Life is earnest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the grave is not its goal;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Dust thou art, to dust returnest,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Was not spoken of the soul.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is our destined end or way;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But to act, that each to-morrow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Find us farther than to-day.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Art is long, and Time is fleeting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And our hearts, though stout and brave,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still, like muffled drums, are beating</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Funeral marches to the grave.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the world’s broad field of battle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the bivouac of Life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Be not like dumb, driven cattle!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Be a hero in the strife!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Let the dead Past bury its dead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Act—act in the living Present!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Heart within, and God o’erhead!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lives of great men all remind us</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">We can make our lives sublime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, departing, leave behind us</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Footprints on the sands of time;—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Footprints, that perhaps another,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Seeing, shall take heart again.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let us, then, be up and doing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With a heart for any fate;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still achieving, still pursuing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Learn to labour and to wait.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="FOOTSTEPS">FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">When the hours of Day are numbered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the voices of the Night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wake the better soul, that slumbered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To a holy, calm delight;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ere the evening lamps are lighted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And, like phantoms grim and tall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shadows from the fitful fire-light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Dance upon the parlour wall;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then the forms of the departed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Enter at the open door;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The belovèd, the true-hearted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Come to visit me once more;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He, the young and strong, who cherished</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Noble longings for the strife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the road-side fell and perished,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Weary with the march of life!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They, the holy ones and weakly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who the cross of suffering bore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Folded their pale hands so meekly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Spake with us on earth no more!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And with them the Being Beauteous,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who unto my youth was given,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">More than all things else to love me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And is now a saint in heaven.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a slow and noiseless footstep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Comes that messenger divine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Takes the vacant chair beside me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Lays her gentle hand in mine.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And she sits and gazes at me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With those deep and tender eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the stars, so still and saint-like,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Looking downward from the skies.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Uttered not, yet comprehended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is the spirit’s voiceless prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Soft rebukes, in blessings ended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Breathing from her lips of air.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O, though oft depress’d and lonely,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All my fears are laid aside,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If I but remember only</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Such as these have lived and died!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="REAPER">THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And, with his sickle keen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the flowers that grow between.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Shall I have nought that is fair,” saith he;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Have nought but the bearded grain?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">I will give them all back again.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He kissed their drooping leaves;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was for the Lord of Paradise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He bound them in his sheaves.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The Reaper said, and smiled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Dear tokens of the earth are they,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Where He was once a child.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“They shall all bloom in fields of light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Transplanted by my care,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And saints, upon their garments white,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">These sacred blossoms wear.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the mother gave, in tears and pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The flowers she most did love;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She knew she should find them all again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In the fields of light above.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The Reaper came that day;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Twas an angel visited the green earth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And took the flowers away.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span></p>
+
+<h3>THE LIGHT OF STARS.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The night is come, but not too soon;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And sinking silently,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All silently, the little moon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Drops down behind the sky.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is no light in earth or heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But the cold light of stars;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the first watch of night is given</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To the red planet Mars.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is it the tender star of love?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The star of love and dreams?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Oh, no! from that blue tent above</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A hero’s armour gleams.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And earnest thoughts within me rise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When I behold afar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Suspended in the evening skies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The shield of that red star.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O star of strength! I see thee stand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And smile upon my pain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou beckonest with thy mailèd hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And I am strong again.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Within my breast there is no light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But the cold light of stars;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I give the first watch of the night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To the red planet Mars.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The star of the unconquered will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He rises in my breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Serene, and resolute, and still,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And calm, and self-possessed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thou, too, whosoe’er thou art,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That readest this brief psalm,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As one by one thy hopes depart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Be resolute and calm.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Oh, fear not in a world like this,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And thou shalt know ere long,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Know how sublime a thing it is</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To suffer and be strong.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="FLOWERS">FLOWERS.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Stars, that in earth’s firmament do shine.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stars they are, wherein we read our history,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As astrologers and seers of eld;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like the burning stars, which they beheld.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">God hath written in those stars above;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But not less in the bright flowerets under us</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Stands the revelation of His love.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bright and glorious is that revelation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Written all over this great world of ours;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Making evident our own creation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In these stars of earth,—these golden flowers.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the selfsame universal being</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Which is throbbing in his brain and heart.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tremulous leaves with soft and silver lining,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Buds that open only to decay;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Flaunting gaily in the golden light;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Large desires, with most uncertain issues,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Tender wishes, blossoming at night!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">These in flowers and men are more than seeming;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Workings are they of the selfsame powers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Seeth in himself and in the flowers.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Everywhere about us are they glowing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Others, their blue eyes with tears o’erflowing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not alone in Spring’s armorial bearing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And in Summer’s green emblazoned field,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But in arms of brave old Autumn’s wearing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the centre of his brazen shield;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not alone in meadows and green alleys,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On the mountain-top, and by the brink</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of sequestered pools in woodland valleys,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where the slaves of Nature stoop to drink;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not alone in her vast dome of glory,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Not on graves of bird and beast alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But in old cathedrals, high and hoary,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the cottage of the rudest peasant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Speaking of the Past unto the Present,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In all places, then, and in all seasons,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">How akin they are to human things.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And with childlike, credulous affection</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">We behold their tender buds expand;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Emblems of our own great resurrection,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Emblems of the bright and better land.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span></p>
+
+<h3>THE BELEAGUERED CITY.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have read, in some old marvellous tale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Some legend strange and vague,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That a midnight host of spectres pale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beleaguered the walls of Prague.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beside the Moldau’s rushing stream,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With the wan moon overhead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There stood, as in an awful dream,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The army of the dead.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">White as a sea-fog, landward bound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The spectral camp was seen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The river flowed between.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">No other voice nor sound was there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">No drum, nor sentry’s pace;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The mist-like banners clasped the air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As clouds with clouds embrace.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But, when the old cathedral bell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Proclaimed the morning prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The white pavilions rose and fell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On the alarmèd air.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down the broad valley fast and far</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The troubled army fled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Up rose the glorious morning star,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The ghastly host was dead.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have read, in the marvellous heart of man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That strange and mystic scroll,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That an army of phantoms vast and wan</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beleaguer the human soul.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Encamped beside Life’s rushing stream,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In Fancy’s misty light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Portentous through the night.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon its midnight battle-ground</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The spectral camp is seen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Flows the River of Life between.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">No other voice nor sound is there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the army of the grave;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No other challenge breaks the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But the rushing of Life’s wave.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, when the solemn and deep church-bell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Entreats the soul to pray,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The midnight phantoms feel the spell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The shadows sweep away.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down the broad Vale of Tears afar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The spectral camp is fled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Faith shineth as a morning star,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Our ghastly fears are dead.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="MIDNIGHT_1">MIDNIGHT MASS FOR THE<br> DYING YEAR.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yes, the Year is growing old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And his eye is pale and bleared!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Death, with frosty hand and cold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Plucks the old man by the beard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Sorely,—sorely!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The leaves are falling, falling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Solemnly and slow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Caw! caw! the rooks are calling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">It is a sound of woe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">A sound of woe!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through woods and mountain-passes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The winds, like anthems, roll;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They are chanting solemn masses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Singing, “Pray for this poor soul,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Pray,—pray!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the hooded clouds, like friars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Tell their beads in drops of rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And patter their doleful prayers;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But their prayers are all in vain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">All in vain!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There he stands in the foul weather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The foolish, fond Old Year,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Crowned with wild flowers and with heather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like weak, despisèd Lear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">A king,—a king!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then comes the summer-like day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Bids the old man rejoice!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His joy! his last! Oh, the old man grey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Loveth that ever-soft voice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Gentle and low.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the crimson woods he saith,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To the voice gentle and low</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the soft air, like a daughter’s breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“Pray do not mock me so!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Do not laugh at me!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now the sweet day is dead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Cold in his arms it lies;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No stain from its breath is spread</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Over the glassy skies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">No mist or stain!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then, too, the Old Year dieth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the forests utter a moan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the voice of one who crieth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the wilderness alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">“Vex not his ghost!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then comes, with an awful roar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Gathering and sounding on,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The storm-wind from Labrador,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The wind Euroclydon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">The storm-wind!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Howl! howl! and from the forest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sweep the red leaves away!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Would the sins that thou abhorrest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O Soul! could thus decay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">And be swept away!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For there shall come a mightier blast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">There shall be a darker day;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the stars, from heaven downcast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like red leaves be swept away!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Kyrie, eleyson!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Christe, eleyson!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="ENVOI_1">L’ENVOI.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye voices, that arose</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">After the Evening’s close,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And whispered to my restless heart repose!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Go, breathe it in the ear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of all who doubt and fear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And say to them, “Be of good cheer!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye sounds, so low and calm,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That in the groves of balm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seemed to me like an angel’s psalm!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Go, mingle yet once more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the perpetual roar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the pine forest, dark and hoar!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tongues of the dead, not lost,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But speaking from death’s frost,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like fiery tongues at Pentecost!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Glimmer, as funeral lamps,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Amid the chills and damps</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the vast plain where Death encamps!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illo_5.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="192" >
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" ><i>Ballads.</i></h2>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p class="center">1842.</p>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="SKELETON">THE SKELETON IN ARMOUR.</h3>
+
+<p class="f90">PREFATORY NOTE.</p>
+
+<p>The following Ballad was suggested to me while riding on the sea-shore
+at Newport. A year or two previous a skeleton had been dug up at Fall
+River, clad in broken and corroded armour; and the idea occurred to
+me of connecting it with the Round Tower at Newport, generally known
+hitherto as the Old Windmill, though now claimed by the Danes as a work
+of their early ancestors. Professor Rafn, in the <i>Mémoires de la
+Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord</i>, for 1838-39, says:—</p>
+
+<p>“There is no mistaking in this instance the style in which the more
+ancient stone edifices of the North were constructed, the style
+which belongs to the Roman or Ante-Gothic architecture, and which,
+especially after the time of Charlemagne, diffused itself from Italy
+over the whole of the West and North of Europe, where it continued to
+predominate until the close of the twelfth century; that style which
+some authors have, from one of its most striking characteristics,
+called the round-arch style, the same which in England is denominated
+Saxon and sometimes Norman architecture.</p>
+
+<p>“On the ancient structure in Newport there are no ornaments remaining
+which might possibly have served to guide us in assigning the probable
+date of its erection. That no vestige whatever is found of the pointed
+arch, nor any approximation to it, is indicative of an earlier rather
+than of a later period. From such characteristics as remain, however,
+we can scarcely form any other inference than one, in which I am
+persuaded that all who are familiar with Old Northern architecture will
+concur, <span class="allsmcap">THAT THIS BUILDING WAS ERECTED AT A PERIOD
+DECIDEDLY NOT LATER THAN THE TWELFTH CENTURY</span>. This remark
+applies, of course, to the original building only, and not to the
+alterations that it subsequently received; for there are several such
+alterations in the upper part of the building which cannot be mistaken,
+and which were most likely occasioned by its being adapted in modern
+times to various uses, for example, as the substructure of a windmill,
+and latterly as a hay magazine. To the same times may be referred the
+windows, the fireplace, and the apertures made above the columns. That
+this building could not have been erected for a windmill is what an
+architect will easily discern.”</p>
+
+<p>I will not enter into a discussion of the point. It is sufficiently
+well established for the purpose of a ballad, though doubtless many an
+honest citizen of Newport, who has passed his days within sight of the
+Round Tower, will be ready to exclaim with Sancho, “God bless me! did
+I not warn you to have a care of what you were doing, for that it was
+nothing but a windmill? and nobody could mistake it but one who had the
+like in his head.”</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who, with thy hollow breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still in rude armour drest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Comest to daunt me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wrapt not in Eastern balms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But with thy fleshless palms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stretched, as if asking alms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Why dost thou haunt me?”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, from those cavernous eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pale flashes seemed to rise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As when the Northern skies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Gleam in December;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, like the water’s flow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under December’s snow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came a dull voice of woe</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">From the heart’s chamber.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I was a Viking old!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">My deeds, though manifold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No Skald in song has told,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">No Saga taught thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Take heed, that in thy verse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou dost the tale rehearse,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Else dread a dead man’s curse!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">For this I sought thee.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Far in the Northern Land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the wild Baltic’s strand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I, with my childish hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Tamed the gerfalcon;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, with my skates fast-bound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Skimmed the half-frozen Sound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the poor whimpering hound</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Trembled to walk on.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Oft to his frozen lair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tracked I the grisly bear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While from my path the hare</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Fled like a shadow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Oft through the forest dark</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Followed the were-wolf’s bark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Until the soaring lark</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Sang from the meadow.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“But when I older grew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Joining a corsair’s crew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er the dark sea I flew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">With the marauders.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wild with the life we led;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many the souls that sped,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many the hearts that bled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">By our stern orders.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Many a wassail-bout</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wore the long Winter out;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Often our midnight shout</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Set the cocks crowing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As we the Berserk’s tale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Measured in cups of ale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Draining the oaken pail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Filled to o’erflowing.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Once, as I told in glee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tales of the stormy sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soft eyes did gaze on me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Burning, yet tender;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as the white stars shine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the dark Norway pine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On that dark heart of mine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Fell their soft splendour.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I wooed the blue-eyed maid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yielding, yet half afraid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in the forest’s shade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Our vows were plighted.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under its loosened vest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fluttered her little breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like birds within their nest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">By the hawk frighted.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Bright in her father’s hall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shields gleamed upon the wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loud sang the minstrels all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Chanting his glory;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When of old Hildebrand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I asked his daughter’s hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mute did the minstrel stand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">To hear my story.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“While the brown ale he quaffed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loud then the champion laughed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as the wind-gusts waft</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">The sea-foam brightly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So the loud laugh of scorn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Out of those lips unshorn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the deep drinking-horn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Blew the foam lightly.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“She was a Prince’s child,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I but a Viking wild,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And though she blushed and smiled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">I was discarded!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Should not the dove so white</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Follow the sea-mew’s flight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Why did they leave that night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Her nest unguarded?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Scarce had I put to sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bearing the maid with me,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fairest of all was she</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Among the Norsemen!—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When on the white-sea strand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waving his armèd hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw we old Hildebrand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">With twenty horsemen.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Then launched they to the blast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bent like a reed each mast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yet we were gaining fast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">When the wind failed us;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with a sudden flaw</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came round the gusty Skaw,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So that our foe we saw</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Laugh as he hailed us.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“And as to catch the gale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round veered the flapping sail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Death! was the helmsman’s hail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Death without quarter!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mid-ships with iron-keel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Struck we her ribs of steel;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down her black hulk did reel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Through the black water.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“As with his wings aslant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sails the fierce cormorant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seeking some rocky haunt,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">With his prey laden:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So toward the open main,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beating the sea again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the wild hurricane,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Bore I the maiden.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Three weeks we westward bore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And when the storm was o’er,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cloud-like we saw the shore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Stretching to leeward;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There for my lady’s bower</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Built I the lofty tower,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Which, to this very hour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Stands looking seaward.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“There lived we many years;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Time dried the maiden’s tears;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She had forgot her fears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">She was a mother;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Death closed her mild blue eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under that tower she lies;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ne’er shall the sun arise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">On such another!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Still grew my bosom then,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still as a stagnant fen!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hateful to me were men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">The sunlight hateful!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the vast forest here,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clad in my warlike gear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell I upon my spear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Oh, death was grateful!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Thus, seamed with many scars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bursting these prison bars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Up to its native stars</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">My soul ascended!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There from the flowing bowl</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Deep drinks the warrior’s soul,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>Skoal!</i> to the Northland! <i>Skoal!</i>”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_1_1" href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">—Thus the tale ended.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="HESPERUS">THE WRECK OF THE <i>HESPERUS</i>.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was the schooner <i>Hesperus</i>,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That sailed the wintry sea;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the skipper had taken his little daughtèr,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To bear him company.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Her cheeks like the dawn of day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That ope in the month of May.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The skipper he stood beside the helm,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">His pipe was in his mouth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he watched how the veering flaw did blow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The smoke now West, now South.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then up and spake an old Sailòr,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Had sailed the Spanish Main,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I pray thee, put into yonder port,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">For I fear a hurricane.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Last night the moon had a golden ring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And to-night no moon we see!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And a scornful laugh laughed he.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Colder and louder blew the wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A gale from the North-east;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The snow fell hissing in the brine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the billows frothed like yeast.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down came the storm, and smote amain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The vessel in its strength;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then leaped her cable’s length.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Come hither! come hither! my little daughtèr,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And do not tremble so;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For I can weather the roughest gale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That ever wind did blow.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">He wrapped her warm in his seaman’s coat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Against the stinging blast;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He cut a rope from a broken spar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And bound her to the mast.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O father! I hear the church-bells ring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">O say what may it be?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“’Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!”—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And he steered for the open sea.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O father! I hear the sound of guns,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">O say, what may it be?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Some ship in distress, that cannot live</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In such an angry sea!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O father, I see a gleaming light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">O say, what may it be?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the father answered never a word,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A frozen corpse was he.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With his face turned to the skies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On his fixed and glassy eyes.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That saved she might be;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the Lake of Galilee.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And fast through the midnight dark and drear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Through the whistling sleet and snow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a sheeted ghost the vessel swept</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Towards the reef of Norman’s Woe.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And ever the fitful gusts between</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A sound came from the land;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was the sound of the trampling surf,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The breakers were right beneath her bows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">She drifted a dreary wreck,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And a whooping billow swept the crew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Like icicles from her deck.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">She struck where the white and fleecy waves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Look soft as carded wool,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the cruel rocks, they gored her side</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Like the horns of an angry bull.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With the masts went by the board;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Ho! ho! the breakers roared!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">At daybreak, on a bleak sea-beach,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A fisherman stood aghast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To see the form of a maiden fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Lashed close to a drifting mast.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The salt sea was frozen on her breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The salt tears in her eyes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the billows fall and rise.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such was the wreck of the <i>Hesperus</i>,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In the midnight and the snow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Christ save us all from a death like this,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the reef of Norman’s Woe!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illo_6.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="217" >
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><i>Poems on Slavery.</i></h2>
+
+<p class="center">1842.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p class="fs_90">[The following Poems, with one exception, were written
+at sea, in the latter part of October 1842. I had not then heard of Dr.
+Channing’s death. Since that event, the poem addressed to him is no
+longer appropriate. I have decided, however, to let it remain as it was
+written, in testimony of my admiration for a great and good man.]</p>
+
+<h3 id="CHANNING">TO WILLIAM E. CHANNING.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The pages of thy book I read,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And as I closed each one,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My heart, responding, ever said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“Servant of God! well done!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Well done! Thy words are great and bold;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">At times they seem to me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like Luther’s, in the days of old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Half-battles for the free.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Go on, until this land revokes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The old and chartered Lie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The feudal curse, whose whips and yokes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Insult humanity.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A voice is ever at thy side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Speaking in tones of might,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the prophetic voice, that cried</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To John in Patmos, “Write!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Write! and tell out this bloody tale;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Record this dire eclipse,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This Day of Wrath, this Endless Wail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">This dread Apocalypse!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="DREAM">THE SLAVE’S DREAM.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beside the ungathered rice he lay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">His sickle in his hand;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His breast was bare, his matted hair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Was buried in the sand.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He saw his Native Land.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wide through the landscape of his dreams</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The lordly Niger flowed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath the palm-trees on the plain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Once more a king he strode;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And heard the tinkling caravans</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Descend the mountain-road.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He saw once more his dark-eyed queen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Among her children stand;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They clasped his neck, they kissed his cheeks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They held him by the hand!—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A tear burst from the sleeper’s lids,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And fell into the sand.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then at furious speed he rode</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Along the Niger’s bank;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His bridle-reins were golden chains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And, with a martial clank,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At each leap he could feel his scabbard of steel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Smiting his stallion’s flank.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Before him, like a blood-red flag,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The bright flamingoes flew;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From morn till night he followed their flight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O’er plains where the tamarind grew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till he saw the roofs of Caffre huts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the ocean rose to view.</div>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span> </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">At night he heard the lion roar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the hyæna scream;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the river-horse as he crushed the reeds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beside some hidden stream;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And it passed, like a glorious roll of drums,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through the triumph of his dream.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The forests, with their myriad tongues,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Shouted of liberty;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Blast of the Desert cried aloud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With a voice so wild and free,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That he started in his sleep and smiled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">At their tempestuous glee.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He did not feel the driver’s whip,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Nor the burning heat of day;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For death had illumined the Land of Sleep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And his lifeless body lay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A worn-out fetter, that the soul</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Had broken and thrown away!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="DISMAL">THE SLAVE IN THE DISMAL SWAMP.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In dark fens of the Dismal Swamp</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The hunted Negro lay;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He saw the fire of the midnight camp,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And heard at times a horse’s tramp,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And a bloodhound’s distant bay.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where will-o’-the-wisps and glow-worms shine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In bulrush and in brake;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where waving mosses shroud the pine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the cedar grows, and the poisonous vine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is spotted like the snake;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where hardly a human foot could pass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Or a human heart would dare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the quaking turf of the green morass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He crouched in the rank and tangled grass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like a wild beast in his lair.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A poor old slave, infirm and lame;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Great scars deformed his face;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On his forehead he bore the brand of shame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the rags, that hid his mangled frame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Were the livery of disgrace.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All things above were bright and fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All things were glad and free;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lithe squirrels darted here and there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And wild birds filled the echoing air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With songs of Liberty!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On him alone was the doom of pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From the morning of his birth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On him alone the curse of Cain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fell, like a flail on the garnered grain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And struck him to the earth!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="GOOD_PART">THE GOOD PART THAT SHALL<br> NOT BE TAKEN AWAY.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">She dwells by great Kenhawa’s side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In valleys green and cool;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all her hope and all her pride</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Are in the village school.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her soul, like the transparent air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That robes the hills above,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though not of earth, encircles there</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All things with arms of love.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thus she walks among her girls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With praise and mild rebukes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Subduing even rude village churls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By her angelic looks.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">She reads to them at eventide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of One who came to save;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To cast the captive’s chains aside,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And liberate the slave.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And oft the blessed time foretells</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When all men shall be free;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And musical, as silver bells,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Their falling chains shall be.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And following her beloved Lord,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In decent poverty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She makes her life one sweet record</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And deed of charity.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For she was rich and gave up all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To break the iron bands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of those who waited in her hall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And laboured in her lands.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Long since beyond the Southern Sea</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Their outbound sails have sped,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While she, in meek humility,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Now earns her daily bread.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is their prayers, which never cease,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That clothe her with such grace;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their blessing is the light of peace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That shines upon her face.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="QUADROON">THE QUADROON GIRL.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Slaver in the broad lagoon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Lay moored with idle sail;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He waited for the rising moon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And for the evening gale.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under the shore his boat was tied,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And all her listless crew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Watched the gray alligator slide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Into the still bayou.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Odours of orange-flowers, and spice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Reached them from time to time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like airs that breathe from Paradise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Upon a world of crime.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Planter, under his roof of thatch,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Smoked thoughtfully and slow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Slaver’s thumb was on the latch,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He seemed in haste to go.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">He said, “My ship at anchor rides</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In yonder broad lagoon;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I only wait the evening tides,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the rising of the moon.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Before them, with her face upraised,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In timid attitude,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like one half curious, half amazed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A Quadroon maiden stood.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her eyes were large, and full of light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Her arms and neck were bare;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No garment she wore, save a kirtle bright,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And her own long, raven hair.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And on her lips there played a smile</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As holy, meek, and faint,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As lights in some cathedral aisle</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The features of a saint.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The soil is barren,—the farm is old;”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The thoughtful Planter said;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then looked upon the Slaver’s gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And then upon the maid.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">His heart within him was at strife</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With such accursèd gains;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For he knew whose passions gave her life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Whose blood ran in her veins.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the voice of nature was too weak;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He took the glittering gold!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then pale as death grew the maiden’s cheek,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Her hands as icy cold.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Slaver led her from the door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He led her by the hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To be his slave and paramour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In a strange and distant land!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span></p>
+
+<h3>THE WITNESSES.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In Ocean’s wide domains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Half buried in the sands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lie skeletons in chains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With shackled feet and hands.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beyond the fall of dews,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Deeper than plummet lies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Float ships with all their crews,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">No more to sink nor rise.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">There the black Slave-ship swims,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Freighted with human forms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whose fettered, fleshless limbs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Are not the sport of storms.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">These are the bones of Slaves;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">They gleam from the abyss;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They cry, from yawning waves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“We are the Witnesses!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Within Earth’s wide domains</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Are markets for men’s lives;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Their necks are galled with chains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Their wrists are cramped with gyves.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dead bodies, that the kite</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In deserts makes its prey;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Murders, that with affright</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Scare school-boys from their play!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">All evil thoughts and deeds;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Anger, and lust, and pride;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The foulest, rankest weeds.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That choke Life’s groaning tide!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">These are the woes of Slaves;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">They glare from the abyss;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They cry from unknown graves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“We are the Witnesses!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="WARNING">THE WARNING.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beware! The Israelite of old, who tore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The lion in his path,—when, poor and blind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He saw the blessed light of heaven no more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Shorn of his noble strength and forced to grind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In prison, and at last led forth to be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A pander to Philistine revelry,—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon the pillars of the temple laid</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">His desperate hands, and in its overthrow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Destroyed himself, and with him those who made</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A cruel mockery of his sightless woe;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The poor, blind Slave, the scoff and jest of all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Expired, and thousands perished in the fall!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is a poor, blind Samson in this land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Shorn of his strength, and bound in bonds of steel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And shake the pillars of this Commonweal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till the vast Temple of our liberties</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span></p>
+
+<h3>THE SLAVE SINGING AT MIDNIGHT.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Loud he sang the Psalm of David!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He, a Negro, and enslaved,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sang of Israel’s victory,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sang of Zion, bright and free.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In that hour, when night is calmest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sang he from the Hebrew Psalmist,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In a voice so sweet and clear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That I could not choose but hear.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Songs of triumph, and ascriptions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such as reached the swart Egyptians,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When upon the Red Sea coast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Perished Pharaoh and his host.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the voice of his devotion</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Filled my soul with strange emotion;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For its tones by turns were glad,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sweetly solemn, wildly sad.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Paul and Silas, in their prison,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sang of Christ, the Lord arisen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And an earthquake’s arm of might</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Broke their dungeon-gates at night.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But, alas! what holy angel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Brings the slave this glad evangel?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And what earthquake’s arm of might</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Breaks his dungeon-gates at night?</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illo_7.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="242" >
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><i>Miscellaneous Poems.</i></h2>
+
+<p class="center">1841-46.</p>
+<hr class="r10">
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="MAY">IT IS NOT ALWAYS MAY.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container fs_80">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">NO HAY PÁJAROS EN LOS NIDOS DE ANTAÑO.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent30"><i>Spanish Proverb.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sun is bright, the air is clear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The darting swallows soar and sing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And from the stately elms I hear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The blue-bird prophesying Spring.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So blue yon winding river flows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">It seems an outlet from the sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where, waiting till the west wind blows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The freighted clouds at anchor lie.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All things are new;—the buds, the leaves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That gild the elm-tree’s nodding crest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And even the nest beneath the eaves;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">There are no birds in last year’s nest!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All things rejoice in youth and love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The fulness of their first delight!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And learn from the soft heavens above</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The melting tenderness of night.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Maiden, that read’st this simple rhyme,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For O! it is not always May!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Enjoy the Spring of Love and Youth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To some good angel leave the rest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For time will teach thee soon the truth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">There are no birds in last year’s nest.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="RAINY">THE RAINY DAY.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It rains, and the wind is never weary;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But at every gust the dead leaves fall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the day is dark and dreary.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It rains, and the wind is never weary;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the days are dark and dreary.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy fate is the common fate of all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into each life some rain must fall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Some days must be dark and dreary.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span></p>
+
+<h3>THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under a spreading chestnut-tree</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The village smithy stands;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The smith, a mighty man is he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With large and sinewy hands;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the muscles of his brawny arms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Are strong as iron bands.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">His hair is crisp, and black, and long,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">His face is like the tan;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His brow is wet with honest sweat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He earns whate’er he can,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And looks the whole world in the face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For he owes not any man.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Week in, week out, from morn till night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">You can hear his bellows blow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With measured beat and slow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a sexton ringing the village bell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When the evening sun is low.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And children coming home from school</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Look in at the open door;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They love to see the flaming forge,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And hear the bellows roar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And catch the burning sparks that fly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like chaff from a threshing-floor.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He goes on Sunday to the church,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And sits among his boys;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He hears the parson pray and preach,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He hears his daughter’s voice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Singing in the village choir,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And it makes his heart rejoice.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It sounds to him like her mother’s voice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Singing in Paradise!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He needs must think of her once more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">How in the grave she lies;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And with his hard, rough hand he wipes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A tear out of his eyes.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Toiling—rejoicing—sorrowing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Onward through life he goes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each morning sees some task begin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Each evening sees it close;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Something attempted, something done,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Has earned a night’s repose.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For the lesson thou hast taught!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus at the flaming forge of life</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Our fortunes must be wrought;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus on its sounding anvil shaped</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Each burning deed and thought.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="ENDYMION">ENDYMION.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rising moon has hid the stars;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her level rays, like golden bars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Lie on the landscape green,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">With shadows brown between.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And silver white the river gleams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if Diana in her dreams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Had dropt her silver bow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Upon the meadows low.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On such a tranquil night as this,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She woke Endymion with a kiss,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">When sleeping in the grove,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">He dreamed not of her love.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like Dian’s kiss, unasked, unsought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Love gives itself, but is not bought;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Nor voice nor sound betrays</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Its deep, impassioned gaze.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It comes—the beautiful, the free,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The crown of all humanity—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">In silence and alone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To seek the elected one.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are life’s oblivion, the soul’s sleep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And kisses the closed eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of him who slumbering lies.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O, weary hearts! O, slumbering eyes!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O, drooping souls whose destinies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Are fraught with fear and pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Ye shall be loved again!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">No one is so accursed by fate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No one so utterly desolate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">But some heart, though unknown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Responds unto his own.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Responds—as if with unseen wings</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">An angel touched its quivering strings;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And whispers, in its song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Where hast thou stayed so long?”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="GODS_ACRE">GOD’S-ACRE.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The burial-ground God’s-Acre! It is just;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It consecrates each grave within its walls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And breathes a benison o’er the sleeping dust.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">God’s-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Comfort to those who in the grave have sown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The seed, that they had garnered in their hearts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Their bread of life—alas! no more their own.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into its furrows shall we all be cast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the sure faith that we shall rise again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At the great harvest, when the archangel’s blast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the fair gardens of that second birth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And each bright blossom mingle its perfume</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With that of flowers, which never bloomed on earth.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">With thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And spread the furrow for the seed we sow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This is the field and Acre of our God,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">This is the place where human harvests grow.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="CHARLES">TO THE RIVER CHARLES.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">River! that in silence windest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through the meadows bright and free,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till at length thy rest thou findest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the bosom of the sea!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Four long years of mingled feeling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Half in rest, and half in strife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have seen thy waters stealing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Onward, like the stream of life.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast taught me, Silent River!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Many a lesson, deep and long;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast been a generous giver;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I can give thee but a song.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Oft in sadness and in illness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I have watched thy current glide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till the beauty of its stillness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Overflowed me, like a tide.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in better hours and brighter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When I saw thy waters gleam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have felt my heart beat lighter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And leap onward with thy stream.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not for this alone I love thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Nor because thy waves of blue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From celestial seas above thee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Take their own celestial hue.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where yon shadowy woodlands hide thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And thy waters disappear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Friends I love have dwelt beside thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And have made thy margin dear.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">More than this;—thy name reminds me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of three friends, all true and tried;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And that name, like magic, binds me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Closer, closer to thy side.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Friends my soul with joy remembers!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">How like quivering flames they start,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When I fan the living embers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On the hearthstone of my heart!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Tis for this, thou Silent River!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That my spirit leans to thee;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast been a generous giver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Take this idle song from me.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="BARTIMEUS">BLIND BARTIMEUS.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blind Bartimeus at the gates</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Jericho in darkness waits;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He hears the crowd;—he hears a breath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Say, “It is Christ of Nazareth!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And calls in tones of agony,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><b>Ἰηδοῦ, ἐλέηδόν υε!</b></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The thronging multitudes increase;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blind Bartimeus, hold thy peace!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But still, above the noisy crowd,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The beggar’s cry is shrill and loud;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Until they say, “He calleth thee!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><b>Θάξσει, ἔλξιζαι, φωνεἶ σε!</b></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then saith the Christ, as silent stands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The crowd, “What wilt thou at my hands?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he replies, “O give me light!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rabbi, restore the blind man’s sight!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Jesus answers, “<b>Υπαγε</b></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><b>Ἠ πίστις σον σέσωκέ σε!</b>”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye that have eyes, yet cannot see,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In darkness and in misery,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Recall those mighty Voices Three,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><b>Ἰηδοῦ, ἐλέηδόν υε!</b></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><b>Θάξσει, ἔλξιζαι, Υπαγε!</b></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><b>Ἠ πίστις σον σέσωκέ σε!</b>”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="GOBLET">THE GOBLET OF LIFE.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Filled is Life’s goblet to the brim;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And though my eyes with tears are dim,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see its sparkling bubbles swim,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And chant a melancholy hymn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">With solemn voice and slow.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">No purple flowers,—no garlands green,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Conceal the goblet’s shade or sheen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like gleams of sunshine, flash between</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Thick leaves of mistletoe.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">This goblet, wrought with curious art,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is filled with waters, that upstart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When the deep fountains of the heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By strong convulsions rent apart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Are running all to waste.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And as it mantling passes round,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With fennel is it wreathed and crowned,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose seed and foliage sun-imbrowned</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are in its waters steeped and drowned,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And give a bitter taste.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Above the lowly plants it towers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fennel, with its yellow flowers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in an earlier age than ours</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was gifted with the wondrous powers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Lost vision to restore.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It gave new strength, and fearless mood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And gladiators, fierce and rude,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mingled it in their daily food;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he who battled and subdued,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">A wreath of fennel wore.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then in Life’s goblet freely press</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The leaves that give it bitterness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor prize the coloured waters less,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For in thy darkness and distress</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">New light and strength they give!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he who has not learned to know</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How false its sparkling bubbles show,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How bitter are the drops of woe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With which its brim may overflow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">He has not learned to live.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The prayer of Ajax was for light;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through all that dark and desperate fight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The blackness of that noonday night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He asked but the return of sight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To see his foeman’s face.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let our unceasing, earnest prayer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Be, too, for light,—for strength to bear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our portion of the weight of care,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That crushes into dumb despair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">One half the human race.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O suffering, sad humanity!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O ye afflicted ones who lie</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Steeped to the lips in misery,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Longing, and yet afraid to die,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Patient, though sorely tried!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I pledge you in this cup of grief,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where floats the fennel’s bitter leaf,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Battle of our Life is brief,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The alarm,—the struggle,—the relief,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Then sleep we side by side.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="SEA_DIVER">THE SEA-DIVER.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">My way is on the bright blue sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">My sleep upon the rocky tide;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And many an eye has followed me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where billows clasp the worn sea-side.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">My plumage bears the crimson blush,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When ocean by the sun is kissed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When fades the evening’s purple flush,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">My dark wing cleaves the silver mist.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Full many a fathom down beneath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The bright arch of the splendid deep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My ear has heard the sea-shell breathe</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O’er living myriads in their sleep.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They rested by the coral throne,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And by the pearly diadem,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the pale sea-grape had overgrown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The glorious dwelling made for them.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">At night, upon my storm-drenched wing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I poised above a helmless bark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And soon I saw the shattered thing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Had passed away and left no mark.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when the wind and storm had done,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A ship, that had rode out the gale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sunk down without a signal-gun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And none was left to tell the tale.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I saw the pomp of day depart—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The cloud resign its golden crown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When to the ocean’s beating heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The sailor’s wasted corse went down.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Peace be to those whose graves are made</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beneath the bright and silver sea!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Peace that their relics there were laid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With no vain pride and pageantry.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span></p>
+
+<h3>THE BELFRY OF BRUGES.</h3>
+
+<p class="f90"><span class="smcap">Carillon.</span>&emsp;1845.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the ancient town of Bruges,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the quaint old Flemish city,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the evening shades descended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Low and loud and sweetly blended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Low at times and loud at times,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And changing like a poet’s rhymes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rang the beautiful wild chimes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the Belfry in the market</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the ancient town of Bruges.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then, with deep sonorous clangour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Calmly answering their sweet anger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When the wrangling bells had ended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Slowly struck the clock eleven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, from out the silent heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Silence on the town descended.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Silence, silence everywhere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the earth and in the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Save that footsteps here and there</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of some burgher home returning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the street lamps faintly burning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For a moment woke the echoes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the ancient town of Bruges.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But amid my broken slumbers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still I heard those magic numbers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As they loud proclaimed the flight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And stolen marches of the night;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till their chimes in sweet collision</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mingled with each wandering vision,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mingled with the fortune-telling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gipsy-bands of dreams and fancies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which amid the waste expanses</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the silent land of trances</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have their solitary dwelling.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All else seemed asleep in Bruges,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the quaint old Flemish city.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I thought how like these chimes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are the poet’s airy rhymes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All his rhymes and roundelays,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His conceits, and songs, and ditties,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the belfry of his brain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Scattered downward, though in vain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the roofs and stones of cities!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For by night the drowsy ear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under its curtains cannot hear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And by day men go their ways,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hearing the music as they pass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But deeming it no more, alas!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than the hollow sound of brass.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet perchance a sleepless wight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lodging at some humble inn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the narrow lanes of life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When the dusk and hush of night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shut out the incessant din</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of daylight and its toil and strife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">May listen with a calm delight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the poet’s melodies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till he hears, or dreams he hears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Intermingled with the song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thoughts that he has cherished long;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hears amid the chime and singing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The bells of his own village ringing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And wakes, and finds his slumberous eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wet with most delicious tears.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus dreamed I, as by night I lay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In Bruges, at the Fleur-de-Blé,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Listening with a wild delight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the chimes that, through the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rang their changes from the Belfry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of that quaint old Flemish city.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent20"><span class="smcap">The Belfry of Bruges.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o’er the town.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapours grey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghost-like, into air.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With their strange, unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the Foresters of Flanders,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_2_2" href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>—mighty
+ Baldwin Bras de Fer,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_3_3" href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lyderick du Bucq&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_4_4" href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>
+ and Cressy, Philip, Guy de Dampierre.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_5_5" href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I beheld the pageants splendid, that adorned those days of old;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of Gold;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and ease.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I beheld proud Maximilian,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_6_6" href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>
+ kneeling humbly on the ground;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I beheld the gentle Mary,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_7_7" href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>
+ hunting with her hawk and hound;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And her lighted bridal chamber, where a duke slept with the queen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the armèd guard around them, and the sword unsheathed
+ between.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_8_8" href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Marching homeward from the bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold;&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_9_9" href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saw the fight at Minnewater,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_10_10" href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a>
+ saw the White Hoods moving West,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon’s
+ nest;&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_11_11" href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin’s throat;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till the bell of Ghent responded o’er lagoon and dike of sand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I am Roland! I am Roland!&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_12_12" href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>
+ there is victory in the land!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then the sound of drums aroused me. The awakened city’s roar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Chased the phantoms I had summoned back into their graves once more.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hours had passed away like minutes; and, before I was aware,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lo! the shadow of the belfry crossed the sun-illumined square.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="MAIDEN">MAIDENHOOD.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Maiden! with the meek, brown eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In whose orbs a shadow lies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the dusk in evening skies!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou whose locks outshine the sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Golden tresses, wreathed in one,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the braided streamlets run!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Standing, with reluctant feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the brook and river meet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Womanhood and childhood fleet!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gazing, with a timid glance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the brooklet’s swift advance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the river’s broad expanse!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Deep and still, that gliding stream</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beautiful to thee must seem,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the river of a dream.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then why pause with indecision,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When bright angels in thy vision</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beckon thee to fields Elysian?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seest thou shadows sailing by,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the dove, with startled eye,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sees the falcon’s shadow fly?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hearest thou voices on the shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That our ears perceive no more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Deafened by the cataract’s roar?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O thou child of many prayers!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Life hath quicksands,—Life hath snares!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Care and age come unawares!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the swell of some sweet tune,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Morning rises into noon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">May glides onward into June.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Childhood is the bough, where slumbered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Birds and blossoms many-numbered;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Age, that bough with snows encumbered.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gather, then, each flower that grows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When the young heart overflows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To embalm that tent of snows.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bear a lily in thy hand;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gates of brass cannot withstand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One touch of that magic wand.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In thy heart the dew of youth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On thy lips the smile of truth.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O, that dew, like balm, shall steal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into wounds, that cannot heal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even as sleep our eyes doth seal;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And that smile, like sunshine, dart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into many a sunless heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For a smile of God thou art.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span></p>
+
+
+<h3>THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Startles the villages with strange alarms.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When the death-angel touches those swift keys!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What loud lament and dismal Miserere</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Will mingle with their awful symphonies!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The cries of agony, the endless groan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which, through the ages that have gone before us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In long reverberations reach our own.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman’s song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And loud, amid the universal clamour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O’er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I hear the Florentine, who from his palace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Aztec priests upon their teocallis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent’s skin;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The tumult of each sacked and burning village;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The soldier’s revels in the midst of pillage;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The wail of famine in beleaguered towns;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The rattling musketry, the clashing blade;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And ever and anon, in tones of thunder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The diapason of the cannonade.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is it, O man, with such discordant noises,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With such accursèd instruments as these,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou drownest Nature’s sweet and kindly voices,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And jarrest the celestial harmonies?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were half the power that fills the world with terror,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Given to redeem the human mind from error,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">There were no need of arsenals nor forts:</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The warrior’s name would be a name abhorrèd!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And every nation that should lift again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its hand against a brother, on its forehead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Would wear for evermore the curse of Cain!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down the dark future, through long generations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The echoing sounds grow fainter, and then cease;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I hear once more the voice of Christ say, “Peace!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The blast of War’s great organ shakes the skies!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But beautiful as songs of the immortals,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The holy melodies of love arise.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="SUNSHINE">A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">This is the place. Stand still, my steed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Let me review the scene,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And summon from the shadowy Past</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The forms that once have been.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Past and Present here unite</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beneath Time’s flowing tide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like footprints hidden by a brook,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But seen on either side.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here runs the highway to the town;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">There the green lane descends,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through which I walked to church with thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O gentlest of my friends!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The shadow of the linden-trees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Lay moving on the grass;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Between them and the moving boughs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A shadow, thou didst pass.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy dress was like the lilies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And thy heart as pure as they:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One of God’s holy messengers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Did walk with me that day.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I saw the branches of the trees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Bend down thy touch to meet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The clover-blossoms in the grass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Rise up to kiss thy feet.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of earth and folly born!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Solemnly sang the village choir</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On that sweet Sabbath morn.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the closed blinds the golden sun</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Poured in a dusty beam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the celestial ladder seen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By Jacob in his dream.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And ever and anon the wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sweet-scented with the hay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Turned o’er the hymn-book’s fluttering leaves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That on the window lay.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Long was the good man’s sermon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Yet it seemed not so to me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For he spake of Ruth the beautiful,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And still I thought of thee.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Long was the prayer he uttered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Yet it seemed not so to me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For in my heart I prayed with him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And still I thought of thee.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But now, alas! the place seems changed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thou art no longer here:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Part of the sunshine of the scene</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With thee did disappear.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though thoughts, deep-rooted in my heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like pine-trees, dark and high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Subdue the light of noon, and breathe</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A low and ceaseless sigh;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">This memory brightens o’er the past,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As when the sun, concealed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Behind some cloud that near us hangs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Shines on a distant field.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span></p>
+
+<h3>NUREMBERG.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-lands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg the ancient stands.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them throng:</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Memories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors, rough and bold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">rhyme,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That their great imperial city stretched its hand through every
+ clime.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_13_13" href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stands the mighty linden planted by Queen Cunigunde’s hand;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sat the poet Melchior&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_14_14" href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>
+ singing Kaiser Maximilian’s praise.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of Art:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common mart;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And above cathedral doorways saints and bishops carved in stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy
+ dust,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_15_15" href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here, when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lived and laboured Albrecht Dürer, the Evangelist of Art;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Emigravit</i> is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dead he is not,—but departed,—for the artist never dies.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal lanes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Walked of yore the Master-singers, chanting rude poetic strains.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From remote and sunless suburbs, came they to the friendly guild,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Building nests in Fame’s great temple, as in spouts the swallows build.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil’s chime;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the forge’s dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here Hans Sachs,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_16_16" href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a>
+ the cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sang and laughed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But his house is now an alehouse, with a nicely sanded floor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a garland in the window, and his face above the door;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Puschman’s song,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_17_17" href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As “the old man grey and dove-like,” with his great beard white and long.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Quaffing ale from pewter tankards, in the master’s antique chair.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Vanished is the ancient splendour, and before my dreamy eye</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wave these mingling shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world’s regard;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But thy painter, Albrecht Dürer, and Hans Sachs, thy cobbler-bard.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region far away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his careless lay:</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gathering from the pavement’s crevice, as a floweret of the soil,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The nobility of labour,—the long pedigree of toil.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span></p>
+
+<h3>THE INDIAN HUNTER.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">When the summer harvest was gathered in,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the sheaf of the gleaner grew white and thin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the ploughshare was in its furrow left,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the stubble land had been lately cleft,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">An Indian hunter, with unstrung bow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Looked down where the valley lay stretched below.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He was a stranger there, and that day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had been out on the hills, a perilous way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the foot of the deer was far and fleet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the wolf kept aloof from the hunter’s feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And bitter feelings passed o’er him then,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As he stood by the populous haunts of men.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The winds of autumn came over the woods,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the sun stole out from their solitudes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The moss was white on the maple’s trunk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And dead from its arms the pale vine shrunk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And ripened the mellow fruit hung, and red</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the trees’ withered leaves around it shed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The foot of the reaper moved slow on the lawn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the sickle cut down the yellow corn;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The mower sang loud by the meadow side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the mists of evening were spreading wide;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the voice of the herdsman came up the lea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the dance went round by the greenwood tree.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then the hunter turned away from that scene,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the home of his fathers once had been,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And heard, by the distant and measured stroke,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That the woodman hewed down the giant oak—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And burning thoughts flashed over his mind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the white man’s faith, and love unkind.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The moon of the harvest grew high and bright,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As her golden horn pierced the cloud of white,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A footstep was heard in the rustling brake,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the beech overshadowed the misty lake,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A mourning voice, and a plunge from shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the hunter was seen on the hills no more.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">When years had passed on, by that still lake side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fisher looked down through the silver tide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And there, on the smooth yellow sand displayed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A skeleton wasted and white was laid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And ’twas seen, as the waters moved deep and slow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That the hand was still grasping a hunter’s bow.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span></p>
+
+<h3>THE NORMAN BARON.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p lang="fr" class="fs_90"> [Dans les moments de la vie où la réflexion
+devient plus calme et plus profonde, où l’intérêt et l’avarice parlent
+moins haut que la raison, dans les instants de chagrin domestique, de
+maladie, et de péril de mort, les nobles se repentirent de posséder des
+serfs, comme d’une chose peu agréable à Dieu, qui avait créé tous les
+hommes à son image.]</p>
+
+<p class="author"><span class="smcap">Thierry</span>, <i>Conquête de l’Angleterre</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In his chamber, weak and dying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was the Norman baron lying;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Loud, without, the tempest thundered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the castle-turret shook.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In this fight was Death the gainer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spite of vassal and retainer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the lands his sires had plundered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Written in the Doomsday Book.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">By his bed a monk was seated,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who in a humble voice repeated</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Many a prayer and pater-noster,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">From the missal on his knee;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, amid the tempest pealing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sounds of bells came faintly stealing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bells that, from the neighbouring kloster,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Rang for the Nativity.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the hall, the serf and vassal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Held, that night, their Christmas wassail;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Many a carol, old and saintly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Sang the minstrels and the waits.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And so loud these Saxon gleemen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sang to slaves the songs of freemen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That the storm was heard but faintly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Knocking at the castle-gates.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till at length the lays they chanted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Reached the chamber terror-haunted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the monk, with accents holy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Whispered at the baron’s ear.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tears upon his eyelids glistened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As he paused awhile and listened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the dying baron slowly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Turned his weary head to hear.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Wassail for the kingly stranger</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Born and cradled in a manger!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">King, like David, priest, like Aaron,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Christ is born to set us free!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the lightning showed the sainted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Figures on the casement painted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And exclaimed the shuddering baron,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">“Miserere, Domine!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In that hour of deep contrition,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He beheld, with clearer vision,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through all outward show and fashion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Justice, the Avenger, rise.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the pomp of earth had vanished,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Falsehood and deceit were banished,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Reason spake more loud than passion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the truth wore no disguise.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Every vassal of his banner,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Every serf born to his manor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All those wronged and wretched creatures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">By his hand were freed again.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, as on the sacred missal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He recorded their dismissal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Death relaxed his iron features,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the monk replied, “Amen!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Many centuries have been numbered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Since in death the baron slumbered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the convent’s sculptured portal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Mingling with the common dust:</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the good deed, through the ages</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Living in historic pages,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Brighter grows and gleams immortal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Unconsumed by moth or rust.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span></p>
+
+<h3>TO A CHILD.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dear child! how radiant on thy mother’s knee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou gazest at the painted tiles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose figures grace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With many a grotesque form and face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The ancient chimney of thy nursery!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The lady with the gay macaw,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The dancing girl, the brave bashaw</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With bearded lip and chin;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, leaning idly o’er his gate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath the imperial fan of state,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Chinese mandarin.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">With what a look of proud command</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou shakest in thy little hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The coral rattle with its silver bells,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Making a merry tune!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thousands of years in Indian seas</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That coral grew, by slow degrees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Until some deadly and wild monsoon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dashed it on Coromandel’s sand!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Those silver bells</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Reposed of yore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As shapeless ore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Far down in the deep sunken wells</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of darksome mines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In some obscure and sunless place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath huge Chimborazo’s base,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or Potosí’s o’erhanging pines!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thus for thee, O little child,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through many a danger and escape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The tall ships passed the stormy cape;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For thee in foreign lands remote,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath the burning, tropic clime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Indian peasant, chasing the wild goat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Himself as swift and wild,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In falling, clutched the frail arbute,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fibres of whose shallow root,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Uplifted from the soil, betrayed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The silver veins beneath it laid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The buried treasures of the miser, Time.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But, lo! thy door is left ajar!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou hearest footsteps from afar!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, at the sound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou turnest round</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With quick and questioning eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like one who, in a foreign land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beholds on every hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some source of wonder and surprise!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, restlessly, impatiently,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou strivest, strugglest, to be free.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The four walls of thy nursery</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are now like prison walls to thee.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No more thy mother’s smiles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No more the painted tiles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Delight thee, nor the playthings on the floor</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That won thy little, beating heart before;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou strugglest for the open door.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through these once solitary halls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy pattering footstep falls.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sound of thy merry voice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Makes the old walls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Jubilant, and they rejoice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the joy of thy young heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er the light of whose gladness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No shadows of sadness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the sombre background of memory start.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Once, ah, once, within these walls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One whom memory oft recalls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Father of his Country, dwelt.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And yonder meadows broad and damp</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fires of the besieging camp</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Encircled with a burning belt.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Up and down these echoing stairs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Heavy with the weight of cares,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sounded his majestic tread;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yes, within this very room</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sat he in those hours of gloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Weary both in heart and head.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But what are these grave thoughts to thee?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out, out! into the open air!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy only dream is liberty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou carest little how or where.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see thee eager at thy play,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now shouting to the apples on the tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With cheeks as round and red as they;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now among the yellow stalks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Among the flowering shrubs and plants,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As restless as the bee.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Along the garden walks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The tracks of thy small carriage-wheels I trace;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And see at every turn how they efface</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whole villages of sand-roofed tents,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That rise like golden domes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Above the cavernous and secret homes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of wandering and nomadic tribes of ants.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah, cruel little Tamerlane,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who, with thy dreadful reign,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dost persecute and overwhelm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">These hapless Troglodytes of thy realm!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What! tired already! with those suppliant looks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And voice more beautiful than a poet’s books,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or murmuring sound of water as it flows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou comest back to parley with repose!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This rustic seat in the old apple-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With its o’erhanging golden canopy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of leaves illuminate with autumnal hues,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And shining with the argent light of dews,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall for a season be our place of rest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath us, like an oriole’s pendent nest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From which the laughing birds have taken wing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By thee abandoned, hangs thy vacant swing.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dreamlike the waters of the river gleam;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A sailless vessel drops adown the stream,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And like it, to a sea as wide and deep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou driftest gently down the tides of sleep.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O child! O new-born denizen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of life’s great city! on thy head</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The glory of the morn is shed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a celestial benison!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here at the portal thou dost stand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And with thy little hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou openest the mysterious gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the future’s undiscovered land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see its valves expand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As at the touch of Fate!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into those realms of love and hate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into that darkness blank and drear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By some prophetic feeling taught,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I launch the bold, adventurous thought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Freighted with hope and fear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As upon subterranean streams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In caverns unexplored and dark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Men sometimes launch a fragile bark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Laden with flickering fire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And watch its swift-receding beams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Until at length they disappear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in the distant dark expire.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">By what astrology of fear or hope</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dare I to cast thy horoscope!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the new moon thy life appears;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A little strip of silver light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And widening outward into night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The shadowy disk of future years;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And yet upon its outer rim,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A luminous circle, faint and dim,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And scarcely visible to us here,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rounds and completes the perfect sphere;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A prophecy and intimation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A pale and feeble adumbration,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the great world of light, that lies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Behind all human destinies.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! if thy fate, with anguish fraught,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Should be to wet the dusty soil</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the hot tears and sweat of toil,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To struggle with imperious thought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Until the overburdened brain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Weary with labour, faint with pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a jarred pendulum, retain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only its motion, not its power,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Remember, in that perilous hour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When most afflicted and oppressed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From labour there shall come forth rest.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And if a more auspicious fate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On thy advancing steps await,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still let it ever be thy pride</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To linger by the labourer’s side;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With words of sympathy or song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To cheer the dreary march along</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the great army of the poor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er desert sand, o’er dangerous moor.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor to thyself the task shall be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Without reward; for thou shalt learn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wisdom early to discern</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">True beauty in utility;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As great Pythagoras of yore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Standing beside the blacksmith’s door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And hearing the hammers, as they smote</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The anvils with a different note,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stole from the varying tones, that hung</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Vibrant on every iron tongue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The secret of the sounding wire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And formed the seven-chorded lyre.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Enough! I will not play the Seer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will no longer strive to ope</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The mystic volume, where appear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The herald Hope, forerunning Fear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Fear, the pursuivant of Hope.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy destiny remains untold;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For, like Acestes’ shaft of old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The swift thought kindles as it flies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And burns to ashes in the skies.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="ORION">THE OCCULTATION OF ORION.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">I saw, as in a dream sublime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The balance in the hand of Time.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er East and West its beam impended;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And day, with all its hours of light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was slowly sinking out of sight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While, opposite, the scale of night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silently with the stars ascended.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the astrologers of eld,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In that bright vision I beheld</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Greater and deeper mysteries.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I saw, with its celestial keys,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Its chords of air, its frets of fire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Samian’s great Æolian lyre,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rising through all its sevenfold bars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From earth unto the fixèd stars.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And through the dewy atmosphere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not only could I see, but hear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Its wondrous and harmonious strings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Its sweet vibration, sphere by sphere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From Dian’s circle light and near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Onward to vaster and wider rings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where, chanting through his beard of snows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Majestic, mournful, Saturn goes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And down the sunless realms of space</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Reverberates the thunder of his bass.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beneath the sky’s triumphal arch</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This music sounded like a march,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with its chorus seemed to be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Preluding some great tragedy.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sirius was rising in the east;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, slow ascending one by one,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The kindling constellations shone.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Begirt with many a blazing star,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood the great giant Algebar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Orion, hunter of the beast!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His sword hung gleaming by his side.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, on his arm, the lion’s hide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Scattered across the midnight air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The golden radiance of its hair.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The moon was pallid, but not faint,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And beautiful as some fair saint,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Serenely moving on her way</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In hours of trial and dismay.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if she heard the voice of God,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unharmed with naked feet she trod</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Upon the hot and burning stars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As on the glowing coals and bars</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That were to prove her strength, and try</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her holiness and her purity.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus moving on, with silent pace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And triumph in her sweet, pale face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She reached the station of Orion.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Aghast he stood in strange alarm!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And suddenly from his outstretched arm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down fell the red skin of the lion</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the river at his feet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His mighty club no longer beat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The forehead of the bull; but he</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Reeled as of yore beside the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When, blinded by Œnopion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He sought the blacksmith at his forge,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, climbing up the mountain gorge,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fixed his blank eyes upon the sun.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, through the silence overhead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">An angel with a trumpet said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“For evermore, for evermore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The reign of violence is o’er!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And like an instrument that flings</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Its music on another’s strings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The trumpet of the angel cast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Upon the heavenly lyre its blast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And on from sphere to sphere the words</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Re-echoed down the burning chords,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“For evermore, for evermore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The reign of violence is o’er!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span></p>
+
+<h3>RAIN IN SUMMER.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How beautiful is the rain!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">After the dust and heat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the broad and fiery street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the narrow lane,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How beautiful is the rain!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How it clatters along the roofs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the tramp of hoofs!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How it gushes and struggles out</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the throat of the overflowing spout!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Across the window pane</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It pours and pours;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And swift and wide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a muddy tide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a river down the gutter roars</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rain, the welcome rain!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sick man from his chamber looks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At the twisted brooks;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He can feel the cool</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Breath of each little pool;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His fevered brain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Grows calm again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he breathes a blessing on the rain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the neighbouring school</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come the boys,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With more than their wonted noise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And commotion;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And down the wet streets</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sail their mimic fleets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till the treacherous pool</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Engulfs them in its whirling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And turbulent ocean.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the country, on every side</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where far and wide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a leopard’s tawny and spotted hide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stretches the plain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the dry grass and the drier grain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How welcome is the rain!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the furrowed land</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The toilsome and patient oxen stand;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lifting the yoke-encumbered head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With their dilated nostrils spread,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They silently inhale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The clover-scented gale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the vapours that arise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the well-watered and smoking soil.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For this rest in the furrow after toil</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their large and lustrous eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seem to thank the Lord,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">More than man’s spoken word.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Near at hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From under the sheltering trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The farmer sees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His pastures, and his fields of grain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As they bend their tops</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the numberless beating drops</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the incessant rain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He counts it as no sin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That he sees therein</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only his own thrift and gain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">These, and far more than these,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Poet sees!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He can behold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Aquarius old</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Walking the fenceless fields of air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And from each ample fold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the clouds about him rolled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Scattering everywhere</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The showery rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the farmer scatters his grain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He can behold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Things manifold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That have not yet been wholly told,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have not been wholly sung or said.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For his thought, that never stops,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Follows the water-drops</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down to the graves of the dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down through chasms and gulfs profound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the dreary fountain-head</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of lakes and rivers underground;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sees them, when the rain is done,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the bridge of colours seven</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Climbing up once more to heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Opposite the setting sun.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus the Seer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With vision clear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sees forms appear and disappear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the perpetual round of strange,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mysterious change</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From birth to death, from death to birth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till glimpses more sublime</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of things, unseen before,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unto his wondering eyes reveal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Universe, as an immeasurable wheel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Turning for evermore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the rapid and rushing river of Time.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="BRIDGE">THE BRIDGE.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I stood on the bridge at midnight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As the clocks were striking the hour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the moon rose o’er the city,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Behind the dark church-tower.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I saw her bright reflection</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the waters under me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a golden goblet falling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And sinking into the sea.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And far in the hazy distance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of that lovely night in June,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The blaze of the flaming furnace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Gleamed redder than the moon.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Among the long, black rafters</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The wavering shadows lay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the current that came from the ocean</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Seemed to lift and bear them away;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As, sweeping and eddying through them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Rose the belated tide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, streaming into the moonlight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The sea-weed floated wide.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And like those waters rushing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Among the wooden piers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A flood of thoughts came o’er me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That filled my eyes with tears.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How often, oh, how often,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the days that had gone by,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I had stood on that bridge at midnight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And gazed on that wave and sky!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How often, oh, how often,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I had wished that the ebbing tide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Would bear me away on its bosom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O’er the ocean wild and wide!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For my heart was hot and restless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And my life was full of care,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the burden laid upon me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Seemed greater than I could bear.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But now it has fallen from me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">It is buried in the sea;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And only the sorrow of others</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Throws its shadow over me.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet whenever I cross the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On its bridge with wooden piers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the odour of brine from the ocean</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Comes the thought of other years.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I think how many thousands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of care-encumbered men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each bearing his burden of sorrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Have crossed the bridge since then!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see the long procession</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Still passing to and fro,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The young heart hot and restless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the old subdued and slow.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And for ever and for ever,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As long as the river flows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As long as the heart has passions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As long as life has woes;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The moon and its broken reflection</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And its shadows shall appear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the symbol of love in heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And its wavering image here.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span></p>
+
+<h3>EXCELSIOR.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The shades of night were falling fast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As through an Alpine village passed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A youth, who bore, ’mid snow and ice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A banner, with the strange device,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent13">Excelsior!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">His brow was sad; his eye beneath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And like a silver clarion rung</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The accents of that unknown tongue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent13">Excelsior!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In happy homes he saw the light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of household fires gleam warm and bright;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Above, the spectral glaciers shone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And from his lips escaped a groan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent13">Excelsior!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Try not the Pass!” the old man said;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Dark lowers the tempest overhead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The roaring torrent is deep and wide!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And loud that clarion voice replied,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent13">Excelsior!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O stay,” the maiden said, “and rest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thy weary head upon this breast!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A tear stood in his bright blue eye,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But still he answered, with a sigh,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent13">Excelsior!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Beware the pine-tree’s withered branch!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beware the awful avalanche!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This was the peasant’s last Good-night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A voice replied, far up the height,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent13">Excelsior!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">At break of day, as heavenward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The pious monks of Saint Bernard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A voice cried through the startled air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent13">Excelsior!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">A traveller, by the faithful hound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Half-buried in the snow was found,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still grasping in his hand of ice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That banner with the strange device,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent13">Excelsior!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">There in the twilight cold and grey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And from the sky, serene and far,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A voice fell, like a falling star,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent13">Excelsior!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span></p>
+
+<h3>TO THE DRIVING CLOUD.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gloomy and dark art thou, O chief of the mighty Omahas;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gloomy and dark, as the driving cloud, whose name thou hast taken!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wrapt in thy scarlet blanket, I see thee stalk through the city’s</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Narrow and populous streets, as once by the margin of rivers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stalked those birds unknown, that have left us only their footprints.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What, in a few short years, will remain of thy race but the footprints?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How canst thou walk these streets, who hast trod the green turf of the prairies?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How canst thou breathe this air, who hast breathed the sweet air of the mountains?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! ’tis in vain that with lordly looks of disdain thou dost challenge</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Looks of disdain in return, and question these walls and these pavements,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Claiming the soil for thy hunting-grounds, while down-trodden millions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Starve in the garrets of Europe, and cry from its caverns that they, too,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have been created heirs of the earth, and claim its division!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Back, then, back to thy woods in the regions west of the Wabash!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There as a monarch thou reignest. In autumn the leaves of the maple</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pave the floors of thy palace-halls with gold, and in summer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pine-trees waft through its chambers the odorous breath of their branches.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There thou art strong and great, a hero, a tamer of horses!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There thou chasest the stately stag on the banks of the Elk-horn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or by the roar of the Running-Water, or where the Omawhaw</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Calls thee, and leaps through the wild ravine like a brave of the Blackfeet!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hark! what murmurs arise from the heart of those mountainous deserts?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is it the cry of the Foxes and Crows, or the mighty Behemoth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who, unharmed, on his tusks once caught the bolts of the thunder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now lurks in his lair to destroy the race of the red man?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the Crows and the Foxes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the tread of Behemoth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lo! the big thunder-canoe, that steadily breasts the Missouri’s</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Merciless current! and yonder, afar on the prairies, the camp-fires</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gleam through the night; and the cloud of dust in the grey of the daybreak</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Marks not the buffalo’s track, nor the Mandan’s dexterous horse-race;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is a caravan, whitening the desert where dwell the Camanches!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ha! how the breath of these Saxons and Celts, like the blast of the east-wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Drifts evermore to the west the scanty smokes of thy wigwams!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span></p>
+
+<h3>CURFEW.&emsp;&nbsp;</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">I.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Solemnly, mournfully,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Dealing its dole,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Curfew Bell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is beginning to toll.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Cover the embers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And put out the light;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Toil comes with the morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And rest with the night.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dark grow the windows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And quenched is the fire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sound fades into silence,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All footsteps retire.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">No voice in the chambers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">No sound in the hall!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sleep and oblivion</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Reign over all.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">II.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The book is completed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And closed, like the day;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the hand that has written it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Lays it away.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dim grow its fancies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Forgotten they lie;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like coals in the ashes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They darken and die.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Song sinks into silence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The story is told,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The windows are darkened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The hearthstone is cold.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Darker and darker</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The black shadows fall;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sleep and oblivion</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Reign over all.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" ><i>Songs.</i></h2>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<h3>TO AN OLD DANISH SONG-BOOK.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Welcome, my old friend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Welcome to a foreign fireside,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While the sullen gales of autumn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shake the windows.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The ungrateful world</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Since, beneath the skies of Denmark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">First I met thee.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There are marks of age,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There are thumb-marks on thy margin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Made by hands that clasped thee rudely</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At the alehouse.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Soiled and dull thou art;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yellow are thy time-worn pages,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the russet, rain-molested</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Leaves of autumn.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou art stained with wine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Scattered from hilarious goblets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the leaves with the libations</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Olympus.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet dost thou recall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Days departed, half-forgotten,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When in dreamy youth I wandered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the Baltic,—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">When I paused to hear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The old ballad of King Christian</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shouted from suburban taverns</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the twilight.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou recallest bards,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who, in solitary chambers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And with hearts by passion wasted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wrote thy pages.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou recallest homes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where thy songs of love and friendship</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Made the gloomy Northern winter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bright as summer.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Once some ancient Scald,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In his bleak, ancestral Iceland,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Chanted staves of these old ballads</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the Vikings.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Once in Elsinore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At the court of old King Hamlet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yorick and his boon companions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sang these ditties.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Once Prince Frederick’s Guard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sang them in their smoky barracks;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Suddenly the English cannon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Joined the chorus!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Peasants in the field,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sailors on the roaring ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All have sung them.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast been their friend;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They, alas, have left thee friendless;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet at least by one warm fireside</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Art thou welcome.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, as swallows build</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So thy twittering songs shall nestle</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In my bosom,—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Quiet, close, and warm,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sheltered from all molestation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And recalling by their voices</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Youth and travel.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span></p>
+
+<h3>THE ARROW AND THE SONG.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I shot an arrow into the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It fell to earth, I knew not where;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For, so swiftly it flew, the sight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Could not follow it in its flight.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I breathed a song into the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It fell to earth, I knew not where;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For who has sight so keen and strong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That it can follow the flight of song?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Long, long afterward, in an oak</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I found the arrow, still unbroke;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the song, from beginning to end,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I found again in the heart of a friend.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="VOGELWEID">WALTER VON DER VOGELWEID.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_18_18" href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Vogelweid the Minnesinger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When he left this world of ours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Laid his body in the cloister,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Under Würtzburg’s minster towers.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he gave the monks his treasures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Gave them all with this behest:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They should feed the birds at noontide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Daily on his place of rest;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saying, “From these wandering minstrels</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I have learned the art of song;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let me now repay the lessons</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They have taught so well and long.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus the bard of love departed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And, fulfilling his desire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On his tomb the birds were feasted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By the children of the choir.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Day by day, o’er tower and turret,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In foul weather and in fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Day by day, in vaster numbers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Flocked the poets of the air.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the tree whose heavy branches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Overshadowed all the place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the pavement, on the tombstone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On the poet’s sculptured face,</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the cross-bars of each window,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On the lintel of each door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They renewed the War of Wartburg,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Which the bard had fought before.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There they sang their merry carols,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang their lauds on every side;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the name their voices uttered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Was the name of Vogelweid.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till at length the portly abbot</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Murmured, “Why this waste of food?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Be it changed to loaves henceforward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For our fasting brotherhood.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then in vain o’er tower and turret,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From the walls and woodland nests,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When the minster bell rang noontide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Gathered the unwelcome guests.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then in vain, with cries discordant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Clamorous round the Gothic spire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Screamed the feathered Minnesingers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For the children of the choir.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Time has long effaced the inscriptions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On the cloister’s funeral stones,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And tradition only tells us</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where repose the poet’s bones.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But around the vast cathedral,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By sweet echoes multiplied,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still the birds repeat the legend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the name of Vogelweid.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span></p>
+
+<h3>THE DAY IS DONE.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The day is done, and the darkness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Falls from the wings of Night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a feather is wafted downward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From an eagle in his flight.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see the lights of the village</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Gleam through the rain and the mist,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That my soul cannot resist:</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A feeling of sadness and longing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That is not akin to pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And resembles sorrow only</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As the mist resembles the rain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come, read to me some poem,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Some simple and heartfelt lay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That shall soothe this restless feeling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And banish the thoughts of day.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not from the grand old masters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Not from the bards sublime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose distant footsteps echo</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through the corridors of Time.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For, like strains of martial music,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Their mighty thoughts suggest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Life’s endless toil and endeavour;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And to-night I long for rest.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Read from some humbler poet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Whose songs gushed from his heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As showers from the clouds of summer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Or tears from the eyelids start;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who, through long days of labour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And nights devoid of ease,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still heard in his soul the music</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of wonderful melodies.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such songs have power to quiet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The restless pulse of care,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And come like the benediction</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That follows after prayer.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then read from the treasured volume</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The poem of thy choice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And lend to the rhyme of the poet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The beauty of thy voice.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the night shall be filled with music,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the cares that infest the day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And as silently steal away.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="SEAWEED">SEA-WEED.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">When descends on the Atlantic</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The gigantic</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Storm-wind of the equinox,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Landward in his wrath he scourges</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The toiling surges,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Laden with sea-weed from the rocks:</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From Bermuda’s reefs; from edges</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of sunken ledges,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In some far-off, bright Azore;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From Bahama, and the dashing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Silver-flashing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Surges of San Salvador;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the tumbling surf, that buries</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The Orkneyan skerries,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Answering the hoarse Hebrides;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And from wrecks of ships, and drifting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Spars, uplifting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the desolate, rainy seas;—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ever drifting, drifting, drifting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">On the shifting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Currents of the restless main;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till in sheltered coves, and reaches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of sandy beaches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All have found repose again.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span></div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So when storms of wild emotion</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Strike the ocean</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the poet’s soul, ere long</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From each cave and rocky fastness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">In its vastness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Floats some fragment of a song:</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the far-off isles enchanted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Heaven has planted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the golden fruit of Truth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the flashing surf, whose vision</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Gleams Elysian</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the tropic clime of Youth;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the strong Will and the Endeavour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">That for ever</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wrestle with the tides of Fate;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the wreck of Hopes far scattered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Tempest-shattered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Floating waste and desolate;—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ever drifting, drifting, drifting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">On the shifting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Currents of the restless heart;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till at length in books recorded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">They, like hoarded</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Household words, no more depart.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="DRINKING">DRINKING SONG.</h3>
+
+<p class="f90">INSCRIPTION FOR AN ANTIQUE PITCHER.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come, old friend! sit down and listen!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From the pitcher placed between us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How the waters laugh and glisten</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the head of old Silenus!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Old Silenus, bloated, drunken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Led by his inebriate Satyrs;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On his breast his head is sunken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Vacantly he leers and chatters.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Ivy crowns that brow supernal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the forehead of Apollo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And possessing youth eternal.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Round about him, fair Bacchantes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wild from Naxian groves, or Zante’s</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Vineyards, sing delirious verses.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus he won, through all the nations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Bloodless victories, and the farmer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bore, as trophies and oblations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Vines for banners, ploughs for armour.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Judged by no o’er-zealous rigour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Much this mystic throng expresses:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bacchus was the type of vigour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And Silenus of excesses.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">These are ancient ethnic revels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of a faith long since forsaken;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now the Satyrs, changed to devils,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Frighten mortals wine-o’ertaken.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now to rivulets from the mountains</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Point the rods of fortune-tellers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Youth perpetual dwells in fountains,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Not in flasks, and casks and cellars.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Claudius, though he sang of flagons</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And huge tankards filled with Rhenish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From that fiery blood of dragons</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Never would his own replenish.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even Redi, though he chanted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Never drank the wine he vaunted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In his dithyrambic sallies.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then with water fill the pitcher</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wreathed about with classic fables;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ne’er Falernian threw a richer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Light upon Lucullus’ tables.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come, old friend, sit down and listen!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As it passes thus between us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How its wavelets laugh and glisten</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the head of old Silenus!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span></p>
+
+<h3>THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS.</h3>
+
+<p lang="fr" class="fs_90 blockquot">[L’éternité est une pendule, dont
+le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulement, dans
+le silence des tombeaux: “Toujours! jamais! Jamais!
+toujours!”—<span class="smcap">Jacques Bridaine.</span>]</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Somewhat back from the village street</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stands the old-fashioned country-seat;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Across its antique portico</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tall poplar trees their shadows throw,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And from its station in the hall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">An ancient timepiece says to all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">“For ever—never!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Never—for ever!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Half-way up the stairs it stands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And points and beckons with its hands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From its case of massive oak,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a monk, who, under his cloak,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crosses himself, and sighs, alas!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With sorrowful voice to all who pass,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">“For ever—never!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Never—for ever!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">By day its voice is low and light;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But in the silent dead of night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Distinct as a passing footstep’s fall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It echoes along the vacant hall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Along the ceiling, along the floor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And seems to say at each chamber-door,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">“For ever—never!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Never—for ever!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through days of sorrow and of mirth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through days of death and days of birth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through every swift vicissitude</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as if, like God, it all things saw,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It calmly repeats those words of awe,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">“For ever—never!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Never—for ever!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In that mansion used to be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Free-hearted Hospitality;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His great fires up the chimney roared;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The stranger feasted at his board;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But, like the skeleton at the feast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That warning timepiece never ceased,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">“For ever—never!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Never—for ever!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">There groups of merry children played,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There youths and maidens dreaming strayed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O precious hours! O golden prime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And affluence of love and time!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even as a miser counts his gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Those hours the ancient timepiece told,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">“For ever—never!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Never—for ever!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">From that chamber, clothed in white,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The bride came forth on her wedding night:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There, in that silent room below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The dead lay in his shroud of snow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in the hush that followed the prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was heard the old clock on the stair,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">“For ever—never!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Never—for ever!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">All are scattered now and fled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Some are married, some are dead;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And when I ask, with throbs of pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ah! when shall they all meet again?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As in the days long since gone by,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The ancient timepiece makes reply,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">“For ever—never!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Never—for ever!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never here, for ever there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where all parting, pain, and care,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And death and time shall disappear,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For ever there, but never here!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The horologe of Eternity</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sayeth this incessantly,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">“For ever—never!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Never—for ever!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span></p>
+
+<h3>AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The day is ending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The night is descending;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The marsh is frozen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The river dead.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through clouds like ashes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The red sun flashes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On village windows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That glimmer red.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The snow recommences;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The buried fences</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mark no longer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The road o’er the plain;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">While through the meadows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like fearful shadows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Slowly passes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A funeral train.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The bell is pealing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And every feeling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Within me responds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To the dismal knell;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shadows are trailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My heart is bewailing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And tolling within</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like a funeral bell.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak fs_200">The Spanish Student.</h2>
+
+<p class="f120">1843.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p class="f120 spa2">DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.</p>
+
+<table class="spb1">
+ <tbody><tr>
+ <td class="tdl smcap">Victorian</td>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1" rowspan="2"><i>Students of Alcalá</i>.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl smcap">Hypolito</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl smcap bt">The Count of Lara</td>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1 bt bb" rowspan="2"><i>Gentlemen of Madrid</i>.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl smcap bb">Don Carlos</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl smcap">The Archbishop of Toledo.</td>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&nbsp;</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl smcap">A Cardinal.</td>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&nbsp;</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl smcap">Beltran Cruzado</td>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1"><i>Count of the Gipsies</i>.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl smcap">Bartolomé Roman</td>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1"><i>A young Gipsy</i>.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl smcap">The Padre Cura of Guadarrama.</td>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1">&nbsp;</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl smcap">Pedro Crespo</td>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1"><i>Alcalde</i>.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl smcap">Pancho</td>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1"><i>Alguacil</i>.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl smcap">Francisco</td>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1"><i>Lara’s Servant</i>.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl smcap">Chispa</td>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1"><i>Victorian’s Servant</i>.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl smcap">Baltasar</td>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1"><i>Innkeeper</i>.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl smcap">Preciosa</td>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1"><i>A Gipsy Girl</i>.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl smcap">Angelica</td>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1"><i>A poor Girl</i>.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl smcap">Martina</td>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1"><i>The Padre Cura’s Niece</i>.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdl smcap">Dolores</td>
+ <td class="tdl_ws1"><i>Preciosa’s Maid</i>.</td>
+ </tr><tr>
+ <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><i>Gipsies, Musicians, etc.</i></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+</table>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p class="f120">ACT I.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Scene I.</span>—<i>The</i>
+<span class="smcap">Count of Lara’s</span> <i>Chambers. Night. The</i>
+<span class="smcap">Count</span> <i>in his dressing-gown, smoking and
+conversing with</i> <span class="smcap">Don Carlos</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> You were not at the play to night, Don Carlos;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How happened it?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> I had engagements elsewhere.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pray who was there?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> Why, all the town and court.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The house was crowded; and the busy fans</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Among the gaily dressed and perfumed ladies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fluttered like butterflies among the flowers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There was the Countess of Medina Celi;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Goblin Lady with her Phantom Lover,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her Lindo Don Diego; Doña Sol,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Doña Serafina, and her cousins.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> What was the play?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> It was a dull affair;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">One of those comedies in which you see,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As Lope says, the history of the world</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brought down from Genesis to the Day of Judgment.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There were three duels fought in the first act,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Three gentlemen receiving deadly wounds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laying their hands upon their hearts, and saying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O, I am dead!” a lover in a closet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">An old hidalgo, and a gay Don Juan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A Doña Inez with a black mantilla,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Followed at twilight by an unknown lover,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who looks intently where he knows she is not!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> Of course, the Preciosa danced to-night?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> And never better. Every footstep fell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As lightly as a sunbeam on the water.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I think the girl extremely beautiful.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> Almost beyond the privilege of woman!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I saw her in the Prado yesterday.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her step was royal—queen-like—and her face</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As beautiful as a saint’s in Paradise.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> May not a saint fall from her Paradise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And be no more a saint?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> Why do you ask?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> Because I have heard it said this angel fell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, though she is a virgin outwardly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Within she is a sinner; like those panels</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of doors and altar-pieces the old monks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Painted in convents, with the Virgin Mary</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the outside, and on the inside Venus!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> You do her wrong; indeed, you do her wrong!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She is as virtuous as she is fair.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> How credulous you are! Why, look you, friend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There’s not a virtuous woman in Madrid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In this whole city! And would you persuade me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That a mere dancing-girl, who shows herself</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nightly, half-naked, on the stage, for money,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with voluptuous motions fires the blood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of inconsiderate youth, is to be held</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A model for her virtue.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> You forget</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She is a Gipsy girl.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> And therefore won</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The easier.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> Nay, not to be won at all!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The only virtue that a Gipsy prizes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is chastity. This is her only virtue.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dearer than life she holds it. I remember</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A Gipsy woman, a vile, shameless bawd,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whose craft was to betray the young and fair;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And yet this woman was above all bribes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And when a noble lord, touched by her beauty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The wild and wizard beauty of her race,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Offered her gold to be what she made others,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She turned upon him, with a look of scorn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And smote him in the face!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> And does that prove</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That Preciosa is above suspicion?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> It proves a nobleman may be repulsed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he thinks conquest easy. I believe</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That woman, in her deepest degradation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Holds something sacred, something undefiled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Some pledge and keepsake of her higher nature,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, like the diamond in the dark, retains</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Some quenchless gleam of the celestial light!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> Yet Preciosa would have taken the gold.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos</i> [<i>rising</i>]. I do not think so.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> I am sure of it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But why this haste? Stay yet a little longer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And fight the battles of your Dulcinea.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> ’Tis late. I must begone, for if I stay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You will not be persuaded.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> Yes; persuade me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> No one so deaf as he who will not hear!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> No one so blind as he who will not see!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> And so good night. I wish you pleasant dreams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And greater faith in woman. [<i>Exit.</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> Greater faith!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I have the greatest faith; for I believe</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Victorian is her lover. I believe</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That I shall be to-morrow; and thereafter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Another, and another, and another,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Chasing each other through her zodiac,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As Taurus chases Aries.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent8">[<i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Francisco</span> <i>with a casket</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent20">Well, Francisco,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What speed with Preciosa?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Fran.</i> None, my lord.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She sends your jewels back, and bids me tell you</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She is not to be purchased by your gold.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> Then I will try some other way to win her.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pray, dost thou know Victorian?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Fran.</i> Yes, my lord,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I saw him at the jeweller’s to-day.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> What was he doing there?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Fran.</i> I saw him buy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A golden ring that had a ruby in it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> Was there another like it?</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Fran.</i><span class="ws8">One so like it</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I could not choose between them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws8">It is well.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To-morrow morning bring that ring to me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Do not forget. Now light me to my bed.<span class="ws3">[<i>Exeunt.</i></span></div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Scene II.</span>—<i>A street
+in Madrid. Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Chispa</span>, <i>followed by
+musicians, with a bagpipe, guitars, and other instruments</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> Abernuncio Satanas! and a plague on all lovers who ramble
+about at night, drinking the elements, instead of sleeping quietly in
+their beds. Every dead man to his cemetery, say I; and every friar to
+his monastery. Now, here’s my master, Victorian, yesterday a cowkeeper,
+and to-day a gentleman; yesterday a student, and to-day a lover; and
+I must be up later than the nightingale, for as the abbot sings so
+must the sacristan respond. God grant he may soon be married, for then
+shall all this serenading cease. Ay, marry! marry! marry! Mother, what
+does marry mean? It means to spin, to bear children, and to weep, my
+daughter! And, of a truth, there is something more in matrimony than
+the wedding-ring. [<i>To the musicians.</i>] And now, gentlemen, Pax
+vobiscum! as the ass said to the cabbages. Pray, walk this way; and
+don’t hang down your heads. It is no disgrace to have an old father and
+a ragged shirt. Now, look you, you are gentlemen who lead the life of
+crickets; you enjoy hunger by day and noise by night. Yet, I beseech
+you, for this once be not loud, but pathetic; for it is a serenade to
+a damsel in bed, and not to the Man in the Moon. Your object is not to
+arouse and terrify, but to soothe and bring lulling dreams. Therefore,
+each shall not play upon his instrument as if it were the only one in
+the universe, but gently, and with a certain modesty, according with
+the others. Pray, how may I call thy name, friend?</p>
+
+<p><i>First Mus.</i> Gerónimo Gil, at your service.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> Every tub smells of the wine that is in it. Pray,
+Gerónimo, is not Saturday an unpleasant day with thee?</p>
+
+<p><i>First Mus.</i> Why so?</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> Because I have heard it said that Saturday is an
+unpleasant day with those who have but one shirt. Moreover, I have seen
+thee at the tavern, and if thou canst run as fast as thou canst drink,
+I should like to hunt hares with thee. What instrument is that?</p>
+
+<p><i>First Mus.</i> An Aragonese bagpipe.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> Pray, art thou related to the bagpiper of Bujalance, who
+asked a maravedi for playing, and ten for leaving off?</p>
+
+<p><i>First Mus.</i> No, your honour.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> I am glad of it. What other instruments have we?</p>
+
+<p><i>Second and Third Mus.</i> We play the bandurria.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> A pleasing instrument. Art thou?</p>
+
+<p><i>Fourth Mus.</i> The fife.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> I like it; it has a cheerful, soul-stirring sound, that
+soars up to my lady’s window like the song of a swallow. And you others?</p>
+
+<p><i>Other Mus.</i> We are the singers, please your honour.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> You are too many. Do you think we are going to sing mass
+in the cathedral of Córdova? Four men can make but little use of one
+shoe, and I see not how you can all sing in one song. But follow me
+along the garden wall. That is the way my master climbs to the lady’s
+window. It is by the Vicar’s skirts that the devil climbs into the
+belfry. Come, follow me, and make no noise. [<i>Exeunt.</i></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Scene III.— Preciosa’s</span>
+<i>Chamber. She stands at the open window.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Pre.</i> How slowly through the lilac-scented air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Descends the tranquil moon! Like thistle-down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The vapoury clouds float in the peaceful sky;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sweetly from yon hollow vaults of shade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The nightingales breathe out their souls in song.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And hark! what songs of love, what soul-like sounds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Answer them from below!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent16">SERENADE.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Stars of the summer night!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Far in yon azure deeps,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Hide, hide your golden light!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">She sleeps!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">My lady sleeps!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Sleeps!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">Moon of the summer night!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Far down yon western steeps,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Sink, sink in silver light!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">She sleeps!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">My lady sleeps!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Sleeps!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">Wind of the summer night!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Where yonder woodbine creeps,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Fold, fold thy pinions light!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">She sleeps!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">My lady sleeps!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Sleeps!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">Dreams of the summer night!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Tell her, her lover keeps</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Watch! while in slumbers light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">She sleeps!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">My lady sleeps!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Sleeps!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Victorian</span> <i>by the balcony</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Poor little dove!&emsp;Thou tremblest like a leaf!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> I am so frightened!&emsp;’Tis for thee I tremble!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I hate to have thee climb that wall by night!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Did no one see thee?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws6">None, my love, but thou.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> ’Tis very dangerous; and when thou art gone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I chide myself for letting thee come here</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus stealthily by night. Where hast thou been?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Since yesterday I have no news from thee.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Since yesterday I’ve been in Alcalá.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ere long the time will come, sweet Preciosa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When that dull distance shall no more divide us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I no more shall scale thy wall by night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To steal a kiss from thee, as I do now.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> An honest thief to steal but what thou givest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> And we shall sit together unmolested,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And words of true love pass from tongue to tongue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As singing birds from one bough to another.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> That were a life indeed to make time envious!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I knew that thou wouldst visit me to-night.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I saw thee at the play.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Sweet child of air!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Never did I behold thee so attired</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And garmented in beauty as to-night!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What hast thou done to make thee look so fair?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Am not I always fair?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">Ay, and so fair</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That I am jealous of all eyes that see thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And wish that they were blind.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws10">I heed them not;</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When thou art present, I see none but thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> There’s nothing fair nor beautiful, but takes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Something from thee, that makes it beautiful.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> And yet thou leavest me for those dusty books.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Thou comest between me and those books too often!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see thy face in everything I see!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The paintings in the chapel wear thy looks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The canticles are changed to sarabands.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And with the learned doctors of the schools</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see thee dance cachuchas.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws8">In good sooth,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I dance with learned doctors of the schools</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To-morrow morning.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws5">And with whom, I pray?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> A grave and reverend Cardinal, and his Grace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Archbishop of Toledo.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws8">What mad jest</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is this?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> It is no jest; indeed it is not.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Prithee, explain thyself.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws10">Why, simply thus.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou knowest the Pope has sent here into Spain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To put a stop to dances on the stage.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> I have heard it whispered.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws12">Now the Cardinal</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who for this purpose comes, would fain behold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With his own eyes these dances; and the Archbishop</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has sent for me——</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws6">That thou mayst dance before them!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now viva la cachucha! It will breathe</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fire of youth into these grey old men!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Twill be thy proudest conquest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws10">Saving one.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And yet I fear these dances will be stopped,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Preciosa be once more a beggar.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> The sweetest beggar that e’er asked for alms;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With such beseeching eyes, that when I saw thee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I gave my heart away!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws6">Dost thou remember</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When first we met?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws6">It was at Córdova,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the cathedral garden. Thou wast sitting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under the orange-trees, beside a fountain.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> ’Twas Easter-Sunday. The full blossomed trees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Filled all the air with fragrance and with joy.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The priests were singing, and the organ sounded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then anon the great cathedral bell.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was the elevation of the Host.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We both of us fell down upon our knees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under the orange boughs, and prayed together.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I never had been happy till that moment.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Thou blessed angel!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws10">And when thou wast gone</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I felt an aching here. I did not speak</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To any one that day. But from that day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bartolomé grew hateful unto me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Remember him no more. Let not his shadow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come between thee and me. Sweet Preciosa!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I loved thee even then, though I was silent!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> I thought I ne’er should see thy face again.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy farewell had a sound of sorrow in it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> That was the first sound in the song of love!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of that mysterious instrument, the soul,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And play the prelude of our fate. We hear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The voice prophetic, and are not alone.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> That is my faith. Dost thou believe these warnings?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> So far as this. Our feelings and our thoughts</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tend ever on, and rest not in the Present.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As drops of rain fall into some dark well,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And from below comes a scarce audible sound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So fall our thoughts into the dark Hereafter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And their mysterious echo reaches us.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> I have felt it so, but found no words to say it!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I cannot reason; I can only feel!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But thou hast language for all thoughts and feelings.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou art a scholar; and sometimes I think</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We cannot walk together in this world!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The distance that divides us is too great!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Henceforth thy pathway lies among the stars;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I must not hold thee back.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws8">Thou little sceptic!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dost thou still doubt? What I most prize in woman</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is her affections, not her intellect!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The intellect is finite; but the affections</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are infinite, and cannot be exhausted.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Compare me with the great men of the earth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What am I? Why, a pigmy among giants!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But if thou lovest,—mark me! I say lovest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The greatest of thy sex excels thee not!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The world of the affections is thy world,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not that of man’s ambition. In that stillness</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which most becomes a woman, calm and holy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou sittest by the fireside of the heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Feeding its flame. The element of fire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is pure. It cannot change nor hide its nature,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But burns as brightly in a Gipsy camp</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As in a palace hall. Art thou convinced?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Yes, that I love thee, as the good love heaven;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But not that I am worthy of that heaven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How shall I more deserve it?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">Loving more.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> I cannot love thee more; my heart is full.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Then let it overflow, and I will drink it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As in the summer time the thirsty sands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Drink the swift waters of the Manzanares,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And still do thirst for more.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>A Watchman</i> [<i>in the street</i>].&emsp; Ave Maria</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Purissima! ’Tis midnight and serene!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Hear’st thou that cry?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws12">It is a hateful sound,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To scare thee from me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws8">As the hunter’s horn</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Doth scare the timid stag, or bark of hounds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The moor-fowl from his mate.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws10">Pray, do not go!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> I must away to Alcalá to-night.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Think of me when I am away.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws10">Fear not!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have no thoughts that do not think of thee.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> [<i>giving her a ring</i>]. And to remind thee of</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">my love, take this;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A serpent, emblem of Eternity;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A ruby,—say, a drop of my heart’s blood.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> It is an ancient saying, that the ruby</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Brings gladness to the wearer, and preserves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The heart pure, and, if laid beneath the pillow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Drives away evil dreams. But then, alas!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was a serpent tempted Eve to sin.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> What convent of barefooted Carmelites</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Taught thee so much theology?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> [<i>laying her hand upon his mouth</i>].&emsp; Hush! Hush!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Good night! and may all holy angels guard thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Good night! good night! Thou art my guardian angel!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have no other saint than thou to pray to!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>He descends by the balcony.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Take care, and do not hurt thee. Art thou safe?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> [<i>from the garden</i>]. Safe as my love for thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But art thou safe?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Others can climb a balcony by moonlight</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As well as I. Pray shut thy window close;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am jealous of the perfumed air of night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That from this garden climbs to kiss thy lips.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> [<i>throwing down her handkerchief</i>].</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou silly child; take this to bind thine eyes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is my benison!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws4">And brings to me</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sweet fragrance from thy lips, as the soft wind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wafts to the outbound mariner the breath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the belovèd land he leaves behind.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Make not thy voyage long.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws9">To-morrow night</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall see me safe returned. Thou art the star</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To guide me to an anchorage. Good night!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My beauteous star! My star of love, good night!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Good night!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Watchman</i> [<i>at a distance</i>].&emsp; Ave Maria Purissima!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Scene IV.</span>—<i>An inn on
+the road to Alcalá.</i> <span class="smcap">Baltasar</span> <i>asleep
+on a bench. Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Chispa</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> And here we are, half-way to Alcalá, between cocks and
+midnight. Body of me! what an inn this is! The lights out, and the
+landlord asleep. Holá! ancient Baltasar!</p>
+
+<p><i>Balt.</i> [<i>waking</i>]. Here I am.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> Yes, there you are, like a one-eyed Alcalde in a town
+without inhabitants. Bring a light, and let me have supper.</p>
+
+<p><i>Balt.</i> Where is your master?</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> Do not trouble yourself about him. We have stopped a
+moment to breathe our horses; and, if he chooses to walk up and down in
+the open air, looking into the sky as one who hears it rain, that does
+not satisfy my hunger, you know. But be quick, for I am in a hurry, and
+every man stretches his legs according to the length of his coverlet.
+What have we here?</p>
+
+<p><i>Balt.</i> [<i>setting a light on the table</i>]. Stewed rabbit.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> [<i>eating</i>]. Conscience of Portalegre! Stewed kitten,
+you mean!</p>
+
+<p><i>Balt.</i> And a pitcher of Pedro Ximenes, with a roasted pear in it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> [<i>drinking</i>]. Ancient Baltasar, amigo! You know how
+to cry wine and sell vinegar. I tell you this is nothing but Vino Tinto
+of La Mancha, with a tang of the swine-skin.</p>
+
+<p><i>Balt.</i> I swear to you by Saint Simon and Judas, it is all as I
+say.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> And I swear to you by Saint Peter and Saint Paul, that it
+is no such thing. Moreover, your supper is like the hidalgo’s dinner,
+very little meat, and a great deal of table-cloth.</p>
+
+<p><i>Balt.</i> Ha! ha! ha!</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> And more noise than nuts.</p>
+
+<p><i>Balt.</i> Ha! ha! ha! You must have your joke, Master Chispa. But
+shall I not ask Don Victorian in, to take a draught of the Pedro
+Ximenes?</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> No; you might as well say, “Don’t-you-want-some?” to a
+dead man.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Balt.</i> Why does he go so often to Madrid?</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> For the same reason that he eats no supper. He is in love.
+Were you ever in love, Baltasar?</p>
+
+<p><i>Balt.</i> I was never out of it, good Chispa. It has been the
+torment of my life.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> What! are you on fire, too, old haystack? Why, we shall
+never be able to put you out.</p>
+
+<p><i>Vict.</i> [<i>without</i>]. Chispa!</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> Go to bed, Pero Grullo, for the cocks are crowing.</p>
+
+<p><i>Vict.</i> Ea! Chispa! Chispa!</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> Ea! Señor. Come with me, ancient Baltasar, and bring water
+for the horses. I will pay for the supper, to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p class="author">[<i>Exeunt.</i></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Scene V.— Victorian’s</span>
+<i>Chambers at Alcalá</i>. <span class="smcap">Hypolito</span>
+<i>asleep in an arm-chair. He awakes slowly.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> I must have been asleep! ay, sound asleep!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And it was all a dream. O sleep, sweet sleep!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whatever form thou takest, thou art fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Holding unto our lips thy goblet filled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out of Oblivion’s well, a healing draught!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The candles have burned low; it must be late.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where can Victorian be? Like Fray Carillo,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_19_19" href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The only place in which one cannot find him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is his own cell. Here’s his guitar, that seldom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Feels the caresses of its master’s hand.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Open thy silent lips, sweet instrument!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And make dull midnight merry with a song.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent8">[<i>He plays and sings.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">Padre Francisco!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Padre Francisco!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">What do you want of Padre Francisco?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Here is a pretty young maiden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Who wants to confess her sins.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Open the door and let her come in,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I will shrive her from every sin.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent8">[<i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Victorian</span>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Padre Hypolito! Padre Hypolito!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> What do you want of Padre Hypolito?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Come, shrive me straight; for, if love be a sin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am the greatest sinner that doth live.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will confess the sweetest of all crimes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A maiden wooed and won.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">The same old tale</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the old woman in the chimney corner,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who, while the pot boils, says, “Come here, my child;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I’ll tell thee a story of my wedding-day.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Nay, listen, for my heart is full; so full</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That I must speak.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws8">Alas! that heart of thine</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is like a scene in the old play; the curtain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rises to solemn music, and lo! enter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The eleven thousand virgins of Cologne!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Nay, like the Sibyl’s volumes, thou shouldst say;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Those that remained, after the six were burned,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Being held more precious than the nine together.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But listen to my tale. Dost thou remember</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The gipsy girl we saw at Córdova</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dance the Romalis in the market-place?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Thou meanest Preciosa?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">Ay, the same.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou knowest how her image haunted me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Long after we returned to Alcalá.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She’s in Madrid.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws6">I know it.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">And I am in love.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> And therefore in Madrid when thou shouldst be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In Alcalá.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> O pardon me, my friend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If I so long have kept this secret from thee;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But silence is the charm that guards such treasures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, if a word be spoken ere the time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They sink again, they were not meant for us.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Alas! alas! I see thou art in love.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It serves for food and raiment. Give a Spaniard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His mass, his olla, and his Dona Luisa,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou knowest the proverb. But pray tell me, lover,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How speeds thy wooing? Is the maiden coy?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Write her a song, beginning with an <i>Ave</i>;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sing as the monk sang to the Virgin Mary,</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10"><i>Ave! cujus calcem clare,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent10"><i>Nec centenni commendare</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent14"><i>Sciret Seraph studio.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Pray, do not jest! This is no time for it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am in earnest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws6">Seriously enamoured?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What, ho! The Primus of great Alcalá</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Enamoured of a Gipsy! Tell me frankly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How meanest thou?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws8">I mean it honestly.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Surely thou wilt not marry her!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">Why not?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> She was betrothed to one Bartolomé,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If I remember rightly, a young Gipsy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who danced with her at Córdova.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">They quarrelled,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And so the matter ended.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">But in truth</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou wilt not marry her?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> <span class="ws10">In truth I will.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The angels sang in heaven when she was born!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She is a precious jewel I have found</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Among the filth and rubbish of the world.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I’ll stoop for it; but when I wear it here,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Set on my forehead like the morning star,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The world may wonder, but it will not laugh.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> If thou wear’st nothing else upon thy forehead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Twill be indeed a wonder.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws8">Out upon thee,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With thy unseasonable jests! Pray, tell me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is there no virtue in the world?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">Not much.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What, think’st thou, is she doing at this moment;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now, while we speak of her?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">She lies asleep,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, from her parted lips, her gentle breath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Comes like the fragrance from the lips of flowers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her tender limbs are still, and, on her breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The cross she prayed to, ere she fell asleep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rises and falls with the soft tide of dreams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a light barge safe moored.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws11">Which means, in prose,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She’s sleeping with her mouth a little open!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> O, would I had the old magician’s glass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To see her as she lies in childlike sleep!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> And wouldst thou venture?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws11">Ay, indeed I would!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Thou art courageous. Hast thou e’er reflected</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How much lies hidden in that one word, <i>now</i>?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Yes, all the awful mystery of Life!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I oft have thought, my dear Hypolito,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That could we, by some spell of magic, change</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The world and its inhabitants to stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the same attitudes they now are in,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What fearful glances downward might we cast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the hollow chasms of human life!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What groups should we behold about the death-bed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Putting to shame the group of Niobe!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What joyful welcomes, and what sad farewells!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What stony tears in those congealèd eyes!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What visible joy or anguish in those cheeks!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What bridal pomps, and what funereal shows!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What foes, like gladiators, fierce and struggling!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What lovers with their marble lips together!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Ay, there it is! and, if I were in love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That is the very point I most should dread.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This magic glass, these magic spells of thine,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Might tell a tale were better left untold.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For instance, they might show us thy fair cousin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Lady Violante, bathed in tears</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of love and anger, like the maid of Colchis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whom thou, another faithless Argonaut,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Having won that golden fleece, a woman’s love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Desertest for this Glaucè.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws8">Hold thy peace!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She cares not for me. She may wed another,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or go into a convent, and, thus dying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Marry Achilles in the Elysian Fields.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> [<i>rising</i>].&emsp; And so, good night!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"> Good morning, I should say.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent11">[<i>Clock strikes three.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hark! how the loud and ponderous mace of Time</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Knocks at the golden portals of the day!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And so, once more, good night! We’ll speak more largely</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Preciosa when we meet again.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Get thee to bed, and the magician, Sleep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall show her to thee, in his magic glass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In all her loveliness. Good night!<span class="ws4">[<i>Exit.</i></span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">Good night!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But not to bed; for I must read awhile.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">[<i>Throws himself into the arm-chair which</i>
+<span class="smcap">Hypolito</span> <i>has left, and lays a large book
+open upon his knees</i>.]</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Must read, or sit in reverie and watch</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The changing colour of the waves that break</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon the idle sea-shore of the mind!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Visions of Fame! that once did visit me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Making night glorious with your smile, where are ye?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O, who shall give me, now that ye are gone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Juices of those immortal plants that bloom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon Olympus, making us immortal?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or teach me where that wondrous mandrake grows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose magic root, torn from the earth with groans,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At midnight hour, can scare the fiends away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And make the mind prolific in its fancies?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have the wish, but want the will, to act!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Souls of great men departed! Ye whose words</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have come to light from the swift river of Time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like Roman swords found in the Tagus’ bed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where is the strength to wield the arms ye bore?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the barred visor of Antiquity</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Reflected shines the eternal light of Truth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As from a mirror! All the means of action—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The shapeless masses—the materials—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lie everywhere about us. What we need</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is the celestial fire to change the flint</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into transparent crystal, bright and clear.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That fire is genius! The rude peasant sits</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At evening in his smoky cot, and draws</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With charcoal uncouth figures on the wall.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The son of genius comes, footsore with travel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And begs a shelter from the inclement night.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He takes the charcoal from the peasant’s hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, by the magic of his touch at once</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Transfigured, all its hidden virtues shine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, in the eyes of the astonished clown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It gleams a diamond! Even thus transformed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rude popular traditions and old tales</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shine as immortal poems, at the touch</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of some poor, houseless, homeless, wandering bard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who had but a night’s lodgings for his pains.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But there are brighter dreams than those of Fame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which are the dreams of Love! Out of the heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rises the bright ideal of these dreams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As from some woodland fount a spirit rises</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sinks again into its silent deeps,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ere the enamoured knight can touch her robe!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Tis this ideal that the soul of man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the enamoured knight beside the fountain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Waits for upon the margin of Life’s stream;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Waits to behold her rise from the dark waters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Clad in a mortal shape! Alas! how many</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Must wait in vain! The stream flows evermore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But from its silent deeps no spirit rises!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet I, born under a propitious star,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have found the bright ideal of my dreams.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yes! she is ever with me. I can feel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here, as I sit at midnight and alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her gentle breathing! on my breast can feel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The pressure of her head! God’s benison</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rest ever on it! Close those beauteous eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sweet Sleep! and all the flowers that bloom at night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With balmy lips breathe in her ears my name!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent8">[<i>Gradually sinks asleep.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+<p class="f120">ACT II.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Scene I.—Preciosa’s</span>
+<i>Chamber. Morning.</i> <span class="smcap">Preciosa</span> <i>and</i>
+<span class="smcap">Angelica</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Why will you go so soon? Stay yet awhile.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The poor too often turn away unheard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From hearts that shut against them with a sound</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That will be heard in Heaven. Pray, tell me more</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of your adversities. Keep nothing from me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What is your landlord’s name?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ang.</i><span class="ws10">The Count of Lara.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> The Count of Lara? O, beware that man!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mistrust his pity,—hold no parley with him!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And rather die an outcast in the streets</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than touch his gold.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ang.</i><span class="ws8">You know him, then!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws12">As much</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As any woman may, and yet be pure.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As you would keep your name without a blemish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beware of him!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ang.</i><span class="ws4">Alas! what can I do?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I cannot choose my friends. Each word of kindness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come from whence it may, is welcome to the poor.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Make me your friend. A girl so young and fair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Should have no friends but those of her own sex.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What is your name?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ang.</i><span class="ws6">Angelica.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws10">That name</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was given you, that you might be an angel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To her who bore you! When your infant smile</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Made her home Paradise, you were her angel.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O, be an angel still! She needs that smile.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So long as you are innocent, fear nothing.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No one can harm you! I am a poor girl,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whom chance has taken from the public streets.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have no other shield than mine own virtue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That is the charm which has protected me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Amid a thousand perils, I have worn it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here on my heart! It is my guardian angel.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ang.</i> [<i>rising</i>]. I thank you for this counsel, dearest lady.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Thank me by following it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ang.</i><span class="ws10">Indeed I will.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Pray, do not go.&emsp; I have much more to say.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ang.</i> My mother is alone.&emsp; I dare not leave her.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Some other time, then, when we meet again.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You must not go away with words alone.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent13">[<i>Gives her a purse.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Take this.&emsp; Would it were more.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ang.</i><span class="ws10">I thank you, lady.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> No thanks.&emsp; To-morrow come to me again.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I dance to-night,—perhaps for the last time.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But what I gain, I promise shall be yours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If that can save you from the Count of Lara.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ang.</i> O, my dear lady! how shall I be grateful</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For so much kindness?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws7">I deserve no thanks.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thank Heaven, not me.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ang.</i><span class="ws6">Both Heaven and you.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws12">Farewell.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Remember that you come again to-morrow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Ang.</i> I will. And may the blessed Virgin guard you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all good angels.<span class="ws10">[<i>Exit.</i></span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws5">May they guard thee, too,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all the poor; for they have need of angels.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now bring me, dear Dolores, my Basquiña,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My richest maja dress,—my dancing dress,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And my most precious jewels! Make me look</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fairer than night e’er saw me! I’ve a prize</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To win this day, worthy of Preciosa!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent7">[<i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Beltran Cruzado</span>.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cruz.</i> Ave Maria!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws6">O God! my evil genius!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What seekest thou here to-day?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cruz.</i><span class="ws10">Thyself,—my child.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> What is thy will with me?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cruz.</i><span class="ws12">Gold! gold!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Pre.</i> I gave thee yesterday; I have no more.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cruz.</i> The gold of the Busné,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_20_20" href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a>—give
+ me his gold!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> I gave the last in charity to-day.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cruz.</i> That is a foolish lie.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> <span class="ws10">It is the truth.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cruz.</i> Curses upon thee!&emsp; Thou art not my child!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hast thou given gold away, and not to me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not to thy father? To whom then?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws12">To one</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who needs it more.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cruz.</i><span class="ws8">No one can need it more.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Thou art not poor.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cruz.</i><span class="ws10">What, I, who lurk about</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In dismal suburbs and unwholesome lanes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I, who am housed worse than the galley slave;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I, who am fed worse than the kennelled hound;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I, who am clothed in rags,—Beltran Cruzado,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not poor!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws3">Thou hast a stout heart and strong hands.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou canst supply thy wants; what wouldst thou more?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cruz.</i> The gold of the Busné! give me his gold!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Beltran Cruzado! hear me once for all.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I speak the truth. So long as I had gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I gave it to thee freely, at all times,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Never denied thee; never had a wish</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But to fulfil thine own. Now go in peace!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Be merciful, be patient, and, ere long,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou shalt have more.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cruz.</i><span class="ws8">And if I have it not,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou shalt no longer dwell here in rich chambers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wear silken dresses, feed on dainty food,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And live in idleness; but go with me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dance the Romalis in the public streets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And wander wild again o’er field and fell;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For here we stay not long.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws10">What! march again?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cruz.</i> Ay, with all speed. I hate the crowded town!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I cannot breathe shut up within its gates!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Air,—I want air, and sunshine, and blue sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The feeling of the breeze upon my face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The feeling of the turf beneath my feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And no walls but the far-off mountain-tops.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then I am free and strong,—once more myself,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beltran Cruzado, Count of the Calés!&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_21_21" href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> God speed thee on thy march!—I cannot go.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cruz.</i> Remember who I am, and who thou art.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Be silent and obey! Yet one thing more.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bartolomé Román——</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> [<i>with emotion</i>]. O, I beseech thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If my obedience and blameless life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If my humility and meek submission</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In all things hitherto, can move in thee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One feeling of compassion; if thou art</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Indeed my father, and canst trace in me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One look of her who bore me, or one tone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That doth remind thee of her, let it plead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In my behalf, who am a feeble girl,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Too feeble to resist, and do not force me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To wed that man! I am afraid of him!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I do not love him! On my knees I beg thee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To use no violence, nor do in haste</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What cannot be undone!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cruz.</i><span class="ws10">O child, child, child!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast betrayed thy secret, as a bird</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Betrays her nest, by striving to conceal it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will not leave thee here in the great city</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To be a grandee’s mistress. Make thee ready</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To go with us; and until then remember</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A watchful eye is on thee.<span class="ws10">[<i>Exit.</i></span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws11">Woe is me!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have a strange misgiving in my heart!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But that one deed of charity I will do,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Befall what may; they cannot take that from me.&emsp;[<i>Exit.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Scene II.</span>—<i>A room in the Archbishop’s palace.
+The</i> <span class="smcap">Archbishop</span> <i>and a</i> <span class="smcap">Cardinal</span>
+<i>seated.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Arch.</i> Knowing how near it touched the public morals,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And that our age is grown corrupt and rotten</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By such excesses, we have sent to Rome,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beseeching that his Holiness would aid</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In curing the gross surfeit of the time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By seasonable stop put here in Spain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To bull-fights and lewd dances on the stage.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All this you know.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Card.</i><span class="ws5">Know and approve.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Arch.</i><span class="ws12">And further,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That, by a mandate from his Holiness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The first have been suppressed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Card.</i><span class="ws8">I trust for ever;</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was a cruel sport.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Arch.</i><span class="ws6">A barbarous pastime,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Disgraceful to the land that calls itself</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Most Catholic and Christian.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Card.</i><span class="ws10">Yet the people</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Murmur at this; and, if the public dances</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Should be condemned upon too slight occasion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Worse ills might follow than the ills we cure.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As <i>Panem et Circenses</i> was the cry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Among the Roman populace of old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So <i>Pan y Toros</i> is the cry in Spain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hence I would act advisedly herein;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And therefore have induced your grace to see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">These national dances, ere we interdict them.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>Enter a Servant.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ser.</i> The dancing-girl, and with her the musicians</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Your grace was pleased to order, wait without.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Arch.</i> Bid them come in. Now shall your eyes behold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In what angelic yet voluptuous shape</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Devil came to tempt Saint Anthony.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">[<i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Preciosa</span>, <i>with a mantle
+thrown over her head. She advances slowly, in a modest, half-timid attitude.</i>]</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Card.</i> [<i>aside</i>]. O, what a fair and ministering</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">angel Was lost to Heaven when this sweet woman fell!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> [<i>kneeling before the Archbishop</i>]. I have obeyed the</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">order of your grace.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If I intrude upon your better hours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I proffer this excuse, and here beseech</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Your holy benediction.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Arch.</i><span class="ws10">May God bless thee,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And lead thee to a better life.&emsp; Arise.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Card.</i> [<i>aside</i>]. Her acts are modest, and her words discreet!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I did not look for this! Come hither, child.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is thy name Preciosa?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws8">Thus I am called.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Card.</i> That is a Gipsy name.&emsp; Who is thy father?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent"><i>Pre.</i> Beltran Cruzado, Count of the Calés.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Arch.</i> I have a dim remembrance of that man.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He was a bold and reckless character,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A sun-burnt Ishmael!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Card.</i><span class="ws5">Dost thou remember</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy earlier days?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws4">Yes; by the Darro’s side</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My childhood passed. I can remember still</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The river, and the mountains capped with snow:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The villages, where, yet a little child,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I told the traveller’s fortune in the street;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The smuggler’s horse, the brigand, and the shepherd,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The march across the moor; the halt at noon;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The red fire of the evening camp, that lighted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The forest where we slept; and, farther back,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As in a dream or in some former life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gardens and palace walls.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Arch.</i><span class="ws9">’Tis the Alhambra,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under whose towers the Gipsy camp was pitched.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the time wears; and we would see the dance.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Your grace shall be obeyed.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">[<i>She lays aside her mantilla. The
+music of the cachuca is played, and the dance begins. The</i>
+<span class="smcap">Archbishop</span> <i>and the</i>
+<span class="smcap">Cardinal</span> <i>look on with gravity and an occasional
+frown; then make signs to each other; and, as the dance continues, become more
+and more pleased and excited; and at length rise from their seats, throw their
+caps in the air, and applaud vehemently as the scene closes</i>.]</p>
+
+<p class="neg-indent spa2"><span class="smcap">Scene III.</span>—<i>The
+Prado. A long avenue of trees leading to the gate of Atocha.
+On the right the dome and spires of a convent. A fountain.
+Evening.</i> <span class="smcap">Don Carlos</span> <i>and</i>
+<span class="smcap">Hypolito</span> <i>meeting</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> Holá! Good evening, Don Hypolito.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> And a good evening to my friend, Don Carlos.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some lucky star has led my steps this way.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I was in search of you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i><span class="ws7">Command me always.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Do you remember, in Quevedo’s Dreams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The miser who, upon the Day of Judgment,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Asks if his money-bags would rise?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i><span class="ws10">I do;</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But what of that?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws7">I am that wretched man.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> You mean to tell me yours have risen empty?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> And amen! said my Cid Campeador.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_22_22" href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> Pray, how much need you?</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">Some half-dozen ounces,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which, with due interest——</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos</i> [<i>giving his purse</i>]. What, am I a Jew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To put my moneys out at usury?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here is my purse.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws5">Thank you. A pretty purse,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Made by the hand of some fair Madrilena;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Perhaps a keepsake?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i><span class="ws6">No, ’tis at your service.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Thank you again. Lie there, good Chrysostom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And with thy golden mouth remind me often,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am the debtor of my friend.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Carlos.</i><span class="ws10">But tell me,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come you to-day from Alcalá?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">This moment.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> And pray, how fares the brave Victorian?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Indifferent well; that is to say, not well.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A damsel has ensnared him with the glances</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of her dark, roving eyes, as herdsmen catch</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A steer of Andalusia with a lazo.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He is in love.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i><span class="ws3">And is it faring ill</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To be in love?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws4">In his case very ill.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> Why so?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws5">For many reasons. First and foremost,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Because he is in love with an ideal;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A creature of his own imagination;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A child of air; an echo of his heart;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, like a lily on a river floating,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She floats upon the river of his thoughts!&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_23_23" href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> A common thing with poets. But who is</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This floating lily? For, in fine, some woman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some living woman—not a mere ideal—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Must wear the outward semblance of his thought.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who is it?&emsp; Tell me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws7">Well, it is a woman!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But, look you, from the coffer of his heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He brings forth precious jewels to adorn her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As pious priests adorn some favourite saint</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With gems and gold, until at length she gleams</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One blaze of glory. Without these, you know,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the priest’s benediction, ’tis a doll.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i><span class="ws5"> Well, well! who is this doll?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">Why, who do you think?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> His cousin Violante.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws6">Guess again.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To ease his labouring heart, in the last storm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He threw her overboard, with all her ingots.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> I cannot guess; so tell me who it is.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Not I.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i><span class="ws3">Why not?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> [<i>mysteriously</i>].<span class="ws3"> Why? Because Mari Franca</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was married four leagues out of Salamanca!&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_24_24" href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> Jesting aside, who is it?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">Preciosa.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> Impossible!&emsp; The Count of Lara tells me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She is not virtuous.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws4">Did I say she was?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Roman Emperor Claudius had a wife</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose name was Messalina, as I think;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Valeria Messalina was her name.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But hist! I see him yonder through the trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Walking as in a dream.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i><span class="ws8">He comes this way.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> It has been truly said by some wise man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That money, grief, and love cannot be hidden.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent7">[<i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Victorian</span> <i>in front</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Where’er thy step has passed is holy ground!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">These groves are sacred! I behold thee walking</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under these shadowy trees, where we have walked</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At evening, and I feel thy presence now;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Feel that the place has taken a charm from thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And is for ever hallowed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">Mark him well!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">See how he strides away with lordly air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like that odd guest of stone, that grim Commander</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who comes to sup with Juan in the play.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> What ho! Victorian!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">Wilt thou sup with us?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Holá! amigos!&emsp; Faith, I did not see you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How fares Don Carlos?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i><span class="ws6">At your service ever.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> How is that young and green-eyed Gaditana</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That you both wot of?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> <span class="ws8">Ay, soft, emerald eyes!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She has gone back to Cadiz.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10"><i>Ay de mí</i>!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> You are much to blame for letting her go back.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A pretty girl; and in her tender eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Just that soft shade of green&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_25_25" href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a>
+ we sometimes see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In evening skies.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws4">But, speaking of green eyes,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are thine green?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws5">Not a whit. Why so?</span></div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">I think</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The slightest shade of green would be becoming,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For thou art jealous.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws6">No, I am not jealous.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Thou shouldst be.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws4">Why?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws8">Because thou art in love,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And they who are in love are always jealous.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Therefore thou shouldst be.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws8">Marry, is that all?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Farewell; I am in haste. Farewell, Don Carlos.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou sayest I should be jealous?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">Ay, in truth</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I fear there is reason. Be upon thy guard.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I hear it whispered that the Count of Lara</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lays siege to the same citadel.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws11">Indeed!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then he will have his labour for his pains.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> He does not think so, and Don Carlos tells me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He boasts of his success.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws8">How’s this, Don Carlos?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Carlos.</i> Some hints of it I heard from his own lips.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He spoke but lightly of the lady’s virtue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a gay man might speak.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> <span class="ws10">Death and damnation!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I’ll cut his lying tongue out of his mouth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And throw it to my dog! But no, no, no!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This cannot be. You jest, indeed you jest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Trifle with me no more. For otherwise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We are no longer friends.&emsp; And so, farewell!<span class="ws4">[<i>Exit.</i></span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Now what a coil is here! The Avenging Child</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hunting the traitor Quadros to his death,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_26_26" href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the great Moor Calaynos, when he rode</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To Paris for the ears of Oliver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were nothing to him! O hot-headed youth!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But come; we will not follow. Let us join</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The crowd that pours into the Prado. There</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We shall find merrier company; I see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Marialonzos and the Almavivas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And fifty fans, that beckon me already.<span class="ws5"> [<i>Exeunt.</i></span></div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Scene IV.—Preciosa’s</span> <i>Chamber. She is sitting,
+with a book in her hand, near a table, on which are flowers. A bird
+singing in its cage. The</i> <span class="smcap">Count of Lara</span>
+<i>enters behind unperceived</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> [<i>reads</i>].</div>
+
+ <div class="verse indent21 fs_90">All are sleeping, weary heart!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent21 fs_90">Thou, thou only sleepless art!</div>
+
+ <div class="verse indent6">Heigho! I wish Victorian were here.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">I know not what it is makes me so restless!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent17">[<i>The bird sings.</i>]</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou little prisoner with thy motley coat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That from thy vaulted, wiry dungeon singest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like thee I am a captive, and, like thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have a gentle gaoler. Lack-a-day!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent12">All are sleeping, weary heart!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">Thou, thou only sleepless art!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">All this throbbing, all this aching,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">Evermore shall keep thee waking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">For a heart in sorrow breaking</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">Thinketh ever of its smart.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou speakest truly, poet! and methinks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">More hearts are breaking in this world of ours</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than one would say. In distant villages</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And solitudes remote, where winds have wafted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The barbed seeds of love, or birds of passage</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Scattered them in their flight, do they take root</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And grow in silence, and in silence perish.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who hears the falling of the forest leaf?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or who takes note of every flower that dies?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Heigho! I wish Victorian would come.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dolores!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>Turns to lay down her book, and perceives the</i> <span class="smcap">Count</span>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent15">Ha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws4">Señora, pardon me!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> How’s this?&emsp; Dolores!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws10">Pardon me——</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws12">Dolores!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> Be not alarmed; I found no one in waiting.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If I have been too bold——</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> [<i>turning her back upon him</i>]. You are too bold!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Retire! retire, and leave me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws10">My dear lady,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">First hear me! I beseech you, let me speak.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Tis for your good I come.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> [<i>turning toward him with indignation</i>]. Begone! Begone!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You are the Count of Lara, but your deeds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Would make the statues of your ancestors</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blush on their tombs! Is it Castilian honour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is it Castilian pride, to steal in here</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon a friendless girl, to do her wrong?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O shame! shame! shame! that you, a nobleman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Should be so little noble in your thoughts</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As to send jewels here to win my love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And think to buy my honour with your gold!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have no words to tell you how I scorn you!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Begone! The sight of you is hateful to me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Begone, I say!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws4">Be calm; I will not harm you.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Because you dare not.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws8">I dare anything!</span></div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Therefore beware! You are deceived in me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In this false world, we do not always know</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who are our friends and who our enemies.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We all have enemies, and all need friends.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even you, fair Preciosa, here at court</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have foes who seek to wrong you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws10">If to this</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I owe the honour of the present visit,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You might have spared the coming. Having spoken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Once more I beg you, leave me to myself.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> I thought it but a friendly part to tell you</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What strange reports are current here in town.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For my own self, I do not credit them;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But there are many who, not knowing you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will lend a readier ear.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws8">There was no need</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That you should take upon yourself the duty</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of telling me these tales.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws10">Malicious tongues</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are ever busy with your name.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws12">Alas!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I’ve no protectors. I am a poor girl,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Exposed to insults and unfeeling jests.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They wound me, yet I cannot shield myself.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I give no cause for these reports. I live</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Retired, and visited by none.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> <span class="ws10">By none?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O, then, indeed, you are much wronged!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws12">How mean you?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> Nay, nay; I will not wound your gentle soul</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the report of idle tales.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws8">Speak out!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What are these idle tales? You need not spare me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> I will deal frankly with you. Pardon me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This window, as I think, looks towards the street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And this into the Prado, does it not?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In yon high house, beyond the garden wall,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You see the roof there just above the trees,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There lives a friend, who told me yesterday,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That on a certain night,—be not offended</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If I too plainly speak,—he saw a man</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Climb to your chamber window. You are silent!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I would not blame you, being young and fair——</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>He tries to embrace her. She starts back, and draws</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent7"><i>a dagger from her bosom.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Beware! beware! I am a Gipsy girl!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lay not your hand upon me. One step nearer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I will strike!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws4">Pray you, put up that dagger.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fear not.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i>&emsp; I do not fear.&emsp; I have a heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In whose strength I can trust.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws11">Listen to me.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I come here as your friend,—I am your friend,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And by a single word can put a stop</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To all those idle tales, and make your name</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spotless as lilies are. Here on my knees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fair Preciosa! on my knees I swear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I love you even to madness, and that love</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has driven me to break the rules of custom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And force myself unasked into your presence.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<span class="smcap">Victorian</span> <i>enters behind</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Rise, Count of Lara!&emsp; This is not the place</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For such as you are. It becomes you not</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To kneel before me. I am strangely moved</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To see one of your rank thus low and humbled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For your sake I will put aside all anger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All unkind feeling, all dislike, and speak</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In gentleness, as most becomes a woman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And as my heart now prompts me. I no more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will hate you, for all hate is painful to me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But if, without offending modesty</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And that reserve which is a woman’s glory,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I may speak freely, I will teach my heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To love you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws4">O sweet angel!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws10">Ay, in truth,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Far better than you love yourself or me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> Give me some sign of this,—the slightest token.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let me but kiss your hand!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws9">Nay, come no nearer.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The words I utter are its sign and token.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Misunderstand me not! Be not deceived!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The love wherewith I love you is not such</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As you would offer me. For you come here</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To take from me the only thing I have,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My honour. You are wealthy, you have friends</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And kindred, and a thousand pleasant hopes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That fill your heart with happiness; but I</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Am poor and friendless, having but one treasure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And you would take that from me, and for what?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To flatter your own vanity, and make me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What you would most despise. O sir, such love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That seeks to harm me, cannot be true love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Indeed it cannot. But my love for you</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is of a different kind. It seeks your good.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is a holier feeling. It rebukes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Your earthly passion, your unchaste desires,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And bids you look into your heart and see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How you do wrong that better nature in you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And grieve your soul with sin.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws10">I swear to you,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I would not harm you; I would only love you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I would not take your honour, but restore it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in return I ask but some slight mark</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of your affection. If indeed you love me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As you confess you do, O let me thus</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With this embrace——</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> [<i>rushing forward</i>]. Hold! hold!&emsp; This is too much.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What means this outrage?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws10">First, what right have you</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To question thus a nobleman of Spain?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> I too am noble, and you are no more!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out of my sight!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws4">Are you the master here?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Ay, here and elsewhere, when the wrong of others</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gives me the right!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> [<i>to</i> <span class="smcap">Lara</span>].&emsp; Go! I beseech you, go!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> I shall have business with you, Count, anon!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> You cannot come too soon!<span class="ws6">[Exit.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws10">Victorian!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O we have been betrayed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws8">Ha! ha! betrayed!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Tis I have been betrayed, not we!—not we!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Dost thou imagine——</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws9">I imagine nothing;</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see how ’tis thou wilest the time away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When I am gone!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws4">O speak not in that tone!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It wounds me deeply.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws6">’Twas not meant to flatter.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Too well thou knowest the presence of that man</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is hateful to me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws4">Yet I saw thee stand</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And listen to him, when he told his love.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> I did not heed his words.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">Indeed thou didst,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And answeredst them with love.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws10">Hadst thou heard all——</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> I heard enough.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws7">Be not angry so with me.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> I am not angry; I am very calm.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> If thou wilt let me speak——</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">Nay, say no more.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I know too much already. Thou art false!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I do not like these Gipsy marriages!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where is the ring I gave thee?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws8">In my casket.</span></div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> There let it rest! I would not have thee wear it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I thought thee spotless, and thou art polluted.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> I call the Heavens to witness——</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">Nay, nay, nay!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Take not the name of Heaven upon thy lips!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They are forsworn!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws4">Victorian! dear Victorian!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> I gave up all for thee; myself, my fame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My hopes of fortune, ay, my very soul!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thou hast been my ruin! Now, go on!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Laugh at my folly with thy paramour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, sitting on the Count of Lara’s knee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Say what a poor, fond fool Victorian was!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent6">[<i>He casts her from him and rushes out.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> And this from thee!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>Scene closes.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p><span class="smcap">Scene V.</span>—<i>The</i> <span class="smcap">Count of Lara’s</span>
+<i>rooms. Enter the</i> <span class="smcap">Count</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> There’s nothing in this world so sweet as love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And next to love the sweetest thing is hate!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I’ve learned to hate, and therefore am revenged.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A silly girl to play the prude with me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fire that I have kindled——</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Francisco</span>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent20">Well, Francisco,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What tidings from Don Juan?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Fran.</i><span class="ws10">Good, my lord.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He will be present.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws5">And the Duke of Lermos?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Fran.</i> Was not at home.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws8">How with the rest?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Fran.</i><span class="ws10">I’ve found</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The men you wanted. They will be all there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And at the given signal raise a whirlwind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of such discordant noises, that the dance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Must cease for lack of music.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws8">Bravely done.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! little dost thou dream, sweet Preciosa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What lies in wait for thee. Sleep shall not close</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thine eyes this night! Give me my cloak and sword.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent35">[<i>Exeunt.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Scene VI.</span>—<i>A retired spot beyond
+the city gates. Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Victorian</span> <i>and</i>
+<span class="smcap">Hypolito</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> O shame! O shame! Why do I walk abroad</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By daylight, when the very sunshine mocks me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And voices, and familiar sights and sounds,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Cry, “Hide thyself!” O what a thin partition</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Doth shut out from the curious world the knowledge</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of evil deeds that have been done in darkness!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Disgrace has many tongues. My fears are windows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through which all eyes seem gazing. Every face</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Expresses some suspicion of my shame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in derision seems to smile at me!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Did I not caution thee? Did I not tell thee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I was but half-persuaded of her virtue?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> And yet, Hypolito, we may be wrong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We may be over-hasty in condemning!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Count of Lara is a cursed villain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> And therefore is she cursed, loving him.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> She does not love him! ’Tis for gold! for gold!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Ay, but remember, in the public streets</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He shows a golden ring the Gipsy gave him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A serpent with a ruby in its mouth.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> She had that ring from me! God! she is false!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But I will be revenged! The hour is passed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where stays the coward?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">Nay, he is no coward;</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A villain, if thou wilt, but not a coward.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I’ve seen him play with swords; it is his pastime.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And therefore be not over-confident,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He’ll task thy skill anon. Look, here he comes.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Lara</span>, <i>followed by</i> <span class="smcap">Francisco</span>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> Good evening, gentlemen.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">Good evening, Count.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Lara.</i> I trust I have not kept you long in waiting.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Vict.</i> Not long, and yet too long. Are you prepared?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Lara.</i> I am.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws3">It grieves me much to see this quarrel</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Between you, gentlemen. Is there no way</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Left open to accord this difference,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But you must make one with your swords?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Vict.</i> No! none!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I do entreat thee, dear Hypolito,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stand not between me and my foe. Too long</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our tongues have spoken. Let these tongues of steel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">End our debate. Upon your guard, Sir Count!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">[<i>They fight.</i> <span class="smcap">Victorian</span> <i>disarms the</i>
+ <span class="smcap">Count</span>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Your life is mine; and what shall now withhold me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From sending your vile soul to its account?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> Strike! strike!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> You are disarmed. I will not kill you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will not murder you. Take up your sword.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<span class="smcap">Francisco</span> <i>hands the</i> <span class="smcap">Count</span> <i>his sword,
+ and</i> <span class="smcap">Hypolito</span> <i>interposes</i>.]</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Hyp.</i> Enough!&emsp; Let it end here! The Count of Lara</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has shown himself a brave man, and Victorian</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A generous one, as ever. Now be friends.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Put up your swords; for, to speak frankly to you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Your cause of quarrel is too slight a thing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To move you to extremes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws10">I am content.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I sought no quarrel. A few hasty words,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spoken in the heat of blood, have led to this.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Nay, something more than that.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws12">I understand you.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Therein I did not mean to cross your path.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To me the door stood open, as to others.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But, had I known the girl belonged to you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Never would I have sought to win her from you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The truth stands now revealed; she has been false</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To both of us.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws3">Ay, false as hell itself!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> In truth I did not seek her; she sought me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And told me how to win her, telling me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hours when she was oftenest left alone.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Say, can you prove this to me? O, pluck out</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">These awful doubts, that goad me into madness!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let me know all! all! all!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws10">You shall know all.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here is my page, who was the messenger</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Between us. Question him. Was it not so,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Francisco?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Fran.</i>&emsp; Ay, my lord.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws10">If further proof</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is needful, I have here a ring she gave me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Pray let me see that ring! It is the same.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent6">[<i>Throws it upon the ground, and tramples upon it.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thus may she perish who once wore that ring!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus do I spurn her from me; do thus trample</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her memory in the dust! O Count of Lara,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We both have been abused, been much abused!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I thank you for your courtesy and frankness.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though, like the surgeon’s hand, yours gave me pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet it has cured my blindness, and I thank you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I now can see the folly I have done,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though ’tis, alas! too late. So fare you well!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To-night I leave this hateful town for ever.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Regard me as your friend. Once more, farewell!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Farewell, Sir Count.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent15">[<i>Exeunt</i> <span class="smcap">Victorian</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Hypolito</span></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws10">Farewell! farewell!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus have I cleared the field of my worst foe!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have none else to fear; the fight is done,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The citadel is stormed, the victory won!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent26">[<i>Exit with</i> <span class="smcap">Francisco</span>.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Scene VII.</span>—<i>A lane in the suburbs.
+Night. Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Cruzado</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Bartolomé</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Cruz.</i> And so, Bartolomé, the expedition failed. But where wast
+thou for the most part?</p>
+
+<p><i>Bart.</i> In the Guadarrama mountains, near San Ildefonso.</p>
+
+<p><i>Cruz.</i> And thou bringest nothing back with thee? Didst thou rob
+no one?</p>
+
+<p><i>Bart.</i> There was no one to rob, save a party of students from
+Segovia, who looked as if they would rob us; and a jolly little friar,
+who had nothing in his pockets but a missal and a loaf of bread.</p>
+
+<p><i>Cruz.</i> Pray, then, what brings thee back to Madrid?</p>
+
+<p><i>Bart.</i> First tell me what keeps thee here?</p>
+
+<p><i>Cruz.</i> Preciosa.</p>
+
+<p><i>Bart.</i> And she brings me back. Hast thou forgotten thy promise?</p>
+
+<p><i>Cruz.</i> The two years are not passed yet. Wait patiently. The girl
+shall be thine.</p>
+
+<p><i>Bart.</i> I hear she has a Busné lover.</p>
+
+<p><i>Cruz.</i> That is nothing.</p>
+
+<p><i>Bart.</i> I do not like it. I hate him,—the son of a Busné harlot.
+He goes in and out, and speaks with her alone, and I must stand aside
+and wait his pleasure.</p>
+
+<p><i>Cruz.</i> Be patient, I say. Thou shalt have thy revenge. When the
+time comes, thou shalt waylay him.</p>
+
+<p><i>Bart.</i> Meanwhile, show me her house.</p>
+
+<p><i>Cruz.</i> Come this way. But thou wilt not find her. She dances at
+the play to-night.</p>
+
+<p><i>Bart.</i> No matter. Show me the house. [<i>Exeunt.</i></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent spa2"><span class="smcap">Scene VIII.</span>—<i>The Theatre. The orchestra
+plays the cachucha. Sound of castanets behind the scenes. The curtain rises, and
+discovers</i> <span class="smcap">Preciosa</span> <i>in the attitude of commencing the
+dance. The cachucha. Tumult; hisses; cries of “Brava!” and “Afuera!”
+She falters and pauses. The music stops. General confusion.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Preciosa</span> <i>faints</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="neg-indent spa2"><span class="smcap">Scene IX.</span>—<i>The</i>
+<span class="smcap">Count of Lara’s</span> <i>chambers</i>.
+<span class="smcap">Lara</span> <i>and his friends at supper</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> So, Caballeros, once more many thanks!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You have stood by me bravely in this matter.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pray fill your glasses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Juan.</i><span class="ws8">Did you mark, Don Luis,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How pale she looked, when first the noise began,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then stood still, with her large eyes dilated!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her nostrils spread! her lips apart! her bosom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tumultuous as the sea!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Luis.</i><span class="ws8">I pitied her.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> Her pride is humbled; and this very night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I mean to visit her.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Juan.</i><span class="ws10">Will you serenade her?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> No music! no more music!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Luis.</i><span class="ws10">Why not music?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It softens many hearts.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws8">Not in the humour</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She now is in. Music would madden her.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Juan.</i> Try golden cymbals.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Luis.</i><span class="ws10">Yes, try Don Dinero;</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A mighty wooer is your Don Dinero.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> To tell the truth, then, I have bribed her maid.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But, Caballeros, you dislike this wine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A bumper and away; for the night wears.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A health to Preciosa!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>They rise and drink.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>All.</i><span class="ws12">Preciosa!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> [holding up his glass]. Thou bright and flaming</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">minister of Love!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou wonderful magician! who hast stolen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My secret from me, and ’mid sighs of passion</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Caught from my lips, with red and fiery tongue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her precious name! O never more henceforth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall mortal lips press thine; and never more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A mortal name be whispered in thine ear.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Go! keep my secret.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent14">[<i>Drinks and dashes the goblet down.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Juan.</i><span class="ws8"><i>Ite! missa est!</i></span></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent15">[<i>Scene closes.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Scene X.</span>—<i>Street and garden wall. Night. Enter</i>
+<span class="smcap">Cruzado</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Bartolomé</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Cruz.</i> This is the garden wall, and above it, yonder, is her
+house. The window in which thou seest the light is her window. But we
+will not go in now.</p>
+
+<p><i>Bart.</i> Why not?</p>
+
+<p><i>Cruz.</i> Because she is not at home.</p>
+
+<p><i>Bart.</i> No matter; we can wait. But how is this? The gate is
+bolted. [<i>Sound of guitars and voices in a neighbouring street.</i>]
+Hark! There comes her lover with his infernal serenade! Hark!</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">SONG.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Good night! Good night, beloved!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I come to watch o’er thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To be near thee,—to be near thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Alone is peace for me.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thine eyes are stars of morning.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thy lips are crimson flowers!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Good night! Good night, beloved,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">While I count the weary hours.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span>
+<i>Cruz.</i> They are not coming this way.</p>
+
+<p><i>Bart.</i> Wait, they begin again.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">SONG [<i>coming nearer</i>].</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! thou moon that shinest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Argent-clear above!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All night long enlighten</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">My sweet lady love!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Moon that shinest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All night long enlighten!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Bart.</i> Woe be to him if he comes this way!</p>
+
+<p><i>Cruz.</i> Be quiet, they are passing down the street.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">SONG [<i>dying away</i>].</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The nuns in the cloister</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sang to each other;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For so many sisters</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is there not one brother!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ay, for the partridge, mother!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The cat has run away with the partridge!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Puss! puss! puss!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Bart.</i> Follow that! Follow that! Come with me. Puss! puss!</p>
+
+<p>[<i>Exeunt. On the opposite side enter the</i> <span class="smcap">Count of Lara</span>
+<i>and gentlemen, with</i> <span class="smcap">Francisco</span>.]</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i> The gate is fast. Over the wall, Francisco,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And draw the bolt. There, so, and so, and over.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now, gentlemen, come in, and help me scale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yon balcony. How now? Her light still burns.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Move warily. Make fast the gate, Francisco.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>[Exeunt. Re-enter</i> <span class="smcap">Cruzado</span> <i>and</i>
+<span class="smcap">Bartolomé</span>.]</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Bart.</i> They went in at the gate. Hark! I hear them in the garden.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>Tries the gate.</i>] Bolted again! Vive Christo! Follow me over</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">the wall.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent15">[<i>They climb the wall.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Scene XI.</span>—<span class="smcap">Preciosa’s</span>
+<i>Bed-chamber. Midnight. She is sleeping in an arm-chair, in an undress.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Dolores</span> <i>watching her</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Dol.</i> She sleeps at last!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent11">[<i>Opens the window and listens.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent20">All silent in the street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in the garden. Hark!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> [<i>in her sleep</i>]. I must go hence!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Give me my cloak!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Dol.</i><span class="ws7">He comes! I hear his footsteps!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Go tell them that I cannot dance to-night;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am too ill!&emsp; Look at me!&emsp; See the fever</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That burns upon my cheek! I must go hence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am too weak to dance.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent12">[<i>Signal from the garden.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Dol.</i> [<i>from the window</i>]. Who’s there?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Voice</i> [<i>from below</i>].<span class="ws9">A friend.</span></div>
+
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Dol.</i> I will undo the door.&emsp; Wait till I come.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> I must go hence. I pray you do not harm me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shame! shame! to treat a feeble woman thus!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Be you but kind, I will do all things for you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I’m ready now,—give me my castanets.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where is Victorian? Oh, those hateful lamps!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They glare upon me like an evil eye.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_27_27" href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I cannot stay. Hark! how they mock at me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They hiss at me like serpents!&emsp; Save me! save me!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent17">[<i>She wakes.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How late is it, Dolores?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Dol.</i><span class="ws10">It is midnight.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> We must be patient.&emsp; Smooth this pillow for me.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">[<i>She sleeps again. Noise from the garden, and voices.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Voice.</i> Muera!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Another Voice.</i> O villains! villains!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws10">So! have at you!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Voice.</i> Take that!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lara.</i><span class="ws5">O, I am wounded!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Dol.</i> [<i>shutting the window</i>].<span class="ws5">Jesu Maria!</span></div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="f120">ACT III.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Scene I.</span>—<i>A cross-road through a wood.
+In the background a distant village spire.</i> <span class="smcap">Victorian</span> <i>and</i>
+<span class="smcap">Hypolito</span>, <i>as travelling students, with guitars, sitting
+under the trees</i>. <span class="smcap">Hypolito</span> <i>plays and sings</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent20">SONG.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent18">Ah, Love!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Perjured, false, treacherous Love!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent18">Enemy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Of all that mankind may not rue!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent18">Most untrue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">To him who keeps most faith with thee.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent18">Woe is me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">The falcon has the eyes of the dove.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent18">Ah! Love!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Perjured, false, treacherous Love!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Yes, Love is ever busy with his shuttle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is ever weaving into life’s dull warp</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bright, gorgeous flowers and scenes Arcadian;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hanging our gloomy prison-house about</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With tapestries, that make its walls dilate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In never-ending vistas of delight.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Thinking to walk in those Arcadian pastures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast run thy noble head against the wall.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent17">SONG [<i>continued</i>].</div>
+ <div class="verse indent18">Thy deceits</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Give us clearly to comprehend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent18">Whither tend</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">All thy pleasures, all thy sweets!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent18">They are cheats,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Thorns below and flowers above.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent18">Ah, Love!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Perjured, false, treacherous Love!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> A very pretty song.&emsp; I thank thee for it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> It suits thy case.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">Indeed, I think it does.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What wise man wrote it?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws8">Lopez Maldonado.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> In truth, a pretty song.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">With much truth in it.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I hope thou wilt profit by it; and in earnest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Try to forget this lady of thy love.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> I will forget her! All dear recollections</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pressed in my heart, like flowers within a book,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall be torn out, and scattered to the winds!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will forget her! But perhaps hereafter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When she shall learn how heartless is the world,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A voice within her will repeat my name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And she will say, “He was indeed my friend!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O, would I were a soldier, not a scholar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That the loud march, the deafening beat of drums,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The shattering blast of the brass-throated trumpet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The din of arms, the onslaught and the storm,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a swift death, might make me deaf for ever</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the upbraidings of this foolish heart!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Then let that foolish heart upbraid no more:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To conquer love, one need but will to conquer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Yet, good Hypolito, it is in vain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I throw into Oblivion’s sea the sword</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That pierces me; for, like Excalibar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With gemmed and flashing hilt, it will not sink.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There rises from below a hand that grasps it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And waves it in the air; and wailing voices</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are heard along the shore.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">And yet at last</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down sank Excalibar to rise no more.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This is not well. In truth, it vexes me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Instead of whistling to the steeds of Time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To make them jog on merrily with life’s burden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a dead weight thou hangest on the wheels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou art too young, too full of lusty health</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To talk of dying.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws5">Yet I fain would die!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To go through life, unloving and unloved;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To feel that thirst and hunger of the soul</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We cannot still; that longing, that wild impulse,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And struggle after something we have not</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And cannot have; the effort to be strong;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, like the Spartan boy, to smile, and smile,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While secret wounds do bleed beneath our cloaks;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All this the dead feel not,—the dead alone!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Would I were with them!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws8">We shall all be soon.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> It cannot be too soon; for I am weary</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the bewildering masquerade of Life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where strangers walk as friends, and friends as strangers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where whispers overheard betray false hearts;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And through the mazes of the crowd we chase</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some form of loveliness, that smiles, and beckons,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And cheats us with fair words, only to leave us</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A mockery and a jest; maddened,—confused,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not knowing friend from foe.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">Why seek to know?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Enjoy the merry shrove-tide of thy youth!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Take each fair mask for what it gives itself,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor strive to look beneath it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">I confess,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That were the wiser part. But hope no longer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Comforts my soul. I am a wretched man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Much like a poor and shipwrecked mariner,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who, struggling to climb up into the boat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has both his bruised and bleeding hands cut off,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sinks again into the weltering sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Helpless and hopeless!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws7">Yet thou shalt not perish.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The strength of thine own arm is thy salvation.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Above thy head, through rifted clouds, there shines</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A glorious star. Be patient. Trust thy star!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent7">[<i>Sound of a village-bell in the distance.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Ave Maria!&emsp; I hear the sacristan</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ringing the chimes from yonder village belfry!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A solemn sound, that echoes far and wide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over the red roofs of the cottages,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And bids the labouring hind a-field, the shepherd</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Guarding his flock, the lonely muleteer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all the crowd in village streets, stand still,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And breathe a prayer unto the blessed Virgin!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Amen! amen!&emsp; Not half a league from hence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The village lies.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws4">This path will lead us to it,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over the wheat fields, where the shadows sail</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Across the running sea, now green, now blue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, like an idle mariner on the main,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whistles the quail. Come, let us hasten on.<span class="ws4">[<i>Exeunt.</i></span></div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent spa2"><span class="smcap">Scene II.</span>—<i>Public square in the village
+of Guadarrama. The Ave Maria still tolling. A crowd of villagers, with their hats in their
+hands, as if in prayer. In front, a group of Gipsies. The bell rings a merrier peal.
+A Gipsy dance. Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Pancho</span>, <i>followed by</i>
+<span class="smcap">Pedro Crespo</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pan.</i> Make room, ye vagabonds and Gipsy thieves!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Make room for the Alcalde and for me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cres.</i> Keep silence all! I have an edict here</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From our most gracious lord, the King of Spain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Jerusalem, and the Canary Islands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which I shall publish in the market-place.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Open your ears and listen!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent5">[<i>Enter the</i> <span class="smcap">Padre Cura</span>
+ <i>at the door of his cottage</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent20">Padre Cura,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Good day! and, pray you, hear this edict read.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i> Good day, and God be with you. Pray, what is it?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cres.</i> An act of banishment against the Gipsies!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>Agitation and murmurs in the crowd.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pan.</i> Silence!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cres.</i> [<i>reads</i>]. “I hereby order and command</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That the Egyptian and Chaldean strangers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Known by the name of Gipsies, shall henceforth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Be banished from the realm, as vagabonds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And beggars; and if, after seventy days,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Any be found within our kingdom’s bounds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They shall receive a hundred lashes each;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The second time, shall have their ears cut off;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The third, be slaves for life to him who takes them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or burnt as heretics. Signed, I, the King.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Vile miscreants and creatures unbaptized!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You hear the law! Obey and disappear!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pan.</i> And if in seventy days you are not gone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dead or alive I make you all my slaves.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">[<i>The Gipsies go out in confusion, showing signs of fear</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>and discontent.</i> <span class="smcap">Pancho</span> <i>follows</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i> A righteous law!&emsp; A very righteous law!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pray you, sit down.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cres.</i><span class="ws6">I thank you heartily.</span></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>They seat themselves on a bench at the</i> <span class="smcap">Padre Cura’s</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent3"><i>door. Sound of guitars heard at a distance, approaching</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent3"><i>during the dialogue which follows.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A very righteous judgment, as you say.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now tell me, Padre Cura,—you know all things,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How came these Gipsies into Spain?</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i><span class="ws10">Why, look you;</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They came with Hercules from Palestine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And hence are thieves and vagrants, Sir Alcalde,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the Simoniacs from Simon Magus.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, look you, as Fray Jayme Bleda says,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There are a hundred marks to prove a Moor</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is not a Christian, so ’tis with the Gipsies.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They never marry, never go to mass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Never baptize their children, nor keep Lent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor see the inside of a church,—nor—nor——</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cres.</i> Good reasons, good, substantial reasons, all!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No matter for the other ninety-five.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They should be burnt, I see it plain enough,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They should be burnt.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent6">[<i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Victorian</span> <i>and</i>
+ <span class="smcap">Hypolito</span> <i>playing</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i><span class="ws6">And pray, whom have we here?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cres.</i> More vagrants! By Saint Lazarus, more vagrants!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Good evening, gentlemen! Is this Guadarrama?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i> Yes, Guadarrama, and good evening to you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> We seek the Padre Cura of the village;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, judging from your dress and reverend mien,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You must be he.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i><span class="ws4">I am. Pray, what’s your pleasure?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> We are poor students, travelling in vacation.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You know this mark?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent8">[<i>Touching the wooden spoon in his hat-band.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Padre</i> [<i>joyfully</i>]. Ay, know it, and have worn it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Cres.</i> [<i>aside</i>]. Soup-eaters! by the mass!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The worst of vagrants!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And there’s no law against them.&emsp; Sir, your servant.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent37">[<i>Exit.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i> Your servant, Pedro Crespo.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">Padre Cura,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the first moment I beheld your face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I said within myself, “This is the man!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is a certain something in your looks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A certain scholar-like and studious something,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You understand,—which cannot be mistaken;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which marks you as a very learned man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In fine, as one of us.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> [<i>aside</i>].<span class="ws4">What impudence!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> As we approached, I said to my companion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“That is the Padre Cura; mark my words!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Meaning your Grace. “The other man,” said I,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Who sits so awkwardly upon the bench,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Must be the sacristan.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i><span class="ws8">Ah! said you so?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why, that was Pedro Crespo, the alcalde!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Indeed! you much astonish me! His air</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was not so full of dignity and grace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As an alcalde’s should be.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i><span class="ws10">That is true.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He is out of humour with some vagrant Gipsies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who have their camp here in the neighbourhood.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is nothing so undignified as anger.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> The Padre Cura will excuse our boldness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If, from his well-known hospitality,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We crave a lodging for the night.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i><span class="ws10">I pray you!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You do me honour! I am but too happy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To have such guests beneath my humble roof.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is not often that I have occasion</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To speak with scholars; and <i>Emollit mores,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Nec sinit esse feros</i>, Cicero says.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> ’Tis Ovid, is it not?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i><span class="ws9">No, Cicero.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Your Grace is right. You are the better scholar.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now what a dunce was I to think it Ovid!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But hang me if it is not! (<i>aside</i>).</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i><span class="ws10">Pass this way.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He was a very great man, was Cicero!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pray you, go in, go in! no ceremony.<span class="ws4">[<i>Exeunt.</i></span></div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Scene III.</span>—<i>A room in the</i>
+<span class="smcap">Padre Cura’s</span> <i>house. Enter the</i> <span class="smcap">Padre</span>
+<i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Hypolito</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i> So then, Señor, you come from Alcalá,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am glad to hear it. It was there I studied.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> And left behind an honoured name, no doubt.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How may I call your Grace?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i><span class="ws10">Gerónimo</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">De Santillana, at your Honour’s service.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Descended from the Marquis Santillana?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the distinguished poet?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i><span class="ws8">From the Marquis,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not from the poet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws5">Why, they were the same.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let me embrace you! O some lucky star</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has brought me hither! Yet once more!—once more!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Your name is ever green in Alcalá,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And our professor, when we are unruly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will shake his hoary head, and say, “Alas!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was not so in Santillana’s time!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i> I did not think my name remembered there.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> More than remembered; it is idolized.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i> Of what professor speak you?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">Timoneda.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i> I don’t remember any Timoneda.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> A grave and sombre man, whose beetling brow</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’erhangs the rushing current of his speech</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As rocks o’er rivers hang. Have you forgotten?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre</i>. Indeed, I have.&emsp; O those were pleasant days,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Those college days! I ne’er shall see the like!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I had not buried then so many hopes!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I had not buried then so many friends!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I’ve turned my back on what was then before me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the bright faces of my young companions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are wrinkled like my own, or are no more.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Do you remember Cueva?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp</i>.<span class="ws7">Cueva? Cueva?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre</i>. Fool that I am! He was before your time.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You’re a mere boy, and I am an old man.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> I should not like to try my strength with you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Padre.</i> Well, well. But I forget; you must be hungry.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Martina! ho! Martina!&emsp; ’Tis my niece.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Martina</span>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> You may be proud of such a niece as that.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I wish I had a niece. <i>Emollit mores.</i>
+ <span class="ws4">[<i>Aside.</i></span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He was a very great man, was Cicero!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Your servant, fair Martina.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Mart</i>.<span class="ws6">Servant, sir.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre</i>. This gentleman is hungry.&emsp; See thou to it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let us have supper.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Mart</i>.<span class="ws4">’Twill be ready soon.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre</i>. And bring a bottle of my Val-de-Peñas</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out of the cellar.&emsp; Stay; I’ll go myself.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pray you, Señor, excuse me. <span class="ws4">[<i>Exit.</i></span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws7">Hist! Martina!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One word with you. Bless me! what handsome eyes!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To-day there have been Gipsies in the village.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is it not so?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Mart.</i>&emsp; There have been Gipsies here.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Yes, and they told your fortune.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Mart</i>. [<i>embarrassed</i>].<span class="ws4">Told my fortune?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp</i>. Yes, yes; I know they did.&emsp; Give me your hand.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I’ll tell you what they said.&emsp; They said,—they said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The shepherd boy that loved you was a clown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And him you should not marry.&emsp; Was it not?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Mart</i>. [<i>surprised</i>]. How know you that?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp</i>.<span class="ws8">O, I know more than that.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What a soft, little hand! And then they said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A cavalier from court, handsome, and tall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And rich, should come one day to marry you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And you should be a lady. Was it not?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He has arrived, the handsome cavalier.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>Tries to kiss her. She runs off.</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent11"><i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Victorian</span> <i>with a letter</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict</i>. The muleteer has come.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws7">So soon?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">I found him</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sitting at supper by the tavern door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, from a pitcher that he held aloft</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His whole arm’s length, drinking the blood-red wine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> What news from Court?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws4">He brought this letter only.</span>
+ <span class="ws3">[<i>Reads.</i></span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O cursed perfidy! Why did I let</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That lying tongue deceive me! Preciosa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sweet Preciosa! how art thou avenged!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> What news is this, that makes thy cheek turn pale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thy hand tremble?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws8">O, most infamous!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Count of Lara is a worthless villain!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> That is no news, forsooth.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">He strove in vain</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To steal from me the jewel of my soul,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The love of Preciosa. Not succeeding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He swore to be revenged; and set on foot</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A plot to ruin her, which has succeeded.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She has been hissed and hooted from the stage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her reputation stained by slanderous lies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Too foul to speak of; and, once more a beggar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She roams a wanderer over God’s green earth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Housing with Gipsies!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws5">To renew again</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Age of Gold, and make the shepherd swains</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Desperate with love, like Gaspar Gil’s Diana.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Redit et Virgo!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws4">Dear Hypolito,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How have I wronged that meek, confiding heart!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will go seek for her; and with my tears</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wash out the wrong I’ve done her!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">O beware!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Act not that folly o’er again.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws8">Ay, folly,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Delusion, madness, call it what thou wilt,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will confess my weakness,—I still love her!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still fondly love her!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent5">[<i>Enter the</i> <span class="smcap">Padre Cura</span>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws8">Tell us, Padre Cura,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who are these Gipsies in the neighbourhood?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i> Beltran Cruzado and his crew.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">Kind Heaven,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I thank thee!&emsp; She is found! is found again!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> And have they with them a pale, beautiful girl,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Called Preciosa?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Padre.</i><span class="ws5">Ay, a pretty girl.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The gentleman seems moved.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws8">Yes, moved with hunger,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He is half-famished with this long day’s journey.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Padre.</i> Then, pray you, come this way. The supper waits.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent37">[<i>Exeunt.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent spb2"><span class="smcap">Scene IV.</span>—<i>A post-house on the road to Segovia,
+not far from the village of Guadarrama. Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Chispa</span>, <i>cracking
+a whip, and singing the cachucha</i>.]</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> Halloo! Don Fulano!&emsp; Let us have horses, and quickly.
+Alas, poor Chispa! what a dog’s life dost thou lead!&emsp; I thought, when
+I left my old master Victorian, the student, to serve my new master,
+Don Carlos, the gentleman, that I, too, should lead the life of a
+gentleman; should go to bed early, and get up late. For when the abbot
+plays cards, what can you expect of the friars? But, in running away
+from the thunder, I have run into the lightning.&emsp; Here I am in hot chase
+after my master and his Gipsy girl. And a good beginning of the week it
+is, as he said who was hanged on Monday morning.</p>
+
+<p class="center">[<i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Don Carlos</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Carlos.</span> Are not the horses ready yet?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Chis.</span> I should think not, for the hostler seems to
+be asleep. Ho! within there! Horses! horses! horses! [<i>He knocks at the gate
+with his whip, and enter</i> <span class="smcap">Mosquito</span>, <i>putting on his
+jacket</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><i>Mos.</i> Pray, have a little patience.&emsp; I’m not a musket.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> Health and pistareens!&emsp; I’m glad to see you come on
+dancing, padre! Pray, what’s the news?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mos.</i> You cannot have fresh horses; because there are none.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> Cachiporra!&emsp; Throw that bone to another dog.&emsp; Do I look like
+your aunt?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mos.</i> No; she has a beard.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> Go to! Go to!</p>
+
+<p><i>Mos.</i> Are you from Madrid?</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> Yes; and going to Estramadura.&emsp; Get us horses.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mos.</i> What’s the news at Court?</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> Why, the latest news is, that I am going to set up a
+coach, and I have already bought the whip.</p>
+
+<p class="center">[<i>Strikes him round the legs.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><i>Mos.</i> Oh! oh! you hurt me!</p>
+
+<p><i>Carlos.</i> Enough of this folly.&emsp; Let us have horses.&emsp; [<i>Gives
+money to</i> <span class="smcap">Mosquito</span>.] It is almost dark; and we are in
+haste.&emsp; But tell me, has a band of Gipsies passed this way of late?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mos.</i> Yes; and they are still in the neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p><i>Carlos.</i> And where?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mos.</i> Across the fields yonder, in the woods near Guadarrama.&emsp; [<i>Exit.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Carlos.</i> Now this is lucky. We will visit the Gipsy camp.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> Are you not afraid of the evil eye? Have you a stag’s horn
+with you?</p>
+
+<p><i>Carlos.</i> Fear not.&emsp; We will pass the night at the village.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> And sleep like the Squires of Hernan Daza, nine under one blanket.</p>
+
+<p><i>Carlos.</i> I hope we may find the Preciosa among them.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> Among the Squires?</p>
+
+<p><i>Carlos.</i> No; among the Gipsies, blockhead!</p>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> I hope we may; for we are giving ourselves trouble enough
+on her account. Don’t you think so? However, there is no catching trout
+without wetting one’s trousers. Yonder come the horses.</p>
+<p class="author"> [<i>Exeunt.</i></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Scene V.</span>—<i>The Gipsy camp in the forest.
