and to-morrow thou and all thy company shall return safely with him to Westminster. I am indeed woeful that I should have done this thing."

Thou little deservest mercy," answered the Queen, "but I will speak for thee. Better always is peace than war, and the less my name is noised about the better is it for my honor."

So saying, she went down into the courtyard, where Sir Lancelot was still raging up and down, calling upon the traitor knight to come forth. He was resolved to kill Sir Meliagrance, but at the Queen's earnest entreaties he went within peaceably, and laid his arms aside. And so, in due course, Queen Guinevere and her knights and ladies returned to King Arthur's court, well satisfied at this happy ending to their adventure.

As for Sir Meliagrance, that wicked knight, for all his seeming repentance, was still treacherously minded. Although he had agreed to meet Sir Lancelot some days. later, and to fight with him, he laid a trap for the Queen's champion while they were in

the castle, and thrust him into a deep dungeon. By great good fortune Sir Lancelot escaped just in time to appear on the field of battle, and here, before the King and Queen, he slew Sir Meliagrance.

From "Fairy Tales Old and New."

OF OLD SAT FREEDOM

Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights:
She heard the torrents meet.

There in her place she did rejoice,
Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind,
But fragments of her mighty voice
Came rolling on the wind.

Then stept she down thro' town and field
To mingle with the human race,
And part by part to men reveal'd
The fullness of her face-

Grave mother of majestic works,
From her isle-altar gazing down,
Who, Godlike, grasps the triple forks,
And, kinglike, wears the crown:

Her open eyes desire the truth.
The wisdom of a thousand years
Is in them. May perpetual youth

Keep dry their light from tears;

That her fair form may stand and shine, Make bright our days and light our dreams,

Turning to scorn with lips divine

The falsehood of extremes!

ALFRED TENNYSON.

LEXINGTON

1775

No Berserk thirst of blood had they,
No battle-joy was theirs, who set
Against the alien bayonet

Their homespun breasts in that old day.

No seers were they, but simple men;
Its vast results the future hid:
The meaning of the work they did
Was strange and dark and doubtful then.

"They went where duty seemed to call."

Swift as their summons came they left
The plough mid-furrow standing still,
The half-ground corn grist in the mill
The spade in earth, the ax in cleft.

They went where duty seemed to call,
They scarcely asked the reason why;
They only knew they could but die,
And death was not the worst of all!

Of man for man the sacrifice,

All that was theirs to give, they gave. The flowers that blossomed from their

grave

Have sown themselves beneath all skies.

Their death-shot shook the feudal tower,
And shattered slavery's chain as well;
On the sky's dome, as on a bell,
Its echo struck the world's great hour.

That fateful echo is not dumb:

The nations listening to its sound
Wait, from a century's vantage-ground,
The holier triumphs yet to come, —