While gallant Sir Christopher, all so gay, Through forest and field, and hunted Being forewarned, through the postern him down, gate

And brought him prisoner into the town. Of his castle wall had tripped away, Avd was keeping a little holiday

| Alas! it was a rueful sight, In the forests, that bounded his estate.

To see this melancholy knight

In such a dismal and hapless case; Then as a trusty squire and true

His hat deformed by stain and dent, The marsbal searched the castle through, His plumage broken, bis doublet rent. Not crediting what the lady said ;

His beard and flowing locks forlorn, Searched from cellar to garret in vain,

Matted, dishevelled, and unshorn, And, finding no knight, came out again His boots with dust and mire besprent; And arrested the golden damsel instead, But dignified in his disgrace, And bore her in triumph into the town,

And wearing an unblushing face. While from her eyes the tears rolled down And thus before the magistrate On the sweet alyssum and columbine,

He stood to hear the doom of fate.
That she held in her fingers white and fine. In vain he strove with wonted ease

To modify and extenuate
The governor's heart was moved to see His evil deeds in church and state,
So fair a creature caught within

For gone was now his power to please : The snares of Satan and of sin,

And bis pompous words had no more And read her a little homily

weight
On the folly and wickedness of the lives Than feathers flying in the breese.
Of women, half cousins and half wives;
But, seeing that naught his words availed,
He sent her away in a ship that sailed

With suavity equal to his own
For Merry England over the sea,

The governor lent a patient ear To the other two wives in the old countree. To the speech evasive and high-flown, To search her further, since he had failed

ad faileá In which he endeavoured to make clear To come at the heart of the mystery.

That colonial laws were too severe

When applied to a gallant cavalier, Meanwhile Sir Christopher wandered

A gentleman born, and so well known,

And accustomed to move in a higher away Through pathless woods for a month and

sphere. a day, Shooting pigeons, and sleeping at night all this the Puritan governor heard, With the noble savage, who took delight And deigned in answer never a word; In his feathered hat and his velvet vest, But in summary manner shipped away, His gun and his rapier and the rest. In a vessel that sailed from Salem Bay, But as soon as the noble savage heard

This splendid and famous cavalier, That a bounty was offered for this gay With his Rupert hat and his Popery bird,

To Merry England over the sea, He wanted to slay him out of hand,

As being unmeet to inhabit here. And bring in his beautiful scalp for a

show, Like the glossy head of a kite or crow, Thus endeth the Rhyme of Sir Christo Until he was made to understand

pher, They wanted the bird alive, not dead; Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, Then he followed him whithersoever be The first who furnished this barren land

With apples of Sodom and ropes of sand

fed,

CADENABBIA. No sound of wheels or hoof-beat breaks

The silence of the summer day, As by the loveliest of all lakes

I while the idle hours away. I pace the leafy colonnade,

Where level branches of the plane Above me weave a roof of shade

Impervious to the sun and rain. At times a sudden rush of air

Flutters the lazy leaves o'erhead, And gleams of sunlight toss and flare

Like torches down the path I tread. By Somariva's garden gate

I make the marble stairs my seat; And hear the water, as I wait,

Lapping the steps beneath my feet. The undulation sinks and swells

Along the stony parapets; And far away the floating bells

Tinkle upon the fisher's nets. Silent and slow, by tower and town,

The freighted barges come and go; Their pendent shadows gliding down,

By town and tower submerged below. The hills sweep upward from the shore,

With villas scatter'd one by one Upon their wooded spurs, and lower

Bellaggio blazing in the sun. And dimly seen, a tangled mass

Of walls and woods, of light and shade, Stands beck’ning up the Stelvio pass

Varenna with its wide cascade.
I ask myself, Is this a dream?

Will it all vanish into air?
Is there a land of such supreme

And perfect beauty anywhere?
Sweet vision! Do not fade away;

Linger until my heart shall take Into itself the summer day

And all the beauty of the lake.

Linger until upon my brain

Is stamp'd an image of the scene;
Then fade into the air again

And be as if thou hadst not been.