+Night. Gipsies working at a forge. Others playing cards by the fire-light.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent2">GIPSIES [<i>at the forge sing</i>].</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the top of a mountain I stand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a crown of red gold in my hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wild Moors come trooping over the lea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O how from their fury shall I flee, flee, flee?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O how from their fury shall I flee?</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>1st Gipsy</i> [<i>playing</i>]. Down with your John-Dorados,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_28_28" href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a>
+my pigeon. Down with your John-Dorados, and let us make an end.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent2">GIPSIES [<i>at the forge sing</i>].</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Loud sang the Spanish cavalier,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And thus his ditty ran:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">God send the Gipsy lassie here,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And not the Gipsy man.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>1st Gipsy</i> [<i>playing</i>]. There you are in your morocco.</p>
+
+<p><i>2d Gipsy.</i> One more game. The Alcalde’s doves against the Padre
+Cura’s new moon.</p>
+
+<p><i>1st Gipsy.</i> Have at you, Chirelin.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent0">GIPSIES [<i>at the forge sing</i>].</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At midnight, when the moon began</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To show her silver flame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There came to him no Gipsy man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The Gipsy lassie came.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Beltran Cruzado</span>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Cruz.</i> Come hither, Murcigalleros and Rastilleros; leave work,
+leave play; listen to your orders for the night. [<i>Speaking to the
+right.</i>] You will get you to the village, mark you, by the stone cross.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Gipsies.</i> Ay!</p>
+
+<p><i>Cruz.</i> [<i>to the left</i>]. And you, by the pole with the
+hermit’s head upon it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Gipsies.</i> Ay!</p>
+
+<p><i>Cruz.</i> As soon as you see the planets are out, in with you, and
+be busy with the ten commandments, under the sly, and Saint Martin
+asleep. D’ye hear?</p>
+
+<p><i>Gipsies.</i> Ay!</p>
+
+<p><i>Cruz.</i> Keep your lanterns open, and, if you see a goblin or a
+papagayo, take to your trampers. “Vineyards and Dancing John” is the
+word. Am I comprehended?</p>
+
+<p><i>Gipsies.</i> Ay! ay!</p>
+
+<p><i>Cruz.</i> Away, then!</p>
+
+<p>[<i>Exeunt severally.</i> <span class="smcap">Cruzado</span>
+<i>walks up the stage and disappears among the trees.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Preciosa</span>.]</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> How strangely gleams through the gigantic trees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The red light of the forge!&emsp; Wild, beckoning shadows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stalk through the forest, ever and anon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rising and bending with the flickering flame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then flitting into darkness!&emsp; So within me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Strange hopes and fears do beckon to each other,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My brightest hopes giving dark fears a being</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the light does the shadow.&emsp; Woe is me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How still it is about me, and how lonely!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<span class="smcap">Bartolomé</span> <i>rushes in</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Bart.</i> Ho! Preciosa!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws10">O, Bartolomé!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou here?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Bart.</i><span class="ws4">Lo! I am here.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws10">Whence comest thou?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Bart.</i> From the rough ridges of the wild Sierra,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From caverns in the rocks, from hunger, thirst,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And fever! Like a wild wolf to the sheepfold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come I for thee, my lamb.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws10">O touch me not!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Count of Lara’s blood is on thy hands!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Count of Lara’s curse is on thy soul!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Do not come near me!&emsp; Pray, begone from here!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou art in danger!&emsp; They have set a price</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon thy head!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Bart.</i><span class="ws5">Ay, and I’ve wandered long</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Among the mountains; and for many days</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have seen no human face, save the rough swine-herd’s.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wind and rain have been my sole companions.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I shouted to them from the rocks thy name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the loud echo sent it back to me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till I grew mad.&emsp; I could not stay from thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I am here!&emsp; Betray me, if thou wilt.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Betray thee?&emsp; I betray thee?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bart.</i><span class="ws10">Preciosa!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I come for thee! for thee I thus brave death!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fly with me o’er the borders of this realm!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fly with me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws4">Speak of that no more.&emsp; I cannot.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am thine no longer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Bart.</i><span class="ws5">O, recall the time</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When we were children! how we played together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How we grew up together; how we plighted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our hearts unto each other, even in childhood!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fulfil thy promise, for the hour has come.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am hunted from the kingdom, like a wolf!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fulfil thy promise.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws6">’Twas my father’s promise,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not mine.&emsp; I never gave my heart to thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor promised thee my hand!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Bart.</i><span class="ws10">False tongue of woman!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And heart more false!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws8">Nay, listen unto me.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will speak frankly. I have never loved thee;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I cannot love thee. This is not my fault,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is my destiny. Thou art a man</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Restless and violent. What wouldst thou with me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A feeble girl, who have not long to live,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose heart is broken? Seek another wife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Better than I, and fairer; and let not</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy rash and headlong moods estrange her from thee.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou art unhappy in this hopeless passion.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I never sought thy love; never did aught</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To make thee love me. Yet I pity thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And most of all I pity thy wild heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That hurries thee to crimes and deeds of blood.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beware, beware of that.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Bart.</i><span class="ws9">For thy dear sake,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will be gentle. Thou shalt teach me patience.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Then take this farewell, and depart in peace.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou must not linger here.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Bart.</i><span class="ws8">Come, come with me.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Hark!&emsp; I hear footsteps.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Bart.</i><span class="ws10">I entreat thee, come!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Away!&emsp; It is in vain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Bart.</i><span class="ws10">Wilt thou not come?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Never!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Bart.</i><span class="ws4">Then woe, eternal woe, upon thee.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou shalt not be another’s.&emsp; Thou shalt die.
+ <span class="ws3">[<i>Exit.</i></span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> All holy angels keep me in this hour!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spirit of her who bore me, look upon me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mother of God, the glorified, protect me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Christ and the saints, be merciful unto me!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet why should I fear death? What is it to die?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To leave all disappointment, care, and sorrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To leave all falsehood, treachery, and unkindness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All ignominy, suffering, and despair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And be at rest for ever! O, dull heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Be of good cheer! When thou shalt cease to beat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then shalt thou cease to suffer and complain!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent6">[<i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Victorian</span>
+ <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Hypolito</span> <i>behind</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> ’Tis she!&emsp; Behold, how beautiful she stands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under the tent-like trees!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws8">A woodland nymph!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> I pray thee, stand aside.&emsp; Leave me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws10">Be wary.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Do not betray thyself too soon.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> [<i>disguising his voice</i>]. Hist! Gipsy!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> [<i>aside, with emotion</i>].</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That voice! that voice from heaven! O speak again!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who is it calls?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws6">A friend.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> [<i>aside</i>].<span class="ws6">’Tis he! ’Tis he!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I thank thee, Heaven, that thou hast heard my prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sent me this protector!&emsp; Now be strong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Be strong, my heart!&emsp; I must dissemble here.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">False friend or true?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws5">A true friend to the true.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fear not; come hither.&emsp; So, can you tell fortunes?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Not in the dark.&emsp; Come nearer to the fire.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Give me your hand.&emsp; It is not crossed, I see.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> [<i>putting a piece of gold into her hand</i>]. There is the cross.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws8">Is’t silver?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">No, ’tis gold.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> There’s a fair lady at the Court, who loves you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And for yourself alone.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws6">Fie! the old story!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tell me a better fortune for my money;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not this old woman’s tale!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws7">You are passionate;</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And this same passionate humour in your blood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has marred your fortune. Yes; I see it now;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The line of life is crossed by many marks.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shame! shame! O you have wronged the maid who loved you!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How could you do it?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws6">I never loved a maid;</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For she I loved was then a maid no more.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> How know you that?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">A little bird in the air</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whispered the secret.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws8">There, take back your gold.</span></div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Your hand is cold, like a deceiver’s hand!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is no blessing in its charity!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Make her your wife, for you have been abused;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And you shall mend your fortunes, mending hers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> [<i>aside</i>]. How like an angel’s speaks the tongue of woman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When pleading in another’s cause her own——</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That is a pretty ring upon your finger.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pray give it me. [<i>Tries to take the ring.</i>]</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws6">No; never from my hand</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall that be taken!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws8">Why, ’tis but a ring.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I’ll give it back to you; or, if I keep it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will give you gold to buy you twenty such.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Why would you have this ring?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">A traveller’s fancy,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A whim, and nothing more. I would fain keep it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a memento of the Gipsy camp</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In Guadarrama, and the fortune-teller</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who sent me back to wed a widowed maid.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pray, let me have the ring.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws8">No, never! never!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will not part with it, even when I die;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But bid my nurse fold my pale fingers thus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That it may not fall from them. ’Tis a token</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of a beloved friend, who is no more.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">How? dead?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Yes; dead to me; and worse than dead.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He is estranged! And yet I keep this ring.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will rise with it from my grave hereafter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To prove to him that I was never false.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> [<i>aside</i>].&emsp; Be still, my swelling heart! one moment, still!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why, ’tis the folly of a love-sick girl.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come, give it me, or I will say ’tis mine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And that you stole it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws8">O, you will not dare</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To utter such a fiendish lie!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">Not dare?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Look in my face, and say if there is aught</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have not dared, I would not dare for thee!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>She rushes into his arms.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> ’Tis thou! ’tis thou!&emsp; Yes; yes; my heart’s elected!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My dearest-dear Victorian! my soul’s heaven!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where hast thou been so long?&emsp; Why didst thou leave me?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Ask me not now, my dearest Preciosa.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let me forget we ever have been parted!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Hadst thou not come——</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws8">I pray thee, do not chide me!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> I should have perished here among these Gipsies.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Forgive me, sweet! for what I made thee suffer.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Think’st thou this heart could feel a moment’s joy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou being absent? O, believe it not!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Indeed, since that sad hour I have not slept,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For thinking of the wrong I did to thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dost thou forgive me? Say, wilt thou forgive me?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> I have forgiven thee.&emsp; Ere those words of anger</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were in the book of Heaven writ down against thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I had forgiven thee.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws5">I’m the veriest fool</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That walks the earth, to have believed thee false.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was the Count of Lara——</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws8">That bad man</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has worked me harm enough.&emsp; Hast thou not heard——</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> I have heard all.&emsp; And yet speak on, speak on!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let me but hear thy voice, and I am happy;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For every tone, like some sweet incantation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Calls up the buried past to plead for me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Speak, my beloved, speak into my heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whatever fills and agitates thine own.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent11">[<i>They walk aside.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> All gentle quarrels in the pastoral poets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All passionate love scenes in the best romances,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All chaste embraces on the public stage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All soft adventures, which the liberal stars</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have winked at, as the natural course of things,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have been surpassed here by my friend, the student,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And this sweet Gipsy lass, fair Preciosa!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Señor Hypolito! I kiss your hand.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pray, shall I tell your fortune?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws8">Not to-night;</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For, should you treat me as you did Victorian,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And send me back to marry maids forlorn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My wedding-day would last from now till Christmas.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Chispa</i> [<i>within</i>]. What ho! the Gipsies, ho!&emsp; Beltran Cruzado!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Halloo! halloo! halloo! halloo!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>Enters booted, with a whip and lantern.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws10">What now?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why such a fearful din?&emsp; Hast thou been robbed?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Chis.</i> Ay, robbed and murdered; and good evening to you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My worthy masters.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws5">Speak; what brings thee here?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Chis.</i> [<i>to</i> <span class="smcap">Preciosa</span>].
+ Good news from Court; good news!&emsp; Beltran Cruzado,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Count of the Calés, is not your father;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But your true father has returned to Spain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Laden with wealth.&emsp; You are no more a Gipsy.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Strange as a Moorish tale!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Chis.</i><span class="ws8">And we have all</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Been drinking at the tavern to your health,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As wells drink in November, when it rains.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> Where is the gentleman?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Chis.</i><span class="ws6">As the old song says,</span></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent10">His body is in Segovia,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">His soul is in Madrid.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> Is this a dream?&emsp; O, if it be a dream,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let me sleep on, and do not wake me yet!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Repeat thy story! Say I’m not deceived!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Say that I do not dream!&emsp; I am awake;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This is the Gipsy camp; this is Victorian,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And this his friend, Hypolito!&emsp; Speak! speak!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let me not wake and find it all a dream!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> It is a dream, sweet child! a waking dream,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A blissful certainty, a vision bright</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of that rare happiness, which even on earth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Heaven gives to those it loves.&emsp; Now art thou rich,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As thou wast ever beautiful and good;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I am now the beggar.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i> [<i>giving him her hand.</i>] I have still</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A hand to give.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Chis.</i> [<i>aside</i>]. And I have two to take.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I’ve heard my grandmother say, that Heaven gives almonds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To those who have no teeth. That’s nuts to crack.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I’ve teeth to spare, but where shall I find almonds?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> What more of this strange story?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Chis.</i><span class="ws12">Nothing more.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Your friend, Don Carlos, is now at the village</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Showing to Pedro Crespo, the Alcalde,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The proofs of what I tell you. The old hag,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who stole you in her childhood, has confessed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And probably they will hang her for the crime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To make the celebration more complete.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> No; let it be a day of general joy;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fortune comes well to all, that comes not late.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now let us join Don Carlos.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws8">So farewell,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The student’s wandering life! Sweet serenades,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sung under ladies’ windows in the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all that makes vacation beautiful!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To you, ye cloistered shades of Alcalá,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To you, ye radiant visions of romance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Written in books, but here surpassed by truth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Bachelor Hypolito returns,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And leaves the Gipsy with the Spanish Student.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Scene VI.</span>—<i>A pass in the Guadarrama
+mountains. Early morning. A muleteer crosses the stage, sitting sideways on his mule,
+and lighting a paper cigar with flint and steel.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry fs_90">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">SONG.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If thou art sleeping, maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Awake and open thy door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Tis the break of day, and we must away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O’er meadow, and mount, and moor.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wait not to find thy slippers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But come with thy naked feet;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We shall have to pass through the dewy grass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And waters wide and fleet.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">[<i>Disappears down the pass. Enter a Monk.
+A Shepherd appears on the rocks above.</i>]</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Monk.</i> Ave Maria, gratia plena. Olá! good man!</p>
+
+<p><i>Shep.</i> Olá!</p>
+
+<p><i>Monk.</i> Is this the road to Segovia?</p>
+
+<p><i>Shep.</i> It is, your reverence.</p>
+
+<p><i>Monk.</i> How far is it?</p>
+
+<p><i>Shep.</i> I do not know.</p>
+
+<p><i>Monk.</i> What is that yonder in the valley?</p>
+
+<p><i>Shep.</i> San Ildefonso.</p>
+
+<p><i>Monk.</i> A long way to breakfast.</p>
+
+<p><i>Shep.</i> Ay, marry.</p>
+
+<p><i>Monk.</i> Are there robbers in these mountains?</p>
+
+<p><i>Shep.</i> Yes, and worse than that.</p>
+
+<p><i>Monk.</i> What?</p>
+
+<p><i>Shep.</i> Wolves.</p>
+
+<p><i>Monk.</i> Santa Maria! Come with me to San Ildefonso, and thou shalt
+be well rewarded.</p>
+
+<p><i>Shep.</i> What wilt thou give me?</p>
+
+<p><i>Monk.</i> An Agnus Dei and my benediction.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">[<i>They disappear. A mounted Contrabandista passes, wrapped
+in his cloak, and a gun at his saddle-bow. He goes down the pass singing.</i>]</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry fs_90">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">SONG.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Worn with speed is my good steed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I march me, hurried, worried;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Onward, caballito mio,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the white star in thy forehead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Onward, for here comes the Ronda,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I hear their rifles crack!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ay, jaléo! Ay, ay, jaléo!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ay, jaléo! They cross our track!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">[<i>Song dies away. Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Preciosa</span>, <i>on horseback,
+attended by</i> <span class="smcap">Victorian</span>, <span class="smcap">Hypolito</span>, <span class="smcap">Don
+Carlos</span>, <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Chispa</span>, <i>on foot, and armed</i>.]</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> This is the highest point.&emsp; Here let us rest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">See, Preciosa, see how all about us</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Kneeling, like hooded friars, the misty mountains</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Receive the benediction of the sun!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O glorious sight!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws10">Most beautiful indeed!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i> Most wonderful!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i><span class="ws8">And in the vale below,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where yonder steeples flash like lifted halberds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">San Ildefonso, from its noisy belfries,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sends up a salutation to the morn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if an army smote their brazen shields,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And shouted victory!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws8">And which way lies</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Segovia?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i>&emsp; At a great distance yonder.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dost thou not see it?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws8">No, I do not see it.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> The merest flaw that dents the horizon’s edge.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There, yonder!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hyp.</i><span class="ws4">’Tis a notable old town,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Boasting an ancient Roman aqueduct,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And an Alcázar, builded by the Moors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wherein, you may remember, poor Gil Blas</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was fed on <i>Pan del Rey</i>. O, many a time</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out of its grated windows have I looked</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hundreds of feet plumb down to the Eresma,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That, like a serpent through the valley creeping,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Glides at its foot.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws6">O, yes! I see it now,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet rather with my heart than with mine eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So faint it is. And, all my thoughts sail thither,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Freighted with prayers and hopes, and forward urged</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Against all stress of accident, as, in</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Eastern Tale, against the wind and tide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Great ships were drawn to the Magnetic Mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And there were wrecked and perished in the sea!&emsp; [<i>She weeps.</i>]</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Vict.</i> O gentle spirit!&emsp; Thou didst bear unmoved</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blasts of adversity and frosts of fate!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the first ray of sunshine that falls on thee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Melts thee to tears!&emsp; O, let thy weary heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lean upon mine! and it shall faint no more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor thirst, nor hunger; but be comforted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And filled with my affection.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Pre.</i><span class="ws10">Stay no longer!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My father waits. Methinks I see him there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now looking from the window, and now watching</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each sound of wheels or footfall in the street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And saying, “Hark! she comes!” O father! father!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>They descend the pass.</i> <span class="smcap">Chispa</span>
+ <i>remains behind</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Chis.</i> I have a father, too, but he is a dead one. Alas and
+alack-a-day! Poor was I born, and poor do I remain. I neither win nor
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span>
+lose. Thus I wag through the world, half the time on foot, and the
+other half walking: and always as merry as a thunder-storm in the
+night. And so we plough along, as the fly said to the ox. Who knows
+what may happen? Patience and shuffle the cards! I am not yet so bald
+that you can see my brains; and perhaps, after all, I shall some day go
+to Rome, and come back Saint Peter. Benedicite!</p>
+
+<p class="author">[<i>Exit.</i></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">[<i>A pause. Then enter</i> <span class="smcap">Bartolomé</span>
+<i>wildly, as if in pursuit, with a carbine in his hand</i>.]</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Bart.</i> They passed this way! I hear their horses’ hoofs!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yonder I see them! Come, sweet caramillo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This serenade shall be the Gipsy’s last!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent7">[<i>Fires down the pass.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ha! ha! Well whistled, my sweet caramillo!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Well whistled!—I have missed her!—O, my God!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center spb2">[<i>The shot is returned.</i> <span class="smcap">Bartolomé</span> <i>falls</i>.]</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illo_8.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="105" >
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><i>Evangeline.</i><br>
+<span class="h_subtitle">A TALE OF ACADIE.<br>1847.</span></h2>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p class="center">PREFATORY NOTE.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot fs_90">
+<p class="no-indent">The story of “<span class="smcap">Evangeline</span>”
+is founded on a painful occurrence which took place in the early period
+of British colonization in the northern part of America.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1713, Acadia, or, as it is now named, Nova Scotia, was
+ceded to Great Britain by the French. The wishes of the inhabitants
+seem to have been little consulted in the change, and they with great
+difficulty were induced to take the oaths of allegiance to the British
+Government. Some time after this, war having again broken out between
+the French and British in Canada, the Acadians were accused of having
+assisted the French, from whom they were descended, and connected by
+many ties of friendship, with provisions and ammunition, at the siege
+of Beau Séjour. Whether the accusation was founded on fact or not,
+has not been satisfactorily ascertained; the result, however, was
+most disastrous to the primitive, simple-minded Acadians. The British
+Government ordered them to be removed from their homes, and dispersed
+throughout the other colonies, at a distance from their much-loved
+land. This resolution was not communicated to the inhabitants till
+measures had been matured to carry it into immediate effect; when the
+Governor of the colony, having issued a summons calling the whole
+people to a meeting, informed them that their lands, tenements, and
+cattle of all kinds were forfeited to the British crown, that he had
+orders to remove them in vessels to distant colonies, and they must
+remain in custody till their embarkation.</p>
+
+<p>The poem is descriptive of the fate of some of the persons involved
+in these calamitous proceedings.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighbouring ocean</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers for ever departed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far over the ocean.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pré.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman’s devotion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+<p class="center spa1">PART THE FIRST.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent27">I.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pré</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dikes, that the hands of the farmer had raised with labour incessant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the flood-gates</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Opened, and welcomed the sea to wander at will o’er the meadows.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards, and corn-fields</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spreading afar and unfenced o’er the plain; and away to the northward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looked on the happy valley, but ne’er from their station descended.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There, in the midst of its farm, reposed the Acadian village.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and of chestnut,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the Henries.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thatched were the roofs, with dormer windows; and gables projecting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over the basement below protected and shaded the doorway.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly the sunset</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lighted the village street, and gilded the vanes on the chimneys,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and the songs of the maidens.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and the children</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to bless them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Reverend walked he among them; and up rose matrons and maidens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate welcome.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then came the labourers home from the field, and serenely the sun sank</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed. Anon from the belfry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the village</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense ascending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and contentment.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian farmers,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dwelt in the love of God and of man. Alike were they free from</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice of republics.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of the owners;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Somewhat apart from the village, and nearer the Basin of Minas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of Grand-Pré,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dwelt on his goodly acres; and with him, directing his household,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gentle Evangeline lived, his child, and the pride of the village.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stalworth and stately in form was the man of seventy winters;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with snow-flakes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as brown as the oak-leaves.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the wayside,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her tresses!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the meadows.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at noontide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah! fair in sooth was the maiden.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell from its turret</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with his hyssop</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down the long street she passed with her chaplet of beads and her missal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wearing her Norman cap, and her kirtle of blue, and the ear-rings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brought in the olden times from France, and since, as an heirloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Handed down from mother to child, through long generations.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But a celestial brightness—a more ethereal beauty—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after confession,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Homeward serenely she walked with God’s benediction upon her.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Firmly builded with rafters of oak, the house of the farmer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood on the side of a hill commanding the sea; and a shady</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sycamore grew by the door, with a woodbine wreathing around it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rudely carved was the porch, with seats beneath; and a footpath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Led through an orchard wide, and disappeared in the meadow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under the sycamore-tree were hives overhung by a pent-house,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such as the traveller sees in regions remote by the road-side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Built o’er a box for the poor, or the blessed image of Mary.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Farther down, on the slope of the hill, was the well with its moss-grown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bucket, fastened with iron, and near it a trough for the horses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shielding the house from storms, on the north, were the barns and the farm-yard.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There stood the broad-wheeled wains, and the antique ploughs and the harrows;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There were the folds for the sheep; and there, in his feathered seraglio,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strutted the lordly turkey, and crowed the cock, with the selfsame</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent Peter.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bursting with hay were the barns, themselves a village. In each one</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far o’er the gable projected a roof of thatch; and a staircase,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under the sheltering eaves, led up to the odorous corn-loft.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There too the dove-cot stood, with its meek and innocent inmates</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Murmuring ever of love; while above in the variant breezes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Numberless noisy weathercocks rattled and sang of mutation.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus, at peace with God and the world, the farmer of Grand-Pré</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lived on his sunny farm, and Evangeline governed his household.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many a youth as he knelt in the church and opened his missal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fixed his eyes upon her, as the saint of his deepest devotion;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Happy was he who might touch her hand or the hem of her garment!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many a suitor came to her door, by the darkness befriended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as he knocked, and waited to hear the sound of her footsteps,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Knew not which beat the louder, his heart or the knocker of iron;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or at the joyous feast of the Patron Saint of the village,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bolder grew, and pressed her hand in the dance as he whispered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hurried words of love, that seemed a part of the music.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But, among all who came, young Gabriel only was welcome;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the blacksmith,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who was a mighty man in the village, and honoured of all men;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For since the birth of time, throughout all ages and nations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Has the craft of the smith been held in repute by the people.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Basil was Benedict’s friend. Their children from earliest childhood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grew up together as brother and sister; and Father Felician,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Priest and pedagogue both in the village, had taught them their letters</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Out of the selfsame book, with the hymns of the church and the plainsong.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But when the hymn was sung, and the daily lesson completed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swiftly they hurried away to the forge of Basil the blacksmith.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There at the door they stood, with wondering eyes to behold him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Take in his leathern lap the hoof of the horse as a plaything,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nailing the shoe in its place; while near him the tire of a cart-wheel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay like a fiery snake, coiled round in a circle of cinders.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Oft on autumnal eves, when without in the gathering darkness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bursting with light seemed the smithy, through every cranny and crevice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Warm by the forge within they watched the labouring bellows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as its panting ceased, and the sparks expired in the ashes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Merrily laughed, and said they were nuns going into the chapel.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Oft on sledges in winter, as swift as the swoop of the eagle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down the hill-side bounding, they glided away o’er the meadow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests on the rafters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone, which the swallow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brings from the shore of the sea to restore the sight of its fledglings;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lucky was he who found that stone in the nest of the swallow!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus passed a few swift years, and they no longer were children.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He was a valiant youth, and his face, like the face of the morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gladdened the earth with its light, and ripened thought into action.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She was a woman now, with the heart and hopes of a woman.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Sunshine of Saint Eulalie” was she called; for that was the sunshine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Which, as the farmers believed, would load their orchards with apples;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She, too, would bring to her husband’s house delight and abundance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filling it full of love, and the ruddy faces of children.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent27">II.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now had the season returned, when the nights grow colder and longer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the retreating sun the sign of the Scorpion enters.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Birds of passage sailed through the leaden air, from the ice-bound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Desolate northern bays to the shores of tropical islands.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Harvests were gathered in; and wild with the winds of September</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wrestled the trees of the forest, as Jacob of old with the angel.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the signs foretold a winter long and inclement.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bees, with prophetic instinct of want, had hoarded their honey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the hives overflowed; and the Indian hunters asserted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cold would the winter be, for thick was the fur of the foxes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such was the advent of autumn. Then followed that beautiful season,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Called by the pious Acadian peasants the Summer of All-Saints!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay as if new-created in all the freshness of childhood.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Peace seemed to reign upon earth, and the restless heart of the ocean</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was for a moment consoled. All sounds were in harmony blended.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Voices of children at play, the crowing of cocks in the farm-yards,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whir of wings in the drowsy air, and the cooing of pigeons,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All were subdued and low as the murmurs of love, and the great sun</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looked with the eye of love through the golden vapours around him;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While arrayed in its robes of russet and scarlet and yellow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bright with the sheen of the dew, each glittering tree of the forest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flashed like the plane-tree the Persian adorned with mantles and jewels.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Now recommenced the reign of rest and affection and stillness.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Day with its burden and heat had departed, and twilight descending</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brought back the evening star to the sky, and the herds to the homestead.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pawing the ground they came, and resting their necks on each other,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with their nostrils distended inhaling the freshness of evening.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline’s beautiful heifer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Proud of her snow-white hide, and the ribbon that waved from her collar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of human affection.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then came the shepherd back with his bleating flocks from the sea-side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where was their favourite pasture. Behind them followed the watch-dog,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Patient, full of importance, and grand in the pride of his instinct,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Walking from side to side with a lordly air, and superbly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waving his bushy tail, and urging forward the stragglers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Regent of flocks was he when the shepherd slept; their protector,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When from the forest at night, through the starry silence, the wolves howled.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Late, with the rising moon, returned the wains from the marshes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laden with briny hay, that filled the air with its odour.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes and their fetlocks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and ponderous saddles,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels of crimson,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with blossoms.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their udders</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unto the milkmaid’s hand; whilst loud, and in regular cadence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the sounding pails the foaming streamlets descended.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lowing of cattle and peals of laughter were heard in the farm-yard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Echoed back by the barns. Anon they sank into stillness;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heavily closed, with a jarring sound, the valves of the barn-doors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rattled the wooden bars, and all for a season was silent.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">In-doors, warm by the wide-mouthed fireplace, idly the farmer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat in his elbow chair, and watched how the flames and the smoke-wreaths</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Struggled together like foes in a burning city. Behind him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nodding and mocking along the wall, with gestures fantastic,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Darted his own huge shadow, and vanished away into darkness.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Faces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back of his arm-chair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates on the dresser</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies the sunshine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fragments of song the old man sang, and carols of Christmas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such as at home, in the olden time, his fathers before him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang in their Norman orchards and bright Burgundian vineyards.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Close at her father’s side was the gentle Evangeline seated,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spinning flax for the loom, that stood in the corner behind her.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silent awhile were its treadles, at rest was its diligent shuttle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While the monotonous drone of the wheel, like the drone of a bagpipe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Followed the old man’s song, and united the fragments together.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As in a church, when the chant of the choir at intervals ceases,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Footfalls are heard in the aisles, or words of the priest at the altar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So, in each pause of the song, with measured motion the clock clicked.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus, as they sat, there were footsteps heard, and, suddenly lifted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sounded the wooden latch, and the door swung back on its hinges.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Benedict knew by the hob-nailed shoes it was Basil the blacksmith,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And by her beating heart Evangeline knew who was with him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Welcome!” the farmer exclaimed, as their footsteps paused on the threshold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Welcome, Basil, my friend! Come, take thy place on the settle</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Close by the chimney-side, which is always empty without thee;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Take from the shelf overhead thy pipe and the box of tobacco;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never so much thyself art thou as when through the curling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smoke of the pipe or the forge thy friendly and jovial face gleams</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round and red as the harvest moon through the midst of the marshes.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, with a smile of content, thus answered Basil the blacksmith,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Taking with easy air the accustomed seat by the fireside:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Benedict Bellefontaine, thou hast ever thy jest and thy ballad!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ever in cheerfulest mood art thou, when others are filled with</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gloomy forebodings of ill, and see only ruin before them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Happy art thou, as if every day thou hadst picked up a horseshoe.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pausing a moment, to take the pipe that Evangeline brought him,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with a coal from the embers had lighted, he slowly continued:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Four days now are passed since the English ships at their anchors</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ride in the Gaspereau’s mouth, with their cannon pointed against us.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What their design may be is unknown; but all are commanded</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the morrow to meet in the church, where his Majesty’s mandate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Will be proclaimed as law in the land. Alas! in the meantime</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many surmises of evil alarm the hearts of the people.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then made answer the farmer—“Perhaps some friendlier purpose</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bring these ships to our shores. Perhaps the harvests in England</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the untimely rains or untimelier heat have been blighted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And from our bursting barns they would feed their cattle and children.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Not so thinketh the folk in the village,” said, warmly, the blacksmith,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shaking his head, as in doubt; then, heaving a sigh, he continued:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Louisburg is not forgotten, nor Beau Séjour, nor Port Royal.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many already have fled to the forest, and lurk on its outskirts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waiting with anxious hearts the dubious fate of to-morrow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Arms have been taken from us, and warlike weapons of all kinds;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nothing is left us but the blacksmith’s sledge and the scythe of the mower.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then with a pleasant smile made answer the jovial farmer:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Safer are we unarmed, in the midst of our flocks and our corn-fields,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Safer within these peaceful dikes, besieged by the ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than were our fathers in forts, besieged by the enemy’s cannon.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fear no evil, my friend, and to-night may no shadow of sorrow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fall on this house and hearth; for this is the night of the contract.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Built are the house and the barn. The merry lads of the village</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strongly have built them and well; and, breaking the glebe round about them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled the barn with hay, and the house with food for a twelvemonth.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">René Leblanc will be here anon, with his papers and inkhorn.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shall we not then be glad, and rejoice in the joy of our children?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As apart by the window she stood, with her hand in her lover’s,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blushing Evangeline heard the words that her father had spoken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as they died on his lips the worthy notary entered.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent26">III.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bent like a labouring oar, that toils in the surf of the ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the notary public;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the maize, hung</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and glasses with horn bows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom supernal.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Father of twenty children was he, and more than a hundred</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Children’s children rode on his knee, and heard his great watch tick.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Four long years in the times of the war had he languished a captive,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suffering much in an old French fort as the friend of the English.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now though warier grown, without all guile or suspicion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and childlike.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He was beloved by all, and most of all by the children;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For he told them tales of the Loup-garou in the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And of the goblin that came in the night to water the horses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And of the white Létiche, the ghost of a child who unchristened</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Died, and was doomed to haunt unseen the chambers of children;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And how on Christmas-eve the oxen talked in the stable,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And how the fever was cured by a spider shut up in a nutshell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And of the marvellous powers of four-leaved clover and horseshoes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With whatsoever else was writ in the lore of the village.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then up rose from his seat by the fireside Basil the blacksmith,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Knocked from his pipe the ashes, and slowly extending his right hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Father Leblanc,” he exclaimed, “thou hast heard the talk in the village,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, perchance, canst tell us some news of these ships and their errand.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then with modest demeanour made answer the notary public,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Gossip enough have I heard, in sooth, yet am never the wiser;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And what their errand may be I know not better than others.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yet am I not of those who imagine some evil intention</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brings them here, for we are at peace; and why then molest us?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“God’s name!” shouted the hasty and somewhat irascible blacksmith;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Must we in all things look for the how, and the why, and the wherefore?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Daily injustice is done, and might is the right of the strongest!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But without heeding his warmth, continued the notary public,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally justice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Triumphs; and well I remember a story, that often consoled me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When as a captive I lay in the old French fort at Port Royal.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This was the old man’s favourite tale, and he loved to repeat it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When his neighbours complained that any injustice was done them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Once in an ancient city, whose name I no longer remember,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Raised aloft on a column, a brazen statue of Justice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood in the public square, upholding the scales in its left hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in its right a sword, as an emblem that justice presided</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over the laws of the land, and the hearts and homes of the people.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even the birds had built their nests in the scales of the balance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Having no fear of the sword that flashed in the sunshine above them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But in the course of time the laws of the land were corrupted;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Might took the place of right, and the weak were oppressed, and the mighty</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ruled with an iron rod. Then it chanced in a nobleman’s palace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That a necklace of pearls was lost, and ere long a suspicion</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell on an orphan girl who lived as maid in the household.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She, after form of trial, condemned to die on the scaffold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Patiently met her doom at the foot of the statue of Justice.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As to her Father in heaven her innocent spirit ascended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lo! o’er the city a tempest rose; and the bolts of the thunder</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smote the statue of bronze, and hurled in wrath from its left hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down on the pavement below the clattering scales of the balance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in the hollow thereof was found the nest of a magpie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into whose clay-built walls the necklace of pearls was inwoven.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silenced, but not convinced, when the story was ended, the blacksmith</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood like a man who fain would speak, but findeth no language;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All his thoughts were congealed into lines on his face, as the vapours</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Freeze in fantastic shapes on the window-panes in the winter.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then Evangeline lighted the brazen lamp on the table,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled, till it overflowed, the pewter tankard with home-brewed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nut-brown ale, that was famed for its strength in the village of Grand-Pré;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While from his pocket the notary drew his papers and inkhorn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wrote with a steady hand the date and the age of the parties,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Naming the dower of the bride in flocks of sheep and in cattle.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Orderly all things proceeded, and duly and well were completed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the great seal of the law was set like a sun on the margin.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then from his leathern pouch the farmer threw on the table</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Three times the old man’s fee in solid pieces of silver;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the notary rising, and blessing the bride and the bridegroom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lifted aloft the tankard of ale and drank to their welfare.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wiping the foam from his lip, he solemnly bowed and departed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While in silence the others sat and mused by the fireside,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till Evangeline brought the draught-board out of its corner.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soon was the game begun. In friendly contention the old men</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laughed at each lucky hit, or unsuccessful manœuvre,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laughed when a man was crowned, or a breach was made in the king-row.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Meanwhile apart, in the twilight gloom of a window’s embrasure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat the lovers, and whispered together, beholding the moon rise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over the pallid sea and the silvery mist of the meadows.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus passed the evening away. Anon the bell from the belfry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rang out the hour of nine, the village curfew, and straightway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose the guests and departed; and silence reigned in the household.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many a farewell word and sweet good-night on the door-step</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lingered long in Evangeline’s heart, and filled it with gladness.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Carefully then were covered the embers that glowed on the hearthstone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And on the oaken stairs resounded the tread of the farmer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soon with a soundless step the foot of Evangeline followed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Up the staircase moved a luminous space in the darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lighted less by the lamp than the shining face of the maiden.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silent she passed through the hall, and entered the door of her chamber.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Simple that chamber was, with its curtains of white, and its clothes-press</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ample and high, on whose spacious shelves were carefully folded</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Linen and woollen stuffs, by the hand of Evangeline woven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This was the precious dower she would bring to her husband in marriage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Better than flocks and herds, being proofs of her skill as a housewife.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soon she extinguished her lamp, for the mellow and radiant moonlight</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Streamed through the windows and lighted the room, till the heart of the maiden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swelled and obeyed its power, like the tremulous tides of the ocean.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah! she was fair, exceeding fair to behold, as she stood with</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Naked snow-white feet on the gleaming floor of her chamber!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Little she dreamed that below, among the trees of the orchard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waited her lover and watched for the gleam of her lamp and her shadow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yet were her thoughts of him, and at times a feeling of sadness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Passed o’er her soul, as the sailing shade of clouds in the moonlight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flitted across the floor and darkened the room for a moment.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as she gazed from the window she saw serenely the moon pass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forth from the folds of a cloud, and one star follow her footsteps,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As out of Abraham’s tent young Ishmael wandered with Hagar!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent27">IV.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pleasantly rose next morn the sun on the village of Grand-Pré.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pleasantly gleamed in the soft, sweet air the Basin of Minas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the ships, with their wavering shadows, were riding at anchor.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Life had long been astir in the village, and clamorous labour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Knocked with its hundred hands at the golden gates of the morning.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now from the country around, from the farms and the neighbouring hamlets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came in their holiday dresses the blithe Acadian peasants.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many a glad good-morrow and jocund laugh from the young folk</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made the bright air brighter, as up from the numerous meadows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where no path could be seen but the track of wheels in the greensward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Group after group appeared, and joined, or passed on the highway.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Long ere noon, in the village all sounds of labour were silenced.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thronged were the streets with people; and noisy groups at the house-doors</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat in the cheerful sun, and rejoiced and gossiped together.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Every house was an inn, where all were welcomed and feasted;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For with this simple people, who lived like brothers together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All things were held in common, and what one had was another’s.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yet under Benedict’s roof hospitality seemed more abundant:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For Evangeline stood among the guests of her father;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bright was her face with smiles, and words of welcome and gladness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell from her beautiful lips, and blessed the cup as she gave it.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Under the open sky, in the odorous air of the orchard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bending with golden fruit, was spread the feast of betrothal.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There in the shade of the porch were the priest and the notary seated;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There good Benedict sat, and sturdy Basil the blacksmith.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not far withdrawn from these, by the cider-press and the beehives</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Michael the fiddler was placed, with the gayest of hearts and of waist-coats.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shadow and light from the leaves alternately played on his snow-white</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hair, as it waved in the wind; and the jolly face of the fiddler</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Glowed like a living coal when the ashes are blown from the embers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gaily the old man sang to the vibrant sound of his fiddle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres</i>, and <i>Le Carillon de Dunkerque</i>,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And anon with his wooden shoes beat time to the music.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying dances</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under the orchard-trees and down the path to the meadows;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Old folk and young together, and children mingled among them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fairest of all the maids was Evangeline, Benedict’s daughter!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Noblest of all the youths was Gabriel, son of the blacksmith!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">So passed the morning away. And lo! with a summons sonorous</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sounded the bell from its tower, and over the meadows a drum beat.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thronged ere long was the church with men. Without, in the churchyard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waited the women. They stood by the graves, and hung on the head-stones</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Garlands of autumn-leaves and evergreens fresh from the forest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then came the guard from the ships, and marching proudly among them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Entered the sacred portal. With a loud and dissonant clangour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Echoed the sound of their brazen drums from ceiling and casement,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Echoed a moment only, and slowly the ponderous portal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Closed, and in silence the crowd awaited the will of the soldiers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then uprose their commander, and spake from the steps of the altar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Holding aloft in his hands, with its seals, the royal commission.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“You are convened this day,” he said, “by his Majesty’s orders.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clement and kind has he been; but how you have answered his kindness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let your own hearts reply! To my natural make and my temper</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Painful the task is I do, which to you I know must be grievous.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yet must I bow and obey, and deliver the will of our monarch;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Namely, that all your lands, and dwellings, and cattle of all kinds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forfeited be to the crown; and that you yourselves from this province</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Be transported to other lands. God grant you may dwell there</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ever as faithful subjects, a happy and peaceable people!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Prisoners now I declare you; for such is his Majesty’s pleasure!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As, when the air is serene in the sultry solstice of summer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the hailstones</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beats down the farmer’s corn in the field and shatters his windows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiding the sun, and strewing the ground with thatch from the house-roofs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bellowing fly the herds, and seek to break their inclosures;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So on the hearts of the people descended the words of the speaker</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silent a moment they stood in speechless wonder, and then rose</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Louder and ever louder a wail of sorrow and anger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, by one impulse moved, they madly rushed to the doorway.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vain was the hope of escape; and cries and fierce imprecations</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rang through the house of prayer; and high o’er the heads of the others</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose, with his arms uplifted, the figure of Basil the blacksmith,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As, on a stormy sea, a spar is tossed by the billows.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flushed was his face and distorted with passion; and wildly he shouted,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Down with the tyrants of England! we never have sworn them allegiance!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Death to these foreign soldiers, who seize on our homes and our harvests!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">More he fain would have said, but the merciless hand of a soldier</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smote him upon the mouth, and dragged him down to the pavement.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">In the midst of the strife and tumult of angry contention,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lo! the door of the chancel opened, and Father Felician</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Entered, with serious mien, and ascended the steps of the altar.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Raising his reverend hand, with a gesture he awed into silence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All that clamorous throng; and thus he spake to his people.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Deep were his tones and solemn; in accents measured and mournful</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spake he, as, after the tocsin’s alarum, distinctly the clock strikes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“What is this that ye do, my children? what madness has seized you?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forty years of my life have I laboured among you, and taught you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not in word alone, but in deed, to love one another!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is this the fruit of my toils, of my vigils and prayers and privations?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Have you so soon forgotten all lessons of love and forgiveness?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This is the house of the Prince of Peace, and would you profane it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus with violent deeds and hearts overflowing with hatred?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lo! where the crucified Christ from his cross is gazing upon you!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">See! in those sorrowful eyes what meekness and holy compassion!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hark! how those lips still repeat the prayer, ‘O Father, forgive them!’</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let us repeat that prayer in the hour when the wicked assail us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let us repeat it now, and say, ‘O Father, forgive them!’”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Few were his words of rebuke, but deep in the hearts of his people</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sank they, and sobs of contrition succeeded that passionate outbreak;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While they repeated his prayer, and said, “O Father, forgive them!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then came the evening service. The tapers gleamed from the altar.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fervent and deep was the voice of the priest, and the people responded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not with their lips alone, but their hearts; and the Ave Maria</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang they, and fell on their knees, and their souls, with devotion translated,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose on the ardour of prayer, like Elijah ascending to heaven.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Meanwhile had spread in the village the tidings of ill, and on all sides</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wandered, wailing, from house to house the women and children.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Long at her father’s door Evangeline stood, with her right hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shielding her eyes from the level rays of the sun, that, descending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lighted the village street with mysterious splendour, and roofed each</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Peasant’s cottage with golden thatch, and emblazoned its windows.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Long within had been spread the snow-white cloth on the table;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There stood the wheaten loaf, and the honey fragrant with wild flowers;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There stood the tankard of ale, and the cheese fresh brought from the dairy;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And at the head of the board the great arm-chair of the farmer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus did Evangeline wait at her father’s door, as the sunset</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Threw the long shadows of trees o’er the broad ambrosial meadows.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah! on her spirit within a deeper shadow had fallen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And from the fields of her soul a fragrance celestial ascended,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Charity, meekness, love, and hope, and forgiveness, and patience!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, all forgetful of self, she wandered into the village,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cheering with looks and words the disconsolate hearts of the women,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As o’er the darkening fields with lingering steps they departed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Urged by their household cares, and the weary feet of their children.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down sank the great red sun, and in golden, glimmering vapours</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Veiled the light of his face, like the Prophet descending from Sinai.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sweetly over the village the bell of the Angelus sounded.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Meanwhile, amid the gloom, by the church Evangeline lingered.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All was silent within; and in vain at the door and the windows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood she, and listened and looked, until, overcome by emotion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Gabriel!” cried she aloud with tremulous voice; but no answer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came from the graves of the dead, nor the gloomier grave of the living.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly at length she returned to the tenantless house of her father.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smouldered the fire on the hearth, on the board stood the supper untasted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Empty and drear was each room, and haunted with phantoms of terror.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sadly echoed her step on the stair and the floor of her chamber.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the dead of the night she heard the whispering rain fall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loud on the withered leaves of the sycamore-tree by the window.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Keenly the lightning flashed; and the voice of the echoing thunder</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Told her that God was in heaven, and governed the world he created!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then she remembered the tale she had heard of the justice of heaven;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soothed was her troubled soul, and she peacefully slumbered till morning.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent27">V.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Four times the sun had risen and set; and now on the fifth day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cheerily called the cock to the sleeping maids of the farm-house.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soon o’er the yellow fields, in silent and mournful procession,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came from the neighbouring hamlets and farms the Acadian women,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Driving in ponderous wains their household goods to the sea-shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pausing and looking back to gaze once more on their dwellings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ere they were shut from sight by the winding road and the woodland.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Close at their sides their children ran, and urged on the oxen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While in their little hands they clasped some fragments of playthings.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus to the Gaspereau’s mouth they hurried, and there on the sea-beach</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Piled in confusion lay the household goods of the peasants.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All day long between the shore and the ships did the boats ply;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All day long the wains came labouring down from the village.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Late in the afternoon, when the sun was near to his setting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Echoing far o’er the fields came the roll of drums from the churchyard.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thither the women and children thronged. On a sudden the church-doors</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Opened, and forth came the guard, and marching in gloomy procession</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Followed the long-imprisoned, but patient, Acadian farmers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even as pilgrims, who journey afar from their homes and their country,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sing as they go, and in singing forget they are weary and way-worn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So with songs on their lips the Acadian peasants descended</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down from the church to the shore, amid their wives and their daughters.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Foremost the young men came; and, raising together their voices,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang they with tremulous lips a chant of the Catholic Missions:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Sacred heart of the Saviour! O inexhaustible fountain!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fill our hearts this day with strength and submission and patience!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then the old men, as they marched, and the women that stood by the wayside,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Joined in the sacred psalm, and the birds in the sunshine above them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mingled their notes therewith, like voices of spirits departed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Half-way down to the shore Evangeline waited in silence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not overcome with grief, but strong in the hour of affliction,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Calmly and sadly waited, until the procession approached her.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And she beheld the face of Gabriel pale with emotion.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tears then filled her eyes, and, eagerly running to meet him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clasped she his hands, and laid her head on his shoulder, and whispered,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Gabriel, be of good cheer! for if we love one another,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever mischances may happen!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smiling she spake these words; then suddenly paused, for her father</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw she slowly advancing. Alas, how changed was his aspect!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gone was the glow from his cheek, and the fire from his eye, and his footstep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heavier seemed with the weight of the weary heart in his bosom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But, with a smile and a sigh, she clasped his neck and embraced him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Speaking words of endearment where words of comfort availed not.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus to the Gaspereau’s mouth moved on that mournful procession.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">There disorder prevailed, and the tumult and stir of embarking.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Busily plied the freighted boats; and in the confusion</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wives were torn from their husbands, and mothers, too late, saw their children</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Left on the land, extending their arms, with wildest entreaties.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So unto separate ships were Basil and Gabriel carried,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While in despair on the shore Evangeline stood with her father.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Half the task was not done when the sun went down, and the twilight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Deepened and darkened around; and in haste the refluent ocean</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fled away from the shore, and left the line of the sand-beach</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Covered with waifs of the tide, with kelp and the slippery sea-weed.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Farther back, in the midst of the household goods and the waggons,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like to a gipsy camp, or a leaguer after a battle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All escape cut off by the sea, and the sentinels near them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay encamped for the night the houseless Acadian farmers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Back to its nethermost caves retreated the bellowing ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dragging adown the beach the rattling pebbles, and leaving</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Inland and far up the shore the stranded boats of the sailors.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, as the night descended, the herds returned from their pastures;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sweet was the moist still air with the odour of milk from their udders;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lowing they waited, and long, at the well-known bars of the farm-yard,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waited and looked in vain for the voice and the hand of the milkmaid.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silence reigned in the streets; from the church no Angelus sounded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose no smoke from the roofs, and gleamed no lights from the windows.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">But on the shores meanwhile the evening fires had been kindled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Built of the drift-wood thrown on the sands from wrecks in the tempest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round them shapes of gloom and sorrowful faces were gathered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Voices of women were heard, and of men, and the crying of children.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Onward from fire to fire, as from hearth to hearth in his parish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wandered the faithful priest, consoling and blessing and cheering,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like unto shipwrecked Paul on Melita’s desolate sea-shore.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus he approached the place where Evangeline sat with her father,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in the flickering light beheld the face of the old man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Haggard and hollow and wan, and without either thought or emotion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">E’en as the face of a clock from which the hands have been taken.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vainly Evangeline strove with words and caresses to cheer him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vainly offered him food; yet he moved not, he looked not, he spake not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But, with a vacant stare, ever gazed at the flickering fire-light.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“<i>Benedicite!</i>” murmured the priest, in tones of compassion.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">More he fain would have said, but his heart was full, and his accents</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Faltered and paused on his lips, as the feet of a child on the threshold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hushed by the scene he beholds, and the awful presence of sorrow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silently, therefore, he laid his hand on the head of the maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Raising his eyes, full of tears, to the silent stars that above them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Moved on their way, unperturbed by the wrongs and sorrows of mortals.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then sat he down at her side, and they wept together in silence.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Suddenly rose from the south a light, as in autumn the blood-red</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Moon climbs the crystal walls of heaven, and o’er the horizon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Titan-like stretches its hundred hands upon mountain and meadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seizing the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge shadows together.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broader and ever broader it gleamed on the roofs of the village,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gleamed on the sky and the sea, and the ships that lay in the roadstead.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Columns of shining smoke uprose, and flashes of flame were</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, like the quivering hands of a martyr.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then as the wind seized the gleeds and the burning thatch, and, uplifting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a hundred house-tops</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Started the sheeted smoke with flashes of flames intermingled.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">These things beheld in dismay the crowd on the shore and on ship-board.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Speechless at first they stood, then cried aloud in their anguish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“We shall behold no more our homes in the village of Grand-Pré!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loud on a sudden the cocks began to crow in the farm-yards,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thinking the day had dawned; and anon the lowing of cattle</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came on the evening breeze, by the barking of dogs interrupted.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then rose a sound of dread, such as startles the sleeping encampments</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far in the western prairies or forests that skirt the Nebraska,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the wild horses affrighted sweep by with the speed of the whirlwind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or the loud bellowing herds of buffaloes rush to the river.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such was the sound that arose on the night, as the herds and the horses</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broke through their folds and fences, and madly rushed o’er the meadows.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Overwhelmed with the sight, yet speechless, the priest and the maiden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gazed on the scene of terror that reddened and widened before them;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as they turned at length to speak to their silent companion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lo! from his seat he had fallen, and stretched abroad on the sea-shore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Motionless lay his form, from which the soul had departed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly the priest uplifted the lifeless head, and the maiden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Knelt at her father’s side, and wailed aloud in her terror.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then in a swoon she sank, and lay with her head on his bosom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the long night she lay in deep, oblivious slumber;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And when she woke from the trance, she beheld a multitude near her.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Faces of friends she beheld, that were mournfully gazing upon her;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pallid, with tearful eyes, and looks of saddest compassion.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still the blaze of the burning village illumined the landscape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Reddened the sky overhead, and gleamed on the faces around her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And like the day of doom it seemed to her wavering senses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then a familiar voice she heard, as it said to the people,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Let us bury him here by the sea. When a happier season</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brings us again to our homes from the unknown land of our exile,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then shall his sacred dust be piously laid in the churchyard.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such were the words of the priest. And there in haste by the sea-side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Having the glare of the burning village for funeral torches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But without bell or book, they buried the farmer of Grand-Pré.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as the voice of the priest repeated the service of sorrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lo! with a mournful sound, like the voice of a vast congregation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Solemnly answered the sea, and mingled its roar with the dirges.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Twas the returning tide, that afar from the waste of the ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the first dawn of the day, came heaving and hurrying landward.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then recommenced once more the stir and noise of embarking;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with the ebb of that tide the ships sailed out of the harbour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, and the village in ruins,</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa1">PART THE SECOND.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent27">I.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many a weary year had passed since the burning of Grand Pré,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When on the falling tide the freighted vessels departed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bearing a nation, with all its household gods, into exile,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Exile without an end, and without an example in story.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far asunder, on separate coasts, the Acadians landed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Scattered were they, like flakes of snow, when the wind from the north-east</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strikes aslant through the fogs that darken the Banks of Newfoundland.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wandered from city to city,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the cold lakes of the North to sultry Southern savannas,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where the Father of Waters</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seizes the hills in his hands, and drags them down to the ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Deep in their sands to bury the scattered bones of the mammoth.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Friends they sought and homes; and many, despairing, heart-broken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Asked of the earth but a grave, and no longer a friend nor a fireside.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Written their history stands on tablets of stone in the churchyards.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Long among them was seen a maiden who waited and wandered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lowly and meek in spirit, and patiently suffering all things.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fair was she and young; but, alas! before her extended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dreary and vast and silent, the desert of life, with its pathway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Marked by the graves of those who had sorrowed and suffered before her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Passions long extinguished, and hopes long dead and abandoned,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the emigrant’s way o’er the Western desert is marked by</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Camp-fires long consumed, and bones that bleach in the sunshine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Something there was in her life incomplete, imperfect, unfinished;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if a morning of June, with all its music and sunshine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suddenly paused in the sky, and, fading, slowly descended</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the east again, from whence it late had arisen.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sometimes she lingered in towns, till, urged by the fever within her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Urged by a restless longing, the hunger and thirst of the spirit,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She would commence again her endless search and endeavour;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sometimes in churchyards strayed, and gazed on the crosses and tombstones,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat by some nameless grave, and thought that perhaps in its bosom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He was already at rest, and she longed to slumber beside him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sometimes a rumour, a hearsay, an inarticulate whisper,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came with its airy hand to point and beckon her forward.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sometimes she spake with those who had seen her beloved and known him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But it was long ago, in some far-off place or forgotten.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Gabriel Lajeunesse!” said they; “O, yes! we have seen him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He was with Basil the Blacksmith, and both have gone to the prairies;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>Coureurs-des-Bois</i> are they, and famous hunters and trappers.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Gabriel Lajeunesse!” said others; “O, yes! we have seen him.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He is a <i>Voyageur</i> in the lowlands of Louisiana.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then would they say,—“Dear child! why dream and wait for him longer?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Are there not other youths as fair as Gabriel? others</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who have hearts as tender and true, and spirits as loyal?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here is Baptiste Leblanc, the notary’s son, who has loved thee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many a tedious year; come, give him thy hand and be happy!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou art too fair to be left to braid St Catherine’s tresses.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then would Evangeline answer, serenely but sadly,—“I cannot!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whither my heart has gone, there follows my hand, and not elsewhere.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For when the heart goes before, like a lamp, and illumines the pathway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many things are made clear, that else lie hidden in darkness.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And thereupon the priest, her friend and father-confessor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said, with a smile,—“O daughter! thy God thus speaketh within thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, returning</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full of refreshment;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Patience; accomplish thy labour; accomplish thy work of affection!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore accomplish thy labour of love, till the heart is made godlike,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Purified, strengthened, perfected, and rendered more worthy of heaven!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cheered by the good man’s word, Evangeline laboured and waited.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still in her heart she heard the funeral dirge of the ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But with its sound there was mingled a voice that whispered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">“Despair not!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus did that poor soul wander in want and cheerless discomfort,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bleeding, barefooted, over the shards and thorns of existence.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let me essay, O Muse! to follow the wanderer’s footsteps;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not through each devious path, each changeful year of existence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But as a traveller follows a streamlet’s course through the valley:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far from its margin at times, and seeing the gleam of its water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here and there, in some open space, and at intervals only;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then drawing nearer its banks, through sylvan glooms that conceal it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though he behold it not, he can hear its continuous murmur;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Happy, at length, if he find the spot where it reaches an outlet.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent26">II.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was the month of May. Far down the beautiful River,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Past the Ohio shore, and past the mouth of the Wabash,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the golden stream of the broad and swift Mississippi,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Floated a cumbrous boat, that was rowed by Acadian boatmen.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was a band of exiles: a raft, as it were, from the shipwrecked</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nation, scattered along the coast, now floating together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bound by the bonds of a common belief and a common misfortune;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Men and women and children, who, guided by hope or by hearsay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sought for their kith and their kin among the few-acred farmers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the Acadian coast, and the prairies of fair Opelousas.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With them Evangeline went, and her guide, the Father Felician.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Onward o’er sunken sands, through a wilderness sombre with forests,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Day after day they glided adown the turbulent river;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Night after night, by their blazing fires, encamped on its borders.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now through rushing chutes, among green islands, where plumelike</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cotton-trees nodded their shadowy crests, they swept with the current,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then emerged into broad lagoons, where silvery sand-bars</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay in the stream, and along the wimpling waves of their margin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shining with snow-white plumes, large flocks of pelicans waded.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Level the landscape grew, and along the shores of the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shaded by china-trees, in the midst of luxuriant gardens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood the houses of planters, with negro-cabins and dove-cots.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They were approaching the region where reigns perpetual summer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where through the Golden Coast, and groves of orange and citron,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sweeps with majestic curve the river away to the eastward.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They, too, swerved from their course; and, entering the</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Bayou of Plaquemine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soon were lost in a maze of sluggish and devious waters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Which, like a network of steel, extended in every direction.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over their heads the towering and tenebrous boughs of the cypress</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Met in a dusky arch, and trailing mosses in mid air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waved like banners that hang on the walls of ancient cathedrals.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Deathlike the silence seemed, and unbroken, save by the herons</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Home to their roosts in the cedar-trees returning at sunset,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or by the owl, as he greeted the moon with demoniac laughter.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lovely the moonlight was as it glanced and gleamed on the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gleamed on the columns of cypress and cedar sustaining the arches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down through whose broken vaults it fell as through chinks in a ruin.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dreamlike, and indistinct, and strange were all things around them;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And o’er their spirits there came a feeling of wonder and sadness,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strange forebodings of ill, unseen and that cannot be compassed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As, at the tramp of a horse’s hoof on the turf of the prairies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking mimosa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So, at the hoof-beats of fate, with sad forebodings of evil,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shrinks and closes the heart, ere the stroke of doom has attained it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But Evangeline’s heart was sustained by a vision, that faintly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Floated before her eyes, and beckoned her on through the moonlight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was the thought of her brain that assumed the shape of a phantom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through those shadowy aisles had Gabriel wandered before her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And every stroke of the oar now brought him nearer and nearer.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then in his place, at the prow of the boat, rose one of the oarsmen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, as a signal sound, if others like them peradventure</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sailed on those gloomy and midnight streams, blew a blast on his bugle.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wild through the dark colonnades and corridors leafy the blast rang,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Breaking the seal of silence, and giving tongues to the forest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soundless above them the banners of moss just stirred to the music.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Multitudinous echoes awoke and died in the distance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over the watery floor, and beneath the reverberant branches;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But not a voice replied; no answer came from the darkness;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And when the echoes had ceased, like a sense of pain was the silence.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then Evangeline slept; but the boatmen rowed through the midnight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silent at times, then singing familiar Canadian boat-songs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such as they sang of old on their own Acadian rivers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While through the night were heard the mysterious sounds of the desert,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far off,—indistinct,—as of wave or wind in the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mixed with the whoop of the crane and the roar of the grim alligator.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus ere another noon they emerged from those shades; and before them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay, in the golden sun, the lakes of the Atchafalaya.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Water-lilies in myriads rocked on the slight undulations</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made by the passing oars, and, resplendent in beauty, the lotus</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lifted her golden crown above the heads of the boatmen.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Faint was the air with the odorous breath of magnolia blossoms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with the heat of noon; and numberless sylvan islands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fragrant and thickly embowered with blossoming hedges of roses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Near to whose shores they glided along, invited to slumber.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soon by the fairest of these their weary oars were suspended.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under the boughs of Wachita willows, that grew by the margin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Safely their boat was moored; and scattered about on the greensward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tired with their midnight toil, the weary travellers slumbered.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over them vast and high extended the cope of a cedar.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swinging from its great arms, the trumpet-flower and the grape-vine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hung their ladder of ropes aloft like the ladder of Jacob,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On whose pendulous stairs the angels ascending, descending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were the swift humming-birds that flitted from blossom to blossom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such was the vision Evangeline saw as she slumbered beneath it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled was her heart with love, and the dawn of an opening heaven</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lighted her soul in sleep with the glory of regions celestial.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Nearer and ever nearer, among the numberless islands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Darted a light, swift boat, that sped away o’er the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Urged on its course by the sinewy arms of hunters and trappers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Northward its prow was turned, to the land of the bison and beaver.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the helm sat a youth, with countenance thoughtful and care-worn.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dark and neglected locks overshadowed his brow, and a sadness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Somewhat beyond his years on his face was legibly written.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gabriel was it, who, weary with waiting, unhappy and restless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sought in the Western wilds oblivion of self and of sorrow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swiftly they glided along, close under the lee of the island,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But by the opposite bank, and behind a screen of palmettos,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So that they saw not the boat, where it lay concealed in the willows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All undisturbed by the dash of their oars, and unseen, were the sleepers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Angel of God was there none to awaken the slumbering maiden!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swiftly they glided away, like the shade of a cloud on the prairie.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">After the sound of their oars on the tholes had died in the distance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As from a magic trance the sleepers awoke, and the maiden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said with a sigh to the friendly priest—“O Father Felician!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Something says in my heart that near me Gabriel wanders.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is it a foolish dream, an idle and vague superstition?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or has an angel passed, and revealed the truth to my spirit?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, with a blush, she added,—“Alas for my credulous fancy!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unto ears like thine such words as these have no meaning.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But made answer the reverend man, and he smiled as he answered,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Daughter, thy words are not idle; nor are they to me without meaning.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Feeling is deep and still; and the word that floats on the surface</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor is hidden.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gabriel truly is near thee; for not far away to the southward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the banks of the Têche, are the towns of St. Maur and St. Martin.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There the long-wandering bride shall be given again to her bridegroom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There the long-absent pastor regain his flock and his sheepfold.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beautiful is the land, with its prairies and forests of fruit-trees;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the bluest of heavens</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bending above, and resting its dome on the walls of the forest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They who dwell there have named it the Eden of Louisiana.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">And with these words of cheer they arose and continued their journey.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a magician extended his golden wand o’er the landscape;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Twinkling vapours arose; and sky and water and forest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hanging between two skies, a cloud with edges of silver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the motionless water.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled was Evangeline’s heart with inexpressible sweetness.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Touched by the magic spell, the sacred fountains of feeling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Glowed with the light of love, as the skies and waters around her.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then from a neighbouring thicket the mocking-bird, wildest of singers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o’er the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to listen.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plaintive at first were the tones and sad; then soaring to madness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied Bacchantes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lamentation;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in derision,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the tree-tops</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on the branches.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With such a prelude as this, and hearts that throbbed with emotion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly they entered the Têche, where it flows through the green Opelousas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And through the amber air, above the crest of the woodland,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the column of smoke that arose from a neighbouring dwelling;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sounds of a horn they heard, and the distant lowing of cattle.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent26">III.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Near to the bank of the river, o’ershadowed by oaks, from whose branches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Garlands of Spanish moss and of mystic mistletoe flaunted,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such as the Druids cut down with golden hatchets at Yule-tide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood, secluded and still, the house of the herdsman. A garden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Girded it round about with a belt of luxuriant blossoms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filling the air with fragrance. The house itself was of timbers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hewn from the cypress-tree, and carefully fitted together.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Large and low was the roof; and on slender columns supported,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose-wreathed, vine-encircled, a broad and spacious veranda,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Haunt of the humming-bird and the bee, extended around it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At each end of the house, amid the flowers of the garden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stationed the dove-cots were, as love’s perpetual symbol,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Scenes of endless wooing, and endless contentions of rivals.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silence reigned o’er the place. The line of shadow and sunshine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ran near the tops of the trees; but the house itself was in shadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And from its chimney-top, ascending and slowly expanding</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the evening air, a thin blue column of smoke rose.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the rear of the house, from the garden gate, ran a pathway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the great groves of oak to the skirts of the limitless prairie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into whose sea of flowers the sun was slowly descending.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Full in his track of light, like ships with shadowy canvas</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hanging loose from their spars in a motionless calm in the tropics,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood a cluster of trees, with tangled cordage of grape-vines.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Just where the woodlands met the flowery surf of the prairie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mounted upon his horse, with Spanish saddle and stirrups,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat a herdsman, arrayed in gaiters and doublet of deer-skin.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broad and brown was the face that from under the Spanish sombrero</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gazed on the peaceful scene, with the lordly look of its master.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round about him were numberless herds of kine, that were grazing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Quietly in the meadows, and breathing the vapoury freshness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That uprose from the river, and spread itself over the landscape.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly lifting the horn that hung at his side, and expanding</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fully his broad, deep chest, he blew a blast, that resounded</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wildly and sweet and far, through the still damp air of the evening.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suddenly out of the grass the long white horns of the cattle</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose like flakes of foam on the adverse currents of ocean.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silent a moment they gazed, then bellowing rushed o’er the prairie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the whole mass became a cloud, a shade in the distance.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, as the herdsman turned to the house, through the gate of the garden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw he the forms of the priest and the maiden advancing to meet him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suddenly down from his horse he sprang in amazement, and forward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rushed with extended arms and exclamations of wonder;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When they beheld his face, they recognised Basil the Blacksmith.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hearty his welcome was, as he led his guests to the garden.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There in an arbour of roses, with endless question and answer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave they vent to their hearts, and renewed their friendly embraces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laughing and weeping by turns, or sitting silent and thoughtful.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thoughtful, for Gabriel came not; and now dark doubts and misgivings</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stole o’er the maiden’s heart; and Basil, somewhat embarrassed,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broke the silence and said,—“If you came by the Atchafalaya,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How have you nowhere encountered my Gabriel’s boat on the bayous?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over Evangeline’s face at the words of Basil a shade passed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tears came into her eyes, and she said, with a tremulous accent,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Gone? is Gabriel gone?” and, concealing her face on his shoulder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All her o’erburdened heart gave way, and she wept and lamented.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then the good Basil said,—and his voice grew blithe as he said it,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Be of good cheer, my child; it is only to-day he departed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Foolish boy! he has left me alone with my herds and my horses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Moody and restless grown, and tried and troubled, his spirit</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Could no longer endure the calm of this quiet existence.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thinking ever of thee, uncertain and sorrowful ever,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ever silent, or speaking only of thee and his troubles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He at length had become so tedious to men and to maidens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tedious even to me, that at length I bethought me, and sent him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unto the town of Adayes to trade for mules with the Spaniards.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thence he will follow the Indian trails to the Ozark Mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hunting for furs in the forests, on rivers trapping the beaver.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore be of good cheer; we will follow the fugitive lover;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He is not far on his way, and the Fates and the streams are against him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Up and away to-morrow, and through the red dew of the morning</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We will follow him fast, and bring him back to his prison.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then glad voices were heard, and up from the banks of the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Borne aloft on his comrade’s arms, came Michael the fiddler.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Long under Basil’s roof had he lived like a god on Olympus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Having no other care than dispensing music to mortals.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far renowned was he for his silver locks and his fiddle.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Long live Michael,” they cried, “our brave Acadian minstrel!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As they bore him aloft in triumphal procession; and straightway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Father Felician advanced with Evangeline, greeting the old man</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kindly and oft, and recalling the past, while Basil, enraptured,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hailed with hilarious joy his old companions and gossips,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laughing loud and long, and embracing mothers and daughters.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Much they marvelled to see the wealth of the ci-devant blacksmith,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All his domains and his herds, and his patriarchal demeanour;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Much they marvelled to hear his tales of the soil and the climate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And of the prairies, whose numberless herds were his who would take them;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each one thought in his heart, that he, too, would go and do likewise.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus they ascended the steps, and, crossing the breezy veranda,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Entered the hall of the house, where already the supper of Basil</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waited his late return; and they rested and feasted together.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Over the joyous feast the sudden darkness descended.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All was silent without, and, illuming the landscape with silver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fair rose the dewy moon and the myriad stars; but within doors,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brighter than these, shone the faces of friends in the glimmering lamplight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then from his station aloft, at the head of the table, the herdsman</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Poured forth his heart and his wine together in endless profusion.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lighting his pipe, that was filled with sweet Natchitoches tobacco,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus he spake to his guests, who listened, and smiled as they listened:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Welcome once more, my friends, who so long have been friendless and homeless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Welcome once more to a home, that is better perchance than the old one!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here no hungry winter congeals our blood like the rivers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here no stony ground provokes the wrath of the farmer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smoothly the ploughshare runs through the soil as a keel through the water.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the year round the orange-groves are in blossom; and grass grows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">More in a single night than a whole Canadian summer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here, too, numberless herds run wild and unclaimed in the prairies;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here, too, lands may be had for the asking, and forests of timber</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a few blows of the axe are hewn and framed into houses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">After your houses are built, and your fields are yellow with harvests,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No King George of England shall drive you away from your homesteads,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Burning your dwellings and barns, and stealing your farms and your cattle.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Speaking these words, he blew a wrathful cloud from his nostrils,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While his huge, brawny hand came thundering down on the table,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So that the guests all started; and Father Felician, astounded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suddenly paused, with a pinch of snuff half-way to his nostrils.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the brave Basil resumed, and his words were milder and gayer:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Only beware of the fever, my friends, beware of the fever!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For it is not like that of our cold Acadian climate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cured by wearing a spider hung round one’s neck in a nutshell!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then there were voices heard at the door, and footsteps approaching</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sounded upon the stairs and the floor of the breezy veranda.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was the neighbouring Creoles and small Acadian planters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who had been summoned all to the house of Basil the Herdsman.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Merry the meeting was of ancient comrades and neighbours:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Friend clasped friend in his arms; and they who before were as strangers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Meeting in exile, became straightway as friends to each other,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drawn by the gentle bond of a common country together.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But in the neighbouring hall a strain of music, proceeding</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the accordant strings of Michael’s melodious fiddle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broke up all further speech. Away, like children delighted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All things forgotten beside, they gave themselves to the maddening</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whirl of the dizzy dance, as it swept and swayed to the music,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dreamlike, with beaming eyes and the rush of fluttering garments.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Meanwhile, apart, at the head of the hall, the priest and the herdsman</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat, conversing together of past and present and future;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While Evangeline stood like one entranced, for within her</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Old memories rose, and loud in the midst of the music</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard she the sound of the sea, and an irrepressible sadness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came o’er her heart, and unseen she stole forth into the garden.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beautiful was the night. Behind the black wall of the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon. On the river</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous gleam of the moonlight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and devious spirit.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nearer and round about her the manifold flowers of the garden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Poured out their souls in odours, that were their prayers and confessions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent Carthusian.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fuller of fragrance than they, and as heavy with shadows and night-dews,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hung the heart of the maiden. The calm and the magical moonlight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seemed to inundate her soul with indefinable longings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As, through the garden gate, beneath the brown shade of the oak trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Passed she along the path to the edge of the measureless prairie.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silent it lay, with a silvery haze upon it, and fire-flies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gleaming and floating away in mingled and infinite numbers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over her head the stars, the thoughts of God in the heavens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shone on the eyes of man, who had ceased to marvel and worship,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Save when a blazing comet was seen on the walls of that temple,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if a hand had appeared and written upon them, “Upharsin.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the soul of the maiden, between the stars and the fire-flies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wandered alone, and she cried—“O, Gabriel! O, my beloved!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Art thou so near unto me, and yet I cannot behold thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Art thou so near unto me, and yet thy voice does not reach me?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah! how often thy feet have trod this path to the prairie!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah! how often thine eyes have looked on the woodlands around me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah! how often beneath this oak, returning from labour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou hast lain down to rest, and to dream of me in thy slumbers!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When shall these eyes behold, these arms be folded about thee?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loud and sudden and near the note of a whippoorwill sounded</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a flute in the woods; and anon, through the neighbouring thickets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Farther and farther away it floated and dropped into silence.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Patience!” whispered the oaks from oracular caverns of darkness;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, from the moonlit meadow, a sigh responded, “To-morrow!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Bright rose the sun next day; and all the flowers of the garden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bathed his shining feet with their tears, and anointed his tresses</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the delicious balm that they bore in their vases of crystal.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Farewell!” said the priest, as he stood at the shadowy threshold;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“See that you bring us the Prodigal Son from his fasting and famine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, too, the Foolish Virgin, who slept when the bridegroom was coming.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Farewell!” answered the maiden, and, smiling, with Basil descended</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down to the river’s bank, where the boatmen already were waiting.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus beginning their journey with morning, and sunshine, and gladness.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swiftly they followed the flight of him who was speeding before them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blown by the blast of fate like a dead leaf over the desert.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not that day, nor the next, nor yet the day that succeeded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Found they trace of his course, in lake or forest or river;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor, after many days, had they found him; but vague and uncertain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rumours alone were their guides through a wild and desolate country;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till, at the little inn of the Spanish town of Adayes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Weary and worn they alighted, and learned from the garrulous landlord,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That on the day before, with horses and guides and companions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gabriel left the village, and took the road of the prairies.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent27">IV.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far in the West there lies a desert land, where the mountains</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lift, through perpetual snows, their lofty and luminous summits.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down from their jagged, deep ravines, where the gorge, like a gateway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Opens a passage rude to the wheels of the emigrant’s waggon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Westward the Oregon flows and the Walleway and Owyhee.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Eastward, with devious course, among the Wind-river Mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the Sweet-water Valley precipitate leaps the Nebraska;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And to the south, from Fontaine-qui-bout and the Spanish sierras,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fretted with sand and rocks, and swept by the wind of the desert,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Numberless torrents, with ceaseless sound, descend to the ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the great chords of a harp, in loud and solemn vibrations.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spreading between these streams are the wondrous, beautiful prairies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Billowy bays of grass ever rolling in shadow and sunshine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bright with luxuriant clusters of roses and purple amorphas.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over them wandered the buffalo herds, and the elk and the roebuck;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over them wandered the wolves, and herds of riderless horses;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fires that blast and blight, and winds that are weary with travel;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over them wander the scattered tribes of Ishmael’s children,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Staining the desert with blood; and above their terrible war trails</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vulture,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the implacable soul of a chieftain slaughtered in battle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By invisible stairs ascending and scaling the heavens.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here and there rise smokes from the camps of these savage marauders;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here and there rise groves from the margins of swift-running rivers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the grim, taciturn bear, the anchorite monk of the desert,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Climbs down their dark ravines to dig for roots by the brook-side;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And over all is the sky, the clear and crystalline heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the protecting hand of God inverted above them.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Into this wonderful land, at the base of the Ozark Mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gabriel far had entered, with hunters and trappers behind him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Day after day, with their Indian guides, the maiden and Basil</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Followed his flying steps, and thought each day to o’ertake him.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sometimes they saw, or thought they saw, the smoke of his camp-fire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rise in the morning air from the distant plain; but at nightfall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When they had reached the place, they found only embers and ashes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, though their hearts were sad at times and their bodies were weary,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hope still guided them on, as the magic Fata Morgana</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Showed them her lakes of light, that retreated and vanished before them.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Once, as they sat by their evening fire, there silently entered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the little camp an Indian woman, whose features</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wore deep traces of sorrow, and patience as great as her sorrow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She was a Shawnee woman returning home to her people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the far-off hunting-grounds of the cruel Camanches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where her Canadian husband, a Coureur-des-Bois, had been murdered.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Touched were their hearts at her story, and warmest and friendliest welcome</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave they, with words of cheer, and she sat and feasted among them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the buffalo meat and the venison cooked on the embers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But when their meal was done, and Basil and all his companions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Worn with the long day’s march and the chase of the deer and the bison,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stretched themselves on the ground, and slept where the quivering fire-light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flashed on their swarthy cheeks, and their forms wrapped up in their blankets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then at the door of Evangeline’s tent she sat and repeated</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly, with soft, low voice, and the charm of her Indian accent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the tale of her love, with its pleasures, and pains, and reverses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Much Evangeline wept at the tale, and to know that another</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hapless heart like her own had loved and had been disappointed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Moved to the depths of her soul by pity and woman’s compassion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yet in her sorrow pleased that one who had suffered was near her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She in turn related her love and all its disasters.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mute with wonder the Shawnee sat, and when she had ended</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still was mute; but at length, as if a mysterious horror</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Passed through her brain, she spake, and repeated the tale of the Mowis;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mowis, the bridegroom of snow, who won and wedded a maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But, when the morning came, arose and passed from the wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fading and melting away and dissolving into the sunshine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till she beheld him no more, though she followed far into the forest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, in those sweet, low tones, that seemed like a weird incantation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Told she the tale of the fair Lilinau, who was wooed by a phantom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That, through the pines o’er her father’s lodge, in the hush of the twilight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Breathed like the evening wind, and whispered love to the maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till she followed his green and waving plume through the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And never more returned, nor was seen again by her people.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silent with wonder and strange surprise, Evangeline listened</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the soft flow of her magical words, till the region around her</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seemed like enchanted ground, and her swarthy guest the enchantress.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly over the tops of the Ozark Mountains the moon rose,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lighting the little tent, and with a mysterious splendour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Touching the sombre leaves, and embracing and filling the woodland.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a delicious sound the brook rushed by, and the branches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swayed and sighed overhead in scarcely audible whispers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled with the thoughts of love was Evangeline’s heart, but a secret,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Subtile sense crept in of pain and indefinite terror,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the cold, poisonous snake creeps into the nest of the swallow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was no earthly fear. A breath from the region of spirits</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seemed to float in the air of night; and she felt for a moment</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That, like the Indian maid, she, too, was pursuing a phantom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with this thought she slept, and the fear and the phantom had vanished.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Early upon the morrow the march was resumed, and the Shawnee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said, as they journeyed along,—“On the western slope of these mountains</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dwells in his little village the Black Robe chief of the Mission.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Much he teaches the people, and tells them of Mary and Jesus;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loud laugh their hearts with joy, and weep with pain as they hear him.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, with a sudden and secret emotion, Evangeline answered,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Let us go to the Mission, for there good tidings await us!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thither they turned their steeds; and behind a spur of the mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Just as the sun went down, they heard a murmur of voices,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in a meadow green and broad, by the bank of a river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the tents of the Christians, the tents of the Jesuit Mission.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under a towering oak, that stood in the midst of the village,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Knelt the Black Robe chief with his children. A crucifix fastened</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">High on the trunk of the tree, and overshadowed by grape-vines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looked with its agonized face on the multitude kneeling beneath it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This was their rural chapel. Aloft, through the intricate arches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of its aërial roof, arose the chant of their vespers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mingling its notes with the soft susurrus and sighs of the branches.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silent, with heads uncovered, the travellers, nearer approaching,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Knelt on the swarded floor, and joined in the evening devotions.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But when the service was done, and the benediction had fallen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forth from the hands of the priest, like seed from the hands of the sower,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly the reverend man advanced to the strangers, and bade them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Welcome; and when they replied, he smiled with benignant expression,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hearing the homelike sounds of his mother-tongue in the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with words of kindness conducted them into his wigwam.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There upon mats and skins they reposed, and on cakes of the maize ear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Feasted, and slaked their thirst from the water-gourd of the teacher.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soon was their story told; and the priest with solemnity answered:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Not six suns have risen and set since Gabriel, seated</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On this mat by my side, where now the maiden reposes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Told me this same sad tale; then arose and continued his journey.”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soft was the voice of the priest, and he spake with an accent of kindness;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But on Evangeline’s heart fell his words as in winter the snow-flakes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fall into some lone nest from which the birds have departed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Far to the north he has gone,” continued the priest; “but in autumn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the chase is done, will return again to the Mission.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then Evangeline said, and her voice was meek and submissive,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Let me remain with thee, for my soul is sad and afflicted.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So seemed it wise and well unto all; and betimes on the morrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mounting his Mexican steed, with his Indian guides and companions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Homeward Basil returned, and Evangeline stayed at the Mission.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Slowly, slowly, slowly the days succeeded each other,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Days and weeks and months; and the fields of maize that were springing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Green, from the ground when a stranger she came, now waving above her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lifted their slender shafts, with leaves interlacing, and forming</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cloisters for mendicant crows and granaries pillaged by squirrels.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then in the golden weather the maize was husked, and the maidens</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blushed at each blood-red ear, for that betokened a lover,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But at the crooked laughed, and called it a thief in the corn-field.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even the blood-red ear to Evangeline brought not her lover.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Patience!” the priest would say; “have faith, and thy prayer will be answered!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Look at this delicate plant that lifts its head from the meadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">See how its leaves are turned to the north, as true as the magnet;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This is the compass-flower, that the finger of God has planted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here in the houseless wild, to direct the traveller’s journey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste of the desert.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such in the soul of man is faith. The blossoms of passion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gay and luxuriant flowers, are brighter and fuller of fragrance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But they beguile us, and lead us astray, and their odour is deadly.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only this humble plant can guide us here, and hereafter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crown us with asphodel flowers, that are wet with the dews of nepenthe.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">So came the autumn, and passed, and the winter,—yet Gabriel came not;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blossomed the opening spring, and the notes of the robin and blue-bird</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sounded sweet upon wold and in wood, yet Gabriel came not.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But on the breath of the summer winds a rumour was wafted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sweeter than song of bird, or hue or odour of blossom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far to the north and east, it said, in the Michigan forests,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gabriel had his lodge by the banks of the Saginaw river.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, with returning guides, that sought the lakes of St. Lawrence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saying a sad farewell, Evangeline went from the Mission.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When over weary ways, by long and perilous marches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She had attained at length the depths of the Michigan forests,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Found she the hunter’s lodge deserted and fallen to ruin!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus did the long sad years glide on, and in seasons and places</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Divers and distant far was seen the wandering maiden;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now in the tents of grace of the meek Moravian Missions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now in the noisy camps and the battle-fields of the army,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now in secluded hamlets, in towns and populous cities.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a phantom she came, and passed away unremembered.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fair was she and young, when in hope began the long journey;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Faded was she and old, when in disappointment it ended.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each succeeding year stole something away from her beauty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leaving behind it, broader and deeper, the gloom and the shadow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then there appeared and spread faint streaks of grey o’er her forehead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dawn of another life, that broke o’er her earthly horizon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As in the eastern sky the first faint streaks of the morning.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent27">V.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware’s waters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Penn the apostle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city he founded.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There all the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem of beauty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the streets still re-echo the names of the trees of the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose haunts they molested.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There from the troubled sea had Evangeline landed, an exile,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Finding among the children of Penn a home and a country.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There old René Leblanc had died; and when he departed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw at his side only one of all his hundred descendants.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Something at least there was in the friendly streets of the city,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Something that spake to her heart, and made her no longer a stranger;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And her ear was pleased with the Thee and Thou of the Quakers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For it recalled the past, the old Acadian country,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where all men were equal, and all were brothers and sisters.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So, when the fruitless search, the disappointed endeavour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ended, to recommence no more upon earth, uncomplaining,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thither, as leaves to the light, were turned her thoughts and her footsteps.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As from a mountain’s top the rainy mists of the morning</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Roll away, and afar we behold the landscape below us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sun-illumined, with shining rivers and cities and hamlets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So fell the mists from her mind, and she saw the world far below her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dark no longer, but all illumined with love; and the pathway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Which she had climbed so far, lying smooth and fair in the distance.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gabriel was not forgotten. Within her heart was his image,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clothed in the beauty of love and youth, as last she beheld him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only more beautiful made by his death-like silence and absence.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into her thoughts of him time entered not, for it was not.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over him years had no power; he was not changed, but transfigured;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He had become to her heart as one who is dead, and not absent;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Patience and abnegation of self, and devotion to others,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This was the lesson a life of trial and sorrow had taught her.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So was her love diffused, but, like to some odorous spices,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suffered no waste nor loss, though filling the air with aroma.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Other hope had she none, nor wish in life, but to follow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Meekly, with reverent steps, the sacred feet of her Saviour.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus many years she lived as a Sister of Mercy; frequenting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lonely and wretched roofs in the crowded lanes of the city,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where distress and want concealed themselves from the sunlight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where disease and sorrow in garrets languished neglected.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Night after night, when the world was asleep, as the watchman repeated</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loud, through the gusty streets, that all was well in the city,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">High at some lonely window he saw the light of her taper.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Day after day, in the grey of the dawn, as slow through the suburbs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plodded the German farmer, with flowers and fruits of the market,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Met he that meek, pale face, returning home from its watchings.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then it came to pass that a pestilence fell on the city,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Presaged by wondrous signs, and mostly by flocks of wild pigeons,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Darkening the sun in their flight, with naught in their craws but an acorn.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, as the tides of the sea arise in the month of September,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flooding some silver stream, till it spreads to a lake in the meadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So death flooded life, and, o’erflowing its natural margin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spread to a brackish lake, the silver stream of existence.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty to charm, the oppressor;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But all perished alike beneath the scourge of his anger;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only, alas! the poor, who had neither friends nor attendants,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crept away to die in the almshouse, home of the homeless.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of meadows and woodlands;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now the city surrounds it; but still, with its gateway and wicket</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Meek, in the midst of splendour, its humble walls seem to echo</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Softly the words of the Lord—“The poor ye always have with you.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thither, by night and by day, came the Sister of Mercy. The dying</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looked up into her face, and thought, indeed, to behold there</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gleams of celestial light encircle her forehead with splendour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such as the artist paints o’er the brows of saints and apostles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or such as hangs by night o’er a city seen at a distance.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unto their eyes it seemed the lamps of the city celestial,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into whose shining gates ere long their spirits would enter.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus, on a Sabbath morn, through the streets, deserted and silent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wending her quiet way, she entered the door of the almshouse.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sweet on the summer air was the odour of flowers in the garden;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And she paused on her way to gather the fairest among them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the dying once more might rejoice in their fragrance and beauty.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, as she mounted the stairs to the corridors, cooled by the east wind,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes from the belfry of Christ Church,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While, intermingled with these, across the meadows were wafted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sounds of psalms, that were sung by the Swedes in their Church at Wicaco.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soft as descending wings fell the calm of the hour on her spirit;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Something within her said—“At length thy trials are ended;”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, with light in her looks, she entered the chambers of sickness.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Noiselessly moved about the assiduous, careful attendants,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Moistening the feverish lip and the aching brow, and in silence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Closing the sightless eyes of the dead, and concealing their faces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where on their pallets they lay, like drifts of snow by the road-side.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many a languid head, upraised as Evangeline entered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she passed, for her presence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell on their hearts like a ray of the sun on the walls of a prison.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, as she looked around, she saw how Death, the consoler,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it for ever.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many familiar forms had disappeared in the night-time;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vacant their places were, or filled already by strangers.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of wonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still she stood, with her colourless lips apart, while a shudder</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ran through her frame, and, forgotten, the flowerets dropped from her fingers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And from her eyes and cheeks the light and bloom of the morning.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such terrible anguish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the dying heard it, and started up from their pillows.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the pallet before her was stretched the form of an old man.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Long, and thin, and grey were the locks that shaded his temples;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But, as he lay in the morning light, his face for a moment</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seemed to assume once more the forms of its earlier manhood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So are wont to be changed the faces of those who are dying.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hot and red on his lips still burned the flush of the fever,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if life, like the Hebrew, with blood had besprinkled its portals,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the Angel of Death might see the sign, and pass over.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Motionless, senseless, dying, he lay, and his spirit exhausted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seemed to be sinking down through infinite depths in the darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Darkness of slumber and death, for ever sinking and sinking.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then through those realms of shade, in multiplied reverberations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard he that cry of pain, and through the hush that succeeded</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and saint-like,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Gabriel! O my beloved!” and died away into silence.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then he beheld, in a dream, once more the home of his childhood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Green Acadian meadows, with sylvan rivers among them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Village, and mountain, and woodlands; and, walking under their shadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As in the days of her youth, Evangeline rose in his vision.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tears came into his eyes; and as slowly he lifted his eyelids,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vanished the vision away, but Evangeline knelt by his bedside.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for the accents unuttered</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his tongue would have spoken.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vainly he strove to rise; and Evangeline, kneeling beside him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sweet was the light of his eyes; but it suddenly sank into darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a casement.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her bosom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, “Father, I thank thee!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and unnoticed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and for ever,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thousands of aching brains, where theirs are no longer busy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their labours,<span class="ws3">&nbsp;</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">Still stands the forest primeval; but under the shade of its branches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dwells another race, with other customs and language.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only along the shore of the mournful and misty Atlantic</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from exile</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wandered back to their native land to die in its bosom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the fisherman’s cot the wheel and the loom are still busy;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles of homespun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline’s story,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced neighbouring ocean</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illo_9.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="96" >
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><i>The Seaside and the Fireside.</i></h2>
+<p class="center">1849.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<h3>DEDICATION.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As one who, walking in the twilight gloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Hears round about him voices as it darkens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And seeing not the forms from which they come,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Pauses from time to time, and turns and hearkens;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So walking here in twilight, O my friends!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I hear your voices, softened by the distance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And pause, and turn to listen, as each sends</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">His words of friendship, comfort, and assistance.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">If any thought of mine, or sung or told,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Has ever given delight or consolation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye have repaid me back a thousand fold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By every friendly sign and salutation.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thanks for the sympathies that ye have shown!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thanks for each kindly word, each silent token,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That teaches me, when seeming most alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Friends are around us, though no word be spoken.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Kind messages that pass from land to land;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Kind letters, that betray the heart’s deep history,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In which we feel the pressure of a hand,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">One touch of fire,—and all the rest is mystery!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The pleasant books, that silently among</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Our household treasures take familiar places,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And are to us as if a living tongue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Spake from the printed leaves or pictured faces!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Perhaps on earth I never shall behold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With eye of sense, your outward form and semblance;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Therefore to me ye never will grow old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But live for ever young in my remembrance.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Never grow old, nor change, nor pass away!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Your gentle voices will flow on for ever,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When life grows bare and tarnished with decay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As through a leafless landscape flows a river.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not chance of birth or place has made us friends,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Being oftentimes of different tongues and nations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the endeavour for the selfsame ends,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With the same hopes, and fears, and aspirations.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Therefore I hope to join your sea-side walk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Saddened, and mostly silent, with emotion;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not interrupting with intrusive talk</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The grand, majestic symphonies of ocean.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Therefore I hope, as no unwelcome guest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">At your warm fireside, when the lamps are lighted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To have my place reserved among the rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Nor stand as one unsought and uninvited!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p class="f150"><b><i>By the Seaside.</i></b></p>
+
+<h3 id="BUILDING">THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Build me straight, O worthy Master!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That shall laugh at all disaster,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The merchant’s word</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Delighted the Master heard;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For his heart was in his work, and the heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Giveth grace unto every Art.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A quiet smile played round his lips,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the eddies and dimples of the tide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Play round the bows of ships,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That steadily at anchor ride.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with a voice that was full of glee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He answered, “Ere long we will launch</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A vessel as goodly, and strong, and staunch,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As ever weathered a wintry sea!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And first with nicest skill and art,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Perfect and finished in every part,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A little model the Master wrought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Which should be to the larger plan</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What the child is to the man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Its counterpart in miniature;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That with a hand more swift and sure</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The greater labour might be brought</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To answer to his inward thought.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as he laboured, his mind ran o’er</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The various ships that were built of yore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And above them all, and strangest of all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Towered the <i>Great Harry</i>, crank and tall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whose picture was hanging on the wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With bows and stern raised high in air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And balconies hanging here and there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And signal lanterns and flags afloat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And eight round towers, like those that frown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From some old castle, looking down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Upon the drawbridge and the moat.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he said with a smile, “Our ship, I wis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shall be of another form than this!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was of another form, indeed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Built for freight, and yet for speed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A beautiful and gallant craft;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broad in the beam, that the stress of the blast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pressing down upon sail and mast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Might not the sharp bows overwhelm;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broad in the beam, but sloping aft</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With graceful curve and slow degrees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That she might be docile to the helm,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And that the currents of parted seas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Closing behind, with mighty force,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Might aid and not impede her course.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the ship-yard stood the Master,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With the model of the vessel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That should laugh at all disaster,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Covering many a rood of ground,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay the timber piled around;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Timber of chestnut, and elm, and oak.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And scattered here and there, with these,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The knarred and crooked cedar knees;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brought from regions far away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From Pascagoula’s sunny bay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the banks of the roaring Roanoke!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah! what a wondrous thing it is</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To note how many wheels of toil</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">One thought, one word, can set in motion!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There’s not a ship that sails the ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But every climate, every soil,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Must bring its tribute, great or small,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And help to build the wooden wall!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The sun was rising o’er the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And long the level shadows lay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if they, too, the beams would be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of some great, airy argosy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Framed and launched in a single day.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That silent architect, the sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had hewn and laid them every one,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ere the work of man was yet begun.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beside the Master, when he spoke,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A youth, against an anchor leaning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listened to catch his slightest meaning.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only the long waves, as they broke</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In ripples on the pebbly beach,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Interrupted the old man’s speech.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beautiful they were, in sooth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The old man and the fiery youth!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The old man, in whose busy brain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many a ship that sailed the main</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was modelled o’er and o’er again;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The fiery youth, who was to be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The heir of his dexterity,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The heir of his house, and his daughter’s hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he had built and launched from land</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What the elder head had planned.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Thus,” said he, “will we build this ship!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay square the blocks upon the slip,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And follow well this plan of mine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Choose the timbers with greatest care;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of all that is unsound beware;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For only what is sound and strong</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To this vessel shall belong.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cedar of Maine and Georgia pine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here together shall combine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A goodly frame, and a goodly fame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the <span class="smcap">Union</span> be her name!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the day that gives her to the sea</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shall give my daughter unto thee!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Master’s word</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Enraptured the young man heard;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as he turned his face aside,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a look of joy and a thrill of pride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Standing before</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her father’s door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He saw the form of his promised bride.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The sun shone on her golden hair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And her cheek was glowing fresh and fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the breath of morn and the soft sea air.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a beauteous barge was she,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still at rest on the sandy beach,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Just beyond the billow’s reach;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was the restless, seething, stormy sea!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah, how skilful grows the hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That obeyeth Love’s command!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It is the heart, and not the brain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That to the highest doth attain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he who followeth Love’s behest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far exceedeth all the rest!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus with the rising of the sun</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was the noble task begun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And soon throughout the ship-yard’s bounds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were heard the intermingled sounds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of axes and of mallets, plied</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With vigorous arms on every side;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plied so deftly and so well,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That ere the shadows of evening fell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The keel of oak for a noble ship,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Scarfed and bolted, straight and strong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was lying ready, and stretched along</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The blocks, well placed upon the slip.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Happy, thrice happy, every one</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who sees his labours well begun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And not perplexed and multiplied,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By idly waiting for time and tide!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And when the hot, long day was o’er,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The young Man at the Master’s door</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat with the maiden calm and still.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And within the porch, a little more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Removed beyond the evening chill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The father sat, and told them tales</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of wrecks in the great September gales,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of pirates upon the Spanish Main,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And ships that never came back again;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The chance and change of a sailor’s life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Want and plenty, rest and strife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His roving fancy, like the wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That nothing can stay and nothing can bind;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the magic charm of foreign lands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With shadows of palms, and shining sands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the tumbling surf,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er the coral reefs of Madagascar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Washes the feet of the swarthy Lascar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he lies alone and asleep on the turf.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the trembling maiden held her breath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the tales of that awful, pitiless sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With all its terror and mystery,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The dim, dark sea, so like unto Death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That divides, and yet unites, mankind!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And whenever the old man paused, a gleam</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the bowl of his pipe would awhile illume</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The silent group in the twilight gloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And thoughtful faces, as in a dream;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And for a moment one might mark</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What had been hidden by the dark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the head of the maiden lay at rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tenderly, on the young man’s breast!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Day by day the vessel grew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With timbers fashioned strong and true,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stemson and keelson and sternson-knee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till, framed with perfect symmetry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A skeleton ship rose up to view!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And around the bows and along the side</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The heavy hammers and mallets plied,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till after many a week, at length,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wonderful for form and strength,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sublime in its enormous bulk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loomed aloft the shadowy hulk!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And around it columns of smoke, up-wreathing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose from the boiling, bubbling, seething</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Caldron, that glowed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And overflowed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the black tar, heated for the sheathing.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And amid the clamours</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of clattering hammers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He who listened heard now and then</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The song of the Master and his men:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Build me straight, O worthy Master,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That shall laugh at all disaster,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">With oaken brace and copper band,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay the rudder on the sand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That, like a thought, should have control</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over the movement of the whole;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And near it the anchor, whose giant hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would reach down and grapple with the land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And immoveable and fast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hold the great ship against the bellowing blast!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And at the bows an image stood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By a cunning artist carved in wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With robes of white, that far behind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seemed to be fluttering in the wind.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was not shaped in a classic mould,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not like a Nymph or Goddess of old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or Naiad rising from the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But modelled from the Master’s daughter!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On many a dreary and misty night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Twill be seen by the rays of the signal light,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Speeding along through the rain and the dark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a ghost in its snow-white sark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The pilot of some phantom bark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Guiding the vessel, in its flight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By a path none other knows aright!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Behold, at last,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_29_29" href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each tall and tapering mast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is swung into its place;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shrouds and stays</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Holding it firm and fast!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Long ago,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the deer-haunted forests of Maine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When upon mountain and plain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay the snow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They fell,—those lordly pines!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Those grand, majestic pines!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Mid shouts and cheers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The jaded steers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Panting beneath the goad,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dragged down the weary, winding road</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Those captive kings so straight and tall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To be shorn of their streaming hair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, naked and bare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To feel the stress and the strain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the wind and the reeling main,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whose roar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would remind them for evermore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of their native forests they should not see again.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And everywhere</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The slender, graceful spars</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Poise aloft in the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And at the mast head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">White, blue, and red,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A flag unrolls the stripes and stars.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah! when the wanderer, lonely, friendless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In foreign harbours shall behold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That flag unrolled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Twill be as a friendly hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stretched out from his native land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filling his heart with memories sweet and endless!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">All is finished! and at length</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Has come the bridal day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of beauty and of strength.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To-day the vessel shall be launched!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And o’er the bay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly, in all his splendours dight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The great sun rises to behold the sight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The ocean old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Centuries old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Paces restless to and fro,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Up and down the sands of gold.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His beating heart is not at rest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And far and wide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With ceaseless flow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His beard of snow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heaves with the heaving of his breast.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">He waits impatient for his bride.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There she stands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With her foot upon the sands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Decked with flags and streamers gay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In honour of her marriage day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her snow-white signals fluttering, blending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round her like a veil descending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ready to be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The bride of the grey old sea.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the deck another bride</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is standing by her lover’s side.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shadows from the flags and shrouds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the shadows cast by clouds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broken by many a sunny fleck,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fall around them on the deck.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The prayer is said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The service read,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The joyous bridegroom bows his head,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in tears the good old Master</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shakes the brown hand of his son,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kisses his daughter’s glowing cheek</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In silence, for he cannot speak,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And ever faster</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down his own the tears begin to run.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The worthy pastor—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The shepherd of that wandering flock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That has the ocean for its wold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That has the vessel for its fold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leaping ever from rock to rock—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spake, with accents mild and clear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Words of warning, words of cheer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But tedious to the bridegroom’s ear.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He knew the chart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the sailor’s heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All its pleasures and its griefs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All its shallows and rocky reefs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All those secret currents, that flow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With such resistless under-tow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And lift and drift, with terrible force,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The will from its moorings and its course.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore he spake, and thus said he:—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Like unto ships far off at sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Outward or homeward bound, are we.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Before, behind, and all around,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Floats and swings the horizon’s bound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seems at its distant rim to rise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And climb the crystal wall of the skies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And then again to turn and sink,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if we could slide from its outer blink.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah! it is not the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It is not the sea that sinks and shelves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But ourselves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That rock and rise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With endless and uneasy motion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now touching the very skies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now sinking into the depths of ocean.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah! if our souls but poise and swing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the compass in its brazen ring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ever level, and ever true</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the toil and the task we have to do,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We shall sail securely, and safely reach</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Fortunate Isles, on whose shining beach</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The sights we see, and the sounds we hear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Will be those of joy and not of fear!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then the Master,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a gesture of command,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waved his hand;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And at the word,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loud and sudden there was heard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All around them and below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The sound of hammers, blow on blow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Knocking away the shores and spurs.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And see! she stirs!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She starts,—she moves,—she seems to feel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The thrill of life along her keel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, spurning with her foot the ground,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With one exulting, joyous bound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She leaps into the ocean’s arms!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And lo! from the assembled crowd</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There rose a shout, prolonged and loud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That to the ocean seemed to say,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Take her, O bridegroom, old and grey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Take her to thy protecting arms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With all her youth and all her charms!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">How beautiful she is! How fair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She lies within those arms that press</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her form with many a soft caress</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of tenderness and watchful care!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sail forth into the sea, O ship!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through wind and wave, right onward steer!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The moistened eye, the trembling lip,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Are not the signs of doubt or fear.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sail forth into the sea of life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O gentle, loving, trusting wife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And safe from all adversity</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Upon the bosom of that sea</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thy comings and thy goings be!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For gentleness and love and trust</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Prevail o’er angry wave and gust;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in the wreck of noble lives</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Something immortal still survives!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sail on, O <span class="smcap">Union</span>, strong and great!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Humanity, with all its fears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With all the hopes of future years,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is hanging breathless on thy fate!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We know what Master laid thy keel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What anvils rang, what hammers beat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In what a forge and what a heat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fear not each sudden sound and shock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Tis of the wave and not the rock;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Tis but the flapping of the sail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And not a rent made by the gale!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In spite of rock and tempest’s roar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In spite of false lights on the shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Our faith triumphant o’er our fears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Are all with thee,—are all with thee!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="TWILIGHT">TWILIGHT.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The twilight is sad and cloudy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The wind blows wild and free,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And like the wings of sea-birds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Flash the white caps of the sea.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But in the fisherman’s cottage</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">There shines a ruddier light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a little face at the window</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Peers out into the night.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Close, close it is pressed to the window,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As if those childish eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were looking into the darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To see some form arise.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a woman’s waving shadow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is passing to and fro,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now rising to the ceiling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Now bowing and bending low.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What tale do the roaring ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the night-wind, bleak and wild,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As they beat at the crazy casement,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tell to that little child?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And why do the roaring ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the night-wind, wild and bleak,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As they beat at the heart of the mother,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Drive the colour from her cheek?</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="DRIFT_WOOD">THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_30_30" href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">We sat within the farm-house old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Whose windows, looking o’er the bay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">An easy entrance, night and day.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not far away we saw the port,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The lighthouse, the dismantled fort,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The wooden houses quaint and brown.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">We sat and talked until the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Descending, filled the little room;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our faces faded from the sight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Our voices only broke the gloom.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">We spake of many a vanished scene,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of what we once had thought and said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of what had been, and might have been,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And who was changed, and who was dead;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all that fills the hearts of friends,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When first they feel, with secret pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And never can be one again;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The first slight swerving of the heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That words are powerless to express,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And leave it still unsaid in part,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Or say it in too great excess.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The very tones in which we spake</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Had something strange, I could but mark;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The leaves of memory seemed to make</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A mournful rustling in the dark.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Oft died the words upon our lips,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As suddenly, from out the fire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Built of the wreck of stranded ships,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The flames would leap and then expire.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, as their splendour flashed and failed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">We thought of wrecks upon the main,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of ships dismasted, that were hailed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And sent no answer back again.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The windows, rattling in their frames,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The ocean, roaring up the beach,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The gusty blast,—the bickering flames,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All mingled vaguely in our speech;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Until they made themselves a part</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of fancies floating through the brain,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The long-lost ventures of the heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That send no answers back again.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They were indeed too much akin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The drift-wood fire without that burned,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The thoughts that burned and glowed within.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="LIGHTHOUSE">THE LIGHTHOUSE.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rocky ledge runs far into the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And on its outer point, some miles away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Lighthouse lifts its massive masonry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even at this distance I can see the tides,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Upheaving, break unheard along its base,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A speechless wrath, that rises and subsides</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the white lip and tremor of the face.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And as the evening darkens, lo! how bright,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through the deep purple of the twilight air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With strange, unearthly splendour in its glare!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not one alone; from each projecting cape</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And perilous reef along the ocean’s verge,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Starts into life a dim, gigantic shape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Holding its lantern o’er the restless surge.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the great giant Christopher, it stands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wading far out among the rocks and sands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The night-o’ertaken mariner to save.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the great ships sail outward and return,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Bending and bowing o’er the billowy swells,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And ever joyful, as they see it burn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They wave their silent welcomes and farewells.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They come forth from the darkness, and their sails</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Gleam for a moment only in the blaze,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And eager faces, as the light unveils,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Gaze at the tower, and vanish while they gaze.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The mariner remembers when a child,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On his first voyage, he saw it fade and sink;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when, returning from adventures wild,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He saw it rise again o’er ocean’s brink.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Steadfast, serene, immoveable, the same</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Year after year, through all the silent night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Burns on for evermore that quenchless flame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Shines on that inextinguishable light!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It sees the ocean to its bosom clasp</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The rocks and sea-sand with the kiss of peace;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It sees the wild winds lift it in their grasp,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And hold it up, and shake it like a fleece.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The startled waves leap over it; the storm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Smites it with all the scourges of the rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And steadily against its solid form</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Press the great shoulders of the hurricane.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sea-bird wheeling round it, with the din</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of wings and winds and solitary cries,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blinded and maddened by the light within,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Dashes himself against the glare, and dies.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A new Prometheus, chained upon the rock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Still grasping in his hand the fire of Jove,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It does not hear the cry, nor heed the shock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But hails the mariner with words of love.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Sail on!” it says, “sail on, ye stately ships!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And with your floating bridge the ocean span;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Be yours to bring man nearer unto man!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="GILBERT">SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_31_31" href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Southward with fleet of ice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sailed the corsair Death;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wild and fast blew the blast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the east-wind was his breath.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">His lordly ships of ice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Glistened in the sun;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On each side, like pennons wide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Flashing crystal streamlets run.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">His sails of white sea-mist</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Dripped with silver rain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But where he passed there were cast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Leaden shadows o’er the main.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Eastward from Campobello</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Three days or more seaward he bore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Then, alas! the land-wind failed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alas! the land-wind failed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And ice-cold grew the night;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And never more, on sea or shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Should Sir Humphrey see the light.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He sat upon the deck,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The Book was in his hand;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Do not fear! Heaven is near,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He said, “by water as by land!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the first watch of the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Without a signal’s sound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out of the sea, mysteriously,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The fleet of Death rose all around.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The moon and the evening star</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Were hanging in the shrouds;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Every mast, as it passed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Seemed to rake the passing clouds.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They grappled with their prize,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">At midnight black and cold!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As of a rock was the shock;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Heavily the ground-swell rolled.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Southward through day and dark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They drift in close embrace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With mist and rain o’er the open main;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Yet there seems no change of place.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Southward, for ever southward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They drift through dark and day;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And like a dream in the Gulf-stream</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sinking, vanish all away.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="SECRET">THE SECRET OF THE SEA.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As I gaze upon the sea!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the old romantic legends,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All my dreams, come back to me.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sails of silk and ropes of sendal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Such as gleam in ancient lore;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the singing of the sailors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the answer from the shore!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Most of all, the Spanish ballad</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Haunts me oft, and tarries long,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the noble Count Arnaldos</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the sailor’s mystic song.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the long waves on a sea-beach,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where the sand as silver shines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a soft monotonous cadence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Flow its unrhymed lyric lines;—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Telling how the Count Arnaldos,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_32_32" href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With his hawk upon his hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saw a fair and stately galley,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Steering onward to the land;—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How he heard the ancient helmsman</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Chant a song so wild and clear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That the sailing sea-bird slowly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Poised upon the mast to hear,</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till his soul was full of longing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And he cried with impulse strong,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Helmsman! for the love of heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Teach me, too, that wondrous song!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Wouldst thou,” so the helmsman answered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“Learn the secrets of the sea?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only those who brave its dangers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Comprehend its mystery!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In each sail that skims the horizon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In each landward-blowing breeze,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I behold that stately galley,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Hear those mournful melodies;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till my soul is full of longing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For the secret of the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the heart of the great ocean</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sends a thrilling pulse through me.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span></p>
+
+<h3>THE EVENING STAR.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Just above yon sandy bar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As the day grows fainter and dimmer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lonely and lovely, a single star</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Lights the air with a dusky glimmer.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the ocean faint and far</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Falls the trail of its golden splendour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the gleam of that single star</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is ever refulgent, soft, and tender.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Chrysaor, rising out of the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Showed thus glorious and thus emulous,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Leaving the arms of Callirrhoe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For ever tender, soft, and tremulous.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus o’er the ocean faint and far</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Trailed the gleam of his falchion brightly.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is it a God, or is it a star,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That, entranced, I gazed on nightly.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+<p class="f150"><b><i>By the Fireside.</i></b></p>
+
+<h3 id="RESIGNATION">RESIGNATION.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is no flock, however watched and tended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But one dead lamb is there!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is no fireside, howsoe’er defended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But has one vacant chair!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The air is full of farewells to the dying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And mournings for the dead;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Will not be comforted!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let us be patient! These severe afflictions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Not from the ground arise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But oftentimes celestial benedictions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Assume this dark disguise.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">We see but dimly through the mists and vapours;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Amid these earthly damps,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">May be heaven’s distant lamps.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is no death! What seems so is transition.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">This life of mortal breath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is but a suburb of the life elysian,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Whose portal we call Death.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">She is not dead,—the child of our affection,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But gone unto that school</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where she no longer needs our poor protection,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And Christ himself doth rule.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In that great cloister’s stillness and seclusion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By guardian angels led,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Safe from temptation, safe from sin’s pollution,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">She lives, whom we call dead.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Day after day we think what she is doing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In those bright realms of air;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Year after year her tender steps pursuing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Behold her grown more fair.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The bond which nature gives,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">May reach her where she lives.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not as a child shall we again behold her;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For when with raptures wild</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In our embraces we again enfold her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">She will not be a child;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But a fair maiden, in her Father’s mansion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Clothed with celestial grace;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And beautiful with all the soul’s expansion</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Shall we behold her face.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And though at times, impetuous with emotion</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And anguish long suppressed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That cannot be at rest,—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">We will be patient, and assuage the feeling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">We may not wholly stay;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By silence sanctifying, not concealing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The grief that must have way.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="BUILDERS">THE BUILDERS.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All are architects of Fate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Working in these walls of Time;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some with massive deeds and great,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Some with ornaments of rhyme.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nothing useless is, or low;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Each thing in its place is best;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And what seems but idle show,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Strengthens and supports the rest.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For the structure that we raise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Time is with materials filled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our to-days and yesterdays</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Are the blocks with which we build.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Truly shape and fashion these;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Leave no yawning gaps between;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Think not, because no man sees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Such things will remain unseen.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the elder days of Art,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Builders wrought with greatest care,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each minute and unseen part;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For the Gods see everywhere.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let us do our work as well,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Both the unseen and the seen;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Make the house, where Gods may dwell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beautiful, entire, and clean.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Else our lives are incomplete,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Standing in these walls of Time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Broken stairways, where the feet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Stumble as they seek to climb.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Build to-day, then, strong and sure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With a firm and ample base;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And ascending and secure</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Shall to-morrow find its place.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus alone can we attain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To those turrets, where the eye</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sees the world as one vast plain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And one boundless reach of sky.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="DESERT">SAND OF THE DESERT<br> IN AN HOUR-GLASS.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A handful of red sand, from the hot clime</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of Arab deserts brought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Within this glass becomes the spy of Time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The minister of Thought.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How many weary centuries has it been</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">About those deserts blown!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How many strange vicissitudes has seen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">How many histories known!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Perhaps the camels of the Ishmaelite</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Trampled and passed it o’er,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When into Egypt from the patriarch’s sight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">His favourite son they bore.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Perhaps the feet of Moses, burnt and bare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Crushed it beneath their tread;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or Pharaoh’s flashing wheels into the air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Scattered it as they sped;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or Mary, with the Christ of Nazareth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Held close in her caress,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose pilgrimage of hope and love and faith</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Illumed the wilderness;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or anchorites beneath Engaddi’s palms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Pacing the Dead Sea beach,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And singing slow their old Armenian psalms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">In half-articulate speech;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or caravans, that from Bassora’s gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">With westward steps depart;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or Mecca’s pilgrims, confident of Fate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And resolute in heart!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">These have passed over it, or may have passed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Now in this crystal tower</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Imprisoned by some curious hand at last,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">It counts the passing hour.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And as I gaze, these narrow walls expand;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Before my dreamy eye</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stretches the desert with its shifting sand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Its unimpeded sky.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And borne aloft by the sustaining blast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">This little golden thread</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dilates into a column high and vast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">A form of fear and dread.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And onward, and across the setting sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Across the boundless plain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The column and its broader shadow run,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Till thought pursues in vain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The vision vanishes! These walls again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Shut out the lurid sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shut out the hot immeasurable plain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The half-hour’s sand is run!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="PEGASUS">PEGASUS IN POUND.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Once into a quiet village,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Without haste and without heed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the golden prime of morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Strayed the poet’s wingèd steed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was Autumn, and incessant</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Piped the quails from shocks and sheaves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, like living coals, the apples</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Burned among the withering leaves.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Loud the clamorous bell was ringing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From its belfry gaunt and grim;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Twas the daily call for labour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Not a triumph meant for him.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not the less he saw the landscape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In its gleaming vapour veiled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not the less he breathed the odours</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That the dying leaves exhaled.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus, upon the village common,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By the school-boys he was found;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the wise men, in their wisdom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Put him straightway into pound.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then the sombre village crier,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Ringing loud his brazen bell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wandered down the street proclaiming</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">There was an estray to sell.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the curious country people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Rich and poor, and young and old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Came in haste to see this wondrous</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wingèd steed, with mane of gold.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus the day passed, and the evening</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Fell, with vapours cold and dim;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But it brought no food nor shelter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Brought no straw nor stall, for him.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Patiently, and still expectant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Looked he through the wooden bars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saw the moon rise o’er the landscape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Saw the tranquil, patient stars;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till at length the bell at midnight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sounded from its dark abode,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, from out a neighbouring farm-yard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Loud the cock Alectryon crowed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then, with nostrils wide distended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Breaking from his iron chain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And unfolding far his pinions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To those stars he soared again.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the morrow, when the village</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Woke to all its toil and care,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lo! the strange steed had departed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And they knew not when nor where.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But they found, upon the greensward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where his struggling hoofs had trod,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pure and bright, a fountain flowing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From the hoof-marks in the sod.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From that hour, the fount unfailing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Gladdens the whole region round,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Strengthening all who drink its waters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">While it soothes them with its sound.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="WITLAF">KING WITLAF’S DRINKING-HORN.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Witlaf, a king of the Saxons,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Ere yet his last he breathed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the merry monks of Croyland</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">His drinking-horn bequeathed,—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">That, whenever they sat at their revels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And drank from the golden bowl,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They might remember the donor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And breathe a prayer for his soul.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So sat they once at Christmas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And bade the goblet pass;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In their beards the red wine glistened</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like dew-drops in the grass.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They drank to the soul of Witlaf,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They drank to Christ the Lord,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And to each of the Twelve Apostles</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who had preached his holy word.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They drank to the Saints and Martyrs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of the dismal days of yore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And as soon as the horn was empty</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They remembered one Saint more.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the reader droned from the pulpit,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like the murmur of many bees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The legend of good Saint Guthlac,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And St. Basil’s homilies;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till the great bells of the convent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From their prison in the tower,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Guthlac and Bartholomæus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Proclaimed the midnight hour.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Yule-log cracked in the chimney,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the Abbot bowed his head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the flamelets flapped and flickered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But the Abbot was stark and dead.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet still in his pallid fingers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He clutched the golden bowl,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In which, like a pearl dissolving,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Had sunk and dissolved his soul.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But not for this their revels</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The jovial monks forbore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For they cried, “Fill high the goblet!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">We must drink to one Saint more!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="TEGNER">TEGNER’S DRAPA.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I heard a voice that cried,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Balder the Beautiful</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is dead, is dead!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And through the misty air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Passed like the mournful cry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of sunward sailing cranes.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I saw the pallid corpse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the dead sun</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Borne through the Northern sky.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blasts from Niffelheim</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lifted the sheeted mists</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Around him as he passed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the voice for ever cried,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Balder the Beautiful</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is dead, is dead!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And died away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the dreary night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In accents of despair.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Balder the Beautiful,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">God of the summer sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fairest of all the Gods!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Light from his forehead beamed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Runes were upon his tongue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As on the warrior’s sword.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All things in earth and air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bound were by magic spell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Never to do him harm;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even the plants and stones,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All save the mistletoe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sacred mistletoe!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hœder, the blind old God,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose feet are shod with silence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pierced through that gentle breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With his sharp spear, by fraud</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Made of the mistletoe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The accursed mistletoe!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They laid him in his ship,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With horse and harness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As on a funeral pyre.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Odin placed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A ring upon his finger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And whispered in his ear.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They launched the burning ship!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It floated far away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over the misty sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till like the sun it seemed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sinking beneath the waves.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Balder returned no more!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So perish the old Gods!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But out of the sea of Time</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rises a new land of song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fairer than the old.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over its meadows green</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Walk the young bards and sing.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Build it again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O ye bards,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fairer than before!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye fathers of the new race,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Feed upon morning dew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sing the new Song of Love!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The law of force is dead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The law of love prevails!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thor, the thunderer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall rule the earth no more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No more, with threats,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Challenge the meek Christ.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sing no more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O ye bards of the North,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Vikings and of Jarls!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the days of Eld</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Preserve the freedom only,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not the deeds of blood.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="SINGERS">THE SINGERS.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">God sent his Singers upon earth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With songs of sadness and of mirth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That they might touch the hearts of men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And bring them back to heaven again.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The first, a youth, with soul of fire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Held in his hand a golden lyre;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through groves he wandered, and by streams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Playing the music of our dreams.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The second, with a bearded face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stood singing in the market-place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And stirred with accents deep and loud</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hearts of all the listening crowd.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A grey old man, the third and last,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sang in cathedrals dim and vast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While the majestic organ rolled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Contrition from its mouths of gold.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And those who heard the Singers three,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Disputed which the best might be;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For still their music seemed to start</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Discordant echoes in each heart.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the great Master said, “I see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No best in kind, but in degree;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I gave a various gift to each,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To charm, to strengthen, and to teach.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“These are the three great chords of might,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he whose ear is tuned aright</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will hear no discord in the three,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the most perfect harmony.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span></p>
+
+<h3>SUSPIRIA.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Take them, O Death! and bear away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Whatever thou canst call thine own!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thine image stamped upon this clay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Doth give thee that, but that alone!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Take them, O Grave! and let them lie</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Folded upon thy narrow shelves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As garments by the soul laid by,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And precious only to ourselves!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Take them, O great Eternity!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Our little life is but a gust,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That bends the branches of thy tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And trails its blossoms in the dust.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="WINDOW">THE OPEN WINDOW.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The old house by the lindens</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Stood silent in the shade,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And on the gravelled pathway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The light and shadow played.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I saw the nursery windows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wide open to the air;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the faces of the children,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They were no longer there.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The large Newfoundland house-dog</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Was standing by the door;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He looked for his little playmates,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who would return no more.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They walked not under the lindens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They played not in the hall;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But shadow, and silence, and sadness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Were hanging over all.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The birds sang in the branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With sweet, familiar tone;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the voices of the children</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Will be heard in dreams alone!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the boy that walked beside me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He could not understand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why closer in mine, ah! closer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I pressed his warm, soft hand!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 id="HYMN">HYMN.</h3>
+
+<p class="f90">FOR MY BROTHER’S ORDINATION.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Christ to the young man said: “Yet one thing more;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">If thou wouldst perfect be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sell all thou hast and give it to the poor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And come and follow me!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Within this temple Christ again, unseen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Those sacred words hath said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And his invisible hands to-day have been</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Laid on a young man’s head.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And evermore beside him on his way</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The unseen Christ shall move,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That he may lean upon his arm and say,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“Dost thou, dear Lord, approve?”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beside him at the marriage feast shall be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To make the scene more fair;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beside him in the dark Gethsemane</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of pain and midnight prayer.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O holy trust! O endless sense of rest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like the beloved John</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To lay his head upon the Saviour’s breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And thus to journey on!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span></p>
+
+<h3>GASPAR BECERRA.</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">By his evening fire the artist</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Pondered o’er his secret shame;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Baffled, weary, and disheartened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Still he mused, and dreamed of fame.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Twas an image of the Virgin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That had tasked his utmost skill;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But, alas! his fair ideal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Vanished and escaped him still.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From a distant Eastern island</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Had the precious wood been brought;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Day and night the anxious master</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">At his toil untiring wrought;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till, discouraged and desponding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sat he now in shadows deep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the day’s humiliation</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Found oblivion in sleep.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then a voice cried, “Rise, O Master;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From the burning brand of oak</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shape the thought that stirs within thee!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the startled artist woke,—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Woke, and from the smoking embers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Seized and quenched the glowing wood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And therefrom he carved an image,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And he saw that it was good.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O thou sculptor, painter, poet!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Take this lesson to thy heart:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That is best which lieth nearest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Shape from that thy work of art.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illo_10.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="94" >
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><i>The Golden Legend.</i></h2>
+<p class="center">1851.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p class="spa2">The old <i>Legenda Aurea</i>, or Golden Legend, was originally written
+in Latin, in the thirteenth century, by Jacobus de Voragine, a Dominican
+friar, who afterwards became Archbishop of Genoa, and died in 1292.</p>
+
+<p>He called his book simply <i>Legends of the Saints</i>. The epithet
+of Golden was given it by his admirers; for, as Wynkin de Worde says,
+“Like as passeth gold in value all other metals, so this legend
+exceedeth all other books.” But Edward Leigh, in much distress of mind,
+calls it “a book written by a man of a leaden heart for the basenesse
+of the errours, that are without wit or reason, and of a brazen
+forehead, for his impudent boldnesse in reporting things so fabulous
+and incredible.”</p>
+
+<p>This work, the great text-book of the legendary lore of the Middle
+Ages, was translated into French in the fourteenth century by Jean de
+Vigney, and in the fifteenth into English by William Caxton. It has
+lately been made more accessible by a new French translation: <i>La
+Légende Dorée, traduite du Latin, par M. G. B.</i> Paris, 1850. There
+is a copy of the original, with the <i>Gesta Longobadorum</i> appended,
+in the Harvard College Library, Cambridge, printed at Strasburg, 1496.
+The title-page is wanting; and the volume begins with the <i>Tabula
+Legendorum</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I have called this poem the Golden Legend, because the story upon which
+it is founded seems to me to surpass all other legends in beauty and
+significance. It exhibits, amid the corruptions of the Middle Ages,
+the virtue of disinterestedness and self-sacrifice, and the power of
+Faith, Hope, and Charity, sufficient for all the exigencies of life and
+death. The story is told, and perhaps invented, by Hartmann von der
+Aue, a Minnesinger of the twelfth century. The original may be found in
+Mailáth’s <i>Altdeutsche Gedichte</i>, with a modern German version.
+There is another in Marbách’s <i>Volksbucher</i>, No. 32.</p>
+
+<p class="f150">PROLOGUE.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>The Spire of Strasburg Cathedral. Night and storm.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Lucifer</span>, <i>with the Powers of the Air, trying
+to tear down the Cross</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> Hasten! hasten!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O ye spirits!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From its station drag the ponderous</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Cross of iron, that to mock us</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is uplifted high in air!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Voices.</i> O, we cannot.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For around it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the saints and guardian angels</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Throng in legions to protect it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They defeat us everywhere!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent10"><i>The Bells.</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Laudo Deum verum!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Plebem voco!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Congrego clerum!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> Lower! lower!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hover downward!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seize the loud vociferous bells, and</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Clashing, clanging, to the pavement</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hurl them from their windy tower.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Voices.</i> All thy thunders</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here are harmless!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For these bells have been anointed,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_33_33" href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And baptized with holy water!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They defy our utmost power.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90 ">
+ <div class="verse indent10"><i>The Bells.</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Defunctos ploro!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Pestem fugo!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Festa decoro!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> Shake the casements!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Break the painted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Panes, that flame with gold and crimson:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Scatter them like leaves of Autumn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Swept away before the blast!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Voices.</i> Oh, we cannot;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Archangel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Michael flames from every window,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the sword of fire that drove us</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Headlong, out of heaven, aghast!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90 ">
+ <div class="verse indent9"><i>The Bells.</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Funera plango!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Fulgura frango!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Sabbata pango!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> Aim your lightnings!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At the oaken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Massive, iron-studded portals!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sack the house of God, and scatter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wide the ashes of the dead!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Voices.</i> Oh, we cannot!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Apostles</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Martyrs, wrapped in mantles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stand as warders at the entrance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stand as sentinels o’erhead!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/ill_024.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="571" >
+ <p class="center">STRASBURG CATHEDRAL.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent10"><i>The Bells.</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Excito lentos!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Dissipo ventos!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Paco cruentos!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> Baffled! baffled!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Inefficient,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Craven spirits! leave this labour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unto Time, the great Destroyer!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come away, ere night is gone!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Voices.</i> Onward! onward!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the night-wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over field and farm and forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lonely homestead, darksome hamlet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blighting all we breathe upon!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>They sweep away. Organ and Gregorian Chant.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent10"><i>Choir.</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Nocte surgentes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Vigilemus omnes!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">I.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>The Castle of Vautsberg on the Rhine. A chamber in a tower.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Prince Henry</span>, <i>sitting alone, ill and restless. Midnight.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> I cannot sleep! my fervid brain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Calls up the vanished Past again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And throws its misty splendours deep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the pallid realms of sleep!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A breath from that far-distant shore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Comes freshening ever more and more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And wafts o’er intervening seas</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sweet odours from the Hesperides!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A wind, that through the corridor</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Just stirs the curtain, and no more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, touching the Æolian strings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Faints with the burden that it brings!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come back! ye friendships long departed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That like o’erflowing streamlets started,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now are dwindled, one by one,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To stony channels in the sun!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come back! ye friends, whose lives are ended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come back, with all that light attended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which seemed to darken and decay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When ye arose and went away!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They come, the shapes of joy and woe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The airy crowds of long-ago,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The dreams and fancies known of yore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That have been, and shall be no more.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They change the cloisters of the night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into a garden of delight;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They make the dark and dreary hours</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Open and blossom into flowers!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I would not sleep! I love to be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Again in their fair company;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But ere my lips can bid them stay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They pass and vanish quite away!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alas! our memories may retrace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each circumstance of time and place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Season and scene come back again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And outward things unchanged remain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rest we cannot reinstate;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ourselves we cannot re-create,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor set our souls to the same key</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the remembered harmony!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rest! rest!&emsp; Oh, give me rest and peace!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The thought of life that ne’er shall cease</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has something in it like despair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A weight I am too weak to bear!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sweeter to this afflicted breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The thought of never-ending rest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sweeter the undisturbed and deep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tranquillity of endless sleep!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">[<i>A flash of lightning, out of which</i>
+<span class="smcap">Lucifer</span> <i>appears,
+in the garb of a travelling Physician</i>.]</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> All hail, Prince Henry!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry</i> (<i>starting</i>).<span class="ws4">Who is it speaks?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who and what are you?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i><span class="ws4">One who seeks</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A moment’s audience with the Prince.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> When came you in?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i><span class="ws10">A moment since.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I found your study door unlocked,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thought you answered when I knocked.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> I did not hear you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Lucifer.</i><span class="ws10">You heard the thunder;</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was loud enough to waken the dead.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And it is not a matter of special wonder</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That, when God is walking overhead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You should not hear my feeble tread.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> What may your wish or purpose be?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Lucifer.</i> Nothing or everything, as it pleases</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Your Highness.&emsp; You behold in me</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only a travelling Physician;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One of the few who have a mission</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To cure incurable diseases,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or those that are called so.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws6">Can you bring</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The dead to life?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i><span class="ws4">Yes; very nearly.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And what is a wiser and better thing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Can keep the living from ever needing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such an unnatural, strange proceeding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By showing conclusively and clearly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That death is a stupid blunder merely,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And not a necessity of our lives.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My being here is accidental;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The storm, that against your casement drives,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the little village below waylaid me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And there I heard, with a secret delight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of your maladies, physical and mental,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which neither astonished nor dismayed me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I hastened hither, though late in the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To proffer my aid!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry</i> (<i>ironically</i>). For this you came!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah, how can I ever hope to requite</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This honour from one so erudite?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> The honour is mine, or will be when</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have cured your disease.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws5">But not till then.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> What is your illness?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws10">It has no name.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A smouldering, dull, perpetual flame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As in a kiln, burns in my veins,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sending up vapours to the head;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My heart has become a dull lagoon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which a kind of leprosy drinks and drains;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am accounted as one who is dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, indeed, I think I shall be soon.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> And has Gordonius, the Divine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In his famous Lily of Medicine,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see the book lies open before you,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No remedy potent enough to restore you?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> None whatever!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i><span class="ws8">The dead are dead.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And their oracles dumb, when questionèd</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the new diseases that human life</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Evolves in its progress, rank and rife.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Consult the dead upon things that were,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the living only on things that are.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have you done this, by the appliance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And aid of doctors?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i>&emsp; Ay, whole schools</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of doctors, with their learned rules;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the case is quite beyond their science.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even the doctors of Salern</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Send me back word they can discern</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No cure for a malady like this,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Save one which in its nature is</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Impossible, and cannot be!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> That sounds oracular!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws8">Unendurable!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> What is their remedy?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws10">You shall see;</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Writ in this scroll is the mystery.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer</i> (<i>reading</i>).&emsp; “Not to be cured, yet not incurable!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The only remedy that remains</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is the blood that flows from a maiden’s veins,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who of her own free will shall die,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And give her life as the price of yours!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That is the strangest of all cures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And one, I think, you will never try;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The prescription you may well put by,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As something impossible to find</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Before the world itself shall end!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And yet who knows? One cannot say</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That into some maiden’s brain that kind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of madness will not find its way.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Meanwhile permit me to recommend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the matter admits of no delay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My wonderful Catholicon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of very subtile and magical powers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Purge with your nostrums and drugs infernal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The spouts and gargoyles of these towers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not me! My faith is utterly gone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In every power but the Power Supernal!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pray tell me, of what school are you?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> Both of the Old and of the New!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The school of Hermes Trismegistus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who uttered his oracles sublime</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Before the Olympiads, in the dew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the early dusk and dawn of Time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The reign of dateless old Hephæstus!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As northward, from its Nubian springs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Nile, for ever new and old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Among the living and the dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its mighty, mystic stream has rolled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So, starting from its fountain-head</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under the lotus-leaves of Isis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the dead demigods of eld,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through long, unbroken lines of kings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its course the sacred art has held,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unchecked, unchanged by man’s devices.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This art the Arabian Geber taught,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in alembics, finely wrought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Distilling herbs and flowers, discovered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The secret that so long had hovered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon the misty verge of Truth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Elixir of Perpetual Youth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Called Alcohol, in the Arab speech!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like him, this wondrous lore I teach!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i>&emsp; What!&emsp; an adept?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i><span class="ws10">Nor less, nor more!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> I am a reader of your books,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A lover of that mystic lore!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With such a piercing glance it looks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into great Nature’s open eye,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sees within it trembling lie</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The portrait of the Deity!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And yet, alas! with all my pains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The secret and the mystery</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have baffled and eluded me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unseen the grand result remains!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer</i> (<i>showing a flask</i>). Behold it here! this little flask</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Contains the wonderful quintessence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The perfect flower and efflorescence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of all the knowledge man can ask!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hold it up thus against the light!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> How limpid, pure, and crystalline,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How quick, and tremulous, and bright</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The little wavelets dance and shine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As were it the Water of Life in sooth!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> It is!&emsp; It assuages every pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Cures all disease, and gives again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To age the swift delights of youth.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Inhale its fragrance.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> It is sweet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A thousand different odours meet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And mingle in its rare perfume,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such as the winds of summer waft</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At open windows through a room!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> Will you not taste it?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws8">Will one draught</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Suffice?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> If not, you can drink more.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Into this crystal goblet pour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So much as safely I may drink.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer</i> (<i>pouring</i>). Let not the quantity alarm you;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You may drink all; it will not harm you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> I am as one who on the brink</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of a dark river stands and sees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The waters flow, the landscape dim</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Around him waver, wheel, and swim,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, ere he plunges, stops to think</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into what whirlpools he may sink;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One moment pauses, and no more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then madly plunges from the shore!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Headlong into the mysteries</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of life and death I boldly leap,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor fear the fateful current’s sweep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor what in ambush lurks below!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For death is better than disease!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">[<i>An</i> <span class="smcap">Angel</span> <i>with
+an Æolian harp hovers in the air</i>.]</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Angel.</i> Woe!&emsp; woe!&emsp; eternal woe!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not only the whispered prayer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the imprecations of hate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Reverberate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For ever and ever through the air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Above!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This fearful curse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shakes the great universe!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer</i> (<i>disappearing</i>). Drink!&emsp; drink!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thy soul shall sink</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down into the dark abyss,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the infinite abyss,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From which no plummet nor rope</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ever drew up the silver sand of hope!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry</i> (<i>drinking</i>). It is like a draught of fire!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through every vein</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I feel again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fever of youth, the soft desire;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A rapture that is almost pain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Throbs in my heart and fills my brain!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O joy!&emsp; O joy!&emsp; I feel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The band of steel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That so long and heavily has pressed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon my breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Uplifted, and the malediction</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of my affliction</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is taken from me, and my weary breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At length finds rest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>The Angel.</i> It is but the rest of the fire, from which the air has been taken!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is but the rest of the sand, when the hour-glass is not shaken!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is but the rest of the tide between the ebb and the flow!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is but the rest of the wind between the flaws that blow!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With fiendish laughter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hereafter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This false physician</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will mock thee in thy perdition.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Speak!&emsp; speak!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who says that I am ill?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am not ill! I am not weak!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The trance, the swoon, the dream is o’er,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I feel the chill of death no more!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At length,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I stand renewed in all my strength!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath me I can feel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The great earth stagger and reel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if the feet of a descending God</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon its surface trod,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And like a pebble it rolled beneath his heel!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This, O brave physician! this</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is thy great Palingenesis!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent9">[<i>Drinks again.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>The Angel.</i> Touch the goblet no more!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It will make thy heart sore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To its very core!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its perfume is the breath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the Angel of Death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the light that within it lies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is the flash of his evil eyes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beware!&emsp; O beware!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For sickness, sorrow, and care</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All are there!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry</i> (<i>sinking back</i>). O thou voice within my breast!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why entreat me, why upbraid me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When the steadfast tongues of truth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the flattering hopes of youth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have all deceived me and betrayed me?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Give me, give me rest, O, rest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Golden visions wave and hover,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Golden vapours, waters streaming,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Landscapes moving, changing, gleaming!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am like a happy lover</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who illumines life with dreaming!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Brave physician! Rare physician!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Well hast thou fulfilled thy mission.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent8">[<i>His head falls on his book.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>The Angel</i> (<i>receding</i>). Alas!&emsp; alas!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a vapour the golden vision</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall fade and pass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thou wilt find in thy heart again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only the blight of pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And bitter, bitter, bitter contrition!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Court-yard of the Castle.</i>&emsp; <span class="smcap">Hubert</span> <i>standing by the Gateway</i>.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hubert.</i> How sad the grand old castle looks!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’erhead, the unmolested rooks</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon the turret’s windy top</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sit, talking of the farmer’s crop;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here in the court-yard springs the grass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So few are now the feet that pass;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The stately peacocks, bolder grown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come hopping down the steps of stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if the castle were their own;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I, the poor old seneschal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Haunt, like a ghost, the banquet-hall.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alas! the merry guests no more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Crowd through the hospitable door;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No eyes with youth and passion shine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No cheeks grow redder than the wine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No song, no laugh, no jovial din</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of drinking wassail to the pin;&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_34_34" href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But all is silent, sad, and drear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now the only sounds I hear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are the hoarse rooks upon the walls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And horses stamping in their stalls!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent8">[<i>A horn sounds.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What ho! that merry, sudden blast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Reminds me of the days long past!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, as of old resounding, grate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The heavy hinges of the gate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, clattering loud, with iron clank,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down goes the sounding bridge of plank,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if it were in haste to greet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The pressure of a traveller’s feet!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent9"><i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Walter</span> <i>the Minnesinger</i>.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Walter.</i> How now, my friend! This looks quite lonely!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No banner flying from the walls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No pages and no seneschals,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No warders, and one porter only!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is it you, Hubert?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hubert.</i><span class="ws5">Ah! Master Walter!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Walter.</i> Alas! how forms and faces alter!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I did not know you. You look older!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Your hair has grown much greyer and thinner,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And you stoop a little in the shoulder!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hubert.</i> Alack! I am a poor old sinner,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, like these towers, begin to moulder;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And you have been absent many a year!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Walter.</i> How is the Prince?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hubert.</i>.<span class="ws9">He is not here;</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He has been ill: and now has fled.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Walter.</i> Speak it out frankly; say he’s dead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is it not so?</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hubert.</i> No; if you please;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A strange, mysterious disease</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fell on him with a sudden blight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whole hours together he would stand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon the terrace, in a dream,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Resting his head upon his hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Best pleased when he was most alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like Saint John Nepomuck in stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Looking down into a stream.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the Round Tower, night after night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He sat, and bleared his eyes with books,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Until one morning we found him there</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stretched on the floor, as if in a swoon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He had fallen from his chair.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We hardly recognised his sweet looks!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Walter.</i> Poor Prince!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hubert.</i><span class="ws3">I think he might have mended;</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he did mend; but very soon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Priests came flocking in like rooks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With all their crosiers and their crooks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And so at last the matter ended.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Walter.</i> How did it end?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hubert.</i> Why, in Saint Rochus</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They made him stand and wait his doom;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, as if he were condemned to the tomb,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Began to mutter their hocus-pocus.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">First, the Mass for the dead they chanted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then three times laid upon his head</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A shovelful of churchyard clay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saying to him, as he stood undaunted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“This is a sign that thou art dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So in thy heart be penitent!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And forth from the chapel door he went</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into disgrace and banishment,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Clothed in a cloak of hodden grey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And bearing a wallet, and a bell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose sound should be a perpetual knell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To keep all travellers away.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Walter.</i> O, horrible fate!&emsp; Outcast, rejected,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As one with pestilence infected!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hubert.</i> Then was the family tomb unsealed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And broken helmet, sword, and shield,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Buried together, in common wreck,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As is the custom, when the last</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of any princely house has passed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thrice, as with a trumpet-blast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A herald shouted down the stair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The words of warning and despair,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O Hoheneck!&emsp; O Hoheneck!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Walter.</i> Still in my soul that cry goes on,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For ever gone! for ever gone!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah, what a cruel sense of loss,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a black shadow, would fall across</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hearts of all, if he should die!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His gracious presence upon earth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was as a fire upon a hearth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As pleasant songs, at morning sung,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The words that dropped from his sweet tongue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Strengthened our hearts; or, heard at night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Made all our slumbers soft and light.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where is he?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Hubert.</i> In the Odenwald.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some of his tenants, unappalled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By fear of death, or priestly word,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A holy family, that make</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each meal a Supper of the Lord,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have him beneath their watch and ward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For love of him, and Jesus’ sake!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pray you come in. For why should I</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With out-door hospitality</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My prince’s friend thus entertain?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Walter.</i> I would a moment here remain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But you, good Hubert, go before,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fill me a goblet of May-drink,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As aromatic as the May</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From which it steals the breath away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And which he loved so well of yore;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is of him that I would think.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You shall attend me, when I call,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the ancestral banquet-hall.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unseen companions, guests of air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You cannot wait on, will be there;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They taste not food, they drink not wine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But their soft eyes look into mine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And their lips speak to me, and all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The vast and shadowy banquet-hall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is full of looks and words divine!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent5">[<i>Leaning over the parapet.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The day is done; and slowly from the scene</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The stooping sun upgathers his spent shafts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And puts them back into his golden quiver!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Below me in the valley, deep and green</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As goblets are, from which in thirsty draughts</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We drink its wine, the swift and mantling river</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Flows on triumphant through these lovely regions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Etched with the shadows of its sombre margent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And soft, reflected clouds of gold and argent!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yes, there it flows, for ever, broad and still,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As when the vanguard of the Roman legions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">First saw it from the top of yonder hill!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How beautiful it is! Fresh fields of wheat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Vineyard, and town, and tower with fluttering flag,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The consecrated chapel on the crag,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the white hamlet gathered round its base,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like Mary sitting at her Saviour’s feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And looking up at his beloved face!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O friend! O best of friends! Thy absence more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than the impending night darkens the landscape o’er!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">II.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>A Farm in the Odenwald. A garden; morning</i>;
+<span class="smcap">Prince Henry</span> <i>seated, with a book</i>.
+<span class="smcap">Elsie</span>, <i>at a distance, gathering flowers</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry</i> (<i>reading</i>). One morning, all alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out of his convent of grey stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the forest older, darker, greyer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His lips moving as if in prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His head sunken upon his breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As in a dream of rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Walked the Monk Felix. All about</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The broad, sweet sunshine lay without,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Filling the summer air;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And within the woodlands as he trod,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The twilight was like the Truce of God</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With worldly woe and care;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under him lay the golden moss;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And above him the boughs of hoary trees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Waved and made the sign of the cross,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And whispered their Benedicites;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And from the ground</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rose an odour sweet and fragrant</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the wild-flowers and the vagrant</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Vines that wandered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seeking the sunshine, round and round.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">These he heeded not, but pondered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the volume in his hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A volume of St. Augustine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wherein he read of the unseen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Splendours of God’s great town</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the unknown land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, with his eyes cast down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In humility, he said:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I believe, O God,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What herein I have read,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But, alas! I do not understand!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And lo! he heard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sudden singing of a bird,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A snow-white bird, that from a cloud</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dropped down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And among the branches brown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sat singing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So sweet, and clear, and loud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It seemed a thousand harp-strings ringing.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Monk Felix closed his book,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And long, long,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With rapturous look,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He listened to the song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And hardly breathed or stirred,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Until he saw, as in a vision,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The land Elysian,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in the heavenly city heard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Angelic feet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fall on the golden flagging of the street.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he would fain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have caught the wondrous bird,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But strove in vain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For it flew away, away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Far over hill and dell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And instead of its sweet singing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He heard the convent bell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Suddenly in the silence ringing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For the service of noonday.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he retraced</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His pathway homeward sadly and in haste.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the convent there was a change!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He looked for each well-known face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the faces were new and strange;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">New figures sat in the oaken stalls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">New voices chanted in the choir;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet the place was the same place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The same dusky walls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of cold, grey stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The same cloisters and belfry and spire.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A stranger and alone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Among that brotherhood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Monk Felix stood.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Forty years,” said a Friar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Have I been Prior</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of this convent in the wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But for that space</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Never have I beheld thy face!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The heart of the Monk Felix fell:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he answered, with submissive tone,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“This morning, after the hour of Prime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I left my cell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And wandered forth alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Listening all the time</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the melodious singing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of a beautiful white bird,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Until I heard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The bells of the convent ringing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Noon from their noisy towers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was as if I dreamed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For what to me had seemed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Moments only, had been hours!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Years,” said a voice close by.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was an aged monk who spoke,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From a bench of oak</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fastened against the wall;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He was the oldest monk of all.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For a whole century</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had he been there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Serving God in prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The meekest and humblest of his creatures.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He remembered well the features</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Felix, and he said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Speaking distinct and slow:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“One hundred years ago,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When I was a novice in this place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There was here a monk, full of God’s grace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who bore the name</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Felix, and this man must be the same.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And straightway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They brought back to the light of day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A volume old and brown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A huge tome, bound</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In brass and wild-boar’s hide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wherein were written down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The names of all who had died</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the convent, since it was edified.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And there they found,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Just as the old monk said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That on a certain day and date,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One hundred years before,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had gone forth from the convent gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Monk Felix, and never more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had entered that sacred door.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He had been counted among the dead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And they knew, at last,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That, such had been the power</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of that celestial and immortal song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A hundred years had passed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And had not seemed so long</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a single hour!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10"><span class="smcap">Elsie</span> <i>comes in with flowers</i>.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Here are flowers for you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But they are not all for you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some of them are for the Virgin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And for Saint Cecilia.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> As thou standest there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou seemest to me like the angel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That brought the immortal robes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To Saint Cecilia’s bridal chamber.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> But these will fade.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Themselves will fade,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But not their memory,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And memory has the power</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To re-create them from the dust.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They remind me, too,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of martyred Dorothea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who from celestial gardens sent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Flowers as her witnesses</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To him who scoffed and doubted.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Do you know the story</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Christ and the Sultan’s daughter?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That is the prettiest legend of them all.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Then tell it to me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But first come hither.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lay the flowers down beside me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And put both thy hands in mine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now tell me the story.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Early in the morning</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Sultan’s daughter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Walked in her father’s garden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gathering the bright flowers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All full of dew.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Just as thou hast been doing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This morning, dearest Elsie.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> And as she gathered them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She wondered more and more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who was the Master of the Flowers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And made them grow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out of the cold, dark earth.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“In my heart,” she said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I love him; and for him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Would leave my father’s palace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To labour in his garden.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Dear, innocent child!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How sweetly thou recallest</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The long-forgotten legend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That in my early childhood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My mother told me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon my brain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It reappears once more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a birthmark on the forehead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When a hand suddenly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is laid upon it, and removed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> And at midnight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As she lay upon her bed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She heard a voice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Call to her from the garden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, looking forth from her window,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She saw a beautiful youth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Standing among the flowers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was the Lord Jesus;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And she went down to him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And opened the door for him;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he said to her, “O maiden!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast thought of me with love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And for thy sake</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out of my Father’s kingdom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have I come hither:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am the Master of the Flowers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My garden is in Paradise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And if thou wilt go with me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy bridal garland</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall be of bright red flowers.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then he took from his finger</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A golden ring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And asked the Sultan’s daughter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If she would be his bride.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when she answered him with love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His wounds began to bleed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And she said to him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O Love! how red thy heart is,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thy hands are full of roses.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“For thy sake,” answered he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“For thy sake is my heart so red,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For thee I bring these roses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I gathered them at the cross</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whereon I died for thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come, for my Father calls.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou art my elected bride!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Sultan’s daughter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Followed him to his Father’s garden.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Wouldst thou have done so, Elsie?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Yes, very gladly.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Then the Celestial Bridegroom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will come for thee also,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon thy forehead he will place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not his crown of thorns,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But a crown of roses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In thy bridal chamber,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like Saint Cecilia,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou shalt hear sweet music,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And breathe the fragrance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of flowers immortal!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Go now and place these flowers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Before her picture.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>A room in the Farmhouse.&emsp; Twilight.</i>&emsp;
+<span class="smcap">Ursula</span> <i>spinning</i>.&emsp; <span class="smcap">Gottlieb</span>
+<i>asleep in his chair</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> Darker and darker! Hardly a glimmer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of light comes in at the window-pane;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or is it my eyes are growing dimmer?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I cannot disentangle this skein,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor wind it rightly upon the reel.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Elsie!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb</i> (<i>starting</i>). The stopping of thy wheel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has wakened me out of a pleasant dream.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I thought I was sitting beside a stream,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And heard the grinding of a mill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When suddenly the wheels stood still,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a voice cried “Elsie” in my ear!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It startled me, it seemed so near.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> I was calling her; I want a light.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I cannot see to spin my flax.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bring the lamp, Elsie.&emsp; Dost thou hear?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie</i> (<i>within</i>). In a moment!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i><span class="ws6">Where are Bertha and Max?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> They are sitting with Elsie at the door.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She is telling them stories of the wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Wolf, and Little Red Ridinghood.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i> And where is the Prince?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i><span class="ws7">In his room overhead</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I heard him walking across the floor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As he always does, with a heavy tread.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Elsie</span> <i>comes in with a lamp</i>.
