Nor bride shall pass save thee* . . .

Alas ! my father's hand's acold— The meadows seem. . . .

Evil Spirit. Forbear the dream, or let the vow be

told I Onora in sleep. \ vowei upon tby rosarie brown, this

string of antique beads, By charnel lichens overgrown, and dank

among the weeds— This rosarie brown which is thine own.—

lost soul of buried nun, Who, lost by vow, wouldst render now

all souls alike undone ;— I vowed upjn tby rosarie brown,—and,

till such vow should break, A pledge always of living days, 'twas

hung around my neck— I vowed to thee on rosarie, (Dead father,

look not so !) / would not thank God in my weal, nor

seek God in my wo
EvU Spirit.
And canst thou prove ....
Onora in sleep.

0 love—my love l I felt him near again!

I saw his steed on mountain-head, I

heard it on the plain! Was this no weal for me to feel ?—is

greater weal than this 1 Yet when he came, I wept his name—

and the angels heard but his. Evil Spirit. Well done, well,done!

Onora in sleep. Ay me! the sun . . . the dreamlight

'gins to pine,— Ay me! how dread can look the Dead!

—Aroint thee, father mine!

Ske starteth from slumber, she sitteth upright,

And her breath comes in sobs while she

stares through the night: There is nought. The great willow,

her lattice before, Large-drawn in the moon, lieth calm on

the floor;

But her hands tremble fast as their

pulses, and free From the death-clasp, close over—the

UROWN ROSARiE.

THIRD PART.

'Tis a morn for a bridal; the merry bride-bell

Rings clear through the green-wood that

t skirts the chapelle; And the priest at the altar awaiteth the bride,

And the sacristans slyly are jesting aside At the work shall be doing.

While down through the wood rides

that fair company, The youths with the courtship, the maids

with the glee. Till the chapel-cross opens to sight, and

at once

All the maids sigh demurely, and think for the nonce, 'And so endeth a wooing!'

And the bride and the bridegroom are leading the way,

With hi* hand on her rein, and a word yet to say:

Her dropt eyelids suggest the soft answers beneath,

And the little quick smiles come and go with her breath, When she sigheth or speaketh,

And the tender bride-mother breaks ofT unaware

From an Ave, to think that her daughter is lair.

Till in nearing the chapel, and glancing before.

She seeth her little son stand at the door. Is it play that he seeketh?

Is it play? when his eyes wander innocent-wild,

And sublimed with a sadness unfitting a child!

He trembles not, weeps not—the passion is done.

And calmly he kneels in their midst, with the sun On his head like a glory.

'O fair-featured maids, ye are many!' he cried,—

'But, in fairness and vileness, who

matcheth the bride 1 O brave-hearted youths, ye are many,

but whom, For the courage and woe, can ye match

with the groom,

As ye see them before ye?' *

Out spake the bride's mother—'The vileness is thine,

If thou shame thine own sister, a bride at the shrine!'

Out spake the bride's lover'—' The vileness be mine,

If he shame mine own wife at the hearth or the shrine,

And the charge be unproved.

'Bring the charge, prove the charge,

brother! speak it aloud— Let thy father and hers, hear it deep in

his shroud!' —* O father, thou seest—for dead eyes

can see—

How she wears on her bosom a brown \ rosarie, O my father beloved!'

Then outlaughed the bridegroom, and

outlaughed withal Both maidens and youths, by the old

chapel wall— 'So she weareth no' love-gift, kind

brother, ' quoth he, 'She may wear an she listeth, a brown

rosarie.

Like a pure-hearted lady!'

Then swept through the chapel the long bridal train:

Though he spake to the bride she replied not again:

On, as one in a dream, pale and stately she went

Where the altar-lights burn o'er tb.3 great sacrament.

Faint with daylight, but steady.

But her brother had passed in between them and her.

And calmly knelt down on the highaltar stair—

Of an infantine aspect so stern to the -view.

That the priest could not smile on the child's eyes of blue

As he would for another.

