PRELUDE.

THE evening came; the golden vane
A moment in the sunset glanced,
Then darkened, and then gleamed again,
As from the east the moon advanced
And touched it with a softer light;
While underneath, with flowing mane,
Upon the sign the Red Horse pranced,
And galloped forth into the night.

But brighter than the afternoon
That followed the dark day of rain,
And brighter than the golden vane
That glistened in the rising moon,
Within the ruddy fire-light gleamed;
And every separate window-pane,
Backed by the outer darkness, showed
A mirror, where the flamelets gleamed
And flickered to and fro, and seemed
A bonfire lighted in the road.

Amid the hospitable glow,
Like an old actor on the stage,
With the uncertain voice of age,
The singing chimney chanted low
The homely songs of long ago.

The voice that Ossian heard of yore,
When midnight winds were in his hall;
A ghostly and appealing call,

A sound of days that are no more!
And dark as Ossian sat the Jew,
And listened to the sound, and knew
The passing of the airy hosts,
The gray and misty cloud of ghosts
In their interminable flight;
And listening muttered in his beard,
With accent indistinct and weird,
"Who are ye, children of the Night?"

Beholding his mysterious face,
"Tell me," the gay Sicilian said,
"Why was it that in breaking bread
At supper, you bent down your head
And, musing, paused a little space,
As one who says a silent grace?"

The Jew replied, with solemn air,,
"I said the Manichæan's prayer.
It was his faith, - perhaps is mine,
That life in all its forms is one,
And that its secret conduits run

Unseen, but in unbroken line,
From the great fountain-head divine
Through man and beast, through grain
and grass.

Howe'er we struggle, strive, and cry,
From death there can be no escape,
And no escape from life, alas !
Because we cannot die, but pass
From one into another shape:
It is but into life we die.

"Therefore the Manichæan said
This simple prayer on breaking bread,
Lest he with hasty hand or knife
Might wound the incarcerated life,
The soul in things that we call dead :

I did not reap thee, did not bind thee, I did not thrash thee, did not grind thee,

Nor did I in the oven bake thee!
It was not I, it was another

Did these things unto thee, O brother; I only have thee, hold thee, break thee!'"

"That birds have souls I can concede,"
The poet cried, with glowing cheeks;
"The flocks that from their beds of reed
Uprising north or southward fly,
And flying write upon the sky
The biforked letter of the Greeks,
As hath been said by Rucellai;
All birds that sing or chirp or cry,
Even those migratory bands,
The minor poets of the air,
The plover, peep, and sanderling,
That hardly can be said to sing,
But pipe along the barren sands,
All these have souls akin to ours;
So hath the lovely race of flowers:
Thus much I grant, but nothing more.
The rusty hinges of a door

Are not alive because they creak;
This chimney, with its dreary roar,
These rattling windows, do not speak!
"To me they speak," the Jew replied;
"And in the sounds that sink and soar,
I hear the voices of a tide
That breaks upon an unknown shore!"

Here the Sicilian interfered:

66

"That was your dream, then, as you dozed

Of a white figure in the twilight air, Gazing intent, as one who with surprise His form and features seemed to recognize;

And in a whisper to the king he said: "What is yon shape, that, pallid as the dead,

Is watching me, as if he sought to trace In the dim light the features of my face?"

The king looked, and replied: "I know him well;

It is the Angel men call Azrael, 'Tis the Death Angel; what hast thou to fear?"

And the guest answered: "Lest he should come near,

And speak to me, and take away my breath!

Save me from Azrael, save me from death!

O king, that hast dominion o'er the wind, Bid it arise and bear me hence to Ind."

"O EDREHI, forbear to-night
Your ghostly legends of affright,
And let the Talmud rest in peace;
Spare us your dismal tales of death
That almost take away one's breath;
So doing, may your tribe increase."

Thus the Sicilian said; then went
And on the spinet's rattling keys
Played Marianina, like a breeze
From Naples and the Southern seas,
That brings us the delicious scent
Of citron and of orange trees,
And memories of soft days of ease
At Capri and Amalfi spent.

"Not so," the eager Poet said ;
"At least, not so before I tell
The story of my Azrael,
An angel mortal as ourselves,
Which in an ancient tome I found
Upon a convent's dusty shelves,
Chained with an iron chain, and bound
In parchment, and with clasps of brass,
Lest from its prison, some dark day,
It might be stolen or steal away,
While the good friars were singing mass.