+<span class="smcap">Max</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Bertha</span>
+<i>follow her, and they all sing the Evening Song on the lighting of the lamps</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent8">EVENING SONG.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent6">O gladsome light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Of the Father Immortal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">And of the celestial</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Sacred and blessed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Jesus, our Saviour!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent6">Now to the sunset</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Again hast thou brought us;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">And, seeing the evening</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Twilight, we bless thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Praise thee, adore thee!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent6">Father Omnipotent!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Son, the Life-giver!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Spirit, the Comforter!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Worthy at all times</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Of worship and wonder!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry</i> (<i>at the door</i>). Amen!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i><span class="ws10"> Who was it said Amen?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> It was the Prince: he stood at the door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And listened a moment, as we chanted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The evening song. He is gone again.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have often seen him there before.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> Poor Prince!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i><span class="ws10">I thought the house was haunted!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Poor Prince, alas! and yet as mild</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And patient as the gentlest child!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Max.</i> I love him because he is so good,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And makes me such fine bows and arrows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To shoot at the robins and the sparrows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the red squirrels in the wood!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Bertha.</i> I love him, too!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i><span class="ws6">Ah, yes! we all</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Love him, from the bottom of our hearts;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He gave us the farm, the house, and the grange,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He gave us the horses and the carts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the great oxen in the stall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The vineyard, and the forest range!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We have nothing to give him but our love!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Bertha.</i> Did he give us the beautiful stork above</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the chimney-top, with its large, round nest?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i> No, not the stork; by God in heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a blessing, the dear, white stork was given;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the Prince has given us all the rest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">God bless him, and make him well again.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Would I could do something for his sake,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Something to cure his sorrow and pain!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i> That no one can; neither thou nor I,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor any one else.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i><span class="ws4">And must he die?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> Yes; if the dear God does not take</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pity upon him, in his distress,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And work a miracle!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i><span class="ws6">Or unless</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some maiden, of her own accord,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Offers her life for that of her lord,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And is willing to die in his stead.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i><span class="ws10">I will!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> Prithee, thou foolish child, be still.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou shouldst not say what thou dost not mean!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> I mean it truly!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Max.</i><span class="ws8">Oh, father! this morning,</span></div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down by the mill, in the ravine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hans killed a wolf, the very same</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That in the night to the sheepfold came,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And ate up my lamb, that was left outside.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i> I am glad he is dead.&emsp; It will be a warning</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the wolves in the forest, far and wide.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Max.</i> And I am going to have his hide!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Bertha.</i> I wonder if this is the wolf that ate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Little Red Ridinghood!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i><span class="ws10">Oh, no!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That wolf was killed a long while ago.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come, children, it is growing late.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Max.</i> Ah, how I wish I were a man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As stout as Hans is, and as strong!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I would do nothing else, the whole day long,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But just kill wolves.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i><span class="ws6">Then go to bed,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And grow as fast as a little boy can.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bertha is half asleep already.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">See how she nods her heavy head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And her sleepy feet are so unsteady,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She will hardly be able to creep upstairs.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> Good night, my children.&emsp; Here’s the light.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And do not forget to say your prayers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Before you sleep.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i>&emsp; Good night!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Max and Bertha.</i><span class="ws3">Good night!</span></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>They go out with</i> <span class="smcap">Elsie</span>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula</i> (<i>spinning</i>). She is a strange and wayward child,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That Elsie of ours.&emsp; She looks so old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thoughts and fancies weird and wild</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seem of late to have taken hold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of her heart, that was once so docile and mild!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i> She is like all girls.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i><span class="ws10">Ah no, forsooth!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unlike all I have ever seen.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For she has visions and strange dreams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in all her words and ways, she seems</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Much older than she is in truth.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who would think her but fifteen?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And there has been of late such a change!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My heart is heavy with fear and doubt</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That she may not live till the year is out.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She is so strange,—so strange,—so strange!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i> I am not troubled with any such fear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She will live and thrive for many a year.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent11">[<span class="smcap">Elsie’s</span> <i>Chamber. Night.</i> <span class="smcap">Elsie</span> <i>praying</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> My Redeemer and my Lord,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I beseech thee, I entreat thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Guide me in each act and word,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That hereafter I may meet thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Watching, waiting, hoping, yearning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With my lamp well trimmed and burning?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Interceding</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With these bleeding</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wounds upon thy hands and side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For all who have lived and erred</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast suffered, thou hast died,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Scourged, and mocked, and crucified,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in the grave hast thou been buried!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">If my feeble prayer can reach thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O my Saviour, I beseech thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even as thou hast died for me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">More sincerely</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let me follow where thou leadest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let me, bleeding as thou bleedest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Die, if dying I may give</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Life to one who asks to live,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And more nearly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dying thus, resemble thee!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>The Chamber of</i> <span class="smcap">Gottlieb</span>
+<i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Ursula</span>. <i>Midnight.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Elsie</span> <i>standing by their bedside weeping</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i> The wind is roaring; the rushing rain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is loud upon roof and window-pane,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if the wild Huntsman of Rodenstein,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Boding evil to me and mine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were abroad to-night, with his ghostly train!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the brief lulls of the tempest wild,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The dogs howl in the yard; and hark!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some one is sobbing in the dark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here in the chamber!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i><span class="ws6">It is I.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> Elsie, what ails thee, my poor child?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> I am disturbed and much distressed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In thinking our dear Prince must die;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I cannot close mine eyes, nor rest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i> What wouldst thou? In the Power Divine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His healing lies, not in our own;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is in the hand of God alone.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Nay, he has put it into mine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And into my heart!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i><span class="ws6">Thy words are wild!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> What dost thou mean? my child! my child!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> That for our dear Prince Henry’s sake</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will myself the offering make,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And give my life to purchase his.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> Am I still dreaming or awake?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou speakest carelessly of death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And yet thou knowest not what it is.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> ’Tis the cessation of our breath.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Silent and motionless we lie;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And no one knoweth more than this.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I saw our little Gertrude die;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She left off breathing, and no more.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I smoothed the pillow beneath her head.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She was more beautiful than before.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like violets faded were her eyes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By this we knew that she was dead.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the open window looked the skies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the chamber where she lay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the wind was like the sound of wings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if angels came to bear her away.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! when I saw and felt these things,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I found it difficult to stay;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I longed to die, as she had died,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And go forth with her, side by side.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Saints are dead, the Martyrs dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Mary, and our Lord; and I</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Would follow in humility</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The way by them illuminèd!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> My child! my child!&emsp; thou must not die!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Why should I live?&emsp; Do I not know</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The life of woman is full of woe?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Toiling on and on and on,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With breaking heart and tearful eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And silent lips, and in the soul</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The secret longings that arise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which this world never satisfies!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some more, some less, but of the whole</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not one quite happy, no, not one!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> It is the malediction of Eve.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_35_35" href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> In place of it, let me receive</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The benediction of Mary, then.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i> Ah, woe is me!&emsp; Ah, woe is me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Most wretched am I among men!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> Alas! that I should live to see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy death, belovèd, and to stand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Above thy grave!&emsp; Ah, woe the day!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Thou wilt not see it.&emsp; I shall lie</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath the flowers of another land;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For at Salerno, far away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over the mountains, over the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is appointed me to die!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And it will seem no more to thee</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than if at the village on market-day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I should a little longer stay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than I am wont.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i><span class="ws4">Even as thou sayest!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And how my heart beats when thou stayest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I cannot rest until my sight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is satisfied in seeing thee.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What, then, if thou wert dead?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i><span class="ws10">Ah me!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of our old eyes thou art the light!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The joy of our old hearts art thou!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And wilt thou die?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i><span class="ws6">Not now! not now!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Christ died for me, and shall not I</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Be willing for my Prince to die?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You both are silent; you cannot speak.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This said I, at our Saviour’s feast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">After confession to the priest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And even he made no reply.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Does he not warn us all to seek</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The happier, better land on high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where flowers immortal never wither;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And could he forbid me to go thither?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i> In God’s own time, my heart’s delight!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When he shall call thee, not before!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> I heard him call.&emsp; When Christ ascended</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Triumphantly, from star to star,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He left the gates of heaven ajar.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I had a vision in the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And saw him standing at the door</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of his Father’s mansion, vast and splendid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And beckoning to me from afar.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I cannot stay!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i><span class="ws4">She speaks almost</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if it were the Holy Ghost</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spake through her lips, and in her stead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What if this were of God?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i><span class="ws9">Ah, then</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gainsay dare we not.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i><span class="ws6">Amen!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Elsie! the words that thou hast said</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are strange and new for us to hear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And fill our hearts with doubt and fear.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whether it be a dark temptation</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the Evil One, or God’s inspiration,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We in our blindness cannot say.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We must think upon it, and pray;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For evil and good it both resembles.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If it be of God, his will be done!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">May he guard us from the Evil One!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How hot thy hand is! how it trembles!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Go to thy bed, and try to sleep.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> Kiss me.&emsp; Good night; and do not weep.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent6">[<span class="smcap">Elsie</span> <i>goes out</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah, what an awful thing is this!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I almost shuddered at her kiss,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if a ghost had touched my cheek,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am so childish and so weak!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As soon as I see the earliest grey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of morning glimmer in the east,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will go over to the priest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And hear what the good man has to say!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>A village church. A woman kneeling at the Confessional.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>The Parish Priest</i> (<i>from within</i>). Go, sin no more!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Thy penance o’er,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A new and better life begin!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">God maketh thee for ever free</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the dominion of thy sin!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Go, sin no more! He will restore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The peace that filled thy heart before,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And pardon thine iniquity!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">[<i>The woman goes out. The Priest comes forth, and</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>walks slowly up and down the church.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O blessed Lord! how much I need</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy light to guide me on my way!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So many hands, that, without heed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still touch thy wounds, and make them bleed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So many feet that, day by day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still wander from thy fold astray!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unless thou fill me with thy light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I cannot lead thy flock aright;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor, without thy support, can bear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The burden of so great a care,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But am myself a castaway!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent9">[<i>A pause.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The day is drawing to its close;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And what good deeds, since first it rose,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have I presented, Lord, to thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As offerings of my ministry?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What wrong repressed, what right maintained,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What struggle passed, what victory gained,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What good attempted and attained?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Feeble, at best, is my endeavour!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see, but cannot reach, the height</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That lies for ever in the light;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And yet for ever, and for ever,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When seeming just within my grasp,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I feel my feeble hands unclasp,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sink discouraged into night!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For thine own purpose thou hast sent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The strife and the discouragement!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent9">[<i>A pause.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why stayest thou, Prince of Hoheneck?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why keep me pacing to and fro</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Amid these aisles of sacred gloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Counting my footsteps as I go,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And marking with each step a tomb?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why should the world for thee make room,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And wait thy leisure and thy beck?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou comest in the hope to hear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some word of comfort and of cheer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What can I say? I cannot give</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The counsel to do this and live;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But rather, firmly to deny</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The tempter, though his power be strong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, inaccessible to wrong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still like a martyr live and die!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent9">[<i>A pause.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The evening air grows dusk and brown;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I must go forth into the town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To visit beds of pain and death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of restless limbs and quivering breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sorrowing hearts, and patient eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That see, through tears, the sun go down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But never more shall see it rise.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The poor, in body and estate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sick and the disconsolate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Must not on man’s convenience wait.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent9">[<i>Goes out.</i>]</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6"><i>Enter</i> <i>Lucifer</i>, <i>as a Priest</i>.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer</i> (<i>with a genuflection, mocking</i>).</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This is the Black Pater-noster.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">God was my foster.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He fostered me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under the book of the Palm-tree!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">St. Michael was my dame.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He was born at Bethlehem,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He was made of flesh and blood.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">God send me my right food,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My right food, and shelter too,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That I may to yon kirk go,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To read upon yon sweet book</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which the mighty God of heaven shook.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Open, open, hell’s gates!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shut, shut, heaven’s gates!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the devils in the air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The stronger be, that hear the Black Prayer!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent7">[<i>Looking round the church.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What a darksome and dismal place!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I wonder that any man has the face</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To call such a hole the House of the Lord,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Gate of Heaven,—yet such is the word.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ceiling and walls, and windows old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Covered with cobwebs, blackened with mould;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dust on the pulpit, dust on the stairs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dust on the benches, and stalls, and chairs!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The pulpit, from which such ponderous sermons</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have fallen down on the brains of the Germans,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With about as much real edification</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if a great Bible, bound in lead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had fallen and struck them on the head;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I ought to remember that sensation!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here stands the holy-water stoup!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Holy-water it may be to many,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But to me, the veriest Liquor Gehennæ!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It smells like a filthy fast-day soup!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Near it stands the box for the poor;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With its iron padlock safe and sure.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I and the priest of the parish know</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whither all these charities go;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Therefore, to keep up the institution,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will add my little contribution!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent7">[<i>He puts in money.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Underneath this mouldering tomb,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With statue of stone, and scutcheon of brass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Slumbers a great lord of the village.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All his life was riot and pillage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But at length, to escape the threatened doom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the everlasting, penal fire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He died in the dress of a mendicant friar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And bartered his wealth for a daily mass.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But all that afterwards came to pass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And whether he finds it dull or pleasant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is kept a secret for the present,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At his own particular desire.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And here, in a corner of the wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shadowy, silent, apart from all,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With its awful portal open wide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And its latticed windows on either side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And its step well worn by the bended knees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of one or two pious centuries,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stands the village confessional!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Within it, as an honoured guest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will sit me down awhile and rest!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent7">[<i>Seats himself in the Confessional.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here sits the priest; and faint and low,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the sighing of an evening breeze,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Comes through these painted lattices</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The ceaseless sound of human woe;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here, while her bosom aches and throbs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With deep and agonizing sobs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That half are passion, half contrition,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The luckless daughter of perdition</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Slowly confesses her secret shame!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The time, the place, the lover’s name!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here the grim murderer, with a groan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From his bruised conscience rolls the stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thinking that thus he can atone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For ravages of sword and flame!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Indeed, I marvel, and marvel greatly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How a priest can sit here so sedately,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Reading, the whole year out and in,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Naught but the catalogue of sin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And still keep any faith whatever</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In human virtue! Never! never!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I cannot repeat a thousandth part</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the horrors and crimes and sins and woes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That arise, when with palpitating throes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The graveyard in the human heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gives up its dead, at the voice of the priest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if he were an archangel, at least.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It makes a peculiar atmosphere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This odour of earthly passions and crimes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such as I like to breathe, at times,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And such as often brings me here</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the hottest and most pestilential season.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To-day I come for another reason;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To foster and ripen an evil thought</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In a heart that is almost to madness wrought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And to make a murderer out of a prince,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A sleight of hand I learned long since!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He comes. In the twilight he will not see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The difference between his priest and me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the same net was the mother caught!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><span class="smcap">Prince Henry</span>, <i>entering and kneeling at the Confessional</i>.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Remorseful, penitent, and lowly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I come to crave, O Father holy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy benediction on my head.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> The benediction shall be said</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">After confession, not before!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Tis a God-speed to the parting guest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who stands already at the door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sandalled with holiness, and dressed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In garments pure from earthly stain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Meanwhile, hast thou searched well thy breast?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Does the same madness fill thy brain?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or have thy passion and unrest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Vanished for ever from thy mind?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> By the same madness still made blind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the same passion still possessed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I come again to the house of prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A man afflicted and distressed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As in a cloudy atmosphere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through unseen sluices of the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A sudden and impetuous wind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Strikes the great forest white with fear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And every branch, and bough, and spray</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Points all its quivering leaves one way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And meadows of grass, and fields of grain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the clouds above, and the slanting rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And smoke from chimneys of the town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yield themselves to it, and bow down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So does this dreadful purpose press</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Onward, with irresistible stress,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all my thoughts and faculties,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Struck level by the strength of this,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From their true inclination turn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all stream forward to Salern!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> Alas! we are but eddies of dust,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Uplifted by the blast, and whirled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Along the highway of the world</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A moment only, then to fall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Back to a common level all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At the subsiding of the gust!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> O holy Father!&emsp; pardon in me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The oscillation of a mind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unsteadfast, and that cannot find</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its centre of rest and harmony!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For evermore before mine eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This ghastly phantom flits and flies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And as a madman through a crowd</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With frantic gestures and wild cries,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It hurries onward, and aloud</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Repeats its awful prophecies!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Weakness is wretchedness!&emsp; To be strong</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is to be happy!&emsp; I am weak,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And cannot find the good I seek,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Because I feel and fear the wrong!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> Be not alarmed!&emsp; The Church is kind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in her mercy and her meekness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She meets half-way her children’s weakness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Writes their transgressions in the dust!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though in the Decalogue we find</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The mandate written, “Thou shalt not kill!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet there are cases when we must.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In war, for instance, or from scathe</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To guard and keep the one true Faith!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We must look at the Decalogue in the light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of an ancient statute, that was meant</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For a mild and general application,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To be understood with the reservation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That, in certain instances, the Right</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Must yield to the Expedient!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou art a Prince. If thou shouldst die,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What hearts and hopes would prostrate lie!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What noble deeds, what fair renown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the grave with thee go down!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What acts of valour and courtesy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Remain undone, and die with thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou art the last of all thy race!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With thee a noble name expires,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And vanishes from the earth’s face</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The glorious memory of thy sires!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She is a peasant. In her veins</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Flows common and plebeian blood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is such as daily and hourly stains</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The dust and the turf of battle plains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By vassals shed, in a crimson flood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Without reserve, and without reward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At the slightest summons of their lord!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But thine is precious; the fore-appointed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blood of kings, of God’s anointed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Moreover, what has the world in store</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For one like her, but tears and toil?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Daughter of sorrow, serf of the soil,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A peasant’s child and a peasant’s wife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And her soul within her sick and sore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the roughness and barrenness of life!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I marvel not at the heart’s recoil</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From a fate like this in one so tender,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor at its eagerness to surrender</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the wretchedness, want, and woe</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That await it in this world below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For the unutterable splendour</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the world of rest beyond the skies.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So the Church sanctions the sacrifice:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Therefore inhale this healing balm,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And breathe this fresh life into thine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Accept the comfort and the calm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She offers, as a gift divine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let her fall down and anoint thy feet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the ointment costly and most sweet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of her young blood, and thou shalt live.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> And will the righteous Heaven forgive?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No action, whether foul or fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A record, written by fingers ghostly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a blessing or a curse, and mostly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the greater weakness or greater strength</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the acts which follow it, till at length</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wrongs of ages are redressed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the justice of God made manifest!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> In ancient records it is stated</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That, whenever an evil deed is done,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Another devil is created</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To scourge and torment the offending one!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But evil is only good perverted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Lucifer, the Bearer of Light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But an angel fallen and deserted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thrust from his Father’s house with a curse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the black and endless night.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> If justice rules the universe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the good actions of good men</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Angels of light should be begotten,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thus the balance restored again.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> Yes; if the world were not so rotten,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And so given over to the Devil!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> But this deed, is it good or evil?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have I thine absolution free</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To do it, and without restriction?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> Ay! and from whatsoever sin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lieth around it and within</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From all crimes in which it may involve thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I now release thee and absolve thee!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Give me thy holy benediction.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer</i> (<i>stretching forth his hand and muttering</i>).</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">Maledictione perpetua</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Maledicat vos</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Pater eternus!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4"><i>The</i> <span class="smcap">Angel</span>, <i>with the Æolian harp</i>.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Take heed!&emsp; take heed!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Noble art thou in thy birth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the good and the great of earth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hast thou been taught!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Be noble in every thought</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in every deed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let not the illusion of thy senses</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Betray thee to deadly offences.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Be strong! be good! be pure!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The right only shall endure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All things else are but false pretences.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I entreat thee, I implore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Listen no more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the suggestions of an evil spirit</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That even now is there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Making the foul seem fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And selfishness itself a virtue and a merit!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent9"><i>A room in the Farmhouse.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i> It is decided! for many days,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And nights as many, we have had</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A nameless terror in our breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Making us timid, and afraid</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of God, and his mysterious ways!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We have been sorrowful and sad;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Much have we suffered, much have prayed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That he would lead us as is best,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And show us what his will required.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is decided; and we give</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our child, O Prince, that you may live!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> It is of God.&emsp; He has inspired</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This purpose in her; and through pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out of a world of sin and woe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He takes her to himself again.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The mother’s heart resists no longer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the Angel of the Lord in vain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It wrestled, for he was the stronger.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i> As Abraham offered long ago</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His son unto the Lord, and even</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The everlasting Father in heaven</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gave his, as a lamb unto the slaughter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So do I offer up my daughter.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<span class="smcap">Ursula</span> <i>hides her face</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> My life is little,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only a cup of water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But pure and limpid.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Take it, O my Prince!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let it refresh you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let it restore you.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is given willingly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is given freely;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">May God bless the gift!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> And the giver!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i> Amen!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> I accept it!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i> Where are the children?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> They are already asleep.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gottlieb.</i> What if they were dead?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10"><i>In the garden.</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> I have one thing to ask of you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws8">What is it?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is already granted.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i><span class="ws6">Promise me,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When we are gone from here, and on our way</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are journeying to Salerno, you will not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By word or deed, endeavour to dissuade me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And turn me from my purpose, but remember</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That as a pilgrim to the Holy City</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Walks unmolested, and with thoughts of pardon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Occupied wholly, so would I approach</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The gates of Heaven, in this great jubilee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With my petition, putting off from me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All thoughts of earth, as shoes from off my feet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Promise me this.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Thy words fall from thy lips</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like roses from the lips of Angelo: and angels</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Might stoop to pick them up!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i><span class="ws6">Will you not promise?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> If ever we depart upon this journey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So long to one or both of us, I promise.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Shall we not go, then?&emsp; Have you lifted me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the air, only to hurl me back</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wounded upon the ground? and offered me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The waters of eternal life, to bid me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Drink the polluted puddles of this world?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> O Elsie!&emsp; what a lesson thou dost teach me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The life which is, and that which is to come,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Suspended hang in such nice equipoise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A breath disturbs the balance; and that scale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In which we throw our hearts preponderates,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the other, like an empty one, flies up</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And is accounted vanity and air!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To me the thought of death is terrible,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Having such hold on life.&emsp; To thee it is not</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So much even as the lifting of a latch;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only a step into the open air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out of a tent already luminous</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With light that shines through its transparent walls.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O pure in heart! from thy sweet dust shall grow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lilies, upon whose petals will be written</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ave Maria” in characters of gold!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+<p class="f120">III.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>A street in Strasburg. Night.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Prince Henry</span> <i>wandering alone,
+wrapped in a cloak</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Still is the night.&emsp; The sound of feet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has died away from the empty street;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And like an artisan, bending down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His head on his anvil, the dark town</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sleeps, with a slumber deep and sweet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sleepless and restless, I alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the dusk and damp of these walls of stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wander and weep in my remorse!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent8"><i>Crier of the Dead</i> (<i>ringing a bell</i>).</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Wake! wake!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">All ye that sleep!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Pray for the Dead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Pray for the Dead!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Hark! with what accents loud and hoarse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This warder on the walls of death</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sends forth the challenge of his breath!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see the dead that sleep in the grave!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They rise up, and their garments wave,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dimly and spectral, as they rise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the light of another world in their eyes!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent13"><i>Crier of the Dead.</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Wake! wake!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">All ye that sleep!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Pray for the Dead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Pray for the Dead!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Why for the dead, who are at rest?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pray for the living, in whose breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The struggle between right and wrong</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is raging terrible and strong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As when good angels war with devils!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This is the Master of the Revels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who, at Life’s flowing feast, proposes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The health of absent friends, and pledges,</div>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not in bright goblets crowned with roses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And tinkling as we touch their edges,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But with his dismal, tinkling bell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That mocks and mimics their funeral knell!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent13"><i>Crier of the Dead.</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Wake! wake!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">All ye that sleep!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Pray for the Dead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Pray for the Dead!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Wake not, belovèd! be thy sleep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Silent as night is, and as deep!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There walks a sentinel at thy gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose heart is heavy and desolate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the heavings of whose bosom number</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The respirations of thy slumber,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if some strange, mysterious fate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had linked two hearts in one, and mine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Went madly wheeling about thine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only with wider and wilder sweep!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent6"><i>Crier of the Dead</i> (<i>at a distance</i>).</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Wake! wake!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">All ye that sleep!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Pray for the Dead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Pray for the Dead!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Lo! with what depth of blackness thrown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Against the clouds, far up the skies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The walls of the cathedral rise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a mysterious grove of stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With fitful lights and shadows blending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As from behind, the moon, ascending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lights its dim isles and paths unknown!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wind is rising; but the boughs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rise not and fall not with the wind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That through their foliage sobs and soughs;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only the cloudy rack behind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Drifting onward, wild and ragged,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gives to each spire and buttress jagged</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A seeming motion undefined.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Below on the square, an armed knight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still as a statue and as white,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sits on his steed, and the moonbeams quiver</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon the points of his armour bright</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As on the ripples of a river.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He lifts the visor from his cheek,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And beckons, and makes as he would speak.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Walter</i> (<i>the Minnesinger</i>). Friend! can you tell me where alight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thuringia’s horsemen for the night?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For I have lingered in the rear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And wander vainly up and down.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> I am a stranger in the town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As thou art; but the voice I hear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is not a stranger to mine ear.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou art Walter of the Vogelweid!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Walter.</i> Thou hast guessed rightly, and thy name</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is Henry of Hoheneck!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws4">Ay, the same.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Walter</i> (<i>embracing him</i>). Come closer, closer to my side!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What brings thee hither? What potent charm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has drawn thee from thy German farm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the old Alsatian city?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> A tale of wonder and of pity!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A wretched man, almost by stealth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dragging my body to Salern,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the vain hope and search for health,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And destined never to return.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Already thou hast heard the rest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But what brings thee, thus armed and dight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the equipments of a knight?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Walter.</i> Dost thou not see upon my breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The cross of the Crusaders shine?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My pathway leads to Palestine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Ah, would that way were also mine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O noble poet! thou whose heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is like a nest of singing-birds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rocked on the topmost bough of life.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wilt thou, too, from our sky depart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in the clangour of the strife</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mingle the music of thy words?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Walter.</i> My hopes are high, my heart is proud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And like a trumpet long and loud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thither my thoughts all clang and ring!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My life is in my hand, and lo!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I grasp and bend it as a bow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And shoot forth from its trembling string</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">An arrow, that shall be, perchance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the arrow of the Israelite king</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shot from the window toward the east,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That of the Lord’s deliverance!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> My life, alas! is what thou seest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O enviable fate! to be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Strong, beautiful, and armed like thee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With lyre and sword, with song and steel;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A hand to smite, a heart to feel!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy heart, thy hand, thy lyre, thy sword,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou givest all unto thy Lord;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While I, so mean and abject grown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Am thinking of myself alone.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Walter.</i> Be patient: Time will reinstate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy health and fortunes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> <span class="ws4">’Tis too late!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I cannot strive against my fate!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Walter.</i> Come with me; for my steed is weary;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our journey has been long and dreary,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, dreaming of his stall, he dints</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With his impatient hoofs the flints.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry</i> (<i>aside</i>). I am ashamed, in my disgrace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To look into that noble face!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To-morrow, Walter, let it be.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Walter.</i> To-morrow, at the dawn of day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I shall again be on my way.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come with me to the hostelry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For I have many things to say.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our journey into Italy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Perchance together we may make;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wilt thou not do it for my sake?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> A sick man’s pace would but impede</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thine eager and impatient speed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Besides, my pathway leads me round</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To Hirschau, in the forest’s bound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where I assemble man and steed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all things for my journey’s need.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>They go out.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer</i> (<i>flying over the city</i>). Sleep, sleep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O city! till the light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wakes you to sin and crime again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whilst on your dreams, like dismal rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I scatter downward through the night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My maledictions dark and deep.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have more martyrs in your walls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than God has; and they cannot sleep;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They are my bondsmen and my thralls;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their wretched lives are full of pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wild agonies of nerve and brain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And every heart-beat, every breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is a convulsion worse than death!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sleep, sleep, O city! though within</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The circuit of your walls there lies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No habitation free from sin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all its nameless misery;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The aching heart, the aching head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Grief for the living and the dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And foul corruption of the time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Disease, distress, and want, and woe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And crimes, and passions that may grow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Until they ripen into crime!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>Square in front of the Cathedral. Easter Sunday.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Friar Cuthbert</span> <i>preaching to the crowd from pulpit
+in the open air</i>. <span class="smcap">Prince Henry</span> <i>and</i>
+<span class="smcap">Elsie</span> <i>crossing the square</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> This is the day when from the dead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our Lord arose; and everywhere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out of their darkness and despair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Triumphant over fears and foes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hearts of his disciples rose,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When to the women, standing near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Angel in shining vesture said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The Lord is risen; he is not here!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, mindful that the day is come,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On all the hearths in Christendom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fires are quenched, to be again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rekindled from the sun, that high</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is dancing in the cloudless sky.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The churches are all decked with flowers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The salutations among men</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are but the Angel’s words divine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Christ is arisen!” and the bells</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Catch the glad murmur, as it swells,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And chant together in their towers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All hearts are glad; and free from care</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The faces of the people shine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">See what a crowd is in the square,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gaily and gallantly arrayed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Let us go back;&emsp; I am afraid!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Nay, let us mount the church-steps here,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under the doorway’s sacred shadow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We can see all things, and be freer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the crowd that madly heaves and presses!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> What a gay pageant! what bright dresses!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It looks like a flower-besprinkled meadow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What is that yonder on the square?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> A pulpit in the open air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a Friar, who is preaching to the crowd</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In a voice so deep and clear and loud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That, if we listen, and give heed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His lowest words will reach the ear.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Friar Cuthbert</i> (<i>gesticulating and cracking a</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent3"><i>postilion’s whip</i>).</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What ho! good people!&emsp; do you not hear?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dashing along at the top of his speed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Booted and spurred, on his jaded steed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A courier comes with words of cheer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Courier! what is the news, I pray?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Christ is arisen!”&emsp; Whence come you?&emsp; “From Court.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then I do not believe it; you say it in sport.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent12">[<i>Cracks his whip again.</i>]</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah, here comes another, riding this way;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We soon shall know what he has to say.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Courier! what are the tidings to-day?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Christ is arisen!” Whence come you?&emsp; “From town.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then I do not believe it; away with you, clown.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent9">[<i>Cracks his whip more violently.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And here comes a third, who is spurring amain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What news do you bring, with your loose-hanging rein,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Your spurs wet with blood, and your bridle with foam?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Christ is arisen!”&emsp; Whence come you?&emsp; “From Rome.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah, now I believe.&emsp; He is risen, indeed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ride on with the news, at the top of your speed!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent9">[<i>Great applause among the Crowd.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">To come back to my text!&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_36_36" href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> When the news was first spread</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That Christ was arisen indeed from the dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Very great was the joy of the angels in heaven;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And as great the dispute as to who should carry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The tidings thereof to the Virgin Mary,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pierced to the heart with sorrows seven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Old father Adam was first to propose,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As being the author of all our woes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But he was refused, for fear, said they,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He would stop to eat apples on the way!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Abel came next, but petitioned in vain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Because he might meet with his brother Cain!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Noah, too, was refused, lest his weakness for wine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Should delay him at every tavern-sign;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And John the Baptist could not get a vote,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On account of his old-fashioned, camel’s-hair coat;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Penitent Thief, who died on the cross,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was reminded that all his bones were broken!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till at last, when each in turn had spoken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The company being still at a loss,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Angel, who rolled away the stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was sent to the sepulchre, all alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And filled with glory that gloomy prison,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And said to the Virgin, “The Lord is arisen!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent6">[<i>The Cathedral bells ring.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But hark! the bells are beginning to chime;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I feel that I am growing hoarse.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will put an end to my discourse,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And leave the rest for some other time.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For the bells themselves are the best of preachers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their brazen lips are learned teachers,</div>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From their pulpits of stone, in the upper air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shriller than trumpets under the Law,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now a sermon, and now a prayer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The clangorous hammer is the tongue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This way, that way beaten and swung,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That from Mouth of Brass, as from Mouth of Gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">May be taught the Testaments, New and Old.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And above it the great cross-beam of wood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Representeth the Holy Rood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon which, like the bell, our hopes are hung.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the wheel wherewith it is swayed and rung</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is the mind of man, that round and round</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sways and maketh the tongue to sound!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the rope, with its twisted cordage three,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Denoteth the Scriptural Trinity</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Morals, and Symbols, and History;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the upward and downward motions show</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That we touch upon matters high and low;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the constant change and transmutation</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of action and of contemplation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Downward, the Scripture brought from on high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upward, exalted again to the sky;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Downward, the literal interpretation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upward, the Vision and Mystery!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now, my hearers, to make an end,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have only one word more to say;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the church, in honour of Easter Day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will be represented a Miracle-Play;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I hope you will all have the grace to attend.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Christ bring us at last to his felicity!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pax vobiscum! et Benedicite!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="f120 spb1"><i>In the Cathedral.</i></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanzafs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent14">CHANT.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">Kyrie Eleison!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">Christe Eleison!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> I am at home here in my Father’s house!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">These paintings of the Saints upon the walls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have all familiar and benignant faces.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> The portraits of the family of God!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thine own hereafter shall be placed among them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> How very grand it is and wonderful!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Never have I beheld a church so splendid!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such columns, and such arches, and such windows,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So many tombs and statues in the chapels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And under them so many confessionals.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They must be for the rich. I should not like</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To tell my sins in such a church as this.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who built it?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> A great master of his craft,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Erwin von Steinbach; but not he alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For many generations laboured with him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Children that came to see these Saints in stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As day by day out of the blocks they rose,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Grew old and died, and still the work went on,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And on, and on, and is not yet completed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The generation that succeeds our own</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Perhaps may finish it. The architect</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Built his great heart into these sculptured stones,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And with him toiled his children, and their lives</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were builded, with his own, into the walls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As offerings unto God.&emsp; You see that statue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fixing its joyous, but deep-wrinkled eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon the Pillar of the Angels yonder.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That is the image of the master, carved</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the fair hand of his own child, Sabina.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> How beautiful is the column that he looks at!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> That, too, she sculptured.&emsp; At the base of it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stand the Evangelists; above their heads</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Four Angels blowing upon marble trumpets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And over them the blessed Christ, surrounded</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By his attendant ministers, upholding</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The instruments of his passion.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i><span class="ws8">O my Lord!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Would I could leave behind me upon earth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some monument to thy glory, such as this!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> A greater monument than this thou leavest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In thine own life, all purity and love!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">See, too, the Rose, above the western portal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Resplendent with a thousand gorgeous colours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The perfect flower of Gothic loveliness!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> And, in the gallery, the long line of statues,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Christ with his twelve Apostles watching us.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>A</i> <span class="smcap">Bishop</span> <i>in armour, booted and spurred, passes with
+his train</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Prince Henry.</i> But come away; we have not time to look.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The crowd already fills the church, and yonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon a stage, a herald with a trumpet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Clad like the Angel Gabriel, proclaims</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Mystery that will now be represented.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><i>The Nativity.</i></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">A MIRACLE-PLAY.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_37_37" href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p>
+
+<p class="center">INTROITUS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Præco.</i> Come, good people, all and each</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come and listen to our speech!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In your presence here I stand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a trumpet in my hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To announce the Easter Play,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which we represent to-day.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">First of all, we shall rehearse,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In our action and our verse,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Nativity of our Lord,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As written in the old record</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the Protevangelion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So that he who reads may run!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent6">[<i>Blows his trumpet.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">I. HEAVEN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Mercy</i> (<i>at the feet of God</i>). Have pity, Lord!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">be not afraid</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To save mankind, whom thou hast made,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor let the souls that were betrayed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Perish eternally!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Justice.</i> It cannot be, it must not be!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When in the garden placed by thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fruit of the forbidden tree</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">He ate, and he must die!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Mercy.</i> Have pity, Lord! let penitence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Atone for disobedience,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor let the fruit of man’s offence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Be endless misery!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Justice.</i> What penitence proportionate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Can e’er be felt for sin so great?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the forbidden fruit he ate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And damnèd must he be!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>God.</i> He shall be saved, if that within</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The bounds of earth one free from sin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Be found, who for his kith and kin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Will suffer martyrdom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>The Four Virtues.</i> Lord! we have searched the world around,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From centre to the utmost bound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But no such mortal can be found;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Despairing, back we come.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Wisdom.</i> No mortal, but a God-made man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Can ever carry out this plan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Achieving what none other can,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Salvation unto all!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>God.</i> Go, then, O my beloved Son!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It can by thee alone be done;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By thee the victory shall be won</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">O’er Satan and the Fall!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">[<i>Here the</i> <span class="smcap">Angel Gabriel</span>
+<i>shall leave Paradise and fly towards the earth; the jaws of Hell open below,
+and the Devils walk about, making a great noise</i>.]</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110 spa2">II. MARY AT THE WELL.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Mary.</i> Along the garden walk, and thence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the wicket in the garden fence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">I steal with quiet pace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My pitcher at the well to fill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That lies so deep and cool and still</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">In this sequestered place.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">These sycamores keep guard around;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see no face, I hear no sound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Save bubblings of the spring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And my companions, who within</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The threads of gold and scarlet spin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And at their labour sing.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>The Angel Gabriel.</i> Hail, Virgin Mary, full of grace!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>Here</i> <span class="smcap">Mary</span> <i>looketh around her, trembling,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent10"><i>and then saith</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Mary.</i> Who is it speaketh in this place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With such a gentle voice?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gabriel.</i> The Lord of heaven is with thee now!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blessed among all women thou,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Who art his holy choice!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Mary</i> (<i>setting down the pitcher</i>).</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What can this mean? No one is near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And yet such sacred words I hear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">I almost fear to stay.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>Here the</i> <span class="smcap">Angel</span>, <i>appearing to her, shall say</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Gabriel.</i> Fear not, O Mary! but believe!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For thou, a Virgin, shalt conceive</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">A child this very day.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fear not, O Mary! from the sky</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Majesty of the Most High</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Shall overshadow thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Mary.</i> Behold the handmaid of the Lord!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">According to thy holy word,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">So be it unto me!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>Here the Devils shall again make a great noise</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent4"><i>under the stage.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">III.</p>
+<p class="center">THE ANGELS OF THE SEVEN PLANETS,<br> BEARING THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>The Angels.</i> The Angels of the Planets Seven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Across the shining fields of heaven</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The natal star we bring!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dropping our sevenfold virtues down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As priceless jewels in the crown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of Christ, our new-born King.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Raphael.</i> I am the Angel of the Sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose flaming wheels began to run</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">When God’s almighty breath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Said to the Darkness and the Night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let there be light! and there was light!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">I bring the gift of Faith.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gabriel.</i> I am the Angel of the Moon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Darkened, to be rekindled soon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Beneath the azure cope!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nearest to earth, it is my ray</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That best illumes the midnight way.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">I bring the gift of Hope!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Angel.</i> The Angel of the Star of Love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Evening Star, that shines above</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The place where lovers be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Above all happy hearths and homes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On roofs of thatch, or golden domes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">I give him Charity!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Zobiachel.</i> The Planet Jupiter is mine!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The mightiest star of all that shine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Except the sun alone!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He is the High Priest of the Dove,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sends, from his great throne above,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Justice, that shall atone!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Michael.</i> The Planet Mercury, whose place</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is nearest to the sun in space,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Is my allotted sphere!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And with celestial ardour swift</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I bear upon my hands the gift</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of heavenly Prudence here!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Uriel.</i> I am the Minister of Mars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The strongest star among the stars!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">My songs of power prelude</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The march and battle of man’s life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And for the suffering and the strife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">I give him Fortitude!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Orifel.</i> The Angel of the uttermost</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of all the shining, heavenly host,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">From the far-off expanse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the Saturnian, endless space</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I bring the last, the crowning grace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The gift of Temperance!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">[<i>A sudden light shines from the windows</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent4"><i>of the stable in the village below.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">IV.</p>
+<p class="center">THE WISE MEN OF THE EAST.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p><i>The stable of the Inn. The</i> <span class="smcap">Virgin</span> <i>and</i>
+<span class="smcap">Child</span>. <i>Three Gipsy Kings</i>, <span class="smcap">Gaspar</span>,
+<span class="smcap">Melchior</span>, <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Belshazzar</span>,
+<i>shall come in</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Gaspar.</i> Hail to thee, Jesus of Nazareth!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though in a manger thou drawest thy breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou art greater than Life and Death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Greater than Joy or Woe!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This cross upon the line of life</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Portendeth struggle, toil, and strife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And through a region with peril rife</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">In darkness shalt thou go!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Melchior.</i> Hail to thee, King of Jerusalem!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though humbly born in Bethlehem,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A sceptre and a diadem</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Await thy brow and hand!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sceptre is a simple reed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The crown will make thy temples bleed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in thy hour of greatest need,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Abashed thy subjects stand!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Belshazzar.</i> Hail to thee, Christ of Christendom!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er all the earth thy kingdom come!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From distant Trebizond to Rome</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Thy name shall men adore!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Peace and good-will among all men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Virgin has returned again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Returned the old Saturnian reign</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And Golden Age once more.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>The Child Christ.</i> Jesus, the Son of God, am I,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Born here to suffer and to die</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">According to the prophecy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">That other men may live!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>The Virgin.</i> And now these clothes, that wrapped him, take,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And keep them precious, for his sake,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our benediction thus we make,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Naught else have we to give.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>She gives them swaddling-clothes, and they depart.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">V.</p>
+<p class="center">THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>[<i>Here shall</i> <span class="smcap">Joseph</span> <i>come in, leading an ass, on which
+are seated</i> <span class="smcap">Mary</span> <i>and the</i> <span class="smcap">Child</span>.]</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Mary.</i> Here will we rest us under these</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’erhanging branches of the trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where robins chant their Litanies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And canticles of Joy.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Joseph.</i> My saddle-girths have given way</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With trudging through the heat to-day;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To you I think it is but play</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To ride and hold the boy.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Mary.</i> Hark! how the robins shout and sing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if to hail their infant King!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will alight at yonder spring</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To wash his little coat.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Joseph.</i> And I will hobble well the ass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lest, being loose upon the grass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He should escape; for, by the mass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">He is nimble as a goat.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>Here</i> <span class="smcap">Mary</span> <i>shall alight and go to the spring</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Mary.</i> O Joseph! I am much afraid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For men are sleeping in the shade;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I fear that we shall be waylaid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And robbed and beaten sore!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>Here a band of robbers shall be seen sleeping,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent4"><i>two of whom shall rise and come forward.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Dumachus.</i> Cock’s soul! deliver up your gold!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Joseph.</i> I pray you, Sirs, let go your hold!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You see that I am weak and old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of wealth I have no store.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Dumachus. Give up your money!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Titus.</i><span class="ws8">Prithee cease.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let these good people go in peace.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Dumachus.</i> First let them pay for their release,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And then go on their way.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Titus.</i> These forty groats I give in fee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If thou wilt only silent be.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Mary.</i> May God be merciful to thee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Upon the Judgment Day!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent"><i>Jesus.</i> When thirty years shall have gone by,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I at Jerusalem shall die,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By Jewish hands exalted high</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">On the accursed tree.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then on my right and my left side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">These thieves shall both be crucified,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Titus thenceforth shall abide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">In paradise with me.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>[<i>Here a great rumour of trumpets and horses, like the noise of
+a king with his army, and the robbers shall take flight.</i>]</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">VI.</p>
+<p class="center">THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>King Herod.</i> Potz-tausend! Himmel-sacrament!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Filled am I with great wonderment</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">At this unwelcome news!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Am I not Herod? Who shall dare</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My crown to take, my sceptre bear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">As king among the Jews!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>Here he shall stride up and down</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>and flourish his sword.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What ho! I fain would drink a can</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the strong wine of Canaan!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The wine of Helbon bring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I purchased at the Fair of Tyre,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As red as blood, as hot as fire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And fit for any king!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>He quaffs great goblets of wine.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now at the window will I stand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While in the street the armed band</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The little children slay:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The babe just born in Bethlehem</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will surely slaughtered be with them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Nor live another day!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>Here a voice of lamentation shall be</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>heard in the street.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Rachel.</i> O wicked king!&emsp; O cruel speed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To do this most unrighteous deed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">My children are all slain!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Herod.</i> Ho, seneschal!&emsp; another cup!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With wine of Sorek fill it up!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">I would a bumper drain!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Rahab.</i> May maledictions fall and blast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thyself and lineage, to the last</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of all thy kith and kin!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Herod.</i> Another goblet! quick! and stir</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pomegranate juice and drops of myrrh</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And calamus therein!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Soldiers</i> (<i>in the street</i>).</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Give up thy child into our hands!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is King Herod who commands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">That he should thus be slain!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>The Nurse Medusa.</i> O monstrous men!&emsp; What have ye done!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is King Herod’s only son</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">That ye have cleft in twain!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Herod.</i> Ah, luckless day!&emsp; What words of fear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are these that smite upon my ear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">With such a doleful sound!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What torments rack my heart and head!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Would I were dead! would I were dead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And buried in the ground!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">[<i>He falls down and writhes as though eaten by worms.
+Hell opens, and</i> <span class="smcap">Satan</span> <i>and</i>
+<span class="smcap">Astaroth</span> <i>come forth and drag him down</i>.]</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">VII.</p>
+<p class="center">JESUS AT PLAY WITH HIS SCHOOLMATES.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Jesus.</i> The shower is over. Let us play,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And make some sparrows out of clay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Down by the river’s side.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Judas.</i> See, how the stream has overflowed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its banks, and o’er the meadow road</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Is spreading far and wide!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">[<i>They draw water out of the river by channels, and from little
+pools.</i> <span class="smcap">Jesus</span> <i>makes twelve sparrows of clay, and the
+other boys do the same</i>.]</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Jesus.</i> Look! look! how prettily I make</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">These little sparrows by the lake</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Bend down their necks and drink!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now will I make them sing and soar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So far, they shall return no more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Unto this river’s brink.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Judas.</i> That canst thou not!&emsp; They are but clay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They cannot sing, nor fly away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Above the meadow lands!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Jesus.</i> Fly, fly! ye sparrows! ye are free!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And while you live, remember me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Who made you with my hands.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">[<i>Here</i> <span class="smcap">Jesus</span> <i>shall
+clap his hands, and the sparrows shall fly away, chirruping</i>.]</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Judas.</i> Thou art a sorcerer, I know;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Oft has my mother told me so,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">I will not play with thee!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>He strikes</i> <span class="smcap">Jesus</span> <i>on the right side</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Jesus.</i> Ah, Judas! thou hast smote my side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when I shall be crucified,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">There shall I pierced be!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>Here</i> <span class="smcap">Joseph</span>
+ <i>shall come in and say</i>.]</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Joseph.</i> Ye wicked boys!&emsp; Why do ye play,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And break the holy Sabbath day?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What, think ye, will your mothers say</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To see you in such plight!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In such a sweat and such a heat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With all that mud upon your feet!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There’s not a beggar in the street</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Makes such a sorry sight!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">VIII.</p>
+<p class="center">THE VILLAGE SCHOOL.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">[<i>The</i> <span class="smcap">Rabbi Ben Israel</span>,
+<i>with a long beard, sitting on a high stool, with a rod in his hand</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Rabbi.</i> I am the Rabbi Ben Israel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Throughout this village known full well,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, as my scholars all will tell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Learned in things divine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Cabala and Talmud hoar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than all the prophets prize I more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For water is all Bible lore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">But Mishna is strong wine.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">My fame extends from West to East,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And always, at the Purim feast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am as drunk as any beast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">That wallows in his sty;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wine it so elateth me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That I no difference can see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Between “Accursed Haman be!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And “Blessed be Mordecai!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come hither, Judas Iscariot.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Say, if thy lesson thou hast got</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the Rabbinical Book or not.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why howl the dogs at night?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Judas.</i> In the Rabbinical Book, it saith</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The dogs howl, when, with icy breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Great Sammaël, the Angel of Death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Takes through the town his flight!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Rabbi.</i> Well, boy! now say, if thou art wise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When the Angel of Death, who is full of eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Comes where a sick man dying lies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">What doth he to the wight?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Judas.</i> He stands beside him, dark and tall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Holding a sword from which doth fall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into his mouth a drop of gall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And so he turneth white.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Rabbi.</i> And now, my Judas, say to me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What the great Voices Four may be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That quite across the world do flee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And are not heard by men?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Judas.</i> The Voice of the Sun in heaven’s dome,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Voice of the Murmuring of Rome,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Voice of a Soul that goeth home,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the Angel of the Rain!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Rabbi.</i> Right are thine answers every one!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now, little Jesus, the carpenter’s son,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let us see how thy task is done.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Canst thou thy letters say?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Jesus.</i> Aleph.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Rabbi.</i> <span class="ws4">What next! Do not stop yet!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Go on with all the alphabet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come, Aleph, Beth; dost thou forget?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Cock’s soul! thou’dst rather play!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Jesus.</i> What Aleph means I fain would know,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Before I any farther go!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Rabbi.</i> O, by St. Peter! wouldst thou so?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Come hither, boy, to me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As surely as the letter Jod</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Once cried aloud, and spake to God,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So surely shalt thou feel this rod,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And punished shalt thou be!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">[<i>Here</i> <span class="smcap">Rabbi Ben Israel</span>
+<i>shall lift up his rod to strike</i> <span class="smcap">Jesus</span>,
+<i>and his right arm shall be paralysed</i>.]</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">IX.</p>
+<p class="center">CROWNED WITH FLOWERS.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Jesus</span> <i>sitting among his
+playmates, crowned with flowers as their King</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Boys.</i> We spread our garments on the ground!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With fragrant flowers thy head is crowned,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While like a guard we stand around,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And hail thee as our King!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou art the new King of the Jews!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor let the passers-by refuse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To bring that homage which men use</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To majesty to bring.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>Here a traveller shall go by, and the boys shall</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent4"><i>lay hold of his garments, and say.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Boys.</i> Come hither! and all reverence pay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unto our monarch crowned to-day!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then go rejoicing on your way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">In all prosperity!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Traveller.</i> Hail to the King of Bethlehem,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who weareth in his diadem</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The yellow crocus for the gem</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of his authority!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>He passes by; and others come in, bearing</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent4"><i>on a litter a sick child.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Boys.</i> Set down the litter and draw near!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The King of Bethlehem is here!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What ails the child, who seems to fear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">That we shall do him harm?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>The Bearers.</i> He climbed up to the Robin’s nest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And out there darted, from his rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A serpent with a crimson crest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And stung him in the arm.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Jesus.</i> Bring him to me, and let me feel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wounded place; my touch can heal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sting of serpents, and can steal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The poison from the bite!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>He touches the wound, and the boy begins to cry.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Cease to lament! I can foresee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That thou hereafter known shall be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Among the men who follow me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">As Simon the Canaanite!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">EPILOGUE.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the after part of the day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will be represented another play,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the passion of our Blessed Lord,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beginning directly after Nones!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At the close of which we shall accord,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By way of benison and reward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sight of a holy Martyr’s bones!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120 spa2">IV.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>The road to Hirschau.</i> <span class="smcap">Prince Henry</span>
+<i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Elsie</span>, <i>with their attendants, on horseback</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Onward and onward the highway runs to the distant</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">city, impatiently bearing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tidings of human joy and disaster, of love and of hate, of</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">doing and daring!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> This life of ours is a wild Æolian harp of</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">many a joyous strain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But under them all there runs a loud perpetual wail, as of</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">souls in pain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Faith alone can interpret life, and the heart that</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">aches and bleeds with the stigma</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of pain, alone bears the likeness of Christ, and can comprehend</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">its dark enigma.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Man is selfish, and seeketh pleasure with</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">little care of what may betide;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Else why am I travelling here beside thee, a demon that rides by</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">an angel’s side?</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> All the hedges are white with dust, and the great</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">dog under the creaking wain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hangs his head in the lazy heat, while onward the horses toil</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">and strain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> New they stop at the wayside inn, and the</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">waggoner laughs with the landlord’s daughter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While out of the dripping trough the horses distend their</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">leathern sides with water.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> All through life there are wayside inns, where man</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">may refresh his soul with love;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even the lowest may quench his thirst at rivulets fed by springs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">from above.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Yonder, where rises the cross of stone, our</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">journey along the highway ends,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And over the fields, by a bridle path, down into the broad green</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">valley descends.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> I am not sorry to leave behind the beaten road</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">with its dust and heat;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The air will be sweeter far, and the turf will be softer under</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">our horses’ feet.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>They turn down a green lane.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Sweet is the air with the budding haws, and the</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">valley, stretching for miles below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is white with blossoming cherry-trees, as if just covered with</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">lightest snow.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Over our heads a white cascade is gleaming</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">against the distant hill;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We cannot hear it, nor see it move, but it hangs like a banner</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">when winds are still.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Damp and cool is this deep ravine, and cool the</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">sound of the brook by our side!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What is this castle that rises above us, and lords it over a</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">land so wide?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> It is the home of the Counts of Calva; well</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">have I known these scenes of old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Well I remember each tower and turret, remember the brooklet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">the wood, and the wold.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Hark! from the little village below us the bells</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">of the church are ringing for rain!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Priests and peasants in long procession come forth and kneel on</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">the arid plain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> They have not long to wait, for I see in</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">the south uprising a little cloud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That before the sun shall be set will cover the sky above us as</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">with a shroud.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent20">[<i>They pass on.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>The Convent of Hirschau in the Black Forest. The Convent cellar.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Friar Claus</span> <i>comes in with a light and a basket of empty flagons</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Claus.</i> I always enter this sacred place</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a thoughtful, solemn, and reverent pace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pausing long enough on each stair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To breathe an ejaculatory prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a benediction of the vines</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That produce these various sorts of wines!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For my part, I am well content</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That we have got through with the tedious Lent!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fasting is all very well for those</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who have to contend with invisible foes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But I am quite sure it does not agree</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a quiet, peaceful man like me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who am not of that nervous and meagre kind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That are always distressed in body and mind!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And at times it really does me good</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To come down among this brotherhood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dwelling for ever under ground,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Silent, contemplative, round and sound;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each one old, and brown with mould,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But filled to the lips with the ardour of youth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the latent power and love of truth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And with virtues fervent and manifold.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have heard it said, that at Easter-tide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When buds are swelling on every side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the sap begins to move in the vine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then in all cellars, far and wide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The oldest, as well as the newest, wine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Begins to stir itself, and ferment,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a kind of revolt and discontent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At being so long in darkness pent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And fain would burst from its sombre tun</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To bask on the hill-side in the sun;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As in the bosom of us poor friars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The tumult of half-subdued desires</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For the world that we have left behind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Disturbs at times all peace of mind!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now that we have lived through Lent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My duty it is, as often before,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To open awhile the prison-door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And give these restless spirits vent.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now here is a cask that stands alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And has stood a hundred years or more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its beard of cobwebs, long and hoar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Trailing and sweeping along the floor,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like Barbarossa, who sits in his cave,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Taciturn, sombre, sedate, and grave,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till his beard has grown through the table of stone!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is of the quick, and not of the dead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In its veins the blood is hot and red,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a heart still beats in those ribs of oak</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That time may have tamed, but has not broke.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It comes from Bacharach on the Rhine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is one of the three best kinds of wine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And costs some hundred florins the ohm;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But that I do not consider dear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When I remember that every year</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Four butts are sent to the Pope of Rome,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And whenever a goblet thereof I drain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The old rhyme keeps running in my brain:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">At Bacharach on the Rhine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">At Hochheim on the Main,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And at Würzburg on the Stein,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Grow the three best kinds of wine!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They are all good wines, and better far</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than those of the Neckar, or those of the Ahr.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In particular, Würzburg well may boast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of its blessed wine of the Holy Ghost,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which of all wines I like the most.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This I shall draw for the Abbot’s drinking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who seems to be much of my way of thinking.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent9">[<i>Fills a flagon.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! how the streamlet laughs and sings!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What a delicious fragrance springs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the deep flagon, while it fills,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As of hyacinths and daffodils!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Between this cask and the Abbot’s lips</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Many have been the sips and slips;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Many have been the draughts of wine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On their way to his, that have stopped at mine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And many a time my soul has hankered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For a deep draught out of his silver tankard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When it should have been busy with other affairs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Less with its longings and more with its prayers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But now there is no such awkward condition,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No danger of death and eternal perdition;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So here’s to the Abbot and Brothers all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who dwell in this convent of Peter and Paul!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent11">[<i>He drinks.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O cordial delicious! O soother of pain!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It flashes like sunshine into my brain!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A benison rest on the Bishop who sends</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such a fudder of wine as this to his friends.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now a flagon for such as may ask</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A draught from the noble Bacharach cask,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I will be gone, though I know full well</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The cellar’s a cheerfuller place than the cell.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Behold where he stands, all sound and good,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Brown and old in his oaken hood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Silent he seems externally</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As any Carthusian monk may be;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But within, what a spirit of deep unrest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What a seething and simmering in his breast!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if the heaving of his great heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Would burst his belt of oak apart!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let me unloose this button of wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And quiet a little his turbulent mood.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent8">[<i>Sets it running.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">See! how its currents gleam and shine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if they had caught the purple hues</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of autumn sunsets on the Rhine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Descending and mingling with the dews;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or as if the grapes were stained with the blood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the innocent boy, who, some years back,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was taken and crucified by the Jews,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In that ancient town of Bacharach;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Perdition upon those infidel Jews,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In that ancient town of Bacharach!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The beautiful town, that gives us wine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the fragrant odour of Muscadine!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I should deem it wrong to let this pass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Without first touching my lips to the glass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For here in the midst of the current I stand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the stone Pfalz in the midst of the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Taking toll upon either hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And much more grateful to the giver.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent12">[<i>He drinks.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here, now, is a very inferior kind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such as in any town you may find,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such as one might imagine would suit</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rascal who drank wine out of a boot.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, after all, it was not a crime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For he won thereby Dorf Hüffelsheim.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A jolly old toper! who at a pull</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Could drink a postilion’s jack-boot full,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And ask with a laugh, when that was done,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If the fellow had left the other one!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This wine is as good as we can afford</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the friars, who sit at the lower board,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And cannot distinguish bad from good,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And are far better off than if they could,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Being rather the rude disciples of beer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than of anything more refined and dear!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent5">[<i>Fills the other flagon and departs.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg=indent"><i>The Scriptorium.</i>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_38_38" href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a>
+<span class="smcap">Friar Pacificus</span> <i>transcribing and illuminating</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Pacificus.</i> It is growing dark!&emsp; Yet one line more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then my work for to-day is o’er.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I come again to the name of the Lord!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ere I that awful name record,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That is spoken so lightly among men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let me pause awhile, and wash my pen;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pure from blemish and blot must it be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When it writes that word of mystery!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus have I laboured on and on,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nearly through the Gospel of John.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Can it be that from the lips</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of this same gentle Evangelist,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That Christ himself perhaps has kissed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Came the dread Apocalypse!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It has a very awful look,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As it stands there at the end of the book,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the sun in an eclipse.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah me! when I think of that vision divine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Think of writing it, line by line,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I stand in awe of the terrible curse,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the trump of doom, in the closing verse.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">God forgive me! If ever I</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Take aught from the book of that Prophecy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lest my part too should be taken away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the Book of Life on the Judgment Day.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">This is well written, though I say it!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I should not be afraid to display it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In open day, on the selfsame shelf</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the writings of St. Thecla herself,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or of Theodosius, who of old</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wrote the Gospels in letters of gold!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That goodly folio standing yonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Without a single blot or blunder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Would not bear away the palm from mine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If we should compare them line for line.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There, now, is an initial letter!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saint Ulric himself never made a better;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Finished down to the leaf and the snail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down to the eyes on the peacock’s tail!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now, as I turn the volume over,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And see what lies between cover and cover,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What treasures of art these pages hold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All ablaze with crimson and gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">God forgive me! I seem to feel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A certain satisfaction steal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into my heart, and into my brain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if my talent had not lain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wrapped in a napkin, and all in vain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yes, I might almost say to the Lord,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here is a copy of thy Word,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Written out with much toil and pain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Take it, O Lord, and let it be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As something I have done for thee!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent9">[<i>He looks from the window.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How sweet the air is! How fair the scene!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I wish I had as lovely a green</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To paint my landscapes and my leaves!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How the swallows twitter under the eaves!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There, now, there is one in her nest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I can just catch a glimpse of her head and breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And will sketch her thus in her quiet nook,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For the margin of my Gospel book.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent9">[<i>He makes a sketch.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I can see no more. Through the valley yonder</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A shower is passing; I hear the thunder</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mutter its curses in the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Devil’s own and only prayer!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The dusty road is brown with rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, speeding on with might and main,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hitherward rides a gallant train.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They do not parley, they cannot wait,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But hurry in at the convent-gate.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What a fair lady! and beside her</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What a handsome, graceful, noble rider!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now she gives him her hand to alight;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They will beg shelter for the night.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will go down to the corridor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And try to see that face once more;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It will do for the face of some beautiful Saint,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or for one of the Maries I shall paint.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>Goes out.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>The Cloisters.&emsp; The</i> <span class="smcap">Abbot Ernestus</span> <i>pacing to and fro</i>.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Abbot.</i> Slowly, slowly up the wall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Steals the sunshine, steals the shade;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Evening damps begin to fall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Evening shadows are displayed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Round me, o’er me, everywhere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the sky is grand with clouds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And athwart the evening air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wheel the swallows home in crowds.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shafts of sunshine from the west</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Paint the dusky windows red;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Darker shadows, deeper rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Underneath and overhead.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Darker, darker, and more wan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In my breast the shadows fall;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upward steals the life of man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the sunshine from the wall.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the wall into the sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the roof along the spire;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah, the souls of those that die</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are but sunbeams lifted higher.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10"><i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Prince Henry</span>.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Christ is arisen!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Abbot.</i><span class="ws10">Amen! he is arisen!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His peace be with you!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> <span class="ws4">Here it reigns for ever.</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">The peace of God, that passeth understanding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Reigns in these cloisters and these corridors.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are you Ernestus, Abbot of the convent?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Abbot.</i> I am.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> And I Prince Henry of Hoheneck,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who crave your hospitality to-night.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Abbot.</i> You are thrice welcome to our humble walls.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You do us honour; and we shall requite it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I fear, but poorly, entertaining you</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With Paschal eggs, and our poor convent wine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The remnants of our Easter holidays.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> How fares it with the holy monks of Hirschau?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are all things well with them?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Abbot.</i><span class="ws10">All things are well.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> A noble convent! I have known it long</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the report of travellers. I now see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their commendations lag behind the truth.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You lie here in the valley of the Nagold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As in a nest: and the still river, gliding</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Along its bed, is like an admonition</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How all things pass. Your lands are rich and ample,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And your revenues large. God’s benediction</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rests on your convent.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Abbot.</i><span class="ws8">By our charities</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We strive to merit it. Our Lord and Master,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When he departed, left us, in his will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As our best legacy on earth, the poor!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">These we have always with us; had we not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our hearts would grow as hard as are these stones.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> If I remember right, the Counts of Calva</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Founded your convent.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Abbot.</i><span class="ws6">Even as you say.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> And, if I err not, it is very old.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Abbot.</i> Within these cloisters lie already buried</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Twelve holy Abbots. Underneath the flags</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On which we stand, the Abbot William lies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of blessed memory.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws4">And whose tomb is that</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which bears the brass escutcheon?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Abbot.</i><span class="ws9">A benefactor’s,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Conrad, a Count of Calva, he who stood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Godfather to our bells.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws4">Your monks are learned</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And holy men, I trust.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Abbot.</i><span class="ws4">There are among them</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Learned and holy men. Yet in this age</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We need another Hildebrand, to shake</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And purify us like a mighty wind.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The world is wicked, and sometimes I wonder</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">God does not lose his patience with it wholly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And shatter it like glass! Even here, at times,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Within these walls, where all should be at peace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have my trials. Time has laid his hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But as a harper lays his open palm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ashes are on my head, and on my lips</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sackcloth, and in my breast a heaviness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And weariness of life, that makes me ready</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To say to the dead Abbots under us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Make room for me!” Only I see the dusk</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of evening twilight coming, and have not</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Completed half my task; and so at times</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The thought of my shortcomings in this life</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Falls like a shadow on the life to come.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> We must all die, and not the old alone;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The young have no exemption from that doom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Abbot.</i> Ah, yes! the young may die, but the old must!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That is the difference.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws3">I have heard much laud</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of your transcribers. Your Scriptorium</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is famous among all, your manuscripts</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Praised for their beauty and their excellence.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Abbot.</i> That is indeed our boast. If you desire it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You shall behold these treasures. And meanwhile</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall the Refectorarius bestow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Your horses and attendants for the night.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">(<i>They go in. The Vesper-bell rings.</i>)</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>The Chapel. Vespers; after which the monks retire,
+a chorister leading an old monk who is blind.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> They are all gone, save one who lingers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Absorbed in deep and silent prayer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if his heart could find no rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At times he beats his heaving breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With clenchèd and convulsive fingers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then lifts them trembling in the air.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A chorister, with golden hair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Guides hitherward his heavy pace.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Can it be so? Or does my sight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Deceive me in the uncertain light?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah no! I recognise that face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though time has touched it in his flight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And changed the auburn hair to white.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is Count Hugo of the Rhine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The deadliest foe of all our race,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And hateful unto me and mine!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>The Blind Monk.</i> Who is it that doth stand so near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His whispered words I almost hear?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> I am Prince Henry of Hoheneck,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And you, Count Hugo of the Rhine!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I know you, and I see the scar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The brand upon your forehead, shine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And redden like a baleful star!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>The Blind Monk.</i> Count Hugo once, but now the wreck</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of what I was.&emsp; O Hoheneck!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The passionate will, the pride, the wrath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That bore me headlong on my path,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stumbled and staggered into fear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And failed me in my mad career,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a tired steed some evil-doer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alone upon a desolate moor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bewildered, lost, deserted, blind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And hearing loud and close behind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The o’ertaking steps of his pursuer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then suddenly from the dark there came</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A voice that called me by my name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And said to me, “Kneel down and pray!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And so my terror passed away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Passed utterly away for ever.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Contrition, penitence, remorse,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Came on me with o’erwhelming force,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A hope, a longing, an endeavour,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By days of penance and nights of prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To frustrate and defeat despair!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Calm, deep, and still is now my heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With tranquil waters overflowed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A lake whose unseen fountains start,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where once the hot volcano glowed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And you, O Prince of Hoheneck!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have known me in that earlier time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A man of violence and crime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose passions brooked no curb nor check.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Behold me now, in gentler mood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One of this holy brotherhood.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Give me your hand; here let me kneel;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Make your reproaches sharp as steel;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spurn me, and smite me on each cheek;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No violence can harm the meek,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is no wound Christ cannot heal!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yes; lift your princely hand, and take</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Revenge, if ’tis revenge you seek;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then pardon me, for Jesus’ sake!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Arise, Count Hugo! let there be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No farther strife nor enmity</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Between us twain; we both have erred!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Too rash in act, too wroth in word,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the beginning have we stood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In fierce, defiant attitude,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each thoughtless of the other’s right,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And each reliant on his might.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But now our souls are more subdued;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hand of God, and not in vain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has touched us with the fire of pain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let us kneel down, and side by side</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pray, till our souls are purified,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And pardon will not be denied!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>They kneel.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>The Refectory. Gaudiolum of Monks at midnight.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Lucifer</span> <i>disguised as a Friar</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent16"><i>Friar Paul</i> (<i>sings</i>).</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Ave! color vini clari,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Dulcis potus, non amari,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Tua nos inebriari</div>
+ <div class="verse indent16">Digneris potentia!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Cuthbert.</i> Not so much noise, my worthy freres,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You’ll disturb the Abbot at his prayers.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent16"><i>Friar Paul</i> (<i>sings</i>).</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">O! quam placens in colore!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">O! quam fragrans in odore!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">O! quam sapidum in ore!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent17">Dulce linguæ vinculum!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Cuthbert.</i> I should think your tongue had broken its chain!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent16"><i>Friar Paul</i> (<i>sings</i>).</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Felix venter quern intrabis!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Felix guttur quod rigabis!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Felix os quod tu lavabis!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent17">Et beata labia!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Cuthbert.</i> Peace! I say, peace!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will you never cease?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You will rouse up the Abbot, I tell you again!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar John.</i> No danger! to-night he will let us alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As I happen to know he has guests of his own.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Cuthbert.</i> Who are they?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar John.</i><span class="ws4">A German Prince and his train,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who arrived here just before the rain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is with him a damsel fair to see,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As slender and graceful as a reed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When she alighted from her steed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It seemed like a blossom blown from a tree.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Cuthbert.</i> None of your pale-faced girls for me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">None of your damsels of high degree!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar John.</i> Come, old fellow, drink down to your peg!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But do not drink any farther, I beg!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent16"><i>Friar Paul</i> (<i>sings</i>).</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">In the days of gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">The days of old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Crozier of wood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">And bishop of gold!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Cuthbert.</i> What an infernal racket and riot!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Can you not drink your wine in quiet?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why fill the convent with such scandals,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if we were so many drunken Vandals?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent14"><i>Friar Paul</i> (<i>continues</i>).</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Now we have changed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">That law so good,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">To crozier of gold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">And bishop of wood!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Cuthbert.</i> Well, then, since you are in the mood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To give your noisy humours vent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sing and howl to your heart’s content!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent14"><i>Chorus of Monks.</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Funde vinum, funde!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Tanquam sint fluminis undæ</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Nec quæras unde,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Sed fundas semper abunde!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar John.</i> What is the name of yonder friar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With an eye that glows like a coal of fire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And such a black mass of tangled hair?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Paul.</i> He who is sitting there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a rollicking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Devil may care,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Free and easy look and air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if he were used to such feasting and frolicking?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar John.</i> The same.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Paul.</i> He’s a stranger.&emsp; You had better ask his name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And where he is going, and whence he came.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar John.</i> Hallo! Sir Friar!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Paul.</i> You must raise your voice a little higher;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He does not seem to hear what you say.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now, try again! He is looking this way.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar John.</i> Hallo! Sir Friar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We wish to inquire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whence you came, and where you are going,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And anything else that is worth the knowing.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So be so good as to open your head.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> I am a Frenchman born and bred,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Going on a pilgrimage to Rome.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My home</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is the convent of St. Gildas de Rhuys,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of which, very like, you never have heard.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Monks.</i> Never a word!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> You must know, then, it is in the diocese</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Called the Diocese of Vannes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the province of Brittany.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the grey rocks of Morbihan</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It overlooks the angry sea;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The very sea-shore where,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In his great despair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Abbot Abelard walked to and fro,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Filling the night with woe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And wailing aloud to the merciless seas</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The name of his sweet Heloise!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whilst overhead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The convent windows gleamed as red</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the fiery eyes of the monks within,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who with jovial din</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gave themselves up to all kinds of sin!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ha! that is a convent! that is an abbey!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over the doors</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">None of your death-heads carved in wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">None of your Saints looking pious and good,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">None of your Patriarchs old and shabby!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the heads and tusks of boars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the cells</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hung all round with the fells</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the fallow-deer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then what cheer!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What jolly, fat friars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sitting round the great, roaring fires,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Roaring louder than they,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With their strong wines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And their concubines;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And never a bell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With its swagger and swell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Calling you up with a start of affright</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the dead of night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To send you grumbling down dark stairs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To mumble your prayers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the cheery crow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of cocks in the yard below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">After daybreak, an hour or so,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the barking of deep-mouthed hounds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">These are the sounds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That, instead of bells, salute the ear.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then all day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Up and away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the forest, hunting the deer!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah, my friends! I’m afraid that here</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You are a little too pious, a little too tame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the more is the shame.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Tis the greatest folly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not to be jolly;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That’s what I think!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come, drink, drink,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Drink, and die game!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Monks.</i> And your Abbot What’s-his-name?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> Abelard!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Monks.</i> Did he drink hard?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Lucifer.</i> O, no!&emsp; Not he!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He was a dry old fellow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Without juice enough to get thoroughly mellow.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There he stood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lowering at us in sullen mood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if he had come into Brittany</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Just to reform our brotherhood!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>A roar of laughter.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But you see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It would never do!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For some of us knew a thing or two,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the Abbey of St. Gildas de Rhuys!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For instance the great ado</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With old Fulbert’s niece,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The young and lovely Heloise!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar John.</i> Stop there, if you please,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till we drink to the fair Heloise.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>All</i> (<i>drinking and shouting</i>). Heloise!&emsp; Heloise!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent15">[<i>The Chapel-bell tolls.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer</i> (<i>starting</i>). What is that bell for? Are you such asses</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As to keep up the fashion of midnight masses?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Cuthbert.</i> It is only a poor, unfortunate brother,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who is gifted with most miraculous powers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of getting up all sorts of hours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, by way of penance and Christian meekness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of creeping silently out of his cell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To take a pull at that hideous bell;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So that all the monks who are lying awake</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">May murmur some kind of prayer for his sake,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And adapted to his peculiar weakness!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar John.</i> From frailty and fall——</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>All.</i> Good Lord, deliver us all!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Cuthbert.</i> And before the bell for matins sounds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He takes lantern, and goes the rounds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Flashing it into our sleepy eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Merely to say it is time to arise.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But enough of that. Go on, if you please,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With your story about St. Gildas de Rhuys.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> Well, it finally came to pass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That, half in fun and half in malice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One Sunday at Mass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We put some poison into the chalice.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But, either by accident or design,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Peter Abelard kept away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the chapel that day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a poor, young friar, who in his stead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Drank the sacramental wine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fell on the steps of the altar, dead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But look! do you see at the window there</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That face, with a look of grief and despair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That ghastly face, as of one in pain?</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Monks.</i> Who?&emsp; where?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> As I spoke, it vanished away again.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Cuthbert.</i> It is that nefarious</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Siebald the Refectorarius.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That fellow is always playing the scout,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Creeping and peeping and prowling about;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then he regales</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Abbot with scandalous tales.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> A spy in the convent?&emsp; One of the brothers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Telling scandalous tales of the others?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out upon him, the lazy loon!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I would put a stop to that pretty soon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In a way he should rue it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Monks.</i> How shall we do it?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> Do you, Brother Paul,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Creep under the window close to the wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And open it suddenly when I call.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then seize the villain by the hair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And hold him there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And punish him soundly, once for all.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Cuthbert.</i> As St. Dunstan of old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We are told,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Once caught the Devil by the nose!</div>
+
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Lucifer.</i> Ha!&emsp; ha!&emsp; that story is very clever,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But has no foundation whatsoever.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Quick! for I see his face again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Glaring in at the window-pane;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now! now!&emsp; and do not spare your blows.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">[<span class="smcap">Friar Paul</span> <i>opens the window suddenly,
+and seizes</i> <span class="smcap">Siebald</span>. <i>They beat him.</i>]</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Siebald.</i> Help!&emsp; help!&emsp; are you going to slay me?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Paul.</i> That will teach you again to betray me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Siebald.</i> Mercy!&emsp; mercy!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4"><i>Friar Paul</i> (<i>shouting and beating</i>).</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent14">Rumpas bellorum lorum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Vin confer amorum</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Morum verorum rorum</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14">Tu plena polorum!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> Who stands in the doorway yonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stretching out his trembling hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Just as Abelard used to stand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The flash of his keen, black eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Forerunning the thunder?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>The Monks</i> (<i>in confusion</i>). The Abbot!&emsp; the Abbot!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Cuthbert.</i><span class="ws4">And what is the wonder!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He seems to have taken you by surprise.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Francis.</i> Hide the great flagon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the eyes of the dragon!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Cuthbert.</i> Pull the brown hood over your face!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This will bring us into disgrace!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Abbot.</i> What means this revel and carouse?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is this a tavern and drinking house?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are you Christian monks, or heathen devils,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To pollute this convent with your revels?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were Peter Damian still upon earth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To be shocked by such ungodly mirth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He would write your names, with pen of gall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In his Book of Gomorrah, one and all!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Away, you drunkards! to your cells,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And pray till you hear the matin-bells;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You, Brother Francis, and you, Brother Paul!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And as a penance mark each prayer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the scourge upon your shoulders bare;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nothing atones for such a sin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the blood that follows the discipline.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And you, Brother Cuthbert, come with me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alone into the sacristy;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You, who should be a guide to your brothers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And are ten times worse than all the others,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For you I’ve a draught that has long been brewing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You shall do a penance worth the doing!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Away to your prayers, then, one and all!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I wonder the very convent wall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Does not crumble and crush you in its fall!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>The neighbouring Nunnery. The</i> <span class="smcap">Abbess Irmingard</span>
+<i>sitting with</i> <span class="smcap">Elsie</span> <i>in the moonlight</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Irmingard.</i> The night is silent, the wind is still,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The moon is looking from yonder hill</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down upon convent, and grove, and garden;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The clouds have passed away from her face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Leaving behind them no sorrowful trace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only the tender and quiet grace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of one whose heart has been healed with pardon!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And such am I. My soul within</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was dark with passion and soiled with sin.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But now its wounds are healed again;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gone are the anguish, the terror, and pain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For across the desolate land of woe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er whose burning sands I was forced to go,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A wind from heaven began to blow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all my being trembled and shook,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the leaves of the tree, or the grass of the field,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I was healed, as the sick are healed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When fanned by the leaves of the Holy Book!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As thou sittest in the moonlight there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its glory flooding thy folden hair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the only darkness that which lies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the haunted chambers of thine eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I feel my soul drawn unto thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Strangely, and strongly, and more and more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As to one I have known and loved before;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For every soul is akin to me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That dwells in the land of mystery!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am the Lady Irmingard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Born of a noble race and name!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Many a wandering Suabian bard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose life was dreary, and bleak, and hard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has found through me the way to fame.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Brief and bright were those days, and the night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which followed was full of a lurid light.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Love, that of every woman’s heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will have the whole, and not a part,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That is to her, in Nature’s plan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">More than ambition is to man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her light, her life, her very breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With no alternative but death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Found me a maiden soft and young,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Just from the convent’s cloistered school,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And seated on my lowly stool,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Attentive while the minstrels sung,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gallant, graceful, gentle, tall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fairest, noblest, best of all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was Walter of the Vogelweid;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, whatsoever may betide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still I think of him with pride!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His song was of the summer-time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The very birds sang in his rhyme;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sunshine, the delicious air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fragrance of the flowers were there;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I grew restless as I heard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Restless and buoyant as a bird,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down soft, aërial currents sailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er blossomed orchards, and fields in bloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And through the momentary gloom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of shadows o’er the landscape trailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yielding and borne I knew not where,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But feeling resistance unavailing.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thus, unnoticed and apart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And more by accident than choice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I listened to that single voice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Until the chambers of my heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were filled with it by night and day.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One night,—it was a night in May,—</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Within the garden, unawares,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under the blossoms in the gloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I heard it utter my own name</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With protestations and wild prayers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And it rang through me and became</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the archangel’s trump of doom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which the soul hears, and must obey;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And mine arose as from a tomb.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My former life now seemed to me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such as hereafter death may be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When in the great Eternity</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We shall awake and find it day.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was a dream and would not stay;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A dream, that in a single night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Faded and vanished out of sight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My father’s anger followed fast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This passion, as a freshening blast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seeks out and fans the fire, whose rage</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It may increase, but not assuage.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he exclaimed: “No wandering bard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall win thy hand, O Irmingard!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For which Prince Henry of Hoheneck</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By messenger and letter sues.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gently, but firmly, I replied:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Henry of Hoheneck I discard!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Never the hand of Irmingard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall lie in his as the hand of a bride!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This said I, Walter, for thy sake;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This said I, for I could not choose.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">After a pause, my father spake</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In that cold and deliberate tone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which turns the hearer into stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And seems itself the act to be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That follows with such dread certainty:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“This, or the cloister and the veil!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No other words than these he said.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But they were like a funeral wail;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My life was ended, my heart was dead.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">That night from the castle-gate went down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With silent, slow, and stealthy pace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Two shadows, mounted on shadowy steeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Taking the narrow path that leads</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the forest dense and brown.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the leafy darkness of the place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One could not distinguish form nor face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only a bulk without a shape,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A darker shadow in the shade;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One scarce could say it moved or stayed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus it was we made our escape!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A foaming brook, with many a bound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Followed us like a playful hound;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then leaped before us, and in the hollow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Paused, and waited for us to follow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And seemed impatient, and afraid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That our tardy flight should be betrayed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the sound our horses’ hoof-beats made.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when we reached the plain below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We paused a moment and drew rein</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To look back at the castle again;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And we saw the windows all aglow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With lights, that were passing to and fro;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our hearts with terror ceased to beat;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The brook crept silent to our feet;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We knew what most we feared to know.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then suddenly horns began to blow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And we heard a shout, and a heavy tramp,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And our horses snorted in the damp</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Night air of the meadows green and wide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in a moment, side by side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So close, they must have seemed but one,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The shadows across the moonlight run,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And another came, and swept behind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the shadow of clouds before the wind!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How I remember that breathless flight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Across the moors, in the summer night!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How under our feet the long, white road</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Backward like a river flowed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sweeping with it fences and hedges;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whilst farther away, and overhead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Paler than I, with fear and dread,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The moon fled with us, as we fled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Along the forest’s jagged edges!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All this I can remember well;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But of what afterwards befell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I nothing farther can recall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than a blind, desperate, headlong fall;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rest is a blank and darkness all.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When I awoke out of this swoon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sun was shining, not the moon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Making a cross upon the wall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the bars of my windows narrow and tall;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I prayed to it as I had been wont to pray,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From early childhood, day by day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each morning, as in bed I lay!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I was lying again in my own room!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I thanked God, in my fever and pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That those shadows on the midnight plain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were gone, and could not come again!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I struggled no longer with my doom!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">This happened many years ago.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I left my father’s home to come</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like Catherine to her martyrdom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For blindly I esteemed it so.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when I heard the convent-door</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Behind me close, to ope no more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I felt it smite me like a blow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through all my limbs a shudder ran,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And on my bruisèd spirit fell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The dampness of my narrow cell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As night air on a wounded man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Giving intolerable pain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But now a better life began.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I felt the agony decrease</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By slow degrees, then wholly cease,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ending in perfect rest and peace!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was not apathy, nor dulness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That weighed and pressed upon my brain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the same passion I had given</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To earth before, now turned to heaven</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With all its overflowing fulness.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alas! the world is full of peril!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The path that runs through the fairest meads,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the sunniest side of the valley, leads</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into a region bleak and sterile!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alike in the high-born and the lowly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The will is feeble, and passion strong.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We cannot sever right from wrong;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some falsehood mingles with all truth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor is it strange the heart of youth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Should waver and comprehend but slowly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The things that are holy and unholy.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But in this sacred and calm retreat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We are all well and safely shielded</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From winds that blow, and waves that beat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the cold, and rain, and blighting heat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To which the strongest hearts have yielded.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here we stand as the Virgins Seven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For our celestial bridegroom yearning;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our hearts are lamps for ever burning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a steady and unwavering flame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pointing upward, for ever the same,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Steadily upward, toward the Heaven!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The moon is hidden behind a cloud;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A sudden darkness fills the room,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thy deep eyes, amid the gloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shine like jewels in a shroud.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the leaves is a sound of falling rain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A bird, awakened in its nest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gives a faint twitter of unrest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then smooths its plumes and sleeps again.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No other sounds than these I hear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hour of midnight must be near.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou art o’erspent with the day’s fatigue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of riding many a dusty league;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sink, then, gently, to thy slumber;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Me so many cares encumber,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So many ghosts, and forms of fright,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have started from their graves to-night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They have driven sleep from mine eyes away:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will go down to the chapel and pray.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120 spa2">V.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center">[<i>A covered bridge at Lucerne.</i>]</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> God’s blessing on the architects who build</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The bridges o’er swift rivers and abysses</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Before impassable to human feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No less than on the builders of cathedrals,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose massive walls are bridges thrown across</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The dark and terrible abyss of Death.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Well has the name of Pontifex been given</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unto the Church’s head, as the chief builder</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And architect of the invisible bridge</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That leads from earth to heaven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Elsie.</i><span class="ws8">How dark it grows!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What are these paintings on the walls around us?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> The Dance Macaber!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i><span class="ws10">What?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws8">The Dance of Death.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All that go to and fro must look upon it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mindful of what they shall be, while beneath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Among the wooden piles, the turbulent river</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rushes impetuous as the river of life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With dimpling eddies, ever green and bright,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Save where the shadow of this bridge falls on it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> O, yes!&emsp; I see it now!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws8">The grim musician</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Leads all men through the mazes of that dance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To different sounds in different measures moving;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sometimes he plays a lute, sometimes a drum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To tempt or terrify.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i><span class="ws4">What is this picture?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> It is a young man singing to a nun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who kneels at her devotions, but in kneeling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Turns round to look at him; and Death, meanwhile,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is putting out the candles on the altar!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Ah, what a pity ’tis that she should listen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unto such songs, when in her orisons</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She might have heard in heaven the angels singing!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Here he has stolen a jester’s cap and bells,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And dances with the Queen.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Elsie.</i><span class="ws8">A foolish jest!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> And here the heart of the new-wedded wife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Coming from church with her beloved lord,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He startles with the rattle of his drum.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Ah, that is sad!&emsp; And yet perhaps ’tis best</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That she should die, with all the sunshine on her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all the benedictions of the morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Before this affluence of golden light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall fade into a cold and clouded grey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then into darkness!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws3">Under it is written,</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Nothing but death shall separate thee and me!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> And what is this that follows close upon it?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Death, playing on a dulcimer.&emsp; Behind him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A poor old woman, with a rosary,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Follows the sound, and seems to wish her feet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were swifter to o’ertake him. Underneath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The inscription reads, “Better is Death than Life.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Elsie.</i> Better is Death than Life!&emsp; Ah, yes!&emsp; To thousands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Death plays upon a dulcimer, and sings</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That song of consolation, till the air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rings with it, and they cannot choose but follow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whither he leads. And not the old alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the young also hear it, and are still.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Yes, in their sadder moments. ’Tis the sound</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of their own hearts they hear, half full of tears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which are like crystal cups, half filled with water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Responding to the pressure of a finger</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With music sweet and low and melancholy.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let us go forward, and no longer stay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In this great picture-gallery of Death.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I hate it! ay, the very thought of it!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Why is it hateful to you?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws8">For the reason</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That life, and all that speaks of life, is lovely,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And death, and all that speaks of death, is hateful.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> The grave itself is but a covered bridge,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry</i> (<i>emerging from the bridge</i>).</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I breathe again more freely! Ah, how pleasant</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To come once more into the light of day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out of that shadow of death! To hear again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hoof-beats of our horses on firm ground,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And not upon those hollow planks, resounding</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a sepulchral echo, like the clods</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On coffins in a churchyard! Yonder lies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Lake of the Four Forest-Towns, apparelled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In light, and lingering, like a village maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hid in the bosom of her native mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then pouring all her life into another’s,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Changing her name and being! Overhead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shaking his cloudy tresses loose in air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rises Pilatus, with his windy pines.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>They pass on.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>The Devil’s Bridge.</i> <span class="smcap">Prince Henry</span>
+<i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Elsie</span> <i>crossing, with attendants</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Guide.</i> This bridge is called the Devil’s Bridge.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a single arch, from ridge to ridge,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It leaps across the terrible chasm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yawning beneath us, black and deep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if, in some convulsive spasm,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The summits of the hills had cracked,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And made a road for the cataract,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That raves and rages down the steep!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer</i> (<i>under the bridge</i>). Ha! ha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Guide.</i> Never any bridge but this</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Could stand across the wild abyss;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the rest, of wood or stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the Devil’s hand were overthrown.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He toppled crags from the precipice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And whatsoe’er was built by day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the night was swept away;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">None could stand but this alone.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer</i> (<i>under the bridge</i>). Ha! ha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Guide.</i> I showed you in the valley a boulder</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Marked with the imprint of his shoulder;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As he was bearing it up this way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A peasant, passing, cried, “Herr Jé!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Devil dropped it in his fright,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And vanished suddenly out of sight!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer</i> (<i>under the bridge</i>). Ha! ha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Guide.</i> Abbot Giraldus of Einsiedel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For pilgrims on their way to Rome,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Built this at last, with a single arch,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under which, on its endless march,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Runs the river, white with foam,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a thread through the eye of a needle.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Devil promised to let it stand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under compact and condition</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That the first living thing which crossed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Should be surrendered into his hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And be beyond redemption lost.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer</i> (<i>under the bridge</i>). Ha! ha!&emsp; perdition!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Guide.</i> At length, the bridge being all completed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Abbot, standing at its head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Threw across it a loaf of bread,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which a hungry dog sprang after,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the rocks re-echoed with peals of laughter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To see the Devil thus defeated!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent12">[<i>They pass on.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer</i> (<i>under the bridge</i>). Ha! ha!&emsp; defeated!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For journeys and for crimes like this</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I let the bridge stand o’er the abyss!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><i>The St. Gothard Pass.</i></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> This is the highest point.&emsp; Two ways the rivers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Leap down to different seas, and as they roll</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Grow deep and still, and their majestic presence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Becomes a benefaction to the towns</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They visit, wandering silently among them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like patriarchs old among their shining tents.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> How bleak and bare it is!&emsp; Nothing but mosses</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Grow on these rocks.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws3">Yet are they not forgotten;</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneficent Nature sends the mists to feed them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> See yonder little cloud, that, borne aloft</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So tenderly by the wind, floats fast away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over the snowy peaks! It seems to me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The body of St. Catherine, borne by angels!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Thou art St. Catherine, and invisible angels</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bear thee across these chasms and precipices,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lest thou shouldst dash thy feet against a stone!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Would I were borne unto my grave, as she was,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon angelic shoulders!&emsp; Even now</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I seem uplifted by them, light as air!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What sound is that?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws3">The tumbling avalanches!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> How awful, yet how beautiful!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws8">These are</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The voices of the mountain! Thus they ope</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their snowy lips, and speak unto each other,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the primeval language, lost to man.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> What land is this that spreads itself beneath us?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Italy!&emsp; Italy!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i><span class="ws8">Land of the Madonna!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How beautiful it is! It seems a garden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Paradise!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Nay, of Gethsemane</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To thee and me, of passion and of prayer!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet once of Paradise.&emsp; Long years ago</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I wandered as a youth among its bowers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And never from my heart has faded quite</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its memory, that, like a summer sunset,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Encircles with a ring of purple light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the horizon of my youth!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Guide.</i><span class="ws9">O friends!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The days are short, the way before us long;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We must not linger, if we think to reach</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The inn at Belinzona before vespers!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>They pass on.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>At the foot of the Alps. A halt under the trees at noon.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Here let us pause a moment in the trembling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shadow and sunshine of the road-side trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, our tired horses in a group assembling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Inhale long draughts of this delicious breeze.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our fleeter steeds have distanced our attendants;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They lag behind us with a slower pace;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We will await them under the green pendants</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the great willows in this shady place.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ho, Barbarossa! how thy mottled haunches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sweat with this canter over hill and glade!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stand still, and let these overhanging branches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fan thy hot sides and comfort thee with shade!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> What a delightful landscape spreads before us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Marked with a whitewashed cottage here and there!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, in luxuriant garlands drooping o’er us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blossoms of grape-vines scent the sunny air.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Hark! what sweet sounds are those, whose accents holy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fill the warm noon with music sad and sweet?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> It is a band of pilgrims moving slowly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On their long journey, with uncovered feet.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4"><i>Pilgrims</i> (<i>chanting the Hymn of St. Hildebert</i>).</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12 fs_90">Me receptet Sion illa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12 fs_90">Sion David, urbs tranquilla,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12 fs_90">Cujus faber auctor lucis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12 fs_90">Cujus portæ lignum crucis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12 fs_90">Cujus claves lingua Petri,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12 fs_90">Cujus cives semper læti,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12 fs_90">Cujus muri lapis vivus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12 fs_90">Cujus custos Rex festivus!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer</i> (<i>as a Friar in the procession</i>).</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here am I, too, in the pious band,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the garb of a barefooted Carmelite dressed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The soles of my feet are as hard and tanned</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the conscience of old Pope Hildebrand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Holy Satan, who made the wives</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the bishops lead such shameful lives,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All day long I beat my breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And chant with a most particular zest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Latin hymns, which I understand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Quite as well, I think, as the rest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And at night such lodging in barns and sheds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such a hurly-burly in country inns,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such a clatter of tongues in empty heads,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such a helter-skelter of prayers and sins!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of all the contrivances of the time</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For sowing broad-cast the seeds of crime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is none so pleasing to me and mine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a pilgrimage to some far-off shrine!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> If from the outward man we judge the inner,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And cleanliness is godliness, I fear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A hopeless reprobate, a hardened sinner,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Must be that Carmelite now passing near.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> There is my German Prince again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus far on his journey to Salern,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the love-sick girl, whose heated brain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is sowing the cloud to reap the rain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But it’s a long road that has no turn!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let them quietly hold their way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have also a part in the play.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But first I must act to my heart’s content</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This mummery and this merriment,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And drive this motley flock of sheep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the fold, where drink and sleep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The jolly old friars of Benevent.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of a truth, it often provokes me to laugh</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To see these beggars hobble along,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lamed and maimed, and fed upon chaff,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Chanting their wonderful piff and paff,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, to make up for not understanding the song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Singing it fiercely, and wild, and strong!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were it not for my magic garters and staff,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the goblets of goodly wine I quaff,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the mischief I make in the idle throng,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I should not continue the business long.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent14"><i>Pilgrims (chanting).</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent14 fs_90">In hâc urbe, lux solennis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14 fs_90">Ver æternum, pax perennis;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14 fs_90">In hâc odor implens cælos,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14 fs_90">In hâc semper festum melos!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Do you observe that monk among the train,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who pours from his great throat the roaring bass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a cathedral spout pours out the rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And this way turns his rubicund, round face?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> It is the same who, on the Strasburg square,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Preached to the people in the open air.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> And he has crossed o’er mountain, field, and fell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On that good steed, that seems to bear him well,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hackney of the Friars of Orders Grey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His own stout legs! He, too, was in the play,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Both as King Herod and Ben Israel.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Good morrow, Friar!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Cuthbert.</i>&emsp; Good morrow, noble Sir!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> I speak in German, for, unless I err,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You are a German.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Cuthbert.</i>&emsp; I cannot gainsay you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But by what instinct, or what secret sign,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Meeting me here, do you straightway divine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That northward of the Alps my country lies?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Your accent, like St. Peter’s, would betray you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Did not your yellow beard and your blue eyes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Moreover, we have seen your face before,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And heard you preach at the Cathedral door</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On Easter Sunday, in the Strasburg square.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We were among the crowd that gathered there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And saw you play the Rabbi with great skill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if, by leaning o’er so many years</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To walk with little children, your own will</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had caught a childish attitude from theirs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A kind of stooping in its form and gait,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And could no longer stand erect and straight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whence come you now?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Cuthbert.</i><span class="ws3">From the old monastery</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Hirschau, in the forest; being sent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon a pilgrimage to Benevent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To see the image of the Virgin Mary,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That moves its holy eyes, and sometimes speaks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And lets the piteous tears run down its cheeks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To touch the hearts of the impenitent.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> O, had I faith, as in the days gone by,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That knew no doubt, and feared no mystery!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer</i> (<i>at a distance</i>). Ho, Cuthbert!&emsp; Friar Cuthbert!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Friar Cuthbert.</i><span class="ws8">Farewell, Prince!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I cannot stay to argue and convince.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Prince Henry.</i> This is indeed the blessed Mary’s land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Virgin and Mother of our dear Redeemer!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All hearts are touched and softened at her name;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alike the bandit, with the bloody hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The priest, the prince, the scholar, and the peasant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The man of deeds, the visionary dreamer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pay homage to her as one ever present!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And even as children, who have much offended</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A too indulgent father, in great shame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Penitent, and yet not daring unattended</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To go into his presence, at the gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Speak with their sister, and confiding wait</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till she goes in before and intercedes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So men, repenting of their evil deeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And yet not venturing rashly to draw near</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With their requests an angry Father’s ear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Offer to her their prayers and their confession,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And she for them in heaven makes intercession.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And if our Faith had given us nothing more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than this example of all womanhood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So mild, so merciful, so strong, so good,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So patient, peaceful, loyal, loving, pure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This were enough to prove it higher and truer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than all the creeds the world had known before.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent12"><i>Pilgrims</i> (<i>chanting afar off</i>).</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14 fs_90">Urbs cœlestis, urbs beata,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14 fs_90">Supra petram collocata,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14 fs_90">Urbs in portu satis tuto</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14 fs_90">De longinquo te saluto,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14 fs_90">Te saluto te suspiro,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent14 fs_90">Te affecto, te requiro!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>The Inn at Genoa. A terrace overlooking the sea. Night.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> It is the sea, it is the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In all its vague immensity,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fading and darkening in the distance!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Silent, majestical, and slow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The white ships haunt it to and fro,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With all their ghostly sails unfurled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As phantoms from another world</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Haunt the dim confines of existence!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But ah! how few can comprehend</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their signals, or to what good end</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From land to land they come and go!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon a sea more vast and dark</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The spirits of the dead embark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All voyaging to unknown coasts.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We wave our farewells from the shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And they depart, and come no more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or come as phantoms and as ghosts.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Above the darksome sea of death</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Looms the great life that is to be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A land of cloud and mystery,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A dim mirage, with shapes of men</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Long dead, and passed beyond our ken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Awe-struck, we gaze, and hold our breath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till the fair pageant vanisheth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Leaving us in perplexity,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And doubtful whether it has been</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A vision of the world unseen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or a bright image of our own</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Against the sky in vapours thrown.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer</i> (<i>singing from the sea</i>).</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou didst not make it, thou canst not mend it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But thou hast the power to end it!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sea is silent, the sea is discreet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Deep it lies at thy very feet;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is no confessor like unto Death!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou canst not see him, but he is near;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou needest not whisper above thy breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he will hear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He will answer the questions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The vague surmises and suggestions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That fill thy soul with doubt and fear!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> The fisherman, who lies afloat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With shadowy sail, in yonder boat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is singing softly to the Night!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But do I comprehend aright</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The meaning of the words he sung</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So sweetly in his native tongue?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah, yes! the sea is still and deep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All things within its bosom sleep!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A single step and all is o’er;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A plunge, a bubble, and no more;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thou, dear Elsie, wilt be free</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From martyrdom and agony.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie</i> (<i>coming from her chamber upon the terrace</i>).</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The night is calm and cloudless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And still as still can be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the stars come forth to listen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the music of the sea.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They gather, and gather, and gather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Until they crowd the sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And listen in breathless silence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the solemn litany.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It begins in rocky caverns,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a voice that chants alone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the pedals of the organ</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In monotonous undertone;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And anon from shelving beaches,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And shallow sands beyond,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In snow-white robes uprising</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The ghostly choirs respond.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sadly and unceasing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The mournful voice sings on,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the snow-white choirs still answer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Christe eleison!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Angel of God! thy finer sense perceives</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Celestial and perpetual harmonies!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy purer soul, that trembles and believes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hears the archangel’s trumpet in the breeze,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And where the forest rolls, or ocean heaves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Cecilia’s organ sounding in the seas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And tongues of prophets speaking in the leaves.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But I hear discord only and despair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And whispers as of demons in the air!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent15"><i>At Sea.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Il Padrone.</i> The wind upon our quarter lies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And on before the freshening gale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That fills the snow-white lateen sail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Swiftly our light felucca flies.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Around, the billows burst and foam;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They lift her o’er the sunken rock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They beat her sides with many a shock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then upon their flowing dome</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They poise her, like a weathercock!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Between us and the western skies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hills of Corsica arise;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Eastward, in yonder long, blue line,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The summits of the Apennine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And southward, and still far away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Salerno, on its sunny bay.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You cannot see it, where it lies.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Ah, would that never more mine eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Might see its towers by night or day!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Behind us, dark and awfully,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There comes a cloud out of the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That bears the form of a hunted deer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With hide of brown, and hoofs of black,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And antlers laid upon its back,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And fleeing fast and wild with fear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if the hounds were on its track!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Lo! while we gaze, it breaks and falls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In shapeless masses, like the walls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of a burnt city. Broad and red</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fires of the descending sun</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Glare through the windows, and o’erhead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Athwart the vapours, dense and dun,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Long shafts of silvery light arise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like rafters that support the skies!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> See! from its summit the lurid levin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Flashes downward without warning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As Lucifer, son of the morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fell from the battlements of heaven!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Il Padrone.</i> I must entreat you, friends, below!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The angry storm begins to blow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For the weather changes with the moon.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All this morning, until noon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We had baffling winds, and sudden flaws</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Struck the sea with their cat’s-paws.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only a little hour ago</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I was whistling to Saint Antonio</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For a capful of wind to fill our sail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And instead of a breeze he has sent a gale.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Last night I saw Saint Elmo’s stars,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_39_39" href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With their glimmering lanterns, all at play</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the tops of the masts and the tips of the spars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I knew we should have foul weather to-day.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Cheerly, my hearties! yo heave ho!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Brail up the mainsail, and let her go</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the winds will and Saint Antonio!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Do you see that Livornese felucca,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That vessel to the windward yonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Running with her gunwale under?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I was looking when the wind o’ertook her.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She had all sail set, and the only wonder</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is, that at once the strength of the blast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Did not carry away her mast.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She is a galley of the Grand Duca,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That, through the fear of the Algerines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Convoys those lazy brigantines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Laden with wine and oil from Lucca.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now all is ready high and low;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blow, blow, good Saint Antonio!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ha! that is the first dash of the rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a sprinkle of spray above the rails,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Just enough to moisten our sails,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And make them ready for the strain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">See how she leaps, as the blasts o’ertake her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And speeds away with a bone in her mouth!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now keep her head toward the south,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And there is no danger of bank or breaker.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the breeze behind us, on we go;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not too much, good Saint Antonio!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span></p>
+
+<p class="f120 spa2">VI.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>The School of Salerno. A travelling Scholastic affixing his Theses
+to the gate of the College.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Scholastic.</i> There, that is my gauntlet, my banner, my shield,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hung up as a challenge to all the field!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One hundred and twenty-five propositions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which I will maintain with the sword of the tongue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Against all disputants, old and young.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let us see if doctors or dialecticians</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will dare to dispute my definitions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or attack any one of my learned theses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here stand I; the end shall be as God pleases.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I think I have proved, by profound researches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The error of all those doctrines so vicious</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the old Areopagite Dionysius,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That are making such terrible work in the churches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By Michael the Stammerer sent from the East,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And done into Latin by that Scottish beast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Johannes Duns Scotus, who dares to maintain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the face of the truth, the error infernal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That the universe is and must be eternal;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At first laying down, as a fact fundamental,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That nothing with God can be accidental;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then asserting that God before the creation</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Could not have existed, because it is plain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That, had he existed, he would have created;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which is begging the question that should be debated,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And moveth me less to anger than laughter.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All nature, he holds, is a respiration</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the Spirit of God, who, in breathing, hereafter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will inhale it into his bosom again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So that nothing but God alone will remain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And therein he contradicteth himself;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For he opens the whole discussion by stating,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That God can only exist in creating.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That question I think I have laid on the shelf!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">[<i>He goes out. Two Doctors come in disputing,
+ and followed by Pupils.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Doctor Serafino.</i> I, with the Doctor Seraphic, maintain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That a word which is only conceived in the brain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is a type of eternal Generation;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The spoken word is the Incarnation.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Doctor Cherubino.</i> What do I care for the Doctor Seraphic,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With all his wordy chaffer and traffic?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Doctor Serafino.</i> You make but a paltry show of resistance;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Universals have no real existence!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Doctor Cherubino.</i> Your words are but idle and empty chatter;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ideas are eternally joined to matter!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Doctor Serafino.</i> May the Lord have mercy on your position,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You wretched, wrangling culler of herbs!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Doctor Cherubino.</i> May he send your soul to eternal perdition,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For your Treatise on the Irregular Verbs!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent9">[<i>They rush out fighting. Two Scholars come in.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>First Scholar.</i> Monte Cassino, then, is your College.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What think you of ours here at Salern?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Second Scholar.</i> To tell the truth, I arrived so lately,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I hardly yet have had time to discern.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So much, at least, I am bound to acknowledge:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The air seems healthy, the buildings stately,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And on the whole I like it greatly.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>First Scholar.</i> Yes, the air is sweet; the Calabrian hills</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Send us down puffs of mountain air;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in summer-time the sea-breeze fills</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With its coolness cloister, and court, and square.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then at every season of the year</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There are crowds of guests and travellers here;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pilgrims, and mendicant friars, and traders</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the Levant, with figs and wine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And bands of wounded and sick Crusaders,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Coming back from Palestine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Second Scholar.</i> And what are the studies you pursue?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What is the course you here go through?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>First Scholar.</i> The first three years of the college course</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are given to Logic alone, as the source</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of all that is noble, and wise, and true.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Second Scholar.</i> That seems rather strange, I must confess,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In a Medical School; yet, nevertheless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You doubtless have reasons for that.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>First Scholar.</i><span class="ws8">O, yes!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For none but a clever dialectician</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Can hope to become a great physician;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That has been settled long ago.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Logic makes an important part</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the mystery of the healing art;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For without it how could you hope to show</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That nobody knows so much as you know?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">After this there are five years more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Devoted wholly to medicine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With lectures on chirurgical lore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And dissections of the bodies of swine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As likest the human form divine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Second Scholar.</i> What are the books now most in vogue?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>First Scholar.</i> Quite an extensive catalogue;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mostly, however, books of our own;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As Garriopontus’ Passionarius,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the writings of Matthew Platearius;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a volume universally known</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the Regimen of the School of Salern,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For Robert of Normandy written in terse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And very elegant Latin verse.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each of these writings has its turn.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when at length we have finished these,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then comes the struggle for degrees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With all the oldest and ablest critics;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The public thesis and disputation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Question, and answer, and explanation</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of a passage out of Hippocrates,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or Aristotle’s Analytics.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There the triumphant Magister stands!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A book is solemnly placed in his hands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On which he swears to follow the rule</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And ancient forms of the good old School;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To report if any confectionarius</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mingles his drugs with matters various,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And to visit his patients twice a day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And once in the night, if they live in town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And if they are poor, to take no pay.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Having faithfully promised these,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His head is crowned with a laurel crown;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A kiss on his cheek, a ring on his hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Magister Artium et Physices</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Goes forth from the school like a lord of the land.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now, as we have the whole morning before us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let us go in, if you make no objection,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And listen awhile to a learned prelection</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On Marcus Aurelius Cassiodorus.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">[<i>They go in. Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Lucifer</span> <i>as a Doctor</i>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><span class="smcap">Lucifer.</span> This is the great School of Salern!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A land of wrangling and of quarrels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of brains that seethe and hearts that burn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where every emulous scholar hears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In every breath that comes to his ears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rustling of another’s laurels!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The air of the place is called salubrious;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The neighbourhood of Vesuvius lends it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">An odour volcanic, that rather mends it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the buildings have an aspect lugubrious,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That inspires a feeling of awe and terror</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the heart of the beholder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And befits such an ancient homestead of error,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the old falsehoods moulder and smoulder,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And yearly by many hundred hands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are carried away, in the zeal of youth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sown like tares in the field of truth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To blossom and ripen in other lands.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What have we here, affixed to the gate?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The challenge of some scholastic wight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who wishes to hold a public debate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On sundry questions wrong or right!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah, now this is my great delight!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For I have often observed of late</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That such discussions end in a fight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let us see what the learned wag maintains</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With such a prodigal waste of brains.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>Reads</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Whether angels in moving from place to place</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pass through the intermediate space.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whether God himself is the author of evil,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or whether that is the work of the Devil.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When, where, and wherefore Lucifer fell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And whether he now is chained in hell.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I think I can answer that question well!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So long as the boastful human mind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Consents in such mills as this to grind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I sit very firmly upon my throne!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of a truth it almost makes me laugh,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To see men leaving the golden grain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To gather in piles the pitiful chaff</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That old Peter Lombard thrashed with his brain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To have it caught up and tossed again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the horns of the Dumb Ox of Cologne!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But my guests approach! there is in the air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A fragrance like that of the Beautiful Garden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Paradise in the days that were!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">An odour of innocence and of prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And of love, and faith that never fails,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such as the fresh young heart exhales</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Before it begins to wither and harden!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I cannot breathe such an atmosphere!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My soul is filled with a nameless fear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That, after all my trouble and pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">After all my restless endeavour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The youngest, fairest soul of the twain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The most ethereal, most divine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will escape from my hands for ever and ever;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the other is already mine!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">Let him live to corrupt his race,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Breathing among them, with every breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Weakness, selfishness, and the base</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And pusillanimous fear of death.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I know his nature, and I know</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That of all who in my ministry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wander the great earth to and fro,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And on my errands come and go,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The safest and subtlest are such as he.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4"><i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Prince Henry</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Elsie</span>, <i>with attendants</i>.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Can you direct us to Friar Angelo?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> He stands before you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws5">Then you know our purpose.</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am Prince Henry of Hoheneck, and this</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The maiden that I spake of in my letters.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> It is a very grave and solemn business!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We must not be precipitate. Does she</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Without compulsion, of her own free will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Consent to this?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Against all opposition,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Against all prayers, entreaties, protestations.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She will not be persuaded.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Lucifer.</i><span class="ws8">That is strange!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have you thought well of it?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i><span class="ws8">I come not here</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To argue, but to die. Your business is not</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To question, but to kill me. I am ready.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am impatient to be gone from here</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ere any thoughts of earth disturb again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The spirit of tranquillity within me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Would I had not come here!&emsp; Would I were dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thou wert in thy cottage in the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And hadst not known me! Why have I done this?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let me go back and die.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i><span class="ws6">It cannot be;</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not if these cold flat stones on which we tread</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were coulters heated white, and yonder gateway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Flamed like a furnace with a sevenfold heat.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I must fulfil my purpose.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws3">I forbid it!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not one step farther. For I only meant</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To put thus far thy courage to the proof.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is enough. I, too, have courage to die,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For thou hast taught me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Elsie.</i><span class="ws6">O my Prince! remember</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Your promises. Let me fulfil my errand.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You do not look on life and death as I do.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There are two angels, that attend unseen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each one of us, and in great books record</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our good and evil deeds. He who writes down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The good ones, after every action closes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His volume, and ascends with it to God.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The other keeps his dreadful day-book open</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till sunset, that we may repent; which doing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The record of the action fades away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And leaves a line of white across the page.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now if my act be good, as I believe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It cannot be recalled. It is already</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sealed up in heaven, as a good deed accomplished.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rest is yours. Why wait you?&emsp; I am ready.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent8">[<i>To her attendants.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Weep not, my friends! rather rejoice with me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I shall not feel the pain, but shall be gone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And you will have another friend in heaven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then start not at the creaking of the door</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through which I pass. I see what lies beyond it.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent7">[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Prince Henry</span>.]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And you, O Prince, bear back my benison</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unto my father’s house, and all within it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This morning in the church I prayed for them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">After confession, after absolution,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When my whole soul was white, I prayed for them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">God will take care of them, they need me not.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in your life let my remembrance linger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As something not to trouble and disturb it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But to complete it, adding life to life.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And if at times beside the evening fire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You see my face among the other faces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let it not be regarded as a ghost</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That haunts your house, but as a guest that loves you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nay, even as one of your own family,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Without whose presence there were something wanting.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have no more to say. Let us go in.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Friar Angelo! I charge you on your life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Believe not what she says, for she is mad,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And comes here not to die, but to be healed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Alas!&emsp; Prince Henry!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i><span class="ws6">Come with me; this way.</span></div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">[<span class="smcap">Elsie</span> <i>goes in with</i>
+<span class="smcap">Lucifer</span>, <i>who thrusts</i> <span class="smcap">Prince Henry</span>
+<i>back and closes the door</i>.]</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Gone! and the light of all my life gone with her!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A sudden darkness falls upon the world!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O, what a vile and abject thing am I,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That purchase length of days at such a cost!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not by her death alone, but by the death</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of all that’s good and true and noble in me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All manhood, excellence, and self-respect,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All love, and faith, and hope, and heart are dead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All my divine nobility of nature</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By this one act is forfeited for ever.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am a Prince in nothing but in name!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent15">[<i>To the attendants.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why did you let this horrible deed be done?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why did you not lay hold on her, and keep her</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From self-destruction? Angelo! murderer!</div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>Struggles at the door, but cannot open it.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie</i> (<i>within</i>). Farewell, dear Prince!&emsp; farewell!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws10">Unbar the door!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Lucifer.</i> It is too late!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws4">It shall not be too late!</span></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent7">[<i>They burst the door open and rush in.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>The cottage in the Odenwald.</i> <span class="smcap">Ursula</span>,
+<i>spinning. Summer afternoon. A table spread.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> I have marked it well—it must be true,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Death never takes one alone, but two!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whenever he enters in at a door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under roof of gold or roof of thatch,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He always leaves it upon the latch,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And comes again ere the year is o’er.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Never one of a household only!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Perhaps it is a mercy of God,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lest the dead there under the sod,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the land of strangers, should be lonely!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah me! I think I am lonelier here!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is hard to go,—but harder to stay!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were it not for the children, I should pray</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That Death would take me within the year!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Gottlieb!—he is at work all day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the sunny field, or the forest murk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But I know that his thoughts are far away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I know that his heart is not in his work!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when he comes home to me at night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He is not cheery, but sits and sighs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I see the great tears in his eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And try to be cheerful for his sake.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only the children’s hearts are light.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mine is weary, and ready to break.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">God help us! I hope we have done right;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We thought we were acting for the best!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent7">[<i>Looking through the open door.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who is it coming under the trees?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A man, in the Prince’s livery dressed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He looks about him with doubtful face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if uncertain of the place.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He stops at the beehives;—now he sees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The garden gate; he is going past!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Can he be afraid of the bees?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No; he is coming in at last!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He fills my heart with strange alarm!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent11"><i>Enter a Forester.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Forester.</i> Is this the tenant Gottlieb’s farm?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> This is his farm, and I his wife.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pray sit. What may your business be?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Forester.</i> News from the Prince!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i><span class="ws8">Of death or life?</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Forester.</i> You put your questions eagerly!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> Answer me, then. How is the Prince?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Forester.</i> I left him only two hours since</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Homeward returning down the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As strong and well as if God, the Giver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had given him back his youth again.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula</i> (<i>despairing</i>). Then Elsie, my poor child, is dead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Forester.</i> That, my good woman, I have not said.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Don’t cross the bridge till you come to it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is a proverb old, and of excellent wit.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> Keep me no longer in this pain!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Forester.</i> It is true your daughter is no more;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That is, the peasant she was before.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> Alas!&emsp; I am simple and lowly bred,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am poor, distracted, and forlorn.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And it is not well that you of the court</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Should mock me thus, and make a sport</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of a joyless mother whose child is dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For you, too, were of mother born!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Forester.</i> Your daughter lives, and the Prince is well!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You will learn ere long how it all befell.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her heart for a moment never failed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But when they reached Salerno’s gate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Prince’s nobler self prevailed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And saved her for a nobler fate.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he was healed, in his despair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the touch of St. Matthew’s sacred bones;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though I think the long ride in the open air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That pilgrimage over stocks and stones,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the miracle must come in for a share!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> Virgin! who lovest the poor and lowly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If the loud cry of a mother’s heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Can ever ascend to where thou art,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into thy blessed hands and holy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Receive my prayer of praise and thanksgiving!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let the hands that bore our Saviour bear it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the awful presence of God;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For thy feet with holiness are shod,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And if thou bearest it he will hear it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our child who was dead, again is living!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Forester.</i> I did not tell you she was dead;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If you thought so ’twas no fault of mine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At this very moment, while I speak,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They are sailing homeward down the Rhine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In a splendid barge, with golden prow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And decked with banners white and red</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the colours on your daughter’s cheek.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They call her the Lady Alicia now;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For the Prince in Salerno made a vow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That Elsie only would he wed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> Jesu Maria! what a change!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All seems to me so weird and strange!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Forester.</i> I saw her standing on the deck,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath an awning cool and shady;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her cap of velvet could not hold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The tresses of her hair of gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That flowed and floated like the stream</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And fell in masses down her neck.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As fair and lovely did she seem</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As in a story or a dream</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some beautiful and foreign lady.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Prince looked so grand and proud</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And waved his hand thus to the crowd</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That gazed and shouted from the shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All down the river, long and loud.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ursula.</i> We shall behold our child once more;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She is not dead! She is not dead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">God, listening, must have overheard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The prayers, that, without sound or word,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our hearts in secrecy have said!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O, bring me to her; for mine eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are hungry to behold her face;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My very soul within me cries;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My very hands seem to caress her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To see her, gaze at her, and bless her;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dear Elsie, child of God and grace!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">[<i>Goes out towards the garden.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Forester.</i> There goes the good woman out of her head:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Gottlieb’s supper is waiting here;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A very capacious flagon of beer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a very portentous loaf of bread.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One would say his grief did not much oppress him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here’s to the health of the Prince, God bless him.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>He drinks.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ha! it buzzes and stings like a hornet!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And what a scene there, through the door!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The forest behind and the garden before,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And midway an old man of threescore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a wife and children that caress him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let me try still further to cheer and adorn it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a merry, echoing blast of my cornet!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent6">[<i>Goes out blowing his horn.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>The Castle of Vautsberg on the Rhine.</i>
+ <span class="smcap">Prince Henry</span>
+<i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Elsie</span> <i>standing on the terrace at
+evening. The sound of bells heard from a distance.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> We are alone.&emsp; The wedding guests</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ride down the hill with plumes and cloaks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the descending dark invests</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Niederwald, and all the nests</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Among its hoar and haunted oaks.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> What bells are those, that ring so slow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So mellow, musical, and low?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> They are the bells of Geisenheim,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That with their melancholy chime</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ring out the curfew of the sun.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Listen, beloved.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws6">They are done!</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dear Elsie! many years ago</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Those same soft bells at eventide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rang in the ears of Charlemagne,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As, seated by Fastrada’s side</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At Ingelheim, in all his pride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He heard their sound with secret pain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Their voices only speak to me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of peace and deep tranquillity,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And endless confidence in thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Thou knowest the story of her ring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How, when the court went back to Aix,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fastrada died; and how the king</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sat watching by her night and day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till into one of the blue lakes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which water that delicious land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They cast the ring, drawn from her hand;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the great monarch sat serene</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sad beside the fated shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor left the land for evermore.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> That was true love.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i><span class="ws6">For him the queen</span></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ne’er did what thou hast done for me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Wilt thou as fond and faithful be?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wilt thou so love me after death?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> In life’s delight, in death’s dismay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In storm and sunshine, night and day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In health, in sickness, in decay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here and hereafter, I am thine!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast Fastrada’s ring. Beneath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The calm, blue waters of thine eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Deep in thy steadfast soul it lies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, undisturbed by this world’s breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With magic light its jewels shine!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This golden ring, which thou hast worn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon thy finger since the morn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is but a symbol and a semblance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">An outward fashion, a remembrance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of what thou wearest within unseen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O my Fastrada, O my queen!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Behold! the hill-tops all aglow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With purple and with amethyst;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While the whole valley deep below</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is filled, and seems to overflow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a fast-rising tide of mist.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The evening air grows damp and chill;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let us go in.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Elsie.</i> Ah, not so soon.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">See yonder fire! It is the moon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Slow rising o’er the eastern hill.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It glimmers on the forest tips,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And through the dewy foliage drips</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In little rivulets of light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And makes the heart in love with night.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Prince Henry.</i> Oft on this terrace, when the day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was closing, have I stood and gazed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And seen the landscape fade away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the white vapours rise and drown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hamlet and vineyard, tower and town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While far above the hill-tops blazed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But then another hand than thine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was gently held and clasped in mine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Another head upon my breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was laid, as thine is now, at rest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why dost thou lift those tender eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With so much sorrow and surprise?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A minstrel’s, not a maiden’s hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was that in which my own was pressed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A manly form usurped thy place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A beautiful, but bearded face,</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/ill_025.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="574" >
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“<i>Oft on this terrace, when the day</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>Was closing, have I stood and gazed,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>And seen the landscape fade away.</i>”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">That now is in the Holy Land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet in my memory from afar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is shining on us like a star.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But linger not. For, while I speak,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A sheeted spectre white and tall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The cold mist climbs the castle wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And lays his hand upon thy cheek.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">[<i>They go in.</i>]</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="EPILOGUE">EPILOGUE.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f90">THE TWO RECORDING ANGELS ASCENDING.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>The Angel of Good Deeds</i> (<i>with closed book</i>).</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">God sent his messenger the rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And said unto the mountain brook,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Rise up, and from thy caverns look</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And leap, with naked, snow-white feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the cool hills into the heat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the broad, arid plain.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">God sent his messenger of faith,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And whispered in the maiden’s heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Rise up, and look from where thou art,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And scatter with unselfish hands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy freshness on the barren sands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And solitudes of Death.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O beauty of holiness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of self-forgetfulness, of lowliness!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O power of meekness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose very gentleness and weakness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are like the yielding, but irresistible air!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon the pages</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the sealed volume that I bear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The deed divine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is written in characters of gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That never shall grow old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But through all ages</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Burn and shine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With soft effulgence!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O God! it is thy indulgence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That fills the world with the bliss</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of a good deed like this!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>The Angel of Evil Deeds</i> (<i>with open book</i>).</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not yet, not yet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is the red sun wholly set,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But evermore recedes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While open still I bear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Book of Evil Deeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To let the breathings of the upper air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Visit its pages, and erase</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The records from its face!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fainter and fainter as I gaze</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the broad blaze</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The glimmering landscape shines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And below me the black river</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is hidden by wreaths of vapour!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fainter and fainter the black lines</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Begin to quiver</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Along the whitening surface of the paper;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shade after shade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The terrible words grow faint and fade,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in their place</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Runs a white space!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down goes the sun!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the soul of one,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who by repentance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has escaped the dreadful sentence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shines bright below me as I look.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is the end!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With closèd Book</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To God do I ascend.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lo! over the mountain steeps</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A dark, gigantic shadow sweeps</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath my feet;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A blackness inwardly brightening</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With sudden heat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a storm-cloud lurid with lightning.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a cry of lamentation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Repeated and again repeated,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Deep and loud</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the reverberation</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of cloud answering unto cloud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Swells and rolls away in the distance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if the sheeted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lightning retreated,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Baffled and thwarted by the wind’s resistance.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is Lucifer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The son of mystery;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And since God suffers him to be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He, too, is God’s minister,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And labours for some good</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By us not understood!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">MARTIN LUTHER.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><i>A Chamber in the Wartburg.&emsp;Morning.</i><br>
+ <span class="smcap">Martin Luther</span> <i>writing</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Martin Luther.</i> Our God a tower of strength is he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A goodly wall and weapon;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From all our need he helps us free,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That now to us doth happen.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">The old evil foe</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Doth in earnest grow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">In grim armour dight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Much guile and great might;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On earth there is none like him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O yes; a tower of strength indeed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A present help in all our need,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A sword and buckler is our God.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Innocent men have walked unshod</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er burning ploughshares, and have trod</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unharmed on serpents in their path,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And laughed to scorn the Devil’s wrath!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Safe in this Wartburg tower I stand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where God hath led me by the hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And look down, with a heart at ease,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over the pleasant neighbourhoods,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over the vast Thuringian Woods,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With flash of river, and gloom of trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With castles crowning the dizzy heights,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And farms and pastoral delights,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the morning pouring everywhere</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its golden glory on the air.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Safe, yes, safe am I here at last,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Safe from the overwhelming blast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the mouths of Hell, that followed me fast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the howling demons of despair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That hunted me like a beast to his lair.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of our own might we nothing can;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">We soon are unprotected;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">There fighteth for us the right Man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Whom God himself elected.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Who is he? ye exclaim;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Christus is his name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Lord of Sabaoth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Very God in troth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The field he holds for ever.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nothing can vex the Devil more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than the name of him whom we adore.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Therefore doth it delight me best</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To stand in the choir among the rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the great organ trumpeting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through its metallic tubes, and sing:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Et Verbum caro factum est</i>!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">These words the Devil cannot endure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For he knoweth their meaning well!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Him they trouble and repel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Us they comfort and allure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And happy it were, if our delight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were as great as his affright!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yea, music is the Prophet’s art;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Among the gifts that God hath sent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One of the most magnificent!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It calms the agitated heart;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Temptations, evil thoughts, and all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The passions that disturb the soul,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are quelled by its divine control,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the Evil Spirit fled from Saul,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And his distemper was allayed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When David took his harp and played.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">This world may full of Devils be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All ready to devour us;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Yet not so sore afraid are we,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They shall not overpower us.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">This World’s Prince, howe’er</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Fierce he may appear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">He can harm us not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">He is doomed, God wot!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">One little word can slay him!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Incredible it seems to some,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And to myself a mystery,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That such weak flesh and blood as we,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Armed with no other shield or sword,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or other weapon than the Word,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Should combat and should overcome</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A spirit powerful as he!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He summons forth the Pope of Rome</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With all his diabolic crew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His shorn and shaven retinue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of priests and children of the dark;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Kill! kill! they cry, the Heresiarch,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who rouseth up all Christendom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Against us; and at one fell blow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seeks the whole Church to overthrow!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not yet; my hour is not yet come.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yesterday in an idle mood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hunting with others in the wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I did not pass the hours in vain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For in the very heart of all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The joyous tumult raised around,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shouting of men, and baying of hound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the bugle’s blithe and cheery call,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And echoes answering back again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From crags of the distant mountain chain,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the very heart of this, I found</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A mystery of grief and pain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was an image of the power</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Satan, hunting the world about,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With his nets and traps and well-trained dogs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His bishops and priests and theologues,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all the rest of the rabble rout,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seeking whom he may devour!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Enough have I had of hunting hares,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Enough of these hours of idle mirth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Enough of nets and traps and gins!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The only hunting of any worth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is where I can pierce with javelins</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The cunning foxes and wolves and bears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The whole iniquitous troop of beasts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Roman Pope and the Roman priests</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That sorely infest and afflict the earth!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye nuns, ye singing birds of the air!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fowler hath caught you in his snare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And keeps you safe in his gilded cage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Singing the song that never tires,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To lure down others from their nests;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How ye flutter and beat your breasts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Warm and soft with young desires,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Against the cruel pitiless wires,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Reclaiming your lost heritage!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Behold! a hand unbars the door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye shall be captives held no more.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Word they shall perforce let stand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And little thanks they merit!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For he is with us in the land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With gifts of his own Spirit!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Though they take our life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Goods, honours, child, and wife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Let these pass away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Little gain have they;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Kingdom still remaineth!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yea, it remaineth for evermore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">However Satan may rage and roar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though often he whispers in my ears:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What if thy doctrines false should be?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And wrings from me a bitter sweat.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then I put him to flight with jeers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saying: Saint Satan! pray for me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If thou thinkest I am not saved yet!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And my mortal foes that lie in wait</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In every avenue and gate!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As to that odious monk John Tetzel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hawking about his hollow wares</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a huckster at village fairs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And those mischievous fellows, Wetzel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Campanus, Carlstadt, Martin Cellarius,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all the busy multifarious</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Heretics, and disciples of Arius,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Half-learned, dunce-bold, dry and hard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They are not worthy of my regard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Poor and humble as I am.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But ah! Erasmus of Rotterdam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He is the vilest miscreant</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That ever walked this world below!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A Momus, making his mock and mow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At Papist and at Protestant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sneering at St. John and St. Paul,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At God and Man, at one and all;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And yet as hollow and false and drear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a cracked pitcher to the ear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And ever growing worse and worse!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whenever I pray, I pray for a curse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On Erasmus, the Insincere!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Philip Melancthon! thou alone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Faithful among the faithless known,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thee I hail, and only thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Behold the record of us three!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Res et verba Philippus,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Res sine verbis Lutherus;</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Erasmus verba sine re</i>!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My Philip, prayest thou for me?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lifted above all earthly care,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From these high regions of the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Among the birds that day and night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon the branches of tall trees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sing their lauds and litanies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Praising God with all their might,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My Philip, unto thee I write.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">My Philip! thou who knowest best</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All that is passing in this breast;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The spiritual agonies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The inward deaths, the inward hell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the divine new births as well,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That surely follow after these,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As after winter follows spring;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My Philip, in the night-time sing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This song of the Lord I send to thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I will sing it for thy sake,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Until our answering voices make</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A glorious antiphony,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And choral chant of victory!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+ <h2 class="nobreak" id="ST_JOHN">ST. JOHN.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f90"><span class="smcap">Saint John</span> <i>wandering over the face of the Earth</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>St. John.</i> The Ages come and go,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Centuries pass as Years;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My hair is white as the snow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My feet are weary and slow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The earth is wet with my tears!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The kingdoms crumble, and fall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Apart, like a ruined wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or a bank that is undermined</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By a river’s ceaseless flow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And leave no trace behind!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The world itself is old;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The portals of Time unfold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On hinges of iron, that grate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And groan with the rust and the weight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the hinges of a gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That hath fallen to decay;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the evil doth not cease;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is war instead of peace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Instead of love there is hate;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And still I must wander and wait,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still I must watch and pray,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not forgetting in whose sight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A thousand years in their flight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are as a single day.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The life of man is a gleam</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of light, that comes and goes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the course of the Holy Stream,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The cityless river, that flows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From fountains no one knows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the Lake of Galilee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through forests and level lands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over rocks, and shallows, and sands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of a wilderness wild and vast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till it findeth its rest at last</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the desolate Dead Sea!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But alas! alas for me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not yet this rest shall be!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What, then! doth Charity fail?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is Faith of no avail?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is Hope blown out like a light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By a gust of wind in the night?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The clashing of creeds, and the strife</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the many beliefs, that in vain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Perplex man’s heart and brain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are nought but the rustle of leaves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When the breath of God upheaves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The boughs of the Tree of Life,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And they subside again!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I remember still</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The words, and from whom they came,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not he that repeateth the name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But he that doeth the will!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And him evermore I behold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Walking in Galilee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the corn-fields waving gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In hamlet, in wood, and in wold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the shores of the Beautiful Sea.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He toucheth the sightless eyes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Before him the demons flee;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the dead he sayeth: Arise!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the living: Follow me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And that voice still soundeth on</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the centuries that are gone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the centuries that shall be!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From all vain pomps and shows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the pride that overflows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the false conceits of men;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From all the narrow rules</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And subtleties of Schools,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the craft of tongue and pen;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bewildered in its search,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bewildered with the cry:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lo, here! lo, there, the Church!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Poor, sad Humanity</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through all the dust and heat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Turns back with bleeding feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the weary road it came,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unto the simple thought</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the Great Master taught,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And that remaineth still:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not he that repeateth the name</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But he that doeth the will!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illo_11.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="154" >
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><i>The Song of Hiawatha</i></h2>
+
+<p class="center">1855.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p class="center spa2">INTRODUCTION.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Should you ask me, whence these stories?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whence these legends and traditions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the odours of the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the dew and damp of meadows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the curling smoke of wigwams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the rushing of great rivers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With their frequent repetitions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And their wild reverberations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As of thunder in the mountains?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I should answer, I should tell you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“From the forest and the prairies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the great lakes of the Northland,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the land of the Ojibways,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the land of the Dacotahs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the mountains, moors, and fenlands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Feeds among the reeds and rushes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I repeat them as I heard them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the lips of Nawadaha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The musician, the sweet singer.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Should you ask where Nawadaha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Found these songs, so wild and wayward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Found these legends and traditions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I should answer, I should tell you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“In the birds’-nests of the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the lodges of the beaver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the hoof-prints of the bison,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the eyrie of the eagle!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“All the wild-fowl sang them to him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the moorlands and the fenlands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the melancholy marshes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Chetowaik,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_40_40" href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a>
+ the plover, sang them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mahng, the loon, the wild goose, Wawa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The blue heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the grouse, the Mushkodasa!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">If still further you should ask me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saying, “Who was Nawadaha?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tell us of this Nawadaha,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I should answer your inquiries</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Straightway in such words as follow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“In the vale of Tawasentha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the green and silent valley,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the pleasant water-courses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dwelt the singer Nawadaha.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Round about the Indian village</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spread the meadows and the corn-fields,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And beyond them stood the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stood the groves of singing pine-trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Green in Summer, white in Winter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ever sighing, ever singing.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“And the pleasant water-courses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You could trace them through the valley,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the rushing in the Spring-time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the alders in the Summer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the white fog in the Autumn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the black line in the Winter;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And beside them dwelt the singer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the vale of Tawasentha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the green and silent valley.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“There he sang of Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sang the song of Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sang his wondrous birth and being,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How he prayed and how he fasted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How he lived, and toiled, and suffered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That the tribes of men might prosper,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That he might advance his people!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Ye who love the haunts of Nature,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Love the sunshine of the meadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Love the shadow of the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Love the wind among the branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the rain-shower and the snow-storm,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the rushing of great rivers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through their palisades of pine-trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the thunder in the mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose innumerable echoes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Flap like eagles in their eyries;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Listen to these wild traditions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To this Song of Hiawatha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Ye who love a nation’s legends,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Love the ballads of a people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That like voices from afar off</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Call to us to pause and listen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Speak in tones so plain and childlike,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Scarcely can the ear distinguish</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whether they are sung or spoken;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Listen to this Indian legend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To this Song of Hiawatha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who have faith in God and Nature,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who believe, that in all ages</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Every human heart is human,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That in even savage bosoms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There are longings, yearnings, strivings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For the good they comprehend not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That the feeble hands and helpless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Groping blindly in the darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Touch God’s right hand in that darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And are lifted up and strengthened:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Listen to this simple story,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To this Song of Hiawatha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Ye, who sometimes, in your rambles</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the green lanes of the country,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the tangled barberry-bushes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hang their tufts of crimson berries</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over stone walls grey with mosses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pause by some neglected graveyard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For a while to muse, and ponder</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On a half-effaced inscription,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Written with little skill of song-craft.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Homely phrases, but each letter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Full of hope and yet of heart-break,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Full of all the tender pathos</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the Here and the Hereafter;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stay and read this rude inscription!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Read this Song of Hiawatha!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">I.</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE PEACE-PIPE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the Mountains of the Prairie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gitche Manito, the mighty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He the Master of Life descending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the red crags of the quarry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stood erect, and called the nations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Called the tribes of men together.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From his footprints flowed a river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Leaped into the light of morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er the precipice plunging downward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Spirit, stooping earthward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With his finger on the meadow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Traced a winding pathway for it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saying to it, “Run in this way!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From the red stone of the quarry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With his hand he broke a fragment,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Moulded it into a pipe-head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shaped and fashioned it with figures;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the margin of the river</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Took a long reed for a pipe-stem,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With its dark-green leaves upon it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Filled the pipe with bark of willow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the bark of the red willow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Breathed upon the neighbouring forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Made its great boughs chafe together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till in flame they burst and kindled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And erect upon the mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gitche Manito, the mighty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Smoked the calumet, the Peace-Pipe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a signal to the nations.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the smoke rose slowly, slowly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the tranquil air of morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">First a single line of darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then a denser, bluer vapour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then a snow-white cloud unfolding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the tree-tops of the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ever rising, rising, rising,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till it touched the top of heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till it broke against the heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And rolled outward all around it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From the Vale of Tawasentha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the Valley of Wyoming,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the groves of Tuscaloosa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the far-off Rocky Mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the Northern lakes and rivers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the tribes beheld the signal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saw the distant smoke ascending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Pukwana of the Peace-Pipe.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the Prophets of the nations</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Said: “Behold it, the Pukwana!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By this signal from afar off,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bending like a wand of willow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Waving like a hand that beckons,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gitche Manito, the mighty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Calls the tribes of men together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Calls the warriors to his council!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Down the rivers, o’er the prairies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Came the warriors of the nations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Came the Delawares and Mohawks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Came the Choctaws and Camanches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Came the Shoshonies and Blackfeet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Came the Pawnees and Omahas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Came the Mandans and Dacotahs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Came the Hurons and Ojibways,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the warriors drawn together</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the signal of the Peace-Pipe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the Mountains of the Prairie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And they stood there on the meadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With their weapons and their war-gear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Painted like the leaves of Autumn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Painted like the sky of morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wildly glaring at each other;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In their faces stern defiance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In their hearts the feuds of ages,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hereditary hatred,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The ancestral thirst of vengeance.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Gitche Marnito, the mighty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Creator of the nations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Looked upon them with compassion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With paternal love and pity;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Looked upon their wrath and wrangling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But as quarrels among children,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But as feuds and fights of children!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Over them he stretched his right hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To subdue their stubborn natures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To allay their thirst and fever,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the shadow of his right hand;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spake to them with voice majestic</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the sound of far-off waters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Falling into deep abysses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Warning, chiding, spake in this wise: —</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“O my children; my poor children!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Listen to the words of wisdom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Listen to the words of warning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the lips of the Great Spirit,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the Master of Life, who made you!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“I have given you lands to hunt in,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have given you streams to fish in,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have given you bear and bison,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have given you roe and reindeer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have given you brant and beaver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Filled the marshes full of wild-fowl,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Filled the rivers full of fishes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why then are you not contented?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why then will you hunt each other?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“I am weary of your quarrels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Weary of your wars and bloodshed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Weary of your prayers for vengeance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of your wranglings and dissensions;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All your strength is in your union,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All your danger is in discord;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Therefore be at peace henceforward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And as brothers live together.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“I will send a Prophet to you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A Deliverer of the nations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who shall guide you and shall teach you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who shall toil and suffer with you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If you listen to his counsels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You will multiply and prosper;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If his warnings pass unheeded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You will fade away and perish!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“Bathe now in the stream before you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wash the war-paint from your faces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wash the blood-stains from your fingers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bury your war-clubs and your weapons,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Break the red stone from this quarry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mould and make it into Peace-Pipes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Take the reeds that grow beside you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Deck them with your brightest feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Smoke the calumet together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And as brothers live henceforward!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then upon the ground the warriors</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Threw their cloaks and shirts of deer-skin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Threw their weapons and their war-gear,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Leaped into the rushing river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Washed the war-paint from their faces.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Clear above them flowed the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Clear and limpid from the footprints</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the Master of Life descending;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dark below them flowed the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Soiled and stained with streaks of crimson,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if blood were mingled with it!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From the river came the warriors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Cleaned and washed from all their war-paint;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the banks their clubs they buried,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Buried all their warlike weapons.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gitche Manito, the mighty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Great Spirit, the Creator,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Smiled upon his helpless children!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And in silence all the warriors</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Broke the red stone of the quarry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Smoothed and formed it into Peace-Pipes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Broke the long reeds by the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Decked them with their brightest feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And departed each one homeward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While the Master of Life, ascending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the opening of cloud-curtains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the doorways of the heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Vanished from before their faces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the smoke that rolled around him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Pukwana of the Peace-Pipe!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">II.</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE FOUR WINDS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Honour be to Mudjekeewis!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cried the warriors, cried the old men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he came in triumph homeward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the sacred Belt of Wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the regions of the North-Wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the kingdom of Wabasso,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the land of the White Rabbit.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He had stolen the Belt of Wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the neck of Mishe-Mokwa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the Great Bear of the mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the terror of the nations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he lay asleep and cumbrous</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the summit of the mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a rock with mosses on it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spotted brown and grey with mosses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Silently he stole upon him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the red nails of the monster</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Almost touched him, almost scared him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the hot breath of his nostrils</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Warmed the hands of Mudjekeewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he drew the Belt of Wampum</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over the round ears, that heard not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over the small eyes, that saw not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over the long nose and nostrils,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The black muffle of the nostrils,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Out of which the heavy breathing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Warmed the hands of Mudjekeewis.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then he swung aloft his war-club,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shouted loud and long his war-cry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smote the mighty Mishe-Mokwa</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the middle of the forehead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Right between the eyes he smote him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With the heavy blow bewildered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose the Great Bear of the mountains;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But his knees beneath him trembled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he whimpered like a woman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he reeled and staggered forward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he sat upon his haunches;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the mighty Mudjekeewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Standing fearlessly before him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Taunted him in loud derision,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spake disdainfully in this wise:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Hark you, Bear! you are a coward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And no Brave, as you pretended;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Else you would not cry and whimper</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a miserable woman!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bear! you know our tribes are hostile,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Long have been at war together;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now you find that we are strongest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You go sneaking in the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You go hiding in the mountains!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had you conquered me in battle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not a groan would I have uttered;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But you, Bear! sit here and whimper,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And disgrace your tribe by crying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a wretched Shaugodaya,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a cowardly old woman!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then again he raised his war-club,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smote again the Mishe-Mokwa</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the middle of his forehead,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broke his skull, as ice is broken</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When one goes to fish in Winter.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus was slain the Mishe-Mokwa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the Great Bear of the mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the terror of the nations.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Honour be to Mudjekeewis!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a shout exclaimed the people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Honour be to Mudjekeewis!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Henceforth he shall be the West-Wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And hereafter and for ever</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shall he hold supreme dominion</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over all the winds of heaven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Call him no more Mudjekeewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Call him Kabeyun, the West-Wind!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus was Mudjekeewis chosen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Father of the Winds of Heaven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For himself he kept the West-Wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave the others to his children;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unto Wabun gave the East-Wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave the South to Shawondasee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the North-Wind, wild and cruel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the fierce Kabibonokka.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Young and beautiful was Wabun;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He it was who brought the morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He it was whose silver arrows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Chased the dark o’er hill and valley;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He it was whose cheeks were painted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the brightest streaks of crimson,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And whose voice awoke the village,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Called the deer and called the hunter.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Lonely in the sky was Wabun;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though the birds sang gaily to him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though the wild-flowers of the meadow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled the air with odours for him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though the forests and the rivers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang and shouted at his coming,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still his heart was sad within him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For he was alone in heaven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But one morning gazing earthward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While the village still was sleeping,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the fog lay on the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a ghost, that goes at sunrise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He beheld a maiden walking</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All alone upon a meadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gathering water-flags and rushes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By a river in the meadow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Every morning, gazing earthward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still the first thing he beheld there</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was her blue eyes looking at him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Two blue lakes among the rushes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he loved the lonely maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who thus waited for his coming;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For they both were solitary,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She on earth and he in heaven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And he wooed her with caresses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wooed her with his smile of sunshine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his flattering words he wooed her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his sighing and his singing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gentlest whispers in the branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Softest music, sweetest odours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till he drew her to his bosom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Folded in his robes of crimson,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till into a star he changed her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Trembling still upon his bosom;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And for ever in the heavens</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They are seen together walking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wabun and the Wabun-Annung,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wabun and the Star of Morning.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But the fierce Kabibonokka</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had his dwelling among icebergs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the everlasting snow-drifts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the kingdom of Wabasso,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the land of the White Rabbit.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He it was whose hand in Autumn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Painted all the trees with scarlet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stained the leaves with red and yellow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He it was who sent the snow-flakes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sifting, hissing through the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Froze the ponds, the lakes, the rivers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drove the loon and sea-gull southward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drove the cormorant and curlew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To their nests of sedge and sea-tang</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the realms of Shawondasee.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Once the fierce Kabibonokka</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Issued from his lodge of snow-drifts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his home among the icebergs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And his hair, with snow besprinkled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Streamed behind him like a river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a black and wintry river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he howled and hurried southward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over frozen lakes and moorlands.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">There among the reeds and rushes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Found he Shingebis, the diver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Trailing strings of fish behind him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er the frozen fens and moorlands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lingering still among the moorlands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though his tribe had long departed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the land of Shawondasee.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Cried the fierce Kabibonokka,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Who is this that dares to brave me?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dares to stay in my dominions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the Wawa has departed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the wild-goose has gone southward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Long ago departed southward?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I will go into his wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I will put his smouldering fire out!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And at night Kabibonokka</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the lodge came wild and wailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heaped the snow in drifts about it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shouted down into the smoke-flue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shook the lodge poles in his fury,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flapped the curtain of the doorway.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shingebis, the diver, feared not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shingebis, the diver, cared not;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Four great logs had he for fire-wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">One for each moon of the winter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And for food the fishes served him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By his blazing fire he sat there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Warm and merry, eating, laughing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Singing, “O Kabibonokka,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You are but my fellow-mortal!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then Kabibonokka entered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And though Shingebis, the diver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Felt his presence by the coldness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Felt his icy breath upon him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still he did not cease his singing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still he did not leave his laughing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only turned the log a little,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only made the fire burn brighter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made the sparks fly up the smoke-flue.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From Kabibonokka’s forehead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his snow-besprinkled tresses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drops of sweat fell fast and heavy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Making dints upon the ashes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As along the eaves of lodges,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As from drooping boughs of hemlock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drips the melting snow in springtime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Making hollows in the snow-drifts.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Till at last he rose defeated,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Could not bear the heat and laughter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Could not bear the merry singing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But rushed headlong through the doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stamped upon the crusted snow-drifts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stamped upon the lakes and rivers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made the snow upon them harder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made the ice upon them thicker,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Challenged Shingebis, the diver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To come forth and wrestle with him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To come forth and wrestle naked</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the frozen fens and moorlands.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Forth went Shingebis, the diver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wrestled all night with the North-Wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wrestled naked on the moorlands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the fierce Kabibonokka,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till his panting breath grew fainter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till his frozen grasp grew feebler,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till he reeled and staggered backward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And retreated, baffled, beaten,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the kingdom of Wabasso,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the land of the White Rabbit,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hearing still the gusty laughter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hearing Shingebis, the diver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Singing, “O Kabibonokka,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You are but my fellow-mortal!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Shawondasee, fat and lazy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had his dwelling far to southward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the drowsy, dreamy sunshine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the never-ending Summer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He it was who sent the wood-birds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sent the robin, the Opechee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sent the blue-bird, the Owaissa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sent the Shaw-shaw, sent the swallow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sent the wild-goose, Wawa, northward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sent the melons and tobacco,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the grapes in purple clusters.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From his pipe the smoke ascending</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled the sky with haze and vapour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled the air with dreamy softness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave a twinkle to the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Touched the rugged hills with smoothness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brought the tender Indian Summer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the melancholy Northland,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the dreary Moon of Snow-shoes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Listless, careless Shawondasee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his life he had one shadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his heart one sorrow had he.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Once, as he was gazing northward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far away upon a prairie</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He beheld a maiden standing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw a tall and slender maiden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All alone upon a prairie;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brightest green were all her garments,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And her hair was like the sunshine.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Day by day he gazed upon her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Day by day he sighed with passion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Day by day his heart within him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grew more hot with love and longing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the maid with yellow tresses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But he was too fat and lazy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To bestir himself and woo her;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yes, too indolent and easy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To pursue her and persuade her.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So he only gazed upon her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only sat and sighed with passion</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the maiden of the prairie.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Till one morning, looking northward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He beheld her yellow tresses</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Changed and covered o’er with whiteness;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Covered as with whitest snow-flakes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Ah! my brother from the Northland,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the kingdom of Wabasso,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the land of the White Rabbit!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You have stolen the maiden from me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You have laid your hand upon her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You have wooed and won my maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With your stories of the Northland!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus the wretched Shawondasee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Breathed into the air his sorrow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the South-Wind o’er the prairie</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wandered warm with sighs of passion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the sighs of Shawondasee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the air seemed full of snow-flakes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Full of thistle-down the prairie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the maid with hair like sunshine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vanished from his sight for ever;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never more did Shawondasee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">See the maid with yellow tresses!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Poor, deluded Shawondasee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Twas no woman that you gazed at,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Twas no maiden that you sighed for,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Twas the prairie dandelion</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That through all the dreamy Summer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You had gazed at with such longing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You had sighed for with such passion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And had puffed away for ever,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blown into the air with sighing.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah! deluded Shawondasee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus the Four Winds were divided,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus the sons of Mudjekeewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had their stations in the heavens;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the corners of the heavens;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For himself the West-Wind only</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kept the mighty Mudjekeewis.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">III.</p>
+<p class="center">HIAWATHA’S CHILDHOOD.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Downward through the evening twilight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the days that are forgotten,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the unremembered ages,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the full moon fell Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell the beautiful Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She a wife, but not a mother.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">She was sporting with her women,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swinging in a swing of grape-vines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When her rival, the rejected,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Full of jealousy and hatred,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cut the leafy swing asunder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cut in twain the twisted grape-vines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Nokomis fell affrighted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Downward through the evening twilight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the Muskoday, the meadow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the prairie full of blossoms.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“See! a star falls!” said the people;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“From the sky a star is falling!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">There among the ferns and mosses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There among the prairie lilies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the Muskoday, the meadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the moonlight and the star-light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fair Nokomis bore a daughter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And she called her name Wenonah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the first-born of her daughters.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the daughter of Nokomis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grew up like the prairie lilies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grew a tall and slender maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the beauty of the moonlight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the beauty of the star-light.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And Nokomis warned her often,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saying oft, and oft repeating,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O, beware of Mudjekeewis;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the West-Wind, Mudjekeewis;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listen not to what he tells you;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lie not down upon the meadow,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stoop not down among the lilies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lest the West-Wind come and harm you!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But she heeded not the warning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heeded not those words of wisdom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the West-Wind came at evening,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Walking lightly o’er the prairie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whispering to the leaves and blossoms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bending low the flowers and grasses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Found the beautiful Wenonah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lying there among the lilies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wooed her with his words of sweetness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wooed her with his soft caresses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till she bore a son in sorrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bore a son of love and sorrow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus was born my Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus was born the child of wonder;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the daughter of Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiawatha’s gentle mother,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In her anguish died deserted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the West-Wind, false and faithless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the heartless Mudjekeewis.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">For her daughter, long and loudly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wailed and wept the sad Nokomis;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O that I were dead,” she murmured,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O that I were dead, as thou art!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No more work, and no more weeping,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wahonowin! Wahonowin!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">By the shores of Gitche Gumee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the shining Big-Sea-Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dark behind it rose the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose the firs with cones upon them;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bright before it beat the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus the wrinkled, old Nokomis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nursed the little Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rocked him in his linden cradle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bedded soft in moss and rushes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Safely bound with reindeer sinews;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stilled his fretful wail by saying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Hush! the naked bear will get thee!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lulled him into slumber, singing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ewa-yea! my little owlet!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who is this, that lights the wigwam?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his great eyes lights the wigwam?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ewa-yea! my little owlet!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Many things Nokomis taught him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the stars that shine in heaven;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Showed him Ishkoodah, the comet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ishkoodah, with fiery tresses;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Showed the Death-Dance of the spirits,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Warriors with their plumes and war-clubs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flaring far away to northward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the frosty nights of Winter;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Showed the broad, white road in heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pathway of the ghosts, the shadows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Running straight across the heavens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crowded with the ghosts, the shadows.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">At the door on Summer evenings</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat the little Hiawatha;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the whispering of the pine-trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the lapping of the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sounds of music, words of wonder;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Minne-wawa!” said the pine-trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Mudway-aushka!” said the water.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Saw the fire-fly, Wah-wah-taysee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flitting through the dusk of evening,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the twinkle of its candle</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lighting up the brakes and bushes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he sang the song of children,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang the song Nokomis taught him:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Wah-wah-taysee, little fire-fly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Little, flitting, white-fire insect,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Little, dancing, white-fire creature,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Light me with your little candle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ere upon my bed I lay me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ere in sleep I close my eyelids!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Saw the moon rise from the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rippling, rounding, from the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the flecks and shadows on it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whispered, “What is that, Nokomis?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the good Nokomis answered:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Once a warrior, very angry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seized his grandmother, and threw her</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Up into the sky at midnight;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Right against the moon he threw her;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Tis her body that you see there.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Saw the rainbow in the heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the eastern sky the rainbow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whispered, “What is that, Nokomis?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the good Nokomis answered:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“’Tis the heaven of flowers you see there;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the wild-flowers of the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the lilies of the prairie,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When on earth they fade and perish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blossom in that heaven above us.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">When he heard the owls at midnight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hooting, laughing in the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“What is that?” he cried in terror,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“What is that?” he said, “Nokomis?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the good Nokomis answered:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“That is but the owl and owlet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Talking in their native language,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Talking, scolding at each other.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then the little Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Learned of every bird its language,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Learned their names and all their secrets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How they built their nests in Summer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where they hid themselves in Winter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Talked with them whene’er he met them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Called them “Hiawatha’s Chickens.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of all the beasts he learned the language,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Learned their names and all their secrets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How the beavers built their lodges,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the squirrels hid their acorns,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How the reindeer ran so swiftly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Why the rabbit was so timid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Talked with them whene’er he met them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Called them “Hiawatha’s Brothers.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then Iagoo, the great boaster,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the marvellous story-teller,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the traveller and the talker,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the friend of old Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made a bow for Hiawatha;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From a branch of ash he made it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From an oak-bough made the arrows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tipped with flint, and winged with feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the cord he made of deer-skin.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then he said to Hiawatha—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Go, my son, into the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the red deer herd together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kill for us a famous roebuck,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kill for us a deer with antlers!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Forth into the forest straightway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All alone walked Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Proudly, with his bow and arrows;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the birds sang round him, o’er him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Do not shoot us, Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang the robin, the Opechee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang the blue-bird, the Owaissa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Do not shoot us, Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Up the oak-tree, close beside him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sprang the squirrel, Adjidaumo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In and out among the branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Coughed and chattered from the oak-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laughed, and said between his laughing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Do not shoot me, Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the rabbit from his pathway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leaped aside, and at a distance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat erect upon his haunches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Half in fear and half in frolic,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saying to the little hunter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Do not shoot me, Hiawatha!’”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But he heeded not, nor heard them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For his thoughts were with the red-deer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On their tracks his eyes were fastened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leading downward to the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the ford across the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as one in slumber walked he.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Hidden in the alder-bushes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There he waited till the deer came,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till he saw two antlers lifted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw two eyes look from the thicket,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw two nostrils point to windward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And a deer came down the pathway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flecked with leafy light and shadow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And his heart within him fluttered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Trembled like the leaves above him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the birch-leaf palpitated,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the deer came down the pathway.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then, upon one knee uprising,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiawatha aimed an arrow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Scarce a twig moved with his motion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Scarce a leaf was stirred or rustled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the wary roebuck started,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stamped with all his hoofs together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listened with one foot uplifted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leaped as if to meet the arrow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah! the singing, fatal arrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a wasp it buzzed and stung him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Dead he lay there in the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the ford across the river;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beat his timid heart no longer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the heart of Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Throbbed and shouted and exulted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he bore the red deer homeward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Iagoo and Nokomis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hailed his coming with applauses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the red deer’s hide Nokomis</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made a cloak for Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the red deer’s flesh Nokomis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made a banquet in his honour.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the village came and feasted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the guests praised Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Called him Strong-Heart, Soan-getaha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Called him Loon-heart, Mahn-go-tay-see!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">IV.</p>
