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KING VOLMER AND ELSIE.

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"Be she Papist or beggar who lies here, | In merry mood King Volmer sat, forI know and God knows getful of his power,

I love her, and fain would go with her As idle as the Goose of Gold that brooded wherever she goes!

"O mother! that sweet face came pleading, for love so athirst. You saw but the town-charge; I knew her God's angel at first.

Shaking her gray head, the mistress

hushed down a bitter cry; And awed by the silence and shadow of death drawing nigh,

She murmured a psalm of the Bible; but closer the young girl pressed, With the last of her life in her fingers, the cross to her breast.

"My son, come away," cried the mother, her voice cruel grown. "She is joined to her idols, like Ephraim; let her alone!"

But he knelt with his hand on her fore

head, his lips to her ear, And he called back the soul that was passing: "Marguerite, do you hear?"

She paused on the threshold of Heaven; love, pity, surprise, Wistful, tender, lit up for an instant the cloud of her eyes.

With his heart on his lips he kissed her,

but never her cheek grew red, And the words the living long for he spake in the ear of the dead.

And the robins sang in the orchard, where buds to blossoms grew; Of the folded hands and the still face

never the robins knew!

KING VOLMER AND ELSIE.

AFTER THE DANISH OF CHRISTIAN WINTER.

WHERE, over heathen doom-rings and gray stones of the Horg,

In its little Christian city stands the church of Vordingborg,

on his tower.

Out spake the King to Henrik, his young and faithful squire:

"Dar'st trust thy little Elsie, the maid of thy desire?"

"Of all the men in Denmark she loveth only me :

As true to me is Elsie as thy Lily is to thee."

Loud laughed the king: "To-morrow shall bring another day,* When I myself will test her; she will not say me nay."

Thereat the lords and gallants, that round about him stood,

Wagged all their heads in concert and

smiled as courtiers should.

The gray lark sings o'er Vordingborg,
and on the ancient town
From the tall tower of Valdemar the
Golden Goose looks down :

The
The wood resounds with cry of hounds
and blare of hunter's horn.

yellow grain is waving in the pleasant wind of morn,

In the garden of her father little Elsie sits and spins,

And, singing with the early birds, her Gay tulips bloom and sweet mint curls daily task begins. But she is sweeter than the mint and around her garden-bower,

fairer than the flower.

About her form her kirtle blue clings

As snow, her loose sleeves only leave lovingly, and, white

her small, round wrists in sight; Below the modest petticoat can only half conceal

The motion of the lightest foot that ever turned a wheel.

The cat sits purring at her side, bees hum in sunshine warm;

But, look! she starts, she lifts her face, she shades it with her arm.

A common saying of Valdemar; hence his sobriquet Alterday.

And, hark! a train of horsemen, with | Then Elsie raised her head and met her

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another day."

He spake the old phrase slyly as, glancing round his train, He saw his merry followers seek to hide their smiles in vain.

"The snow of pearls I'll scatter in your curls of golden hair,

I'll line with furs the velvet of the kirtle that you wear;

All precious gems shall twine your neck; and in a chariot gay You shall ride, my little Elsie, behind

four steeds of gray.

"And harps shall sound, and flutes shall play, and brazen lamps shall glow; On marble floors your feet shall weave the dances to and fro.

At frosty eventide for us the blazing hearth shall shine, While, at our ease, we play at draughts, and drink the blood-red wine."

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Well, Vadmal will I wear for you," the rider gayly spoke,

"And on the Lord's high altar I'll lay my scarlet cloak."

"But mark," she said, "no stately horse my peasant love must ride, A yoke of steers before the plough is all that he must guide.'

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The knight looked down upon his steed: Well, let him wander free: No other man must ride the horse that has been backed by me. Henceforth I'll tread the furrow and to my oxen talk,

If only little Elsie beside my plough will walk."

"You must take from out your cellar cask of wine and flask and can; The homely mead I brew you may serve a peasant-man."

"Most willingly, fair Elsie, I'll drink that mead of thine, And leave my minstrel's thirsty throat to drain my generous wine."

"Now break your shield asunder, and shatter sign and boss, Unmeet for peasant-wedded arms, your knightly knee across.

