Were coulters heated white, and yonder gateway

Flamed like a furnace with a sevenfold heat.

I must fulfil my purpose.
Prince Henry.

I forbid it!

Not one step farther. For I only meant To put thus far thy courage to the proof. It is enough. I, too, have courage to die, For thou hast taught me !

Elsie. O my Prince! remember Your promises. Let me fulfil my errand. You do not look on life and death as I do. There are two angels, that attend unseen Each one of us, and in great books record

Our good and evil deeds. He who writes down

The good ones, after every action closes His volume, and ascends with it to God.

The other keeps his dreadful day-book

And in your life let my remembrance linger,

As something not to trouble and disturb it,

But to complete it, adding life to life.
And if at times beside the evening fire
You see my face among the other faces,
Let it not be regarded as a ghost
That haunts your house, but as a guest
that loves you;

Nay, even as one of your own family, Without whose presence there were something wanting.

I have no more to say. Let us go in. Prince Henry. Friar Angelo! I charge you on your life,

Believe not what she says, for she is

And try to be cheerful for his sake.
Only the children's hearts are light,
Mine is weary and ready to break.
God help us! I hope we have done right;
We thought we were acting for the best.
(Looking through the open door.)
Who is it coming under the trees?
A man, in the Prince's livery dressed!
He looks about him with doubtful face,
As if uncertain of the place.

He stops at the beehives!-now he sees
The garden-gate; he is going past.
Can he be afraid of the bees?
No; he is coming in at last!
He fills my heart with strange alarm!
(Enter a Forester.)

Forester. Is this the tenant Gottlieb's farm?

Ursula. This is his farm, and I his

wife.

Pray sit. What may your business be?
Forester. News from the Prince!
Ursula.
Of death or life?
Forester. You put your questions
eagerly!

Ursula. Answer me, then! How is
the Prince?

Forester. I left him only two hours since,

Homeward returning down the river, As strong and well as if God, the Giver, Had given him back his youth again. Ursula (despairing). Then Elsie, my poor child, is dead!

Forester. That, my good woman, I have not said.

Don't cross the bridge till you come to it, Is a proverb old, and of excellent wit. Ursula. Keep me no longer in this pain!

Forester. It is true your daughter is

You will learn ere long how it all befell.
Her heart for a moment never failed;
But when they reached Salerno's gate,
The Prince's nobler self prevailed,
And saved her for a nobler fate.
And he was healed in his despair,
By the touch of St. Matthew's sacred
bones;

Though I think the long ride in the open air,

That pilgrimage over stocks and stones,
In the miracle must come in for a share!
Ursula. Virgin! who lovest the poor
and lowly,

If the loud cry of a mother's heart
Can ever ascend to where thou art,
Into thy blessed hands and holy
Receive my prayer of praise and thanks-
giving.

Let the hands that bore our Saviour bear it

Into the awful presence of God;
For thy feet with holiness are shod,
And if thou bearest it he will hear it.
Our child who was dead again is living!
Forester. I did not tell you she was
dead;

If you thought so 'twas no fault of mine;
At this very moment, while I speak,
They are sailing homeward down the
Rhine,

In a splendid barge with golden prow,
And decked with banners white and red
As the colours on your daughter's cheek.
They call her Lady Alicia now;
For the Prince in Salerno made a vow
That Elsie only would he wed.

Ursula. Jesu Maria! what a change! All seems to me so weird and strange! Forester. I saw her standing on the deck,

Beneath an awning cool and shady.
Her cap of velvet could not hold
The tresses of her hair of gold,

That flowed and floated like the stream,
And fell in masses down her neck.
As fair and lovely did she seem
As in a story or a dream
Some beautiful and foreign lady.
And the Prince looked so grand and

proud,

And waved his hand thus to the crowd That gazed and shouted from the shore, All down the river, long and loud.

Ursula. We shall behold our child once more;

She is not dead! She is not dead!
God, listening, must have overheard
The prayers, that, without sound or
word,

Our hearts in secresy have said!
Oh, bring me to her; for mine eyes
Are hungry to behold her face:
My very soul within me cries:
My very hands seem to caress her,
To see her, gaze at her, and bless her;
Dear Elsie, child of God and grace!