+<p class="center">HIAWATHA AND MUDJEKEEWIS</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Out of childhood into manhood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now had grown my Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Skilled in all the craft of hunters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Learned in all the lore of old men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In all youthful sports and pastimes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In all manly arts and labours.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Swift of foot was Hiawatha;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He could shoot an arrow from him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And run forward with such fleetness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the arrow fell behind him!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strong of arm was Hiawatha;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He could shoot ten arrows upward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shoot them with such strength and swiftness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the tenth had left the bow-string</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ere the first to earth had fallen!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He had mittens, Minjekahwun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Magic mittens made of deer-skin;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When upon his hands he wore them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He could smite the rocks asunder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He could grind them into powder.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He had moccasins enchanted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Magic moccasins of deer-skin;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he bound them round his ankles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When upon his feet he tied them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At each stride a mile he measured!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Much he questioned old Nokomis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of his father Mudjekeewis;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Learned from her the fatal secret</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the beauty of his mother,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the falsehood of his father;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And his heart was hot within him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a living coal his heart was.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then he said to old Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I will go to Mudjekeewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">See how fares it with my father,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the doorways of the West-Wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the portals of the Sunset!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From his lodge went Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dressed for travel, armed for hunting;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dressed in deer-skin shirt and leggings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Richly wrought with quills and wampum;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On his head his eagle-feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round his waist his belt of wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his hand his bow of ash-wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strung with sinews of the reindeer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his quiver oaken arrows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tipped with jasper, winged with feathers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his mittens, Minjekahwun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his moccasins enchanted.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Warning, said the old Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Go not forth, O Hiawatha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the kingdom of the West-Wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the realms of Mudjekeewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lest he harm you with his magic,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lest he kill you with his cunning!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But the fearless Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heeded not her woman’s warning;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forth he strode into the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At each stride a mile he measured;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lurid seemed the sky above him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lurid seemed the earth beneath him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hot and close the air around him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled with smoke and fiery vapours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As of burning woods and prairies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For his heart was hot within him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a living coal his heart was.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">So he journeyed westward, westward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Left the fleetest deer behind him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Left the antelope and bison;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crossed the rushing Esconaba,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crossed the mighty Mississippi,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Passed the Mountains of the Prairie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Passed the land of Crows and Foxes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Passed the dwellings of the Blackfeet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came unto the Rocky Mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the kingdom of the West-Wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where upon the gusty summits</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat the ancient Mudjekeewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ruler of the winds of heaven.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Filled with awe was Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the aspect of his father.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the air about him wildly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tossed and streamed his cloudy tresses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gleamed like drifting snow his tresses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Glared like Ishkoodah, the comet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the star with fiery tresses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Filled with joy was Mudjekeewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he looked on Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw his youth rise up before him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the face of Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the beauty of Wenonah</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the grave rise up before him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Welcome!” said he, “Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the kingdom of the West-Wind!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Long have I been waiting for you!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Youth is lovely, age is lonely;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Youth is fiery, age is frosty;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You bring back the days departed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You bring back my youth of passion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the beautiful Wenonah!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Many days they talked together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Questioned, listened, waited, answered;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Much the mighty Mudjekeewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Boasted of his ancient prowess,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of his perilous adventures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His indomitable courage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His invulnerable body.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Patiently sat Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listening to his father’s boasting;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a smile he sat and listened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Uttered neither threat nor menace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Neither word nor look betrayed him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But his heart was hot within him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a living coal his heart was.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then he said, “O Mudjekeewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is there nothing that can harm you?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nothing that you are afraid of?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the mighty Mudjekeewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grand and gracious in his boasting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Answered, saying, “There is nothing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nothing but the black rock yonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nothing but the fatal Wawbeek!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And he looked at Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a wise look and benignant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a countenance paternal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looked with pride upon the beauty</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of his tall and graceful figure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saying, “O my Hiawatha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is there anything can harm you?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Anything you are afraid of?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But the wary Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Paused awhile, as if uncertain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Held his peace, as if resolving,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And then answered, “There is nothing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nothing but the bulrush yonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nothing but the great Apukwa!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And as Mudjekeewis, rising,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stretched his hand to pluck the bulrush,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiawatha cried in terror,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cried in well-dissembled terror,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Kago! kago! do not touch it!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ah, kaween,” said Mudjekeewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“No, indeed, I will not touch it!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then they talked of other matters;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">First of Hiawatha’s brothers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">First of Wabun, of the East-Wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the South-Wind, Shawondasee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the North, Kabibonokka;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then of Hiawatha’s mother,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the beautiful Wenonah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of her birth upon the meadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of her death, as old Nokomis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had remembered and related.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And he cried, “O Mudjekeewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was you who killed Wenonah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Took her young life and her beauty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broke the Lily of the Prairie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Trampled it beneath your footsteps;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You confess it! you confess it!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the mighty Mudjekeewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tossed upon the wind his tresses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bowed his hoary head in anguish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a silent nod assented.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then up started Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with threatening look and gesture,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laid his hand upon the black rock.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the fatal Wawbeek laid it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his mittens, Minjekahwun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rent the jutting crag asunder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smote and crushed it into fragments,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hurled them madly at his father,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The remorseful Mudjekeewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For his heart was hot within him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a living coal his heart was.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But the ruler of the West-Wind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blew the fragments backward from him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the breathing of his nostrils,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the tempest of his anger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blew them back at his assailant;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seized the bulrush, the Apukwa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dragged it with its roots and fibres</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the margin of the meadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From its ooze, the giant bulrush;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Long and loud laughed Hiawatha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then began the deadly conflict,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hand to hand among the mountains;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his eyrie screamed the eagle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Keneu, the great war-eagle;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat upon the crags around them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wheeling flapped his wings above them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a tall tree in the tempest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bent and lashed the giant bulrush;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in masses huge and heavy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crashing fell the fatal Wawbeek;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the earth shook with the tumult</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And confusion of the battle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the air was full of shoutings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the thunder of the mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Starting, answered, “Baim-wawa!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Back retreated Mudjekeewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rushing westward o’er the mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stumbling westward down the mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Three whole days retreated fighting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still pursued by Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the doorways of the West-Wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the portals of the Sunset,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the earth’s remotest border,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where into the empty spaces</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sinks the sun, as a flamingo</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drops into her nest at nightfall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the melancholy marshes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Hold!” at length cried Mudjekeewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Hold, my son, my Hiawatha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Tis impossible to kill me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For you cannot kill the immortal.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I have put you to this trial,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But to know and prove your courage;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now receive the prize of valour!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Go back to your home and people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Live among them, toil among them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cleanse the earth from all that harms it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clear the fishing-grounds and rivers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slay all monsters and magicians,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the Wendigoes, the giants,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the serpents, the Kenabeeks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As I slew the Mishe-Mokwa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slew the Great Bear of the mountains.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“And at last when Death draws near you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the awful eyes of Pauguk</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Glare upon you in the darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I will share my kingdom with you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ruler shall you be thenceforward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the Northwest-Wind, Keewaydin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the home-wind, the Keewaydin.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus was fought that famous battle</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the dreadful days of Shah-shah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the days long since departed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the kingdom of the West-Wind.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still the hunter sees its traces</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Scattered far o’er hill and valley;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sees the giant bulrush growing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the ponds and water-courses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sees the masses of the Wawbeek</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lying still in every valley.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Homeward now went Hiawatha;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pleasant was the landscape round him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pleasant was the air above him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the bitterness of anger</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had departed wholly from him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his brain the thought of vengeance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his heart the burning fever.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Only once his pace he slackened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only once he paused or halted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Paused to purchase heads of arrows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the ancient Arrow-maker,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the land of the Dacotahs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the Falls of Minnehaha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flash and gleam among the oak-trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laugh and leap into the valley.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">There the ancient Arrow-maker</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made his arrow-heads of sandstone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Arrow-heads of chalcedony,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Arrow-heads of flint and jasper,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smoothed and sharpened at the edges,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hard and polished, keen and costly.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With him dwelt his dark-eyed daughter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wayward as the Minnehaha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With her moods of shade and sunshine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Eyes that smiled and frowned alternate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Feet as rapid as the river,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tresses flowing like the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as musical a laughter;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he named her from the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the waterfall he named her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Minnehaha, Laughing Water.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Was it then for heads of arrows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Arrow-heads of chalcedony,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Arrow-heads of flint and jasper,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That my Hiawatha halted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the land of the Dacotahs?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Was it not to see the maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">See the face of Laughing Water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Peeping from behind the curtain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hear the rustling of her garments</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From behind the waving curtain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As one sees the Minnehaha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gleaming, glancing through the branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As one hears the Laughing Water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From behind its screen of branches?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who shall say what thoughts and visions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fill the fiery brains of young men?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who shall say what dreams of beauty</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled the heart of Hiawatha?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All he told to old Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he reached the lodge at sunset,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was the meeting with his father,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was his fight with Mudjekeewis;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not a word he said of arrows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not a word of Laughing Water!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">V.</p>
+<p class="center">HIAWATHA’S FASTING.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">You shall hear how Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Prayed and fasted in the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not for greater skill in hunting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not for greater craft in fishing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not for triumphs in the battle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And renown among the warriors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But for profit of the people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For advantage of the nations.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">First he built a lodge for fasting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Built a wigwam in the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the shining Big-Sea-Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the blithe and pleasant Spring-time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the Moon of Leaves he built it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, with dreams and visions many,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seven whole days and nights he fasted.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the first day of his fasting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the leafy woods he wandered;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the deer start from the thicket,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the rabbit in his burrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the pheasant, Bena, drumming,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the squirrel, Adjidaumo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rattling in his hoard of acorns,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the pigeon, the Omeme,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Building nests among the pine-trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in flocks the wild goose, Wawa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flying to the fenlands northward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whirring, wailing far above him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Master of Life!” he cried, desponding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Must our lives depend on these things?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the next day of his fasting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the river’s brink he wandered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the Muskoday, the meadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the wild rice, Mahnomonee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the blueberry, Meenahga,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the strawberry, Odahmin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the gooseberry, Shahbomin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the grape-vine, the Bemahgut,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Trailing o’er the alder-branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filling all the air with fragrance!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Master of Life!” he cried, desponding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Must our lives depend on these things?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the third day of his fasting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the lake he sat and pondered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the still, transparent water;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the sturgeon, Nahma, leaping,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Scattering drops like beads of wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the yellow perch, the Sahwa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a sunbeam in the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the pike, the Maskenozha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the herring, Okahahwis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Shawgashee, the craw-fish!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Master of Life!” he cried, desponding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Must our lives depend on these things?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the fourth day of his fasting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his lodge he lay exhausted;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his couch of leaves and branches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gazing with half-open eyelids,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Full of shadowy dreams and visions,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the dizzy, swimming landscape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the gleaming of the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the splendour of the sunset.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And he saw a youth approaching,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dressed in garments green and yellow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Coming through the purple twilight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the splendour of the sunset;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plumes of green bent o’er his forehead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And his hair was soft and golden.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Standing at the open doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Long he looked at Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looked with pity and compassion</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On his wasted form and features,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, in accents like the sighing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the South-Wind in the tree-tops,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said he, “O my Hiawatha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All your prayers are heard in heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For you pray not like the others,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not for greater skill in hunting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not for greater craft in fishing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not for triumph in the battle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor renown among the warriors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But for profit of the people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For advantage of the nations.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“From the Master of Life descending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I, the friend of man, Mondamin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Come to warn you and instruct you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How by struggle and by labour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You shall gain what you have prayed for.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rise up from your bed of branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rise, O youth, and wrestle with me!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Faint with famine, Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Started from his bed of branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the twilight of his wigwam</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forth into the flush of sunset</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came, and wrestled with Mondamin;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At his touch he felt new courage</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Throbbing in his brain and bosom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Felt new life and hope and vigour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Run through every nerve and fibre.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">So they wrestled there together</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the glory of the sunset,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the more they strove and struggled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stronger still grew Hiawatha;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the darkness fell around them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From her nest among the pine-trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave a cry of lamentation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave a scream of pain and famine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“’Tis enough!” then said Mondamin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smiling upon Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“But to-morrow, when the sun sets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I will come again to try you.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he vanished, and was seen not;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whether sinking as the rain sinks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whether rising as the mists rise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiawatha saw not, knew not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only saw that he had vanished,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leaving him alone and fainting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the misty lake below him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the reeling stars above him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the morrow and the next day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the sun through heaven descending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a red and burning cinder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the hearth of the Great Spirit,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell into the western waters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came Mondamin for the trial,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the strife with Hiawatha;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came as silent as the dew comes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the empty air appearing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into empty air returning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Taking shape when earth it touches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But invisible to all men</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In its coming and its going.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thrice they wrestled there together</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the glory of the sunset,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the darkness fell around them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From her nest among the pine-trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Uttered her loud cry of famine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Mondamin paused to listen.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Tall and beautiful he stood there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his garments green and yellow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To and fro his plumes above him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waved and nodded with his breathing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the sweat of the encounter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood like drops of dew upon him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And he cried, “O Hiawatha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bravely have you wrestled with me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thrice have wrestled stoutly with me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Master of Life, who sees us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He will give to you the triumph!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then he smiled, and said, “To-morrow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is the last day of your conflict,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is the last day of your fasting.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You will conquer and o’ercome me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Make a bed for me to lie in,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the rain may fall upon me,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the sun may come and warm me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strip these garments, green and yellow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strip this nodding plumage from me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay me in the earth, and make it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soft and loose and light above me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Let no hand disturb my slumber,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let no weed or worm molest me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let not Kahgahgee, the raven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Come to haunt me and molest me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only come yourself to watch me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till I wake, and start, and quicken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till I leap into the sunshine.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And thus saying, he departed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Peacefully slept Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But he heard the Wawonaissa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the whippoorwill complaining,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Perched upon his lonely wigwam;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the rushing Sebowisha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the rivulet rippling near him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Talking to the darksome forest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the sighing of the branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As they lifted and subsided</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the passing of the night-wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard them, as one hears in slumber</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far-off murmurs, dreamy whispers:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Peacefully slept Hiawatha.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the morrow came Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the seventh day of his fasting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came with food for Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came imploring and bewailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lest his hunger should o’ercome him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lest his fasting should be fatal.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But he tasted not, and touched not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only said to her, “Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wait until the sun is setting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the darkness falls around us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crying from the desolate marshes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tells us that the day is ended.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Homeward weeping went Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sorrowing for her Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fearing lest his strength should fail him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lest his fasting should be fatal.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He meanwhile sat weary waiting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the coming of Mondamin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the shadows, pointing eastward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lengthened over field and forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the sun dropped from the heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Floating on the waters westward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a red leaf in the Autumn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Falls and floats upon the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Falls and sinks into his bosom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And behold! the young Mondamin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his soft and shining tresses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his garments green and yellow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his long and glossy plumage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood and beckoned at the doorway.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as one in slumber walking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pale and haggard, but undaunted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the wigwam Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came and wrestled with Mondamin.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Round about him spun the landscape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sky and forest reeled together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And his strong heart leaped within him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the sturgeon leaps and struggles</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In a net to break its meshes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a ring of fire around him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blazed and flared the red horizon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And a hundred suns seemed looking</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the combat of the wrestlers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Suddenly upon the greensward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All alone stood Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Panting with his wild exertion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Palpitating with the struggle;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And before him, breathless, lifeless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay the youth, with hair dishevelled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plumage torn, and garments tattered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dead he lay there in the sunset.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And victorious Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made the grave as he commanded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stripped the garments from Mondamin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stripped his tattered plumage from him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laid him in the earth, and made it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soft and loose and light above him;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the melancholy moorlands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave a cry of lamentation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave a cry of pain and anguish!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Homeward then went Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the lodge of old Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the seven days of his fasting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were accomplished and completed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the place was not forgotten</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where he wrestled with Mondamin;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor forgotten nor neglected</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was the grave where lay Mondamin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sleeping in the rain and sunshine,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where his scattered plumes and garments</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Faded in the rain and sunshine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Day by day did Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Go to wait and watch beside it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kept the dark mould soft above it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kept it clean from weeds and insects,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drove away, with scoffs and shoutings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kahgahgee, the king of ravens.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Till at length a small green feather</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the earth shot slowly upward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then another and another,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And before the Summer ended</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood the maize in all its beauty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With its shining robes about it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And its long, soft, yellow tresses;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in rapture Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cried aloud, “It is Mondamin!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yes, the friend of man, Mondamin!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then he called to old Nokomis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Iagoo, the great boaster,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Showed them where the maize was growing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Told them of his wondrous vision,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of his wrestling and his triumph,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of this new gift to the nations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Which should be their food for ever.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And still later, when the Autumn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Changed the long, green leaves to yellow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the soft and juicy kernels</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grew like wampum hard and yellow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then the ripened ears he gathered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stripped the withered husks from off them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he once had stripped the wrestler,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave the first Feast of Mondamin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And made known unto the people</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This new gift of the Great Spirit.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">VI.</p>
+<p class="center">HIAWATHA’S FRIENDS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Two good friends had Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Singled out from all the others,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bound to him in closest union,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And to whom he gave the right hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of his heart, in joy and sorrow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Chibiabos, the musician,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the very strong man, Kwasind.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Straight between them ran the pathway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never grew the grass upon it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Singing-birds, that utter falsehoods,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Story-tellers, mischief-makers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Found no eager ear to listen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Could not breed ill-will between them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For they kept each other’s counsel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spake with naked hearts together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pondering much, and much contriving</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How the tribes of men might prosper.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Most beloved by Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was the gentle Chibiabos,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the best of all musicians,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the sweetest of all singers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beautiful and childlike was he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brave as man is, soft as woman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pliant as a wand of willow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stately as a deer with antlers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">When he sang, the village listened;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the warriors gathered round him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the women came to hear him;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now he stirred their souls to passion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now he melted them to pity.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the hollow reeds he fashioned</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flutes so musical and mellow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the brook, the Sebowisha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ceased to murmur in the woodland,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the wood-birds ceased from singing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the squirrel, Adjidaumo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ceased his chatter in the oak-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the rabbit, the Wabasso,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat upright to look and listen.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Yes, the brook, the Sebowisha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pausing, said, “O Chibiabos,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Teach my waves to flow in music,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Softly as your words in singing!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Yes, the blue-bird, the Owaissa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Envious said, “O Chibiabos,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Teach me tones as wild and wayward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Teach me songs as full of frenzy!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Yes, the Opechee, the robin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Joyous said, “O Chibiabos,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Teach me tones as sweet and tender,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Teach me songs as full of gladness!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the whippoorwill, Wawonaissa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sobbing, said, “O Chibiabos,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Teach me tones as melancholy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Teach me songs as full of sadness!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All the many sounds of nature</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Borrowed sweetness from his singing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the hearts of men were softened</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the pathos of his music;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For he sang of peace and freedom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang of beauty, love, and longing;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang of death, and lifAe undying</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the Islands of the Blessed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the kingdom of Ponemah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the land of the Hereafter.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Very dear to Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was the gentle Chibiabos,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the best of all musicians,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the sweetest of all singers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For his gentleness he loved him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the magic of his singing.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Dear, too, unto Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was the very strong man, Kwasind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the strongest of all mortals,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the mightiest among many;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For his very strength he loved him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For his strength allied to goodness.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Idle in his youth was Kwasind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Very listless, dull, and dreamy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never played with other children,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never fished and never hunted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not like other children was he;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But they saw that much he fasted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Much his Manito entreated,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Much besought his Guardian Spirit.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Lazy Kwasind!” said his mother,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“In my work you never help me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the Summer you are roaming</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Idly in the fields and forests;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the Winter you are cowering</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er the firebrands in the wigwam;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the coldest days of Winter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I must break the ice for fishing;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With my nets you never help me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the door my nets are hanging,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dripping, freezing with the water;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Go and wring them, Yenadizze!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Go and dry them in the sunshine!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Slowly, from the ashes, Kwasind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose, but made no angry answer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the lodge went forth in silence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Took the nets that hung together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dripping, freezing at the doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a wisp of straw he wrung them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a wisp of straw he broke them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Could not wring them without breaking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such the strength was in his fingers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Lazy Kwasind!” said his father,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“In the hunt you never help me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Every bow you touch is broken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Snapped asunder every arrow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yet come with me to the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You shall bring the hunting homeward.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Down a narrow pass they wandered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where a brooklet led them onward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the trail of deer and bison</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Marked the soft mud on the margin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till they found all further passage</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shut against them, barred securely</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the trunks of trees uprooted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lying lengthwise, lying crosswise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And forbidding further passage.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“We must go back,” said the old man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“O’er these logs we cannot clamber;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not a woodchuck could get through them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not a squirrel clamber o’er them!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And straightway his pipe he lighted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And sat down to smoke and ponder.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But before his pipe was finished,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lo! the path was cleared before him;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the trunks had Kwasind lifted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the right hand, to the left hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shot the pine-trees swift as arrows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hurled the cedars light as lances.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Lazy Kwasind!” said the young men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As they sported in the meadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Why stand idly looking at us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leaning on the rock behind you?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Come and wrestle with the others,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let us pitch the quoit together!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Lazy Kwasind made no answer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the challenge made no answer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only rose, and, slowly turning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seized the huge rock in his fingers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tore it from its deep foundation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Poised it in the air a moment,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pitched it sheer into the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sheer into the swift Pauwating,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where it still is seen in Summer.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Once as down that foaming river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down the rapids of Pauwating,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kwasind sailed with his companions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the stream he saw a beaver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw Ahmeek, the King of Beavers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Struggling with the rushing currents,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rising, sinking in the water.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Without speaking, without pausing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kwasind leaped into the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plunged beneath the bubbling surface,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the whirlpools chased the beaver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Followed him among the islands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stayed so long beneath the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That his terrified companions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cried, “Alas! good-bye to Kwasind!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We shall never more see Kwasind!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But he reappeared triumphant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And upon his shining shoulders</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brought the beaver, dead and dripping,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brought the King of all the Beavers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And these two, as I have told you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were the friends of Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Chibiabos, the musician,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the very strong man, Kwasind.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Long they lived in peace together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spake with naked hearts together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pondering much and much contriving</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How the tribes of men might prosper.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">VII.</p>
+<p class="center">HIAWATHA’S SAILING.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Give me of your bark, O Birch-Tree!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of your yellow bark, O Birch-Tree</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Growing by the rushing river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tall and stately in the valley!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I a light canoe will build me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That shall float upon the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a yellow water-lily!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Lay aside your cloak, O Birch-Tree!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay aside your white-skin wrapper,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the Summer-time is coming,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the sun is warm in heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And you need no white-skin wrapper!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus aloud cried Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the solitary forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the rushing Taquamenaw,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the birds were singing gaily,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the Moon of Leaves were singing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the sun, from sleep awaking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Started up and said, “Behold me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Geezis, the great Sun, behold me!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the tree with all its branches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rustled in the breeze of morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saying, with a sigh of patience,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Take my cloak, O Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With his knife the tree he girdled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Just beneath its lowest branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Just above the roots, he cut it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the sap came oozing outward;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down the trunk, from top to bottom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sheer he cleft the bark asunder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a wooden wedge he raised it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stripped it from the trunk unbroken.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Give me of your boughs, O Cedar!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of your strong and pliant branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">My canoe to make more steady,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Make more strong and firm beneath me!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Through the summit of the Cedar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Went a sound, a cry of horror,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Went a murmur of resistance;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But it whispered, bending downward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Take my boughs, O Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Down he hewed the boughs of cedar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shaped them straightway to a framework,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like two bows he formed and shaped them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like two bended bows together.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Give me of your roots, O Tamarack!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of your fibrous roots, O Larch-Tree!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">My canoe to bind together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So to bind the ends together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the water may not enter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the river may not wet me!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the Larch, with all its fibres,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shivered in the air of morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Touched its forehead with its tassels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said, with one long sigh of sorrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Take them all, O Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the earth he tore the fibres,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tore the tough roots of the Larch-Tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Closely sewed the bark together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bound it closely to the framework.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Give me of your balm, O Fir-Tree!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of your balsam and your resin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So to close the seams together</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the water may not enter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the river may not wet me!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the Fir-Tree, tall and sombre,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sobbed through all its robes of darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rattled like a shore with pebbles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Answered wailing, answered weeping,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Take my balm, O Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And he took the tears of balsam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Took the resin of the Fir-Tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smeared therewith each seam and fissure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made each crevice safe from water.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Give me of your quills, O Hedgehog!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All your quills, O Kagh, the Hedgehog!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I will make a necklace of them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Make a girdle for my beauty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And two stars to deck her bosom!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From a hollow tree the Hedgehog</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his sleepy eyes looked at him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shot his shining quills like arrows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saying, with a drowsy murmur,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the tangle of his whiskers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Take my quills, O Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the ground the quills he gathered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the little shining arrows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stained them red and blue and yellow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the juice of roots and berries;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into his canoe he wrought them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round its waist a shining girdle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round its bows a gleaming necklace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On its breast two stars resplendent.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus the Birch Canoe was builded</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the valley, by the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the bosom of the forest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the forest’s life was in it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All its mystery and its magic</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the lightness of the birch-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the toughness of the cedar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the larch’s supple sinews;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And it floated on the river</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a yellow water-lily.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Paddles none had Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Paddles none he had or needed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For his thoughts as paddles served him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And his wishes served to guide him;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swift or slow at will he glided,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Veered to right or left at pleasure.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then he called aloud to Kwasind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To his friend, the strong man, Kwasind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saying, “Help me clear this river</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of its sunken logs and sand-bars.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Straight into the river Kwasind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plunged as if he were an otter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dived as if he were a beaver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood up to his waist in water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To his arm-pits in the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swam and shouted in the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tugged at sunken logs and branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his hands he scooped the sand-bars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his feet the ooze and tangle.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And thus sailed my Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down the rushing Taquamenaw,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sailed through all its bends and windings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sailed through all its deeps and shallows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While his friend, the strong man, Kwasind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swam the deeps, the shallows waded.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Up and down the river went they,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In and out among its islands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cleared its bed of root and sand-bar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dragged the dead trees from its channel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made its passage safe and certain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made a pathway for the people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From its springs among the mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the waters of Pauwating,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the bay of Taquamenaw.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">VIII.</p>
+<p class="center">HIAWATHA’S FISHING.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forth upon the Gitche Gumee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the shining Big-Sea-Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his fishing-line of cedar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the twisted bark of cedar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forth to catch the sturgeon Nahma,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mishe-Nahma, King of Fishes.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his birch canoe exulting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All alone went Hiawatha.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Through the clear, transparent water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He could see the fishes swimming</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far down in the depths below him:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">See the yellow perch, the Sahwa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a sunbeam in the water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">See the Shawgashee, the craw-fish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a spider on the bottom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the white and sandy bottom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">At the stern sat Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his fishing-line of cedar;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his plumes the breeze of morning</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Played as in the hemlock branches;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the bows, with tail erected,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat the squirrel, Adjidaumo;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his fur the breeze of morning</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Played as in the prairie grasses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the white sand of the bottom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay the monster Mishe-Nahma,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay the sturgeon, King of Fishes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through his gills he breathed the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his fins he fanned and winnowed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his tail he swept the sand-floor.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">There he lay in all his armour;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On each side a shield to guard him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plates of bone upon his forehead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down his sides and back and shoulders</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plates of bone with spines projecting!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Painted was he with his war-paints,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stripes of yellow, red, and azure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spots of brown and spots of sable;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he lay there on the bottom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fanning with his fins of purple,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As above him Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his birch canoe came sailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his fishing-line of cedar.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Take my bait!” cried Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down into the depths beneath him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Take my bait, O Sturgeon, Nahma,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Come up from below the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let us see which is the stronger!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he dropped his line of cedar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the clear, transparent water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waited vainly for an answer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Long sat waiting for an answer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And repeating loud and louder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Take my bait, O King of Fishes!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Quiet lay the sturgeon, Nahma,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fanning slowly in the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looking up at Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listening to his call and clamour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His unnecessary tumult,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till he wearied of the shouting;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he said to the Kenozha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the pike, the Maskenozha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Take the bait of this rude fellow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Break the line of Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In his fingers Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Felt the loose line jerk and tighten;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he drew it in, it tugged so</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the birch canoe stood endwise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a birch log in the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the squirrel, Adjidaumo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Perched and frisking on the summit.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Full of scorn was Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he saw the fish rise upward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the pike, the Maskenozha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Coming nearer, nearer to him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he shouted through the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Esa! esa! shame upon you!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You are but the pike, Kenozha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You are not the fish I wanted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You are not the King of Fishes!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Reeling downward to the bottom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sank the pike in great confusion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the mighty sturgeon, Nahma,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said to Ugudwash, the sun-fish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Take the bait of this great boaster,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Break the line of Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Slowly upward, wavering, gleaming</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a white moon in the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose the Ugudwash, the sun-fish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seized the line of Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swung with all his weight upon it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made a whirlpool in the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whirled the birch canoe in circles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round and round in gurgling eddies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the circles in the water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Reached the far-off sandy beaches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the water-flags and rushes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nodded on the distant margins.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But when Hiawatha saw him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly rising through the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lifting his great disc of whiteness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loud he shouted in derision,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Esa! esa! shame upon you!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You are Ugudwash, the sun-fish.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You are not the fish I wanted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You are not the King of Fishes!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Slowly downward, wavering, gleaming,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sank the Ugudwash, the sun-fish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And again the sturgeon, Nahma,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the shout of Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard his challenge of defiance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The unnecessary tumult,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ringing far across the water.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the white sand of the bottom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Up he rose with angry gesture,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Quivering in each nerve and fibre,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clashing all his plates of armour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gleaming bright with all his war-paint;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his wrath he darted upward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flashing leaped into the sunshine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Opened his great jaws, and swallowed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Both canoe and Hiawatha.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Down into that darksome cavern</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plunged the headlong Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a log on some black river</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shoots and plunges down the rapids,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Found himself in utter darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Groped about in helpless wonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till he felt a great heart beating,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Throbbing in that utter darkness.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And he smote it in his anger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his fist, the heart of Nahma,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Felt the mighty King of Fishes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shudder through each nerve and fibre,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the water gurgle round him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he leaped and staggered through it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sick at heart, and faint and weary.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Crosswise then did Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drag his birch canoe for safety,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lest from out the jaws of Nahma,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the turmoil and confusion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forth he might be hurled and perish.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the squirrel, Adjidaumo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Frisked and chattered very gaily,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Toiled and tugged with Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the labour was completed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then said Hiawatha to him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O my little friend, the squirrel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bravely have you toiled to help me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Take the thanks of Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the name which now he gives you;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For hereafter and for ever</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Boys shall call you Adjidaumo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tail-in-air the boys shall call you!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And again the sturgeon, Nahma,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gasped and quivered in the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then was still, and drifted landward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till he grated on the pebbles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the listening Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard him grate upon the margin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Felt him strand upon the pebbles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Knew that Nahma, King of Fishes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay there dead upon the margin.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then he heard a clang and flapping,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As of many wings assembling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard a screaming and confusion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As of birds of prey contending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw a gleam of light above him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shining through the ribs of Nahma,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the glittering eyes of sea-gulls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of Kayoshk, the sea-gulls, peering,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gazing at him through the opening,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard them saying to each other,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“’Tis our brother, Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he shouted from below them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cried exulting from the caverns,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O ye sea-gulls! O my brothers!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I have slain the sturgeon, Nahma;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Make the rifts a little larger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With your claws the openings widen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Set me free from this dark prison,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And henceforward and for ever</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Men shall speak of your achievements,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Calling you Kayoshk, the sea-gulls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yes, Kayoshk, the Noble Scratchers!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the wild and clamorous sea-gulls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Toiled with beak and claws together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made the rifts and openings wider</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the mighty ribs of Nahma,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And from peril and from prison,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the body of the sturgeon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the peril of the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was released my Hiawatha.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He was standing near his wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the margin of the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he called to old Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Called and beckoned to Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pointed to the sturgeon, Nahma,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lying lifeless on the pebbles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the sea-gulls feeding on him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I have slain the Mishe-Nahma,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slain the King of Fishes!” said he;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Look! the sea-gulls feed upon him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yes, my friends Kayoshk, the sea-gulls;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drive them not away, Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They have saved me from great peril</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the body of the sturgeon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wait until their meal is ended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till their craws are full with feasting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till they homeward fly, at sunset,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To their nests among the marshes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then bring all your pots and kettles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And make oil for us in Winter.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And she waited till the sunset,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the pallid moon, the Night-sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose above the tranquil water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till Kayoshk, the sated sea-gulls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From their banquet rose with clamour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And across the fiery sunset</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Winged their way to far-off islands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To their nests among the rushes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To his sleep went Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Nokomis to her labour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Toiling patient in the moonlight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the sun and moon changed places,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the sky was red with sunrise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Kayoshk, the hungry sea-gulls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came back from the reedy islands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clamorous for their morning banquet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Three whole days and nights alternate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Old Nokomis and the sea-gulls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stripped the oily flesh of Nahma,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the waves washed through the rib-bones,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the sea-gulls came no longer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And upon the sands lay nothing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the skeleton of Nahma.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">IX.</p>
+<p class="center">HIAWATHA AND THE PEARL-FEATHER.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the shores of Gitche Gumee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the shining Big-Sea-Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood Nokomis, the old woman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pointing with her finger westward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er the water pointing westward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the purple clouds of sunset.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Fiercely the red sun descending</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Burned his way along the heavens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Set the sky on fire behind him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As war-parties, when retreating,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Burn the prairies on their war-trail;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the moon, the Night-Sun, eastward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suddenly, starting from his ambush,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Followed fast those bloody footprints,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Followed in that fiery war-trail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With its glare upon his features.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And Nokomis, the old woman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pointing with her finger westward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spake these words to Hiawatha:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Yonder dwells the great Pearl-Feather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Megissogwon, the Magician,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Manito of Wealth and Wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Guarded by his fiery serpents,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Guarded by the black pitch-water;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You can see his fiery serpents,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Kenabeek, the great serpents,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Coiling, playing in the water;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You can see the black pitch-water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stretching far away beyond them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the purple clouds of sunset!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“He it was who slew my father,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By his wicked wiles and cunning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he from the moon descended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he came on earth to seek me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He, the mightiest of Magicians,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sends the fever from the marshes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sends the pestilential vapours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sends the poisonous exhalations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sends the white-fog from the fenlands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sends disease and death among us!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Take your bow, O Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Take your arrows, jasper-headed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Take your war-club, Puggawaugun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And your mittens, Minjekahwun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And your birch canoe for sailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the oil of Mishe-Nahma,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So to smear its sides, that swiftly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You may pass the black pitch-water;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slay this merciless magician,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Save the people from the fever</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That he breathes across the fenlands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And avenge my father’s murder!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Straightway then my Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Armed himself with all his war-gear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Launched his birch canoe for sailing;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his palm its sides he patted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said with glee, “Cheemaun, my darling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O my Birch-Canoe! leap forward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where you see the fiery serpents,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where you see the black pitch-water!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Forward leaped Cheemaun exulting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the noble Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang his war-song wild and woeful,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And above him the war-eagle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Keneu, the great war-eagle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Master of all fowls with feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Screamed and hurtled through the heavens.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Soon he reached the fiery serpents,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Kenabeek, the great serpents,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lying huge upon the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sparkling, rippling in the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lying coiled across the passage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With their blazing crests uplifted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Breathing fiery fogs and vapours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So that none could pass beyond them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But the fearless Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cried aloud, and spake in this wise:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Let me pass my way, Kenabeek,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let me go upon my journey!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And they answered, hissing fiercely,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With their fiery breath made answer:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Back, go back! O Shaugodaya!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Back to old Nokomis, Faint-heart!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then the angry Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Raised his mighty bow of ash-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seized his arrows, jasper-headed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shot them fast among the serpents;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Every twanging of the bow-string</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was a war-cry and a death-cry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Every whizzing of an arrow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was a death-song of Kenabeek.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Weltering in the bloody water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dead lay all the fiery serpents,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And among them Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Harmless sailed, and cried exulting:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Onward, O Cheemaun, my darling!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Onward to the black pitch-water!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then he took the oil of Nahma,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the bows and sides anointed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smeared them well with oil, that swiftly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He might pass the black pitch-water.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All night long he sailed upon it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sailed upon that sluggish water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Covered with its mould of ages,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Black with rotting water-rushes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rank with flags and leaves of lilies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stagnant, lifeless, dreary, dismal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lighted by the shimmering moonlight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And by will-o’-wisps illumined,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fires by ghosts of dead men kindled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In their weary night encampments.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All the air was white with moonlight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the water black with shadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And around him the Suggema,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The mosquitos, sang their war-song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the fire-flies, Wah-wah-taysee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waved their torches to mislead him;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the bull-frog, the Dahinda,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thrust his head into the moonlight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fixed his yellow eyes upon him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sobbed and sank beneath the surface,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And anon a thousand whistles</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Answered over all the fenlands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far off on the reedy margin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heralded the hero’s coming.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Westward thus fared Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Toward the realm of Megissogwon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Toward the land of the Pearl-Feather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the level moon stared at him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his face stared pale and haggard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the sun was hot behind him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till it burned upon his shoulders,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And before him on the upland</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He could see the Shining Wigwam</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the Manito of Wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the mightiest of Magicians.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then once more Cheemaun he patted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To his Birch-Canoe said, “Onward!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And it stirred in all its fibres,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with one great bound of triumph</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leaped across the water-lilies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leaped through tangled flags and rushes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And upon the beach beyond them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dryshod landed Hiawatha.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Straight he took his bow of ash-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the sand one end he rested,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his knee he pressed the middle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stretched the faithful bow-string tighter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Took an arrow, jasper-headed,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shot it at the Shining Wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sent it singing as a herald,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a bearer of his message,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of his challenge loud and lofty:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Come forth from your lodge, Pearl-Feather!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiawatha waits your coming!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Straightway from the Shining Wigwam</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came the mighty Megissogwon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tall of stature, broad of shoulder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dark and terrible in aspect,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clad from head to foot in wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Armed with all his warlike weapons,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Painted like the sky of morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Streaked with crimson, blue, and yellow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crested with great eagle feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Streaming upward, streaming outward.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Well I know you, Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cried he in a voice of thunder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In a tone of loud derision.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Hasten back, O Shaugodaya!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hasten back among the women,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Back to old Nokomis, Faint-heart!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I will slay you as you stand there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As of old I slew her father!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But my Hiawatha answered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nothing daunted, fearing nothing:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Big words do not smite like war-clubs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Boastful breath is not a bow-string,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Taunts are not so sharp as arrows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Deeds are better things than words are,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Actions mightier than boastings!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then began the greatest battle</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the sun had ever looked on,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the war-birds ever witnessed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All a Summer’s day it lasted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the sunrise to the sunset;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the shafts of Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Harmless hit the shirt of wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Harmless fell the blows he dealt it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his mittens, Minjekahwun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Harmless fell the heavy war-club;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It could dash the rocks asunder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But it could not break the meshes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of that magic shirt of wampum.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Till at sunset Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leaning on his bow of ash-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wounded, weary, and desponding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his mighty war-club broken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his mittens torn and tattered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And three useless arrows only,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Paused to rest beneath a pine-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From whose branches trailed the mosses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And whose trunk was coated over</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the Dead-man’s Moccasin-leather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the fungus white and yellow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Suddenly from the boughs above him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang the Mama, the woodpecker:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Aim your arrows, Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the head of Megissogwon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strike the tuft of hair upon it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At their roots the long black tresses;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There alone can he be wounded!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Winged with feathers, tipped with jasper,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swiftly flew Hiawatha’s arrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Just as Megissogwon, stooping,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Raised a heavy stone to throw it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Full upon the crown it struck him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the roots of his long tresses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he reeled and staggered forward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plunging like a wounded bison,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yes, like Pezhekee, the bison,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the snow is on the prairie.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Swifter flew the second arrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the pathway of the other,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Piercing deeper than the other,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wounding sorer than the other;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the knees of Megissogwon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shook like windy reeds beneath him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bent and trembled like the rushes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But the third and latest arrow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swiftest flew and wounded sorest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the mighty Megissogwon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the fiery eyes of Pauguk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the eyes of Death glare at him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard his voice call in the darkness;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the feet of Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lifeless lay the great Pearl-Feather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay the mightiest of Magicians.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then the grateful Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Called the Mama, the woodpecker,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his perch among the branches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the melancholy pine-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, in honour of his service,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stained with blood the tuft of feathers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the little head of Mama;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even to this day he wears it,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wears the tuft of crimson feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a symbol of his service.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then he stripped the shirt of wampum</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the back of Megissogwon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a trophy of the battle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a signal of his conquest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the shore he left the body,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Half on land and half in water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the sand his feet were buried,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And his face was in the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And above him wheeled and clamoured</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Keneu, the great war-eagle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sailing round in narrower circles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hovering nearer, nearer, nearer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the wigwam Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bore the wealth of Megissogwon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All his wealth of skins and wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Furs of bison and of beaver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Furs of sable and of ermine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wampum belts and strings and pouches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Quivers wrought with beads of wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled with arrows, silver-headed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Homeward then he sailed exulting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Homeward through the black pitch-water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Homeward through the weltering serpents,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the trophies of the battle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a shout and song of triumph.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the shore stood old Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the shore stood Chibiabos,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the very strong man, Kwasind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waiting for the hero’s coming,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listening to his song of triumph.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the people of the village</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Welcomed him with songs and dances.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made a joyous feast, and shouted:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Honour be to Hiawatha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He has slain the great Pearl-Feather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slain the mightiest of Magicians,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Him who sent the fiery fever,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sent the white-fog from the fenlands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sent disease and death among us!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Ever dear to Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was the memory of Mama!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in token of his friendship,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a mark of his remembrance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He adorned and decked his pipe-stem</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the crimson tuft of feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the blood-red crest of Mama.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the wealth of Megissogwon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the trophies of the battle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He divided with his people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shared it equally among them.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">X.</p>
+<p class="center">HIAWATHA’S WOOING.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“As unto the bow the cord is,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So unto the man is woman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though she bends him she obeys him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though she draws him, yet she follows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Useless each without the other!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus the youthful Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said within himself and pondered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Much perplexed by various feelings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listless, longing, hoping, fearing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dreaming still of Minnehaha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the lovely Laughing Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the land of the Dacotahs.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Wed a maiden of your people,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Warning said the old Nokomis;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Go not eastward, go not westward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For a stranger, whom we know not!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a fire upon the hearthstone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is a neighbour’s homely daughter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the star-light or the moonlight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is the handsomest of strangers!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus dissuading spake Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And my Hiawatha answered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only this: “Dear old Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Very pleasant is the fire-light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But I like the star-light better,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Better do I like the moonlight!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Gravely then said old Nokomis:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Bring not here an idle maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bring not here a useless woman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hands unskilful, feet unwilling;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bring a wife with nimble fingers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heart and hand that move together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Feet that run on willing errands!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Smiling, answered Hiawatha:</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“In the land of the Dacotahs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lives the Arrow-maker’s daughter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Minnehaha, Laughing Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Handsomest of all the women.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I will bring her to your wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She shall run upon your errands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Be your star-light, moonlight, fire-light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Be the sunlight of my people!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Still dissuading said Nokomis:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Bring not to my lodge a stranger</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the land of the Dacotahs!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Very fierce are the Dacotahs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Often is there war between us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There are feuds yet unforgotten,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wounds that ache and still may open!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Laughing answered Hiawatha:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“For that reason, if no other,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would I wed the fair Dacotah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That our tribes may be united,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That old feuds might be forgotten,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And old wounds be healed for ever!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus departed Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the land of the Dacotahs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the land of handsome women;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Striding over moor and meadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through interminable forests,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through uninterrupted silence.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With his moccasins of magic,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At each stride a mile he measured;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yet the way seemed long before him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And his heart outran his footsteps;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he journeyed without resting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till he heard the cataract’s thunder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the falls of Minnehaha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Calling to him through the silence.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Pleasant is the sound!” he murmured,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Pleasant is the voice that calls me!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the outskirts of the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Twixt the shadow and the sunshine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Herds of fallow deer were feeding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But they saw not Hiawatha;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To his bow he whispered, “Fail not!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To his arrow whispered, “Swerve not!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sent it singing on its errand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the red heart of the roebuck;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Threw the deer across his shoulder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And sped forward without pausing.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">At the doorway of his wigwam</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat the ancient Arrow-maker,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the land of the Dacotahs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Making arrow-heads of jasper,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Arrow-heads of chalcedony.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At his side, in all her beauty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat the lovely Minnehaha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat his daughter, Laughing Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plaiting mats of flags and rushes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the past the old man’s thoughts were,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the maiden’s of the future.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He was thinking, as he sat there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the days when with such arrows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He had struck the deer and bison,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the Muskoday, the meadow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shot the wild-goose, flying southward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the wing, the clamorous Wawa;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thinking of the great war-parties,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How they came to buy his arrows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Could not fight without his arrows.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah, no more such noble warriors</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Could be found on earth as they were!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now the men were all like women,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only used their tongues for weapons!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">She was thinking of a hunter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From another tribe and country,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Young and tall, and very handsome,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who, one morning, in the Spring-time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came to buy her father’s arrows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat and rested in the wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lingered long about the doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looking back as he departed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She had heard her father praise him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Praise his courage and his wisdom;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would he come again for arrows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the Falls of Minnehaha?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On her mat her hands lay idle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And her eyes were very dreamy.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Through their thoughts they heard a footstep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard a rustling in the branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with glowing cheek and forehead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the deer upon his shoulder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suddenly from out the woodlands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiawatha stood before them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Straight the ancient Arrow-maker</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looked up gravely from his labour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laid aside the unfinished arrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bade him enter at the doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saying, as he rose to meet him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Hiawatha, you are welcome!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">At the feet of Laughing Water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiawatha laid his burden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Threw the red deer from his shoulders.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the maiden looked up at him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looked up from her mat of rushes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said, with gentle look and accent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“You are welcome, Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Very spacious was the wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made of deer-skin dressed and whitened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the gods of the Dacotahs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drawn and painted on its curtains.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And so tall the doorway, hardly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiawatha stooped to enter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hardly touched his eagle-feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he entered at the doorway.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then uprose the Laughing Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the ground fair Minnehaha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laid aside her mat unfinished,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brought forth food and set before them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Water brought them from the brooklet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave them food in earthen vessels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave them drink in bowls of bass-wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listened while the guest was speaking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listened while her father answered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But not once her lips she opened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not a single word she uttered.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Yes, as in a dream she listened</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the words of Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he talked of old Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who had nursed him in his childhood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he told of his companions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Chibiabos, the musician,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the very strong man, Kwasind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And of happiness and plenty</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the land of the Ojibways,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the pleasant land and peaceful.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“After many years of warfare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many years of strife and bloodshed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There is peace between the Ojibways</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the tribe of the Dacotahs.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus continued Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And then added, speaking slowly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“That this peace may last for ever,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And our hands be clasped more closely,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And our hearts be more united,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Give me as my wife this maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Minnehaha, Laughing Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loveliest of Dacotah women!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the ancient Arrow-maker</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Paused a moment ere he answered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smoked a little while in silence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looked at Hiawatha proudly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fondly looked at Laughing Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And made answer, very gravely,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Yes, if Minnehaha wishes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let your heart speak, Minnehaha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the lovely Laughing Water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seemed more lovely, as she stood there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Neither willing nor reluctant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As she went to Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Softly took the seat beside him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While she said, and blushed to say it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I will follow you, my husband!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">This was Hiawatha’s wooing!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus it was he won the daughter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the ancient Arrow-maker,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the land of the Dacotahs!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the wigwam he departed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leading with him Laughing Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hand in hand they went together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the woodland and the meadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Left the old man standing lonely</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the doorway of his wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the falls of Minnehaha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Calling to them from the distance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crying to them from afar off,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Fare thee well, O Minnehaha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the ancient Arrow-maker</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Turned again unto his labour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat down by his sunny doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Murmuring to himself, and saying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Thus it is our daughters leave us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Those we love, and those who love us!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Just when they have learned to help us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When we are old and lean upon them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Comes a youth with flaunting feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his flute of reeds, a stranger</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wanders piping through the village,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beckons to the fairest maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And she follows where he leads her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leaving all things for the stranger!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Pleasant was the journey homeward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through interminable forests,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over meadow, over mountain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over river, hill, and hollow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Short it seemed to Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though they journeyed very slowly,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though his pace he checked and slackened</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the steps of Laughing Water.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Over wide and rushing rivers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his arms he bore the maiden;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Light he thought her as a feather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the plume upon his head-gear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cleared the tangled pathway for her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bent aside the swaying branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made at night a lodge of branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And a bed with boughs of hemlock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And a fire before the doorway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the dry cones of the pine-tree.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All the travelling winds went with them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er the meadow, through the forest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the stars of night looked at them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Watched with sleepless eyes their slumber;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his ambush in the oak-tree</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Peeped the squirrel, Adjidaumo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Watched with eager eyes the lovers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the rabbit, the Wabasso,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Scampered from the path before them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Peering, peeping from his burrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat erect upon his haunches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Watched with curious eyes the lovers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Pleasant was the journey homeward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the birds sang loud and sweetly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Songs of happiness and heart’s-ease;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang the blue-bird, the Owaissa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Happy are you, Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Having such a wife to love you!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang the Opechee, the robin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Happy are you, Laughing Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Having such a noble husband!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the sky the sun benignant</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looked upon them through the branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saying to them, “O my children,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Love is sunshine, hate is shadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Life is checkered shade and sunshine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rule by love, O Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the sky the moon looked at them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled the lodge with mystic splendours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whispered to them, “O my children,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Day is restless, night is quiet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Man imperious, woman feeble;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Half is mine, although I follow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rule by patience, Laughing Water!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus it was they journeyed homeward;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus it was that Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the lodge of old Nokomis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brought the moonlight, star-light, fire-light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brought the sunshine of his people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Minnehaha, Laughing Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Handsomest of all the women</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the land of the Dacotahs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the land of handsome women.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">XI.</p>
+<p class="center">HIAWATHA’S WEDDING-FEAST.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How the handsome Yenadizze</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Danced at Hiawatha’s wedding;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How the gentle Chibiabos,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the sweetest of musicians,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang his songs of love and longing;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How Iagoo, the great boaster,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the marvellous story-teller,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Told his tales of strange adventure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the feast might be more joyous,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the time might pass more gaily,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the guests be more contented.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Sumptuous was the feast Nokomis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made at Hiawatha’s wedding.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the bowls were made of bass-wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">White and polished very smoothly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the spoons of horn of bison,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Black and polished very smoothly.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">She had sent through all the village</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Messengers with wands of willow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a sign of invitation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a token of the feasting;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the wedding-guests assembled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clad in all their richest raiment,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Robes of fur and belts of wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Splendid with their paint and plumage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beautiful with beads and tassels.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">First they ate the sturgeon, Nahma,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the pike, the Maskenozha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Caught and cooked by old Nokomis;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then on pemican they feasted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pemican and buffalo marrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Haunch of deer and hump of bison,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yellow cakes of the Mondamin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the wild rice of the river.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But the gracious Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the lovely Laughing Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the careful old Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tasted not the food before them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only waited on the others,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only served their guests in silence.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And when all the guests had finished,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Old Nokomis, brisk and busy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From an ample pouch of otter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled the red stone pipes for smoking</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With tobacco from the South-land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mixed with bark of the red willow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with herbs and leaves of fragrance.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then she said, “O Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dance for us your merry dances,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dance the Beggar’s Dance to please us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the feast may be more joyous,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the time may pass more gaily,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And our guests be more contented!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then the handsome Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the idle Yenadizze,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the merry mischief-maker,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whom the people call the Storm-Fool,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose among the guests assembled.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Skilled was he in sports and pastimes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the merry dance of snow-shoes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the play of quoits and ball-play;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Skilled was he in games of hazard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In all games of skill and hazard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pugasaing, the Bowl and Counters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kuntassoo, the Game of Plum-stones.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Though the warriors called him Faint-heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Called him coward, Shaugodaya,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Idler, gambler, Yenadizze,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Little heeded he their jesting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Little cared he for their insults,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the women and the maidens</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loved the handsome Pau-Puk-Keewis.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He was dressed in shirt of doe-skin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">White and soft, and fringed with ermine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All inwrought with beads of wampum;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He was dressed in deer-skin leggings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fringed with hedgehog quills and ermine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in moccasins of buck-skin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thick with quills and beads embroidered.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On his head were plumes of swan’s down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On his heels were tails of foxes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In one hand a fan of feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And a pipe was in the other.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Barred with streaks of red and yellow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Streaks of blue and bright vermilion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shone the face of Pau-Puk-Keewis.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his forehead fell his tresses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smooth and parted like a woman’s,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shining bright with oil, and plaited,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hung with braids of scented grasses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As among the guests assembled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the sound of flutes and singing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the sound of drums and voices,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose the handsome Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And began his mystic dances.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">First he danced a solemn measure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Very slow in step and gesture,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In and out among the pine-trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the shadows and the sunshine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Treading softly like a panther,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then more swiftly and still swifter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whirling, spinning round in circles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leaping o’er the guests assembled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Eddying round and round the wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the leaves went whirling with him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the dust and wind together</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swept in eddies round about him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then along the sandy margin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the lake, the Big-Sea-Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On he sped with frenzied gestures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stamped upon the sand and tossed it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wildly in the air around him;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the wind became a whirlwind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the sand was blown and sifted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like great snow-drifts o’er the landscape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heaping all the shores with Sand Dunes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sand Hills of the Nagow Wudjoo!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus the merry Pau-Puk-Keewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Danced his Beggar’s Dance to please them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, returning, sat down laughing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There among the guests assembled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat and fanned himself serenely</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his fan of turkey-feathers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then they said to Chibiabos,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the friend of Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the sweetest of all singers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the best of all musicians,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Sing to us, O Chibiabos!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Songs of love and songs of longing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the feast may be more joyous,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the time may pass more gaily,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And our guests be more contented!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the gentle Chibiabos</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang in accents sweet and tender,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang in tones of deep emotion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Songs of love and songs of longing;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looking still at Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looking at fair Laughing Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang he softly, sang in this wise:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Onaway! Awake, beloved!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou the wild-flower of the forest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou the wild-bird of the prairie!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou with eyes so soft and fawn-like!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“If thou only lookest at me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I am happy, I am happy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the lilies of the prairie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When they feel the dew upon them!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Sweet thy breath is as the fragrance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the wild-flowers in the morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As their fragrance is at evening,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the Moon when leaves are falling.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Does not all the blood within me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leap to meet thee, leap to meet thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the springs to meet the sunshine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the Moon when nights are brightest?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Onaway! my heart sings to thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sings with joy when thou art near me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the sighing, singing branches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the pleasant Moon of Strawberries!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“When thou art not pleased, beloved,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then my heart is sad and darkened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the shining river darkens</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the clouds drop shadows on it!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“When thou smilest, my beloved,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then my troubled heart is brightened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As in sunshine gleam the ripples</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the cold wind makes in rivers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Smiles the earth, and smile the waters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smile the cloudless skies above us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But I lose the way of smiling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When thou art no longer near me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“I myself, myself! behold me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blood of my beating heart, behold me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O awake, awake, beloved!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Onaway! awake, beloved!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus the gentle Chibiabos</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang his song of love and longing;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Iagoo, the great boaster,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the marvellous story-teller,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the friend of old Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Jealous of the sweet musician,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Jealous of the applause they gave him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw in all the eyes around him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw in all their looks and gestures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the wedding-guests assembled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Longed to hear his pleasant stories,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His immeasurable falsehoods.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Very boastful was Iagoo;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never heard he an adventure</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But himself had met a greater;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never any deed of daring</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But himself had done a bolder;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never any marvellous story</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But himself could tell a stranger.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Would you listen to his boasting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would you only give him credence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No one ever shot an arrow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Half so far and high as he had;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ever caught so many fishes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ever killed so many reindeer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ever trapped so many beaver!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">None could run so fast as he could,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">None could dive so deep as he could,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">None could swim so far as he could;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">None had made so many journeys,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">None had seen so many wonders,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As this wonderful Iagoo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As this marvellous story-teller!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus his name became a by-word</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And a jest among the people;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And whene’er a boastful hunter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Praised his own address too highly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or a warrior, home returning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Talked too much of his achievements,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All his hearers cried, “Iagoo!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here’s Iagoo come among us!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He it was who carved the cradle</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the little Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Carved its framework out of linden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bound it strong with reindeer’s sinews;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He it was who taught him later</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How to make his bows and arrows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How to make the bows of ash-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the arrows of the oak-tree.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So among the guests assembled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At my Hiawatha’s wedding</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat Iagoo, old and ugly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat the marvellous story-teller.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And they said, “O good Iagoo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tell us now a tale of wonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tell us of some strange adventure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the feast may be more joyous,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the time may pass more gaily,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And our guests be more contented!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And Iagoo answered straightway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“You shall hear a tale of wonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You shall hear the strange adventures</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of Osseo, the Magician,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the Evening Star descended.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">XII.</p>
+<p class="center">THE SON OF THE EVENING STAR.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Can it be the sun descending</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er the level plain of water?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or the Red Swan floating, flying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wounded by the magic arrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Staining all the waves with crimson,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the crimson of its life-blood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filling all the air with splendour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the splendour of its plumage?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Yes; it is the sun descending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sinking down into the water;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the sky is stained with purple,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the water flushed with crimson!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No; it is the Red Swan floating,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Diving down beneath the water;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the sky its wings are lifted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With its blood the waves are reddened!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Over it the Star of Evening</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Melts and trembles through the purple,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hangs suspended in the twilight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No; it is a bead of wampum</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the robes of the Great Spirit,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he passes through the twilight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Walks in silence through the heavens!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">This with joy beheld Iagoo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he said in haste: “Behold it!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">See the Sacred Star of Evening!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You shall hear a tale of wonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hear the Story of Osseo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Son of the Evening Star, Osseo!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Once, in days no more remembered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ages nearer the beginning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the heavens were closer to us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Gods were more familiar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the Northland lived a hunter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With ten young and comely daughters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tall and lithe as wands of willow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only Oweenee, the youngest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She the wilful and the wayward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She the silent, dreamy maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was the fairest of the sisters.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“All these women married warriors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Married brave and haughty husbands;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only Oweenee, the youngest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laughed and flouted all her lovers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All her young and handsome suitors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And then married old Osseo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Old Osseo, poor and ugly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broken with age and weak with coughing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Always coughing like a squirrel.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Ah, but beautiful within him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was the spirit of Osseo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the Evening Star descended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Star of Evening, Star of Woman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Star of tenderness and passion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All its fire was in his bosom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All its beauty in his spirit,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All its mystery in his being,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All its splendour in his language!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“And her lovers, the rejected,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Handsome men with belts of wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Handsome men with paint and feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pointed at her in derision,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Followed her with jest and laughter.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But she said: ‘I care not for you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Care not for your belts of wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Care not for your paint and feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Care not for your jests and laughter!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I am happy with Osseo!’</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Once to some great feast invited,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the damp and dusk of evening,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Walked together the ten sisters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Walked together with their husbands;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly followed old Osseo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With fair Oweenee beside him;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the others chatted gaily,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">These two only walked in silence.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“At the Western sky Osseo</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gazed intent, as if imploring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Often stopped and gazed imploring</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the trembling Star of Evening,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the tender Star of Woman;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And they heard him murmur softly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">‘<i>Ah, showain nemeshin, Nosa</i>!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pity, pity me, my father!’</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“‘Listen!’ said the eldest sister,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">‘He is praying to his father!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What a pity that the old man</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Does not stumble in the pathway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Does not break his neck by falling!’</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And they laughed till all the forest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rang with their unseemly laughter.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“On their pathway through the woodlands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay an oak, by storms uprooted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay the great trunk of an oak-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Buried half in leaves and mosses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mouldering, crumbling, huge and hollow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Osseo, when he saw it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave a shout, a cry of anguish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leaped into its yawning cavern,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At one end went in an old man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wasted, wrinkled, old, and ugly;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the other came a young man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tall and straight, and strong, and handsome.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Thus Osseo was transfigured,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus restored to youth and beauty;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But, alas! for good Osseo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And for Oweenee, the faithful!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strangely, too, was she transfigured,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Changed into a weak old woman.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a staff she tottered onward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wasted, wrinkled, old, and ugly!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the sisters and their husbands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laughed until the echoing forest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rang with their unseemly laughter.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“But Osseo turned not from her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Walked with slower step beside her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Took her hand, as brown and withered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As an oak-leaf is in Winter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Called her sweetheart, Nenemoosha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soothed her with soft words of kindness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till they reached the lodge of feasting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till they sat down in the wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sacred to the Star of Evening,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the tender Star of Woman.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Wrapt in visions, lost in dreaming,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the banquet sat Osseo;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All were merry, all were happy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All were joyous but Osseo.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Neither food nor drink he tasted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Neither did he speak nor listen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But as one bewildered sat he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looking dreamily and sadly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">First at Oweenee, then upward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the gleaming sky above them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Then a voice was heard, a whisper,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Coming from the starry distance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Coming from the empty vastness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Low, and musical, and tender;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the voice said: ’O Osseo!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O my son, my best beloved!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broken are the spells that bound you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the charms of the magicians,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the magic powers of evil;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Come to me; ascend, Osseo!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“’Taste the food that stands before you:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It is blessed and enchanted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It has magic virtues in it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It will change you to a spirit.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All your bowls and all your kettles</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shall be wood and clay no longer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the bowls be changed to wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the kettles shall be silver;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They shall shine like shells of scarlet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the fire shall gleam and glimmer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“’And the women shall no longer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bear the dreary doom of labour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But be changed to birds, and glisten</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the beauty of the star-light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Painted with the dusky splendours</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the skies and clouds of evening!’</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“What Osseo heard as whispers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What as words he comprehended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was but music to the others,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Music as of birds afar off,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the whippoorwill afar off,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the lonely Wawonaissa</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Singing in the darksome forest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Then the lodge began to tremble,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Straight began to shake and tremble,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And they felt it rising, rising,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly through the air ascending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the darkness of the tree-tops</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forth into the dewy star-light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till it passed the topmost branches;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And behold! the wooden dishes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All were changed to shells of scarlet!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And behold! the earthen kettles</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All were changed to bowls of silver!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the roof-poles of the wigwam</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were as glittering rods of silver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the roof of bark upon them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the shining shards of beetles.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Then Osseo gazed around him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he saw the nine fair sisters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the sisters and their husbands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Changed to birds of various plumage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Some were jays and some were magpies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Others thrushes, others blackbirds;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And they hopped, and sang, and twittered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Perked and fluttered all their feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strutted in their shining plumage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And their tails like fans unfolded.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Only Oweenee, the youngest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was not changed, but sat in silence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wasted, wrinkled, old, and ugly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looking sadly at the others;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till Osseo, gazing upward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave another cry of anguish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such a cry as he had uttered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the oak-tree in the forest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Then returned her youth and beauty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And her soiled and tattered garments</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were transformed to robes of ermine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And her staff became a feather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yes, a shining silver-feather!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“And again the wigwam trembled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swayed and rushed through airy currents,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through transparent cloud and vapour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And amid celestial splendours</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the Evening Star alighted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a snow-flake falls on snow-flake,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a leaf drops on a river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the thistle-down on water.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Forth with cheerful words of welcome</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came the father of Osseo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He with radiant locks of silver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He with eyes serene and tender.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he said: ‘My son Osseo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hang the cage of birds you bring there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hang the cage with rods of silver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the birds with glistening feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the doorway of my wigwam.’</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“At the door he hung the bird-cage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And they entered in and gladly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listened to Osseo’s father.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ruler of the Star of Evening,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he said: ’O my Osseo!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I have had compassion on you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Given you back your youth and beauty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into birds of various plumage</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Changed your sisters and their husbands;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Changed them thus because they mocked you</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the figure of the old man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In that aspect sad and wrinkled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Could not see your heart of passion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Could not see your youth immortal;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only Oweenee, the faithful,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw your naked heart and loved you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“‘In the lodge that glimmers yonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the little star that twinkles</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the vapours, on the left hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lives the envious Evil Spirit,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Wabeno, the magician,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who transformed you to an old man.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Take heed lest his beams fall on you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the rays he darts around him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Are the power of his enchantment,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Are the arrows that he uses.’</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Many years, in peace and quiet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the peaceful Star of Evening</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dwelt Osseo with his father;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many years, in song and flutter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the doorway of the wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hung the cage with rods of silver.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And fair Oweenee, the faithful,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bore a son unto Osseo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the beauty of his mother,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the courage of his father.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“And the boy grew up and prospered.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Osseo, to delight him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made him little bows and arrows.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Opened the great cage of silver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And let loose his aunts and uncles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All those birds with glossy feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For his little son to shoot at.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Round and round they wheeled and darted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled the Evening Star with music,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With their songs of joy and freedom;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled the Evening Star with splendour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the fluttering of their plumage;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the boy, the little hunter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bent his bow and shot an arrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shot a swift and fatal arrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And a bird, with shining feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At his feet fell wounded sorely.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“But, O wondrous transformation!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Twas no bird he saw before him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Twas a beautiful young woman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the arrow in her bosom!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“When her blood fell on the planet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the sacred Star of Evening,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broken was the spell of magic,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Powerless was the strange enchantment,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the youth, the fearless bowman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suddenly felt himself descending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Held by unseen hands, but sinking</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Downward through the empty spaces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Downward through the clouds and vapours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till he rested on an island,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On an island green and grassy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yonder in the Big-Sea-Water.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“After him he saw descending</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the birds with shining feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fluttering, falling, wafted downward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the painted leaves of Autumn;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the lodge with poles of silver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With its roof like wings of beetles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the shining shards of beetles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the winds of heaven uplifted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly sank upon the island,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bringing back the good Osseo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bringing Oweenee, the faithful.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Then the birds, again transfigured,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Reassumed the shape of mortals,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Took their shape, but not their stature;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They remained as Little People,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the pigmies, the Puk-Wudjies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And on pleasant nights of Summer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the Evening Star was shining,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hand in hand they danced together</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the island’s craggy headlands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the sand-beach low and level.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Still their glittering lodge is seen there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the tranquil Summer evenings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And upon the shore the fisher</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sometimes hears their happy voices,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sees them dancing in the star-light!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">When the story was completed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the wondrous tale was ended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looking round upon his listeners,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Solemnly Iagoo added:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“There are great men, I have known such,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whom their people understand not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whom they even make a jest of,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Scoff and jeer at in derision.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the story of Osseo</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let us learn the fate of jesters!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All the wedding-guests delighted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listened to the marvellous story,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listened laughing and applauding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And they whispered to each other,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Does he mean himself, I wonder?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And are we the aunts and uncles?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then again sang Chibiabos,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang a song of love and longing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In those accents sweet and tender,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In those tones of pensive sadness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang a maiden’s lamentation</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For her lover, her Algonquin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“When I think of my beloved,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah me! think of my beloved,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When my heart is thinking of him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O my sweetheart, my Algonquin!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Ah me! when I parted from him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round my neck he hung the wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a pledge, the snow-white wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O my sweetheart, my Algonquin!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“I will go with you, he whispered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah me! to your native country;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let me go with you, he whispered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O my sweetheart, my Algonquin!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Far away, away, I answered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Very far away, I answered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah me! is my native country,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O my sweetheart, my Algonquin!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“When I looked back to behold him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where we parted, to behold him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">After me he still was gazing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O my sweetheart, my Algonquin!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“By the tree he still was standing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the falling tree was standing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That had dropped into the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O my sweetheart, my Algonquin!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“When I think of my beloved,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah me! think of my beloved,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When my heart is thinking of him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O my sweetheart, my Algonquin!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Such was Hiawatha’s Wedding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such the dance of Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such the story of Iagoo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such the songs of Chibiabos;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus the wedding-banquet ended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the wedding-guests departed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leaving Hiawatha happy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the night and Minnehaha.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">XIII.</p>
+<p class="center">BLESSING THE CORN-FIELDS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sing, O Song of Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the happy days that followed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the land of the Ojibways,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the pleasant land and peaceful!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sing the mysteries of Mondamin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sing the Blessing of the Corn-fields!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Buried was the bloody hatchet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Buried was the dreadful war-club,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Buried were all warlike weapons,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the war-cry was forgotten.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There was peace among the nations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unmolested roved the hunters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Built the birch-canoe for sailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Caught the fish in lake and river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shot the deer and trapped the beaver;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unmolested worked the women,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made their sugar from the maple,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gathered wild rice in the meadows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dressed the skins of deer and beaver.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All around the happy village</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood the maize-fields, green and shining,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waved the green plumes of Mondamin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waved his soft and sunny tresses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filling all the land with plenty.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Twas the women who in Spring-time</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Planted the broad fields and fruitful,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Buried in the earth Mondamin;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Twas the women who in Autumn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stripped the yellow husks of harvest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stripped the garments from Mondamin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even as Hiawatha taught them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Once, when all the maize was planted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiawatha, wise and thoughtful,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spake and said to Minnehaha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To his wife, the Laughing Water:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“You shall bless to-night the corn-fields,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Draw a magic circle round them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To protect them from destruction,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blast of mildew, blight of insect,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wagemin, the thief of corn-fields,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Paimosaid, who steals the maize-ear!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“In the night, when all is silence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the night, when all is darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the Spirit of Sleep, Nepahwin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shuts the doors of all the wigwams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So that not an ear can hear you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So that not an eye can see you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rise up from your bed in silence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay aside your garments wholly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Walk around the fields you planted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round the borders of the corn-fields,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Covered by your tresses only,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Robed with darkness as a garment.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Thus the fields shall be more fruitful,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the passing of your footsteps</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Draw a magic circle round them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So that neither blight nor mildew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Neither burrowing worm nor insect,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shall pass o’er the magic circle;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not the dragon-fly, Kwo-ne-she,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor the spider, Subbekashe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor the grasshopper, Pah-puk-keena,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor the mighty caterpillar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Way-muk-kwana, with the bear-skin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">King of all the caterpillars!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the tree-tops near the corn-fields</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat the hungry crows and ravens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kahgahgee, the King of Ravens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his band of black marauders.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And they laughed at Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the tree-tops shook with laughter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With their melancholy laughter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the words of Hiawatha.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Hear him!” said they; “hear the wise man!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hear the plots of Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">When the noiseless night descended</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broad and dark o’er field and forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the mournful Wawonaissa</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sorrowing sang among the hemlocks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Spirit of Sleep, Nepahwin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shut the doors of all the wigwams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From her bed rose Laughing Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laid aside her garments wholly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with darkness clothed and guarded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unashamed and unaffrighted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Walked securely round the corn-fields,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drew the sacred, magic circle</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of her footprints round the corn-fields.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">No one but the Midnight only</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw her beauty in the darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No one but the Wawonaissa</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the panting of her bosom;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Guskewau, the darkness, wrapped her</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Closely in his sacred mantle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So that none might see her beauty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So that none might boast, “I saw her!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the morrow, as the day dawned,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kahgahgee, the King of Ravens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gathered all his black marauders,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crows and blackbirds, jays and ravens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clamorous on the dusky tree-tops,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And descended, fast and fearless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the fields of Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the grave of the Mondamin.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“We will drag Mondamin,” said they,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“From the grave where he is buried,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spite of all the magic circles</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laughing Water draws around it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spite of all the sacred footprints</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Minnehaha stamps upon it!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But the wary Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ever thoughtful, careful, watchful,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had o’erheard the scornful laughter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When they mocked him from the tree-tops.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Kaw!” he said, “my friends the ravens!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kahgahgee, my King of Ravens!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I will teach you all a lesson</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That shall not be soon forgotten!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He had risen before the daybreak,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He had spread o’er all the corn-fields</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Snares to catch the black marauders,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And was lying now in ambush</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the neighbouring grove of pine-trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waiting for the crows and blackbirds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waiting for the jays and ravens.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Soon they came with caw and clamour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rush of wings and cry of voices,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To their work of devastation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Settling down upon the corn-fields,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Delving deep with beak and talon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the body of Mondamin.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with all their craft and cunning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All their skill in wiles of warfare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They perceived no danger near them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till their claws became entangled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till they found themselves imprisoned</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the snares of Hiawatha.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From his place of ambush came he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Striding terrible among them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And so awful was his aspect</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the bravest quailed with terror.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Without mercy he destroyed them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Right and left, by tens and twenties,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And their wretched, lifeless bodies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hung aloft on poles for scarecrows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round the consecrated corn-fields,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a signal of his vengeance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a warning to marauders.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Only Kahgahgee, the leader,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kahgahgee, the King of Ravens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He alone was spared among them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a hostage for his people.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his prisoner-string he bound him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Led him captive to his wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tied him fast with cords of elm-bark</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the ridge-pole of his wigwam.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Kahgahgee, my raven!” said he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“You the leader of the robbers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You the plotter of this mischief,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The contriver of this outrage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I will keep you, I will hold you,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a hostage for your people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a pledge of good behaviour!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And he left him, grim and sulky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sitting in the morning sunshine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the summit of the wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Croaking fiercely his displeasure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flapping his great sable pinions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vainly struggling for his freedom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vainly calling on his people!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Summer passed, and Shawondasee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Breathed his sighs o’er all the landscape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the South-land sent his ardours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wafted kisses warm and tender;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the maize-field grew and ripened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till it stood in all the splendour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of its garments green and yellow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of its tassels and its plumage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the maize-ears full and shining</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gleamed from bursting sheaths of verdure.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then Nokomis, the old woman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spake and said to Minnehaha:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“’Tis the Moon when leaves are falling;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the wild-rice has been gathered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the maize is ripe and ready;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let us gather in the harvest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let us wrestle with Mondamin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strip him of his plumes and tassels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of his garments green and yellow!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the merry Laughing Water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Went rejoicing from the wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With Nokomis, old and wrinkled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And they called the women round them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Called the young men and the maidens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the harvest of the corn-fields,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the husking of the maize-ear.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the border of the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Underneath the fragrant pine-trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat the old men and the warriors</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smoking in the pleasant shadow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In uninterrupted silence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looked they at the gamesome labour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the young men and the women;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listened to their noisy talking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To their laughter and their singing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard them chattering like the magpies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard them laughing like the blue-jays,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard them singing like the robins.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And whene’er some lucky maiden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Found a red ear&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_41_41" href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a>
+ in the husking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Found a maize-ear red as blood is,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Nushka!” cried they all together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Nushka! you shall have a sweetheart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You shall have a handsome husband!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ugh!” the old men all responded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From their seats beneath the pine-trees!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And whene’er a youth or maiden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Found a crooked ear&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_42_42" href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a>
+ in husking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Found a maize-ear in the husking</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blighted, mildewed, or misshapen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then they laughed and sang together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crept and limped about the corn-fields,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mimicked in their gait and gestures</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Some old man, bent almost double,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Singing singly or together:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Wagemin, the thief of corn-fields!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Paimosaid, the skulking robber!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Till the corn-fields rang with laughter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till from Hiawatha’s wigwam</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kahgahgee, the King of Ravens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Screamed and quivered in his anger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And from all the neighbouring tree-tops</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cawed and croaked the black marauders.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Ugh!” the old men all responded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From their seats beneath the pine-trees!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">XIV.</p>
+<p class="center">PICTURE-WRITING.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In those days said Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Lo! how all things fade and perish!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the memory of the old men</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fade away the great traditions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The achievements of the warriors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The adventures of the hunters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the wisdom of the Medas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the craft of the Wabenos,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the marvellous dreams and visions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the Jossakeeds, the Prophets!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Great men die and are forgotten,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wise men speak; their words of wisdom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Perish in the ears that hear them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Do not reach the generations</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That, as yet unborn, are waiting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the great mysterious darkness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the speechless days that shall be!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“On the grave-posts of our fathers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Are no signs, no figures painted;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who are in those graves we know not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only know they are our fathers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of what kith they are and kindred,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From what old, ancestral Totem,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Be it Eagle, Bear, or Beaver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They descended, this we know not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only know they are our fathers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Face to face we speak together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But we cannot speak when absent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cannot send our voices from us</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the friends that dwell afar off;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cannot send a secret message,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the bearer learns our secret,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">May pervert it, may betray it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">May reveal it unto others.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus said Hiawatha, walking</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the solitary forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pondering, musing in the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the welfare of his people.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From his pouch he took his colours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Took his paints of different colours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the smooth bark of a birch-tree</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Painted many shapes and figures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wonderful and mystic figures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And each figure had a meaning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each some word or thought suggested.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Gitche Manito the Mighty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the Master of Life, was painted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As an egg, with points projecting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the four winds of the heavens.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Everywhere is the Great Spirit,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was the meaning of this symbol.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Mitche Manito the Mighty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the dreadful Spirit of Evil,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a serpent was depicted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As Kenabeek, the great serpent.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Very crafty, very cunning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is the creeping Spirit of Evil,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was the meaning of this symbol.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Life and Death he drew as circles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Life was white, but Death was darkened;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sun and moon and stars he painted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Man and beast, and fish and reptile,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forests, mountains, lakes, and rivers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">For the earth he drew a straight line,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the sky a bow above it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">White the space between for day-time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled with little stars for night-time;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the left a point for sunrise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the right a point for sunset,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the top a point for noontide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And for rain and cloudy weather</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waving lines descending from it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Footprints pointing towards a wigwam</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were a sign of invitation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were a sign of guests assembling;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bloody hands with palms uplifted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were a symbol of destruction,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were a hostile sign and symbol.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All these things did Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Show unto his wondering people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And interpreted their meaning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he said: “Behold, your grave-posts</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Have no mark, no sign, nor symbol.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Go and paint them all with figures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each one with its household symbol,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With its own ancestral Totem;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So that those who follow after</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">May distinguish them and know them.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And they painted on the grave-posts</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the graves yet unforgotten,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each his own ancestral Totem,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each the symbol of his household;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Figures of the Bear and Reindeer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the Turtle, Crane, and Beaver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each inverted as a token</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the owner was departed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the chief who bore the symbol</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay beneath in dust and ashes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the Jossakeeds, the prophets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Wabenos, the magicians,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the medicine-men, the Medas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Painted upon bark and deer-skin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Figures for the songs they chanted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For each song a separate symbol,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Figures mystical and awful,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Figures strange and brightly coloured;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And each figure had its meaning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each some magic song suggested.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The Great Spirit, the Creator,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flashing light through all the heaven;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Great Serpent, the Kenabeek,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his bloody crest erected,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Creeping, looking into heaven;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the sky the sun, that listens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the moon eclipsed and dying;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Owl and eagle, crane and hen-hawk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the cormorant, bird of magic;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Headless men that walk the heavens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bodies lying pierced with arrows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bloody hands of death uplifted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flags on graves and great war-captains</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grasping both the earth and heaven!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Such as these the shapes they painted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the birch-bark and the deer-skin;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Songs of war and songs of hunting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Songs of medicine and of magic,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All were written in these figures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For each figure had its meaning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each its separate song recorded.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Nor forgotten was the Love-Song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The most subtle of all medicines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The most potent spell of magic,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dangerous more than war or hunting!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus the Love-Song was recorded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Symbol and interpretation.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">First a human figure standing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Painted in the brightest scarlet;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Tis the lover, the musician,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the meaning is, “My painting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Makes me powerful over others.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then the figure seated, singing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Playing on a drum of magic,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the interpretation, “Listen!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Tis my voice you hear, my singing!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then the same red figure seated</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the shelter of a wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the meaning of the symbol,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I will come and sit beside you</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the mystery of my passion!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then two figures, man and woman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Standing hand in hand together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With their hands so clasped together</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That they seem in one united;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the words thus represented</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Are, “I see your heart within you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And your cheeks are red with blushes!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Next the maiden on an island,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the centre of an island;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the song this shape suggested</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was, “Though you were at a distance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were upon some far-off island,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such the spell I cast upon you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such the magic power of passion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I could straightway draw you to me!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then the figure of the maiden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sleeping, and the lover near her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whispering to her in her slumbers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saying, “Though you were far from me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the land of Sleep and Silence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still the voice of love would reach you!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the last of all the figures</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was a heart within a circle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drawn within a magic circle;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the image had this meaning:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Naked lies your heart before me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To your naked heart I whisper!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus it was that Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his wisdom, taught the people</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the mysteries of painting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the art of Picture-Writing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the smooth bark of the birch-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the white skin of the reindeer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the grave-posts of the village.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">XV.</p>
+<p class="center">HIAWATHA’S LAMENTATION.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In those days the Evil Spirits,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the Manitos of mischief,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fearing Hiawatha’s wisdom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And his love for Chibiabos,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Jealous of their faithful friendship,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And their noble words and actions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made at length a league against them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To molest them and destroy them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Hiawatha, wise and wary,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Often said to Chibiabos,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O my brother! do not leave me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lest the Evil Spirits harm you!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Chibiabos, young and heedless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laughing shook his coal-black tresses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Answered ever sweet and childlike,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Do not fear for me, O brother!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Harm and evil come not near me!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Once when Peboan, the Winter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Roofed with ice the Big-Sea-Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the snow-flakes, whirling downward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hissed among the withered oak-leaves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Changed the pine-trees into wigwams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Covered all the earth with silence,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Armed with arrows, shod with snow-shoes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heeding not his brother’s warning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fearing not the Evil Spirits,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forth to hunt the deer with antlers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All alone went Chibiabos.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Right across the Big-Sea-Water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sprang with speed the deer before him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the wind and snow he followed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er the treacherous ice he followed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wild with all the fierce commotion</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the rapture of the hunting.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But beneath, the Evil Spirits</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay in ambush, waiting for him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broke the treacherous ice beneath him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dragged him downward to the bottom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Buried in the sand his body.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unktahee, the god of water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the god of the Dacotahs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drowned him in the deep abysses</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the lake of Gitche Gumee.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the headlands Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sent forth such a wail of anguish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such a fearful lamentation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the bison paused to listen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the wolves howled from the prairies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the thunder in the distance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Starting answered, “Baim-wawa!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then his face with black he painted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his robe his head he covered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his wigwam sat lamenting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seven long weeks he sat lamenting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Uttering still this moan of sorrow:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“He is dead, the sweet musician!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the sweetest of all singers!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He has gone from us for ever,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He has moved a little nearer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the Master of all music,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the Master of all singing!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O my brother, Chibiabos!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the melancholy fir-trees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waved their dark green fans above him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waved their purple cones above him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sighing with him to console him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mingling with his lamentation</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Their complaining, their lamenting.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Came the Spring, and all the forest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looked in vain for Chibiabos;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sighed the rivulet, Sebowisha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sighed the rushes in the meadow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the tree-tops sang the blue-bird,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang the blue-bird, the Owaissa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Chibiabos! Chibiabos!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He is dead, the sweet musician!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the wigwam sang the robin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang the robin, the Opechee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Chibiabos! Chibiabos!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He is dead, the sweetest singer!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And at night through all the forest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Went the whippoorwill complaining,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wailing went the Wawonaissa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Chibiabos! Chibiabos!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He is dead, the sweet musician!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the sweetest of all singers!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then the medicine-men, the Medas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The magicians, the Wabenos,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Jossakeeds, the prophets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came to visit Hiawatha;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Built a Sacred Lodge beside him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To appease him, to console him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Walked in silent, grave procession,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bearing each a pouch of healing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Skin of beaver, lynx, or otter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled with magic roots and simples,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled with very potent medicines.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">When he heard their steps approaching,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiawatha ceased lamenting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Called no more on Chibiabos;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nought he questioned, nought he answered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But his mournful head uncovered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his face the mourning colours</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Washed he slowly and in silence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly and in silence followed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Onward to the Sacred Wigwam.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">There a magic drink they gave him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made of Nahma-wusk, the spearmint,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Wabeno-wusk, the yarrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Roots of power, and herbs of healing;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beat their drums and shook their rattles;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Chanted singly and in chorus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mystic songs like these they chanted:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“I myself, myself! behold me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Tis the great Grey Eagle talking;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Come, ye white crows, come and hear him!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The loud-speaking thunder helps me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the unseen spirits help me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I can hear their voices calling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All around the sky I hear them!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I can blow you strong, my brother,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I can heal you, Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Hi-au-ha!” replied the chorus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Way-ha-way!” the mystic chorus.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Friends of mine are all the serpents!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hear me shake my skin of hen-hawk!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mahng, the white loon, I can kill him;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I can shoot your heart and kill it!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I can blow you strong, my brother,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I can heal you, Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Hi-au-ha!” replied the chorus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Way-ha-way!” the mystic chorus.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“I myself, myself! the prophet!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When I speak the wigwam trembles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shakes the Sacred Lodge with terror,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hands unseen begin to shake it!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When I walk, the sky I tread on</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bends and makes a noise beneath me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I can blow you strong, my brother!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rise and speak, O Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Hi-au-ha!” replied the chorus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Way-ha-way!” the mystic chorus.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then they shook their medicine-pouches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er the head of Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Danced their medicine-dance around him;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And upstarting wild and haggard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a man from dreams awakened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He was healed of all his madness.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the clouds are swept from heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Straightway from his brain departed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All his moody melancholy;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the ice is swept from rivers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Straightway from his heart departed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All his sorrow and affliction.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then they summoned Chibiabos</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his grave beneath the waters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the sands of Gitche Gumee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Summoned Hiawatha’s brother.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And so mighty was the magic</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of that cry and invocation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That he heard it as he laid there</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Underneath the Big-Sea-Water.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the sand he rose and listened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the music and the singing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came, obedient to the summons,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the doorway of the wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But to enter they forbade him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Through a chink a coal they gave him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the door a burning firebrand;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ruler in the Land of Spirits,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ruler o’er the dead, they made him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Telling him a fire to kindle</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For all those that died thereafter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Camp-fires for their night encampments</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On their solitary journey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the kingdom of Ponemah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the land of the Hereafter.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the village of his childhood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the homes of those who knew him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Passing silent through the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a smoke-wreath wafted sideways,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly vanished Chibiabos!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where he passed, the branches moved not;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where he trod, the grasses bent not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the fallen leaves of last year</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made no sound beneath his footsteps.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Four whole days he journeyed onward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down the pathway of the dead men;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the dead-man’s strawberry feasted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crossed the melancholy river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the swinging log he crossed it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came unto the Lake of Silver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the Stone Canoe was carried</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the Islands of the Blessed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the land of ghosts and shadows.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On that journey, moving slowly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many weary spirits saw he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Panting under heavy burdens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laden with war-clubs, bows and arrows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Robes of fur, and pots and kettles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with food that friends had given</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For that solitary journey.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Ah! why do the living,” said they,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Lay such heavy burdens on us?</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Better were it to go naked,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Better were it to go fasting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than to bear such heavy burdens</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On our long and weary journey!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Forth then issued Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wandered eastward, wandered westward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Teaching men the use of simples</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the antidotes for poisons,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the cure of all diseases.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus was first made known to mortals</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the mystery of Medamin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the sacred art of healing.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">XVI.</p>
+<p class="center">PAU-PUK-KEEWIS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He, the handsome Yenadizze,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whom the people called the Storm-Fool,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vexed the village with disturbance;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You shall hear of all his mischief,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And his flight from Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And his wondrous transmigrations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the end of his adventures.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the shores of Gitche Gumee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the dunes of Nagow Wudjoo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the shining Big-Sea-Water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood the lodge of Pau-Puk-Keewis.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was he who in his frenzy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whirled these drifting sands together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the dunes of Nagow Wudjoo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When, amongst the guests assembled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He so merrily and madly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Danced at Hiawatha’s wedding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Danced the Beggar’s Dance to please them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Now, in search of new adventures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his lodge went Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came with speed into the village,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Found the young men all assembled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the lodge of old Iagoo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listening to his monstrous stories,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To his wonderful adventures.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He was telling them the story</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of Ojeeg, the Summer-Maker,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How he made a hole in heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How he climbed up into heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And let out the Summer-weather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The perpetual, pleasant Summer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How the Otter first essayed it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How the Beaver, Lynx, and Badger</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tried in turn the great achievement,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the summit of the mountain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smote their fists against the heavens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smote against the sky their foreheads,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cracked the sky, but could not break it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How the Wolverine, uprising,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made him ready for the encounter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bent his knees down, like a squirrel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drew his arms back, like a cricket.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Once he leaped,” said old Iagoo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Once he leaped, and lo! above him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bent the sky as ice in rivers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the waters rise beneath it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Twice he leaped, and lo! above him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cracked the sky, as ice in rivers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the freshet is at highest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thrice he leaped, and lo! above him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broke the shattered sky asunder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he disappeared within it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Ojeeg, the Fisher Weasel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a bound went in behind him!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Hark you!” shouted Pau-Puk-Keewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he entered at the doorway;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“I am tired of all this talking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tired of old Iagoo’s stories,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tired of Hiawatha’s wisdom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here is something to amuse you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Better than this endless talking.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then from out his pouch of wolf-skin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forth he drew, with solemn manner,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the game of Bowl and Counters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pugasaing, with thirteen pieces.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_43_43" href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">White on one side were they painted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And vermilion on the other;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Two Kenabeeks or great serpents,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Two Ininewug or wedge-men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">One great war-club, Pugamaugun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And one slender fish, the Keego,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Four round pieces, Ozawabeeks,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And three Sheshebwug or ducklings.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All were made of bone and painted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All except the Ozawabeeks;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">These were brass, on one side burnished,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And were black upon the other.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In a wooden bowl he placed them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shook and jostled them together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Threw them on the ground before him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus exclaiming and explaining:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Red side up are all the pieces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And one great Kenabeek standing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the bright side of a brass piece,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On a burnished Ozawabeek;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thirteen tens and eight are counted.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then again he shook the pieces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shook and jostled them together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Threw them on the ground before him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still exclaiming and explaining:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“White are both the great Kenabeeks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">White the Ininewug, the wedge-men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Red are all the other pieces;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Five tens and an eight are counted.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus he taught the game of hazard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus displayed it and explained it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Running through its various chances,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Various changes, various meanings;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Twenty curious eyes stared at him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Full of eagerness stared at him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Many games,” said old Iagoo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Many games of skill and hazard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Have I seen in different nations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Have I played in different countries.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He who plays with old Iagoo</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Must have very nimble fingers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though you think yourself so skilful,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I can beat you, Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I can even give you lessons</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In your game of Bowl and Counters!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">So they sat and played together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the old men and the young men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Played for dresses, weapons, wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Played till midnight, played till morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Played until the Yenadizze,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of their treasures had despoiled them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the best of all their dresses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shirts of deer-skin, robes of ermine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Belts of wampum, crests of feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Warlike weapons, pipes and pouches.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Twenty eyes glared wildly at him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the eyes of wolves glared at him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Said the lucky Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“In my wigwam I am lonely,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In my wanderings and adventures</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I have need of a companion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fain would have a Meshinauwa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">An attendant and pipe-bearer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I will venture all these winnings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All these garments heaped about me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All this wampum, all these feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On a single throw will venture</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All against the young man yonder!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Twas a youth of sixteen summers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Twas a nephew of Iagoo;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Face-in-a-Mist, the people called him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As the fire burns in a pipe-head</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dusky red beneath the ashes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So beneath his shaggy eyebrows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Glowed the eyes of old Iagoo.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ugh!” he answered, very fiercely;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ugh!” they answered all and each one.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Seized the wooden bowl the old man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Closely in his bony fingers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clutched the fatal bowl, Onagon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shook it fiercely and with fury,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made the pieces ring together</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he threw them down before him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Red were both the great Kenabeeks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Red the Ininewug, the wedge-men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Red the Sheshebwug, the ducklings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Black the four brass Ozawabeeks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">White alone the fish, the Keego;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only five the pieces counted!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then the smiling Pau-Puk-Keewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shook the bowl and threw the pieces:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lightly in the air he tossed them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And they fell about him scattered;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dark and bright the Ozawabeeks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Red and white the other pieces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And upright among the others</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">One Ininewug was standing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even as crafty Pau-Puk-Keewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood alone among the players,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saying, “Five tens! mine the game is!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Twenty eyes glared at him fiercely,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the eyes of wolves glared at him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he turned and left the wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Followed by his Meshinauwa,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the nephew of Iagoo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the tall and graceful stripling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bearing in his arms the winnings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shirts of deer-skin, robes of ermine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Belts of wampum, pipes and weapons.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Carry them,” said Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pointing with his fan of feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“To my wigwam far to eastward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the dunes of Nagow Wudjoo!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Hot and red with smoke and gambling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were the eyes of Pau-Puk-Keewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he came forth to the freshness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the pleasant Summer morning.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the birds were singing gaily,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the streamlets flowing swiftly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the heart of Pau-Puk-Keewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang with pleasure as the birds sing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beat with triumph like the streamlets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he wandered through the village,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the early grey of morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his fan of turkey-feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his plumes and tufts of swan’s-down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till he reached the farthest wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Reached the lodge of Hiawatha.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Silent was it and deserted;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No one met him at the doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No one came to bid him welcome;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the birds were singing round it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In and out and round the doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hopping, singing, fluttering, feeding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And aloft upon the ridge-pole</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kahgahgee, the King of Ravens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat with fiery eyes, and, screaming,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flapped his wings at Pau-Puk-Keewis.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“All are gone! the lodge is empty!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus it was spake Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his heart resolving mischief;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Gone is wary Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gone the silly Laughing Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gone Nokomis, the old woman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the lodge is left unguarded!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">By the neck he seized the raven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whirled it round him like a rattle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a medicine-pouch he shook it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strangled Kahgahgee, the raven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the ridge-pole of the wigwam</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Left its lifeless body hanging,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As an insult to its master,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a taunt to Hiawatha.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With a stealthy step he entered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round the lodge in wild disorder</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Threw the household things about him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Piled together in confusion</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bowls of wood and earthen kettles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Robes of buffalo and beaver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Skins of otter, lynx, and ermine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As an insult to Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a taunt to Minnehaha.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then departed Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whistling, singing through the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whistling gaily to the squirrels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who from hollow boughs above him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dropped their acorn-shells upon him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Singing gaily to the wood-birds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who from out the leafy darkness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Answered with a song as merry.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then he climbed the rocky headlands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looking o’er the Gitche Gumee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Perched himself upon their summit,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waiting full of mirth and mischief</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The return of Hiawatha.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Stretched upon his back he lay there;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far below him plashed the waters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plashed and washed the dreamy waters;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far above him swam the heavens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swam the dizzy, dreamy heavens;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round him hovered, fluttered, rustled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiawatha’s mountain chickens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flock-wise swept and wheeled about him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Almost brushed him with their pinions.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And he killed them as he lay there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slaughtered them by tens and twenties,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Threw their bodies down the headland,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Threw them on the beach below him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till at length Kayoshk, the sea-gull,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Perched upon a crag above them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shouted: “It is Pau-Puk-Keewis!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He is slaying us by hundreds!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Send a message to our brother,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tidings send to Hiawatha!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</span></p>
+<p class="f120">XVII.</p>
+<p class="center">THE HUNTING OF PAU-PUK-KEEWIS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Full of wrath was Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he came into the village,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Found the people in confusion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard of all the misdemeanours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the malice and the mischief,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Hard his breath came through his nostrils,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through his teeth he buzzed and muttered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Words of anger and resentment,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hot and humming, like a hornet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I will slay this Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slay this mischief-maker!” said he.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Not so long and wide the world is,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not so rude and rough the way is,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That my wrath shall not attain him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That my vengeance shall not reach him!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then in swift pursuit departed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiawatha and the hunters</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the trail of Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the forest where he passed it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the headlands where he rested;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But they found not Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only in the trampled grasses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the whortleberry-bushes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Found the couch where he had rested,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Found the impress of his body.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the lowlands far beneath them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the Muskoday, the meadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pau-Puk-Keewis, turning backward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made a gesture of defiance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made a gesture of derision;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And aloud cried Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the summit of the mountain:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Not so long and wide the world is,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not so rude and rough the way is,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But my wrath shall overtake you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And my vengeance shall attain you!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Over rock and over river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thorough bush and brake and forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ran the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like an antelope he bounded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till he came unto a streamlet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the middle of the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To a streamlet still and tranquil,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That had overflowed its margin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To a dam made by the beavers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To a pond of quiet water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where knee-deep the trees were standing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the water-lilies floated,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the rushes waved and whispered.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the dam stood Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the dam of trunks and branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through whose chinks the water spouted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er whose summit flowed the streamlet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the bottom rose a beaver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looked with two great eyes of wonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Eyes that seemed to ask a question,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the stranger, Pau-Puk-Keewis.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the dam stood Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er his ankles flowed the streamlet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flowed the bright and silvery water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he spake unto the beaver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a smile he spake in this wise:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“O my friend, Ahmeek, the beaver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cool and pleasant is the water;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let me dive into the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let me rest there in your lodges;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Change me, too, into a beaver!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Cautiously replied the beaver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With reserve he thus made answer:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Let me first consult the others,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let me ask the other beavers.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down he sank into the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heavily sank he as a stone sinks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down among the leaves and branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brown and matted at the bottom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the dam stood Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er his ankles flowed the streamlet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spouted through the chinks below him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dashed upon the stones beneath him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spread serene and calm before him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the sunshine and the shadows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell in flecks and gleams upon him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell in little shining patches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the waving, rustling branches.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the bottom rose the beavers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silently above the surface</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose one head and then another,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the pond seemed full of beavers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Full of black and shining faces.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To the beavers Pau-Puk-Keewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spake entreating, said in this wise:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Very pleasant is your dwelling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O my friends! and safe from danger;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Can you not with all your cunning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All your wisdom and contrivance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Change me, too, into a beaver?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Yes,” replied Ahmeek, the beaver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the King of all the beavers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Let yourself slide down among us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down into the tranquil water.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Down into the pond among them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silently sank Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Black became his shirt of deer-skin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Black his moccasins and leggings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In a broad black tail behind him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spread his foxtails and his fringes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He was changed into a beaver.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Make me large,” said Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Make me large, and make me larger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Larger than the other beavers.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Yes,” the beaver chief responded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“When our lodge below you enter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In our wigwam we will make you</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ten times larger than the others.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus into the clear, brown water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silently sank Pau-Puk-Keewis;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Found the bottom covered over</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the trunks of trees and branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hoards of food against the winter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Piles and heaps against the famine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Found the lodge with arching doorway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leading into spacious chambers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here they made him large and larger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made him largest of the beavers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ten times larger than the others.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“You shall be our ruler,” said they,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Chief and king of all the beavers.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But not long had Pau-Puk-Keewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat in state among the beavers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When there came a voice of warning</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the watchman at his station</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the water-flags and lilies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saying, “Here is Hiawatha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiawatha with his hunters!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then they heard a cry above them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard a shouting and a tramping,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard a crashing and a rushing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the water round and o’er them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sank and sucked away in eddies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And they knew their dam was broken.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the lodge’s roof the hunters</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leaped and broke it all asunder;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Streamed the sunshine through the crevice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sprang the beavers through the doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hid themselves in deeper water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the channel of the streamlet;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the mighty Pau-Puk-Keewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Could not pass beneath the doorway;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He was puffed with pride and feeding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He was swollen like a bladder.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Through the roof looked Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cried aloud, “O Pau-Puk-Keewis!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vain are all your craft and cunning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vain your manifold disguises!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Well I know you, Pau-Puk-Keewis!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With their clubs they beat and bruised him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beat to death poor Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pounded him as maize is pounded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till his skull was crushed to pieces.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Six tall hunters, lithe and limber,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bore him home on poles and branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bore the body of the beaver;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the ghost, the Jeebi in him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thought and felt as Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still lived on as Pau-Puk-Keewis.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And it fluttered, strove, and struggled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waving hither, waving thither,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the curtains of a wigwam</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Struggle with their thongs of deer-skin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the wintry wind is blowing;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till it drew itself together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till it rose up from the body,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till it took the form and features</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vanishing into the forest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But the wary Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the figure ere it vanished,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the form of Pau-Puk-Keewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Glide into the soft blue shadow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the pine-trees of the forest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Toward the squares of white beyond it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Toward an opening in the forest,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a wind it rushed and panted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bending all the boughs before it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And behind it, as the rain comes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came the steps of Hiawatha.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To a lake with many islands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came the breathless Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where among the water-lilies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pishnekuh, the brant, were sailing;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the tufts of rushes floating,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Steering through the reedy islands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now their broad black beaks they lifted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now they plunged beneath the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now they darkened in the shadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now they brightened in the sunshine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Pishnekuh!” cried Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Pishnekuh, my brothers!” said he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Change me to a brant with plumage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a shining neck and feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Make me large, and make me larger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ten times larger than the others.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Straightway to a brant they changed him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With two huge and dusky pinions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a bosom smooth and rounded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a bill like two great paddles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made him larger than the others,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ten times larger than the largest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Just as, shouting from the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the shore stood Hiawatha.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Up they rose with cry and clamour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a whirr and beat of pinions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose up from the reedy islands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the water-flags and lilies.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And they said to Pau-Puk-Keewis:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“In your flying look not downward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Take good heed and look not downward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lest some strange mischance should happen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lest some great mishap befall you!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Fast and far they fled to northward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fast and far through mist and sunshine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fed among the moors and fenlands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slept among the reeds and rushes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the morrow as they journeyed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Buoyed and lifted by the South-wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wafted onward by the South-wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blowing fresh and strong behind them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose a sound of human voices,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose a clamour from beneath them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the lodges of a village,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the people miles beneath them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">For the people of the village</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the flock of brant with wonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the wings of Pau-Puk-Keewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flapping far up in the ether,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broader than two doorway curtains.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Pau-Puk-Keewis heard the shouting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Knew the voice of Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Knew the outcry of Iagoo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, forgetful of the warning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drew his neck in and looked downward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the wind that blew behind him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Caught his mighty fan of feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sent him wheeling, whirling downward!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All in vain did Pau-Puk-Keewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Struggle to regain his balance!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whirling round and round and downward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He beheld in turn the village,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in turn the flock above him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the village coming nearer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the flock receding farther,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the voices growing louder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the shouting and the laughter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw no more the flock above him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only saw the earth beneath him;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dead out of the empty heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dead among the shouting people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a heavy sound and sullen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell the brant with broken pinions.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But his soul, his ghost, his shadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still survived as Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Took again the form and features</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the handsome Yenadizze,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And again went rushing onward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Followed fast by Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crying: “Not so wide the world is,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not so long and rough the way is,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But my wrath shall overtake you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But my vengeance shall attain you!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And so near he came, so near him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That his hand was stretched to seize him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His right hand to seize and hold him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whirled and spun about in circles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fanned the air into a whirlwind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Danced the dust and leaves about him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And amid the whirling eddies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sprang into a hollow oak-tree,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Changed himself into a serpent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gliding out through root and rubbish.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With his right hand Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smote amain the hollow oak-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rent it into shreds and splinters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Left it lying there in fragments.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But in vain! for Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Once again in human figure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Full in sight ran on before him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sped away in gust and whirlwind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the shores of Gitche Gumee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Westward by the Big-Sea-Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came unto the rocky headlands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the Pictured Rocks of sandstone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looking over lake and landscape.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the Old Man of the Mountain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the Manito of Mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Opened wide his rocky doorways,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Opened wide his deep abysses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Giving Pau-Puk-Keewis shelter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his caverns dark and dreary,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bidding Pau-Puk-Keewis welcome</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To his gloomy lodge of sandstone.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">There without stood Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Found the doorways closed against him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his mittens, Minjekahwun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smote great caverns in the sandstone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cried aloud in tones of thunder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Open! I am Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the Old Man of the Mountain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Opened not, and made no answer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the silent crags of sandstone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the gloomy rock abysses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then he raised his hands to heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Called imploring on the tempest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Called Waywassimo, the lightning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the thunder, Annemeekee;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And they came with night and darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sweeping down the Big-Sea-Water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the distant Thunder Mountains:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the trembling Pau-Puk-Keewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the footsteps of the thunder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the red eyes of the lightning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was afraid, and crouched and trembled.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then Waywassimo, the lightning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smote the doorways of the caverns,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his war-club smote the doorways,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smote the jutting crags of sandstone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the thunder, Annemeekee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shouted down into the caverns,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saying, “Where is Pau-Puk-Keewis?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the crags fell, and beneath them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dead among the rocky ruins</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay the handsome Yenadizze,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slain in his own human figure.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Ended were his wild adventures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ended were his tricks and gambols,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ended all his craft and cunning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ended all his mischief-making,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All his gambling and his dancing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All his wooing of the maidens.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then the noble Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Took his soul, his ghost, his shadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spake and said: “O Pau-Puk-Keewis!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never more in human figure</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shall you search for new adventures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never more with jest and laughter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dance the dust and leaves in whirlwinds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But above there in the heavens</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You shall soar and sail in circles;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I will change you to an eagle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To Keneu, the great War-Eagle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Chief of all the fowls with feathers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Chief of Hiawatha’s chickens.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the name of Pau-Puk-Keewis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lingers still among the people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lingers still among the singers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And among the story-tellers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in Winter, when the snow-flakes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whirl in eddies round the lodges,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the wind in gusty tumult</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er the smoke-flue pipes and whistles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“There,” they cry, “comes Pau-Puk-Keewis;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He is dancing through the village,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He is gathering in his harvest!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</span></p>
+<p class="f120">XVIII.</p>
+<p class="center">THE DEATH OF KWASIND.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far and wide among the nations</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spread the name and fame of Kwasind;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No man dared to strive with Kwasind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No man could compete with Kwasind.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the mischievous Puk-Wudjies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They the envious Little People,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They the fairies and the pigmies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plotted and conspired against him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“If this hateful Kwasind,” said they,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“If this great, outrageous fellow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Goes on thus a little longer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tearing everything he touches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rending everything to pieces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filling all the world with wonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What becomes of the Puk-Wudjies?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who will care for the Puk-Wudjies?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He will tread us down like mushrooms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drive us all into the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Give our bodies to be eaten</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the wicked Nee-ba-naw-baigs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the Spirits of the Water!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">So the angry Little People</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All conspired against the Strong Man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All conspired to murder Kwasind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yes, to rid the world of Kwasind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The audacious, overbearing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heartless, haughty, dangerous Kwasind.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Now this wondrous strength of Kwasind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his crown alone was seated;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his crown, too, was his weakness;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There alone could he be wounded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nowhere else could weapon pierce him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nowhere else could weapon harm him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Even there the only weapon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That could wound him, that could slay him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was the seed-cone of the pine-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was the blue-cone of the fir-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This was Kwasind’s fatal secret,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Known to no man among mortals;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the cunning Little People,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Puk-Wudjies, knew the secret,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Knew the only way to kill him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">So they gathered cones together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gathered seed-cones of the pine-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gathered blue-cones of the fir-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the woods by Taquamenaw,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brought them to the river’s margin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heaped them in great piles together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the red rocks from the margin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Jutting overhang the river.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There they lay in wait for Kwasind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The malicious Little People.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">’Twas an afternoon in Summer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Very hot and still the air was,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Very smooth the gliding river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Motionless the sleeping shadows:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Insects glistened in the sunshine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Insects skated on the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled the drowsy air with buzzing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a far-resounding war-cry.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Down the river came the Strong Man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his birch-canoe came Kwasind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Floating slowly down the current</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the sluggish Taquamenaw,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Very languid with the weather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Very sleepy with the silence.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the overhanging branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the tassels of the birch-trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soft the Spirit of Sleep descended;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By his airy hosts surrounded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His invisible attendants,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came the Spirit of Sleep, Nepahwin;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the burnished Dush-kwo-ne-she,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a Dragon-fly, he hovered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er the drowsy head of Kwasind.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To his ear there came a murmur</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As of waves upon a sea-shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As of far-off tumbling waters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As of winds among the pine-trees;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he felt upon his forehead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blows of little airy war-clubs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wielded by the slumbrous legions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the Spirit of Sleep, Nepahwin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As of some one breathing on him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">At the first blow of their war-clubs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell a drowsiness on Kwasind;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the second blow they smote him,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Motionless his paddle rested;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the third, before his vision</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Reeled the landscape into darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Very sound asleep was Kwasind.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">So he floated down the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a blind man seated upright,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Floated down the Taquamenaw,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Underneath the trembling birch-trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Underneath the wooded headlands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Underneath the war encampment</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the pigmies, the Puk-Wudjies.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There they stood, all armed and waiting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hurled the pine-cones down upon him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Struck him on his brawny shoulders,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On his crown defenceless struck him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Death to Kwasind!” was the sudden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">War-cry of the Little People.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And he sideways swayed and tumbled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sideways fell into the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plunged beneath the sluggish water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Headlong as an otter plunges;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the birch-canoe, abandoned,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drifted empty down the river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bottom upward swerved and drifted:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nothing more was seen of Kwasind.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But the memory of the Strong Man</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lingered long among the people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And whenever through the forest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Raged and roared the wintry tempest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the branches, tossed and troubled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Creaked and groaned and split asunder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Kwasind!” cried they; “that is Kwasind!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He is gathering in his fire-wood!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">XIX.</p>
+<p class="center">THE GHOSTS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never stoops the soaring vulture</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On his quarry in the desert,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the sick or wounded bison,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But another vulture, watching</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his high aerial look-out,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sees the downward plunge, and follows;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And a third pursues the second,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Coming from the invisible ether,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">First a speck, and then a vulture,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the air is dark with pinions.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">So disasters come not singly;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But as if they watched and waited,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Scanning one another’s motions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the first descends, the others</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Follow, follow, gathering flock-wise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round their victim, sick and wounded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">First a shadow, then a sorrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the air is dark with anguish.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Now, o’er all the dreary Northland,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mighty Peboan, the Winter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Breathing on the lakes and rivers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into stone had changed their waters.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his hair he shook the snow-flakes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the plains were strewn with whiteness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">One uninterrupted level,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if, stooping, the Creator</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his hand had smoothed them over.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Through the forest, wide and wailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Roamed the hunter on his snow-shoes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the village worked the women,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pounded maize, or dressed the deer-skin;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the young men played together</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the ice the noisy ball-play,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the plain the dance of snow-shoes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">One dark evening, after sun-down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In her wigwam Laughing Water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat with old Nokomis, waiting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the steps of Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Homeward from the hunt returning.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On their faces gleamed the fire-light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Painting them with streaks of crimson,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the eyes of old Nokomis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Glimmered like the watery moonlight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the eyes of Laughing Water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Glistened like the sun in water;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And behind them crouched their shadows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the corners of the wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the smoke in wreaths above them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Climbed and crowded through the smoke-flue.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then the curtain of the doorway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From without was slowly lifted;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brighter glowed the fire a moment,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And a moment swerved the smoke-wreath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As two women entered softly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Passed the doorway uninvited,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Without word of salutation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Without sign of recognition,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat down in the farthest corner,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crouching low among the shadows.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From their aspect and their garments,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strangers seemed they in the village;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Very pale and haggard were they,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As they sat there sad and silent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Trembling, cowering with the shadows.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Was it the wind above the smoke-flue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Muttering down into the wigwam?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was it the owl, the Koko-koko,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hooting from the dismal forest?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sure a voice said in the silence:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“These are corpses clad in garments,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">These are ghosts that come to haunt you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the kingdom of Ponemah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the land of the Hereafter!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Homeward now came Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his hunting in the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the snow upon his tresses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the red deer on his shoulders.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the feet of Laughing Water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down he threw his lifeless burden;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nobler, handsomer she thought him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than when first he came to woo her;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">First threw down the deer before her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a token of his wishes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a promise of the future.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then he turned and saw the strangers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cowering, crouching with the shadows;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said within himself, “Who are they?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What strange guests has Minnehaha?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But he questioned not the strangers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only spake to bid them welcome</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To his lodge, his food, his fireside.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">When the evening meal was ready,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the deer had been divided,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Both the pallid guests, the strangers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Springing from among the shadows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seized upon the choicest portions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seized the white fat of the roebuck,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Set apart for Laughing Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the wife of Hiawatha;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Without asking, without thanking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Eagerly devoured the morsels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flitted back among the shadows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the corner of the wigwam.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Not a word spake Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not a motion made Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not a gesture Laughing Water;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not a change came o’er their features;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only Minnehaha softly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whispered, saying, “They are famished;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let them do what best delights them;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let them eat, for they are famished.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Many a daylight dawned and darkened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many a night shook off the daylight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the pine shakes off the snow-flakes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the midnight of its branches;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Day by day the guests unmoving</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat there silent in the wigwam;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But by night, in storm or star-light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forth they went into the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bringing fire-wood to the wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bringing pine-cones for the burning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Always sad and always silent.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And whenever Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came from fishing or from hunting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the evening meal was ready,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the food had been divided,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gliding from their darksome corner,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came the pallid guests, the strangers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seized upon the choicest portions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Set aside for Laughing Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And without rebuke or question</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flitted back among the shadows.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Never once had Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By a word or look reproved them;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never once had old Nokomis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made a gesture of impatience;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never once had Laughing Water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shown resentment at the outrage.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All had they endured in silence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the rights of guest and stranger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the virtue of free-giving,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By a look might not be lessened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By a word might not be broken.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Once at midnight Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ever wakeful, ever watchful,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the wigwam dimly lighted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the brands that still were burning,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the glimmering, flickering fire-light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard a sighing, oft repeated,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard a sobbing, as of sorrow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From his couch rose Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his shaggy hides of bison,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pushed aside the deer-skin curtain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the pallid guests, the shadows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sitting upright on their couches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Weeping in the silent midnight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And he said: “O guests! why is it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That your hearts are so afflicted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That you sob so in the midnight?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Has perchance the old Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Has my wife, my Minnehaha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wronged or grieved you by unkindness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Failed in hospitable duties?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then the shadows ceased from weeping,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ceased from sobbing and lamenting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And they said, with gentle voices:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“We are ghosts of the departed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Souls of those who once were with you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the realms of Chibiabos</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hither have we come to try you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hither have we come to warn you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Cries of grief and lamentation</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Reach us in the Blessed Islands;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cries of anguish from the living,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Calling back their friends departed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sadden us with useless sorrow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore have we come to try you;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No one knows us, no one heeds us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We are but a burden to you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And we see that the departed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Have no place among the living.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Think of this, O Hiawatha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Speak of it to all the people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That henceforward and for ever</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They no more with lamentations</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sadden the souls of the departed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the Islands of the Blessed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Do not lay such heavy burdens</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the graves of those you bury,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not such weight of furs and wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not such weight of pots and kettles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the spirits faint beneath them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only give them food to carry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only give them fire to light them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Four days is the spirit’s journey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the land of ghosts and shadows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Four its lonely night encampments;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Four times must their fires be lighted.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore, when the dead are buried,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let a fire, as night approaches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Four times on the grave be kindled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the soul upon its journey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">May not lack the cheerful fire-light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">May not grope about in darkness.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Farewell, noble Hiawatha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We have put you to the trial,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the proof have put your patience,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the insult of our presence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the outrage of our actions.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We have found you great and noble.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fail not in the greater trial,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Faint not in the harder struggle.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">When they ceased, a sudden darkness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell and filled the silent wigwam.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiawatha heard a rustle</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As of garments trailing by him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the curtain of the doorway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lifted by a hand he saw not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Felt the cold breath of the night-air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For a moment saw the star-light;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But he saw the ghosts no longer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw no more the wandering spirits</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the kingdom of Ponemah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the land of the Hereafter.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">XX.</p>
+<p class="center">THE FAMINE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">O The long and dreary Winter!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O the cold and cruel Winter!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ever thicker, thicker, thicker</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Froze the ice on lake and river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ever deeper, deeper, deeper</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell the snow o’er all the landscape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell the covering snow, and drifted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the forest, round the village.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Hardly from his buried wigwam</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Could the hunter force a passage;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his mittens and his snow-shoes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vainly walked he through the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sought for bird or beast and found none,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw no track of deer or rabbit,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the snow beheld no footprints,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the ghastly, gleaming forest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell, and could not rise from weakness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Perished there from cold and hunger.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">O the famine and the fever!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O the wasting of the famine!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O the blasting of the fever!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O the wailing of the children!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O the anguish of the women!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All the earth was sick and famished,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hungry was the air around them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hungry was the sky above them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the hungry stars in heaven</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the eyes of wolves glared at them!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Into Hiawatha’s wigwam</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came two other guests, as silent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the ghosts were, and as gloomy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waited not to be invited,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Did not parley at the doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat there without word of welcome</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the seat of Laughing Water;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looked with haggard eyes and hollow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the face of Laughing Water.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the foremost said, “Behold me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I am Famine, Buckadawin!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the other said, “Behold me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I am Fever, Ahkosewin!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the lovely Minnehaha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shuddered as they looked upon her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shuddered at the words they uttered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay down on her bed in silence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hid her face, but made no answer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay there trembling, freezing, burning</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the looks they cast upon her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the fearful words they uttered.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Forth into the empty forest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rushed the maddened Hiawatha;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his heart was deadly sorrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his face a stony firmness;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On his brow the sweat of anguish</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Started, but it froze, and fell not.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Wrapped in furs,and armed for hunting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his mighty bow of ash-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his quiver full of arrows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his mittens, Minjekahwun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the vast and vacant forest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On his snow-shoes strode he forward.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Gitche Manito, the Mighty!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cried he with his face uplifted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In that bitter hour of anguish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Give your children food, O father!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Give us food, or we must perish!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Give me food for Minnehaha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For my dying Minnehaha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Through the far-resounding forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the forest vast and vacant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rang that cry of desolation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But there came no other answer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than the echo of his crying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than the echo of the woodlands.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Minnehaha! Minnehaha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All day long roved Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In that melancholy forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the shadow of whose thickets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the pleasant days of Summer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of that ne’er forgotten Summer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He had brought his young wife homeward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the land of the Dacotahs;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the birds sang in the thickets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the streamlets laughed and glistened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the air was full of fragrance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the lovely Laughing Water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said, with voice that did not tremble,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I will follow you, my husband!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In the wigwam with Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With those gloomy guests that watched her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the Famine and the Fever,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She was lying, the Beloved,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She the dying Minnehaha.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Hark!” she said, “I hear a rushing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hear a roaring and a rushing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hear the falls of Minnehaha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Calling to me from a distance!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“No, my child!” said old Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“’Tis the night-wind in the pine-trees!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Look!” she said, “I see my father</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Standing lonely at his doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beckoning to me from his wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the land of the Dacotahs!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“No, my child!” said old Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“’Tis the smoke that waves and beckons!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Ah!” she said, “the eyes of Pauguk</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Glare upon me in the darkness;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I can feel his icy fingers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clasping mine amid the darkness!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiawatha! Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the desolate Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far away amid the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Miles away among the mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard that sudden cry of anguish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the voice of Minnehaha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Calling to him in the darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Hiawatha! Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Over snow-fields waste and pathless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under snow-encumbered branches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Homeward hurried Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Empty-handed, heavy-hearted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard Nokomis moaning, wailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Wahonomin! Wahonomin!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would that I had perished for you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would that I were dead as you are!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wahonomin! Wahonomin!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he rushed into the wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the old Nokomis slowly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rocking to and fro and moaning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw his lovely Minnehaha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lying dead and cold before him;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And his bursting heart within him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Uttered such a cry of anguish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the forest moaned and shuddered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the very stars in heaven</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shook and trembled with his anguish.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then he sat down, still and speechless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the bed of Minnehaha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the feet of Laughing Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At those willing feet, that never</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">More would lightly run to meet him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never more would lightly follow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With both hands his face he covered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seven long days and nights he sat there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if in a swoon he sat there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Speechless, motionless, unconscious</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the daylight or the darkness.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then they buried Minnehaha;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the snow a grave they made her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the forest deep and darksome,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Underneath the moaning hemlocks;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clothed her in her richest garments,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wrapped her in her robes of ermine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Covered her with snow-like ermine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus they buried Minnehaha.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And at night a fire was lighted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On her grave four times was kindled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For her soul upon its journey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the Islands of the Blessed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his doorway Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw it burning in the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lighting up the gloomy hemlocks;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his sleepless bed uprising,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the bed of Minnehaha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood and watched it at the doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That it might not be extinguished,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Might not leave her in the darkness.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Farewell!” said he, “Minnehaha!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Farewell, O my Laughing Water!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All my heart is buried with you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All my thoughts go onward with you!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Come not back again to labour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Come not back again to suffer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the Famine and the Fever</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wear the heart and waste the body.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soon my task will be completed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soon your footsteps I shall follow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the Islands of the Blessed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the kingdom of Ponemah!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the Land of the Hereafter!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">XXI.</p>
+<p class="center">THE WHITE MAN’S FOOT.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his lodge beside a river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Close beside a frozen river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat an old man, sad and lonely.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">White his hair was as a snow-drift;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dull and low his fire was burning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the old man shook and trembled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Folded in his Waubewyon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his tattered white-skin wrapper,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hearing nothing but the tempest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As it roared along the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seeing nothing but the snow-storm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As it whirled and hissed and drifted.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All the coals were white with ashes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the fire was slowly dying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a young man, walking lightly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the open doorway entered.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Red with blood of youth his cheeks were,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soft his eyes as stars in Spring-time;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bound his forehead was with grasses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bound and plumed with scented grasses;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On his lips a smile of beauty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filling all the lodge with sunshine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his hands a bunch of blossoms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filling all the lodge with sweetness.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Ah, my son!” exclaimed the old man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Happy are my eyes to see you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sit here on the mat beside me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sit here by the dying embers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let us pass the night together.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tell me of your strange adventures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the lands where you have travelled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I will tell you of my prowess,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of my many deeds of wonder.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From his pouch he drew his peace-pipe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Very old and strangely fashioned;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made of red stone was the pipe-head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the stem a reed with feathers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled the pipe with bark of willow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Placed a burning coal upon it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave it to his guest, the stranger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And began to speak in this wise:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“When I blow my breath about me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When I breathe upon the landscape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Motionless are all the rivers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hard as stone becomes the water!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the young man answered, smiling:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“When I blow my breath about me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When I breathe upon the landscape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flowers spring up o’er all the meadows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Singing, onward rush the rivers!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“When I shake my hoary tresses,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said the old man, darkly frowning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“All the land with snow is covered;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the leaves from all the branches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fall and fade and die and wither,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For I breathe, and lo! they are not.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the waters and the marshes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rise the wild-goose and the heron,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fly away to distant regions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For I speak, and lo! they are not.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And where’er my footsteps wander,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the wild beasts of the forest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hide themselves in holes and caverns,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the earth becomes as flintstone!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“When I shake my flowing ringlets,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said the young man, softly laughing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Showers of rain fall warm and welcome,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plants lift up their heads rejoicing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Back unto their lakes and marshes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Come the wild-goose and the heron,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Homeward shoots the arrowy swallow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sing the blue-bird and the robin;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And where’er my footsteps wander,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the meadows wave with blossoms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the woodlands ring with music,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the trees are dark with foliage!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">While they spake, the night departed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the distant realms of Wabun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his shining lodge of silver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a warrior robed and painted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came the sun, and said, “Behold me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gheezis, the great sun, behold me!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then the old man’s tongue was speechless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the air grew warm and pleasant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And upon the wigwam sweetly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang the blue-bird and the robin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the stream began to murmur,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And a scent of growing grasses</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the lodge was gently wafted.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And Segwun, the youthful stranger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">More distinctly in the daylight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the icy face before him;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was Peboan, the Winter!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From his eyes the tears were flowing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As from melting lakes the streamlets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And his body shrunk and dwindled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the shouting sun ascended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till into the air it faded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till into the ground it vanished,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the young man saw before him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the hearthstone of the wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the fire had smoked and smouldered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the earliest flowers of Spring-time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the Beauty of the Spring-time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the Miskodeed in blossom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus it was that in the Northland,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">After that unheard-of coldness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That intolerable Winter,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came the Spring with all its splendour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All its birds and all its blossoms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All its flowers and leaves and grasses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Sailing on the wind to northward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flying in great flocks, like arrows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like huge arrows shot through heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Passed the swan, the Mahnahbezee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Speaking almost as a man speaks;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in long lines waving, bending</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a bow-string snapped asunder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The white goose, the Waw-be-wawa;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in pairs, or singly flying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mahng the loon, with clangorous pinions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The blue heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the grouse, the Mushkodasa.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In the thickets and the meadows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Piped the blue-bird, the Owaissa;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the summit of the lodges</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang the robin, the Opechee;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the covert of the pine-trees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cooed the pigeon, the Omeme;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the sorrowing Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Speechless in his infinite sorrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard their voices calling to him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Went forth from his gloomy doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood and gazed into the heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gazed upon the earth and waters.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From his wanderings far to eastward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the regions of the morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the shining land of Wabun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Homeward now returned Iagoo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The great traveller, the great boaster,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Full of new and strange adventures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Marvels many and many wonders.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the people of the village</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listened to him as he told them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of his marvellous adventures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laughing answered him in this wise:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Ugh! it is indeed Iagoo!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No one else beholds such wonders!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He had seen, he said, a water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bigger than the Big-Sea-Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broader than the Gitche Gumee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bitter so that none could drink it!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At each other looked the warriors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looked the women at each other,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smiled, and said, “It cannot be so!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kaw!” they said, “it cannot be so!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">O’er it, said he, o’er this water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came a great canoe with pinions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A canoe with wings came flying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bigger than a grove of pine trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Taller than the tallest tree-tops!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the old men and the women</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looked and tittered at each other.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Kaw!” they said, “we don’t believe it!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From its mouth, he said, to greet him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came Waywassimo, the lightning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came the thunder, Annemeekee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the warriors and the women</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laughed aloud at poor Iagoo;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Kaw!” said they, “what tales you tell us!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In it, said he, came a people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the great canoe with pinions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came, he said, a hundred warriors;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Painted white were all their faces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with hair their chins were covered!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the warriors and the women</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laughed and shouted in derision,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the ravens on the tree-tops,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the crows upon the hemlocks.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Kaw!” they said, “what lies you tell us!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Do not think that we believe them!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Only Hiawatha laughed not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But he gravely spake and answered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To their jeering and their jesting:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“True is all Iagoo tells us;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I have seen it in a vision,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seen the great canoe with pinions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seen the people with white faces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seen the coming of this bearded</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">People of the wooden vessel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the regions of the morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the shining land of Wabun.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Gitche Manito, the Mighty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Great Spirit, the Creator,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sends them hither on his errand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sends them to us with his message.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wheresoe’er they move, before them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swarms the stinging-fly, the Ahmo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swarms the bee, the honey-maker;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wheresoe’er they tread, beneath them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Springs a flower unknown among us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Springs the White Man’s Foot in blossom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Let us welcome, then, the strangers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hail them as our friends and brothers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the heart’s right hand of friendship</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Give them when they come to see us.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gitche Manito, the Mighty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said this to me in my vision.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“I beheld, too, in that vision</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the secrets of the future,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the distant days that shall be.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I beheld the westward marches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the unknown, crowded nations.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the land was full of people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Restless, struggling, toiling, striving,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Speaking many tongues, yet feeling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But one heart-beat in their bosoms.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the woodlands rang their axes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smoked their towns in all the valleys.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over all the lakes and rivers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rushed their great canoes of thunder.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Then a darker, drearier vision</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Passed before me, vague and cloud-like.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I beheld our nations scattered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All forgetful of my counsels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Weakened, warring with each other;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the remnants of our people</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sweeping westward, wild and woeful,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the cloud-rack of a tempest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the withered leaves of Autumn!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">XXII.</p>
+<p class="center">HIAWATHA’s DEPARTURE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the shore of Gitche Gumee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the shining Big-Sea-Water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the doorway of his wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the pleasant summer morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiawatha stood and waited.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All the air was full of freshness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the earth was bright and joyous,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And before him through the sunshine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Westward toward the neighbouring forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Passed in golden swarms the Ahmo,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Passed the bees, the honey-makers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Burning, singing in the sunshine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Bright above him shone the heavens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Level spread the lake before him;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From its bosom leaped the sturgeon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sparkling, flashing in the sunshine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On its margin the great forest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood reflected in the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Every tree-top had its shadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Motionless, beneath the water.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the brow of Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gone was every trace of sorrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a fog from off the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the mist from off the meadow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a smile of joy and triumph,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a look of exultation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As at one who in a vision</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sees what is to be, but is not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood and waited Hiawatha.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Toward the sun his hands were lifted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Both the palms spread out against it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And between the parted fingers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell the sunshine on his features,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flecked with light his naked shoulders</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As it falls and flecks an oak-tree</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the rifted leaves and branches.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">O’er the water, floating, flying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Something in the hazy distance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Something in the mists of morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loomed and lifted from the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now seemed floating, now seemed flying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Coming nearer, nearer, nearer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Was it Shingebis, the diver?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was it the pelican, the Shada?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or the white goose, Waw-be-wawa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the water dripping, flashing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From its glossy neck and feathers?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">It was neither goose nor diver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Neither pelican nor heron,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er the water, floating, flying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the shining mist of morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But a birch-canoe with paddles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rising, sinking on the water,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dripping, flashing in the sunshine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And within it came a people</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the distant land of Wabun.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the farthest realms of morning</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came the Black-Robe chief, the Prophet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He the Priest of Prayer, the Pale-face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his guides and his companions.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the noble Hiawatha,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his hands aloft extended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Held aloft in sign of welcome,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waited, full of exultation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the birch-canoe, with paddles</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grated on the shining pebbles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stranded on the sandy margin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the Black-Robe chief, the Pale-face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the cross upon his bosom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Landed on the sandy margin.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then the joyous Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cried aloud and spake in this wise:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Beautiful is the sun, O strangers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When you come so far to see us!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All our town in peace awaits you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All our doors stand open for you;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You shall enter all our wigwams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the heart’s right hand we give you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Never bloomed the earth so gaily,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never shone the sun so brightly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As to-day they shine and blossom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When you come so far to see us!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never was our lake so tranquil,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor so free from rocks and sand-bars;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For your birch-canoe in passing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Has removed both rock and sand-bar!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Never before had our tobacco</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such a sweet and pleasant flavour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never the broad leaves of our corn-fields</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were so beautiful to look on,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As they seem to us this morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When you come so far to see us!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the Black-Robe chief made answer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stammered in his speech a little,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Speaking words yet unfamiliar:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Peace be with you, Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Peace be with you and your people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Peace of prayer, and peace of pardon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Peace of Christ, and joy of Mary!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then the generous Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Led the strangers to his wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seated them on skins of bison,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seated them on skins of ermine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the careful, old Nokomis</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brought them food in bowls of bass-wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Water brought in birchen dippers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the calumet, the peace-pipe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled and lighted for their smoking.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All the old men of the village,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the warriors of the nation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the Jossakeeds, the prophets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The magicians, the Wabenos,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the medicine men, the Medas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came to bid the strangers welcome:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“It is well,” they said, “O brothers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That you come so far to see us!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In a circle round the doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With their pipes they sat in silence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waiting to behold the strangers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waiting to receive their message;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the Black-Robe chief, the Pale-face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the wigwam came to greet them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stammering in his speech a little,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Speaking words yet unfamiliar:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“It is well,” they said, “O brother,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That you come so far to see us!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then the Black-Robe chief, the prophet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Told his message to the people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Told the purport of his mission,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Told them of the Virgin Mary,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And her blessed Son, the Saviour:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How in distant lands and ages</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He had lived on earth as we do;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How he fasted, prayed, and laboured;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How the Jews, the tribe accursed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mocked him, scourged him, crucified him;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How he rose from where they laid him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Walked again with his disciples,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And ascended into heaven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the chiefs made answer, saying:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“We have listened to your message,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We have heard your words of wisdom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We will think on what you tell us.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It is well for us, O brothers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That you come so far to see us!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then they rose up and departed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each one homeward to his wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the young men and the women,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Told the story of the strangers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whom the Master of Life had sent them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the shining land of Wabun.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Heavy with the heat and silence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grew the afternoon of Summer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a drowsy sound the forest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whispered round the sultry wigwam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a sound of sleep the water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rippled on the beach below it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the corn-fields shrill and ceaseless</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang the grasshopper, Pah-puk-keena;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the guests of Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Weary with the heat of Summer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slumbered in the sultry wigwam.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Slowly o’er the simmering landscape</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell the evening’s dusk and coolness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the long and level sunbeams</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shot their spears into the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Breaking through its shields of shadow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rushed into each secret ambush,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Searched each thicket, dingle, hollow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still the guests of Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slumbered in the silent wigwam.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From his place rose Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bade farewell to old Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spake in whispers, spake in this wise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Did not wake the guests that slumbered:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“I am going, O Nokomis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On a long and distant journey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the portals of the Sunset,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the regions of the home-wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the North-west wind, Keewaydin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But these guests I leave behind me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In your watch and ward I leave them;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">See that never harm comes near them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">See that never fear molests them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never danger nor suspicion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never want of food or shelter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the lodge of Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Forth into the village went he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bade farewell to all the warriors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bade farewell to all the young men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spake persuading, spake in this wise:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“I am going, O my people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On a long and distant journey;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many moons and many winters</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Will have come, and will have vanished</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ere I come again to see you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But my guests I leave behind me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listen to their words of wisdom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listen to the truth they tell you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the Master of Life has sent them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the land of light and morning!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the shore stood Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Turned and waved his hand at parting;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the clear and luminous water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Launched his birch-canoe for sailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the pebbles of the margin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shoved it forth into the water;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whispered to it, “Westward! westward!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with speed it darted forward.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the evening sun descending</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Set the clouds on fire with redness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Burned the broad sky, like a prairie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Left upon the level water</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">One long track and trail of splendour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down whose stream, as down a river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Westward, westward Hiawatha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sailed into the fiery sunset,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sailed into the purple vapours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sailed into the dusk of evening.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the people from the margin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Watched him floating, rising, sinking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the birch-canoe seemed lifted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">High into that sea of splendour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till it sank into the vapours</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the new moon slowly, slowly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sinking in the purple distance.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And they said, “Farewell for ever!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said, “Farewell, O Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the forests, dark and lonely,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Moved through all their depths of darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sighed, “Farewell, O Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the waves upon the margin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rising, rippling on the pebbles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sobbed, “Farewell, O Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From her haunts among the fenlands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Screamed, “Farewell, O Hiawatha!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus departed Hiawatha,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiawatha the Beloved,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the glory of the sunset,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the purple mists of evening,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the regions of the home-wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the North-west wind Keewaydin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the Islands of the Blessed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the Kingdom of Ponemah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the land of the Hereafter!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">The Courtship of Miles Standish.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">1858.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p class="f120">I.</p>
+<p class="center">MILES STANDISH.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clad in doublet and hose, and boots of Cordovan leather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strode, with a martial air, Miles Standish the Puritan Captain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Buried in thought he seemed, with his hands behind him, and pausing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ever and anon to behold his glittering weapons of warfare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hanging in shining array along the walls of the chamber,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cutlass and corslet of steel, and his trusty sword of Damascus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Curved at the point and inscribed with its mystical Arabic sentence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While underneath, in a corner, were fowling-piece, musket, and matchlock.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Short of stature he was, but strongly built and athletic,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with muscles and sinews of iron;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet beard was already</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flaked with patches of snow, as hedges sometimes in November.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Near him was seated John Alden, his friend, and household companion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Writing with diligent speed at a table of pine by the window;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate Saxon complexion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Having the dew of his youth, and the beauty thereof, as the captives</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whom Saint Gregory saw, and exclaimed, “Not Angles but Angels.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Youngest of all was he of the men who came in the <i>May Flower</i>.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Suddenly breaking the silence, the diligent scribe interrupting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spake, in the pride of his heart, Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Look at these arms,” he said, “the warlike weapons that hang here</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or inspection!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This is the sword of Damascus I fought with in Flanders; this breastplate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Well I remember the day! once saved my life in a skirmish;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here in front you can see the very dent of the bullet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fired point-blank at my heart by a Spanish arcabucero.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones of Miles Standish</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would at this moment be mould, in their grave in the Flemish morasses.”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not up from his writing:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Truly the breath of the Lord hath slackened the speed of the bullet;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He in his mercy preserved you, to be our shield and our weapon!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still the Captain continued, unheeding the words of the stripling:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“See, how bright they are burnished, as if in an arsenal hanging;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That is because I have done it myself, and not left it to others.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Serve yourself, would you be well served, is an excellent adage;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So I take care of my arms, as you of your pens and your inkhorn.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, too, there are my soldiers, my great, invincible army,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Twelve men, all equipped, having each his rest and his matchlock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Eighteen shillings a month, together with diet and pillage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, like Cæsar, I know the name of each of my soldiers!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This he said with a smile, that danced in his eyes, as the sunbeams</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dance on the waves of the sea, and vanish again in a moment.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Alden laughed as he wrote, and still the Captain continued:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Look! you can see from this window my brazen howitzer planted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">High on the roof of the church, a preacher who speaks to the purpose,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Steady, straightforward, and strong, with irresistible logic,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Orthodox, flashing conviction right into the hearts of the heathen.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now we are ready, I think, for any assault of the Indians;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let them come, if they like, and the sooner they try it the better,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let them come, if they like, be it sagamore, sachem, or pow-wow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Aspinet, Samoset, Corbitant, Squanto, or Tokamahamon!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Long at the window he stood, and wistfully gazed on the landscape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Washed with a cold grey mist, the vapoury breath of the east wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forest and meadow and hill, and the steel-blue rim of the ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lying silent and sad, in the afternoon shadows and sunshine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over his countenance flitted a shadow like those on the landscape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gloom intermingled with light; and his voice was subdued with emotion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tenderness, pity, regret, as after a pause he proceeded:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Yonder there, on the hill by the sea, lies buried Rose Standish;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beautiful rose of love, that bloomed for me by the wayside!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She was the first to die of all who came in the <i>May Flower</i>!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Green above her is growing the field of wheat we have sown there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Better to hide from the Indian scouts the graves of our people,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lest they should count them and see how many already have perished!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sadly his face he averted, and strode up and down, and was thoughtful.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Fixed to the opposite wall was a shelf of books, and among them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Prominent three, distinguished alike for bulk and for binding;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bariffe’s <i>Artillery Guide</i>, and the <i>Commentaries of Cæsar</i>,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Out of the Latin translated by Arthur Goldinge of London,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, as if guarded by these, between them was standing the Bible.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Musing a moment before them, Miles Standish paused, as if doubtful</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Which of the three he should choose for his consolation and comfort,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whether the wars of the Hebrews, the famous campaigns of the Romans,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or the Artillery practice designed for belligerent Christians.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Finally down from its shelf he dragged the ponderous Roman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seated himself at the window, and opened the book, and in silence</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Turned o’er the well-worn leaves, where thumb-marks thick on the margin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the trample of feet, proclaimed the battle was hottest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen of the stripling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Busily writing epistles, important, to go by the <i>May Flower</i>,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ready to sail on the morrow, or next day at latest, God willing!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Homeward bound with the tidings of all that terrible winter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Letters written by Alden, and full of the name of Priscilla,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Full of the name and the fame of the Puritan maiden Priscilla!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">II.</p>
+<p class="center">LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen of the stripling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or an occasional sigh from the labouring heart of the Captain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Reading the marvellous words and achievements of Julius Cæsar.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">After a while he exclaimed, as he smote with his hand, palm downwards,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heavily on the page: “A wonderful man was this Cæsar!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You are a writer, and I am a fighter, but here is a fellow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who could both write and fight, and in both was equally skilful!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Straightway answered and spake John Alden, the comely, the youthful:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Yes, he was equally skilled, as you say, with his pen and his weapons,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Somewhere have I read, but where I forget, he could dictate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seven letters at once, at the same time writing his memoirs.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Truly,” continued the Captain, not heeding or hearing the other,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Truly a wonderful man was Caius Julius Cæsar!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Better be first, he said, in a little Iberian village,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than be second in Rome, and I think he was right when he said it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Twice was he married before he was twenty, and many times after;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Battles five hundred he fought, and a thousand cities he conquered;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He, too, fought in Flanders, as he himself has recorded;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Finally he was stabbed by his friend, the orator Brutus!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now, do you know what he did on a certain occasion in Flanders,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the rear-guard of his army retreated, the front giving way too,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the immortal Twelfth Legion was crowded so closely together</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There was no room for their swords? Why, he seized a shield from a soldier,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Put himself straight at the head of his troops, and commanded the captains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Calling on each by his name, to order forward the ensigns;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then to widen the ranks, and give more room for their weapons;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So he won the day, the battle of something-or-other.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That’s what I always say; if you wish a thing to be well done,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">All was silent again; the Captain continued his reading.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen of the stripling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Writing epistles important to go next day by the <i>May Flower</i>,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled with the name and the fame of the Puritan maiden Priscilla;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Every sentence began or closed with the name of Priscilla,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the treacherous pen, to which he confided the secret,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strove to betray it, by singing and shouting the name of Priscilla!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Finally closing his book, with a bang of the ponderous cover,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sudden and loud as the sound of a soldier grounding his musket,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus to the young man spake Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“When you have finished your work, I have something important to tell you.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Be not however in haste; I can wait; I shall not be impatient!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Straightway Alden replied, as he folded the last of his letters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pushing his papers aside, and giving respectful attention:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Speak; for whenever you speak, I am always ready to listen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Always ready to hear whatever pertains to Miles Standish.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thereupon answered the Captain, embarrassed, and culling his phrases:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“’Tis not good for a man to be alone, say the Scriptures.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This I have said before, and again and again I repeat it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Every hour in the day, I think it, and feel it, and say it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Since Rose Standish died, my life has been weary and dreary;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sick at heart have I been, beyond the healing of friendship.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Oft in my lonely hours have I thought of the maiden Priscilla.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She is alone in the world; her father and mother and brother</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Died in the winter together; I saw her going and coming,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now to the grave of the dead, and now to the bed of the dying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Patient, courageous, and strong, and said to myself, that if ever</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There were angels on earth, as there are angels in heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Two have I seen and known; and the angel whose name is Priscilla</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Holds in my desolate life the place which the other abandoned.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Long have I cherished the thought, but never have dared to reveal it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Being a coward in this, though valiant enough for the most part.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Go to the damsel Priscilla, the loveliest maiden of Plymouth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Say that a blunt old Captain, a man not of words but of actions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Offers his hand and his heart, the hand and the heart of a soldier.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not in these words, you know, but this in short is my meaning;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I am a maker of war, and not a maker of phrases.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You, who are bred as a scholar, can say it in elegant language,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such as you read in your books of the pleadings and wooings of lovers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such as you think best adapted to win the heart of a maiden.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">When he had spoken, John Alden, the fair-haired, taciturn stripling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All aghast at his words, surprised, embarrassed, bewildered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Trying to mask his dismay by treating the subject with lightness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Trying to smile, and yet feeling his heart stand still in his bosom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Just as a timepiece stops in a house that is stricken by lightning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus made answer and spake, or rather stammered than answered:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Such a message as that, I am sure I should mangle and mar it:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">If you would have it well done,—I am only repeating your maxim,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But with the air of a man whom nothing can turn from his purpose,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gravely shaking his head, made answer the Captain of Plymouth:</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Truly the maxim is good, and I do not mean to gainsay it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But we must use it discreetly, and not waste powder for nothing.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now, as I said before, I was never a maker of phrases.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I can march up to a fortress and summon the place to surrender,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But march up to a woman with such a proposal, I dare not.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I’m not afraid of bullets, nor shot from the mouth of a cannon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But of a thundering ‘No!’ point-blank from the mouth of a woman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That I confess I’m afraid of, nor am I ashamed to confess it!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So you must grant my request, for you are an elegant scholar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Having the graces of speech, and skill in the turning of phrases.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Taking the hand of his friend, who still was reluctant and doubtful,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Holding it long in his own, and pressing it kindly, he added:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Though I have spoken thus lightly, yet deep is the feeling that prompts me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Surely you cannot refuse what I ask in the name of our friendship!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then made answer John Alden: “The name of friendship is sacred;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What you demand in that name, I have not the power to deny you!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So the strong will prevailed, subduing and moulding the gentler,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Friendship prevailed over love, and Alden went on his errand.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">III.</p>
+<p class="center">THE LOVER’S ERRAND.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">So the strong will prevailed, and Alden went on his errand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Out of the street of the village, and into the paths of the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the tranquil woods, where blue-birds and robins were building</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Towns in the populous trees, with hanging gardens of verdure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Peaceful, aerial cities of joy and affection and freedom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All around him was calm, but within him commotion and conflict,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Love contending with friendship, and self with each generous impulse.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To and fro in his breast his thoughts were heaving and dashing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As in a foundering ship, with every roll of the vessel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Washes the bitter sea, the merciless surge of the ocean!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Must I relinquish it all,” he cried with a wild lamentation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Must I relinquish it all, the joy, the hope, the illusion?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was it for this I have loved, and waited, and worshipped in silence?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was it for this I have followed the flying feet and the shadow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over the wintry sea, to the desolate shores of New England?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Truly the heart is deceitful, and out of its depths of corruption</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rise, like an exhalation, the misty phantoms of passion;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Angels of light they seem, but are only delusions of Satan.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All is clear to me now; I feel it, I see it distinctly!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This is the hand of the Lord; it is laid upon me in anger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For I have followed too much the heart’s desires and devices,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Worshipping Astaroth blindly, and impious idols of Baal.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This is the cross I must bear; the sin and the swift retribution.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">So through the Plymouth woods John Alden went on his errand;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crossing the brook at the ford, where it brawled over pebble and shallow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gathering still, as he went, the May-flowers blooming around him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fragrant, filling the air with a strange and wonderful sweetness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Children lost in the woods, and covered with leaves in their slumber.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Puritan flowers,” he said, “and the type of Puritan maidens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Modest and simple and sweet, the very type of Priscilla!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So I will take them to her; to Priscilla the May-flower of Plymouth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Modest and simple and sweet, as a parting gift will I take them;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Breathing their silent farewells, as they fade and wither and perish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soon to be thrown away as is the heart of the giver.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So through the Plymouth woods John Alden went on his errand;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came to an open space, and saw the disk of the ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sailless, sombre and cold with the comfortless breath of the east wind;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the new-built house, and people at work in a meadow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard, as he drew near the door, the musical voice of Priscilla</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Singing the Hundredth Psalm, the grand old Puritan anthem,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Music that Luther sang to the sacred words of the Psalmist,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Full of the breath of the Lord, consoling and comforting many.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, as he opened the door, he beheld the form of the maiden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seated beside her wheel, and the carded wool like a snow-drift</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Piled at her knee, her white hands feeding the ravenous spindle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While with her foot on the treadle she guided the wheel in its motion.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Open wide on her lap lay the well-worn psalm-book of Ainsworth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Printed in Amsterdam, the words and the music together</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rough-hewn, angular notes, like stones in the wall of a churchyard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Darkened and overhung by the running vine of the verses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such was the book from whose pages she sang the old Puritan anthem,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She, the Puritan girl, in the solitude of the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Making the humble house and the modest apparel of home-spun</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beautiful with her beauty, and rich with the wealth of her being!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over him rushed, like a wind that is keen and cold and relentless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thoughts of what might have been, and the weight and woe of his errand;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the dreams that had faded, and all the hopes that had vanished,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All his life henceforth a dreary and tenantless mansion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Haunted by vain regrets, and pallid, sorrowful faces.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still he said to himself, and almost fiercely he said it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Let not him that putteth his hand to the plough look backwards;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though the ploughshare cut through the flowers of life to its fountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though it pass o’er the graves of the dead and the hearths of the living,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It is the will of the Lord; and his mercy endureth for ever!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">So he entered the house: and the hum of the wheel and the singing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suddenly ceased; for Priscilla, aroused by his step on the threshold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose as he entered, and gave him her hand, in signal of welcome,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saying, “I knew it was you, when I heard your step in the passage;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For I was thinking of you, as I sat there singing and spinning.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Awkward and dumb with delight, that a thought of him had been mingled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus in the sacred psalm, that came from the heart of the maiden,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silent before her he stood, and gave her the flowers for an answer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Finding no words for his thought. He remembered that day in the winter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">After the first great snow, when he broke a path from the village,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Reeling and plunging along through the drifts that encumbered the doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stamping the snow from his feet as he entered the house, and Priscilla</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laughed at his snowy locks, and gave him a seat by the fireside,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grateful and pleased to know he had thought of her in the snow-storm.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had he but spoken then! perhaps not in vain had he spoken;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now it was all too late; the golden moment had vanished!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So he stood there abashed, and gave her the flowers for an answer.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then they sat down and talked of the birds and the beautiful Spring-time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Talked of their friends at home, and the <i>May Flower</i> that sailed on the morrow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I have been thinking all day,” said gently the Puritan maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Dreaming all night, and thinking all day, of the hedge-rows of England,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They are in blossom now, and the country is all like a garden;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thinking of lanes and fields, and the song of the lark and the linnet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seeing the village street, and familiar faces of neighbours</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Going about as of old, and stopping to gossip together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, at the end of the street, the village church, with the ivy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Climbing the old grey tower, and the quiet graves in the churchyard.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kind are the people I live with, and dear to me my religion;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still my heart is so sad, that I wish myself back in Old England.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You will say it is wrong, but I cannot help it; I almost</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wish myself back in Old England, I feel so lonely and wretched.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thereupon answered the youth: “Indeed I do not condemn you;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stouter hearts than a woman’s have quailed in this terrible winter.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yours is tender and trusting, and needs a stronger to lean on;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So I have come to you now, with an offer and proffer of marriage</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made by a good man and true, Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus he delivered his message, the dexterous writer of letters,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Did not embellish the theme, nor array it in beautiful phrases,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But came straight to the point, and blurted it out like a schoolboy;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even the Captain himself could hardly have said it more bluntly.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mute with amazement and sorrow, Priscilla the Puritan maiden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looked into Alden’s face, her eyes dilated with wonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Feeling his words like a blow, that stunned her and rendered her speechless;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till at length she exclaimed, interrupting the ominous silence:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“If the great Captain of Plymouth is so very eager to wed me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Why does he not come himself, and take the trouble to woo me?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am not worth the winning!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then John Alden began explaining and smoothing the matter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Making it worse as he went, by saying the Captain was busy,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had no time for such things;—such things! the words grating harshly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell on the ear of Priscilla; and swift as a flash she made answer:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Has he no time for such things, as you call it, before he is married,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would he be likely to find it, or make it, after the wedding?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That is the way with you men; you don’t understand us, you cannot.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When you have made up your minds, after thinking of this one and that one,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Choosing, selecting, rejecting, comparing one with another,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then you make known your desire, with abrupt and sudden avowal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And are offended and hurt, and indignant perhaps, that a woman</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Does not respond at once to a love that she never suspected,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Does not attain at a bound the height to which you have been climbing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This is not right nor just: for surely a woman’s affection</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is not a thing to be asked for, and had for only the asking.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When one is truly in love, one not only says it, but shows it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had he but waited awhile, had he only showed that he loved me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even this Captain of yours—who knows?—at last might have won me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Old and rough as he is; but now it never can happen.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Still John Alden went on, unheeding the words of Priscilla,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Urging the suit of his friend, explaining, persuading, expanding;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spoke of his courage and skill, and of all his battles in Flanders,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How with the people of God he had chosen to suffer affliction,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How, in return for his zeal they had made him Captain of Plymouth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He was a gentleman born, could trace his pedigree plainly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Back to Hugh Standish of Duxbury Hall, in Lancashire, England,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who was the son of Ralph, and the grandson of Thurston de Standish;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heir unto vast estates, of which he was basely defrauded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still bore the family arms, and had for his crest a cock argent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Combed and wattled gules, and all the rest of the blazon.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He was a man of honour, of noble and generous nature;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though he was rough, he was kindly; she knew how during the winter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He had attended the sick, with a hand as gentle as woman’s;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Somewhat hasty and hot, he could not deny it, and headstrong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stern as a soldier might be, but hearty, and placable always,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not to be laughed at and scorned, because he was little of stature;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For he was great of heart, magnanimous, courtly, courageous;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Any woman in Plymouth, nay, any woman in England,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Might be happy and proud to be called the wife of Miles Standish!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">But as he warmed and glowed, in his simple and eloquent language,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Quite forgetful of self, and full of the praise of his rival,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Archly the maiden smiled, and, with eyes overrunning with laughter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said, in a tremulous voice, “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</span></p>
+<p class="f120">IV.</p>
