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Upon this place of human sacrifice, Round which was gathering fast the eager crowd,

With clamour of voices dissonant and loud,

And every roof and window was alive With restless gazers, swarming like a hive.

The church-bells tolled, the chant of monks drew near,

Loud trumpets stammered forth their notes of fear,

A line of torches smoked along the street,

There was a stir, a rush, a tramp of feet, And, with its banners floating in the air, Slowly the long procession crossed the square,

And, to the statues of the Prophets bound,

The victims stood, with fagots piled around.

Then all the air a blast of trumpets shook,

And louder sang the monks with bell

and book,

And the Hidalgo, lofty, stern, and

proud,

Lifted his torch, and, bursting through the crowd,

Lighted in haste the fagots, and then fled,

Lest those imploring eyes should strike him dead!

O pitiless skies! why did your clouds retain

For peasant's fields their floods of hoarded rain?

O pitiless earth! why opened no abyss To bury in its chasm a crime like this?

That night, a mingled column of fire and smoke

From the dark thickets of the forest broke,

And, glaring o'er the landscape leagues away,

Made all the fields and hamlets bright as day.

Wrapped in a sheet of flame the castle blazed,

And as the villagers in terror gazed, The saw the figure of that cruel knight

THUS closed the tale of guilt and gloom,
That cast upon each listener's face
Its shadow, and for some brief space
Unbroken silence filled the room.
The Jew was thoughtful and distressed;
Upon his memory thronged and pressed
The persecution of his race,

Their wrongs and sufferings and dis grace;

His head was sunk upon his breast,
And from his eyes alternate came
Flashes of wrath and tears of shame.

The Student first the silence broke,
As one who long has lain in wait,
With purpose to retaliate,

And thus he dealt the avenging stroke.
"In such a company as this,
A tale so tragic seems amiss,
That by its terrible control
O'ermasters and drags down the soul
Into a fathomless abyss.

The Italian Tales that you disdain,
Some merry Night of Straparole,
Or Machiavelli's Belphagor,
Would cheer us and delight us more,

From the green steeples of the piny wood;

The oriole in the elm; the noisy jay, Jargoning like a foreigner at his food; The blue-bird balanced on some topmost spray

Flooding with melody the neighbourhood;

Linnet and meadow-lark, and all the throng

That dwell in nests, and have the gift of song.

"You slay them all! and wherefore? for the gain

Of a scant handful more or less of wheat,

Or rye, or barley, or some other grain, Scratched up at random by industrious feet,

Searching for worm or weevil after rain!

Or a few cherries, that are not so sweet As are the songs these uninvited guests Sing at their feast with comfortable

breasts.

"Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these?

Do you ne'er think who made them, and who taught

The dialect they speak, where melodies Alone are the interpreters of thought?