THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 SCALANDS GATE 
 
 ROBERTSBRIDGE 
 
 HAWKHURST 
 
 
 /fe 0^ "fa " 
 
 e *
 
 PR^MICES, 
 
 E. FOXTON. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 TICK NOR AND FIELDS 
 
 SI DCCC LV.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by 
 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS, 
 ia the Clerk's Office of th District Court of the District of Massachuseits. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 METOAI.F AND COSJPANf, PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 HILDA : A LOVE-SONG. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PRELUDE 3 
 
 PAET FIRST 7 
 
 PART SECOND 16 
 
 PART THIRD 26 
 
 PART FOURTH 30 
 
 PART FIFTH 49 
 
 PART SIXTH 52 
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH : OR THE THREE MAIDS. 
 
 PART FIRST 65 
 
 PAET SECOND 99 
 
 PART THIRD 112 
 
 PART FOURTH 121 
 
 PART FIFTH , 137 
 
 862751
 
 IV CONTENTS. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 LIGHT AND DARKNESS 155 
 
 BEATI QUI LTJGENT : OB, HERMAN'S VIGILS . . 162 
 
 SONNET 172 
 
 A VALENTINE 173 
 
 A CHABADE 179 
 
 MANHOOD . . . .182 
 
 NOTES 189 
 
 ERRATUM. 
 Page 37, line 16, for around, read a round.
 
 HILDA 
 
 A LOVE-SONG
 
 " One 
 God-satisfied and earth-undone." 
 
 ISOBEL'S CHILD. 
 
 " Were it wisely done, 
 
 If we, who cannot gaze above, should walk the earth alone ? 
 If we, whose virtue is so weak, should have a will so strong, 
 And stand blind on the rocks, to choose the right path from the wrong ? 
 To choose perhaps a love-lit hearth, instead of love and heaven, 
 A single rose, for a rose-tree which beareth seven times seven? " 
 
 THE LAY OF THB BBOWJJ ROSAKY.
 
 PRELUDE. 
 
 " COME, Ned, a good hour by the dial 
 
 You 've moped or you 've dozed, my dear lad ; 
 And now it is barely eleven ; 
 You know that 's too bad ! 
 
 " I 've reviewed the Assembly all over, 
 From the excellent time of Zerrahn, 
 Baskets, bonbons, bonmots, to the peerless 
 Poursuite of Miss Anne,
 
 HILDA. 
 
 With that humor peculiar and happy 
 That is wont, if not plaudits, to earn 
 Some response to your most humble servant ; 
 And now 't is your turn." 
 
 " Forgive me; I know I 've been stupid. 
 
 The rheumatism e'en on men's wits, 
 In such weather, may fairly be pardoned 
 For seizing by fits ; 
 
 " And to-night, from the old storied countries 
 
 As comes weeping and sobbing the blast, 
 To my ear it seems burdened with legends 
 From realms of the past. 
 
 " Stir the cannel. A song I '11 repeat you, 
 
 If you like, that I heard through the rain, 
 While the dull drops like tears on a tombstone 
 Plashed on the pane."
 
 HILDA. 
 
 " Though I think that the east is that ill wind 
 
 Which blows to no man any good, 
 As your muse can't be worse than your musing, 
 I yield to your mood." 
 
 " There 's a box of sardines then, some biscuit, 
 
 And claret ; and when you have supped, 
 Just fill up your meerschaum with bird's-eye, 
 And don't interrupt."
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 ON the mountain sits eyried a castle ; 
 
 A river rolls darkly below ; 
 The high solemn stars 'twixt huge clouds look 
 That over them go, 
 
 Like tears by God's pitying eyes dropped 
 
 On the forehead of blind, hopeless Night, 
 That returns him straight glances of wonder, 
 Tearful and bright ;
 
 8 HILDA. 
 
 And a maiden doth gaze with fond yearning 
 
 Through the dark from her turret above, 
 Who deems, while the Infinite waits her, 
 'Tis sweet earthly love. 
 
 She kneels at her lattice, and murmurs, 
 
 With locked fingers, and blushes between : 
 " How truly, O God, I have loved him, 
 Thou only hast seen 
 
 " Through the veil of my heart's inmost temple, 
 
 I breathed it not even to Thee, 
 Since, a fair, frolic boy, on the greensward 
 He gambolled with me. 
 
 " When he left me, the greensward, the castle, 
 
 The grove, and the river grew dim 
 In the mist of my blank eyes, and vanished. 
 My soul followed him
 
 HILDA. 
 
 " From the haunts where he sported beside me, 
 
 To toil in the march with armed men. 
 To pant in the glare of the desert, 
 To choke in the fen. 
 
 " While my damsels sat singing around me, 
 
 As we wrought, scarce their lays could I hear, 
 For the death-roar of grappling battalions, 
 The trump shrill and clear. 
 
 " He won glory and spurs ; and they whispered, 
 
 ' For a queen walketh Hilda too proud.' 
 He was wounded and taken ; I wasted 
 As if for my shroud. 
 
 " To me memory tells only his story ; 
 
 My youth's idle tale is forgot ; 
 It walked in its sleep, seeing all things 
 As though they were not ;
 
 10 HILDA. 
 
 " Till his herald he sent, on its slumber 
 With his suit, like the angel, to break, 
 That the saint who dreamed, dying, of heaven 
 In heaven doth awake. 
 
 " What more can I ask ? With all blessings 
 
 My heart is o'erflowing and rife ! 
 But this, E'en as Thou hast blest me, may 
 I bless him for life, 
 
 ' ; Fill brimming his fortune's gold chalice, 
 
 Or myself as a shield interpose, 
 Though my heart's blood be drained in the conflict, 
 'Twixt him and his woes." 
 
 Gay Rosalie sprang o'er the threshold : 
 " Prepare thee, sweet coz, O prepare ! 
 With torches the hall glares ! Before thee 
 Will Regnar be there ! "
 
 HILDA. 1 1 
 
 And no gems held the casket of Hilda 
 
 So peerless, the maiden to deck, 
 As the gorget of arms white and dimpled 
 That clasped round her neck. 
 
 From her soon, all arrayed in her bower, 
 
 Her maids with a reverent stare 
 Fell back, with a murmur in chorus 
 Of Is she not fair ? " 
 
 But when was the court without courtiers, 
 
 Or the heiress not rare to behold, 
 In the eyes of the judges keen-sighted 
 That look to her gold ? 
 
 " As my cast of white hawks," swore the old Earl, 
 
 With honest conviction. But ne'er 
 In a father's eyes duteous daughter 
 Showed other than fair.
 
 12 HILDA. 
 
 And her picture proclaimed her a Venus, 
 Gliding up through a sun-gilded wave 
 Of bright tresses, the spleen's doleful victims 
 With laughter to save. 
 
 But the caitiff that drew it had stolen 
 
 The light and ethereal grace, 
 And the summer hues blooming and beaming 
 O'er Rosalie's face. 
 
 As a sweet landscape sparkling with day 
 
 To the same 'neath the moon, of twin mothers 
 Those daughters bore faces unlike, yet 
 Like, one another's. 
 
 But said Rosalie, " Fair as an angel ! " 
 
 And Rosalie knew not to lie ; 
 And the soft-flushing face in the mirror 
 Confirmed her reply.
 
 HILDA. 13 
 
 For Hilda was fair, with a beauty 
 
 Kept sacred, unnoticed, unknown 
 To the crowd, garnered up for the pr;ze of 
 Affection alone. 
 
 Dark hair, thick and long, like a nun's veil 
 
 In its sombre and shadowy flow ; 
 A cheek smooth and white as the shroud of 
 A still, buried woe, 
 
 Till with fond gladness dimpling and blushing ; 
 
 Eyes that dreamily soared, dark as night, 
 Save her soul lit within their clear windows, 
 In jubilee bright, 
 
 Its festival lamps, whose beams vestal 
 
 Must needs then be charily hid, 
 Full often, beneath the fringed fall of 
 Each maidenly lid ;
 
 14 HILDA. 
 
 And lips well-nigh too calm and queenly, 
 
 Till wreathed to a smile or a kiss ; 
 Could the glance of cold lover discover 
 A beauty like this ? 
 
 " Will he love ? " she to Rosalie whispered. 
 
 The vigilant Earl chose to hear, 
 And, firing right angrily, bade her 
 To banish all fear. 
 
 " What wouldst thou, thou whimperer ? I 've given 
 
 thee 
 
 In troth to a good knight and true ; 
 If false, he should hang in his fetters 
 Without more ado, 
 
 " First shriek, and then smell, and then rattle, 
 
 Like marauding old Ethelbert's men, 
 From the walls of my keep on the hill, though 
 Thou pleaded as then ! "
 
 HILDA. 15 
 
 He came. The hall, thronged with attendants, 
 
 Alone with his presence seemed filled. 
 Her ear and her heart drank his raptures. 
 Those raptures were stilled. 
 
 She raised her glad eyes. On his face, where 
 
 He knelt just beside her, they fell. 
 'T was a face as of one that to love and 
 To life bids farewell. 
 
 Fair Rosalie, standing beside her, 
 
 Turned blushing and frowning away. 
 He rose, and once more would address her, 
 But naught could he say. 
 
 The cold it is chilling, that freezes 
 
 On the front of the loved loyal dead ; 
 On that of the living beloved 
 Perchance 't is more dread.
 
 16 
 
 PART SECOND, 
 
 FROM the banquet-hall straight to his chamber 
 
 The knight, stalking gloomily, passed, 
 And, as waiting the headsman, a beadsman 
 Demanded in haste. 
 
 The deaf foster-mother of Hilda, 
 
 In ambush who lay at the gate, 
 To the buttery dragged him, the instant 
 He passed 'neath the grate,
 
 HILDA. 17 
 
 In spite of his mild protestations, 
 
 And covered the board with good cheer ; 
 " Thou, meagre with fasting and famine, 
 Saint, taste of my beer. 
 
 " Art cold ? " And she piled on the fagots, 
 
 Till the mortified saint, being fat, 
 With a martyr-like fiery endurance 
 Nigh smoked as he sat. 
 
 " It sufficeth ! " he cried ; but she heard not 
 
 Till off cowl and cloak did he cast ; 
 " I will cleanse them," quoth she, and departed 
 And made the door fast. 
 
 " The holy man waits in the chapel, 
 
 Sir knight." The knight reeled as if drunk, 
 With wine or with woe, where " What wilt thou ? "' 
 Breathed faintly the monk. 
 2
 
 18 HILDA. 
 
 " Though I see thee not well through the bars where 
 
 Thou sittest, in secret and shade, 
 As sitteth heaven's chronicler angel, 
 To hear me," he said ; 
 
 (The starting monk shrank at the first word, 
 
 In his far corner further drew back, 
 And drew closer around his dim features 
 The cowl's shrouding black ; ) 
 
 " By the accents so gentle and soft of 
 
 Thy scarce-heard and faltering tongue, 
 I think thee no dead-hearted old man. 
 Canst feel for the young ? " 
 
 " As I feel for myself," low he faltered, 
 
 And sad ; " had not Fate played me foul, 
 And Love played me false, I had never 
 Put on the cowl."
 
 HILDA. 19 
 
 " Then list ; and, if mercy 's in heaven, 
 Show mercy ! " the knight did begin ; 
 " I am bound by an oath, and to break it 
 Or keep it were sin. 
 
 " Can I soil my clear knighthood with vow-breach? 
 
 To Hilda is plighted my troth ! 
 Shall I swear before God's holy altar 
 To love whom I loathe ? 
 
 " What say I ? I meant not, good father " 
 
 " Say on. It was naught but a pain 
 That shot through my heart " ; and he gasped," Nay, 
 Perchance through my brain." 
 
 " I meant no reproach to a maiden, 
 
 Famed stainless in mind as in race. 
 Should I loathe not a glorified seraph 
 In Rosalie's place ? "
 
 20 HILDA. 
 
 " Then what fiend bade thee bait thy base snare for 
 
 The peace of a maid's harmless youth, 
 With a suit that her fond fancy dressed in 
 Her own princely truth ? " 
 
 His spurred heel struck the spark from the pave 
 ment 
 
 Where he stood. " Nay, my suit it was true, 
 When urged, as her faith that received it ! 
 Not false did I woo ! 
 
 " From the day that her soft, girlish fingers 
 Yielded mine to the clasp of steel glove, 
 In battle and tilt I wooed glory 
 Undreaming of love. 
 
 " Fair damsels I sought for their peril, 
 But tarried not long for their thanks, 
 And, ere well they had hailed me ' Deliverer ! ' 
 Pricked on in the ranks.
 
 HILDA. 21 
 
 " In the listed and bannered arena, 
 
 So I made the proud trophy my own, 
 What recked I if the queen's hand that gave it 
 Were snowy or brown ? 
 
 " Many grew the wide fields and strong castles 
 
 That I 'd conquered ; and won was coy Fame. 
 Then methought it were well to win also 
 A dutiful dame, 
 
 t 
 
 " In my absence to rule my possessions, 
 
 A nurse with fond patience to care 
 For my wounds, and a gentle young mother 
 To fondle mine heir. 
 
 " But of damsels from childhood to manhood, 
 
 My boyhood's old playmate alone, 
 From Palestine's vineyards to Albion, 
 Had I ever known.
 
 22 HILDA. 
 
 <( Report fairly spake of her virtues. 
 
 In ill hour my addresses I paid ; 
 In ill hour did her sire, through my envoy, 
 Accord me the maid ; 
 
 " In ill hour did a limner, that lied, fill 
 
 My sleep with false dreams of her beauty, 
 And turn to wild rapture and worship 
 My purposed calm duty. 
 
 
 
 " I came, and deemed, ravished, that only 
 The half of her charms had been told ! 
 The very air round her grew brighter, 
 And smiled to behold ! 
 
 " My soul flew through my lips to keep time, as 
 
 My eyes towards her shot their first glance. 
 It will not return ; and I never 
 Can break from my trance !
 
 HILDA. 23 
 
 " But in wrath she turned lovely away, ere 
 
 I knew I had hailed her my bride, 
 And left me but the dim, dreary shadow 
 That drooped at her side." 
 
 He groaned ; but the monk, with clasped hands, 
 
 cried : 
 
 " True is Rosalie, then ! Say again ! 
 In truth, hadst thou never beheld her, 
 Nor loved her, till then ? " 
 
 " He who asks me such questions, good father, 
 For a cleftless, needs thank a shorn crown ; 
 Yet to thee will I swear it," the grim knight 
 Rejoined with a frown. 
 
 " But how shall I right this wronged maiden ? 
 
 To mimic the lover were vain, 
 And proffer false heart for her true one. 
 I 'm used not to feign.
 
 24 HILDA. 
 
 " If I don this hacked mail for thy sackcloth, 
 
 And quit for the cloister my tent, 
 Can my fasts and my vigils, of Heaven 
 Buy back her content ? 
 
 " With this brand, that I wrenched from the Soldan, 
 
 Shall I bid her my life at her feet 
 Spill, my pledge to redeem, and her honor ? 
 Such death it were sweet. 
 
 " I will front her grim sire and his headsman ! " 
 
 " Nay," said the monk, rising, " No more ! 
 Be happy. Thy penitence merits 
 My good news in store. 
 
 " Pale shade of betrothed, or of troth-plight, 
 
 No longer shall stand in thy way ; 
 For Hilda in secret a vestal 
 Is vowed from this day.
 
 HILDA. 25 
 
 " I release thee." " Release ? Thou ! " " Absolve, I 
 
 Absolve thee," the monk stammered swift ; 
 " Benedicite. Prithee go hence ; I 
 Am new at a shrift." 
 
 From the aisle where she watched stole the old 
 
 crone ; 
 
 But the buttery monk, ere released 
 And replaced in his robe, had time ample 
 To finish his feast. 
 
 " The hag ! Has she washed it ? " he grumbled. 
 
 " The cowl 's wet, from cheeks to the ears, 
 As it ever was erst in my homesick 
 First cloistered years ! " 
 
 Then in the confessional dozed he 
 
 Long hours. Still the knight did not come ; 
 And chapfallen, as from a fool's errand, 
 He stiffly limped home.
 
 26 
 
 PART THIRD. 
 