THE OLD BRIDGE AT FLORENCE.
TADDEO Gaddi built me. I am old;

Five centuries old. I plant my foot of stone
Upon the Arno, as St. Michael's own

Was planted on the dragon. Fold by fold
Beneath me, as it struggles, I behold

Its glistening scales. Twice hath it overthrown
My kindred and companions. Me alone

It moveth not, but is by me controll’d.
I can remember when the Medici
Were driven from Florence; longer still ago

The final wars of Ghibelline and Guelf.
Horence adorns me with her jewelry;

And when I think that Michael Angelo
Hath lean'd on me, I glory in myself.

CHARLES SUMNER.
GARLANDS upon his grave,

And flowers upon his hearse;
And to thy tender heart and brave,

The tribute of this verse.
His was the troubled life,

The conflict and the pain;
The griefs, the bitterness of strife,

The honour without stain.
Like Winkelried, he took

Into his manly breast
The sheaf of hostile spears, and broke

A path for the oppress'd ;
Then from the fatal field,

Upon a nation's heart,
Borne like a warrior on his shield !-

So should the brave depart.
Death takes us by surprise,

And stays our hurrying feet;
The great design unfinish'd lies,

Our lives are incomplete.

But in the dark unknown,

Perfect their circles seem,
Even as a bridge's arch of stone

Is rounded in the stream.
Alike are life and death

When life in death survives,
And the interrupted breath

Inspires a thousand lives.
Were a star quench'd on high,

For ages would its light,
Still travelling downward from the sky,

Shine on our mortal sight.
So when a great man dies,

For years beyond our ken,
The light he leaves behind him lies
Upon the paths of men.

March 30, 1874.

MONTE CASSINO.
BEAUTIFUL valley, through whose verdant meads

Unheard the Garigliano glides along,
The Liris, nurse of rushes and of reeds,

The river taciturn of classic song!
The Land of Labour and the Land of Rest,

Where mediæval towns are white on all
The hill sides, and where every mountain crest

Is an Etrurian or a Roman wall!
There is Alagna, there Pope Boniface

Was dragg'd with contumely from his throne; Sciarra Colonna, was that day's disgrace

The Pontiff's only, or in part thine own? There is Ceprano, where a renegade

Was each Apulian as great Dante saith, When Manfred, by his men-at-arms betray'd,

Spurr'd on to Benevento and to death. There is Aquinum, the old Volscian town,

Where Juvenal was born, whose lurid light Still hovers o'er his birthplace, like the crown

Of splendour over cities seen at night.
Doubled the splendour is, that in its streets

The angelic Doctor as a schoolboy play'd,
And dream'd perhaps the dreams that he repeats

In ponderous folios for scholastics made.

And there, uplifted like a passing cloud,

That pauses on a mountain summit high, Monte Cassino's convent rears its proud

And venerable walls against the sky. Well I remember how on foot I climb'd

The stony pathway leading to its gate: Above, the convent bells for vespers chimed;

Below, the dark’ning town grew desolate. Well I remember the low arch and dark,

The court-yard with its well, the terrace wide, From which, far down, diminish'd to a park,

The valley veil'd in mist was dim descried. The day was dying, and with feeble hands

Caress'd the mountain tops; the vales between Darken'd; the river in the meadow-lands

Sheath'd itself as a sword and was not seen. The silence of the place was like a sleep,

So full of rest it seem'd; each passing tread Was a reverberation from the deep

Recesses of the ages that are dead. For more than thirteen centuries ago

Benedict, fleeing from the gates of Rome, A youth disgusted with its vice and woe,

Sought in these mountain solitudes a home, He founded here his Convent and his Rule

Of prayer and work, and counted work as prayer. His pen became a clarion, and his school

Flamed like a beacon in the midnight air. What though Boccaccio, in his reckless way

Mocking the lazy brotherhood, deplores The illuminated manuscripts that lay

Torn and neglected on the dusty floors ?
Boccaccio was a novelist, a child

Of fancy and of fiction at the best ;
This the urbane librarian said and smiled,

Incredulous as at some idle jest.
Upon such themes as these with one young friar

I sat conversing late into the night,
Till in its cavernous chimney the wood fire

Had burnt its heart out like an anchorite.
And then translated in my convent cell,

Myself yet not myself in dreams I lay: And, as a monk who hears the matin bell,

Started from sleep; already it was day.