Thou being absent? Oh, believe it not! Indeed, since that sad hour I have not slept, For thinking of the wrong I did to thee!

Chispa. Ay, robbed and murdered; and good evening to you,

My worthy masters.

Vict. Speak: what brings thee here?
Chispa (to PRECIOSA). Good news from Court;
good news! Beltran Cruzado,

The Count of the Cales is not your father,
But your true father has returned to Spain
Laden with wealth. You are no more à Gipsy.
Vict. Strange as a Moorish tale!
Chispa.
And we have all
Been drinking at the tavern to your health,
As wells drink in November, when it rains.
Vict. Where is the gentleman?
Chispa.
As the old song says,

His body is in Segovia, His soul is in Madrid.

Prec. Is this a dream? Oh, if it be a dream, 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.

Prec. (giving him her hand.) I have still
A hand to give.

Chispa (aside). And I have two to take; I've heard my grandmother say, that Heaven

gives almonds

To those who have no teeth. That's nuts to crack.

me?

Prec. I have forgiven thee. Ere those words

1 had forgiven thee. Vict.

I'm the veriest fool

That walks the earth, to have believed thee false.

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 romances.
All chaste embraces on the public stage,
All soft adventures, which the liberal stars
Have winked at, as the natural course of things.
Have been surpassed here by my friend, the stu-

dent,

And this sweet Gipsy lass, fair Preciosa!
Prec. Senor Hypolito! I kiss your hand.
Pray, shall I tell your fortune?

Hyp.
Not to-night;
For, should you treat me as you did Victorian,
And send me back to marry maids forlorn,
My wedding-day would last from now to Christ-

mas.

Chispa (within). What ho! the Gipsies ho! Beltran Cruzado! Halloo! halloo!

halloo! halloo !
(Enters booted, with a

Vict.
Why such a fearful din?
robbed?

whip and lantern.)

What now?

Hast thou been

monds?

Vict. What more of this strange story? Chispa. Nothing more, Your friend, Don Carios, is now at the village Showing to Pedro Crespo, the Alcalde, The proofs of what I tell you. The old hag, Who stole you in your childhood. has confessed; And probably they'll hang her for the crime, To make the celebration more complete.

Vict. No; let it be a day of general joy;
Fortune comes well to all, that comes not late.
Now let us join Don Carlos.
Hyp.
So farewell,
The student's wandering life! Sweet serenades,
Sung under ladies' windows in the night,
And all that makes vacation beautiful!

To you, ye cloistered shades of Alcalá,
To you, ye radiant visions of romance,
Written in books, but here surpassed by truth,
The Bachelor Hypolito returns,

And leaves the Gipsy with the Spanish Student.

PROMETHEUS,

OR THE POET'S FORETHOUGHT.
OF Prometheus, how undaunted
On Olympus' shining bastions
His audacious foot he planted,
Myths are told and songs are chaunted,
Full of promptings and suggestions.
Beautiful is the tradition

Of that flight through heavenly portals,
The old classic superstition

Of the theft and the transmission
Of the fire of the Immortals!

First the deed of noble daring.

Born of heavenward aspiration,
Then the fire with mortals sharing,
Then the vulture,-the despairing
Cry of pain on crags Chucasian."
All is but a symbol painted

Of the Poet, Prophet, Seer;
Only those are crowned and sainted
Who with grief have been acquainted,
Making nations nobler, freer.

In their feverish exultations,

In their triumph and their yearning,
In their passionate pulsations,
In their words among the nations,
The Promethean fire is burning.

Shall it, then, be unavailing,

All this toil for human culture?
Through the cloud-rack, dark and trailing,
Must they see above them sailing

O'er life's barren crags the vulture?
Such a fate as this was Dante's,

By defeat and exile maddened;
Thus were Milton and Cervantes,
Nature's priests and Corybantes,
By affliction touched and saddened.
But the glories so transcendent

That around their memories cluster,
And, on all their steps attendant,
Make their darkened lives resplendent
With such gleams of inward lustre!

All the melodies mysterious,

Through the dreary darkness chaunted;
Thoughts in attitudes imperious,
Voices soft, and deep, and serious,

Words that whispered, songs that haunted!

All the soul in rapt suspension,
All the quivering, palpitating
Chords of life in utmost tension,
With the fervour of invention,

With the rapture of ereating!