 SHE hath wept on her knees to her sire, 
 
 And prayed, with a low, heart-wrung moan, 
 " Wouldst thou languish at last on thy death-bed 
 Unsoothed and alone ? 
 
 " Send not thy child hence, in the cold world 
 
 To shiver uncherished, and pine ; 
 No other love hath it to give her 
 So tender as thine." 

 
 HILDA. 27 
 
 He chid, and then raved, and then softened. 
 
 While a stranger shame strayed o'er his face, 
 Confounded, with wandering glances, 
 He sought the knight's grace. 
 
 " My girl she is petted, and wayward, 
 
 And will not be parted from me ; 
 I would give a large dower in her stead with 
 My niece Rosalie." 
 
 She hath clasped round yon arching throat swan- 
 like 
 
 Her own nuptial necklace of pearls ; 
 And her own silvery veil hangs its stars o'er 
 
 The bride's sunny curls. 
 
 With the white silken robe, that her maids long 
 
 With silver en wrought, hath she laced, 
 And spanned with her own jewelled girdle, 
 Fair Rosalie's waist.
 
 28 HILDA. 
 
 Her purse of broad pieces is emptied 
 
 To make richer the right queenly dower. 
 She hath strewn with fresh myrtle and roses 
 The nuptial bower. 
 
 She hath prayed in the church, grave and seemly, 
 
 While his office was sped by the priest, 
 The prize hath adjudged at the tourney, 
 And reigned o'er the feast ; 
 
 She hath trod a gay measure with Regnar, 
 
 And smiled with a courteous cheer 
 On scant words, that, for Rosalie sighing, 
 He forced for her ear. 
 
 But when fond, grateful Rosalie pressed him, 
 
 " Now, is she not fair to behold, 
 And sweet-hearted ? " he said, " Nay, I know not 
 Is she not cold ? "
 
 HILDA. 29 
 
 And Hilda was cold as high Hecla, 
 
 Flinging back in her bleak virgin snow 
 The sun's arctic smile, while her surging 
 Hid heart burns below. 
 
 She hath mounted the bride on her palfrey. 
 The drawbridge is passed. Grating, falls 
 Behind the last steed the portcullis. 
 How empty the walls ! 
 
 "'T is done; and for life I have blessed him." 
 
 Thus, retreading the rush-rustling floor, 
 She said. " Had I been his beloved, 
 What had I won more ? "
 
 30 
 
 PART FOURTH. 
 
 THREE years have crawled by. From the castle, 
 
 Still as erst, fierce and grim the Earl goes, 
 And cometh back wounded and fiercer, 
 From bouts with his foes. 
 
 Still as erst, Hilda watches his coming, 
 
 And smooths with a soft hand his bed, 
 Unscared by his furies impartial, 
 That burst o'er her head.
 
 HILDA. 31 
 
 Still duly she orders her household, 
 
 Presides o'er loom, needle, and wheel ; 
 With the lofty grace no tale that telleth 
 Of woe or of weal, 
 
 To bower or to banquet makes welcome, 
 
 As courtly, the courtliest guest ; 
 And to herald of war or meek vassal 
 Declares her behest. 
 
 Of degree as his hopes high, comes many 
 
 A noble and hero, to pay 
 His court to the heiress. As many 
 Go lowering away. 
 
 But, from far courts and countries returning, 
 
 Well guerdoned the wandering wight 
 Who can tell her of Rosalie's glories, 
 Or deeds of her knight. .
 
 32 HILDA. 
 
 The snow of her cheek might have wasted, 
 
 But ne'er was seen wet by a tear, 
 Till the old foster-mother in shroud-sleep 
 Lay stiff as her bier. 
 
 Her soul's sluices, once openly opened, 
 
 Refused at her bidding to close. 
 In the wake of the freed woe, rushed after 
 A flood of pent woes. 
 
 The gossips and leeches in vain strove 
 
 To ease her mysterious grief. 
 She must seek, at the shrine of St. Agnes, 
 A pilgrim, relief. 
 
 The bristling spears hedged from beholder 
 
 The black-flowing weeds of the maid; 
 With hoof-dint and arms' clang alone rang 
 The mute cavalcade.
 
 HILDA. 33 
 
 In a valley's dank grove, after nightfall, 
 
 They found, after long days and search, 
 Stayed with ivy's slight arms from its ruin. 
 The lone, crumbling church. 
 
 " Take meat, and repose, noble lady ; 
 
 Admit some of thy train to be near." 
 " Guard only the gates from intruders. 
 What have I to fear?" 
 
 At the chink of the traceried window 
 
 Held her cresset the cold, veiled moon, 
 Till she, groping 'mid tombs to the altar, 
 Fell wearily down. 
 
 " O God ! Were there one 'mid Thy creatures, 
 
 That swarm round me and leave me alone, 
 To whom I might breathe, in my anguish, 
 How I am undone! 
 3
 
 34 HILDA. 
 
 " Why didst Thou, divine, self-sufficient, 
 
 Woe and weakness enthroned far above, 
 This poor human heart fashion for loving, 
 And make none to love ? 
 
 " The meanest my vassal or bondmaid 
 
 Is dear to some churl of her choice, 
 To a babe whose small eyes wink and twinkle 
 At sound of her voice, 
 
 " Or a mother, within whose unnurtured 
 
 Coarse bosom is still one soft nest, 
 Her child to receive, with its sorrows, 
 And lull them to rest. 
 
 " No quick ear is turned at my footstep ; 
 
 No eager hand hurries to mine ; 
 No face owns as brightly my coming 
 As dim Dawn's the brine.
 
 HILDA. 35 
 
 " My sire waxes old ; and anon there 
 On all the wide earth shall be none 
 To say masterly, ' Thus do thou, Hilda,' 
 Or, ' That leave undone.' 
 
 " Take back this lone life when he dieth ; 
 
 No cheek shall be wet that is dry, 
 When, 'mid these thine unsuffering children, 
 Unsuffering I lie. 
 
 " They watch not by night on moist pillow ; 
 
 Their measure of tears it is shed ; 
 They dream not of bliss, to awaken 
 To woe, happy dead ! 
 
 " Brawling Noon breaketh not on their slumbers; 
 
 Nor the sly peering light of the morning 
 Leereth into their faces, their dull peace 
 To turn into mourning."
 
 36 , HILDA. 
 
 She slept ; for the stillness around her 
 
 Stole" as soft on her travail-worn brain, 
 As steals the soft slumber of morn on 
 A long night of pain. 
 
 She woke ; and a brightness was round her, 
 
 And dazzling and blinding white mist. 
 She woke ; for a presence of blessing 
 Had lightly, she wist, 
 
 As fresh air heaves the breast of freed prisoner, 
 
 Eased her bosom from weight of spent sobs, 
 As the great heart of Light through the clouds stirs 
 Our own with its throbs, 
 
 Had thrilled her with sunbeams returning 
 
 Of the joyance of days Jong ago, 
 And set to empyreal music 
 Her life's dream of woe,
 
 HILDA. 37 
 
 As the mother's soft lullaby sung by 
 
 The cradle, and footstep's fall light, 
 Turns the fevered babe's terrified visions 
 To shapes of delight. 
 
 Through her sealed lids, pressed down with efful 
 gence, 
 
 By effulgence made glassy, her soul 
 Saw transfigured the chapel expand, as to hold 
 The infinite whole. 
 
 Vaulted arches and trefoils are rainbows, 
 
 Warped or stretched, as may fit, high and far. 
 For each crystal that lurked in the granite, 
 There twinkles a star. 
 
 Where each corbel clasped pillar and roof's rib, 
 
 More vast than conglomerate in one 
 All the orbs and the space we see nightly, 
 Shines fixed around sun.
 
 38 HILDA. 
 
 Volumed incense, like sunset-clouds tinted, 
 
 From altar to roof fills the air, 
 Whence glad, solemn-faced cherubs peep, upward 
 Bound, freighted with prayer. 
 
 Gorgeous angels glow through the stained windows, 
 
 With waving sublime of white wings, 
 And lips awful, whose quietness breathes out 
 Unspeakable things. 
 
 Through the long, endless vistas of columns 
 
 The redeemed walk, palm-branches that bear, 
 In the fragrance of white baptized lilies 
 That circle their hair, 
 
 With cadence of soft, steady footfalls. 
 
 Their glistering raiments are swayed 
 By the surge of their grandly sweet singing, 
 More than by their tread.
 
 HILDA. 39 
 
 On and on, in procession triumphal, 
 Bliss nigh too intense for a smile 
 Shining out through each feature transparent, 
 Advance they, and while 
 
 Through bright present to future yet brighter, 
 From the bliss-haunted depths of the past, 
 Calm Eternity marshals them onward, 
 Nor loiter nor haste. 
 
 She felt, with a mixture supernal 
 
 Of rapture and torment, her soul, 
 Still quickening and swelling, expand as to hold 
 The infinite whole. 
 
 The cloud-pillar pregnant with fire, 
 
 Swelling tremulous up through the nave, 
 As of yore in the desert, flashed open. 
 Within its light cave,
 
 40 HILDA. 
 
 Her sight slowly schooled to endurance 
 
 And uplifted, before her she knew 
 A form like that which shines on the night of 
 The lone watcher, who 
 
 Hath read till, his taper expiring, 
 
 He sleeps, his head resting upon 
 Where resteth his heart so securely 
 The Gospel of John. 
 
 Round it thrown, as by mockers prophetic, 
 
 The imperial purple rolled down. 
 A glory of thorns incandescent 
 It wore as a crown. 
 
 Its heavenly hands, wide spread in blessing, 
 
 As when on the cross, all men o'er, 
 The prints of earth's guerdon of iron 
 Still patiently bore.
 
 HILDA. 41 
 
 Its face showed as an altar, whereon pure 
 
 Humanity unto the Godhead, 
 In transports of bliss and of anguish, 
 Was awfully wedded. 
 
 Floods on floods, that no angel could fathom, 
 
 From its deep eyes, of pathos did flow 
 For its followers triumphant around it, 
 And struggling below. 
 
 A light that was clearer than noonday 
 O'er it poured from the zenith above. 
 Played upward and downward incessant 
 Betwixt, a white dove. 
 
 " Arise ! " said the voice, that of old sent 
 
 The quick thaw through Death's icy breast ; 
 " Come unto me, thou heavy laden 
 And weary, and rest.
 
 42 HILDA. 
 
 " Fear not. I am gentle and lowly. 
 
 My heart hath been pierced, and bled. 
 I had not with the birds and the foxes 
 A rest for my head. 
 
 " And the Son of Man, e'en in his glory, 
 
 While the hard earth that boasts him to-day 
 Turns his flock, in their hunger, and thirsting, 
 And sickness, away, 
 
 " In the mystical union that binds him 
 
 With them, while his blest round him shine, 
 Is doomed in their sickness and loneness 
 And bondage to pine. 
 
 " In the world dost thou find tribulation ; 
 
 But I have the world overcome. 
 I prepare in my Father's safe mansion 
 Already thy home.
 
 HILDA. 43 
 
 " Do the will of my Father ; and henceforth 
 
 Deserted no more thou shalt be, 
 A sister beloved and cherished, 
 A mother, to me ! " 
 
 It ceased. From a garland of seraphs 
 
 Wide o'er it wreathed, 'neath, and around, 
 Here and there, in and out, 'mid the vapor, 
 Some floated to ground. 
 
 Rome writes few of their names in her canons. 
 
 They followed, in sorrow and dearth, 
 Unnoticed, unblessed, save in blessing, 
 Through by-ways, on earth, 
 
 Their Master's lone, half-effaced footsteps. 
 This boon in return God bestoweth, 
 They follow him also in heaven 
 Wherever he goeth.
 
 44 HILDA. 
 
 Bending o'er her with pitying glances, 
 
 Yet gladsome, they spake, as they stood, 
 Things sweet, as they whisper o'er cradles, 
 And half understood : 
 
 " The cross it is rugged, and galleth 
 
 The weak flesh and spirit full sore. 
 The cross it is pricelessly precious ; 
 He bore it before. 
 
 "'T was the legacy last he bequeathed us; 
 
 With the death-pang his bosom did heave ; 
 Naught else save his peace to his own had 
 Man left him to leave. 
 
 " 'T was the ladder he climbed to his kingdom, 
 While the earth with his darkness grew dim. 
 Through their darkness his followers forsaken 
 It lifteth to him."
 
 HILDA. 45 
 
 " Wouldst thou win thee fond hearts ? Come with 
 
 us then, 
 
 And seek in the huts of the poor. 
 The starving will scarce turn thee empty 
 Away from their door. 
 
 " The love of the humble and lowly, 
 
 O Hilda, thou wilt not despise ; 
 
 'T is as rich as the service of princes 
 
 In light of God's eyes." 
 
 " Spurn not time-bounded life ; though it doom thee 
 
 To loneliness, sickness, and fear ; 
 'T is the short tossing tempest, that maketh 
 The haven more dear ; 
 
 " 'T is the toil and the vigil, that softens 
 And smooths the deep pillow of rest; 
 'T is the fast to the feast that supplieth 
 Its keen, hungry zest ;
 
 46 HILDA. 
 
 " Within its base earthy clod teeming, 
 The seeds of all blessings are given : 
 The stuff 't is that glory is made of, 
 The price that buys heaven." 
 
 " Love on earth, of the love of the heavens 
 
 Is but as a down-dropping spark, 
 In mercy struck out, but oft trampled 
 And quenched in the dark. 
 
 " Naught as this, on our viewless wings rushing, 
 
 Half so heavenly we find, as we roam 
 O'er the world ; yet 't is scarce the rude type of 
 The love that 's to come. 
 
 " Its heart has few chambers and narrow ; 
 
 And all of them, soon filled, it locks. 
 Then it says, ' I 've no room,' to the homeless 
 Intruder that knocks.
 
 HILDA. 47 
 
 " The stem that its few rose-buds beareth 
 With countless thorns bristles beneath. 
 Its garden is only the sunny 
 
 Bright play-ground of Death. 
 
 " Far more strong than the brother's young manhood 
 
 To shield his girl sister from harm, 
 More glad than, with dance-tossed ringlets, 
 She clings to his arm, 
 
 " More true than the bridegroom's devotion 
 
 While the nuptial blessing is said, 
 More deep than his young widow's anguish 
 Over him dead, 
 
 " More fond than the mother's first kiss on 
 Her first-born's unsullied, fresh brow, 
 More pure than its smile just bedewed at 
 The font even now,
 
 48 HILDA. 
 
 " More reverent than holy child forced to 
 
 His knees, by the joy of his heart, 
 On the shore when the waves bound before him, 
 Thanks giving apart, 
 
 " Is the love that we bear one another, 
 
 Through Infinity's endless abode, 
 And Eternity's measureless cycles ! 
 More we love God ! " 
 
 O, Mortality not for a moment 
 
 The pent hymns that burst forth could endure ! 
 The wide shock of harmony stunned her; 
 She saw nor heard more. 
 
 At morning her form, cold and breathless, 
 
 By her terrified menials was found 
 By the altar laid, white as the stone dames 
 On tombs carved around.
 
 49 
 
 PART FIFTH. 
 
 THEY bore her forth into the sunlight, 
 
 And tended with care and with pain. 
 She, wavering back to existence, 
 Sighed faintly again. 
 
 But, wan in their rude litter lying, 
 
 Nor lip nor a limb did she stir, 
 Till she heard a dead peasant's child crying, 
 
 And wooed it to her. 
 4
 
 50 HILDA. 
 
 Anon were the castle gates opened 
 
 Each morn, and the strange tale was spread, 
 That the hungry and naked there trooping 
 Were clad and were fed ; 
 
 Anon, oft as noon lit her bower, 
 
 Childish curls clustered fond round her knee; 
 Orphan babes on her breast smiled up into 
 Her face their own glee ; 
 
 Anon, ere chime of vespers, the palfrey 
 
 Of Hilda each day paced, to bear 
 A vision of peace through the hamlets, 
 With alms and with prayer. 
 
 Fevered ears still foretold her far coming ; 
 
 And straining hands unto hers clave, 
 As the guide's who should lead them to glory, 
 Unscathed, through the grave ;
 
 HILDA. 51 
 
 While tremblers, to greet her, on features 
 
 That stiffened in Death's valley cold, 
 Called back their last smile ; then in heaven 
 Good news of her told. 
 
