THE JEWISH CEMETERY. Anathema maranatha! was the cry That rang from town to town, from street to street; At every gate the accursed Mordecai Was mocked and jeered, and spurned by Christian feet. 351 Pride and humiliation hand in hand Walked with them through the world where'er they went; Trampled and beaten were they as the sand, And yet unshaken as the continent. For in the background figures vague and vast And all the great traditions of the Past And thus for ever with reverted look The mystic volume of the world they read, Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book, Till life became a Legend of the Dead. But ah! what once has been shall be no more. And the dead nations never rise again. OLIVER BASSELIN.* IN the Valley of the Vire These words alone: "Oliver Basselin lived here." Far above it, on the steep, Ruined stands the old Château ; Nothing but the donjon-keep Left for shelter or for show. Its vacant eyes Stare at the skies, Stare at the valley green and deep. Once a convent, old and brown, Whose sunny gleam Cheers the little Norman town. In that darksome mill of stone, That ancient mill With a splendor of its own. * Oliver Basselin, the "Père joyeux du Vaudeville," flourished in the fifteenth century, and gave to his convivial songs the name of his native valleys, in which he sang them, Vaux de-Vire. This name was afterwards corrupted into the modern Vaudeville. OLIVER BASSELIN. Never feeling of unrest Broke the pleasant dream he dreamed ; Only made to be his nest, All the lovely valley seemed; No desire Of soaring higher Stirred or fluttered in his breast. True, his songs were not divine ; Of this green carth Laughed and revelled in his line. From the alehouse and the inn. That in those days Sang the poet Basselin. In the castle, cased in steel, Knights, who fought at Agincourt, Watched and waited, spur on heel; But the poet sang for sport Songs that rang Another clang, Songs that lowlier hearts could feel. In the convent, clad in gray, And the poet heard their bells; 353 But his rhymes Found other chimes, Nearer to the earth than they. Gone are all the barons bold, Gone are all the knights and squires, Gone the abbot stern and cold, And the brotherhood of friars ; Not a name Remains to fame, From those mouldering days of old! But the poet's memory here Of the landscape makes a part; Like the river, swift and clear, Flows his song through many a heart; Haunting still That ancient mill, In the Valley of the Vire. |