+<p class="center">JOHN ALDEN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the open air John Alden, perplexed and bewildered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rushed like a man insane, and wandered alone by the sea-side;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Paced up and down the sands, and bared his head to the east wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cooling his heated brow, and the fire and fever within him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly as out of the heavens, with apocalyptical splendours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sank the City of God, in the vision of John the Apostle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So, with its cloudy walls of chrysolite, jasper, and sapphire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sank the broad red sun, and over its turrets uplifted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Glimmered the golden reed of the angel who measured the city.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Welcome, O wind of the East!” he exclaimed in his wild exultation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Welcome, O wind of the East, from the caves of the misty Atlantic!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blowing o’er fields of dulse, and measureless meadows of sea-grass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blowing o’er rocky wastes, and the grottoes and gardens of ocean!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay thy cold, moist hand on my burning forehead and wrap me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Close in thy garments of mist, to allay the fever within me!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Like an awakened conscience, the sea was moaning and tossing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beating remorseful and loud the mutable sands of the sea-shore.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fierce in his soul was the struggle and tumult of passions contending;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Love triumphant and crowned, and friendship wounded and bleeding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Passionate cries of desire, and importunate pleadings of duty!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Is it my fault,” he said, “that the maiden has chosen between us?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is it my fault that he failed,—my fault that I am the victor?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then within him there thundered a voice, like the voice of the Prophet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“It hath displeased the Lord!”—and he thought of David’s transgression,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bathsheba’s beautiful face, and his friend in the front of the battle!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shame and confusion of guilt, and abasement and self-condemnation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Overwhelmed him at once; and he cried in the deepest contrition:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“It hath displeased the Lord! It is the temptation of Satan!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then uplifting his head, he looked at the sea, and beheld there</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dimly the shadowy form of the <i>May Flower</i> riding at anchor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rocked on the rising tide, and ready to sail on the morrow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the voices of men through the mist, the rattle of cordage</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thrown on the deck, the shouts of the mate, and the sailors’ “Ay, ay, Sir!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clear and distinct, but not loud, in the dripping air of the twilight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still for a moment he stood, and listened, and stared at the vessel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then went hurriedly on, as one who, seeing a phantom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stops, then quickens his pace, and follows the beckoning shadow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Yes, it is plain to me now,” he murmured; “the hand of the Lord is</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leading me out of the land of darkness, the bondage of error,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the sea that shall lift the walls of its waters around me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiding me, cutting me off, from the cruel thoughts that pursue me.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Back will I go o’er the ocean, this dreary land will abandon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her whom I may not love, and him whom my heart has offended.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Better to be in my grave in the green old churchyard in England,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Close by my mother’s side, and among the dust of my kindred;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Better be dead and forgotten, than living in shame and dishonour!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sacred and safe and unseen, in the dark of the narrow chamber</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With me my secret shall lie, like a buried jewel that glimmers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bright on the hand that is dust, in the chambers of silence and darkness,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yes, as the marriage ring of the great espousal hereafter!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus as he spake, he turned, in the strength of his strong resolution,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leaving behind him the shore, and hurried along in the twilight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the congenial gloom of the forest silent and sombre,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till he beheld the lights in the seven houses of Plymouth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shining like seven stars in the dusk and mist of the evening.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soon he entered his door, and found the redoubtable Captain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sitting alone, and absorbed in the martial pages of Cæsar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fighting some great campaign in Hainault or Brabant or Flanders.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Long have you been on your errand,” he said with a cheery demeanour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even as one who is waiting an answer, and fears not the issue.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Not far off is the house, although the woods are between us;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But you have lingered so long, that while you were going and coming</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I have fought ten battles and sacked and demolished a city.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Come, sit down, and in order relate to me all that has happened.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then John Alden spake, and related the wondrous adventure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the beginning to end, minutely, just as it happened;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How he had seen Priscilla, and how he had sped in his courtship,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only smoothing a little, and softening down her refusal.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But when he came at length to the words Priscilla had spoken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Words so tender and cruel: “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Up leaped the Captain of Plymouth, and stamped on the floor, till his armour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clanged on the wall, where it hung, with a sound of sinister omen;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All his pent-up wrath burst forth in a sudden explosion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even as a hand-grenade, that scatters destruction around it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wildly he shouted, and loud: “John Alden! you have betrayed me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Me, Miles Standish, your friend! have supplanted, defrauded, betrayed me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">One of my ancestors ran his sword through the heart of Wat Tyler;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who shall prevent me from running my own through the heart of a traitor?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yours is the greater treason, for yours is a treason to friendship!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You, who lived under my roof, whom I cherished and loved as a brother;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You, who have fed at my board, and drunk at my cup, to whose keeping</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I have intrusted my honour, my thoughts the most sacred and secret,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You, too, Brutus! ah woe to the name of friendship hereafter!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brutus was Cæsar’s friend, and you were mine, but henceforward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let there be nothing between us save war, and implacable hatred!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">So spake the Captain of Plymouth, and strode about in the chamber,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Chafing and choking with rage; like cords were the veins on his temples.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But in the midst of his anger a man appeared at the doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bringing in uttermost haste a message of urgent importance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rumours of danger and war and hostile incursions of Indians!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Straightway the Captain paused, and, without further question or parley,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Took from the nail on the wall his sword with its scabbard of iron,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Buckled the belt round his waist, and, frowning fiercely, departed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Alden was left alone. He heard the clank of the scabbard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Growing fainter and fainter, and dying away in the distance.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then he arose from his seat, and looked forth into the darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Felt the cool air blow on his cheek, that was hot with the insult,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lifted his eyes to the heavens, and folding his hands as in childhood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Prayed in the silence of night to the Father who seeth in secret.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Meanwhile the choleric Captain strode wrathful away to the council,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Found it already assembled, impatiently waiting his coming;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Men in the middle of life, austere and grave in deportment,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only one of them old, the hill that was nearest to heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Covered with snow, but erect, the excellent Elder of Plymouth.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this planting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then had sifted the wheat, as the living seed of a nation;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So say the chronicles old, and such is the faith of the people!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Near them was standing an Indian, in attitude stern and defiant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Naked down to the waist, and grim and ferocious in aspect;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While on the table before them was lying unopened a Bible,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ponderous, bound in leather, brass-studded, printed in Holland,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And beside it outstretched the skin of a rattlesnake glittered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled, like a quiver, with arrows; a signal and challenge of warfare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brought by the Indian, and speaking with arrowy tongues of defiance.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This Miles Standish beheld, as he entered, and heard them debating</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What were an answer befitting the hostile message and menace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Talking of this and of that, contriving, suggesting, objecting;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">One voice only for peace, and that the voice of the Elder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Judging it wise and well that some at least were converted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rather than any were slain, for this was but Christian behaviour!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then out spake Miles Standish, the stalwart Captain of Plymouth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Muttering deep in his throat, for his voice was husky with anger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“What! do you mean to make war with milk and the water of roses?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is it to shoot red squirrels you have your howitzer planted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There on the roof of the church, or is it to shoot red devils?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Truly the only tongue that is understood by a savage</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Must be the tongue of fire that speaks from the mouth of the cannon!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thereupon answered and said the excellent Elder of Plymouth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Somewhat amazed and alarmed at this irreverent language:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Not so thought Saint Paul, nor yet the other Apostles;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not from the cannon’s mouth were the tongues of fire they spake with!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But unheeded fell this mild rebuke on the Captain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who had advanced to the table, and thus continued discoursing:</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Leave this matter to me, for to me by right it pertaineth.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">War is a terrible trade; but in the cause that is righteous,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sweet is the smell of powder; and thus I answer the challenge!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then from the rattlesnake’s skin, with a sudden, contemptuous gesture,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Jerking the Indian arrows, he filled it with powder and bullets</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Full to the very jaws, and handed it back to the savage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saying, in thundering tones: “Here, take it! this is your answer!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silently out of the room then glided the glistening savage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bearing the serpent’s skin, and seeming himself like a serpent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Winding his sinuous way in the dark to the depths of the forest.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">V.</p>
+<p class="center">THE SAILING OF THE “MAY FLOWER.”</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Just in the grey of the dawn, as the mists uprose from the meadows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There was a stir and a sound in the slumbering village of Plymouth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clanging and clicking of arms, and the order imperative, “Forward!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Given in tone suppressed, a tramp of feet, and then silence.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Figures ten, in the mist, marched slowly out of the village.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Standish the stalwart it was, with eight of his valorous army,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Led by their Indian guide, by Hobomok, friend of the white men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Northward marching to quell the sudden revolt of the savage.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Giants they seemed in the mist, or the mighty men of King David;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Giants in heart they were, who believed in God and the Bible,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ay, who believed in the smiting of Midianites and Philistines.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over them gleamed far off the crimson banners of morning;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under them, loud on the sands, the serried billows, advancing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fired along the line, and in regular order retreated.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Many a mile had they marched, when at length the village of Plymouth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Woke from its sleep, and arose, intent on its manifold labours.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sweet was the air and soft; and slowly the smoke from the chimneys</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose over roofs of thatch, and pointed steadily eastward;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Men came forth from the doors, and paused and talked of the weather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said that the wind had changed, and was blowing fair for the <i>May Flower</i>;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Talked of their Captain’s departure, and all the dangers that menaced,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He being gone, the town, and what should be done in his absence.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Merrily sang the birds, and the tender voices of women</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Consecrated with hymns the common cares of the household.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Out of the sea rose the sun, and the billows rejoiced at his coming;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beautiful were his feet on the purple tops of the mountains;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beautiful on the sails of the <i>May Flower</i> riding at anchor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Battered and blackened and worn by all the storms of the winter.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loosely against her masts was hanging and flapping her canvas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rent by so many gales, and patched by the hands of the sailors.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suddenly from her side, as the sun rose over the ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Darted a puff of smoke, and floated seaward; anon rang</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loud over field and forest the cannon’s roar, and the echoes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard and repeated the sound, the signal gun of departure!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah! but with louder echoes replied the hearts of the people!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Meekly, in voices subdued, the chapter was read from the Bible,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Meekly the prayer was begun, but ended in fervent entreaty!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then from their houses in haste came forth the Pilgrims of Plymouth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Men and women and children, all hurrying down to the sea-shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Eager, with tearful eyes, to say farewell to the <i>May Flower</i>,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Homeward bound o’er the sea, and leaving them here in the desert.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Foremost among them was Alden. All night he had lain without slumber,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Turning and tossing about in the heat and unrest of his fever.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He had beheld Miles Standish, who came back late from the council,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stalking into the room, and heard him mutter and murmur,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sometimes it seemed a prayer, and sometimes it sounded like swearing.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Once he had come to the bed, and stood there a moment in silence;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then he had turned away, and said: “I will not awake him;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let him sleep on, it is best; for what is the use of more talking!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then he extinguished the light, and threw himself down on his pallet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dressed as he was, and ready to start at the break of the morning,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Covered himself with the cloak he had worn in his campaigns in Flanders,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slept as a soldier sleeps in his bivouac, ready for action.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But with the dawn he arose; in the twilight Alden beheld him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Put on his corselet of steel, and all the rest of his armour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Buckle about his waist his trusty blade of Damascus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Take from the corner his musket, and so stride out of the chamber.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Often the heart of the youth had burned and yearned to embrace him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Often his lips had essayed to speak, imploring for pardon;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the old friendship came back, with its tender and grateful emotions;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But his pride overmastered the noble nature within him,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pride, and the sense of his wrong, and the burning fire of the insult.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So he beheld his friend departing in anger, but spake not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw him go forth to danger, perhaps to death, and he spake not!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then he arose from his bed, and heard what the people were saying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Joined in the talk at the door, with Stephen and Richard and Gilbert,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Joined in the morning prayer, and in the reading of Scripture,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, with the others, in haste went hurrying down to the sea-shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down to the Plymouth Rock, that had been to their feet as a door-step</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into a world unknown,—the corner-stone of a nation!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">There with his boat was the Master, already a little impatient</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lest he should lose the tide, or the wind might shift to the eastward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Square-built, hearty, and strong, with an odour of ocean about him,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Speaking with this one and that, and cramming letters and parcels</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into his pocket capacious, and messages mingled together</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into his narrow brain, till at last he was wholly bewildered.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nearer the boat stood Alden, with one foot placed on the gunwale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">One still firm on the rock, and talking at times with the sailors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seated erect on the thwarts, all ready and eager for starting.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He too was eager to go, and thus put an end to his anguish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thinking to fly from despair, that swifter than keel is or canvas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thinking to drown in the sea the ghost that would rise and pursue him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But as he gazed on the crowd, he beheld the form of Priscilla</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Standing dejected among them, unconscious of all that was passing.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fixed were her eyes upon his, as if she divined his intention,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fixed with a look so sad, so reproachful, imploring, and patient,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That with a sudden revulsion his heart recoiled from its purpose</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As from the verge of a crag, where one step more is destruction.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strange is the heart of man, with its quick, mysterious instincts!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strange is the life of man, and fatal or fated are moments,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whereupon turn, as on hinges, the gates of the wall adamantine!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Here I remain!” he exclaimed, as he looked at the heavens above him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thanking the Lord whose breath had scattered the mist and the madness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wherein, blind and lost, to death he was staggering headlong.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Yonder snow-white cloud, that floats in the ether above me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seems like a hand that is pointing and beckoning over the ocean.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There is another hand, that is not so spectral and ghost-like,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Holding me, drawing me back, and clasping mine for protection.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Float, O hand of cloud, and vanish away in the ether!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Roll thyself up like a fist, to threaten and daunt me; I heed not</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Either your warning or menace, or any omen of evil!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There is no land so sacred, no air so pure and so wholesome,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As is the air she breathes, and the soil that is pressed by her footsteps.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here for her sake will I stay, and like an invisible presence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hover around her for ever, protecting, supporting her weakness;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yes! as my foot was the first that stepped on this rock at the landing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So, with the blessing of God, shall it be the last at the leaving!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Meanwhile the Master alert, but with dignified air and important,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Scanning with watchful eye the tide and the wind and the weather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Walked about on the sands, and the people crowded around him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saying a few last words, and enforcing his careful remembrance.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, taking each by the hand, as if he were grasping a tiller,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the boat he sprang, and in haste shoved off to his vessel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Glad in his heart to get rid of all this worry and flurry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Glad to be gone from a land of sand and sickness and sorrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Short allowance of victual, and plenty of nothing but Gospel!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lost in the sound of the oars was the last farewell of the Pilgrims.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O strong hearts and true! not one went back in the <i>May Flower</i>!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No, not one looked back, who had set his hand to this ploughing!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Soon were heard on board the shouts and songs of the sailors</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heaving the windlass round, and hoisting the ponderous anchor.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then the yards were braced, and all sails set to the west wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blowing steady and strong; and the <i>May Flower</i> sailed from the harbour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rounded the point of the Gurnet, and leaving far to the southward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Island and cape of sand, and the Field of the First Encounter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Took the wind on her quarter, and stood for the open Atlantic,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Borne on the send of the sea, and the swelling hearts of the Pilgrims.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Long in silence they watched the receding sail of the vessel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Much endeared to them all, as something living and human;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, as if filled with the spirit, and wrapt in a vision prophetic,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Baring his hoary head, the excellent Elder of Plymouth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said, “Let us pray!” and they prayed, and thanked the Lord and took courage.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mournfully sobbed the waves at the base of the rock, and above them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bowed and whispered the wheat on the hill of death, and their kindred</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seemed to awake in their graves, and to join in the prayer that they uttered.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sun-illumined and white, on the eastern verge of the ocean</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gleamed the departing sail, like a marble slab in a graveyard;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Buried beneath it lay for ever all hope of escaping.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lo! as they turned to depart, they saw the form of an Indian,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Watching them from the hill; but while they spake with each other,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pointing with outstretched hands, and saying, “Look!” he had vanished.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So they returned to their homes; but Alden lingered a little,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Musing alone on the shore, and watching the wash of the billows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round the base of the rock, and the sparkle and flash of the sunshine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the Spirit of God, moving visibly over the waters.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">VI.</p>
+<p class="center">PRISCILLA.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus for a while he stood, and mused by the shore of the ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thinking of many things, and most of all of Priscilla;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as if thought had the power to draw to itself, like the loadstone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whatsoever it touches, by subtile laws of its nature,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lo! as he turned to depart, Priscilla was standing beside him.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Are you so much offended, you will not speak to me?” said she.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Am I so much to blame, that yesterday, when you were pleading</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Warmly the cause of another, my heart, impulsive and wayward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pleaded your own, and spake out, forgetful perhaps of decorum?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Certainly you can forgive me for speaking so frankly, for saying</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What I ought not to have said, yet now I can never unsay it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For there are moments in life, when the heart is full of emotion,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yesterday I was shocked, when I heard you speak of Miles Standish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Praising his virtues, transforming his very defects into virtues,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Praising his courage and strength, and even his fighting in Flanders,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if by fighting alone you could win the heart of a woman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Quite overlooking yourself and the rest, in exalting your hero.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore I spake as I did, by an irresistible impulse.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You will forgive me, I hope, for the sake of the friendship between us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Which is too true and too sacred to be so easily broken!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thereupon answered John Alden, the scholar, the friend of Miles Standish:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I was not angry with you, with myself alone I was angry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seeing how badly I managed the matter I had in my keeping.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“No!” interrupted the maiden, with answer prompt and decisive;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“No; you were angry with me, for speaking so frankly and freely.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was wrong, I acknowledge; for it is the fate of a woman</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost that is speechless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its silence.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hence is the inner life of so many suffering women</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sunless and silent and deep, like subterranean rivers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Running through caverns of darkness, unheard, unseen, and unfruitful,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Chafing their channels of stone, with endless and profitless murmurs.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thereupon answered John Alden, the young man, the lover of women:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Heaven forbid it, Priscilla; and truly they seem to me always</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">More like the beautiful rivers that watered the garden of Eden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">More like the river Euphrates, through deserts of Havilah flowing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filling the land with delight, and memories sweet of the garden!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ah, by these words, I can see,” again interrupted the maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“How very little you prize me, or care for what I am saying.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When from the depths of my heart, in pain and with secret misgiving,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Frankly I speak to you, asking for sympathy only and kindness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Straightway you take up my words, that are plain and direct and in earnest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Turn them away from their meaning, and answer with flattering phrases.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This is not right, is not just, is not true to the best that is in you;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For I know and esteem you, and feel that your nature is noble,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lifting mine up to a higher, a more ethereal level.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore I value your friendship, and feel it perhaps the more keenly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">If you say aught that implies I am only as one among many,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">If you make use of those common and complimentary phrases</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Most men think so fine, in dealing and speaking with women,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But which women reject as insipid, if not as insulting.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Mute and amazed was Alden; and listened and looked at Priscilla,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thinking he never had seen her more fair, more divine in her beauty.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He who but yesterday pleaded so glibly the cause of another,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood there embarrassed and silent, and seeking in vain for an answer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So the maiden went on, and little divined or imagined</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What was at work in his heart, that made him so awkward and speechless.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what we think, and in all things</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sacred professions of friendship.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It is no secret I tell you, nor am I ashamed to declare it:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I have liked to be with you, to see you, to speak with you always.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So I was hurt at your words, and a little affronted to hear you</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Urge me to marry your friend, though he were the Captain Miles Standish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For I must tell you the truth: much more to me is your friendship</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than all the love he could give, were he twice the hero you think him.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then she extended her hand, and Alden, who eagerly grasped it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Felt all the wounds in his heart, that were aching and bleeding so sorely,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Healed by the touch of that hand, and he said, with a voice full of feeling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Yes, we must ever be friends; and of all who offer you friendship</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let me be ever the first, the truest, the nearest and dearest!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Casting a farewell look at the glimmering sail of the <i>May Flower</i>,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Distant, but still in sight, and sinking below the horizon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Homeward together they walked, with a strange, indefinite feeling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That all the rest had departed and left them alone in the desert.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But, as they went through the fields in the blessing and smile of the sunshine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lighter grew their hearts, and Priscilla said very archly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Now that our terrible Captain has gone in pursuit of the Indians,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where he is happier far than he would be commanding a household,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You may speak boldly, and tell me of all that happened between you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When you returned last night, and said how ungrateful you found me.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thereupon answered John Alden, and told her the whole of the story,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Told her his own despair, and the direful wrath of Miles Standish.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whereat the maiden smiled, and said between laughing and earnest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“He is a little chimney, and heated hot in a moment!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But as he gently rebuked her, and told her how much he had suffered,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How he had even determined to sail that day in the <i>May Flower</i>,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And had remained for her sake, on hearing the dangers that threatened,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All her manner was changed, and she said with a faltering accent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Truly I thank you for this: how good you have been to me always!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus, as a pilgrim devout, who toward Jerusalem journeys,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Taking three steps in advance, and one reluctantly backward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Urged by importunate zeal, and withheld by pangs of contrition;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly but steadily onward, receding yet ever advancing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Journeyed this Puritan youth to the Holy Land of his longings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Urged by the fervour of love, and withheld by remorseful misgivings.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</span></p>
+
+<p class="f120">VII.</p>
+<p class="center">THE MARCH OF MILES STANDISH.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Meanwhile the stalwart Miles Standish was marching steadily northward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Winding through forest and swamp, and along the trend of the sea-shore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All day long, with hardly a halt, the fire of his anger</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Burning and crackling within, and the sulphurous odour of powder</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seeming more sweet to his nostrils than all the scents of the forest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silent and moody he went, and much he revolved his discomfort;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He who was used to success, and to easy victories always,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus to be flouted, rejected, and laughed to scorn by a maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus to be mocked and betrayed by the friend whom most he had trusted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah! ’twas too much to be borne, and he fretted and chafed in his armour.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">“I alone am to blame,” he muttered, “for mine was the folly.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What has a rough old soldier, grown grim and grey in the harness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Used to the camp and its ways, to do with the wooing of maidens?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Twas but a dream,—let it pass,—let it vanish like so many others!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What I thought was a flower, is only a weed, and is worthless;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Out of my heart will I pluck it, and throw it away, and henceforward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Be but a fighter of battles, a lover and wooer of dangers!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus he revolved in his mind his sorry defeat and discomfort,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While he was marching by day or lying at night in the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looking up at the trees, and the constellations beyond them.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">After a three days’ march he came to an Indian encampment</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pitched on the edge of a meadow, between the sea and the forest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Women at work by the tents, and the warriors, horrid with war-paint,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seated about a fire, and smoking and talking together;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who, when they saw from afar the sudden approach of the white men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the flash of the sun on breastplate and sabre and musket,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Straightway leaped to their feet, and two, from among them advancing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came to parley with Standish, and offer him furs as a present;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Friendship was in their looks, but in their hearts there was hatred.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Braves of the tribe were these, and brothers gigantic in stature,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Huge as Goliath of Gath, or the terrible Og, king of Bashan;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">One was Pecksuot named, and the other was called Wattawamat.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round their necks were suspended their knives in scabbards of wampum,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Two-edged, trenchant knives, with points as sharp as a needle.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Other arms had they none, for they were cunning and crafty.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Welcome, English!” they said,—these words they had learned from the traders</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Touching at times on the coast, to barter and chaffer for peltries.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then in their native tongue they began to parley with Standish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through his guide and interpreter, Hobomok, friend of the white man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Begging for blankets and knives, but mostly for muskets and powder,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kept by the white man, they said, concealed, with the plague, in his cellars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ready to be let loose, and destroy his brother the red man!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But when Standish refused, and said he would give them the Bible,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suddenly changing their tone, they began to boast and to bluster.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then Wattawamat advanced with a stride in front of the other,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, with a lofty demeanour, thus vauntingly spake to the Captain:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Now Wattawamat can see, by the fiery eyes of the Captain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Angry is he in his heart; but the heart of the brave Wattawamat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is not afraid at the sight. He was not born of a woman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But on a mountain, at night, from an oak-tree riven by lightning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forth he sprang at a bound, with all his weapons about him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shouting, ‘Who is there here to fight with the brave Wattawamat?’”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then he unsheathed his knife, and, whetting the blade on his left hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Held it aloft and displayed a woman’s face on the handle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saying, with bitter expression and a look of sinister meaning:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I have another at home, with the face of a man on the handle;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By and by they shall marry; and there will be plenty of children!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then stood Pecksuot forth, self-vaunting, insulting Miles Standish:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While with his fingers he patted the knife that hung at his bosom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drawing it half from its sheath, and plunging it back, as he muttered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“By and by it shall see; it shall eat; ah, ha! but shall speak not!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This is the mighty Captain the white men have sent to destroy us!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He is a little man; let him go and work with the women!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Meanwhile Standish had noted the faces and figures of Indians</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Peeping and creeping about from bush to tree in the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Feigning to look for game, with arrows set on their bow-strings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drawing about him still closer and closer the net of their ambush,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But undaunted he stood, and dissembled and treated them smoothly;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So the old chronicles say, that were writ in the days of the fathers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But when he heard their defiance, the boast, the taunt, and the insult,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the hot blood of his race, of Sir Hugh and of Thurston de Standish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Boiled and beat in his heart, and swelled in the veins of his temples.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Headlong he leaped on the boaster, and, snatching his knife from the scabbard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plunged it into his heart, and, reeling backward, the savage</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell with his face to the sky, and a fiend-like fierceness upon it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Straight there arose from the forest the awful sound of the war-whoop,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, like a flurry of snow on the whistling wind of December,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swift and sudden and keen came a flight of feathery arrows.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then came a cloud of smoke, and out of the cloud came the lightning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Out of the lightning thunder; and death unseen ran before it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Frightened the savages fled for shelter in swamp and in thicket,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hotly pursued and beset; but their sachem, the brave Wattawamat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fled not; he was dead. Unswerving and swift had a bullet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Passed through his brain, and he fell with both hands clutching the greensward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seeming in death to hold back from his foe the land of his fathers.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">There, on the flowers of the meadow the warriors lay, and above them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silent, with folded arms, stood Hobomok, friend of the white man.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smiling at length he exclaimed to the stalwart Captain of Plymouth:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Pecksuot bragged very loud, of his courage, his strength, and his stature,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mocked the great Captain, and called him a little man; but I see now</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Big enough have you been to lay him speechless before you!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus the first battle was fought and won by the stalwart Miles Standish.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the tidings thereof were brought to the village of Plymouth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as a trophy of war the head of the brave Wattawamat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Scowled from the roof of the fort, which at once was a church and a fortress,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All who beheld it rejoiced, and praised the Lord, and took courage.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only Priscilla averted her face from this spectre of terror,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thanking God in her heart that she had not married Miles Standish;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shrinking, fearing almost, lest, coming home from his battles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He should lay claim to her hand, as the prize and reward of his valour.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">VIII.</p>
+<p class="center">THE SPINNING-WHEEL.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Month after month passed away, and in Autumn the ships of the merchants</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came with kindred and friends, with cattle and corn for the Pilgrims.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All in the village was peace; the men were intent on their labours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Busy with hewing and building, with garden-plot and with merestead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Busy with breaking the glebe, and mowing the grass in the meadows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Searching the sea for its fish, and hunting the deer in the forest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All in the village was peace; but at times the rumour of warfare</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled the air with alarm, and the apprehension of danger.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bravely the stalwart Standish was scouring the lane with his forces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waxing valiant in fight and defeating the alien armies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till his name had become a sound of fear to the nations.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Anger was still in his heart, but at times the remorse and contrition</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Which in all noble natures succeed the passionate outbreak,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came like a rising tide, that encounters the rush of a river,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Staying its current awhile, but making it bitter and brackish.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Meanwhile Alden at home had built him a new habitation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Solid, substantial, of timber rough-hewn from the first of the forest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wooden-barred was the door, and the roof was covered with rushes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Latticed the windows were, and the window-panes were of paper,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Oiled to admit the light, while wind and rain were excluded.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There too he dug a well, and around it planted an orchard:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still may be seen to this day some trace of the well and the orchard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Close to the house was the stall, where, safe and secure from annoyance,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Raghorn, the snow-white bull, that had fallen to Alden’s allotment</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the division of cattle, might ruminate in the night-time</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over the pastures he cropped, made fragrant by sweet pennyroyal.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Oft when his labour was finished, with eager feet would the dreamer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Follow the pathway that ran through the woods to the house of Priscilla,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Led by illusions romantic and subtile deceptions of fancy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pleasure disguised as duty, and love in the semblance of friendship.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ever of her he thought, when he fashioned the walls of his dwelling;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ever of her he thought, when he delved in the soil in his garden;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ever of her he thought, when he read in his Bible on Sunday</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Praise of the virtuous woman, as she is described in the Proverbs,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How the heart of her husband doth safely trust in her always,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How all the days of her life she will do him good, and not evil,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How she seeketh the wool and the flax and worketh with gladness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How she layeth her hand to the spindle and holdeth the distaff,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How she is not afraid of the snow for herself or her household,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Knowing her household are clothed with the scarlet cloth of her weaving!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">So as she sat at her wheel one afternoon in Autumn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Alden, who opposite sat, and was watching her dexterous fingers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if the thread she was spinning were that of his life and his fortune,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">After a pause in their talk, thus spake to the sound of the spindle.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Truly, Priscilla,” he said, “when I see you spinning and spinning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of others,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suddenly you are transformed, are visibly changed in a moment;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You are no longer Priscilla, but Bertha the Beautiful Spinner.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here the light foot on the treadle grew swifter and swifter; the spindle</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Uttered an angry snarl, and the thread snapped short in her fingers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While the impetuous speaker, not heeding the mischief, continued:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“You are the beautiful Bertha, the spinner, the queen of Helvetia;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She whose story I read at a stall in the streets of Southampton,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who, as she rode on her palfrey, o’er valley and meadow and mountain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ever was spinning her thread from a distaff fixed to her saddle.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She was so thrifty and good, that her name passed into a proverb.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So shall it be with your own, when the spinning-wheel shall no longer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hum in the house of the farmer, and fill its chambers with music.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then shall the mothers, reproving, relate how it was in their childhood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Praising the good old times, and the days of Priscilla the spinner!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Straight uprose from her wheel the beautiful Puritan maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pleased with the praise of her thrift from him whose praise was the sweetest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drew from the reel on the table a snowy skein of her spinning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus making answer, meanwhile, to the flattering phrases of Alden:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Come, you must not be idle; if I am a pattern for housewives,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Show yourself equally worthy of being the model of husbands.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hold this skein on your hands, while I wind it, ready for knitting;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then who knows but hereafter, when fashions have changed and the manners,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fathers may talk to their sons of the good old times of John Alden!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus, with a jest and a laugh, the skein on his hands she adjusted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He sitting awkwardly there, with his arms extended before him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She standing graceful, erect, and winding the thread from his fingers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sometimes chiding a little his clumsy manner of holding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sometimes touching his hands, as she disentangled expertly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Twist or knot in the yarn, unawares—for how could she help it?—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sending electrical thrills through every nerve in his body.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Lo! in the midst of this scene, a breathless messenger entered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bringing in hurry and heat the terrible news from the village.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yes; Miles Standish was dead!—an Indian had brought them the tidings,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slain by a poisoned arrow, shot down in the front of the battle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into an ambush beguiled, cut off with the whole of his forces;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the town would be burned, and all the people be murdered!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such were the tidings of evil that burst on the hearts of the hearers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Silent and statue-like stood Priscilla, her face looking backward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still at the face of the speaker, her arms uplifted in horror;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But John Alden, upstarting, as if the barb of the arrow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Piercing the heart of his friend had struck his own, and had sundered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Once and for ever the bonds that held him bound as a captive,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wild with excess of sensation, the awful delight of his freedom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mingled with pain and regret, unconscious of what he was doing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clasped, almost with a groan, the motionless form of Priscilla,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pressing her close to his heart, as for ever his own, and exclaiming:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Those whom the Lord hath united, let no man put them asunder!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Even as rivulets twain, from distant and separate sources,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seeing each other afar, as they leap from the rocks, and pursuing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each one its devious path, but drawing nearer and nearer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rush together at last, at their trysting-place in the forest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So these lives that had run thus far in separate channels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Coming in sight of each other, then swerving and flowing asunder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Parted by barriers strong, but drawing nearer and nearer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rushed together at last, and one was lost in the other.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120">IX.</p>
+<p class="center">THE WEDDING-DAY.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Forth from the curtain of clouds, from the tent of purple and scarlet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Issued the sun, the great High-Priest, in his garments resplendent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Holiness unto the Lord, in letters of light, on his forehead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Round the hem of his robe the golden bells and pomegranates.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blessing the world he came, and the bars of vapour beneath him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gleamed like a grate of brass, and the sea at his feet was a laver!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">This was the wedding morn of Priscilla the Puritan maiden.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Friends were assembled together; the Elder and Magistrate also</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Graced the scene with their presence, and stood like the Law and the Gospel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One with the sanction of earth, and one with the blessing of heaven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Simple and brief was the wedding, as that of Ruth and of Boaz.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Softly the youth and the maiden repeated the words of betrothal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Taking each other for husband and wife in the Magistrate’s presence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">After the Puritan way, and the laudable custom of Holland.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fervently then, and devoutly, the excellent Elder of Plymouth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Prayed for the hearth, and the home, that were founded that day in affection,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Speaking of life and of death, and imploring divine benedictions.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">Lo! when the service was ended, a form appeared on the threshold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Clad in armour of steel, a sombre and sorrowful figure!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why does the bridegroom start and stare at the strange apparition?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why does the bride turn pale, and hide her face on his shoulder?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is it a phantom of air,—a bodiless, spectral illusion?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is it a ghost from the grave, that has come to forbid the betrothal?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Long had it stood there unseen, a guest uninvited, unwelcomed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over its clouded eyes there had passed at times an expression</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Softening the gloom and revealing the warm heart hidden beneath them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As when across the sky the driving rack of the rain-cloud</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Grows for a moment thin, and betrays the sun by its brightness.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Once it had lifted its hand, and moved its lips, but was silent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if an iron will had mastered the fleeting intention.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But when were ended the troth and the prayer and the last benediction,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the room it strode, and the people beheld with amazement</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bodily there in his armour Miles Standish, the Captain of Plymouth!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Grasping the bridegroom’s hand, he said with emotion, “Forgive me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have been angry and hurt,—too long have I cherished the feeling;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have been cruel and hard, but now, thank God! it is ended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mine is the same hot blood that leaped in the veins of Hugh Standish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sensitive, swift to resent, but as swift in atoning for error.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Never so much as now was Miles Standish the friend of John Alden.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thereupon answered the bridegroom: “Let all be forgotten between us,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All save the dear, old friendship, and that shall grow older and dearer!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then the Captain advanced, and, bowing, saluted Priscilla,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gravely, and after the manner of old-fashioned gentry in England,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Something of camp and of court, of town and of country, commingled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wishing her joy of her wedding, and loudly lauding her husband.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then he said with a smile: “I should have remembered the adage,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If you would be well served, you must serve yourself; and moreover,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No man can gather cherries in Kent at the season of Christmas!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">Great was the people’s amazement, and greater yet their rejoicing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus to behold once more the sun-burnt face of their Captain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whom they had mourned as dead; and they gathered and crowded about him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Eager to see him and hear him, forgetful of bride and of bridegroom,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Questioning, answering, laughing, and each interrupting the other,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till the good Captain declared, being quite overpowered and bewildered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He had rather by far break into an Indian encampment,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than come again to a wedding to which he had not been invited.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">Meanwhile the bridegroom went forth and stood with the bride at the doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Breathing the perfumed air of that warm and beautiful morning.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Touched with autumnal tints, but lonely and sad in the sunshine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lay extended before them the land of toil and privation;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There were the graves of the dead, and the barren waste of the sea-shore.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There the familiar fields, the groves of pine, and the meadows;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But to their eyes transfigured, it seemed as the Garden of Eden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Filled with the presence of God, whose voice was the sound of the ocean.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">Soon was their vision disturbed by the noise and stir of departure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Friends coming forth from the house, and impatient of longer delaying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each with his plan for the day, and the work that was left uncompleted.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then from a stall near at hand, amid exclamations of wonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alden the thoughtful, the careful, so happy, so proud of Priscilla,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Brought out his snow-white bull, obeying the hand of its master,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Led by a cord that was tied to an iron ring in its nostrils,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Covered with crimson cloth, and a cushion placed for a saddle.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She should not walk, he said, through the dust and heat of the noonday;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nay, she should ride like a queen, not plod along like a peasant.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Somewhat alarmed at first, but reassured by the others,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Placing her hand on the cushion, her foot in the hand of her husband,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gaily, with joyous laugh, Priscilla mounted her palfrey.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Nothing is wanting now,” he said with a smile, “but the distaff;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then you would be in truth my queen, my beautiful Bertha!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">Onward the bridal procession now moved to their new habitation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Happy husband and wife, and friends conversing together.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pleasantly murmured the brook, as they crossed the ford in the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pleased with the image that passed, like a dream of love through its bosom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tremulous, floating in air, o’er the depths of the azure abysses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down through the golden leaves the sun was pouring his splendours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gleaming on purple grapes, that, from branches above them suspended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mingled their odorous breath with the balm of the pine and the fir-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wild and sweet as the clusters that grew in the valley of Eshcol.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a picture it seemed of the primitive, pastoral ages,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fresh with the youth of the world, and recalling Rebecca and Isaac,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Old and yet ever new, and simple and beautiful always,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Love immortal and young in the endless succession of lovers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So through the Plymouth woods passed onward the bridal procession.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><i>Tales of a Wayside Inn.</i></h2>
+
+<p class="center">1863.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p class="f120">DAY THE FIRST</p>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p class="f120">PRELUDE.</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE WAYSIDE INN.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_44_44" href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">One Autumn night, in Sudbury town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Across the meadows bare and brown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The windows of the wayside inn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gleamed red with fire-light through the leaves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of woodbine, hanging from the eaves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their crimson curtains rent and thin.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As ancient is this hostelry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As any in the land may be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Built in the old Colonial day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When men lived in a grander way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With ampler hospitality;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now somewhat fallen to decay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With weather-stains upon the wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And stairways worn, and crazy doors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And creaking and uneven floors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A region of repose it seems,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A place of slumber and of dreams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Remote among the wooded hills!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For there no noisy railway speeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its torch-race scattering smoke and gleeds;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But noon and night, the panting teams</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stop under the great oaks, that throw</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tangles of light and shade below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On roofs and doors and window-sills.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Across the road the barns display</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their lines of stalls, their mows of hay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the wide doors the breezes blow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wattled cocks strut to and fro,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, half effaced by rain and shine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Red Horse prances on the sign.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Round this old-fashioned, quaint abode</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Deep silence reigned, save when a gust</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Went rushing down the county road,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And skeletons of leaves, and dust,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A moment quickened by its breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shuddered and danced their dance of death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And through the ancient oaks o’erhead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mysterious voices moaned and fled.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But from the parlour of the inn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A pleasant murmur smote the ear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like water rushing through a weir;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Oft interrupted by the din</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of laughter and of loud applause,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, in each intervening pause,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The music of a violin.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fire-light, shedding over all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The splendour of its ruddy glow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Filled the whole parlour large and low;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It gleamed on wainscot and on wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It touched with more than wonted grace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fair Princess Mary’s pictured face;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It bronzed the rafters overhead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the old spinet’s ivory keys</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It played inaudible melodies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It crowned the sombre clock with flame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hands, the hours, the maker’s name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And painted with a livelier red</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Landlord’s coat-of-arms again;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, flashing on the window-pane,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Emblazoned with its light and shade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The jovial rhymes, that still remain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Writ near a century ago,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the great Major Molineaux,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whom Hawthorne has immortal made.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Before the blazing fire of wood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Erect the wrapt musician stood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And ever and anon he bent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His head upon his instrument,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And seemed to listen, till he caught</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Confessions of its secret thought,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The joy, the triumph, the lament,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The exultation and the pain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then, by the magic of his art,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He soothed the throbbings of its heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And lulled it into peace again.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Around the fireside, at their ease,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There sat a group of friends, entranced</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the delicious melodies;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who from the far-off noisy town</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had to the wayside inn come down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To rest beneath its old oak-trees.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fire-light on their faces glanced,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their shadows on the wainscot danced,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, though of different lands and speech,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each had his tale to tell, and each</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was anxious to be pleased and please.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And while the sweet musician plays,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let me in outline sketch them all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Perchance uncouthly as the blaze</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With its uncertain touch portrays</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their shadowy semblance on the wall.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But first the Landlord will I trace;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Grave in his aspect and attire;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A man of ancient pedigree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A Justice of the Peace was he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Known in all Sudbury as “The Squire.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Proud was he of his name and race,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of old Sir William and Sir Hugh,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in the parlour full in view,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His coat-of-arms, well framed and glazed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon the wall in colours blazed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He beareth gules upon his shield,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A chevron argent in the field,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With three wolves’ heads, and for the crest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A Wyvern part-per-pale addressed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon a helmet barred; below</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The scroll reads, “By the name of Howe.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And over this, no longer bright,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though glimmering with a latent light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was hung the sword his grandsire bore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the rebellious days of yore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down there at Concord in the fight.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A youth was there, of quiet ways,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A Student of old books and days,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To whom all tongues and lands were known,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And yet a lover of his own;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With many a social virtue graced,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And yet a friend of solitude;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A man of such a genial mood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The heart of all things he embraced,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And yet of such fastidious taste,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He never found the best too good.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Books were his passion and delight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in his upper room at home</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stood many a rare and sumptuous tome,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In vellum bound, with gold bedight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Great volumes garmented in white,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Recalling Florence, Pisa, Rome.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He loved the twilight that surrounds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The border land of old romance;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where glitter hauberk, helm, and lance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And banner waves, and trumpet sounds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And ladies ride with hawk on wrist,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And mighty warriors sweep along,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Magnified by the purple mist,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The dusk of centuries and of song.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The chronicles of Charlemagne,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Merlin and the Mort d’Arthure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mingled together in his brain</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With tales of Flores and Blanchefleur,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sir Ferumbras, Sir Eglamour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sir Launcelot, Sir Morgadour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sir Guy, Sir Bevis, Sir Gawain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A young Sicilian, too, was there;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In sight of Etna born and bred,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some breath of its volcanic air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was glowing in his heart and brain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, being rebellious to his liege,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">After Palermo’s fatal siege,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Across the western seas he fled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In good King Bomba’s happy reign.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His face was like a summer night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All flooded with a dusky light;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His hands were small; his teeth shone white</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As sea-shells, when he smiled or spoke;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His sinews supple and strong as oak;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Clean shaven was he as a priest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who at the mass on Sunday sings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Save that upon his upper lip</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His beard, a good palm’s length at least,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Level and pointed at the tip,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shot sideways, like a swallow’s wings.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The poets read he, o’er and o’er,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And most of all the Immortal Four</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Italy; and next to those</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The story-telling bard of prose,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who wrote the joyous Tuscan tales</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the Decameron, that make</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fiesole’s green hills and vales</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Remembered for Boccaccio’s sake.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Much too of music was his thought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The melodies and measures fraught</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With sunshine and the open air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of vineyards and the singing sea</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of his beloved Sicily;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And much it pleased him to peruse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The songs of the Sicilian muse,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bucolic songs by Meli sung</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the familiar peasant tongue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That made men say, “Behold! once more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The pitying gods to earth restore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Theocritus of Syracuse!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A Spanish Jew from Alicant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With aspect grand and grave, was there;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Vender of silks and fabrics rare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And attar of rose from the Levant.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like an old Patriarch he appeared,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Abraham or Isaac, or at least</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some later Prophet or High-Priest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With lustrous eyes, and olive skin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, wildly tossed from cheeks and chin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The tumbling cataract of his beard.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His garments breathed a spicy scent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of cinnamon and sandal blent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the soft aromatic gales</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That meet the mariner, who sails</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the Moluccas, and the seas</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That wash the shores of Celebes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All stories that recorded are</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By Pierre Alphonse he knew by heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And it was rumoured he could say</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Parables of Sandabar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all the Fables of Pilpay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or if not all, the greater part!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Well versed was he in Hebrew books,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Talmud and Targum, and the lore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Kabala; and evermore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There was a mystery in his looks;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His eyes seemed gazing far away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if in vision or in trance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He heard the solemn sackbut play,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And saw the Jewish maidens dance.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A Theologian, from the school</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Cambridge on the Charles, was there;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Skilful alike with tongue and pen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He preached to all men everywhere</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Gospel of the Golden Rule,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The New Commandment given to men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thinking the deed, and not the creed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Would help us in our utmost need.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With reverend feet the earth he trod,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor banished nature from his plan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But studied still with deep research</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To build the Universal Church,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lofty as is the love of God,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And ample as the wants of man.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A Poet, too, was there, whose verse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was tender, musical, and terse;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The inspiration, the delight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The gleam, the glory, the swift flight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of thoughts so sudden, that they seem</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The revelations of a dream,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All these were his; but with them came</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No envy of another’s fame;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He did not find his sleep less sweet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For music in some neighbouring street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor rustling hear in every breeze</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The laurels of Miltiades.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Honour and blessings on his head</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While living, good report when dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who, not too eager for renown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Accepts, but does not clutch, the crown.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Last the Musician, as he stood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Illumined by that fire of wood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fair-haired, blue-eyed, his aspect blithe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His figure tall and straight and lithe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And every feature of his face</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Revealing his Norwegian race;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A radiance, streaming from within,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Around his eyes and forehead beamed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Angel with the violin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Painted by Raphael, he seemed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He lived in that ideal world</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose language is not speech, but song;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Around him evermore the throng</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of elves and sprites their dances whirled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Strömkarl sang, the cataract hurled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its headlong waters from the height;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And mingled in the wild delight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The scream of sea-birds in their flight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rumour of the forest trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The plunge of the implacable seas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The tumult of the wind at night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Voices of eld, like trumpets blowing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Old ballads, and wild melodies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through mist and darkness pouring forth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like Elivagar’s river flowing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out of the glaciers of the North.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The instrument on which he played</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was in Cremona’s workshops made,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By a great master of the past,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ere yet was lost the art divine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fashioned of maple and of pine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That in Tyrolian forests vast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had rocked and wrestled with the blast:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Exquisite was it in design,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Perfect in each minutest part,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A marvel of the lutist’s art;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in its hollow chamber, thus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The maker from whose hands it came</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had written his unrivalled name,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Antonius Stradivarius.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when he played, the atmosphere</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was filled with magic, and the ear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Caught echoes of that Harp of Gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose music had so weird a sound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hunted stag forgot to bound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The leaping rivulet backward rolled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The birds came down from bush and tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The dead came from beneath the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The maiden to the harper’s knee!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The music ceased; the applause was loud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The pleased musician smiled and bowed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wood-fire clapped its hands of flame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The shadows on the wainscot stirred,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And from the harpsichord there came</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A ghostly murmur of acclaim,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A sound like that sent down at night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By birds of passage in their flight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the remotest distance heard.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then silence followed; then began</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A clamour for the Landlord’s tale,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The story promised them of old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They said, but always left untold;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he, although a bashful man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all his courage seemed to fail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Finding excuse of no avail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yielded; and thus the story ran.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="REVERE" class="f110">THE LANDLORD’S TALE.</p>
+<p class="center">PAUL REVERE’S RIDE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Listen, my children, and you shall hear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hardly a man is now alive</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who remembers that famous day and year.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">He said to his friend, “If the British march</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By land or sea from the town to-night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the North Church tower as a signal light,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One, if by land, and two, if by sea;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I on the opposite shore will be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ready to ride and spread the alarm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through every Middlesex village and farm,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then he said, “Good night!” and with muffled oar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Just as the moon rose over the bay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where swinging wide at her moorings lay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The <i>Somerset</i>, British man-of-war;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A phantom-ship, with each mast and spar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Across the moon like a prison-bar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a huge black hulk, that was magnified</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By its own reflection in the tide.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wanders and watches with eager ears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till in the silence around him he hears</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The muster of men at the barrack-door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the measured tread of the grenadiers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Marching down to their boats on the shore.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then he climbed to the tower of the Old North Church,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the belfry-chamber overhead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And startled the pigeons from their perch</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the sombre rafters, that round him made</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Masses and moving shapes of shade,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Up the trembling ladder, steep and tall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the highest window in the wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where he paused to listen and look down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A moment on the roofs of the town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the moonlight flowing over all.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In their night-encampment on the hill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wrapped in silence so deep and still</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The watchful night-wind, as it went,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Creeping along from tent to tent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A moment only he feels the spell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the lonely belfry and the dead;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For suddenly all his thoughts are bent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On a shadowy something far away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the river widens to meet the bay,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A line of black that bends and floats</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/ill_026.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="381" >
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“<i>Just as the moon rose over the bay,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>Where, swinging wide at her moorings, lay</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>The</i> ‘Somerset,’ <i>British man-of-war</i>.”</div> </div>
+ </div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now he patted his horse’s side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now gazed at the landscape far and near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But mostly he watched with eager search</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The belfry tower of the Old North Church,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As it rose above the graves on the hill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lonely and spectral, and sombre and still.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A second lamp in the belfry burns!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A hurry of hoofs in a village street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fate of a nation was riding that night;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Kindled the land into flame with its heat.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He has left the village and mounted the steep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And under the alders, that skirt its edge,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was twelve by the village clock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He heard the crowing of the cock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the barking of the farmer’s dog,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And felt the damp of the river fog,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That rises after the sun goes down.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was one by the village clock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When he galloped into Lexington.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He saw the gilded weathercock</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Swim in the moonlight as he passed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gaze at him with a spectral glare,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if they already stood aghast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At the bloody work they would look upon.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was two by the village clock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When he came to the bridge in Concord town.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He heard the bleating of the flock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the twitter of birds among the trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And felt the breath of the morning breeze</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blowing over the meadows brown.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And one was safe and asleep in his bed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who at the bridge would be first to fall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who that day would be lying dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pierced by a British musket-ball.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">You know the rest. In the books you have read,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How the British Regulars fired and fled,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How the farmers gave them ball for ball,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From behind each fence and farm-yard wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Chasing the red-coats down the lane,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then crossing the field to emerge again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under the trees at the turn of the road,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And only pausing to fire and load.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So through the night rode Paul Revere;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And so through the night went his cry of alarm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To every Middlesex village and farm,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A cry of defiance and not of fear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a word that shall echo for evermore!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through all our history, to the last,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the hour of darkness and peril and need</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The people will waken and listen to hear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the midnight message of Paul Revere.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="INTERLUDE1" class="center">INTERLUDE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Landlord ended thus his tale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then rising took down from its nail</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The sword that hung there, dim with dust,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And cleaving to its sheath with rust,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And said, “This sword was in the fight.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Poet seized it, and exclaimed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“It is the sword of a good knight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though homespun was his coat-of-mail;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What matter if it be not named</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Joyeuse, Colada, Durindale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Excalibar, or Aroundight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or other name the books record?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Your ancestor, who bore this sword</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As Colonel of the Volunteers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mounted upon his old grey mare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seen here and there and everywhere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To me a grander shape appears</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than old Sir William, or what not,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clinking about in foreign lands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With iron gauntlets on his hands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And on his head an iron pot!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">All laughed; the Landlord’s face grew red</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As his escutcheon on the wall;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He could not comprehend at all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The drift of what the Poet said;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For those who had been longest dead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were always greatest in his eyes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he was speechless with surprise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To see Sir William’s plumèd head</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brought to a level with the rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And made the subject of a jest.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And this perceiving, to appease</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Landlord’s wrath, the others’ fears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Student said, with careless ease,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The ladies and the cavaliers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The arms, the loves, the courtesies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The deeds of high emprise, I sing!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus Ariosto says, in words</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That have the stately stride and ring</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of armèd knights and clashing swords.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now listen to the tale I bring;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listen! though not to me belong</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The flowing draperies of his song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The words that rouse, the voice that charms.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Landlord’s tale was one of arms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only a tale of love is mine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blending the human and divine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A tale of the Decameron, told</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In Palmieri’s garden old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By Fiametta, laurel-crowned,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While her companions lay around,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And heard the intermingled sound</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of airs that on their errands sped,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And wild birds gossiping overhead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And lisp of leaves and fountain’s fall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And her own voice more sweet than all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Telling the tale, which, wanting these,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Perchance may lose its power to please.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="FALCON" class="f110">THE STUDENT’S TALE.</p>
+<p class="center">THE FALCON OF SER FEDERIGO.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">One summer morning when the sun was hot,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Weary with labour in his garden plot,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On a rude bench beneath his cottage eaves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ser Federigo sat among the leaves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of a huge vine, that, with its arms outspread,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hung its delicious clusters overhead.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Below him, through the lovely valley, flowed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The river Arno, like a winding road,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And from its banks were lifted high in air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The spires and roofs of Florence called the Fair;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To him a marble tomb, that rose above</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His wasted fortunes and his buried love.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For there, in banquet and in tournament,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His wealth had lavished been, his substance spent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To woo and lose, since ill his wooing sped,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Monna Giovanna, who his rival wed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yet ever in his fancy reigned supreme,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The ideal woman of a young man’s dream.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then he withdrew, in poverty and pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To this small farm, the last of his domain,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His only comfort and his only care</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To prune his vines, and plant the fig and pear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His only forester and only guest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His falcon, faithful to him, when the rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whose willing hands had found so light of yore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The brazen knocker of his palace door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had now no strength to lift the wooden latch,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That entrance gave beneath a roof of thatch.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Companion of his solitary ways,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Purveyor of his feasts on holidays,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On him this melancholy man bestowed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The love with which his nature overflowed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And so the empty-handed years went round,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vacant, though voiceful with prophetic sound;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And so, that summer morn, he sat and mused</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With folded, patient hands, as he was used,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And dreamily before his half-closed sight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Floated the vision of his lost delight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beside him, motionless, the drowsy bird</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dreamed of the chase, and in his slumber heard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The sudden scythe-like sweep of wings, that dare</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The headlong plunge through eddying gulfs of air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, starting broad awake upon his perch,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tinkled his bells, like mass-bells in a church,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, looking at his master, seemed to say,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ser Federigo, shall we hunt to-day?”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ser Federigo thought not of the chase;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The tender vision of her lovely face</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I will not say he seems to see, he sees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the leaf-shadows of the trellises,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Herself, yet not herself; a lovely child</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With flowing tresses, and eyes wide and wild,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Coming undaunted up the garden walk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And looking not at him, but at the hawk.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Beautiful falcon!” said he, “would that I</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Might hold thee on my wrist, or see thee fly!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The voice was hers, and made strange echoes start</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through all the haunted chambers of his heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As an Æolian harp through gusty doors</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of some old ruin its wild music pours.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Who is thy mother, my fair boy?” he said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His hand laid softly on that shining head.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Monna Giovanna.—Will you let me stay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A little while, and with your falcon play?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We live there, just beyond your garden wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the great house behind the poplars tall.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">So he spake on; and Federigo heard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As from afar each softly uttered word,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And drifted onward through the golden gleams</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And shadows of the misty sea of dreams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As mariners becalmed through vapours drift,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And feel the sea beneath them sink and lift,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And hear far off the mournful breakers roar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And voices calling faintly from the shore!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, waking from his painful reveries,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He took the little boy upon his knees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And told him stories of his gallant bird,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till in their friendship he became a third.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Monna Giovanna, widowed in her prime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had come with friends to pass the summer time</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In her grand villa, half-way up the hill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’erlooking Florence, but retired and still;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With iron gates, that opened through long lines</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of sacred ilex and centennial pines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And terraced gardens, and broad steps of stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And sylvan deities, with moss o’ergrown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And fountains palpitating in the heat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And all Val d’Arno stretched beneath its feet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here in seclusion, as a widow may,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The lovely lady wiled the hours away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pacing in sable robes the statued hall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Herself the stateliest statue among all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And seeing more and more, with secret joy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her husband risen and living in her boy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the lost sense of life returned again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not as delight, but as relief from pain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Meanwhile the boy, rejoicing in his strength,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stormed down the terraces from length to length;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The screaming peacock chased in hot pursuit,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And climbed the garden trellises for fruit.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But his chief pastime was to watch the flight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of a gerfalcon, soaring into sight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beyond the trees that fringed the garden wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then downward stooping at some distant call;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as he gazed full often wondered he</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who might the master of the falcon be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Until that happy morning, when he found</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Master and falcon in the cottage ground.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And now a shadow and a terror fell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the great house, as if a passing-bell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Toiled from the tower, and filled each spacious room</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With secret awe, and preternatural gloom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The petted boy grew ill, and day by day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pined with mysterious malady away.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The mother’s heart would not be comforted;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her darling seemed to her already dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And often, sitting by the sufferer’s side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“What can I do to comfort thee?” she cried.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At first the silent lips made no reply,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But, moved at length by her importunate cry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Give me,” he answered, with imploring tone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ser Federigo’s falcon for my own!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">No answer could the astonished mother make;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How could she ask, e’en for her darling’s sake,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such favour at a luckless lover’s hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Well knowing that to ask was to command?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Well knowing, what all falconers confessed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In all the land that falcon was the best,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The master’s pride and passion and delight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the sole pursuivant of this poor knight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But yet, for her child’s sake, she could no less</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than give assent, to soothe his restlessness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So promised, and then promising to keep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her promise sacred, saw him fall asleep.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The morrow was a bright September morn;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The earth was beautiful as if new-born;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There was that nameless splendour everywhere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That wild exhilaration in the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Which makes the passers in the city street</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Congratulate each other as they meet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Two lovely ladies, clothed in cloak and hood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Passed through the garden gate into the wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under the lustrous leaves, and through the sheen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of dewy sunshine showering down between.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The one, close-hooded, had the attractive grace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Which sorrow sometimes lends a woman’s face;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her dark eyes moistened with the mists that roll</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the gulf-stream of passion in the soul;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The other with her hood thrown back, her hair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Making a golden glory in the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her cheeks suffused with an auroral blush,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her young heart singing louder than the thrush;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So walked, that morn, through mingled light and shade,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each by the other’s presence lovelier made,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Monna Giovanna and her bosom friend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Intent upon their errand and its end.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">They found Ser Federigo at his toil,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like banished Adam, delving in the soil;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And when he looked and these fair women spied,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The garden suddenly was glorified;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His long-lost Eden was restored again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the strange river winding through the plain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No longer was the Arno to his eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the Euphrates watering Paradise!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Monna Giovanna raised her stately head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with fair words of salutation said:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ser Federigo, we come here as friends,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hoping in this to make some poor amends</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For past unkindness. I who ne’er before</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would even cross the threshold of your door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I who in happier days such pride maintained,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Refused your banquets, and your gifts disdained,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This morning come, a self-invited guest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To put your generous nature to the test,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And breakfast with you under your own vine.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To which he answered: “Poor desert of mine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not your unkindness call it, for if aught</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is good in me of feeling or of thought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From you it comes, and this last grace outweighs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All sorrows, all regrets of other days.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And after further compliment and talk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Among the dahlias in the garden walk</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He left his guests; and to his cottage turned,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as he entered for a moment yearned</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the lost splendours of the days of old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The ruby glass, the silver, and the gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And felt how piercing is the sting of pride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By want embittered and intensified.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He looked about him for some means or way</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To keep this unexpected holiday;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Searched every cupboard, and then searched again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Summoned the maid, who came, but came in vain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The Signor did not hunt to-day,” she said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“There’s nothing in the house but wine and bread.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then suddenly the drowsy falcon shook</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His little bells with that sagacious look,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Which said, as plain as language to the ear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“If anything is wanting, I am here!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yes, everything is wanting, gallant bird!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The master seized thee without further word,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like thine own lure, he whirled thee round; ah me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The pomp and flutter of brave falconry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The bells, the jesses, the bright scarlet hood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The flight and the pursuit o’er field and wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All these for evermore are ended now;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No longer victor, but the victim thou!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then on the board a snow-white cloth he spread,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laid on its wooden dish the loaf of bread,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brought purple grapes with autumn sunshine hot,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The fragrant peach, the juicy bergamot;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then in the midst a flask of wine he placed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with autumnal flowers the banquet graced.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ser Federigo, would not these suffice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Without thy falcon stuffed with cloves and spice?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">When all was ready, and the courtly dame</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With her companion to the cottage came,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Upon Ser Federigo’s brain there fell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The wild enchantment of a magic spell;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The room they entered, mean and low and small,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was changed into a sumptuous banquet-hall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With fanfares by aërial trumpets blown;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The rustic chair she sat on was a throne;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He ate celestial food, and a divine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flavour was given to his country wine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the poor falcon, fragrant with his spice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A peacock was, or bird of paradise!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the repast was ended, they arose</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And passed again into the garden-close.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then said the Lady, “Far too well I know,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Remembering still the days of long ago,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though you betray it not, with what surprise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You see me here in this familiar wise.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You have no children, and you cannot guess</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What anguish, what unspeakable distress</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A mother feels, whose child is lying ill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor how her heart anticipates his will.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And yet for this you see me lay aside</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All womanly reserve and check of pride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And ask the thing most precious in your sight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Your falcon, your sole comfort and delight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Which, if you find it in your heart to give,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">My poor, unhappy boy perchance may live.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ser Federigo listens, and replies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With tears of love and pity in his eyes:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Alas, dear lady! there can be no task</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So sweet to me, as giving when you ask.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">One little hour ago, if I had known</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This wish of yours, it would have been my own.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But thinking in what manner I could best</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Do honour to the presence of my guest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I deemed that nothing worthier could be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than what most dear and precious was to me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And so my gallant falcon breathed his last</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To furnish forth this morning our repast.”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In mute contrition, mingled with dismay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The gentle lady turned her eyes away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grieving that he such sacrifice should make,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And kill his falcon for a woman’s sake,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yet feeling in her heart a woman’s pride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That nothing she could ask for was denied;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then took her leave, and passed out at the gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With footsteps slow, and soul disconsolate.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Three days went by, and lo! a passing-bell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tolled from the little chapel in the dell;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ten strokes Ser Federigo heard, and said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Breathing a prayer, “Alas! her child is dead!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Three months went by, and lo! a merrier chime</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rang from the chapel bells at Christmas time;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The cottage was deserted, and no more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ser Federigo sat beside its door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But now, with servitors to do his will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the grand villa, half-way up the hill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat at the Christmas feast, and at his side</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Monna Giovanna, his belovèd bride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never so beautiful, so kind, so fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Enthroned once more in the old rustic chair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">High-perched upon the back of which there stood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The image of a falcon carved in wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And underneath the inscription, with a date,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“All things come round to him who will but wait.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="INTERLUDE2" class="center">INTERLUDE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soon as the story reached its end,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">One, over-eager to commend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crowned it with injudicious praise;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And then the voice of blame found vent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And fanned the embers of dissent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into a somewhat lively blaze.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Theologian shook his head;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“These old Italian tales,” he said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“From the much-praised Decameron down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through all the rabble of the rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Are either trifling, dull, or lewd;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The gossip of a neighbourhood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In some remote provincial town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A scandalous chronicle at best!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They seem to me a stagnant fen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grown rank with rushes and with reeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where a white lily, now and then,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blooms in the midst of noxious weeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And deadly nightshade on its banks.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To this the Student straight replied:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“For the white lily, many thanks!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">One should not say, with too much pride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fountain, I will not drink of thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor were it grateful to forget,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That from these reservoirs and tanks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even imperial Shakespeare drew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His Moor of Venice and the Jew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Romeo and Juliet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And many a famous comedy.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then a long pause; till some one said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“An angel is flying overhead!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At these words spake the Spanish Jew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And murmured with an inward breath:</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“God grant, if what you say is true,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It may not be the Angel of Death!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And then another pause; and then,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stroking his beard, he said again:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“This brings back to my memory</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A story in the Talmud told,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That book of gems, that book of gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of wonders many and manifold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A tale that often comes to me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And fills my heart, and haunts my brain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And never wearies nor grows old.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="RABBI_BEN" class="f110">THE SPANISH JEW’S TALE.</p>
+<p class="center">THE LEGEND OF RABBI BEN LEVI.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rabbi Ben Levi, on the Sabbath, read</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A volume of the Law, in which it said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“No man shall look upon my face and live.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as he read, he prayed that God would give</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His faithful servant grace with mortal eye</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To look upon his face and yet not die.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then fell a sudden shadow on the page,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And lifting up his eyes, grown dim with age,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He saw the Angel of Death before him stand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Holding a naked sword in his right hand.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rabbi Ben Levi was a righteous man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yet through his veins a chill of terror ran.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With trembling voice he said, “What wilt thou here?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Angel answered, “Lo! the time draws near</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When thou must die; yet first, by God’s decree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whate’er thou askest shall be granted thee.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Replied the Rabbi, “Let these living eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">First look upon my place in Paradise.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then said the Angel, “Come with me and look.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rabbi Ben Levi closed the sacred book,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And rising, and uplifting his grey head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Give me thy sword,” he to the Angel said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Lest thou shouldst fall upon me by the way.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Angel smiled and hastened to obey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then led him forth to the Celestial Town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And set him on the wall, whence, gazing down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rabbi Ben Levi, with his living eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Might look upon his place in Paradise.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then straight into the city of the Lord</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Rabbi leaped with the Death-Angel’s sword,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And through the streets there swept a sudden breath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of something there unknown, which men call death.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Meanwhile the Angel stayed without, and cried,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Come back!” To which the Rabbi’s voice replied,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“No! in the name of God, whom I adore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I swear that hence I will depart no more!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then all the Angels cried, “O Holy One,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">See what the son of Levi here has done!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The kingdom of Heaven he takes by violence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in thy name refuses to go hence!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Lord replied, “My Angels, be not wroth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Did e’er the son of Levi break his oath?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let him remain; for he with mortal eye</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shall look upon my face and yet not die.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beyond the outer wall the Angel of Death</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the great voice, and said, with panting breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Give back the sword, and let me go my way.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whereat the Rabbi paused, and answered, “Nay!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Anguish enough already has it caused</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Among the sons of men.” And while he paused</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He heard the awful mandate of the Lord</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Resounding through the air, “Give back the sword!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Rabbi bowed his head in silent prayer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then said he to the dreadful Angel, “Swear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No human eye shall look on it again;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But when thou takest away the souls of men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thyself unseen, and with an unseen sword,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou wilt perform the bidding of the Lord.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Angel took the sword again, and swore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And walks on earth unseen for evermore.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="INTERLUDE3" class="center">INTERLUDE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He ended: and a kind of spell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon the silent listeners fell.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His solemn manner and his words</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had touched the deep, mysterious chords</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That vibrate in each human breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alike, but not alike confessed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The spiritual world seemed near;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And close above them, full of fear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its awful adumbration passed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A luminous shadow, vague and vast.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They almost feared to look, lest there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Embodied from the impalpable air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They might behold the Angel stand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Holding the sword in his right hand.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">At last, but in a voice subdued,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not to disturb their dreamy mood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Said the Sicilian: “While you spoke,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Telling your legend marvellous,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Suddenly in my memory woke</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The thought of one, now gone from us,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">An old Abate, meek and mild,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My friend and teacher, when a child,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who sometimes in those days of old</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The legend of an Angel told,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which ran, if I remember, thus.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</span></p>
+<p class="f110">THE SICILIAN’S TALE.</p>
+<p class="center">KING ROBERT OF SICILY.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Apparelled in magnificent attire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With retinue of many a knight and squire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On St. John’s Eve, at vespers, proudly sat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And heard the priests chant the Magnificat.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as he listened, o’er and o’er again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Repeated, like a burden or refrain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He caught the “<i>Deposuit potentes</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>De sede, et exaltavit humiles</i>;”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And slowly lifting up his kingly head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He to a learnèd clerk beside him said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“What mean these words?” The clerk made answer meet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“He has put down the mighty from their seat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And has exalted them of low degree.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thereat King Robert muttered scornfully,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“’Tis well that such seditious words are sung</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only by priests and in the Latin tongue:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For unto priests and people be it known,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There is no power can push me from my throne!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And leaning back, he yawned and fell asleep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lulled by the chant monotonous and deep.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he awoke, it was already night;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The church was empty, and there was no light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Save where the lamps, that glimmered few and faint</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lighted a little space before some saint.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He started from his seat and gazed around,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But saw no living thing and heard no sound.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He groped towards the door, but it was locked;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He cried aloud, and listened, and then knocked,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And uttered awful threatenings and complaints,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And imprecations upon men and saints.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The sounds re-echoed from the roof and walls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if dead priests were laughing in their stalls!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">At length the sexton, hearing from without</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The tumult of the knocking and the shout,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And thinking thieves were in the house of prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came with his lantern, asking, “Who is there?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Half-choked with rage, King Robert fiercely said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Open: ’tis I, the King! Art thou afraid?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The frightened sexton, muttering, with a curse,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“This is some drunken vagabond, or worse!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Turned the great key and flung the portal wide:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A man rushed by him at a single stride,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Haggard, half-naked, without hat or cloak,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who neither turned, nor looked at him, nor spoke,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But leapt into the blackness of the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And vanished like a spectre from his sight.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Despoiled of his magnificent attire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bare-headed, breathless, and besprent with mire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With sense of wrong and outrage desperate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strode on and thundered at the palace gate;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rushed through the court-yard, thrusting in his rage</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To right and left each seneschal and page,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And hurried up the broad and sounding stair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His white face ghastly in the torches’ glare.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From hall to hall he passed with breathless speed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Voices and cries he heard, but did not heed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Until at last he reached the banquet-room,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blazing with light, and breathing with perfume.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There on the daïs sat another king,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wearing his robes, his crown, his signet-ring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">King Robert’s self in features, form, and height,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But all transfigured with angelic light!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was an Angel; and his presence there</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a divine effulgence filled the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">An exaltation, piercing the disguise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though none the hidden Angel recognise.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">A moment speechless, motionless, amazed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The throneless monarch on the Angel gazed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who met his looks of anger and surprise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the divine compassion of his eyes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then said, “Who art thou? and why com’st thou here?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To which King Robert answered with a sneer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I am the King, and come to claim my own</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From an impostor, who usurps my throne!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And suddenly, at these audacious words,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Up sprang the angry guests, and drew their swords;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Angel answered, with unruffled brow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Nay, not the King, but the King’s Jester; thou</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Henceforth shalt wear the bells and scalloped cape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And for thy counsellor shalt lead an ape;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou shalt obey my servants when they call,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And wait upon my henchmen in the hall!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Deaf to King Robert’s threats and cries and prayers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They thrust him from the hall and down the stairs;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A group of tittering pages ran before,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as they opened wide the folding-door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His heart failed, for he heard, with strange alarms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The boisterous laughter of the men-at-arms,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And all the vaulted chamber roar and ring</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the mock plaudits of “Long live the King!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Next morning, waking with the day’s first beam,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He said within himself, “It was a dream!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the straw rustled as he turned his head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There were the cap and bells beside his bed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Around him rose the bare, discoloured walls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Close by, the steeds were champing in their stalls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in the corner, a revolting shape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shivering and chattering, sat the wretched ape.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was no dream; the world he loved so much</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had turned to dust and ashes at his touch!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Days came and went; and now returned again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To Sicily the old Saturnian reign;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under the Angel’s governance benign</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The happy island danced with corn and wine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And deep within the mountain’s burning breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Enceladus, the giant, was at rest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Meanwhile King Robert yielded to his fate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sullen and silent and disconsolate.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dressed in the motley garb that Jesters wear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With looks bewildered and a vacant stare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Close shaven above the ears, as monks are shorn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By courtiers mocked, by pages laughed to scorn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His only friend the ape, his only food</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What others left,—he still was unsubdued.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And when the Angel met him on his way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And half in earnest, half in jest, would say,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sternly, though tenderly, that he might feel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The velvet scabbard held a sword of steel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Art thou the King?” the passion of his woe</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Burst from him in resistless overflow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, lifting high his forehead, he would fling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The haughty answer back, “I am, I am the King!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Almost three years were ended; when there came</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ambassadors of great repute and name</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unto King Robert, saying that Pope Urbane</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By letter summoned them forthwith to come</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On Holy Thursday to his city of Rome.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Angel with great joy received his guests,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And gave them presents of embroidered vests,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And velvet mantles with rich ermine lined,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And rings and jewels of the rarest kind.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then he departed with them o’er the sea</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the lovely land of Italy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whose loveliness was more resplendent made</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the mere passing of that cavalcade,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With plumes, and cloaks, and housings, and the stir</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of jewelled bridle and of golden spur.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And lo! among the menials, in mock state,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Upon a piebald steed, with shambling gait,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His cloak of foxtails flapping in the wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The solemn ape demurely perched behind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">King Robert rode, making huge merriment</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In all the country towns through which they went.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Pope received them with great pomp, and blare</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of bannered trumpets, in Saint Peter’s square,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Giving his benediction and embrace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fervent, and full of apostolic grace.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While with congratulations and with prayers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He entertained the Angel unawares,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Robert, the Jester, bursting through the crowd,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into their presence rushed, and cried aloud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I am the King! Look, and behold in me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Robert, your brother, King of Sicily!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This man, who wears my semblance to your eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is an impostor in a king’s disguise.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Do you not know me? does no voice within</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Answer my cry, and say we are akin?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Pope in silence, but with troubled mien,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gazed at the Angel’s countenance serene;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Emperor, laughing, said, “It is strange sport</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To keep a madman for thy Fool at court!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the poor, baffled Jester in disgrace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was hustled back among the populace.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In solemn state the Holy Week went by,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Easter Sunday gleamed upon the sky;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The presence of the Angel, with its light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Before the sun rose, made the city bright,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with new fervour filled the hearts of men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who felt that Christ indeed had risen again.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even the Jester, on his bed of straw,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With haggard eyes the unwonted splendour saw;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He felt within a power unfelt before,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, kneeling humbly on his chamber floor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He heard the rushing garments of the Lord</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sweep through the silent air, ascending heavenward.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And now the visit ending, and once more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Valmond returning to the Danube’s shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Homeward the Angel journeyed, and again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The land was made resplendent with his train.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flashing along the towns of Italy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unto Salerno, and from thence by sea.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And when once more within Palermo’s wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, seated on the throne in his great hall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He heard the Angelus from convent towers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if the better world conversed with ours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He beckoned to King Robert to draw nigher,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with a gesture bade the rest retire;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And when they were alone, the Angel said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Art thou the King?” Then bowing down his head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">King Robert crossed both hands upon his breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And meekly answered him: “Thou knowest best!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">My sins as scarlet are; let me go hence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in some cloister’s school of penitence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Across those stones, that pave the way to heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Walk barefoot, till my guilty soul is shriven!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Angel smiled, and from his radiant face</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A holy light illumined all the place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And through the open window, loud and clear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They heard the monks chant in the chapel near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Above the stir and tumult of the street:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“He has put down the mighty from their seat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And has exalted them of low degree!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And through the chant a second melody</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose like the throbbing of a single string:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I am an Angel, and thou art the King!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">King Robert, who was standing near the throne,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lifted his eyes, and lo! he was alone!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But all apparelled as in days of old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With ermined mantle and with cloth of gold;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And when his courtiers came, they found him there</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kneeling upon the floor, absorbed in silent prayer.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="INTERLUDE4" class="center">INTERLUDE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And then the blue-eyed Norseman told</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A Saga of the days of old.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“There is,” said he, “a wondrous book</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of Legends in the old Norse tongue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the dead kings of Norroway,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Legends that once were told or sung</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In many a smoky fireside nook</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of Iceland, in the ancient day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By wandering Saga-man or Scald;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heimskringla is the volume called;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he who looks may find therein</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The story that I now begin.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in each pause the story made</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Upon his violin he played,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As an appropriate interlude,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fragments of old Norwegian tunes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That bound in one the separate runes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And held the mind in perfect mood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Entwining and encircling all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The strange and antiquated rhymes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With melodies of olden times;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As over some half-ruined wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Disjointed and about to fall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fresh woodbines climb and interlace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And keep the loosened stones in place.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</span></p>
+<p class="f120 spa2">THE MUSICIAN’S TALE.</p>
+<p class="f110">THE SAGA OF KING OLAF.</p>
+<p class="f120 spa1">I.</p>
+<p class="center">THE CHALLENGE OF THOR.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am the God Thor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am the War God,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am the Thunderer!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here in my Northland,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My fastness and fortress,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Reign I for ever!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here amid icebergs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rule I the nations;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This is my hammer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Miölner the mighty;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Giants and sorcerers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Cannot withstand it!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">These are the gauntlets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wherewith I wield it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And hurl it afar off;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This is my girdle;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whenever I brace it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Strength is redoubled!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The light thou beholdest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stream through the heavens</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In flashes of crimson,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is but my red beard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blown by the night-wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Affrighting the nations!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Jove is my brother;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mine eyes are the lightning;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wheels of my chariot</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Roll in the thunder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The blows of my hammer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ring in the earthquake!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Force rules the world still,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has ruled it, shall rule it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Meekness is weakness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Strength is triumphant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over the whole earth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still is it Thor’s Day!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou art a God too,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O Galilean!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thus single-handed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unto the combat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gauntlet or Gospel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here I defy thee!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="RETURN" class="f120 spa1">II.</p>
+<p class="center">KING OLAF’S RETURN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And King Olaf heard the cry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saw the red light in the sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Laid his hand upon his sword,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As he leaned upon the railing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And his ship went sailing, sailing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Northward into Drontheim fiord.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There he stood as one who dreamed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the red light glanced and gleamed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On the armour that he wore;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he shouted, as the rifted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Streamers o’er him shook and shifted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“I accept thy challenge, Thor!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">To avenge his father slain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And reconquer realm and reign,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Came the youthful Olaf home,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the midnight sailing, sailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Listening to the wild wind’s wailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the dashing of the foam.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">To his thoughts the sacred name</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of his mother Astrid came,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the tale she oft had told</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of her flight by secret passes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the mountains and morasses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To the home of Hakon old.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then strange memories crowded back</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Queen Gunhild’s wrath and wrack</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And a hurried flight by sea;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of grim Vikings, and their rapture</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the sea-fight, and the capture,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the life of slavery.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How a stranger watched his face</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the Esthonian market-place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Scanned his features one by one,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saying, “We should know each other;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am Sigurd, Astrid’s brother,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thou art Olaf, Astrid’s son!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then as Queen Allogia’s page,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Old in honours, young in age,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Chief of all her men-at-arms;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till vague whispers, and mysterious,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Reached King Valdemar, the imperious,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Filling him with strange alarms.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then his cruisings o’er the seas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Westward to the Hebrides,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And to Scilly’s rocky shore;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the hermit’s cavern dismal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Christ’s great name and rites baptismal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the ocean’s rush and roar.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All these thoughts of love and strife</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Glimmered through his lurid life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As the stars’ intenser light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the red flames o’er him trailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As his ships went sailing, sailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Northward in the summer night.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Trained for either camp or court,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Skilful in each manly sport,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Young and beautiful and tall.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Art of warfare, craft of chases,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Swimming, skating, snow-shoe races,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Excellent alike in all.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">When at sea, with all his rowers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He along the bending oars</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Outside of his ship could run.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He the Smalsor Horn ascended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And his shining shield suspended</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On its summit, like a sun.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the ship-rails he could stand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wield his sword with either hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And at once two javelins throw;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At all feasts where ale was strongest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sat the merry monarch longest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">First to come and last to go.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Norway never yet had seen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One so beautiful of mien,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">One so royal in attire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When in arms completely furnished,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Harness gold-inlaid and burnished,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Mantle like a flame of fire.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus came Olaf to his own,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When upon the night-wind blown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Passed that cry along the shore;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he answered, while the rifted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Streamers o’er him shook and shifted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“I accept thy challenge, Thor!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="THORA" class="f120 spa1">III.</p>
+<p class="center">THORA OF RIMOL.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Thora of Rimol! hide me! hide me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Danger and shame and death betide me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For Olaf the King is hunting me down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through field and forest, through thorp and town!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Thus cried Jarl Hakon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To Thora, the fairest of women.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Hakon Jarl! for the love I bear thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Neither shall shame nor death come near thee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the hiding-place wherein thou must lie</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is the cave underneath the swine in the sty.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Thus to Jarl Hakon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Said Thora, the fairest of women.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So Hakon Jarl and his base thrall Karker</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Crouched in the cave, than a dungeon darker,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As Olaf came riding, with men in mail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the forest roads into Orkadale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Demanding Jarl Hakon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of Thora, the fairest of women.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Rich and honoured shall be whoever</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The head of Hakon Jarl shall dissever!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hakon heard him, and Karker the slave,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the breathing-holes of the darksome cave.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Alone in her chamber</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Wept Thora, the fairest of women.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said Karker, the crafty, “I will not slay thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For all the King’s gold I will never betray thee!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Then why dost thou turn so pale, O churl,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then again black as the earth?” said the Earl.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">More pale and more faithful</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Was Thora, the fairest of women.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">From a dream in the night the thrall started, saying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Round my neck a gold ring King Olaf was laying!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Hakon answered, “Beware of the king!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He will lay round thy neck a blood-red ring.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">At the ring on her finger</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Gazed Thora, the fairest of women.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">At daybreak slept Hakon, with sorrows encumbered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But screamed and drew up his feet as he slumbered;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The thrall in the darkness plunged with his knife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Earl awakened no more in this life.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">But wakeful and weeping</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Sat Thora, the fairest of women.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">At Nidarholm the priests are all singing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Two ghastly heads on the gibbet are swinging;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One is Jarl Hakon’s and one is his thrall’s,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the people are shouting from windows and walls;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">While alone in her chamber</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Swoons Thora, the fairest of women.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="SIGRID" class="f120 spa1">IV.</p>
+<p class="center">QUEEN SIGRID THE HAUGHTY.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Queen Sigrid the Haughty sat proud and aloft</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In her chamber, that looked over meadow and croft.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Heart’s dearest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Why dost thou sorrow so?</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The floor with tassels of fir was besprent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Filling the room with their fragrant scent.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">She heard the birds sing, she saw the sun shine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The air of summer was sweeter than wine.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a sword without scabbard the bright river lay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Between her own kingdom and Norroway.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But Olaf the King had sued for her hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sword would be sheathed, the river be spanned.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her maidens were seated around her knee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Working bright figures in tapestry.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And one was singing the ancient rune</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Brynhilda’s love and the wrath of Gudrun.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And through it, and round it, and over it all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sounded incessant the waterfall.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Queen in her hand held a ring of gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the door of Ladé’s Temple old.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">King Olaf had sent her this wedding gift,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But her thoughts as arrows were keen and swift.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">She had given the ring to her goldsmiths twain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who smiled as they handed it back again.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Sigrid the Queen, in her haughty way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Said, “Why do you smile, my goldsmiths, say?”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And they answered: “O Queen! if the truth must be told,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The ring is of copper, and not of gold!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The lightning flashed o’er her forehead and cheek,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She only murmured, she did not speak:</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“If in his gifts he can faithless be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There will be no gold in his love to me.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A footstep was heard on the outer stair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in strode King Olaf with royal air.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He kissed the Queen’s hand, and he whispered of love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And swore to be true as the stars are above.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But she smiled with contempt as she answered: “O King</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will you swear it, as Odin once swore, on the ring?”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the King: “O speak not of Odin to me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wife of King Olaf a Christian must be.”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Looking straight at the King, with her level brows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She said, “I keep true to my faith and my vows.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then the face of King Olaf was darkened with gloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He rose in his anger and strode through the room.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Why then should I care to have thee?” he said,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“A faded old woman, a heathenish jade!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">His zeal was stronger than fear or love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he struck the Queen in the face with his glove.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then forth from the chamber in anger he fled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the wooden stairway shook with his tread.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Queen Sigrid the Haughty said under her breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“This insult, King Olaf, shall be thy death!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Heart’s dearest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Why dost thou sorrow so?</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="SHRIEKS" class="f120 spa1">V.</p>
+<p class="center">THE SKERRY OF SHRIEKS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now from all King Olaf’s farms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">His men-at-arms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gathered on the Eve of Easter;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To his house at Angvalds-ness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Fast they press,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Drinking with the royal feaster.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Loudly through the wide-flung door</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Came the roar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the sea upon the Skerry;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And its thunder loud and near</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Reached the ear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mingling with their voices merry.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Hark!” said Olaf to his Scald,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Halfred the Bald,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Listen to that song, and learn it!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Half my kingdom would I give,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">As I live,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">If by such songs you would earn it!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“For of all the runes and rhymes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of all times,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Best I like the ocean’s dirges,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the old harper heaves and rocks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">His hoary locks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mowing and flashing in the surges!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Halfred answered: “I am called</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The Unappalled!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nothing hinders me or daunts me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hearken to me, then, O King,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">While I sing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The great Ocean song that haunts me.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I will hear your song sublime</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Some other time,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Says the drowsy monarch, yawning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And retires; each laughing guest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Applauds the jest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then they sleep till day is dawning.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pacing up and down the yard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">King Olaf’s guard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saw the sea-mist slowly creeping</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er the sands, and up the hill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Gathering still</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Round the house where they were sleeping.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was not the fog he saw,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Nor misty flaw,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That above the landscape brooded;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was Eyvind Kallda’s crew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of warlocks blue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With their caps of darkness hooded!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Round and round the house they go,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Weaving slow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Magic circles to encumber</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And imprison in their ring</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Olaf the King,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As he helpless lies in slumber.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then athwart the vapours dun</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The Easter sun</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Streamed with one broad track of splendour!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In their real forms appeared</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The warlocks weird,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Awful as the Witch of Endor.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blinded by the light that glared,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">They groped and stared</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round about with steps unsteady;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his window Olaf gazed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And, amazed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Who are these strange people?” said he.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Eyvind Kallda and his men!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Answered then</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the yard a sturdy farmer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While the men-at-arms apace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Filled the place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Busily buckling on their armour.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the gates they sallied forth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">South and north,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Scoured the island coasts around them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seizing all the warlock band</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Foot and hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the Skerry’s rocks they bound them.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And at eve the King again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Called his train,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, with all the candles burning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Silent sat and heard once more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The sullen roar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the ocean tides returning.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shrieks and cries of wild despair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Filled the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Growing fainter as they listened;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then the bursting surge alone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Sounded on;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus the sorcerers were christened!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Sing, O Scald, your song sublime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Your ocean-rhyme,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cried King Olaf: “it will cheer me!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said the Scald, with pallid cheeks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">“The Skerry of Shrieks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sings too loud for you to hear me!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="ODIN" class="f120 spa1">VI.</p>
+<p class="center">THE WRAITH OF ODIN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The guests were loud, the ale was strong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">King Olaf feasted late and long;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The hoary Scalds together sang;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’erhead the smoky rafters rang.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The door swung wide, with creak and din;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A blast of cold night-air came in,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And on the threshold shivering stood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A one-eyed guest, with cloak and hood.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The King exclaimed, “O grey-beard pale!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Come warm thee with this cup of ale.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The foaming draught the old man quaffed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The noisy guests looked on and laughed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then spake the King: “Be not afraid;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sit here by me.” The guest obeyed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, seated at the table, told</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tales of the sea, and Sagas old.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And ever, when the tale was o’er,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The King demanded yet one more;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till Sigurd the Bishop smiling said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“’Tis late, O king, and time for bed.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The King retired; the stranger-guest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Followed and entered with the rest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The lights were out, the pages gone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But still the garrulous guest spake on.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">As one who from a volume reads,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He spake of heroes and their deeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of lands and cities he had seen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And stormy gulfs that tossed between.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then from his lips in music rolled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Havamal of Odin old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With sounds mysterious as the roar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of billows on a distant shore.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Do we not learn from runes and rhymes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made by the gods in elder times,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And do not still the great Scalds teach</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That silence better is than speech?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smiling at this, the King replied,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Thy lore is by thy tongue belied;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For never was I so enthralled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Either by Saga-man or Scald.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Bishop said, “Late hours we keep!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Night wanes, O King! ’tis time for sleep!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then slept the King, and when he woke</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The guest was gone, the morning broke.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">They found the doors securely barred,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They found the watch-dog in the yard,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There was no footprint in the grass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And none had seen the stranger pass.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">King Olaf crossed himself and said:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I know that Odin the Great is dead;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sure is the triumph of our Faith,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The one-eyed stranger was his wraith.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="IRON" class="f120 spa1">VII.</p>
+<p class="center">IRON-BEARD.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Olaf the King, one summer morn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Blew a blast on his bugle-horn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sending his signal through the land of Drontheim.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">And to the Hus-Ting held at Mere</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Gathered the farmers far and near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With their war weapons ready to confront him.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Ploughing under the morning star,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Old Iron-Beard in Yriar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Heard the summons, chuckling with a low laugh.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">He wiped the sweat-drops from his brow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Unharnessed his horses from the plough,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And clattering came on horseback to King Olaf.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">He was the churliest of the churls;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Little he cared for king or earls;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bitter as home-brewed ale were his foaming passions.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Hodden-grey was the garb he wore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And by the Hammer of Thor he swore;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He hated the narrow town, and all its fashions.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">But he loved the freedom of his farm,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">His ale at night, by the fireside warm,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gudrun his daughter, with her flaxen tresses.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">He loved his horses and his herds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The smell of the earth, and the song of birds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His well-filled barns, his brook with its watercresses.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Huge and cumbersome was his frame;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">His beard, from which he took his name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Frosty and fierce, like that of Hymer the Giant.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">So at the Hus-Ting he appeared,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The farmer of Yriar, Iron-Beard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On horseback, with an attitude defiant.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">And to King Olaf he cried aloud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Out of the middle of the crowd,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That tossed about him like a stormy ocean:</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Such sacrifices shalt thou bring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To Odin and to Thor, O King,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As other kings have done in their devotion!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">King Olaf answered: “I command</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">This land to be a Christian land;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here is my Bishop who the folk baptizes!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">“But if you ask me to restore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Your sacrifices, stained with gore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then will I offer human sacrifices!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Not slaves nor peasants shall they be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">But men of note and high degree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such men as Orm of Lyra and Kar of Gryting!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Then to the Temple strode he in,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And loud behind him heard the din</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of his men-at-arms and the peasants fiercely fighting.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">There in their Temple, carved in wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The image of great Odin stood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And other gods, with Thor supreme among them.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">King Olaf smote them with the blade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of his huge war-axe, gold inlaid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And downward shattered to the pavement flung them.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">At the same moment rose without,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">From the contending crowd, a shout,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A mingled sound of triumph and of wailing.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">And there upon the trampled plain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The farmer Iron-Beard lay slain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Midway between the assailed and the assailing.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">King Olaf from the doorway spoke:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Choose ye between two things, my folk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To be baptized or given up to slaughter!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">And seeing their leader stark and dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The people with a murmur said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O King, baptize us with thy holy water!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">So all the Drontheim land became</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">A Christian land in name and fame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the old gods no more believing and trusting.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">And as a blood-atonement, soon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">King Olaf wed the fair Gudrun;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thus in peace ended the Drontheim Hus-Ting!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</span></p>
+<p class="f120 spa1">VIII.</p>
+<p class="center">GUDRUN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On King Olaf’s bridal night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shines the moon with tender light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And across the chamber streams</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Its tide of dreams.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">At the fatal midnight hour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When all evil things have power,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the glimmer of the moon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Stands Gudrun.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Close against her heaving breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Something in her hand is pressed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like an icicle, its sheen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Is cold and keen.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the cairn are fixed her eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where her murdered father lies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a voice remote and drear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">She seems to hear.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What a bridal night is this?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Cold will be the dagger’s kiss;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Laden with the chill of death</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Is its breath.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the drifting snow she sweeps</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the couch where Olaf sleeps;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Suddenly he wakes and stirs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">His eyes meet hers.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“What is that,” King Olaf said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Gleams so bright above thy head?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wherefore standest thou so white</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">In pale moonlight?”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“’Tis the bodkin that I wear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When at night I bind my hair;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It woke me falling on the floor;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">’Tis nothing more.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Forests have ears, and fields have eyes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Often treachery lurking lies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Underneath the fairest hair!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Gudrun, beware!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ere the earliest peep of morn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blew King Olaf’s bugle-horn;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And for ever sundered ride</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Bridegroom and bride!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="THANGBRAND" class="f120 spa1">IX.</p>
+<p class="center">THANGBRAND THE PRIEST.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Short of stature, large of limb,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Burly face and russet beard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the women stared at him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When in Iceland he appeared.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">“Look!” they said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">With nodding head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“There goes Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the prayers he knew by rote,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He could preach like Chrysostome,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the fathers he could quote,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He had even been at Rome.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">A learnèd clerk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">A man of mark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was this Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He was quarrelsome and loud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And impatient of control,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Boisterous in the market crowd,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Boisterous at the wassail-bowl,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Everywhere</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Would drink and swear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Swaggering Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In his house this malecontent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Could the King no longer bear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So to Iceland he was sent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To convert the heathen there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">And away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">One summer day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sailed this Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There in Iceland, o’er their books</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Pored the people day and night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But he did not like their looks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Nor the songs they used to write.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">“All this rhyme</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Is waste of time!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Grumbled Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the alehouse, where he sat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Came the Scalds and Saga-men;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is it to be wondered at,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That they quarrelled now and then,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">When o’er his beer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Began to leer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Drunken Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the folk in Altafiord</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Boasted of their island grand;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saying in a single word,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Iceland is the finest land</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">That the sun</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Doth shine upon!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Loud laughed Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he answered: “What’s the use</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of this bragging up and down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When three women and one goose</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Make a market in your town!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Every Scald</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Satires scrawled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On poor Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Something worse they did than that;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And what vexed him most of all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was a figure in shovel hat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Drawn in charcoal on the wall;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">With words that go</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Sprawling below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“This is Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hardly knowing what he did,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then he smote them might and main,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thorvald Veile and Veterlid</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Lay there in the alehouse slain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">“To-day we are gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">To-morrow mould!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Muttered Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Much in fear of axe and rope,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Back to Norway sailed he then.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O, King Olaf! little hope</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Is there of these Iceland men!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Meekly said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">With bending head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Pious Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="RAUD" class="f120 spa1">X.</p>
+<p class="center">RAUD THE STRONG.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“All the old gods are dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the wild warlocks fled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the white Christ lives and reigns,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And through my wide domains</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His Gospel shall be spread!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">On the Evangelists</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Thus swore King Olaf.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">But still in dreams of the night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beheld he the crimson light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And heard the voice that defied</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Him who was crucified,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And challenged him to the fight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">To Sigurd the Bishop</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">King Olaf confessed it.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Sigurd the Bishop said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The old gods are not dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the great Thor still reigns,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And among the Jarls and Thanes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The old witchcraft still is spread.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Thus to King Olaf</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Said Sigurd the Bishop.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Far north in the Salten Fiord,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By rapine, fire, and sword,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lives the Viking, Raud the Strong;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the Godoe Isles belong</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To him and his heathen horde.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Thus went on speaking</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Sigurd the Bishop.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“A warlock, a wizard is he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And lord of the wind and the sea;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And whichever way he sails,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He has ever favouring gales,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By his craft in sorcery.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Here the sign of the cross made</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Devoutly King Olaf.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“With rites that we both abhor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He worships Odin and Thor;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So it cannot yet be said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That all the old gods are dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the warlocks are no more,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Flushing with anger</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Said Sigurd the Bishop.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then King Olaf cried aloud:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I will talk with this mighty Raud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And along the Salten Fiord</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Preach the Gospel with my sword</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or be brought back in my shroud!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">So northward from Drontheim</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Sailed King Olaf.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="SIGURD" class="f120 spa1">XI.</p>
+<p class="center">BISHOP SIGURD AT SALTEN FIORD.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Loud the angry wind was wailing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As King Olaf’s ships came sailing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Northward out of Drontheim haven</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To the mouth of Salten Fiord.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though the flying sea-spray drenches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fore and aft, the rowers’ benches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not a single heart is craven</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of the champions there on board.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All without the Fiord was quiet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But within it storm and riot,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such as on his Viking cruises</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Raud the Strong was wont to ride.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the sea through all its tide-ways</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Swept the reeling vessels sideways,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the leaves are swept through sluices,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">When the flood-gates open wide.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“’Tis the warlock! ’tis the demon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Raud!” cried Sigurd to the seamen;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“But the Lord is not affrighted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">By the witchcraft of his foes.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the ship’s bow he ascended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By his choristers attended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Round him were the tapers lighted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the sacred incense rose.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the bow stood Bishop Sigurd,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In his robes, as one transfigured,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Crucifix he planted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">High amid the rain and mist.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then with holy water sprinkled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the ship; the mass-bells tinkled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Loud the monks around him chanted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Loud he read the Evangelist.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As into the Fiord they darted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On each side the water parted;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down a path like silver molten</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Steadily rowed King Olaf’s ships;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Steadily burned all night the tapers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the White Christ through the vapours</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gleamed across the Fiord of Salten,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">As through John’s Apocalypse,—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till at last they reached Raud’s dwelling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the little isle of Gelling;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not a guard was at the doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Not a glimmer of light was seen.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But at anchor, carved and gilded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lay the dragon ship he builded;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Twas the grandest ship in Norway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">With its crest and scales of green.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Up the stairway, softly creeping,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the loft where Raud was sleeping,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With their fists they burst asunder</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Bolt and bar that held the door.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Drunken with sleep and ale they found him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dragged him from his bed and bound him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While he stared with stupid wonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">At the look and garb they wore.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then King Olaf said: “O Sea-King!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Little time have we for speaking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Choose between the good and evil;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Be baptized, or thou shalt die!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But in scorn the heathen scoffer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Answered: “I disdain thine offer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Neither fear I God nor Devil;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Thee and thy Gospel I defy!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then between his jaws distended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When his frantic struggles ended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through King Olaf’s horn an adder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Touched by fire, they forced to glide.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sharp his tooth was as an arrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As he gnawed through bone and marrow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But without a groan or shudder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Raud the Strong blaspheming died.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then baptized they all that region,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Swarthy Lap and fair Norwegian,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Far as swims the salmon, leaping,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Up the streams of Salten Fiord.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In their temples Thor and Odin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lay in dust and ashes trodden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As King Olaf, onward sweeping,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Preached the Gospel with his sword.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then he took the carved and gilded</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dragon-ship that Raud had builded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the tiller single-handed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Grasping, steered into the main.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Southward sailed the sea-gulls o’er him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Southward sailed the ship that bore him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till at Drontheim haven landed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Olaf and his crew again.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="OLAF_XMAS" class="f120 spa1">XII.</p>
+<p class="center">KING OLAF’S CHRISTMAS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">At Drontheim, Olaf the King</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the bells of Yule-tide ring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">As he sat in his banquet-hall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drinking the nut-brown ale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his bearded Berserks hale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And tall.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Three days his Yule-tide feasts</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He held with Bishops and Priests,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And his horn filled up to the brim,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the ale was never too strong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor the Saga-man’s tale too long,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">For him.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er his drinking horn, the sign</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He made of the Cross divine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">As he drank, and muttered his prayers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the Berserks evermore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made the sign of the Hammer of Thor</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Over theirs.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The gleams of the fire-light dance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Upon helmet and hauberk and lance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And laugh in the eyes of the King;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he cries to Halfred the Scald,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grey-bearded, wrinkled, and bald,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">“Sing!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sing me a song divine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a sword in every line,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And this shall be thy reward.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he loosened the belt at his waist,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in front of the singer placed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">His sword.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Quern-biter of Hakon the Good,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wherewith at a stroke he hewed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The millstone through and through,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Foot-breadth of Thoralf the Strong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were neither so broad nor so long,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Nor so true.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then the Scald took his harp and sang,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And loud through the music rang</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The sound of that shining word;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the harp-strings a clangour made,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if they were struck with the blade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Of a sword.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Berserks round about</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broke forth into a shout</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">That made the rafters ring;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They smote with their fists on the board,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And shouted, “Long live the Sword,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And the King!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the King said, “O my son,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I miss the bright word in one</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Of thy measures and thy rhymes.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Halfred the Scald replied,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“In another ’twas multiplied</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Three times.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then King Olaf raised the hilt</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of iron, cross-shaped and gilt,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And said, “Do not refuse;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Count well the gain and the loss,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thor’s hammer or Christ’s cross;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Choose!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Halfred the Scald said, “This</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the name of the Lord I kiss,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Who on it was crucified!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And a shout went round the board,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“In the name of Christ the Lord,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Who died!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then over the waste of snows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The noonday sun uprose,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Through the driving mists revealed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the lifting of the Host,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By incense-clouds almost</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Concealed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the shining wall a vast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And shadowy cross was cast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">From the hilt of the lifted sword,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in foaming cups of ale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Berserks drank “Was-hael!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">To the Lord!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="SERPENT" class="f120 spa1">XIII.</p>
+<p class="center">THE BUILDING OF THE LONG SERPENT.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thorberg Skafting, master-builder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In his ship-yard by the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whistled, saying, “’Twould bewilder</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Any man but Thorberg Skafting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Any man but me!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Near him lay the Dragon stranded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Built of old by Raud the Strong.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And King Olaf had commanded</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He should build another Dragon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Twice as large and long.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore whistled Thorberg Skafting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As he sat with half-closed eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And his head turned sideways, drafting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That new vessel for King Olaf,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Twice the Dragon’s size.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round him busily hewed and hammered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Mallet huge and heavy axe;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Workmen laughed and sang and clamoured,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whirred the wheels that into rigging</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Spun the shining flax!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">All this tumult heard the master,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">It was music to his ear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fancy whispered all the faster,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Men shall hear of Thorberg Skafting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">For a hundred year!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Workmen sweating at the forges</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Fashioned iron bolt and bar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a warlock’s midnight orgies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smoked and bubbled the black cauldron</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With the boiling tar.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Did the warlocks mingle in it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thorberg Skafting, any curse?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Could you not be gone a minute</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But some mischief must be doing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Turning bad to worse?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Twas an ill wind that came wafting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From his homestead words of woe;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To his farm went Thorberg Skafting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Oft repeating to his workmen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Build ye thus and so.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">After long delays returning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Came the master back by night;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To his ship-yard longing, yearning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hurried he, and did not leave it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Till the morning’s light.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Come and see my ship, my darling!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the morrow said the King;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Finished now from keel to carling;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never yet was seen in Norway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Such a wondrous thing!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the ship-yard, idly talking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">At the ship the workmen stared:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Some one, all their labour balking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down her sides had cut deep gashes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Not a plank was spared!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Death be to the evil-doer!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With an oath King Olaf spoke;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“But rewards to his pursuer!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with wrath his face grew redder</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Than his scarlet cloak.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Straight the master-builder, smiling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Answered thus the angry King:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Cease blaspheming and reviling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Olaf, it was Thorberg Skafting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Who has done this thing!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then he chipped and smoothed the planking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Till the King, delighted, swore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With much lauding and much thanking</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Handsomer is now my Dragon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Than she was before!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seventy ells and four extended</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the grass the vessel’s keel;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">High above it, gilt and splendid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose the figure-head ferocious,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With its crest of steel.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then they launched her from the tressels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In the ship-yard by the sea;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She was the grandest of all vessels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never ship was built in Norway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Half so fine as she!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Long Serpent was she christened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">’Mid the roar of cheer on cheer!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They who to the Saga listened</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heard the name of Thorberg Skafting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">For a hundred year!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="CREW" class="f120 spa1">XIV.</p>
+<p class="center">THE CREW OF THE LONG SERPENT.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Safe at anchor in Drontheim Bay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">King Olaf’s fleet assembled lay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And, striped with white and blue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Downward fluttered sail and banner,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As alights the screaming lanner;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lustily cheered, in their wild manner,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The Long Serpent’s crew.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her forecastle man was Ulf the Red;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a wolf’s was his shaggy head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">His teeth as large and white;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His beard of grey and russet blended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Round as a swallow’s nest descended;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As standard-bearer he defended</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Olaf’s flag in the fight.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Near him Kolbiorn had his place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the King in garb and face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">So gallant and so hale;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Every cabin-boy and varlet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wondered at his cloak of scarlet;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a river frozen and star-lit,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Gleamed his coat of mail.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the bulkhead, tall and dark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stood Thrand Rame of Thelemark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A figure gaunt and grand;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On his hairy arm imprinted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was an anchor, azure-tinted;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like Thor’s hammer, huge and dinted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Was his brawny hand.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Einar Tamberskelver, bare</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the winds his golden hair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By the mainmast stood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Graceful was his form, and slender,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And his eyes were deep and tender</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a woman’s, in the splendour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of her maidenhood.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the fore-hold Biorn and Bork</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Watched the sailors at their work:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Heavens! how they swore!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thirty men they each commanded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Iron-sinewed, horny-handed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shoulders broad and chests expanded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Tugging at the oar.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">These, and many more like these,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With King Olaf sailed the seas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Till the waters vast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Filled them with a vague devotion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the freedom and the motion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the roll and roar of ocean</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the sounding blast.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">When they landed from the fleet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How they roared through Drontheim’s street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Boisterous as the gale!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How they laughed and stamped and pounded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till the tavern roof resounded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the host looked on astounded</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As they drank the ale!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Never saw the wild North Sea</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such a gallant company</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sail its billows blue!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Never, while they cruised and quarrelled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Old King Gorm, or Blue-Tooth Harald,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Owned a ship so well apparelled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Boasted such a crew!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</span></p>
+<p class="f120 spa1">XV.</p>
+<p class="center">A LITTLE BIRD IN THE AIR.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A little bird in the air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is singing of Thyri the fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The sister of Svend the Dane;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the song of the garrulous bird</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the streets of the town is heard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And repeated again and again.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Hoist up your sails of silk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And flee away from each other.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">To King Burislaf, it is said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was the beautiful Thyri wed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And a sorrowful bride went she;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And after a week and a day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She has fled away and away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From his town by the stormy sea.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Hoist up your sails of silk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And flee away from each other.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They say that through heat and through cold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through weald, they say, and through wold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By day and by night, they say,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She has fled; and the gossips report</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She has come to King Olaf’s court,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the town is all in dismay.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Hoist up your sails of silk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And flee away from each other.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is whispered King Olaf has seen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has talked with the beautiful Queen;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And they wonder how it will end;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For surely, if here she remain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is war with King Svend the Dane,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And King Burislaf the Vend!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Hoist up your sails of silk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And flee away from each other.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O, greatest wonder of all!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is published in hamlet and hall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">It roars like a flame that is fanned!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The King—yes, Olaf the king—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has wedded her with his ring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And Thyri is Queen in the land!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Hoist up your sails of silk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And flee away from each other.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="THYRI" class="f120 spa1">XVI.</p>
+<p class="center">QUEEN THYRI AND THE<br> ANGELICA-STALKS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Northward over Drontheim</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flew the clamorous sea-gulls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang the lark and linnet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the meadows green;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Weeping in her chamber,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lonely and unhappy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat the Drottning Thyri,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Sat King Olaf’s Queen.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In at all the windows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Streamed the pleasant sunshine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the roof above her</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Softly cooed the dove;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the sound she heard not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor the sunshine heeded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the thoughts of Thyri</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Were not thoughts of love.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then King Olaf entered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beautiful as morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the sun at Easter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Shone his happy face;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his hand he carried</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Angelicas uprooted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With delicious fragrance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Filling all the place.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a rainy midnight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat the Drottning Thyri,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even the smile of Olaf</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Could not cheer her gloom;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor the stalks he gave her</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a gracious gesture,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with words as pleasant</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As their own perfume.</div>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</span> </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In her hands he placed them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And her jewelled fingers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the green leaves glistened</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Like the dews of morn;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">But she cast them from her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Haughty and indignant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the floor she threw them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With a look of scorn.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Richer presents,” said she,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Gave King Harald Gormson</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the Queen, my mother,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Than such worthless weeds;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“When he ravaged Norway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laying waste the kingdom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seizing scatt and treasure</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">For her royal needs.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“But thou darest not venture</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the Sound to Vendland,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">My domains to rescue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From King Burislaf;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Lest King Svend of Denmark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forkèd Beard, my brother,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Scatter all thy vessels</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As the wind the chaff.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then up sprang King Olaf,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a reindeer bounding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With an oath he answered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus the luckless Queen:</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Never yet did Olaf</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fear King Svend of Denmark;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This right hand shall hale him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">By his forkèd chin!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then he left the chamber,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thundering through the doorway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loud his steps resounded</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Down the outer stair.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smarting with the insult,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the streets of Drontheim</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strode he red and wrathful,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With his stately air.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">All his ships he gathered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Summoned all his forces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Making his war levy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In the region round;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down the coast of Norway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a flock of sea-gulls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sailed the fleet of Olaf</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Through the Danish Sound.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his own hand fearless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Steered he the Long Serpent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strained the creaking cordage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Bent each boom and gaff;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till in Vendland landing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The domains of Thyri</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He redeemed and rescued</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From King Burislaf.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then said Olaf, laughing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Not ten yoke of oxen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Have the power to draw us</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Like a woman’s hair!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Now will I confess it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Better things are jewels</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than angelica-stalks are</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">For a Queen to wear.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="SVEND" class="f120 spa1">XVII.</p>
+<p class="center">KING SVEND OF THE<br> FORKÈD BEARD.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loudly the sailors cheered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Svend of the Forkèd Beard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As with his fleet he steered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Southward to Vendland;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where with their courses hauled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All were together called,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under the Isle of Svald,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Near to the mainland.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">After Queen Gunhild’s death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So the old Saga saith,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plighted King Svend his faith</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To Sigrid the Haughty;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And to avenge his bride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soothing her wounded pride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over the waters wide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">King Olaf sought he.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still on her scornful face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blushing with deep disgrace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bore she the crimson trace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of Olaf’s gauntlet;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a malignant star,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blazing in heaven afar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Red shone the angry scar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Under her frontlet.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Oft to King Svend she spake,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“For thine own honour’s sake</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shalt thou swift vengeance take</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the vile coward!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Until the King at last,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gusty and overcast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a tempestuous blast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Threatened and lowered.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soon as the Spring appeared,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Svend of the Forkèd Beard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">High his red standard reared,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Eager for battle;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While every warlike Dane,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seizing his arms again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Left all unsown the grain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Unhoused the cattle.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Likewise the Swedish King</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Summoned in haste a Thing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Weapons and men to bring</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In aid of Denmark;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Eric the Norseman, too,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the war-tidings flew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sailed with a chosen crew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From Lapland and Finmark.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">So upon Easter day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sailed the three kings away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Out of the sheltered bay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In the bright season;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With them Earl Sigvald came,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Eager for spoil and fame;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pity that such a name</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Stooped to such treason!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Safe under Svald at last,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now were their anchors cast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Safe from the sea and blast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Plotted the three kings;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While, with a base intent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Southward Earl Sigvald went,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On a foul errand bent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Unto the Sea-kings,</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thence to hold on his course,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unto King Olaf’s force,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lying within the hoarse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Mouths of Stet-haven;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Him to ensnare and bring</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unto the Danish King,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who his dead corse would fling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Forth to the raven!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="SIGVALD" class="f120 spa1">XVIII.</p>
+<p class="center">KING OLAF AND EARL SIGVALD.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the grey sea-sands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">King Olaf stands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Northward and seaward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He points with his hands.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">With eddy and whirl</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sea-tides curl,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Washing the sandals</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Sigvald the Earl.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The mariners shout,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The ships swing about,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The yards are all hoisted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sails flutter out.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The war-horns are played,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The anchors are weighed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like moths in the distance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sails flit and fade.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sea is like lead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The harbour lies dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a corse on the sea-shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose spirit has fled!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On that fatal day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The histories say,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seventy vessels</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sailed out of the bay</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But soon scattered wide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er the billows they ride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While Sigvald and Olaf</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sail side by side.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Cried the Earl: “Follow me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I your pilot will be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For I know all the channels</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where flows the deep sea!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So into the strait</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where his foes lie in wait,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gallant King Olaf</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sails to his fate!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then the sea-fog veils</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The ships and their sails;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Queen Sigrid the Haughty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy vengeance prevails!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="WAR_HORNS" class="f120 spa1">XIX.</p>
+<p class="center">KING OLAF’S WAR-HORNS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Strike the sails!” King Olaf said;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Never shall men of mine take flight:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never away from battle I fled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never away from my foes!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Let God dispose</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of my life in the fight!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Sound the horns!” said Olaf the King;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And suddenly through the drifting brume</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The blare of the horns began to ring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the terrible trumpet shock</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Of Regnarock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the Day of Doom!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Louder and louder the war-horns sang</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over the level floor of the flood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the sails came down with a clang,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And there in the mist overhead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The sun hung red</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a drop of blood.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drifting down on the Danish fleet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Three together the ships were lashed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So that neither should turn and retreat;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the midst, but in front of the rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The burnished crest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the Serpent flashed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">King Olaf stood on the quarter-deck,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With bow of ash and arrows of oak,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His gilded shield was without a fleck,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His helmet inlaid with gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And in many a fold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hung his crimson cloak.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the forecastle Ulf the Red</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Watched the lashing of the ships;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“If the Serpent lie so far ahead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We shall have hard work of it here,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Said he with a sneer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On his bearded lips.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">King Olaf laid an arrow on string,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Have I a coward on board?” said he.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Shoot it another way, O King!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sullenly answered Ulf,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The old sea-wolf;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“You have need of me!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In front came Svend, the King of the Danes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sweeping down with his fifty rowers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the right, the Swedish king with his Thanes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And on board of the Iron-Beard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Earl Eric steered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the left with his oars.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“These soft Danes and Swedes,” said the King,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“At home with their wives had better stay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than come within reach of my Serpent’s sting;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But where the Norseman leads,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Heroic deeds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Will be done to-day!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then as together the vessels crashed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Eric severed the cables of hide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With which King Olaf’s ships were lashed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And left them to drive and drift</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">With the currents swift</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the outward tide.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Louder the war-horns growl and snarl,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sharper the dragons bite and sting!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Eric the son of Hakon Jarl</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A death-drink salt as the sea</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Pledges to thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Olaf the King!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</span></p>
+<p class="f120 spa1">XX.</p>
+<p class="center">EINAR TAMBERSKELVER.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was Einar Tamberskelver</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Stood beside the mast;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his yew-bow, tipped with silver</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Flew the arrows fast;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Aimed at Eric unavailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As he sat concealed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Half behind the quarter-railing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Half behind his shield.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">First an arrow struck the tiller,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Just above his head;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Sing, O Eyvind Skaldaspiller,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then Earl Eric said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Sing the song of Hakon dying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Sing his funeral wail!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And another arrow flying</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Grazed his coat of mail.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Turning to a Lapland yeoman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As the arrow passed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said Earl Eric, “Shoot that bowman</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Standing by the mast.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sooner than the word was spoken</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Flew the yeoman’s shaft;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Einar’s bow in twain was broken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Einar only laughed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“What was that?” said Olaf, standing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the quarter-deck.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Something heard I like the stranding</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of a shattered wreck.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Einar then, the arrow taking</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the loosened string,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Answered, “That was Norway breaking</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From thy hand, O king!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Thou art but a poor diviner,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Straightway Olaf said;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Take my bow, and swifter, Einar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Let thy shafts be sped.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of his bows the fairest choosing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Reached he from above;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Einar saw the blood-drops oozing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Through his iron glove.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the bow was thin and narrow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">At the first assay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er its head he drew the arrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Flung the bow away;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said, with hot and angry temper</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Flushing in his cheek,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Olaf! for so great a Kämper</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Are thy bows too weak!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, with smile of joy defiant</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On his beardless lip,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Scaled he, light and self-reliant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Eric’s dragon-ship.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loose his golden locks were flowing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Bright his armour gleamed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like Saint Michael overthrowing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Lucifer he seemed.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="DEATH_DRINK" class="f120 spa1">XXI.</p>
+<p class="center">KING OLAF’S DEATH-DRINK.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">All day has the battle raged,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All day have the ships engaged,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But not yet is assuaged</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The vengeance of Eric the Earl.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The decks with blood are red,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The arrows of death are sped,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The ships are filled with the dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the spears the champions hurl.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">They drift as wrecks on the tide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The grappling-irons are plied,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The boarders climb up the side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The shouts are feeble and few.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah! never shall Norway again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">See her sailors come back o’er the main;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They all lie wounded or slain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Or asleep in the billows blue!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the deck stands Olaf the King,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Around him whistle and sing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The spears that the foemen fling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the stones they hurl with their hands.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the midst of the stones and the spears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kolbiorn, the marshal, appears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His shield in the air he uprears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">By the side of King Olaf he stands.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over the slippery wreck</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the Long Serpent’s deck</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sweeps Eric with hardly a check,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">His lips with anger are pale;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">He hews with his axe at the mast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till it falls, with the sails overcast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a snow-covered pine in the vast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Dim forests of Orkadale.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seeking King Olaf then,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He rushes aft with his men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a hunter into the den</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of the bear, when he stands at bay.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Remember Jarl Hakon!” he cries;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When lo! on his wondering eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Two kingly figures arise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Two Olafs in warlike array.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then Kolbiorn speaks in the ear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of King Olaf a word of cheer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In a whisper that none may hear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With a smile on his tremulous lip;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Two shields raised high in the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Two flashes of golden hair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Two scarlet meteors’ glare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And both have leapt from the ship.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Earl Eric’s men in the boats</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seize Kolbiorn’s shield as it floats,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And cry, from their hairy throats,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“See! it is Olaf the King!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">While far on the opposite side</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Floats another shield on the tide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a jewel set in the wide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Sea-current’s eddying ring.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">There is told a wonderful tale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How the King stripped off his mail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like leaves of the brown sea-kale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As he swam beneath the main;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the young grew old and grey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And never, by night or by day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his kingdom of Norroway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Was King Olaf seen again!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="NIDAROS" class="f120 spa1">XXII.</p>
+<p class="center">THE NUN OF NIDAROS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the convent of Drontheim,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Alone in her chamber</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Knelt Astrid, the Abbess,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At midnight, adoring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beseeching, entreating</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Virgin and Mother.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">She heard in the silence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The voice of one speaking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Without in the darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In gusts of the night-wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now louder, now nearer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now lost in the distance.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The voice of a stranger</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It seemed as she listened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of some one who answered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beseeching, imploring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A cry from afar off</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She could not distinguish.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The voice of Saint John,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The belovèd disciple,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who wandered and waited</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Master’s appearance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Alone in the darkness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unsheltered and friendless.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“It is accepted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The angry defiance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The challenge of battle!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It is accepted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But not with the weapons</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of war that thou wieldest!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Cross against corslet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Love against hatred.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Peace-cry for war-cry!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Patience is powerful;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He that o’ercometh</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hath power o’er the nations!</div>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</span> </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“As torrents in summer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Half dried in their channels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suddenly rise, though the</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sky is still cloudless,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For rain has been falling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far off at their fountains;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“So hearts that are fainting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grow full to o’erflowing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And they that behold it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Marvel, and know not</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That God at their fountains</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far off has been raining!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Stronger than steel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is the sword of the Spirit;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swifter than arrows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The light of the truth is;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Greater than anger</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is love, and subdueth!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Thou art a phantom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A shape of the sea-mist,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A shape of the brumal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rain, and the darkness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fearful and formless;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Day dawns and thou art not!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The dawn is not distant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor is the night starless;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Love is eternal!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">God is still God, and</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His faith shall not fail us;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Christ is eternal!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="INTERLUDE5" class="center">INTERLUDE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">A strain of music closed the tale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A low, monotonous, funeral wail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That with its cadence, wild and sweet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made the long Saga more complete.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Thank God!” the Theologian said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The reign of violence is dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or dying surely from the world;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While Love triumphant reigns instead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in a brighter sky o’erhead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His blessèd banners are unfurled.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And most of all thank God for this:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The war and waste of clashing creeds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now end in words, and not in deeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And no one suffers loss or bleeds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For thoughts that men call heresies.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I stand without here in the porch,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I hear the bell’s melodious din,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I hear the organ peal within,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I hear the prayer, with words that scorch</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like sparks from an inverted torch,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I hear the sermon upon sin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With threatenings of the last account,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And all, translated in the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Reach me but as our dear Lord’s Prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as the Sermon on the Mount.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Must it be Calvin, and not Christ?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Must it be Athanasian creeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or holy water, books, and beads?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Must struggling souls remain content</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With councils and decrees of Trent?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And can it be enough for these</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Christian Church the year embalms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With evergreens and boughs of palms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And fills the air with litanies?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I know that yonder Pharisee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thanks God that he is not like me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In my humiliation dressed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I only stand and beat my breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And pray for human charity.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Not to one church alone, but seven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The voice prophetic spake from heaven;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And unto each the promise came,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Diversified, but still the same;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For him that overcometh are</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The new name written on the stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The raiment white, the crown, the throne,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And I will give him the Morning Star!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ah! to how many Faith has been</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No evidence of things unseen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But a dim shadow, that recasts</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The creed of the Phantasiasts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For whom no Man of Sorrows died,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For whom the Tragedy Divine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was but a symbol and a sign,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Christ a phantom crucified!</div>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</span> </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“For others a diviner creed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is living in the life they lead.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The passing of their beautiful feet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blesses the pavement of the street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And all their looks and words repeat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Old Fuller’s saying, wise and sweet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not as a vulture, but a dove,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Holy Ghost came from above.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“And this brings back to me a tale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So sad the hearer well may quail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And question if such things can be;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yet in the chronicles of Spain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down the dark pages runs this stain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And nought can wash them white again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So fearful is the tragedy.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="TORQUEMADA" class="f110">THE THEOLOGIAN’S TALE.</p>
+<p class="center">TORQUEMADA.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the heroic days when Ferdinand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Isabella ruled the Spanish land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Torquemada, with his subtle brain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ruled them, as Grand Inquisitor of Spain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In a great castle near Valladolid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Moated and high and by fair woodlands hid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There dwelt, as from the chronicles we learn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">An old Hidalgo, proud and taciturn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whose name has perished with his towers of stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And all his actions, save this one alone;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This one so terrible, perhaps ’twere best</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">If it, too, were forgotten with the rest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unless, perchance, our eyes can see therein</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The martyrdom triumphant o’er the sin;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A double picture, with its gloom and glow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The splendour overhead, the death below.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">This sombre man counted each day as lost</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On which his feet no sacred threshold crossed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And when he chanced the passing Host to meet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He knelt and prayed devoutly in the street;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Oft he confessed; and with each mutinous thought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As with wild beasts at Ephesus, he fought.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In deep contrition scourged himself in Lent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Walked in processions with his head down bent;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At plays of Corpus Christi oft was seen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And on Palm Sunday bore his bough of green.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His sole diversion was to hunt the boar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through tangled thickets of the forest hoar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or with his jingling mules to hurry down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To some grand bull-fight in the neighbouring town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or in the crowd with lighted taper stand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When Jews were burned, or banished from the land.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then stirred within him a tumultuous joy;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The demon whose delight is to destroy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shook him, and shouted with a trumpet tone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Kill! kill! and let the Lord find out his own!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And now, in that old castle in the wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His daughters in the dawn of womanhood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Returning from their convent school, had made</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Resplendent with their bloom the forest shade,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Reminding him of their dead mother’s face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When first she came into that gloomy place,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A memory in his heart as dim and sweet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As moonlight in a solitary street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the same rays, that lift the sea, are thrown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lovely but powerless upon walls of stone.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">These two fair daughters of a mother dead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were all the dream had left him as it fled.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A joy at first, and then a growing care,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if a voice within him cried, “Beware!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A vague presentiment of impending doom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like ghostly footsteps in a vacant room,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Haunted him day and night; a formless fear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That death to some one of his house was near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With dark surmises of a hidden crime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made life itself a death before its time.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Jealous, suspicious, with no sense of shame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A spy upon his daughters he became;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With velvet slippers, noiseless on the floors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He glided softly through half-open doors;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now in the room, and now upon the stair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He stood beside them ere they were aware;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He listened in the passage when they talked,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He watched them from the casement when they walked;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He saw the gipsy haunt the river’s side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He saw the monk among the cork-trees glide;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And tortured by the mystery and the doubt</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of some dark secret, past his finding out,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Baffled he paused; then reassured again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pursued the flying phantom of his brain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He watched them even when they knelt in church;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And then, descending lower in his search,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Questioned the servants, and with eager eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listened incredulous to their replies;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The gipsy? none had seen her in the wood!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The monk? a mendicant in search of food!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">At length the awful revelation came,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crushing at once his pride of birth and name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The hopes his yearning bosom forward cast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the ancestral glories of the past;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All fell together crumbling in disgrace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A turret rent from battlement to base.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His daughters talking in the dead of night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In their own chamber, and without a light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listening, as he was wont, he overheard,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And learned the dreadful secret, word by word;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And hurrying from his castle, with a cry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He raised his hands to the unpitying sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Repeating one dread word, till bush and tree</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Caught it, and shuddering answered, “Heresy!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wrapped in his cloak, his hat drawn o’er his face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now hurrying forward, now with lingering pace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He walked all night the alleys of his park,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With one unseen companion in the dark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The demon who within him lay in wait,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And by his presence turned his love to hate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For ever muttering in an undertone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Kill! kill! and let the Lord find out his own!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Upon the morrow, after early Mass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While yet the dew was glistening on the grass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And all the woods were musical with birds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The old Hidalgo, uttering fearful words,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Walked homeward with the priest, and in his room</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Summoned his trembling daughters to their doom.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When questioned, with brief answers they replied,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor when accused evaded or denied;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Expostulations, passionate appeals,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All that the human heart most fears or feels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In vain the Priest with earnest voice essayed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In vain the father threatened, wept, and prayed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Until at last he said, with haughty mien,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The Holy Office, then, must intervene!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And now the Grand Inquisitor of Spain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With all the fifty horsemen of his train,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His awful name resounding, like the blast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of funeral trumpets, as he onward passed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came to Valladolid, and there began</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To harry the rich Jews with fire and ban.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To him the Hidalgo went, and at the gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Demanded audience on affairs of state,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in a secret chamber stood before</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A venerable grey-beard of fourscore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dressed in the hood and habit of a friar;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Out of his eyes flashed a consuming fire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in his hand the mystic horn he held,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Which poison and all noxious charms dispelled.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He heard in silence the Hidalgo’s tale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then answered in a voice that made him quail:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Son of the Church! when Abraham of old</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To sacrifice his only son was told,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He did not pause to parley nor protest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But hastened to obey the Lord’s behest.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In him it was accounted righteousness;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Holy Church expects of thee no less!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">A sacred frenzy seized the father’s brain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Mercy from that hour implored in vain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah! who will e’er believe the words I say?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His daughters he accused, and the same day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They both were cast into the dungeon’s gloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That dismal ante-chamber of the tomb,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Arraigned, condemned, and sentenced to the flame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The secret torture and the public shame.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then to the Grand Inquisitor once more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Hidalgo went, more eager than before,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And said: “When Abraham offered up his son,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He clave the wood wherewith it might be done.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By his example taught, let me too bring</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wood from the forest for my offering!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the deep voice, without a pause, replied:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Son of the Church! by faith now justified,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Complete thy sacrifice, even as thou wilt;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Church absolves thy conscience from all guilt!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then this most wretched father went his way</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the woods that round his castle lay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where once his daughters in their childhood played</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With their young mother in the sun and shade.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now all the leaves had fallen; the branches bare</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made a perpetual moaning in the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And screaming from their eyries overhead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The ravens sailed athwart the sky of lead.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his own hands he lopped the boughs and bound</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Faggots, that crackled with foreboding sound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And on his mules, caparisoned and gay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With bells and tassels, sent them on their way.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then with his mind on one dark purpose bent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Again to the Inquisitor he went,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And said: “Behold the faggots I have brought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And now, lest my atonement be as nought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grant me one more request, one last desire,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With my own hand to light the funeral fire!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Torquemada answered from his seat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Son of the Church! thine offering is complete;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her servants through all ages shall not cease</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To magnify thy deed. Depart in peace!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Upon the market-place, builded of stone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The scaffold rose, whereon Death claimed his own.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the four corners, in stern attitude,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Four statues of the Hebrew Prophets stood,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gazing with calm indifference in their eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Upon this place of human sacrifice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round which was gathering fast the eager crowd,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With clamour of voices dissonant and loud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And every roof and window was alive</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With restless gazers, swarming like a hive.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The church-bells tolled, the chant of monks drew near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loud trumpets stammered forth their notes of fear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A line of torches smoked along the street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There was a stir, a rush, a tramp of feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, with its banners floating in the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly the long procession crossed the square,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, to the statues of the Prophets bound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The victims stood, with faggots piled around.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then all the air a blast of trumpets shook,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And louder sang the monks with bell and book,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Hidalgo, lofty, stern, and proud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lifted his torch, and, bursting through the crowd,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lighted in haste the faggots, and then fled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lest those imploring eyes should strike him dead!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">O pitiless skies! why did your clouds retain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For peasants’ fields their floods of hoarded rain?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O pitiless earth! why opened no abyss</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To bury in its chasm a crime like this?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">That night, a mingled column of fire and smoke</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the dark thickets of the forest broke,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, glaring o’er the landscape leagues away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made all the fields and hamlets bright as day.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wrapped in a sheet of flame the castle blazed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as the villagers in terror gazed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They saw the figure of that cruel knight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lean from a window in the turret’s height,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His ghastly face illumined with the glare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His hands upraised above his head in prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the floor sank beneath him, and he fell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down the black hollow of that burning well.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Three centuries and more above his bones</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Have piled the oblivious years like funeral stones;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His name has perished with him, and no trace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Remains on earth of his afflicted race;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But Torquemada’s name, with clouds o’ercast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looms in the distant landscape of the Past,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a burnt tower upon a blackened heath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lit by the fires of burning woods beneath!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</span></p>
+<p class="center">INTERLUDE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus closed the tale of guilt and gloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That cast upon each listener’s face</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Its shadow, and for some brief space</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unbroken silence filled the room.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Jew was thoughtful and distressed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Upon his memory thronged and pressed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The persecution of his race,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Their wrongs and sufferings and disgrace;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His head was sunk upon his breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And from his eyes alternate came</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flashes of wrath and tears of shame.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Student first the silence broke,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As one who long has laid in wait,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With purpose to retaliate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And thus he dealt the avenging stroke.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“In such a company as this,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A tale so tragic seems amiss,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That by its terrible control</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’ermasters and drags down the soul</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into a fathomless abyss.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Italian Tales that you disdain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Some merry Night of Straparole,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or Machiavelli’s Belphagor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would cheer us and delight us more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Give greater pleasure and less pain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than your grim tragedies of Spain!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And here the Poet raised his hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With such entreaty and command,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It stopped discussion at its birth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And said: “The story I shall tell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Has meaning in it, if not mirth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Listen, and hear what once befell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The merry birds of Killingworth!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="KILLINGWORTH" class="f110">THE POET’S TALE.</p>
+<p class="center">THE BIRDS OF KILLINGWORTH.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was the season, when through all the land</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The merle and mavis build, and building sing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Those lovely lyrics, written by his hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Whom Saxon Cædmon calls the Blithe-heart King;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When on the boughs the purple buds expand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The banners of the vanguard of the Spring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And rivulets, rejoicing, rush and leap,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And wave their fluttering signals from the steep.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The robin and the blue-bird, piping loud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And hungry crows assembled in a crowd,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Clamoured their piteous prayer incessantly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Knowing who hears the ravens cry, and said:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Give us, O Lord, this day our daily bread!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Across the Sound the birds of passage sailed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Speaking some unknown language strange and sweet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of tropic isle remote, and passing hailed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The village with the cheers of all their fleet;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or, quarrelling together, laughed and railed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Like foreign sailors, landed in the street</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of seaport town, and with outlandish noise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of oaths and gibberish frightening girls and boys.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus came the jocund Spring in Killingworth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In fabulous days, some hundred years ago;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And thrifty farmers, as they tilled the earth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Heard with alarm the cawing of the crow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That mingled with the universal mirth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Cassandra-like, prognosticating woe;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They shook their heads, and doomed with dreadful words</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To swift destruction the whole race of birds.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And a town-meeting was convened straightway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To set a price upon the guilty heads</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of these marauders, who, in lieu of pay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Levied black-mail upon the garden beds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And corn-fields, and beheld without dismay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The awful scarecrow, with his fluttering shreds;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The skeleton that waited at their feast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whereby their sinful pleasure was increased.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then from his house, a temple painted white,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With fluted columns and a roof of red,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Squire came forth, august and splendid sight!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Slowly descending, with majestic tread,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Three flights of steps, nor looking left nor right,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Down the long street he walked, as one who said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“A town that boasts inhabitants like me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Can have no lack of good society!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Parson, too, appeared, a man austere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The instinct of whose nature was to kill;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The wrath of God he preached from year to year,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And read, with fervour, Edwards on the Will;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His favourite pastime was to slay the deer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In Summer on some Adirondac hill;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">E’en now, while walking down the rural lane,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He lopped the wayside lilies with his cane.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the Academy, whose belfry crowned</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The hill of Science with its vane of brass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came the Preceptor, gazing idly round,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Now at the clouds, and now at the green grass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And all absorbed in reveries profound</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of fair Almira in the upper class,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who was, as in a sonnet he had said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As pure as water, and as good as bread.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And next the Deacon issued from his door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In his voluminous neck-cloth, white as snow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A suit of sable bombazine he wore;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">His form was ponderous, and his step was slow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There never was so wise a man before;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He seemed the incarnate “Well, I told you so!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And to perpetuate his great renown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There was a street named after him in town.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">These came together in the new town-hall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With sundry farmers from the region round.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Squire presided, dignified and tall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">His air impressive and his reasoning sound.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ill fared it with the birds, both great and small;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Hardly a friend in all that crowd they found,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But enemies enough, who every one</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Charged them with all the crimes beneath the sun.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">When they had ended, from his place apart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Rose the Preceptor, to redress the wrong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, trembling like a steed before the start,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Looked round bewildered on the expectant throng;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then thought of fair Almira, and took heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To speak out what was in him, clear and strong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Alike regardless of their smile or frown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And quite determined not to be laughed down.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Plato, anticipating the Reviewers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From his Republic banished without pity</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Poets; in this little town of yours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">You put to death, by means of a Committee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The ballad-singers and the Troubadours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The street-musicians of the heavenly city,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The birds, who make sweet music for us all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In our dark hours, as David did for Saul.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The thrush that carols at the dawn of day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the green steeples of the piny wood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The oriole in the elm; the noisy jay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Jargoning like a foreigner at his food;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The blue-bird balanced on some topmost spray,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Flooding with melody the neighbourhood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Linnet and meadow-lark, and all the throng</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That dwell in nests and have the gift of song.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“You slay them all! and wherefore? for the gain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of a scant handful more or less of wheat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or rye, or barley, or some other grain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Scratched up at random by industrious feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Searching for worm or weevil after rain!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Or a few cherries, that are not so sweet</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As are the songs these uninvited guests</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sing at their feast with comfortable breasts.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Do you ne’er think what wondrous beings these?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Do you ne’er think who made them, and who taught</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The dialect they speak, where melodies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Alone are the interpreters of thought?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whose household words are songs in many keys,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Sweeter than instrument of man e’er caught!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whose habitations in the tree-tops even</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Are half-way houses on the road to heaven!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Think, every morning when the sun peeps through</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the grove,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How jubilant the happy birds renew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Their old, melodious madrigals of love!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And when you think of this, remember too</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">’Tis always morning somewhere, and above</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The awakening continents, from shore to shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Somewhere the birds are singing evermore.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Think of your woods and orchards without birds!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As in an idiot’s brain remembered words</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Hang empty ’mid the cobwebs of his dreams!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Make up for the lost music, when your teams</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The feathered gleaners follow to your door?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“What! would you rather see the incessant stir</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of insects in the windrows of the hay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And hear the locust and the grasshopper</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Their melancholy hurdy-gurdies play?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is this more pleasant to you than the whirr</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of meadow-lark, and her sweet roundelay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or twitter of little field-fares, as you take</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Your nooning in the shade of bush and brake?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“You call them thieves and pillagers; but know</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">They are the wingèd wardens of your farms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who from the corn-fields drive the insidious foe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And from your harvests keep a hundred harms;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even the blackest of them all, the crow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Renders good service as your man-at-arms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And crying havoc on the slug and snail.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“How can I teach your children gentleness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And mercy to the weak, and reverence</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For Life, which, in its weakness or excess,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Is still a gleam of God’s omnipotence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or Death, which, seeming darkness, is no less</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The selfsame light, although averted hence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When by your laws, your actions, and your speech,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You contradict the very things I teach?”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">With this he closed; and through the audience went</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A murmur, like the rustle of dead leaves;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The farmers laughed and nodded, and some bent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Their yellow heads together like their sheaves;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Men have no faith in fine-spun sentiment</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Who put their trust in bullocks and in beeves.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The birds were doomed; and, as the record shows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A bounty offered for the heads of crows.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">There was another audience out of reach,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Who had no voice nor vote in making laws,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But in the papers read his little speech,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And crowned his modest temples with applause;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They made him conscious, each one more than each,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He still was victor, vanquished in their cause.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sweetest of all the applause he won from thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O fair Almira, at the Academy!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And so the dreadful massacre began;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">O’er fields and orchards, and o’er woodland crests,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The ceaseless fusilade of terror ran,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Dead fell the birds, with blood-stains on their breasts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or wounded crept away from sight of man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">While the young died of famine in their nests;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A slaughter to be told in groans, not words,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The very St. Bartholomew of Birds!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The summer came, and all the birds were dead;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The days were like hot coals; the very ground</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was burned to ashes; in the orchards fed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Myriads of caterpillars, and around</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The cultivated fields and garden beds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and found</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No foe to check their march, till they had made</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The land a desert without leaf or shade.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Devoured by worms, like Herod, was the town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Because, like Herod, it had ruthlessly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slaughtered the Innocents. From the trees spun down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The cankerworms upon the passers-by,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Upon each woman’s bonnet, shawl, and gown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Who shook them off with just a little cry;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They were the terror of each favourite walk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The endless theme of all the village talk.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The farmers grew impatient, but a few</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Confessed their error, and would not complain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For, after all, the best thing one can do</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">When it is raining, is to let it rain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then they repealed the law, although they knew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">It would not call the dead to life again;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As school-boys, finding their mistake too late,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Draw a wet sponge across the accusing slate.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">That year in Killingworth the Autumn came</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Without the light of his majestic look,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The wonder of the falling tongues of flame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The illumined pages of his Doomsday-Book.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A few lost leaves blushed crimson with their shame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And drowned themselves despairing in the brook,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While the wild wind went moaning everywhere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lamenting the dead children of the air!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the next Spring a stranger sight was seen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A sight that never yet by bard was sung,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As great a wonder as it would have been</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">If some dumb animal had found a tongue!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A waggon, overarched with evergreen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Upon whose boughs were wicker cages hung,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All full of singing birds, came down the street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filling the air with music wild and sweet.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">From all the country round these birds were brought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">By order of the town, with anxious quest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, loosened from their wicker prisons, sought</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In woods and fields the places they loved best,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Singing loud canticles, which many thought</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Were satires to the authorities addressed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While others, listening in green lanes, averred</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such lovely music never had been heard!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">But blither still and louder carolled they</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Upon the morrow, for they seemed to know</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was the fair Almira’s wedding-day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And everywhere, around, above, below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the Preceptor bore his bride away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Their songs burst forth in joyous overflow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And a new heaven bent over a new earth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Amid the sunny farms of Killingworth.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</span></p>
+<p class="center">CLOSE OF FIRST DAY.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hour was late; the fire burned low,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The landlord’s eyes were closed in sleep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And near the story’s end a deep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sonorous sound at times was heard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As when the distant bagpipes blow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At this all laughed; the Landlord stirred,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As one awakening from a swound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, gazing anxiously around,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Protested that he had not slept,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But only shut his eyes, and kept</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His ears attentive to each word.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then all arose, and said “Good Night.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alone remained the drowsy Squire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To rake the embers of the fire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And quench the waning parlour light:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While from the windows, here and there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The scattered lamps a moment gleamed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the illumined hostel seemed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The constellation of the Bear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Downward, athwart the misty air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sinking and setting toward the sun.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Far off the village clock struck one.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<p class="f120">THE SECOND DAY.</p>
+<hr class="r10">
+<p class="f120">PRELUDE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A cold, uninterrupted rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That washed each southern window-pane,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And made a river of the road;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A sea of mist that overflowed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The house, the barns, the gilded vane,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And drowned the upland and the plain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through which the oak-trees, broad and high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like phantom ships went drifting by;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, hidden behind a watery screen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sun unseen, or only seen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a faint pallor in the sky;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus cold and colourless and grey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The morn of that autumnal day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if reluctant to begin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dawned on the silent Sudbury Inn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all the guests that in it lay.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Full late they slept. They did not hear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The challenge of Sir Chanticleer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who on the empty threshing-floor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Disdainful of the rain outside,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was strutting with a martial stride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if upon his thigh he wore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The famous broadsword of the Squire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And said, “Behold me and admire!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only the Poet seemed to hear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In drowse or dream, more near and near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Across the border-land of sleep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The blowing of a blithesome horn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That laughed the dismal day to scorn;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A splash of hoofs and rush of wheels</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through sand and mire like stranding keels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As from the road with sudden sweep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Mail drove up the little steep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And stopped beside the tavern door;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A moment stopped, and then again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With crack of whip and bark of dog,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Plunged forward through the sea of fog,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all was silent as before,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All silent save the dripping rain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then one by one the guests came down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And greeted with a smile the Squire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who sat before the parlour fire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Reading the paper fresh from town.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">First the Sicilian, like a bird,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Before his form appeared, was heard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whistling and singing down the stair;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then came the Student, with a look</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As placid as a meadow-brook;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Theologian, still perplexed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With thoughts of this world and the next;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Poet then, as one who seems</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Walking in visions and in dreams;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then the Musician, like a fair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hyperion from whose golden hair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The radiance of the morning streams;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And last the Aromatic Jew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Alicant, who, as he threw</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The door wide open, on the air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Breathed round about him a perfume</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of damask roses in full bloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Making a garden of the room.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The breakfast ended, each pursued</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The promptings of his various mood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beside the fire in silence smoked</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The taciturn, impassive Jew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lost in a pleasant reverie;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While, by his gravity provoked,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His portrait the Sicilian drew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And wrote beneath it, “Edrehi,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At the Red Horse in Sudbury.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">By far the busiest of them all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Theologian in the hall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was feeding robins in a cage,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Two corpulent and lazy birds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Vagrants and pilferers at best,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If one might trust the hostler’s word,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Chief instrument of their arrest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Two poets of the Golden Age,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Heirs of a boundless heritage</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of fields and orchards, east and west,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sunshine of long summer days,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though outlawed now and dispossessed!—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such was the Theologian’s phrase.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Meanwhile the Student held discourse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the Musician, on the source</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of all the legendary lore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Among the nations, scattered wide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like salt and sea-weed by the force</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And fluctuation of the tide;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The tale repeated o’er and o’er,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With change of place and change of name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Disguised, transformed, and yet the same</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We’ve heard a hundred times before.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Poet at the window mused,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And saw, as in a dream confused,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The countenance of the Sun, discrowned,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And haggard with a pale despair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And saw the cloud-rack trail and drift</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Before it, and the trees uplift</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their leafless branches, and the air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Filled with the arrows of the rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And heard amid the mist below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like voices of distress and pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That haunt the thoughts of men insane,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fateful cawings of the crow.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then down the road, with mud besprent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And drenched with rain from head to hoof,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rain-drops dripping from his mane</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And tail as from a pent-house roof,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A jaded horse, his head down bent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Passed slowly, limping as he went.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The young Sicilian—who had grown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Impatient longer to abide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A prisoner, greatly mortified</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To see completely overthrown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His plans for angling in the brook,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, leaning o’er the bridge of stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To watch the speckled trout glide by,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And float through the inverted sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still round and round the baited hook,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now paced the room with rapid stride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, pausing at the Poet’s side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Looked forth, and saw the wretched steed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And said: “Alas for human greed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That with cold hand and stony eye</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus turns an old friend out to die,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or beg his food from gate to gate!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This brings a tale into my mind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which, if you are not disinclined</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To listen, I will now relate.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All gave assent; all wished to hear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not without many a jest and jeer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The story of a spavined steed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And even the Student with the rest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Put in his pleasant little jest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out of Malherbe, that Pegasus</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is but a horse that with all speed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bears poets to the hospital;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While the Sicilian, self-possessed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">After a moment’s interval</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Began his simple story thus.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</span></p>
+<p class="f110">THE SICILIAN’S TALE.</p>
+<p class="center">THE BELL OF ATRI.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">At Atri in Abruzzo, a small town</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of ancient Roman date, but scant renown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">One of those little places that have run</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Half up the hill, beneath a blazing sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And then sat down to rest, as if to say,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I climb no farther upward, come what may,”—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Re Giovanni, now unknown to fame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So many monarchs since have borne the name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had a great bell hung in the market-place</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beneath a roof, projecting some small space,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By way of shelter from the sun and rain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then rode he through the streets with all his train,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, with the blast of trumpets loud and long,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made proclamation, that whenever wrong</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was done to any man, he should but ring</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The great bell in the square, and he, the King,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would cause the Syndic to decide thereon.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such was the proclamation of King John.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">How swift the happy days in Atri sped,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What wrongs were righted, need not here be said.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suffice it that, as all things must decay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The hempen rope at length was worn away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unravelled at the end, and, strand by strand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loosened and wasted in the ringer’s hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till one, who noted this in passing by,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mended the rope with braids of briony,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So that the leaves and tendrils of the vine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hung like a votive garland at a shrine.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">By chance it happened that in Atri dwelt</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A knight, with spur on heel and sword in belt,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who loved to hunt the wild-boar in the woods,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who loved his falcons with their crimson hoods,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who loved his hounds and horses, and all sports</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And prodigalities of camps and courts;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loved, or had loved them; for at last, grown old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His only passion was the love of gold.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">He sold his horses, sold his hawks and hounds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rented his vineyards and his garden-grounds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kept but one steed, his favourite steed of all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To starve and shiver in a naked stall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And day by day sat brooding in his chair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Devising plans how best to hoard and spare.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At length he said: “What is the use or need</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To keep at my own cost this lazy steed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Eating his head off in my stables here,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When rents are low and provender is dear?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let him go feed upon the public ways;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I want him only for the holidays.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So the old steed was turned into the heat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the long, lonely, silent, shadeless street</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And wandered in suburban lanes forlorn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Barked at by dogs, and torn by brier and thorn.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">One afternoon, as in that sultry clime</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It is the custom in the summer time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With bolted doors and window-shutters closed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The inhabitants of Atri slept or dozed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When suddenly upon their senses fell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The loud alarum of the accusing bell!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Syndic started from his deep repose,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Turned on his couch, and listened, and then rose</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And donned his robes, and with reluctant pace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Went panting forth into the market-place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the great bell upon its cross-beam swung,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Reiterating with persistent tongue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In half-articulate jargon, the old song:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Some one hath done a wrong, hath done a wrong!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But ere he reached the belfry’s light arcade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He saw, or thought he saw, beneath its shade,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No shape of human form of woman born,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But a poor steed dejected and forlorn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who with uplifted head and eager eye</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was tugging at the vines of briony.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Domeneddio!” cried the Syndic straight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“This is the Knight of Atri’s steed of state!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He calls for justice, being sore distressed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And pleads his cause as loudly as the best.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Meanwhile from street and lane a noisy crowd</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had rolled together like a summer cloud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And told the story of the wretched beast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In five-and-twenty different ways at least,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With much gesticulation and appeal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To heathen gods, in their excessive zeal.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Knight was called and questioned; in reply</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Did not confess the fact, did not deny;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Treated the matter as a pleasant jest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And set at nought the Syndic and the rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Maintaining in an angry undertone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That he should do what pleased him with his own.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And thereupon the Syndic gravely read</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The proclamation of the King; then said:</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Pride goeth forth on horseback grand and gay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But cometh back on foot, and begs its way;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fame is the fragrance of heroic deeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of flowers of chivalry and not of weeds!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">These are familiar proverbs; but I fear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They never yet have reached your knightly ear.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What fair renown, what honour, what repute</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Can come to you from starving this poor brute?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He who serves well and speaks not, merits more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than they who clamour loudest at the door.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore the law decrees, that as this steed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Served you in youth, henceforth you shall take heed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To comfort his old age, and to provide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shelter in stall, and food and field beside.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Knight withdrew abashed; the people all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Led home the steed in triumph to his stall.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The King heard and approved, and laughed in glee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And cried aloud: “Right well it pleaseth me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Church-bells at best but ring us to the door;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But go not in to mass; my bell doth more:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It cometh into court and pleads the cause</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of creatures dumb and unknown to the laws;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And this shall make, in every Christian clime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Bell of Atri famous for all time.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="INTERLUDE6" class="center">INTERLUDE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Yes, well your story pleads the cause</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of those dumb mouths that have no speech,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only a cry from each to each</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In its own kind, with its own laws;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Something that is beyond the reach</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of human power to learn or teach,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">An inarticulate moan of pain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the immeasurable main</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Breaking upon an unknown beach.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus spake the Poet with a sigh;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then added, with impassioned cry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As one who feels the words he speaks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The colour flushing in his cheeks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The fervour burning in his eye:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Among the noblest in the land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though he may count himself the least,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That man I honour and revere</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who without favour, without fear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the great city dares to stand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The friend of every friendless beast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And tames with his unflinching hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The brutes that wear our form and face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The were-wolves of the human race!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then paused, and waited with a frown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like some old champion of romance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who, having thrown his gauntlet down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Expectant leans upon his lance;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But neither Knight nor Squire is found</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To raise the gauntlet from the ground,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And try with him the battle’s chance.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Wake from your dreams, O Edrehi!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or dreaming speak to us, and make</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A feint of being half awake,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And tell us what your dreams may be.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Out of the hazy atmosphere</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of cloud-land deign to reappear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Among us in this Wayside Inn;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tell us what visions and what scenes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Illuminate the dark ravines</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In which you grope your way. Begin!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus the Sicilian spake. The Jew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made no reply, but only smiled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As men unto a wayward child,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not knowing what to answer, do.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As from a cavern’s mouth, o’ergrown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With moss and intertangled vines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A streamlet leaps into the light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And murmurs over root and stone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In a melodious undertone;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or as amid the noonday night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of sombre and wind-haunted pines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There runs a sound as of the sea;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So from his bearded lips there came</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A melody without a name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A song, a tale, a history,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or whatsoever it may be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Writ and recorded in these lines.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="KAMBALU" class="f110">THE SPANISH JEW’S TALE.</p>
+<p class="center">KAMBALU.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the city of Kambalu,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the road that leadeth to Ispahan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the head of his dusty caravan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laden with treasure from realms afar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Baldacca and Kelat and Kandahar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rode the great captain Alaù.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Khan from his palace-window gazed:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He saw in the thronging street beneath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the light of the setting sun, that blazed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the clouds of dust by the caravan raised,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The flash of harness and jewelled sheath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the shining scimitars of the guard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the weary camels that bared their teeth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As they passed and passed through the gates unbarred</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the shade of the palace-yard.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus into the city of Kambalu</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rode the great captain Alaù;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he stood before the Khan, and said:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The enemies of my lord are dead;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the Kalifs of all the West</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bow and obey thy least behest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The plains are dark with the mulberry-trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The weavers are busy in Samarcand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The miners are sifting the golden sand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The divers plunging for pearls in the seas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And peace and plenty are in the land.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Baldacca’s Kalif, and he alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose in revolt against thy throne:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His treasures are at thy palace-door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the swords and the shawls and the jewels he wore:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His body is dust o’er the desert blown.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“A mile outside of Baldacca’s gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I left my forces to lie in wait,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Concealed by forests and hillocks of sand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And forward dashed with a handful of men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To lure the old tiger from his den</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the ambush I had planned.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ere we reached the town the alarm was spread,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For we heard the sound of gongs from within;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with clash of cymbals and warlike din</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The gates swung wide; and we turned and fled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the garrison sallied forth and pursued,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the grey old Kalif at their head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And above them the banner of Mohammed:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So we snared them all, and the town was subdued.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“As in at the gate we rode, behold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A tower that is called the Tower of Gold!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For there the Kalif had hidden his wealth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heaped and hoarded and piled on high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like sacks of wheat in a granary;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And thither the miser crept by stealth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To feel of the gold that gave him health,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And to gaze and gloat with his hungry eye</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On jewels that gleamed like a glow-worm’s spark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or the eyes of a panther in the dark.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I said to the Kalif: ‘Thou art old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou hast no need of so much gold.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou shouldst not have heaped and hidden it here,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the breath of battle was hot and near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But have sown through the land these useless hoards</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To spring into shining blades of swords,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And keep thine honour sweet and clear.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">These grains of gold are not grains of wheat;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">These bars of silver thou canst not eat;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">These jewels and pearls and precious stones</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cannot cure the aches in thy bones,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor keep the feet of Death one hour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From climbing the stairways of thy tower!’</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Then into his dungeon I locked the drone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And left him to feed there all alone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the honey-cells of his golden hive:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never a prayer, nor a cry, nor a groan</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was heard from those massive walls of stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor again was the Kalif seen alive!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“When at last we unlocked the door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We found him dead upon the floor;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The rings had dropped from his withered hands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His teeth were like bones in the desert sands:</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still clutching his treasure he had died;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as he lay there, he appeared</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A statue of gold with a silver beard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His arms outstretched as if crucified.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">This is the story, strange and true,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the great captain Alaù</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Told to his brother the Tartar Khan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he rode that day into Kambalu</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the road that leadeth to Ispahan.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="INTERLUDE7" class="center">INTERLUDE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I thought before your tale began,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Student murmured, “we should have</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Some legend written by Judah Rav</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his Gemara of Babylon;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or something from the Gulistan,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The tale of the Cazy of Hamadan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or of that King of Khorasan</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who saw in dreams the eyes of one</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That had a hundred years been dead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still moving restless in his head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Undimmed, and gleaming with the lust</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of power, though all the rest was dust.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“But lo! your glittering caravan</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the road that leadeth to Ispahan</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hath led us farther to the East</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the regions of Cathay.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spite of your Kalif and his gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pleasant has been the tale you told,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And full of colour; that at least</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No one will question or gainsay.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And yet on such a dismal day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We need a merrier tale to clear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The dark and heavy atmosphere.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So listen, Lordlings, while I tell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Without a preface, what befell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A simple cobbler, in the year——</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No matter; it was long ago;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And that is all we need to know.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="HAGENAU" class="f110">THE STUDENT’S TALE.</p>
+<p class="center">THE COBBLER OF HAGENAU.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">I trust that somewhere and somehow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You all have heard of Hagenau,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A quiet, quaint, and ancient town</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Among the green Alsatian hills,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A place of valleys, streams, and mills,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where Barbarossa’s castle, brown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With rust of centuries, still looks down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the broad, drowsy land below,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On shadowy forests filled with game,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the blue river winding slow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through meadows, where the hedges grow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That give this little town its name.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">It happened in the good old times,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While yet the Master-singers filled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The noisy workshop and the guild</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With various melodies and rhymes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That here in Hagenau there dwelt</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A cobbler,—one who loved debate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, arguing from a postulate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would say what others only felt;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A man of forecast and of thrift,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And of a shrewd and careful mind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In this world’s business, but inclined</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Somewhat to let the next world drift.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hans Sachs with vast delight he read,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Regenbogen’s rhymes of love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For their poetic fame had spread</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even to the town of Hagenau;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And some Quick Melody of the Plough,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or Double Harmony of the Dove,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was always running in his head.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He kept, moreover, at his side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Among his leathers and his tools,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Reynard the Fox, the Ship of Fools,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or Eulenspiegel, open wide;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With these he was much edified:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He thought them wiser than the Schools.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">His good wife, full of godly fear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Liked not these worldly themes to hear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Psalter was her book of songs;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The only music to her ear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was that which to the Church belongs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the loud choir on Sunday chanted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the two angels carved in wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That by the windy organ stood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blew on their trumpets loud and clear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And all the echoes, far and near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gibbered as if the church were haunted.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Outside his door, one afternoon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This humble votary of the Muse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat in the narrow strip of shade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By a projecting cornice made,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mending the Burgomaster’s shoes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And singing a familiar tune:</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">“Our ingress into the world</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Was naked and bare;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Our progress through the world</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Is trouble and care;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Our egress from the world</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Will be nobody knows where:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">But if we do well here,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">We shall do well there;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And I could tell you no more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Should I preach a whole year!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus sang the cobbler at his work;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with his gestures marked the time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Closing together with a jerk</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of his waxed thread the stitch and rhyme.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Meanwhile his quiet little dame</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was leaning o’er the window-sill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Eager, excited, but mouse-still,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gazing impatiently to see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What the great throng of folk might be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That onward in procession came,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Along the unfrequented street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With horns that blew, and drums that beat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And banners flying, and the flame</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of tapers, and, at times, the sweet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Voices of nuns; and as they sang,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suddenly all the church-bells rang.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In a gay coach, above the crowd,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There sat a monk in ample hood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who with his right hand held aloft</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A red and ponderous cross of wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To which at times he meekly bowed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In front three horsemen rode, and oft,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With voice and air importunate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A boisterous herald cried aloud:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The grace of God is at your gate!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So onward to the church they passed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The cobbler slowly turned his last,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, wagging his sagacious head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unto his kneeling housewife said:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“’Tis the monk Tetzel. I have heard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The cawings of that reverend bird.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Don’t let him cheat you of your gold;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Indulgence is not bought and sold.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The church of Hagenau, that night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was full of people, full of light;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">An odour of incense filled the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The priest intoned, the organ groaned</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Its inarticulate despair;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The candles on the altar blazed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And full in front of it, upraised,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The red cross stood against the glare.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Below, upon the altar rail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Indulgences were set to sale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like ballads at a country fair.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A heavy strong-box, iron-bound</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And carved with many a quaint device,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Received, with a melodious sound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The coin that purchased Paradise.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then from the pulpit overhead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tetzel the monk, with fiery glow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thundered upon the crowd below.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Good people all, draw near!” he said;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Purchase these letters, signed and sealed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By which all sins, though unrevealed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And unrepented, are forgiven!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Count but the gain, count not the loss!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Your gold and silver are but dross,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And yet they pave the way to heaven.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">I hear your mothers and your sires</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cry from their purgatorial fires,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And will ye not their ransom pay?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O senseless people! when the gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of heaven is open, will ye wait?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Will ye not enter in to-day?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To-morrow it will be too late;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I shall be gone upon my way.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Make haste! bring money while ye may!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The women shuddered and turned pale;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Allured by hope or driven by fear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With many a sob and many a tear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All crowded to the altar rail.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pieces of silver and of gold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the tinkling strong-box fell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like pebbles dropped into a well;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And soon the ballads were all sold.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The cobbler’s wife among the rest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slipped into the capacious chest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A golden florin; then withdrew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hiding the paper in her breast;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And homeward through the darkness went</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Comforted, quieted, content;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She did not walk, she rather flew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A dove that settles to her nest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When some appalling bird of prey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That scared her has been driven away.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The days went by, the monk was gone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The summer passed, the winter came;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though seasons changed, yet still the same</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The daily round of life went on;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The daily round of household care,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The narrow life of toil and prayer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But in her heart the cobbler’s dame</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had now a treasure beyond price,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A secret joy without a name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The certainty of Paradise.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Alas, alas! Dust unto dust!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Before the winter wore away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her body in the churchyard lay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her patient soul was with the Just!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">After her death, among the things</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That even the poor reserve with care,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Some little trinkets and cheap rings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A locket with her mother’s hair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her wedding gown, the faded flowers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She wore upon her wedding day,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Among these memories of past hours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That so much of the heart reveal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Carefully kept and put away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Letter of Indulgence lay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Folded, with signature and seal.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Meanwhile the Priest, aggrieved and pained,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waited and wondered that no word</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of mass or requiem he heard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As by the Holy Church ordained:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then to the Magistrate complained,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That as this woman had been dead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A week or more, and no mass said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was rank heresy, or at least</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Contempt of Church; thus said the Priest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And straight the cobbler was arraigned.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">He came, confiding in his cause,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But rather doubtful of the laws.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Justice from his elbow-chair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave him a look that seemed to say,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Thou standest before a Magistrate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore do not prevaricate!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then asked him in a business way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kindly but cold: “Is thy wife dead?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The cobbler meekly bowed his head;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“She is,” came struggling from his throat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Scarce audibly. The Justice wrote</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The words down in a book, and then</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Continued, as he raised his pen:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“She is: and hath a mass been said</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the salvation of her soul?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Come, speak the truth! confess the whole!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The cobbler without pause replied:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Of mass or prayer there was no need;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For at the moment when she died</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her soul was with the glorified!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And from his pocket with all speed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He drew the priestly title-deed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And prayed the Justice he would read.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Justice read, amused, amazed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as he read his mirth increased</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At times his shaggy brows he raised,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now wondering at the cobbler gazed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now archly at the angry Priest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“From all excesses, sins, and crimes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou hast committed in past times,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thee I absolve! And furthermore,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Purified from all earthly taints,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the communion of the Saints</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And to the sacraments restore!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All stains of weakness, and all trace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of shame and censure I efface;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Remit the pains thou shouldst endure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And make thee innocent and pure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So that in dying, unto thee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The gates of heaven shall open be!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though long thou livest, yet this grace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Until the moment of thy death</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unchangeable continueth!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then said he to the Priest: “I find</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This document is truly signed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brother John Tetzel, his own hand.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At all tribunals in the land</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In evidence it may be used;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore acquitted is the accused.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then to the cobbler turned: “My friend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pray tell me, didst thou ever read</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Reynard the Fox?”—“O yes, indeed!”—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I thought so. Don’t forget the end.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="INTERLUDE8" class="center">INTERLUDE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“What was the end? I am ashamed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not to remember Reynard’s fate;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I have not read the book of late;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was he not hanged?” the Poet said.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Student gravely shook his head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And answered: “You exaggerate.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There was a tournament proclaimed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Reynard fought with Isegrim</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Wolf, and having vanquished him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rose to high honour in the State,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Keeper of the Seals was named!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">At this the gay Sicilian laughed:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Fight fire with fire, and craft with craft,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Successful cunning seems to be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The moral of your tale,” said he.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Mine had a better, and the Jew’s</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had none at all, that I could see;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His aim was only to amuse.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Meanwhile from out its ebon case</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His violin the Minstrel drew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And having tuned its strings anew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now held it close in his embrace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And poising in his outstretched hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The bow, like a magician’s wand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He paused, and said, with beaming face:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Last night my story was too long;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To-day I give you but a song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">An old tradition of the North;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But first, to put you in the mood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I will a little while prelude,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And from this instrument draw forth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Something by way of overture.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">He played; at first the tones were pure</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And tender as a summer night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The full moon climbing to her height,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The sob and ripple of the seas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The flapping of an idle sail;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And then by sudden and sharp degrees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The multiplied, wild harmonies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Freshened and burst into a gale;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A tempest howling through the dark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A crash as of some shipwrecked bark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A loud and melancholy wail.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such was the prelude to the tale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Told by the Minstrel; and at times</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He paused amid its varying rhymes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And at each pause again broke in</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The music of his violin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With tones of sweetness or of fear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Movements of trouble or of calm,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Creating their own atmosphere;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As sitting in a church we hear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Between the verses of the psalm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The organ playing soft and clear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or thundering on the startled ear.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="spa2"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</span></p>