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And pull me down your castle from top | No praise as yours so bravely rewards to basement wall,

the singer's skill;

And let your plough trace furrows in the Thank God! of maids like Elsie the land

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has plenty still !

THE THREE BELLS.

BENEATH the low-hung night cloud
That raked her splintering mast
The good ship settled slowly,
The cruel leak gained fast.

Over the awful ocean

Her signal guns pealed out. Dear God! was that thy answer From the horror round about?

A voice came down the wild wind, "Ho! ship ahoy!" its cry: "Our stout Three Bells of Glasgow Shall lay till daylight by!"

Hour after hour crept slowly,

Yet on the heaving swells Tossed up and down the ship-lights, The lights of the Three Bells!

And ship to ship made signals,

Man answered back to man, While oft, to cheer and hearten,

The Three Bells nearer ran;

And the captain from her taffrail Sent down his hopeful cry. "Take heart! Hold on!" he shouted, "The Three Bells shall lay by!"

All night across the waters

The tossing lights shone clear; All night from reeling taffrail The Three Bells sent her cheer. And when the dreary watches

Of storm and darkness passed, Just as the wreck lurched under,

All souls were saved at last.

Sail on, Three Bells, forever,

In grateful memory sail! Ring on, Three Bells of rescue, Above the wave and gale!

Type of the Love eternal,
Repeat the Master's cry,
As tossing through our darkness
The lights of God draw nigh!

NOTES.

NOTE 1, page 1.

MOGG MEGONE, or Hegone, was a leader among the Saco Indians, in the bloody war of 1677. He attacked and captured the garrison at Black Point, October 12th of that year; and cut off, at the same time, a party of Englishmen near Saco River. From a deed signed by this Indian in 1664, and from other circumstances, it seems that, previous to the war, he had mingled much with the colonists. On this account, he was probably selected by the principal sachems as their agent in the treaty signed in November, 1676.

NOTE 2, page 1.

Baron de St. Castine came to Canada in 1644. Leaving his civilized companions, he plunged into the great wilderness and settled among the Penobscot Indians, near the mouth of their noble river. He here took for his wives the daughters of the great Modocawando, the most powerful sachem of the East. His castle was plundered by Governor Andros, during his reckless administration; and the enraged Baron is supposed to have excited the Indians into open hostility to the English.

NOTE 3, page 2.

The owner and commander of the garrison at Black Point, which Mogg attacked and plundered. He was an old man at the period to which the tale relates.

NOTE 4, page 2.

Major Phillips, one of the principal men of the Colony. His garrison sustained a long and terrible siege by the savages. As a magistrate and a gentleman, he exacted of his plebeian neighbors a remarkable degree of deference. The Court Records of the settlement inform us that an individual was fined for the heinous offence of saying that "Major Phillips's mare was as lean as an Indian dog."

NOTE 5, page 2.

Captain Harmon, of Georgeana, now York, was, for many years, the terror of the Eastern Indians. In one of his expeditions up the Kennebec River, at the head of a party of rangers, he discovered twenty of the savages asleep by a large fire. Cautiously creeping towards them until he was certain of his aim, he ordered his men to single out their objects. The first discharge killed or mortally wounded the whole number of the unconscious sleepers. NOTE 6, page 2.

Wood Island, near the mouth of the Saco. It was visited by the Sieur de Monts and Champlain, in 1603. The following extract, from the journal of the latter, relates to it: "Having left the Kennebec, we ran along the coast to the westward, and cast anchor under a small island, near the mainland, where we saw twenty or more natives. I here visited an island, beautifully clothed with a fine growth of forest trees, particularly of the oak and walnut; and overspread with vines, that, in their season, produce excellent grapes. We named it the island of Bacchus."- Les Voyages de Sieur Cham|plain, Liv. 2, c. 8.

NOTE 7, page 2.

John Bonython was the son of Richard Bonython, Gent., one of the most efficient and able magistrates of the Colony. John proved to be "a degenerate plant." In 1635, we find, by the Court Records, that, for some offence, he was fined 40 s. In 1640, he was fined for abuse toward R. Gibson, the minister, and Mary his wife. Soon after he was fined for disorderly conduct in the house of his father. In 1645, the "Great and General Court" adjudged John Bonython outlawed, and incapable of any of his Majesty's laws, and proclaimed him a rebel." (Court Records of the Prov.

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