But, quoth the Traveller, wherefore did he

leave

A flock that knew his saintly worth so well?
Why, said the Landlord, Sir, it so befell
He heard unluckily of our intent
To do him a great honour; and, you know,
He was not covetous of fame below,
And so by stealth one night away he went.

What might this honour be? the Traveller

cried.

Why, Sir, the Host replied,

leave us;

And then should strangers have

The good man's grave,

A loss like that would naturally grieve us,
For he'll be made a Saint of to be sure.
Therefore we thought it prudent to secure
His relics while we might;
And so we meant to strangle him one night.

THE ROSE.

NAY, EDITH! spare the Rose ;-perhaps it lives,

And feels the noon-tide sun, and drinks refresh'd

The dews of night; let not thy gentle hand
Tear its life-strings asunder, and destroy
The sense of being!-Why that infidel smile?
Come, I will bribe thee to be merciful;
And thou shalt have a tale of other days,
For I am skill'd in legendary lore,
So thou wilt let it live. There was a time
Ere this, the freshest, sweetest flower that
blooms,

Bedeck'd the bowers of earth. Thou hast not heard

How first by miracle its fragrant leaves Spread to the sun their blushing loveliness.

There dwelt at Bethlehem a Jewish maid,
And Zillah was her name, so passing fair
That all Judea spake the virgin's praise.
He who had seen her eyes' dark radiance
How it reveal'd her soul, and what a soul
Beam'd in the mild effulgence, woe was he,
For not in solitude, for not in crowds,
Might he escape remembrance, nor avoid
Her imaged form which followed every
where,

And fill'd the heart, and fix'd the absent eye.
Woe was he, for her bosom own'd no love
Save the strong ardours of religious zeal,
For Zillah on her God had center'd all
Her spirit's deep affections. So for her
Her tribes-men sigh'd in vain, yet reverenced
The obdurate virtue that destroy'd their
hopes.

One man there was, a vain and wretched man,

Against her virgin fame. He spread abroa Whispers that travel fast, and ill reports Which soon obtain belief; how Zillah's ey When in the temple heaven-ward it raised,

Did swim with rapturous zeal; but ther were those Who had beheld the enthusiast's meltin glance With other feelings fill'd;—that 'twas a tas Of easy sort to play the saint by day Before the public eye, but that all eyes Were closed at night;-that Zillah's lit was foul,

Yea forfeit to the law. Shame-shame to ma That he should trust so easily the tongue Which stabs another's fame! The ill repert Was heard, repeated, and believed, and

The injured Maid, abandon'd, as it secm'd, By God and man. The assembled Bethlemites Beheld the scene, and when they saw the Maid

Bound to the stake, with what calm holiness
She lifted up her patient looks to Heaven.
They doubted of her guilt. With other
thoughts

Stood Hamuel near the pile; him savage joy
Led thitherward, but now within his heart
Unwonted feelings stirr'd, and the first pangs
Of wakening guilt, anticipating Hell.
The eye of Zillah as it glanced around
Fell on the murderer once, and rested there
A moment; like a dagger did it pierce,
And struck into his soul a cureless wound
Conscience! thou God within us! not in the
hour

Of triumph dost thou spare the guilty wretch,

Not in the hour of infamy and death Forsake the virtuous! They draw near the stake,

In an evil day and a luckless night
From Garci's Hall did he take his flight,
And bear with him that lady bright,
That lady false, his bale and bane.
There was feasting and joy in Count Ayme-
rique's bower,

When he with triumph, and pomp, and pride,
Brought home the adultress like a bride:
His daughter only sate in her tower,
She sate in her lonely tower alone,
And for her dead mother she made her moan.
Methinks, said she, my father for me
Might have brought a bridegroom home.
A stepmother he brings hither instead,
Count Aymerique will not his daughter
should wed,

But he brings home a Leman for his own bed.
So thoughts of good and thoughts of ill
Were working thus in Abba's will;
And Argentine with evil intent
Ever to work her woe was bent;
That still she sate in her tower alone,
And in that melancholy gloom,

When for her mother she made her moan,
She wish'd her father too in the tomb.

She watches the pilgrims and poor who wait
For daily food at her father's gate.
I would some knight were there, thought she,
Disguised in pilgrim-weeds for me!
For Aymerique's blessing I would not stay,
Nor he nor his Leman should say me nay,
But I with him would wend away.
She watches her handmaid the pittance deal,
They took their dole and went away;
But yonder is one who lingers still
As though he had something in his will,
Some secret which he fain would say;
And close to the portal she sees him go,
He talks with her handmaid in accents low;
Oh then she thought that time went slow,
And long were the minutes that she must wait
Till her handmaid came from the castle-gate.