+<p class="f110">THE MUSICIAN’S TALE.</p>
+<p class="center">THE BALLAD OF CARMILHAN.</p>
+<p class="f120 spa1">I.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">At Stralsund, by the Baltic Sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Within the sandy bar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At sunset of a summer’s day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ready for sea, at anchor lay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The good ship <i>Valdemar</i>.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sunbeams danced upon the waves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And played along her side;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And through the cabin windows streamed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In ripples of golden light, that seemed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The ripple of the tide.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There sat the captain with his friends,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Old skippers brown and hale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who smoked and grumbled o’er their grog,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And talked of iceberg and of fog,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of calm and storm and gale.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And one was spinning a sailor’s yarn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">About Klaboterman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Kobold of the sea; a sprite</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Invisible to mortal sight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who o’er the rigging ran.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sometimes he hammered in the hold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sometimes upon the mast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sometimes abeam, sometimes abaft,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or at the bows he sang and laughed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And made all tight and fast.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He helped the sailors at their work,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And toiled with jovial din;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He helped them hoist and reef the sails,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He helped them stow the casks and bales,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And heave the anchor in.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But woe unto the lazy louts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The idlers of the crew;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Them to torment was his delight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And worry them by day and night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And pinch them black and blue.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And woe to him whose mortal eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Klaboterman behold.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is a certain sign of death!—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The cabin-boy here held his breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He felt his blood run cold.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120 spa1">II.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The jolly skipper paused awhile,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And then again began;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“There is a Spectre Ship,” quoth he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“A Ship of the Dead that sails the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And is called the <i>Carmilhan</i>.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“A ghostly ship, with a ghostly crew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In tempests she appears;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And before the gale, or against the gale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She sails without a rag of sail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Without a helmsman steers.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“She haunts the Atlantic north and south,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But mostly the mid-sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where three great rocks rise bleak and bare</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like furnace chimneys in the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And are called the Chimneys Three.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“And ill betide the luckless ship</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That meets the <i>Carmilhan</i>;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over her deck the seas will leap,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She must go down into the deep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And perish mouse and man.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The captain of the <i>Valdemar</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Laughed loud with merry heart.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I should like to see this ship,” said he;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I should like to find these Chimneys Three,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That are marked down in the chart.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I have sailed right over the spot,” he said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“With a good stiff breeze behind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the sea was blue, and the sky was clear,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You can follow my course by these pinholes here,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And never a rock could find.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And then he swore a dreadful oath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He swore by the Kingdoms Three,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That, should he meet the <i>Carmilhan</i>,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He would run her down, although he ran</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Right into Eternity!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">All this, while passing to and fro,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The cabin-boy had heard;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He lingered at the door to hear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And drank in all with greedy ear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And pondered every word.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">He was a simple country lad,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But of a roving mind.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O, it must be like heaven,” thought he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Those far-off foreign lands to see,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And fortune seek and find!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">But in the fo’castle, when he heard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The mariners blaspheme,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He thought of home, he thought of God,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And his mother under the churchyard sod,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And wished it were a dream.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">One friend on board that ship had he;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">’Twas the Klaboterman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who saw the Bible in his chest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And made a sign upon his breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All evil things to ban.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120 spa1">III.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The cabin windows have grown blank</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As eyeballs of the dead;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No more the glancing sunbeams burn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the gilt letters of the stern,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But on the figure-head;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">On Valdemar Victorious,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Who looketh with disdain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To see his image in the tide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dismembered float from side to side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And reunite again.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“It is the wind,” those skippers said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“That swings the vessel so;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It is the wind; it rises fast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Tis time to say farewell at last,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">’Tis time for us to go.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">They shook the captain by the hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Good luck! good luck!” they cried;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each face was like the setting sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As, broad and red, they one by one</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Went o’er the vessel’s side.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The sun went down, the full moon rose,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Serene o’er field and flood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And all the winding creeks and bays</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And broad sea-meadows seemed ablaze,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The sky was red as blood.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The south-west wind blew fresh and fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As fair as wind could be;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bound for Odessa, o’er the bar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With all sail set, the <i>Valdemar</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Went proudly out to sea.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The lovely moon climbs up the sky</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As one who walks in dreams;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A tower of marble in her light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A wall of black, a wall of white,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The stately vessel seems.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Low down upon the sandy coast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The lights begin to burn;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And now, uplifted high in air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They kindle with a fiercer glare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And now drop far astern.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The dawn appears, the land is gone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The sea is all around;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then on each hand low hills of sand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Emerge and form another land;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">She steereth through the Sound.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through Kattegat and Skager-rack</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">She flitteth like a ghost;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By day and night, by night and day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She bounds, she flies upon her way</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Along the English coast.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cape Finisterre is drawing near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Cape Finisterre is passed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the open ocean stream</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She floats, the vision of a dream</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Too beautiful to last.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suns rise and set, and rise, and yet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">There is no land in sight;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The liquid planets overhead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Burn brighter now the moon is dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And longer stays the night.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f120 spa1">IV.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now along the horizon’s edge</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Mountains of cloud uprose,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Black as with forests underneath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Above their sharp and jagged teeth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Were white as drifted snows.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unseen behind them sank the sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But flushed each snowy peak</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A little while with rosy light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That faded slowly from the sight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As blushes from the cheek.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Black grew the sky,—all black, all black</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The clouds were everywhere;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There was a feeling of suspense</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In nature, a mysterious sense</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of terror in the air.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all on board the <i>Valdemar</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Was still as still could be;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Save when the dismal ship-bell tolled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As ever and anon she rolled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And lurched into the sea.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The captain up and down the deck</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Went striding to and fro;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now watched the compass at the wheel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now lifted up his hand to feel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Which way the wind might blow.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now he looked up at the sails,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And now upon the deep;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In every fibre of his frame</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He felt the storm before it came,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He had no thought of sleep.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Eight bells! and suddenly abaft,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With a great rush of rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Making the ocean white with spume,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In darkness like the day of doom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On came the hurricane.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The lightning flashed from cloud to cloud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And rent the sky in two;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A jagged flame, a single jet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of white fire, like a bayonet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That pierced the eyeballs through.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then all around was dark again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And blacker than before;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But in that single flash of light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He had beheld a fearful sight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And thought of the oath he swore.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For right ahead lay the Ship of the Dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The ghostly <i>Carmilhan</i>!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her masts were stripped, her yards were bare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And on her bowsprit, poised in air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sat the Klaboterman.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her crew of ghosts was all on deck,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Or clambering up the shrouds;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The boatswain’s whistle, the captain’s hail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were like the piping of the gale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And thunder in the clouds.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And close behind the <i>Carmilhan</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">There rose up from the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As from a foundered ship of stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Three bare and splintered masts alone;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They were the Chimneys Three!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And onward dashed the <i>Valdemar</i>,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And leaped into the dark;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A denser mist, a colder blast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A little shudder, and she had passed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Right through the Phantom Bark.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">She cleft in twain the shadowy hulk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But cleft it unaware;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As when, careering to her nest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sea-gull severs with her breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The unresisting air.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Again the lightning flashed; again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They saw the <i>Carmilhan</i>,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whole as before in hull and spar;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But now on board of the <i>Valdemar</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Stood the Klaboterman.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And they all knew their doom was sealed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They knew that death was near;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some prayed who never prayed before,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And some they wept, and some they swore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And some were mute with fear.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then suddenly there came a shock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And louder than wind or sea</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A cry burst from the crew on deck,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As she dashed and crashed, a hopeless wreck,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Upon the Chimneys Three.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The storm and night were passed, the light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To streak the east began;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The cabin-boy, picked up at sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Survived the wreck, and only he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To tell of the <i>Carmilhan</i>.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</span></p>
+<p class="center">INTERLUDE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the long murmur of applause</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That greeted the Musician’s lay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had slowly buzzed itself away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the long talk of Spectre Ships</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That followed died upon their lips,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And came unto a natural pause,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“These tales you tell are one and all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the Old World,” the Poet said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Flowers gathered from a crumbling wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dead leaves that rustle as they fall;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let me present you in their stead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Something of our New England earth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A tale which, though of no great worth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Has still this merit, that it yields</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A certain freshness of the fields,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A sweetness as of home-made bread.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Student answered: “Be discreet;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For if the flour be fresh and sound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And if the bread be light and sweet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who careth in what mill ’twas ground,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or of what oven felt the heat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unless, as old Cervantes said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You are looking after better bread</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than any that is made of wheat?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You know that people now-a-days</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To what is old give little praise;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All must be new in prose and verse.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They want hot bread, or something worse,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fresh every morning, and half baked;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The wholesome bread of yesterday,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Too stale for them, is thrown away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor is their thirst with water slaked.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">As oft we see the sky in May</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Threaten to rain, and yet not rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Poet’s face, before so gay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was clouded with a look of pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But suddenly brightened up again;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And without further let or stay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He told his tale of yesterday.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="WENTWORTH" class="f110">THE POET’S TALE.</p>
+<p class="center">LADY WENTWORTH.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">One hundred years ago, and something more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In Queen Street, Portsmouth, at her tavern door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Neat as a pin, and blooming as a rose,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood Mistress Stavers in her furbelows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Just as her cuckoo-clock was striking nine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Above her head, resplendent on the sign,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The portrait of the Earl of Halifax,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In scarlet coat and periwig of flax,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Surveyed at leisure all her varied charms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Her cap, her bodice, her white folded arms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And half resolved, though he was past his prime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And rather damaged by the lapse of time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To fall down at her feet, and to declare</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The passion that had driven him to despair.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For from his lofty station he had seen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stavers, her husband, dressed in bottle-green,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drive his new Flying Stage-coach, four in hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down the long lane, and out into the land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And knew that he was far upon the way</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To Ipswich and to Boston on the Bay!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Just then the meditations of the Earl</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were interrupted by a little girl,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Barefooted, ragged, with neglected hair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Eyes full of laughter, neck and shoulders bare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A thin slip of a girl, like a new moon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sure to be rounded into beauty soon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A creature men would worship and adore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though now in mean habiliments she bore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A pail of water, dripping, through the street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And bathing, as she went, her naked feet.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was a pretty picture, full of grace,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The slender form, the delicate, thin face;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The swaying motion, as she hurried by;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The shining feet, the laughter in her eye,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That o’er her face in ripples gleamed and glanced,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As in her pail the shifting sunbeam danced:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with uncommon feelings of delight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Earl of Halifax beheld the sight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not so Dame Stavers, for he heard her say</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">These words, or thought he did, as plain as day:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O Martha Hilton! Fie! how dare you go</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">About the town half dressed, and looking so!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At which the gipsy laughed, and straight replied:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“No matter how I look; I yet shall ride</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In my own chariot, ma’am.” And on the child</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Earl of Halifax benignly smiled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As with her heavy burden she passed on,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looked back, then turned the corner, and was gone.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">What next, upon that memorable day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Arrested his attention was a gay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And brilliant equipage, that flashed and spun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The silver harness glittering in the sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Outriders with red jackets, lithe and lank,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pounding the saddles as they rose and sank,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While all alone within the chariot sat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A portly person with three-cornered hat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A crimson velvet coat, head high in air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gold-headed cane, and nicely powdered hair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And diamond buckles sparkling at his knees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dignified, stately, florid, much at ease.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Onward the pageant swept, and as it passed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fair Mistress Stavers courtesied low and fast;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For this was Governor Wentworth, driving down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To Little Harbour, just beyond the town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where his Great House stood looking out to sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A goodly place, where it was good to be.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was a pleasant mansion, an abode</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Near and yet hidden from the great highroad,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sequestered among trees, a noble pile,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Baronial and colonial in its style;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gables and dormer-windows everywhere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And stacks of chimneys rising high in air,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pandæan pipes, on which all winds that blew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Made mournful music the whole winter through.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Within, unwonted splendours met the eye,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Panels, and floors of oak, and tapestry;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Carved chimney-pieces, where on brazen dogs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Revelled and roared the Christmas fires of logs;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Doors opening into darkness unawares,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mysterious passages, and flights of stairs;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And on the walls, in heavy gilded frames,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The ancestral Wentworths with Old-Scripture names.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such was the mansion where the great man dwelt,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A widower and childless; and he felt</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The loneliness, the uncongenial gloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That like a presence haunted every room;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For though not given to weakness, he could feel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The pain of wounds, that ache because they heal.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The years came and the years went,—seven in all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And passed in cloud and sunshine o’er the Hall;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The dawns their splendour through its chambers shed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The sunsets flushed its western windows red;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The snow was on its roofs, the wind, the rain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Its woodlands were in leaf and bare again;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Moons waxed and waned, the lilacs bloomed and died,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the broad river ebbed and flowed the tide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ships went to sea, and ships came home from sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the slow years sailed by and ceased to be.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And all these years had Martha Hilton served</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the Great House, not wholly unobserved:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By day, by night, the silver crescent grew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though hidden by clouds, her light still shining through;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A maid of all work, whether coarse or fine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A servant who made service seem divine!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through her each room was fair to look upon;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The mirrors glistened, and the brasses shone;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The very knocker on the outer door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">If she but passed, was brighter than before.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And now the ceaseless turning of the mill</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of Time, that never for an hour stands still,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ground out the Governor’s sixtieth birthday,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And powdered his brown hair with silver-grey.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The robin, the forerunner of the spring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The blue-bird with his jocund carolling,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The restless swallows building in the eaves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The golden buttercups, the grass, the leaves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The lilacs tossing in the winds of May,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All welcomed this majestic holiday!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He gave a splendid banquet, served on plate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such as became the Governor of the State,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who represented England and the King,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And was magnificent in everything.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He had invited all his friends and peers,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Pepperels, the Langdons, and the Lears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Sparhawks, the Penhallows, and the rest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For why repeat the name of every guest?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But I must mention one, in bands and gown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The rector there, the Reverend Arthur Brown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the Established Church; with smiling face</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He sat beside the Governor and said grace;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And then the feast went on, as others do,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But ended as none other I e’er knew.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">When they had drunk the King, with many a cheer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Governor whispered in a servant’s ear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who disappeared, and presently there stood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Within the room, in perfect womanhood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A maiden, modest and yet self-possessed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Youthful and beautiful, and simply dressed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Can this be Martha Hilton? It must be!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yes, Martha Hilton, and no other she!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dowered with the beauty of her twenty years,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How ladylike, how queen-like she appears;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The pale, thin crescent of the days gone by</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is Dian now in all her majesty!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yet scarce a guest perceived that she was there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Until the Governor, rising from his chair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Played slightly with his ruffles, then looked down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And said unto the Reverend Arthur Brown:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“This is my birthday; it shall likewise be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">My wedding-day; and you shall marry me!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The listening guests were greatly mystified,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">None more so than the rector, who replied:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Marry you? Yes, that were a pleasant task,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Your Excellency; but to whom? I ask.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Governor answered: “To this lady here;”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And beckoned Martha Hilton to draw near.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She came and stood, all blushes, at his side.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The rector paused. The impatient Governor cried:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“This is the lady; do you hesitate?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then I command you as Chief Magistrate.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The rector read the service loud and clear:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here,”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And so on to the end. At his command,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the fourth finger of her fair left hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Governor placed the ring; and that was all:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Martha was Lady Wentworth of the Hall!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="INTERLUDE9" class="center">INTERLUDE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Well pleased the audience heard the tale.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Theologian said: “Indeed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To praise you there is little need;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One almost hears the farmer’s flail</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thresh out your wheat, nor does there fail</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A certain freshness, as you said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sweetness as of home-made bread.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But not less sweet and not less fresh</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are many legends that I know,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Writ by the monks of long ago,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who loved to mortify the flesh,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So that the soul might purer grow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And rise to a diviner state;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And one of these—perhaps of all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Most beautiful—I now recall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And with permission will narrate;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hoping thereby to make amends</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For that grim tragedy of mine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As strong and black as Spanish wine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I told last night, and wish almost</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It had remained untold, my friends;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For Torquemada’s awful ghost</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Came to me in the dreams I dreamed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in the darkness glared and gleamed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a great lighthouse on the coast.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Student laughing said: “Far more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like to some dismal fire of bale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Flaring portentous on a hill;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or torches lighted on a shore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By wreckers in a midnight gale.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No matter; be it as you will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only go forward with your tale.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="BEAUTIFUL" class="f110">THE THEOLOGIAN’S TALE.</p>
+<p class="center">THE LEGEND BEAUTIFUL.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Hadst thou stayed, I must have fled!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That is what the Vision said.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his chamber all alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kneeling on the floor of stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Prayed the Monk in deep contrition</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For his sins of indecision,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Prayed for greater self-denial</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In temptation and in trial;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was noonday by the dial,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Monk was all alone.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suddenly, as if it lightened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">An unwonted splendour brightened</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All within him and without him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In that narrow cell of stone;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he saw the Blessed Vision</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of our Lord, with light Elysian</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a vesture wrapped about him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a garment round him thrown.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not as crucified and slain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not in agonies of pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not with bleeding hands and feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Did the Monk his Master see;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But as in the village street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the house or harvest-field,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Halt and lame and blind he healed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he walked in Galilee.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In an attitude imploring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hands upon his bosom crossed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wondering, worshipping, adoring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Knelt the Monk in rapture lost.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lord, he thought, in heaven that reignest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who am I, that thus thou deignest</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To reveal thyself to me?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who am I, that from the centre</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of thy glory thou shouldst enter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This poor cell, my guest to be?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then amid his exaltation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loud the convent bell appalling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From its belfry calling, calling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rang through court and corridor</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With persistent iteration</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He had never heard before.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was now the appointed hour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When alike in shine or shower,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Winter’s cold or summer’s heat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the convent portals came</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the blind and halt and lame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the beggars of the street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For their daily dole of food</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dealt them by the brotherhood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And their almoner was he</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who upon his bended knee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rapt in silent ecstasy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of divinest self-surrender,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw the Vision and the Splendour.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Deep distress and hesitation</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mingled with his adoration;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Should he go, or should he stay?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Should he leave the poor to wait</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hungry at the convent gate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the Vision passed away?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Should he slight his radiant guest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slight his visitant celestial,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For a crowd of ragged, bestial</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beggars at the convent gate?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would the Vision there remain?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would the Vision come again?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then a voice within his breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whispered, audible and clear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if to the outward ear:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Do thy duty; that is best;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leave unto thy Lord the rest!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Straightway to his feet he started,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with longing look intent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the Blessed Vision bent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly from his cell departed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slowly on his errand went.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the gate the poor were waiting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looking through the iron grating,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With that terror in the eye</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That is only seen in those</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who amid their wants and woes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hear the sound of doors that close,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And of feet that pass them by;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grown familiar with disfavour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grown familiar with the savour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the bread by which men die!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But to-day, they knew not why,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the gate of Paradise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seemed the convent gate to rise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a sacrament divine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seemed to them the bread and wine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his heart the Monk was praying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thinking of the homeless poor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What they suffer and endure;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What we see not, what we see;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the inward voice was saying:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Whatsoever thing thou doest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the least of mine and lowest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That thou doest unto me!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unto me! but had the Vision</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Come to him in beggar’s clothing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Come a mendicant imploring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would he then have knelt adoring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or have listened with derision,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And have turned away with loathing?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus his conscience put the question,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Full of troublesome suggestion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As at length, with hurried pace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Towards his cell he turned his face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And beheld the convent bright</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a supernatural light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a luminous cloud expanding</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over floor and wall and ceiling.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">But he paused with awe-struck feeling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the threshold of his door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the Vision still was standing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he left it there before,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the convent bell appalling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From its belfry calling, calling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Summoned him to feed the poor.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the long hour intervening</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It had waited his return,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he felt his bosom burn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Comprehending all the meaning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the Blessed Vision said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Hadst thou stayed, I must have fled!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</span></p>
+<p class="center">INTERLUDE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">All praised the Legend more or less;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Some liked the moral, some the verse;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Some thought it better, and some worse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than other legends of the past;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Until, with ill-concealed distress</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At all their cavilling, at last</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Theologian gravely said:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The Spanish proverb, then, is right;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Consult your friends on what you do,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And one will say that it is white,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And others say that it is red.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And “Amen!” quoth the Spanish Jew.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Six stories told! We must have seven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A cluster like the Pleiades,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And lo! it happens, as with these,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That one is missing from our heaven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where is the Landlord? Bring him here;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let the Lost Pleiad reappear.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus the Sicilian cried, and went</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forthwith to meet his missing star,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But did not find him in the bar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A place that landlords most frequent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor yet beside the kitchen fire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor up the stairs, nor in the hall;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was in vain to ask or call,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There were no tidings of the Squire.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">So he came back with downcast head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Exclaiming: “Well, our bashful host</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hath surely given up the ghost.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Another proverb says the dead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Can tell no tales; and that is true.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It follows, then, that one of you</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Must tell a story in his stead.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You must,” he to the Student said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Who know so many of the best,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And tell them better than the rest.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Straight, by these flattering words beguiled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Student, happy as a child</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he is called a little man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Assumed the double task imposed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And without more ado unclosed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His smiling lips, and thus began.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="CASTINE" class="f110">THE STUDENT’S SECOND TALE.</p>
+<p class="center">THE BARON OF ST. CASTINE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Baron Castine of St. Castine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Has left his chateau in the Pyrenees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And sailed across the western seas.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he went away from his fair demesne</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The birds were building, the woods were green;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And now the winds of winter blow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round the turrets of the old chateau,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The birds are silent and unseen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The leaves lie dead in the ravine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Pyrenees are white with snow.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">His father, lonely, old, and grey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sits by the fireside day by day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thinking ever one thought of care;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the southern windows, narrow and tall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The sun shines into the ancient hall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And makes a glory round his hair.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The house-dog, stretched beneath his chair,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Groans in his sleep as if in pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then wakes, and yawns, and sleeps again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So silent is it everywhere,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So silent you can hear the mouse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Run and rummage along the beams</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Behind the wainscot of the wall;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the old man rouses from his dreams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And wanders restless through the house,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if he heard strange voices call.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">His footsteps echo along the floor</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of a distant passage, and pause awhile;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He is standing by an open door</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looking long, with a sad, sweet smile,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the room of his absent son.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There is the bed on which he lay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There are the pictures bright and gay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Horses and hounds and sunlit seas;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There are his powder-flask and gun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And his hunting-knives in shape of a fan;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The chair by the window where he sat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the clouded tiger-skin for a mat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looking out on the Pyrenees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looking out on Mount Maboré</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Seven Valleys of Lavedan.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah me! he turns away and sighs;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There is a mist before his eyes.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">At night, whatever the weather be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wind or rain or starry heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Just as the clock is striking seven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Those who look from the windows see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The village Curate, with lantern and maid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Come through the gateway from the park</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And cross the court-yard damp and dark,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A ring of light in a ring of shade.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And now at the old man’s side he stands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His voice is cheery, his heart expands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He gossips pleasantly, by the blaze</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the fire of faggots, about old days,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Cardinal Mazarin and the Fronde,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Cardinal’s nieces fair and fond,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And what they did, and what they said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When they heard his Eminence was dead.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And after a pause the old man says,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His mind still coming back again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the one sad thought that haunts his brain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Are there any tidings from over sea?</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah, why has that wild boy gone from me?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Curate answers, looking down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Harmless and docile as a lamb,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Young blood! young blood! It must so be!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And draws from the pocket of his gown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A handkerchief like an oriflamb,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And wipes his spectacles, and they play</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Their little game of lansquenet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In silence for an hour or so,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the clock at nine strikes loud and clear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the village lying asleep below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And across the court-yard, into the dark</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the winding pathway in the park,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Curate and lantern disappear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And darkness reigns in the old chateau.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The ship has come back from over sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She has been signalled from below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And into the harbour of Bordeaux</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She sails with her gallant company.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But among them is nowhere seen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The brave young Baron of St. Castine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He hath tarried behind, I ween,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the beautiful land of Acadie!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the father paces to and fro</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the chambers of the old chateau,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waiting, waiting to hear the hum</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of wheels on the road that runs below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of servants hurrying here and there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The voice in the court-yard, the step on the stair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Waiting for some one who doth not come!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But letters there are, which the old man reads</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the Curate, when he comes at night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Word by word, as an acolyte</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Repeats his prayers and tells his beads;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Letters full of the rolling sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Full of a young man’s joy to be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Abroad in the world, alone and free;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Full of adventures and wonderful scenes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of hunting the deer through forests vast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the royal grant of Pierre du Gast;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of nights in the tents of the Tarratines;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of Madocawando, the Indian chief,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And his daughters, glorious as queens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And beautiful beyond belief;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And so soft the tones of their native tongue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The words are not spoken, they are sung!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Curate listens, and smiling says:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ah yes, dear friend! in our young days</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We should have liked to hunt the deer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All day amid those forest scenes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And to sleep in the tents of the Tarratines;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But now it is better sitting here</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Within four walls, and without the fear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of losing our hearts to Indian queens;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For man is fire and woman is tow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Somebody comes and begins to blow.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then a gleam of distrust and vague surmise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shines in the father’s gentle eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As fire-light on a window-pane</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Glimmers and vanishes again;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But naught he answers; he only sighs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And for a moment bows his head;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, as their custom is, they play</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Their little game of lansquenet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And another day is with the dead.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Another day, and many a day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And many a week and month depart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When a fatal letter wings its way</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Across the sea, like a bird of prey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And strikes and tears the old man’s heart.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lo! the young Baron of St. Castine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swift as the wind is, and as wild,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Has married a dusky Tarratine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Has married Madocawando’s child!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The letter drops from the father’s hand;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though the sinews of his heart are wrung,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He utters no cry, he breathes no prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No malediction falls from his tongue;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But his stately figure, erect and grand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bends and sinks like a column of sand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the whirlwind of his great despair.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dying, yes dying! His latest breath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of parley at the door of death</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is a blessing on his wayward son.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lower and lower on his breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sinks his grey head; he is at rest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No longer he waits for any one.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">For many a year the old chateau</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lies tenantless and desolate;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rank grasses in the court-yard grow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">About its gables caws the crow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only the porter at the gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is left to guard it, and to wait</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The coming of the rightful heir;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No other life or sound is there,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No more the Curate comes at night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No more is seen the unsteady light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Threading the alleys of the park;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The windows of the hall are dark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The chambers dreary, cold, and bare!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">At length, at last, when the winter is past,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And birds are building, and woods are green,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With flying skirts is the Curate seen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Speeding along the woodland way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Humming gaily, “No day is so long</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But it comes at last to vesper-song.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He stops at the porter’s lodge to say</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That at last the Baron of St. Castine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is coming home with his Indian queen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is coming without a week’s delay;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And all the house must be swept and clean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And all things set in good array!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the solemn porter shakes his head;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the answer he makes is: “Lack-a-day!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We will see, as the blind man said!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Alert since first the day began,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The cock upon the village church</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looks northward from his airy perch,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if beyond the ken of man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To see the ships come sailing on</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And pass the Isle of Oléron,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And pass the Tower of Cordouan.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the church below is cold in clay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The heart that would have leaped for joy—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O tender heart of truth and trust!—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To see the coming of that day;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the church below the lips are dust,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dust are the hands, and dust the feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That would have been so swift to meet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The coming of that wayward boy.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">At night the front of the old chateau</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is a blaze of light above and below;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There’s a sound of wheels and hoofs in the street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A cracking of whips, and scamper of feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bells are ringing, and horns are blown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Baron hath come again to his own.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Curate is waiting in the hall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Most eager and alive of all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To welcome the Baron and Baroness;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But his mind is full of vague distress,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For he hath read in Jesuit books</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of those children of the wilderness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And now, good, simple man! he looks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To see a painted savage stride</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the room with shoulders bare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And eagle feathers in her hair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And around her a robe of panther’s hide.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Instead, he beholds with secret shame</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A form of beauty undefined,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A loveliness without a name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not of degree, but more of kind;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor bold nor shy, nor short nor tall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But a new mingling of them all.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yes, beautiful beyond belief,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Transfigured and transfused, he sees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The lady of the Pyrenees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The daughter of the Indian chief.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beneath the shadow of her hair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The gold-bronze colour of the skin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seems lighted by a fire within,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As when a burst of sunlight shines</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beneath a sombre grove of pines,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A dusky splendour in the air.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The two small hands, that now are pressed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his, seem made to be caressed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They lie so warm and soft and still,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like birds half hidden in a nest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Trustful and innocent of ill.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And ah! he cannot believe his ears</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When her melodious voice he hears</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Speaking his native Gascon tongue;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The words she utters seem to be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Part of some poem of Goudouli,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They are not spoken, they are sung!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Baron smiles, and says, “You see,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I told you but the simple truth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah, you may trust the eyes of youth!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down in the village day by day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The people gossip in their way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And stare to see the Baroness pass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On Sunday morning to early Mass;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And when she kneeleth down to pray,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They wonder, and whisper together, and say,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Surely this is no heathen lass!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in course of time they learn to bless</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Baron and the Baroness.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in course of time the Curate learns</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A secret so dreadful, that by turns</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He is ice and fire, he freezes and burns.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Baron at confession hath said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That though this woman be his wife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He hath wed her as the Indians wed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He hath bought her for a gun and a knife!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Curate replies: “O profligate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O Prodigal Son! return once more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the open arms and the open door</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the Church, or ever it be too late.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thank God, thy father did not live</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To see what he could not forgive;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On thee, so reckless and perverse,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He left his blessing, not his curse.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the nearer the dawn the darker the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And by going wrong all things come right;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Things have been mended that were worse,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the worse, the nearer they are to mend.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the sake of the living and the dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou shalt be wed as Christians wed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And all things come to a happy end.“</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">O sun, that followest the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In yon blue sky, serene and pure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And pourest thine impartial light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Alike on mountain and on moor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pause for a moment in thy course,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And bless the bridegroom and the bride!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O Gave, that from thy hidden source</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In yon mysterious mountain-side</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pursuest thy wandering way alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And leaping down its steps of stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Along the meadow-lands demure</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stealest away to the Adour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pause for a moment in thy course</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To bless the bridegroom and the bride!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The choir is singing the matin song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The doors of the church are opened wide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The people crowd, and press, and throng</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To see the bridegroom and the bride.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They enter and pass along the nave;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They stand upon the father’s grave;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The bells are ringing soft and slow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The living above and the dead below</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Give their blessing on one and twain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The warm wind blows from the hills of Spain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The birds are building, the leaves are green,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Baron Castine of St. Castine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hath come at last to his own again.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</span></p>
+<p class="center">FINALE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“<i>Nunc plaudite!</i>” the Student cried,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he had finished; “now applaud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As Roman actors used to say</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the conclusion of a play;”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And rose, and spread his hands abroad,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And smiling bowed from side to side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As one who bears the palm away.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And generous was the applause and loud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But less for him than for the sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That even as the tale was done</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Burst from its canopy of cloud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And lit the landscape with the blaze</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of afternoon on autumn days,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And filled the room with light, and made</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The fire of logs a painted shade.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">A sudden wind from out the west</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blew all its trumpets loud and shrill;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The windows rattled with the blast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The oak-trees shouted as it passed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And straight, as if by fear possessed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The cloud encampment on the hill</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Broke up, and fluttering flag and tent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vanished into the firmament,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And down the valley fled amain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The rear of the retreating rain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only far up in the blue sky</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A mass of clouds, like drifted snow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suffused with a faint Alpine glow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was heaped together, vast and high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On which a shattered rainbow hung,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not rising like the ruined arch</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of some aërial aqueduct,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But like a roseate garland plucked</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From an Olympian god, and flung</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Aside in his triumphal march.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like prisoners from their dungeon gloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like birds escaping from a snare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like school-boys at the hour of play,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All left at once the pent-up room</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And rushed into the open air;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And no more tales were told that day.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="SCANDERBEG">SCANDERBEG.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The battle is fought and won</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By King Ladislaus the Hun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In fire of hell and death’s frost,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the day of Pentecost;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in rout before his path</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the field of battle red</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flee all that are not dead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the army of Amurath.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the darkness of the night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Iskander, the pride and boast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of that mighty Othman host,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With his routed Turks, takes flight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the battle fought and lost</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the day of Pentecost;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leaving behind him dead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The army of Amurath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The vanguard as it led,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The rear-guard as it fled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mown down in the bloody swath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the battle’s aftermath.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">But he cared not for Hospodars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor for Baron or Voivode,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As on through the night he rode,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And gazed at the fatal stars</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That were shining overhead;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But smote his steed with his staff,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And smiled to himself, and said:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“This is the time to laugh.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the middle of the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In a halt of the hurrying flight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There came a Scribe of the King,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wearing his signet ring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And said in a voice severe:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“This is the first dark blot</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On thy name, George Castriot!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Alas! why art thou here,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the army of Amurath slain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And left on the battle plain?”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Iskander answered and said:</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“They lie on the bloody sod,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the hoofs of horses trod;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But this was the decree</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the watchers overhead;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the war belongeth to God,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in battle who are we,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who are we, that shall withstand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The wind of his uplifted hand?”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then he bade them bind with chains</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This man of books and brains;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Scribe said: “What misdeed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Have I done, that without need,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou doest to me this thing?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Iskander answering</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said unto him: “Not one</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Misdeed to me hast thou done;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But for fear that thou shouldst run</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And hide thyself from me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Have I done this unto thee.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Now write me a writing, O Scribe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And a blessing be on thy tribe!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A writing sealed with thy ring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To King Amurath’s Pasha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the city of Croia,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The city moated and walled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That he surrender the same</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the name of my master, the King;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For what is writ in his name</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Can never be recalled.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Scribe bowed low in dread,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And unto Iskander said:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Allah is great and just,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We are but ashes and dust!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How shall I do this thing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When I know that my guilty head</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Will be forfeit to the King?”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then swift as a shooting star</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The curved and shining blade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of Iskander’s scimitar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From its sheath, with jewels bright,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shot, as he thundered: “Write!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the trembling Scribe obeyed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And wrote in the fitful glare</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the bivouac fire apart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the chill of the midnight air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On his forehead white and bare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the chill of death in his heart.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then again Iskander cried:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Now follow whither I ride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For here thou must not stay.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou shalt be as my dearest friend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And honours without end</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shall surround thee on every side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And attend thee night and day.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the sullen Scribe replied:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Our pathways here divide;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mine leadeth not thy way.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And even as he spoke</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell a sudden scimitar stroke,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When no one else was near;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Scribe sank to the ground,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a stone, pushed from the brink</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of a black pool, might sink</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a sob and disappear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And no one saw the deed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in the stillness around</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No sound was heard but the sound</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the hoofs of Iskander’s steed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As forward he sprang with a bound.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then onward he rode and afar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With scarce three hundred men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through river and forest and fen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er the mountains of Argentar;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And his heart was merry within</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he crossed the river Drin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And saw in the gleam of the morn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The White Castle Ak-Hissar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The city Croia called,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The city moated and walled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The city where he was born,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And above it the morning star.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then his trumpeters in the van</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On their silver bugles blew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in crowds about him ran</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Albanian and Turkoman,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That the sound together drew.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he feasted with his friends,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And when they were warm with wine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He said: “O friends of mine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Behold what fortune sends,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And what the fates design!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">King Amurath commands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That my father’s wide domain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This city and all its lands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shall be given to me again.”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then to the Castle White</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He rode in regal state,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And entered in at the gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In all his arms bedight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And gave to the Pasha</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who ruled in Croia</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The writing of the King,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sealed with his signet ring.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Pasha bowed his head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And after a silence said:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Allah is just and great!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I yield to the will divine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The city and lands are thine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who shall contend with fate?”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Anon from the castle walls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The crescent banner falls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the crowd beholds instead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a portent in the sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Iskander’s banner fly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Black Eagle with double head;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And a shout ascends on high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For men’s souls are tired of the Turks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And their wicked ways and works,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That have made of Ak-Hissar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A city of the plague;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the loud, exultant cry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That echoes wide and far</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is: “Long live Scanderbeg!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was thus Iskander came</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Once more unto his own;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the tidings, like the flame</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of a conflagration blown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the winds of summer, ran,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the land was in a blaze,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the cities far and near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sayeth Ben Joshua Ben Meir,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his Book of the Words of the Days,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Were taken as a man</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would take the tip of his ear.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHRISTOPHER">THE RHYME OF<br> SIR CHRISTOPHER.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was Sir Christopher Gardiner,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Knight of the Holy Sepulchre,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From Merry England over the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who stepped upon this continent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if his august presence lent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A glory to the colony.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">You should have seen him in the street</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the little Boston of Winthrop’s time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His rapier dangling at his feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Doublet and hose and boots complete,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Prince Rupert hat with ostrich plume,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gloves that exhaled a faint perfume,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Luxuriant curls and air sublime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And superior manners now obsolete!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He had a way of saying things</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That made one think of courts and kings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And lords and ladies of high degree;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So that not having been at court</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seemed something very little short</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of treason or lese-majesty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such an accomplished knight was he.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">His dwelling was just beyond the town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At what he called his country seat;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For, careless of Fortune’s smile or frown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And weary grown of the world and its ways,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He wished to pass the rest of his days</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In a private life and a calm retreat.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But a double life was the life he led;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, while professing to be in search</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of a godly course, and willing, he said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nay, anxious to join the Puritan Church,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He made of all this but small account,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And passed his idle hours instead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With roystering Morton of Merry Mount,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That pettifogger from Furnival’s Inn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lord of misrule and riot and sin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who looked on the wine when it was red.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">This country-seat was little more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than a cabin of logs; but in front of the door</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A modest flower-bed thickly sown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With sweet alyssum and columbine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Made those who saw it at once divine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The touch of some other hand than his own.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And first it was whispered, and then it was known,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That he in secret was harbouring there</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A little lady with golden hair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whom he called his cousin, but whom he had wed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the Italian manner, as men said;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And great was the scandal everywhere.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But worse than this was the vague surmise—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though none could vouch for it or aver—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That the Knight of the Holy Sepulchre</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was only a Papist in disguise;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the more to embitter their bitter lives,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the more to trouble the public mind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Came letters from England, from two other wives,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whom he had carelessly left behind;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Both of them letters of such a kind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As made the governor hold his breath;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The one imploring him straight to send</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The husband home, that he might amend;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The other asking his instant death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the only way to make an end.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wary governor deemed it right,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When all this wickedness was revealed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To send his warrant signed and sealed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And take the body of the knight.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Armed with this mighty instrument,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The marshal, mounting his gallant steed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rode forth from town at the top of his speed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And followed by all his bailiffs bold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if on high achievement bent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To storm some castle or stronghold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Challenge the warders on the wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And seize in his ancestral hall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A robber-baron grim and old.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But when through all the dust and heat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He came to Sir Christopher’s country-seat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No knight he found, nor warder there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the little lady with golden hair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who was gathering in the bright sunshine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sweet alyssum and columbine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While gallant Sir Christopher, all so gay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Being forewarned, through the postern gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of his castle wall had tripped away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And was keeping a little holiday</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the forests, that bounded his estate.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then as a trusty squire and true</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The marshal searched the castle through,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not crediting what the lady said;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Searched from cellar to garret in vain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, finding no knight, came out again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And arrested the golden damsel instead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And bore her in triumph into the town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While from her eyes the tears rolled down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the sweet alyssum and columbine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That she held in her fingers white and fine.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The governor’s heart was moved to see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So fair a creature caught within</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The snares of Satan and of sin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And read her a little homily</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the folly and wickedness of the lives</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of women, half cousins and half wives;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But, seeing that naught his words availed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He sent her away in a ship that sailed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For Merry England over the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the other two wives in the old countree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To search her further, since he had failed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To come at the heart of the mystery.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Meanwhile Sir Christopher wandered away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through pathless woods for a month and a day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shooting pigeons, and sleeping at night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the noble savage, who took delight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In his feathered hat and his velvet vest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His gun and his rapier and the rest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But as soon as the noble savage heard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That a bounty was offered for this gay bird,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He wanted to slay him out of hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And bring in his beautiful scalp for a show,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the glossy head of a kite or crow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Until he was made to understand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They wanted the bird alive, not dead;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then he followed him whithersoever he fled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through forest and field, and hunted him down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And brought him prisoner into the town.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alas! it was a rueful sight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To see this melancholy knight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In such a dismal and hapless case;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His hat deformed by stain and dent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His plumage broken, his doublet rent,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His beard and flowing locks forlorn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Matted, dishevelled, and unshorn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His boots with dust and mire besprent;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But dignified in his disgrace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And wearing an unblushing face.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thus before the magistrate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He stood to hear the doom of fate.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In vain he strove with wonted ease</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To modify and extenuate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His evil deeds in church and state,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For gone was now his power to please:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And his pompous words had no more weight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than feathers flying in the breeze.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">With suavity equal to his own,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The governor lent a patient ear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the speech evasive and high-flown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In which he endeavoured to make clear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That colonial laws were too severe</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When applied to a gallant cavalier,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A gentleman born, and so well known,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And accustomed to move in a higher sphere.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All this the Puritan governor heard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And deigned in answer never a word;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But in summary manner shipped away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In a vessel that sailed from Salem Bay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This splendid and famous cavalier,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With his Rupert hat and his Popery,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To Merry England over the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As being unmeet to inhabit here.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus endeth the Rhyme of Sir Christopher,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Knight of the Holy Sepulchre,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The first who furnished this barren land</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With apples of Sodom and ropes of sand.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHARLEMAGNE">CHARLEMAGNE.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Olger the Dane and Desiderio,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">King of the Lombards, on a lofty tower</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood gazing northward o’er the rolling plains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">League after league of harvests, to the foot</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the snow-crested Alps, and saw approach</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A mighty army, thronging all the roads</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That led into the city. And the King</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Said unto Olger, who had passed his youth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As hostage at the court of France, and knew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Emperor’s form and face: “Is Charlemagne</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Among that host?” And Olger answered: “No.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And still the innumerable multitude</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flowed onward and increased, until the King</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cried in amazement: “Surely Charlemagne</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is coming in the midst of all these knights!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Olger answered slowly: “No, not yet;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He will not come so soon.” Then much disturbed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">King Desiderio asked: “What shall we do,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">If he approach with a still greater army?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Olger answered: “When he shall appear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You will behold what manner of man he is;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But what will then befall us I know not.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then came the guard that never knew repose,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Paladins of France; and at the sight</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Lombard King o’ercome with terror cried:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“This must be Charlemagne!” and as before</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Did Olger answer: “No; not yet, not yet.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And then appeared in panoply complete</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Bishops and the Abbots and the Priests</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the imperial chapel, and the Counts;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Desiderio could no more endure</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The light of day, nor yet encounter death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But sobbed aloud and said: “Let us go down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And hide us in the bosom of the earth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far from the sight and anger of a foe</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So terrible as this!” And Olger said:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“When you behold the harvests in the fields</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shaking with fear, the Po and the Ticino</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lashing the city walls with iron waves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then may you know that Charlemagne is come.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And even as he spake, in the north-west,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lo! there uprose a black and threatening cloud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Out of whose bosom flashed the light of arms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Upon the people pent up in the city;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A light more terrible than any darkness:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Charlemagne appeared—a Man of Iron!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">His helmet was of iron, and his gloves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of iron, and his breastplate and his greaves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And tassets were of iron, and his shield.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his left hand he held an iron spear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his right hand his sword invincible.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The horse he rode on had the strength of iron,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And colour of iron. All who went before him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beside him, and behind him, his whole host,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were armed with iron, and their hearts within them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were stronger than the armour that they wore.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The fields and all the roads were filled with iron,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And points of iron glistened in the sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And shed a terror through the city streets.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This at a single glance Olger the Dane</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw from the tower, and turning to the King</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Exclaimed in haste, “Behold, this is the man</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You looked for with such eagerness!” and then</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell as one dead at Desiderio’s feet.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illo_4.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="74" >
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><i>Flower-de-Luce.</i></h2>
+<p class="center">1866.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p class="center spa2">BEAUTIFUL LILY.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beautiful lily, dwelling by still rivers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Or solitary mere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or where the sluggish meadow-brook delivers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Its water to the weir!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou laughest at the mill, the whirr and worry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of spindle and of loom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the great wheel that toils amid the hurry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And rushing of the flume.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Born to the purple, born to joy and pleasance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Thou dost not toil nor spin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But makest glad and radiant with thy presence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The meadow and the lin.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wind blows, and uplifts thy drooping banner,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And round thee throng and run</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rushes, the green yeomen of thy manor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The outlaws of the sun.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The burnished dragon-fly is thine attendant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And tilts against the field,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And down the listed sunbeam rides resplendent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">With steel-blue mail and shield.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou art the Iris, fair among the fairest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Who, armed with golden rod</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And winged with the celestial azure, bearest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The message of some God.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou art the Muse, who far from crowded cities</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Hauntest the sylvan streams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Playing on pipes of reed the artless ditties</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">That come to us as dreams.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O flower-de-luce, bloom on, and let the river</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Linger to kiss thy feet!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O flower of song, bloom on, and make for ever</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The world more fair and sweet.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">PALINGENESIS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">I lay upon the headland height, and listened</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the incessant sobbing of the sea</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">In caverns under me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And watched the waves, that tossed and fled and glistened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Until the rolling meadows of amethyst</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Melted away in mist.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then suddenly, as one from sleep, I started;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For round about me all the sunny capes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Seemed peopled with the shapes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of those whom I had known in days departed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Apparelled in the loveliness which gleams</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">On faces seen in dreams.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">A moment only, and the light and glory</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Faded away, and the disconsolate shore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Stood lonely as before;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the wild roses of the promontory</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Around me shuddered in the wind, and shed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Their petals of pale red.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">There was an old belief that in the embers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of all things their primordial form exists,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And cunning alchemists</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Could re-create the rose with all its members</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From its own ashes, but without the bloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Without the lost perfume.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah me! what wonder-working, occult science</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Can from the ashes in our hearts once more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The rose of youth restore?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What craft of alchemy can bid defiance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To time and change, and for a single hour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Renew this phantom flower?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Oh, give me back,” I cried, “the vanished splendours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The breath of morn, and the exultant strife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">When the swift stream of life</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bounds over its rocky channel, and surrenders</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The pond with all its lilies, for the leap</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Into the unknown deep!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the sea answered, with a lamentation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like some old prophet wailing, and it said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">“Alas! thy youth is dead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It breathes no more, its heart has no pulsation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the dark places with the dead of old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">It lies for ever cold!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then said I, “From its consecrated cerements</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I will not drag this sacred dust again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Only to give me pain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But, still remembering all the lost endearments,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Go on my way, like one who looks before,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And turns to weep no more.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into what land of harvests, what plantations</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bright with autumnal foliage and the glow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Of sunsets burning low;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beneath what midnight skies, whose constellations</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Light up the spacious avenues between</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">This world and the unseen!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Amid what friendly greetings and caresses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What households, though not alien, yet not mine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">What bowers of rest divine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To what temptations in lone wildernesses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What famine of the heart, what pain and loss,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The bearing of what cross!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">I do not know; nor will I vainly question</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Those pages of the mystic book which hold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The story still untold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But without rash conjecture or suggestion</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Turn its last leaves in reverence and good heed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Until “The End” I read.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="HAWTHORNE" class="center spa2">HAWTHORNE.</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">May 23, 1864.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How beautiful it was, that one bright day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the long week of rain!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though all its splendour could not chase away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The omnipresent pain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The lovely town was white with apple-blooms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the great elms o’erhead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dark shadows wove on their aërial looms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shot through with golden thread.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Across the meadows, by the grey old manse,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The historic river flowed;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I was as one who wanders in a trance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unconscious of his road.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The faces of familiar friends seemed strange;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their voices I could hear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And yet the words they uttered seemed to change</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their meaning to the ear.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For the one face I looked for was not there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The one low voice was mute;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only an unseen presence filled the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And baffled my pursuit.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now I look back, and meadow, manse, and stream,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dimly my thought defines;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I only see—a dream within a dream—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hill-top hearsed with pines.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I only hear above his place of rest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their tender undertone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The infinite longings of a troubled breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The voice so like his own.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There in seclusion and remote from men</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wizard hand lies cold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And left the tale half told.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the lost clue regain?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The unfinished window in Aladdin’s tower,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unfinished must remain!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="LYNN" class="center spa2">THE BELLS OF LYNN.</p>
+<p class="f90">HEARD AT NAHANT.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O curfew of the setting sun! O Bells of Lynn!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O requiem of the dying day! O Bells of Lynn!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the dark belfries of yon cloud-cathedral wafted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Your sounds aërial seem to float, O Bells of Lynn!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Borne on the evening wind across the crimson twilight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er land and sea they rise and fall, O Bells of Lynn!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fisherman in his boat, far out beyond the headland,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Listens, and leisurely rows ashore, O Bells of Lynn!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over the shining sands the wandering cattle homeward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Follow each other at your call, O Bells of Lynn!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The distant lighthouse hears, and with his flaming signal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Answers you, passing the watchword on, O Bells of Lynn!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And down the darkening coast run the tumultuous surges,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And clap their hands, and shout to you, O Bells of Lynn!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till from the shuddering sea, with your wild incantations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye summon up the spectral moon, O Bells of Lynn!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And startled at the sight, like the weird woman of Endor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye cry aloud, and then are still, O Bells of Lynn!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="CLOUD" class="center spa2">THE BRIDGE OF CLOUD.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Burn, O evening hearth, and waken</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Pleasant visions, as of old!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though the house by winds be shaken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Safe I keep this room of gold.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah, no longer wizard Fancy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Builds her castles in the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Luring me by necromancy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Up the never-ending stair.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But, instead, she builds me bridges</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Over many a dark ravine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where, beneath the gusty ridges,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Cataracts dash and roar unseen.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I cross them, little heeding</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Blast of wind, or torrent’s roar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As I follow the receding</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Footsteps that have gone before.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nought avails the imploring gesture,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Nought avails the cry of pain!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When I touch the flying vesture,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">’Tis the grey robe of the rain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Baffled I return, and leaning</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O’er the parapets of cloud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Watch the mist that intervening</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wraps the valley in its shroud.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the sounds of life ascending</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Feebly, vaguely, meet the ear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Murmur of bells and voices blending</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With the rush of waters near.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Well I know what there lies hidden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Every tower, and town, and farm,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And again the land forbidden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Reassumes its vanished charm.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Well I know the secret places,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the nests in hedge and tree;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At what doors are friendly faces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In what hearts a thought of me.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the mist and darkness sinking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Blown by wind, and beaten by shower,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down I fling the thought I’m thinking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Down I toss this Alpine flower.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="CHIMNEY" class="center spa2">THE WIND OVER THE CHIMNEY.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">See, the fire is sinking low,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dusky red the embers glow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">While above them still I cower,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While a moment more I linger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though the clock, with lifted finger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Points beyond the midnight hour.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sings the blackened log a tune</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Learned in some forgotten June</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From a schoolboy in his play,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When they both were young together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heart of youth and summer weather</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Making all their holiday.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the night-wind rising, hark!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How above there in the dark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In the midnight and the snow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ever wilder, fiercer, grander,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the trumpets of Iskander,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All the noisy chimneys blow!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Every quivering tongue of flame</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seems to murmur some great name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Seems to say to me, “Aspire!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the night-wind answers,—“Hollow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Are the visions that you follow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Into darkness sinks your fire!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then the flicker of the blaze</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gleams on volumes of old days,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Written by masters of the art,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loud through whose majestic pages</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rolls the melody of ages,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Throb the harp-strings of the heart.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And again the tongues of flame</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Start exulting and exclaim,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“These are prophets, bards, and seers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the horoscope of nations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like ascendant constellations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">They control the coming years.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the night-wind cries,—“Despair!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Those who walk with feet of air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Leave no long-enduring marks;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At God’s forges incandescent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mighty hammers beat incessant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">These are but the flying sparks.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Dust are all the hands that wrought;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Books are sepulchres of thought;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The dead laurels of the dead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rustle for a moment only,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the withered leaves in lonely</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Churchyards at some passing tread.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suddenly the flame sinks down;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sink the rumours of renown;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And alone the night-wind drear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clamours louder, wilder, vaguer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“’Tis the brand of Meleager</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Dying on the hearthstone here!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And I answer: “Though it be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Why should that discomfort me?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">No endeavour is in vain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Its reward is in the doing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the rapture of pursuing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Is the prize the vanquished gain.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="FORD" class="center spa2">KILLED AT THE FORD.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">He is dead, the beautiful youth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The heart of honour, the tongue of truth,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He, the life and light of us all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whose voice was blithe as a bugle call</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whom all eyes followed with one consent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hushed all murmurs of discontent.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only last night, as we rode along,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down the dark of the mountain gap,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To visit the picquet-guard at the ford,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Little dreaming of any mishap,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He was humming the words of some old song:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Two red roses he had on his cap,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And another he bore at the point of his sword.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sudden and swift a whistling ball</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came out of the wood, and the voice was still;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Something I heard in the darkness fall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And for a moment my blood grew chill:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I spake in a whisper, as he who speaks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In a room when some one is lying dead;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But he made no answer to what I said.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">We lifted him on his saddle again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And through the mire, and the mist, and the rain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Carried him back to the silent camp,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And laid him as if asleep on his bed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And I saw, by the light of the surgeon’s lamp,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Two white roses upon his cheeks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And one just over his heart blood-red!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And I saw in a vision how far and fleet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That fatal bullet went speeding forth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till it reached a town in the distant North,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till it reached a house in a sunny street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till it reached a heart that ceased to beat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Without a murmur, without a cry;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And a bell was tolled in that far-off town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For one who had passed from cross to crown,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the neighbours wondered that she should die.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p lang="fr" id="NOEL" class="f110 spa2">NOËL</p>
+<p class="f90">Envoyé à M. Agassiz, la veille de Noël, 1864,<br>
+avec un panier de vins divers.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent8">L’Académie en respect,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Nonobstant l’incorrection,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">À la faveur du sujet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Ture-lure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">N’y fera point de rature;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Noël! ture-lure-lure.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent21"><span class="smcap">Gui-Barôzai.</span></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Quand les astres de Noël</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brillaient, palpitaient au ciel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Six gaillards, et chacun ivre,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Chantaient gaîment dans le givre,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent11">“Bons amis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Allons donc chez Agassiz!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ces illustres Pélerins</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">D’Outre Mer, adroits et fins,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Se donnant des airs de prêtre,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A l’envi se vantaient d’être,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent11">“Bons amis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">De Jean Rudolphe Agassiz.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Œil-de-Perdrix, grand farceur,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sans reproche et sans pudeur,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dans son patois de Bourgogne,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bredouillait comme un ivrogne,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent11">“Bons amis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">J’ai dansé chez Agassiz!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Verzenay le Champenois,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bon Français, point New-Yorquois,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mais des environs d’Avize,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fredonne, à mainte reprise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent11">“Bons amis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">J’ai chanté chez Agassiz!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">A côté marchait un vieux</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hidalgo, mais non mousseux;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dans le temps de Charlemagne,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fut son père Grand d’Espagne!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent11">“Bons amis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">J’ai diné chez Agassiz!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Derrière eux un Bordelais,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gascon, s’il en fût jamais,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Parfumé de poésie</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Riait, chantait plein de vie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent11">“Bons amis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">J’ai soupé chez Agassiz!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Avec ce beau cadet roux,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bras dessus et bras dessous,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mine altière et couleur terne,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vint le Sire de Sauterne;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent11">“Bon amis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">J’ai couché chez Agassiz!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mais le dernier de ces preux</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Était un pauvre Chartreux,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Qui disait, d’un ton robuste,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Bénédictions sur le Juste!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent11">Bon amis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bénissons Père Agassiz!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ils arrivent trois à trois,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Montent l’escalier de bois</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clopin-clopant! quel gendarme</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Peut permettre ce vacarme,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent11">Bons amis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">À la porte d’Agassiz!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ouvrez donc, mon bon Seigneur,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ouvrez vite et n’ayez peur;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ouvrez, ouvrez, car nous sommes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gens de bien et gentilshommes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent11">Bons amis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">De la famille Agassiz.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Chut, ganaches! taisez-vous!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">C’en est trop de vos glouglous</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Épargnez aux Philosophes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vos abominables strophes!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent11">Bons amis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Respectez mon Agassiz!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="XMAS_BELLS" class="center spa2">CHRISTMAS BELLS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">I heard the bells on Christmas Day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Their old, familiar carols play,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And wild and sweet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The words repeat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of peace on earth, good-will to men!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And thought how, as the day had come,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The belfries of all Christendom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Had rolled along</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The unbroken song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of peace on earth, good-will to men!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till, ringing, singing on its way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The world revolved from night to day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">A voice, a chime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">A chant sublime</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of peace on earth, good-will to men!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then from each black, accursèd mouth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The cannon thundered in the South,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And with the sound</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The carols drowned</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of peace on earth, good-will to men!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">It was as if an earthquake rent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The hearthstones of a continent,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And made forlorn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The households born</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of peace on earth, good-will to men!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in despair I bowed my head;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“There is no peace on earth,” I said;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">“For hate is strong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And mocks the song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“God is not dead! nor doth he sleep!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The Wrong shall fail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The Right prevail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With peace on earth, good-will to men!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illo_6.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="217" >
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><i>Sonnets.</i></h2>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p class="center spa2">AUTUMN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">With banners, by great gales incessant fanned,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_45_45" href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Outstretched with benedictions o’er the land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy shield is the red harvest moon suspended</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">So long beneath the heaven’s o’erhanging eaves;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Thy steps are by the farmer’s prayers attended;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden leaves!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="GIOTTO" class="center spa2">GIOTTO’S TOWER.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How many lives, made beautiful and sweet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">By self-devotion and by self-restraint,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Whose pleasure is to run without complaint</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">On unknown errands of the Paraclete,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wanting the reverence of unshodden feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Fail of the nimbus which the artists paint</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Around the shining forehead of the saint,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And are in their completeness incomplete!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the old Tuscan town stands Giotto’s tower,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The lily of Florence blossoming in stone,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">A vision, a delight, and a desire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The builder’s perfect and centennial flower,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">That in the night of ages bloomed alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">But wanting still the glory of the spire.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">DANTE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tuscan, that wanderest through the realms of gloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">With thoughtful pace, and sad majestic eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Stern thoughts and awful from thy soul arise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Like Farinata from his fiery tomb.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Yet in thy heart what human sympathies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">What soft compassion glows, as in the skies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The tender stars their clouded lamps relume!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Methinks I see thee stand, with pallid cheeks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">By Fra Hilario in his diocese,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">As up the convent-walls, in golden streaks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The ascending sunbeams mark the day’s decrease;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And, as he asks what there the stranger seeks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Thy voice along the cloisters whispers, “Peace!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="TOMORROW" class="center spa2">TO-MORROW.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Tis late at night, and in the realm of sleep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">My little lambs are folded like the flocks;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">From room to room I hear the wakeful clocks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Challenge the passing hour, like guards that keep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their solitary watch on tower and steep;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Far off I hear the crowing of the cocks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And through the opening door that time unlocks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Feel the fresh breathing of To-morrow creep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To-morrow! the mysterious, unknown guest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Who cries to me: “Remember Barmecide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And tremble to be happy with the rest.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I make answer: “I am satisfied;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">I dare not ask; I know not what is best;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">God hath already said what shall betide.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="EVENING" class="center spa2">THE EVENING STAR.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lo! in the painted oriel of the West,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Whose panes the sunken sun incarnadines</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Like a fair lady at her casement shines</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The Evening Star, the star of love and rest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then anon she doth herself divest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Of all her radiant garments, and reclines</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Behind the sombre screen of yonder pines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">My morning and my evening star of love!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent4">My best and gentlest lady! even thus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As that fair planet in the sky above,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Dost thou retire unto thy rest at night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And from thy darkened window fades the light.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="DIVINA" class="center spa2">DIVINA COMMEDIA.</p>
+<p class="f110">I.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Oft have I seen at some cathedral door</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">A labourer, pausing in the dust and heat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Enter and cross himself, and on the floor</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Kneel to repeat his pater-noster o’er;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Far off the noises of the world retreat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The loud vociferations of the street</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Become an undistinguishable roar.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So, as I enter here from day to day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And leave my burden at this minster gate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The tumult of the time disconsolate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To inarticulate murmurs dies away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">While the eternal ages watch and wait.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">II.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">What exultations trampling on despair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Uprose this poem of the earth and air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">This mediæval miracle of song!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">III.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I enter, and I see thee in the gloom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The air is filled with some unknown perfume;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The congregation of the dead make room</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Like rooks that haunt Ravenna’s groves of pine,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the confessionals I hear arise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And lamentations from the crypts below;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then a voice celestial, that begins</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">With the pathetic words, “Although your sins</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">As scarlet be,” and ends with “as the snow.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">IV.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">With forms of saints and holy men who died,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Here martyred and hereafter glorified;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the great Rose upon its leaves displays</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Christ’s Triumph, and the angelic roundelays</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">With splendour upon splendour multiplied;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And Beatrice again at Dante’s side</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">No more rebukes, but smiles her words of praise.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then the organ sounds, and unseen choirs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Sing the old Latin hymns of peace and love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And benedictions of the Holy Ghost;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the melodious bells among the spires</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">O’er all the house-tops and through heaven above</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Proclaim the elevation of the Host!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">V.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O star of morning and of liberty!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">O bringer of the light whose splendour shines</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Above the darkness of the Apennines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Forerunner of the day that is to be!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The voices of the city and the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The voices of the mountains and the pines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">As of a mighty wind, and men devout,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">In their own language hear thy wondrous word,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And many are amazed and many doubt.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="KEMBLE" class="center spa2">ON MRS. KEMBLE’S READINGS<br> FROM SHAKESPEARE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O precious evenings! all too swiftly sped!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Leaving us heirs to amplest heritages</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of all the best thoughts of the greatest sages,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And giving tongues unto the silent dead!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How our hearts glowed and trembled as she read,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Interpreting by tones the wondrous pages</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the great poet who foreruns the ages,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Anticipating all that shall be said!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O happy Reader! having for thy text</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The magic book, whose Sibylline leaves have caught</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rarest essence of all human thought!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O happy Poet! by no critic vexed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How must thy listening spirit now rejoice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To be interpreted by such a voice!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="NATURE" class="center spa2">NATURE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a fond mother when the day is o’er,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Leads by the hand her little child to bed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Half willing, half reluctant to be led,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And leave his broken playthings on the floor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still gazing at them through the open door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Nor wholly reassured and comforted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By promises of others in their stead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Which, though more splendid, may not please him more;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So Nature deals with us, and takes away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Our playthings one by one, and by the hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Leads us to rest so gently, that we go,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Scarce knowing if we wished to go or stay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Being too full of sleep to understand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">How far the unknown transcends the what we know.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="TARRYTOWN" class="center spa2">IN THE CHURCHYARD AT TARRYTOWN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here lies the gentle humourist, who died</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the bright Indian summer of his fame!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A simple stone, with but a date and name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Marks his secluded resting-place beside</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The river that he loved and glorified.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Here in the autumn of his days he came,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But the dry leaves of life were all aflame</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With tints that brightened and were multiplied.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How sweet a life was his; how sweet a death!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Living, to wing with mirth the weary hours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dying, to leave a memory like the breath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of summers full of sunshine and of showers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A grief and gladness in the atmosphere.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="ELIOT" class="center spa2">ELIOT’S OAK.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou ancient oak! whose myriad leaves are loud</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With sounds of unintelligible speech,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sounds as of surges on a shingly beach,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Or multitudinous murmurs of a crowd;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With some mysterious gift of tongues endowed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thou speakest a different dialect to each;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To me a language that no man can teach,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of a lost race, long vanished like a cloud.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For underneath thy shade, in days remote,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Seated like Abraham at eventide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beneath the oaks of Mamre, the unknown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Apostle of the Indians, Eliot, wrote</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">His Bible in a language that hath died</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And is forgotten, save by thee alone.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="MUSES" class="center spa2">THE DESCENT OF THE MUSES.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nine sisters, beautiful in form and face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Came from their convent on the shining heights</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of Pierus, the mountain of delights,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To dwell among the people at its base.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then seemed the world to change. All time and space,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Splendour of cloudless days and starry nights,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And men and manners, and all sounds and sights,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Had a new meaning, a diviner grace.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Proud were these sisters, but were not too proud</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To teach in schools of little country towns</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Science and song, and all the arts that please;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So that while housewives span, and farmers ploughed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Their comely daughters, clad in homespun gowns,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Learned the sweet songs of the Pierides.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="VENICE" class="center spa2">VENICE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">White swan of cities, slumbering in thy nest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">So wonderfully built among the reeds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of the lagoon, that fences thee and feeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As sayeth thy old historian and thy guest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">White water-lily, cradled and caressed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By ocean streams, and from the silt and weeds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Lifting thy golden filaments and seeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thy sun-illumined spires, thy crown and crest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">White phantom city, whose untrodden streets</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Shadows of palaces and strips of sky;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I wait to see thee vanish like the fleets</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Seen in mirage, or towers of cloud uplifting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In air their unsubstantial masonry.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="RIVERS" class="center spa2">THE TWO RIVERS.</p>
+
+<p class="f110">I.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Slowly the hour-hand of the clock moves round;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">So slowly that no human eye hath power</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To see it move! Slowly in shine or shower</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The painted ship above it, homeward bound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sails, but seems motionless, as if aground;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Yet both arrive at last; and in his tower</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The slumbrous watchman wakes and strikes the hour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A mellow, measured, melancholy sound.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Midnight! the outpost of advancing day!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The frontier town and citadel of night!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The watershed of Time, from which the streams</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Yesterday and To-morrow take their way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">One to the land of promise and of light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">One to the land of darkness and of dreams!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">II.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O River of Yesterday, with current swift</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through chasms descending, and soon lost to sight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I do not care to follow in thy flight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The faded leaves, that on thy bosom drift!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O River of To-morrow, I uplift</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Mine eyes, and thee I follow, as the night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wanes into morning, and the dawning light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Broadens, and all the shadows fade and shift!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I follow, follow, where thy waters run</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through unfrequented, unfamiliar fields,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Fragrant with flowers and musical with song;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still follow, follow; sure to meet the sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And confident, that what the future yields</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Will be the right, unless myself be wrong.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">III.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet not in vain, O River of Yesterday,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through chasms of darkness to the deep descending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I heard thee sobbing in the rain, and blending</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thy voice with other voices far away.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I called to thee, and yet thou wouldst not stay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But turbulent, and with thyself contending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And torrent-like thy force on pebbles spending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thou wouldst not listen to a poet’s lay.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thoughts, like a loud and sudden rush of wings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Regrets and recollections of things past,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With hints and prophecies of things to be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And inspirations, which, could they be things,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And stay with us, and we could hold them fast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Were our good angels,—these I owe to thee.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">IV.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thou, O River of To-morrow, flowing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Between thy narrow adamantine walls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But beautiful, and white with waterfalls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And wreaths of mist, like hands the pathway showing;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I hear the trumpets of the morning blowing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I hear thy mighty voice, that calls and calls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And see, as Ossian saw in Morven’s halls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Mysterious phantoms, coming, beckoning, going!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is the mystery of the unknown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That fascinates us; we are children still,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wayward and wistful; with one hand we cling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the familiar things we call our own,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And with the other, resolute of will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Grope in the dark for what the day will bring.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">CHAUCER.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">An old man in a lodge within a park;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The chamber walls depicted all around</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With portraitures of huntsman, hawk, and hound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the hurt deer. He listeneth to the lark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose song comes with the sunshine through the dark</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of painted glass in leaden lattice bound;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He listeneth and he laugheth at the sound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Then writeth in a book like any clerk.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The Canterbury Tales, and his old age</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Made beautiful with song; and as I read</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of lark and linnet, and from every page</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Rise odours of ploughed field or flowery mead.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="WOODSTOCK" class="center spa2">WOODSTOCK PARK.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here in a little rustic hermitage</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Alfred the Saxon King, Alfred the Great,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Postponed the cares of kingcraft to translate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The Consolations of the Roman sage.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here Geoffrey Chaucer in his ripe old age</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wrote the unrivalled Tales, which soon or late</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The venturous hand that strives to imitate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Vanquished must fall on the unfinished page.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Two kings were they, who ruled by right divine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And both supreme; one in the realm of Truth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">One in the realm of Fiction and of Song.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What prince hereditary of their line,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Uprising in the strength and flush of youth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Their glory shall inherit and prolong?</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="CAMBRIDGE" class="center spa2">ST. JOHN’S, CAMBRIDGE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I stand beneath the tree, whose branches shade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thy western window, Chapel of St. John!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And hear its leaves repeat thy benison</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On him, whose hand thy stones memorial laid;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then I remember one of whom was said</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the world’s darkest hour, “Behold thy son!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And see him living still, and wandering on</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And waiting for the advent long delayed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not only tongues of the apostles teach</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Lessons of love and light, but these expanding</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And sheltering boughs with all their leaves implore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And say in language clear as human speech,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“The peace of God, that passeth understanding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Be and abide with you for evermore!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">BOSTON.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">St. Botolph’s Town! Hither across the plains</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And fens of Lincolnshire, in garb austere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">There came a Saxon monk, and founded here</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A Priory, pillaged by marauding Danes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So that thereof no vestige now remains;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Only a name, that, spoken loud and clear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And echoed in another hemisphere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Survives the sculptured walls and painted panes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">St. Botolph’s Town! Far over leagues of land</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And leagues of sea looks forth its noble tower,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And far around the chiming bells are heard:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So may that sacred name for ever stand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A landmark, and a symbol of the power</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That lies concentred in a single word.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="BURIAL_POET" class="center spa2">THE BURIAL OF THE POET.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_46_46" href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a></p>
+<p class="f90">April 1879.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the old churchyard of his native town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in the ancestral tomb beside the wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We laid him in the sleep that comes to all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And left him to his rest and his renown.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The snow was falling, as if Heaven dropped down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">White flowers of Paradise to strew his pall;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The dead around him seemed to wake, and call</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His name, as worthy of so white a crown.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now the moon is shining on the scene,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the broad sheet of snow is written o’er</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With shadows cruciform of leafless trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As once the winding-sheet of Saladin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With chapters of the Koran; but ah! more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mysterious and triumphant signs are these.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="MOLINOS" class="center spa2">THE THREE SILENCES OF MOLINOS.</p>
+<p class="f90">TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Three Silences there are; the first of speech,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The second of desire, the third of thought;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">This is the lore a Spanish monk, distraught</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With dreams and visions, was the first to teach.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">These Silences, commingling each with each,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Made up the perfect Silence that he sought</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And prayed for, and wherein at times he caught</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Mysterious sounds from realms beyond our reach.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O thou, whose daily life anticipates</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The life to come, and in whose thought and word</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The spiritual world preponderates,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hermit of Amesbury! thou too hast heard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Voices and melodies from beyond the gates,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And speakest only when thy soul is stirred!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/ill_028.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="578" >
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“<i>St. Bodolph’s Town! Far over leagues of land</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>And leagues of sea looks forth its noble tower,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>And far around the charming bells are heard.</i>”</div>
+ </div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">MY CATHEDRAL.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like two cathedral towers these stately pines</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Uplift their fretted summits tipped with cones;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The arch beneath them is not built with stones,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Not Art but Nature traced these lovely lines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And carved this graceful arabesque of vines;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">No organ but the wind here sighs and moans,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">No sepulchre conceals a martyr’s bones,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">No marble bishop on his tomb reclines.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Enter! the pavement carpeted with leaves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Gives back a softened echo to thy tread!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Listen! the choir is singing; all the birds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In leafy galleries beneath the eaves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Are singing! Listen ere the sound be fled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And learn there may be worship without words.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="RHONE" class="center spa2">TO THE RIVER RHONE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou Royal River, born of sun and shower</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In chambers purple with the Alpine glow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wrapped in the spotless ermine of the snow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And rocked by tempests!—at the appointed hour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Forth, like a steel-clad horseman from a tower,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With clang and clink of harness dost thou go</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To meet thy vassal torrents, that below</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Rush to receive thee and obey thy power.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now thou movest in triumphal march,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A king among the rivers! On thy way</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A hundred towns await and welcome thee;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bridges uplift for thee the stately arch,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Vineyards encircle thee with garlands gay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And fleets attend thy progress to the sea!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="WAPENTAKE" class="center spa2">WAPENTAKE.</p>
+<p class="f90"><i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Alfred Tennyson</span>.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Poet! I come to touch thy lance with mine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Not as a knight who on the listed field</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of tourney touched his adversary’s shield</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In token of defiance, but in sign</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of homage to the mastery, which is thine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In English song; nor will I keep concealed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And voiceless as a rivulet frost-congealed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">My admiration for thy verse divine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not of the howling dervishes of song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who craze the brain with their delirious dance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Art thou, O sweet historian of the heart!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Therefore to thee the laurel-leaves belong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To thee our love and our allegiance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For thy allegiance to the poet’s art.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">THE BROKEN OAR.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Once upon Iceland’s solitary strand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A poet wandered with his book and pen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Seeking some final word, some sweet Amen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wherewith to close the volume in his hand.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The billows rolled and plunged upon the sand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The circling sea-gulls swept beyond his ken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And from the parting cloud-rack now and then</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Flashed the red sunset over sea and land.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then by the billows at his feet was tossed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A broken oar; and carved thereon he read,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Oft was I weary, when I toiled at thee;”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And like a man who findeth what was lost,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He wrote the words, then lifted up his head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And flung his useless pen into the sea.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="AGASSIZ" class="center spa2">AGASSIZ.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I stand again on the familiar shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And hear the waves of the distracted sea</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Piteously calling and lamenting thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And waiting restless at thy cottage door.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rocks, the sea-weed on the ocean floor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The willows in the meadow, and the free</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wild winds of the Atlantic welcome me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Then why shouldst thou be dead and come no more!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! why shouldst thou be dead when common men</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Are busy with their trivial affairs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Having and holding? Why, when thou hadst read</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nature’s mysterious manuscript, and then</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wast ready to reveal the truth it bears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Why art thou silent? Why shouldst thou be dead?</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illo_8.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="105" >
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</span></p>
+ <h2 class="nobreak">THE HANGING OF THE CRANE.</h2>
+<p class="center">1874.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p class="f90 blockquot"><i>Pendre la Crémaillière</i>, to Hang the Crane, is a French
+expression for a house-warming, or the first party given in a new house.</p>
+
+<p class="f110">I.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The lights are out, and gone are all the guests</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That thronging came with merriment and jests</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To celebrate the Hanging of the Crane</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the new house—into the night are gone;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But still the fire upon the hearth burns on,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And I alone remain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O fortunate, O happy day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When a new household finds its place</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Among the myriad homes of earth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a new star just sprung to birth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And rolled on its harmonious way</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the boundless realms of space!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So said the guests in speech and song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As in the chimney, burning bright,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We hung the iron crane to-night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And merry was the feast and long.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">II.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now I sit and muse on what may be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in my vision see, or seem to see,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through floating vapours interfused with light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shapes indeterminate, that gleam and fade,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As shadows passing into deeper shade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Sink and elude the sight.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For two alone, there in the hall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is spread the table, round and small;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon the polished silver shine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The evening lamps, but, more divine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The light of love shines over all;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of love, that says not mine and thine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But ours, for ours is thine and mine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They want no guests, to come between</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their tender glances like a screen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And tell them tales of land and sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And whatsoever may betide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The great, forgotten world outside;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They want no guests; they needs must be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each other’s own best company.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">III.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The picture fades; as at a village fair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A showman’s views, dissolving into air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Again appear transfigured on the screen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So in my fancy this; and now once more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In part transfigured, through the open door</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Appears the selfsame scene.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seated, I see the two again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But not alone; they entertain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A little angel unaware,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With face as round as is the moon;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A royal guest with flaxen hair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who, throned upon his lofty chair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Drums on the table with his spoon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then drops it careless on the floor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To grasp at things unseen before.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are these celestial manners? these</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The ways that win, the arts that please?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah yes; consider well the guest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And whatsoe’er he does seems best;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He ruleth by the right divine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of helplessness, so lately born</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In purple chambers of the morn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As sovereign over thee and thine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He speaketh not; and yet there lies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A conversation in his eyes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The golden silence of the Greek,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The gravest wisdom of the wise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not spoken in language, but in looks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">More legible than printed books,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if he could but would not speak.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And now, O monarch absolute,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy power is put to proof; for lo!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Resistless, fathomless, and slow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The nurse comes rustling like the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And pushes back thy chair and thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And so good night to King Canute.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">IV.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As one who walking in a forest sees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A lovely landscape through the parted trees,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Then sees it not, for boughs that intervene</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or as we see the moon sometimes revealed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through drifting clouds, and then again concealed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">So I behold the scene.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There are two guests at table now;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The king, deposed and older grown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No longer occupies the throne,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The crown is on his sister’s brow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A Princess from the Fairy Isles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The very pattern girl of girls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All covered and embowered in curls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rose-tinted from the Isle of Flowers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sailing with soft, silken sails</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From far-off Dreamland into ours.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Above their bowls with rims of blue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Four azure eyes of deeper hue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are looking, dreamy with delight;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Limpid as planets that emerge</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Above the ocean’s rounded verge,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Soft-shining through the summer night.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stedfast they gaze, yet nothing see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beyond the horizon of their bowls;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor care they for the world that rolls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With all its freight of troubled souls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the days that are to be.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">V.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Again the tossing boughs shut out the scene,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Again the drifting vapours intervene,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the moon’s pallid disk is hidden quite;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now I see the table wider grown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As round a pebble into water thrown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Dilates a ring of light.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see the table wider grown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see it garlanded with guests,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if fair Ariadne’s Crown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out of the sky had fallen down;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Maidens within whose tender breasts</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A thousand restless hopes and fears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Forth reaching to the coming years,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Flutter a while, then quiet lie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like timid birds that fain would fly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But do not care to leave their nests;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And youths, who in their strength elate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Challenge the van and front of fate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Eager as champions to be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the divine knight-errantry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of youth, that travels sea and land</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seeking adventures, or pursues,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through cities and through solitudes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Frequented by the lyric Muse,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The phantom with the beckoning hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That still allures and still eludes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O sweet illusions of the brain!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O sudden thrills of fire and frost!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The world is bright while ye remain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And dark and dead when ye are lost!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f110">VI.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The meadow-brook, that seemeth to stand still,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Quickens its current as it nears the mill;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And so the stream of Time that lingereth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In level places, and so dull appears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Runs with a swifter current as it nears</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The gloomy mills of Death.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now, like the magician’s scroll,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That in the owner’s keeping shrinks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With every wish he speaks or thinks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till the last wish consumes the whole,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The table dwindles, and again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see the two alone remain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The crown of stars is broken in parts;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its jewels, brighter than the day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have one by one been stolen away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To shine in other homes and hearts.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One is a wanderer now afar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In Ceylon or in Zanzibar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or sunny regions of Cathay;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And one is in the boisterous camp</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mid clink of arms and horses’ tramp,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And battle’s terrible array.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see the patient mother read,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With aching heart, of wrecks that float</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Disabled on those seas remote,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or of some great heroic deed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On battle-fields, where thousands bleed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To lift one hero into fame.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Anxious she bends her graceful head</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Above these chronicles of pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And trembles with a secret dread</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lest there among the drowned or slain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She find the one beloved name.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</span></p>
+<p class="f110">VII.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">After a day of cloud and wind and rain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sometimes the setting sun breaks out again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And, touching all the darksome woods with light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Smiles on the fields, until they laugh and sing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then like a ruby from the horizon’s ring</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Drops down into the night.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What see I now? The night is fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The storm of grief, the clouds of care,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wind, the rain, have passed away;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The lamps are lit, the fires burn bright,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The house is full of life and light:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is the Golden Wedding-day.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The guests come thronging in once more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Quick footsteps sound along the floor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The trooping children crowd the stair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in and out and everywhere</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Flashes along the corridor</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sunshine of their golden hair.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the round table in the hall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Another Ariadne’s Crown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out of the sky hath fallen down;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">More than one Monarch of the Moon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is drumming with his silver spoon;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The light of love shines over all.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O fortunate, O happy day!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The people sing, the people say.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The ancient bridegroom and the bride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Serenely smiling on the scene,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Behold, well-pleased, on every side</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their forms and features multiplied,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the reflection of a light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Between two burnished mirrors gleams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or lamps upon a bridge at night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stretch on and on before the sight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till the long vista endless seems.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="SALUTAMUS">MORITURI SALUTAMUS.</h2>
+<p class="center">1875.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+<p class="f90">
+[This poem was delivered on the occasion of<br>the 50th anniversary of the Bowdoin College<br>
+Class of 1825.]</p>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent6">Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Et fugiunt freno non remorante dies.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent21"><span class="smcap">Ovid</span>, <i>Fastorum</i>, Lib. vi.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O Cæsar, we who are about to die</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Salute you!” was the gladiators’ cry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the arena, standing face to face</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With death and with the Roman populace.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">O ye familiar scenes—ye groves of pine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That once were mine and are no longer mine,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou river, widening through the meadows green</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the vast sea, so near and yet unseen,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ye halls, in whose seclusion and repose</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Phantoms of fame, like exhalations, rose</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And vanished,—we who are about to die</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Salute you; earth and air and sea and sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Imperial Sun that scatters down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His sovereign splendours upon grove and town.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Ye do not answer us! ye do not hear!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We are forgotten; and in your austere</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And calm indifference, ye little care</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whether we come or go, or whence or where.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What passing generations fill these halls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What passing voices echo from these walls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ye heed not; we are only as the blast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A moment heard, and then for ever past.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Not so the teachers who in earlier days</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Led our bewildered feet through learning’s maze;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They answer us—alas! what have I said?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What greetings come there from the voiceless dead?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What salutation, welcome, or reply?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What pressure from the hands that lifeless lie?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They are no longer here; they all are gone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the land of shadows—all save one.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Honour and reverence, and the good repute</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That follows faithful service as its fruit,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Be unto him, whom living we salute.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The great Italian poet, when he made</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His dreadful journey to the realms of shade,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Met there the old instructor of his youth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And cried in tones of pity and of ruth:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O never from the memory of my heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Your dear paternal image shall depart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who while on earth, ere yet by death surprised</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Taught me how mortals are immortalized;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How grateful am I for that patient care,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All my life long my language shall declare.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To-day we make the poet’s words our own,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And utter them in plaintive undertone;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor to the living only be they said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But to the other living, called the dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whose dear, paternal images appear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not wrapped in gloom, but robed in sunshine here;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whose simple lives, complete and without flaw,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were part and parcel of great Nature’s law;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who said not to their Lord, as if afraid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Here is thy talent in a napkin laid,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But laboured in their sphere, as those who live</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the delight that work alone can give.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Peace be to them; eternal peace and rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the fulfilment of the great behest:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ye have been faithful over a few things,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Over ten cities shall ye reign as kings.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And ye who fill the places we once filled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And follow in the furrows that we tilled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Young men, whose generous hearts are beating high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We who are old, and are about to die,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Salute you; hail you; take your hands in ours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And crown you with our welcome as with flowers!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How beautiful is youth! how bright it gleams</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With its illusions, aspirations, dreams!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Book of Beginnings, Story without End,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Aladdin’s Lamp, and Fortunatus’ Purse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That holds the treasure of the universe!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All possibilities are in its hands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No danger daunts it, and no foe withstands;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In its sublime audacity of faith,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Be thou removed!” it to the mountain saith</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with ambitious feet, secure and proud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ascends the ladder leaning on the cloud!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As ancient Priam at the Scæan gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sat on the walls of Troy in regal state</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the old men, too old and weak to fight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Chirping like grasshoppers in their delight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To see the embattled hosts, with spear and shield,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of Trojans and Achaians in the field;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So from the snowy summits of our years</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We see you in the plain, as each appears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And question of you; asking, “Who is he</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That towers above the others? Which may be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Atreides, Menelaus, Odysseus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ajax the great, or bold Idomeneus?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Let him not boast who puts his armour on</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he who puts it off, the battle done.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Study yourselves; and most of all note well</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wherein kind Nature meant you to excel.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not every blossom ripens into fruit;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Minerva, the inventress of the flute,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flung it aside, when she her face surveyed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Distorted in a fountain as she played;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The unlucky Marsyas found it, and his fate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was one to make the bravest hesitate.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Write on your doors the saying wise and old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Be bold! be bold! and everywhere be bold;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Be not too bold!” Yet better the excess</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than the defect; better the more than less;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Better like Hector in the field to die,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than like the perfumed Paris turn and fly.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And now, my classmates; ye remaining few</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That number not the half of those we knew;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ye, against whose familiar names not yet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The fatal asterisk of death is set,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ye I salute! The horologe of Time</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strikes the half-century with a solemn chime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And summons us together once again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The joy of meeting not unmixed with pain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Where are the others? Voices from the deep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Caverns of darkness answer me: “They sleep!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I name no names; instinctively I feel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each at some well-remembered grave will kneel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And from the inscription wipe the weeds and moss,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For every heart best knoweth its own loss.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I see the scattered grave-stones gleaming white</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the pale dusk of the impending night.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’er all alike the impartial sunset throws</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Its golden lilies mingled with the rose;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We give to all a tender thought, and pass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Out of the grave-yards with their tangled grass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unto these scenes frequented by our feet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When we were young, and life was fresh and sweet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">What shall I say to you? What can I say</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Better than silence is? When I survey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This throng of faces turned to meet my own,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Friendly and fair, and yet to me unknown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Transformed the very landscape seems to be;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It is the same, yet not the same to me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So many memories crowd upon my brain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So many ghosts are in the wooded plain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I fain would steal away with noiseless tread</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As from a house where some one lieth dead.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">I cannot go;—I pause;—I hesitate;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">My feet reluctant linger at the gate;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As one who struggles in a troubled dream</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To speak and cannot, to myself I seem.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Vanish the dream! Vanish the idle fears!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vanish the rolling mists of fifty years!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whatever time or space may intervene,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I will not be a stranger in this scene.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here every doubt, all indecision ends;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hail, my companions, comrades, classmates, friends!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Ah me! the fifty years since last we met</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seem to me fifty folios bound and set</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By Time, the great transcriber, on his shelves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wherein are written the histories of ourselves.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What tragedies, what comedies, are there;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What joy and grief, what rapture and despair!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What chronicles of triumph and defeat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of struggle, and temptation, and retreat!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What records of regrets, and doubts, and fears!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What pages blotted, blistered by our tears!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What lovely landscapes on the margin shine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What sweet, angelic faces, what divine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And holy images of love and trust,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Undimmed by age, unsoiled by damp or dust!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whose hand shall dare to open and explore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">These volumes, closed and clasped for evermore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not mine. With reverential feet I pass;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I hear a voice that cries, “Alas! alas!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whatever hath been written shall remain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nor be erased nor written o’er again;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The unwritten only still belongs to thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Take heed, and ponder well what that shall be.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As children frightened by a thunder-cloud</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Are reassured if some one reads aloud</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A tale of wonder, with enchantment fraught,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or wild adventure, that diverts their thought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let me endeavour with a tale to chase</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The gathering shadows of the time and place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And banish what we all too deeply feel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wholly to say, or wholly to conceal.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In mediæval Rome, I know not where,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There stood an image with its arm in air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And on its lifted finger, shining clear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A golden ring with the device, “Strike here!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Greatly the people wondered, though none guessed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The meaning that these words but half expressed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Until a learnèd clerk, who at noonday</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With downcast eyes was passing on his way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Paused, and observed the spot, and marked it well,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whereon the shadow of the finger fell;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, coming back at midnight, delved, and found</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A secret stairway leading underground.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down this he passed into a spacious hall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lit by a flaming jewel on the wall;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And opposite a brazen statue stood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With bow and shaft in threatening attitude;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Upon its forehead, like a coronet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were these mysterious words of menace set:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“That which I am, I am; my fatal aim</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">None can escape, not even yon luminous flame!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Midway the hall was a fair table placed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With cloth of gold, and golden cups enchased</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With rubies, and the plates and knives were gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And gold the bread and viands manifold.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Around it, silent, motionless, and sad,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were seated gallant knights in armour clad,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And ladies beautiful with plume and zone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But they were stone, their hearts within were stone;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the vast hall was filled in every part</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With silent crowds, stony in face and heart.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Long at the scene, bewildered and amazed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The trembling clerk in speechless wonder gazed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then from the table, by his greed made bold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He seized a goblet and a knife of gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And suddenly from their seats the guests upsprang,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The vaulted ceiling with loud clamours rang,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The archer sped his arrow, at their call,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shattering the lambent jewel on the wall,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And all was dark around and overhead;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stark on the floor the luckless clerk lay dead!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The writer of this legend then records</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Its ghostly application in these words:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The image is the Adversary old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whose beckoning finger points to realms of gold;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Our lusts and passions are the downward stair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That leads the soul from a diviner air;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The archer, Death; the flaming jewel, Life!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Terrestrial goods, the goblet and the knife;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The knights and ladies, all whose flesh and bone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By avarice have been hardened into stone;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The clerk, the scholar whom the love of pelf</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tempts from his books and from his nobler self.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The scholar and the world! The endless strife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The discord in the harmonies of life!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And all the sweet serenity of books;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The market-place, the eager love of gain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whose aim is vanity, and whose end is pain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But why, you ask me, should this tale be told</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To men grown old, or who are growing old?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It is too late! Ah, nothing is too late</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wrote his grand Œdipus, and Simonides</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When each had numbered more than fourscore years;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had but begun his Characters of Men.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Goethe, at Weimar, toiling to the last,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Completed Faust when eighty years were past.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">These are, indeed, exceptions; but they show</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the Arctic regions of our lives,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where little else than life itself survives.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As the barometer foretells the storm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While still the skies are clear, the weather warm,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So something in us, as old age draws near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Betrays the pressure of the atmosphere.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The nimble mercury, ere we are aware,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Descends the elastic ladder of the air;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The tell-tale blood in artery and vein</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sinks from its higher levels in the brain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whatever poet, orator, or sage</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">May say of it, old age is still old age.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It is the waning, not the crescent moon;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The dusk of evening, not the blaze of noon:</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It is not strength, but weakness; not desire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But its surcease; not the fierce heat of fire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The burning and consuming element,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But that of ashes and of embers spent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In which some living sparks we still discern,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Enough to warm, but not enough to burn.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">What then? Shall we sit idly down and say</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The night hath come; it is no longer day?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The night hath not yet come; we are not quite</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cut off from labour by the failing light;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Something remains for us to do or dare;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not Œdipus Coloneus, or Greek Ode,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or tales of pilgrims that one morning rode</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Out of the gateway of the Tabard Inn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But other something, would we but begin;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For age is opportunity no less</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than youth itself, though in another dress,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as the evening twilight fades away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illo_7.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="242" >
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><i>Kéramos.</i></h2>
+<p class="center">1878.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Turn, turn, my wheel! Turn round and round</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>Without a pause, without a sound:</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>So spins the flying world, away!</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>This clay, well mixed with marl and sand,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>Follows the motion of my hand;</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>For some must follow, and some command,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>Though all are made of clay!</i></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus sang the Potter at his task</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Beneath the blossoming hawthorn-tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">While o’er his features, like a mask,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The quilted sunshine and leaf-shade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Moved, as the boughs above him swayed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And clothed him, till he seemed to be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A figure woven in tapestry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">So sumptuously was he arrayed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In that magnificent attire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of sable tissue flaked with fire.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Like a magician he appeared,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A conjurer without book or beard;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And while he plied his magic art—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">For it was magical to me—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">I stood in silence and apart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And wondered more and more to see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That shapeless, lifeless mass of clay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Rise up to meet the master’s hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And now contract and now expand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And even his slightest touch obey;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">While ever in a thoughtful mood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He sang his ditty, and at times</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Whistled a tune between the rhymes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As a melodious interlude.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>To something new, to something strange;</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>Nothing that is can pause or stay;</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>The moon will wax, the moon will wane,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>The mist and cloud will turn to rain,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>The rain to mist and cloud again,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>To-morrow be to-day.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus still the Potter sang, and still,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">By some unconscious act of will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The melody and even the words</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Were intermingled with my thought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As bits of coloured thread are caught</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And woven into nests of birds.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And thus to regions far remote,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Beyond the ocean’s vast expanse,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">This wizard in the motley coat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Transported me on wings of song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And by the northern shores of France</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Bore me with restless speed along.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">What land is this that seems to be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A mingling of the land and sea?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">This land of sluices, dikes, and dunes?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">This water-net, that tesselates</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The landscape? this unending maze</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of gardens, through whose latticed gates</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The imprisoned pinks and tulips gaze;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Where in long summer afternoons</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The sunshine, softened by the haze,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Comes streaming down as through a screen;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Where over fields and pastures green</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The painted ships float high in air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And over all and everywhere</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The sails of windmills sink and soar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Like wings of sea-gulls on the shore?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">What land is this? Yon pretty town</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Is Delft, with all its wares displayed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The pride, the market-place, the crown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And centre of the Potter’s trade.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">See! every house and room is bright</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With glimmers of reflected light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From plates that on the dresser shine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Flagons to foam with Flemish beer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Or sparkle with the Rhenish wine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And pilgrim flasks with fleur-de-lis,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And ships upon a rolling sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And tankards pewter topped, and queer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With comic mask and musketeer!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Each hospitable chimney smiles</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A welcome from its painted tiles;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The parlour walls, the chamber floors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The stairways and the corridors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The borders of the garden walks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Are beautiful with fadeless flowers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That never droop in winds or showers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And never wither on their stalks.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Turn, turn, my wheel! All life is brief;</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>What now is bud will soon be leaf,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>What now is leaf will soon decay;</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>The wind blows east, the wind blows west;</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>The blue eggs in the robin’s nest</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>Will soon have wings and beak and breast,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>And flutter and fly away.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Now southward through the air I glide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The song my only pursuivant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And see across the landscape wide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The blue Charente, upon whose tide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The belfries and the spires of Saintes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Ripple and rock from side to side,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As, when an earthquake rends its walls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A crumbling city reels and falls.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Who is it in the suburbs here,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">This Potter, working with such cheer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In this mean house, this mean attire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">His manly features bronzed with fire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Whose figulines and rustic wares</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Scarce find him bread from day to day?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">This madman, as the people say,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Who breaks his tables and his chairs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To feed his furnace fires, nor cares</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Who goes unfed if they are fed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Nor who may live if they are dead?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">This alchemist with hollow cheeks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And sunken, searching eyes, who seeks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">By mingled earths and ores combined</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With potency of fire, to find</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Some new enamel, hard and bright,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">His dream, his passion, his delight?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">O Palissy! within thy breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">I tamed the hot fever of unrest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thine was the prophet’s vision, thine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The exultation, the divine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Insanity of noble minds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That never falters nor abates,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But labours and endures and waits,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Till all that it foresees it finds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Or what it cannot find creates!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Turn, turn, my wheel! This earthen jar</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>A touch can make, a touch can mar;</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>And shall it to the Potter say,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>What makest thou? Thou hast no hand?</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>As men who think to understand</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>A world by their Creator planned,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>Who wiser is than they.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Still guided by the dreamy song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As in a trance I float along</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Above the Pyrenean chain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Above the fields and farms of Spain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Above the bright Majorcan isle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That lends its softened name to art,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A spot, a dot upon the chart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Whose little towns, red-roofed with tile,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Are ruby-lustred with the light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of blazing furnaces by night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And crowned by day with wreaths of smoke.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Then eastward, wafted in my flight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On my enchanter’s magic cloak,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">I sail across the Tyrrhene Sea</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Into the land of Italy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And o’er the windy Apennines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Mantled and musical with pines.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">The palaces, the princely halls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The doors of houses, and the walls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of churches and of belfry towers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Cloister and castle, street and mart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Are garlanded and gay with flowers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That blossom in the fields of art.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Here Gubbio’s workshops gleam and glow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With brilliant, iridescent dyes,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The dazzling whiteness of the snow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The cobalt blue of summer skies;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And vase, and scutcheon, cup and plate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In perfect finish emulate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Faenza, Florence, Pesaro.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Forth from Urbino’s gate there came</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A youth with the angelic name</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of Raphael, in form and face</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Himself angelic, and divine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In arts of colour and design.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From him Francesco Xanto caught</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Something of his transcendent grace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And into fictile fabrics wrought</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Suggestions of the master’s thought.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Nor less Maestro Giorgio shines</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With madre-perl and golden lines</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of arabesques, and interweaves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">His birds and fruits and flowers and leaves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">About some landscape, shaded brown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With olive tints on rock and town.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Behold this cup within whose bowl,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Upon a ground of deepest blue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With yellow-lustred stars o’erlaid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Colours of every tint and hue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Mingle in one harmonious whole!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With large blue eyes and steadfast gaze,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Her yellow hair in net and braid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Necklace and ear-rings all ablaze</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With golden lustre o’er the glaze,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A woman’s portrait; on the scroll,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Cana, the beautiful! A name</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Forgotten save for such brief fame</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As this memorial can bestow,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A gift some lover long ago</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Gave with his heart to this fair dame.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">A nobler title to renown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Is thine, O pleasant Tuscan town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Seated beside the Arno’s stream;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">For Lucca della Robbia there</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Created forms so wondrous fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">They made thy sovereignty supreme.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">These choristers with lips of stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Whose music is not heard, but seen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Still chant, as from their organ-screen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Their Maker’s praise; nor these alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But the more fragile forms of clay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Hardly less beautiful than they.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">These saints and angels that adorn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The walls of hospitals, and tell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The story of good deeds so well,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That poverty seems less forlorn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And life more like a holiday.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Here in this old neglected church,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That long eludes the traveller’s search,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Lies the dead bishop on his tomb;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Earth upon earth he slumbering lies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Life-like and death-like in the gloom;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Garlands of fruit and flowers in bloom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And foliage deck his resting-place;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A shadow in the sightless eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A pallor on the patient face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Made perfect by the furnace heat;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All earthly passions and desires</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Burnt out by purgatorial fires;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Seeming to say, “Our years are fleet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And to the weary death is sweet.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">But the most wonderful of all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The ornaments on tomb or wall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That grace the fair Ausonian shores</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Are those the faithful earth restores,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Near some Apulian town concealed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In vineyard or in harvest field,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Vases and urns and bas-reliefs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Memorials of forgotten griefs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Or records of heroic deeds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of demigods and mighty chiefs:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Figures that almost move and speak,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And, buried amid mould and weeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Still in their attitudes attest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The presence of the graceful Greek,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Achilles in his armour dressed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Alcides with the Cretan bull,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Aphrodite with her boy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Or lovely Helena of Troy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Still living and still beautiful.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Turn, turn, my wheel! ’Tis nature’s plan</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>The child should grow into the man,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>The man grow wrinkled, old, and grey;</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>In youth the heart exults and sings,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>The pulses leap, the feet have wings;</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>In age the cricket chirps, and brings</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>The harvest home of day.</i></div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">And now the winds that southward blow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And cool the hot Sicilian isle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Bear me away. I see below</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The long line of the Libyan Nile,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Flooding and feeding the parched lands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With annual ebb and overflow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A fallen palm whose branches lie</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Beneath the Abyssinian sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Whose roots are in Egyptian sands.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On either bank huge water-wheels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Belted with jars and dripping weeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Send forth their melancholy moans,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As if, in their grey mantles hid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Dead anchorites of the Thebaid</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Knelt on the shore and told their beads,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Beating their breasts with loud appeals</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And penitential tears and groans.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">This city, walled and thickly set</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With glittering mosque and minaret,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Is Cairo, in whose gay bazaars</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The dreaming traveller first inhales</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The perfume of Arabian gales,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And sees the fabulous earthen jars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Huge as were those wherein the maid</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Morgiana found the Forty Thieves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Concealed in midnight ambuscade;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And seeing, more than half believes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The fascinating tales that run</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Through all the Thousand Nights and One,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Told by the fair Scheherezade.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">More strange and wonderful than these</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Are the Egyptian deities,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Ammon, and Emoth, and the grand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Osiris, holding in his hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The lotus; Isis, crowned and veiled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The sacred Ibis, and the Sphinx;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Bracelets with blue enamelled links;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The Scarabee in emerald mailed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Or spreading wide his funeral wings;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Lamps that perchance their night-watch kept</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">O’er Cleopatra where she slept,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All plundered from the tombs of kings.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Turn, turn, my wheel! The human race,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>Of every tongue, of every place,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>Caucasian, Coptic, or Malay,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>All that inhabit this great earth,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>Whatever be their rank or worth,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>Are kindred and allied by birth,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>And made of the same clay.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">O’er desert sands, o’er gulf and bay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">O’er Ganges and o’er Himalay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Bird-like I fly, and flying sing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To flowery kingdoms of Cathay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And bird-like poise on balanced wing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Above the town of King-te-tching,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A burning town, or seeming so,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Three thousand furnaces that glow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Incessantly, and fill the air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With smoke uprising, gyre on gyre,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And painted by the lurid glare</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of jets and flashes of red fire.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">As leaves that in the autumn fall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Spotted and veined with various hues,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Are swept along the avenues,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And lie in heaps by hedge and wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">So from this grove of chimneys whirled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To all the markets of the world,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">These porcelain leaves are wafted on,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Light yellow leaves with spots and stains</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of violet and of crimson dye,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Or tender azure of a sky</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Just washed by gentle April rains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And beautiful with celadon.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Nor less the coarser household wares,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The willow pattern, that we knew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In childhood, with its bridge of blue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Leading to unknown thoroughfares;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The solitary man who stares</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">At the white river flowing through</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Its arches, the fantastic trees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And wild perspective of the view;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And intermingled among these</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The tiles that in our nurseries</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Filled us with wonder and delight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Or haunted us in dreams at night.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">And yonder by Nankin, behold!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The Tower of Porcelain, strange and old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Uplifting to the astonished skies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Its ninefold painted balconies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With balustrades of twining leaves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And roofs of tile, beneath whose eaves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Hang porcelain bells that all the time</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Ring with a soft, melodious chime;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">While the whole fabric is ablaze</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With varied tints, all fused in one</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Great mass of colour, like a maze</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of flowers illumined by the sun.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Turn, turn, my wheel! What is begun</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>At daybreak must at dark be done,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>To-morrow will be another day,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>To-morrow the hot furnace flame</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>Will search the heart and try the frame,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>And stamp with honour or with shame</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>These vessels made of clay.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Cradled and rocked in Eastern seas</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The islands of the Japanese</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Beneath me lie; o’er lake and plain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The stork, the heron, and the crane</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Through the clear realms of azure drift,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And on the hill-side I can see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The villages of Imari,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Whose thronged and flaming workshops lift</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Their twisted columns of smoke on high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Cloud cloisters that in ruins lie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With sunshine streaming through each rift,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And broken arches of blue sky.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">All the bright flowers that fill the land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Ripple of waves on rock or sand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The snow on Fusiyama’s cone.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The midnight heaven so thickly sown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With constellations of bright stars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The leaves that rustle, the reeds that make</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A whisper by each stream and lake,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The saffron dawn, the sunset red,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Are painted on these lovely jars;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Again the skylark sings, again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The stork, the heron, and the crane</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Float through the azure overhead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The counterfeit and counterpart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of Nature reproduced in Art.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Art is the child of Nature; yes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Her darling child, in whom we trace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The features of the mother’s face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Her aspect and her attitude,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All her majestic loveliness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Chastened and softened and subdued</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Into a more attractive grace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And with a human sense imbued.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He is the greatest artist, then,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Whether of pencil or of pen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Who follows Nature. Never man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As artist or as artisan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Pursuing his own fantasies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Can touch the human heart, or please,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Or satisfy our nobler needs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As he who sets his willing feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In Nature’s footprints, light and fleet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And follows fearless where she leads.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus mused I on that morn in May,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Wrapped in my visions like the Seer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Whose eyes behold not what is near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But only what is far away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">When, suddenly sounding peal on peal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The church-bell from the neighbouring town</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Proclaimed the welcome hour of noon.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The Potter heard, and stopped his wheel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">His apron on the grass threw down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Whistled his quiet little tune,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Not overloud nor overlong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And ended thus his simple song:</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Stop, stop, my wheel! Too soon, too soon</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>The noon will be the afternoon,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>Too soon to-day be yesterday;</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>Behind us in our path we cast</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>The broken potsherds of the past,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>And all are ground to dust at last,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent5"><i>And trodden into clay!</i></div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illo_12.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="99" >
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><i>Birds of passage.</i></h2>
+<p class="center">1858 TO 1880.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+<p class="f110">FLIGHT THE FIRST.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">... come i gru van cantando lor lai,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Facendo in aer di sè lunga riga.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent26"><span class="smcap">Dante.</span></div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p class="center spa2">PROMETHEUS;</p>
+<p class="f90">OR, THE POET’S FORETHOUGHT.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Prometheus, how undaunted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On Olympus’ shining bastions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His audacious foot he planted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Myths are told and songs are chanted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Full of promptings and suggestions.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beautiful is the tradition</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of that flight through heavenly portals,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The old classic superstition</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the theft and the transmission</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of the fire of the Immortals!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">First the deed of noble daring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Born of heavenward aspiration,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then the fire with mortals sharing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then the vulture,—the despairing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Cry of pain on crags Caucasian.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All is but a symbol painted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of the Poet, Prophet, Seer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only those are crowned and sainted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who with grief have been acquainted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Making nations nobler, freer.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In their feverish exultations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In their triumph and their yearning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In their passionate pulsations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In their words among the nations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The Promethean fire is burning.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall it, then, be unavailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All this toil for human culture?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the cloud-rack, dark and trailing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Must they see above them sailing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O’er life’s barren crags the vulture?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such a fate as this was Dante’s,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By defeat and exile maddened;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus were Milton and Cervantes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nature’s priests and Corybantes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By affliction touched and saddened.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the glories so transcendent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That around their memories cluster,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, on all their steps attendant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Make their darkened lives resplendent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With such gleams of inward lustre!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the melodies mysterious,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through the dreary darkness chanted;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thoughts in attitudes imperious,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Voices soft, and deep, and serious,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Words that whispered, songs that haunted!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the soul in rapt suspension,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All the quivering, palpitating</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Chords of life in utmost tension,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the fervour of invention,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With the rapture of creating!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah, Prometheus! heaven-scaling!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In such hours of exultation</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even the faintest heart, unquailing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Might behold the vulture sailing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Round the cloudy crags Caucasian!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though to all there is not given</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Strength for such sublime endeavour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus to scale the walls of heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And to leaven with fiery leaven</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All the hearts of men for ever;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet all bards, whose hearts unblighted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Honour and believe the presage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hold aloft their torches lighted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gleaming through the realms benighted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As they onward bear the message!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="LADDER" class="center spa2">THE LADDER OF SAINT AUGUSTINE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That of our vices we can frame</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A ladder,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_47_47" href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a>
+ if we will but tread</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beneath our feet each deed of shame!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All common things, each day’s events,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That with the hour begin and end,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our pleasures and our discontents,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Are rounds by which we may ascend.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The low desire, the base design,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That makes another’s virtues less;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The revel of the ruddy wine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And all occasions of excess;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The longing for ignoble things;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The strife for triumph more than truth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hardening of the heart, that brings</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Irreverence for the dreams of youth;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That have their roots in thoughts of ill;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whatever hinders or impedes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The action of the nobler will;—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All these must first be trampled down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beneath our feet, if we would gain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the bright fields of fair renown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The right of eminent domain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">We have not wings, we cannot soar;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But we have feet to scale and climb</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By slow degrees, by more and more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The cloudy summits of our time.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The mighty pyramids of stone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When nearer seen, and better known,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Are but gigantic flights of stairs.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The distant mountains, that uprear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Their solid bastions to the skies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are crossed by pathways, that appear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As we to higher levels rise.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The heights by great men reached and kept</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Were not attained by sudden flight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But they, while their companions slept,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Were toiling upward in the night.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Standing on what too long we bore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We may discern—unseen before—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A path to higher destinies.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor deem the irrevocable Past</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As wholly wasted, wholly vain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If, rising on its wrecks, at last</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To something nobler we attain.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="PASSAGE" class="center spa2">BIRDS OF PASSAGE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Black shadows fall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the lindens tall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That lift aloft their massive wall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Against the southern sky;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And from the realms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the shadowy elms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A tide-like darkness overwhelms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The fields that round us lie.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the night is fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And everywhere</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A warm, soft vapour fills the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And distant sounds seem near;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And above, in the light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the star-lit night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Swift birds of passage wing their flight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through the dewy atmosphere.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I hear the beat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of their pinions fleet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As from the land of snow and sleet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They seek a southern lea.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I hear the cry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of their voices high</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Falling dreamily through the sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But their forms I cannot see.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O, say not so!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Those sounds that flow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In murmurs of delight and woe</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Come not from wings of birds.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They are the throngs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the poet’s songs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Murmurs of pleasures, and pains, and wrongs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The sounds of wingèd words.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">This is the cry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of souls, that high</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On toiling, beating pinions, fly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Seeking a warmer clime.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From their distant flight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through realms of light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It falls into our world of night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With the murmuring sound of rhyme.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="PHANTOM" class="center spa2">THE PHANTOM SHIP.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_48_48" href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In Mather’s <i>Magnalia Christi</i>,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of the old colonial time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">May be found in prose the legend</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That is here set down in rhyme.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">A ship sailed from New Haven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the keen and frosty airs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That filled her sails at parting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Were heavy with good men’s prayers.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O Lord! if it be thy pleasure”—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus prayed the old divine—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“To bury our friends in the ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Take them, for they are thine!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">But Master Lamberton muttered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And under his breath said he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“This ship is so crank and walty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">I fear our grave she will be!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the ship that came from England,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">When the winter months were gone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brought no tidings of this vessel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Nor of Master Lamberton.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">This put the people to praying</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That the Lord would let them hear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What in his greater wisdom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He had done with friends so dear.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And at last their prayers were answered:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">It was in the month of June,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">An hour before the sunset</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of a windy afternoon,</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">When, steadily steering landward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A ship was seen below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And they knew it was Lamberton, Master,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Who sailed so long ago.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">On she came, with a cloud of canvas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Right against the wind that blew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Until the eye could distinguish</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The faces of the crew.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then fell her straining topmasts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Hanging tangled in the shrouds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And her sails were loosened and lifted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And blown away like clouds.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the masts, with all their rigging,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Fell slowly, one by one,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the hulk dilated and vanished,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As a sea-mist in the sun!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the people who saw this marvel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Each said unto his friend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That this was the mould of their vessel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And thus her tragic end.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the pastor of the village</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Gave thanks to God in prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That, to quiet their troubled spirits,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He had sent this Ship of Air.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="CINQUE" class="center spa2">THE WARDEN&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_49_49" href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> OF THE CINQUE PORTS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A mist was driving down the British Channel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">The day was just begun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And through the window-panes, on floor and panel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Streamed the red autumn sun.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It glanced on flowing flag and rippling pennon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">And the white sails of ships;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, from the frowning rampart, the black cannon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Hailed it with feverish lips.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hithe, and Dover,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Were all alert that day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To see the French war-steamers speeding over,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">When the fog cleared away.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Their cannon through the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Holding their breath, had watched, in grim defiance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">The sea-coast opposite.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now they roared at drum-beat from their stations</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">On every citadel;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each answering each, with morning salutations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">That all was well.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And down the coast, all taking up the burden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Replied the distant forts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if to summon from his sleep the Warden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">And Lord of the Cinque Ports.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Him shall no sunshine from the fields of azure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">No drum-beat from the wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No morning gun from the black fort’s embrasure</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Awaken with its call!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">No more, surveying with an eye impartial</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">The long line of the coast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field-Marshal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Be seen upon his post!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For in the night, unseen, a single warrior,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">In sombre harness mailed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">The rampart wall has scaled.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He passed into the chamber of the sleeper,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">The dark and silent room,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And as he entered, darker grew, and deeper,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">The silence and the gloom.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He did not pause to parley or dissemble,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">But smote the Warden hoar;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! what a blow! that made all England tremble,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">And groan from shore to shore.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Meanwhile, without, the surly cannon waited,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">The sun rose bright o’erhead:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nothing in Nature’s aspect intimated</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">That a great man was dead.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="HAUNTED" class="center spa2">HAUNTED HOUSES.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All houses wherein men have lived and died</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Are haunted houses. Through the open doors</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With feet that make no sound upon the floors.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">We meet them at the doorway, on the stair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Along the passages they come and go,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Impalpable impressions on the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A sense of something moving to and fro.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There are more guests at table than the hosts</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Invited; the illuminated hall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As silent as the pictures on the wall.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The stranger at my fireside cannot see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He but perceives what is; while unto me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All that has been is visible and clear.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">We have no title-deeds to house or lands;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Owners and occupants of earlier dates</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And hold in mortmain still their old estates.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The spirit-world around this world of sense</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A vital breath of more ethereal air.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our little lives are kept in equipoise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By opposite attractions and desires;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the more noble instinct that aspires.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">These perturbations, this perpetual jar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of earthly wants and aspirations high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come from the influence of an unseen star,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">An undiscovered planet in our sky.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Into the realm of mystery and night,—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So from the world of spirits there descends</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A bridge of light, connecting it with this,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="BIRDS_NEST" class="center spa2">THE EMPEROR’S BIRD’S-NEST.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Once the Emperor Charles of Spain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With his swarthy, grave commanders,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I forget in what campaign,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Long besieged, in mud and rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Some old frontier town of Flanders.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Up and down the dreary camp,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In great boots of Spanish leather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Striding with a measured tramp,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">These Hidalgos, dull and damp,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Cursed the Frenchmen, cursed the weather.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus as to and fro they went,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Over upland and through hollow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Giving their impatience vent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Perched upon the Emperor’s tent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In her nest, they spied a swallow.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yes, it was a swallow’s nest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Built, of clay and hair of horses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mane or tail, or dragoon’s crest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Found on hedge-rows east and west,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">After skirmish of the forces.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then an old Hidalgo said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As he twirled his grey mustachio,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Sure this swallow overhead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thinks the Emperor’s tent a shed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the Emperor but a Macho!”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_50_50" href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hearing his imperial name</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Coupled with those words of malice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Half in anger, half in shame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Forth the great campaigner came</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Slowly from his canvas palace.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Let no hand the bird molest,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Said he solemnly, “nor hurt her!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Adding then, by way of jest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Golondrina&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_51_51" href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a>
+ is my guest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">’Tis the wife of some deserter!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Swift as bow-string speeds a shaft,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through the camp was spread the rumour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the soldiers, as they quaffed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Flemish beer at dinner, laughed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">At the Emperor’s pleasant humour.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So unharmed and unafraid</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sat the swallow still and brooded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till the constant cannonade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the walls a breach had made,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the siege was thus concluded.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then the army, elsewhere bent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Struck its tents as if disbanding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only not the Emperor’s tent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For he ordered, ere he went,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Very curtly, “Leave it standing.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So it stood there all alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Loosely flapping, torn and tattered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till the brood was fledged and flown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Singing o’er those walls of stone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Which the cannon-shot had shattered.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="CAMBRIDGE2" class="center spa2">IN THE CHURCHYARD AT CAMBRIDGE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the village churchyard she lies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dust is in her beautiful eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">No more she breathes, nor feels, nor stirs;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At her feet and at her head</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lies a slave to attend the dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But their dust is white as hers.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was she a lady of high degree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So much in love with the vanity</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And foolish pomp of this world of ours;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or was it Christian charity,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And lowliness and humility,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The richest and rarest of all dowers?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who shall tell us? No one speaks;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No colour shoots into those cheeks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Either of anger or of pride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At the rude question we have asked;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor will the mystery be unmasked</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By those who are sleeping at her side.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hereafter?—And do you think to look</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the terrible pages of that Book</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To find her failings, faults, and errors?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah, you will then have other cares,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In your own shortcomings and despairs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In your own secret sins and terrors!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="ANGELS" class="center spa2">THE TWO ANGELS.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_52_52" href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Two angels, one of Life and one of Death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Passed o’er our village as the morning broke;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The dawn was on their faces, and beneath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The sombre houses hearsed with plumes of smoke.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their attitude and aspect were the same,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Alike their features and their robes of white;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But one was crowned with amaranth, as with flame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And one with asphodels, like flakes of light.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I saw them pause on their celestial way;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Then said I, with deep fear and doubt oppressed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Beat not so loud, my heart, lest thou betray</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The place where thy belovèd are at rest!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he who wore the crown of asphodels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Descending, at my door began to knock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And my soul sank within me, as in wells</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The waters sink before an earthquake’s shock.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I recognised the nameless agony,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The terror and the tremor and the pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That oft before had filled or haunted me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And now returned with threefold strength again.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The door I opened to my heavenly guest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And listened, for I thought I heard God’s voice;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, knowing whatsoe’er he sent was best,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Dared neither to lament nor to rejoice.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then with a smile, that filled the house with light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“My errand is not Death, but Life,” he said;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, ere I answered, passing out of sight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On his celestial embassy he sped.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Twas at thy door, O friend! and not at mine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The angel with the amaranthine wreath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pausing, descended, and with voice divine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Whispered a word that had a sound like Death.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A shadow on those features, fair and thin;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And softly, from that hushed and darkened room,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Two angels issued, where but one went in.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All is of God! If he but wave his hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The mists collect, the rain falls thick and loud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till, with a smile of light on sea and land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Lo! he looks back from the departing cloud.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Angels of Life and Death alike are his;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Without his leave they pass no threshold o’er;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who, then, would wish or dare, believing this,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Against his messengers to shut the door?</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="BASSELIN" class="center spa2">OLIVER BASSELIN.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_53_53" href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the Valley of the Vire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Still is seen an ancient mill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With its gables quaint and queer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And beneath the window-sill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">On the stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">These words alone:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Oliver Basselin lived here.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far above it, on the steep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Ruined stands the old Château;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nothing but the donjon-keep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Left for shelter or for show.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Its vacant eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Stare at the skies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stare at the valley green and deep.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Once a convent, old and brown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Looked, but ah! it looks no more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the neighbouring hill-side down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On the rushing and the roar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Of the stream</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Whose sunny gleam</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cheers the little Norman town.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In that darksome mill of stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To the water’s dash and din,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Careless, humble, and unknown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Sang the poet Basselin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Songs that fill</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">That ancient mill</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a splendour of its own.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never feeling of unrest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Broke the pleasant dream he dreamed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only made to be his nest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All the lovely valley seemed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">No desire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Of soaring higher</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stirred or fluttered in his breast.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">True, his songs were not divine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Were not songs of that high art,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Which, as winds do in the pine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Find an answer in each heart;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">But the mirth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Of this green earth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Laughed and revelled in his line.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the alehouse and the inn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Opening on the narrow street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came the loud, convivial din,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Singing and applause of feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">The laughing lays</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">That in those days</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sang the poet Basselin.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the castle, cased in steel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Knights, who fought at Agincourt,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Watched and waited, spur on heel;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But the poet sang for sport</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Songs that rang</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Another clang,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Songs that lowlier hearts could feel.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the convent, clad in grey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Sat the monks in lonely cells,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Paced the cloisters, knelt to pray,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the poet heard their bells;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">But his rhymes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Found other chimes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nearer to the earth than they.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gone are all the barons bold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Gone are all the knights and squires,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gone the abbot stern and cold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the brotherhood of friars;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Not a name</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Remains to fame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From those mouldering days of old!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the poet’s memory here</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of the landscape makes a part;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the river, swift and clear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Flows his song through many a heart;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Haunting still</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">That ancient mill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the Valley of the Vire.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="NEWPORT" class="center spa2">THE JEWISH CEMETERY AT NEWPORT.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Close by the street of this fair seaport town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Silent beside the never-silent waves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">At rest in all this moving up and down.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The trees are white with dust, that o’er their sleep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wave their broad curtains in the south wind’s breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While underneath these leafy tents they keep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The long mysterious Exodus of Death.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And these sepulchral stones, so old and brown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That pave with level flags their burial-place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And broken by Moses at the mountain’s base.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The very names recorded here are strange,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of foreign accent, and of different climes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alvares and Rivera interchange</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With Abraham and Jacob of old times.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Blessed be God! for he created Death!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The mourner said, “and Death is rest and peace;”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then added, in the certainty of faith,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“And giveth Life that never more shall cease.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Closed are the portals of their Synagogue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">No Psalms of David now the silence break,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No Rabbi reads the ancient Decalogue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the grand dialect the Prophets spake.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gone are the living, but the dead remain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And not neglected; for a hand unseen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Scattering its bounty, like a summer-rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Still keeps their graves and their remembrance green.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How came they here? What burst of Christian hate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">What persecution, merciless and blind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Drove o’er the sea—that desert desolate—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and mire;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Taught in the school of patience to endure</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The life of anguish and the death of fire.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All their lives long, with the unleavened bread</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And bitter herbs of exile and its fears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wasting famine of the heart they fed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And slaked its thirst with Marah of their tears.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Anathema maranatha! was the cry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That rang from town to town, from street to street;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At every gate the accursed Mordecai</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Was mocked and jeered, and spurned by Christian feet.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pride and humiliation hand in hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Walked with them through the world where’er they went,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Trampled and beaten were they as the sand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And yet unshaken as the continent.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For in the background figures vague and vast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of patriarchs and of prophets rose sublime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all the great traditions of the past</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They saw reflected in the coming time.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thus for ever with reverted look</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The mystic volume of the world they read,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Till life became a Legend of the Dead.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But ah! what once has been shall be no more!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The groaning earth in travail and in pain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Brings forth its races, but does not restore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the dead nations never rise again.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="GALBRAITH" class="center spa2">VICTOR GALBRAITH.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_54_54" href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under the walls of Monterey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At daybreak the bugles began to play,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Victor Galbraith!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the mist of the morning damp and grey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">These were the words they seemed to say:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">“Come forth to thy death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Victor Galbraith!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forth he came, with a martial tread;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Firm was his step, erect his head;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Victor Galbraith,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He who so well the bugle played,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Could not mistake the words it said:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">“Come forth to thy death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Victor Galbraith!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">He looked at the earth, he looked at the sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He looked at the files of musketry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Victor Galbraith!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he said, with a steady voice and eye,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Take good aim; I am ready to die!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Thus challenges death</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Victor Galbraith.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Twelve fiery tongues flashed straight and red,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Six leaden balls on their errand sped;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Victor Galbraith</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Falls to the ground, but he is not dead;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His name was not stamped on those balls of lead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">And they only scath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Victor Galbraith.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Three balls are in his breast and brain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But he rises out of the dust again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Victor Galbraith!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The water he drinks has a bloody stain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O kill me, and put me out of my pain!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">In his agony prayeth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Victor Galbraith.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forth dart once more those tongues of flame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the bugler has died a death of shame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Victor Galbraith!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His soul has gone back to whence it came,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And no one answers to the name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">When the Sergeant saith,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">“Victor Galbraith!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under the walls of Monterey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By night a bugle is heard to play,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Victor Galbraith!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through the mist of the valley damp and grey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The sentinels hear the sound, and say,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">“That is the wraith</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Of Victor Galbraith!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="MOONLIGHT" class="center spa2">DAYLIGHT AND MOONLIGHT.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In broad daylight, and at noon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yesterday I saw the moon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sailing high, but faint and white,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a schoolboy’s paper kite.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In broad daylight yesterday,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I read a Poet’s mystic lay;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And it seemed to me at most</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a phantom, or a ghost.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But at length the feverish day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a passion died away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the night, serene and still,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fell on village, vale, and hill.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then the moon, in all her pride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a spirit glorified,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Filled and overflowed the night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With revelations of her light.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Poet’s song again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Passed like music through my brain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Night interpreted to me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All its grace and mystery.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="YOUTH" class="center spa2">MY LOST YOUTH.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Often I think of the beautiful town</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That is seated by the sea;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Often in thought go up and down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The pleasant streets of that dear old town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And my youth comes back to me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And a verse of a Lapland song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Is haunting my memory still:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And catch, in sudden gleams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And islands that were the Hesperides</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of all my boyish dreams.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the burden of that old song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">It murmurs and whispers still:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I remember the black wharves and the slips,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the sea-tides tossing free;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the beauty and mystery of the ships,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the magic of the sea.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the voice of that wayward song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Is singing and saying still:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I remember the bulwarks by the shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the fort upon the hill;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The drum-beat repeated o’er and o’er,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the bugle wild and shrill.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the music of that old song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Throbs in my memory still:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I remember the sea-fight far away,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_55_55" href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">How it thundered o’er the tide!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the dead captains, as they lay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">in their graves o’erlooking the tranquil bay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where they in battle died.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the sound of that mournful song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Goes through me with a thrill:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I can see the breezy dome of groves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The shadows of Deering’s Woods;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the friendships old and the early loves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come back with a sabbath sound, as of doves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In quiet neighbourhoods.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the verse of that sweet old song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">It flutters and murmurs still:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I remember the gleams and glooms that dart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Across the schoolboy’s brain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The song and the silence in the heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That in part are prophecies, and in part</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Are longings wild and vain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the voice of that fitful song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Sings on, and is never still:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There are things of which I may not speak;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">There are dreams that cannot die;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And bring a pallor into the cheek,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And a mist before the eye.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the words of that fatal song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Come over me like a chill:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Strange to me now are the forms I meet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When I visit the dear old town;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the native air is pure and sweet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the trees that o’ershadow each well-known street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As they balance up and down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Are singing the beautiful song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Are sighing and whispering still:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Deering’s Woods are fresh and fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And with joy that is almost pain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My heart goes back to wander there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And among the dreams of the days that were,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I find my lost youth again.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the strange and beautiful song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The groves are repeating it still:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="ROPEWALK" class="center spa2">THE ROPEWALK.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In that building, long and low,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With its windows all a-row,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like the port-holes of a hulk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Human spiders spin and spin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Backward down their threads so thin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Dropping, each a hempen bulk.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">At the end an open door;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Squares of sunshine on the floor</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Light the long and dusky lane;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the whirring of a wheel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dull and drowsy, makes me feel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All its spokes are in my brain.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the spinners to the end</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Downward go and re-ascend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Gleam the long threads in the sun;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While within this brain of mine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Cobwebs brighter and more fine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By the busy wheel are spun.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Two fair maidens in a swing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like white doves upon the wing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">First before my vision pass;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Laughing, as their gentle hands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Closely clasp the twisted strands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">At their shadow on the grass.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then a booth of mountebanks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With its smell of tan and planks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And a girl poised high in air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On a cord, in spangled dress,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a faded loveliness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And a weary look of care.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then a homestead among farms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a woman with bare arms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Drawing water from a well;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the bucket mounts apace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With it mounts her own fair face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As at some magician’s spell.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then an old man in a tower,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ringing loud the noontide hour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">While the rope coils round and round,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a serpent at his feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And again, in swift retreat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Nearly lifts him from the ground.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then within a prison-yard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Faces fixed, and stern, and hard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Laughter and indecent mirth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! it is the gallows-tree;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Breath of Christian charity,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Blow, and sweep it from the earth!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then a schoolboy, with his kite,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gleaming in a sky of light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And an eager, upward look;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Steeds pursued through lane and field;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fowlers with their snares concealed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And an angler by a brook.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ships rejoicing in the breeze,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wrecks that float o’er unknown seas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Anchors dragged through faithless sand;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sea-fog drifting overhead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, with lessening line and lead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sailors feeling for the land.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All these scenes do I behold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">These, and many left untold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In that building long and low;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While the wheel goes round and round,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a drowsy, dreamy sound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the spinners backward go.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="MILESTONE" class="center spa2">THE GOLDEN MILESTONE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Leafless are the trees; their purple branches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spread themselves abroad, like reefs of coral,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Rising silent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the Red Sea of the Winter sunset.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the hundred chimneys of the village,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the Afreet in the Arabian story,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Smoky columns</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tower aloft into the air of amber.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">At the window winks the flickering fire-light;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Social watch-fires</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Answering one another through the darkness.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the hearth the lighted logs are glowing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And like Ariel in the cloven pine-tree</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">For its freedom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Groans and sighs the air imprisoned in them.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the fireside there are old men seated,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seeing ruined cities in the ashes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Asking sadly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the Past what it can ne’er restore them.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the fireside there are youthful dreamers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Building castles fair, with stately stairways,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Asking blindly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the Future what it cannot give them.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the fireside tragedies are acted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In whose scenes appear two actors only,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Wife and husband,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And above them God the sole spectator.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the fireside there are peace and comfort,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wives and children, with fair, thoughtful faces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Waiting, watching</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For a well-known footstep in the passage.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each man’s chimney is his Golden Milestone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is the central point from which he measures</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Every distance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the gateways of the world around him.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In his farthest wanderings still he sees it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hears the talking flame, the answering night-wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">As he heard them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When he sat with those who were, but are not.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor the march of the encroaching city,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Drives an exile</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the hearth of his ancestral homestead.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">We may build more splendid habitations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">But we cannot</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Buy with gold the old associations!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="CATAWBA" class="center spa2">CATAWBA WINE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">This song of mine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Is a Song of the Vine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To be sung by the glowing embers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of wayside inns,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">When the rain begins</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To darken the drear Novembers.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</span> </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">It is not a song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of the Scuppernong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From warm Carolinian valleys,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Nor the Isabel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the Muscadel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That bask in our garden alleys.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Nor the red Mustang,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Whose clusters hang</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er the waves of the Colorado,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the fiery flood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Of whose purple blood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has a dash of Spanish bravado.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">For richest and best</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Is the wine of the West,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That grows by the Beautiful River;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Whose sweet perfume</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Fills all the room</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a benison on the giver.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">And as hollow trees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Are the haunts of bees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For ever going and coming;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">So this crystal hive</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Is all alive</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a swarming and buzzing and humming.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Very good in its way</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Is the Verzenay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or the Sillery soft and creamy;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">But Catawba wine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Has a taste more divine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">There grows no vine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">By the haunted Rhine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By Danube or Guadalquivir,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Nor on island or cape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">That bears such a grape</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As grows by the Beautiful River.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Drugged is their juice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">For foreign use,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When shipped o’er the reeling Atlantic,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To rack our brains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">With the fever pains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That have driven the Old World frantic.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">To the sewers and sinks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">With all such drinks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And after them tumble the mixer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">For a poison malign</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Is such Borgia wine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or at best but a Devil’s Elixir.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">While pure as a spring</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Is the wine I sing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And to praise it, one needs but name it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">For Catawba wine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Has need of no sign,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No tavern-bush to proclaim it.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">And this Song of the Vine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">This greeting of mine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The winds and the birds shall deliver</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To the Queen of the West,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">In her garlands dressed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the banks of the Beautiful River.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="DAYBREAK" class="center spa2">DAYBREAK.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">A wind came up out of the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And said, “O mists, make room for me.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">It hailed the ships, and cried, “Sail on,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ye mariners, the night is gone.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And hurried landward far away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crying, “Awake! it is the day.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">It said unto the forest, “Shout!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hang all your leafy banners out!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">It touched the wood-bird’s folded wing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And said, “O bird, awake and sing.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And o’er the farms, “O chanticleer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Your clarion blow; the day is near.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">It whispered to the fields of corn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Bow down, and hail the coming morn.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">It shouted through the belfry-tower,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">It crossed the churchyard with a sigh,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And said, “Not yet! in quiet lie.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">SANTA FILOMENA.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_56_56" href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whene’er a noble deed is wrought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whene’er is spoken a noble thought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Our hearts, in glad surprise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To higher levels rise.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The tidal wave of deeper souls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into our inmost being rolls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And lifts us unawares</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Out of all meaner cares.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Honour to those whose words or deeds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus help us in our daily needs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And by their overflow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Raise us from what is low!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus thought I, as by night I read</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the great army of the dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The trenches cold and damp,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The starved and frozen camp,—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wounded from the battle-plain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In dreary hospitals of pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The cheerless corridors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The cold and stony floors.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lo! in that house of misery</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A lady with a lamp I see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Pass through the glimmering gloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And flit from room to room.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And slow, as in a dream of bliss,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The speechless sufferer turns to kiss</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Her shadow, as it falls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Upon the darkening walls.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if a door in heaven should be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Opened and then closed suddenly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The vision came and went,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The light shone and was spent.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On England’s annals, through the long</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hereafter of her speech and song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That light its rays shall cast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From portals of the past.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A Lady with a Lamp shall stand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the great history of the land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A noble type of good,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Heroic womanhood.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor even shall be wanting here</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The palm, the lily, and the spear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The symbols that of yore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Saint Filomena bore.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="AGASSIZ2" class="center spa2">THE FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY OF AGASSIZ.</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">May 28, 1857.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was fifty years ago,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the pleasant month of May,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the beautiful Pays de Vaud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A child in its cradle lay.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Nature, the old nurse, took</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The child upon her knee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saying: “Here is a story-book</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thy Father has written for thee.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Come, wander with me,” she said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“Into regions yet untrod;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And read what is still unread</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the manuscripts of God.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he wandered away and away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With Nature, the dear old nurse,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who sang to him night and day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The rhymes of the universe.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And whenever the way seemed long,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Or his heart began to fail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She would sing a more wonderful song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Or tell a more marvellous tale.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So she keeps him still a child,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And will not let him go,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though at times his heart beats wild</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For the beautiful Pays de Vaud;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though at times he hears in his dreams</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The Ranz des Vaches of old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the rush of mountain streams</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From glaciers clear and cold;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the mother at home says, “Hark!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For his voice I listen and yearn;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is growing late and dark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And my boy does not return!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="NORTH_CAPE" class="center spa2">THE DISCOVERER OF THE NORTH CAPE.</p>
+<p class="f90">A LEAF FROM KING ALFRED’S OROSIUS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Othere, the old sea-captain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Who dwelt in Helgoland,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To King Alfred, the Lover of Truth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brought a snow-white walrus-tooth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Which he held in his brown right hand.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">His figure was tall and stately,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Like a boy’s his eye appeared;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His hair was yellow as hay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But threads of a silvery grey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Gleamed in his tawny beard.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hearty and hale was Othere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">His cheek had the colour of oak;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a kind of laugh in his speech,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the sea-tide on a beach,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As unto the king he spoke.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Alfred, King of the Saxons,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Had a book upon his knees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And wrote down the wondrous tale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of him who was first to sail</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Into the Arctic seas.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“So far I live to the northward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">No man lives north of me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the east are wild mountain-chains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And beyond them meres and plains;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To the westward all is sea.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“So far I live to the northward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the harbour of Skeringes-hale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">If you only sailed by day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a fair wind all the way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">More than a month would you sail.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I own six hundred reindeer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With sheep and swine beside;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I have tribute from the Finns,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whalebone and reindeer-skins,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And ropes of walrus-hide.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">“I ploughed the land with horses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But my heart was ill at ease,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the old seafaring men</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came to me now and then,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With their sagas of the seas;—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Of Iceland and of Greenland,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the stormy Hebrides,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the undiscovered deep;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I could not eat nor sleep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">For thinking of those seas.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“To the northward stretched the desert,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">How far I fain would know;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So at last I sallied forth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And three days sailed due north,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As far as the whale-ships go.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“To the west of me was the ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To the right the desolate shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But I did not slacken sail</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the walrus or the whale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Till after three days more.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The days grew longer and longer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Till they became as one,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And southward through the haze</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I saw the sullen blaze</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of the red midnight sun.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“And then uprose before me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Upon the water’s edge,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The huge and haggard shape</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of that unknown North Cape,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Whose form is like a wedge.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The sea was rough and stormy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The tempest howled and wailed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the sea-fog, like a ghost,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Haunted that dreary coast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But onward still I sailed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Four days I steered to eastward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Four days without a night:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Round in a fiery ring</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Went the great sun, O King,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With red and lurid light.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here Alfred, King of the Saxons,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Ceased writing for a while;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And raised his eyes from his book,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a strange and puzzled look,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And an incredulous smile.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">But Othere, the old sea-captain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He neither paused nor stirred,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Till the King listened, and then</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Once more took up his pen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And wrote down every word.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“And now the land,” said Othere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Bent southward suddenly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And I followed the curving shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And ever southward bore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Into a nameless sea.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“And there we hunted the walrus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The narwhale, and the seal;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ha! ’twas a noble game!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And like the lightning’s flame</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Flew our harpoons of steel.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“There were six of us all together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Norsemen of Helgoland;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In two days and no more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We killed of them threescore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And dragged them to the strand!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here Alfred, the Truth-Teller,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Suddenly closed his book,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And lifted his blue eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With doubt and strange surmise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Depicted in their look.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Othere the old sea-captain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Stared at him wild and weird,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then smiled, till his shining teeth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gleamed white from underneath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">His tawny, quivering beard.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And to the King of the Saxons,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In witness of the truth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Raising his noble head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He stretched his brown hand, and said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Behold this walrus-tooth!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="CHILDREN" class="center spa2">CHILDREN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come to me, O ye children!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For I hear you at your play,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the questions that perplexed me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Have vanished quite away.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye open the eastern windows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That look towards the sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where thoughts are singing swallows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the brooks of morning run.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In your thoughts the brooklet’s flow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But in mine is the wind of Autumn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the first fall of the snow.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! what would the world be to us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">If the children were no more?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We should dread the desert behind us</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Worse than the dark before.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What the leaves are to the forest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With light and air for food,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ere their sweet and tender juices</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Have been hardened into wood,—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">That to the world are children;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through them it feels the glow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of a brighter and sunnier climate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Than reaches the trunks below.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come to me, O ye children!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And whisper in my ear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What the birds and the winds are singing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In your sunny atmosphere.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For what are all our contrivings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the wisdom of our books,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When compared with your caresses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the gladness of your looks?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye are better than all the ballads</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That ever were sung or said;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For ye are living poems,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And all the rest are dead.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="SANDALPHON" class="center spa2">SANDALPHON.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have you read in the Talmud of old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the Legends the Rabbins have told</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of the limitless realms of the air,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have you read it,—the marvellous story</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How, erect, at the outermost gates</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the City Celestial he waits,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With his feet on the ladder of light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That, crowded with angels unnumbered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Alone in the desert at night?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Angels of Wind and of Fire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Chant only one hymn, and expire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With the song’s irresistible stress;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Expire in their rapture and wonder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As harp-strings are broken asunder</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By music they throb to express.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But serene in the rapturous throng,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unmoved by the rush of the song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With eyes unimpassioned and slow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Among the dead angels, the deathless</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sandalphon stands listening breathless</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To sounds that ascend from below;—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the spirits on earth that adore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the souls that entreat and implore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the fervour and passion of prayer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the hearts that are broken with losses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And weary with dragging the crosses</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Too heavy for mortals to bear.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he gathers the prayers as he stands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And they change into flowers in his hands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Into garlands of purple and red;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And beneath the great arch of the portal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the streets of the City Immortal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is wafted the fragrance they shed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is but a legend, I know,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A fable, a phantom, a show,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of the ancient Rabbinical lore;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet the old mediæval tradition,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The beautiful, strange superstition,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But haunts me and holds me the more.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">When I look from window at night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the welkin above is all white,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All throbbing and panting with stars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Among them majestic is standing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sandalphon the angel, expanding</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">His pinions in nebulous bars.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the legend, I feel, is a part</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the hunger and thirst of the heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The frenzy and fire of the brain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That grasps at the fruitage forbidden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The golden pomegranates of Eden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To quiet its fever and pain.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="EPIMETHEUS" class="center spa2">EPIMETHEUS; OR,</p>
+<p class="f90">THE POET’S AFTERTHOUGHT.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have I dreamed? or was it real,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">What I saw as in a vision,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When to marches hymeneal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the land of the Ideal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Moved my thought o’er Fields Elysian?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What! are these the guests whose glances</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Seemed like sunshine gleaming round me?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">These the wild, bewildering fancies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That with dithyrambic dances,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As with magic circles, bound me?</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! how cold are their caresses!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Pallid cheeks, and haggard bosoms!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spectral gleam their snow-white dresses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And from loose, dishevelled tresses</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Fall the hyacinthine blossoms!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O my songs! whose winsome measures</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Filled my heart with secret rapture!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Children of my golden leisures!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Must even your delights and pleasures</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Fade and perish with the capture?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fair they seemed, those songs sonorous,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When they came to me unbidden;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Voices single, and in chorus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the wild birds singing o’er us</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the dark of branches hidden.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Disenchantment! Disillusion!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Must each noble aspiration</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come at last to this conclusion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Jarring discord, wild confusion,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Lassitude, renunciation?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not with steeper fall nor faster,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From the sun’s serene dominions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not through brighter realms nor vaster,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In swift ruin and disaster,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Icarus fell with shattered pinions!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sweet Pandora! dear Pandora!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Why did mighty Jove create thee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Coy as Thetis, fair as Flora,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beautiful as young Aurora,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">If to win thee is to hate thee?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">No, not hate thee! for this feeling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of unrest and long resistance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is but passionate appealing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A prophetic whisper stealing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O’er the chords of our existence.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Him whom thou dost once enamour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thou, belovèd, never leavest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In life’s discord, strife, and clamour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still he feels thy spell of glamour;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Him of Hope thou ne’er bereavest.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Weary hearts by thee are lifted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Struggling souls by thee are strengthened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Clouds of fear asunder rifted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Truth from falsehood cleansed and sifted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Lives, like days in summer, lengthened!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Therefore art thou ever dearer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O my Sibyl, my deceiver!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For thou makest each mystery clearer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the unattained seems nearer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When thou fillest my heart with fever!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Muse of all the Gifts and Graces!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Though the fields around us wither,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There are ampler realms and spaces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where no foot has left its traces:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Let us turn and wander thither!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+<p class="f110">FLIGHT THE SECOND.</p>
+<p id="SUNSHINE2" class="center spa2">A DAY OF SUNSHINE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O gift of God! O perfect day:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whereon shall no man work, but play;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whereon it is enough for me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not to be doing, but to be!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through every fibre of my brain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through every nerve, through every vein,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I feel the electric thrill, the touch</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of life, that seems almost too much.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I hear the wind among the trees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Playing celestial symphonies;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see the branches downward bent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like keys of some great instrument.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And over me unrolls on high</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The splendid scenery of the sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where through a sapphire sea the sun</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sails like a golden galleon,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Towards yonder cloud-land in the West,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose steep sierra far uplifts</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its craggy summits white with drifts.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blow, winds! and bend within my reach</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fiery blossoms of the peach.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O Life and Love! O happy throng</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O heart of man! canst thou not be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blithe as the air is, and as free?</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="HOUR" class="center spa2">THE CHILDREN’S HOUR.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Between the dark and the daylight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When the night is beginning to lower,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Comes a pause in the day’s occupations</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That is known as the Children’s Hour.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I hear in the chamber above me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The patter of little feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sound of a door that is opened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And voices soft and sweet.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From my study I see in the lamplight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Descending the broad hall stair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Grave Alice and laughing Allegra,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And Edith with golden hair.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A whisper and then a silence;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Yet I know by their merry eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They are plotting and planning together</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To take me by surprise.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A sudden rush from the stairway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A sudden raid from the hall!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By three doors left unguarded</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They enter my castle wall!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They climb up into my turret</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O’er the arms and back of my chair;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If I try to escape they surround me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They seem to be everywhere.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They almost devour me with kisses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Their arms about me entwine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In his Mouse Tower on the Rhine!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Because you have scaled the wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such an old moustache as I am</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is not a match for you all!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I have you fast in my fortress,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And will not let you depart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But put you down into the dungeon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the round-tower of my heart.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And there will I keep you for ever,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Yes, for ever and a day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And moulder in dust away!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="ENCELADUS" class="center spa2">ENCELADUS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under Mount Etna he lies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">It is slumber, it is not death;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For he struggles at times to arise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And above him the lurid skies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Are hot with his fiery breath.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The crags are piled on his breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The earth is heaped on his head;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the groans of his wild unrest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Though smothered and half suppressed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Are heard, and he is not dead.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the nations far away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Are watching with eager eyes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They talk together and say,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“To-morrow, perhaps to-day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Enceladus will arise!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the old gods, the austere</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Oppressors in their strength,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stand aghast and white with fear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the ominous sounds they hear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And tremble, and mutter, “At length!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah me! for the land that is sown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With the harvest of despair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the burning cinders, blown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the lips of the overthrown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Enceladus, fill the air.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where ashes are heaped in drifts</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Over vineyard and field and town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whenever he starts and lifts</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His head through the blackened rifts</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of the crags that keep him down.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">See, see! the red light shines!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">’Tis the glare of his awful eyes!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the storm-wind shouts through the pines</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of Alps and of Apennines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Enceladus, arise!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="CUMBERLAND" class="center spa2">THE <i>CUMBERLAND</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">At anchor in Hampton Roads we lay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">On board of the <i>Cumberland</i>, sloop of war;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And at times from the fortress across the bay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">The alarum of drums swept past,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Or a bugle blast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the camp on the shore.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then far away to the south uprose</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A little feather of snow-white smoke,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And we knew that the iron ship of our foe</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Was steadily steering its course</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">To try the force</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of our ribs of oak.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down upon us heavily runs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Silent and sullen, the floating fort;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">And leaps the terrible death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">With fiery breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From each open port.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">We are not idle, but send her straight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Defiance back in a full broadside!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As hail rebounds from a roof of slate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Rebounds our heavier hail</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">From each iron scale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of the monster’s hide.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Strike your flag!” the rebel cries,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In his arrogant old plantation strain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Never!” our gallant Morris replies;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">“It is better to sink than to yield!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">And the whole air pealed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With the cheers of our men.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, like a kraken huge and black,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down went the <i>Cumberland</i> all a wrack,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent7">With a sudden shudder of death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">And the cannon’s breath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">For her dying gasp.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Still floated our flag at the mainmast head.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lord, how beautiful was thy day!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Every waft of the air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Was a whisper of prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Or a dirge for the dead.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seas!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Ye are at peace in the troubled stream,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ho! brave land! with hearts like these,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Thy flag, that is rent in twain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">Shall be one again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And without a seam!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="UNDONE" class="center spa2">SOMETHING LEFT UNDONE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Labour with what zeal we will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Something still remains undone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Something uncompleted still</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Waits the rising of the sun.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the bedside, on the stair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">At the threshold, near the gates,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With its menace or its prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like a mendicant it waits;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Waits, and will not go away;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Waits, and will not be gainsaid</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the cares of yesterday</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Each to-day is heavier made;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till at length the burden seems</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Greater than our strength can bear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Heavy as the weight of dreams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Pressing on us everywhere.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And we stand from day to day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like the dwarfs of times gone by,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who, as Northern legends say,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On their shoulders held the sky.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="WEARINESS" class="center spa2">WEARINESS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O little feet! that such long years</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Must wander on through hopes and fears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Must ache and bleed beneath your load;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I, nearer to the Wayside Inn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where toil shall cease and rest begin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Am weary, thinking of your road!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O little hands! that, weak or strong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have still to serve or rule so long,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Have still so long to give or ask;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I, who so much with book and pen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have toiled among my fellow-men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Am weary, thinking of your task.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O little hearts! that throb and beat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With such impatient, feverish heat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Such limitless and strong desires;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mine that so long has glowed and burned,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With passions into ashes turned,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Now covers and conceals its fires.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O little souls! as pure and white</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And crystalline as rays of light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Direct from heaven, their source divine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Refracted through the mist of years,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How red my setting sun appears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">How lurid looks this soul of mine!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</span></p>
+<p id="FLAKES" class="center spa2">SNOW-FLAKES.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out of the bosom of the Air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over the woodlands brown and bare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Over the harvest-fields forsaken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Silent, and soft, and slow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Descends the snow.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even as our cloudy fancies take</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Suddenly shape in some divine expression,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even as the troubled heart doth make</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the white countenance confession,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">The troubled sky reveals</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">The grief it feels.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">This is the poem of the Air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Slowly in silent syllables recorded;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This is the secret of despair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Now whispered and revealed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">To wood and field.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+<p class="f110">FLIGHT THE THIRD.</p>
+<p class="center">1874.</p>
+<p id="CADENABBIA" class="center spa2">CADENABBIA.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">No sound of wheels or hoof-beat breaks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The silence of the summer day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As by the loveliest of all lakes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I while the idle hours away.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I pace the leafy colonnade,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where level branches of the plane</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Above me weave a roof of shade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Impervious to the sun and rain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">At times a sudden rush of air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Flutters the lazy leaves o’erhead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And gleams of sunlight toss and flare</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like torches down the path I tread.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">By Somariva’s garden gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I make the marble stairs my seat;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And hear the water, as I wait,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Lapping the steps beneath my feet.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The undulation sinks and swells</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Along the stony parapets;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And far away the floating bells</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Tinkle upon the fisher’s nets.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Silent and slow, by tower and town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The freighted barges come and go;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their pendent shadow gliding down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By town and tower submerged below.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hills sweep upward from the shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With villas scattered one by one</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon their wooded spurs, and lower</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Bellaggio blazing in the sun.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And dimly seen, a tangled mass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of walls and woods, of light and shade,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stands beck’ning up the Stelvio pass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Varenna with its wide cascade.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I ask myself, Is this a dream?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Will it all vanish into air?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is there a land of such supreme</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And perfect beauty anywhere?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sweet vision! Do not fade away;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Linger until my heart shall take</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into itself the summer day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And all the beauty of the lake.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Linger until upon my brain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is stamped an image of the scene;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then fade into the air again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And be as if thou hadst not been.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</span></p>
