It was the Count of Lara

Prec.

That bad man Has worked me harm enough. Hast thou not heard-Vict. I have heard all. And yet speak on, speak on!

Let me but hear thy voice, and I am happy;

For every tone, like some sweet incantation,

Calls up the buried past to plead for me. Speak, my beloved, speak into my heart,

Whatever fills and agitates thine own. (They walk aside.)

Hyp. All gentle quarrels in the pastoral poets,

All passionate love-scenes in the best

Let me sleep on, and do not wake me

yet!

Repeat thy story! Say I'm not deceived!

Say that I do not dream! I am awake: This is the Gipsy camp; this is Victorian, And this his friend, Hypolito! Speak! speak!

Let me not wake and find it all a dream! Vict. It is a dream, sweet child! a waking dream,

A blissful certainty, a vision bright Of that rare happiness, which even on earth

Heaven gives to those it loves. Now art thou rich,

As thou wast ever beautiful and good; And I am now the beggar.

Worn with speed is my good steed,
And I march me hurried, worried;
Onward, caballito mio,

With the white star in thy forehead!
Onward, for here comes the Ronda,
And I hear their rifles crack!

Ay, jaleo! Ay, ay, jaléo!

Ay, jaleo! They cross our track. (Song dies away. Enter PRECIOSA, on horseback, attended by VICTORIAN, HYPOLITO, DON CARLOS, and CHISPA, on foot and armed.)

Vict. This is the highest point. Here let us rest

Out of its grated windows have I looked Hundreds of feet plumb down to the Eresma,

That, like a serpent through the valley creeping, Glides at its foot.

Prec. O yes! I see it now, Yet rather with my heart than with mine eyes,

So faint it is. And all my thoughts sail thither,

Freighted with prayers and hopes, and forward urged

Against all stress of accident, as in The Eastern Tale, against the wind and tide,

Great ships were drawn to the Magnetic Mountains,

And there were wrecked, and perished

And saying, "Hark! she comes!" father father!

(They descend the pass. mains behind.)

CHISPA re

Chispa. 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 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! [Exit. (A pause. Then enter BARTOLOMÉ wildly, as if in pursuit, with a carbine in his hand.)

Bart. They passed this way! I hear their horses' hoofs!

Yonder I see them! Come, sweet caramillo,

This serenade shall be the Gipsy's last! (Fires down the pass.)

Ha! ha! Well whistled, my sweet caramillo !

Well whistled!-I have missed her!Oh, my God!

(The shot is returned. BARTOLOMÉ falls.)

97

SEA-WEED.

WHEN descends on the Atlantic

The gigantic

Storm-wind of the equinox,

Landward in his wrath he scourges

The toiling surges,

Laden with sea-weed from the rocks:
From Bermuda's reefs; from edges
Of sunken ledges,

In some far-off, bright Azore;
From Bahama, and the dashing,
Silver-flashing

Surges of San Salvador;

From the tumbling surf, that buries
The Orkneyan skerries,
Answering the hoarse Hebrides;
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting
Spars, uplifting

On the desolate, rainy seas;-
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting

Currents of the restless main ;

Till in sheltered coves, and reaches
Of sandy beaches,

All have found repose again.

So when storms of wild emotion

Strike the ocean

THE DAY IS DONE. THE day is done, and the darkness Falls from the wings of Night, As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in its flight.

I see the lights of the village

Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me, That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles the rain.
Come, read to me some poem,

Some simple and heartfelt lay, That shall soothe this restless feeling, And banish the thoughts of day. Not from the grand old masters,

Not from the bards sublime, Whose distant footsteps echo

Through the corridors of Time. For, like strains of martial music, Their mighty thoughts suggest Life's endless toil and endeavour; And to-night I long for rest. Read from some humbler poet, Whose songs gushed from his heart, As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start; Who, through long days of labour, And nights devoid of ease, Still heard in his soul the music Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have

power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,

And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,

And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

H

AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY.

THE day is ending,

The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,

The river dead.

Through clouds like ashes,
The red sun flashes
On village windows
That glimmer red.

The snow recommences:
The buried fences
Mark no longer

The road o'er the plain,

While through the meadows,
Like earful shadows,
Slowly passes

A funeral train.

The bell is pealing,
And every feeling
With n me responds

To the dismal knell;
Shadows are trailing,
My heart is bewailing
And tolling within

Like a funeral bell.

TO AN OLD DANISH SONG

BOOK.

WELCOME, my old friend,

Welcome to a foreign fireside,

While the sullen gales of autumn
Shake the windows.

The ungrateful world

Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee, Since, beneath the skies of Denmark, First I met thee.

There are marks of age,

There are thumb-marks on thy margin, Made by hands that clasped thee rudely At the alehouse.

Soiled and dull thou art;

Yellow are thy time-worn pages,
As the russet, rain-molested
Leaves of autumn.

Thou art stained with wine
Scattered from hilarious goblets,
As these leaves with the libations
Of Olympus.

Yet dost thou recall

Days departed, half-forgotten,
When in dreamy youth I wandered
By the Baltic,-

When I paused to hear

The old ballad of King Christian
Shouted from suburban taverns
In the twilight.

Thou recallest bards,

Who, in solitary chambers,
And with hearts by passion wasted,
Wrote thy pages.

Thou recallest homes

Where thy songs of love and friendship Made the gloomy Northern winter Bright as summer.

Once some ancient Scald,

In his bleak, ance tral Iceland,
Chanted staves of these old ballads
To the Vikings.

Once in Elsinore,

At the court of old King Hamlet,
Yorick and his boon companions
Sang these ditties.

Once Prince Frederick's Guard

Sang them in their smoky barracks;—
Suddenly the English cannon
Joined the chorus!

Peasants in the field,

Sailors on the roaring ocean,

Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics, All have sung them.

Thou hast been their friend;

They, alas! have left thee friendless!
Yet at least by one warm fireside
Art thou welcome.

And, as swallows build

In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys,
So thy twittering songs shall nestle
In my bosom,-

Quiet, close, and warm,
Sheltered from all molestation,
And recalling by their voices
Youth and travel.