I ween he had turned anon: For dread was the wo in the face so young; And wild was the silent geste that flung He clenched his hands as if to hold His soul's great agony— For wifehood unto thee? That ever I shall see? 'Yet God thee save, and mayst thou have A lady to thy mind; As one thou leav'st behind! As I have loved my kind.' She looketh up, in earth's despair, That little cloud still floateth there, How bright the little cloud appears! Her eyelids fall upon the tears. The tramp of hoof, the flash of steel— The Paynims round her coming! The sound and sight have made her calm,— False page, hut truthful woman! She stands amid them all unmoved: The heart once broken by the loved Is strong to meet the foeman. 'Ho, Christian page ! art keeping sheep, From pouring wine cups resting?'— 'I keep my master's noble name, For warring, not for feasting: And if that here Sir Hubert were, Mv master brave, my master dear, * Where is thy master, scornful page. That we may slay or bind him ?'— 'Now search the lea and search the wood, And see if ye ran find him! Nathless, as hath been often tried, Your Paynim heroes faster ride Before him than behind him.' 'Give smoother answers, lying page. Or perish in the lying,'— 'I trow that if the warrior brand Beside my foot, were in my hand, *Twere better at replying.' They cursed her deep, they smote her low. They cleft her golden ringlets through: The Loving is the Dying. She felt the scimitar gleam down, And met it from beneath With smile more bright in victory TM Than any sword from sheath,— Which flashed across her lip serene. Most like the spirit-light between The darks of life and death. Ingcvtisco, ingemisco! From the convent on the sea, Now it sweepeth solemnly! As over wood and over lea Bodily the wind did carry The great altar of St. Mai y. And the fifty tapers paling o'er it, And the Lady Abbess stark before it. And the weary nuns with hearts that faintly Beat along their voices saintly— Ingemisco, ingemisco! Ingemisco, ingemisco! THE LAY OF THE BROWN ROSARY. PART FIRST. 'Onora, Onora'—her mother is calling— She sits at the lattice and hears the dew falling Drop after drop from the sycamores laden % With dew as with blossom, and calls home the maiden— 'Night cometh, Onora.' She looks down the garden-walk cavern ed with trees. To the limes at the end where the green arbor is— 'Some sweet thought or other may keep where it found her. While forgot or unseen in the dreamlight around her— Night cometh, Onora!' She looks up the forest whose alleys shoot on Like the mute minster-aisles when thu 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— 'Onora, art coming?'—what is it she seeth? Nought, nought, but the gray borderstone that is wist To dilate and assume a wild shape in the mist— 'My daughter !'—Then over The casement she lcaneth, and a; she doth so. She is 'ware of her little son playing below: 'Now where is Onora?' — He hung down his head And spake not, then answering blushed scarlet red,—. 1 At the tryst with her lover.' But his mother was wroth. In a sternness quoth she, •As thou play'st at the hall, art thou playing with me? When we know that her lover to hattle is gone, And the saints know above that she loveth but one And will ne'er wed another I1 Then the boy wept aloud. 'Twasa fair sight yet sad To see the tears run down the sweet blooms he had: He stamped with his foot, said—'The saints know I lied Because truth that is wicked is fittest to hide! Must I utter it, mother?' In his vehement childhood he hurried within. And knelt at her feet as in prayer against sin; But a child at a prayer never sobbeth a* he— 'Oh! she sits with the nun of the brown rosarie, At nights in the ruin! 'The old convent ruin the ivy rots off. Where the owl hoots by day, and the toad is sun-proof; Where no singing-birds build; and the trees gaunt and gray As in stormy sea-coasts appear blasted one way— But is this the wind's doing? '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 avc half-spoken. '\ tried once to pass it, myself and my hound, Till, as fearing the lash, down he shivered to ground I A 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. With the brown rosarie never used for a prayer? 'Stoop low, mother, low! If we went there to see, What an ugly great hole in that west wall must be At dawn and at even! Who meet there, my mother, at dawn and at even? Who meet by that wall, never looking to heaven? 0 sweetest my sister, what doeth with thee, The ghost of a nun with a brown rosarie, And a face turned from heaven? * 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. She whispered—' Say two prayers at dawn for Onora! Onora, Onora ! they heard her not coming— Not a step on the grass, not a voice through the gloaming: But her mother looked up. and she stood on the floor Fair and still as the moonlight that came there before. It touches her lips—but it dares not arise To the height of the mystical sphere of her eyes: And the large musing eyes, neither joy- For the hair droops in clouds ambercolored, till stirred Into gold by the gesture that comes with a word: 0 While—O soft!—her speaking is so interwound Of the dim and the sweet,'tis a twilight of sound And floats through the chamber. 