+<p id="SUMNER" class="center spa2">CHARLES SUMNER.</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">March 30, 1874.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Garlands upon his grave,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And flowers upon his hearse;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And to the tender heart and brave,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The tribute of this verse.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">His was the troubled life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The conflict and the pain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The griefs, the bitterness of strife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The honour without stain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like Winkelried, he took</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Into his manly breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sheaf of hostile spears, and broke</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A path for the oppressed;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then from the fatal field,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Upon a nation’s heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Borne like a warrior on his shield!—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">So should the brave depart.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Death takes us by surprise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And stays our hurrying feet;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The great design unfinished lies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Our lives are incomplete.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But in the dark unknown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Perfect their circles seem,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even as a bridge’s arch of stone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is rounded in the stream.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alike are life and death</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When life in death survives,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the uninterrupted breath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Inspires a thousand lives.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were a star quenched on high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For ages would its light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still travelling downward from the sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Shine on our mortal sight.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So when a great man dies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For years beyond our ken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The light he leaves behind him lies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Upon the paths of men.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="CASSINO" class="center spa2">MONTE CASSINO.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beautiful valley, through whose verdant meads</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Unheard the Garigliano glides along,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Liris, nurse of rushes and of reeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The river taciturn of classic song!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Land of Labour and the Land of Rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where mediæval towns are white on all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hillsides, and where every mountain crest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is an Etrurian or a Roman wall!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is Alagna, there Pope Boniface</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Was dragged with contumely from his throne;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sciarra Colonna, was that day’s disgrace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The Pontiff’s only, or in part thine own?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is Ceprano, where a renegade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Was each Apulian as great Dante saith,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When Manfred, by his men-at-arms betrayed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Spurred on to Benevento and to death.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is Aquinum, the old Volscian town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where Juvenal was born, whose lurid light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still hovers o’er his birthplace, like the crown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of splendour over cities seen at night.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Doubled the splendour is, that in its streets</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The angelic Doctor as a schoolboy played,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And dreamed perhaps the dreams that he repeats</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In ponderous folios for scholastics made.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And there, uplifted like a passing cloud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That pauses on a mountain summit high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Monte Cassino’s convent rears its proud</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And venerable walls against the sky.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Well I remember how on foot I climbed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The stony pathway leading to its gate:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Above, the convent bells for vespers chimed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Below, the darkening town grew desolate.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Well I remember the low arch and dark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The court-yard with its well, the terrace wide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From which, far down, diminished to a park,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The valley veiled in mist was dim descried.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The day was dying, and with feeble hands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Caressed the mountain-tops; the vales between</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Darkened; the river in the meadow-lands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sheathed itself as a sword and was not seen.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The silence of the place was like a sleep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">So full of rest it seemed; each passing tread</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was a reverberation from the deep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Recesses of the ages that are dead.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For, more than thirteen centuries ago,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Benedict, fleeing from the gates of Rome,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A youth disgusted with its vice and woe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sought in these mountain solitudes a home.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He founded here his Convent and his Rule</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of prayer and work, and counted work as prayer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His pen became a clarion, and his school</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Flamed like a beacon in the midnight air.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What though Boccaccio, in his reckless way</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Mocking the lazy brotherhood, deplores</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The illuminated manuscripts that lay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Torn and neglected on the dusty floors?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Boccaccio was a novelist, a child</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of fancy and of fiction at the best;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This the urbane librarian said and smiled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Incredulous as at some idle jest.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon such themes as these with one young friar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I sat conversing late into the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till in its cavernous chimney the wood fire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Had burnt its heart out like an anchorite.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then translated, in my convent cell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Myself yet not myself in dreams I lay;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, as a monk who hears the matin bell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Started from sleep; already it was day.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the high window I beheld the scene</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On which Saint Benedict so oft had gazed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The mountains and the valley in the sheen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of the bright sun, and stood as one amazed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Grey mists were rolling, rising, vanishing;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The woodlands glistened with their jewelled crowns.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Far off the mellow bells began to ring</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For matins in the half-awakened towns.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The conflict of the Present and the Past,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The ideal and the actual in our life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As on a field of battle held me fast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where this world and the next world were at strife.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For, as the valley from its sleep awoke,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I saw the iron horses of the steam</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Toss to the morning air their plumes of smoke,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And woke as one awaketh from a dream.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="AMALFI" class="center spa2">AMALFI.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sweet the memory is to me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the land beyond the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the waves and mountains meet;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where amid her mulberry-trees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sits Amalfi in the heat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bathing ever her white feet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the tideless, summer seas.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the middle of the town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From its fountains in the hills,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tumbling through the narrow gorge,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Canneto rushes down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Turns the great wheels of the mills,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lifts the hammers of the forge.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Tis a stairway, not a street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That ascends the deep ravine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the torrent leaps between</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rocky walls that almost meet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Toiling up from stair to stair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Peasant girls their burdens bear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sunburnt daughters of the soil,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stately figures tall and straight;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What inexorable fate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dooms them to this life of toil?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lord of vineyards and of lands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Far above the convent stands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On its terraced walk aloof</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Leans a monk with folded hands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Placid, satisfied, serene,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Looking down upon the scene</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over wall and red-tiled roof;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wondering unto what good end</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All this toil and traffic tend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And why all men cannot be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Free from care, and free from pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the sordid love of gain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And as indolent as he.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where are now the freighted barks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the marts of east and west?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the knights in iron sarks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Journeying to the Holy Land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Glove of steel upon the hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Cross of crimson on the breast?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the pomp of camp and court?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the pilgrims with their prayers?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the merchants with their wares,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And their gallant brigantines</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sailing safely into port,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Chased by corsair Algerines?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Vanished like a fleet of cloud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a passing trumpet-blast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are those splendours of the past,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the commerce and the crowd!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fathoms deep beneath the seas</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lie the ancient wharves and quays,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Swallowed by the engulfing waves;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Silent streets, and vacant halls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ruined roofs and towers and walls;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hidden from all mortal eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Deep the sunken city lies:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even cities have their graves!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">This is an enchanted land!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Round the headlands far away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sweeps the blue Salernian bay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With its sickle of white sand;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Farther still and farthermost</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the dim discovered coast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pæstum with its ruins lies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And its roses all in bloom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seem to tinge the fatal skies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of that lonely land of doom.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On his terrace, high in air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nothing doth the good monk care</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For such worldly themes as these.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the garden just below</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Little puffs of perfume blow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a sound is in his ears</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the murmur of the bees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the shining chestnut-trees;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nothing else he heeds or hears.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the landscape seems to swoon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the happy afternoon;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Slowly o’er his senses creep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The encroaching waves of sleep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he sinks as sank the town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unresisting, fathoms down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into caverns cool and deep!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Walled about with drifts of snow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hearing the fierce north wind blow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seeing all the landscape white,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the river cased in ice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Comes this memory of delight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Comes this vision unto me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of a long-lost Paradise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the land beyond the sea.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="DUTCH" class="center spa2">A DUTCH PICTURE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Simon Danz has come home again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From cruising about with his buccaneers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He has singed the beard of the King of Spain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And carried away the Dean of Jaen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And sold him in Algiers.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In his house by the Maese, with its roof of tiles</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And weathercocks flying aloft in air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There are silver tankards of antique styles,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Plunder of convent and castle, and piles</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of carpets rich and rare.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In his tulip-garden there by the town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Overlooking the sluggish stream,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With his Moorish cap and dressing-gown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The old sea-captain, hale and brown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Walks in a waking dream.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A smile in his grey mustachio lurks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Whenever he thinks of the King of Spain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the listed tulips look like Turks,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the silent gardener as he works</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is changed to the Dean of Jaen.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The windmills on the outermost</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Verge of the landscape in the haze,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To him are towers on the Spanish coast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With whiskered sentinels at their post,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Though this is the river Maese.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But when the winter rains begin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He sits and smokes by the blazing brands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And old seafaring men come in,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Goat-bearded, grey, and with double chin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And rings upon their hands.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They sit there in the shadow and shine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of the flickering fire of the winter night;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Figures in colour and design</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Half darkness and half light.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And they talk of their ventures lost or won,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And their talk is ever and ever the same,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While they drink the red wine of Tarragon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the cellars of some Spanish Don,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Or convent set on flame.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Restless at times, with heavy strides</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He paces his parlour to and fro;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He is like a ship that at anchor rides,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And swings with the rising and falling tides</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And tugs at her anchor-tow.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Voices mysterious far and near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sound of the wind and sound of the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are calling and whispering in his ear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Simon Danz! Why stayest thou here?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Come forth and follow me!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So he thinks he shall take to the sea again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For one more cruise with his buccaneers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To singe the beard of the King of Spain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And capture another Dean of Jaen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And sell him in Algiers.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="ST_FRANCIS" class="center spa2">THE SERMON OF ST. FRANCIS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Up soared the lark into the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A shaft of song, a wingèd prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As if a soul, released from pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were flying back to heaven again.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">St. Francis heard; it was to him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">An emblem of the Seraphim;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The upward motion of the fire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The light, the heat, the heart’s desire.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Around Assisi’s convent gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The birds, God’s poor who cannot wait,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From moor and mere and darksome wood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Came flocking for their dole of food.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O brother birds,” St. Francis said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Ye come to me and ask for bread,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But not with bread alone to-day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shall ye be fed and sent away.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ye shall be fed, ye happy birds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With manna of celestial words;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not mine, though mine they seem to be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not mine, though they be spoken through me.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O, doubly are ye bound to praise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The great Creator in your lays;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He giveth you your plumes of down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Your crimson hoods, your cloaks of brown.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“He giveth you your wings to fly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And breathe a purer air on high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And careth for you everywhere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who for yourselves so little care!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">With flutter of swift wings and songs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Together rose the feathered throngs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And singing scattered far apart;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Deep peace was in St. Francis’ heart.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">He knew not if the brotherhood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His homily had understood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He only knew that to one ear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The meaning of his words was clear.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="FIRESIDE" class="center spa2">TRAVELS BY THE FIRESIDE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The ceaseless rain is falling fast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And yonder gilded vane,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Immoveable for three days past,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Points to the misty main.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It drives me in upon myself,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And to the fireside gleams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To pleasant books that crowd my shelf,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And still more pleasant dreams.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I read whatever bards have sung</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of lands beyond the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the bright days when I was young</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Come thronging back to me.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I fancy I can hear again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The Alpine torrent’s roar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The mule-bells on the hills of Spain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The sea at Elsinore.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see the convent’s gleaming wall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Rise from its groves of pine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And towers of old cathedrals tall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And castles by the Rhine.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I journey on by park and spire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beneath centennial trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through fields with poppies all on fire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And gleams of distant seas.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I fear no more the dust and heat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">No more I feel fatigue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While journeying with another’s feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O’er many a lengthening league.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let others traverse sea and land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And toil through various climes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I turn the world round with my hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Reading these poet’s rhymes.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From them I learn whatever lies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beneath each changing zone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And see, when looking with their eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Better than with mine own.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illo_10.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="94" >
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</span></p>
+<hr class="r10">
+<p class="f110 spa2">FLIGHT THE FOURTH.</p>
+<p class="center spa2">THE HERONS OF ELMWOOD.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Warm and still is the summer night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As here by the river’s brink I wander;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">White overhead are the stars, and white</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The glimmering lamps on the hill-side yonder.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Silent are all the sounds of day;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Nothing I hear but the chirp of crickets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the cry of the herons winging their way</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O’er the poet’s&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_57_57" href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a>
+ house in the Elmwood thickets.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To your roosts in the haunts of the exiled thrushes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sing him the song of the green morass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the tides that water the reeds and rushes.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sing him the mystical Song of the Hern,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the secret that baffles our utmost seeking;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For only a sound of lament we discern,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And cannot interpret the words you are speaking.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sing of the air, and the wild delight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of wings that uplift and winds that uphold you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The joy of freedom, the rapture of flight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through the drift of the floating mists that infold you;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the landscape lying so far below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With its towns and rivers and desert places;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the splendour of light above, and the glow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of the limitless, blue, ethereal spaces.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ask him if songs of the Troubadours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Or of Minnesingers in old black-letter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sound in his ears more sweet than yours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And if yours are not sweeter and wilder and better.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sing to him, say to him, here at his gate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where the boughs of the stately elms are meeting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some one hath lingered to meditate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And send him unseen this friendly greeting;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">That many another hath done the same,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Though not by a sound was the silence broken;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The surest pledge of a deathless name</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="COLONNA" class="center spa2">VITTORIA COLONNA.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><span class="smcap">Vittoria Colonna</span>,
+on the death of her husband, the Marchese di Pescara, retired to her
+castle at Ischia (Inarimé), and there wrote the Ode upon his death,
+which gained her the title of Divine.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Once more, once more, Inarimé,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I see thy purple hills!—once more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I hear the billows of the bay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wash the white pebbles on thy shore.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">High o’er the sea-surge and the sands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like a great galleon wrecked and cast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ashore by storms, thy castle stands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A mouldering landmark of the Past.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon its terrace-walk I see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A phantom gliding to and fro;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is Colonna,—it is she</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who lived and loved so long ago,</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pescara’s beautiful young wife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The type of perfect womanhood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose life was love, the life of life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That time and change and death withstood.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For death, that breaks the marriage band</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In others, only closer pressed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wedding ring upon her hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And closer locked and barred her breast.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">She knew the lifelong martyrdom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The weariness, the endless pain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of waiting for some one to come</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who never more would come again.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The shadows of the chestnut-trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The odour of the orange blooms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The song of birds, and, more than these,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The silence of deserted rooms;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The respiration of the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The soft caresses of the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All things in nature seemed to be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But ministers of her despair;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till the o’erburdened heart, so long</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Imprisoned in itself, found vent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And voice in one impassioned song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of inconsolable lament.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then as the sun, though hidden from sight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Transmutes to gold the leaden mist,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her life was interfused with light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From realms that, though unseen, exist.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Inarimé! Inarimé!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thy castle on the crags above</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In dust shall crumble and decay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But not the memory of her love.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="SONG1" class="center spa2">SONG.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Home-keeping hearts are happiest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For those that wander they know not where</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are full of trouble and full of care;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To stay at home is best.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Weary and homesick and distressed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They wander east, they wander west,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And are baffled and beaten and blown about</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the winds of the wilderness of doubt;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To stay at home is best.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then stay at home, my heart, and rest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The bird is safest in its nest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er all that flutter their wings and fly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A hawk is hovering in the sky;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To stay at home is best.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="FLEET" class="center spa2">A BALLAD OF THE FRENCH FLEET.</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">October 1746.<br>Mr. Thomas Prince</span> <i>loquitur</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">A fleet with flags arrayed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Sailed from the port of Brest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Admiral’s ship displayed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The signal—“Steer south-west.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For this Admiral D’Anville</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Had sworn by cross and crown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To ravage with fire and steel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Our helpless Boston town.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">There were rumours in the street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In the houses there was fear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the coming of the fleet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the danger hovering near;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And while from mouth to mouth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Spread the tidings of dismay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I stood in the Old South,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Saying humbly, “Let us pray!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O Lord! we would not advise;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But if in thy Providence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A tempest should arise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To drive the French fleet hence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And scatter it far and wide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Or sink it in the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We should be satisfied,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And thine the glory be.”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">This was the prayer I made,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">For my soul was all on flame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And even as I prayed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The answering tempest came.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It came with a mighty power,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Shaking the windows and walls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And tolling the bell in the tower,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As it tolls at funerals.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The lightning suddenly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Unsheathed its flaming sword,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And I cried, “Stand still, and see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The salvation of the Lord!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The heavens were black with cloud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The sea was white with hail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And ever more fierce and loud</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Blew the October gale.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The fleet it overtook,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the broad sails in the van,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the tents of Cushan shook,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Or the curtains of Midian.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down on the reeling decks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Crashed the o’erwhelming seas;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah, never were there wrecks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">So pitiful as these!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a potter’s vessel broke</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The great ships of the line;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They were carried away as a smoke,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Or sank like lead in the brine.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O Lord! before thy path</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">They vanished and ceased to be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When thou didst walk in wrath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With thine horses through the sea.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="CASTLES" class="center spa2">CASTLES IN SPAIN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How much of my young heart, O Spain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Went out to thee in days of yore!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What dreams romantic filled my brain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And summoned back to life again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Paladins of Charlemagne,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The Cid Campeador!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And shapes more shadowy than these,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the dim twilight half revealed:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Phœnician galleys on the seas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Roman camps like hives of bees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Goth uplifting from his knees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Pelayo on his shield.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was these memories perchance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From annals of remotest eld,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That lent the colours of romance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To every trivial circumstance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And changed the form and countenance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of all that I beheld.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Old towns, whose history lies hid</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In monkish chronicle or rhyme,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Burgos, the birthplace of the Cid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Zamora and Valladolid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Toledo, built and walled amid</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The wars of Wamba’s time;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The long straight line of the highway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The distant town that seems so near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The peasants in the fields, that stay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their toil to cross themselves and pray,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When from the belfry at mid-day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The Angelus they hear;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The crosses in the mountain pass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Mules gay with tassels, the loud din</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of muleteers, the tethered ass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That crops the dusty wayside grass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And cavaliers with spurs of brass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Alighting at the inn;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">White hamlets hidden in fields of wheat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">White cities slumbering by the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">White sunshine flooding square and street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dark mountain-ranges, at whose feet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The river-beds are dry with heat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All was a dream to me.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet something sombre and severe</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O’er the enchanted landscape reigned;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A terror in the atmosphere</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if King Philip listened near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or Torquemada, the austere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">His ghostly sway maintained.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The softer Andalusian skies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Dispelled the sadness and the gloom;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There Cadiz by the sea-side lies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Seville’s orange-orchards rise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Making the land a paradise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of beauty and of bloom.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There Córdova is hidden among</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The palm, the olive, and the vine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gem of the South, by poets sung,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in whose Mosque Almanzor hung</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As lamps the bells that once had rung</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">At Compostella’s shrine.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But over all the rest supreme,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The star of stars, the cynosure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The artist’s and the poet’s theme,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The young man’s vision, the old man’s dream,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Granada by its winding stream,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The city of the Moor!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And there the Alhambra still recalls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Aladdin’s palace of delight:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Allah il Allah! through its halls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whispers the fountain as it falls;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Darro darts beneath its walls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The hills with snow are white.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah yes, the hills are white with snow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And cold with blasts that bite and freeze;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But in the happy vale below</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The orange and pomegranate grow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And wafts of air toss to and fro</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The blossoming almond-trees.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Vega cleft by the Xenil,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The fascination and allure</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the sweet landscape chain the will.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The traveller lingers on the hill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His parted lips are breathing still</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The last sigh of the Moor.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How like a ruin overgrown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With flowers that hide the rents of time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stands now the Past that I have known;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Castles in Spain, not built of stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But of white summer cloud, and blown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Into this little mist of rhyme!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="CZAR" class="center spa2">THE WHITE CZAR.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dost thou see on the rampart’s height</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That wreath of mist, in the light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the midnight moon? O, hist!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is not a wreath of mist;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is the Czar, the White Czar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Batyushka! Gosudar!&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_58_58" href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He has heard, among the dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The artillery roll o’erhead;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The drums and the tramp of feet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of his soldiery in the street;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He is awake! the White Czar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Batyushka! Gosudar!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He has heard in the grave the cries</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of his people: “Awake! arise!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He has rent the gold brocade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whereof his shroud was made;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He is risen! the White Czar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Batyushka! Gosudar!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the Volga and the Don</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He has led his armies on,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over river and morass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over desert and mountain pass;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Czar, the Orthodox Czar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Batyushka! Gosudar!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He looks from the mountain-chain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Toward the seas, that cleave in twain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The continents; his hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Points southward o’er the land</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Roumele! O Czar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Batyushka! Gosudar!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the words break from his lips:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I am the builder of ships,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And my ships shall sail these seas</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the Pillars of Hercules!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I say it; the White Czar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Batyushka! Gosudar!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The Bosphorus shall be free;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It shall make room for me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the gates of its water-streets</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Be unbarred before my fleets.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I say it; the White Czar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Batyushka! Gosudar!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“And the Christian shall no more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Be crushed, as heretofore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath thine iron rule,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O Sultan of Istamboul!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I swear it! I the Czar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Batyushka! Gosudar!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">THE LEAP OF ROUSHAN BEG.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mounted on Kyrat strong and fleet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His chestnut steed with four white feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Roushan Beg, called Kurroglou,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Son of the road and bandit chief,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seeking refuge and relief,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Up the mountain pathway flew.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such was Kyrat’s wondrous speed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Never yet could any steed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Reach the dust-cloud in his course.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">More than maiden, more than wife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">More than gold, and next to life</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Roushan the Robber loved his horse.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the land that lies beyond</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Erzeroum and Trebizond,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Garden-girt his fortress stood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Plundered khan, or caravan</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Journeying north from Koordistan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Gave him wealth and wine and food.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seven hundred and fourscore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Men at arms his livery wore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Did his bidding night and day.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now, through regions all unknown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He was wandering, lost, alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Seeking without guide his way.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Suddenly the pathway ends,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sheer the precipice descends,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Loud the torrent roars unseen;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thirty feet from side to side</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yawns the chasm; on air must ride</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He who crosses this ravine.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Following close in his pursuit,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At the precipice’s foot,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Reyhan the Arab, of Orfah,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Halted with his hundred men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shouting upward from the glen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“La il Allah-Allah-la!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gently Roushan Beg caressed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Kyrat’s forehead, neck, and breast;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Kissed him upon both his eyes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sang to him in his wild way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As upon the topmost spray</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sings a bird before it flies.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O my Kyrat, O my steed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Round and slender as a reed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Carry me this peril through!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Satin housings shall be thine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shoes of gold, O Kyrat mine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O thou soul of Kurroglou!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Soft thy skin as silken skein,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Soft as woman’s hair thy mane,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Tender are thine eyes and true;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All thine hoofs like ivory shine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Polished bright; O, life of mine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Leap, and rescue Kurroglou!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Kyrat, then, the strong and fleet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Drew together his four white feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Paused a moment on the verge,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Measured with his eye the space,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And into the air’s embrace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Leaped as leaps the ocean surge.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the ocean surge o’er silt and sand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bears a swimmer safe to land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Kyrat safe his rider bore;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rattling down the deep abyss</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fragments of the precipice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Rolled like pebbles on a shore.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Roushan’s tasselled cap of red</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Trembled not upon his head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Careless sat he and upright;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Neither hand nor bridle shook,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor his head he turned to look,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As he galloped out of sight.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Flash of harness in the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seen a moment like the glare</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of a sword drawn from its sheath;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus the phantom horseman passed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the shadow that he cast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Leaped the cataract underneath.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Reyhan the Arab held his breath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While this vision of life and death</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Passed above him. “Allahu!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Cried he. “In all Koordistan</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lives there not so brave a man</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As this Robber Kurroglou!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">HAROUN AL RASCHID.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">One day, Haroun Al Raschid read</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A book wherein the poet said:—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Where are the kings, and where the rest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of those who once the world possessed?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“They’re gone with all their pomp and show,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They’re gone the way that thou shalt go.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O thou who choosest for thy share</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The world, and what the world calls fair,</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Take all that it can give or lend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But know that death is at the end!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Haroun Al Raschid bowed his head;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tears fell upon the page he read.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="THREE_KINGS" class="center spa2">THE THREE KINGS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Three Kings came riding from far away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Three Wise Men out of the East were they,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And they travelled by night and they slept by day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The star was so beautiful, large, and clear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That all the other stars of the sky</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Became a white mist in the atmosphere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And by this they knew that the coming was near</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of the Prince foretold in the prophecy.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Three caskets they bore on their saddle-bows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Three caskets of gold with golden keys;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their robes were of crimson silk with rows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of bells and pomegranates and furbelows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Their turbans like blossoming almond-trees.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And so the Three Kings rode into the West,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through the dusk of night over hills and dells,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sometimes they nodded with beard on breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sometimes talked, as they paused to rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With the people they met at the wayside wells.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Of the child that is born,” said Baltasar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“Good people, I pray you, tell us the news;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For we in the East have seen his star,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And have ridden fast, and have ridden far,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To find and worship the King of the Jews.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the people answered, “You ask in vain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">We know of no king but Herod the Great!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They thought the Wise Men were men insane,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As they spurred their horses across the plain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like riders in haste who cannot wait.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when they came to Jerusalem,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Herod the Great, who had heard this thing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sent for the Wise Men and questioned them;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And said, “Go down unto Bethlehem,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And bring me tidings of this new king.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So they rode away; and the star stood still,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The only one in the grey of morn;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yes, it stopped, it stood still of its own free will,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Right over Bethlehem on the hill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The city of David where Christ was born.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Three Kings rode through the gate and the guard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through the silent street, till their horses turned</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And neighed as they entered the great inn-yard;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the windows were closed, and the doors were barred,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And only a light in the stable burned.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And cradled there in the scented hay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the air made sweet by the breath of kine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The little child in the manger lay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Child that would be King one day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of a kingdom not human but divine.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">His mother, Mary of Nazareth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sat watching beside his place of rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Watching the even flow of his breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For the joy of life and the terror of death</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Were mingled together in her breast.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They laid their offerings at his feet:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The gold was their tribute to a King,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The frankincense, with its odour sweet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was for the Priest, the Paraclete,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The myrrh for the body’s burying.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the mother wondered and bowed her head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And sat as still as a statue of stone;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her heart was troubled yet comforted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Remembering what the Angel had said</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of an endless reign and of David’s throne.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then the Kings rode out of the city gate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With a clatter of hoofs in proud array;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But they went not back to Herod the Great,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For they knew his malice and feared his hate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And returned to their homes by another way.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">KING TRISANKU.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Viswamitra the magician,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By his spells and incantations,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Up to Indra’s realms elysian</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Raised Trisanku, king of nations.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">India and the Gods offended</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Hurled him downward, and descending</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the air he hung suspended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With these equal powers contending.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus by aspirations lifted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By misgivings downward driven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Human hearts are tossed and drifted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Midway between earth and heaven.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="POPULI" class="center spa2">VOX POPULI.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">When Mazáran, the magician,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Journeyed westward through Cathay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nothing heard he but the praises</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of Badoura on his way.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the lessening rumour ended</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When he came to Khaledan;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There the folks were talking only</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of Prince Camaralzaman.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So it happens with the poets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Every province hath its own;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Camaralzaman is famous</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where Badoura is unknown.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="REVENGE" class="center spa2">THE REVENGE OF RAIN-IN-THE-FACE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In that desolate land and lone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Roar down their mountain path,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By their fires the Sioux chiefs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Muttered their woes and griefs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the menace of their wrath.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Revenge!” cried Rain-in-the-Face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Revenge upon all the race</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of the White Chief with yellow hair!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the mountains dark and high</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From their crags re-echoed the cry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of his anger and despair.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the meadow, spreading wide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By woodland and river-side</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The Indian village stood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All was silent as a dream,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Save the rushing of the stream</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the blue-jay in the wood.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In his war-paint and his beads,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a bison among the reeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In ambush the Sitting Bull</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay with three thousand braves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crouched in the clefts and caves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Savage, unmerciful!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the fatal snare</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The White Chief with yellow hair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And his three hundred men</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dashed headlong, sword in hand;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But of that gallant band</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Not one returned again.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The sudden darkness of death</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Overwhelmed them, like the breath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And smoke of a furnace fire;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the river’s bank, and between</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The rocks of the ravine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">They lay in their bloody attire.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the foeman fled in the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Rain-in-the-Face, in his flight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Uplifted high in air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a ghastly trophy, bore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The brave heart that beat no more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of the White Chief with yellow hair.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whose was the right and the wrong?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sing it, O funeral song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With a voice that is full of tears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And say that our broken faith,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wrought all this ruin and scathe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In the Year of a Hundred Years!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">TO THE RIVER YVETTE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O lovely river of Yvette!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O darling river! like a bride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some dimpled, bashful, fair Lisette,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thou goest to wed the Orge’s tide.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Maincourt, and lordly Dampierre,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">See and salute thee on thy way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, with a blessing and a prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Ring the sweet bells of St. Forget.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The valley of Chevreuse in vain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Would hold thee in its fond embrace;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou glidest from its arms again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And hurriest on with swifter pace.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou wilt not stay; with restless feet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Pursuing still thine onward flight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou goest as one in haste to meet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Her sole desire, her heart’s delight.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O lovely river of Yvette!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O darling stream! on balanced wings</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wood-birds sang the chansonnette</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That here an unknown poet sings.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="GLOVE" class="center spa2">THE EMPEROR’S GLOVE.</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">“Combien faudrait-il de peaux d’Espagne pour
+faire un gant de cette grandeur?” A play upon the words <i>gant</i>, a
+glove, and <i>Gand</i>, the French for Ghent.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On St. Bavon’s tower, commanding</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Half of Flanders, his domain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Charles the Emperor once was standing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While beneath him on the landing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Stood Duke Alva and his train.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a print in books of fables,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Or a model made for show,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With its pointed roofs and gables,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dormer windows, scrolls and labels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Lay the city far below.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through its squares and streets and alleys</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Poured the populace of Ghent;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a routed army rallies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or as rivers run through valleys,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Hurrying to their homes they went.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Nest of Lutheran misbelievers!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Cried Duke Alva as he gazed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Haunt of traitors and deceivers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stronghold of insurgent weavers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Let it to the ground be razed!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the Emperor’s cap the feather</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Nods, as laughing he replies:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“How many skins of Spanish leather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Think you, would, if stitched together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Make a glove of such a size?”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="WRAITH" class="center spa2">A WRAITH IN THE MIST.</p>
+
+<p class="author">“Sir, I should build me a fortification if I came to live
+here.”<br>—<span class="smcap">Boswell’s</span> <i>Johnson</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the green little isle of Inchkenneth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who is it that walks by the shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So gay with his Highland blue bonnet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">So brave with his targe and claymore?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">His form is the form of a giant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But his face wears an aspect of pain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Can this be the Laird of Inchkenneth?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Can this be Sir Alan McLean?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah, no! It is only the Rambler,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The Idler, who lives in Bolt Court,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And who says, were he Laird of Inchkenneth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He would wall himself round with a fort.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">Miscellaneous Poems.</h2>
+<p class="center">1879 TO 1882.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p class="center spa2">THE GOLDEN SUNSET.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The golden sea its mirror spread</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beneath the golden skies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And but a narrow strip between</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of land and shadow lies.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The cloud-like rocks, the rock-like clouds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Dissolved in glory float,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And midway of the radiant flood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Hangs silently the boat.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sea is but another sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The sky a sea as well,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And which is earth and which is heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The eye can scarcely tell.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So when for us life’s evening hour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Soft fading shall descend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">May glory, born of earth and heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The earth and heaven blend.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Flooded with peace the spirits float,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With silent rapture glow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till where earth ends and heaven begins,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The soul shall scarcely know.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="ARM_CHAIR" class="center spa2">FROM MY ARM-CHAIR.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>To the Children of Cambridge, who presented to me,
+on my Seventy-second Birthday, February 27, 1879, this Chair, made from the
+Wood of the Village Blacksmith’s Chestnut Tree.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Am I a king, that I should call my own</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">This splendid ebon throne?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or by what reason, or what right divine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Can I proclaim it mine?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only, perhaps, by right divine of song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">It may to me belong;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only because the spreading chestnut tree</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Of old was sung by me.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Well I remember it in all its prime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">When in the summer-time</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The affluent foliage of its branches made</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">A cavern of cool shade.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There by the blacksmith’s forge beside the street</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Its blossom white and sweet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Enticed the bees, until it seemed alive,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">And murmured like a hive.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when the winds of autumn, with a shout,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Tossed its great arms about,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The shining chestnuts, bursting from the sheath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Dropped to the ground beneath.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now some fragments of its branches bare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Shaped as a stately chair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have by my hearthstone found a home at last,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">And whisper of the Past.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Danish king could not in all his pride</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Repel the ocean tide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But seated in this chair, I can in rhyme</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Roll back the tide of Time.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see again, as one in vision sees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">The blossoms and the bees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And hear the children’s voices shout and call,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">And the brown chestnuts fall.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see the smithy with its fires aglow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">I hear the bellows blow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the shrill hammers on the anvil beat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">The iron white with heat!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thus, dear children, have ye made for me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">This day a jubilee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And to my more than threescore years and ten</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Brought back my youth again.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The heart hath its own memory, like the mind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">And in it are enshrined</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The precious keepsakes, into which are wrought</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">The giver’s loving thought.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only your love and your remembrance could</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Give life to this dead wood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And make these branches, leafless now so long,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Blossom again in song.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="CHAMBER" class="center spa2">THE CHAMBER OVER THE GATE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is it so far from thee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou canst no longer see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the Chamber over the Gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That old man desolate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Weeping and wailing sore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For his son who is no more?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">O Absalom, my son!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is it so long ago</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That cry of human woe</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the walled city came,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Calling on his dear name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That it has died away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the distance of to-day?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">O Absalom, my son!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is no far nor near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is neither there nor here,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is neither soon nor late,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In that Chamber over the Gate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor any long ago</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To that cry of human woe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">O Absalom, my son!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the ages that are past</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The voice comes like a blast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over seas that wreck and drown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over tumult of traffic and town;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And from ages yet to be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come the echoes back to me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">O Absalom, my son!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Somewhere at every hour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The watchman on the tower</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Looks forth, and sees the fleet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Approach of the hurrying feet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of messengers that bear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The tidings of despair.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">O Absalom, my son!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He goes forth from the door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who shall return no more.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With him our joy departs;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The light goes out in our hearts;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the Chamber over the Gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We sit disconsolate.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">O Absalom, my son!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">That ’tis a common grief</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bringing but slight relief;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ours is the bitterest loss,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ours is the heaviest cross;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And for ever the cry will be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Would God I had died for thee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">O Absalom, my son!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="MADISON" class="center spa2">THE FOUR LAKES OF MADISON.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Four limpid lakes—four Naiades</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or sylvan deities are these,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">In flowing robes of azure dressed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Four lovely handmaids that uphold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their shining mirrors, rimmed with gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To the fair city in the West.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">By day the coursers of the Sun</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Drink of these waters as they run</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Their swift diurnal round on high;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By night the constellations glow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Far down the hollow deeps below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And glimmer in another sky.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fair Lakes, serene and full of light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fair town, arrayed in robes of white,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">How visionary ye appear!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All like a floating landscape seems</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In cloud-land or the land of dreams</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Bathed in a golden atmosphere.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</span></p>
+<p id="PETER" class="center spa2">THE SIFTING OF PETER.</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">A Folk Song.</span></p>
+
+<p class="author">“Behold, Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat.”<br>
+—<span class="smcap">St. Luke xxii. 31.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In St. Luke’s Gospel we are told</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How Peter in the days of old</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Was sifted;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now, though ages intervene,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sin is the same, while time and scene</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Are shifted.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Satan desires us, great and small,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As wheat, to sift us, and we all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Are tempted;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not one, however rich or great,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is by his station or estate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Exempted.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">No house so safely guarded is</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But he, by some device of his,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Can enter;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No heart hath armour so complete</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But he can pierce with arrows fleet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Its centre.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For all at last the cock will crow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who hear the warning voice, but go</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Unheeding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till thrice and more they have denied</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Man of Sorrows, crucified</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">And bleeding.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">One look of that pale suffering face</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will make us feel the deep disgrace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Of weakness;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We shall be sifted till the strength</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of self-conceit be changed at length</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">To meekness.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wounds of the soul, though healed, will ache,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The reddening scars remain, and make</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Confession;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lost innocence returns no more;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We are not what we were before</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Transgression.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But noble souls, through dust and heat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rise from disaster and defeat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">The stronger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And conscious still of the Divine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Within them, he on earth supine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">No longer.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="HELEN" class="center spa2">HELEN OF TYRE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What phantom is this, that appears</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the purple mists of the years</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Itself but a mist like these?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A woman of cloud and of fire;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is she; it is Helen of Tyre,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The town in the midst of the seas!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O Tyre! in thy crowded streets</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The phantom appears and retreats,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">And the Israelites, that sell</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy lilies and lions of brass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Look up as they see her pass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">And murmur “Jezebel!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then another phantom is seen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At her side, in a grey gabardine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">With beard that floats to his waist;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is Simon Magus, the Seer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He speaks, and she pauses to hear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The words he utters in haste.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He says: “From this evil fame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From this life of sorrow and shame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">I will lift thee and make thee mine!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast been Queen Candace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Helen of Troy, and shalt be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The Intelligence Divine!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Oh, sweet as the breath of morn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the fallen and forlorn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Are whispered words of praise;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For the famished heart believes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The falsehood that tempts and deceives,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the promise that betrays.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So she follows from land to land</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wizard’s beckoning hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">As a leaf is blown by the gust,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till she vanishes into night!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O reader, stoop down and write</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">With thy finger in the dust.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O town in the midst of the seas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With thy rafts of cedar trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Thy merchandise and thy ships,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou, too, art become as nought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A phantom, a shadow, a thought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">A name upon men’s lips.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="IRON_PEN" class="center spa2">THE IRON PEN</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent">MADE FROM A FETTER OF BONNIVARD, THE PRISONER OF
+CHILLON; THE HANDLE OF WOOD FROM THE FRIGATE “CONSTITUTION,” AND BOUND
+WITH A CIRCLET OF GOLD, INSET WITH THREE PRECIOUS STONES FROM SIBERIA,
+CEYLON, AND MAINE.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I thought this Pen would arise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the casket where it lies—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of itself would arise, and write</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My thanks and my surprise.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">When you gave it me under the pines,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I dreamed these gems from the mines</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of Siberia, Ceylon, and Maine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Would glimmer as thoughts in the lines;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">That this iron link from the chain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Bonnivard might retain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Some verse of the Poet who sang</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the prisoner and his pain;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">That this wood from the frigate’s mast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Might write me a rhyme at last,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As it used to write on the sky</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The song of the sea and the blast.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But motionless as I wait,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a Bishop lying in state</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Lies the Pen, with its mitre of gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And its jewels inviolate.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then I must speak, and say</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That the light of that summer day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the garden under the pines</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall not fade and pass away.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I shall see you standing there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Caressed by the fragrant air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With the shadow on your face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the sunshine on your hair.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I shall hear the sweet low tone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of a voice before unknown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Saying, “This is from me to you—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From me, and to you alone.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in words not idle and vain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I shall answer, and thank you again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For the gift, and the grace of the gift,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O beautiful Helen of Maine!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And for ever this gift will be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a blessing from you to me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As a drop of the dew of your youth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the leaves of an aged tree.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="POET_SONGS" class="center spa2">THE POET AND HIS SONGS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the birds come in the spring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">We know not from where;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the stars come at evening</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From the depths of the air;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the rain comes from the cloud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the brook from the ground;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As suddenly, low or loud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Out of silence a sound;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the grape comes to the vine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The fruit to the tree;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the wind comes to the pine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the tide to the sea;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As come the white sails of ships</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O’er the ocean’s verge;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As comes the smile to the lips;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The foam to the surge;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So come to the Poet his songs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All hitherward blown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the misty land, that belongs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To the vast Unknown.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">His, and not his, are the lays</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He sings;—and their fame</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is his, and not his;—and the praise</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the pride of a name.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For voices pursue him by day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And haunt him by night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he listens, and needs must obey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When the angel says: “Write!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="BURNS" class="center spa2">ROBERT BURNS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see amid the fields of Ayr</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A ploughman, who in foul or fair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Sings at his task,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So clear we know not if it is</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The laverock’s song we hear or his,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Nor care to ask.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For him the ploughing of those fields</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A more ethereal harvest yields</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Than sheaves of grain:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Songs flush with purple bloom the rye;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The plover’s call, the curlew’s cry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Sing in his brain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Touched by his hand, the wayside weed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Becomes a flower; the lowliest reed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Beside the stream</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is clothed with beauty; gorse and grass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And heather, where his footsteps pass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">The brighter seem.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He sings of love, whose flame illumes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The darkness of lone cottage rooms;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">He feels the force,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The treacherous under-tow and stress,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of wayward passions, and no less</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">The keen remorse.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">At moments, wrestling with his fate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His voice is harsh, but not with hate;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">The brushwood hung</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Above the tavern door lets fall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its bitter leaf, its drop of gall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Upon his tongue.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But still the burden of his song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is love of right, disdain of wrong;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Its master chords</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are Manhood, Freedom, Brotherhood;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its discords but an interlude</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Between the words.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then to die so young, and leave</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unfinished what he might achieve!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Yet better sure</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is this than wandering up and down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">An old man, in a country town,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Infirm and poor.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For now he haunts his native land</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As an immortal youth; his hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Guides every plough;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He sits beside each ingle-nook;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His voice is in each rushing brook,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Each rustling bough.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">His presence haunts this room to-night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A form of mingled mist and light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">From that far coast.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Welcome beneath this roof of mine!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Welcome! this vacant chair is thine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Dear guest and ghost!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">BAYARD TAYLOR.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dead he lay among his books!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The peace of God was in his looks.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the statues in the gloom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Watch o’er Maximilian’s tomb,</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So those volumes from their shelves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Watched him silent as themselves.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! his hand will never more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Turn their storied pages o’er,</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Never more his lips repeat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Songs of theirs, however sweet.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let the lifeless body rest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He is gone who was its guest;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gone, as travellers haste to leave</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">An inn, nor tarry until eve.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Traveller! in what realms afar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In what planet, in what star,</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In what vast, aërial space</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shines the light upon thy face?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In what gardens of delight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rest thy weary feet to-night?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Poet! thou whose latest verse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was a garland on thy hearse;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast sung, with organ tone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In Deukalion’s life thine own;&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_59_59" href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the ruins of the past</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blooms the perfect flower at last.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Friend! but yesterday the bells</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rang for thee their loud farewells;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And to-day they toll for thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lying dead beyond the sea;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lying dead among thy books,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The peace of God in all thy looks!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">OLD ST. DAVID’S AT RADNOR.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What an image of peace and rest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is this little church among its graves!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All is so quiet; the troubled breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wounded spirit, the heart oppressed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Here may find the repose it craves.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">See how the ivy climbs and expands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Over this humble hermitage,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And seems to caress with its little hands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rough grey stones, as a child that stands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Caressing the wrinkled cheeks of age!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">You cross the threshold; and dim and small</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is the space that serves for the Shepherd’s Fold;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The narrow aisle, the bare white wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The pews, and the pulpit quaint and tall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Whisper and say, “Alas! we are old.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Herbert’s Chapel at Bemerton,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Hardly more spacious is than this;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But Poet and Pastor, blent in one,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Clothed with a splendour as of the sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That lowly and holy edifice.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is not the wall of stone without</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That makes the building small or great,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the soul’s light shining round about,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the faith that overcometh doubt,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the love that stronger is than hate.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were I a pilgrim in search of peace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Were I a pastor of Holy Church,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">More than a bishop’s diocese</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Should I prize this place of rest and release</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From further longing and further search.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here would I stay, and let the world</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With its distant thunder roar and roll;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Storms do not rend the sail that is furled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor like a dead leaf tossed and whirled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In an eddy of wind is the anchored soul.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">JUGURTHA.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How cold are thy baths, Apollo!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Cried the African monarch the splendid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As down to his death in the hollow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Dark dungeons of Rome he descended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Uncrowned, unthroned, unattended;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How cold are thy baths, Apollo!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How cold are thy baths, Apollo!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Cried the Poet, unknown, unbefriended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the vision that lured him to follow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With the mist and the darkness blended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the dream of his life was ended;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How cold are thy baths, Apollo!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="WEATHERCOCK" class="center spa2">MAIDEN AND WEATHERCOCK.</p>
+<p class="f90"><span class="smcap">A Folk Song.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent13 fs_90">MAIDEN.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O weathercock on the village spire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With your golden feathers all on fire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tell me, what can you see from your perch,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Above there over the towers of the church?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent11 fs_90">WEATHERCOCK.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I can see the roofs and the streets below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the people moving to and fro,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And beyond, without either roof or street,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The great salt sea and the fishermen’s fleet.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I can see a ship come sailing in</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beyond the headlands and harbour of Lynn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a young man standing on the deck</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a silken ’kerchief round his neck.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now he is pressing it to his lips,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now he is kissing his finger tips,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now he is lifting and waving his hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And blowing the kisses toward the land.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent14 fs_90">MAIDEN.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah, that is the ship from over the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That is bringing my lover back to me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bringing my lover so fond and true,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who does not change with the wind like you.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent12 fs_90">WEATHERCOCK.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If I change with all the winds that blow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is only because they made me so;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And people would think it wondrous strange</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If I, a weathercock, should not change.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O pretty maiden, so fine and fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With your dreamy eyes and your golden hair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When you and your lover meet to-day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You will thank me for looking some other way.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="WINDMILL" class="center spa2">THE WINDMILL.</p>
+<p class="f90"><span class="smcap">A Folk Song.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Behold!&emsp; a giant am I!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Aloft here in my tower</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With my granite jaws I devour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The maize, and the wheat, and the rye,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And grind them into flour.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I look down over the farms;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the fields of grain I see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The harvest that is to be;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I fling to the air my arms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For I know it is all for me.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I hear the sound of flails,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Far off from the threshing-floors</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In barns, with their open doors,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the wind, the wind in my sails</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Louder and louder roars.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I stand here in my place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With my foot on the rock below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And whichever way it may blow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I meet it face to face</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As a brave man meets his foe.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And while we wrestle and strive,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">My master the miller stands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And feeds me with his hands;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For he knows who makes him thrive,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who makes him lord of lands.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On Sundays I take my rest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Church-going bells begin</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Their low melodious din;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I cross my arms on my breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And all is peace within.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">VIA SOLITARIA.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alone I walk the peopled city,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where each seems happy with his own;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Oh! friends, I ask not for your pity—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">I walk alone.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">No more for me yon lake rejoices,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Though moved by loving airs of June;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Oh! birds, your sweet and piping voices</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Are out of tune.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In vain for me the elm tree arches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Its plumes in many a feathery spray;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In vain the evening’s starry marches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">And sunlit day.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In vain your beauty, Summer flowers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Ye cannot greet these cordial eyes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They gaze on other fields than ours—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">On other skies.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The gold is rifled from the coffer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The blade is stolen from the sheath;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Life has but one more boon to offer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">And that is—Death.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet well I know the voice of Duty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And, therefore, life and health must crave,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though she who gave the world its beauty</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Is in her grave.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I live, O lost one! for the living</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who drew their earliest life from thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And wait, until with glad thanksgiving</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">I shall be free.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For life to me is as a station</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wherein apart a traveller stands—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One absent long from home and nation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">In other lands.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I, as he who stands and listens,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Amid the twilight’s chill and gloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To hear, approaching in the distance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">The train for home.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For death shall bring another mating,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beyond the shadows of the tomb,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On yonder shores a bride is waiting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Until I come.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In yonder field are children playing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And there—oh! vision of delight!—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see the child and mother straying</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">In robes of white.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou, then, the longing heart that breakest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Stealing the treasures one by one,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I’ll call Thee blessed when thou makest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">The parted—one.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">AUF WIEDERSEHEN.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_60_60" href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Until we meet again! That is the meaning</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the familiar words that men repeat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">At parting in the street.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah, yes, till then! but when death intervening</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rends us asunder, with what ceaseless pain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">We wait for the Again!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The friends who leave us do not feel the sorrow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of parting as we feel it who must stay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Lamenting day by day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And knowing, when we wake upon the morrow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We shall not find in its accustomed place</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">The one belovèd face.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It were a double grief, if the departed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Being released from earth, should still retain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">A sense of earthly pain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It were a double grief if the true-hearted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who loved us here, should on the farther shore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Remember us no more.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Believing, in the midst of our afflictions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That death is a beginning, not an end,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">We cry to them, and send</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Farewells, that better might be called predictions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Being foreshadowings of the future thrown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Into the vast Unknown.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Faith overleaps the confines of our reason,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And if by faith, as in old times was said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Women received their dead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Raised up to life, then only for a season</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our partings are, nor shall we wait in vain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Until we meet again.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="THULE" class="center spa2">ULTIMA THULE.</p>
+<p class="f90">TO G. W. G.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">With favouring winds, o’er sunlit seas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We sailed for the Hesperides,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The land where golden apples grow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But that, ah! that was long ago.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How far since then the ocean streams</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have swept us from the land of dreams.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That land of fiction and of truth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The lost Atlantis of our youth!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whither, ah, whither? Are not these</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The tempest-haunted Hebrides,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where sea-gulls scream, and breakers roar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And wreck and sea-weed line the shore?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ultima Thule! Utmost Isle!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here in thy harbours for awhile</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We lower our sails; awhile we rest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the unending, endless quest.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="HERMES" class="center spa2">HERMES TRISMEGISTUS.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>As Seleucus narrates, Hermes described the
+principles that rank as wholes in two myriads of books; or, as we are
+informed by Manetho, he perfectly unfolded these principles in three
+myriads six thousand five hundred and twenty five Volumes.</i></p>
+
+<p class="neg-indent"><i>Our ancestors dedicated the inventions of their
+wisdom to this deity, inscribing all their own writings with the name
+of Hermes.</i>—<span class="smcap">Iamblicus.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still through Egypt’s desert places</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Flows the lordly Nile;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From its banks the great stone faces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Gaze with patient smile;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still the pyramids imperious</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Pierce the cloudless skies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Sphinx stares with mysterious,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Solemn, stony eyes.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But where are the old Egyptian</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Demigods and kings?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nothing left but an inscription</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Graven on stones and rings.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where are Helius and Hephoestus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Gods of eldest eld?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where is Hermes Trismegistus,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who their secrets held?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where are now the many hundred</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thousand books he wrote?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the Thaumaturgists plundered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Lost in lands remote;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In oblivion sunk for ever,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As when o’er the land</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blows a storm-wind, in the river</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sinks the scattered sand.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Something unsubstantial, ghostly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Seems this Theurgist,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In deep meditation mostly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wrapped, as in a mist.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Vague, phantasmal, and unreal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To our thought he seems,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Walking in a world ideal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the land of dreams.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was he one, or many, merging</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Name and fame in one,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a stream, to which converging</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Many streamlets run?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till, with gathered power proceeding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Ampler sweep it takes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Downward the sweet waters leading</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From unnumbered lakes.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the Nile I see him wandering,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Pausing now and then,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the mystic union pondering</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Between gods and men;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Half-believing, wholly feeling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With supreme delight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How the gods, themselves concealing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Lift men to their height.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or in Thebes, the hundred-gated,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the thoroughfare</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Breathing, as if consecrated,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A diviner air;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And amid discordant noises,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the jostling throng,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hearing far, celestial voices</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of Olympian song.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who shall call his dreams fallacious?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who has searched or sought</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the unexplored and spacious</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Universe of thought?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who, in his own skill confiding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Shall with rule and line</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mark the border-land dividing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Human and divine?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Trismegistus! three times greatest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">How thy name sublime</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has descended to this latest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Progeny of time!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Happy they whose written pages</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Perish with their lives,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If amid the crumbling ages</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Still their name survives!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thine, O priest of Egypt, lately</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Found I in the vast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Weed-encumbered, sombre, stately</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Graveyard of the Past;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a presence moved before me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On that gloomy shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a waft of wind, that o’er me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Breathed, and was no more.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="DECORATION" class="center spa2">DECORATION DAY.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On this Field of the Grounded Arms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where foes no more molest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Nor sentry’s shot alarms!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye have slept on the ground before,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And started to your feet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At the cannon’s sudden roar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Or the drum’s redoubling beat.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But in this camp of Death</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">No sound your slumber breaks;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here is no fevered breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">No wound that bleeds and aches.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All is repose and peace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Untrampled lies the sod;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The shouts of battle cease,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">It is the Truce of God!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rest, comrades, rest and sleep!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The thoughts of men shall be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As sentinels to keep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Your rest from danger free.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Your silent tents of green</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">We deck with fragrant flowers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yours has the suffering been,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The memory shall be ours.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">MAD RIVER.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_61_61" href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p>
+
+<p class="f90"><span class="smcap">In the White Mountains.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent11 fs_90">TRAVELLER.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why dost thou wildly rush and roar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Mad River, O Mad River?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wilt thou not pause and cease to pour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy hurrying, headlong waters o’er</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">This rocky shelf for ever?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What secret trouble stirs thy breast?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Why all this fret and flurry?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dost thou not know that what is best</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In this too restless world is rest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">From over-work and worry?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent11 fs_90">THE RIVER.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What wouldst thou in these mountains seek,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">O stranger from the city?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is it, perhaps, some foolish freak</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of thine, to put the words I speak</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Into a plaintive ditty?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent11 fs_90">TRAVELLER.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yes; I would learn of thee thy song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">With all its flowing numbers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in a voice as fresh and strong</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As thine is, sing it all day long,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And hear it in my slumbers.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent11 fs_90">THE RIVER.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A brooklet nameless and unknown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Was I at first, resembling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A little child, that all alone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Comes venturing down the stairs of stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Irresolute and trembling.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Later, by wayward fancies led,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">For the wide world I panted;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Out of the forest dark and dread,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Across the open fields I fled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Like one pursued and haunted!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I tossed my arms, I sang aloud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">My voice exultant blending</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With thunder from the passing cloud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wind, the forest bent and bowed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The rush of rain descending.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_515">[Pg 515]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I heard the distant ocean call,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Imploring and entreating;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Drawn onward, o’er this rocky wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I plunged, and the loud waterfall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Made answer to the greeting.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And now, beset with many ills,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">A toilsome life I follow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Compelled to carry from the hills</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">These logs to the impatient mills,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Below there in the hollow.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet something ever cheers and charms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The rudeness of my labours;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Daily I water with these arms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The cattle of a hundred farms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And have the birds for neighbours.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Men call me <span class="smcap">Mad</span>, and well they may,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">When, full of rage and trouble,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I burst my banks of sand and clay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sweep their wooden bridge away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Like withered reeds and stubble.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now go and write thy little rhyme</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">As of thine own creating.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou seest the day is past its prime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I can no longer waste my time;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The mills are tired of waiting.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="WIGHT" class="center spa2">INSCRIPTION ON THE SHANKLIN FOUNTAIN,<br>
+ISLE OF WIGHT.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>The following quotation from a private letter, dated “Shanklin, Isle
+of Wight, 1st October 1879,” is the authority for ascribing this
+inscription to the Poet:—</p>
+
+<p>“Just look at this group of thatched cottages! The one on the right
+is a library where we go for books. In the middle is the Crab Inn. Do
+you see what looks like a pile of stones to the right of it? That is a
+fountain for the use of the public. I read some verses painted there on
+a piece of tin, and said to myself: ‘That must be from Longfellow.’ I
+found afterward that they were written by him, by request, when he was
+here some years ago:</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“‘O traveller, stay thy weary feet;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drink of this fountain, pure and sweet;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">It flows for rich and poor the same.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The go thy way, remembering still</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The wayside well beneath the hill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The cup of water in His name.’”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_516">[Pg 516]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">THE BELLS OF SAN BLAS.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_62_62" href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">What say the Bells of San Blas</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the ships that southward pass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the harbour of Mazatlan?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To them it is nothing more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Than the sound of surf on the shore—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Nothing more to master or man.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">But to me, a dreamer of dreams,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To whom what is and what seems</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Are often one and the same,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Bells of San Blas to me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Have a strange, wild melody,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And are something more than a name.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">For bells are the voice of the Church;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They have tones that touch and search</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The hearts of young and old;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">One sound to all, yet each</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lends a meaning to their speech,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the meaning is manifold.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">They are a voice of the Past,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of an age that is fading fast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of a power austere and grand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the flag of Spain unfurled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Its folds o’er this Western world,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the Priest was lord of the land.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The chapel that once looked down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the little seaport town</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Has crumbled into dust;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And on oaken beams below</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The bells swing to and fro,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And are green with mould and rust.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Is, then, the old faith dead,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They say, “and in its stead</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Is some new faith proclaimed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That we are forced to remain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Naked to sun and rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Unsheltered and ashamed?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Once in our tower aloof,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We rang over wall and roof</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Our warnings and our complaints;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And round about us there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The white doves filled the air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Like the white souls of the saints.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_517">[Pg 517]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The saints! ah, have they grown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Forgetful of their own?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Are they asleep or dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That open to the sky</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Their ruined Missions lie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">No longer tenanted?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Oh, bring us back once more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The vanished days of yore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">When the world with faith was filled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bring back the fervid zeal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The hearts of fire and steel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The hands that believe and build!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Then from our tower again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">We will send over land and main</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Our voices of command,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like exiled kings who return</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To their thrones, and the people learn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That the Priest is lord of the land.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">O Bells of San Blas, in vain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ye call back the Past again;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The Past is deaf to your prayer!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Out of the shadows of night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The world rolls into light;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">It is daybreak everywhere.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="GARFIELD" class="center spa2">PRESIDENT GARFIELD.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent6 fs_90">“E venni dal martirio a questa pace.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">These words the poet heard in Paradise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Uttered by one who, bravely dying here.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the true faith was living in that sphere</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where the celestial cross of sacrifice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spread its protecting arms athwart the skies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And set thereon, like jewels crystal clear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The souls magnanimous, that knew not fear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Flashed their efflulgence on his dazzled eyes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah me! how dark the discipline of pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Were not the suffering followed by the sense</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of infinite rest and infinite release!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This is our consolation: and again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A great soul cries to us in our suspense,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“I came from martyrdom unto this peace.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_518">[Pg 518]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><i>Poems</i></h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent fs_90">WRITTEN BETWEEN 1824 AND 1826, WHEN THE POET
+WAS BETWEEN THE AGES OF EIGHTEEN AND TWENTY. THEY HAVE NOT HITHERTO BEEN
+PUBLISHED WITH HIS WORKS.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center spa2">THANKSGIVING.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">When first in ancient time, from Jubal’s tongue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The tuneful anthem filled the morning air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To sacred hymnings and Elysian song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His music-breathing shell the minstrel woke.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Devotion breathed aloud from every chord:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The voice of praise was heard in every tone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And prayer, and thanks to Him the Eternal One,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To him, that with bright inspiration touched</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The high and gifted lyre of heavenly song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And warmed the soul with new vitality.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A stirring energy through nature breathed:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The voice of adoration from her broke,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Swelling aloud in every breeze, and heard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Long in the sullen waterfall,—what time</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Soft Spring or hoary Autumn threw on earth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its bloom or blighting,—when the Summer smiled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or Winter o’er the year’s sepulchre mourned.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Deity was there!—a nameless spirit</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Moved in the breasts of men to do him homage;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when the morning smiled, or evening pale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hung weeping o’er the melancholy urn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They came beneath the broad o’erarching trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in their tremulous shadow worshipped oft,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where pale the vine clung round their simple altars,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And grey moss mantling hung. Above was heard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The melody of winds, breathed out as the green trees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bowed to their quivering touch in living beauty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And birds sang forth their cheerful hymns. Below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The bright and widely wandering rivulet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Struggled and gushed amongst the tangled roots,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That choked its reedy fountain—and dark rocks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Worn smooth by the constant current. Even there</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The listless wave, that stole with mellow voice</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_519">[Pg 519]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where reeds grew rank on the rushy-fringed brink,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the green sedge bent to the wandering wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sang with a cheerful song of sweet tranquillity.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Men felt the heavenly influence—and it stole</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like balm into their hearts, till all was peace;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And even the air they breathed,—the light they saw,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Became religion,—for the ethereal spirit</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That to soft music wakes the chords of feeling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And mellows every thing to beauty,—moved</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With cheering energy within their breasts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And made all holy there—for all was love.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The morning stars, that sweetly sang together—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The moon, that hung at night in the mid-sky—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dayspring—and eventide—and all the fair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And beautiful forms of nature, had a voice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of eloquent worship. Ocean with its tides</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Swelling and deep, where low the infant storm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hung on his dun, dark cloud, and heavily beat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The pulses of the sea—sent forth a voice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of awful adoration to the spirit,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That, wrapt in darkness, moved upon its face.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when the bow of evening arched the east,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or, in the moonlight pale, the curling wave</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Kissed with a sweet embrace the sea-worn beach,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And soft the song of winds came o’er the waters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The mingled melody of wind and wave</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Touched like a heavenly anthem on the ear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For it arose a tuneful hymn of worship.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And have <i>our</i> hearts grown cold? Are there on earth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No pure reflections caught from heavenly light?—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have our mute lips no hymn—our souls no song?—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let him that in the summer-day of youth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Keeps pure the holy fount of youthful feeling,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And him that in the nightfall of his years</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lies down in his last sleep, and shuts in peace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His dim pale eyes on life’s short wayfaring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Praise him that rules the destiny of man.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="NIGHTFALL" class="center spa2">AUTUMNAL NIGHTFALL.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Round Autumn’s mouldering urn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Loud mourns the chill and cheerless gale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When nightfall shades the quiet vale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And stars in beauty burn.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">’Tis the year’s eventide.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wind,—like one that sighs in pain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er joys that ne’er will bloom again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Mourns on the far hill-side.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_520">[Pg 520]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">And yet my pensive eye</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rests on the faint blue mountain long,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And for the fairy-land of song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">That lies beyond, I sigh.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">The moon unveils her brow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the mid-sky her urn glows bright,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in her sad and mellowing light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The valley sleeps below.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Upon the hazel grey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The lyre of Autumn hangs unstrung,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And o’er its tremulous chords are flung</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The fringes of decay.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">I stand deep musing here,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath the dark and motionless beech,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whilst wandering winds of nightfall reach</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">My melancholy ear.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">The air breathes chill and free;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A Spirit, in soft music calls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From Autumn’s grey and moss-grown halls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And round her withered tree.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">The hoar and mantled oak,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With moss and twisted ivy brown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bends in its lifeless beauty down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Where weeds the fountain choke.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">That fountain’s hollow voice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Echoes the sound of precious things;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of early feeling’s tuneful springs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Choked with our blighted joys.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Leaves, that the night-wind bears</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To earth’s cold bosom with a sigh,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are types of our mortality,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And of our fading years.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">The tree that shades the plain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wasting and hoar as time decays,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spring shall renew with cheerful days,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">But not my joys again.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="SCENERY" class="center spa2">ITALIAN SCENERY.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">——Night rests in beauty on Mont Alto.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath its shade the beauteous Arno sleeps</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In Vallombrosa’s bosom, and dark trees</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bend with a calm and quiet shadow down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon the beauty of that silent river.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still in the west, a melancholy smile</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mantles the lips of day, and twilight pale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Moves like a spectre in the dusky sky;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While eve’s sweet star on the fast-fading year</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Smiles calmly:—Music steals at intervals</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Across the water, with a tremulous swell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From out the upland dingle of tall firs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a faint footfall sounds, where dim and dark</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hangs the grey willow from the river’s brink,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’ershadowing its current. Slowly there</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The lover’s gondola drops down the stream,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Silent,—save when its dipping oar is heard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or in its eddy sighs the rippling wave.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mouldering and moss-grown, through the lapse of years,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In motionless beauty stands the giant oak,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whilst those, that saw its green and flourishing youth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are gone and are forgotten. Soft the fount,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose secret springs the star-light pale discloses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gushes in hollow music, and beyond</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The broader river sweeps its silent way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mingling a silver current with that sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose waters have no tides, coming nor going.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On noiseless wing along that fair blue sea</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The halcyon flits,—and where the wearied storm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Left a loud moaning, all is peace again.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">A calm is on the deep! The winds that came</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er the dark sea-surge with a tremulous breathing.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And mourned on the dark cliff where weeds grew rank,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And to the autumnal death-dirge the deep sea</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Heaved its long billows,—with a cheerless song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have passed away to the cold earth again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a wayfaring mourner. Silently</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Up from the calm sea’s dim and distant verge,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Full and unveiled the moon’s broad disk emerges.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On Tivoli, and where the fairy hues</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of autumn glow upon Abruzzi’s woods,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The silver light is spreading. Far above,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Encompassed with their thin, cold atmosphere,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Apennines uplift their snowy brows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Glowing with colder beauty, where unheard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The eagle screams in the fathomless ether,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And stays his wearied wing. Here let us pause!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The spirit of these solitudes—the soul</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That dwells within these steep and difficult places—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Speaks a mysterious language to mine own,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And brings unutterable musings. Earth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sleeps in the shades of nightfall, and the sea</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spreads like a thin blue haze beneath my feet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whilst the grey columns and the mouldering tombs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the Imperial City, hidden deep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath the mantle of their shadows, rest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My spirit looks on earth!—A heavenly voice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Comes silently: “Dreamer, is earth thy dwelling!—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lo! nursed within that fair and fruitful bosom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which has sustained thy being, and within</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The colder breast of Ocean, lie the germs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of thine own dissolution! E’en the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That fans the clear blue sky and gives thee strength—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Up from the sullen lake of mouldering reeds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the wide waste of forest, where the osier</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thrives in the damp and motionless atmosphere,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall bring the dire and wasting pestilence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And blight thy cheek. Dream thou of higher things;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This world is not thy home!” And yet my eye</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rests upon earth again! How beautiful,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where wild Velino heaves its sullen waves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down the high cliff of grey and shapeless granite,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hung on the curling mist, the moonlight bow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Arches the perilous river. A soft light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Silvers the Albanian mountains, and the haze</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That rests upon their summits, mellows down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The austerer features of their beauty. Faint</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And dim-discovered glow the Sabine hills,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And listening to the sea’s monotonous shell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">High on the cliffs of Terracina stands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The castle of the royal Goth&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_63_63" href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a>
+ in ruins.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But night is in her wane:—day’s early flush</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Glows like a hectic on her fading cheek,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wasting its beauty. And the opening dawn</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With cheerful lustre lights the royal city,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where, with its proud tiara of dark towers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It sleeps upon its own romantic bay.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="LUNATIC" class="center spa2">THE LUNATIC GIRL.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Most beautiful, most gentle! Yet how lost</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To all that gladdens the fair earth; the eye</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That watched her being; the maternal care</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That kept and nourished her; and the calm light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That steals from our own thoughts, and softly rests</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On youth’s green valleys and smooth-sliding waters.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alas! few suns of life, and fewer winds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had withered or had wasted the fresh rose</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That bloomed upon her cheek; but one chill frost</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Came in that early Autumn, when ripe thought</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is rich and beautiful,—and blighted it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the fair stalk grew languid day by day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And drooped,—and drooped, and shed its many leaves.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Tis said that some have died of love, and some,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That once from beauty’s high romance had caught</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Love’s passionate feelings and heart-wasting cares,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have spurned life’s threshold with a desperate foot:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And others have gone mad,—and she was one!—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her lover died at sea; and they had felt</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A coldness for each other when they parted;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But love returned again, and to her ear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Came tidings, that the ship which bore her lover</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had suddenly gone down at sea, and all were lost.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I saw her in her native vale, when high</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The aspiring lark up from the reedy river</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mounted, on cheerful pinion; and she sat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Casting smooth pebbles into a clear fountain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And marking how they sank; and oft she sighed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For him that perished thus in the vast deep.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She had a sea-shell, that her lover brought</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the far-distant ocean, and she pressed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its smooth cold lips unto her ear, and thought</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It whispered tidings of the dark blue sea;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sad, she cried: “The tides are out!—and now</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I see his corse upon the stormy beach!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Around her neck a string of rose-lipped shells,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And coral, and white pearl, was loosely hung,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And close beside her lay a delicate fan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Made of the halcyon’s blue wing; and when</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She looked upon it, it would calm her thoughts</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As that bird calms the ocean,—for it gave</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mournful, yet pleasant memory. Once I marked,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When through the mountain hollows and green woods,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That bent beneath its footsteps, the loud wind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Came with a voice as of the restless deep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She raised her head, and on her pale cold cheek</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A beauty of diviner seeming came:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then she spread her hands, and smiled, as if</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She welcomed a long-absent friend,—and then</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shrank timorously back again, and wept.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I turned away: a multitude of thoughts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mournful and dark, were crowding on my mind;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And as I left that lost and ruined one,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A living monument that still on earth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is warm love and deep sincerity,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She gazed upon the west, where the blue sky</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Held, like an ocean, in its wide embrace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Those fairy islands of bright cloud, that lay</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So calm and quietly in the thin ether.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then she pointed where, alone and high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One little cloud sailed onward, like a lost</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And wandering bark, and fainter grew, and fainter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And soon was swallowed up in the blue depths.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when it sank away, she turned again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With sad despondency and tears to earth.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Three long and weary months,—yet not a whisper</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of stern reproach for that cold parting! Then</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She sat no longer by her favourite fountain!—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She was at rest for ever.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="VENETIAN" class="center spa2">THE VENETIAN GONDOLIER.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here rest the weary oar!—soft airs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Breathe out in the o’erarching sky;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Night!—sweet Night—serenely wears</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A smile of peace;—her noon is nigh.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the tall fir in quiet stands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And waves, embracing the chaste shores,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Move over sea-shells and bright sands,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is heard the sound of dipping oars.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Swift o’er the wave the light bark springs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Love’s midnight hour draws lingering near:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And list!—his tuneful viol strings</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The young Venetian Gondolier.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lo! on the silver-mirrored deep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On earth, and her embosomed lakes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And where the silent rivers swept,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From the thin cloud fair moonlight breaks.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Soft music breathes around, and dies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On the calm bosom of the sea;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whilst in her cell the novice sighs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Her vespers to her rosary.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">At their dim altars bow fair forms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In tender charity for those,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That, helpless left to life’s rude storms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Have never found this calm repose.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The bell swings to its midnight chime,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Relieved against the deep blue sky!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Haste!—dip the oar again!—’tis time</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To seek Genevra’s balcony.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">DIRGE OVER A NAMELESS GRAVE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">By yon still river, where the wave</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is winding slow at evening’s close,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The beech, upon a nameless grave,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Its sadly-moving shadow throws.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er the fair woods the sun looks down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Upon the many-twinkling leaves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And twilight’s mellow shades are brown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where darkly the green turf upheaves.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The river glides in silence there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And hardly waves the sapling tree:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sweet flowers are springing, and the air</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is full of balm,—but where is she!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They bade her wed a son of pride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And leave the hopes she cherished long:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She loved but one,—and would not hide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A love which knew no wrong.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And months went sadly on,—and years:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And she was wasting day by day:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At length she died,—and many tears</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Were shed, that she should pass away.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then came a grey old man, and knelt</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With bitter weeping by her tomb:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And others mourned for him, who felt</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That he had sealed a daughter’s doom.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The funeral train has long passed on,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And time wiped dry the father’s tear!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Farewell,—lost maiden!—there is one</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That mourns thee yet,—and he is here.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="SAVOY" class="center spa2">A SONG OF SAVOY.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the dim twilight shrouds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The mountain’s purple crest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And summer’s white and folded clouds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Are glowing in the west,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Loud shouts come up the rocky dell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And voices hail the evening-bell.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Faint is the goatherd’s song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And sighing comes the breeze:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The silent river sweeps along,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Amid its bended trees,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the full moon shines faintly there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And music fills the evening air.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath the waving firs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The tinkling cymbals sound;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And as the wind the foliage stirs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I see the dancers bound</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the green branches, arched above,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bend over this fair scene of love.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he is there, that sought</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">My young heart long ago!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But he has left me,—though I thought</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He ne’er could leave me so.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! lovers’ vows—how frail are they!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And his—were made but yesterday.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why comes he not? I call</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In tears upon him yet;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Twere better ne’er to love at all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Than love and then forget!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why comes he not? Alas! I should</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Reclaim him still, if weeping could.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But see,—he leaves the glade,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And beckons me away:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He comes to seek his mountain maid!—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I cannot chide his stay.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Glad sounds along the valley swell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And voices hail the evening-bell.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="JECKOYVA" class="center spa2">JECKOYVA.</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent fs_90">The Indian chief, Jeckoyva, as tradition
+says, perished alone on the mountain which now bears his name. Night
+overtook him whilst hunting among the cliffs, and he was not heard of
+till after a long time, when his corpse was found at the foot of a high
+rock, over which he must have fallen. Mount Jeckoyva is near the White Hills.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They made the warrior’s grave beside</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The dashing of his native tide:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And there was mourning in the glen—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The strong wail of a thousand men—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O’er him thus fallen in his pride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ere mist of age—or blight or blast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had o’er his mighty spirit past.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They made the warrior’s grave beneath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The bending of the wild elm’s wreath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When the dark hunter’s piercing eye</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had found that mountain rest on high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where, scattered by the sharp wind’s breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath the rugged cliff were thrown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The strong belt and the mouldering bone.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where was the warrior’s foot, when first</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The red sun on the mountain burst?—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where—when the sultry noon-time came</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the green vales with scorching flame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And made the woodlands faint with thirst?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Twas where the wind is keen and loud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the grey eagle breasts the cloud.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where was the warrior’s foot, when night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Veiled in thick cloud the mountain-height?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">None heard the loud and sudden crash,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">None saw the fallen warrior dash</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Down the bare rock so high and white!—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But he that drooped not in the chase</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Made on the hills his burial-place.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They found him there, when the long day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of cold desertion passed away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And traces on that barren cleft</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of struggling hard with death were left—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Deep marks and footprints in the clay!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And they have laid his feathery helm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the dark river and green elm.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="MUSINGS" class="center spa2">MUSINGS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I sat by my window one night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And watched how the stars grew high;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the earth and skies were a splendid sight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To a sober and musing eye.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From heaven the silver moon shone down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With gentle and mellow ray,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And beneath the crowded roofs of the town</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In broad light and shadow lay.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A glory was on the silent sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And mainland and island too,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till a haze came over the lowland lea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And shrouded that beautiful blue.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bright in the moon the autumn wood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Its crimson scarf unrolled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the trees like a splendid army stood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In a panoply of gold!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I saw them waving their banners high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As their crests to the night wind bowed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And a distant sound on the air went by,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like the whispering of a crowd.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then I watched from my window how fast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The lights all around me fled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the wearied man to his slumber passed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the sick one to his bed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">All faded save one, that burned</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With distant and steady light;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But that, too, went out,—and I turned</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where my own lamp within shone bright!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus, thought I, our joys must die,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Yes—the brightest from earth we win:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till each turns away, with a sigh,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To the lamp that burns brightly within.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="SONG2" class="center spa2">SONG.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where, from the eye of day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The dark and silent river</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pursues through tangled woods a way</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O’er which the tall trees quiver;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The silver mist, that breaks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From out that woodland cover,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Betrays the hidden path it takes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And hangs the current over!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So oft the thoughts that burst</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From hidden springs of feeling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like silent streams, unseen at first,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From our cold hearts are stealing:</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But soon the clouds that veil</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The eye of Love, when glowing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Betray the long unwhispered tale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of thoughts in darkness flowing.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><i>Translations.</i></h2>
+<p class="center">TRANSLATIONS FROM THE SPANISH<br> AND PORTUGUESE.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center spa2">COPLAS DE MANRIQUE.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_64_64" href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O let the soul her slumbers break,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let thought be quickened, and awake;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Awake to see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How soon this life is past and gone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And death comes softly stealing on,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How silently!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Swiftly our pleasures glide away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our hearts recall the distant day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With many sighs;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The moments that are speeding fast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We heed not, but the past,—the past,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">More highly prize.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Onward its course the present keeps,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Onward the constant current sweeps,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till life is done;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, did we judge of time aright,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The past and future in their flight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Would be as one.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let no one fondly dream again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That Hope and all her shadowy train</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will not decay;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fleeting as were the dreams of old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Remembered like a tale that’s told,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They pass away.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our lives are rivers, gliding free</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To that unfathomed, boundless sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The silent grave!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thither all earthly pomp and boast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Roll, to be swallowed up and lost</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In one dark wave.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thither the mighty torrents stray,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thither the brook pursues its way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And tinkling rill.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There all are equal. Side by side</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The poor man and the son of pride</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lie calm and still.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I will not here invoke the throng</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of orators and sons of song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The deathless few;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fiction entices and deceives,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, sprinkled o’er her fragrant leaves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lies poisonous dew.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">To One alone my thoughts arise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Eternal Truth,—the Good and Wise,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To him I cry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who shared on earth our common lot,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the world comprehended not</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His Deity.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">This world is but the rugged road</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which leads us to the bright abode</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of peace above;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So let us choose that narrow way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which leads no traveller’s foot astray</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From realms of love.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our Cradle is the starting-place,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Life is the running of the race,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We reach the goal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When, in the mansions of the blest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Death leaves to its eternal rest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The weary soul.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Did we but use it as we ought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This world would school each wandering thought</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To its high state.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Faith wings the soul beyond the sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Up to that better world on high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For which we wait.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yes,—the glad messenger of love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To guide us to our home above,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Saviour came;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Born amid mortal cares and fears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He suffered in this vale of tears</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A death of shame.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Behold of what delusive worth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The bubbles we pursue on earth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The shapes we chase;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Amid a world of treachery;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They vanish ere death shuts the eye,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And leave no trace.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Time steals them from us,—chances strange,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Disastrous accidents, and change,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That come to all;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even in the most exalted state,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Relentless sweeps the stroke of fate;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The strongest fall.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tell me,—the charms that lovers seek</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the clear eye and blushing cheek,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The hues that play</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er rosy lip and brow of snow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When hoary age approaches slow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah, where are they?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The cunning skill, the cunning arts,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The glorious strength that youth imparts</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In life’s first stage;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">These shall become a heavy weight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When Time swings wide his outward gate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To weary age.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The noble blood of Gothic name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Heroes emblazoned high to fame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In long array;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How, in the onward course of time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The landmarks of that race sublime</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were swept away!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some, the degraded slaves of lust,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Prostrate and trampled in the dust,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall rise no more;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Others, by guilt and crime, maintain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The scutcheon, that, without a stain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their fathers bore.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wealth and the high estate of pride,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With what untimely speed they glide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How soon depart!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bid not the shadowy phantoms stay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The vassals of a mistress they,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of fickle heart.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">These gifts in Fortune’s hands are found;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her swift revolving wheel turns round,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And they are gone!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No rest the inconstant goddess knows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But changing, and without repose,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still hurries on.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even could the hand of avarice save</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its gilded baubles, till the grave</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Reclaimed its prey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let none on such poor hopes rely;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Life, like an empty dream, flits by,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And where are they?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Earthly desires and sensual lust</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are passions springing from the dust,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They fade and die;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But, in the life beyond the tomb,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They seal the immortal spirit’s doom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Eternally!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The pleasures and delights, which mask</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In treacherous smiles life’s serious task,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What are they, all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the fleet coursers of the chase,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And death an ambush in the race,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wherein we fall?</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">No foe, no dangerous pass, we heed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Brook no delay—but onward speed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With loosened rein;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, when the fatal snare is near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We strive to check our mad career,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But strive in vain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Could we new charms to age impart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And fashion with a cunning art</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The human face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As we can clothe the soul with light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And make the glorious spirit bright</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With heavenly grace,—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How busily each passing hour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Should we exert that magic power!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What ardour show,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To deck the sensual slave of sin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet leave the freeborn soul within,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In weeds of woe!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Monarchs, the powerful and the strong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Famous in history and in song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of olden time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saw, by the stern decrees of fate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their kingdoms lost, and desolate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their race sublime.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who is the champion? who the strong?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pontiff and priest, and sceptred throng?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On these shall fall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As heavily the hand of Death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As when it stays the shepherd’s breath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beside his stall.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I speak not of the Trojan name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Neither its glory nor its shame</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has met our eyes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor of Rome’s great and glorious dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though we have heard so oft, and read,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their histories.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Little avails it now to know</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of ages past so long ago,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor how they rolled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our theme shall be of yesterday,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which to oblivion sweeps away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like days of old.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where is the King, Don Juan? Where</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each royal prince and noble heir</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Aragon?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where are the courtly gallantries?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their deeds of love and high emprise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In battle done?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tourney and joust, that charmed the eye,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And scarf, and gorgeous panoply,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And nodding plume,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What were they but a pageant scene?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What but the garlands, gay and green,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That deck the tomb?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where are the high-born dames, and where</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their gay attire, and jewelled hair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And odours sweet?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where are the gentle knights that came</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To kneel and breathe love’s ardent flame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Low at their feet?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where is the song of Troubadour?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where are the lute and gay tambour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They loved of yore?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where is the mazy dance of old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The flowing robes, inwrought with gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The dancers wore?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he who next the sceptre swayed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Henry, whose royal court displayed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such power and pride;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O, in what winning smiles arrayed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The world its various pleasures laid</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His throne beside!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But O, how false and full of guile</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That world which wore so soft a smile,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But to betray!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She, that had been his friend before,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now from the fated monarch tore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Her charms away.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The countless gifts,—the stately walls,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The royal palaces, and halls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All filled with gold;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Plate with armorial bearings wrought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Chambers with ample treasures fraught</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of wealth untold;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The noble steeds and harness bright,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And gallant lord, and stalwart knight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In rich array,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where shall we seek them now? Alas!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like the bright dew-drops on the grass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They passed away.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">His brother, too, whose factious zeal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Usurped the sceptre of Castile,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unskilled to reign;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What a gay, brilliant court had he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When all the flower of chivalry</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was in his train!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But he was mortal; and the breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That flamed from the hot forge of Death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blasted his years;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Judgment of God! that flame by thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When raging fierce and fearfully,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was quenched in tears!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spain’s haughty Constable,—the true</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And gallant Master, whom we knew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Most loved of all.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Breathe not a whisper of his pride,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He on the gloomy scaffold died,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ignoble fall!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The countless treasures of his care,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His hamlets green and cities fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His mighty power,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What were they all but grief and shame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tears and a broken heart, when came</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The parting hour?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">His other brothers, proud and high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Masters, who, in prosperity,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Might rival kings;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who made the bravest and the best</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The bondsmen of their high behest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their underlings;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What was their prosperous estate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When high exalted and elate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With power and pride?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What, but a transient gleam of light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A flame, which, glaring at its height,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Grew dim and died?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So many a duke of royal name,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Marquis and count of spotless fame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And baron brave,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That might the sword of empire wield,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All these, O Death, hast thou concealed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the dark grave!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their deeds of mercy and of arms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In peaceful days, or war’s alarms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When thou dost show,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O Death, thy stern and angry face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One stroke of thy all-powerful mace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Can overthrow.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unnumbered hosts, that threaten nigh,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Pennon and standard flaunting high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And flag displayed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">High battlements intrenched around,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bastion, and moated wall, and mound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And palisade,</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And covered trench, secure and deep,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All these cannot one victim keep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O Death, from thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When thou dost battle in thy wrath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thy strong shafts pursue their path</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unerringly.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O World! so few the years we live,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Would that the life which thou dost give</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were life indeed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alas! thy sorrows fall so fast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our happiest hour is when at last</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The soul is freed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our days are covered o’er with grief,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And sorrows neither few nor brief</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Veil all in gloom;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Left desolate of real good,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Within this cheerless solitude</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No pleasures bloom.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy pilgrimage begins in tears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And ends in bitter doubts and fears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or dark despair;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Midway so many toils appear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That he who lingers longest here</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Knows most of care.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy goods are bought with many a groan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the hot sweat of toil alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And weary hearts;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fleet-footed is the approach of woe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But with a lingering step and slow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its form departs.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And he, the good man’s shield and shade,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To whom all hearts their homage paid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As Virtue’s son,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Roderic Manrique,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_65_65" href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a>—he
+ whose name</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is written on the scroll of Fame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spain’s champion;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">His signal deeds and prowess high</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Demand no pompous eulogy,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye saw his deeds!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why should their praise in verse be sung?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The name, that dwells on every tongue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No minstrel needs.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">To friends a friend;—how kind to all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The vassals of this ancient hall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And feudal fief!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To foes how stern a foe was he!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And to the valiant and the free</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How brave a chief!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What prudence with the old and wise!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What grace in youthful gaieties!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In all how sage!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Benignant to the serf and slave,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He showed the base and falsely brave</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A lion’s rage.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">His was Octavian’s prosperous star,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rush of Cæsar’s conquering car</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At battle’s call;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His, Scipio’s virtue; his, the skill</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the indomitable will</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Hannibal.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">His was a Trajan’s goodness,—his</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A Titus’ noble charities</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And righteous laws;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The arm of Hector, and the might</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Tully, to maintain the right</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In truth’s just cause:</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The clemency of Antonine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Aurelius’ countenance divine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Firm, gentle, still;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The eloquence of Adrian,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Theodosius’ love to man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And generous will:</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In tented field and bloody fray,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">An Alexander’s vigorous sway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And stern command;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The faith of Constantine; ay, more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The fervent love Camillus bore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His native land.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He left no well-filled treasury,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He heaped no pile of riches high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor massive plate;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He fought the Moors,—and, in their fall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">City and tower and castle wall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were his estate.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon the hard-fought battle-ground,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Brave steeds and gallant riders found</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A common grave;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And there the warrior’s hand did gain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rents, and the long vassal train,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That conquest gave.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And if of old his halls displayed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The honoured and exalted grade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His worth hath gained,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So, in the dark, disastrous hour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Brothers and bondsmen of his power</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His hand sustained.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">After high deeds, not left untold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the stern warfare, which of old</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Twas his to share,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Such noble leagues he made, that more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And fairer legions than before,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His guerdon were.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">These are the records, half effaced,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which, with the hand of youth, he traced</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On history’s page;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But with fresh victories he drew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each fading character anew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In his old age.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">By his unrivalled skill, by great</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And veteran service to the state,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By worth adored,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He stood in his high dignity,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The proudest knight of chivalry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Knight of the Sword.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">He found his cities and domains</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath a tyrant’s galling chains</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And cruel power;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But by fierce battle and blockade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Soon his own banner was displayed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From every tower.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">By the tried valour of his hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His monarch and his native land</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were nobly served;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let Portugal repeat the story,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And proud Castile, who shared the glory</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His arms deserved.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when so oft, for weal or woe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His life upon the fatal throw</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had been cast down;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When he had served with patriot zeal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath the banner of Castile,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His sovereign’s crown;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And done such deeds of valour strong</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That neither history nor song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Can count them all;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then, on Ocaña’s castled rock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Death at his portal came to knock,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With sudden call,—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saying, “Good cavalier, prepare</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To leave this world of toil and care</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With joyful mien;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let thy strong heart of steel this day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Put on its armour for the fray,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The closing scene.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Since thou hast been in battle-strife,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So prodigal of health and life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For earthly fame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let virtue nerve thy heart again;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Loud on the last stern battle-plain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They call thy name.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Think not the struggle that draws near</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Too terrible for man,—nor fear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To meet the foe;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor let thy noble spirit grieve,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its life of glorious fame to leave</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On earth below.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“A life of honour and of worth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has no eternity on earth,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Tis but a name;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And yet its glory far exceeds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That base and sensual life, which leads</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To want and shame.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The eternal life, beyond the sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wealth cannot purchase, nor the high</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And proud estate;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The soul in dalliance laid,—the spirit</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Corrupt with sin,—shall not inherit</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A joy so great.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“But the good monk, in cloistered cell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall gain it by his book and bell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His prayers and tears;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the brave knight, whose arm endures</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fierce battle, and against the Moors</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His standard rears.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“And thou, brave knight, whose hand has poured</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The life-blood of the Pagan horde</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er all the land,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In heaven shalt thou receive, at length,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The guerdon of thine earthly strength</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And dauntless hand.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Cheered onward by this promise sure,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Strong in the faith entire and pure</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou dost profess,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Depart,—thy hope is certainty;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The third—the better life on high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shalt thou possess.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O Death, no more, no more delay;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My spirit longs to flee away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And be at rest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The will of Heaven my will shall be,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I bow to the divine decree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To God’s behest.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“My soul is ready to depart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No thought rebels, the obedient heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Breathes forth no sigh;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wish on earth to linger still</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Were vain, when ’tis God’s sovereign will</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That we shall die.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O Thou, that for our sins didst take</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A human form, and humbly make</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy home on earth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou, that to thy Divinity</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A human nature didst ally</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By mortal birth,</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“And in that form didst suffer here</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Torment, and agony, and fear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So patiently;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">By thy redeeming grace alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And not for merits of my own,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O, pardon me!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As thus the dying warrior prayed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Without one gathering mist or shade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon his mind;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Encircled by his family,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Watched by affection’s gentle eye,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So soft and kind;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">His soul to him, who gave it, rose;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">God lead it to its long repose,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its glorious rest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And though the warrior’s sun has set,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Its light shall linger round us yet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bright, radiant, blest.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">THE GOOD SHEPHERD.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM LOPE DE VEGA.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shepherd! who with thine amorous, sylvan song</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Hast broken the slumber that encompassed me,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">That madest thy crook from the accursèd tree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On which thy powerful arms were stretched so long!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lead me to mercy’s ever-flowing fountains;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">For thou my Shepherd, Guard, and Guide shalt be;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">I will obey thy voice, and wait to see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy feet all beautiful upon the mountains.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hear, Shepherd!—thou who for thy flock art dying,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">O, wash away these scarlet sins, for thou</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Rejoicest at the contrite sinner’s vow.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O, wait!—to thee my weary soul is crying,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Wait for me!—Yet why ask it when I see,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">With feet nailed to the cross, thou’rt waiting still for me!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="BROOK" class="center spa2">THE BROOK.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Laugh of the mountain!—lyre of bird and tree!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Pomp of the meadow! mirror of the morn!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">The soul of April, unto whom are born</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rose and jessamine, leaps wild in thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Although, where’er thy devious current strays,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">The lap of earth with gold and silver teems,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">To me thy clear proceeding brighter seems</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than golden sands that charm each shepherd’s gaze.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How without guile thy bosom, all transparent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">As the pure crystal, lets the curious eye</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Thy secrets scan, thy smooth, round pebbles count!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How, without malice murmuring, glides thy current!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">O sweet simplicity of days gone by!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Thou shun’st the haunts of man, to dwell in limpid fount!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="BOOK_MARK" class="center spa2">SANTA TERESA’S BOOK-MARK.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM SANTA TERESA.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let nothing disturb thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nothing affright thee;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All things are passing;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">God never changeth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Patient endurance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Attaineth to all things;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who God possesseth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In nothing is wanting;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alone God sufficeth.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</span></p>
+<p id="MORROW" class="center spa2">TO-MORROW.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM LOPE DE VEGA.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lord, what am I, that, with unceasing care,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thou didst seek after me—that thou didst wait,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wet with unhealthy dews, before my gate,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And pass the gloomy nights of winter there?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O strange delusion!—that I did not greet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thy blest approach, and O, to Heaven how lost,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">If my ingratitude’s unkindly frost</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has chilled the bleeding wounds upon thy feet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How oft my guardian angel gently cried,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“Soul, from thy casement look, and thou shalt see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">How he persists to knock and wait for thee!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And O! how often to that voice of sorrow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“To-morrow we will open,” I replied,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when the morrow came, I answered still, “To-morrow.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="NATIVE" class="center spa2">THE NATIVE LAND.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM FRANCISCO DE ALDANA.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Clear fount of light! my native land on high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Bright with a glory that shall never fade!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Mansion of truth! without a veil or shade,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy holy quiet meets the spirit’s eye.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There dwells the soul in its ethereal essence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Gasping no longer for life’s feeble breath;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But, sentinelled in heaven, its glorious presence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With pitying eye beholds, yet fears not death.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Belovèd country! banished from thy shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A stranger in this prison-house of clay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The exiled spirit weeps and sighs for thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Heavenward the bright perfections I adore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Direct, and the sure promise cheers the way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That, whither love aspires, there shall my dwelling be.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="IMAGE" class="center spa2">THE IMAGE OF GOD.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM FRANCISCO DE ALDANA.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O Lord! that seest, from yonder starry height,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Centred in one the future and the past,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Fashioned in thine own image, see how fast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The world obscures in me what once was bright!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Eternal Sun! the warmth which thou hast given</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To cheer life’s flowery April, fast decays;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Yet, in the hoary winter of my days,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For ever green shall be my trust in Heaven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Celestial King! O let thy presence pass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Before my spirit, and an image fair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Shall meet that look of mercy from on high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the reflected image in a glass</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Doth meet the look of him who seeks it there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And owes its being to the gazer’s eye.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="TWO_SONNETS" class="center spa2">TWO SONNETS FROM FRANCISCO DE MEDRANO.</p>
+<p class="center">I.<br><span class="fs_90">ART AND NATURE.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The works of human artifice soon tire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The curious eye; the fountain’s sparkling rill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And gardens, when adorned by human skill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Reproach the feeble hand, the vain desire.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But, O! the free and wild magnificence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Nature, in her lavish hours, doth steal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In admiration silent and intense,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The soul of him, who hath a soul to feel.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The river moving on its ceaseless way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The verdant reach of meadows fair and green,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the blue hills, that bound the sylvan scene,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">These speak of grandeur, that defies decay,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Proclaim the Eternal Architect on high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who stamps on all his works his own eternity.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">II.<br><span class="fs_90">THE TWO HARVESTS.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But yesterday these few and hoary sheaves</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Waved in the golden harvest; from the plain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I saw the blade shoot upward, and the grain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Put forth the unripe ear and tender leaves.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then the glad upland smiled upon the view,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And to the air the broad green leaves unrolled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A peerless emerald in each silken fold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And on each palm a pearl of morning dew.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_538">[Pg 538]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And thus sprang up and ripened in brief space</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All that beneath the reaper’s sickle died,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All that smiled beauteous in the summer-tide.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And what are we? a copy of that race,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The later harvest of a longer year!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, O! how many fall before the ripened ear.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak">TRANSLATIONS FROM THE<br> ITALIAN.</h2>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p class="center spa1">THE CELESTIAL PILOT.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM DANTE. PURGATORIO, II.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And now, behold! as at the approach of morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Through the gross vapours, Mars grows fiery red</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Down in the west upon the ocean floor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Appeared to me—may I again behold it!—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A light along the sea, so swiftly coming,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Its motion by no flight of wing is equalled.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And when therefrom I had withdrawn a little</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Mine eyes, that I might question my conductor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Again I saw it brighter grown and larger.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thereafter, on all sides of it, appeared</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">I knew not what of white, and underneath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Little by little, there came forth another.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">My master yet had uttered not a word,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">While the first brightness into wings unfolded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But, when he clearly recognised the pilot,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He cried aloud: “Quick, quick, and bow the knee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Behold the Angel of God! fold up thy hands!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Henceforward shalt thou see such officers!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">See how he scorns all human arguments,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">So that no oar he wants, nor other sail</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Than his own wings, between so distant shores!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">See how he holds them, pointed straight to heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Fanning the air with the eternal pinions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That do not moult themselves like mortal hair!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And then, as nearer and more near us came</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The Bird of Heaven, more glorious he appeared,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">So that the eye could not sustain his presence.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But down I cast it; and he came to shore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With a small vessel, gliding swift and light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">So that the water swallowed nought thereof.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_539">[Pg 539]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Upon the stern stood the Celestial Pilot!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Beatitude seemed written in his face!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And more than a hundred spirits sat within.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“<i>In exitu Israel de Ægypto!</i>”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus sang they altogether in one voice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With whatso in that Psalm is after written.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then made he sign of holy rood upon them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Whereat all cast themselves upon the shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And he departed swiftly as he came.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+<p id="PARADISE" class="center spa1">THE TERRESTRIAL PARADISE.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM DANTE. PURGATORIO, XXVIII.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Longing already to search in and round</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The heavenly forest, dense and living green,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Which to the eyes tempered the new-born day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Withouten more delay I left the bank,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Crossing the level country slowly, slowly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Over the soil, that everywhere breathed fragrance.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A gently-breathing air, that no mutation</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Had in itself, smote me upon the forehead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">No heavier blow, than of a pleasant breeze,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whereat the tremulous branches readily</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Did all of them bow downward towards that side</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where its first shadow casts the Holy Mountain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet not from their upright direction bent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">So that the little birds upon their tops</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Should cease the practice of their tuneful art;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But, with full-throated joy, the hours of prime</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Singing received they in the midst of foliage</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That made monotonous burden to their rhymes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even as from branch to branch it gathering swells,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through the pine forests on the shore of Chiassi,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When Æolus unlooses the Sirocco.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Already my slow steps had led me on</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Into the ancient wood so far, that I</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Could see no more the place where I had entered.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And lo! my farther course cut off a river</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Which, towards the left hand, with its little waves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Bent down the grass that on its margin sprang.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All waters that on earth most limpid are,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Would seem to have within themselves some mixture,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Compared with that, which nothing doth conceal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Although it moves on with a brown, brown current,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Under the shade perpetual, that never</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Ray of the sun lets in, nor of the moon.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_540">[Pg 540]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa1">BEATRICE.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM DANTE. PURGATORIO, XXX. XXXI.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even as the Blessèd, at the final summons,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Shall rise up quickened, each one from his grave,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wearing again the garments of the flesh;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So, upon that celestial chariot,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A hundred rose <i>ad vocem tanti senis</i>,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Ministers and messengers of life eternal.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They all were saying: “<i>Benedictus qui venis</i>,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And scattering flowers above and round about,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“<i>Manibus o date lilia plenis</i>.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Oft have I seen, at the approach of day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The orient sky all stained with roseate hues,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the other heaven with light serene adorned,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the sun’s face uprising, overshadowed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">So that, by temperate influence of vapours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The eye sustained his aspect for long while;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus in the bosom of a cloud of flowers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Which from those hands angelic were thrown up,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And now descended inside and without</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With crown of olive o’er a snow-white veil,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Appeared a lady, under a green mantle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Vested in colours of the living flame.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even as the snow, among the living rafters</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Upon the back of Italy, congeals,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Blown on and beaten by Sclavonian winds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then dissolving, filters through itself,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Whene’er the land, that loses shadow, breathes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like as a taper melts before a fire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even such I was, without a sigh or tear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Before the song of those who chime for ever</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">After the chiming of the eternal spheres;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But when I heard in those sweet melodies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Compassion for me, more than they had said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“O wherefore, lady, dost thou thus consume him?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The ice that was about my heart congealed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To air and water changed, and, in my anguish,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through lips and eyes came gushing from my breast.</div>
+ </div>
+
+ <hr class="r10">
+
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Confusion and dismay, together mingled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Forced such a feeble “Yes!” out of my mouth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To understand it one had need of sight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even as a cross-bow breaks, when ’tis discharged,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Too tensely drawn the bow-string and the bow,</div>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_541">[Pg 541]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And with less force the arrow hits the mark;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So I gave way beneath this heavy burden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Gushing forth into bitter tears and sighs,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the voice, fainting, flagged upon its passage.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+<p id="PARADISIO" class="center spa1">THREE CANTOS OF DANTE’S PARADISO.</p>
+<p class="f90">CANTO XXIII.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="neg-indent fs_90">Dante is with Beatrice in the eighth circle, that
+of the fixed stars. She is gazing upwards, watching for the descent of
+the Triumph of Christ.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even as a bird, ’mid the belovèd leaves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Quiet upon the nest of her sweet brood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Throughout the night, that hideth all things from us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who, that she may behold their longed-for looks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And find the nourishment wherewith to feed them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In which, to her, grave labours grateful are,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Anticipates the time on open spray,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And with an ardent longing waits the sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Gazing intent, as soon as breaks the dawn:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even thus my Lady standing was, erect</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And vigilant, turned round towards the zone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Underneath which the sun displays least haste;&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_66_66" href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So that beholding her distraught and eager,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Such I became as he is, who desiring</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For something yearns, and hoping is appeased.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But brief the space from one When to the other;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From my awaiting, say I, to the seeing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The welkin grow resplendent more and more.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Beatrice exclaimed: “Behold the hosts</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of the triumphant Christ, and all the fruit</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Harvested by the rolling of these spheres!”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_67_67" href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It seemed to me her face was all on flame;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And eyes she had so full of ecstasy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That I must needs pass on without describing.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As when in nights serene of the full moon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Smiles Trivia among the nymphs eternal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who paint the heaven through all its hollow cope,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Saw I, above the myriads of lamps,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A sun that one and all of them enkindled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">E’en as our own does the supernal stars.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_68_68" href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And through the living light transparent shone</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_542">[Pg 542]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The lucent substance so intensely clear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Into my sight, that I could not sustain it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O Beatrice, my gentle guide and dear!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">She said to me: “That which o’ermasters thee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A virtue is which no one can resist.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There are the wisdom and omnipotence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That oped the thoroughfares ’twixt heaven and earth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For which there erst had been so long a yearning.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As fire from out a cloud itself discharges,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Dilating so it finds not room therein,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And down against its nature, falls to earth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So did my mind among those aliments</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Becoming larger, issue from itself,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And what became of it cannot remember.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_69_69" href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a>
+ “Open thine eyes, and look at what I am:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thou hast beheld such things, that strong enough</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Hast thou become to tolerate my smile.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I was as one who still retains the feeling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of a forgotten dream, and who endeavours</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In vain to bring it back into his mind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When I this invitation heard, deserving</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of so much gratitude, it never fades</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Out of the book that chronicles the past.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If at this moment sounded all the tongues</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That Polyhymnia and her sisters made</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Most lubrical with their delicious milk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To aid me, to a thousandth of the truth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">It would not reach, singing the holy smile,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And how the holy aspect it illumined.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And therefore, representing Paradise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The sacred poem must perforce leap over,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Even as a man who finds his way cut off.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But whoso thinketh of the ponderous theme,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And of the mortal shoulder that sustains it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Should blame it not, if under this it trembles.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is no passage for a little boat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">This which goes cleaving the audacious prow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Nor for a pilot who would spare himself.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Why does my face so much enamour thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That to the garden fair thou turnest not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Which under the rays of Christ is blossoming?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There is the Rose&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_70_70" href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a>
+ in which the Word Divine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Became incarnate; there the lilies are</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By whose perfume the good way was selected.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus Beatrice; and I, who to her counsels</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Was wholly ready, once again betook me</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_543">[Pg 543]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Unto the battle of the feeble brows.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_71_71" href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As in a sunbeam, that unbroken passes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through fractured cloud, ere now a meadow of flowers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Mine eyes with shadow covered have beheld,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So I beheld the multitudinous splendours</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Refulgent from above with burning rays,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beholding not the source of the effulgence.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O thou benignant power that so imprint’st them!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thou didst exalt thyself&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_72_72" href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a>
+ to give more scope</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">There to the eyes, that were not strong enough.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The name of that fair flower I e’er invoke</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Morning and evening utterly enthralled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">My soul to gaze upon the greater fire.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_73_73" href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when in both mine eyes depicted were</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The glory and greatness of the living star</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Which conquers there, as here below it conquered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Athwart the heavens descended a bright sheen&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_74_74" href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Formed in a circle like a coronal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And cinctured it, and whirled itself about it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whatever melody most sweetly soundeth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">On earth, and to itself most draws the soul,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Would seem a cloud that, rent asunder, thunders,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Compared unto the sounding of that lyre</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wherewith was crowned the sapphire beautiful</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wherewith gives the clearest heaven its sapphire hue.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_75_75" href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I am Angelic Love, that circle round</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The joy sublime which breathes from out the bosom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That was the hostelry of our Desire:&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_76_76" href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I shall circle, Lady of Heaven, while</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thou followest thy Son, and makest diviner</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The sphere supreme, because thou enterest it.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus did the circulated melody</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Seal itself up; and all the other lights</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Were making resonant the name of Mary.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The regal mantle&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_77_77" href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a>
+ of the volumes all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of that world, which most fervid is and living</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With breath of God and with His works and ways,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Extended over us its inner curve,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">So very distant, that its outward show,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">There where I was, not yet appeared to me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Therefore mine eyes did not possess the power</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_544">[Pg 544]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of following the incoronated flame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Which had ascended near to its own seed.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_78_78" href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And as a little child, that towards its mother</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Extends its arms, when it the milk has taken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through impulse kindled into outward flame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each of those gleams of light did upward stretch</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">So with its summit, that the deep affection</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They had for Mary was revealed to me.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thereafter they remained there in my sight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2"><i>Regina Cœli</i>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_79_79" href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a>
+ singing with such sweetness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That ne’er from me has the delight departed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Oh, what exuberance is garnered up</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In those resplendent coffers, which had been</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For sowing here below good husbandmen!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There they enjoy and live upon the treasure</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Which was acquired while weeping in the exile&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_80_80" href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of Babylon, wherein the gold was left.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There triumpheth beneath the exalted Son</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of God and Mary, in his victory,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Both with the ancient council and the new,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He who doth keep the keys of such a story.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_81_81" href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f90">CANTO XXIV.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O company elect to the Great Supper</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of the Lamb glorified, who feedeth you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">So that for ever full is your desire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If by the grace of God this man foretastes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of whatsover falleth from your table,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Or ever death prescribes to him the time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Direct your mind to his immense desire,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_82_82" href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And him somewhat bedew; ye drinking are</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For ever from the fount&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_83_83" href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a>
+ whence comes his thought.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus Beatrice; and those enraptured spirits</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Made themselves spheres around their steadfast poles;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Flaming intensely in the guise of comets.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And as the wheels in works of horologes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Revolve so that the first to the beholder</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Motionless seems, and the last one to fly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So in like manner did those carols, dancing&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_84_84" href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In different measure, by their affluence</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Make me esteem them either swift or slow.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_545">[Pg 545]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From that one which I noted of most beauty</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beheld I issue forth a fire so happy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That none is left there of a greater splendour;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And about Beatrice three several times&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_85_85" href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">It whirled itself with so divine a song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">My fantasy repeats it not to me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Therefore the pen skips, and I write it not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Since our imagination for such folds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Much more our speech, is of a tint too glaring.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_86_86" href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O holy sister mine,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_87_87" href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a>
+ who us implorest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With such devotion, by thine ardent love</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thou dost unbind me from that beautiful sphere.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus, having stopped, the beatific fire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Unto my Lady did direct its breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Which spake in fashion as I here have said.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And she: “O light eterne of the great man</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To whom our Lord delivered up the keys</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">He carried down of this miraculous joy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This one examine on points light and grave,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As good beseemeth thee, about the Faith</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By means of which thou on the sea didst walk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If he loves well, and hopes well, and believes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is hid not from thee; for thou hast thy sight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Where everything beholds itself depicted.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_88_88" href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But since this kingdom has made citizens</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By means of the true Faith, to glorify it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">’Tis well he have the chance to speak thereof.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As baccalaureate arms himself, and speaks not</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Until the master doth propose the question,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To argue it and not to terminate it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So I did arm myself with every reason,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">While she was speaking, that I might be ready</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For such a questioner and such confession.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Speak on,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_89_89" href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a>
+ good Christian; manifest thyself;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Say, what is Faith?” whereat I raised my brow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Unto that light from which this was breathed forth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then turned I round to Beatrice, and she</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Prompt signals made to me that I should pour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The water forth from my internal fountain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“May grace, that suffers me to make confession,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Began I, “to the great Centurion&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_90_90" href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Cause my conceptions all to be explicit!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I continued: “As the truthful pen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Father, of thy dear brother wrote of it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who put with thee Rome into the good way,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_546">[Pg 546]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Faith is the substance of the things we hope for,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And evidence of those that are not seen;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And this appears to me its quiddity.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_91_91" href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then heard I: “Very rightly thou perceivest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">If well thou understandest why he placed it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With substances and then with evidences.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I thereafterward: “The things profound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That here vouchsafe to me their outward show,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Unto all eyes below are so concealed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That they exist there only in belief,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Upon the which is founded the high hope,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And therefore takes the nature of a substance.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And it behoveth us from this belief,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To reason without having other views,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And hence it has the nature of evidence.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then heard I: “If whatever is acquired</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Below as doctrine were thus understood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">No sophist’s subtlety would there find place.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus was breathed forth from that enkindled love;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Then added: “Thoroughly has been gone over</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Already of this coin the alloy and weight;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But tell me if thou hast it in thy purse?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And I: “Yes, both so shining and so round,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That in its stamp there is no peradventure.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thereafter issued from the light profound</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That there resplendent was: “This precious jewel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Upon the which is every virtue founded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whence hadst thou it?” And I: “The large outpouring</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of the Holy Spirit, which has been diffused</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Upon the ancient parchments and the new,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_92_92" href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A syllogism is, which demonstrates it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With such acuteness, that, compared therewith,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All demonstration seems to me obtuse.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then I heard: “The ancient and the new</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Postulates, that to thee are so conclusive,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Why dost thou take them for the word divine?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I: “The proofs, which show the truth to me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Are the works subsequent, whereunto Nature</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Ne’er heated iron yet, nor anvil beat.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Twas answered me: “Say, who assureth thee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That those works ever were? the thing itself</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">We wish to prove, nought else to thee affirms it.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Were the world to Christianity converted,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I said, “withouten miracles”, this one</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Is such, the rest are not its hundredth part;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For thou didst enter destitute and fasting</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_547">[Pg 547]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Into the field to plant there the good plant,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Which was a vine, and has become a thorn!“</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This being finished, the high, holy Court</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Resounded through the spheres, “One God we praise!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In melody that there above is chanted.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then that Baron,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_93_93" href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a>
+ who from branch to branch,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Examining, had thus conducted me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Till the remotest leaves we were approaching,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Did recommence once more: “The Grace that lords it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Over thy intellect thy mouth has opened,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Up to this point, as it should opened be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So that I do approve what forth emerged;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But now thou must express what thou believest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And whence to thy belief it was presented.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O holy father, O thou spirit, who seest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">What thou believedst, so that thou o’ercamest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Towards the sepulchre, more youthful feet,”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_94_94" href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Began I, “thou dost wish me to declare</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Forthwith the manner of my prompt belief,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And likewise thou the cause thereof demandest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And I respond: In one God I believe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sole and eterne, who all the heaven doth move,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Himself unmoved, with love and with desire;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And of such faith not only have I proofs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Physical and metaphysical, but gives them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Likewise the truth that from this place rains down</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through Moses, through the Prophets, and the Psalms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Through the Evangel, and through you, who wrote</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">After the fiery Spirit sanctified you;&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_95_95" href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In Persons three eterne believe I, and these</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">One essence I believe, so one and trine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They bear conjunction both with <i>sunt</i> and <i>est</i>.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With the profound conjunction and divine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Which now I touch upon, doth stamp my mind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Ofttimes the doctrine evangelical.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This the beginning is, this is the spark</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Which afterwards dilates to vivid flame,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And, like a star in heaven, is sparkling in me.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even as a lord, who hears what pleases him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">His servant straight embraces, giving thanks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For the good news, as soon as he is silent;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So, giving me its benediction, singing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Three times encircled me, when I was silent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The apostolic light at whose command</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I spoken had, in speaking I so pleased him.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_548">[Pg 548]</span></p>
+<p class="f90">CANTO XXV.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">If it e’er happen that the Poem Sacred,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_96_96" href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To which both heaven and earth have set their hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Till it hath made me meagre many a year,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O’ercome the cruelty that bars me out</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From the fair sheepfold where a lamb I slumbered,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_97_97" href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Obnoxious to the wolves that war upon it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With other voice henceforth, with other fleece</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Will I return as poet, and at my font&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_98_98" href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Baptismal will I take the laurel crown;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Because into the faith that maketh known</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">All souls to God there entered I, and then</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Peter for her sake so my brow encircled.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thereafterward towards us moved a light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Out of that band whence issued the first fruits</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Which of his vicars Christ behind him left,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And then my Lady, full of ecstasy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Said unto me: “Look, look! behold the Baron,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_99_99" href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">For whom below Galicia is frequented.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the same way as, when a dove alights</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Near his companion, both of them pour forth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Circling about and murmuring, their affection,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So I beheld one by the other grand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Prince glorified to be with welcome greeted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Lauding the food that there above is eaten.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But when their gratulations were completed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Silently <i>coram me</i> each one stood still,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">So incandescent it o’ercame my sight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Smiling thereafterwards, said Beatrice:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Spirit august, by whom the benefactions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of our Basilica&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_100_100" href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a>
+ have been described,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Make Hope reverberate in this altitude;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_549">[Pg 549]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thou knowest as oft thou dost personify it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As Jesus to the three&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_101_101" href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a>
+ gave greater light.”—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Lift up thy head, and make thyself assured;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">For what comes hither from the mortal world</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Must needs be ripened in our radiance.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This exhortation from the second fire&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_102_102" href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Came; and mine eyes I lifted to the hills,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_103_103" href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Which bent them down before with too great weight.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_104_104" href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Since through his grace, our Emperor decrees</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thou shouldst confronted be, before thy death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In the most secret chamber, with his Counts,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_105_105" href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So that, the truth beholding of this court,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Hope, which below there rightly fascinates</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In thee, and others may thereby be strengthened;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Say what it is, and how is flowering with it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thy mind, and say from whence it came to thee;”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus did the second light continue still</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Compassionate,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_106_106" href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a>
+ who piloted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The plumage of my wings in such high flight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In the reply did thus anticipate me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“No child whatever the Church Militant</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of greater hope possesses, as is written</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In that Sun&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_107_107" href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a>
+ which irradiates all our band;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore it is conceded him from Egypt</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To come into Jerusalem to see,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_108_108" href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Or ever yet his warfare is completed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The other points, that not for knowledge’ sake</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Have been demanded,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_109_109" href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a>
+ but that he report</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">How much this virtue unto thee is pleasing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To him I leave; for hard he will not find them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Nor to be boasted of; them let him answer;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And may the Grace of God in this assist him!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As a disciple, who obeys his teacher,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Ready and willing, where he is expert,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">So that his excellence may be revealed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Hope,”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_110_110" href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a>
+ said I, “is the certain expectation</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of glory in the hereafter, which proceedeth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From grace divine and merit precedent.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From many stars this light comes unto me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">But he instilled it first into my heart,</div>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_550">[Pg 550]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Who was chief singer&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_111_111" href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a>
+ unto the Chief Captain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>Hope they in thee</i>, in the high Theody</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He says, <i>all those who recognise thy name</i>;&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_112_112" href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And who does not if he my faith possesses?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou didst instil me, then, with his instilling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In the Epistle, so that I am full,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And upon others rain again your rain.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_113_113" href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">While I was speaking, in the living bosom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of that effulgence quivered a sharp flash,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Sudden and frequent, in the guise of lightning.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then breathed: “The love wherewith I am inflamed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Towards the virtue still, which followed me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Unto the palm and issue of the field,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wills that I whisper thee, thou take delight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In her; and grateful to me is thy saying</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Whatever things Hope promises to thee.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And I: “The ancient Scriptures and the new</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The mark establish,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_114_114" href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a>
+ and this shows it me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of all the souls whom God has made His friends,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Isaiah saith, that each one garmented</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In his own land shall be with twofold garments,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_115_115" href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And his own land is this delicious life.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thy brother,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_116_116" href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a>
+ too, far more explicitly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">There where he treateth of the robes of white,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">This revelation manifests to us.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And first, and near the ending of these words,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3"><i>Sperent in te</i> from over us was heard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To which responsive answered all the carols.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_117_117" href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thereafterward among them gleamed a light,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_118_118" href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">So that, if Cancer such a crystal had,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Winter would have a month of one sole day,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_119_119" href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And as uprises, goes, and enters the dance</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A joyous maiden, only to do honour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To the new bride, and not from any failing,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_120_120" href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So saw I the illuminated splendour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Approach the two,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_121_121" href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a>
+ who in a wheel revolved,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">As was beseeming to their ardent love.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It joined itself there in the song and music;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_551">[Pg 551]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And fixed on them my Lady kept her look,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Even as a bride, silent and motionless.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“This is the one who lay upon the breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of him&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_122_122" href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a>
+ our Pelican; and this is he</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To the great office&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_123_123" href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a>
+ from the cross elected.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">My Lady thus; but therefore none the more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Removed her sight from its fixed contemplation.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Before or afterward, these words of hers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even as a man who gazes, and endeavours</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To see the eclipsing of the sun a little,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And who, by seeing, sightless doth become,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So I became before that latest fire,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_124_124" href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">While it was said, “Why dost thou daze thyself</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To see a thing which here has no existence?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Earth upon earth my body is,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_125_125" href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a>
+ and shall be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With all the others there, until our number</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With the eternal proposition tallies;&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_126_126" href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the two garments&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_127_127" href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a>
+ in the blessed cloister</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Are the two lights&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_128_128" href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a>
+ alone that have ascended:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And this shalt thou take back into your world.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_129_129" href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And at this utterance the flaming circle</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Grew quiet, with the dulcet intermingling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Of sound that by the trinal&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_130_130" href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a>
+ breath was made,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As to escape from danger or fatigue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The oars that erst were in the water beaten</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Are all suspended at a whistle’s sound.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah, how much in my mind was I disturbed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">When I turned round to look on Beatrice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">At not beholding her, although I was</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Close at her side and in the Happy World.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/ill_032.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="383" >
+ <p class="center">THE OLD BRIDGE AT FLORENCE.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="OLD_BRIDGE" class="center spa2">THE OLD BRIDGE AT FLORENCE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Taddeo Gaddi built me. I am old;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Five centuries old. I plant my foot of stone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Upon the Arno, as St. Michael’s own</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Was planted on the dragon. Fold by fold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath me, as it struggles, I behold</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Its glistening scales. Twice hath it overthrown</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">My kindred and companions. Me alone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">It moveth not, but is by me controlled.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_552">[Pg 552]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I can remember when the Medici</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Were driven from Florence; longer still ago</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The final wars of Ghibelline and Guelf.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Florence adorns me with her jewelry;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And when I think that Michael Angelo</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Hath leaned on me, I glory in myself.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="NATURE_LOVE" class="center spa2">THE NATURE OF LOVE.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM THE ITALIAN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">To noble heart Love doth for shelter fly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As seeks the bird the forest’s leafy shade;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Love was not felt till noble heart beat high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor before love the noble heart was made.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Soon as the sun’s broad flame</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Was formed, so soon the clear light filled the air;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet was not till he came:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So love springs up in noble breasts, and there</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has its appointed space,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As heat in the bright flame finds its allotted place.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Kindles in noble heart the fire of love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As hidden virtue in the precious stone:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This virtue comes not from the stars above,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till round it the ennobling sun has shone;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But when his powerful blaze</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has drawn forth what was vile, the stars impar</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Strange virtue in their rays:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thus when Nature doth create the heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Noble and pure and high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like virtue from the star, love comes from woman’s eye.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="ITALY" class="center spa2">TO ITALY.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM FILICAJA.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Italy! Italy! thou who’rt doomed to wear</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The fatal gift of beauty, and possess</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The dower funest&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_131_131" href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a>
+ of infinite wretchedness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Written upon thy forehead by despair;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! would that thou wert stronger, or less fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That they might fear thee more, or love thee less,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who in the splendour of thy loveliness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Seem wasting, yet to mortal combat dare!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_553">[Pg 553]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then from the Alps I should not see descending</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Such torrents of armed men, nor Gallic horde</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Drinking the wave of Po, distained with gore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For should I see thee girded with a sword</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Not thine, and with the stranger’s arm contending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Victor or vanquished, slave for evermore.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak">TRANSLATIONS FROM<br> THE FRENCH.</h2>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p id="SPRING" class="f110 spa2">SPRING.</p>
+
+<p class="f90">FROM CHARLES, DUKE OF ORLEANS.<br>XV. CENTURY.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Gentle Spring!—in sunshine clad,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Well dost thou thy power display!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For Winter maketh the light heart sad,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And thou,—thou makest the sad heart gay.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He sees thee, and calls to his gloomy train,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sleet, and the snow, and the wind, and the rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And they shrink away, and they flee in fear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When thy merry step draws near.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Winter giveth the fields and the trees, so old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Their beards of icicles and snow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the rain, it raineth so fast and cold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">We must cower over the embers low;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, snugly housed from the wind and weather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mope like birds that are changing feather.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But the storm retires, and the sky grows clear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When thy merry step draws near.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Winter maketh the sun in the gloomy sky</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wrap him round with a mantle of cloud;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But, Heaven be praised, thy step is nigh;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thou tearest away the mournful shroud,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the earth looks bright, and Winter surly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who has toiled for nought both late and early,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is banished afar by the new-born year,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When thy merry step draws near.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="ASLEEP" class="center spa2">THE CHILD ASLEEP.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sweet babe! true portrait of thy father’s face,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sleep on the bosom, that thy lips have pressed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sleep, little one; and closely, gently place</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thy drowsy eyelid on thy mother’s breast.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_554">[Pg 554]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon that tender eye, my little friend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Soft sleep shall come, that cometh not to me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I watch to see thee, nourish thee, defend;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">’Tis sweet to watch for thee, alone for thee!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">His arms fall down; sleep sits upon his brow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">His eye is closed; he sleeps, nor dreams of harm.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wore not his cheek the apple’s ruddy glow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Would you not say he slept on Death’s cold arm?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Awake, my boy!—I tremble with affright!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Awake, and chase this fatal thought!—Unclose</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thine eye but for one moment on the light!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Even at the price of thine, give me repose!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sweet error! he but slept, I breathe again;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Come, gentle dreams, the hour of sleep beguile!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O when shall he for whom I sigh in vain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beside me watch to see thy waking smile?</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="FROISSARD" class="center spa2">RONDEL.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM FROISSARD.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart of mine?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Nought see I fixed or sure in thee!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I do not know thee,—nor what deeds are thine:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart of mine?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Nought see I fixed or sure in thee!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall I be mute, or vows with prayers combine?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Ye who are blessed in loving, tell it me:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart of mine</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Nought see I permanent or sure in thee!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="ORLEANS" class="center spa2">RONDEL.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM THE DUKE OF ORLEANS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hence away, begone, begone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Carking care and melancholy!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Think ye thus to govern me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All my life long, as ye have done?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That shall ye not, I promise ye:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Reason shall have the mastery.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So hence away, begone, begone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Carking care and melancholy!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_555">[Pg 555]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If ever ye return this way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With your mournful company,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A curse be on ye, and the day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That brings ye moping back to me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hence away, begone, I say,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Carking care and melancholy!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="RENOUVEAU" class="center spa2">RENOUVEAU.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now Time throws off his cloak again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of ermined frost, and cold and rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And clothes him in the embroidery</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of glittering sun and clear blue sky.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">With beast and bird the forest rings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Each in his jargon cries or sings;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Time throws off his cloak again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of ermined frost, and cold and rain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">River, and fount, and tinkling brook</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Wear in their dainty livery</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Drops of silver jewelry;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In new-made suit they merry look;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Time throws off his cloak again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of ermined frost, and cold and rain.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="LUBIN" class="center spa2">FRIAR LUBIN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">To gallop off to town post-haste</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">So oft, the times I cannot tell;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To do vile deed, nor feel disgraced,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Friar Lubin will do it well.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But a sober life to lead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To honour virtue, and pursue it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That’s a pious, Christian deed,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Friar Lubin cannot do it.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">To mingle with a knowing smile,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The goods of others with his own,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And leave you without cross or pile,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Friar Lubin stands alone.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To say ’tis yours is all in vain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">If once he lays his finger to it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For as to giving back again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Friar Lubin cannot do it.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_556">[Pg 556]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">With flattering words and gentle tone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To woo and win some guileless maid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Cunning pander need you none,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Friar Lubin knows the trade.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Loud preacheth he sobriety,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But as for water, doth eschew it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Your dog may drink it,—but not he;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Friar Lubin cannot do it.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent11">ENVOI.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">When an evil deed’s to do,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Friar Lubin’s stout and true;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Glimmers a ray of goodness through it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Friar Lubin cannot do it.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="TURPIN" class="center spa2">DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP TURPIN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The archbishop, whom God loved in high degree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beheld his wounds all bleeding fresh and free;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And then his cheek more ghastly grew and wan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And a faint shudder through his members ran.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Upon the battle-field his knee was bent;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brave Roland saw, and to his succour went,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Straightway his helmet from his brow unlaced,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And tore the shining hauberk from his breast;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then raising in his arms the man of God,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gently he laid him on the verdant sod.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Rest, Sire,” he cried,—“for rest thy suffering needs.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The priest replied, “Think but of warlike deeds!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The field is ours; well may we boast with strife!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But death steals on,—there is no hope of life;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In Paradise, where the almoners live again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There are our couches spread,—there shall we rest from pain.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sore Roland grieved; nor marvel I, alas!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That thrice he swooned upon the thick, green grass.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he revived, with a loud voice cried he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O Heavenly Father! Holy Saint Marie!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Why lingers death to lay me in my grave?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beloved France! how have the good and brave</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Been torn from thee and left thee weak and poor!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then thoughts of Aude, his lady-love, came o’er</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His spirit, and he whispered soft and slow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“My gentle friend!—what parting full of woe!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never so true a liegeman shalt thou see;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whate’er my fate, Christ’s benison on thee;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Christ, who did save from realms of woe beneath</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Hebrew prophets from the second death.”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_557">[Pg 557]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then to the paladins, whom well he knew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He went, and one by one unaided drew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To Turpin’s side, well skilled in ghostly lore;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No heart had he to smile,—but, weeping sore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He blessed them in God’s name, with faith that he</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would soon vouchsafe to them a glad eternity.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The archbishop, then,—on whom God’s benison rest!—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Exhausted, bowed his head upon his breast;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His mouth was full of dust and clotted gore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And many a wound his swollen visage bore.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slow beats his heart,—his panting bosom heaves,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Death comes apace, no hope of cure relieves.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Towards heaven he raised his dying hands and prayed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That God, who for our sins was mortal made,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Born of the Virgin,—scorned and crucified,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In paradise would place him by his side.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then Turpin died in service of Charlon,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In battle great and eke great orison;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Gainst Pagan host alway strong champion;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">God grant to him his holy benison!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="RICHELIEU" class="center spa2">TO CARDINAL RICHELIEU.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM MALHERBE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou mighty Prince of Church and State,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Richelieu! until the hour of death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whatever road man chooses, Fate</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still holds him subject to her breath.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spun of all silks, our days and nights</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Have sorrows woven with delights;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And of this intermingled shade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our various destiny appears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Even as one sees the course of years</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of summers and of winters made.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sometimes the soft, deceitful hours</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let us enjoy the halcyon wave;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Something impending peril lowers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beyond the seaman’s skill to save.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Wisdom, infinitely wise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That gives to human destinies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their foreordained necessity,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has made no law more fixed below,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than the alternate ebb and flow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of Fortune and Adversity.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_558">[Pg 558]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">CONSOLATION.</p>
+
+<p class="f90">TO M. DU PERRIER,<br> GENTLEMAN, OF AIX IN PROVENCE,<br> ON THE DEATH OF HIS DAUGHTER.</p>
+
+<p class="f90">FROM THE FRENCH OF FRANÇOIS DE MALHERBE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Will then, Du Perrier, thy sorrow be eternal?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And shall the sad discourse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whispered within thy heart, by tenderness paternal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Only augment its force?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy daughter’s mournful fate, into the tomb descending</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">By death’s frequented ways,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Has it become to thee a labyrinth never ending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Where thy lost reason strays?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I know the charms that made her youth a benediction:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Nor should I be content,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As a censorious friend, to solace thine affliction,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">By her disparagement.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But she was of the world, which fairest things exposes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To fates the most forlorn;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A rose, she too hath lived as long as live the roses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The space of one brief morn.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Death hath his rigorous laws, unparalleled, unfeeling;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">All prayers to him are vain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Cruel, he stops his ears, and, deaf to our appealing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">He leaves us to complain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The poor man in his hut, with only thatch for cover,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Unto these laws must bend;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sentinel that guards the barriers of the Louvre</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Cannot our Kings defend.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">To murmur against death, in petulant defiance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Is never for the best;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To will what God doth will, that is the only science</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">That gives us any rest.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_559">[Pg 559]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">THE ANGEL AND THE CHILD.</p>
+
+<p class="f90">FROM THE FRENCH OF JEAN REBOUL.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_132_132" href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">An angel with a radiant face</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Above a cradle bent to look,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seemed his own image there to trace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As in the waters of a brook.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Dear child! who me resemblest so,”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">It whispered, “come, O come with me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Happy together let us go,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The earth unworthy is of thee!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Here none to perfect bliss attain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The soul in pleasure suffering lies;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Joy hath an undertone of pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And even the happiest hours their sighs.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Fear doth at every portal knock;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Never a day serene and pure</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the o’ershadowing tempest’s shock</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Has made the morrow’s dawn secure.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“What, then, shall sorrows and shall fears</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Come to disturb so pure a brow?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And with the bitterness of tears</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Those eyes of azure troubled grow?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ah no! into the fields of space,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Away shalt thou escape with me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And Providence will grant thee grace</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Of all the days that were to be.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Let no one in thy dwelling cower</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In sombre vestments draped and veiled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But let them welcome thy last hour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As thy first moments once they hailed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Without a cloud be there each brow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">There let the grave no shadow cast;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When one is pure as thou art now,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The fairest day is still the last.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And waving wide his wings of white,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The angel, at these words, had sped</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Towards the eternal realms of light!—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Poor mother! see, thy son is dead.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_560">[Pg 560]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">A CHRISTMAS CAROL.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM THE NOEL BOURGUIGNON DE<br> GUI BARÔZAI.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">I hear along our street</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Pass the minstrel throngs;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Hark! they play so sweet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On their hautboys, Christmas songs!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Let us by the fire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Ever higher</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sing them till the night expire!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">In December ring</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Every day the chimes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Loud the gleemen sing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the streets their merry rhymes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Let us by the fire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Ever higher</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sing them till the night expire!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Shepherds at the grange,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Where the Babe was born</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Sang, with many a change,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Christmas carols until morn.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Let us by the fire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Ever higher</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sing them till the night expire.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">These good people sang</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Songs devout and sweet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">While the rafters rang,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There they stood with freezing feet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Let us by the fire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Ever higher</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sing them till the night expire!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Nuns in frigid cells</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">At this holy tide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">For want of something else,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Christmas songs at times have tried.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Let us by the fire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Ever higher</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sing them till the night expire!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Washerwomen old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To the sound they beat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Sing by rivers cold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With uncovered heads and feet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Let us by the fire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Ever higher</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sing them till the night expire!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Who by the fireside stands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Stamps his feet and sings;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">But he who blows his hands</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not so gay a carol brings.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Let us by the fire</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Ever higher</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sing them till the night expire!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="BLIND_GIRL" class="center spa2">THE BLIND GIRL OF CASTÈL-CUILLÈ.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM THE GASCON OF JASMIN.</p>
+<hr class="r10">
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza fs_90">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Only the Lowland tongue of Scotland might</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rehearse this little tragedy aright:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let me attempt it with an English quill:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And take, O reader, for the deed the will.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<div class="blockquot fs_90">
+<p><span class="smcap">Jasmin</span>, the author of this beautiful
+poem, is to the South of France what Burns is to the South of
+Scotland,—the representative of the heart of the people,—one of those
+happy bards who are born with their mouths full of birds (<i>la bouco
+pleno d’aouzelous</i>). He has written his own biography in a poetic
+form, and the simple narrative of his poverty, his struggles and his
+triumphs, is very touching. His home was at Agen on the Garonne.</p>
+
+<p>Those who may feel interested in knowing something about “Jasmin,
+Coiffeur”—for such is his calling—will find a description of his person
+and mode of life in the graphic pages of <i>Béarn and the Pyrenees</i>
+(Vol. i. p. 369, <i>et seq.</i>), by Louisa Stuart Costello, whose
+charming pen has done so much to illustrate the French provinces and
+their literature.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_561">[Pg 561]</span></p>
+
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent18 fs_110">I.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">At the foot of the mountain height</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Where is perched Castèl-Cuillè,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When the apple, the plum, and the almond tree</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">In the plain below were growing white,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">This is the song one might perceive</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On a Wednesday morn of Saint Joseph’s Eve:</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The roads should blossom, the roads should bloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So fair a bride shall leave her home!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Should blossom and bloom with garlands gay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So fair a bride shall pass to-day!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">This old Te Deum, rustic rites attending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Seemed from the clouds descending;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">When lo! a merry company</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of rosy village girls, clean as the eye,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Each one with her attendant swain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Came to the cliff, all singing the same strain:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Resembling there, so near unto the sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rejoicing angels, that kind Heaven has sent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For their delight and our encouragement.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">Together blending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">And soon descending</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">The narrow sweep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">Of the hill-side steep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">They wind aslant</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">Toward Saint Amant</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">Through leafy alleys</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">Of verdurous valleys,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">With merry sallies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">Singing their chant:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The roads should blossom, the roads should bloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So fair a bride shall leave her home!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Should blossom and bloom with garlands gay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So fair a bride shall pass to-day!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is Baptiste, and his affianced maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With garlands for the bridal laden!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sky was blue; without one cloud of gloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The sun of March was shining brightly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And to the air the freshening wind gave lightly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Its breathings of perfume.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_562">[Pg 562]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">When one beholds the dusky hedges blossom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A rustic bridal, ah! how sweet it is!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To sounds of joyous melodies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That touch with tenderness the trembling bosom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">A band of maidens</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Gaily frolicking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">A band of youngsters</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Wildly rollicking!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">Kissing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent12">Caressing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">With fingers pressing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Till in the veriest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">Madness of mirth, as they dance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6">They retreat and advance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Trying whose laugh shall be loudest and merriest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">While the bride, with roguish eyes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sporting with them, now escapes and cries:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">“Those who catch me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Married verily</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">This year shall be!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">And all pursue with eager haste,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And all attain what they pursue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And touch her pretty apron fresh and new,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the linen kirtle round her waist.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">“Meanwhile, whence comes it that among</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">These youthful maidens fresh and fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">So joyous, with such laughing air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Baptiste stands sighing, with silent tongue?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And yet the bride is fair and young!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is it Saint Joseph would say to us all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That love, o’er-hasty, precedeth a fall?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">O, no! for a maiden frail, I trow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Never bore so lofty a brow!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What lovers! they give not a single caress!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To see them so careless and cold to-day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">These are grand people, one would say.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What ails Baptiste? what grief doth him oppress?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">It is, that, half way up the hill</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">In yon cottage, by whose walls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Stand the cart-house and the stalls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Dwelleth the blind orphan still,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Daughter of a veteran old;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And you must know, one year ago,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">That Margaret, the young and tender,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Was the village pride and splendour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And Baptiste her lover bold.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Love, the deceiver, them ensnared;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">For them the altar was prepared;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_563">[Pg 563]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent8">But alas! the summer’s blight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">The dread disease that none can stay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">The pestilence that walks by night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Took the young bride’s sight away.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">All at the father’s stern command was changed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Their peace was gone, but not their love estranged;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Wearied at home, ere long the lover fled;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Returned but three short days ago,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">The golden chain they round him throw,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">He is enticed, and onward led</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To marry Angela, and yet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Is thinking ever of Margaret.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Then suddenly a maiden cried,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">“Anna, Theresa, Mary, Kate!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here comes the cripple Jane!” And by a fountain’s side</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">A woman, bent and grey with years,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Under the mulberry-trees appears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And all towards her run, as fleet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">As had they wings upon their feet.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">It is that Jane, the cripple Jane,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Is a soothsayer, wary and kind.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She telleth fortunes, and none complain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">She promises one a village swain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Another a happy wedding-day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the bride a lovely boy straightway.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">All comes to pass as she avers;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">She never deceives, she never errs.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">But for this once the village seer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Wears a countenance severe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And from beneath her eyebrows thin and white</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Her two eyes flash like cannons bright</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Aimed at the bridegroom in waistcoat blue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Who, like a statue, stands in view;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Changing colour, as well he might,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">When the beldame, wrinkled and grey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Takes the young bride by the hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And, with the tip of her reedy wand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Making the sign of the cross, doth say:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">“Thoughtless Angela, beware!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Lest, when thou weddest this false bridegroom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Thou diggest for thyself a tomb!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">And she was silent; and the maidens fair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Saw from each eye escape a swollen tear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">But on a little streamlet silver-clear,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_564">[Pg 564]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent4">What are two drops of turbid rain?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Saddened a moment, the bridal train</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Resumed the dance and song again;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The bridegroom only was pale with fear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">And down green alleys</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Of verdurous valleys,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">With merry sallies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">They sang the refrain:—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The roads should blossom, the roads should bloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So fair a bride shall leave her home!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Should blossom and bloom with garlands gay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So fair a bride shall pass to-day!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent16 fs_110">II.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And by suffering worn and weary,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But beautiful as some fair angel yet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Thus lamented Margaret,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">In her cottage lone and dreary:—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">“He has arrived! arrived at last!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet Jane has named him not these three days past;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Arrived! yet keeps aloof so far!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And knows that of my night he is the star!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Knows that long months I wait alone, benighted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And count the moments since he went away!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come! keep the promise of that happier day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That I may keep the faith to thee I plighted!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What joy have I without thee? what delight?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Grief wastes my life, and makes it misery;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Day for the others ever, but for me</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">For ever night! for ever night!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When he is gone ’tis dark! my soul is sad!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I suffer! O my God! come, make me glad.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When he is near, no thoughts of day intrude;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Day has blue heavens, but Baptiste has blue eyes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Within them shines for me a heaven of love,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A heaven all happiness, like that above,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">No more of grief! no more of lassitude!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Earth I forget,—and heaven, and all distresses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When seated by my side my hand he presses;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">But when alone, remember all!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where is Baptiste? he hears not when I call!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A branch of ivy, dying on the ground,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">I need some bough to twine around!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In pity come! be to my suffering kind!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">True love, they say, in grief doth more abound!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">What then, when one is blind?</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_565">[Pg 565]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Who knows? perhaps I am forsaken!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! woe is me! then bear me to my grave!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">O God! what thoughts within me waken!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Away! he will return! I do but rave!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">He will return! I need not fear!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">He swore it by our Saviour dear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">He could not come at his own will;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Is weary, or perhaps is ill!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Perhaps his heart, in this disguise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Prepares for me some sweet surprise.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But some one comes! Though blind, my heart can see!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And that deceives me not! ’tis he! ’tis he!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And the door ajar is set,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And poor, confiding Margaret</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Rises, with outstretched arms, but sightless eyes;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Tis only Paul, her brother, who thus cries:—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Angela the bride has passed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">I saw the wedding guests go by;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Tell me, my sister, why were we not asked?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">For all are there but you and I!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Angela married! and not send</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To tell her secret unto me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">O, speak! who may the bridegroom be?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">“My sister, ’tis Baptiste, thy friend!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A cry the blind girl gave, but nothing said;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A milky whiteness spreads upon her cheeks;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">An icy hand, as heavy as lead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Descending, as her brother speaks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Upon her heart, that has ceased to beat,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Suspends awhile its life and heat.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She stands beside the boy, now sore distressed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A wax Madonna as a peasant dressed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">At length the bridal song again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Brings her back to her sorrow and pain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Hark! the joyous airs are ringing!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Sister, dost thou hear them singing?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">How merrily they laugh and jest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Would we were bidden with the rest!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">I would don my hose of homespun grey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And my doublet of linen striped and gay;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Perhaps they will come; for they do not wed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Till to-morrow at seven o’clock, it is said!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“I know it!” answered Margaret;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whom the vision, with aspect black as jet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Mastered again; and its hand of ice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Held her heart crushed, as in a vice!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_566">[Pg 566]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Paul, be not sad! ’Tis a holiday;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To-morrow put on thy doublet gay!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">But leave me now for a while alone.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Away, with a hop and a jump, went Paul,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And, as he whistled along the hall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Entered Jane, the crippled crone.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Holy Virgin! what dreadful heat!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">I am faint, and weary, and out of breath!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">But thou art cold,—art chill as death!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">My little friend! what ails thee, sweet?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Nothing! I heard them singing home the bride;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And, as I listened to the song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">I thought my turn would come ere long,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Thou knowest it is at Whitsuntide.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Thy cards forsooth can never lie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To me such joy they prophesy,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Thy skill shall be vaunted far and wide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">When they behold him at my side.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And poor Baptiste, what sayest thou?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It must seem long to him;—methinks I see him now!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Jane, shuddering, her hand doth press:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Thy love I cannot all approve;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We must not trust too much to happiness;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Go, pray to God, that thou mayst love him less!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">“The more I pray, the more I love!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is no sin, for God is on my side!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It was enough; and Jane no more replied.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now to all hope her heart is barred and cold;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">But to deceive the beldame old</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">She takes a sweet, contented air;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Speaks of foul weather or of fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">At every word the maiden smiles.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus the beguiler she beguiles;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So that, departing at the evening’s close,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">She says, “She may be saved! she nothing knows!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">Poor Jane, the cunning sorceress!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now that thou wouldst, thou art no prophetess!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This morning, in the fulness of thy heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Thou wast so, far beyond thine art!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent16 fs_110">III.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now rings the bell, nine times reverberating,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the white daybreak, stealing up the sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sees in two cottages two maidens waiting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent9">How differently!</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_567">[Pg 567]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Queen of a day, by flatterers caressed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The one puts on her cross and crown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Decks with a huge bouquet her breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And flaunting, fluttering up and down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Looks at herself, and cannot rest.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent5">The other, blind, within her little room,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Has neither crown nor flower’s perfume;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But in their stead for something gropes apart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">That in a drawer’s recess doth lie,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, ’neath her bodice of bright scarlet dye,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Convulsive clasps it to her heart.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent5">The one, fantastic, light as air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent9">’Mid kisses ringing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent9">And joyous singing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Forgets to say her morning prayer!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The other, with cold drops upon her brow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Joins her two hands, and kneels upon the floor,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And whispers, as her brother opes the door,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">“O God! forgive me now!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent5">And then the orphan, young and blind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Conducted by her brother’s hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Towards the church, through paths unscanned,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">With tranquil air, her way doth wind.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Odours of laurel, making her faint and pale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Round her at times exhale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in the sky as yet no sunny ray,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">But brumal vapours grey.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent5">Near that castle, fair to see,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crowded with sculptures old, in every part,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Marvels of nature and of art,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">And proud of its name of high degree,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">A little chapel, almost bare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">At the base of the rock is builded there;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">All glorious that it lifts aloof,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Above each jealous cottage roof,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Its sacred summit, swept by autumn gales,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And its blackened steeple high in air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Round which the osprey screams and sails.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent4">“Paul, lay thy noisy rattle by!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus Margaret said. “Where are we? we ascend!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">“Yes; seest thou not our journey’s end?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hearest not the osprey from the belfry cry?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The hideous bird, that brings ill luck, we know!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dost thou remember when our father said,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The night we watched beside his bed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">’O daughter, I am weak and low;</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_568">[Pg 568]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Take care of Paul; I feel that I am dying!’</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And thou, and he, and I, all fell to crying?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then on the roof the osprey screamed aloud;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And here they brought our father in his shroud.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There is his grave; there stands the cross we set;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Why dost thou clasp me so, dear Margaret?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Come in! The bride will be here soon:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou tremblest! O my God! thou art going to swoon!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She could no more,—the blind girl, weak and weary!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A voice seemed crying from that grave so dreary,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“What wouldst thou do, my daughter?”—and she started;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And quick recoiled, aghast, faint-hearted;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But Paul, impatient, urges ever more</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Her steps towards the open door;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And when, beneath her feet, the unhappy maid</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crushes the laurel near the house immortal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And with her head, as Paul talks on again,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Touches the crown of filigrane</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Suspended from the low-arched portal,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">No more restrained, no more afraid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">She walks, as for a feast arrayed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And in the ancient chapel’s sombre night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">They both are lost to sight.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent9">At length the bell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent9">With booming sound,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sends forth, resounding round,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Its hymeneal peal o’er rock and down the dell.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">It is broad day, with sunshine and with rain;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And yet the guests delay not long,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">For soon arrives the bridal train,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And with it brings the village throng.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In sooth, deceit maketh no mortal gay,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For lo! Baptiste on this triumphant day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Mute as an idiot, sad as yester-morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thinks only of the beldame’s words of warning.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And Angela thinks of her cross, I wis;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To be a bride is all! The pretty lisper</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Feels her heart swell to hear all round her whisper,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“How beautiful! how beautiful she is!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent5">But she must calm that giddy head,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">For already the Mass is said;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">At the holy table stands the priest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The wedding ring is blessed; Baptiste receives it;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ere on the finger of the bride he leaves it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">He must pronounce one word at least!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Tis spoken; and sudden at the groomsman’s side</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“’Tis he!” a well-known voice has cried.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_569">[Pg 569]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">And while the wedding-guests all hold their breath,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Opes the confessional, and the blind girl, see!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Baptiste,” she said, “since thou hast wished my death,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As holy water be my blood for thee!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And calmly in the air a knife suspended!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Doubtless her guardian angel near attended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">For anguish did its work so well,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">That, ere the fatal stroke descended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent9">Lifeless she fell!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent5">At eve, instead of bridal verse,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The De Profundis filled the air;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Decked with flowers a single hearse</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">To the churchyard forth they bear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Village girls in robes of snow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Follow, weeping as they go;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Nowhere was a smile that day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">No, ah no! for each one seemed to say:—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The roads shall mourn and be veiled in gloom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So fair a corpse shall leave its home!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Should mourn and should weep, ah, well-away,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So fair a corpse shall pass to-day!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="MY_SECRET" class="center spa2">MY SECRET.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM THE FRENCH OF FÉLIX ARVERS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">My soul its secret hath, my life too hath its mystery,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A love eternal in a moment’s space conceived;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hopeless the evil is, I have not told its history,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And she who was the cause nor knew it nor believed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Alas! I shall have passed close by her unperceived,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For ever at her side and yet for ever lonely,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I shall unto the end have made life’s journey, only</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Daring to ask for nought, and having nought received.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">For her, though God hath made her gentle and endearing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She will go on her way distraught and without hearing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">These murmurings of love that round her steps ascend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Piously faithful still unto her austere duty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Will say, when she shall read these lines full of her beauty,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Who can this woman be?” and will not comprehend.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_570">[Pg 570]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">BARRÉGES.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM THE FRENCH OF<br> JEAN-JACQUES LEFRANC DE POMPIGNAN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I leave you, ye cold mountain chains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dwelling of warriors stark and frore!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">You, may these eyes behold no more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Save on the horizon of our plains.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Vanish, ye frightful, gloomy views!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye rocks that mount up to the clouds!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of skies, enwrapped in misty shrouds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Impracticable avenues!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye torrents, that with might and main</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Break pathways through the rocky walls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With your terrific waterfalls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fatigue no more my weary brain!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Arise, ye landscapes full of charms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Arise, ye pictures of delight!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye brooks, that water in your flight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The flowers and harvests of our farms!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">You I perceive, ye meadows green,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where the Garonne the lowland fills,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not far from that long chain of hills,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With intermingled vales between.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yon wreath of smoke, that mounts so high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Methinks from my own hearth must come;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With speed to that belovèd home,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fly, ye too lazy coursers, fly!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And bear me thither, where the soul</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In quiet may itself possess,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where all things soothe the mind’s distress,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where all things teach me and console.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="AIGALADES" class="center spa2">ON THE TERRACE OF THE AIGALADES.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM THE FRENCH OF J. MÉRY.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From this high portal, where upsprings</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The rose to touch our hands in play,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We at a glance behold three things,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Sea, the Town, and the Highway.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Sea says: My shipwrecks fear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I drown my best friends in the deep;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And those who braved my tempests, here</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Among my sea-weeds lie asleep!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Town says: I am filled and fraught</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With tumult and with smoke and care;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My days with toil are overwrought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in my nights I gasp for air.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Highway says: My wheel-tracks guide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the pale climates of the North;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where my last milestone stands abide</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The people to their death gone forth.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here, in the shade, this life of ours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Full of delicious air, glides by</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Amid a multitude of flowers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As countless as the stars on high;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">These red-tiled roofs, this fruitful soil,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bathed with an azure all divine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where springs the tree that gives us oil,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The grape that giveth us the wine;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beneath these mountains stripped of trees,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whose tops with flowers are covered o’er,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where springtime of the Hesperides</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Begins, but endeth nevermore;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under these leafy vaults and walls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That unto gentle sleep persuade</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This rainbow of the waterfalls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of mingled mist and sunshine made;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Upon these shores, where all invites,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We live our languid life apart;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This air is that of life’s delights,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The festival of sense and heart;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">This limpid space of time prolong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Forget to-morrow in to-day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And leave unto the passing throng</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Sea, the Town, and the Highway.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_571">[Pg 571]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">TRANSLATIONS FROM THE<br> ANGLO-SAXON.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center spa2">THE GRAVE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">For thee was a house built</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ere thou wast born,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For thee was a mould meant</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ere thou of mother camest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But it is not made ready,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor its depth measured,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor is it seen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How long it shall be.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now I bring thee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where thou shalt be;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now I shall measure thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the mould afterwards.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thy house is not</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Highly timbered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is unhigh and low;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When thou art therein,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The heel-ways are low,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sideways unhigh.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The roof is built</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thy breast full nigh,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So thou shalt in mould</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dwell full cold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dimly and dark.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">Doorless is that house,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And dark it is within;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There thou art fast detained,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And death hath the key.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Loathsome is that earth-house,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And grim within to dwell.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There thou shalt dwell,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And worms shall divide thee.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thus thou art laid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And leavest thy friends;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast no friend</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who will come to thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who will ever see</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How that house pleaseth thee;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who will ever open</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The door for thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And descend after thee,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For soon thou art loathsome</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And hateful to see.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="BEOWULF" class="center spa2">BEOWULF’S EXPEDITION TO HEORT.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thus then, much care-worn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The son of Healfden</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sorrowed evermore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nor might the prudent hero</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His woes avert.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The war was too hard,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Too loath and longsome,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That on the people came,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dire wrath and grim,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of night-woes the worst.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">This from home heard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Higelac’s Thane,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Good among the Goths,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Grendel’s deeds.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He was of mankind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In might the strongest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At that day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of this life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Noble and stalwart.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He bade him a sea-ship,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A goodly one, prepare.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Quoth he, the war-king,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over the swan’s road,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Seek he would</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The mighty monarch,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Since he wanted men.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For him that journey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His prudent fellows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Straight made ready,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Those that loved him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They excited their souls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The omen they beheld.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_572">[Pg 572]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had the good-man</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the Gothic people</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Champions chosen,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of those that keenest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He might find,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some fifteen men.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sea-wood sought he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The warrior showed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sea-crafty man!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The landmarks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And first went forth.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The ship was on the waves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Boat under the cliffs.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The barons ready</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the prow mounted.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The streams they whirled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sea against the sands.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The chieftains bore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the naked breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bright ornaments,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">War-gear, Goth-like.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The men shoved off,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Men on their willing way,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The bounden wood.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Then went over the sea-waves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hurried by the wind,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The ship with foamy neck</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Most like a sea-fowl,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Till about one hour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the second day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The curved prow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had passed onward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So that the sailors</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The land saw,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The shore-cliffs shining,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Mountains steep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And broad sea-noses.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then was the sea-sailing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the earl at an end.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Then up speedily</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Weather people</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the land went,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sea-bark moored,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their mail-sarks shook,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Their war-weeds.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">God thanked they,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That to them the sea journey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Easy had been.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Then from the wall beheld</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The warden of the Scyldings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">He who the sea-cliffs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had in his keeping,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bear o’er the balks</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The bright shields,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The war-weapons speedily.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Him the doubt disturbed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In his mind’s thought,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">What these men might be.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Went then to the shore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">On his steed riding,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Thane of Hrothgar.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Before the host he shook</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His warden’s staff in hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In measured words demanded:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“What men are ye</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">War-gear wearing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Host in harness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who thus the brown keel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Over the water-street</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Leading come</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hither over the sea?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I these boundaries</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As shore-warden hold;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That in the Land of the Danes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nothing loathsome</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With a ship-crew</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Scathe us might....</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ne’er saw I mightier</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Earl upon earth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Than is your own,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hero in harness.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not seldom this warrior</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is in weapons distinguished;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Never his beauty belies him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">His peerless countenance!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now would I fain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Your origin know,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ere ye forth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As false spies</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the Land of the Danes</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Farther fare.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now, ye dwellers afar off!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye sailors of the sea!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Listen to my</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">One-fold thought.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Quickest is best</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To make known</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whence your coming may be.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_573">[Pg 573]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">THE SOUL’S COMPLAINT<br> AGAINST THE BODY.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Much it behoveth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each one of mortals,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That he his soul’s journey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In himself ponder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How deep it may be.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When death cometh,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The bonds he breaketh</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By which united</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were body and soul.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Long it is henceforth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ere the soul taketh</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From God himself</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Its woe or its weal;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As in the world erst,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even in its earth-vessel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It wrought before.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">The soul shall come</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wailing with loud voice,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">After a sennight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The soul, to find</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The body</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That it erst dwelt in;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Three hundred winters,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unless ere that worketh</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The eternal Lord,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The Almighty God,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The end of the world.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Crieth then, so care-worn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With cold utterance,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And speaketh grimly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The ghost to the dust:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Dry dust! thou dreary one!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How little didst thou labour for me!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the foulness of earth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thou all wearest away</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like to the loam!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Little didst thou think</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">How thy soul’s journey</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would be thereafter,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When from the body</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It should be led forth.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+ <h2 class="nobreak">TRANSLATIONS FROM THE<br> SWEDISH.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p id="SWEDISH" class="center spa2">FRITHIOF’S HOMESTEAD.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Three miles extended around the fields of the homestead; on three sides</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Valleys, and mountains, and hills, but on the fourth side was the ocean.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Birch-woods crowned the summits, but over the down-sloping hillsides</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Flourished the golden corn, and man-high was waving the rye-field.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lakes, full many in number, their mirror held up for the mountains,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Held for the forests up, in whose depths the high-antlered reindeer</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Had their kingly walk, and drank of a hundred brooklets.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But in the valleys, full widely around, there fed on the greensward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Herds with sleek, shining sides, and udders that longed for the milk-pail;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Mid these were scattered, now here and now there, a vast countless number</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of white-wooled sheep, as thou seest the white-looking stray clouds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Flock-wise, spread o’er the heavenly vault, when it bloweth in springtime.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_574">[Pg 574]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Twice twelve swift-footed coursers, mettlesome, fast-fettered storm-winds,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stamping stood in the line of stalls, all champing their fodder,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Knotted with red their manes, and their hoofs all whitened with steel shoes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The banquet-hall, a house by itself, was timbered of hard fir.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not five hundred men (at ten times twelve to the hundred)</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Filled up the roomy hall, when assembled for drinking at Yule-tide.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thorough the hall, as long as it was, went a table of holm-oak,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Polished and white, as of steel; the columns twain of the high-seat</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stood at the end thereof, two gods carved out of an elm-tree;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Odin with lordly look, and Frey with the sun on his frontlet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lately between the two, on a bear-skin (the skin it was coal-black,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Scarlet-red was the throat, but the paws were shodden with silver),</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thorsten sat with his friends, Hospitality sitting with Gladness.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Oft, when the moon among the night-clouds flew, related the old man</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wonders from far-distant lands he had seen, and cruises of Vikings</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Far on the Baltic and Sea of the West, and the North Sea.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hush sat the listening bench, and their glances hung on the gray-beard’s</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lips, as a bee on the rose; but the Skald was thinking of Bragé,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where, with silver beard, and runes on his tongue, he is seated</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under the leafy beech, and tells a tradition by Mimer’s</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ever-murmuring wave, himself a living tradition.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Midway the floor (with thatch was it strewn), burned for ever the fire-flame</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Glad on its stone-built hearth; and through the wide-mouthed smoke-flue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Looked the stars, those heavenly friends, down into the great hall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But round the walls, upon nails of steel, were hanging in order</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Breastplate and helm with each other, and here and there in among them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Downward lightened a sword, as in winter evening a star shoots.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">More than helmets and swords, the shields in the banquet-hall glisten,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">White as the orb of the sun, or white as the moon’s disc of silver.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ever and anon went a maid round the board and filled up the drink-horns;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ever she cast down her eyes and blushed; in the shield her reflection</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Blushed too, even as she;—this gladdened the hard-drinking champions.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="TEMPTATION" class="center spa2">FRITHIOF’S TEMPTATION.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Spring is coming, birds are twittering, forests leaf, and smiles the sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the loosened torrents downward singing to the ocean run;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Glowing like the cheek of Freya, peeping rosebuds ’gin to ope,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in human hearts awaken love of life, and joy, and hope.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_575">[Pg 575]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now will hunt the ancient monarch, and the queen shall join the sport;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Swarming in its gorgeous splendour is assembled all the court;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bows ring loud, and quivers rattle, stallions paw the ground alway,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And, with hoods upon their eyelids, falcons scream aloud for prey.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">See, the queen of the chase advances! Frithiof, gaze not on the sight!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a star upon a spring-cloud sits she on her palfrey white,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Half of Freya, half of Rota, yet more beauteous than these two,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And from her light hat of purple wave aloft the feathers blue.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now the huntsman’s band is ready. Hurrah! over hill and dale!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Morns ring, and the hawks right upward to the hall of Odin sail.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All the dwellers in the forest seek in fear their cavern homes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But with spear outstretched before her, after them Valkyria comes.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then threw Frithiof down his mantle, and upon the greensward spread,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the ancient king so trustful laid on Frithiof’s knees his head;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slept, as calmly as the hero sleepeth after war’s alarms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On his shield, calm as an infant sleepeth in its mother’s arms.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he slumbers, hark! there sings a coal-black bird upon a bough:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Hasten, Frithiof, slay the old man, close your quarrel at a blow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Take his queen, for she is thine, and once the bridal kiss she gave;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now no human eye beholds thee; deep and silent is the grave.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Frithiof listens; hark! there sings a snow-white bird upon the bough:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Though no human eye beholds thee, Odin’s eye beholds thee now.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Coward, wilt thou murder slumber? a defenceless old man slay?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whatsoe’er thou winn’st, thou canst not win a hero’s fame this way.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus the two wood-birds did warble; Frithiof took his war-sword good,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With a shudder hurled it from him, far into the gloomy wood.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Coal-black bird flies down to Nastrand; but on light unfolded wings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the tone of harps, the other, sounding towards the sun upsprings.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Straight the ancient king awakens. “Sweet has been my sleep,” he said;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Pleasantly sleeps one in the shadow, guarded by a brave man’s blade.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But where is thy sword, O stranger? Lightning’s brother, where is he?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who thus parts you, who should never from each other parted be?”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“It avails not,” Frithiof answered; “in the North are other swords;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sharp, O monarch, is the sword’s tongue, and it speaks not peaceful words;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Murky spirits dwell in steel blades, spirits from the Niffelhem,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slumber is not safe before them, silver locks but anger them.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_576">[Pg 576]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">THE CHILDREN OF THE LORD’S SUPPER.</p>
+
+<p class="center">PREFATORY REMARKS.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot fs_90">
+<p>This poem, from the Swedish of Bishop Tegnér, enjoys no inconsiderable
+reputation in the North of Europe. It is an Idyl descriptive of rural life
+in Sweden, round which something primeval and picturesque still lingers.</p>
+
+<p>You pass out from the gate of a city, and, as if by magic, the scene
+changes to a wild, woodland landscape. Around you are forests of fir,
+with their long, fan-like branches; while underfoot is spread a carpet
+of yellow leaves. On a wooden bridge you cross a little silver stream:
+and anon come forth into a pleasant land of farms. Wooden fences divide
+the adjoining fields. The gates are opened by troops of children, and
+the peasants take off their hats as you pass. The houses in the village
+and smaller towns are built of hewn timber, and are generally painted
+red. The floors of the taverns are strewn with the fragrant tips of
+fir boughs. In many villages there are no taverns, and the peasants
+take turns in receiving travellers. The thrifty housewife shows you
+into the best chamber, the walls of which are hung round with rude
+pictures from the Bible; and she brings you curdled milk from the
+pan, with oaten cakes baked some months before. Meanwhile, the sturdy
+husband has brought his horses from the plough, and harnessed them to
+your carriage. Solitary travellers come and go in uncouth one-horse
+chaises. Most of them are smoking pipes, and have hanging around their
+necks in front a leather wallet, in which they carry tobacco, and the
+great bank-notes of the country. You meet, also, groups of barefooted
+Dalekarlian peasant women, travelling in pursuit of work, carrying in
+their hands their shoes, which have high heels under the hollow of the
+foot, and soles of birch bark.</p>
+
+<p>Frequent, too, are the village churches, standing by the road-side.
+In the churchyard are a few flowers, and much green grass. The
+grave-stones are flat, large, low, and perhaps sunken, like the roofs
+of old houses; the tenants all sleeping with their heads to the
+westward. Each held a lighted taper in his hand when he died; and in
+his coffin were placed his little heart-treasures, and a piece of
+money for his last journey. Babes that came lifeless into the world
+were carried in the arms of grey-haired old men to the only cradle
+they ever slept in; and in the shroud of the dead mother were laid the
+little garments of the child, that lived and died in her bosom. Near
+the churchyard gate stands a poor-box, with a sloping roof over it,
+fastened to a post by iron bands, and secured by a padlock. If it be
+Sunday, the peasants sit on the church steps and con their psalm-books.
+Others are coming down the road, listening to their beloved pastor.
+He is their patriarch, and, like Melchizedek, both priest and king,
+though he has no other throne than the church pulpit. The women carry
+psalm-books in their hands, wrapped in silk handkerchiefs, and listen
+devoutly to the good man’s words. But the young men, like Gallio, care
+for none of these things. They are busy counting the plaits in the
+kirtles of the peasant girls, their number being an indication of the
+wearer’s wealth.</p>
+
+<p>I must not forget to speak of the suddenly changing seasons of the
+Northern clime. There is no long spring, gradually unfolding leaf and
+blossom;—no lingering autumn, pompous with many-coloured leaves. But
+winter and summer are wonderful, and pass into each other. The quail
+has hardly ceased piping in the corn, when winter from the folds of
+trailing clouds sows broad-cast over the land snow, icicles, and
+rattling hail. The days wane apace. Ere long the sun hardly rises above
+the horizon, or does not rise at all. The moon and the stars shine
+through the day; only, at noon, they are pale and wan, and in the
+southern sky a red, fiery glow, as of sunset, burns along the horizon,
+and then goes out. And pleasantly under the silver moon, and twinkling
+stars, ring the steel shoes of the skaters on the frozen sea, and
+voices, and the sound of bells.</p>
+
+<p>And now the Northern Lights begin to burn, faintly at first, like
+sunbeams playing in the waters of the blue sea. Then a soft crimson
+glow tinges the heavens. There is a blush on the cheek of night. The
+colours come and go; and change from crimson to gold, from gold to
+crimson. The snow is stained with rosy light. Twofold from the zenith,
+east and west, flames a fiery sword; and a broad band passes athwart
+the heavens, like a summer sunset. Soft purple clouds come sailing over
+the sky, and through their vapoury folds the winking stars shine white
+as silver. With such pomp as this is Merry Christmas ushered in, though
+only a single star heralded the first Christmas. And in memory of that
+day the Swedish peasants dance on straw; and the peasant girls throw
+straws at the timbered roof of the hall, and for every one that sticks
+in a crack shall a groomsman come to their wedding. Merry indeed is
+Christmas-time for Swedish peasants; brandy and nut-brown ale in wooden
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_577">[Pg 577]</span>
+bowls; and the great Yulecake crowned with a cheese, and garlanded with
+apples, and upholding a three-armed candlestick over the Christmas feast.</p>
+
+<p>And now leafy mid-summer, full of blossoms and the song of
+nightingales, is come. In every village there is a May-pole fifty
+feet high, with wreaths and roses and ribands streaming in the wind,
+and a noisy weathercock on top. The sun does not set till ten o’clock
+at night; and the children are at play in the streets an hour later.