Ah, Prometheus; heaven-scaling!
In such hours of exultation
Even the faintest heart unquailing,
Might behold the vulture sailing

Round the cloudy crags Caucasian!
Though to all there is not given

Strength for such sublime endeavour,
Thus to scale the walls of heaven,
And to leaven with fiery leaven

All the hearts of men for ever;

Yet all bards, whose hearts unblighted
Honour and believe the presage,
Hold aloft their torches lighted,
Gleaming through the realms benighted,
As they onward bear the message!

THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE. SAINT AUGUSTINE! well hast thou said, That of our vices we can frame

A iadder. if we will but tread
Beneath our feet each deed of shame!
All common things each day's events,
That with the hour begin and end,
Our pleasures and our discontents,
Are rounds by which we may ascend.
The low desire, the base design
Thrt makes another's virtues less
The revel of the ruddy wine,

And all occasions of excess;

The longing for ignoble things:

The strife for triumph more than truth; The hardening of the heart, that brings Irreverence for the dreams of youth;

All thoughts of ill, all evil deeds,

That have their root in thoughts of ill; Whatever hinders or impedes

The action of the nobler will;

All these must first be trampled down
Beneath our feet, if we would gain
In the bright fields of fair renown
The right of eminence domain.
We have not wings, we cannot soar:
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.

The mighty pyramids of stone
That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen, and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels risc.

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upwards in the night.
Standing on what too long we hore,

With shoulders bent and downcast eyes
We may discern-unseen before-
A path to higher destinies.
Nor deem the irrevocable Past,
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If. rising on its wrecks, at last

To something nobler we attain.

THE PHANTOM SHIP.
IN Mather's Magnalia Christi,
Of the old Colonial time,
May be found in prose the legend
That is here set down in rhyme.
A ship sailed from New Haven,
And the keen and frosty airs,
That filled her sails at parting,

Were heavy with good men's prayers.
"O Lord! if it be thy pleasure"-
Thus prayed the old divine--

To bury our friends in the ocean,
Take them, for they are thine!"
But Master Lamberton muttered,
And under his breath said he,
"This ship is so crank and walty

I fear our grave she will be."
And the ships that came from England,
When the winter months were gone,
Brought no tidings of the vessel
Nor of Master Lamberton.

This put the people to praying
That the Lord would let them hear,
What in His greater wisdom

He had done with friends so dear.

And at last their prayers were answered:It was in the month of June,

An hour before the sunset

Of a windy afternoon,

When steadily steering landward,

A ship was seen below,

And they knew it was Lamberton, Master,
Who sailed so long ago.

On she came, with a cloud of canvas,
Right against the wind that blew,
Until the eye could distinguish
The faces of the crew.

Then fell her straining topmasts,
Hanging tangled in the shrouds,
And her sails were loosened and lifted,
And blown away like clouds.

And the masts with all their rigging,
Fell slowly, one by one.

And the hulk dilated and vanished,
As a sea-mist in the sun!

And the people who saw this marvel
Each said unto his friend,

That this was the mould of their vessel,
And thus her tragic end.

And the pastor of the village

Gave thanks to God in prayer, That, to quiet their troubled spirits, He had sent this Ship of Air.

THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS. A MIST was driving down the British Channel, The day was just begun,

And through the window-panes, on floor and panel,

Streamed the red autumn sun.

Awaken with its call!

No more, surveying with an eye impartial
The long line of the coast,

Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field Marshal
Be seen upon his post!

For in the night, unseen, a single warrior,
In sombre harness mailed,
Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer,
The rampart wall has scaled.

He passed into the chamber of the sleeper,
The dark and silent room,

And as he entered, darker grew, and deeper,
The silence and the gloom.

He did not pause to parley or dissemble,
But smote the Warden hoar.

Ah! what a blow! that made all England

tremble

And groan from shore to shore.

Meanwhile, without, the surly cannon waited,
The sun rose bright o'erhead:

Nothing in Nature's aspect intimated
That a great man was dead.

HAUNTED HOUSES.

ALL houses wherein men have lived and died Are haunted houses. Through the open doors The harmless phantoms on their errands glide, With feet that make no sound upon the floors. We meet them at the door-way, on the stair, Along the passages they come and go, Impalpable impressions on the air,

A sense of something moving to and fro. There are more guests at table, than the hosts Invited; the illuminated hall

Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty

hands,

And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of sense Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense

A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.
These perturbations, this perpetual jar

Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star,
An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud Throws o'er the sea a floating bridge of light, Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd

Into the realm of mystery and night,— So from the world of spirits there descends A bridge of light, connecting it with this, O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,

Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.