 Thus away flew, as if on the pinions 
 
 Of angels, full many a year. 
 " Now choose thee a mate, dear our lady ; 
 Lone Age, it is drear ! " 
 
 " I know not," she answered, bewildered, 
 
 " If dreary or long my life's road ; 
 By His grace, not mine, it was hid in 
 A vision of God."
 
 52 
 
 PART SIXTH. 
 
 OF the roystering lord of the castle 
 
 Was left but a low earthly mound, 
 A spirit that stood at the judgment, 
 A corse in the ground. 
 
 The windows and walls all with black hung, 
 
 And the torches, made night a drear day, 
 And day lurid night without slumber, 
 While bells tolled alway.
 
 HILDA. 53 
 
 But a page clattered up to the portals, 
 
 Demanding their ruler to see : 
 " Rosalie and her knight are ta'en captive 
 In far Galilee. 
 
 " I alone have escaped. I have run, sailed, 
 
 And ridden for aid, night and day ; 
 Pray Heaven it may come ere my master 
 The Saracen slay ! " 
 
 Through the funeral ranks of the vassals 
 
 Ran a murmur of grief and of fear. 
 " Full well our dead Earl, did he love them ; 
 Would God he were here ! " 
 
 When, from sable couch starting, the Countess 
 Dashed the veil and the tears from her face : 
 " I will lead you myself to the rescue, 
 Your Earl, by God's grace !
 
 54 HILDA. 
 
 " To arms ! Loose our chafing ships, tugging 
 
 At their tethers so long, by the strand ; 
 To the mart drive our herds and flocks, dotting 
 Yon far mountain-land, 
 
 " And raise me a ransom right princely. 
 
 Great Giver, forbid I should hold 
 The lives of my friends, or my foemen, 
 Less dear than my gold ! " 
 
 Strange billows and realms they swept over. 
 
 " Whither flies your lord ? Pray you, his name ? " 
 " The Earl of Swanmere, to deliver 
 Sir Regnar, his dame." 
 
 Right glad saw they Ascalon's towers, 
 
 With their mirrored shafts, paint the clear deep ; 
 But the crescent grinned where the red cross used 
 To wave o'er the keep.
 
 HILDA. 55 
 
 " A herald craves audience, great Selira. 
 A strange lord a ransom has brought, 
 To buy the chained knight in the donjon, 
 In Galilee caught." 
 
 " Bid him first bring his bills and his crossbows. 
 
 With fire will I burn up the knight, 
 While my wives and my children his ransom 
 Share after the fight. 
 
 " Untimely my troops to the Houris 
 
 His merciless falchion, so red, 
 Hath sent all my life long by thousands. 
 A curse on his head ! " 
 
 Long and sore raged the battle. The fosses 
 
 Were struggling and wallowing with men ; 
 A gory flood roaring and gushing, 
 A devil-stocked pen.
 
 56 HILDA. 
 
 With men, as with insects in August 
 
 Crawls the dike of a foul ditch, did crawl, 
 Running, writhing, and dropping, with death stung, 
 Each ladder and wall. 
 
 Flaming down from the ramparts above them, 
 
 As if upon Sodom again, 
 
 Through the smoke flew, with death and with fire, 
 The sulphury rain. 
 
 Through the grate of his donjon might Regnar, 
 
 "Where the conflict waxed hottest, espy, 
 On a mighty black war-horse, the leader, 
 And burned to descry 
 
 His device. " Sure my kinsman was taller ! " 
 
 He cried ; " would he turn but his shield ! 
 'T is his white swan the blue lake that saileth ! 
 My pardon is sealed ! "
 
 HILDA. 57 
 
 In a joint of the armor of Hilda, 
 
 Lit a quivering arrow, anon. 
 She reeled, and she bled, but fell not ere 
 The battle was won. 
 
 The air it was smoke, and the castle 
 
 A palace of fast-rising flame, 
 When, to rid her true knight of his fetters, 
 Freed Rosalie came. 
 
 Where the foaming black charger pawed, champing 
 
 His red bit, at the door of a tent, 
 With thanksgivings to bless their deliverer, 
 Unwitting they went. 
 
 With the fond, trusting calm of a sister, 
 She looked up and smiled in his face, 
 And thus spake, by her Rosalie pillowed 
 Within her embrace :
 
 58 HILDA. 
 
 " My coming deliverer no longer, 
 
 Kind attendants, oppose with vain strife ; 
 Nor leechcraft nor Fate any longer 
 Can slay me with life. 
 
 " My days have been blest, but scarce blissful ; 
 
 I go to be blissful and blest. 
 In true hearts let me shrine my last wishes, 
 And sink to my rest 
 
 " Sir knight, for the price of thy freedom, 
 As thou say'st, if thou owest me aught, 
 Guard these captives, that forth from the ruin 
 My followers have brought, 
 
 " Nor leave them till safe with their kindred. 
 
 Yon poor Moslem, said he not right ? 
 So his women and babes shall thy ransom 
 Share after the fight.
 
 HILDA. 59 
 
 " Then give thy hacked sword to its scabbard. 
 This world slides from thee ; merciful deeds 
 Alone, crowns, with glory undying, 
 The world that succeeds. 
 
 " I will thee my kine, robes, and jewels, 
 
 My Rosalie, Regnar my gold, 
 My seigniories, castles, and manors, 
 To have and to hold ; 
 
 " I leave thee the weal of my vassals, 
 
 From the dim midland mounts to the shore ; 
 To thee, Rose, my widows and orphans, 
 To see me no more ; 
 
 " I dread, when she heareth the tidings, 
 
 That long little Alice will weep ; 
 But lay her dear head on thy bosom, 
 And hymn her to sleep ;
 
 60 HILDA. 
 
 " And when at the icicled lattice 
 
 The shivering wind knocks, wailing loud, 
 Let her wear the warm kirtle I wrought her, 
 While I wear my shroud. 
 
 " In no earth my unworthy corse bury, 
 
 That my Lord may have blessed with his tread. 
 In the church of St. Agnes I pray you 
 To make my last bed. 
 
 " Your words are a foretaste of heaven ; 
 Yet stay me not. Hear ye ? Above 
 Chanting cherubs and saints come, to crown me 
 With fulness of love." 
 
 Then there shone on her death-stricken features 
 
 So sudden and wondrous a light, 
 They glanced upward, saw naught ; and her spirit 
 Had taken its flight.
 
 HILDA. 61 
 
 "What's that? The Old South 's striking mid 
 night! 
 
 Kind troubadour, reach me my cap. 
 Good by ; and my very best thanks for 
 An excellent nap."
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH 
 
 OR 
 
 THE THREE MAIDS. 
 
 A SONG OF HUNGARY.
 
 "How hath she sinned?' 
 
 ' In bartering lore 
 God's lore for man's.' " 
 
 THE LAY OP THE BEOWN ROSABY. 
 
 " If thoa refuse the cross sent thee by an angel, the Devil will impose on thec 
 a heavier weight." 
 
 BAPTISTERY.
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 BLACK mists climbed Csejta's castle walls. 
 
 Behind a bleak Carpathian's crest, 
 The day his blear and bloodshot eye 
 
 Was shutting, in the stormy west. 
 
 Loud hooted back the mountain owls 
 To faintly hooting owls below ; 
 
 And dizzy bats with whirling flight 
 Did circling round the turrets go. 
 5
 
 66 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 The mustering tempest fiercely rode, 
 
 And ranged in place each straggler cloud. 
 
 Through dark defile and rugged gorge 
 The hurrying winds piped shrill and loud. 
 
 The princess through her lattice looked, 
 And dimly saw the vacant road, 
 
 Once crowded with the bridal train, 
 That bore her to her lord's abode ; 
 
 When envying magnates grudged him, more 
 Than all his wealth, his peerless bride ; 
 
 And she in maiden bliss forgot, 
 
 One happy hour, her state and pride. 
 
 The princess to her mirror looked, 
 And saw where Discontent and Time 
 
 Had stolen from her matron face 
 The worshipped glories of its prime,
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 67 
 
 A little lustre from her eye, 
 
 Some richness from each raven tress, 
 
 A subtle tint from cheek and brow, 
 And, with them, all her loveliness. 
 
 Her pale lip paler grew, and worked 
 
 With rage and fury ill repressed. 
 No sound escaped it ; but, within 
 
 The hell of her rebellious breast, 
 
 " God, God ! " she cried ; " on woman's youth 
 Thou dost its short-lived charms bestow, 
 
 And empire over hearts and hands, 
 To teach her but their worth to know, 
 
 " That, through her almost all of life, 
 
 The memory of that empire brief, 
 In loneliness, neglect, and scorn, 
 
 May barb with scorpion's sting her grief.
 
 68 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 " Man's work endures. The limner's dames 
 For ages bloom and smile the same ; 
 
 And beauty in the chiselled stone 
 Is changeless as its sculptor's fame. 
 
 " Few winters' frosts it needs to mar, 
 Few summers' suns to scorch away, 
 
 The Eternal's evanescent lines, 
 And colors, in his moulded clay." 
 
 Then, from her window's deep recess, 
 She gazed into the arrased room, 
 
 Like shaded flowers in leafy bowers, 
 Where sat her maids amid the gloom. 
 
 A separate anguish stabbed her heart 
 
 At every excellence she spied ; 
 And what the jealous twilight hid, 
 
 Her jealous memory supplied.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 69 
 
 And, " Of these beggar maids, who look 
 
 To me for dower and daily bread, 
 Not one but boasts herself more rich 
 
 In beauty's wealth than I," she said. 
 
 Amid those rustling groups of girls, 
 
 Three fairest showed, where all were fair ; 
 
 And one in any royal court 
 
 Had safely challenged all compare. 
 
 In Agatha had Nature tried 
 
 To manifest, in form and hue, 
 The choicest cunning of her hand, 
 
 The very utmost she could do. 
 
 The stranger, when the wondrous thing 
 
 In all her glory on him burst, 
 Could scarcely trust his dazzled sight, 
 
 But, half incredulous at first,
 
 70 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 With curious gaze scanned part by part, 
 Some blemish or defect to find, 
 
 Yet on the perfect whole at last 
 
 Reposed his pleased and baffled mind. 
 
 Scarce from her large and liquid eye 
 
 More clearly gleamed the rich nut-brown, 
 
 Than from the flood of glossy curls, 
 That rolled her peerless shoulders down ; 
 
 Nor could her forehead's polished white 
 Her round and radiant neck eclipse, 
 
 Nor on her cheek the rose outdo 
 The cherries of her dewy lips ; 
 
 And none might say that cheek or mouth, 
 Or limb or waist, was moulded best, 
 
 Each separate charm more charming in 
 Its harmony with all the rest ;
 
 THE PRINCESS BATH. 
 
 And in so just proportion did 
 
 Its loftiness her stature hide, 
 Scarce seemed it lofty, till her mates, 
 
 Approaching, dwindled at her side. 
 
 An aged couple's latest born, 
 
 Their spoiled and lawless darling, she 
 
 Was all unsmirched of graver fault 
 Than pettish, girlish levity. 
 
 Unnumbered airy freaks were hers, 
 
 And mischiefs veiled with matchless craft ; 
 
 And laughter such that, while he chid, 
 Perforce her very victim laughed. 
 
 Noiseless and fleet, as o'er the waves 
 The stealthy merry moonbeams glance, 
 
 Till grandsire Day their lamp puts out, 
 Her light foot darted through the dance.
 
 72 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 But in the toilette's art her skill 
 Transcendent chief itself approved, 
 
 And best of all, her own fair self 
 To deck aright she knew and loved. 
 
 And if of deep and hallowing love 
 Her features bore no softening trace, 
 
 Nor cast of high and muse-like thought, 
 Who missed it in her gorgeous face ? 
 
 As Northern Lights o'er mountain snow, 
 That muse-like thought its gleams did pour 
 
 Upon the pale, imperial brow 
 Of sad and stately Leonore. 
 
 Lone Leonore, a soldier's child, 
 She seemed the child of air and fire. 
 
 Of all the castle damsels, she 
 
 The best could rouse the martial lyre.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 73 
 
 She best her country's legends knew; 
 
 And oft her pealing voice could call 
 The hurrying knights, her lays to hear, 
 
 From mid-carousal in the hall. 
 
 Her mistress there, and Agatha, 
 
 Alone could boast her queenly height ; 
 
 And none excelled in majesty, 
 Or pliant grace, her figure slight. 
 
 Her ripply hair was black, and black 
 The feathery arches traced beneath, 
 
 And fringes of her burning eyes, 
 
 Whose darkness stopped the gazer's breath, 
 
 When suddenly their gaze he met,. 
 
 As if before him, in the fight, 
 Stood Odin's daughter, bidding him 
 
 To drink Valhalla's mead that night.
 
 74 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 Beside such darkness, naught relieved 
 The whiteness of her marble skin. 
 
 All else, her smooth and polished cheek, 
 And nostril curved, and rounded chin, 
 
 Save but her full and haughty lip, 
 
 White, ardent, glistering, grand, and true, 
 
 As those of Rome's most godlike god, 
 The Apollo that the Python slew. 
 
 Her earliest life in camps had been ; 
 
 Her earliest dreams, of war and fame. 
 In vain to woman's lowly perch 
 
 She strove her soaring soul to tame, 
 
 A hero's soul, by adverse Fate 
 
 Too closely mewed in female clay. 
 
 She rarely wept, or sighed, or spake, 
 But pined and sang herself away.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 75 
 
 'T was thus that chafing, beating soul 
 
 Inhabited a frame so frail, 
 That waned as if to disappear, 
 
 And pass away upon the gale. 
 
 Her proud, impassioned beauty cast 
 
 On fevered breast no healing spell 
 But stilled and soothed the princess viewed 
 
 The holy face of Gabrielle, 
 
 From out which oval prison peeped 
 
 All graces maidenly and dear, 
 So modestly they almost seemed 
 
 Their jailer's mild reproof to fear. 
 
 Beside her lord, the princess looked 
 
 With favor upon her alone ; 
 And she alone her mistress loved, 
 
 For love she bore to every one.
 
 76 THE PEINCESS' BATH. 
 
 Her quiet life, while round it clung 
 The dews of childhood freshly yet, 
 
 Was one unfaltering blessing breathed 
 On all whom in its paths she met. 
 
 A violet nestling 'neath the leaves, 
 She might be passed unnoticed o'er, 
 
 But, once discovered, cast aside 
 
 In search of gaudier flower no more. 
 
 Well spent were noblest gallant's toil, 
 And honeyed courtier's subtlest wile, 
 
 In winning, from her cherub mouth, 
 One opening rosebud of a smile ; 
 
 Or wooing, from their pearly twins, 
 Her mist-like parting lids to rise, 
 
 And yield one blessed glimpse of heaven 
 Through the blue windows of her eyes ;
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 77 
 
 Or to her temples delicate 
 
 In sending up, with sudden rush, 
 For refuge 'neath their golden crown 
 
 Of clustering locks, the happy blush. 
 
 Perched on her chair's carved oaken back, 
 
 A white dove sat above her head. 
 From floor to waist, an altar-cloth 
 
 Its glowing folds around her spread, 
 
 Like clouds by mounting angel cleft, 
 
 Unto a visioned saint disclosed 
 At sunset. On their finished work 
 
 Lightly her little hands reposed. 
 
 Still fixed, on her the princess gazed ; 
 
 Till in the court-yard suddenly 
 She heard a noise of man and horse, 
 
 And cried, " What means it ? Go and see."
 
 78 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 All duteous rose ; but Eva ran, 
 And, ever pleased her zeal to show, 
 
 And first new tidings hear and tell, 
 Gasped, hurrying breathless from below : 
 
 " The steward saith my lord doth ride, 
 To hunt the boar, with all his train, 
 
 And shall not soon return belike ; 
 They carry store of wine and grain." 
 
 The princess started from her seat ; 
 
 " Then sure he sups with me! " she cried; 
 " Ye idle minions, decked yourselves, 
 
 That care for naught on earth beside, 
 
 " Bring forth my gems ! My mantle bring, 
 My crimson lined with cygnets' down ! 
 
 These loose and straying tresses bind ! 
 Quick ! Do on me my wedding-gown ! "
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 79 
 
 About her, to and fro, they swarmed, 
 Like frightened ants around their hill, 
 
 And while their anxious toil they sped, 
 In doing, feared to cross her will. 
 
