1

Hundreds of feet plumb down to the Eresma,
That, like a serpent through the valley creeping,
Glides at its foot.

PRECIOSA.

Oh yes! I see it now,
Yet rather with my heart, than with mine eyes,
So faint it is. And all my thoughts sail thither,
Freighted with prayers and hopes, and forward urged
Against all stress of accident, as in

The Eastern Tale, against the wind and tide,

Great ships were drawn to the Magnetic Mountains, And there were wrecked, and perished in the sea! (She weeps.)

VICTORIAN.

O gentle spirit! Thou didst bear unmoved
Blasts of adversity and frosts of fate!
But the first ray of sunshine that falls on thee
Melts thee to tears! Oh, let thy weary heart
Lean upon mine! and it shall faint no more,
Nor thirst, nor hunger; but be comforted
And filled with my affection.

PRECIOSA.

Stay no longer!

My father waits. Methinks I see him there,
Now looking from the window, and now watching
Each sound of wheels or footfall in the street,
And saying, “Hark! she comes!" O father! father!
(They descend the pass. CHISPA remains behind.)

CHISPA.

Alas and

I have a father, too, but he is a dead one.. alack-a-day! Poor was I born, and poor do I remain. I neither win nor lose. Thus I wag through the world, half the time on foot, and the other half walking; and always as merry as a thunder-storm in the night. And so we plough along, as the fly said to the ox. Who knows what may happen? Patience, and shuffle the cards! I am not yet so bald that you can see my brains; and perhaps, after all, I shall some day go to Rome, and come back Saint Peter. Benedicite! [Exit. (A pause. Then enter BARTOLOME wildly, as if in pursuit, with a carbine in his hand.)

BARTOLOME.

They passed this way! I hear their horses' hoofs!

Yonder I see them! Come, sweet caramillo,
This serenade shall be the Gipsy's last!

(Fires down the pass.)

Ha! ha! Well whistled, my sweet caramillo ! Well whistled!-I have missed her!-Oh, my God! (The shot is returned. BARTOLOMÉ falls.)

THE

Belfry of Bruges, and other Poems.

CARILLON.

In the ancient town of Bruges,
In the quaint old Flemish city,
As the evening shades descended,
Low and loud and sweetly blended,
Low at times and loud at times,
And changing like a poet's rhymes,
Rang the beautiful wild chimes
From the belfry in the market
Of the ancient town of Bruges.

Then, with deep sonorous clangor
Calmly answering their sweet anger,
When the wrangling bells had ended,
Slowly struck the clock eleven,
And, from out the silent heaven,
Silence on the town descended.
Silence, silence everywhere,
On the earth and in the air,
Save that footsteps here and there
Of some burgher home returning,
By the street lamps faintly burning,
For a moment woke the echoes
Of the ancient town of Bruges.

But amid my broken slumbers
Still I heard those magic numbers,
As they loud proclaimed the flight
And stolen marches of the night;
Till their chimes in sweet collision
Mingled with each wandering vision,
Mingled with the fortune-telling
Gipsy-bands of dreams and fancies,
Which amid the waste expanses
Of the silent land of trances
Have their solitary dwelling.
All else seemed asleep in Bruges,
In the quaint old Flemish city.

And I thought how like these chimes
Are the poet's airy rhymes,
All his rhymes and roundelays,
His conceits, and songs, and ditties,
From the belfry of his brain,
Scattered downward, though in vain,
On the roofs and stones of cities!
For by night the drowsy ear
Under its curtains cannot hear,
And by day men go their ways,
Hearing the music as they pass,
But deeming it no more, alas!
Than the hollow sound of brass.
Yet perchance a sleepless wight,
Lodging at some humble inn
In the narrow lanes of life,
When the dusk and hush of night
Shut out the incessant din

Of daylight and its toil and strife,
May listen with a calm delight
To the poet's melodies,

Till he hears, or dreams he hears,
Intermingled with the song,

Thoughts that he has cherished long ;
Hears amid the chime and singing
The bells of his own village ringing,
And wakes, and finds his slumbrous eyes
Wet with most delicious tears.

Thus dreamed I, as by night I lay
In Bruges, at the Fleur-de-Blé,
Listening with a wild delight

To the chimes that, through the night,
Rang their changes from the Belfry
Of that quaint old Flemish city.

THE BELFRY OF BRUGES.

In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;

Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.

As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I

stood,

And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapours gray,

Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.

At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and there,

Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghostlike, into air.

Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour,

But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.

From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high;

And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky.

Then, most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times,

With their strange, unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes,

Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir;

And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.

Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my

brain;

They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again :

All the Foresters of Flanders,-mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer,

Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy, Philip, Guy de Dampierre. I beheld the pageants splendid, that adorned those days of old;

Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of Gold;

Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argo

sies;

Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and

ease.