He knelt like a child marble-sculptured

and white, That seems kneeling to pray on the

tomb of a knight, With a look taken up to each iris of

stone

From the greatness and death where he kneeleth, but none

From the face of a mother.

'In your chapel, O priest, ye have wedded and shriven

Fair wives for the hearth, and fair sinners for Heaven!

But this fairest my sister, ye think now to wed,

Bid her kneel where she standeth, and shrive her instead—

O shrive her and wed not I*

In tears, the bride's mother,—' Sir priest, unto thee

Would he lie, as he lied to this fair company!'

In wrath, the bride's lover,—The lie

shall be clear I ?peak it out, boy! the saints in their

niches shall hear—

Be the charge proved or said not!'

Then serene in his childhood he lifted his face.

And his voice sounded holy and fit for

the place— 'Look down from your niches, ye still

saints, and see How she wears on her bosom a brown

rosarie!

Is it used for the praying V

The youths looked aside—to laugh there were a sin—

And the maidens' lips trembled with smiles shut within:

Quoth the priest—' Thou art wild, pretty boy! Blessed she

Who prefers at her bridal a brown rosarie

To a worldly arraying!'

The bridegroom spake low and led onward the bride,

And before the high altar they stood side by side:

The rite-book is opened, the rite is begun—

They have knelt down together to rise up as one— Who laughed by the altar?

The maidens looked forward, the youths

looked ground. The bridegroom's eye flashed from his

prayer at the sound; And each saw the bride, as if no bride

she were,

Gazing cold at the priest without gesture of prayer. As he read from the psalter. m

The priest never knew that she did so, but still

He felt a power on him too strong for his will;

And whenever the Great Name was

there to be read. His voice sank to silence—That could

not be said, Or the air could not hold it.

'I have sinned,' quoth he, 'I have sinned, I wot'—

And the tears ran adown his old cheeks at the thought;

They dropped fast on the book ; but he read on the same,

And aye was the silence where should be the Name, As the choristers told it.

The rite-book is closed, and the rite

being done, They who knelt down together, arise

up as one: Fair riseth the bride—Oh, a fair bride

is she,—

But, for all {think the maidens) that brown rosarie, No saint at her praying!

What aileth the bridegroom? He glares

blank and wide— Then suddenly turning, he kisseth the

bride—

His lip stung her with cold : she glanced

upwardly mute: 'Mine own wife,' he said, and fell stark

at her foot
In the word he was saying.

They have lifted him up,—but his head sinks away,

And his face showeth bleak in the sunshine and gray.

Leave him now where he lieth—for oh, nevermore

Will he kneel at an altar or stand on a floor!

Let his bride gaze upon him!

Long and still was her gaze, while they

chafed him there. And breathed in the mouth whose last

life had kissed her: But when they stood up —only they!

with a start The shriek from her soul struck her

pale lips apart— She has lived, and foregone him!

And low on his body she droppeth adown—

'Didst call me thine own wife, beloved

—thine own? Then take thine own with thee! tby

coldness is warm To the world's cold without thee! Come,

keep me from harm In a calm of tby teaching!'

She looked in his face earnest long, as in sooth

There were hope of an answer,—and

then kissed his mouth; And with head on his bosom, wept, wept

bitterly,— 'Now, O God, take pity—take pity on

me !—

God, hear my beseeching!'

She was 'ware of a shadow that crossed where she lay;

She was 'ware of a presence that wither'd the day—

Wild she sprang to her feet,—' I surrender to thee

The broken vow's pledge,—the accursed rosarie,— I am ready for dying!'

She dashed it in scorn to the marblepaved ground.

Where it fell mute as snow; and a weird music-sound

Crept up, like a chill, up the aisles long and dim,—•

As the fiends tried to mock at the chorister's bymn And moaned in the trying.

FOURTH PART.

Onora looketh listlessly adown ihe garden walk:

'I am weary, O my mother, of tby tender talk!