+The windows and doors are all open, and you may sit and read till
+midnight without a candle. O how beautiful is the summer night, which
+is not night, but a sunless yet unclouded day, descending upon earth
+with dews, and shadows, and refreshing coolness! How beautiful the
+long, mild twilight, which unites to-day with yesterday! How beautiful
+the silent hour, when Morning and Evening thus sit together, hand in
+hand, beneath the starless sky of midnight! From the church tower in
+the public square the bell tolls the hour, with a soft musical chime;
+and the watchman, whose watch-tower is the belfry, blows a blast on
+his horn, for each stroke of the hammer, and four times, for the four
+corners of the heavens, in a sonorous voice he chants,—</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ho! watchman, ho!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Twelve is the clock!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">God keep our town</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From fire and brand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And hostile hand!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Twelve is the clock!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot fs_90">
+<p>From his swallow’s nest in the belfry he can see the sun all night
+long; and farther north the priest stands at his door in the warm
+midnight, and lights his pipe with a common burning-glass.</p>
+
+<p>I trust that these remarks will not be deemed irrelevant to the poem,
+but will lead to a clearer understanding of it. The translation is
+literal perhaps to a fault. In no instance have I done the author
+a wrong, by introducing into his work any supposed improvements or
+embellishments of my own. I have preserved even the measure; in which,
+it must be confessed, the motions of the English Muse are not unlike
+those of a prisoner dancing to the music of his chains; and perhaps, as
+Dr. Johnson said of the dancing dog, “the wonder is not that she should
+do it so well, but that she should do it at all.”</p>
+
+<p>Esaias Tegnér, the author of this poem, was born in the parish of By,
+in Wärmland, in the year 1782. In 1799 he entered the University of
+Lund, as a student; and in 1812 was appointed Professor of Greek in
+that institution. In 1824 he became Bishop of Wexiö. He is the glory
+and boast of Sweden, and stands first among all her poets living or
+dead. His principal work is Frithiof’s Saga; one of the most remarkable
+poems of the age. Bishop Tegnér is a prophet honoured in his own country,
+adding one more to the list of great names that adorn her history.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pentecost, day of rejoicing, had come.&emsp; The church of the village</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gleaming stood in the morning’s sheen.&emsp; On the spire of the belfry,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Decked with a brazen cock, the friendly flames of the Spring-sun</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Glanced like the tongues of fire, beheld by Apostles aforetime.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clear was the heaven and blue, and May, with her cap crowned by roses,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood in her holiday dress in the fields, and the wind and the brooklet</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Murmured gladness and peace, God’s-peace! with lips rosy-tinted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whispered the race of the flowers, and merry on balancing branches</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Birds were singing their carol, a jubilant hymn to the Highest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swept and clean was the churchyard.&emsp; Adorned like a leaf-woven arbour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood its old-fashioned gate; and within upon each cross of iron</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hung was a fragrant garland, new twined by the hands of affection.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even the dial, that stood on a mound among the departed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">(There full a hundred years had it stood), was embellished with blossoms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like to the patriarch hoary, the sage of his kith and the hamlet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who on his birthday is crowned by children and children’s children,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So stood the ancient prophet, and mute with his pencil of iron</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Marked on the tablet of stone, and measured the time and its changes,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_578">[Pg 578]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">While all around at his feet an eternity slumbered in quiet.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Also the church within was adorned, for this was the season</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When the young, their parents’ hope, and the loved ones of heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Should at the foot of the altar renew the vows of their baptism.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore each nook and corner was swept and cleaned, and the dust was</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blown from the walls and ceiling, and from the oil-painted benches.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There stood the church like a garden; the Feast of the Leafy
+ Pavilions&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_133_133" href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Saw we in living presentment.&emsp; From noble arms on the church wall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grew forth a cluster of leaves, and the preacher’s pulpit of oak-wood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Budded once more anew, as aforetime the rod before Aaron.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wreathed thereon was the Bible with leaves, and the dove, washed with silver,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under its canopy fastened, had on it a necklace of wind-flowers.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But in front of the choir, round the altar-piece painted by
+ Hörberg,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_134_134" href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crept a garland gigantic; and bright-curling tresses of angels</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Peeped, like the sun from a cloud, from out of the shadowy leaf-work.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Likewise the lustre of brass, new polished, blinked from the ceiling,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And for lights there were lilies of Pentecost set in the sockets.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Loud rang the bells already; the thronging crowd was assembled</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far from valleys and hills, to list to the holy preaching.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hark! then roll forth at once the mighty tones from the organ,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hover like voices from God, aloft like invisible spirits.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like as Elias in heaven, when he cast from off him his mantle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So cast off the soul its garments of earth; and with one voice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Chimed in the congregation, and sang an anthem immortal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the sublime Wallín,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_135_135" href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a>
+ of David’s harp in the Northland</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tuned to the choral of Luther; the song on its mighty pinions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Took every living soul, and lifted it gently to heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And each face did shine like the Holy One’s face upon Tabor.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lo! there entered then into the church the Reverend Teacher.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Father he hight and he was in the parish; a christianly plainness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clothed from his head to his feet the old man of seventy winters.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Friendly was he to behold, and glad as the heralding angel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Walked he among the crowds, but still a contemplative grandeur</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay on his forehead as clear, as on moss-covered grave-stone a sunbeam.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As in his inspiration (an evening twilight that faintly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gleams in the human soul, even now, from the day of creation)</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Th’ Artist, the friend of heaven, imagines Saint John when in Patmos,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grey, with his eyes uplifted to heaven, so seemed then the old man;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Such was the glance of his eye, and such were his tresses of silver.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All the congregation arose in the pews that were numbered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But with a cordial look to the right and the left hand, the old man</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nodding all hail and peace, disappeared in the innermost chancel.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_579">[Pg 579]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Simply and solemnly now proceeded the Christian service,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Singing and prayer, and at last an ardent discourse from the old man.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Many a moving word and warning, that out of the heart came,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell like the dew of the morning, like manna on those in the desert.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then, when all was finished, the Teacher re-entered the chancel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Followed therein by the young.&emsp; The boys on the right had their places,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Delicate figures, with close-curling hair, and cheeks rosy-blooming.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But on the left of these, there stood the tremulous lilies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tinged with the blushing light of the dawn, the diffident maidens,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Folding their hands in prayer, and their eyes cast down on the pavement.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now came, with question and answer, the Catechism. In the beginning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Answered the children with troubled and faltering voice, but the old man’s</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Glances of kindness encouraged them soon, and the doctrines eternal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flowed, like the waters of fountains, so clear from lips unpolluted.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each time the answer was closed, and as oft as they named the Redeemer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lowly louted the boys, and lowly the maidens all courtesied.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Friendly the Teacher stood, like an angel of light there among them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And to the children explained the holy, the highest in few words,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thorough, yet simple and clear, for sublimity always is simple,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Both in sermon and song, a child can seize on its meaning.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">E’en as the green-growing bud is unfolded when Spring-tide approaches,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Leaf by leaf puts forth, and, warmed by the radiant sunshine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blushes with purple and gold, till at last the perfected blossom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Opens its odorous chalice, and rocks with its crown in the breezes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So was unfolded here the Christian lore of salvation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Line by line from the soul of childhood.&emsp; The fathers and mothers</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood behind them in tears, and were glad at the well-worded answer.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Now went the old man up to the altar;—and straightway transfigured</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">(So did it seem unto me) was then the affectionate Teacher.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the Lord’s Prophet sublime, and awful as Death and as Judgment</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood he, the God-commissioned, the soul-searcher, earthward descending</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Glances, sharp as a sword, into hearts, that to him were transparent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shot he; his voice was deep, was low like the thunder afar off.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So on a sudden transfigured he stood there, he spake and he questioned.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">“This is the faith of the Fathers, the Faith the Apostles delivered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This is moreover the faith whereunto I baptized you, while still ye</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay on your mothers’ breasts, and nearer the portals of heaven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slumbering received you then the Holy Church in its bosom;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wakened from sleep are ye now, and the light in its radiant splendour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Downward rains from the heaven,—to-day on the threshold of childhood</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kindly she frees you again, to examine and make your election,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For she knows nought of compulsion, and only conviction desireth.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This is the hour of your trial, the turning-point of existence,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_580">[Pg 580]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seed for the coming days; without revocation departeth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now from your lips the confession;&emsp; Bethink ye, before ye make answer!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Think not, O think not with guile to deceive the questioning Teacher.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sharp is his eye to-day, and a curse ever rests upon falsehood.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Enter not with a lie on Life’s journey; the multitude hears you,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Brothers and sisters and parents, what dear upon earth is and holy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Standeth before your sight as a witness; the Judge everlasting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looks from the sun down upon you, and angels in waiting beside him</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Grave your confession in letters of fire, upon tablets eternal.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus, then,—Believe ye in God, in the Father who this world created?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Him who redeemed it, the Son, and the Spirit where both are united?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Will ye promise me here (a holy promise!), to cherish</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">God more than all things earthly, and every man as a brother?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Will ye promise me here to confirm your faith by your living,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Th’ heavenly faith of affection! to hope, to forgive, and to suffer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Be what it may your condition, and walk before God in uprightness?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Will ye promise me this before God and man?”—With a clear voice</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Answered the young men Yes!&emsp; and Yes! with lips softly breathing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Answered the maidens eke.&emsp; Then dissolved from the brow of the Teacher</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clouds with the thunders therein, and he spake in accents more gentle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Soft as the evening’s breath, as harps by Babylon’s rivers.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Hail, then, hail to you all!&emsp; To the heirdom of heaven be ye welcome;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Children no more from this day, but by covenant brothers and sisters!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yet,—for what reason not children?&emsp; Of such is the kingdom of heaven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Here upon earth an assemblage of children, in heaven one Father,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ruling them all as his household,—forgiving in turn and chastising,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That is of human life a picture, as Scripture has taught us.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Blest are the pure before God!&emsp; Upon purity and upon virtue</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Resteth the Christian Faith; she herself from on high is descended.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Strong as a man and pure as a child, is the sum of the doctrine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Which the Divine One taught, and suffered and died on the cross for.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O! as ye wander this day from childhood’s sacred asylum</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Downward and ever downward, and deeper in Age’s chill valley,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Oh! how soon will ye come,—too soon!—and long to turn backward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Up to its hill-tops again, to the sun-illumined, where Judgment</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Stood like a father before you, and Pardon, clad like a mother,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave you her hand to kiss, and the loving heart was forgiven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Life was a play, and your hands grasped after the roses of heaven!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Seventy years have I lived already; the Father eternal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave me gladness and care; but the loveliest hours of existence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When I have steadfastly gazed in their eyes, I have instantly known them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Known them all again;—they were my childhood’s acquaintance.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore take from henceforth, as guides in the paths of existence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Prayer, with her eyes raised to heaven, and Innocence, bride of man’s childhood.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_581">[Pg 581]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Innocence, child beloved, is a guest from the world of the blessed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beautiful, and in her hand a lily; on life’s roaring billows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swings she in safety, she heedeth them not, in the ship she is sleeping.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Calmly she gazes around in the turmoil of men; in the desert</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Angels descend and minister unto her; she herself knoweth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nought of her glorious attendance; but follows faithful and humble,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Follows so long as she may her friend;&emsp; O do not reject her,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For she cometh from God and she holdeth the keys of the heavens.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Prayer is Innocence’ friend; and willingly flieth incessant</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Twixt the earth and the sky, the carrier-pigeon of heaven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Son of Eternity, fettered in Time, and an exile, the Spirit</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tugs at his chains evermore, and struggles like flames ever upward.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still he recalls with emotion his Father’s manifold mansions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thinks of the land of his fathers, where blossomed more freshly the flowerets,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Shone a more beautiful sun, and he played with the wingèd angels.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then grows the earth too narrow, too close; and homesick for heaven</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Longs the wanderer again; and the Spirit’s longings are worship;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Worship is called his most beautiful hour, and its tongue is entreaty.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah!&emsp; when the infinite burden of life descendeth upon us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Crushes to earth our hope, and, under the earth, in the graveyard,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then it is good to pray unto God; for His sorrowing children</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Turns he ne’er from his door, but he heals and helps and consoles them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yet it is better to pray when all things are prosperous with us,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pray in fortunate days, for Life’s most beautiful Fortune</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kneels before the Eternal’s throne; and, with hands interfolded,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Praises thankful and moved the only Giver of blessings.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Or do ye know, ye children, one blessing that comes not from Heaven?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What has mankind forsooth, the poor! that it has not received?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore, fall in the dust and pray!&emsp; The seraphs adoring</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cover with pinions six their face in the glory of him who</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hung his masonry pendant on nought, when the world he created.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Earth declareth his might, and the firmament uttereth his glory.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Races blossom and die, and stars fall downward from heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Downward like withered leaves; at the last stroke of midnight, millenniums</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lay themselves down at his feet, and he sees them, but counts them as nothing.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who shall stand in His presence?&emsp; The wrath of the Judge is terrific,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Casting the insolent down at a glance.&emsp; When he speaks in his anger</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hillocks skip like the kid, and mountains leap like the roebuck.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Yet,—why are ye afraid, ye children?&emsp; This awful avenger,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah! is a merciful God! God’s voice was not in the earthquake,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not in the fire, nor the storm, but it was in the whispering breezes.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Love is the root of creation; God’s essence; worlds without number</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lie in his bosom like children; he made them for this purpose only:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Only to love and be loved again, he breathed forth his spirit</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Into the slumbering dust, and upright standing, it laid its</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hand on its heart, and felt it was warm with a flame out of heaven.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_582">[Pg 582]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Quench,&emsp; O quench not that flame!&emsp; It is the breath of your being.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Love is life, but hatred is death.&emsp; Not father nor mother</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loved you, as God has loved you; for ’twas that you may be happy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave he his only Son.&emsp; When he bowed down his head in the death-hour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Solemnized Love its triumph; the sacrifice then was completed.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lo! then was rent on a sudden the veil of the temple, dividing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Earth and heaven apart, and the dead from their sepulchres rising,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whispered with pallid lips and low in the ears of each other</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Th’ answer, but dreamed of before, to creation’s enigma,—Atonement!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Depths of Love are Atonement’s depths, for Love is Atonement.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore, child of mortality, love thou the merciful Father;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wish what the Holy One wishes, and not from fear, but affection;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fear is the virtue of slaves; but the heart that loveth is willing;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Perfect was before God, and perfect is Love, and Love only.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lovest thou God as thou oughtest, then lovest thou likewise thy brethren;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">One is the sun in heaven, and one, only one, is Love also.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bears not each human figure the godlike stamp on his forehead?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Readest thou not in his face thine origin?&emsp; Is he not sailing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lost like thyself on an ocean unknown, and is he not guided</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the same stars that guide thee?&emsp; Why shouldst thou hate then thy brother?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hateth he thee, forgive!&emsp; For ’tis sweet to stammer one letter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the Eternal’s language;—on earth it is callèd Forgiveness!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Knowest thou him, who forgave, with the crown of thorns on his temples?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Earnestly prayed for his foes, for his murderers? Say, dost thou know him?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ah! thou confesseth his name, so follow likewise his example,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Think of thy brother no ill, but throw a veil over his failings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Guide the erring aright; for the good, the heavenly Shepherd</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Took the lost lamb in his arms, and bore it back to its mother.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">This is the fruit of Love, and it is by its fruits that we know it.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Love is the creature’s welfare, with God; but love among mortals</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is but an endless sigh!&emsp; He longs, and endures, and stands waiting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suffers, and yet rejoices, and smiles with tears on his eyelids.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hope,—so is called upon earth, his recompense,—Hope, the befriending,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Does what she can, for she points evermore up to heaven, and faithful</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Plunges her anchor’s peak in the depths of the grave, and beneath it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Paints a more beautiful world, a dim, but a sweet play of shadows!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Races, better than we, have leaned on her wavering promise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Having nought else but Hope.&emsp; Then praise we our Father in heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Him, who has given us more! for to us has Hope been transfigured,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Groping no longer in night; she is Faith, she is living assurance.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Faith is enlightened Hope;&emsp; she is light, is the eye of affection,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Dreams of the longing interprets, and carves their visions in marble.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Faith is the sun of life; and her countenance shines like the Hebrew’s,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For she has looked upon God; the heaven on its stable foundation</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Draws she with chains down to earth, and the New Jerusalem sinketh</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_583">[Pg 583]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Splendid with portals twelve in golden vapours descending.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There enraptured she wanders, and looks at the figures majestic,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fears not the wingèd crowd, in the midst of them all is her homestead.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore love and believe; for works will follow spontaneous,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Even as day does the sun; the Right from the Good is an offspring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Love in a bodily shape; and Christian works are no more than</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Animate Love and Faith, as flowers are the animate spring-tide.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Works do follow us all unto God; there stand and bear witness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not what they seemed,—but what they were only.&emsp; Blessed is he who</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hears their confession secure; they are mute upon earth until Death’s hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Opens the mouth of the silent.&emsp; Ye children, does Death e’er alarm you?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Death is the brother of Love, twin-brother is he, and is only</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">More austere to behold.&emsp; With a kiss upon lips that are fading</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Takes he the soul and departs, and rocked in the arm of affection,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Places the ransomed child, new born, ’fore the face of its Father.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sounds of his coming already I hear,—see dimly his pinions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Swart as the night, but with stars strewn upon them!&emsp; I fear not before him.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Death is only release, and in mercy is mute.&emsp; On his bosom</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Freer breathes, in its coolness, my breast; and face to face standing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Look I on God as He is, a sun unpolluted by vapours;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Look on the light of the ages I loved, the spirits majestic,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nobler, better than I; they stand by the throne all transfigured,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Vested in white, and with harps of gold, and are singing an anthem,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Writ in the climate of heaven, in the language spoken by angels.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">You, in like manner, ye children beloved, he one day shall gather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Never forgets he the weary;—then welcome, ye loved ones, hereafter!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Meanwhile forget not the keeping of vows, forget not the promise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wander from holiness onward to holiness; earth shall ye heed not;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Earth is but dust and heaven is light;&emsp; I have pledged you to heaven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">God of the Universe, hear me; thou fountain of Love everlasting,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hark to the voice of thy servant!&emsp; I send up my prayer to thy heaven!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let me hereafter not miss at thy throne one spirit of all these,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whom thou hast given me here!&emsp; I have loved them all like a father.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">May they bear witness for me, that I taught them the way of salvation,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Faithful, so far as I knew, of thy word; again may they know me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fall on their Teacher’s breast, and before thy face may I place them,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pure as they now are, but only more tried, and exclaiming with gladness</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Father, lo! I am here, and the children, whom thou hast given me!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Weeping he spake in these words; and now at the beck of the old man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Knee against knee they knitted a wreath round the altar’s enclosure.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kneeling he read then the prayers of the consecration, and softly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With him the children read; at the close, with tremulous accents,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Asked he the peace of heaven, a benediction upon them.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now should have ended his task for the day; the following Sunday</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_584">[Pg 584]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Was for the young appointed to eat of the Lord’s holy Supper.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sudden, as struck from the clouds, stood the Teacher silent, and laid his</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hand on his forehead, and cast his looks upward; while thoughts high and holy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Flew through the midst of his soul, and his eyes glanced with wonderful brightness.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“On the next Sunday, who knows! perhaps I shall rest in the graveyard!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Some one perhaps of yourselves, a lily broken untimely,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bow down his head to the earth; why delay I? the hour is accomplished.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Warm is the heart;—I will! for to-day grows the harvest of heaven.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What I began accomplish I now; for what failing therein is,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I, the old man, will answer to God and the reverend father.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Say to me only, ye children, ye denizens new-come in heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Are ye ready this day to eat of the bread of Atonement?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">What it denoteth, that know ye full well, I have told it you often.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the new covenant a symbol it is, of Atonement a token,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Stablished between earth and heaven.&emsp; Man by his sins and transgressions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far has wandered from God, from his essence.&emsp; ’Twas in the beginning</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fast by the Tree of Knowledge he fell, and it hangs its crown o’er the</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fall to this day; in the Thought is the Fall; in the Heart the Atonement.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Infinite is the Fall, the Atonement infinite likewise.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">See! behind me, as far as the old man remembers, and forward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Far as Hope in her flight can reach with her wearied pinions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sin and Atonement incessant go through the lifetime of mortals.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sin is brought forth full-grown; but Atonement sleeps in our bosoms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Still as the cradled babe; and dreams of heaven and of angels,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cannot awake to sensation; is like the tones in the harp’s strings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spirits imprisoned, that wait evermore the deliverer’s finger.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore, ye children beloved, descended the Prince of Atonement,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Woke the slumberer from sleep, and she stands now with eyes all resplendent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bright as the vault of the sky, and battles with Sin and o’ercomes her.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Downward to earth He came and transfigured, thence reascended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Not from the heart in like wise, for there he still lives in the Spirit,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Loves and atones evermore.&emsp; So long as Time is, is Atonement.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Therefore with reverence take this day her visible token.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tokens are dead if the things live not.&emsp; The light everlasting</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Unto the blind is not, but is born of the eye that has vision.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Neither in bread nor in wine, but in the heart that is hallowed</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Lieth forgiveness enshrined; the intention alone of amendment</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fruits of the earth ennobles to heavenly things, and removes all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sin and the guerdon of sin.&emsp; Only Love with his arm wide extended,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Penitence weeping and praying; the Will that is tried, and whose gold flows</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Purified forth from the flames; in a word, mankind by Atonement</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Breaketh Atonement’s bread, and drinketh Atonement’s wine-cup.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But he who cometh up hither, unworthy, with hate in his bosom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Scoffing at men and at God, is guilty of Christ’s blessed body,</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_585">[Pg 585]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Redeemer’s blood!&emsp; To himself he eateth and drinketh</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Death and doom!&emsp; And from this, preserve us, thou heavenly Father!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Are ye ready, ye children, to eat of the bread of Atonement?”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Thus with emotion he asked, and together answered the children</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Yes!” with deep sobs interrupted.&emsp; Then read he the due supplications,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Read the Form of Communion, and in chimed the organ and anthem;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“O! Holy Lamb of God, who takest away our transgressions,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Hear us! give us thy peace! have mercy, have mercy upon us!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Th’ old man, with trembling hand, and heavenly pearls on his eyelids,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Filled now the chalice and paten, and dealt round the mystical symbols,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">O! then seemed it to me, as if God, with the broad eye of mid-day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Clearer looked in at the windows, and all the trees in the churchyard</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bowed down their summits of green, and the grass on the graves ’gan to shiver.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But in the children (I noted it well; I knew it) there ran a</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Tremor of holy rapture along through their icy-cold members.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Decked like an altar before them, there stood the green earth, and above it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Heaven opened itself, as of old before Stephen; they saw there</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Radiant in glory the Father, and on his right hand the Redeemer.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Under them hear they the clang of harp-strings, and angels from gold clouds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Beckon to them like brothers, and fan with their pinions of purple.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent3">Closed was the Teacher’s task, and with heaven in their hearts and their faces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Up rose the children all, and each bowed him, weeping full sorely,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Downward to kiss that reverend hand, but all of them pressed he</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Moved to his bosom, and laid, with a prayer, his hands full of blessings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now on the holy breast, and now on the innocent tresses.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+ <h2 class="nobreak">TRANSLATIONS FROM THE<br> GERMAN.</h2>
+</div>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p id="GERMAN" class="center spa2">THE STATUE OVER THE CATHEDRAL DOOR.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM JULIUS MOSEN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Forms of saints and kings are standing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The cathedral door above;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet I saw but one among them</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who hath soothed my soul with love.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_586">[Pg 586]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">In his mantle,—wound about him,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As their robes the sowers wind,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bore he swallows and their fledglings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Flowers and weeds of every kind.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And so stands he calm and childlike!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">High in wind and tempest wild;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O, were I like him exalted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I would be like him, a child!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And my songs,—green leaves and blossoms,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To the doors of heaven would bear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Calling, even in storm and tempest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Round me still these birds of air.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="HEMLOCK" class="center spa2">THE HEMLOCK-TREE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O hemlock-tree! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">Green not alone in summer time,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">But in the winter’s frost and rime!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O hemlock-tree! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O maiden fair! O maiden fair! how faithless is thy bosom!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">To love me in prosperity,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">And leave me in adversity!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O maiden fair! O maiden fair! how faithless is thy bosom!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The nightingale, the nightingale, thou tak’st for thine example!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">So long as summer laughs she sings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">But in the autumn spreads her wings!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The nightingale, the nightingale, thou tak’st for thine example!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The meadow brook, the meadow brook, is mirror of thy falsehood!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">It flows so long as falls the rain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4">In drought its springs soon dry again.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The meadow brook, the meadow brook, is mirror of thy falsehood!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="THARAW" class="center spa2">ANNIE OF THARAW.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM THE LOW GERMAN OF SIMON DACH.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Annie of Tharaw, my true love of old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She is my life, and my goods, and my gold.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Annie of Tharaw, her heart once again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To me has surrendered in joy and in pain.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_587">[Pg 587]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Annie of Tharaw, my riches, my good,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou, O my soul, my flesh and my blood!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then come the wild weather, come sleet, or come snow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">We will stand by each other, however it blow.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Oppression, and sickness, and sorrow, and pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall be to our true love as links to the chain.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">As the palm-tree standeth so straight and so tall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The more the hail beats, and the more the rains fall,—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So love in our hearts shall grow mighty and strong,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through crosses, through sorrows, through manifold wrong.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shouldst thou be torn from me to wander alone</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In a desolate land where the sun is scarce known,—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through forests I’ll follow, and where the sea flows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through ice and through iron, through armies of foes.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Annie of Tharaw, my light and my sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The threads of our two lives are woven in one.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whate’er I have bidden thee thou hast obeyed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whatever forbidden thou hast not gainsaid.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How in the turmoil of life can love stand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where there is not one heart, and one mouth, and one hand?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Some seek for dissension, and trouble, and strife;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like a dog and a cat live such man and wife.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Annie of Tharaw, such is not our love;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou art my lambkin, my chick, and my dove.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whate’er my desire is, in thine may be seen;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am king of the household, and thou art its queen.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is this, O my Annie, my heart’s sweetest rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">That makes of us twain but one soul in one breast.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">This turns to a heaven the hut where we dwell;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">While wrangling soon changes a home to a hell.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_588">[Pg 588]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">THE LEGEND OF THE CROSSBILL.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM JULIUS MOSEN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">On the cross the dying Saviour</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Heavenward lifts his eyelids calm,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Feels, but scarcely feels, a trembling</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In his pierced and bleeding palm.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And by all the world forsaken,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sees he how with zealous care</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">At the ruthless nail of iron</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A little bird is striving there.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stained with blood and never tiring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">With its beak it doth not cease,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the cross ’twould free the Saviour,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Its Creator’s Son release.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the Saviour speaks in mildness;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“Blest be thou of all the good!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bear, as token of this moment,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Marks of blood and holy rood!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And that bird is called the Crossbill;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Covered all with blood so clear.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In the groves of pine it singeth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Songs, like legends, strange to hear.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="APHORISMS" class="center spa2">POETIC APHORISMS.</p>
+
+<p class="f90">FROM THE SINNGEDICHTE OF<br> FRIEDRICH VON LOGAU.<br>
+SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.</p>
+
+<p class="f90">MONEY.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whereunto is money good?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who has it not wants hardihood,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who has it has much trouble and care</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who once has had it has despair.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f90">THE BEST MEDICINES.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Joy and Temperance and Repose</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Slam the door on the doctor’s nose.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_589">[Pg 589]</span></p>
+
+<p class="f90">SIN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Manlike is it to fall into sin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fiend-like is it to dwell therein,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Christ-like is it for sin to grieve,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">God-like is it all sin to leave.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f90">LAW OF LIFE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Live I, so live I,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To my Lord heartily,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To my Prince faithfully,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To my Neighbour honestly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Die I, so die I.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f90">POVERTY AND BLINDNESS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A blind man is a poor man, and blind a poor man is;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For the former seeth no man, and the latter no man sees.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f90">CREEDS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lutheran, Popish, Calvinistic, all these creeds and doctrines three</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Extant are; but still the doubt is, where Christianity may be.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f90">THE RESTLESS HEART.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A millstone and the human heart, are driven ever round;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">If they have nothing else to grind, they must themselves be ground.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f90">CHRISTIAN LOVE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whilom Love was like a fire, and warmth and comfort it bespoke;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But, alas! it is now quenched, and only bites us, like the smoke.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f90">ART AND TACT.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Intelligence and courtesy not always are combined;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Often in a wooden house a golden room we find.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f90">RETRIBUTION.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f90">TRUTH.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">When by night the frogs are croaking, kindle but a torch’s fire,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ha! how soon they all are silent! Thus Truth silences the liar.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f90">RHYMES.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">If perhaps these rhymes of mine should sound not well in strangers’</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">ears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They have only to bethink them that it happens so with theirs;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For so long as words, like mortals, call a fatherland their own,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They will be most highly valued where they are best and longest</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">known.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_590">[Pg 590]</span></p>
+
+<p class="center spa2">THE SEA HATH ITS PEARLS.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM HEINRICH HEINE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The sea hath its pearls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The heaven hath its stars;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But my heart, my heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">My heart hath its love.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Great are the sea and the heaven;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Yet greater is my heart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And fairer than pearls and stars</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Flashes and beams my love.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou little, youthful maiden,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Come unto my great heart;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">My heart, and the sea, and the heaven,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Are melting away with love!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="SILENT_LAND" class="center spa2">SONG OF THE SILENT LAND.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM SALIS.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the Silent Land!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! who shall lead us thither?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who leads us with a gentle hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thither, O thither,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the Silent Land?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the Silent Land!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To you, ye boundless regions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of all perfection! Tender morning-visions</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of beauteous souls! The Future’s pledge and band!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who in Life’s battle firm doth stand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Shall bear Hope’s tender blossoms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the Silent Land!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O Land! O Land!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">For all the broken-hearted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The mildest herald by our faith allotted,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To lead us with a gentle hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the land of the great Departed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Into the Silent Land!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_591">[Pg 591]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">BLESSED ARE THE DEAD.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O, how blest are ye whose toils are ended!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who, through death, have unto God ascended!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye have arisen</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the cares which keep us still in prison.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">We are still as in a dungeon living,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Still oppressed with sorrow and misgiving;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Our undertakings</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Are but toils, and troubles, and heart-breakings.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye, meanwhile, are in your chambers sleeping,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Quiet, and set free from all our weeping;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">No cross nor trial</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hinders your enjoyments with denial.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Christ has wiped away your tears for ever;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ye have that for which we still endeavour.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To you are chanted</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Songs which yet no mortal ear have haunted.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! who would not, then, depart with gladness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To inherit heaven for earthly sadness?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who here would languish</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Longer in bewailing and in anguish?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come, O Christ, and loose the chains that bind us!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Lead us forth, and cast this world behind us!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With thee, the Anointed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Finds the soul its joy and rest appointed.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="THE_WAVE" class="center spa2">THE WAVE.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM TIEDGE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">Whither, thou turbid wave?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Whither, with so much haste,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">As if a thief wert thou?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“I am the Wave of Life,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Stained with my margin’s dust;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the struggle and the strife</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the narrow stream I fly</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To the Sea’s immensity,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">To wash from me the slime</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Of the muddy banks of Time.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_592">[Pg 592]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">THE BIRD AND THE SHIP.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM MÜLLER.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The rivers rush into the sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">By castle and town they go;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The winds behind them merrily</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Their noisy trumpets blow.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The clouds are passing far and high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">We little birds in them play;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And everything, that can sing and fly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Goes with us, and far away.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I greet thee, bonny boat! Whither, or whence,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With thy fluttering golden band?“—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I greet thee, little bird! To the wide sea</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">I haste from the narrow land.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Full and swollen is every sail;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">I see no longer a hill,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I have trusted all to the sounding gale,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And it will not let me stand still.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“And wilt thou, little bird, go with us?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thou mayest stand on the mainmast tall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For full to sinking is my house</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">With merry companions all.”—</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I need not and seek not company,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Bonny boat, I can sing all alone;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For the mainmast tall too heavy am I,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Bonny boat, I have wings of my own.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“High over the sails, high over the mast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Who shall gainsay these joys?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When thy merry companions are still, at last</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thou shalt hear the sound of my voice.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Who neither may rest, nor listen may,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">God bless them every one!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I dart away, in the bright blue day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the golden fields of the sun.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Thus do I sing my weary song,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Wherever the four winds blow;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And this same song, my whole life long,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Neither Poet nor Printer may know.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_593">[Pg 593]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">THE HAPPIEST LAND.</p>
+<p class="f90">FRAGMENT OF A MODERN GERMAN BALLAD.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There sat one day in quiet,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">By an alehouse on the Rhine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Four hale and hearty fellows,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And drank the precious wine.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The landlord’s daughter filled their cups</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Around the rustic board;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then sat they all so calm and still,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And spake not one rude word.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But, when the maid departed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A Swabian raised his hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And cried, all hot and flushed with wine,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">“Long live the Swabian land!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The greatest kingdom upon earth</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Cannot with that compare;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">With all the stout and hardy men</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the nut-brown maidens there.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ha!” cried a Saxon, laughing,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And dashed his beard with wine;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I had rather live in Lapland,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Than that Swabian land of thine!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The goodliest land on all this earth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">It is the Saxon land!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">There have I as many maidens</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As fingers on this hand!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Hold your tongues! both Swabian and Saxon!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A bold Bohemian cries;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“If there’s a heaven upon this earth,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In Bohemia it lies.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“There the tailor blows the flute,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the cobbler blows the horn,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the miner blows the bugle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Over mountain gorge and bourn.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And then the landlord’s daughter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Up to heaven raised her hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And said, “Ye may no more contend,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">There lies the happiest land!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="WHITHER" class="center spa2">WHITHER?</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM MÜLLER.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I heard a brooklet gushing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From its rocky fountain near,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Down into the valley rushing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">So fresh and wondrous clear.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I know not what came o’er me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Nor who the counsel gave;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">But I must hasten downward,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All with my pilgrim-stave.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Downward, and ever farther,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And ever the brook beside;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And ever fresher murmured,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And ever clearer, the tide.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is this the way I was going?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Whither, O brooklet, say!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast, with thy soft murmur,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Murmured my senses away.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">What do I say of a murmur?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">That can no murmur be;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">’Tis the water-nymphs that are singing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Their roundelays under me.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Let them sing, my friend, let them murmur,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And wander merrily near;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The wheels of a mill are going</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In every brooklet clear.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_594">[Pg 594]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">BEWARE!</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I know a maiden fair to see,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Take care!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She can both false and friendly be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beware! Beware!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Trust her not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She is fooling thee!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">She has two eyes, so soft and brown,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Take care!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She gives a side-glance and looks down,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beware! Beware!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Trust her not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She is fooling thee!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And she has hair of a golden hue,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Take care!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And what she says, it is not true,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beware! Beware!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Trust her not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She is fooling thee!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">She has a bosom as white as snow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Take care!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She knows how much it is best to show,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beware! Beware!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Trust her not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She is fooling thee!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">She gives thee a garland woven fair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Take care!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">It is a fool’s-cap for thee to wear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Beware! Beware!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Trust her not,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">She is fooling thee!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="SONG_BELL" class="center spa2">SONG OF THE BELL.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bell! thou soundest merrily,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When the bridal party</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To the church doth hie!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bell! thou soundest solemnly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When, on Sabbath morning,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Fields deserted lie!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bell! thou soundest merrily;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tellest thou at evening,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Bed-time draweth nigh!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Bell! thou soundest mournfully;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Tellest thou the bitter</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Parting hath gone by!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Say! how canst thou mourn?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How canst thou rejoice?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thou art but metal dull!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And yet all our sorrowings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all our rejoicings,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thou dost feel them all!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">God hath wonders many,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Which we cannot fathom,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Placed within thy form!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">When the heart is sinking,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou alone canst raise it,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Trembling in the storm!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="THE_DEAD" class="center spa2">THE DEAD.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM STOCKMANN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How they so softly rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All, all the holy dead,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Unto whose dwelling-place</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now doth my soul draw near!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">How they so softly rest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">All in their silent graves,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Deep to corruption</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Slowly down sinking!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent2">And they no longer weep,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here, where complaint is still!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And they no longer feel,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here, where all gladness flies!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And by the cypresses</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Softly o’ershadowed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Until the Angel</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Calls them, they slumber!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_595">[Pg 595]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">THE CASTLE BY THE SEA.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM UHLAND.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Hast thou seen that lordly castle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That Castle by the Sea?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Golden and red above it</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The clouds float gorgeously.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“And fain it would stoop downward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">To the mirrored wave below;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And fain it would soar upward</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">In the evening’s crimson glow.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Well have I seen that castle,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">That Castle by the Sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the moon above it standing,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the mist rise solemnly.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The winds and the waves of ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Had they a merry chime?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Didst thou hear, from those lofty chambers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The harp and the minstrel’s rhyme?”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The winds and the waves of ocean,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">They rested quietly;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But I heard on the gale a sound of wail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And tears came to mine eye.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“And sawest thou on the turrets</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The King and his royal bride!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the wave of their crimson mantles?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the golden crown of pride?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Led they not forth, in rapture,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A beauteous maiden there?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Resplendent as the morning sun,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Beaming with golden hair?”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Well saw I the ancient parents;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Without the crown of pride;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They were moving slow, in weeds of woe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">No maiden was by their side!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="WANDERERS" class="center spa2">WANDERER’S NIGHT-SONGS.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM GOETHE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent12">I.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou that from the heaven’s art,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Every pain and sorrow stillest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the doubly wretched heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Doubly with refreshment fillest.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I am weary with contending!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Why this rapture and unrest?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Peace descending</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Come, ah, come into my breast!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent12">II.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’er all the hill-tops</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Is quiet now,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In all the tree-tops</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hearest thou</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Hardly a breath;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The birds are asleep in the trees.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wait; soon like these</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou too shalt rest.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="KNIGHT" class="center spa2">THE BLACK KNIGHT.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLAND.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">’Twas Pentecost, the Feast of Gladness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When woods and fields put off all sadness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thus began the King and spake;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“So from the halls</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of ancient Hofburgh’s walls,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A luxuriant spring shall break.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Drums and trumpets echo loudly,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Wave the crimson banners proudly.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">From balcony the King looked on;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the play of spears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell all the cavaliers,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Before the monarch’s stalwart son.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_596">[Pg 596]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the barrier of the fight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Rode at last a sable Knight.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Sir Knight! your name and scutcheon say!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Should I speak it here,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Ye would stand aghast with fear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">I am a Prince of mighty sway!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">When he rode into the lists,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The arch of heaven grew black with mists,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And the castle ’gan to rock.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the first blow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fell the youth from saddle-bow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Hardly rises from the shock.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pipe and viol call the dances,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Torch-light through the high hall glances;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Waves a mighty shadow in;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With manner bland</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Doth ask the maiden’s hand,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Doth with her the dance begin;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Danced in sable iron sark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Danced a measure weird and dark,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Coldly clasped her limbs around.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From breast and hair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down fall from her the fair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Flowerets, faded, to the ground.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">To the sumptuous banquet came</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Every Knight and every Dame.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">’Twixt son and daughter all distraught,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With mournful mind</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The ancient King reclined,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Gazed at them in silent thought.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pale the children both did look,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But the guest a beaker took;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Golden wine will make you whole!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The children drank,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave many a courteous thank;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Oh, that draught was very cool!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Each the father’s breast embraces,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Son and daughter; and their faces</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Colourless grow utterly.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Whichever way</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Looks the fear-struck father grey,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He beholds his children die.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Woe! the blessed children both</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Takest thou in the joy of youth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Take me, too, the joyless father!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Spake the grim Guest,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From his hollow, cavernous breast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“Roses in the spring I gather!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="SILENT_LOVE" class="center spa2">SILENT LOVE.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who love would seek,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Let him love evermore</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And seldom speak;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">For in love’s domain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Silence must reign;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Or it brings the heart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Smart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And pain.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_597">[Pg 597]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">HE LUCK OF EDENHALL.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM UHLAND.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>[The tradition upon which this ballad is founded, and the “shards
+of the Luck of Edenhall,” still exist in England. The goblet is in
+the possession of Sir Christopher Musgrave, Bart., of Eden Hall,
+Cumberland; and is not so entirely shattered as the ballad leaves it.]</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of Edenhall, the youthful lord</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bids sound the festal trumpet’s call;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He rises at the banquet board,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And cries, ’mid the drunken revellers all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“Now bring me the Luck of Edenhall!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The butler hears the words with pain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The house’s oldest seneschal</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Takes slow from its silken cloth again</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The drinking glass of crystal tall;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">They call it the Luck of Edenhall.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then said the lord: “This glass to praise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fill with red wine from Portugal!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The grey-beard with trembling hand obeys;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A purple light shines over all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It beams from the Luck of Edenhall.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then speaks the lord, and waves it light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">“This glass of flashing crystal tall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gave to my sires the Fountain-Sprite;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">She wrote in it: <i>If this glass doth fall,</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>Farewell then, O Luck of Edenhall</i>!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">“’Twas right a goblet the Fate should be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the joyous race of Edenhall!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Deep draughts drink we right willingly;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And willingly ring, with merry call,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kling! klang! to the Luck of Edenhall!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">First rings it deep, and full, and mild,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like to the sound of a nightingale;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then like the roar of a torrent wild;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then mutters at last like the thunder’s fall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The glorious Luck of Edenhall.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">“For its keeper takes a race of might,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The fragile goblet of crystal tall;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">It has lasted longer than is right;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Kling! klang! with a harder blow than all</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Will I try the Luck of Edenhall!”</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_598">[Pg 598]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">As the goblet ringing flies apart,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Suddenly cracks the vaulted hall;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And through the rift, the wild flames start;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The guests in dust are scattered all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With the breaking Luck of Edenhall!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">In storms the foe, with fire and sword;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He in the night had scaled the wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Slain by the sword lies the youthful Lord,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But holds in his hand the crystal tall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The shattered Luck of Edenhall.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the morrow the butler gropes alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The grey-beard in the desert-hall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He seeks his lord’s burnt skeleton,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He seeks in the dismal ruin’s fall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The shards of the Luck of Edenhall.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“The stone wall,” saith he, “doth fall aside,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down must the stately columns fall;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Glass is this earth’s Luck and Pride;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In atoms shall fall this earthly ball</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">One day like the Luck of Edenhall!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="TWO_LOCKS" class="center spa2">THE TWO LOCKS OF HAIR.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM PFIZER.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">A youth, light-hearted and content,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I wander through the world:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Here, Arab-like, is pitched my tent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And straight again is furled.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet oft I dream, that once a wife</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Close in my heart was locked,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And in the sweet repose of life</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A blessed child I rocked.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I wake! Away that dream,—away!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Too long did it remain!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">So long, that both by night and day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">It ever comes again.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The end lies ever in my thought;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">To a grave so cold and deep</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The mother beautiful was brought;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Then dropt the child asleep.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">But now the dream is wholly o’er,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I bathe mine eyes and see;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And wander through the world once more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">A youth so light and free.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Two locks,—and they are wondrous fair,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Left me that vision mild;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The brown is from the mother’s hair,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The blonde is from the child.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when I see that lock of gold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Pale grows the evening-red;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And when the dark lock I behold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I wish that I were dead.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_599">[Pg 599]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">REMORSE.</p>
+<p class="f90">FROM GRAF VON PLATEN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">How I started up in the night, in the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Drawn on without rest or reprieval,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The streets, with their watchmen, were lost to my sight</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As I wandered so light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the night, in the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the gate with the arch mediæval.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">The mill-brook rushed through the rocky height,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I leaned o’er the bridge in my yearning;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Deep under me watched I the waves in their flight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">As they glided so light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the night, in the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Yet backward not one was returning.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O’erhead were revolving, so countless and bright,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The stars in melodious existence;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And with them the moon, more serenely bedight;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">They sparkled so light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the night, in the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Through the magical measureless distance.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And upward I gazed, in the night, in the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And again on the waves in their fleeting;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah woe! thou hast wasted thy days in delight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Now silence thou light</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In the night, in the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The Remorse in thy heart that is beating.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak">TRANSLATIONS FROM THE<br> DANISH.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p id="DANISH" class="center spa2">KING CHRISTIAN.</p>
+<p class="f90">A NATIONAL SONG OF DENMARK.<br>—FROM JOHANNES EVALD.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">King Christian stood by the lofty mast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">In mist and smoke;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His sword was hammering so fast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Through Gothic helm and brain it passed;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then sank each hostile hulk and mast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">In mist and smoke.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_600">[Pg 600]</span>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Fly!” shouted they, “fly, he who can!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who braves of Denmark’s Christian</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The stroke?”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Nils Juel gave heed to the tempest’s roar;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Now is the hour!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He hoisted his blood-red flag once more,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And smote upon the foe full sore,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And shouted loud through the tempest’s roar,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">“Now is the hour!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Fly!” shouted they, “for shelter fly!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of Denmark’s Juel who can defy</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The power?”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">North Sea! a glimpse of Wessel rent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Thy murky sky!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then champions to thine arms were sent;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Terror and Death glared where he went;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From the waves was heard a wail, that rent</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Thy murky sky!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">From Denmark, thunders Tordenskiol’,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let each to Heaven commend his soul,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And fly!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Path of the Dane to fame and might!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Dark-rolling wave!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Receive thy friend, who, scorning flight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Goes to meet danger with despite,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Proudly as thou the tempest’s might,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Dark-rolling wave!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And amid pleasures and alarms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And war and victory, be thine arms</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">My grave!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="ELECTED" class="center spa2">THE ELECTED KNIGHT.</p>
+<div class="blockquot f90">
+<p>[The following strange and somewhat mystical ballad is from Nyerup
+and Rahbek’s <i>Danske Viser</i> of the Middle Ages. It seems to
+refer to the first preaching of Christianity in the North, and to the
+institution of Knight-Errantry. The three maidens I suppose to be
+Faith, Hope, and Charity. The irregularities of the original have been
+carefully preserved in the translation.]</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sir Oluf he rideth over the plain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Full seven miles broad and seven miles wide,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But never, ah never, can meet with the man</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A tilt with him dare ride.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">He saw under the hill-side</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A Knight full well equipped;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">His steed was black, his helm was barred;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">He was riding at full speed.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_601">[Pg 601]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">He wore upon his spurs</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Twelve little golden birds;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Anon he spurred his steed with a clang,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And there sat all the birds and sang.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">He wore upon his mail</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Twelve little golden wheels;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Anon in eddies the wild wind blew,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And round and round the wheels they flew.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">He wore before his breast</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A lance that was poised in rest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And it was sharper than diamond-stone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">It made Sir Oluf’s heart to groan.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">He wore upon his helm</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">A wreath of ruddy gold;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And that gave him the Maidens Three,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The youngest was fair to behold.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Sir Oluf questioned the Knight eftsoon</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">If he were come from heaven down;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Art thou Christ of Heaven?” quoth he,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">“So will I yield me unto thee.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I am not Christ the Great,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Thou shalt not yield thee yet;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I am an Unknown Knight,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Three modest Maidens have me bedight.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Art thou a Knight elected,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And have three Maidens thee bedight;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">So shalt thou ride a tilt this day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">For all the Maidens’ honour!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The first tilt they together rode</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">They put their steeds to the test;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The second tilt they together rode,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">They proved their manhood best;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">The third tilt they together rode,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">Neither of them would yield;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The fourth tilt they together rode,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">They both fell on the field.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now lie the lords upon the plain.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">And their blood runs unto death;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Now sit the Maidens in the high tower.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent3">The youngest sorrows till death.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_602">[Pg 602]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">CHILDHOOD.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">There was a time when I was very small,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">When my whole frame was but an ell in height,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Sweetly, as I recall it, tears do fall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And therefore I recall it with delight.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I sported in my tender mother’s arms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And rode a-horseback on best father’s knee;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Alike were sorrows, passions, and alarms,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And gold, and Greek, and love, unknown to me.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Then seemed to me this world far less in size,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Likewise it seemed to me less wicked far;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Like points in heaven, I saw the stars arise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And longed for wings that I might catch a star.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">I saw the moon behind the island fade,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And thought, “O, were I on that island there,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I could find out of what the moon is made,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Find out how large it is, how round, how fair!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Wondering, I saw God’s sun through western skies,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Sink in the ocean’s golden lap at night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And yet upon the morrow early rise,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And paint the eastern heaven with crimson light;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">And thought of God, the gracious Heavenly Father,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who made me, and that lovely sun on high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And all those pearls of heaven thick-strung together,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Dropped, clustering, from his hand o’er all the sky.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">With childish reverence, my young lips did say</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The prayer my pious mother taught to me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O Gentle God! O, let me strive alway</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Still to be wise, and good, and follow thee!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">So prayed I for my father and my mother,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And for my sister, and for all the town;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The king I knew not, and the beggar-brother,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Who, bent with age, went, sighing, up and down.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">They perished, the blithe days of boyhood perished,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And all the gladness, all the peace I knew!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Now have I but their memory, fondly cherished;—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">God! may I never, never, lose that too!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_603">[Pg 603]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">MISCELLANEOUS TRANSLATIONS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p id="MISC_TRANS" class="center spa2">THE FUGITIVE.</p>
+<p class="f90">TARTAR SONG,<br> FROM THE PROSE VERSION OF CHODZKO.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent12">I.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“He is gone to the desert land!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I can see the shining mane</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of his horse on the distant plain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">As he rides with his Kossak band!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Come back, rebellious one!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Let thy proud heart relent;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Come back to my tall, white tent,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Come back, my only son!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Thy hand in freedom shall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cast thy hawks, when morning breaks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the swans of the Seven Lakes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the lakes of Karajal.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I will give thee leave to stray</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And pasture thy hunting steeds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the long grass and the reeds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the meadows of Karaday.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I will give thee my coat of mail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of softest leather made,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With choicest steel inlaid;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Will not all this prevail?”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent12">II.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“This hand no longer shall</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Cast my hawks when morning breaks,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the swans of the Seven Lakes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On the lakes of Karajal.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I will no longer stray</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And pasture my hunting steeds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the long grass and the reeds</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of the meadows of Karaday.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Though thou give me thy coat of mail,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Of softest leather made,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">With choicest steel inlaid,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">All this cannot prevail.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“What right hast thou, O Khan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">To me, who am mine own,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Who am slave to God alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And not to any man?</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“God will appoint the day</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When I again shall be</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the blue, shallow sea,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where the steel-bright sturgeons play.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“God, who doth care for me,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the barren wilderness,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">On unknown hills, no less</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Will my companion be.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“When I wander, lonely and lost,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the wind; when I watch at night</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like a hungry wolf, and am white</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And covered with hoar-frost;</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Yea, wheresoever I be,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In the yellow desert sands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">In mountains or unknown lands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Allah will care for me!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent11">III.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Then Sobra, the old, old man,—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Three hundred and sixty years</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Had he lived in this land of tears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Bowed down and said, “O Khan!”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“If you bid me, I will speak.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There’s no sap in dry grass,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">No marrow in dry bones! Alas,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The mind of old men is weak!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I am old, I am very old:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I have seen the primeval man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I have seen the great Gengis Khan</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Arrayed in his robes of gold.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_604">[Pg 604]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“What I say to you is the truth;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And I say to you, O Khan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pursue not the star-white man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Pursue not the beautiful youth.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Him the Almighty made,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And brought him forth of the light,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">At the verge and end of the night,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When men on the mountain prayed.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“He was born at the break of day,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When abroad the angels walk;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">He hath listened to their talk,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And he knoweth what they say.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Gifted with Allah’s grace,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Like the moon of Ramazan</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">When it shines in the skies, O Khan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Is the light of his beautiful face.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“When first on earth he trod,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The first words that he said</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Were these, as he stood and prayed,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">There is no God but God!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“And he shall be king of men,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">For Allah hath heard his prayer,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And the Archangel in the air,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Gabriel, hath said, Amen!”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="STORK" class="center spa2">TO THE STORK.</p>
+<p class="f90">ARMENIAN POPULAR SONG,<br> FROM THE PROSE VERSION OF ALISHAN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Welcome, O Stork! that dost wing</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thy flight from the far-away!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast brought us the signs of Spring,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Thou hast made our sad hearts gay.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Descend, O Stork! descend</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Upon our roof to rest;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">In our ash-tree, O my friend,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">My darling, make thy nest.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">To thee, O Stork, I complain,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">O Stork, to thee I impart</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The thousand sorrows, the pain</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And aching of my heart.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">When thou away didst go,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Away from this tree of ours,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The withering winds did blow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And dried up all the flowers.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Dark grew the brilliant sky,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Cloudy and dark and drear;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">They were breaking the snow on high,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And winter was drawing near.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">From Varaca’s rocky wall,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">From the rock of Varaca unrolled,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">The snow came and covered all,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the green meadow was cold.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">O Stork, our garden with snow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Was hidden away and lost,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And the rose-trees that in it grow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Were withered by snow and frost.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_605">[Pg 605]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa2">THE BOY AND THE BROOK.</p>
+<p class="f90">ARMENIAN POPULAR SONG,<br> FROM THE PROSE VERSION OF ALISHAN.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent1">Down from yon distant mountain height</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The brooklet flows through the village street;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">A boy comes forth to wash his hands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Washing, yes washing, there he stands,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">In the water cool and sweet.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Brook, from what mountain dost thou come?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">O my brooklet cool and sweet!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I come from yon mountain high and cold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where lieth the new snow on the old,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And melts in the summer heat.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Brook, to what river dost thou go?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">O my brooklet cool and sweet!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I go to the river there below</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where in bunches the violets grow,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And sun and shadow meet.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Brook, to what garden dost thou go?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">O my brooklet cool and sweet!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I go to that garden in the vale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Where all night long the nightingale</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Her love-song doth repeat.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Brook, to what fountain dost thou go?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">O my brooklet cool and sweet!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">“I go to that fountain, at whose brink</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">The maid that loves thee comes to drink,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And, whenever she looks therein,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">I rise to meet her, and kiss her chin,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And my joy is then complete.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="KAZAN" class="center spa2">THE SIEGE OF KAZAN.</p>
+<p class="f90">TARTAR SONG,<br> FROM THE PROSE VERSION OF CHODZKO.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Black are the moors before Kazan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And their stagnant waters smell of blood:</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">I said in my heart, with horse and man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">I will swim across this shallow flood.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_606">[Pg 606]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Under the feet of Argamack,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Like new moons were the shoes he bare,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Silken trappings hung on his back,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">In a talisman on his neck, a prayer.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">My warriors, thought I, are following me;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">But when I looked behind, alas!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Not one of all the band could I see,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">All had sunk in the black morass!</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Where are our shallow fords? and where</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">The power of Kazan with its fourfold gates?</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">From the prison windows our maidens fair</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Talk of us still through the iron grates.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">We cannot hear them; for horse and man</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Lie buried deep in the dark abyss!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ah! the black day hath come down on Kazan!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Ah! was ever a grief like this?</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p id="COLUMBUS" class="center spa2">COLUMBUS.</p>
+<p class="f90">A TRANSLATION FROM SCHILLER.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot f90">
+<p>The following lines, hitherto unpublished, were written for
+Charles Sumner, and were read July 4, at Roseland Park, Woodstock, Connecticut:—</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent20">I.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Steer, bold mariner, on! albeit witlings deride thee</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">And the steersman drop idly his hand at the helm;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Ever, ever to Westward! There must the coast be discovered,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">If it but lie distinct, luminous lie in thy mind.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent20">II.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Trust to the God that leads thee, and follow the sea that is silent;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">Did it not yet exist, now would it rise from the flood.</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nature with Genius stands united in league everlasting;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent2">What is promised to one, surely the other performs.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_607">[Pg 607]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">Notes.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><a href="#Page_31">Page 31</a>. <i>All the Foresters of Flanders.</i></p>
+
+<p>The title of Foresters was given to the early governors of Flanders,
+appointed by the kings of France. Lyderick du Bucq, in the days of
+Clotaire the Second, was the first of them; and Beaudoin Bras-de-Fer,
+who stole away the fair Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, from the
+French court, and married her in Bruges, was the last. After him, the
+title of Forester was changed to that of Count. Philippe d’Alsace, Guy
+de Dampierre, and Louis de Crécy, coming later in the order of time,
+were therefore rather Counts than Foresters. Philippe went twice to the
+Holy Land as a Crusader, and died of the plague at St. Jean-d’Acre,
+shortly after the capture of the city by the Christians. Guy de
+Dampierre died in the prison of Compiègne. Louis de Crécy was son and
+successor of Robert de Béthune, who strangled his wife, Yolande de
+Burgogne, with the bridle of his horse, for having poisoned, at the age
+of eleven years, Charles, his son by his first wife, Blanche d’Anjou.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_31">Page 31</a>. <i>Stately dames like queens attended.</i></p>
+
+<p>When Philippe-le-Bel, king of France, visited Flanders with his queen,
+she was so astonished at the magnificence of the dames of Bruges, that
+she exclaimed, “Je croyais être seule reine ici, mais il paraît que
+ceux de Flandre qui se trouvent dans nos prisons sont tous des princes,
+car leurs femmes sont habillées comme des princesses et des reines.”</p>
+
+<p>When the burgomasters of Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres went to Paris to
+pay homage to King John, in 1351, they were received with great pomp
+and distinction; but, being invited to a festival, they observed that
+their seats at table were not furnished with cushions; whereupon, to
+make known their displeasure at this want of regard to their dignity,
+they folded their richly-embroidered cloaks and seated themselves upon
+them. On rising from table, they left their cloaks behind them, and,
+being informed of their apparent forgetfulness, Simon van Eertrycke,
+burgomaster of Bruges, replied: “We Flemings are not in the habit of
+carrying away our cushions after dinner.”</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_31">Page 31</a>. <i>Knights who bore the Fleece of Gold.</i></p>
+
+<p>Philippe de Burgogne, surnamed Le Bon, espoused Isabella of Portugal,
+on the 10th of January 1430; and on the same day instituted the famous
+order of the Fleece of Gold.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_31">Page 31</a>. <i>I beheld the gentle Mary.</i></p>
+
+<p>Marie de Valois, Duchess of Burgundy, was left by the death of her
+father, Charles-le-Téméraire, at the age of twenty, the richest heiress
+of Europe. She came to Bruges, as Countess of Flanders, in 1477, and
+in the same year was married by proxy to the Archduke Maximilian.
+According to the custom of the time, the Duke of Bavaria, Maximilian’s
+substitute, slept with the princess. They were both in complete dress,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_608">[Pg 608]</span>
+separated by a naked sword, and attended by four armed guards. Marie
+was adored by her subjects for her gentleness and her many other virtues.</p>
+
+<p>Maximilian was the son of the Emperor Frederick the Third, and is the
+same person mentioned afterwards in the poem of <i>Nuremberg</i> as the
+Kaiser Maximilian, and the hero of Pfinzing’s poem of <i>Teuerdank</i>.
+Having been imprisoned by the revolted burghers of Bruges, they refused
+to release him, till he consented to kneel in the public square, and to
+swear on the Holy Evangelists and the body of Saint Donatus, that he
+would not take vengeance upon them for their rebellion.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_31">Page 31</a>. <i>The bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold.</i></p>
+
+<p>This battle, the most memorable in Flemish history, was fought under
+the walls of Courtray, on the 11th of July 1302, between the French and
+the Flemings, the former commanded by Robert, Comte d’Artois, and the
+latter by Guillaume de Juliers, and Jean, Comte de Namur. The French
+army was completely routed, with a loss of twenty thousand infantry and
+seven thousand cavalry, among whom were sixty-three princes, dukes, and
+counts, seven hundred lords-banneret, and eleven hundred noblemen. The
+flower of the French nobility perished on that day; to which history
+has given the name of the <i>Journée des Eperons d’Or</i>, from the
+great number of golden spurs found on the field of battle. Seven
+hundred of them were hung up as a trophy in the church of Notre Dame de
+Courtray; and as the cavaliers of that day wore but a single spur each,
+these vouched to God for the violent and bloody death of seven hundred
+of his creatures.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_31">Page 31</a>. <i>Saw the fight at Minnewater.</i></p>
+
+<p>When the inhabitants of Bruges were digging a canal at Minnewater
+to bring the waters of the Lys from Deynze to their city, they were
+attacked and routed by the citizens of Ghent, whose commerce would have
+been much injured by the canal. They were led by Jean Lyons, captain of
+a military company at Ghent, called the <i>Chaperons Blancs</i>. He had
+great sway over the turbulent populace, who, in those prosperous times
+of the city, gained an easy livelihood by labouring two or three days
+in the week, and had the remaining four or five to devote to public
+affairs. The fight at Minnewater was followed by open rebellion against
+Louis de Maele, the Count of Flanders and Protector of Bruges. His
+superb château of Wondelghem was pillaged and burnt, and the insurgents
+forced the gates of Bruges, and entered in triumph, with Lyons mounted
+at their head. A few days afterwards he died suddenly, perhaps by poison.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the insurgents received a check at the village of Nevèle;
+and two hundred of them perished in the church, which was burnt by the
+Count’s orders. One of the chiefs, Jean de Lannoy, took refuge in the
+belfry. From the summit of the tower he held forth his purse filled
+with gold, and begged for deliverance. It was in vain. His enemies
+cried to him from below to save himself as best he might; and, half
+suffocated with smoke and flame, he threw himself from the tower, and
+perished at their feet. Peace was soon afterwards established, and the
+Count retired to faithful Bruges.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_35">Page 35</a>. <i>In the church of sainted Lawrence stands
+a pix of sculpture rare.</i></p>
+
+<p>This pix, or tabernacle for the vessels of the sacrament, is by the
+hand of Adam Kraft. It is an exquisite piece of sculpture, in white
+stone, and rises to the height of sixty-four feet. It stands in the
+choir, whose richly-painted windows cover it with varied colours.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_56">Page 56</a>. <i>As Lope says.</i></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent20">“La cólera</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">de un Español sentado no se templa,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">si no le representan en dos horas</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">hasta el final juicio desde el Génesis.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent20"><i>Lope de Vega.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_609">[Pg 609]</span></p>
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_58">Page 58</a>. <i>Abernuncio Satanas.</i></p>
+
+<p>“Digo, Señora, respondió Sancho, lo que tengo dicho, que de los azotes
+abernuncio. Abrenuncio habeis de decir, Sancho, y no como decis, dijo
+el Duque.”—<i>Don Quixote</i>, Part ii. c. xxxv.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_64">Page 64</a>. <i>Fray Carillo.</i></p>
+
+<p>The allusion here is to a Spanish epigram.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Siempre, Fray Carrillo, estás</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">cansándonos acá fuera;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">quién en tu celda estuviera</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">para no verte jamás!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent4"><i>Böhl de Faber.</i> <i>Floresta</i>, No. 611.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_64">Page 64</a>. <i>Padre Francisco.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">This is from an Italian popular song.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent8">“‘Padre Francesco,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Padre Francesco!’</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">—Cosa volete del Padre Francesco—</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">‘V’è una bella ragazzina</div>
+ <div class="verse indent8">Che si vuole confessar!‘</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Fatte l’entrare, fatte l’entrare!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Che la voglio confessare!”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent6"><i>Kopisch.</i> <i>Volksthümliche Poesien aus allen Mundarten</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent25"><i>Italiens und seiner Inseln</i>, p. 194.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_65">Page 65</a>. <i>Ave! cujus calcem clare.</i></p>
+
+<p>From a monkish hymn of the twelfth century, in Sir Alexander Croke’s
+<i>Essay on the Origin, Progress, and Decline of Rhyming Latin Verse</i>, p. 109.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1">Page 73. <i>Asks if his money-bags would rise.</i></p>
+
+<p>“Y volviéndome á un lado, ví á un Avariento, que estaba preguntando
+á otro (que por haber sido embalsamado, y estar léxos sus tripas, no
+hablaba porque no habian llegado si habian de resucitar aquel dia todos
+los enterrados), si resucitarian unos bolsones suyos?”—<i>El Sueño de
+las Calaveras.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_74">Page 74</a>. <i>The river of his thoughts.</i></p>
+
+<p>This expression is from Dante:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent14">“Si che chiaro</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Per essa scenda della mente il fiume.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Byron has likewise used the expression; though I do not recollect in
+which of his poems. [<i>The Dream.</i>—<span class="smcap">Editor.</span>]</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_75">Page 75</a>. <i>Mari Franca.</i></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Porque casó Mari Franca</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">cuatro leguas de Salamanca.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_75">Page 75</a>. <i>Ay, soft, emerald eyes.</i></p>
+
+<p>The Spaniards, with good reason, consider this colour of the eye as
+beautiful, and celebrate it in song; as, for example, in the well-known
+<i>Villancico</i>:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Ay ojuelos verdes,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">ay los mis ojuelos,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">ay hagan los cielos</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">que de mí te acuerdes!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent7">Tengo confianza</div>
+ <div class="verse indent7">de mis verdes ojos.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1"><i>Böhl de Faber.</i> <i>Floresta</i>, No. 255.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_610">[Pg 610]</span></p>
+
+<p class="center spa1">Dante speaks of Beatrice’s eyes as emeralds. <i>Purgatorio</i>, xxxi.
+116. Lami says, in his <i>Annotazioni</i>, “Erano i suoi occhi d’ un
+turchino verdiccio, simie a quel del mare.”</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_76">Page 76</a>. <i>The Avenging Child.</i></p>
+
+<p>See the ancient ballads of <i>El Infante Vengador</i>, and
+<i>Calaynos</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_76">Page 76</a>. <i>All are sleeping.</i></p>
+
+<p>From the Spanish. <i>Böhl’s Floresta</i>, No. 282.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_85">Page 85</a>. <i>Good Night!</i></p>
+
+<p>From the Spanish; as are likewise the songs immediately following, and
+that which commences the first scene of Act III.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_95">Page 95</a>. <i>The evil eye.</i></p>
+
+<p>“In the Gitano language, casting the evil eye is called <i>Querelar
+Nasula</i>, which simply means making sick, and which, according to the
+common superstition, is accomplished by casting an evil look at people,
+especially children, who, from the tenderness of their constitution,
+are supposed to be more easily blighted than those of a more mature age.
+After receiving the evil glance, they fall sick, and die in a few hours.</p>
+
+<p>“The Spaniards have very little to say respecting the evil eye, though
+the belief in it is very prevalent, especially in Andalusia, amongst
+the lower orders. A stag’s horn is considered a good safeguard, and
+on that account a small horn, tipped with silver, is frequently
+attached to the children’s necks by means of a cord braided from
+the hair of a black mare’s tail. Should the evil glance be cast, it
+is imagined that the horn receives it, and instantly snaps asunder.
+Such horns may be purchased in some of the silversmiths’ shops at
+Seville.”—<span class="smcap">Borrow’s</span> <i>Zincali</i>, vol. i. c. ix.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_96">Page 96</a>. <i>On the top of a mountain I stand.</i></p>
+
+<p>This and the following scraps of song are from Borrow’s <i>Zincali; or,
+An Account of the Gipsies in Spain</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_103">Page 103</a>. <i>If thou art sleeping, maiden.</i></p>
+
+<p>From the Spanish; as is likewise the song of the Contrabandista below.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_158">Page 158</a>.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>For these bells have been anointed</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent3"><i>And baptized with holy water</i>!</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Consecration and Baptism of Bells is one of the most curious
+ceremonies of the Church in the Middle Ages. The Council of Cologne
+ordained as follows:—</p>
+
+<p>“Let the bells be blessed, as the trumpets of the Church militant, by
+which the people are assembled to hear the word of God; the clergy to
+announce his mercy by day, and his truth in their nocturnal vigils:
+that by their sound the faithful may be invited to prayers, and
+that the spirit of devotion in them may be increased. The fathers
+have also maintained that demons affrighted by the sound of bells
+calling Christians to prayers, would flee away; and when they fled,
+the persons of the faithful would be secure: that the destruction of
+lightnings and whirlwinds would be averted, and the spirits of the
+storm defeated.”—<i>Edinburgh Encyclopædia</i>, Art. “Bells.” See also
+Scheible’s <i>Kloster</i>, vi. 776.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_178">Page 178</a>. <i>It is the malediction of Eve</i>!</p>
+
+<p>“Nec esses plus quam femina, quæ nunc etiam viros transcendis, et
+quæ maledictionem Evæ in benedictionem vertisti Mariæ.”—<i>Epistola
+Abælardi Heloissæ.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_194">Page 194</a>. <i>To come back to my text.</i></p>
+
+<p>In giving this sermon of Friar Cuthbert, as a specimen of the <i>Risus
+Paschales</i>, or street preaching of the monks at Easter, I have
+exaggerated nothing. This very anecdote, offensive as it is, comes
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_611">[Pg 611]</span>
+from a discourse of Father Barletta, a Dominican friar of the fifteenth
+century, whose fame as a popular preacher was so great, that it gave
+rise to the proverb—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Nescit predicare</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent0"><i>Qui nescit Barettare.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>“Among the abuses introduced in this century,” says Tiraboschi, “was
+that of exciting from the pulpit the laughter of the hearers; as if
+that were the same thing as converting them. We have examples of this
+not only in Italy, but also in France, where the sermons of Menot and
+Maillard, and of others, who would make a better appearance on the
+stage than in the pulpit, are still celebrated for such follies.”</p>
+
+<p>If the reader is curious to see how far the freedom of speech was
+carried in these popular sermons, he is referred to Scheible’s
+<i>Kloster</i>, vol. i., where he will find extracts from Abraham
+à Sancta Clara, Sebastian, Frank, and others; and, in particular,
+an anonymous discourse called <i>Der Gräuel der Verwüstung</i>—The
+Abomination of Desolation—preached at Ottakring, a village west of
+Vienna, November 25, 1782, in which the licence of language is carried
+to its utmost limit.</p>
+
+<p>See also <i>Prédicatoriana, ou Révélations singulières et amusantes
+sur les Prédicateurs; par G. P. Philomneste</i>. (Menin.) This work
+contains extracts from the popular sermons of St. Vincent Ferrier,
+Barletta, Menot, Maillard, Marini, Raulin, Valladier, De Besse, Camus,
+Père André, Bening, and the most eloquent of all, Jacques Brydaine.</p>
+
+<p>My authority for the spiritual interpretation of bell-ringing, which
+follows, is Durandus, <i>Ration</i>. <i>Divin Offic.</i>, Lib. i. cap. 4.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_197">Page 197</a>. <span class="smcap">The Nativity</span>: A Miracle-Play.</p>
+
+<p>The earliest mystery or religious play which has been preserved is
+the <i>Christos Paschon</i> of Gregory Nazianzen, written in Greek in
+the fourth century. Next to this come the remarkable Latin plays of
+Roswitha, the nun of Gandersheim, in the tenth century, which, though
+crude, and wanting in artistic construction, are marked by a good deal
+of dramatic power and interest. A handsome edition of these plays, with
+a French translation, has been lately published, entitled, <i>Théatre
+de Rotsvitha, Religieuse Allemande du Xᵉ Siècle</i>. <i>Par Charles
+Magnin.</i> Paris, 1845.</p>
+
+<p>The most important collections of English Mysteries and Miracle-Plays
+are those known as the Townley, the Chester, and the Coventry plays.
+The first of these collections has been published by the Surtees
+Society, and the other two by the Shakespeare Society. In his
+introduction to the Coventry Mysteries, the editor, Mr. Halliwell,
+quotes the following passage from Dugdale’s <i>Antiquities of Warwickshire</i>:—</p>
+
+<p>“Before the suppression of the monasteries, this city was very famous
+for the pageants that were played therein, upon Corpus Christi day;
+which, occasioning very great confluence of people thither, from
+far and near, was of no small benefit thereto; which pageants being
+acted with mighty state and reverence by the friars of this house,
+had theatres for the several scenes, very large and high, placed
+upon wheels, and drawn to all the eminent parts of the city, for the
+better advantage of the spectators; and contained the story of the
+New Testament, composed into old English Rithme, as appeareth by an
+ancient MS., intituled <i>Ludus Corporis Christi</i>, or <i>Ludus
+Conventriæ</i>. I have been told by some old people, who in their
+younger years were eye-witnesses of these pageants so acted, that the
+yearly confluence of people to see that show was extraordinary great,
+and yielded no small advantage to this city.”</p>
+
+<p>The representation of religious plays has not yet been wholly
+discontinued by the Roman Church. At Ober-Ammergau in the Tyrol, a
+grand spectacle of this kind is exhibited once in ten years. A very
+graphic description of that which took place in the year 1850 is given
+by Miss Anna Mary Howitt, in her <i>Art-Student in Munich</i>, vol. i.
+chap. iv. She says:—</p>
+
+<p>“We had come expecting to feel our souls revolt at so material a
+representation of Christ, as any representation of him we naturally
+imagined must be in a peasant’s Miracle-Play. Yet so far, strange to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_612">[Pg 612]</span>
+confess, neither horror, disgust, nor contempt was excited in our
+minds. Such an earnest solemnity and simplicity breathed throughout the
+whole of the performance, that to me, at least, anything like anger, or
+a perception of the ludicrous, would have seemed more irreverent on my
+part than was this simple, childlike rendering of the sublime Christian
+tragedy. We felt at times as though the figures of Cimabue’s, Giotto’s,
+and Perugino’s pictures had become animated, and were moving before us;
+there was the same simple arrangement and brilliant colour of drapery;
+the same earnest, quiet dignity about the heads, whilst the entire
+absence of all theatrical effect wonderfully increased the illusion.
+There were scenes and groups so extraordinarily like the early Italian
+pictures, that you could have declared they were the works of Giotto
+and Perugino, and not living men and women, had not the figures moved
+and spoken, and the breeze stirred their richly-coloured drapery, and
+the sun cast long, moving shadows behind them on the stage. These
+effects of sunshine and shadow, and of drapery fluttered by the wind,
+were very striking and beautiful; one could imagine how the Greeks must
+have availed themselves of such striking effects in their theatres open
+to the sky.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bayard Taylor, in his <i>Eldorado</i>, gives a description of a
+Mystery he saw performed at San Lionel, in Mexico. See vol. ii. chap. xi.</p>
+
+<p>“Against the wing-wall of the Hacienda del Mayo, which occupied one end
+of the plaza, was raised a platform, on which stood a table covered
+with scarlet cloth. A rude bower of cane-leaves, on one end of the
+platform, represented the manger of Bethlehem; while a cord, stretched
+from its top across the plaza to a hole in the front of the church,
+bore a large tinsel star suspended by a hole in its centre. There
+was quite a crowd in the plaza, and very soon a procession appeared,
+coming up from the lower part of the village. The three kings took the
+lead; the Virgin, mounted on an ass that gloried in a gilded saddle
+and rose-besprinked mane and tail, followed them, led by the angel;
+and several women, with curious masks of paper, brought up the rear.
+Two characters of the harlequin sort—one with a dog’s head on his
+shoulders, and the other a bald-headed friar, with a huge hat hanging
+on his back—played all sorts of antics for the diversion of the
+crowd. After making the circuit of the plaza, the Virgin was taken to
+the platform, and entered the manger. King Herod took his seat at the
+scarlet table, with an attendant in blue coat and red sash, whom I took
+to be his Prime Minister. The three kings remained on their horses
+in front of the church; but between them and the platform, under the
+string on which the star was to slide, walked two men in long white
+robes and blue hoods, with parchment folios in their hands. These were
+the Wise Men of the East, as one might readily know from their solemn
+air, and the mysterious glances which they cast towards all quarters of
+the heavens.</p>
+
+<p>“In a little while, a company of women on the platform, concealed
+behind a curtain, sang an angelic chorus to the tune of ‘O pescator
+dell’ onda.’ At the proper moment, the Magi turned towards the
+platform, followed by the star, to which a string was conveniently
+attached, that it might be slid along the line. The three kings
+followed the star till it reached the manger, when they dismounted, and
+inquired for the sovereign whom it had led them to visit. They were
+invited upon the platform and introduced to Herod, as the only king;
+this did not seem to satisfy them, and, after some conversation, they
+retired. By this time the star had receded to the other end of the
+line, and commenced moving forward again, they following. The angel
+called them into the manger, where, upon their knees, they were shown
+a small wooden box, supposed to contain the sacred infant; they then
+retired, and the star brought them back no more. After this departure,
+King Herod declared himself greatly confused by what he had witnessed,
+and was very much afraid this newly-found king would weaken his
+power. Upon consultation with his Prime Minister, the Massacre of the
+Innocents was decided upon as the only means of security.</p>
+
+<p>“The angel, on hearing this, gave warning to the Virgin, who quickly
+got down from the platform, mounted her bespangled donkey, and hurried
+off. Herod’s Prime Minister directed all the children to be handed
+up for execution. A boy, in a ragged sarape, was caught and thrust
+forward; the Minister took him by the heels in spite of his kicking,
+and held his head on the table. The little brother and sister of the
+boy, thinking he was really to be decapitated, yelled at the top of
+their voices in an agony of terror, which threw the crowd into a roar
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_613">[Pg 613]</span>
+of laughter. King Herod brought down his sword with a whack on the
+table, and the Prime Minister, dipping his brush into a pot of white
+paint which stood before him, made a flaring cross on the boy’s face.
+Several other boys were caught and served likewise; and finally,
+the two harlequins, whose kicks and struggles nearly shook down the
+platform. The procession then went off up the hill, followed by the
+whole population of the village. All the evening there were fandangos
+in the méson, bonfires and rockets on the plaza, ringing of bells,
+and high mass in the church, with the accompaniment of two guitars,
+tinkling to lively polkas.”</p>
+
+<p>In 1852 there was a representation of this kind by Germans in
+Boston; and I have now before me the copy of a playbill, announcing
+the performance on June 10, 1852, in Cincinnati, of the “Great
+Biblico-Historical Drama, the Life of Jesus Christ,” with the
+characters and the names of the performers.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_211">Page 211</a>. <span class="smcap">The Scriptorium.</span></p>
+
+<p>A most interesting volume might be written on the Calligraphers and
+Chrysographers, the transcribers and illuminators of manuscripts in
+the Middle Ages. These men were for the most part monks, who laboured
+sometimes for pleasure and sometimes for penance, in multiplying copies
+of the classics and the Scriptures.</p>
+
+<p>“Of all bodily labours which are proper for us,” says Cassiodorus, the
+old Calabrian monk, “that of copying books has always been more to my
+taste than any other. The more so, as in this exercise the mind is
+instructed by the reading of the Holy Scriptures, and it is a kind of
+homily to the others, whom these books may reach. It is preaching with
+the hand, by converting the fingers into tongues: it is publishing to
+men in silence the words of salvation; in fine, it is fighting against
+the demon with pen and ink. As many words as a transcriber writes, so
+many wounds the demon receives. In a word, a recluse, seated in his
+chair to copy books, travels into different provinces, without moving
+from the spot, and the labour of his hands is felt even where he is not.”</p>
+
+<p>Nearly every monastery was provided with its Scriptorium. Nicholas de
+Clairvaux, St. Bernard’s secretary, in one of his letters, describes
+his cell, which he calls Scriptoriolum, where he copied books. And
+Mabillon, in his <i>Études Monastiques</i>, says that in his time were
+still to be seen at Citeaux “many of those little cells where the
+transcribers and bookbinders worked.”</p>
+
+<p>Silvestre’s <i>Paléographie Universelle</i> contains a vast number
+of facsimiles of the most beautiful illuminated manuscripts of
+all ages and all countries; and Montfaucon in his <i>Palæographia
+Græca</i> gives the names of over three hundred calligraphers. He also
+gives an account of the books they copied, and the colophons, with
+which, as with a satisfactory flourish of the pen, they closed their
+long-continued labours. Many of these are very curious; expressing joy,
+humility, remorse; entreating the reader’s prayers and pardon for the
+writer’s sins; and sometimes pronouncing a malediction on any one who
+should steal the book. A few of these I subjoin:—</p>
+
+<p>“As pilgrims rejoice, beholding their native land, so are transcribers
+made glad, beholding the end of a book.”</p>
+
+<p>“Sweet is it to write the end of any book.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ye who read, pray for me, who have written this book, the humble and
+sinful Theodulus.”</p>
+
+<p>“As many, therefore, as shall read this book, pardon me, I beseech you,
+if aught I have erred in accent acute and grave, in apostrophe, in
+breathing soft or aspirate; and may God save you all. Amen.”</p>
+
+<p>“If anything is well, praise the transcriber; if ill, pardon his
+unskilfulness.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ye who read, pray for me, the most sinful of all men, for the Lord’s sake.”</p>
+
+<p>“The hand that has written this book shall decay, alas! and become
+dust, and go down to the grave, the corrupter of all bodies. But all
+ye who are of the portion of Christ, pray that I may obtain the pardon
+of my sins. Again and again I beseech you with tears, brothers and
+fathers, accept my miserable supplication, O holy choir! I am called
+John, woe is me! I am called Hiereus, or Sacerdos, in name only, not in
+unction.”</p>
+
+<p>“Whoever shall carry away this book, without permission of the Pope,
+may he incur the malediction of the Holy Trinity, of the Holy Mother of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_614">[Pg 614]</span>
+God, of Saint John the Baptist, of the one hundred and eighteen holy
+Nicene Fathers, and of all the Saints; the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah;
+and the halter of Judas; anathema, amen.”</p>
+
+<p>“Keep safe, O Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, my three fingers,
+with which I have written this book.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mathusalas Machir transcribed this divinest book in toil, infirmity,
+and dangers many.”</p>
+
+<p>“Bacchius Barbardorius and Michael Sophianus wrote this book in sport
+and laughter, being the guests of their noble and common friend
+Vincentius Pinellus, and Petrus Nunnius, a most learned man.”</p>
+
+<p>This last colophon, Montfaucon does not suffer to pass without reproof.
+“Other calligraphers,” he remarks, “demand only the prayers of their
+readers, and the pardon of their sins; but these glory in their wantonness.”</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_217">Page 217</a>. <i>Drink down to your peg.</i></p>
+
+<p>One of the canons of Archbishop Anselm, promulgated at the beginning of
+the twelfth century, ordains “that priests go not to drinking bouts,
+nor drink to pegs.” In the times of the hard-drinking Danes, King Edgar
+ordained that “pins or nails should be fastened into the drinking-cups
+or horns at stated distances, and whosoever shall drink beyond those
+marks at one draught should be obnoxious to a severe punishment.”</p>
+
+<p>Sharpe, in his <i>History of the Kings of England</i>, says: “Our
+ancestors were formerly famous for compotation; their liquor was
+ale, and one method of amusing themselves in this way was with the
+peg-tankard. I had lately one of them in my hand. It had on the inside
+a row of eight pins, one above another, from top to bottom. It held two
+quarts, and was a noble piece of plate, so that there was a gill of
+ale, half a pint, Winchester measure, between each peg. The law was,
+that every person that drank was to empty the space between pin and
+pin, so that the pins were so many measures to make the company all
+drink alike, and to swallow the same quantity of liquor. This was a
+pretty sure method of making all the company drunk, especially if it be
+considered that the rule was, that whosoever drank short of his pin, or
+beyond it, was obliged to drink again, and even as deep as to the next pin.”</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_218">Page 218</a>. <i>The Convent of St. Gildas de Rhuys.</i></p>
+
+<p>Abelard, in a letter to his friend Philintus, gives a sad picture
+of this monastery. “I live,” he says, “in a barbarous country, the
+language of which I do not understand; I have no conversation, but
+with the rudest people. My walks are on the inaccessible shore of a
+sea, which is perpetually stormy. My monks are only known by their
+dissoluteness, and living without any rule or order. Could you see
+the abbey, Philintus, you would not call it one. The doors and walls
+are without any ornament, except the heads of wild boars and hinds’
+feet, which are nailed up against them, and the hides of frightful
+animals. The cells are hung with the skins of deer. The monks have not
+so much as a bell to wake them, the cocks and dogs supply that defect.
+In short, they pass their whole days in hunting: would to Heaven that
+were their greatest fault, or that their pleasures terminated there!
+I endeavour in vain to recall them to their duty; they all combine
+against me, and I only expose myself to continual vexations and
+dangers. I imagine I see every moment a naked sword hang over my head.
+Sometimes they surround me, and load me with infinite abuses; sometimes
+they abandon me, and I am left alone to my own tormenting thoughts. I
+make it my endeavour to merit by my sufferings, and to appease an angry
+God. Sometimes I grieve for the loss of the house of the Paraclete, and
+wish to see it again. Ah, Philintus, does not the love of Heloise still
+burn in my heart? I have not yet triumphed over that unhappy passion.
+In the midst of my retirement I sigh, I weep, I pine, I speak the dear
+name Heloise, and am pleased to hear the sound.”—<i>Letters of the
+celebrated Abelard and Heloise. Translated by Mr. John Hughes.</i>
+Glasgow, 1751.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_232">Page 232</a>. <i>Were it not for my magic garters and staff.</i></p>
+
+<p>The method of making the Magic Garters and the Magic Staff is thus laid
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_615">[Pg 615]</span>
+down in <i>Les Secrets Merveilleux du Petit Albert</i>, a French translation
+of <i>Alberti Parvi Lucii Libellus de Mirabilibus Naturæ Arcanis</i>:—</p>
+
+<p>“Gather some of the herb called motherwort, when the sun is entering
+the first degree of the sign of Capricorn; let it dry a little in the
+shade, and make some garters of the skin of a young hare; that is to
+say, having cut the skin of the hare into strips two inches wide,
+double them, sew the before-mentioned herb between, and wear them
+on your legs. No horse can long keep up with a man on foot who is
+furnished with these garters.”—P. 128.</p>
+
+<p>“Gather, on the morrow of All Saints, a strong branch of willow, of
+which you will make a staff, fashioned to your liking. Hollow it out,
+by removing the pith from within, after having furnished the lower end
+with an iron ferrule. Put into the bottom of the staff the two eyes
+of a young wolf, the tongue and heart of a dog, three green lizards,
+and the hearts of three swallows. These must all be dried in the sun,
+between two papers, having been first sprinkled with finely-pulverised
+saltpetre. Besides all these, put into the staff seven leaves of
+vervain, gathered on the eve of St. John the Baptist, with a stone
+of divers colours, which you will find in the nest of the lapwing,
+and stop the end of the staff with a pomel of box, or of any other
+material you please, and be assured that this staff will guarantee you
+from the perils and mishaps which too often befall travellers, either
+from robbers, wild beasts, mad dogs, or venomous animals. It will also
+procure you the good-will of those with whom you lodge.”—P. 130.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_237">Page 237</a>. <i>Saint Elmo’s stars.</i></p>
+
+<p>So the Italian sailors call the phosphorescent gleams that sometimes
+play about the masts and rigging of ships.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_238">Page 238</a>. <span class="smcap">The School of Salerno.</span></p>
+
+<p>For a history of the celebrated schools of Salerno and Monte-Cassino,
+the reader is referred to Sir Alexander Croke’s introduction to
+the <i>Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum</i>; and Kurt Sprengel’s
+<i>Geschichte der Arzneikunde</i>, i. 463, or Jourdan’s French
+translation of it, <i>Histoire de la Médecine</i>, ii. 354.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_255">Page 255</a>. <span class="smcap">The Song of Hiawatha.</span></p>
+
+<p>This Indian Edda—if I may so call it—is founded on a tradition
+prevalent among the North American Indians, of a personage of
+miraculous birth who was sent among them to clear their rivers,
+forests, and fishing-grounds, and to teach them the arts of peace. He
+was known among different tribes by the several names of Michabou,
+Chiabo, Manabozo, Tarenyawagon, and Hiawatha. Mr. Schoolcraft gives an
+account of him in his <i>Algic Researches</i>, vol. i. p. 134; and in
+his <i>History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the
+United States</i>, Part iii. p. 314, may be found the Iroquois form of
+the tradition, derived from the verbal narrations of an Onondaga chief.</p>
+
+<p>Into this old tradition I have woven other curious Indian legends,
+drawn chiefly from the various and valuable writings of Mr.
+Schoolcraft, to whom the literary world is greatly indebted for his
+indefatigable zeal in rescuing from oblivion so much of the legendary
+lore of the Indians.</p>
+
+<p>The scene of the poem is among the Ojibways on the southern shore of
+Lake Superior, in the region between the Pictured Rocks and the Grand Sable.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1">VOCABULARY TO THE SONG OF HIAWATHA.</p>
+
+<ul class="index">
+<li class="isub2">Adjidau’mo, <i>the red squirrel</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Ahdeek’, <i>the reindeer</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Ahmeek’, <i>the beaver</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Algonquin, <i>Ojibway</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Annemee’kee, <i>the thunder</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Apuk’wa, <i>a bulrush</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Baim-wa’wa, <i>the sound of the thunder</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Bemah’gut, <i>the grape-vine</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Bena, <i>the pheasant</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Big-Sea-Water, <i>Lake Superior</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Bukadawin, <i>famine</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Cheemaun’, <i>a birch canoe</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Chetowaik’, <i>the plover</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Chibia’bos, <i>a musician</i>; <i>friend of Hiawatha</i>;</li>
+<li class="isub5"><i>ruler in the Land of Spirits</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Dahin’da, <i>the bull-frog</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Dush-kwo-ne’-she, <i>or</i> Kwo-ne’-she, <i>the dragon-fly</i>.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_616">[Pg 616]</span></li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Esa, <i>shame upon you</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Ewa-yea’, <i>lullaby</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Gitche Gu’mee, <i>the Big-Sea-Water, Lake Superior</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Gitche Man’ito, <i>the Great Spirit, the Master of Life</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Gushkewau’, <i>the darkness</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Hiawa’tha, <i>the Prophet, the Teacher</i>; <i>son of Mudjekeewis,</i></li>
+<li class="isub5"><i>the West-Wind, and Wenonah, daughter of Nokomis</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Ia’goo, <i>a great boaster and story-teller</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Inin’ewug, <i>men, or pawns in the Game of the Bowl</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Ishkoodah’, <i>fire, a comet</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Jee’bi, <i>a ghost, a spirit</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Joss’akeed, <i>a prophet</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Kabibonok’ka, <i>the North-Wind</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Ka’go, <i>do not</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Kagh, <i>the Hedgehog</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Kahgahgee’, <i>the raven</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Kaw, <i>no</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Kaween’, <i>no indeed</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Kayoshk’, <i>the sea-gull</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Keego, <i>a fish</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Keeway’din, <i>the North-west wind, the Home-wind</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Kena’beek, <i>a serpent</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Keneu’, <i>the great war-eagle</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Keno’zha, <i>the pickerel</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Ko’ko-ko’ho, <i>the owl</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Kuntasoo’, <i>the Game of Plum-stones</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Kwa’sind, <i>the Strong Man</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Kwo-ne’-she, <i>or</i> Dush-kwo-ne’-she, <i>the dragon-fly</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Mahnahbe’zee, <i>the swan</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Mahng, <i>the loon</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Mahn-go-tay’see, <i>loon-hearted, brave</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Mahnomo’nee, <i>wild rice</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Ma’ma, <i>the woodpecker</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Maskeno’zha, <i>the pike</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Me’da, a <i>medicine-man</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Meenah’ga, <i>the blueberry</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Megissog’won, <i>the Great Pearl-Feather, a magician, and the Manito</i></li>
+<li class="isub5"><i>of Wealth</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Meshinau’wa, <i>a pipe-bearer</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Minjekah’wun, <i>Hiawatha’s mittens</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Minneha’ha, <i>Laughing Water</i>; <i>a waterfall on a stream</i></li>
+<li class="isub5"><i>running into the Mississippi, between Fort Snelling</i></li>
+<li class="isub5"><i>and the Falls of St. Anthony</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Minneha’ha, <i>Laughing Water</i>; <i>wife of Hiawatha</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Minne-wa’wa, <i>a pleasant sound, as of the wind in the trees</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Mishe-Mo’kwa, <i>the Great Bear</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Mishe-Nah’ma, <i>the Great Sturgeon</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Miskodeed’, <i>the Spring-Beauty, the Claytonia Virginica</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Monda’min, <i>Indian corn</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Moon of Bright Nights, <i>April</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Moon of Leaves, <i>May</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Moon of Strawberries, <i>June</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Moon of the Falling Leaves, <i>September</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Moon of Snow-shoes, <i>November</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Mudjekee’wis, <i>the West-Wind</i>; <i>father of Hiawatha</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Mudway-aush’ka, <i>sound of waves on a shore</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Mushkoda’sa, <i>the grouse</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Nah’ma, <i>the sturgeon</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Nah’ma-wusk, <i>the spearmint</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Na’gow Wudjoo’, <i>the Sand Dunes of Lake Superior</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Nee-ba-naw’-baigs, <i>water-spirits</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Nenemoo’sha, <i>sweetheart</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Nepah’win, <i>sleep</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Noko’mis, <i>a grandmother</i>; <i>mother of Wenonah</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">No’sa, <i>my father</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Nush’ka, <i>look! look!</i></li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Odah’min, <i>the strawberry</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Okahah’wis, <i>the fresh-water herring</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Ome’me, <i>the pigeon</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Ona’gon, <i>a bowl</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Onaway’, <i>awake</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Opechee’, <i>the robin</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Osse’o, <i>Son of the Evening Star</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Owais’sa, <i>the blue-bird</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Oweenee’, <i>wife of Osseo</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Ozawa’beek, <i>a round piece of brass or copper in the</i></li>
+<li class="isub5"><i>Game of the Bowl</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Pah-puk-kee’-na, <i>the grasshopper</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Pau’guk, <i>death</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Pau-Puk-Kee’wis, <i>the handsome Yenadizze, the Storm-Fool</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Pawwa’ting, <i>Saut Sainte Marie</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Pe’boan, <i>Winter</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Pem’ican, <i>meat of the deer or buffalo dried and pounded</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Pezhekee’, <i>the bison</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Pishnekuh’, <i>the brant</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Pone’mah, <i>hereafter</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Pugasaing, <i>game of the bowl</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Puggawau’gun, <i>a war-club</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Puk-Wudj’ies, Puk-Wudj-In-in’ees, <i>little wild men of the</i></li>
+<li class="isub5"><i>woods</i>; <i>pigmies</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Sah-sah-je’-wun, <i>rapids</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Sah’wa, <i>the perch</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Segwun’, <i>Spring</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Sha’da, <i>the pelican</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Shahbo’min, <i>the gooseberry</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Shah-shah, <i>long ago</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Shaugoda’ya, <i>a coward</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Shawgashee’, <i>the craw-fish</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Shawonda’see, <i>the South-Wind</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Shaw-shaw, <i>the swallow</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Shesh’ebwug, <i>ducks</i>; <i>pieces in the Game of the Bowl</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Shin’gebis, <i>the diver, or greebe</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Showain’neme’shin, <i>pity me</i>.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_617">[Pg 617]</span></li>
+<li class="isub2">Shuh’shuh’gah, <i>the blue heron</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Soan-ge-ta’ha, <i>strong-hearted</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Subbeka’she, <i>the spider</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Sugge’ma, <i>the mosquito</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">To’tem, <i>family coat of arms</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Ugh, <i>yes</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Ugudwash’, <i>the sun-fish</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Unktahee’, <i>the God of Water</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Wabas’so, <i>the rabbit</i>; <i>the North</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Wabe’no, <i>a magician, a juggler</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Wabe’no-wusk, <i>yarrow</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Wa’bun, <i>the East-Wind</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Wa’bun An’nung, <i>the Star of the East, the Morning Star</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Wahono’min, <i>a cry of lamentation</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Wah-way-tay’see, <i>the fire-fly</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Wam’pum, <i>beads of shell</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Waubewy’on, <i>a white skin wrapper</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Wa’wa, <i>the wild-goose</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Waw’beek, <i>a rock</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Waw-be-wa’wa, <i>the white goose</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Wawonais’sa, <i>the whippoorwill</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Way-muk-kwa’na, <i>the caterpillar</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2">Weno’nah, <i>the eldest daughter</i>. <i>Hiawatha’s mother</i>;</li>
+<li class="isub5"><i>daughter of Nokomis</i>.</li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Yenadiz’ze, <i>an idler and gambler</i>; <i>an Indian dandy</i>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_255">Page 255</a>. <i>In the Vale of Tawasentha.</i></p>
+
+<p>This valley, now called Norman’s Kill, is in Albany County, New York.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_256">Page 256</a>. <i>On the mountains of the Prairie.</i></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Catlin, in his <i>Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and
+Condition of the North American Indians</i>, vol. ii. p. 160, gives
+an interesting account of the <i>Côteau des Prairies</i>, and the Red
+Pipe-stone Quarry. He says:—</p>
+
+<p>“Here (according to their traditions) happened the mysterious birth
+of the red pipe, which has blown its fumes of peace and war to the
+remotest corners of the continent; which has visited every warrior,
+and passed through its reddened stem the irrevocable oath of war and
+desolation. And here, also, the peace-breathing calamet was born, and
+fringed with the eagle’s quills, which has shed its thrilling fumes
+over the land, and soothed the fury of the relentless savage.</p>
+
+<p>“The Great Spirit at an ancient period here called the Indian Nations
+together, and, standing on the precipice of the red pipe-stone rock,
+broke from its wall a piece, and made a huge pipe by turning it in his
+hand, which he smoked over them, and to the North, the South, the East,
+and the West, and told them that this stone was red—that it was their
+flesh—that they must use it for their pipes of peace—that it belonged
+to them all, and that the war-club and scalping-knife must not be
+raised on its ground. At the last whiff of his pipe his head went into
+a great cloud, and the whole surface of the rock for several miles was
+melted and glazed; two great ovens were opened beneath, and two women
+(guardian spirits of the place) entered them in a blaze of fire; and
+they are heard there yet (Tso-mec-cos-tee and Tso-me-cos-te-won-dee),
+answering to the invocations of the high-priests or medicine men, who
+consult them when they are visitors to this sacred place.”</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_258">Page 258</a>. <i>Hark you, Bear! you are a coward.</i></p>
+
+<p>This anecdote is from Heckewelder. In his account of the <i>Indian
+Nations</i>, he describes an Indian hunter as addressing a bear in
+nearly these words. “I was present,” he says, “at the delivery of
+this curious invective; when the hunter had despatched the bear, I
+asked him how he thought that poor animal could understand what he
+said to it! ‘Oh,’ said he in answer, ‘the bear understood me very
+well; did you not observe how ashamed he looked while I was upbraiding
+him?’”—<i>Transactions of the American Philosophical Society</i>, vol.
+i. p. 240.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_262">Page 262</a>. <i>Hush! the Naked Bear will get thee!</i></p>
+
+<p>Heckewelder, in a letter published in the <i>Transactions of the
+American Philosophical Society</i>, vol. iv. p. 260, speaks of this
+tradition as prevalent among the Mohicans and Delawares.</p>
+
+<p>“Their reports,” he says, “run thus: that among all animals that had
+been formerly in this country, this was the most ferocious; that it was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_618">[Pg 618]</span>
+much larger than the largest of the common bears, and remarkably
+long-bodied; all over (except a spot of hair on its back of a white
+colour) naked....</p>
+
+<p>“The history of this animal used to be a subject of conversation among
+the Indians, especially when in the woods a-hunting. I have also heard
+them say to their children when crying: ‘Hush! the naked bear will hear
+you, be upon you, and devour you.’”</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_266">Page 266</a>. <i>Where the Falls of Minnehaha, etc.</i></p>
+
+<p>“The scenery about Fort Snelling is rich in beauty. The Falls of St.
+Anthony are familiar to travellers, and to readers of Indian sketches.
+Between the fort and these falls are the ‘Little Falls,’ forty feet
+in height, on a stream that empties into the Mississippi. The Indians
+call them Mine-hah-hah, or ‘laughing waters.’”—<span class="smcap">Mrs. Eastman’s</span>
+<i>Dacotah, or Legends of the Sioux</i>, Introd. p. ii.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_283">Page 283</a>. <i>Sand Hills of the Nagow Wudjoo.</i></p>
+
+<p>A description of the <i>Grand Sable</i>, or great sand-dunes of Lake
+Superior, is given in Foster and Witney’s <i>Report on the Geology of
+the Lake Superior Land District</i>, Part ii. p. 131.</p>
+
+<p>“The Grand Sable possesses a scenic interest little inferior to that
+of the Pictured Rocks. The explorer passes abruptly from a coast of
+consolidated sand to one of loose materials; and although in the one
+case the cliffs are less precipitous, yet in the other they attain a
+higher altitude. He sees before him a long reach of coast, resembling
+a vast sand-bank, more than three hundred and fifty feet in height,
+without a trace of vegetation. Ascending to the top, rounded hillocks
+of blown sand are observed, with occasional clumps of trees, standing
+out like oases in the desert.”</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_284">Page 284</a>. <i>Onaway! Awake, beloved!</i></p>
+
+<p>The original of this song may be found in Littell’s <i>Living Age</i>,
+vol. <span class="allsmcap">XXV.</span> p. 45.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_285">Page 285</a>. <i>Or the Red Swan floating, flying.</i></p>
+
+<p>The fanciful tradition of the Red Swan may be found in Schoolcraft’s
+<i>Algic Researches</i>, vol. ii. p. 9. Three brothers were hunting on
+a wager to see who would bring home the first game.</p>
+
+<p>“They were to shoot no other animal,” so the legend says, “but such as
+each was in the habit of killing. They set out different ways; Odjibwa,
+the youngest, had not gone far before he saw a bear, an animal he was
+not to kill by the agreement. He followed him close, and drove an arrow
+through him, which brought him to the ground. Although contrary to the
+bet, he immediately commenced skinning him, when suddenly something
+red tinged all the air around him. He rubbed his eyes, thinking he was
+perhaps deceived; but without effect, for the red hue continued. At
+length he heard a strange noise at a distance. It first appeared like
+a human voice, but after following the sound for some distance, he
+reached the shores of a lake, and soon saw the object he was looking
+for. At a distance out on the lake sat a most beautiful Red Swan, whose
+plumage glittered in the sun, and who would now and then make the same
+noise he had heard. He was within long bow-shot, and, pulling the arrow
+from the bow-string up to his ear, took deliberate aim and shot. The
+arrow took no effect; and he shot and shot again till his quiver was
+empty. Still the swan remained, moving round and round, stretching
+its long neck and dipping its bill into the water, as if heedless of
+the arrows shot at it. Odjibwa ran home, and got all his own and his
+brother’s arrows, and shot them all away. He then stood and gazed
+at the beautiful bird. While standing, he remembered his brother’s
+saying that in their deceased father’s medicine-sack were three magic
+arrows. Off he started, his anxiety to kill the swan overcoming all
+scruples. At any other time he would have deemed it sacrilege to open
+his father’s medicine-sack; but now he hastily seized the three arrows
+and ran back, leaving the other contents of the sack scattered over the
+lodge. The swan was still there. He shot the first arrow with great
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_619">[Pg 619]</span>
+precision, and came very near it. The second came still closer; as he
+took the last arrow, he felt his arm firmer, and, drawing it up with
+vigour, saw it pass through the neck of the swan a little above the
+breast. Still it did not prevent the bird from flying off, which it
+did, however, at first slowly, flapping its wings and rising gradually
+into the air, and then flying off towards the sinking of the sun.”—Pp. 10-12.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_288">Page 288</a>. <i>When I think of my beloved.</i></p>
+
+<p>The original of this song may be found in <i>Oneóta</i>, p. 15.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_289">Page 289</a>. <i>Sing the mysteries of Mondamin.</i></p>
+
+<p>The Indians hold the maize, or Indian corn, in great veneration. “They
+esteem it so important and divine a grain,” says Schoolcraft, “that
+their story-tellers invented various tales, in which this idea is
+symbolized under the form of a special gift from the Great Spirit. The
+Odjibwa-Algonquins, who called it Mondá-min, that is, the Spirit’s
+grain or berry, have a pretty story of this kind, in which the stalk in
+full tassel is represented as descending from the sky, under the guise
+of a handsome youth, in answer to the prayers of a young man at his
+fast of virility, or coming to manhood.</p>
+
+<p>“It is well known that corn-planting, and corn-gathering, at least
+among all the still <i>uncolonized</i> tribes, are left entirely to
+the females and children, and a few superannuated old men. It is not
+generally known, perhaps, that this labour is not compulsory, and that
+it is assumed by the females as a just equivalent, in their view, for
+the onerous and continuous labour of the other sex, in providing meats,
+and skins for clothing, by the chase, and in defending their villages
+against their enemies, and keeping intruders off their territories. A
+good Indian housewife deems this part of her prerogative, and prides
+herself to have a store of corn to exercise her hospitality, or duly
+honour her husband’s hospitality in the entertainment of the lodge
+guests.”—<i>Oneóta</i>, p. 82.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_289">Page 289</a>. <i>Thus the fields shall be more fruitful.</i></p>
+
+<p>“A singular proof of this belief, in both sexes, of the mysterious
+influence of the steps of a woman on the vegetable and insect creation,
+is found in an ancient custom, which was related to me, respecting
+corn-planting. It was the practice of the hunter’s wife, when the field
+of corn had been planted, to choose the first dark or over-clouded
+evening to perform a secret circuit, <i>sans habilement</i>, around the
+field. For this purpose she slipped out of the lodge in the evening,
+unobserved, to some obscure nook, where she completely disrobed. Then,
+taking her matchecota, or principal garment, in one hand, she dragged
+it around the field. This was thought to ensure a prolific crop, and
+to prevent the assaults of insects and worms upon the grain. It was
+supposed they could not creep over the charmed line.”—<i>Oneóta</i>,
+p. 83.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_290">Page 290</a>. <i>With his prisoner-string he bound him.</i></p>
+
+<p>“These cords,” says Mr. Tanner, “are made of the bark of the elm-tree,
+by boiling and then immersing it in cold water.... The leader of a war
+party commonly carries several fastened about his waist, and if, in
+the course of the fight, any one of his young men takes a prisoner, it
+is his duty to bring him immediately to the chief, to be tied, and the
+latter is responsible for his safe-keeping.”—<i>Narrative of Captivity
+and Adventures</i>, p. 412.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0"><a href="#Page_291">Page 291</a>. <i>Wagemin, the thief of corn-fields.</i></div>
+ <div class="verse indent10"><i>Paimosaid, the skulking robber.</i></div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>“If one of the young female huskers finds a red ear of corn, it is
+typical of a brave admirer, and is regarded as a fitting present to
+some young warrior. But if the ear be <i>crooked</i>, and tapering to
+a point, no matter what colour, the whole circle is set in a roar, and
+<i>wa-ge-min</i> is the word shouted aloud. It is the symbol of a thief
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_620">[Pg 620]</span>
+in the corn-field. It is considered as the image of an old man stooping
+as he enters the lot. Had the chisel of Praxiteles been employed to
+produce this image, it could not more vividly bring to the minds of the
+merry group the idea of a pilferer of their favourite mondámin....</p>
+
+<p>“The literal meaning of the term is, a mass, or crooked ear of grain;
+but the ear of corn so called, is a conventional type of a little old
+man pilfering ears of corn in a corn-field. It is in this manner that a
+single word or term, in these curious languages, becomes the fruitful
+parent of many ideas. And we can thus perceive why it is that the word
+wa-ge-min is alone competent to excite merriment in the husking circle.</p>
+
+<p>“This term is taken as the basis of the cereal chores, or corn-song, as
+sung by the Northern Algonquin tribes. It is coupled with the phrase
+<i>Paimosaid</i>, a permutative form of the Indian substantive, made
+from the verb <i>pimp-o-sa</i>, to walk. Its literal meaning is, <i>he
+who walks</i>, or <i>the walker</i>; but the ideas conveyed by it are,
+he who walks by night to pilfer corn. It offers, therefore, a kind of
+parallelism in expression to the preceding term.”—<i>Oneóta</i>, p. 254.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_296">Page 296</a>. <i>Pugasaing, with thirteen pieces.</i></p>
+
+<p>This game of the Bowl is the principal game of hazard among the
+Northern tribes of Indians. Mr. Schoolcraft gives a particular
+account of it in <i>Oneóta</i>, p. 85. “This game,” he says, “is very
+fascinating to some portions of the Indians. They stake at it their
+ornaments, weapons, clothing, canoes, horses, everything, in fact,
+they possess; and have been known, it is said, to set up their wives
+and children, and even to forfeit their own liberty. Of such desperate
+stakes I have seen no examples, nor do I think the game itself in
+common use. It is rather confined to certain persons, who hold the
+relative rank of gamblers in Indian society—men who are not noted as
+hunters or warriors, or steady providers for their families. Among
+these are persons who bear the term of <i>Ienadizze-wug</i>, that is,
+wanderers about the country, braggadocios, or fops. It can hardly
+be classed with the popular games of amusenent, by which skill and
+dexterity are acquired. I have generally found the chiefs and graver
+men of the tribes, who encouraged the young men to play ball, and are
+sure to be present at the customary sports, to witness, and sanction,
+and applaud them, speak lightly and disparagingly of this game of
+hazard. Yet it cannot be denied that some of the chiefs, distinguished
+in war and the chase, at the West, can be referred to as lending their
+example to its fascinating power.”</p>
+
+<p>See also his <i>History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian
+Tribes</i>, Part ii. p. 72.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_302">Page 302</a>. <i>To the Pictured Rocks of Sandstone.</i></p>
+
+<p>The reader will find a long description of the Pictured Rocks in Foster
+and Whitney’s <i>Report on the Geology of the Lake Superior Land
+District</i>, Part ii. p. 124. From this I make the following extract:—</p>
+
+<p>“The Pictured Rocks may be described, in general terms, as a series
+of sandstone bluffs extending along the shore of Lake Superior for
+about five miles, and rising in most places vertically from the
+water, without any beach at the base, to a height varying from fifty
+to nearly two hundred feet. Were they simply a line of cliffs, they
+might not, so far as relates to height or extent, be worthy of a rank
+among great natural curiosities, although such an assemblage of rocky
+strata, washed by the waves of the great lake, would not, under any
+circumstances, be destitute of grandeur. To the voyager coasting along
+their base in his frail canoe, they would at all times be an object
+of dread; the recoil of the surf, the rock-bound coast, affording for
+miles no place of refuge—the lowering sky, the rising wind—all these
+would excite his apprehension, and induce him to ply a vigorous oar
+until the dreaded wall was passed. But in the Pictured Rocks there are
+two features which communicate to the scenery a wonderful and almost
+unique character. These are, first, the curious manner in which the
+cliffs have been excavated and worn away by the action of the lake,
+which for centuries has dashed an ocean-like surf against their base;
+and second, the equally curious manner in which large portions of the
+surface have been coloured by bands of brilliant hues.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_621">[Pg 621]</span></p>
+
+<p>“It is from the latter circumstance that the name by which these cliffs
+are known to the American traveller is derived; while that applied
+to them by the French voyageurs (‘Les Portails’) is derived from the
+former, and by far the most striking peculiarity.</p>
+
+<p>“The term <i>Pictured Rocks</i> has been in use for a great length of
+time; but when it was first applied, we have been unable to discover.
+It would seem that the first travellers were more impressed with the
+novel and striking distribution of colours on the surface than with the
+astonishing variety of form into which the cliffs themselves have been
+worn....</p>
+
+<p>“Our voyageurs had many legends to relate of the pranks of the
+<i>Menni-bojou</i> in these caverns, and, in answer to our inquiries,
+seemed disposed to fabricate stories without end of the achievements of
+this Indian deity.”</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_311">Page 311</a>. <i>Towards the sun his hands were lifted.</i></p>
+
+<p>In this manner, and with such salutations, was Father Marquette
+received by the Illinois. See his <i>Voyages et Découvertes</i>, section v.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_434">Page 434</a>. <i>Like imperial Charlemagne.</i></p>
+
+<p>During his lifetime he did not disdain, says Montesquieu, “to sell the
+eggs from the farm-yards of his domains, and the superfluous vegetables
+of his gardens; while he distributed among his people the wealth of the
+Lombards and the immense treasures of the Huns.”</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_529">Page 529</a>. <i>Coplas de Manrique.</i></p>
+
+<p>Don Jorge Manrique, the author of this poem, flourished in the last
+half of the fifteenth century. He followed the profession of arms, and
+died on the field of battle. Mariana, in his history of Spain, makes
+honourable mention of him, as being present at the siege of Uclès; and
+speaks of him as “a youth of estimable qualities, who in this war gave
+brilliant proofs of his valour. He died young; and was thus cut off
+from long exercising his great virtues, and exhibiting to the world the
+light of his genius, which was already known to fame.” He was mortally
+wounded in a skirmish near Cañavete, in the year 1479.</p>
+
+<p>The name of Rodrigo Manrique, the father of the poet, Conde de Parades
+and Maestre de Santiago, is well known in Spanish history and song. He
+died in 1476; according to Mariana, in the town of Uclès; but according
+to the poem of his son, in Ocaña. It was his death that called forth
+the poem upon which rests the literary reputation of the younger
+Manrique. In the language of his historian, “Don Jorge Manrique, in an
+elegant Ode, full of poetic beauties, rich embellishments of genius,
+and high moral reflections, mourned the death of his father as with a
+funeral hymn.” This praise is not exaggerated. The poem is a model in
+its kind. Its conception is solemn and beautiful; and, in accordance
+with it, the style moves on—calm, dignified, and majestic.</p>
+
+<p>This poem of Manrique is a great favourite in Spain. No less than four
+poetic glosses, or running commentaries upon it, have been published,
+no one of which, however, possesses great poetic merit. That of the
+Carthusian monk, Rodrigo de Valdepenas, is the best. It is known as the
+<i>Glosa del Cartujo</i>. There is also a prose Commentary by Luis de Aranda.</p>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p>The following stanzas of the poem were found in the author’s pocket
+after his death on the field of battle:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O World! so few the years we live,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Would that the life which thou dost give</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Were life indeed!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Alas! thy sorrows fall so fast,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Our happiest hour is when at last</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">The soul is freed.</div>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_622">[Pg 622]</span>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Our days are covered o’er with grief,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And sorrows neither few nor brief</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Veil all in gloom;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Left desolate of real good,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Within this cheerless solitude</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">No pleasures bloom.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Thy pilgrimage begins in tears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">And ends in bitter doubts and fears,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Or dark despair;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Midway so many toils appear,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">That he who lingers longest here</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Knows most of care.</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Thy goods are bought with many a groan,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">By the hot sweat of toil alone,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">And weary hearts;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Fleet-footed is the approach of woe,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">But with a lingering step and slow</div>
+ <div class="verse indent5">Its form departs.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_546">Page 546</a>. <i>A Christmas Carol.</i></p>
+
+<p>The following description of Christmas in Burgundy is from M.
+Fertiault’s <i>Coup d’œil sur les Noels en Bourgogne</i>, prefixed
+to the Paris edition of <i>Les Noels Bourguignons de la Monnoye</i>
+(<i>Gui Barozai</i>), 1842:—</p>
+
+<p>“Every year, at the approach of Advent, people refresh their memories,
+clear their throats, and begin preluding, in the long evenings by
+the fireside, those carols whose invariable and eternal theme is the
+coming of the Messiah. They take from old closets, pamphlets, little
+collections begrimed with dust and smoke, to which the press, and
+sometimes the pen, has consigned these songs; and as soon as the first
+Sunday of Advent sounds, they gossip, they gad about, they sit together
+by the fireside, sometimes at one house, sometimes at another, taking
+turns in paying for the chestnuts and white wine, but singing with one
+common voice the grotesque praises of the <i>Little Jesus</i>. There
+are very few villages even, which, during all the evenings of Advent,
+do not hear some of these curious canticles shouted in their streets,
+to the nasal drone of bagpipes. In this case the minstrel comes as a
+reinforcement to the singers at the fireside; he brings and adds his
+dose of joy (spontaneous or mercenary, it matters little which) to the
+joy which breathes around the hearthstone; and when the voices vibrate
+and resound, one voice more is always welcome. There, it is not the
+purity of the notes which makes the concert, but the quantity—<i>non
+qualitas sed quantitas</i>; then (to finish at once with the
+ministrel), when the Saviour has at length been born in the manger, and
+the beautiful Christmas-eve is passed, the rustic piper makes his round
+among the houses, where every one compliments and thanks him, and,
+moreover, gives him in a small coin the price of the shrill notes with
+which he has enlivened the evening entertainments.</p>
+
+<p>“More or less, until Christmas-eve, all goes on in this way among our
+devout singers, with the difference of some gallons of wine or some
+hundreds of chestnuts. But this famous eve once come, the scale is
+pitched upon a higher key; the closing evening must be a memorable
+one. The toilet is begun at nightfall; then comes the hour of supper,
+admonishing divers appetites; and groups, as numerous as possible, are
+formed, to take together this comfortable evening repast. The supper
+finished, a circle gathers around the hearth, which is arranged and
+set in order this evening after a particular fashion, and which at a
+later hour of the night is to become the object of special interest to
+the children. On the burning brands an enormous log has been placed.
+This log assuredly does not change its nature, but it changes its name
+during this evening; it is called the <i>Suche</i> (the Yule-log).
+‘Look you,’ say they to the children, ‘if you are good this evening,
+Noël’ (for with children one must always personify) ‘will rain down
+sugar-plums in the night.’ And the children sit demurely, keeping as
+quiet as their turbulent little natures will permit. The groups of
+older persons, not always as orderly as the children, seize this good
+opportunity to surrender themselves with merry hearts and boisterous
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_623">[Pg 623]</span>
+voices to the chanted worship of the miraculous Noël. For this final
+solemnity they have kept the most powerful, the most enthusiastic, the
+most electrifying carols. Noël! Noël! Noël! This magic word resounds on
+all sides; it seasons every sauce; it is served up with every course.
+Of the thousands of canticles which are heard on this famous eve,
+ninety-nine in a hundred begin and end with this word; which is, one
+may say, their Alpha and Omega, their crown and footstool.”</p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_546">Page 546</a>. <i>The blind girl of Castèl-Cuillè.</i></p>
+
+<p>The following description of Jasmin’s person and way of life is taken
+from the graphic pages of <i>Béarn and the Pyrenees</i>, by Louisa
+Stuart Costello, whose charming pen has done so much to illustrate the
+French provinces and their literature:—</p>
+
+<p>“At the entrance of the promenade du Gravier is a row of small
+houses—some <i>cafés</i>, others shops, the indication of which is a
+painted cloth, placed across the way, with the owner’s name in bright
+gold letters, in the manner of the arcades in the streets, and their
+announcements. One of the most glaring of these was, we observed, a
+bright blue flag, bordered with gold; on which, in large gold letters,
+appeared the name of ‘Jasmin, coiffeur.’ We entered, and were welcomed
+by a smiling, dark-eyed woman, who informed us that her husband was
+busy at that moment, dressing a customer’s hair, but he was desirous to
+receive us, and begged we would walk into his parlour at the back of
+the shop.</p>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p>“She exhibited to us a laurel crown of gold, of delicate workmanship,
+sent from the city of Clemence Isaure, Toulouse, to the poet; who will
+probably one day take his place in the <i>capitoul</i>. Next came a
+golden cup, with an inscription in his honour, given by the citizens of
+Auch; a gold watch, chain, and seals, sent by the king, Louis Philippe;
+an emerald ring, worn and presented by the lamented Duke of Orleans; a
+pearl pin, by the graceful Duchess, who, on the poet’s visit to Paris,
+accompanied by his son, received him in the words he puts into the
+mouth of Henri Quatre:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">‘Brabes Gascous!</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">A moun amou per bous aou dibes creyre;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Benès! benès! cy plazé de bous beyre;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent10">Aproucha bous!’</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>A fine service of linen, the offering of the town of Pau, after its
+citizens had given fêtes in his honour, and loaded him with caresses
+and praises; and nicknacks and jewels of all descriptions, offered
+to him by lady-ambassadresses and great lords; English ‘misses’ and
+‘miladis;’ and French and foreigners of all nations who did or did not
+understand Gascon.</p>
+
+<p>“All this, though startling, was not convincing; Jasmin, the barber,
+might only be a fashion, a <i>furore</i>, a caprice, after all; and
+it was evident that he knew how to get up a scene well. When we had
+become nearly tired of looking over these tributes to his genius, the
+door opened, and the poet himself appeared. His manner was free and
+unembarrassed, well-bred, and lively; he received our compliments
+naturally, and like one accustomed to homage; said he was ill, and
+unfortunately too hoarse to read anything to us, or should have been
+delighted to do so. He spoke with a broad Gascon accent, and very
+rapidly and eloquently; ran over the story of his successes; told us
+that his grandfather had been a beggar, and all his family very poor;
+that he was now as rich as he wished to be; his son placed in a good
+position at Nantes; then showed us his son’s picture, and spoke of his
+disposition, to which his brisk little wife added that, though no fool,
+he had not his father’s genius, to which truth Jasmin assented as a
+matter of course. I told him of having seen mention made of him in an
+English review; which he said had been sent him by Lord Durham, who
+had paid him a visit: and I then spoke of ‘Mi cal mouri’ as known to
+me. This was enough to make him forget his hoarseness and every other
+evil: it would never do for me to imagine that that little song was his
+best composition; it was merely his first; he must try to read to me a
+little of ‘L’Abuglo,’ a few verses of ‘Françonnette.’ ‘You
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_624">[Pg 624]</span>
+will be charmed,’ said he; ‘but if I were well, and you would give me
+the pleasure of your company for some time, if you were not merely
+running through Agen, I would kill you with weeping—I would make you
+die with distress for my poor Margarido—my pretty Françonnette!’</p>
+
+<p>“He caught up two copies of his book from a pile lying on the table,
+and making us sit close to him, he pointed out the French translation
+on one side, which he told us to follow, while he read in Gascon.
+He began in a rich soft voice, and as he advanced, the surprise of
+Hamlet on hearing the player-king recite the disasters of Hecuba was
+but a type of ours, to find ourselves carried away by the spell of
+his enthusiasm. His eyes swam in tears; he became pale and red; he
+trembled; he recovered himself; his face was now joyous, now exulting,
+gay, jocose; in fact, he was twenty actors in one; he rang the changes
+from Rachel to Bouffé; and he finished by delighting us, besides
+beguiling us of our tears, and overwhelming us with astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>“He would have been a treasure on the stage; for he is still, though
+his first youth is past, remarkably good-looking and striking; with
+black, sparkling eyes of intense expression; a fine ruddy complexion;
+a countenance of wondrous mobility; a good figure, and action full of
+fire and grace; he has handsome hands, which he uses with infinite
+effect; and, on the whole, he is the best actor of the kind I ever
+saw. I could now quite understand what a troubadour or <i>jongleur</i>
+might be, and I look upon Jasmin as a revived specimen of that extinct
+race. Such as he is might have been Gaucelm Faidit, of Avignon, the
+friend of Cœur de Lion, who lamented the death of the hero in such
+moving strains; such might have been Bernard de Ventadour, who sang the
+praises of Queen Elinore’s beauty; such Geoffrey Rudel, of Blaye, on
+his own Garonne; such the wild Vidal; certain it is that none of these
+troubadours of old could more move, by their singing or reciting, than
+Jasmin, in whom all their long-smothered fire and traditional magic
+seem re-illumined.</p>
+
+<p>“We found we had stayed hours instead of minutes with the poet; but he
+would not hear of any apology—only regretted that his voice was so out
+of tune, in consequence of a violent cold, under which he was really
+labouring, and hoped to see us again. He told us our countrywomen of
+Pau had laden him with kindness and attention, and spoke with such
+enthusiasm of the beauty of certain ‘misses,’ that I feared his little
+wife would feel somewhat piqued; but, on the contrary, she stood by,
+smiling and happy, and enjoying the stories of his triumphs. I remarked
+that he had restored the poetry of the troubadours; asked him if he
+knew their songs; and said he was worthy to stand at their head. ‘I
+am, indeed, a troubadour,’ said he with energy; ‘but I am far beyond
+them all; they were but beginners; they never composed a poem like
+my Françonnette! there are no poets in France now—there cannot be;
+the language does not admit of it; where is the fire, the spirit, the
+expression, the tenderness, the force of the Gascon? French is but the
+ladder to reach the first floor of Gascon—how can you get up to a
+height except by a ladder?’</p>
+
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<p>“I returned by Agen, after an absence in the Pyrenees of some months,
+and renewed my acquaintance with Jasmin and his dark-eyed wife. I did
+not expect that I should be recognised; but the moment I entered the
+little shop I was hailed as an old friend. ‘Ah!’ cried Jasmin, ‘enfin
+la violà encore!’ I could not but be flattered by this recollection,
+but soon found it was less on my own account that I was thus welcomed,
+than because a circumstance had occurred to the poet which he thought
+I could perhaps explain. He produced several French newspapers, in
+which he pointed out to me an article headed, ‘Jasmin à Londres;’ being
+a translation of certain notices of himself, which had appeared in a
+leading English literary journal. He had, he said, been informed of the
+honour done him by numerous friends, and assured me his fame had been
+much spread by this means; and he was so delighted on the occasion,
+that he had resolved to learn English, in order that he might judge of
+the translations from his works, which, he had been told, were well
+done. I enjoyed his surprise, while I informed him I knew who was the
+reviewer and translator; and explained the reason for the verses giving
+pleasure in an English dress to be the superior simplicity of the
+English language over modern French, for which he has a great contempt,
+as unfitted for lyrical composition. He inquired of me respecting
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_625">[Pg 625]</span>
+Burns, to whom he had been likened; and begged me to tell him something
+of Moore. The delight of himself and his wife was amusing, at having
+discovered a secret which had puzzled them so long.</p>
+
+<p>“He had a thousand things to tell me; in particular, that he had only
+the day before received a letter from the Duchess of Orleans, informing
+him that she had ordered a medal of her late husband to be struck, the
+first of which would be sent to him: she also announced to him the
+agreeable news of the king having granted him a pension of a thousand
+francs. He smiled and wept by turns, as he told all this; and declared,
+much as he was elated at the possession of a sum which made him a rich
+man for life, the kindness of the duchess gratified him even more.</p>
+
+<p>“He then made us sit down while he read us two new poems; both charming
+and full of grace and <i>naïveté</i>; and one very affecting, being an
+address to the king, alluding to the death of his son. As he read, his
+wife stood by, and, fearing we did not quite comprehend his language,
+she made a remark to that effect: to which he answered, impatiently,
+‘Nonsense—don’t you see they are in tears?’ This was unanswerable;
+and we were allowed to hear the poem to the end; and I certainly never
+listened to anything more feelingly and energetically delivered.</p>
+
+<p>“We had much conversation, for he was anxious to detain us, and, in
+the course of it, he told me that he had been by some accused of
+vanity. ‘O,’ he rejoined, ‘what would you have? I am a child of nature,
+and cannot conceal my feelings; the only difference between me and
+a man of refinement is, that he knows how to conceal his vanity and
+exultation at success, which I let everybody see.’”—<i>Béarn and the
+Pyrenees</i>, i. 369 <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center spa1"><a href="#Page_600">Page 600</a>. <i>Nils Juel.</i></p>
+
+<p class="spb2">Nils Juel was a celebrated Danish Admiral, and Peder Wessel a
+Vice-Admiral, who for his great prowess received the popular title of
+Tordenskiold, or <i>Thundershield</i>. In childhood he was a tailor’s
+apprentice, and rose to his higher rank before the age of twenty-eight,
+when he was killed in a duel.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_626">[Pg 626]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illo_13.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="201" >
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_627">[Pg 627]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">INDEX OF FIRST LINES.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<ul class="index">
+<li class="isub15">PAGE</li>
+<li class="isub2">A blind man is a poor man, <a href="#Page_589">589</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">A cold, uninterrupted rain, <a href="#Page_392">392</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">A fleet with flags arrayed, <a href="#Page_492">492</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">A handful of red sand, from the hot clime, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">A little bird in the air, <a href="#Page_374">374</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">A millstone and the human heart, <a href="#Page_589">589</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">A mist was driving down the British Channel, <a href="#Page_462">462</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">A strain of music closed the tale, <a href="#Page_380">380</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">A wind came up out of the sea, <a href="#Page_475">475</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">A youth, light-hearted and content, <a href="#Page_598">598</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">After a day of cloud and wind and rain, <a href="#Page_447">447</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Again the tossing boughs shut out the scene, <a href="#Page_446">446</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Ah Love, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">All are architects of Fate, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">All day has the battle raged, <a href="#Page_378">378</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">All houses wherein men have lived and died, <a href="#Page_463">463</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">All praised the Legend more or less, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">All the old gods are dead, <a href="#Page_369">369</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Am I a king, that I should call my own, <a href="#Page_500">500</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">An angel with a radiant face, <a href="#Page_559">559</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">An old man in a lodge within a park, <a href="#Page_441">441</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">And King Olaf heard the cry, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">And now, behold! as at the approach of morning, <a href="#Page_538">538</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">And now I sit and muse on what may be, <a href="#Page_445">445</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">And then the blue-eyed Norseman told, <a href="#Page_358">358</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">And thou, O River of To-morrow, flowing, <a href="#Page_440">440</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Annie of Tharaw, my true love of old, <a href="#Page_586">586</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">As a fond mother when the day is o’er, <a href="#Page_438">438</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">As one who walking in a forest sees, <a href="#Page_445">445</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">As one who, walking in the twilight gloom, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">As the birds come in the spring, <a href="#Page_504">504</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">As the dim twilight shrouds, <a href="#Page_525">525</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">As unto the bow the cord is, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">At anchor in Hampton Roads we lay, <a href="#Page_482">482</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">At Atri in Abruzzo, a small town, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">At Drontheim, Olaf the king, <a href="#Page_371">371</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">At Stralsund, by the Baltic Sea, <a href="#Page_403">403</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">At the foot of the mountain height, <a href="#Page_561">561</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Baron Castine of St. Castine, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Beautiful lily, dwelling by still rivers, <a href="#Page_425">425</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Beautiful valley through whose verdant meads, <a href="#Page_485">485</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Behold! a giant am I!, <a href="#Page_509">509</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Bell! thou soundest merrily, <a href="#Page_594">594</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Bent like a labouring oar, that toils in the surf of the ocean, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Beside the ungathered rice he lay, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Between the dark and the daylight, <a href="#Page_481">481</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Beware! the Israelite of old, who tore, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Black are the moors before Kazan, <a href="#Page_605">605</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Black shadows fall, <a href="#Page_460">460</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Blind Bartimeus at the gates, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Build me straight, O worthy master, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Burn, O evening hearth, and waken, <a href="#Page_429">429</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">But yesterday these few and hoary sheaves, <a href="#Page_537">537</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">By his evening fire the artist, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">By the shore of Gitche Gumee, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">By yon still river, where the wave, <a href="#Page_525">525</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Can it be the sun descending, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Christ to the young man said, “Yet one thing more”, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Clear fount of light, my native land on high, <a href="#Page_536">536</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Come! old friend! sit down and listen, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Come to me, O ye children, <a href="#Page_478">478</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Dark is the morning with mist, <a href="#Page_508">508</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Dead he lay among his books, <a href="#Page_506">506</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Dear child! how radiant on thy mother’s knee, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Dost thou see on the rampart’s height, <a href="#Page_494">494</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Down from yon distant mountain height, <a href="#Page_605">605</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Downward through the evening twilight, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Even as a bird, ’mid the belovèd leaves, <a href="#Page_541">541</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Even as the Blessèd, at the final summons, <a href="#Page_540">540</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Far and wide among the nations, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Far in the West there lies a desert land, where the mountains, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Filled is Life’s goblet to the brim, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">For thee was a house built, <a href="#Page_571">571</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Forms of saints and kings are standing, <a href="#Page_585">585</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Forth from the curtain of clouds, from the tent of purple and scarlet, <a href="#Page_335">335</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Forth upon the Gitche Gumee, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Four limpid lakes—four Naiades, <a href="#Page_502">502</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Four times the sun had risen and set; and now on the fifth day, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">From this high portal, where upsprings, <a href="#Page_570">570</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Full of wrath was Hiawatha, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Garlands upon his grave, <a href="#Page_485">485</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Gentle Spring!—in sunshine clad, <a href="#Page_553">553</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Give me of your bark, O Birch-Tree, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Gloomy and dark art thou, O chief of the mighty Omahas, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">God sent his messenger the rain, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">God sent his Singers upon earth, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Good night, good night, beloved, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_628">[Pg 628]</span></li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Hadst thou stayed, I must have fled, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Hast thou seen that lordly castle?, <a href="#Page_595">595</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Hasten, hasten, O ye spirits, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Have I dreamed? or was it real, <a href="#Page_479">479</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Have you read in the Talmud of old, <a href="#Page_479">479</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">He ended: and a kind of spell, <a href="#Page_353">353</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">He is dead, the beautiful youth, <a href="#Page_430">430</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">He is gone to the desert land, <a href="#Page_603">603</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Hence away, begone, begone, <a href="#Page_554">554</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Here in a little rustic hermitage, <a href="#Page_441">441</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Here lies the gentle humourist, who died, <a href="#Page_438">438</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Here rest the weary oar!—soft airs, <a href="#Page_524">524</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Honour be to Mudjekeewis!, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">How beautiful is the rain!, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">How beautiful it was that one bright day, <a href="#Page_427">427</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">How cold are thy baths, Apollo!, <a href="#Page_508">508</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">How I started up in the night, in the night, <a href="#Page_599">599</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">How many lives, made beautiful and sweet, <a href="#Page_434">434</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">How much of my young heart, O Spain, <a href="#Page_493">493</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">How strange it seems! these Hebrews in their graves, <a href="#Page_467">467</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers, <a href="#Page_436">436</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">How they so softly rest, <a href="#Page_594">594</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">I am the God Thor, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I enter, and I see thee in the gloom, <a href="#Page_436">436</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I have read, in some old marvellous tale, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I hear along our street, <a href="#Page_560">560</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I heard a brooklet gushing, <a href="#Page_593">593</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I heard a voice that cried, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I heard the bells on Christmas Day, <a href="#Page_432">432</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I heard the trailing garments of the night, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I know a maiden fair to see, <a href="#Page_594">594</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I lay upon the headland height, and listened, <a href="#Page_426">426</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I leave you, ye cold mountain chains, <a href="#Page_570">570</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze, <a href="#Page_437">437</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I sat by my window one night, <a href="#Page_527">527</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I saw, as in a dream sublime, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I see amidst the fields of Ayr, <a href="#Page_505">505</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I shot an arrow into the air, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I stand again on the familiar shore, <a href="#Page_444">444</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I stand beneath the tree, whose branches shade, <a href="#Page_441">441</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I stood on the bridge at midnight, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I stood upon the hills, when heaven’s wide arch, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I thought before your tale began, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I thought this pen would arise, <a href="#Page_504">504</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">I trust that somewhere and somehow, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">If it e’er happen that the Poem Sacred, <a href="#Page_548">548</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">If perhaps these rhymes of mine, <a href="#Page_589">589</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">If thou art sleeping, maiden, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In broad daylight, and at noon, <a href="#Page_470">470</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In dark fens of the Dismal Swamp, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In his chamber, weak and dying, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In his lodge beside a river, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In Mather’s <i>Magnalia Christi</i>, <a href="#Page_461">461</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In Ocean’s wide domains, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In St. Luke’s Gospel we are told, <a href="#Page_503">503</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In that building, long and low, <a href="#Page_472">472</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware’s waters, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In the ancient town of Bruges, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In the convent of Drontheim, <a href="#Page_379">379</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In the heroic days when Ferdinand, <a href="#Page_381">381</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In the old churchyard of his native town, <a href="#Page_500">500</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In the valley of the Pegintz, where across broad meadow-lands, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In the Valley of the Vire, <a href="#Page_466">466</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In the village churchyard she lies, <a href="#Page_465">465</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In those days, said Hiawatha, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">In those days the Evil Spirits, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Intelligence and courtesy are not always combined, <a href="#Page_589">589</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Into the city of Kambalu, <a href="#Page_397">397</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Into the darkness and the hush of night, <a href="#Page_442">442</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Into the open air John Alden, perplexed, <a href="#Page_322">322</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Into the Silent Land, <a href="#Page_590">590</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Is it so far from thee, <a href="#Page_501">501</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">It was Einar Tamberskelver, <a href="#Page_378">378</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">It was fifty years ago, <a href="#Page_476">476</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">It was Sir Christopher Gardiner, <a href="#Page_421">421</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">It was the month of May. Far down the beautiful River, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">It was the schooner <i>Hesperus</i>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">It was the season, when through all the land, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Italy! Italy! thou who’rt doomed to wear, <a href="#Page_552">552</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Joy and Temperance and Repose, <a href="#Page_588">588</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Just above yon sandy bar, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Just in the grey of the dawn as the mists uprose from the meadows, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">King Christian stood by the lofty mast, <a href="#Page_599">599</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Labour with what zeal we will, <a href="#Page_483">483</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Laugh of the mountain!—lyre of bird and tree!, <a href="#Page_535">535</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Leafless are the trees; their purple branches, <a href="#Page_473">473</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Let nothing disturb thee, <a href="#Page_535">535</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Like two cathedral towers these stately pines, <a href="#Page_443">443</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Listen, my children, and you shall hear, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Live I, so live I, <a href="#Page_589">589</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Lo! in the painted oriel of the West, <a href="#Page_435">435</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Longing already to search in and round, <a href="#Page_539">539</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Lord, what am I, that with unceasing care, <a href="#Page_536">536</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Loud he sang the Psalm of David, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Loud the angry wind was wailing, <a href="#Page_370">370</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Loudly the sailors cheered, <a href="#Page_375">375</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart of mine, <a href="#Page_554">554</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Lutheran, Popish, Calvinistic, <a href="#Page_589">589</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Maiden! with the meek, brown eyes, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Manlike is it to fall into sin, <a href="#Page_589">589</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Many a weary year had passed since the burning of Grand-Pré, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Meanwhile the stalwart Miles Standish was marching steadily northward, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Month after month passed away, and in Autumn the ships of the merchants, <a href="#Page_333">333</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Most beautiful, most gentle! Yet how lost, <a href="#Page_522">522</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Mounted on Kyrat strong and fleet, <a href="#Page_495">495</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Much it behoveth, <a href="#Page_573">573</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">My soul its secret hath, my life too hath its mystery, <a href="#Page_569">569</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">My way is on the bright blue sea, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_629">[Pg 629]</span></li>
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Near to the bank of the river, o’ershadowed by oaks, from whose branches, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Never stoops the soaring vulture, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Night rests in beauty on Mont Alto, <a href="#Page_520">520</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Nine sisters, beautiful in form and face, <a href="#Page_439">439</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">No sound of wheels or hoof-beat breaks, <a href="#Page_484">484</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Northward over Drontheim, <a href="#Page_374">374</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen of the stripling, <a href="#Page_316">316</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Now from all King Olaf’s farms, <a href="#Page_363">363</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Now had the season returned, when the nights grow colder and longer, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Now Time throws off his cloak again, <a href="#Page_555">555</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">“<i>Nunc plaudite</i>” the Student cried, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">O Cæsar, we who are about to die, <a href="#Page_447">447</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">O company elect to the Great Supper, <a href="#Page_544">544</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">O curfew of the setting Sun! O Bells of Lynn, <a href="#Page_428">428</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">O gift of God! O perfect day, <a href="#Page_480">480</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">O hemlock-tree! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches, <a href="#Page_586">586</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">O, how blest are ye whose toils are ended, <a href="#Page_591">591</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">O let the soul her slumbers break, <a href="#Page_529">529</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">O little feet! that such long years, <a href="#Page_483">483</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">O Lord! that seest, from yonder starry height, <a href="#Page_536">536</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">O lovely river of Yvette!, <a href="#Page_498">498</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">O precious evenings! all too swiftly sped, <a href="#Page_437">437</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">O River of Yesterday, with current swift, <a href="#Page_440">440</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">O star of morning and of liberty, <a href="#Page_437">437</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">O the long and dreary Winter!, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">O traveller, stay thy weary feet, <a href="#Page_515">515</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">O weathercock on the village spire, <a href="#Page_508">508</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">O’er all the hill-tops, <a href="#Page_595">595</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Of Edenhall the youthful lord, <a href="#Page_597">597</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Of Prometheus, how undaunted, <a href="#Page_459">459</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Oft have I seen at some cathedral door, <a href="#Page_436">436</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Often I think of the beautiful town, <a href="#Page_470">470</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Olaf the King, one summer morn, <a href="#Page_366">366</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Olger the Dane and Desiderio, <a href="#Page_423">423</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">On King Olaf’s bridal night, <a href="#Page_368">368</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">On St. Bavon’s tower, commanding, <a href="#Page_499">499</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">On sunny slope and beechen swell, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">On the cross the dying Saviour, <a href="#Page_588">588</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">On the green little isle of Inchkenneth, <a href="#Page_499">499</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">On the grey sea-sands, <a href="#Page_376">376</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">On the Mountains of the Prairie, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">On the shores of Gitche Gumee, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Once into a quiet village, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Once more, once more, Inarimé, <a href="#Page_491">491</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Once the Emperor Charles of Spain, <a href="#Page_464">464</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Once upon Iceland’s solitary strand, <a href="#Page_444">444</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">One Autumn night, in Sudbury town, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">One day, Haroun Al Raschid read, <a href="#Page_496">496</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">One hundred years ago, and something more, <a href="#Page_406">406</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">One summer morning when the sun was hot, <a href="#Page_345">345</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Only the Lowland tongue of Scotland might, <a href="#Page_560">560</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Othere, the old sea-captain, <a href="#Page_477">477</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Our God a tower of strength is he, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Out of childhood into manhood, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Out of the bosom of the Air, <a href="#Page_484">484</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Pentecost, day of rejoicing, had come, <a href="#Page_577">577</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Pleasant it was, when woods were green, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Pleasantly rose next morn the sun on the village of Grand-Pré, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Poet! I come to touch thy lance with mine, <a href="#Page_443">443</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Quand les astres de Noël, <a href="#Page_431">431</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Queen Sigrid the Haughty sat proud and aloft, <a href="#Page_361">361</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Rabbi Ben Levi, on the Sabbath, read, <a href="#Page_352">352</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">River! that in silence windest, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Round Autumn’s mouldering urn, <a href="#Page_519">519</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Safe at anchor in Drontheim Bay, <a href="#Page_373">373</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Saint Augustine! well hast thou said, <a href="#Page_460">460</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">St. Botolph’s Town! Hither across the plains, <a href="#Page_442">442</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">See, the fire is sinking low, <a href="#Page_429">429</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">She dwells by great Kenhawa’s side, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Shepherd! who with thine amorous, sylvan song, <a href="#Page_535">535</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Short of stature, large of limb, <a href="#Page_368">368</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Should you ask me, whence these stories?, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Simon Danz has come home again, <a href="#Page_488">488</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Sing! O song of Hiawatha, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Sir Oluf he rideth over the plain, <a href="#Page_600">600</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest, <a href="#Page_513">513</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Slowly the hour-hand of the clock moves round, <a href="#Page_439">439</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">So the strong will prevailed, and Alden went on his errand, <a href="#Page_318">318</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Solemnly, mournfully, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Somewhat back from the village street, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Soon as the story reached its end, <a href="#Page_351">351</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Southward with fleet of ice, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Spake full well, in language quaint and olden, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Speak! speak! thou fearful guest, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Spring is coming, birds are twittering, <a href="#Page_574">574</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Stars of the summer night, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest, <a href="#Page_492">492</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Steer, bold mariner, on! albeit witlings deride thee, <a href="#Page_606">606</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Still through Egypt’s desert places, <a href="#Page_512">512</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">“Strike the sails!” King Olaf said, <a href="#Page_377">377</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Sweet babe! true portrait of thy father’s face, <a href="#Page_553">553</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Sweet the memory is to me, <a href="#Page_487">487</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Taddeo Gaddi built me. I am old, <a href="#Page_551">551</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Take them, O Death! and bear away, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Tell me not, in mournful numbers, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The Ages come and go, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The archbishop, whom God loved in high degree, <a href="#Page_556">556</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The battle is fought and won, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The ceaseless rain is falling fast, <a href="#Page_490">490</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The day is cold, and dark, and dreary, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The day is done, and the darkness, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The day is ending, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The guests were loud, the ale was strong, <a href="#Page_364">364</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The hour was late; the fire burned low, <a href="#Page_392">392</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The Landlord ended thus his tale, <a href="#Page_344">344</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The lights are out, and gone are all the guests, <a href="#Page_445">445</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The meadow-brook, that seemeth to stand still, <a href="#Page_446">446</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The night is come, but not too soon, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The old house by the lindens, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The pages of thy book I read, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The picture fades; as at a village fair, <a href="#Page_445">445</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The rising moon has hid the stars, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The rivers rush into the sea, <a href="#Page_592">592</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The rocky ledge runs far into the sea, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>
+ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_630">[Pg 630]</span></li>
+<li class="isub2">The sea hath its pearls, <a href="#Page_590">590</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The shades of night were falling fast, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The Slaver in the broad lagoon, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The sun is bright, the air is clear, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The tide rises, the tide falls, <a href="#Page_511">511</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The twilight is sad and cloudy, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">The works of human artifice soon tire, <a href="#Page_537">537</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">There is a quiet spirit in these woods, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">There is a Reaper, whose name is Death, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">There is no flock, however watched and tended, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">There sat one day in quiet, <a href="#Page_593">593</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">There was a time when I was very small, <a href="#Page_602">602</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">These words the poet heard in Paradise, <a href="#Page_517">517</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">They made the warrior’s grave beside, <a href="#Page_526">526</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">This is the place. Stand still, my steed, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">This song of mine, <a href="#Page_474">474</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Thora of Rimol! hide me! hide me, <a href="#Page_360">360</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Thorberg Skafting, master-builder, <a href="#Page_372">372</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Thou ancient oak! whose myriad leaves are loud, <a href="#Page_438">438</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain, <a href="#Page_434">434</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Thou mighty Prince of Church and State, <a href="#Page_557">557</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Thou Royal River, born of sun and shower, <a href="#Page_443">443</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Thou that from the heaven’s art, <a href="#Page_595">595</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Though the mills of God grind slowly, <a href="#Page_589">589</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Three Kings came riding from far away, <a href="#Page_496">496</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Three miles extended around the fields of the homestead; on three sides, <a href="#Page_573">573</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Three Silences there are; the first of speech, <a href="#Page_442">442</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Thus closed the tale of guilt and gloom, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Thus for a while he stood, and mused by the shore of the ocean, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Thus sang the Potter at his task, <a href="#Page_454">454</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Thus then, much care-worn, <a href="#Page_571">571</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">’Tis late at night, and in the realm of sleep, <a href="#Page_435">435</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">To gallop off to town post-haste, <a href="#Page_555">555</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">To noble heart Love doth for shelter fly, <a href="#Page_552">552</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Turn, turn, my wheel! Turn round and round, <a href="#Page_454">454</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Tuscan, that wanderest through the realms of gloom, <a href="#Page_435">435</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">’Twas Pentecost, the Feast of Gladness, <a href="#Page_595">595</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Two angels, one of Life and one of Death, <a href="#Page_465">465</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Two good friends had Hiawatha, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Under a spreading chestnut-tree, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Under Mount Etna he lies, <a href="#Page_481">481</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Under the walls of Monterey, <a href="#Page_469">469</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Until we meet again! That is the meaning, <a href="#Page_510">510</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Up soared the lark into the air, <a href="#Page_489">489</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Viswamitra the magician, <a href="#Page_496">496</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Vogelweid the Minnesinger, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Warm and still is the summer night, <a href="#Page_491">491</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">We sat within the farm-house old, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Welcome, my old friend, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Welcome, O Stork! that dost wing, <a href="#Page_604">604</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Well pleased the audience heard the tale, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">What an image of peace and rest, <a href="#Page_507">507</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">What phantom is this, that appears, <a href="#Page_503">503</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">What say the Bells of San Blas, <a href="#Page_516">516</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">What was the end? I am ashamed, <a href="#Page_402">402</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">When by night the frogs are croaking, <a href="#Page_589">589</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">When descends on the Atlantic, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">When first in ancient time from Jubal’s tongue, <a href="#Page_518">518</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">When Mazáran, the magician, <a href="#Page_498">498</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">When the dying flame of day, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">When the hours of Day are numbered, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">When the long murmur of applause, <a href="#Page_406">406</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">When the summer harvest was gathered in, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">When the warm sun, that brings, <a href="#Page_1">1</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">When winter winds are piercing chill, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Whene’er a noble deed is wrought, <a href="#Page_476">476</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Where, from the eye of day, <a href="#Page_528">528</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Whereunto is money good?, <a href="#Page_588">588</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Whilom Love was like a fire, <a href="#Page_589">589</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">White swan of cities, slumbering in thy nest, <a href="#Page_439">439</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Whither, thou turbid wave, <a href="#Page_591">591</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Who love would seek, <a href="#Page_596">596</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Why dost thou wildly rush and roar, <a href="#Page_514">514</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Will then, du Perrier, thy sorrow be eternal, <a href="#Page_558">558</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">With favouring winds, o’er sunlit seas, <a href="#Page_511">511</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">With what a glory comes and goes the year, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Witlaf, a king of the Saxons, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+
+<li class="isub2 ifrst">Ye voices, that arose, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Yes, the Year is growing old, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Yes, well your story pleads the cause, <a href="#Page_396">396</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">Yet not in vain. O River of Yesterday, <a href="#Page_440">440</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">You shall hear how Hiawatha, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
+<li class="isub2">You were not at the play to-night, Don Carlos, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="f120 spa2 spb2">THE END.</p>
+
+<p class="f90 spb2">MORRISON AND GIBB, EDINBURGH,<br>
+PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><p class="f150"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_1_1" href="#FNanchor_1_1" class="label">[1]</a>
+In Scandinavia this is the customary salutation when drinking a health.
+I have slightly changed the orthography of the word, in order to
+preserve the correct pronunciation.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_2_2" href="#FNanchor_2_2" class="label">[2]</a>
+The title of “Foresters of Flanders” was given by the
+French kings to those governors whom they appointed.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_3_3" href="#FNanchor_3_3" class="label">[3]</a>
+Who stole the daughter of Charles the Bald from the French
+court, and married her at Bruges.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_4_4" href="#FNanchor_4_4" class="label">[4]</a>
+Lyderick du Bucq was the first governor of Flanders in the
+reign of Clotaire <span class="allsmcap">II.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_5_5" href="#FNanchor_5_5" class="label">[5]</a>
+Succeeding Foresters who took the title of Count.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_6_6" href="#FNanchor_6_6" class="label">[6]</a>
+Archduke of Austria.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_7_7" href="#FNanchor_7_7" class="label">[7]</a>
+The daughter of Charles the Bold, who succeeded him as
+Duchess of Burgundy and Countess of Flanders, 1471.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_8_8" href="#FNanchor_8_8" class="label">[8]</a>
+<a href="#Page_607">See long notes in Appendix</a>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_9_9" href="#FNanchor_9_9" class="label">[9]</a>
+Fought, 11th of July 1302, between the French and Flemings. The flower
+of the French nobility perished in it; and it was named from the number
+of golden spurs found on the field of battle. Seven hundred were hung
+up in the church of Notre-Dame du Courtray.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_10_10" href="#FNanchor_10_10" class="label">[10]</a>
+The battle at Minnewater was fought with the citizens of Ghent, who
+wished to prevent the Flemings from opening a canal there. The White
+Hoods were a military body of Ghent.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_11_11" href="#FNanchor_11_11" class="label">[11]</a>
+The Golden Dragon was taken from Bruges to Antwerp by Philip von
+Artevelot. It came originally from the Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_12_12" href="#FNanchor_12_12" class="label">[12]</a>
+On the alarm-bell of Bruges is inscribed: “My name is Roland; when
+I toll, there is fire; when I ring, there is victory in the land.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_13_13" href="#FNanchor_13_13" class="label">[13]</a>
+An ancient proverb of the town ran thus:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Nürnberg’s Hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Geht durch alle Land.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Nuremberg’s hand</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Goes through every land.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_14_14" href="#FNanchor_14_14" class="label">[14]</a>
+Melchior Pfinzing, one of the celebrated German poets of the sixteenth
+century. The hero of his <i>Tenerdank</i> was the reigning Emperor
+Maximilian (Mary of Burgundy’s former husband); the poem was to the
+Germans of that age what the <i>Orlando Furioso</i> was to the Italians.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_15_15" href="#FNanchor_15_15" class="label">[15]</a>
+The tomb of St. Sebald in this church is one of the richest works of
+art in Nuremberg. It was cast in bronze by Peter Vischer and his sons,
+who laboured on it for thirteen years. It is adorned with nearly a
+hundred figures, among which are the Twelve Apostles.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_16_16" href="#FNanchor_16_16" class="label">[16]</a>
+He flourished in the sixteenth century, and left behind him 208
+plays, 1700 comic tales, and four or five thousand lyric poems. The
+Twelve Wise Masters was the title of the original corporation of the
+Master-singers. Hans Sachs, the cobbler of Nuremberg, though not one
+of the original Twelve, was the most renowned of the Master-singers,
+as well as the most voluminous. He left thirty-four folio volumes of
+manuscript containing the above number of plays, tales, and lyric poetry.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_17_17" href="#FNanchor_17_17" class="label">[17]</a>
+Adam Puschman, in his poem on the death of Hans Sachs,
+describes him as he appeared in a vision:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent10">“An old man,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Grey and white, and dove-like,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Who had, in sooth, a great beard;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">And read in a fair great book,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Beautiful with golden clasps.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_18_18" href="#FNanchor_18_18" class="label">[18]</a>
+Walter von der Vogelweid, or Bird-Meadow, was one of the principal
+Minnesingers of the thirteenth century. He triumphed over Heinrich
+von Ofterdingen in that poetic contest at Wartburg Castle, known in
+literary history as the “War of Wartburg.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_19_19" href="#FNanchor_19_19" class="label">[19]</a>
+The allusion is to a Spanish epigram. <a href="#Page_607">See Appendix</a>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_20_20" href="#FNanchor_20_20" class="label">[20]</a>
+<i>Busné</i> is the name given by the Gipsies to all who
+are not of their race.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_21_21" href="#FNanchor_21_21" class="label">[21]</a>
+The Gipsies call themselves Calés. See Burrow’s valuable and extremely
+interesting work, <i>The Zincali; or, An Account of the Gipsies in Spain</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_22_22" href="#FNanchor_22_22" class="label">[22]</a>
+A line from the ancient Poema del Cid.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_23_23" href="#FNanchor_23_23" class="label">[23]</a>
+The expression is from Dante. <a href="#Page_607">See Appendix</a>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_24_24" href="#FNanchor_24_24" class="label">[24]</a>
+A common Spanish proverb, used to turn aside a question
+one does not wish to answer.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_25_25" href="#FNanchor_25_25" class="label">[25]</a>
+<a href="#Page_607">See Appendix</a>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_26_26" href="#FNanchor_26_26" class="label">[26]</a>
+See the ancient Ballads of El Infante Venjador and Calaynos.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_27_27" href="#FNanchor_27_27" class="label">[27]</a>
+<a href="#Page_607">See Appendix</a>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_28_28" href="#FNanchor_28_28" class="label">[28]</a>
+The Gipsy words in this scene may be thus interpreted:—</p>
+
+<ul class="index">
+<li class="isub2"><i>John-Dorados</i>, pieces of gold.</li>
+<li class="isub2"><i>Pigeon</i>, a simpleton.</li>
+<li class="isub2"><i>In your morocco</i>, stripped.</li>
+<li class="isub2"><i>Doves</i>, sheets.</li>
+<li class="isub2"><i>Moon</i>, a shirt.</li>
+<li class="isub2"><i>Chirelin</i>, a thief.</li>
+<li class="isub2"><i>Murcigalleros</i>, those who steal at nightfall.</li>
+<li class="isub2"><i>Rastilleros</i>, footpads.</li>
+<li class="isub2"><i>Hermit</i>, highway robber.</li>
+<li class="isub2"><i>Planets</i>, candles.</li>
+<li class="isub2"><i>Commandments</i>, the fingers.</li>
+<li class="isub2"><i>Saint Martin asleep</i>, to rob a person asleep.</li>
+<li class="isub2"><i>Lanterns</i>, eyes.</li>
+<li class="isub2"><i>Goblin</i>, police officer.</li>
+<li class="isub2"><i>Papagayo</i>, a spy.</li>
+<li class="isub2"><i>Vineyards and Dancing John</i>, to take flight.</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_29_29" href="#FNanchor_29_29" class="label">[29]</a>
+I wish to anticipate a criticism on this passage by stating, that
+sometimes, though not usually, vessels are launched fully rigged and
+sparred. I have availed myself of the exception, as better suited to
+my purposes than the general rule; but the reader will see that it is
+neither a blunder nor a poetic licence. On this subject a friend in
+Portland, Maine, writes me thus:—</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>“In this State, and also, as I am told, in New York, ships are
+sometimes rigged upon the stocks, in order to save time, or to make a
+show. There was a fine, large ship launched last summer at Ellsworth,
+fully rigged and sparred. Some years ago a ship was launched here, with
+her rigging, spars, sails, and cargo aboard. She sailed the next day,
+and—was never heard of again. I hope this will not be the fate of your poem!”</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_30_30" href="#FNanchor_30_30" class="label">[30]</a>
+Suggested by one seen by the poet at Devereux Farm, Marblehead.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_31_31" href="#FNanchor_31_31" class="label">[31]</a>
+“When the wind abated and the vessels were near enough, the Admiral was
+seen constantly sitting in the stern, with a book in his hand. On the
+9th of September he was seen for the last time, and was heard by the
+people of the Hind to say, ‘We are as near heaven by sea as by land.’
+In the following night the lights of the ship suddenly disappeared.
+The people in the other vessel kept a good look-out for him during the
+remainder of the voyage. On the 22d of September they arrived, through
+much tempest and peril, at Falmouth. But nothing more was seen or heard
+of the Admiral.”—Belknap’s <i>American Biography</i>, i. 203.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_32_32" href="#FNanchor_32_32" class="label">[32]</a>
+ See Lockhart’s <i>Spanish Ballads</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_33_33" href="#FNanchor_33_33" class="label">[33]</a>
+One of the curious mediæval rites was the christening and
+anointing of bells. <a href="#Page_607">See Appendix</a>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_34_34" href="#FNanchor_34_34" class="label">[34]</a>
+The cup was marked with wooden pegs at fixed distances, and it was
+usual for each carouser to drink only to the next pin or peg, that all
+might share alike.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_35_35" href="#FNanchor_35_35" class="label">[35]</a>
+<a href="#Page_607">See Appendix</a>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_36_36" href="#FNanchor_36_36" class="label">[36]</a>
+<a href="#Page_607">See Appendix</a>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_37_37" href="#FNanchor_37_37" class="label">[37]</a>
+A singular chapter in the history of the Middle Ages is that which
+gives account of the early Christian Drama, the Mysteries, Moralities,
+and Miracle-Plays, which were at first performed in churches, and
+afterwards in the streets, on fixed or moveable stages. For the most
+part the Mysteries were founded on the historic portions of the Old
+and New Testaments, and the Miracle-Plays on the lives of saints;
+a distinction not always observed, however, for in Mr. Wright’s
+<i>Early Mysteries and other Latin Poems of the Twelfth and Thirteenth
+Centuries</i>, the Resurrection of Lazarus is called a Miracle, and not
+a Mystery. The Moralities were plays, in which the Virtues and Vices
+were personified. <a href="#Page_607">See Appendix</a>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_38_38" href="#FNanchor_38_38" class="label">[38]</a>
+<a href="#Page_607">See Appendix</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_39_39" href="#FNanchor_39_39" class="label">[39]</a>
+<a href="#Page_607">See Appendix</a>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_40_40" href="#FNanchor_40_40" class="label">[40]</a>
+The vocabulary will be found in the Appendix with the notes, but
+the English word is generally beside the Indian.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_41_41" href="#FNanchor_41_41" class="label">[41]</a>
+A red ear was an augury that she would have a brave lover.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_42_42" href="#FNanchor_42_42" class="label">[42]</a>
+A crooked ear was the symbol of a thief in the corn-field.
+<a href="#Page_607">See Appendix</a>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_43_43" href="#FNanchor_43_43" class="label">[43]</a>
+<a href="#Page_607">See Appendix</a>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_44_44" href="#FNanchor_44_44" class="label">[44]</a>
+The Wayside Inn is the old Red House at Sudbury, Mass.; the
+story-tellers are guests that used to gather there. The old house still
+stands; the old names still live in the memory of the living, Luigi
+Monti, the Sicilian; Henry Wales, the student; Ole Bull, the musician;
+Theophilus Parsons, the poet; Edrehi, a Boston oriental dealer, the
+merchant; Professor Treadwell, an amateur doctor of theology, the
+theologian; Lyman Howe, the innkeeper.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_45_45" href="#FNanchor_45_45" class="label">[45]</a>
+Charlemagne may be called by pre-eminence the monarch of farmers.
+According to the German tradition, in seasons of great abundance his
+spirit crosses the Rhine on a golden bridge at Bingen, and blesses the
+corn-fields and the vineyards.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_46_46" href="#FNanchor_46_46" class="label">[46]</a>
+Richard Henry Dana.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_47_47" href="#FNanchor_47_47" class="label">[47]</a>
+The words of St. Augustine are, “De vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus,
+si vitia ipsa calcamus.”—Sermon iii. <i>De Ascensione</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_48_48" href="#FNanchor_48_48" class="label">[48]</a>
+A detailed account of this “apparition of a Ship in the Air” is given
+by Cotton Mather in his <i>Magnalia Christi</i>, book i. ch. vi. It
+is contained in a letter from the Rev. James Pierpont, Pastor of New
+Haven. To this account, Mather adds these words:—</p>
+
+<p>“Reader, there being yet living so many credible gentlemen, that were
+eye-witnesses of this wonderful thing, I venture to publish it for a
+thing as undoubted as ’tis wonderful.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_49_49" href="#FNanchor_49_49" class="label">[49]</a>
+The Duke of Wellington, written in memory of his death.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_50_50" href="#FNanchor_50_50" class="label">[50]</a>
+<i>Macho</i> is Spanish for <i>mule</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_51_51" href="#FNanchor_51_51" class="label">[51]</a>
+<i>Golondrina</i>, a swallow. It is also a cant word for a deserter.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_52_52" href="#FNanchor_52_52" class="label">[52]</a>
+A child was born to Longfellow the same night that his friend Mr.
+Lowell’s wife died; he commemorates both events in this poem.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_53_53" href="#FNanchor_53_53" class="label">[53]</a>
+Oliver Basselin, the “<i>Père joyeux du Vaudeville</i>,” flourished
+in the fifteenth century, and gave to his convivial songs the name of
+his native valleys, in which he sang them, Vaux-de-Vire. This name was
+afterwards corrupted into the modern <i>Vaudeville</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_54_54" href="#FNanchor_54_54" class="label">[54]</a>
+This poem is founded on fact. Victor Galbraith was a
+bugler in a company of volunteer cavalry; and was shot in Mexico for
+some breach of discipline. It is a common superstition among soldiers,
+that no balls will kill them unless their names are written on them.
+The old proverb says, “Every bullet has its billet.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_55_55" href="#FNanchor_55_55" class="label">[55]</a>
+This was the engagement between the <i>Enterprise</i> and <i>Boxer</i>,
+off the harbour of Portland, in which both Captains were slain. They
+were buried side by side in the cemetery on Mountjoy.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_56_56" href="#FNanchor_56_56" class="label">[56]</a>
+“At Pisa the Church of San Francisco contains a chapel dedicated
+lately to Santa Filomena; over the altar is a picture, by Sabatelli,
+representing the saint as a beautiful nymph-like figure, floating
+down from heaven, attended by two angels bearing the lily, palm, and
+javelin, and beneath, in the foreground, the sick and maimed, who are
+healed by her intercession.”—<span class="smcap">Mrs. Jameson</span>,
+<i>Sacred and Legendary Art</i>, ii. 298.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_57_57" href="#FNanchor_57_57" class="label">[57]</a>
+James Russell Lowell.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_58_58" href="#FNanchor_58_58" class="label">[58]</a>
+The White Czar is Peter the Great. Batyushka (<i>Father dear</i>) and
+Gosudar (<i>Sovereign</i>) are titles the Russian people are fond of
+giving to the Czar in their popular songs.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_59_59" href="#FNanchor_59_59" class="label">[59]</a>
+Bayard Taylor published <i>Eastern Poems</i>, <i>El Dorado</i>,
+<i>Life and Landscapes from Egypt</i>, <i>Japan, India, and
+China</i>, etc.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_60_60" href="#FNanchor_60_60" class="label">[60]</a>
+Written in memory of the Poet’s long-time friend and publisher,
+Mr. James T. Fields.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_61_61" href="#FNanchor_61_61" class="label">[61]</a>
+This was the last poem published in the Poet’s lifetime; he corrected
+the proof only two or three days before his death.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_62_62" href="#FNanchor_62_62" class="label">[62]</a>
+This poem, the last penned by the poet, bears date March 15, 1882.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_63_63" href="#FNanchor_63_63" class="label">[63]</a>
+Theodoric.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_64_64" href="#FNanchor_64_64" class="label">[64]</a>
+Don Jorge Manrique lived in the last half of the fifteenth
+century. He was a soldier, and died on the field of battle.
+<a href="#Page_607">See Appendix</a>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_65_65" href="#FNanchor_65_65" class="label">[65]</a>
+The Poet’s father; he died 1476.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_66_66" href="#FNanchor_66_66" class="label">[66]</a>
+Under the meridian, or at noon, the shadows being shorter,
+move slower, and therefore the sun seems less in haste.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_67_67" href="#FNanchor_67_67" class="label">[67]</a>
+By the beneficent influences of the stars.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_68_68" href="#FNanchor_68_68" class="label">[68]</a>
+The old belief that the stars were fed by the light of the sun.
+So Milton:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Hither, as to their fountain, other stars</div>
+ <div class="verse indent0">Repair, and in their golden urns draw light.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Here the stars are souls, the sun is Christ.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_69_69" href="#FNanchor_69_69" class="label">[69]</a>
+Beatrice speaks.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_70_70" href="#FNanchor_70_70" class="label">[70]</a>
+The rose is the Virgin Mary, <i>Rosa Mundi, Rosa mystica</i>;
+the lilies are the Apostles and other saints.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_71_71" href="#FNanchor_71_71" class="label">[71]</a>
+The struggle between his eyes and the light.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_72_72" href="#FNanchor_72_72" class="label">[72]</a>
+Christ reascends, that Dante’s dazzled eyes, too feeble to bear the
+light of his presence, may behold the splendours around him.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_73_73" href="#FNanchor_73_73" class="label">[73]</a>
+The greater fire is the Virgin Mary, greater than any of those
+remaining. She is the living star, surpassing in brightness all other
+saints in heaven, as she did here on earth; <i>Stella Maris, Stella Matutina</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_74_74" href="#FNanchor_74_74" class="label">[74]</a>
+The Angel Gabriel, or Angelic Love.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_75_75" href="#FNanchor_75_75" class="label">[75]</a>
+Sapphire is the colour in which the old painters arrayed the Virgin.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_76_76" href="#FNanchor_76_76" class="label">[76]</a>
+Christ, the Desire of the nations.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_77_77" href="#FNanchor_77_77" class="label">[77]</a>
+The regal mantle of all the volumes, or rolling orbs, of the world is
+the crystalline heaven, or <i>Primum Mobile</i>, which enfolds all the
+others like a mantle.</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_78_78" href="#FNanchor_78_78" class="label">[78]</a>
+The Virgin ascends to her Son.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_79_79" href="#FNanchor_79_79" class="label">[79]</a>
+Easter hymn to the Virgin.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_80_80" href="#FNanchor_80_80" class="label">[80]</a>
+Caring not for gold in the Babylonian exile of this life,
+they laid up treasures in the other.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_81_81" href="#FNanchor_81_81" class="label">[81]</a>
+St. Peter, keeper of the keys, with the holy men of the
+Old and New Testament.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_82_82" href="#FNanchor_82_82" class="label">[82]</a>
+Hunger and thirst after things divine.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_83_83" href="#FNanchor_83_83" class="label">[83]</a>
+The Grace of God.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_84_84" href="#FNanchor_84_84" class="label">[84]</a>
+The carol was a dance as well as a song.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_85_85" href="#FNanchor_85_85" class="label">[85]</a>
+St. Peter thrice encircles Beatrice, as the Angel Gabriel
+did the Virgin Mary in the preceding canto.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_86_86" href="#FNanchor_86_86" class="label">[86]</a>
+Too glaring for painting such delicate draperies of song.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_87_87" href="#FNanchor_87_87" class="label">[87]</a>
+St. Peter speaks to Beatrice.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_88_88" href="#FNanchor_88_88" class="label">[88]</a>
+Fixed upon God, in whom are all things reflected.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_89_89" href="#FNanchor_89_89" class="label">[89]</a>
+St. Peter speaks to Dante.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_90_90" href="#FNanchor_90_90" class="label">[90]</a>
+The great Head of the Church.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_91_91" href="#FNanchor_91_91" class="label">[91]</a>
+In the Scholastic Philosophy the essence of a thing,
+distinguishing it from all other things, was called its Quiddity; an
+answer to the question, <i>Quid est?</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_92_92" href="#FNanchor_92_92" class="label">[92]</a>
+The Old and New Testaments.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_93_93" href="#FNanchor_93_93" class="label">[93]</a>
+In the Middle Ages earthly titles were sometimes given to
+the saints. Thus Boccaccio speaks of Baron Messer San Antonio.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_94_94" href="#FNanchor_94_94" class="label">[94]</a>
+St. John xx. 3-8. St. John was the first to reach the
+sepulchre, but St. Peter the first to enter it.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_95_95" href="#FNanchor_95_95" class="label">[95]</a>
+St. Peter and the other Apostles, after Pentecost.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_96_96" href="#FNanchor_96_96" class="label">[96]</a>
+This “Divina Commedia,” in which human science or Philosophy
+is symbolized in Virgil, and divine science or Theology in Beatrice.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_97_97" href="#FNanchor_97_97" class="label">[97]</a>
+“Fiorenza la Bella,” Florence the Fair. In one of his canzoni Dante says:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“O mountain song of mine, thou goest thy way;</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Florence my town thou shalt perchance behold,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Which bars me from itself,</div>
+ <div class="verse indent1">Devoid of love and naked of compassion.”</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_98_98" href="#FNanchor_98_98" class="label">[98]</a>
+This allusion to the Church of San Giovanni: “Il mio bel San Giovanni,”
+as Dante calls it elsewhere (Inf. xix. 17), is a fitting prelude to
+the canto in which St. John is to appear. Like the “laughing of the
+grass” in canto xxx. 77, it is a foreshadowing preface, <i>ombrifero
+prefazio</i> of what follows.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_99_99" href="#FNanchor_99_99" class="label">[99]</a>
+St. James. Pilgrimages were made to his tomb at Compostella, in Galicia.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_100_100" href="#FNanchor_100_100" class="label">[100]</a>
+The general epistle of St. James, called the Epistola Cattolica, i.
+17: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh
+down from the Father of Lights.” Our Basilica; the Church Triumphant, Paradise.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_101_101" href="#FNanchor_101_101" class="label">[101]</a>
+Peter, James, and John, representing the three theological virtues,
+Faith, Hope, and Charity, and distinguished above the other Apostles by
+clearer manifestations of their Master’s favour.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_102_102" href="#FNanchor_102_102" class="label">[102]</a>
+St. James speaks.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_103_103" href="#FNanchor_103_103" class="label">[103]</a>
+“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.”—Psalm cxxi. I.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_104_104" href="#FNanchor_104_104" class="label">[104]</a>
+The three Apostles, luminous above him overwhelming him with light.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_105_105" href="#FNanchor_105_105" class="label">[105]</a>
+The most august spirits of the celestial city.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_106_106" href="#FNanchor_106_106" class="label">[106]</a>
+Beatrice.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_107_107" href="#FNanchor_107_107" class="label">[107]</a>
+In God,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“Where everything beholds itself depicted.”</div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">Canto xxiv. 42.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_108_108" href="#FNanchor_108_108" class="label">[108]</a>
+To come from earth to heaven.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_109_109" href="#FNanchor_109_109" class="label">[109]</a>
+“Say what it is,” and “whence it cometh to thee.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_110_110" href="#FNanchor_110_110" class="label">[110]</a>
+“<i>Est spes certa expectatio futuræ beatitudinis, veniens ex Dei
+gratia et meritis præcedentibus.</i>” Petrus Lombardus, <i>Magister Sententiarum</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_111_111" href="#FNanchor_111_111" class="label">[111]</a>
+The Psalmist David.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_112_112" href="#FNanchor_112_112" class="label">[112]</a>
+The Book of Psalms or songs of God:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <div class="verse indent0">“And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee.”</div>
+ <div class="verse indent46">Psalm ix. 10.</div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_113_113" href="#FNanchor_113_113" class="label">[113]</a>
+Your rain: that is, of David and yourself.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_114_114" href="#FNanchor_114_114" class="label">[114]</a>
+“The mark of the high calling and election sure.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_115_115" href="#FNanchor_115_115" class="label">[115]</a>
+The twofold garments are the glorified spirit and the glorified body.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_116_116" href="#FNanchor_116_116" class="label">[116]</a>
+St. John in the Apocalypse, vii. 9: “A great multitude,
+which no man could number ... clothed with white robes.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_117_117" href="#FNanchor_117_117" class="label">[117]</a>
+Dances and songs commingled; the circling choirs, the celestial choristers.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_118_118" href="#FNanchor_118_118" class="label">[118]</a>
+St. John the Evangelist.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_119_119" href="#FNanchor_119_119" class="label">[119]</a>
+In winter the constellation Cancer rises at sunset; and if it had one
+star as bright as this, it would turn night into day.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_120_120" href="#FNanchor_120_120" class="label">[120]</a>
+Such as vanity, ostentation, or the like.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_121_121" href="#FNanchor_121_121" class="label">[121]</a>
+St. Peter and St. James are joined by St. John.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_122_122" href="#FNanchor_122_122" class="label">[122]</a>
+Christ.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_123_123" href="#FNanchor_123_123" class="label">[123]</a>
+Then saith he to that disciple, “Behold thy mother! and from that hour
+that disciple took her unto his own house.”—St. John xix. 27.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_124_124" href="#FNanchor_124_124" class="label">[124]</a>
+St. John.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_125_125" href="#FNanchor_125_125" class="label">[125]</a>
+“If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_126_126" href="#FNanchor_126_126" class="label">[126]</a>
+Till the predestined number of the elect is complete.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_127_127" href="#FNanchor_127_127" class="label">[127]</a>
+The two garments: the glorified spirit, and the glorified body.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_128_128" href="#FNanchor_128_128" class="label">[128]</a>
+The two lights: Christ and the Virgin Mary.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_129_129" href="#FNanchor_129_129" class="label">[129]</a>
+Carry back these tidings.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_130_130" href="#FNanchor_130_130" class="label">[130]</a>
+The sacred trio of St. Peter, St. James, and St. John.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_131_131" href="#FNanchor_131_131" class="label">[131]</a>
+Fatal.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_132_132" href="#FNanchor_132_132" class="label">[132]</a>
+The Baker of Nismes.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_133_133" href="#FNanchor_133_133" class="label">[133]</a>
+The Feast of the Tabernacles; in Swedish, <i>Löfhyddohögtiden</i>, the
+Leaf-huts’-high-tide.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_134_134" href="#FNanchor_134_134" class="label">[134]</a>
+The Peasant-painter of Sweden. He is known chiefly by his
+altar-pieces in the village churches.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_135_135" href="#FNanchor_135_135" class="label">[135]</a>
+A distinguished pulpit-orator and poet. He is particularly
+remarkable for the beauty and sublimity of his psalms.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+</div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78406 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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