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[He passes by; and others come in, bearing on a litter a sick child.]

Boys. Set down the litter and draw near!
The King of Bethlehem is here!

What ails the child, who seems to fear
That we shall do him harm?

The Bearers. He climbed up to the Robin's nest,
And out there dartel, from his rest,
A serpent with a crimson crest,

And stung him in the arm.

Jesus. Bring him to me, and let me feel
The wounded place; my touch can heal
The sting of serpents, and can steal
The poison from the bite!

[He touches the wound, and the boy begins to cry.]

Cease to lament! I can foresee
That thou hereafter known shall be,
Among the men who follow me,
As Simon the Canaanite!

EPILOGUE.

In the after part of the day
Will be represented another play,
Of the passion of our Blessed Lord,
Beginning directly after Nones!

At the close of which we shall accord,
By way of benison and reward,

The sight of a holy Martyr's bones!

IV.

The road to Hirschau. PRINCE HENRY and ELSIE, with their attendants, on horseback. Elsie. Onward and onward the highway runs to the distant city, impatiently bearing

Tidings of human joy and disaster, of love and of hate, of doing and daring!

Prince Henry. This life of ours is a wild æolian harp of many a joyous strain,

But under them all there runs a loud perpetual wail, as of souls in pain.

Elsie. Faith alone can interpret life, and the heart that aches and

bleeds with the stigma

Of pain, alone bears the likeness of Christ, and can comprehend its

dark enigma.

Prince Henry. Man is selfish, and seeketh pleasure with little care of what may betide;

Else why am I travelling here beside thee, a demon that rides by an angel's side?

Elsie. All the hedges are white with dust, and the great dog under

the creaking wain

Hangs his head in the lazy heat, while onward the horses toil and

strain.

Prince Henry. Now they stop at the way-side inn, and the waggoner laughs with the landlord's daughter,

While out of the dripping trough the horses distend their leathern sides with water.

Elsie. All through life there are way-side inns, where man may

refresh his soul with love;

Even the lowest may quench his thirst at rivulets fed by springs from above.

Prince Henry. Yonder, where rises the cross of stone, our journey

along the highway ends,

And over the fields, by a bridle path, down into the broad green valley descends.

Elsie. I am not sorry to leave behind the beaten road with its dust

and heat;

The air will be sweeter far, and the turf will be softer under horses'

feet.

[They turn down a green lane.]

Elsie. Sweet is the air with the budding haws, and the valley, stretching for miles below,

Is white with blossoming cherry-trees, as if just covered with lightest

snow.

Prince Henry. Over our heads a white cascade is gleaming against the distant hill;

We cannot hear it, nor see it move, but it hangs like a banner when winds are still.

Elsie. Damp and cool is this deep ravine, and cool the sound of the

brook by our side!

What is this castle that rises above us, and lords it over a land so

wide?

Prince Henry. It is the home of the Counts of Calva; well have I known these scenes of old,

Well I remember each tower and turret, remember the brooklet, the wood, and the wold.

Elsie. Hark! from the little village below us the bells of the church are ringing for rain!

Priests and peasants in long procession come forth and kneel on the arid plain.

Prince Henry. They have not long to wait, for I see in the south uprising a little cloud,

That before the sun shall be set will cover the sky above us as with a

shroud.

[They pass on.]

The Convent of Hirschau in the Black Forest. The Convent cellar. FRIAR CLAUS comes in with a light and a basket of empty flagons.

Friar Claus. I always enter this sacred place
With a thoughtful, solemn, and reverent pace,
Pausing long enough on each stair

To breathe an ejaculatory prayer,

And a benediction of the vines

That produce these various sorts of wines!

For my part, I am well content

That we have got through with the tedious Lent!
Fasting is all very well for those

Who have to contend with invisible foes;

But I am quite sure it does not agree

With a quiet, peaceful man like me,

Who am not of that nervous and meagre kind

That are always distressed in body and mind.
And at times it really does me good

To come down among this brotherhood,
Dwelling for ever under ground,

Silent, contemplative, round and sound;
Each one old, and brown with mould,

But filled to the lips with the ardour of youth,
With the latent power and love of truth,
And with virtues fervent and manifold.