I am weary of the trees a-waving to and fro—

Of the steadfast skies above, the running

brooks below; All things are the same but I ;—only I

am dreary; And, mother, of my dreariness behold

me very weary.

'Mother, brother, pull the flowers I planted in the spring.

And smiled to think I should smile more upon their gathering.

The bees will find out other flowers— oh, pull them dearest mine,

And carry them and carry me before St. Agnes' shrine.'

—Whereat they pulled the summer flowers she planted in the spring.

And her and them all mournfully to Agnes' shrine did bring.

She looked up to the pictured saint and

gently shook her head— 'The picture is too calm for me—too

calm for me,' she said: 'The little flowers we brought with us,

before it we may lay, For those are used to look at heaven,—

but / must turn away— Because no sinner under sun can dare or

bear to gaze On God's or angel':; holiness, except in

Jesu's face.'

She spoke with passion after pause— 'And 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 1

To choose perhaps a love-lit hearth, instead of love and Heaven,—

A single rose, for a rose-tree, which beareth seven times seven?

A rose that droppeth from the hand, that fadeth in the breast,

Until, in grieving for the worst, we learn what is the best!'

Then breaking into tears,—'Dear God,'

* she cried, ' and must we see All blissful things depart from us, or ere

we go to Thee? We cannot guess thee in the wood, or

hear thee in the wind? Our cedars must fall round us, ere we

see the light behind? Ay, sooth, we feel too strong in weal, to

need thee on that road; But wo being come, the soul is dumb

that crieth not on ' God.5'

Her mother could not speak for tears;

she ever mused thus— 'The bees will find out other flowers,—

but what is left for us? But her young brother stayed his sobs

and knelt beside her knee, Thou sweetest sister in the world, hast

never a word for me?' She passed her hand across his face, she

pressed it on his cheek, So tenderly, so tenderly—she needed

not to speak.

The wreath which lay on shrine that

day, at vespers bloomed no more— The woman fair who placed it there,

had died an hour before. Both perished mute, for lack of root,

earth's nourishment to reach; O reader breathe (the ballad saith) some

sweetness out of each!

A Poet could not sleep aright,
For his soul kept up too much light
Under his eyelids for the night:

And thus he rose disquieted
With sweet rbymes ringing through his
head.

And in the forest wandered;

Where, sloping up the darkest glades. The moon had drawn long colonnades, Upon whoss floor the verdure fades

To a faint silver: pavement fair. The antique wood-nymphs scarce would dare

To footprint o'er, had such been there,

And rather sit by breathlessly,
With tears in their large eyes to see
The consecrated sight. But He

The poet—who with spirit-kiss
Familiar, had long claimed for his
Whatever earthly beauty is,

Who also in his spirit bore

A Beauty passing the earth's store,

Walked calmly onward evermore.

His aimless thoughts in metre went.
Like a babe's hand without intent
Drawn down a seven-stringed instru-
ment.

Nor jarred it with his humor as,
With a faint stirring of the grass.
An apparition fair did pass.

He might have feared another time,
But all things fair and strange did chime
With his thoughts then—as rbyme to
rbyme.

An angel had not startled him,
Alighted from Heaven's burning rim
To breathe from glory in the Dim—

Much less a lady riding slow

Upon a palfrey white as snow,

And smooth as a snow-cloud could go.

Full upon his she turned her face—
'What, ho, sir poet! dost thou pace
Our woods at night, in ghostly chase

'Of some fair Dryad of old tales,
Who chants between the nightingales,
And over sleep by song prevails V

She smiled; but he could see arise
Her soul from far adown her eyes.
Prepared as if for sacrifice.

She looked a queen who seemeth gay
From royal grace alone: 'Now, nay,'
He answered,—' slumber passed away

Compelled by instincts in my head
That I should see to-night instead
Of a fair nymph, some fairer Dread'

She looked up quickly to the sky
And spake:—' The moon's regality
Will hear no praise! she is as I.