By this golden ring ye see on this lifted hand pardie,'

Toll slowly.

'If this hour, on castle wall can be room for steed from stall, Shall be also room for me.

'So the sweet saints with me be,' (did she utter solemnly),

Toll slowly.

'If a man, this eventide, on this castle wall will ride. He shall ride the same with me.'

Oh, he sprang up in the selle and he laughed out bitter-well,

Toll slowly.

'Wouldst thou ride among the leaves, as we used on other eves,

To hear, chime a vesper-bell ?'

She clung closer to his knee-' Ay, beneath the cypress tree!'

Toll slowly.

'Mock me not, for otherwhere than along the greenwood fair Have I ridden fast with thee.

Fast I rode with new-made vows from my angry kinsman's house :'

Toll slowly.

'What, and would you men should reck that I dared more for love's sake

As a bride than as a spouse?

U

What, and would you it should fall, as a proverb, before all,'

Toll slowly.

'That a bride may keep your side while through castle-gate you ride,

Yet eschew the castle-wall ?'

Ho! the breach yawns into ruin and roars up against her suing,

Toll slowly.

With the inarticulate din and the dreadful falling in-
Shrieks of doing and undoing.

Twice he wrung her hands in twain, but the small hands closed again.

Toll slowly.

Back he reined the steed-back, back! but she trailed along his track

With a frantic clasp and strain.

Evermore the foemen pour through the crash of window and door,

Toll slowly.

And the shouts of Leigh and Leigh, and the shrieks of 'kill!' and 'flee!'

Strike up clear amid the roar.

Thrice he wrung her hands in twain, but they closed and clung again,

Toll slowly.

While she clung, as one, withstood, clasps a Christ upon the

rood,

In a spasm of deathly pain.

She clung wild and she clung mute with her shuddering lips

half-shut;

Toll slowly.

Her head fallen as half in swound, hair and knee swept on the ground,

She clung wild to stirrup and foot.

Back he reined his steed back-thrown on the slippery coping

stone;

Toll slowly.

Back the iron hoofs did grind on the battlement behind
Whence a hundred feet went down :

And his heel did press and goad on the quivering flank bestrode,

Toll slowly.

'Friends and brothers, save my wife! Pardon, Sweet, in change for life,

But I ride alone to God.'

Straight as if the holy name had upbreathed her like a flame,

Toll slowly.

She upsprang, she rose upright, in his selle she sat in sight, By her love she overcame.

And her head was on his breast where she smiled as one at rest,

Toll slowly.

'Ring,' she cried, 'O vesper-bell in the beechwood's old chapelle,

But the passing-bell rings best!'

They have caught out at the rein which Sir Guy threw loose

in vain,

Toll slowly.

For the horse in stark despair, with his front hoofs poised in air, On the last verge rears amain.

Now he hangs, he rocks between, and his nostrils curdle in,

Toll slowly.

Now he shivers head and hoof, and the flakes of foam fall off, And his face grows fierce and thin:

And a look of human woe from his staring eyes did go,
Toll slowly.

And a sharp cry uttered he, in a foretold agony
Of the headlong death below,-

And, 'Ring, ring, thou passing-bell,' still she cried, ''i the old chapelle !'

Toll slowly.

Then back-toppling, crashing back—a dead weight flung out to

wrack,

Horse and riders overfell.

E. B. Browning.

THE FIGHT BETWEEN FATHER AND SON.

(Sohrab and Rustum.)

HE spoke, and Rustum answered not, but hurled
His spear; down from the shoulder, down it came,
As on some partridge in the corn a hawk

That long has towered in the airy clouds
Drops like a plummet; Sohrab saw it come,
And sprang aside, quick as a flash; the spear
Hissed, and went quivering down into the sand,
Which it sent flying wide;-then Sohrab threw
In turn, and full struck Rustum's shield; sharp rang,
The iron plates rang sharp, but turned the spear.
And Rustum seized his club, which none but he
Could wield; an unlopped trunk it was, and huge,
Still rough-like those which men in treeless plains
To build them boats fish from the flooded rivers,
Hyphasis or Hydaspes, when, high up

By their dark springs, the wind in winter-time
Hath made in Himalayan forests wrack,

And strewn the channels with torn boughs-so huge
The club which Rustum lifted now, and struck
One stroke; but again Sohrab sprang aside,
Lithe as the glancing snake, and the club came
Thundering to earth, and leapt from Rustum's hand.
And Rustum followed his own blow, and fell

To his knees, and with his fingers clutched the sand;
And now might Sohrab have unsheathed his sword,
And pierced the mighty Rustum while he lay
Dizzy, and on his knees, and choked with sand;