 In haste the silver laver they 
 
 With tinkling, perfumed waters filled, 
 
 From blossoms that, in summer meads, 
 Themselves had gaily culled, distilled. 
 
 Fine linen that their wheels had spun, 
 And leaping shuttles wove, they brought, 
 
 By needles plied for many a day, 
 With richest, rarest tracery wrought. 
 
 Her casket's ebon lid they raised, 
 
 Inlaid with gold and ivory, 
 And, winking, almost deemed they robbed 
 
 The mine-dwarfs centre treasury,
 
 80 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 As forth its diamonds they snatched, 
 And carbuncles, whose ruddy blaze 
 
 Or so those simple maids believed 
 Made pale their tapers' envying rays, 
 
 And emeralds, greener than the seas 
 From which their neighbor pearls were won, 
 
 That erst had proudly clasped the necks 
 Of queens, who sat on Poland's throne. 
 
 One on her waist her bodice laced ; 
 
 Two, kneeling, were her sandals tying ; 
 And three, her veil's long folds aright 
 
 To train, with trembling fingers trying ; 
 
 When open burst the sudden door ; 
 
 In, unannounced, Count Rudolph broke ; 
 And all fell back, and reverent stood, 
 
 While thus the noble couple spoke :
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 81 
 
 " Ho, Bess ! what gallant pricketh fast, 
 
 To sup beneath my roof to-night, 
 That fitly thus those charms thou hast 
 
 In somewhat time-touched bravery dight ? 
 
 " I come to take a hasty leave. 
 
 Count Franz sets forth to hunt the boar ; 
 And, ere the ending of the eve, 
 
 We ride two score of miles, or more." 
 
 " Is 't not enough that still thou art 
 A truant to my bower and board, 
 
 That from the very towers must part, 
 
 Where breathes his wife, my traitorous lord ? 
 
 " How long am I alone to pine ? 
 
 How long these briny eyes to strain, 
 To see once more those plumes of thine 
 
 Ride nodding o'er the dreary plain ? 
 6
 
 82 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 " How long am I to watch and weep, 
 While rock the storms my weary bed, 
 
 And deem thee lost, and only sleep 
 To dream I see thee stark and dead ? 
 
 " How long must I, as oft as falls 
 The rattling drawbridge, letting in 
 
 Benighted riders to our halls, 
 Awakening at the hasty din, 
 
 " With faint and fluttering heart rejoice, 
 And rush to meet thy cold embrace, 
 
 And only hear another's voice, 
 And only see another's face ? " 
 
 " Perchance a week, perchance a year. 
 
 I know not, dame ; I cannot tell. 
 But see thou bear'st thee seemly here, 
 
 And order'st all things wisely well.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 83 
 
 " I hear afar the bugle sound ; 
 
 My followers wait with hound and horn ; 
 And distant is the hunting-ground ; 
 I may not tarry here till morn. 
 
 " My courser kicks his shoes away. 
 
 Hear Jager bay ! Be satisfied. 
 This worse beseems a matron gray 
 
 Than in her teens a scarce-weaned bride." 
 
 With careless lip her brow he touched, 
 With careless eye surveyed her train ; 
 
 Then waved a kiss to Agatha, 
 Who archly tossed it back again. 
 
 The princess marked, and held her breath, 
 
 And stood without a sign or word, 
 While clanked the spur adown the stair ; 
 
 But, when the flying hoofs were heard,
 
 84 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 She struck her, in the smiling face, 
 
 A stunning blow. The astonished maid 
 
 Sprang, like a stricken doe, away, 
 
 Then turned, half angered, half dismayed, 
 
 And bleeding turned. A sapphire had, 
 
 That in her ring the princess wore, 
 Cut in her cheek a small, deep wound, 
 
 And dyed the wearer's hand with gore. 
 
 The princess wiped and rubbed her hand, 
 
 And paused, and pored. '"T is passing strange ! 
 
 Sure," murmured she, " the ensanguined spot 
 Doth back to virgin freshness change ! " 
 
 Then through her tears laughed Agatha, 
 
 And whispered, in her bitter mood, 
 " Our dame would be as fair as I, 
 
 Could she but bathe in maidens' blood."
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 85 
 
 So some, at least, in after years 
 
 Declared, who stood the damsel near. 
 
 Some said 't was man's arch-enemy 
 That hissed beside the princess' ear. 
 
 The breathless circle shrank apart 
 
 As through it paced the haughty darne ; 
 
 And, at her summons, instantly 
 The ready knave her steward came, 
 
 Who, framed and born ill works to do, 
 Best loved them when empowered to plead, 
 
 With specious show of loyalty, 
 His duty warrant for his deed. 
 
 He drowsed at mass. His mouth, unclean 
 With oath and nightly wassail, ne'er 
 
 The wafer dared, but watered still 
 The chalice with the priest to share.
 
 86 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 But when the chaplain meekly preached 
 How rulers be ordained of God, 
 
 And they who most their bidding do 
 To heaven shall find the nearest road, 
 
 He roused himself, gazed awfully 
 Around upon the household band, 
 
 Scanned piously the vaulted roof, 
 
 And crossed himself with novice hand. 
 
 " Know'st thou," to him his mistress said, 
 " A secret passage, Hugo? Say." 
 
 With meaning glance, he bowed assent. 
 " Take torches, then, and lead the way." 
 
 Descending to a corner-stair, 
 
 He searched the deeply-shadowed wall, 
 Where seldom might one straggling ray 
 
 From loophole or from cresset fall.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 87 
 
 He brought a flask of oil, between 
 
 Its rugged massy blocks to pour, 
 And through the solid masonry 
 
 Oped noiselessly a thin stone door, 
 
 And showed, and scarcely showed, a path, 
 That wound the mountain's entrails through, 
 
 Whose rocky ribs, on either hand, 
 Were sweating out a deathly dew. 
 
 Crooked and long as that which leads 
 
 A virgin soul to hell, the way 
 Now belched its darkness, and anon 
 
 Glared luridly and sloped away ; 
 
 And he had fancied who had seen, 
 But none could see the entering pair, 
 
 He saw a native fiend, who led 
 A new deserter angel there.
 
 88 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 Unto the castle-sepulchre, 
 
 In other days, that way was made, 
 To bear the dead who, slain in storm, 
 
 Or, starving, died, in slow blockade. 
 
 Its very being Csejta's lords 
 
 Still jealously concealed from all, 
 
 Or, sworn to secrecy, at need 
 Imparted to some trusty thrall. 
 
 Amid its crags, the groping hand 
 Recoiled oft from clammy snails ; 
 
 Before the foot hopped squatting toads, 
 And wound pale serpents' wriggling trails. 
 
 To breathe within its mouldy breath 
 
 Full hard their laboring bosoms strained ; 
 
 And often from its fellow-torch 
 Each torch extinct its light regained.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 89 
 
 The steward went before. At last 
 
 He stumbled on a heap of bones ; 
 The tombs were reached, and reached the spot 
 
 Where dwelt alone two dreary crones. 
 
 Long lustres past, in Csejta's bowers, 
 
 Their idle early days were spent. 
 Long years agone, to Csejta's tombs 
 
 To house their outcast age they went ; 
 
 And o'er an emptied vault beneath, 
 Their dwelling's half, a hut they made; 
 
 And there their worthless life they fed 
 With petty thefts and petty aid. 
 
 The steward slipped a bolt aside, 
 
 And knocked, and knocked with thundering din, 
 Till through a chink an eye was seen, 
 
 When straight they let the princess in.
 
 90 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 With mops and mows they welcomed her, 
 With ill-feigned joy disguised their fear, 
 
 In trembling tones their homage croaked, 
 And prayed her gracious will to hear. 
 
 With wrathful mien she on them gazed, 
 And cried, " Declare what doom befits 
 
 The snake that, eating of my bread, 
 
 My poisoned heart-strings gnaws and eats!" 
 
 Each on the other looked ; and both, 
 With quivering jaws, most hastily 
 
 Chattered their curses on her foes, 
 To her their changeless loyalty. 
 
 Beneath her fixed and angry eye 
 
 They fell and kissed her garment's hem, 
 
 And grovelled on the ground, until 
 With milder mien she gazed on them.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 91 
 
 With milder voice she bade them rise, 
 And said, " I will not doubt your zeal. 
 
 On mine own hearth the viper coils, 
 That here my sure revenge shall feel. 
 
 " 'T is Agatha, that wanton maid, 
 
 That fleers, and gibes, and mocks you, still, 
 
 Whene'er your toiling steps ye drag, 
 For alms, around the castle hill. 
 
 " And when my work on her is done, 
 No more your need for alms shall cry ; 
 
 The tithe of what my bounty gives 
 Your craving greed shall satisfy." 
 
 She bowed her head, and murmured low ; 
 
 The steward scarce could hear a sound ; 
 But at the word, the crones once more 
 
 Were writhing on the humid ground.
 
 92 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 They gasped, and wrung their claw-like hands, 
 And vainly strove to force the tears 
 
 From out their red and blinking eyes, 
 Unwet with kindly drop for years, 
 
 And whined their fears of Heaven and law, 
 And urged their helpless, nerveless age, 
 
 Till kindled on the princess' cheek 
 The purple flush of shame and rage. 
 
 " And would ye school me, then ?" she cried ; 
 
 " Obedience better fits your state ! 
 Know, hypocritic rebels, know 
 
 That consciences are for the great. 
 
 " How dare ye bring, to cheat high Heaven, 
 The cinders of your offerings, burned 
 
 On altars of no sacred fires, 
 
 Your worthless lives, consumed and spurned,
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 93 
 
 " And treason to your rightful dame ? 
 God wot, it makes a priest of me, 
 To see you try this threefold game 
 To cozen Satan, God, and me. 
 
 " This righteousness is craven Fear, 
 
 That plays a mask. I '11 scourge you back 
 
 For very shame, and teach your fear 
 To keep you to your chosen track. 
 
 "'T is Love, not Cowardice, doth ope 
 
 Heaven's treasure-house. Hell's handmaids, you, 
 
 If only for your wages' sake, 
 To hell at least be leal and true. 
 
 " No more ; but mark ! A tale, yestreen, 
 
 Of witchcraft, in a hamlet near, 
 Was told ; and straight this Agatha 
 
 Declared the witches harbored here ;
 
 94 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 " For that ye never crossed her way 
 But, in a sennight, pins did prick, 
 
 And needles sharp, that none might find, 
 Her flesh unto the very quick. 
 
 " In sooth, I half believe the charge ; 
 
 And, if she lives complaint to make, 
 I '11 urge it, till ye crackling gasp 
 
 Upon the fagots round the stake. 
 
 " If to your duty ye return, 
 
 By night the damsel, hither led, 
 
 Shall pass unnoticed as a ghost, 
 That flits to see the neighboring dead. 
 
 " Unmarked as tumblings of the worms, 
 That batten on their flesh, the deed 
 
 In secret shall ye do, as those, 
 Then snugly sleep, and richly feed.
 
 THE PRINCESS 1 BATH* 95 
 
 " The King of kings, if from his throne, 
 
 At princes of the race of man, 
 In idle hour he deigns to glance, 
 
 Will scarce their reptile bond-slaves scan. 
 
 " His master is the subject's creed, 
 
 Submission is his gospel's sum. 
 What say ye to the homily ? " 
 
 They nodded both, amazed and dumb. 
 
 " Make ready, then ; and make a fire ; 
 
 And see the liquid doth not cool. 
 Add water, if it needful be, 
 
 To fill yon caldron well-nigh full." 
 
 She turned ; and, from a tomb hard by, 
 
 The steward hurried at her call ; 
 And once again they threaded, through 
 
 The crowding rocks, the passage small ;
 
 96 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 And presently the princess said, 
 
 " What of our conference hast heard ? 
 I did not bid thee go." Quoth he, 
 " My gracious lady, not a word." 
 
 She paused, and then resumed : " Since first 
 I brought thee to this dreary hold, 
 
 From Poland's royal bowers, I still 
 Have found thee silent, true, and bold. 
 
 " Thy service past is amply paid. 
 
 Thy future amplier I '11 requite. 
 How mayst thou timorous Agatha 
 
 Allure to yonder hut, to-night ? " 
 
 He rubbed his brows, and slow replied, 
 " I know not yet. She loves me not. 
 
 She scarce would, of her own free will, 
 Approach so weird and lone a spot.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 97 
 
 - 
 
 " And she is strong, and loud can shriek 
 At lighter things. Now fortune send, 
 
 Your highness doth some scroll retain, 
 That Louis' knightly hand hath penned ! " 
 
 " A scroll ? A score ! " " An 't please your grace, 
 
 Their characters I '11 mimic so, 
 That from the true not Louis' self, 
 
 Save by their drift, the feigned should know. 
 
 " A hasty love-letter I '11 write, 
 
 And woo her warmly to repair 
 To meet the knight at Elcine's cot, 
 
 And say a priest doth wait them there, 
 
 " And that a trusty guide am I. 
 
 This letter to the maid I '11 bear. 
 The youngling, weary of the nest, 
 
 Will lightly dart into the snare." 
 
 7
 
 98 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 " But if, when snared, she chafe and beat, 
 How may her keepers her restrain ? " 
 
 " In sugared wine, so please your grace, 
 A sleeping potion let her drain." 
 
 " And if, perchance, she tarry long ? " 
 
 " The letter shown will satisfy 
 All meddlers seeking news of her, 
 
 And silence straight their 'Where ? ' and ' Why ? ' 
 
 " Knight Louis to the war was boune 
 She knows it not at peep of day. 
 
 There let him die, or, home returned, 
 Disprove the tale as best he may." 
 
 From out her silken purse she drew 
 
 Some pieces broad. " It likes me well ; 
 
 I '11 give thee all he wrote ! " cried she, 
 " His suit to me for Gabrielle."
 
 99 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 WITHIN the ample arrased room 
 Again the castle damsels met, 
 
 Were, darkling, round the faded hearth, 
 In social ease and idlesse set. 
 
 The tempest roared and raved without ; 
 
 And, tapping on the window-pane, 
 To minstrel crickets' rhyme beat time 
 
 The ceaseless finger of the rain.
 
 100 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 In such an hour, more freely each 
 To each his inmost thought imparts ; 
 
 For when each face from each is hid, 
 Then most we see each other's hearts. 
 
 Behind the tapestry paused the dame ; 
 
 And in the midst stood listening Fate, 
 That loveth, in her sport, to change 
 
 To prophecy men's careless prate. 
 
 Dropped on the ear, as brokenly 
 
 As silver chime of holy bell. 
 That calls good angels saints to meet, 
 
 The tender tones of Gabrielle : 
 
 " Ye question of the time to die ; 
 
 Almost I would that mine were come. 
 Oft, when ye asked, my tears replied ; 
 
 Now will I tell you of my home.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 101 
 
 " ? T was in an ivy-mantled hall, 
 
 Shut in from all resort of men. 
 Beside it played a pebbly brook, 
 
 And bees hummed through a flowery glen ; 
 
 " And round it lifted, wide and high, 
 Like mothers that their babes display, 
 
 Their laughing vineyards to the sky, 
 The sunny hills of green Tokay. 
 
 " So early did our parents die, 
 
 That ne'er we knew nor missed their care. 
 Mine only sister Maud, and me, 
 
 Their good old servants nurtured there. 
 
 " They held me but a drooping thing ; 
 
 She, mild and soft, was blithe and free ; 
 She won the love of every heart, 
 
 Then turned to share that love with me.
 
 102 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 " Together, on the streamlet's banks, 
 
 Our little basking forms we laid, 
 Together launched round acorn-cups, 
 
 And hand in hand together strayed. 
 
 " Together still, our nurse's chair, 
 
 When drenching showers plashed through the 
 
 vale, 
 We climbed, and clasped her bending neck, 
 
 And sued her for her oft-told tale ; 
 
 " And side by side, with bag and book, 
 
 We sought the neighboring convent-school, 
 
 And conned our easy tasks beneath 
 The saintly sisters' gentle rule ; 
 
 " And when, released, with homeward feet 
 We frolicked through the turfy glade, 
 
 We reft it of its violets sweet, 
 
 And garlands for each other made.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 103 
 
 " On broidered fields our needles keen 
 
 So swiftly slew the guileless hours, 
 That half we mourned their knells to hear, 
 
 Tolled pealing from the convent towers ; 
 
 " Or, arm in arm, from even-song 
 Beside the brook we lingering stood, 
 
 To see the high and solemn moon 
 
 Look down, and gild its winding flood, 
 
 " So mindless of the tread of Time, 
 That, swelling dimly on the breeze, 
 
 Surprised us there the compline's notes, 
 Sung slowly through the muffling trees. 
 
