And in course of time the Curate learns
A secret so dreadful, that by turns
He is ice and fire, he freezes and burns.
The Baron at confession hath said,
That though this woman be his wife,
He hath wed her as the Indians wed,
He hath bought her for a gun and a knife!
And the Curate replies: "O profligate,
O Prodigal Son! return once more
To the open arms and the open door
Of the Church, or ever it be too late.
Thank God, thy father did not live
To see what he could not forgive;
On thee, so reckless and perverse,
He left his blessing, not his curse.
But the nearer the dawn the darker the
night,

And by going wrong all things come right;
Things have been mended that were worse,
And the worse, the nearer they are to
mend.

For the sake of the living and the dead, Thou shalt be wed as Christians wed, And all things come to a happy end."

In yon blue sky, serene and pure,
And pourest thine impartial light
Alike on mountain and on moor,
Pause for a moment in thy course,
And bless the bridegroom and the bride!
O Gave, that from thy hidden source
In yon mysterious mountain-side
Pursuest thy wandering way alone,
And leaping down its steps of stone,
Along the meadow-lands demure
Stealest away to the Adour,
Pause for a moment in thy course
To bless the bridegroom and the bride!

The choir is singing the matin song,
The doors of the church are opened wide,
The people crowd, and press, and throng
To see the bridegroom and the bride.
They enter and pass along the nave;
They stand upon the father's grave;
The bells are ringing soft and slow;
The living above and the dead below
Give their blessing on one and twain ;
The warm wind blows from the hills of
Spain,

The birds are building, the leaves are green,

And Baron Castine of St. Castine
Hath come at last to his own again.

FINALE.

"NUNC plaudite!" the Student cried,
When he had finished; "now applaud,
As Roman actors used to say,
At the conclusion of a play;
And rose, and spread his hands abroad,
And smiling bowed from side to side,
As one who bears the palm away.
And generous was the applause and
loud,

But less for him than for the sun,
That even as the tale was done
Burst from its canopy of cloud,
And lit the landscape with the blaze
Of afternoon on autumn days,

And filled the room with light, and made
The fire of logs a painted shade.

THE evening came; the golden vane
A moment in the sunset glanced,
Then darkened, and then gleamed again
As from the east the moon advanced
And touched it with a softer light;
While underneath, with flowing mane,
Upon the sign the Red Horse pranced,
And galloped forth into the night.
But brighter than the afternoon
That followed the dark day of rain,
And brighter than the golden vane
That glistened in the rising moon,
Within the ruddy fire-light gleamed ;
And every separate window-pane,
Backed by the outer darkness, showed
A mirror, where the flamelets gleamed
And flickered to and fro, and seemed
A bonfire lighted in the road.

Amid the hospitable glow,
Like an old actor on the stage,
With the uncertain voice of age,
The singing chimney chanted low
The homely songs of long ago.
The voice that Ossian heard of yore,

When midnight winds were in his hall;
A ghostly and appealing call,
A sound of days that are no more!
And dark as Össian sat the Jew,
And listened to the sound, and knew
The passing of the airy hosts,
The gray and misty cloud of ghosts
In their interminable flight;
And listening, muttered in his beard,
With accent indistinct and weird,
"Who are ye, children of the Night?"

Beholding his mysterious face,
"Tell me," the gay Sicilian said,
"Why was it that in breaking bread
At supper, you bent down your head,
And, musing, paused a little space,
As one who says a silent grace?"

The Jew replied, with solemn air,
"I said the Manichæan's prayer.
It was his faith,—perhaps is mine,—
That life in all its forms is one,
And that its secret conduits run
Unseen, but in unbroken line,
From the great fountain-head divine

and grass.

Howe'er we struggle, strive, and cry,

From death there can be no escape,
And no escape from life, alas !
Because we cannot die, but pass
From one into another shape:
It is but into life we die.

"Therefore the Manichæan said
This simple prayer on breaking bread,
Lest he with hasty hand or knife
Might wound the incarcerated life,
The soul in things that we call dead:
'I did not reap thee, did not bind thee,
I did not thrash thee, did not grind thee,
Nor did I in the oven bake thee!
It was not I, it was another

Did these things unto thee, O brother!
I only have thee, hold thee, break thee!""

"That birds have souls I can concede,"
The Poet cried, with glowing cheeks;
"The flocks that form their beds of reed
Uprising north or southward fly,
And flying write upon the sky
The biforked letter of the Greeks,
As hath been said by Rucellai;
All birds that sing or chirp or cry,
Even those migratory bands,
The minor poets of the air,
The plover, peep, and sanderling,
That hardly can be said to sing,
But pipe along the barren sands,-
All these have souls akin to ours;
So hath the lovely race of flowers:
Thus much I grant, but nothing more.
The rusty hinges of a door
Are not alive because they creak;
This chimney, with its dreary roar,
These rattling windows, do not speak!"

"To me they speak," the Jew replied;
"And in the sounds that sink and soar,
I hear the voices of a tide

That breaks upon an unknown shore ! "

Here the Sicilian interfered:

Of a white figure in the twilight air, Gazing intent, as one who with surprise His form and features seemed to recognise; And in a whisper to the King he said: "What is yon shape, that, pallid as the dead,

Is watching me, as if he sought to trace In the dim light the features of my face?" The King looked, and replied: "I know him well;

It is the Angel men call Azrael,

Tis the Death Angel; what hast thou to fear?"

It is a tale of Charlemagne, When like a thunder-cloud, that lowers And sweeps from mountain-crest to coast, With lightning flaming through its showers, He swept across the Lombard plain, Beleaguering with his warlike train Pavia, the country's pride and boast, The City of the Hundred Towers." Thus heralded the tale began, And thus in sober measure ran.

THE POET'S TALE.

CHARLEMAGNE.

OLGER the Dane and Desiderio,
King of the Lombards, on a lofty tower
Stood gazing northward o'er the rolling
plains,

League after league of harvests, to the foot

Of the snow-crested Alps, and saw approach

A mighty army, thronging all the roads That led into the city. And the King Said unto Olger, who had passed his youth

As hostage at the court of France, and knew

The Emperor's form and face: "Is Charlemagne

Among that host?" And Olger answered 66 "No."

colour of iron. All who went before him,

Beside him and behind him, his whole host,

Were armed with iron, and their hearts within them

Were stronger than the armour that they

wore.

The fields and all the roads were filled with iron,

And points of iron glistened in the sun And shed a terror through the city streets. This at a single glance Olger the Dane Saw from the tower, and turning to the King,

Exclaimed in haste: "Behold! this is the

man

You looked for with such eagerness!" and

then

Fell as one dead at Desiderio's feet.

INTERLUDE.

WELL pleased all listened to the tale,
That drew, the Student said, its pith
And marrow from the ancient myth
Of some one with an iron flail ;
Or that portentous Man of Brass
Hephaestus made in days of yore,
Who stalked about the Cretan shore,
And saw the ships appear and pass,
And threw stones at the Argonauts,
Being filled with indiscriminate ire
That tangled and perplexed his thoughts;
But, like a hospitable host,
When strangers landed on the coast,
Heated himself red-hot with fire,
And hugged them in his arms, and pressed
Their bodies to his burning breast.

The Poet answered: "No, not thus
The legend rose; it sprang at first
Out of the hunger and the thirst
In all men for the marvellous.
And thus it filled and satisfied
The imagination of mankind,
And this ideal to the mind
Was truer than historic fact.
Fancy enlarged and multiplied