"It is a tale of Charlemagne,
When like a thunder-cloud, that lowers
And sweeps from mountain-crest to
coast,

With lightning flaming through its showers,

He swept across the Lombard plain,
Beleaguering with his warlike train
Pavía, the country's pride and boast,
The City of the Hundred Towers."

Of the imperial chapel, and the Counts; And Desiderio could no more endure The light of day, nor yet encounter death, "Let us

But sobbed aloud and said : go down

And hide us in the bosom of the earth, Far from the sight and anger of a foe So terrible as this!" And Olger said: "When you behold the harvests in the fields

Shaking with fear, the Po and the Ticino

Lashing the city walls with iron waves, Then may you know that Charlemagne is come.

This at a single glance Olger the Dane
Saw from the tower, and turning to the
King
Exclaimed in haste: "Behold! this is
the man

You looked for with such eagerness!" and then

Fell as one dead at Desiderio's feet.

INTERLUDE.

WELL pleased all listened to the tale,
That drew, the Student said, its pith
And marrow from the ancient myth
Of some one with an iron flail ;
Or that portentous Man of Brass
Hephaestus made in days of yore,
Who stalked about the Cretan shore,
And saw the ships appear and pass,
And threw stones at the Argonauts,
Being filled with indiscriminate ire
That tangled and perplexed his thoughts;
But, like a hospitable host,

When strangers landed on the coast,
Heated himself red-hot with fire,
And hugged them in his

pressed

arms, and

Their bodies to his burning breast.

The Poet answered: "No, not thus
The legend rose; it sprang at first
Out of the hunger and the thirst
In all men for the marvellous.
And thus it filled and satisfied
The imagination of mankind,
And this ideal to the mind
Was truer than historic fact.
Fancy enlarged and multiplied
The terrors of the awful name
Of Charlemagne, till he became
Armipotent in every act,

And, clothed in mystery, appeared
Not what men saw, but what they
feared. *

The Theologian said: "Perchance
Your chronicler in writing this
Had in his mind the Anabasis,
Where Xenophon describes the advance
Of Artaxerxes to the fight;
At first the low gray cloud of dust,
And then a blackness o'er the fields

As of a passing thunder-gust,
Then flash of brazen armor bright,

feet,

schooled

The splendors of a yet unrisen sun. To him all things were possible, and seemed

Not what he had accomplished, but had dreamed,

And what were tasks to others were his play,

The pastime of an idle holiday.

Smaragdo, Abbot of St. Michael's, said, With many a shrug and shaking of the head,

Surely some demon must possess the lad, Who showed more wit than ever schoolboy had,

And learned his Trivium thus without the rod;

But Alcuin said it was the grace of God.

Thus he grew up, in Logic point-device,
Perfect in Grammar, and in Rhetoric nice;
Science of Numbers, Geometric art,
And lore of Stars, and Music knew by
heart;

A Minnesinger, long before the times
Of those who sang their love in Suabian
rhymes.

The Emperor, when he heard this good report

Of Eginhard much buzzed about the court,

Said to himself, "This stripling seems to be

Purposely sent into the world for me; He shall become my scribe, and shall be schooled

In all the arts whereby the world is ruled.'

Thus did the gentle Eginhard attain
To honor in the court of Charlemagne ;
Became the sovereign's favorite, his right

hand,

So that his fame was great in all the land, And all men loved him for his modest grace

And comeliness of figure and of face.
An inmate of the palace, yet recluse,
A man of books, yet sacred from abuse
Among the armed knights with spur on
heel,

The tramp of horses and the clang of steel;

In all the arts by which the world is ruled.

But the one art supreme, whose law is fate,

The Emperor never dreamed of till too late.

Home from her convent to the palace

came

The lovely Princess Emma, whose sweet name,

Whispered by seneschal or sung by bard, Had often touched the soul of Eginhard. He saw her from his window, as in state She came, by knights attended through the gate;

He saw her at the banquet of that day, Fresh as the morn, and beautiful as May; He saw her in the garden, as she strayed Among the flowers of summer with her maid,

And said to him, “O Eginhard, disclose The meaning and the mystery of the

rose

And trembling he made answer: “In good sooth,

Its mystery is love, its meaning youth!"

How can I tell the signals and the signs By which one heart another heart divines ?

How can I tell the many thousand ways By which it keeps the secret it betrays?

O mystery of love! O strange romance ! Among the Peers and Paladins of France, Shining in steel, and prancing on gay steeds,

Noble by birth, yet nobler by great deeds, The Princess Emma had no words nor looks

But for this clerk, this man of thought and books.