'Since thou shrivest my brother, fair mother,' said she, * I count on tby 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? Oh, love in the waking, sweet brother, is true As St. Agnes in sleeping.' Half-ashamed and half-softened the boy did not speak. And the blush met 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 Kosa- . Second Angel. That he shrank away weeping? , The Place Is Filled. No more! PART SECOND. A bed—Onora sleeping. Angels, but not tiear. First Angel. Second Angel. As bodies be. First Angel. And she so mild 1 Second Angel. As spirits when They meeken, not to God, but men. First Angel. And she so young,—that I who bring Good dream* for saintly children, might Mistake that small soft face to-night, And fetch her such a blessed thing, That at her waking she would weep For childhood lost anew in sleep: How hatli she sinned? Second Angel. In bartering love— God's love—for man's: First Angel. We may reprove The world for this! not only her: Let me approach to breathe away This dust o' the heart with holy air. Second Angel. First Angel. Second Angel. Ay, a child,— Who never, praying, wept before: While, in a mother undefiled Prayer goeth on in sleep, as true And pauseless as the pulses do. First Angel. Then I approach, Second Angel. It is not WiLLED. First Angel. [Angels vanish. Evil Spirit in a Nun's garb by the bed. A sleeping thought—most innocent of good— It doth the Devil no harm, sweet fiend I it cannot, if it would. I say in it no holy bymn,—I do no holy work; I scarcely hear the sabbath-bell that chimeth from the kirk. Evil Spirit. Forbear that dream — forbear that dream! Onora in sleep. Nay. let me dream at least: That far-off bell, it may be took for viol at a feast— I only walk among the fields, beneath the autumn-sun, With my dead father, hand in hand, as I have often done. Evil Spirit. Forbear that dream — forbear that dream! Onora in sleep. Nay, sweet fiend, let me go— I never more can walk with him, Q nevermore but so: Oh, deep and straight ; oh, very straight! they move at nights alone: And then he calleth through my dreams, he calleth tenderly, 'Come forth, my daughter, my beloved, and walk the fields with me!' Evil Spirit. Forbear that dream, or else disprove it* pureness by a sign. Onora in sleep. Speak on, thou shalt be satisfied! my word shall answer thine. I hear a bird which used to sing when I a child was praying; I see the poppies in the corn I used to sport away in. What shall I do—tread down the dew, and pull the blossoms blowing? Or clap my wicked hands to fright the finches from the rowen? Evil Spirit. Thou shalt do something harder still: stand up where thou dost stand Among the fields of Dreamland with tby father hand in hand, And clear and slow, repeat the vow— declare its cause and kind, Which, not to break, in sleep or wake, thou bearcst on tby mind. Onora in sleep. I bear a vow of sinful kind, a vow for mournful cause: I vowed it deep, l vowed it strong—the spirits laughed applause: The spirits trailed along the pines low laughter like a breeze. While, high atween their swinging tops the stars appeared to freeze. Evil Spirit. More calm and free,—speak out to me, wby such a vow was made. Onora in sleep. Because that God decreed my death, and I shrank back afraid: Have patience, O dead father mine! I did not fear to die; I wish I were a young dead child, and had tby company! I wish I lay beside tby feet, a buried three-year child, And wearing only a kiss of thine upon my lips that smiled! The linden tree that covers thee might so have sheltered twain— For death itself I did not fear—'tis love that makes the pain. Love feareth death, I was no child—I wns betrothed that day; I wore a troth-kiss on my lips I could not give away. How could I bear to lie content and still beneath a stone, And feel mine own Betrothed go by— alas • no more mine own,— Go leading by in wedding pomp some lovely lady brave, With cheeks that blushed as red as rose, while mine were white in grave? How could I bear to sit in Heaven, on e'er so high a throne, And hear him say to her—to her ! that else he loveth none? Though e'er so high I sate above, though e er so low he spake, As clear as thunder I should hear the new oath he might take— That hers, forsooth, arc heavenly eyes, —ah, me! while very dim Some heavenly eyes (indeed of Heaven !, would darken down to him. Evil Spirit. Who told thee thou wast called to death? Onora in sleep. I sat all night beside thee— The gray owl on the ruined wall shut both his eyes to hide thee; And ever he flapped his heavy wing all brokenly and weak. And the long grass waved against the sky. around his gasping beak. I sate beside thee all the night, while the moonlight lay forlorn, Strewn round us like a dead world's shroud, in ghastly fragments torn. And through the night, and through the hush, and over the flapping wing, We heard beside the Heavenly Gate the angels murmuring :— We heard them say, ' Put day to day, and count the days to seven, 'And God will draw Onora up the golden stairs of Heaven: 'And yet the evil ones have leave that purpose to defer, 'For if she has no need of Him, He has no need of her'— Evil Spirit. Speak out to me—speak bold and free. Onora in sleep And then I heard thee say,— 'I count upon my rosarie brown the hours thou hast to stay! 'Yet God permits us evil ones to put by that decree, 'Since if thou hast no need of Him, he has no need of thee— 'And if thou wilt forego the sight of angels, verily 'Thy true love gazing on tby face, shall guess what angels be— |