 " The autumn leaves ye praised to-day, 
 To me they seemed a gorgeous pall. 
 
 They wear the vampire's hectic hue ; 
 And, when in rustling heaps they fall,
 
 104 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 " Death's tiny angels nestle there ; 
 
 And many now, in grove and glen, 
 Their soft and baleful breath inhale, 
 
 Who ne'er shall see the spring again. 
 
 " The forest boughs already changed 
 To countless hues their verdant screen 
 
 Gray glimpses of the cloistered walls 
 Began to show, their leaves between ; 
 
 " And in those still, calm, dying days, 
 The wild-wood paths Maud singing trod, 
 
 When birds fly fastest to the south, 
 And fluttering parting souls to God. 
 
 " All through a soft and sultry noon, 
 She sat beneath a painted tree. 
 
 At eve she sought her fevered bed, 
 And moaned and tossed in misery.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 105 
 
 " Through long, despairing days and nights 
 
 I tended her ; until, at last, 
 She sank in slumber calm and deep. 
 
 The leech declared the peril past. 
 
 " Chiding my bosom's rapturous swell, 
 I breathless watched her couch beside. 
 
 She woke, and could not speak to me, 
 But shrieked, and shrieked until she died. 
 
 " How dreary then looked all the earth! 
 
 My spirit's sun no longer shone. 
 How terrified I shrank from Life, 
 
 Nor dared to face it all alone ! 
 
 " But when I looked for Death, and prayed 
 To find with him a safe retreat, 
 
 His hands were full of fleshly pangs, 
 And pointed to the judgment-seat
 
 106 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 And at the sight, I fled again, 
 For refuge to God's altar flew, 
 
 And only dared to ask His aid 
 His holy will to bear and do. 
 
 Still let that will my fate decide ; 
 
 But if, upon my spirit thrown, 
 I, by His grace, should ever bear 
 
 Some faint reflection of His Son, 
 
 " Most were His summons welcome then 
 To mine eternal dwelling-place, 
 
 That never earthly shadow more 
 That priceless likeness might efface. 
 
 " In memory of my Maud, I keep 
 True emblem of her peace and love 
 
 The nursling of her girlish hours, 
 My beautiful and snowy dove.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 107 
 
 " Oft when it hovers down to me, 
 
 Almost I deem 't is she doth come, 
 All clad in shining purity, 
 
 To greet me from her heavenly home ; 
 
 V 
 
 " And when, as erst by her 't was taught, 
 
 It flies, with billing, cooing beak, 
 Within my lips the juicy fruit, 
 
 Or golden grain, it loves, to seek, 
 
 " I half believe, with smiles and tears, 
 
 In very doting childishness, 
 That Maud her wonted playful kiss 
 
 Once more upon these lips doth press." 
 
 She ceased ; and wept her soothing mates, 
 And marvelled 'mid their tears, to know 
 
 That one of wont so calm and bright 
 Could e'er have known so bitter woe,
 
 108 THE PEINCESS' BATH. 
 
 Caressed the dove, and promised it 
 Sweet offerings, for its mistress' sake, 
 
 Then to their topic turned again ; 
 
 When much enforced Lenora spake : 
 
 " Would that I, in my father's tent, 
 
 Had died, his martial cloak my bed, 
 
 As once I slumbered at his feet, 
 
 And pillowed on his shield my head ; 
 
 " While with rny glorious dreams chimed in 
 The noises of the glorious camp, 
 
 At drowsy midnight wakeful still, 
 The clash of arms, the charger's tramp, 
 
 " The tread of constant sentinel, 
 
 The clatter of returning post, 
 And, filling every pause between, 
 
 The stirring of the countless host !
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 109 
 
 " Would that this worthless life, for his, 
 
 I might have paid, a valiant son, 
 When, for his native land and me, 
 
 The fight was all too dearly won, 
 
 " In that red vale whence, through his foam, 
 
 Fights Danube forth triumphantly, 
 From savage Servia's walls and chains 
 
 Escaping to the chainless sea ! 
 
 " Why wish ? For wishes powerless are, 
 
 And lowly must a maiden's be ; 
 And less I could not than to break 
 
 Of hundred-handed Tyranny 
 
 " Some arm, and leave to wights oppressed 
 
 A legacy of liberty, 
 Then yield my soul exulting up, 
 
 E'en in the hour of victory."
 
 110 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 " Enough, enough ! " cried Agatha ; 
 
 " When will ye quit these doleful themes? 
 Beshrew your tongues ! For all this night, 
 
 Ye 've filled my sleep with grisly dreams. 
 
 " Let me in merry-making live, 
 Nor think on Death till he is near, 
 
 While sparkling eyes my steps pursue, 
 And honeyed speeches stuff mine ear. 
 
 " But when if e'er the coming time 
 With blighted cheek and wasted vein 
 
 Doth deck me, like our gracious dame's, 
 That Spite and Envy blast and drain, 
 
 " That, marked of other's gaze no more, 
 Are only fit mine own to fright, 
 
 The hand shall have a generous fee 
 Which kindly puts me out of sight."
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. Ill 
 
 " Bethink thee," pleaded Gabrielle, 
 
 " How hidden griefs wrath's embers stir, 
 
 And that our youth must fly like hers ; 
 Nor, for thine own sake, anger her." 
 
 Then came the princess in and stood, 
 
 A darker darkness, 'midst them all, 
 And bade them to the evening meal 
 
 Attend her, in the vaulted hall.
 
 112 
 
 PART THIRD. 
 
 WITHIN the chapel dark and drear 
 
 Knelt gentle Gabrielle anon, 
 While drowsed the chaplain o'er his cheer, 
 
 To do her vesper rites alone. 
 
 With crosier, stole, and mitre, stood 
 Stone abbots, nodding overhead ; 
 
 And petrified around her lay 
 
 The forms of knight and lady dead,
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 113 
 
 That ever, as her taper's flame 
 
 Waved to and fro the flickering glooms, 
 
 Seemed fitfully to beckon her, 
 
 With wierdly welcome, to their tombs. 
 
 Before a pictured shrine she knelt, 
 
 Whence looked a pure and tender face, 
 
 Drawn by some reverent painter-seer, 
 The Virgin Mother's, full of grace. 
 
 They gazed into each other's eyes, 
 Between them light, around them shade ; 
 
 It had been easy to mistake 
 The breathing for the imaged maid. 
 
 A cherub seemed the damsel, in 
 
 A shining oasis of peaqe, 
 Who waited on the Queen of Heaven 
 
 Within a frowning wilderness.
 
 114 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 She crossed herself, and as she rose 
 A Houri's lips, that from above 
 
 Were pressed to hers, cried suddenly, 
 " Now tell me, dost thou Louis love ? " 
 
 " Knight Louis ? Nay, I love him not, 
 Dear as I love Lenore and thee. 
 
 He frights me with his wrath and oaths. 
 A wild and stormy mate were he ; 
 
 " And yet my very soul was wrung, 
 To see his anger and his pain, 
 
 As to the wars he swore to go, 
 And never see my face again." 
 
 " Such anger soon is cooled. Such pain 
 Perchance I have the power to heal ; 
 
 But never, for her wedding-wreath, 
 Would Agatha thy heart's-ease steal."
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 115 
 
 " What say'st thou ? " " Dost thou love him not ? 
 
 In very deed ? Art sure ? O, sweet, 
 Deceive me not! Too long I wait. 
 
 In very deed ? The time is fleet." 
 
 " I know not, dearest, what thou say'st. 
 
 In very deed, this very even, 
 E'en as thou cam'st, Our Lady's grace 
 
 I sought, to be the bride of Heaven. 
 
 " I love him not. Aught wouldst thou more ? " 
 " Nay, blessings on this happy day ! 
 
 I love him! I have loved him long, 
 
 Not now in vain ! " " Where wouldst thou ? 
 Stay ! " 
 
 " Peruse this scroll. To Elcine's cot." 
 " My taper ! 'T is in Louis' hand ! 
 
 Now saints be praised ! A grief is loosed 
 That bound my heart with straitest band !
 
 116 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 " O fickle youth ! But yester morn 
 He swore to die for love of me. 
 
 God speed ye both ! Yet thus ? so soon ? 
 Dear coz, it scarce were maidenly ! " 
 
 " Tush, tell not me, my gossip sweet ! 
 
 Trust me, I ween thou likest well 
 Thy maidenly and dainty pride 
 
 With sighs of captive swains to swell." 
 
 She said, and bounding sprang away, 
 With one gay glance and warm embrace, 
 
 And took her secret, murky way, 
 With Hugo, to the fated place. 
 
 Like lightning flew she 'twixt the rocks, 
 While he pressed after out of breath. 
 
 So lightly flies unconscious Life, 
 So eager still, to ambushed Death.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 117 
 
 But at the door she shrinking paused; 
 
 The steward threw it open wide. 
 Then forth came Elcine and her mate; 
 
 But other was there none beside. 
 
 They answered to her seeking eye, 
 
 " To fetch the priest the knight hath gone. 
 
 Meantime he prays thee take some meat, 
 For thou hast far to go anon." 
 
 With reverence oft, and toothless smile, 
 They placed her at a groaning board, 
 
 (By Louis, for his bride, they said,) 
 With many a costly viand stored, 
 
 With silver dishes heaped with fruit 
 
 Of mellow hues, and rarest wines, 
 That like clear wells of rubies flashed, 
 
 Or topaz, through their crystal shrines.
 
 118 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 She could not eat. She watched the door, 
 Then at her own fond tremors laughed ; 
 
 And when the sparkling mead they poured, 
 The sparkling mead she praised and quaffed. 
 
 She put the goblet down, and on 
 
 Her hand her head ; and straight there crept 
 A happy dream upon her soul, 
 
 And smilingly she sat and slept. 
 
 She slept, a proud and glorious form 
 
 As ever glowed in torches' light. 
 She woke within a murky den, 
 
 All faint, and weak, and ghastly white. 
 
 Beneath a caldron huge, a fire 
 With lurid embers dimly glowed ; 
 
 And o'er it, stirring what it held, 
 A tottering form like Elcine's stood.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 119 
 
 And Annot, by her pallet bent, 
 
 Next did her staring eyeballs see ; 
 While in a platter, from her arm, 
 
 Dark drops dropped plashing heavily. 
 
 She, with her voiceless, gasping lips 
 Most vainly parted, strove to scream, 
 
 And deemed that 'neath a spell she lay, 
 Or in an endless nightmare dream. 
 
 She feebly writhed and strove to rise ; 
 
 But far too easily, in sooth, 
 Their scorned decrepitude restrained 
 
 The struggles of her powerless youth. 
 
 A moment with her useless throes 
 
 Flowed freer forth life's ebbing tide. 
 She smote them with a nerveless hand ; 
 
 One cry she gave, and sank, and died ;
 
 120 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 And as she passed, the princess came, 
 Pale as her ghost, to drown her wrath, 
 
 And last poor hope of peace and Heaven, 
 Plunged with her in her crimson bath.
 
 121 
 
 PART FOURTH. 
 
 KNIGHT Louis plied, o'er dale and down, 
 His foaming steed with ceaseless heel ; 
 
 And angry Love the rider spurred, 
 More galling than the rowel-steel. 
 
 Each old, familiar haunt he passed, 
 
 With thoughts and hopes of Love was strown ; 
 And by him in his wild career 
 
 As flying fast fled stock and stone,
 
 122 THE PEINCESS' BATH. 
 
 So fled from him those hopes of youth ; 
 
 While with him still his clinging woe, 
 Through roaring flood and glade serene, 
 
 Fast as his nimble steed did go. 
 
 Yet deemed he that, so soon as lay 
 Those haunts of Memory left behind, 
 
 His bosom should, 'mid scenes unknown, 
 Its wonted ease and joyance find. 
 
 He left each wonted haunt behind ; 
 
 He plunged himself 'rnid scenes unknown. 
 He felt that she was far away ; 
 
 He only found himself alone. 
 
 Nor for an instant's breathing-space 
 His goading rage had spent its force, 
 
 Ere ruthless Love was leagued anew 
 Against his peace, with keen Remorse.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 123 
 
 He thought upon her patience sweet, 
 
 He thought upon her last farewell, 
 And tears, with which his words had wet 
 
 The gentle eyes of Gabrielle, 
 
 And follies, loathly in her sight, 
 
 Until he turned his bridle-rein, 
 Before the turbaned hosts he saw, 
 
 Resolved to see her once again. 
 
 And vow henceforth, for her dear sake, 
 
 If not indeed her love to win, 
 By noble havior and deed, 
 
 To earn her pardon for his sin. 
 
 Meanwhile the short-lived wonderment 
 
 In Csejta's halls was all gone by ; 
 The story of the fair one's flight 
 
 Was stale as dog's-eared homily ;
 
 124 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 Though, while their prisoned hours wore on, 
 
 In wonted grand monotony, 
 Some, haply, envying thought on her, 
 
 'Twixt sky and mountain faring free. 
 
 His dame, next morn, had Hugo chid, 
 As faithless shepherd of her fold ; 
 
 But Eva marked that from that day 
 He wore a chain of massy gold. 
 
 Yet moodier still the princess grew. 
 
 Now stealthily she laid her hand 
 An instant near her tiring-maid's, 
 
 And eagerly its texture scanned; 
 
 Now, as she decked her wasting locks, 
 With pauseless eye, the startled lass 
 
 Beheld her glancing at her face, 
 Then at her own, within the glass.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 125 
 
 From tower to tower she roved around ; 
 
 And oft her voice her maidens heard, 
 As thus she muttered to herself; 
 
 But rarely could they catch a word : 
 
 " If all the priests from north and south, 
 And east and west, were met to tell 
 
 To me the blessedness of heaven, 
 
 And all the maddening pangs of hell, 
 
 " With clasped hands, I 'd cry, Amen! 
 
 
 Yet still what I am now should be ; 
 
 For heaven it was in Rudolph's smile. 
 'T is hell his bitter scorn to see. 
 
 " I know not if his eye be clear 
 
 As that which charmed my heart away, 
 His voice, as that that 'neath my bower 
 
 Erst pealed in nightly roundelay.
 
 126 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 " This only change I 'm skilled to mark, 
 Though I should scan him o'er and o'er : 
 
 His look is mild ; he loves me still ? 
 'T is sullen ; nay, he loves no more." 
 
 From window, and from window, still 
 She gazed in vain ; but lo, at last, 
 
 She saw afar a man and horse, 
 And heard a merry bugle-blast ! 
 
 Thy tidings ! " " Noble dame, thy lord, 
 
 
 In weal and health, did bid me come, 
 
 That straightway should the beeves be killed; 
 His Christmas feast he eats at home." 
 
 While all was tumult, at her call 
 Came Hugo, with his face of joy. 
 
 Tell Elcine that to-night," she said, 
 " Will I once more her cares employ.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 127 
 
 " It needs no craft as erst. The girl 
 
 Hath scarcely strength to bear her weight. 
 
 I will but bid her meet me there, 
 Upon me in a bath to wait." 
 
 He left her ; and she muttered on : 
 
 " No more, when Leonore is gone, 
 Shall I among my damsels see 
 
 A port as lofty as mine own." 
 
 The twilight fell ; and Leonore, 
 
 With fingers pushed 'twixt wire and wire, 
 And clinging arms, and drooping head, 
 
 Sat resting on her silent lyre. 
 
 And Gabrielle, who, ill at ease, 
 
 From post aloof had watched her long, 
 
 Approached her with a timid foot, 
 
 And prayed her sing her sweetest song.
 
 128 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 " I cannot. Shapes of blood and death 
 Press, thronging, on my brain to-night ; 
 
 Not, as of old, with awful joy 
 
 They fill me, but with strange affright." 
 
 " O, thou art ill ! I guessed too well, 
 Before I heard thy hollow speech. 
 
 Thy brow is burning! Send to seek 
 A soothing draught, a learned leech." 
 