From the castle-gate her handmaid came,
And told her that a knight was there,
Who sought to speak with Abba tbe fair,
Count Aymerique's beautiful daughter and
heir.

She bade the stranger to her bower;
His stature was tall, his features bold;
A goodlier form might never maid
At tilt or tourney hope to see;
And though in pilgrim-weeds arrayed,
Yet noble in his weeds was he,
And his arms in them enfold
As they were robes of royalty.

He told his name to the damsel fair,
He said that vengeance led him there;
Now aid me, lady dear, quoth he,
To smite the adultress in her pride;
Your wrongs and mine avenged shall be,

meat.

They look to their pages, and lo! they Where Abba, a stranger so long before, The ewer, and bason, and napkin bore; She came and knelt on her bended knee, And first to her father ministred she; Count Aymerique look'd on his daughter down,

He look'd on her then without a frown.

And next to the Lady Argentine
Humbly she went and knelt;
The Lady Argentine the while
A haughty wonder felt;
Her face put on an evil smile;
I little thought that I should see
The Lady Abba kneel to me
In service of love and courtesy!
Count Aymerique, the Leman cried,
Is she weary of her solitude,
Or hath she quell'd her pride?

Abba no angry word replied,
She only raised her eyes and cried:
Let not the Lady Argentine
Be wroth at ministry of mine!
She look'd at Aymerique and sigh'd.
My father will not frown, I ween,
That Abba again at his board should be seen.
Then Aymerique raised her from her knee.
And kiss'd her eyes, and bade her be
The daughter she was wont to be.

The wine hath warm'd Count Aymerique,
That mood his crafty daughter knew.
She came and kiss'd her father's cheek,
And stroked his beard with gentle hand
And winning eye and action bland,
As she in childhood used to do.
A boon! Count Aymerique, quoth she;
If I have found favour in thy sight,
Let me sleep at my father's feet to night
Grant this, quoth she, so I shall see
That you will let your Abba be
The daughter she was wont to be.
With asking eye did Abba speak,
Her voice was soft and sweet;

The wine had warm'd Count Aymerique.
And when the hour of rest was come,
She lay at her father's feet.

In Aymerique's arms the Leman lay,
Their talk was of the distant day,
How they from Garci fled away
In the silent hour of night;
And then amid their wanton play
They mock'd the beautiful Knight.
Far, far away his castle lay,
The weary road of many a day;
And travel long, they said, to him,
It seem'd, was small delight,
And he belike was loth with blood
To stain his hands so white.

They little thought that Garci then
Heard every scornful word!
They little thought the avenging hand
Was on the avenging sword!
Fearless, unpenitent, unblest,
Without a prayer they sunk to rest,
The adulterer on the Leman's breast.

Then Abba, listening still in fear,
To hear the breathing long and slow,
At length the appointed signal gave,
And Garci rose and struck the blow.
One blow sufficed for Aymerique,-
He made no moan, he utter'd no groan;
But his death-start waken'd Argentine,
And by the chamber-lamp she saw
The bloody falchion shine!

She raised for help her in-drawn breath,
But her shriek of fear was her shriek of

death.

In an evil day and an hour of woe
Did Garci Ferrandez wed!

One wicked wife has he sent to her grave,
He hath taken a worse to his bed.

KING RAMIR O.

GREEN grew the alder-trees, and close To the water-side by St. Joam da Foz. From the castle of Gaya the warden sees The water and the alder-trees; And only these the warden sees, No danger near doth Gaya fear, No danger nigh doth the warden spy; He sees not where the gallies lie Under the alders silently. For the gallies with green are cover'd o'er, They have crept by night along the shore, And they lie at anchor, now it is morn, Awaiting the sound of Ramiro's horn.

In traveller's weeds Ramiro sate By the fountain at the castle-gate; But under the weeds was his breast-plate, And the sword he had tried in so many fights, And the horn whose sound would ring around, And be known so well by his knights.

From the gate Aldonza's damsel came
To fill her pitcher at the spring,
And she saw, but she knew not, her master,
the king.

In the Moorish tongue Ramiro spake,
And begg'd a draught for mercy's sake,
That he his burning thirst might slake;

For worn by a long malady,
Not strength enow, he said, had he
To lift it from the spring.
She gave her pitcher to the king,
And from his mouth he dropt a ring
Which he had with Aldonza broken;
So in the water from the spring
Queen Aldonza found the token.

With that she bade her damsel bring
Secretly the stranger in.

What brings thee hither, Ramiro? she cried:
The love of you, the king replied.
Nay! nay! it is not so! quoth she,
Ramiro, say not this to me!