(Goes out toward the garden.) Forester. There goes the good woman out of her head;

And Gottlieb's supper is waiting here;
A very capacious flagon of beer,
And a very portentous loaf of bread.
One would say his grief did not much
oppress him.

Here's to the health of the Prince, God bless him!

(He drinks.)

Ha! it buzzes and stings like a hornet! Aud what a scene there, through the door!

The forest behind and the garden before, And midway an old man of threescore, With a wife and children that caress him. Let me try still further to cheer and adorn it

With a merry, echoing blast of my cornet!

(Goes out blowing his horn.) The Castle of Vautsberg on the Rhine. PRINCE HENRY and ELSIE standing on the terrace at evening. The sound of bells heard from a distance.

Prince Henry. We are alone. The wedding guests

Ride down the hill, with plumes and cloaks,

And the descending dark invests
The Niederwald, and all the nests
Among its hoar and haunted oaks.
Elsie. What bells are those, that ring
so slow,

So mellow, musical, and low?

Prince Henry. They are the bells of Geisenheim,

That with their melancholy chime

Ring out the curfew of the sun.
Elsie. Listen, beloved.

Prince Henry. They are done!
Dear Elsie! many years ago
Those same soft bells at eventide
Rang in the ears of Charlemagne,
As, seated by Fastrada's side
At Ingelheim, in all his pride,
He heard their sound with secret pain.
Elsie. Their voices only speak to me
Of peace and deep tranquillity,
And endless confidence in thee!

Prince Henry. Thou knowest the
story of her ring:

How, when the Court went back to Aix,
Fastrada died; and how the King
Sat watching by her night and day,
Till into one of the blue lakes,
Which water that delicious land,
They cast the ring, drawn from her
hand;

And the great monarch sat serene,
And sat beside the fated shore,
Nor left the land for evermore.
Elsie. That was true love.

Prince Henry. For him the queen

Ne'er did what thou hast done for me. Elsie. Wilt thou as fond and faithful be?

Wilt thou so love me after death? Prince Henry. In life's delight, in death's dismay,

In storm and sunshine, night and day,
In health, in sickness, in decay,
Here and hereafter, I am thine!
Thou hast Fastrada's ring. Beneath
The calm blue waters of thine eyes,
Deep in thy steadfast soul it lies,
And, undisturbed by this world's breath,
With magic light its jewels shine!
This golden ring, which thou hast worn
Upon thy finger since the morn,
Is but a symbol and a semblance,
An outward fashion, a remembrance
Of what thou wearest within unseen,
O my Fastrada! O my queen!
Behold! the hill-tops all aglow
With purple and with amethyst;
While the old valley deep below
Is filled, and seems to overflow,
With a fast-rising tide of mist.
The evening air grows damp and chill;
Let us go in.
Ah, not so soon.

Elsie.

See yonder fire! It is the moon
Slow rising o'er the eastern hill.
It glimmers on the forest tips,
And through the dewy foliage drips
In little rivulets of light,

And makes the heart in love with night. Prince Henry. Oft on this terrace, when the day

Was closing, have I stood and gazed,
And seen the landscape fade away,
And the white vapours rise and drow
Hamlet and vineyard, tower and town
While far above the hill-tops blazed.
But then another hand than thine
Was gently held and clasped in mine;
Another head upon my breast
Was laid, as thine is now, at rest.
Why dost thou lift those tender eyes
With so much sorrow and surprise?
A minstrel's, not a maiden's hand,
Was that which in my own was pressed
A manly form usurped thy place,
A beautiful, but bearded face
That now is in the Holy Land,
Yet in my memory from afar
Is shining on us like a star.

But linger not. For while I speak,
A sheeted spectre, white and tall,
The cold mist climbs the castle wall,
And lays his hand upon thy cheek!
(They go in.)

EPILOGUE.

THE TWO RECORDING ANGELS ASCENDING.

The Angel of Good Deeds (with closed book).

God sent his messenger the rain,
And said unto the mountain brook,
"Rise up, and from thy caverns look,
And leap, with naked, snow-white feet,
From the cool hills into the heat,
Of the broad, arid plain."

God sent his messenger of faith,
And whispered in the maiden's heart,
"Rise up, and look from where thou art,
And scatter with unselfish hands
Thy freshness on the barren sands
And solitudes of Death."

O beauty of holiness,

Of self-forgetfulness, of lowliness!
O power of meekness,