 " My leech is on his way. 'T is one 
 . That cools the brow, and stops the breath, 
 And soothes the weary frame to rest, 
 The churchyard's quiet dust beneath." 
 
 " Alas ! But seek thy spirit's health, 
 And cleanly make thy shrift, at least, 
 
 And hear the blessed words of peace 
 'T will ease thee from the holy priest
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 129 
 
 " My sins he pardoned all, this morn." 
 " Nay," quoth proud Leonore, " but he 
 
 Who bids Christ's freedmen bow their necks 
 To bondage, is no priest for me." 
 
 "Lenore," the princess called. She rose, 
 And straight had fallen, but for the aid 
 
 Of Gabrielle, yet tottered back 
 In mantle and in coif arrayed. 
 
 " Where wouldst thou ? " " Unto Elcine's cot ; 
 
 Our dame would have me wait her therer 
 The way is short ; my breast may be 
 
 The freer for the freshening air." 
 
 O no ! 'T is chill ! Be ruled by me, 
 
 And steal unnoticed to thy bed. 
 The princess shall be soon appeased, 
 
 When she doth find me in thy stead. 
 9
 
 130 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 " Give me thy mantle. Message aught 
 Have I to say ? " " The princess' bath 
 
 Must they prepare. I know not why ; 
 It is some fancy that she hath." 
 
 " Sleep soft ; I come to nurse thee soon." 
 " I '11 seek my solace in the line 
 
 In my own tongue by saints of yore 
 Traced for us all in Palestine. 
 
 " 'T is in my father's well- worn tome. 
 
 I '11 pray his prayer ; but ere I rest 
 I '11 sue that one sweet saint of Rome 
 
 "With countless blessings may be blest." 
 
 Then Gabrielle her lonely way 
 Went circling round the castle hill. 
 
 Its snow-drift pavement crumbled not. 
 The night was starry, clear, and still.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 131 
 
 She moved entranced in tender thought, 
 
 And gazed into the near, pure sky, 
 As if within its dome to seek 
 
 The spirits of the blest on high. 
 
 She reached the hut, and tried the latch. 
 
 It rose, and fell ; the door was locked. 
 The inmates oped ; and to the room 
 
 Beneath, with fire and pallet stocked, 
 
 With mops and mows, they ushered her, 
 
 Then suddenly made fast the door, 
 And dragged her towards the caldron straight 
 
 That stood the kindling fagots o'er, 
 
 And grasped their knives. Then faint she sank 
 Between them breathless on the floor, 
 
 And wept aloud, and shrieked for aid, 
 And prayed for mercy o'er and o'er,
 
 132 THE PRINCESS BATH. 
 
 And strove to wring her snowy hands, 
 And cried the princess loved her dear. 
 
 They shook their heads, and o'er her stooped ; 
 Then rose she o'er her frenzied fear, 
 
 And stilled her cries, and choked her sobs, 
 And promised to be calm and still, 
 
 If only she her prayers might say, 
 And let them do their utmost will. 
 
 Cried Elcine, " We may do it here, 
 As well as there. She 's still at last. 
 
 Quick, limping Sloth ! yon platter bring. 
 The dame will come ! I'll hold her fast." 
 
 " Why, let her pray a moment's space, 
 And please her. Still so curst art thou ! 
 
 'T will save us time, and breath, and pains ; 
 This cough, it chokes me even now ! "
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 133 
 
 Thus while they wrangled, hurriedly 
 
 The victim struggled to her knees, 
 First clasped her hands in wordless woe, 
 
 Then panted broken words like these : 
 
 " O Father ! O redeeming Son ! 
 
 Virgin Mother ! see and save 
 Thine erring, helpless, wretched child, 
 
 That kneels beside a yawning grave. 
 
 " I cannot die a murdered death ! 
 
 1 dare not die by bloody hands ! 
 O, pardon, Lord, this faithless heart, 
 
 That murmurs at thy high commands ! 
 
 " While through the shadowy vale I walk, 
 
 Be with me ; and I need not fear. 
 Be with me in mine agony ; 
 
 For I am safe where Thou art near.
 
 134 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 " I knew not that, in all the earth, 
 There breathed my wilful enemy; 
 
 Yet pray Thy mercy on his soul, 
 If Thou, all-seeing, such dost see. 
 
 " My mistress keep, and Leonore, 
 And for these poor and hapless two, 
 
 Forgive their crazed, unfriended age. 
 Forgive ; they know not what they do. 
 
 " Though darkly frown the gates of death, 
 
 And grim the porteresses be, 
 I know, for Christ's dear sake, they shall 
 
 Prove opening gates of heaven to me." 
 
 They stooped to seize her then once more. 
 
 She rose, and followed where they bade, 
 And meekly on the bed of death 
 
 Her unresisting beauty laid.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 135 
 
 On either side they stood to find, 
 
 With peering eye, and finger slow, 
 The vein like sky-reflecting stream 
 
 That wandered through a field of snow. 
 
 She watched with them each trembling arm, 
 And while her eyes with tears were dim, 
 
 As theirs with age, raised tremblingly, 
 In faint sweet notes, her convent hymn. 
 
 " Do thou the deed ; for thou art deaf. 
 
 She strives not," then did Annot say, 
 Threw down her knife, and stopped her ears, 
 
 And turned her back, and crouched away. 
 
 As faster flowed her blood, her tears 
 Were dried. Around her golden head, 
 
 And paling face, the fire unblest 
 A seeming saintly halo shed.
 
 136 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 The dove, that had been scared away, 
 Flew down to her. She upward cast 
 
 A smiling gaze, that met its flight, 
 
 And whispered, " Maud," and breathed her last.
 
 137 
 
 PART FIFTH. 
 
 THE morning, unto burdened heart 
 That ever is the heaviest hour, 
 
 Broke on the eyes of Leonore, 
 And woke her in her turret bower. 
 
 Those listless eyes grew fixed and wide. 
 
 Where Gabrielle was wont to rest, 
 Her couch stood smooth as yester eve ; 
 
 Nor e'en the pillow had been pressed.
 
 138 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 With speed had she her raiment donned, 
 When Eva to the threshold came, 
 
 And cried, " What, ho ! thou slug-a-bed, 
 Come Gabrielle, and dress our dame ! 
 
 " Why, where is Gabrielle ? " she cried ; 
 
 " Help! mercy ! Here is Leonore! 
 Nay, see yourselves. Her ghost is there ! 
 
 'Tis sliding through her chamber-door!" 
 
 The dame was in a frenzy-fit, 
 
 Before she half her tale could tell. 
 
 " Say'st thou thou saw'st Lenore ? " she cried ; 
 " O, where is slaughtered Gabrielle ? 
 
 " As from my bath I came, last night, 
 A ghostly hand, it clutched my train. 
 
 I wist not whose, and tore it thence 
 
 You see 't is torn with might and main."
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 139 
 
 As Leonore stole down the stair, 
 
 A mouldy wind blew in her face ; 
 A seam yawned through the gaping wall 
 
 Into a new and twilight place. 
 
 A remnant of the princess' robe 
 
 Parted the chink, and beating strove 
 
 Within it, fluttering to be free, 
 
 With blood-stained plumes, the milk-white dove. 
 
 The stony gate, on silent hinge, 
 
 Turned at her touch. The bird had fled. 
 
 She went, by its unerring wing 
 Along the darkling pathway led. 
 
 Now flashed it through a sunbeam stray, 
 Then through the darkness flapped, until 
 
 It in a shimmering cranny perched, 
 And panting rested, fixed and still.
 
 140 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 She hid it in her breast ; and through 
 The cranny smothered voices came. 
 
 She peeped within. Two prating crones 
 Toiled round a torch's lurid flame : 
 
 " This time do thou the caldron cleanse ; 
 
 I sicken with its gory smell. 
 Our dame, to make her body fair, 
 
 Doth dye her soul with hues of hell. 
 
 " This was not like yon Agatha, 
 
 That wriggled, smote, and screamed so loud. 
 Beshrew me, of our best new gear, 
 
 But she shall have a dainty shroud." 
 
 Thus while they spake, and moved about, 
 
 The interrupted torchlight fell, 
 One moment, on a marble face, 
 
 The dead, sweet face of Gabrielle.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 141 
 
 The dame, meantime, with calmer mien, 
 
 Said to her damsels, " Gabrielle 
 Last night unto her convent went ; 
 
 She prayed me greet you all right well. 
 
 
 " A safe, unlooked-for convoy then 
 Was offered ; but it could not wait. 
 
 If Hugo said Lenore was dead, 
 
 He mocked you but with idle prate. 
 
 " If she had died, no need had been 
 To send her hence the selfsame night. 
 
 She, when she dies, shall buried be 
 The chapel 'neath, with fitting rite. 
 
 " I wildly talked, perchance, myself; 
 
 My brain was turned with Eva's din. 
 No more ! " Anon, on some pretence, 
 
 Strove each her safe discharge to win.
 
 142 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 One, sickening, would be nursed at home, 
 And one would see a sister wed, 
 
 And one must straight repair to tend 
 Some new-found grandsire's dying bed. 
 
 Half pleadingly to them she stared, 
 Most like a wild-cat, when her young 
 
 Are stolen, mewling round the place 
 
 With drooping head and burning tongue. 
 
 To this she gave a necklace fair, 
 
 A bracelet or a ring to that. 
 The goodly gifts forgotten lay ; 
 
 But still the steward kept the gate. 
 
 A priest she summoned, when he came 
 Dismissed, but bade high mass be said, 
 
 " For one whom she had dearly loved, 
 But who had very long been dead."
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 143 
 
 And often, through the haggard hours, 
 
 She shuddered at an awful note, 
 That downward from the chapel seemed, 
 
 As from the trump of doom, to float. 
 
 r 
 
 'T was from the long-mute voice and lyre 
 
 Of Leonore. She, all that day, 
 Sat singing dirges on the spot 
 
 Where Gabrielle was wont to pray ; 
 
 But when the twilight closed, she stood 
 At Agnes' side ; and, bursting forth 
 
 At tempest's close, as sieged sun 
 
 From west to east, and south and north, 
 
 Shoots golden shafts through every rift, 
 
 And fires the cloudy-tented skies, 
 E'en so her long-pent life glowed out 
 
 At kindling cheeks, and lips, and eyes.
 
 144 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 To-night do I descend the cliff; 
 
 Avenged shall be sweet Gabrielle. 
 Commend me to thy fellow-maids ; 
 
 To them and thee a last farewell ! 
 
 " And if my life was little joy, 
 Perchance, to either them or thee, 
 
 Remember sometimes, if my death 
 Pays ransom for your liberty." 
 
 At midnight, when the household all 
 Or seemed, or were, in slumber deep, 
 
 She oped a lattice, that looked out 
 Upon a giddy, headlong steep. 
 
 She softly kissed and freed the dove 
 
 That in her breast since morn had been ; 
 
 It sprang aloft on bounding wing, 
 And never more on earth was seen.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 145 
 
 With fingers cramped, and chamois foot, 
 
 She ran where never fellest foe, 
 With scaling-ladder, hook, and rope, 
 
 In heat of storm, had dared to go. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Deeps yawned through deeps ; no rest was there, 
 
 Till rushing, reeling to and fro, 
 Midway she gained the jagged crags 
 
 That beetled o'er the plain below. 
 
 " Ho, pretty maiden ! part'st thou thus 
 
 From Csejta's hospitality ? " 
 Cried Hugo ; and a rattling noose 
 
 Struck on the peak she stayed her by. 
 
 She leapt, and like a night-bird flew 
 
 O'er many a leaping, flying rock, 
 Till headlong on the plain below 
 
 He heard her smite, with muffled shock. 
 10
 
 146 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 The white stars shone on field and fell 
 
 All silvered with the shining frost ; 
 The slow moon burned her flickering way 
 
 Through ice-glazed branches glued and crossed. 
 
 'T was not unlike the soul of man, 
 The frozen, breathless, midnight air, 
 
 When hope and fear, together fled, 
 Have left it to a still despair. 
 
 So cold on Louis' fevered ear 
 
 The deathly, wierdly silence fell, 
 That wildly, as he rode along, 
 
 He whooped, and shouted, " Gabrielle ! " 
 
 Loud clattering o'er the glassy ford 
 The charger dashed, with hoof unwet. 
 
 The charger's coat was reeking dark, 
 The rider's forehead smoked with sweat.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 147 
 
 And Csejta's rising towers drew near; 
 
 He knew their growing outlines well ; 
 But none the nearer seemed the sky, 
 
 And none the nearer Gabrielle. 
 
 The silence cold took shape and voice, 
 
 And, swaying, reared itself amain, 
 And faced him, clinging, as he bent, 
 
 Unto his bolting courser's rein, 
 
 And fixed upon his starting eyes 
 
 The sunken eyes of Leonore : 
 " The princess doth her damsels slay, 
 
 To bathe her body in their gore ; 
 
 " In Elcine's cot, seek GABRIELLE." 
 
 She fell, nor other word spake she, 
 But died, it was her girlish prayer, 
 
 E'en in her hard-won victory.
 
 148 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 The door he burst, and Elcine shook 
 And Annot, till their clattering jaws 
 
 Were void of falsehoods. When he ceased, 
 They pointed with their bird-like claws 
 
 Into a murky vault beneath, 
 
 And quavered of their lady's will. 
 
 With folded hands upon her breast, 
 His shrouded love lay white and still. 
 
 He lifted her and bore her out, 
 
 A hard and crushing weight for him, 
 
 For, trembling, when he felt it first, 
 He quaked in every sturdy limb. 
 
 He gently rode, until he reached 
 A convent, and the porter-friar 
 
 In tones of one who bears a babe 
 
 That slumbers bade to call the prior.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 149 
 
 The good old man, arising straight, 
 Slow-footed ne'er to bring relief, 
 
 Received, in mild paternal arms, 
 The marble image of his grief. 
 
 He prayed him let the bells be tolled, 
 And masses said, and carved above 
 
 Her snow-white tomb, in fairest guise, 
 The figure of a snow-white dove, 
 
 And promised him, to pay his pains, 
 His goods and cowled self anon, 
 
 So soon as to the Palatine 
 
 His errand should be fitly done. 
 
 " What knights are those ? Admit them not ! " 
 " What ails this shrewish wife of mine? 
 
 Admit them straight. From Presburg's towers, 
 Thrice hail, now princely Palatine ! "
 
 150 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 The princess stood at Rudolph's back, 
 With sparkling eyes, and bristling hair, 
 
 As stands the lioness at bay, 
 Surprised by hunters in her lair. 
 
 Her hands upon his ears she clapped ; 
 Before they spake, their tidings had 
 
 Her senses stunned ; but Rudolph heard, 
 And spurned her, and she straight went mad. 
 
 Within the hut the hags they seized ; 
 
 And near it, searching closely round, 
 The mouldered corse of Agatha, 
 
 Half-hid with earth and leaves, they found, 
 
 And bore it forth ; and near they found, 
 Their white heat spent, and slowly bore 
 
 To rest in sacred dust at last, 
 The ashes white of Leonore.
 
 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 151 
 
 Still Hugo had not fled, but moved 
 Unblushing 'mid the soldier bands ; 
 
 For when his servants' work is done, 
 Oft Satan ties his servants' hands 
 
 And feet, and blinds their sight, and takes 
 Their craft away. His guilt was bared. 
 
 They seized him. For the menial three 
 A funeral pile was straight prepared. 
 
 Through fire and smoke their screaming souls 
 Flew from the charred and blackening stake, 
 
 Unto the blue, undying flame 
 
 That sails along the sulphur lake. 
 
 To justice, too, their dame was brought, 
 The hoodwinked justice throned on earth, 
 
 That spared her hideous life to touch, 
 In reverence to her lofty birth ;
 
 152 THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 But doomed her, till high Heaven's decree 
 Should summon her her servants' lot 
 
 To share, to wear that life away, 
 A prisoner, chained in Elcine's cot. 
 
 There long she shrieked, and plunged, and gasped, 
 
 And weltered in a vision ed flood, 
 A caldron, o'er fiend-tended fire, 
 
 Of youthful maiden's boiling blood. 
 
 Black mists climb Csejta's ruined walls. 
 
 Behind a bleak Carpathian's crest 
 The day his weary, sickening eye 
 
 Is shutting, in the stormy west. 
 