I know your Moorish concubine
Hath now the love which once was mine.
If you had loved me as you say,
You would never have stolen Ortiga away;
If you had never loved another,

I had not been here in Gaya to-day
The wife of Ortiga's brother!
But hide thee here,-a step I hear,-
King Alboazar draweth near.

In her alcove she bade him hide:
King Alboazar, my lord, she cried,
What wouldst thou do, if at this hour
King Ramiro were in thy power?
This I would do, the Moor replied,

I would hew him limb from limb,
As he, I know, would deal by me,
So I would deal by him.
Alboazar! Queen Aldonza said,
Lo! here I give him to thy will;
In yon alcove thou hast thy foe,
Now thy vengeance then fulfil!

With that upspake the Christian king:
O! Alboazar deal by me

As I would surely deal with thee,
If I were you, and you were me!
Like a friend you guested me many a day,
Like a foe I stole your sister away;
The sin was great, and I felt its weight,
All joy by day the thought opprest,
And all night long it troubled my rest;
Till I could not bear the burthen of care,
But told my confessor in despair.
And he, my sinful soul to save
This penance for atonement gave;
That I before you should appear
And yield myself your prisoner here,
If my repentance was sincere,
That I might by a public death
Breathe shamefully out my latest breath.

And let me be set upon a stone, That by all the multitude I may be known, And bid me then this horn to blow, And I will blow a blast so strong, And wind the horn so loud and long That the breath in my body at last shall be gone,

And I shall drop dead in sight of the throng. Thus your revenge, oh King, will be brave, Granting the boon which I come to crave, And the people a holy-day-sport will have,

And I my precious soul shall save; For this is the penance my confessor gave. King Alboazar, this I would do, If you were I, and I were you.

This man repents his sin, be sure! To Queen Aldonza said the Moor, He hath stolen my sister away from me, I have taken from him his wife; Shame then would it be when he comes to me, And I his true repentance see,

If I for vengeance should take his life.

O Alboazar! then quoth she, Weak of heart as weak can be! Full of revenge and wiles is he. Look at those eyes beneath that brow, I know Ramiro better than thou! Kill him, for thou hast him now, He must die, be sure, or thou. Hast thou not heard the history How, to the throne that he might rise, He pluck'd out his brother Ordono's eyes? And dost not remember his prowess in fight, How often he met thee and put thee to flight, And plunder'd thy country for many a day; And how many Moors he has slain in the strife,

And how many more he has carried away? How he came to show friendship--and thou

didst believe him? How he ravish'd thy sister, and wouldst thou forgive him? And hast thou forgotten that I am his wife, And that now by thy side, I lie like a bride, The worst shame that can ever a Christian betide?

And cruel it were when you see his despair, If vainly you thought in compassion to spare, And refused him the boon he comes hither

to crave;

For no other way his poor soul can he saw Then by doing the penance his confessor gar

As Queen Aldonza thus replies, The Moor upon her fixed his eyes, And he said in his heart, unhappy is he

Who putteth his trust in a woman! Thou art King Ramiro's wedded wife. And thus wouldst thou take away his What cause have I to confide in thee! I will put this woman away from me. These were the thoughts that past in is breast,

But he call'd to mind Ramiro's might: And he fear'd to meet him hereafter in fight. And he granted the king's request.

So he gave him a roasted capon first. And a skinful of wine to quench his thirst; And he call'd for his sons and daughters all And assembled the people both great and small;

And to the bull-ring he led the king; And he set him there upon a stone, That by all the multitude he might be known And he bade him blow through his horai blast,

As long as his breath and his life should last

Oh then his horn Ramiro wound: The walls rebound the pealing sound, That far and wide rings echoing round; Louder and louder Ramiro blows, And farther the blast and farther goes: Till it reaches the gallies, where they lie clas Under the alders, by St. Joam da Foz It roused his knights from their repose, And they and their merry men arose. Away to Gaya they speed them straight; Like a torrent they burst through the citygate; And they rush among the Moorish throng And slaughter their infidel foes.

Then his good sword Ramiro drew Upon the Moorish king he flew, And he gave him one blow which cleft him through.

They killed his sons and his daughters too;

Every Moorish soul they slew; Neither old nor young, nor babe nor mother; Not one escaped of the infidel crew; And they left not one stone upon another.

They carried the wicked Queen aboard. And they took counsel what to do to her: They tied a mill-stone round her neck, And overboard in the sea they threw her.

She had water enow in the sea I trow; But glad would Queen Aldonza be, Of one drop of water from that salt sea, To cool her where she is now.