They are my bondsmen and my Christ is arisen!' and the bells

Catch the glad murmur, as it

swells,

And chant together in their tow.

ers.

every All hearts are glad; and free from

The aching heart, the aching head, Let us go back; I am afraid!
Grief for the living and the dead,

And foul corruption of the time,
Disease, distress, and want, and

woe,

PRINCE HENRY.

Nay, let us mount the church-steps here,

And crimes, and passions that may Under the doorway's sacred shad

from a pulpit in the open air. It looks like a flower-besprinkled PRINCE HENRY and ELSIE

crossing the square.

PRINCE HENRY.

meadow.

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What is that yonder on the square?

PRINCE HENRY.

This is the day, when from the A pulpit in the open air,

dead

Our Lord arose; and everywhere,

And a Friar, who is preaching to

the crowd

loud,

That, if we listen, and give heed,
His lowest words will reach the

Out of their darkness and despair, In a voice so deep and clear and Triumphant over fears and foes, The hearts of his disciples rose, When to the women, standing near, The Angel in shining vesture said, 'The Lord is risen; He is not here!'

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And, mindful that the day is come,
On all the hearths in Christen-
dom
The fires are quenched, to be again
Rekindled from the sun, that high
Is dancing in the cloudless sky.
The churches are all decked with
flowers,

The salutations among men

Are but the Angel's words divine,

ear.

FRIAR CUTHBERT, gesticulating

and cracking a postilion's whip. What ho! good people! do you not hear?

Dashing along at the top of his speed,

Booted and spurred, on his jaded
steed,

A courier comes with words of
cheer.
Courier! what is the news, I pray ?

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Then I do not believe it; you say Noah, too, was refused, lest his

Is the mind of man, that round The portraits of the family of

and round Sways, and maketh the tongue to Thine own hereafter shall be

Upward, exalted again to the To tell my sins in such a church

I have only one word more to For many generations labored with

In the church, in honor of Easter Children that came to see these Saints in stone,

Will be presented a Miracle Play; As day by day out of the blocks

PRINCE HENRY.

That, too, she sculptured. At the base of it

Stand the Evangelists; above their heads

320 Four Angels blowing upon marble trumpets,

And over them the blessed Christ, surrounded

By his attendant ministers, uphold. ing

The instruments of his passion.

ELSIE.

O my Lord! Would I could leave behind me

upon earth

BISHOP in armor, booted and spurred, passes with his train.

PRINCE HENRY.

But come away; we have not time to look.

The crowd already fills the church, and yonder

Upon a stage, a herald with a trumpet,

Clad like the Angel Gabriel, proclaims

The Mystery that will now be represented.

THE NATIVITY

A MIRACLE-PLAY
INTROITUS

PRÆCO.

Come and listen to our speech!
Come, good people, all and each,
In your presence here I stand, 341
With a trumpet in my hand,
To announce the Easter Play,
Which we represent to-day!
First of all we shall rehearse,
In our action and our verse,
The Nativity of our Lord,

Some monument to thy glory, such As written in the old record

as this!

PRINCE HENRY.

A greater monument than this

thou leavest

In thine own life, all purity and

love!

Of the Protevangelion,

So that he who reads may run!
Blows his trumpet.

I. HEAVEN.

MERCY, at the feet of God.

See, too, the Rose, above the west- Have pity, Lord! be not afraid

Be found, who for his kith and Hail, Virgin Mary, full of grace!

Lord! we have searched the world Who is it speaketh in this place,