But set a springe for him, "mio ben," Though Christ knows well what sin is, when I think of her by night and day. Giulio, my Giulio !-sing they so, Round some one, and I feel so weak? THE LAY OF THE BROWN ROSARY. FIRST PART. "ONORA, Onora," her mother is calling; She sits at the lattice and hears the dew falling With dew as with blossom, and calls home the maiden, "Night cometh, Onora." She looks down the garden-walk caverned with trees, "Some sweet thought or other may keep where it found her, While, forgot or unseen in the dreamlight around her, She looks up the forest whose alleys shoot on Like the mute minster-aisles when the anthem is done, And the choristers sitting with faces aslant Feel the silence to consecrate more than the chant : "Onora, Onora!" And forward she looketh across the brown heath- The casement she leaneth, and as she doth so But his mother was wroth in a sternness quoth she, Then the boy wept aloud; 't was a fair sight yet sad Must I utter it, mother?" In his vehement childhood he hurried within But a child at a prayer never sobbeth as he- "The old convent ruin the ivy rots off, Where the owl hoots by day and the toad is sun-proof, "A nun in the east wall was buried alive Who mocked at the priest when he called her to shrive, And shrieked such a curse, as the stone took her breath, The old abbess fell backward and swooned unto death With an Ave half-spoken. "I tried once to pass it, myself and my hound, Till, as fearing the lash, down he shivered to groundA brave hound, my mother! a brave hound, ye wot! And the wolf thought the same with his fangs at her throat In the pass of the Brocken. "At dawn and at eve, mother, who sitteth there "Who meet there, my mother, at dawn and at even? "St. Agnes o'erwatcheth my dreams, and erewhile I have felt through mine eyelids the warmth of her smile ; But last night, as a sadness like pity came o'er her, "Onora, Onora!" They heard her not coming, It touches her lips but it dares not arise To the height of the mystical sphere of her eyes; Between clouds of amber; For the hair droops in clouds amber-coloured till stirred "Since thou shrivest my brother, fair mother," said she, "I count on thy priesthood for marrying of me ; And I know, by the hills, that the battle is done, That my lover rides on, will be here with the sun, 'Neath the eyes that behold thee." Her mother sat silent-too tender, I wis, Of the smile her dead father smiled dying to kiss : But the boy started up pale with tears, passion-wrought "O wicked fair sister, the hills utter nought! If he cometh, who told thee?" "I know by the hills," she resumed calm and clear "By the beauty upon them, that HE is anear: Did they ever look so since he bade me adieu ? Half ashamed and half softened the boy did not speak, And the blush męt the lashes which fell on his cheek: She bowed down to kiss him: dear saints, did he see Or feel on her bosom the BROWN ROSARY, That he shrank away weeping? They meeken, not to God, but men. First Angel. And she so young, that I who bring Second Angel. God's love for man's. In bartering love; |