And hardly breathed or stirred,
Until he saw, as in a vision,
The land Elysian,

And in the heavenly city heard
Angelic feet

Fall on the golden flagging of the street.
And he would fain

Have caught the wondrous bird,
But strove in vain ;

For it flew away, away,
Far over hill and dell,

And instead of its sweet singing
He heard the convent bell
Suddenly in the silence ringing
For the service of noonday.
And he retraced

His pathway homeward sadly and in haste.

In the convent there was a change!
He looked for each well-known face,
But the faces were new and strange;
New figures sat in the oaken stalls,
New voices chanted in the choir;
Yet the place was the same place,
The same dusky walls
Of cold, gray stone,

The same cloisters and belfry and spire.

A stranger and alone
Among that brotherhood
The Monk Felix stood.
"Forty years," said a Friar,
"Have I been Prior

Of this convent in the wood,

But for that space

Never have I beheld thy face!"

The heart of the Monk Felix fell:
And he answered, with submissive tone,
"This morning, after the hour of Prime,
I left my cell,

And wandered forth alone,

Listening all the time

To the melodious singing
Of a beautiful white bird,
Until I heard

The bells of the convent ringing
Noon from their noisy towers.
It was as if I dreamed;
For what to me had seemed
Moments only, had been hours!"

"Years!" said a voice close by.
It was an aged monk who spoke,
From a bench of oak

And straightway

They brought forth to the light of day
A volume old and brown,
A huge tome, bound

In brass and wild-boar's hide,
Wherein were written down
The names of all who had died
In the convent, since it was edified.
And there they found,

Just as the old monk said,
That on a certain day and date,
One hundred years before,

Had gone forth from the convent gate
The Monk Felix, and never more
Had entered that sacred door.
He had been counted among the dead!
And they knew, at last,

That, such had been the power

Of that celestial and immortal song,
A hundred years had passed,
And had not seemed so long
As a single hour!

ELSIE comes in with flowers.

ELSIE.

Here are flowers for you,
But they are not all for you.
Some of them are for the Virgin
And for Saint Cecilia.

PRINCE HENRY.

As thou standest there,
Thou seemest to me like the angel
That brought the immortal roses
To Saint Cecilia's bridal chamber.

ELSIE.

But these will fade.

When a hand suddenly
Is laid upon it, and removed!

And at midnight,

ELSIE.

As she lay upon her bed,
She heard a voice

Call to her from the garden,
And, looking forth from her window,
She saw a beautiful youth
Standing among the flowers.
It was the Lord Jesus;
And she went down to Him,
And opened the door for Him;
And He said to her, "O maiden!
Thou hast thought of me with love,
And for thy sake

Out of my Father's kingdom
Have I come hither:

I am the Master of the Flowers.
My garden is in Paradise,
And if thou wilt go with me,
Thy bridal garland

Shall be of bright red flowers."

And then He took from his finger

A golden ring,

And asked the Sultan's daughter

If she would be his bride.

And when she answered Him with love,
His wounds began to bleed,
And she said to him,

"O Love! how red thy heart is,
And thy hands are full of roses."
"For thy sake," answered He,
"For thy sake is my heart so red,
For thee I bring these roses;
I gathered them at the cross
Whereon I died for thee!
Come, for my Father calls.
Thou art my elected bride !"
And the Sultan's daughter

Followed Him to his Father's garden.

That in the night to the sheepfold came,

They go out with ELSIE.

URSULA, spinning.

She is a strange and wayward child,
That Elsie of ours. She looks so old,
And thoughts and fancies weird and wild
Seem of late to have taken hold

Of her heart, that was once so docile and mild !

GOTTLIEB.

side.

GOTTLIEB.

I am glad he is dead. It will be a warning To the wolves in the forest, far and wide.

URSULA.

Ah no, forsooth!

Unlike all I have ever seen.

Interceding

With these bleeding

Wounds upon thy hands and side,
For all who have lived and errèd
Thou hast suffered, thou hast died,
Scourged, and mocked, and crucified,
And in the grave hast thou been buried!

If my feeble prayer can reach thee,
O my Saviour, I beseech thee,
Even as thou hast died for me,
More sincerely

Let me follow where thou leadest,
Let me, bleeding as thou bleedest,
Die, if dying I may give
Life to one who asks to live,
And more nearly,

Dying thus, resemble thee!

THE CHAMBER OF GOTTLIEB AND URSULA.

"T is the cessation of our breath.
Silent and motionless we lie ;
And no one knoweth more than this.
I saw our little Gertrude die ;

weeping.

GOTTLIEB.

The wind is roaring; the rushing rain
Is loud upon roof and window-pane,
As if the Wild Huntsman of Rodenstein,
Boding evil to me and mine,

I smoothed the pillow beneath her head.
She was more beautiful than before.
Like violets faded were her eyes;
By this we knew that she was dead.
Through the open window looked the skies
Into the chamber where she lay,

train!

As if angels came to bear her away.