 The mountain owls hoot hoarsely back, 
 To faintly hooting owls below ; 
 
 And dizzy bats, with whirling flight, 
 Around the vacant turrets go.
 
 MISCELLANEOUS.
 
 LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 
 
 TEN years ago, dear Bessy Bell 
 Stood with me by this mossy well. 
 The sun was set. I scarce could trace 
 The beauties of her changeful face ; 
 While clumsy I her pitcher filled, 
 And twice or thrice the water spilled. 
 She stood a moment, and no more ; 
 A smile, a glance, and all was o'er. 
 Her pitcher full, she would not stay, 
 But sprang with fawn-like foot away, 
 And left within my heart a light, 
 That gilded all that summer night.
 
 156 LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 
 
 A darkling wild before me lay ; 
 But boldly thence I groped my way. 
 If pitfalls, or if snakes, were there, 
 I did not know, I did not care. 
 Well knew I, by their rich perfume, 
 That clover nestled in the gloom, 
 And from each little censer-cup 
 Wild roses swung their sweetness up, 
 And elders spread their flowery arms, 
 To ward me off from watery harms; 
 And, where the gurgling brooklet streamed, 
 The cricket's ringing chiming seemed 
 The very shadow of a noise, 
 Or dreaming Silence' talking voice, 
 And filled me with a tender joy. 
 I was a glad and fearless boy. 
 
 Yet in my bliss, I chafed to wait 
 The slow uplighting of my fate.
 
 LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 157 
 
 The shades of night I scarcely chid, 
 Rebelled at those the future hid. 
 Thick as the breathing flowers unseen, 
 Fair prizes scarce a blank between 
 My feet encompassed, I was sure, 
 For me and for my love in store ; 
 Was sure, for as the scents from those, 
 The springing hopes from these arose ; 
 But how I longed to see each prize 
 Dance mirrored in her love-proud eyes ! 
 For honors, wealth, and fame should be 
 Won more for Bessy than for me. 
 
 How soon my fortune's dawn was red ! 
 How soon the hated shades were fled ! 
 How quickly, on life's checkered ground, 
 Wealth^ fame, and honors have I found ! 
 If serpents stung, I hid my pain, 
 And flung them strangled off again ;
 
 158 LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 
 
 And if their fangs were in my soul, 
 
 I still strode forward to the goal. 
 
 How soon I 've wrung from crooked Fate, 
 
 The slave of tho3e that strive and wait, 
 
 For boyhood's gay obscurity 
 
 A glare of void prosperity, 
 
 And for that balmy night of June 
 
 Bright horror of a winter's noon. 
 
 Once more, in manhood's flush and pride, 
 I stand the gray old well beside. 
 The shades are fled ; and, white and still, 
 I see the meadow and the rill, 
 Each leaf which, by the north-wind tossed, 
 Nods, sparkling with its gems of frost, 
 And shining snow, that sighing sifts 
 Through withered stalks that fringe the drifts. 
 No more I need to grope my way, 
 It lies before me plain as day,
 
 LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 159 
 
 Across a wide and wintry wold, 
 Where all is brilliant, clear, and cold, 
 Yet pause to view with watery eyes 
 The dazzling mound where Bessy lies. 
 
 In darkness lurketh hope ; but light 
 Oft stares us into blank affright. 
 It shines in empty mockery, 
 To gild and flout our misery. 
 
 As, when his griefs have touched his brain, 
 The doting exile sues in vain 
 To tread the pale and bubbly wake, 
 That through the waves the ship doth make, 
 White ghost of a returning road, 
 To lead him to his lost abode, 
 We yearn to walk on Memory's track. 
 Time will not give his bargains back, 
 But, for the dross we craved of old, 
 Extorts and keeps life's brightest gold.
 
 160 LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 
 
 How many years of now I 'd give, 
 One little week of then to live ! 
 My powers matured, approved, and skilled, 
 For youth's vague promise ne'er fulfilled ; 
 And all the bays my brows that twine, 
 For Bessy's little hand in mine, 
 Ay, all my lands, a nook to have 
 Beside her in her early grave. 
 
 Yet he is weak, or short, of sight, 
 Who cannot bear the wholesome light, 
 Nor by its aid, unblenching, brook 
 In Fate's unveiled stern face to look, 
 Beholding in its circuit fair 
 No revelation but despair. 
 Unto the far-eyed sailor's view 
 The wreck it gives, the haven, too. 
 I raise my eyes. From heaven's blue dome 
 It shines, from Bessy's waiting home,
 
 LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 161 
 
 A beacon sure, to guide my way 
 
 Up to no cold nor dreary day. 
 
 The winter reaches not the sky ; 
 
 But in its sunny purity 
 
 The tender gaze I see once more, 
 
 Methinks, that warmed my heart of yore. 
 
 The laurels that for thee I won, 
 My reckless grief doth trample on; 
 But lure me with thine image fair 
 Until with thee the palm I bear ; 
 Until another night shall close 
 Upon my triumphs and my woes. 
 And lay me by thy quiet side, 
 Thou buried Joy, my hope's young bride! 
 Until again the shadows flee, 
 Beloved ! and I gaze on thee. 
 
 11
 
 162 
 
 BEATI QUI LUGENT 
 
 OR, HERMAN S VIGILS. 
 
 A SONG OF THE NIGHT. 
 
 " Yet the Lord will command bis loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the 
 night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life." 
 Pscdm xlii. 8. 
 
 " L'on y apprend qu'une affliction bien endure est un tresor pour reternite, 
 ct que souffrir avec Jesus Christ doit etrc 1'ambition d'une iXme qui Teut s'ap- 
 procher de sa glorieuse conformit6." SCUPOLI. 
 
 THOU, who didst cheer with melodies of heaven 
 Israel's crowned shepherd in his vigils long, 
 To the long midnight of my woe hast given 
 At last a faint, low song.
 
 HERMAN'S VIGILS. 163 
 
 While Rest and Childhood press their quiet pillows, 
 By Thy dear presence' pitying pleadings won 
 From hoarse-grown silence, I from wind-swung 
 
 willows 
 Take my unstrung harp down. 
 
 Too faint to climb, no more with burning hands 
 I strain for gadding bays its frame to deck, 
 But, kneeling, where the cross forsaken stands 
 The ensanguined flowers I seek, 
 
 Sad passion-flowers, pansies dark and sweet, 
 And love-lies-bleeding, drowned in heaven-wept 
 
 dew, 
 
 And herb of grace, for broken spirit meet, 
 The Serpent-baffling rue. 
 
 As the pleased mother marks, an unmarked warden, 
 Her children's merry sports from window high, 
 But, if or fright or pain invade her garden, 
 Doth breathless to them fly,
 
 164 HERMAN'S VIGILS. 
 
 Clasp them with kisses in her felt embraces, 
 And with her unexpected voice them cheer, 
 And look into their upturned crying faces, 
 That straight begin to clear; 
 
 So Thou, who, o'er our mazy life presiding, 
 An ever-tender mindful watch dost keep 
 O'er all our joys, those thoughtless joys providing, 
 Art nearest when we weep. 
 
 that to all this world of grieving mortals 
 
 1 of the solace could one tithe impart, 
 
 With which Thou knockest at the unlatched portals 
 Of my void, desolate heart ! 
 
 With tears Thou deign'st to purge my dust-dimmed 
 
 vision, 
 
 So of the ends of fleeting earthly woe, 
 In the high councils of Thy state Elysian, 
 Some little me to show.
 
 HERMAN'S VIGILS. 165 
 
 ' 
 Much, much Thy mercy takes, that Thou maystgive 
 
 Gifts which Thy wisdom sees worth all besides. 
 Our life decays to teach our souls to live 
 Where deathless life abides. 
 
 Thou for our heavenly thwart'st our earthly ends; 
 For the true riches chang'st our sordid pelf; 
 And callest up to Thee our human friends, 
 To substitute Thyself. 
 
 Thou, firm yet kindly Nurse, dost put away 
 The fading, poisonous laurels ; then, to calm 
 Our idle rage, our blessed loss dost pay 
 With fair immortal palm. 
 
 - 
 Art's brightest pages into blackness turn 
 
 In the grim noontide of our darkened eyes, 
 But that from Thine own lessons we may learn 
 The lore that angels prize.
 
 166 HERMAN'S VIGILS. 
 
 E'en though Thou suffered those to smite us sore 
 Whom erst Thou didst ordain to soothe and bless, 
 'T were through their wounds the oil and wine to 
 
 pour 
 Of mightier tenderness. 
 
 Borne on a bed of soft, inglorious roses 
 Thou wouldst not, Father, that Thy child should be, 
 To those calm halls where, lapped in peace, reposes 
 Christ's host from victory. 
 
 From heaven's steep ramparts when some watchman 
 
 bright 
 
 Shows the dim sunken point that gave him birth, 
 Through deeps of surging suns and tossing light, 
 The recollected earth, 
 
 Looks through the woes did cloud its tiny ball, 
 Smiles at the phantasms that befooled him then, 
 Straining a spirit's memory to recall 
 How once he walked with men,
 
 HERMAN'S VIGILS. 167 
 
 And modest of the mighty wars will tell, 
 In its clay cradle's infancy and age, 
 Strangling the writhing, snaky brood of Hell, 
 His infant soul did wage, 
 
 And boasts with grateful pride the arm that gave 
 Its aid in every peril that befell, 
 Thou wouldst not that one craven child should have 
 No answering tale to tell. 
 
 For crowns of thorns, that gall Thy saints below, 
 Are crowns of glory worn by saints above; 
 The hand that weaves one for my shrinking brow 
 Is weaving it in love. 
 
 For the last time, perchance, 't is proffered; 
 O bear with me, and I will now endure, 
 Lest 'mid Thy shining ones I hang my head, . 
 Undiademed, obscure!
 
 168 HERMAN'S VIGILS. 
 
 Thou bidst me to the table where, on waters 
 Of bitterness and sorrow's hardest bread, 
 Earth's noblest sons, and purest, holiest daughters, 
 Their growing souls have fed. 
 
 In the heart's upper, large, hushed chamber sitting, 
 Their working brows by angels' pinions fanned, 
 By high Thoughts waited on with service fitting, 
 I see the awful band. 
 
 The bloodlike beads of sweat big on his forehead, 
 Lo! at their head, most sad, most blest, sits he 
 Who knelt, upon the night of nights most horrid, 
 In dank Gethsemane. 
 
 To share the Passover of agony, 
 As lay of yore the loved Apostle John, 
 In his own heaving bosom bids me lie 
 My Saviour and Thy Son.
 
 HERMAN'S VIGILS. 169 
 
 And " If Thou mayst not pass from me this cup," 
 So round the board the half-choked pledge doth 
 
 run, 
 
 " O Father, to its dregs I drink it up ; 
 Thy will, not mine, be done ! " 
 
 It is enough! With them and Thee in union, 
 Though all my days be spent in travail sore, 
 Make me but worthy of this dread communion, 
 And I will ask no more. 
 
 Make me but worthy, Lord, lest I, as they 
 Who in despair and wrath their spirits sink, 
 Tasting this cup and bread unworthily, 
 Damnation eat and drink. 
 
 Drawn nearer Thee, not chased, in each affliction 
 O let me own, with faith that cannot rove, 
 A Father's earnest hand in benediction, 
 Heavy with weight of love!
 
 170 HERMAN'S VIGILS. 
 
 No more I yield to doublings or dejections, 
 But meekly offer up to God and man 
 A pierced heart's blood and crucified affections, 
 The little all I can ; 
 
 And when, as sudden glooms and darkness dun 
 Sweep from my life's short road the flying light, 
 Spreads her grim veil to shroud me from the sun 
 The frowning, awful Night, 
 
 I will not shudder at its black expansion, 
 But, darkling led by Thee, will trusting say, 
 Some rising turret of rny heavenly mansion 
 Doth shadow o'er my way. 
 
 My soul is strengthened. He who ever liveth 
 To those who at His midnight footstool weep, 
 Shall give unto me, even as " He giveth 
 To his beloved, sleep" ;
 
 HERMAN'S VIGILS. 171 
 
 And, as the priceless boon in peace I take, 
 Beneath Thy brooding wings my bed shall be; 
 And I will lay me down, sure " when I wake " 
 Of being "still with Thee."
 
 172 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 THE STATUES OF DAY AND NIGHT, BY MICHAEL ANGELO. 
 
 DEAD Florence' deathless son, grand Angelo ! 
 How one wide thought of all o'er-shadowing gloom 
 Can fix both Day and Night upon a tomb, 
 Whose dust by both is mourned for, taught by 
 
 Woe 
 
 Thou teachest us ! when the too early light 
 Bursts in, with gairish mockery of distress, 
 Upon the sickened soul, and worn-out Night 
 May bring faint dreams, but not forgetfulness. 
 A patriot thought thou 'st petrified, to peer 
 Darkling through thy translucent stone, for aye : 
 So sad the Night, so looketh blank and blear 
 The lusty, busy face of dazzling Day, 
 When a land's life, enshrined in mortal clay, 
 With one man's breath hath passed from earth away.
 
 173 
 
 A VALENTINE. 
 
 OLD Winter, wedding Spring, doth brush 
 
 The powder from his curls, 
 And on the mountain pine's high head 
 
 Sets coronals of pearls ; 
 
 And little twittering, shivering birds, 
 
 Betrothed by the Fates, 
 From icy stone and hawthorn spray 
 
 Chirp courage to their mates ;
 
 174 A VALENTINE. 
 
 And now, while many a painted scroll 
 
 Is flying through the town, 
 And, stuffed with false and heartless oaths, 
 
 To many a heart goes down, 
 
 Fair Mary, to an honest lay 
 
 Thy favoring ear incline, 
 And hear, amid the lying throng, 
 
 One loyal Valentine. 
 
 No slave deserves a love like thine, 
 
 Not slavishly I '11 sue; 
 But if I woo thee tenderly, 
 
 I '11 woo thee proudly too. 
 
 Not e'en within my lady's bower, 
 
 A carpet-knight, I '11 wait. 
 I think it much to bid her be 
 
 My manhood's equal mate,
 
 A VALENTINE. 175 
 
 To bid thee forth to chase with me, 
 
 V^rapped in my mantle warm, 
 The wild and fierce delight that lives 
 
 In conflict and in storm. 
 
 Nor say I that, with hope of thee, 
 
 Mine every hope were o'er, 
 Nor that, rejected, I may be 
 
 As I have been no more. 
 
 Still soars the mount, though 'mid his crags 
 
 No eagle builds her nest; 
 Still Ocean floweth, though no moon 
 
 Doth cheer his gloomy breast. 
 
 Nor say I that long loneliness 
 
 May bend thy spirit's pride, 
 And turn it from its upward spring 
 
 To grovelling ways aside.
 
 176 A VALENTINE. 
 
 
 
 Still, of her sunward nature borne, 
 
 l 
 The eagle cleaves the sky, 
 
 Though, gasping, on earth's dusty plain 
 To drop anon, and die. 
 
 Still shines the moon, though, drear and lone, 
 
 Thick clouds her beauty hide, 
 With useless beams, while all below 
 
 In groping dark abide. 
 
 But if upon her deep she smiles 
 
 For scarce an instant's space, 
 What golden gladness flashes o'er 
 
 His troubled, mighty face ! 
 
 With myriads, how, of springing smiles, 
 
 Its furrows all are sown, 
 His every glance reflecting back 
 
 The brightness of her own !
 
 A VALENTINE. 1*77 
 
 How, darting from its darkness forth, 
 
 His countless ships are seen, 
 On blessed errands to and fro, 
 
 His waiting shores between, 
 
 White shuttles that his tossing arms 
 
 With tireless motion ply, 
 To weave the nations' heart-strings in 
 
 The web of unity ! 
 
 And if, when flags the eagle's wing, 
 
 Aloft in middle air 
 Her trysting mountain lifts his brow, 
 
 In haste to meet her there, 
 
 Within his giant arms to rest, 
 
 Scarce stooping from her height, 
 How soon, with pinions plumed anew, 
 
 She wings her loftier flight ! 
 12
 
 178 A VALENTINE. 
 
 O peerless woman ! let, thine eyes, 
 
 At Truth's own altar lit, 
 Be lamps to light me up with thee 
 
 On glory's Alp to sit. 
 