I have heard it said, that at Easter-tide,
When buds are swelling on every side,
And the sap begins to move in the vine,
Then in all cellars, far and wide,

The oldest, as well as the newest, wine
Begins to stir itself, and ferment,
With a kind of revolt and discontent
At being so long in darkness pent,

And fain would burst from its sombre tun
To bask on the hill-side in the sun;
As in the bosom of us poor friars,

The tumult of half-subdued desires
For the world that we have left behind
Disturbs at times all peace of mind!

And now that we have lived through Lent,
My duty it is, as often before,

To open awhile the prison-door,
And give these restless spirits vent.

Now here is a cask that stands alone,
And has stood a hundred years or more,
Its beard of cobwebs, long and hoar,
Trailing and sweeping along the floor,

Like Barbarossa, who sits in his cave,
Taciturn, sombre, sedate, and grave,

Till his beard has grown through the table of stone!
It is of the quick, and not of the dead!

In its veins the blood is hot and red,

And a heart still beats in those ribs of oak
That time may have tamed, but has not broke
It comes from Bacharach on the Rhine,

Is one of the three best kinds of wine,

And costs some hundred florins the ohm;
But that I do not consider dear,
When I remember that every year
Four butts are sent to the Pope of Rome,
And whenever a goblet thereof I drain,
The old rhyme keeps running in my brain:
At Bacharach on the Rhine,

At Hochheim on the Main,

And at Würzburg on the Stein,
Grow the three best kinds of wine!
They are all good wines, and better far
Than those of the Neckar, or those of the Ahr.
In particular, Würzburg well may boast
Of its blessed wine of the Holy Ghost,
Which of all wines I like the most.

This I shall draw for the Abbot's drinking,
Who seems to be much of my way of thinking.

[Fills a flagon.]

Ah! how the streamlet laughs and sings!
What a delicious fragrance springs
From the deep flagon, while it fills,
As of hyacinths and daffodils!

Between this cask and the Abbot's lips
Many have been the sips and slips;
Many have been the draughts of wine,

On their way to his, that have stopped at mine;
And
many a time my
soul has hankered
For a deep draught out of his silver tankard,
When it should have been busy with other affairs,
Less with its longings and more with its prayers.
But now there is no such awkward condition,
No danger of death and eternal perdition;
So here's to the Abbot and Brothers all,
Who dwell in this convent of Peter and Paul!

[He drinks.]

O cordial delicions! O soother of pain!
It flashes like sunshine into my brain!
A benison rest on the Bishop who sends
Such a fudder of wine as this to his friends

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And now a flagon for such as may ask
A draught from the noble Bacharach cask,
And I will be gone, though I know full well
The cellar's a cheerfuller place than the cell.
Behold where he stands, all sound and good,
Brown and old in his oaken hood;
Silent he seems externally

As any Carthusian monk may be;
But within, what a spirit of deep unrest!
What a seething and simmering in his breast!
As if the heaving of his great heart
Would burst his belt of oak apart!
Let me unloose this button of wood,
And quiet a little his turbulent mood.
[Sets it running.]

See! how its currents gleam and shine,
As if they had caught the purple hues
Of autumn sunsets on the Rhine,

Descending and mingling with the dews;
Or as if the grapes were stained with the blood
Of the innocent boy, who, some years back,
Was taken and crucified by the Jews,

In that ancient town of Bacharach;
Perdition upon those infidel Jews,

In that ancient town of Bacharach!
The beautiful town, that gives us wine
With the fragrant odour of Muscadine!
I should deem it wrong to let this pass
Without first touching my lips to the glass,
For here in the midst of the current I stand,
Like the stone Pfalz in the midst of the river,
Taking toll upon either hand,

And much more grateful to the giver.

[lle drinks.]

Here, now, is a very inferior kind,

Such as in any town you may find,

Such as one might imagine would suit

The rascal who drank wine out of a boot.
And, after all, it was not a crime,
For he won thereby Dorf Hüffelsheim.
A jolly old toper! who at a pull
Could drink a postilion's jack-boot full,
And ask with a laugh, when that was done,
If the fellow had left the other one!
This wine is as good as we can afford
To the friars, who sit at the lower board,
And cannot distinguish bad from good,
And are far better off than if they could,

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