The Curate is waiting in the hall,
Most eager and alive of all

To welcome the Baron and Baroness;
But his mind is full of vague distress,
For he hath read in Jesuit books
Of those children of the wilderness,
And now, good, simple man! he looks
To see a painted savage stride
Into the room, with shoulders bare,
And eagle feathers in her hair,
And around her a robe of panther's hide.

Instead, he beholds with secret shame
A form of beauty undefined,
A loveliness without a name,
Not of degree, but more of kind;
Nor bold nor shy, nor short nor tall,
But a new mingling of them all.
Yes, beautiful beyond belief,
Transfigured and transfused, he sees
The lady of the Pyrenees,
The daughter of the Indian chief.
Beneath the shadow of her hair
The gold-bronze color of the skin
Seems lighted by a fire within,
As when a burst of sunlight shines
Beneath a sombre grove of pines,
A dusky splendor in the air.
The two small hands, that now are
pressed

In his, seem made to be caressed, They lie so warm and soft and still, Like birds half hidden in a nest, Trustful, and innocent of ill.

And ah! he cannot believe his ears When her melodious voice he hears Speaking his native Gascon tongue; The words she utters seem to be Part of some poem of Goudouli, They are not spoken, they are sung!

And the Baron smiles, and says, "You

see,

I told you but the simple truth;
Ah, you may trust the eyes of youth!"

Down in the village day by day
The people gossip in their way,
And stare to see the Baroness pass
On Sunday morning to early Mass;
And when she kneeleth down to pray,
They wonder, and whisper together,
and say,

Surely this is no heathen lass!"
And in course of time they learn to bless
The Baron and the Baroness.

And in course of time the Curate learns
A secret so dreadful, that by turns
He is ice and fire, he freezes and burns.
The Baron at confession hath said,
That though this woman be his wife,
He hath wed her as the Indians wed,
He hath bought her for a gun and a
knife!

And the Curate replies: "O profligate,
O Prodigal Son! return once more
To the open arms and the open door
Of the Church, or ever it be too late.
Thank God, thy father did not live
To see what he could not forgive;
On thee, so reckless and perverse,
He left his blessing, not his curse.
But the nearer the dawn the darker the
night,

And by going wrong all things come right;

Things have been mended that were

worse,

And the worse, the nearer they are to mend.

For the sake of the living and the dead,
Thou shalt be wed as Christians wed,
And all things come to a happy end."

O sun, that followest the night,
In yon blue sky, serene and pure,
And pourest thine impartial light
Alike on mountain and on moor,
Pause for a moment in thy course,
And bless the bridegroom and the
bride!

O Gave, that from thy hidden source
In yon mysterious mountain-side
Pursuest thy wandering way alone,
And leaping down its steps of stone,

Along the meadow-lands demure

Stealest away to the Adour,
Pause for a moment in thy course

To bless the bridegroom and the bride!

The choir is singing the matin song, The doors of the church are opened wide,

The people crowd, and press, and throng

To see the bridegroom and the bride. They enter and pass along the nave; They stand upon the father's grave; The bells are ringing soft and slow; The living above and the dead below Give their blessing on one and twain; The warm wind blows from the hills of Spain,

The birds are building, the leaves are

green,

And Baron Castine of St. Castine Hath come at last to his own again.

FINALE.

"Nunc plaudite!" the Student cried,
When he had finished; "now applaud,
As Roman actors used to say
At the conclusion of a play ";
And rose, and spread his hands abroad,
And smiling bowed from side to side,
As one who bears the palm away.

And generous was the applause and loud,

But less for him than for the sun,

That even as the tale was done
Burst from its canopy of cloud,
And lit the landscape with the blaze
Of afternoon on autumn days,

And filled the room with light, and made

The fire of logs a painted shade.

A sudden wind from out the west
Blew all its trumpets loud and shrill;
The windows rattled with the blast,
The oak-trees shouted as it passed,
And straight, as if by fear possessed,
The cloud encampment on the hill
Broke up, and fluttering flag and

tent

Vanished into the firmament,
And down the valley fled amain
The rear of the retreating rain.

Only far up in the blue sky

A mass of clouds, like drifted snow
Suffused with a faint Alpine glow,
Was heaped together, vast and high,
On which a shattered rainbow hung,
Not rising like the ruined arch
Of some aerial aqueduct,
But like a roseate garland plucked
From an Olympian god, and flung
Aside in his triumphal march.

Like prisoners from their dungeon gloom,

Like birds escaping from a snare,
Like school-boys at the hour of play,
All left at once the pent-up room,
And rushed into the open air;

And no more tales were told that day.

ACT I.

The Citadel of Antiochus at
Jerusalem.

SCENE I. - ANTIOCHUS; JASON. Antiochus. O Antioch, my Antioch, my city!

Queen of the East! my solace, my delight!

The dowry of my sister Cleopatra When she was wed to Ptolemy, and

Of their old town. Ha, ha! It makes me merry

Only to think of it! - Thou dost not laugh.

Jason. Yea, I laugh inwardly.

Antiochus. The new Greek leaven Works slowly in this Israelitish dough! Have I not sacked the Temple, and on the altar

Set up the statue of Olympian Zeus
To Hellenize it?
Jason.
Antiochus.

Thou hast done all this.

As thou wast Joshua once and now art Jason, And from a Hebrew hast become a Greek,

So shall this Hebrew nation be trans

Go on, go on !

bowing! Ambassador (reading). "We are a

colony of Medes and Persians." Antiochus. No, ye are Jews from one of the Ten Tribes; Whether Sidonians or Samaritans Or Jews of Jewry, matters not to me; Ye are all Israelites, ye are all Jews. When the Jews prosper, ye claim kindred with them;

When the Jews suffer, ye are Medes and Persians:

I know that in the days of Alexander Ye claimed exemption from the annual tribute

In the Sabbatic Year, because, ye said, Your fields had not been planted in

that year.

Ambassador (reading). "Our fathers, upon certain frequent plagues,

And following an ancient superstition,

Were long accustomed to observe that

day Which by the Israelites is called the Sabbath,

And in a temple on Mount Gerizim Without a name, they offered sacrifice. Now we, who are Sidonians, beseech thee,

Who art our benefactor and our savior, Not to confound us with these wicked Jews,

But to give royal order and injunction To Apollonius in Samaria,

Thy governor, and likewise to Nicanor, Thy procurator, no more to molest us; And let our nameless temple now be named

The Temple of Jupiter Hellenius."

Antiochus. This shall be done. Full well it pleaseth me Ye are not Jews, or are no longer Jews, But Greeks; if not by birth, yet Greeks by custom.

Your nameless temple shall receive the

Antiochus. The life is in the blood, and the whole nation

Shall bleed to death, or it shall change its faith!

Jason. Hundreds have fled already to the mountains

Of Ephraim, where Judas Maccabæus Hath raised the standard of revolt against thee.

Antiochus. I will burn down their city, and will make it

Waste as a wilderness. Its thoroughfares

Shall be but furrows in a field of ashes. It shall be sown with salt as Sodom is! This hundred and fifty-third Olympiad Shall have a broad and blood-red seal

The Dungeons in the Citadel. SCENE I. THE MOTHER of the SEVEN SONS alone, listening.

The Mother. Be strong, my heart! Break not till they are dead, All, all my Seven Sons; then burst asunder,

And let this tortured and tormented soul

Leap and rush out like water through the shards

Of earthen vessels broken at a well. O my dear children, mine in life and death,

I know not how ye came into my womb;

I neither gave you breath, nor gave you life,

And neither was it I that formed the members

Of every one of you. But the Creator, Who made the world, and made the heavens above us,