St Michael was my dame.
He was born at Bethlehem,

He was made of flesh and blood.
God send me my right food,
My right food, and shelter too,
That I may to yon kirk go,
To read upon yon sweet book

Which the mighty God of heaven shook.
Open, open, hell's gates!

Shut, shut, heaven's gates!

All the devils in the air

The stronger be, that hear the Black Prayer!
Looking round the church.

What a darksome and dismal place!
I wonder that any man has the face
To call such a hole the house of the Lord,
And the Gate of Heaven,-yet such is the word.
Ceiling, and walls, and windows old,

Covered with cobwebs, blackened with mould;
Dust on the pulpit, dust on the stairs,

Dust on the benches, and stalls, and chairs!
The pulpit, from which such ponderous sermons
Have fallen down on the brains of the Germans,
With about as much real edification,

As if a great Bible, bound in lead,

Had fallen, and struck them on the head;
And I ought to remember that sensation!
Here stands the holy-water stoup!
Holy water it may be to many,

But to me, the veriest Liquor Gehennæ!
It smells like a filthy fast-day soup!
Near it stands the box for the poor;
With its iron padlock, safe and sure.
I and the priest of the parish know
Whither all these charities go;
Therefore, to keep up the institution,
I will add my little contribution!
He puts in money.

Underneath this mouldering tomb,

With statue of stone, and scutcheon of brass,
Slumbers a great lord of the village.

All his life was riot and pillage,

But at length, to escape the threatened doom

Of the everlasting, penal fire,

He died in the dress of a mendicant friar,
And bartered his wealth for a daily mass,

But all that afterwards came to pass,

And whether he finds it dull or pleasant,
Is kept a secret for the present,
At his own particular desire.

And here, in a corner of the wall,
Shadowy, silent, apart from all,
With its awful portal open wide,

And its latticed windows on either side,
And its step well worn by the bended knees
Of one or two pious centuries,

Stands the village confessional!
Within it, as an honoured guest,
I will sit me down awhile and rest!

Seats himself in the confessional.

Here sits the priest; and faint and low,
Like the sighing of an evening breeze,
Comes through these painted lattices
The ceaseless sound of human woe;
Here, while her bosom aches and throbs
With deep and agonizing sobs,
That half are passion, half contrition,
The luckless daughter of perdition
Slowly confesses her secret shame!
The time, the place, the lover's name!
Here the grim murderer, with a groan,

From his bruised conscience rolls the stone,
Thinking that thus he can atone
For ravages of sword and flame!
Indeed, I marvel, and marvel greatly,
How a priest can sit here so sedately,
Reading, the whole year out and in,
Naught but the catalogue of sin,
And still keep any faith whatever
In human virtue! Never! never!

I cannot repeat a thousandth part

Of the horrors and crimes and sins and woes
That arise, when with palpitating throes
The grave-yard in the human heart

Gives up its dead, at the voice of the priest,
As if he were an archangel, at least.
It makes a peculiar atmosphere,

This odour of earthly passions and crimes,
Such as I like to breathe, at times,
And such as often brings me here
In the hottest and most pestilential season.
To-day, I come for another reason;
To foster and ripen an evil thought

In a heart that is almost to madness wrought,
And to make a murderer out of a prince,
A sleight of hand I learned long since!
He comes. In the twilight he will not see
The difference between his priest and me!
In the same net was the mother caught!

Prince Henry (entering and kneeling at the confessional).
Remorseful, penitent, and lowly,

I come to crave, O Father holy,
Thy benediction on my head.
Lucifer. The benediction shall be said
After confession, not before!

'Tis a God-speed to the parting guest,
Who stands already at the door,
Sandalled with holiness, and dressed
In garments pure from earthly stain.
Meanwhile, hast thou searched well thy breast?
Does the same madness fill thy brain?

Or have thy passion and unrest
Vanished for ever from thy mind?

Prince Henry. By the same madness still made blind,
By the same passion still possessed,

I come again to the house of prayer,
A man afflicted and distressed!
As in a cloudy atmosphere,
Through unseen sluices of the air,
A sudden and impetuous wind

Strikes the great forest white with fear,
And every branch, and bough, and spray,
Points all its quivering leaves one way,
And meadows of grass, and fields of grain,
And the clouds above, and the slanting rain,
And smoke from chimneys of the town,
Yield themselves to it, and bow down,
So does this dreadful purpose press
Onward, with irresistible stress,
And all my thoughts and faculties,
Struck level by the strength of this,
From their true inclination turn,
And all stream forward to Salern!
Lucifer. Alas! we are but eddies of dust,
Uplifted by the blast, and whirled
Along the highway of the world
A moment only, then to fall
Back to a common level all,
At the subsiding of the gust!

Prince Henry. O holy Father! pardon in me
The oscillation of a mind