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."

O sun, that followest the night,
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.

A sudden wind from out the west
Blew all its trumpets loud and shrill;
The windows rattled with the blast,
The oak-trees shouted as it passed,
And straight, as if by fear possessed,
The cloud encampment on the hill
Broke up, and fluttering flag and tent
Vanished into the firmament,
And down the valley fled amain
The rear of the retreating rain.

Only far up in the blue sky

A mass of clouds, like drifted snow
Suffused with a faint Alpine glow,
Was heaped together, vast and high,
On which a shattered rainbow hung,
Not rising like the ruined arch
Of some aerial aqueduct,
But like a roseate garland plucked
From an Olympian god, and flung
Aside in his triumphal march.

Like prisoners from their dungeon gloom,
Like birds escaping from a snare,
Like school-boys at the hour of play,
All left at once the pent-up room,
And rushed into the open air;
And no more tales were told that day.

PRELUDE.

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 Ossian 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?"

Unseen, but in unbroken line,
From the great fountain-head divine
Through man and beast, through grain
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 from their beds of recd

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,
I'ven those migratory bands,
'he 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: "That was your dream, then, as you dozed

Of a white figure in the twilight air, Gazing intent, as one who with surprise His form and features seemed to recognize;

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?"

And the guest answered: "Lest he should come near,

And speak to me, and take away my breath!

Save me from Azrael, save me from death!

O king, that hast dominion o'er the wind, Bid it arise and bear me hence to Ind.'

There came a mighty wind, and seized the guest

And lifted him from earth, and on they passed,

His shining garments streaming in the blast,

A silken banner o'er the walls upreared, A purple cloud, that gleamed and disappeared.

Then said the Angel, smiling: "If this

man

Be Rajah Runjeet-Sing of Hindostan, Thou hast done well in listening to his prayer;

I was upon my way to seek him there."

INTERLUDE.

"O EDREHI, forbear to-night
Your ghostly legends of affright,
And let the Talmud rest in peace;
Spare us your dismal tales of death
That almost take away one's breath;
So doing, may your tribe increase."

Thus the Sicilian said; then went
And on the spinet's rattling keys
Played Marianina, like a breeze
From Naples and the Southern seas,
That brings us the delicious scent
Of citron and of orange trees,
And memories of soft days of ease
At Capri and Amalfi spent.

"Not so," the eager Poet said;
"At least, not so before I tell
The story of my Azrael,
An angel mortal as ourselves,
Which in an ancient tome I found
Upon a convent's dusty shelves,
Chained with an iron chain, and bound
In parchment, and with clasps of brass,
Lest from its prison, some dark day,
It might be stolen or steal away,
While the good friars were singing mass.

"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
Pavía, the country's pride and boast,
The City of the Hundred Towers."

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 Theologian said: "Perchance
Your chronicler in writing this
Had in his mind the Anabasis,
Where Xenophon describes the advance
Of Artaxerxes to the fight;
At first the low gray cloud of dust,
And then a blackness o'er the fields
As of a passing thunder-gust,
Then flash of brazen armor bright,

Bowmen and troops with wicker shields,
And cavalry equipped in white,
And chariots ranged in front of these
With scythes upon their axle-trees."

To this the Student answered: "Well,
I also have a tale to tell
Of Charlemagne; a tale that throws
A softer light, more tinged with rose,
Than your grim apparition cast
Upon the darkness of the past.
Listen, and hear in English rhyme
What the good Monk of Lauresheim
Gives as the gossip of his time,
In medieval Latin prose."