 A light-house, thee I '11 guard and rear, 
 
 Till all mankind shall be 
 Illumined by thy holy rays, 
 
 That emanate through me.
 
 179 
 
 A CHARADE. 
 
 MY first, when lilac-tressed May, 
 
 Of old, led in Election Day, 
 
 Best burden of the tasteful tongue, 
 
 How baked the old ! How munched the young ! 
 
 How from its caves, with mining thumbs, 
 
 Exultant Homers forced the plums ! 
 
 Its short-lived glories passed away, 
 
 Election comes no more with May. 
 
 My readers may perchance forget. 
 
 To make the matter clearer yet, 
 
 Queen Anne, if ancient rhymes be true, 
 
 So fair ! was of its rich, deep hue.
 
 180 A CHARADE. 
 
 Now let my Protean next appear 
 The ruby crown of Chanticleer; 
 In tugging nursemaid's hands, the rife 
 And rueful source of nursery strife ; 
 And castle where his plunder stores 
 The honeyed robber of the flowers. 
 
 My whole, where rice-fields basking lie, 
 And listless Ethiops drudge and die, 
 Was once an unobtrusive town ; 
 But now, by wondrous change, has grown 
 The Deity whose breath inspires 
 Our demagogues' transcendent fires, 
 Who, thundering in their own sweet praise, 
 Invoke the men of future days, 
 While, writhing in his helpless pain, 
 The speechless Speaker pounds in vain, 
 And States behold their wrongs grown hoary, 
 Ere long-bowed heroes end their story, 
 (That, now-a-days, for wages small 
 Might hire one bard to sing them all,)
 
 A CHARADE. ]gl 
 
 Yet still their yearly million strain, 
 
 Nor aught, save noise and nonsense, gain. 
 
 When your poor purse as empty waxes, 
 
 As are such utterances, with taxes, 
 
 And sold are half your fair possessions 
 
 To pay your part towards long Long-Sessions, 
 
 Your woe-enlightened mind, no doubt, 
 
 Will but too quickly find me out.
 
 182 
 
 MANHOOD. 
 
 A MIRACLE attends the morn ! 
 
 Creation new, a child is born ! 
 
 
 Be veiled the light, and hushed each sound ; 
 
 Let hallowed stillness reign around; 
 While to a mother's eye appears 
 A smiling throng of rosy years. 
 Among them flitting shadows go, 
 With cypress wands, in weeds of woe. 
 But far, and dimly, hovering, 
 They flit, all thin and wavering,
 
 MANHOOD. 183 
 
 Forbid to her their forms to show 
 The heavenliest hour that earth can know, 
 That gives, in soft endearing charms, 
 The first-born to her raptured arms. 
 Or far, or near, in mazy dance, 
 The linked sisters fair advance; 
 With honors crowned, wealth, fame, and joy, 
 They beckon on the unconscious boy. 
 Thank God for life! 
 
 The feather-footed years run by. 
 The babe has oped his wandering eye 
 From dreams that waiting angels strew 
 Around him, soft as Hermon's dew, 
 To scarce less bright reality, 
 To virgin Eden's gayety. 
 All pure and fair around, above, 
 His little heart is fed with love ; 
 And love his faltering footsteps stays, 
 His sunshine gilds with clearer rays,
 
 184 MANHOOD. 
 
 His hopes inspires, and soothes his fears, 
 And gently dries his April tears, 
 For graces sought, or wrong forgiven, 
 Shows his young prayers their way to heaven, 
 And, ere the final word is flown, 
 Has brought an answering blessing down. 
 O'er velvet mead, by purling rill, 
 On mossy bank, he sports at will ; 
 And balmy air, and streamlet's song, 
 The accents of his guileless tongue, 
 And flowers his dimpled limbs that press, 
 All breathe of early happiness. 
 Thank God for life ! 
 
 No more in swaddling-bands confined, 
 How from its cradle leaps the mind! 
 The viewless might of air to wield, 
 Bid the swollen clouds their lightnings yield, 
 Or from the surest holds of earth 
 To wring Time's rocky records forth,
 
 MANHOOD. 185 
 
 Or from their lurking-places high 
 Hunt starting systems through the sky, 
 In haste the universe to explore ; 
 While still its cry is, More ! and More ! 
 It raises, with a magic tome, 
 The demigods of Greece and Rome, 
 Till Servius' legions shake the plain, 
 And Homer's harp resounds again, 
 And, oftener, in communion sweet, 
 Sits on the Mount at Jesus' feet. 
 The longest day is all too brief 
 To bring the stripling's thirst relief; 
 By night, the good and great of old 
 In dreams to him their arms unfold ; 
 The morning wakes to pleasing toil, 
 Cheered by the glad parental smile; 
 And generous friendship weaves the crown 
 That generous rivalry has won. 
 Thank God for life !
 
 186 MANHOOD. 
 
 Still dance the years. Perfecting time 
 Has borne him on to early prime, 
 And paid, in golden hoard amassed, 
 The earnings of the thrifty past. 
 Each blessed earthly joy he knows ; 
 The gleaming laurel wreathes his brows ; 
 In wisdom, as in courage, great, 
 He firmly sways the helm of state ; 
 While Virtue in his silver tone 
 Commands, with graces all his own, 
 Scarce less than his, his hearers feel 
 Their fervors for the common weal ; 
 And, meek in beauty, by his side 
 A stately maiden blooms, a bride- 
 Thank God for life ! 
 
 The sky is dark. The winds are loud. 
 Forsaken of the fickle crowd, 
 When every earthly hope has fled, 
 When friendship, youth, and joy are dead,
 
 MANHOOD. 187 
 
 Undaunted in the midnight hour, 
 Thank God for life, for steadfast power 
 To live, and do, and suffer on, 
 For God, and for mankind alone; 
 And, ended all its toil and strife, 
 Its work well done, thank God for life ! 
 That leads to Death, 
 
 The porter who at heaven's gate stands, 
 Who lays on him his hallowing hands, 
 And, doffed his worn-out fleshly weeds, 
 For wedding-garments glistering, speeds. 
 The many mansions greet his eyes ; 
 His ears, the music of the skies. 
 The shouting blessed, in loud acclaim, 
 Unite to swell his long-loved name. 
 High soars the sweetly lessening tone, 
 High as the everlasting throne ; 
 And, trembling half with tender fears, 
 The Father's voice he ravished hears :
 
 188 MANHOOD. 
 
 " Now, to thy Lord's rejoicing come, 
 Thou trusty servant, welcome home!" 
 Then, never changed, and never ending, 
 To loftier glories still ascending, 
 Thank God for life!
 
 NOTES.
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Page 3. PRELUDE. 
 
 This conversation is supposed to have taken place on the evening 
 of the 26th of January, 1855, succeeding that of the third Assem 
 bly at Union Hall. 
 
 Page 42. And the Son of Man, c. 
 
 This paraphrase of verses in the parable beginning at the thirty- 
 first verse of the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew is inserted, not as 
 technically correct, but as in accordance with the mode of interpre 
 tation, half mystical and half literal, which prevailed in the Middle 
 Ages. 
 
 Page 43. It ceased. From a garland of seraphs. 
 " Cosl di quclle sempiterne rose 
 Tolgeonsi circa noi le due ghir'ande." 
 
 Del Paradiso, Canto XII. 
 
 Page 51. By His grace, not mine, &c. 
 
 "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." 
 Epistle to the Colossians, ch. iii. ver. 4.
 
 192 NOTES. 
 
 Page 53. lour Earl, by God's grace. 
 
 " Moriamur pro rege nostro, Maria Theresa." 
 
 Page 63. THE PRINCESS' BATH. 
 
 Some apology is due to that discriminating class, hitherto even 
 more remarkable for their discrimination than for their numbers, 
 my readers, for intruding upon them so tediously grisly a nar 
 rative. - It may be some satisfaction to them to know that it nearly 
 frightened me out of my own wits in the making up. The story, 
 in its prose form, as given below, was told me by a friend who 
 has since won for herself no unenviable rank among the educa 
 tional writers of this country. It immediately occurred to me, 
 in an enterprising mood, that it might be woven into a little poem ; 
 and in this mood the very difficulty of humanizing the monstrous 
 character of the princess was not without its temptations. But who, 
 on entering a poetical mine, can tell when be shall come to day 
 light again ? To my consternation, I found the lines of my intended 
 ballad stretching out as if to the crack of doom. In disgust I threw 
 it aside for a year or two ; but it had gone too far to be got rid of so 
 easily, and lay upon my literary conscience like an incubus. Sum 
 moning up something of the energy of despair, I took it out again, 
 and forced myself to finish it; but it lay for months once more be 
 fore I could find resolution to correct and copy it, which I did at last 
 with shuddering reluctance, and only at the instances of my intel 
 lectual adviser and confessor ; 
 
 " And since I 've never dared to write 
 As horrid as I can." 
 
 " The ruins of a once strong castle still remain on the summit of a 
 hill, which can be ascended only on one side, for, like many old Hun 
 garian castles, Csejta is built on a limestone rock, forming an abrupt 
 precipice on three sides. About the year 1610, this castle was the 
 residence of Elizabeth Bathori, sister to the king of Poland, and
 
 NOTES. 193 
 
 V 
 
 wife of a rich and powerful magnate. Like most ladies of her day, 
 she was surrounded by a troop of young persons, generally the 
 daughters of poor but noble parents, who lived in honorable servi 
 tude, in return for which their education was cared for, and their 
 dowry secured. Elizabeth was of a severe and cruel disposition, 
 and her handmaidens led no joyous life. Slight faults are said to 
 have been punished by most merciless tortures. One day, as the 
 lady of Csejta was adorning at her mirror those charms which that 
 faithful monitor told her were fast waning, she gave way to her un 
 governable temper, excited, perhaps, by the mirror's unwelcome 
 hint, and struck her unoffending maid with such force in the face as 
 to draw blood. As she washed from her hand the stain, she fancied 
 that the part which the blood had touched grew whiter, softer, and, 
 as it were, more young. 
 
 " Imbued with the dreams of the age, she believed that accident had 
 revealed to her what so many philosophers had wasted years to dis 
 cover, that in a maiden's blood she possessed the elixir vitce, the 
 source of never-failing youth and beauty ! Remorseless by nature, 
 and now urged on by that worst of woman's weaknesses, vanity, no 
 sooner did the thought flash across her brain than her resolution 
 was taken ; the life of her luckless handmaiden seemed as naught 
 compared with the ricli boon her murder promised to secure. 
 
 " Elizabeth, however, was wary as she was cruel. At the foot of 
 the rock on which Csejta stands was a small cottage, inhabited by 
 two old women, and between the cellar of this cottage and the 
 castle was a subterranean passage, known only to one or two per 
 sons, and never used but in times of danger. With the aid of these 
 crones and her steward, the poor girl was led through the secret 
 passage to the cottage, where the horrid deed was accomplished, and 
 the body of the murderess washed in virgin's blood. Not satisfied 
 with the first essay, at different intervals, by the aid of these accom- 
 13
 
 194 NOTES. 
 
 plices and the secret passage, no less than three hundred maidens 
 were sacrificed at the shrine of vanity and superstition. Several 
 years had been occupied in this pitiless slaughter, and no suspicion 
 of the truth was excited, though the greatest amazement pervaded 
 the country at the disappearance of so many persons. 
 
 "At last, however, Elizabeth called into play against her two 
 passions stronger even than vanity or cunning, love and revenge 
 became interested in the discovery of the mystery. Among the vic 
 tims of Csejta was a beautiful maiden, who was beloved by and be 
 trothed to a young man of the neighborhood. In despair at the loss 
 of his mistress, he followed her traces with such perseverance, that, 
 in spite of the hitherto successful caution of the murderess, he pene 
 trated the bloody secrets of the castle, and, burning for revenge, flew 
 to Presburg, boldly accused Elizabeth Bathori of murder before the 
 Palatine in open court, and demanded judgment against her. 
 
 " So grave an accusation, so openly preferred against an individual 
 of such high rank, demanded the most serious attention, and George 
 Thurzo, the then Palatine, undertook to investigate the affair in 
 person. Proceeding immediately to Csejta before the murderess or 
 her accomplices had any idea of the accusation, he discovered the 
 still warm body of a young girl whom they had been destroying as 
 the Palatine approached, and had not had time to dispose of before 
 he apprehended them. The rank of Elizabeth mitigated her pun 
 ishment to imprisonment for life, but her assistants were burned at 
 the stake." PAGET'S Travels in Hungary and Transylvania. 
 
 Page 71. Noiseless and fleet, as o'er the waves, &c. 
 
 " Don Carlos. Of course the Preciosa danced to-night ? 
 " Lara. And never better. Every footstep fell 
 
 As lightly as a sunbeam on the water." 
 
 The Spanish Student.
 
 NOTES. 195 
 
 Page 72. Leonore. 
 
 It is possible that the character of Leonore was in part suggested 
 by that of Elizabeth in " The H Family." 
 
 Page 87. He saw a native fiend, Sac. 
 
 " The blue-eyed Sorceress and her Sister stood, 
 Seeming a rained Angel by the side 
 Of Spirit born in hell." 
 
 T/mlaba. 
 
 Page 104. She sat beneath a painted tree- 
 
 " The sweet southwest at play 
 Flies rustling where the painted leaves are strown, 
 Along the winding way." 
 
 BRYAXT. 
 
 Page 148. His shrouded love. 
 
 I quote from recollection, and very probably incorrectly, the fol 
 lowing fine lines from Alice Carey : 
 
 " The still grave oped and closed 
 O'er the white beauty of my shrouded love ; 
 And, choking my heart's bleeding as I might 
 With the black dust of darkness, I went back 
 Into the sunshine ; though my stumbling feet 
 O'erturned the while the fallen urn of Hope, 
 And strewed its ashes on the passion-flowers." 
 
 Page 151. Through fire and smoke. 
 
 This I take to be according to the received poetical theology. 
 In my individual capacity, I do not wish to be understood to indorse 
 it. I confess myself, to all whom it may concern, a disciple of that 
 excellent divine, who, after he had prayed in his exhaustive charity for 
 everything and everybody else that he could think of, entreated that, 
 if possible, some little mercy might be shown to " the poor old Devil."
 
 196 NOTES. 
 
 Page 163. From hoarse-grown silence. 
 
 " Dinanzi agli occhi mi si fu offorto 
 Chi per lungo silenzio parea floco." 
 
 DeW Inferno, Canto I. 
 
 Page 163. Tlie Serpent-baffling rue. 
 
 "They (the Exorcists) are to try the Devil by holy water, in 
 cense, sulphur, rue, which from thence, as we suppose, came to be 
 called herb of grace." BISHOP TAYLOB. 
 
 " The weasel, to encounter the serpent, arms herself with eating 
 of rue." MORE. 
 
 Page 166. Borne on a bed of soft, inglorious roses. 
 " Must I be carried to the skies 
 
 On flowery beds of ease, 
 While others fought to win the prize, 
 And sailed through bloody seas." 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 Page 172. SONNET. 
 
 The statues of Day and Night decorate the tomb of Julian de' 
 Medici, to whom Michael Angelo was, during part of his life at 
 least, no very devoted adherent. Notwithstanding, the idea expressed 
 above, that he availed himself of them to express feelings appro 
 priate to the death of a man such as one possessed of the power 
 and influence of Julian should have been, is rendered not improba 
 ble by the well-known lines inscribed by him under that of the 
 Night: 
 
 " Grato m' e il sonno, piu 1'esser di sasso ; 
 Mentre che '1 danno e la rergogna dura, 
 Non Teder, non sentir, m' fe gran ventura ; 
 Peru non mi destar, deh par la basso ! " 
 
 Grateful my sleep, more grateful still to me 
 
 My privilege of blind, deaf, stone to be, 
 
 While wrong and shame surround this deathful spot : 
 
 Therefore speak low ; in mercy wake me not !
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 Form L9-50m-7,'54( 5990) 444 
 
 THE LIBRARY
 
 PS. 
 
 Palfrey - 
 
 251.9 Premices 
 Pl?Up 
 
 UCLA-Young Research Library 
 
 PS2519 .P174p 
 
 y 
 
 L 009 577 360 2 
 
 PS 
 
 2519 
 
 PlTlip 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 001 217533 7