IN THE CHURCHYARD AT CAMBRIDGE.

IN the village churchyard she lies,
Dust is in her beautiful eyes,

No more she breathes, nor feels, nor stirs;

At her feet and at her head

Lies a slave to attend the dead,

But their dust is white as hers.

Was she a lady of high degree,
So much in love with vanity

And foolish pomp of this world of ours?
Or was it Christian charity,

And lowliness and humility,

The richest and rarest of all dowers?

Who shall tell us? No one speaks;
No colour shoots into those checks,
Either of anger or of pride, -

At the rude question we have asked;
Nor will the mystery be unmasked

By those who are sleeping at her side.

Hereafter?-And do you think to look
On the terrible pages of that Book

To find her failings, faults, and errors?
Ah, you will then have other cares,
In your own short-comings and despairs,
In your own secret sins and terrors!

THE EMPEROR'S BIRD'S NEST.

ONCE the Emperor Charles of Spain,

With his swarthy, grave commanders,

1 forget in what campaign,

Long besieged, in mud and rain,

Some old frontier town of Flanders.

Up and down the dreary camp,

In great boots of Spanish leather, Striding with a measured tramp, These Hidalgos, dull and damp,

Cursed the Frenchmen, cursed the weather.

Thus as to and fro they went,

Over upland and through hollow,

Giving their impatience vent,
Perched upon the Emperor's tent.
In her nest they spied a swallow.

Yes, it was a swallow's nest,

Bullt of clay and hair of horses, Mane, or tail, or dragoon's crest, Found on hedge-rows east and west, After skirmish of the forces.

Then an old Hidalgo said,

As he twirled his gray moustachio,
"Sure this swallow overhead
Thinks the Emperor's tent a shed,
And the Emperor but a Macho!"
Hearing his imperial name

Coupled with those words of malice,
Half in anger, half in shame,
Forth the great campaigner came
Slowly from his canvas palace.
"Let no hand the bird molest."

Said he solemnly. "nor hurt her!"
Adding then, by way of jest,
"Golondrina is my guest,

"Tis the wife of some deserter!" Swift as bowstrings speeds a shaft, Through the camp was spread the rumour, And the soldiers, as they quaffed Flemish beer at dinner, laughed

At the Emperor's pleasant humour.

So unharmed and unafraid

Sat the swallow still and brooded,
Till the constant cannonade
Through the walls a breach had made,
And the siege was thus concluded.

Then the army, elsewhere bent,
Struck its tents as if disbanding,
Only not the Emperor's tent,
For he ordered, ere he went,

Very curtly,Leave it standing!"
So it stood there all alone,

Loosely flapping, torn and tattered, Till the brood was fledged and flown, Singing o'er those walls of stone

Which the cannon-shot had shattered.

THE TWO ANGELS.

Two angels, one of Life and one of Death,
Passed o'er our viliage as the morning broke;
The dawn was on their faces and beneath,
The sombre houses hearsed with plumes of
smoke.

Their attitude and aspect were the same,

Alike their features and their robes of white: But one was crowned with amaranth, as with flame.

And one with asphodels, like flakes of light. I saw them pause on their celestial way; Then said I, with deep fear and doubt op

presed,

"Beat not so loud, my heart, lest thou betray
The place where thy beloved are at rest!"
And he who wore the crown of asphodels,
Descending, at my door began to knock,
And my soul sank within me, as in wells
The waters sink before an earthquake's shock.
I recognised the nameless agony,

The terror and the tremor and the pain,
That oft before had filled or haunted me,
And now returned with threefold strength
again.

The door I opened to my heavenly guest,

And listened, for I thought I heard God's voice:

And, knowing whatsoe'er He sent was best,
Dared neither to lament nor to rejoice.

Then with a smile, that filled the house with light,

"My errand is not Death, but Life," he said; And ere I answered, passing out of sight, On his celestial embassy he sped.

'Twas at thy door, O friend! and not at mine, The angel with the amaranthine wreath, Pausing, descended, and with voice divine, Whispered a word that had a sound like Death.